Kiss of the Bees w-2

by J. A. Jance

  After laboring up the steep mountainside for what seemed forever, Mitch finally parked the Bronco in a grove of mesquite. By the time Lani reached the truck, Quentin and Mitch were both outside, with Quentin directing Mitch as they placed several pieces of camouflaged canvas from the back of the Bronco over the top of the vehicle.

  Quentin was still none too steady on his feet, but he was clearly proud of his ability to plan ahead. “This way, nobody will be able to spot it,” he said. “Not from down below, and not from up above, either.”

  “Great,” Mitch said. “Which way now?”

  “Up here,” Quentin said. He staggered off across the brush-covered slope, somehow managing to stay upright. “The entrance is hard enough to spot during the daylight, but don’t worry. We’ll find it.”

  “You go next,” Mitch ordered, shoving Lani forward behind Quentin. “I’ll bring up the rear.”

  For what seemed like a very long time, the three of them clambered single-file on a diagonal up and across the flank of mountain. Mitch and Quentin both carried flashlights, but they opted to leave them off, for fear lights on the mountain might attract unwanted attention. Instead, the trio accomplished the nighttime hike with only the moon to light the path. After half an hour or so, Quentin suddenly disappeared. One moment he was there in front of Lani, the next he was gone. Looking down the side of the mountain, she expected to see him falling to his death. Instead, his unseen hand reached out and grabbed hers.

  “In here,” Quentin said, dragging her into what looked like an exceptionally deep shadow. “It’s this way.”

  Only when she was right there in front of it was Lani able to see Quentin crouching just inside a three-foot-wide hole in the mountain. “Watch yourself,” he added. “For the next fifteen yards or so we have to do this on hands and knees.”

  Plunged into total darkness, Lani crawled forward into the damp heart of the mountain. At first she could feel walls on either side of her, but eventually the space opened up and the rocks underneath gave way to slimy mud. A light flickered behind her and was followed by the scraping of someone else coming through the tunnel. Moments later Mitch emerged, flashlight in hand. Standing up, he shone the light around them. When he did so, Lani was dumbfounded.

  They were standing in the middle of a huge, rough-walled limestone cavern with spectacular bubbles of rock surging up from the floor and with curtains of rock flowing down from above. The place was utterly still. Other than their labored breathing, the only sound inside the cavern was the steady drip of water.

  Dolores Lanita Walker had grown up hearing stories of Elder Brother and how he spent his summers in the sacred caves on Ioligam. Rita had taught her that the Desert People, sometimes called the People With Two Houses, were called that because they had two homes—a winter one on the flat and a cooler summer one high up in the mountains. It made sense then that I’itoi, the Tohono O’othham’s beloved Elder Brother, would do much the same thing. In the winter he was said to live on Baboquivari—Grandfather Place Mountain. But in the summertime he was said to come to Ioligam—Manzanita Mountain.

  Lani had spent all her life being told that caves like this were both dangerous and sacred; that they were places to be avoided. Now, though, looking around at the towering, ghostly walls, lit by the feeble probing of Mitch’s flashlight, Lani Walker felt no fear.

  She felt not the slightest doubt that this was a sacred, holy place. And since it was summer, no doubt I’itoi was somewhere nearby. That made this a perfectly good place to die.

  By the time David Ladd emerged from the bathroom shaved, showered, and dressed, Candace’s suitcases were zipped shut and stacked beside the door. Candace herself was on the phone with her sister, Bridget.

  “Thanks, Bridge,” Candace was saying. “You know I wouldn’t ask you if it weren’t an emergency. And yes, we’ll let you know what’s going on as soon as we know exactly what it is . . . Sure, that’ll work. We’ll leave the parking receipt in an envelope for you at the front desk,” she said. “Just drive the Jeep home. We’ll make arrangements to come get it later.”

  While Davy finished throwing the few things he had brought to the room into his small bag, Candace gave him a quick thumbs-up, all the while staying tuned to the telephone conversation.

  “Sure I know Mom will kill me,” Candace replied. “But another wedding like yours would kill Dad, so there you are . . . No, we don’t need a ride to O’Hare. I’ve already called for a cab. It’ll be here in a few minutes, so I’d better go. Tell Larry thanks for being so understanding about me waking you up at this ungodly hour.”

  “You’d better decide what you’re going to leave and what you’re going to take,” David suggested when Candace put down the phone.

  “Oh,” she said. “I’ll take them all. Two checked and two carry-ons. What about you?”

  David looked down at his single bag. What he’d brought upstairs for one night wasn’t enough to see him through more than a couple of days. “I’d better go down to the garage and see about repacking,” he said.

  “Sure, go ahead,” Candace told him. “I’ll call for a bellman and meet you down in the lobby.”

  In the parking garage, Davy hauled out one other suitcase to take, along with the shirt and shaving gear he had taken upstairs. That’ll do, he thought. At least until I can get back here to pick up the rest of my stuff.

  He closed and locked the door and started to walk away, then he stopped and went back. Unlocking the cargo door, he rummaged through the boxes until he found the one he was looking for. It was a small wooden chest Astrid Ladd had given him, one that Davy’s father had made in wood shop while he was still in high school and had given to Astrid as a gift. “Happy Mother’s Day, 1954” had been burned into the bottom piece of wood.

  Astrid had given Davy the box only three days earlier, and it contained only two items—Rita Antone’s son’s purple heart and Father John’s losalo—his rosary. David Ladd stuffed the purple heart in the outside pocket of his suitcase, then stood for a moment staring down at the olive wood crucifix and the string of black beads. He had been only five years old, but he still remembered the day Father John had taught him to pray.

  His mother had opened the front door and discovered Bone staggering around drunkenly outside. She had no idea what was wrong with the animal but Father John, who had come to the house to give Davy his first-ever catechism class, did.

  “That dog’s been poisoned,” Father John had told them. “We’ve got to get him to a vet.”

  Before they could even lead Bone to the car, the hundred-pound dog collapsed in helpless convulsions. It took both Davy’s mother and the priest to lift him, carry him to the priest’s car, and load him inside. Davy had wanted to go along, but Diana had turned him back, ordering him to stay with Rita.

  Worried about the poor dog, Davy was in tears as Father John started the car. Before driving out of the yard, however, the priest stopped the car beside the devastated child.

  “Remember how we were talking about prayer a while ago?” the priest asked, rolling down the window. “Would you like me to pray for Bone?”

  “Yes,” Davy had whispered. “Please.”

  “Heavenly Father,” the priest had said, bowing his head. “We pray that you will grant the blessing of healing to your servant, Bone, that he may return safely to his home. We ask this in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

  David Ladd had learned a good deal more about prayer since that fateful day long ago, when God had spared not only his dog but the rest of the family as well. He had learned, too, what Father John meant when he said that the answer to prayer could be either yes or no.

  Davy had never forgotten the priest’s powerful lesson, and it came rushing back to him now, out of the distant past. Closing his fist around the smooth crucifix, David Ladd closed his eyes, envisioning as he did so both his parents and his little sister, Lani.

  “Heavenly Father,” he whispered. “We pray now for
the blessing of healing for your servants Brandon, Diana, and Lani Walker and for Davy Ladd and Candace Waverly. See us all safely through this time of trouble in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

  Then, putting the rosary in his shirt pocket so he could feel the beads through the thin material of his shirt, David Ladd locked the Jeep Cherokee, picked up his suitcase, and headed home.

  15

  The people went to the mountain, where they had fought before, but this time Tho’ag—the Mountain—was covered with snakes and scorpions and Bad People.

  U’uwhig—the Birds—had all gone away to a distant water hole, so they were not there to help their friends, the Desert People. Many of the Tohono O’othham were killed, among them many women and children.

  Tho’ag—the Mountain—felt so bad when so many of his friends were being killed that he opened holes in the rocks so the Desert People could see through. That is why he is called Wuhi Tho’ag—which means Eye Mountain. And you can see the eyes in this mountain today, just as you can see the walls of rock.

  At last Wuhi Tho’ag called to his brother mountain, Baboquivari, for help. Baboquivari, who watches over everything, answered. Wind Man, whose home is on Baboquivari, called his brother Cloud Man to help. Cloud Man came down low over the fighting and made cradles for the Indian children, and Wind Man carried the children in the cloud cradles to Baboquivari, where they were safe.

  The fighting grew worse, and I’itoi was ashamed of his people.

  So Great Spirit spoke. Heavy dark clouds came down over the mountain where they were fighting, so that no one could see.

  In these big black clouds Hewel—the Wind—carried many of the Desert People safely to the valley of Baboquivari.

  The Tohono O’othham were so bloody from fighting that they stained the clouds and the mountains all red.

  That is why, even to this day, about the top of the great mountain peak, Baboquivari, nearly always there are a few clouds. And these clouds are not white, but are colored a little with blood. This, nawoj, you may see for yourself.

  Scrabbling across the steep flank of the mountain with only the moon to light the path, Mitch Johnson had twisted his bad knee and almost tumbled down the mountainside himself. Now, crawling through the entryway with his flashlight in hand, a stabbing pain in Mitch’s leg caused beads of sweat to pop out on his forehead. Hurting himself wasn’t something he had counted on, but he wasn’t about to let it stop him, either, not after all the years of planning and waiting.

  Mitch had expected a hole in the mountainside, but once he made it into the cavern itself and sent the thin beam of his flashlight probing the distant ceiling and walls, he was awestruck. The cave was huge.

  “It’s something, isn’t it?” Quentin said as he joined them. “Whatever you do, watch where you step. It’s slicker ‘an snot in here, and there’s a hole over here just to the right that’s a killer. It’ll break your neck if you fall into it. And there’s snakes, too.”

  There wasn’t much in life that scared Mitch Johnson, but snakes did. “Rattlers?” he asked.

  “That’s right. I killed a diamondback just outside the entrance earlier this afternoon,” Quentin was saying. “It was a big mother, and I threw the body down the side of the mountain. The problem is, where there’s one snake, there’s usually another.”

  While Mitch carefully scoured the surrounding area for snakes, Quentin once again took his position at the head of the line, picking his way through the forest of stalagmites that thrust themselves up out of the limestone floor.

  “This way,” Quentin said. “There’s sort of a path here.”

  If there was a path, Lani couldn’t see it. The rocks were so slippery that she was having some difficulty walking.

  “I thought you said somebody lived in here,” Mitch complained as he gingerly negotiated the rough and treacherously slick floor of the cavern. “How could they?”

  “Not here,” Quentin said. “In the other room.”

  Paying close attention to every twist and turn in the path, Lani listened to everything—not just to the words Quentin and Mitch were exchanging, but to what the mountain was saying as well. There seemed to be other voices there too, and Lani strained to hear them. Maybe this was where the Bad People lived, the PaDaj O’othham who had come time and again to steal the crops from the Desert People and to do battle with I’itoi.

  She had thought Mitch Vega to be a messenger of Davy’s Evil Ohb, but maybe the Ohb were really part of the Bad People. Maybe that’s why they had come to this underground place. Maybe the people who said I’itoi lived in Ioligam’s sacred caves were wrong and had been all along.

  The thought of being in the presence of the Bad People plunged Lani back into despair. Behind her Mitch heard her sharp intake of breath.

  His clawlike fingers clamped shut across the top of her shoulder. “What is it?” he demanded. “What did you see? A snake, maybe? Where?”

  He shone the flashlight directly into Lani’s eyes, temporarily blinding her and then turning away as he scanned the ground around him. But something had happened in that moment as his face pressed so close to hers that Lani could feel his hot breath on her skin. She had heard something in his voice that hadn’t been there before and her heart beat fast when she realized what it was—fear. Not a lot of it. No, just the tiniest trace. But still, it was fear, and knowing Mitch Vega was afraid gave Lani something else that hadn’t been there before—hope, and the possibility that maybe somehow, someway, she would survive.

  She looked again at Quentin. The walk up the mountain seemed to have sobered him some. At least his movements were steadier. If Mitch had given him some of the drug, perhaps that was wearing off as well. Maybe, between the two of them . . .

  The thought that Quentin’s dose of scopolamine might be wearing off too soon was worrisome to Mitch Johnson. He needed the right combination of mobility and control. It was important to have Quentin able to get around under his own steam, but it was also important for his thinking capabilities to be somewhat impaired.

  Following Quentin and Lani through the cavern, Mitch was shocked when Quentin suddenly seemed to melt into a solid rock wall, taking Lani with him. Mitch, limping hurriedly after them, had to pause and examine the wall with the beam from his flashlight before discovering a jagged fissure in the rock. After squeezing through the narrow aperture, he found himself in a long narrow shaft that seemed to lead off into the interior of the mountain, away from the much larger cavern behind them. Yards ahead, Mitch could see Lani Walker disappearing around a curve.

  As soon as Mitch stepped into the passage, the ground underfoot was different—smoother, but slicker as well. Here, the rocky floor had been painstakingly covered with a layer of dirt that constant moisture kept in a state of goopy muck. It was possible there had once been stalactites and stalagmites, just as there were in the other room. If so, they had been cut down and carted away, making the narrow shaft passable.

  Hurrying after the others, Mitch rounded the curve and was suddenly conscious of a slight lifting in the total darkness that had surrounded him before. Now his flashlight probed ahead toward a hazy gray glow. At first Mitch thought that maybe Quentin had lit a lantern of some kind. Instead, as Mitch entered a second, much smaller, chamber, he realized this one was lit—almost brilliantly so—by a shaft of silvery moonlight slanting into the cave from outside, from a narrow crack at the top of a huge pile of debris.

  Mitch had thought that the passageway was leading them deeper into the mountain. Instead, they had evidently angled off to the side, to a place where the shell of mountain was very thin.

  “There used to be another entrance here,” Quentin was saying, pointing the beam of his light up toward the narrow hole at the top of the debris. “At one time this was probably the main entrance. I figure it used to be larger than the one we came in, but it looks like a landslide pretty well covered it up. All that’s left of it is that little opening way up there.”
<
br />   Not only was there more light here but, because of the presence of some outside air, the second chamber was also slightly warmer and dryer. Here the texture of the dirt underfoot changed from mud to the caliche-like crust that forms in desert washes after a summertime flood.

  “You said you came out here earlier today?” Mitch asked.

  Quentin nodded.

  “Why? What were you doing?”

  “Just checking things out,” Quentin said. “Making sure nothing had happened to any of this stuff since the last time I was here. It turns out nothing did. The pots are all still here. Come take a look.” As Quentin spoke, he aimed the beam from his flashlight at something in the far corner of the room. “What do you think?” he added.

  Mitch Johnson thrust Lani aside and hurried past her. There on the floor, half-buried in the dirt, lay the shiny white bones of a human skeleton. And around those bleached bones, spilled onto their sides as though having been investigated by some marauding, hungry beast, lay a whole collection of pots—medium-sized ones for holding corn and piñon nuts, grain and pinole, and larger ones as well—the kind used for carrying water and for cooking meat and beans.

  “It doesn’t look like all that much to me,” Mitch said, “but the guy I told you about wants them, so we’d better pack ’em up and get ’em out of here.”

  “You can’t,” Lani Walker said. Those were the first words she had spoken since Mitch had dragged her out of the Bronco down by the wash. She hadn’t intended to say anything at all, but the words came choking out of her in spite of her best effort to hold them back.

  Mitch swung around and looked at her. “We can’t what?”

  “Take the pots,” she answered. “It’s wrong. The spirit of the woman who made them is always trapped inside the pots she makes. That’s why a woman’s pottery is always broken when she dies, so her spirit won’t be trapped. So she can go free.”