by J. A. Jance
Davy blushed and didn’t answer. “He was in a car accident,” Diana explained, speaking for him. “Out on the reservation.”
The waitress frowned at that, but she left the table without saying anything more. A few minutes later, she was back, carrying a section of the Sunday paper. “This you?” she asked, holding the paper up so Davy could see it.
Davy looked at the picture and nodded. “What’s that?” Diana asked.
The waitress looked at Diana in surprise. “You mean you don’t know about it?”
Handed the paper, a stunned Diana Ladd found herself staring into the eyes of a clearly recognizable picture of her son, complete with stitches.
“Your breakfast’s on me this morning, sweetie,” the waitress was saying to Davy. “You sound like a regular little hero to me, saving that old woman’s life. Wouldn’t you like something else along with your pancakes, a milk shake maybe?”
“No,” Davy said. “Thank you. Just milk.”
The waitress left, and Diana turned on Davy. “How did your picture get into the newspaper?”
Her son glanced nervously at the paper. Next to his own picture was a smaller one, a head shot of the man who had spoken to him the previous afternoon. “The man had a camera. He took my picture yesterday while you were inside the hospital with Rita.”
“You talked to a reporter?” Diana demanded, her voice rising in pitch. “You let him take your picture?”
Davy squirmed lower in his chair until his eyes barely showed above the top of the booth. “Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“He was a friend of my father’s,” Davy told her. “I was afraid you’d get mad.”
And, of course, he was right.
From George’s Beat, a biweekly column by George O’Connell in the Arizona Daily Sun, June 14, 1975:
Seven years ago Friday a young Papago woman died brutally in the desert west of Tucson. Two men were eventually implicated in the death of twenty-two-year-old Gina Antone. One of them was a student of creative writing at the University of Arizona. The other was the English professor in charge of that same program.
The professor, Andrew Carlisle, was eventually convicted of voluntary manslaughter and second degree rape. He was sentenced to serve time in the Arizona State Prison at Florence, while his student, Garrison Ladd, committed suicide rather than face arrest and conviction.
Now, seven years later to the day, two of the families involved in that earlier tragedy are once more linked together in the news, only this time with a far different result.
On Friday, Rita Antone, the slain girl’s sixty-five-year-old grandmother, was severely injured in an automobile accident on Highway 386, forty miles west of Tucson. Mrs. Antone now makes her home in Tucson with Diana Ladd, Garrison Ladd’s widow, and her son, David.
Medics from the scene report that Mrs. Antone would probably have died without reaching the Indian Health Service Hospital in Sells had it not been for the quick-witted thinking of six-year-old David, who was himself injured in the accident.
One of the first to arrive on the scene after the single-vehicle rollover accident was Joe Baxter, a Tucson resident on his way to Rocky Point for the weekend. Baxter said that it was David Ladd’s firm insistence that there was an ambulance available at the Kitt Peak Observatory that prompted him and a traveling companion to seek help there. Aid summoned from either Sells or Tucson probably would have arrived too late to save Mrs. Antone’s life.
Years ago, when I was finishing my graduate degree in English at the University of Arizona, I was enrolled in a literature class with David Ladd’s father, who, like many of our classmates, had delusions of being the Great American Novelist and creating a heroic masterpiece to leave as a legacy.
Mostly those dreams were just that—all dream and no action. However, I’m realizing now that there’s more than one kind of masterpiece. Garrison Ladd’s son, reticent about his own brave behavior despite injuries that required twelve stitches, is that heroic masterpiece, but he’s certainly not the only hero in the drama.
Talking to him, I learned that Rita Antone, grandmother of the girl whose murder was linked to Garrison Ladd, is now a well-loved member of the Ladd family.
It strikes me as ironic (and more than a bit inspiring) that these two women, Diana Ladd and Rita Antone, an Anglo woman and an Indian, whose lives were first linked by death and mutual tragedy, have gone on to forge a relationship based on love and mutual respect.
It is an atmosphere in which two courageous women are raising a very responsible young man, one who in no way can be regarded as a chip off the old block.
In a world where bad news usually outweighs the good, where there are always far more questions than there are answers, it’s refreshing to know this kind of thing can happen.
Long ago, Evil Siwani, a powerful medicine man, became jealous of I’itoi. Three times the medicine man and his wicked followers killed I’itoi, and three times I’itoi came back to life. The fourth time, when morning came, I’itoi was still dead.
“That’s all right,” his followers said. “In four days, he will come back to life.” But on the morning of the fourth day, I’itoi was still dead.
Many years passed. One day some children from a village found an old man sitting next to a charco near where I’itoi’s bones had been left to dry in the sun. The old man was making a belt to carry an olla. “What are you doing, old man?” the children asked.
“You must watch carefully,” he said. “Something surprising is going to happen.”
So the children went home and told their parents. All the people from the village came to see the old man. They found him filling his olla with water. The people knew at once he was I’itoi grown to be very old. They wanted to talk to him, but before they could, he picked up his olla and started off toward the east.
There were many people along the way, but I’itoi knew these were the S-ohbsgam, the Apachelike followers of Evil Siwani, so he didn’t speak to them. When I’itoi arrived at the village in the East he asked to see the chief, then he sang his song and told them he was I’itoi, who had made them. He told them how the Ohb, the Enemy, had killed him four times, and how each time he had come back to life. The chief of the East listened to I’itoi’s song. When it was finished, he said, “I may not be able to help you, but go to my brother in the West. Tell him your story. I will do whatever he says.”
I’itoi traveled far until he found the chief of the West. He sang his song that told about how the medicine man and his followers, the S-ohbsgam, had killed him four times and how each time he had come back to life. The chief of the West shook his head. “I don’t know if I can help you. Go to my elder brother, chief of the North, and ask him. I will do whatever he says.”
So I’itoi went to the chief of the North, who listened to his song. “I do not know if I can help you,” the chief said. “Go to my elder brother, chief of the South. I will do whatever he says.”
Once more I’itoi traveled a long, long way, and once more he sang his song, about how Evil Siwani and the S-ohbsgam had killed him four times and how he had come back to life. As soon as the chief of the South heard this, he sent a messenger to the villages of all his brothers.
“Come,” he told them. “Whoever wants to prove his manhood must come with me. This man has suffered much at the hands of Siwani and his S-ohbsgam. We must go and help him.”
And this, my Friend, was the beginning of the final battle between Evil Siwani and I’itoi.
Morning came and so did breakfast. Rita lay with her eyes closed, but she didn’t sleep.
Understanding Woman went to the circle to visit with her friends while Dancing Quail gravitated to the younger women. Unfortunately, her new clothing and job at the mission didn’t purchase what she wanted most—respect and acceptance from her peers. To the others, she was still Hejel Wi’ikam, still Orphaned Child. Girls who worked in Tucson still looked down on her.
Laughing easily, they gossiped end
lessly about the latest one of their number who had “done bad” and been shipped home in disgrace. They giggled about exploits from their latest day off and speculated about who would marry next. On the fringes of their laughter, Dancing Quail had nothing to say. Several girls who were planning weddings were younger than she. Finally, one of them turned on her, a mean girl she had known briefly in Phoenix.
“What about you?” the girl asked. “Who will marry you?”
“I don’t know,” Rita answered despairingly, ducking her head.
The other girl giggled. “Since you already live with the sisters, maybe you should be one of them. If no O’othham will have you, maybe you should be a Bride of Christ.”
At that, all the girls broke into gales of laughter. Ashamed, Dancing Quail took her sleeping mat and blanket and fled into the night, far from the fires and songs of the feast, far from the other girls’ deriding laughter. She stumbled up the mountain to a place where she had played and hidden as a child. There, she lay down and wept.
Much later, long after she’d quit crying, Dancing Quail heard someone calling her name. Worried when he found her missing from the group, Father John came looking for her.
“Here,” she called in answer.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded, blundering into the clearing. “Why did you run away? Is someone here with you?”
“I am hejelko,” she answered. “I am alone.”
“But why? What’s wrong?” He knelt beside her. As he reached out to touch her face, the tears started again.
“I’m not brave enough to choose for myself. The girls say no one will choose me.”
“Nonsense.” Father John gathered her into his arms. “You’re young and beautiful, strong and healthy. Of course someone will choose you.”
Despite his intention of making only an obligatory appearance at the dance, it had been necessary, in order to be polite, that Father John drink the thick, pungent wine. He had sat in the circle while servers had come around several times, dispensing wine from ancient, wine-stained baskets. Without his being aware of it, the volatile drink had overtaken him. The comforting, fatherly caress with which he intended to console Dancing Quail soon evolved into something quite different.
The mutual but unacknowledged attraction between them had long been held at bay by sobriety and by the singular force of Father John’s convictions. Now, those convictions crumpled. What passed between them then was as unanticipated and electrifying as a bolt of lightning on a clear, still night.
It happened once and only once, but as is so often the case, once was more than enough. The damage was done.
Again Andrew Carlisle took his time at the scene of his latest triumph. He treated himself to a luxurious bath—Johnny Rivkin’s bathroom held numerous wonderful bath potions. Finished bathing, Carlisle meticulously removed all body hairs from the drain and flushed them down the toilet. He went through the room, looting it at leisure, taking all the cash, leaving everything else, and thoroughly cleaning each surface as he finished with it.
The closet was another matter entirely. There were some things in there that he simply couldn’t bear to leave behind, including a loose-fitting lush pink silk pantsuit that fit him perfectly. Two more wigs, these of much better quality than the one he had purchased, some underwear, and two pairs of hooker-heel shoes that might have been made for him. After choosing some items to wear, Carlisle stowed the rest, including the clothing he’d worn into the hotel, in one of Rivkin’s monogrammed Hartmann suitcases.
He took more than usual pains with his makeup, so that shortly after six that Sunday morning, when a well-dressed woman walked through the lobby carrying a suitcase, nobody paid the slightest attention to her. She paused outside the door long enough to pull a Sunday edition of the Arizona Daily Sun out of a vending machine, but nobody noticed that, either.
Three blocks away, totally out of sight of the Santa Rita, Andrew Carlisle climbed back into Jake Spaulding’s waiting Valiant. As he drove north, he took perverse pleasure in anticipating the kind of effect his costume would have on his mother. Myrna Louise had never approved of him dressing up, not even when he was little.
Oh, well, he thought, dismissing her. Other than packing his lunch and maybe washing a few clothes now and then, what had Myrna Louise ever done for him?
Driving home from breakfast, Diana seethed with anger. Some of it was aimed at Davy, but most was reserved for that damn full-of-business columnist. It was despicable for him to have taken advantage of an innocent child, to interview him and pry out information. Not only that, what, if anything, had he told Davy about his father? How much did George O’Connell know to tell?
Not as much as I do, Diana thought, with her whole body aching from the pain of remembering. Not nearly as much.
Garrison Ladd had slept the entire day away while Diana waited with her stomach roiling inside her. She wanted him to wake up and talk to her.
Feeling so physically ill bothered Diana. It wasn’t like her to be sick. Since she wasn’t feverish, she chalked it up to lack of sleep and a bad case of nerves. She steeled herself for what she regarded as the worst it could be—another other woman, she supposed. The very thought of it sent her spinning into a dizzying wash of memory, of coming home to Eugene from Joseph unexpectedly one weekend during her mother’s final illness, of walking into her own house and finding Gary in bed with one of the female teaching assistants.
Already worn by the constant strain of care-giving, Diana snapped, turning into a wild woman and running raving through the house. She screamed and threw things and broke them, while the terrified T.A. cowered naked behind a locked bathroom door. Gary followed Diana from room to room, trying to keep her from hurting herself, pleading with her to listen to reason.
Reason! He had balls enough to use the word reason on her, as though she were a child pitching a temper tantrum. Still raging, she left the house vowing divorce. She went straight back to Joseph and to caring for her mother. What else was there to do?
Predictably, Gary appeared in Joseph two days later, bearing flowers and candy and gift-wrapped apologies. He begged and cajoled. He hadn’t intended for it to happen, but he was so lonely with Diana gone all the time. It never would have happened if he hadn’t missed her so much. He’d change, he promised. As soon as Diana got her undergraduate degree, they’d leave Eugene, whether he was finished with his Ph.D. program or not. They’d go somewhere else and start over, if she’d please just take him back.
Christ! she thought, waiting for him to wake up and fighting back a wave of nausea. How could I have been so dumb? How could she possibly have believed him? she wondered, and yet she had. Why? Because believing was easier than admitting you were wrong, easier than telling your dying Catholic mother that her only daughter was getting a divorce. But most of all, because believing was what Diana Ladd had wanted to do more than anything else. In spite of everything that had happened, she loved Garrison Ladd. She wanted him to love her back with the same unreasoning devotion.
At four that afternoon, Gary got up and came out into the living room of their shabby, school-owned thirteen-by-seventy-foot mobile home. “Hello,” he said sheepishly.
“Hello,” she returned. “How are you?”
“Hung over as hell. That cactus wine is a killer.” Gary had uttered the words without even thinking, and then, as they registered, he turned ashen gray.
Diana didn’t understand what was happening at the time, but she remembered the incident later with terrible clarity as the nightmare of Gina Antone’s death began to unfold around her. What he said was nothing more than a slip of the tongue, but it was a clue. If she had paid attention, it might have warned her of what was to come, but she wasn’t smart enough to pick up on it, and what difference would knowing have made? She couldn’t have prevented what happened any more than she could have hoped to stop a speeding locomotive bare-handed.
She remembered Gary groping blindly for the back of a chair and dropping heavily into it. H
e had buried his face in his hands and wept. It was the first time Diana ever saw her husband cry.
Her own nausea totally forgotten, she hurried to comfort him and to bring him a glass of chilled iced tea. Whatever was wrong, she would do her best to fix it for him. Whatever it was, she would somehow smooth it over. After all, she had Iona’s shining example to follow, didn’t she? That’s exactly what her mother would have done, had done for all those years, all her life. Smoothed things over. For everyone.
Fat Crack’s tow truck looked at home among the others parked in the dusty San Xavier parking lot. Many of the vehicles had out-of-state licenses or rental stickers, but by far the majority were beat-up old pickups, station wagons, and sedans that belonged to the regular parishioners. Hard as it was for out-of-state guests to fathom, the musty-smelling mission still functioned as a church, with a regular schedule of well-attended masses.
While Looks At Nothing stayed in the truck, Fat Crack went to the door of the church and waited for Father John to come out. He did at last, accompanied by a somewhat younger-looking priest.
“Father John?” Fat Crack asked tentatively.
“Yes.”
“My name is Gabe Ortiz, Juanita’s son, Rita Antone’s nephew.”
A concerned frown furrowed the old man’s forehead. “I hope your aunt’s all right.”
Fat Crack nodded. “She’s fine. She’s in the hospital, but fine. I have someone over here who needs to speak to you.”
“Of course,” Father John said, excusing himself from his colleague.
Fat Crack led the way. They entered the row of parked cars a few vehicles away from the tow truck just as Looks At Nothing climbed down from his seat. The old medicine man stood leaning on his cane. He seemed to stare right through them with his glazed and sightless eyes.
Father John stopped abruptly. “This is…” Fat Crack began.
“S-ab Neid Pi Has,” Father John supplied, speaking Looks At Nothing’s Indian name in perfectly accented Papago. “This old siwani and I have met before,” he said.