by J. A. Jance
“Over here,” a woman’s answering voice returned from somewhere in the thick undergrowth. “And if you’ve got any drinking water there with you, bring it along.”
Brian grabbed a gallon jug of bottled water out of the back of the Blazer and then started in the direction of the woman’s voice. “Watch out for the footprints,” she called to him. “You’re probably going to need them.”
Glancing down, Brian saw what she meant. Something heavy had been dragged by hand through the sandy dirt, leaving a deep track. A single set of footprints, heading back toward the charco, overlaid the track. As instructed, Brian Fellows detoured around both as he made his way into a grove of mesquite. Ten yards into the undergrowth he came to a small clearing where a woman in a gray-green uniform was bending over the figure of a man. He lay flat on his back, with his unprotected face fully exposed to the glaring sun. A cloud of flies buzzed overhead.
“What happened?” Brian asked.
The woman looked up at him, her face grim. “Somebody beat the crap out of this guy,” she said.
Brian handed over his jug of water. By then he was close enough to smell the unmistakable stench of evacuated bowels, of urine that reeked of secondhand wine.
“He’s still alive then?” Brian asked.
“So far, but only just barely. I’ve called for a med-evac helicopter, but I don’t think he’s going to make it. He can’t move. Either his back’s broken or he’s suffering from a concussion, I can’t tell which.”
The man lying on the ground, dark-haired and heavy-set, appeared to be around sixty years old. The large brass belt buckle imprinted with the traditional Tohono O’othham maze identified him as an Indian rather than Hispanic. One whole side of his face, clotted with blood, seemed to have been bashed in. His eyes were open, but the irises had rolled back out of sight. He was breathing, shallowly, but that was about all.
“Thanks for the water,” the woman said, opening the jug and pouring some of it onto a handkerchief. First she wrung out some of the water over the man’s parched lips and swollen tongue, then she laid the still-soaking cloth on the injured man’s forehead. That done, she sprinkled the rest of his body as well, dousing his bloodied clothing.
“I’m trying to lower his body temperature,” she explained. “I don’t know if it’s helping or not, but we’ve got to try.”
It was all Brian could do to kneel beside the injured man and look at him. His mother’s condition had taught him the real meaning behind the awful words “broken back.” He wasn’t at all sure that keeping the man alive would be doing him any favor. What Brian Fellows did feel, however, was both pity and an incredible sense of gratitude. If the man’s back was actually broken or if he had suffered permanent injury as a result of heatstroke, someone else—someone who wasn’t Brian—would have to care for him for the rest of his life, feeding him, bathing him, and attending to his most basic needs.
“What can I do to help?” he asked.
“Keep the damn flies and ants away,” the woman told him. “They’re eating him alive.”
Brian tried to comply. He waved his Stetson in the air, whacking at the roiling flies, and he attempted to pluck off the marauding ants that peppered the man’s broken body. It was a losing battle. As soon as he got rid of one ant, two more appeared in its place.
“Because there’s water in the charco, a lot of undocumented aliens come this way, especially at this time of year,” the woman was saying. The name tag on the breast pocket of her uniform identified her as Agent Kelly.
“I usually try to stop by here at least once a day,” she continued. “I saw the tracks in the sand and decided to investigate. When I first saw him, I was sure he was dead, but then I found a slight pulse. When I came back from calling for help, his eyes were open.”
Suddenly the man groaned. His eyes blinked. He moved his head from side to side and tried to speak.
“Easy,” Agent Kelly said. “Take it easy. Help is on the way.”
Brian leaned closer to the injured man. “Can you tell us what happened?” he asked. “Do you know who did this?”
The man trained his bloodshot eyes on Brian’s face. “…Mil-gahn,” he whispered hoarsely.
The sound of the softly spoken word caused the years to peel away. Brian was once again reliving those carefree days when he and Davy had been little, when they had spent every spare moment out in the little shed behind Davy’s house, with Brian learning the language of Davy’s old Indian baby-sitter, Rita Antone. When they were together, Davy and Rita had spoken to one another almost exclusively in Tohono O’othham—they had called it Papago back then—rather than English. Over time Brian Fellows had picked up some of the language himself. He knew that the word Mil-gahn meant Anglo.
“A white man did this?” Brian asked, hunkering even closer to the injured man.
“Yes,” the man whispered weakly in Tohono O’othham. “A white man.”
“He hit you on purpose?” Brian asked.
The man nodded.
“Do you know who it was?” Brain asked. “Do you know the man’s name?”
This time the injured man shook his head, then he murmured something else. Brian’s grasp of the language was such that he could pick out only one or two words—hiabog—digging, and shohbith—forbidden.
“What’s he saying?” Agent Kelly asked.
“I didn’t catch all of it. Something about forbidden digging. I’ll bet this guy stumbled on a gang of artifact thieves, or maybe just one. The Indians around here consider this whole area sacred, from here to the mountains.”
“That’s news to me,” Agent Kelly said.
Overhead they heard the pulsing clatter of an arriving helicopter. “They’ve probably located the vehicles, but they’ll have trouble finding us. I’ll stay here with him,” she directed. “You go guide them in.”
The helicopter landed in the clearing near where the cars were parked. After directing the emergency medical technicians on where to go, Brian went back to his Blazer and called in. “I need a detective out here,” he said.
“How come?” the dispatcher wanted to know. “What’s going on?”
“We’ve got a severely injured man. He may not make it.”
“You’re talking about the drunk Indian the Border Patrol found? We’ve already dispatched the helicopter—”
“The helicopter’s here,” Brian interrupted. “I’m asking for a detective. The guy says a white man beat him up.”
“But he’s still alive right now, right?”
“Barely.”
“Go ahead and write it up yourself, Deputy Fellows. The detectives are pretty much tied up at the moment. If one of ’em gets freed up later, I’ll send him along. In the meantime, this case is your baby.” The dispatcher’s implication was clear: a deputy capable of investigating dead cattle ought to be able to handle a beat-up Indian now and then.
Brian sighed and headed back toward the charco. Brandon Walker was right. With Bill Forsythe’s administration, the people of Pima County had gotten something different, all right.
In spades.
From somewhere very far away, Lani heard what sounded like a siren. She opened her eyes. At least, she thought she opened her eyes, but she could see nothing. She tried to move her hands and feet. She could move them a little, but not much, and when she tried to raise her head, her face came into contact with something soft.
Where am I? she wondered. Why am I so hot?
Her body ached with the pain of spending hours locked in the same position. She seemed to be lying naked on something soft. And she could feel something silky touching her sides and the bare skin of her immovable legs and arms. A cool breeze wafted over her hot skin from somewhere, and there was a pillow propped under her head.
A pillow. “Maybe I’m dead,” she said aloud, but the sound was so dead that it was almost as though she hadn’t said a word. “Am I dead?” she asked.
The answer came from inside her rather than from anywhere outsi
de.
If there’s cloth all around me, above and below and a pillow, too, she thought, I must be in a casket, just like Nana Dahd.
For weeks everyone, with the possible exception of Lani, had known that Rita Antone was living on borrowed time. The whole household knew it wouldn’t be long now. For days now, Wanda and Fat Crack Ortiz had stayed at the house in Gates Pass, keeping watch at Rita’s bedside night and day. When they slept, they did so taking turns in the spare bedroom.
Over the years there had been plenty of subtle criticism on the reservation about Rita Antone. The Indians had been upset with her for abandoning her people and her own family to go live in Tucson with a family of Whites. There had also been some pointed and mean-spirited criticism aimed at Rita’s family for letting her go. The gossips maintained that, although Diana Ladd Walker may have been glad enough to have Rita’s help while she was strong and healthy and could manage housekeeping and child-care chores, they expected that the Mil-gahn woman would be quick to send Rita back to the reservation once she was no longer useful, when, in the vernacular of the Tohono O’othham, she was only good for making baskets and nothing else.
Knowing that Rita must have been involved, ill will toward her had flourished anew among the Tohono O’othham in the wake of Brandon and Diana Walker’s unconventional adoption of Clemencia Escalante. Not that any of the Indian people on the reservation had been interested in adopting the child themselves. Everyone knew that the strange little girl had been singled out by I’itoi and his messengers, the Little People. Clemencia had been kissed by the ants in the same way the legendary Kulani O’oks had been kissed by the bees. Although there was some interest at the prospect of having a new and potentially powerful Medicine Woman in the tribe, no one—including Clemencia’s blood relatives—wanted the job of being parents to such a child.
By now, though, with Rita Antone bedridden and being lovingly cared for by both her Indian and Anglo families, the reservation naysayers and gossips had been silenced for good and all.
On that last day, a sleep-deprived Fat Crack came into the kitchen where Diana and Brandon were eating breakfast. Gabe helped himself to a cup of coffee and then tried to mash down his unruly hair. It was still standing straight up, just the way he had slept on it, slumped down in the chair next to Rita’s bed.
“She’s asking for Davy,” Fat Crack said. “Do you know where he is?”
Diana glanced at her watch. “Probably in class right now, but I don’t know which one or where.”
“Let me make a call to the registrar’s office over at the university,” Brandon had told them. “Once they tell us where he is, I’ll go there, pick him up, and bring him back home.”
Fat Crack nodded. “Good,” he said. “I don’t think there’s much time.”
Forty-five minutes later, Brandon Walker was waiting in the hall outside Davy’s Anthropology 101 class. As soon as Davy saw Brandon, he knew what was going on.
“How bad is it?” he asked.
“Pretty bad,” Brandon returned. “Fat Crack says we should come as soon as we can.”
They had hurried out to the car which, due to law-enforcement privilege, had been parked on the usually vehicle-free pedestrian mall.
“I hate this,” Davy said, settling into the seat, slamming his door, and then staring out the window.
“What do you hate?”
“Having old people for friends and having them die on me. First Father John, then Looks At Nothing, and now Rita.”
At age ninety-five, Looks At Nothing had avoided the threat of being placed in a hospital by simply walking off into the desert one hot summer’s day. They had found his desiccated body weeks later, baking in the hot sand of a desert wash not a thousand yards from his home.
“I’m sorry,” Brandon said, and meant it.
At the house, Davy had gone straight into Rita’s room. He had stayed there for only ten minutes or so. He had come out carrying Rita’s prized but aged medicine basket. His face was pale but he was dry-eyed. “I’m ready to go back now,” he said.
He and Brandon had set out in the car. “She gave me her basket,” Davy said a few minutes later.
“I know,” Brandon said. “I saw you carrying it.”
“But it’s not mine to keep,” Davy added.
Brandon Walker glanced at his stepson. His jaw was set, but now there were tears glimmering on his face. “I get to have Father John’s rosary and Rita’s son’s Purple Heart. Everything else goes to Lani. It isn’t fair!”
Brandon was tempted to point out that very little in life is fair, but he didn’t. “Why, then, did she give it to you today?” he asked.
“Because Lani’s only seven, or at least she will be tomorrow. She can’t have the rest of it until she’s older.”
“When are you supposed to give it to her?”
Davy brushed the tears from his face. “That’s what I asked Rita. She said that I’d know when it was time.”
Brandon pulled up in front of the dorm, but Davy made no effort to get out. Instead, he opened the basket, picked through it, and removed two separate items, both of which he shoved in his pocket. Then he put the frayed cover back on the basket.
“Dad,” he said. “Would you do me a favor?”
“What’s that?” Brandon asked.
“I can’t take this into the dorm. No one would understand. And somebody might try to steal it or something. You and Mom have a safety deposit box down at the bank, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Would you mind putting this in there and keeping it? I mean, if it isn’t really mine, I don’t want to lose it. I need to keep it safe—for Lani.”
“Sure, Davy,” Brandon said. “I’ll be glad to. If you want me to, I’ll drop it off this morning on my way to the department.”
“Thanks,” Davy said, handing the basket over. “And tell Fat Crack that I’ll come back out to the house as soon as I’m done with my last class. I should be done by three at the latest.”
But Rita Antone was gone long before then. She died within half an hour of the time her little Olhoni left, taking Understanding Woman’s medicine basket with him.
Nine years later, the bank had gone through several different mergers and had ended up as part of Wells Fargo. The bank had changed, but not the medicine basket, at least not noticeably. Maybe it was somewhat more frayed than it had been a decade earlier, but the power Oks Amichuda had woven into it years before still remained and still waited to be let out.
The day after Nana Dahd died was the worst birthday Lani ever remembered. It seemed to her that a terrible empty place had opened up in her life. The cake had been ordered well in advance, and everyone had tried to go through the motions of a party, just as Rita would have wanted them to. When it came time to blow out the candles, however, Lani had fled the room in tears, leaving the lighted candles still burning.
Brandon was the one who had come to find her, sitting in the playhouse he had built for her in the far corner of the backyard.
“Lani,” he called. “Come here. What’s the matter?”
She crept outside and fell, weeping, against him.
“Nana Dahd’s dead, and Davy’s mad at me,” she sobbed. “I wish I were dead, too.”
“No, you don’t,” he said soothingly. “Rita wouldn’t want you to be unhappy. We were lucky to have had her for as long as we did, but now it’s time to let her go. She was suffering, Lani. She was in terrible pain. It would be selfish for us to want her to stay any longer.”
“I know,” Lani said, “but…”
“Wait a minute. What’s that in your hand?”
“Her owij,” Lani answered. “Her awl. She gave it to me yesterday. She said I must always keep making baskets.”
“Good.”
“But why was Davy so mean to me?” Lani asked. “I called him at the dorm and asked him if he was going to come have cake with us. He said he was too busy, but I think he just didn’t want to. He sounded mad, but why would
he be? What have I done?”
“Nothing, Lani,” Brandon said. “He’s upset about Rita, the same as you are. He’ll get over it. We just have to be patient with each other. Come on, let’s go back inside and have some of that cake.”
Obligingly Lani had followed him into the house. The candles were already out. She managed to choke down a few bites of cake, but that was all.
Three days later, at the funeral at San Xavier Mission, Lani was shocked to see Rita lying in the casket with her head propped up on a pillow.
“But Nana Dahd doesn’t like pillows,” Lani had insisted, tugging at her father’s hand. “She never uses a pillow.”
“Shhhh,” Brandon Walker had said. “Not now.”
On the face of it, that was all there was to it. There was never any further discussion. Brandon’s “not now” became “not ever,” except for one small thing.
From that day on, Dolores Lanita Walker never again used a pillow.
Not until now.
10
On the Fourth Day I’itoi made the Sun—Tash. And Elder Brother went with Tash to show him the way, just as Sun travels today.
For a long time Tash walked close to the earth, and it was very hot. Juhk O’othham—Rain Man—refused to follow his brother, Chewagi O’othham—Cloud Man—over the land, and Hewel O’othham—Wind Man—was angry and only made things hotter and dryer.
All the desert world needed water. The Desert People were so thirsty and cross that they quarreled. When u’uwhig—the Birds—came too near each other, they pulled feathers. Tohbi—Cottontail Rabbit—and Ko’owi—Rattlesnake, and Jewho—Gopher—could no longer live together. So Jewho became very busy digging new holes.
When the animals had quarreled until only the strongest were left, a strange people came out of the old deserted gopher holes.
These were the PaDaj O’othham—Bad People—who were moved by the Spirit of Evil. They came from the big water in the far southwest, and they spread all over the land, killing the people as they came until every man felt that he lived in a black hole.