Kiss the Bees

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 theTohono 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 calledWuhi 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 lastWuhi Tho'ag called to his brother mountain,Baboquivari, for help.Baboquivari, who watches over everything, answered. Wind Man, whose home is onBaboquivari, 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 toBaboquivari, where they were safe.

The fighting grew worse, andI'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 cloudsHewel — the Wind-carried many of the Desert People safely to the valley ofBaboquivari.

TheTohono 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."

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 pinon 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."

"Trapped in her pots? Right!" Mitch scoffed. "If you asked me, it looks more like she was trapped in the mountain, not in her damn pots. Now sit down and shut the hell up," he added. "I don't remember anybody asking for your opinion."

Without a word, Lani sank down and sat cross-legged on the caliche-covered floor. When Mitch looked back at Quentin, he was staring at the girl while a puzzled frown knotted his forehead.

"What's she doing here anyway?" he asked. "I don't understand."

"She just came along for the ride, Quentin," Mitch said jokingly. "For the fun of it. Once we get all these pots out of here, the three of us are going to have a little party." Mitch paused and patted his shirt pocket. "I brought along a few mood-altering substances, Quentin. When the work's all done, the three of us can have a blast."

"You mean Little Miss Perfect here takes drugs, too?" Quentin's frown dissolved into a grin. "I never would have guessed it. Neither would Dad, I'll bet. He'll have a cow if he ever finds out."

Lani started to reply, but before she could answer, a swift and vicious kick from the toe of Mitch's hiking boot smashed into her thigh. She said nothing.

"Tripping out is for dessert," Mitch said quickly. "First let's worry about the pots."

"How are we going to carry them out?" Quentin asked.

"In your backpack."

"But we only have one."

"You should have thought of that before. I guess you'll have to do it by yourself then, won't you?"

"By myself?"

"Sure," Mitch responded. "You're the one getting paid for it, aren't you?"

"But if everybody does their share…" Quentin began.

"I said for you to do it," Mitch said, his voice hardening as he spoke. "If the damned pots don't get down the mountain to that car of yours, you don't get your five thousand bucks, understand?"

Obligingly, Quentin slipped off his backpack, went over to the corner, and loaded three of the larger pots into it. "That's all that'll fit for right now," he said.

"That's all right," Mitch said. "Make as many trips as you need to. We have all the time in the world."

As Quentin turned to leave, Mitch breathed a sigh of relief. The drug was still working well enough. With Mitch's knee acting up, he needed Quentin's physical strength to haul the pots down the mountain to the car. After that, all bets were off.

As Quentin took flashlight in hand and started back through the passage, Lani sat on the floor of the cave, staring at the bones glowing with an eerie phosphorescence in the indirect haze of moonlight.

Looking at the skeleton, Lani knew immediately that the bones belonged to a woman of some wealth. The pots alone were an indication of that. Most likely there had been baskets once as well, but those, like the woman's flesh, had long since decayed and melted back into the earth-leaving behind only the harder stuff-the clay pottery and the bones. And one day, Lani's bones would be found here as well. Unknown and unrelated to one another in life, she and this other woman would be sisters in death. Lani took some small comfort in knowing that she would not be left there alone.

Across from her, Mitch sat down on something hard, something that supported his weight-a rock of some kind. In the moments before he switched off his flashlight, Lani realized he was rubbing his knee, massaging it, as though he had twisted it perhaps. It was a small thing, but nevertheless something to remember.

Sitting cross-legged on the hard ground, Lani reached out one arm, expecting to rest some of her weight on that one hand. Instead of encountering the dirt floor, her hand blundered into one of the remaining pots-one of the smaller ones. As Lani's exploring fingers strayed silently around the smooth edge of the neck of the pot, a powerful realization shot through her, something that was as much chehchki — dream-as it was understanding.

This pot had once belonged to Oks Gagda — to Betraying Woman. Lani knew the story. She had heard the legend from Nana Dahd and from Davy as well. The legend-the ha'icha ahgidathag — of Betraying Woman-was a cautionary tale that told how a young girl whose birth name had long since disappeared into oblivion had once fallen in love with an Apache-an Ohb. When an enemy war party had attacked her village, the girl had betrayed her people to their dreaded enemy. Much later, the bad girl was brought back home and punished. According to the legend, I'itoi locked her in a cave and then called the mountain down around her, leaving her to die alone and in the dark.

Lani had lived all her life with those beloved I'itoi stories and traditions, but there was a part of her that discounted them. Over the years she had stopped believing in them in much the same way she eventually had stopped believing in Santa Claus. Although legends of Saint Nicholas and the I'itoi stories as well may both have had some distant basis in fact, by age sixteen Lani no longer regarded them as true. The stories and the lessons to be learned from them were part of her culture but not necessarily part of her life.

She had been eight years old when Davy broke the bad news to her, that Santa Claus didn't exist. Nana Dahd was gone by then, so Lani hadn't been able to go to her for consolation. For the first time, without Rita there to comfort her, Lani had turned to her mother-to Diana Ladd Walker. And it was in her mother's arms that she had learned that the wonder and magic of Christmas hadn't gone out of her life forever.

Feeling the cool, smooth clay under her fingertips, Lani felt the return of another kind of magic. Oks Gagda — Betraying Woman-did exist. She had been locked in a cave by the falling mountain just the way Nana Dahd had said. But now Lani knew something about that story that she had never known before. Betraying Woman had been locked in a cave with two entrances. If she had known about the other entrance, she might have simply walked away, rather than staying to endure her punishment. In a way she would never be able to explain to anyone else, Lani Walker grasped the significance of what had happened. Oks Gagda had willingly chosen to remain where she was, choosing the honor of jehka'ich — of suffering the consequences of her wickedness-rather than taking the coward's path and running away.

A wave of gooseflesh raced across Lani's body. She had left her people-hair basket behind, but I'itoi had sent her another talisman to take the basket's place. Carefully, making as little noise as possible, she lifted the small sturdy pot from where it had sat undisturbed for all those years and placed it, out of sight, in the triangular space formed by her crossed legs.

"What are you doing over there?" Mitch demanded, shining a blinding beam from his flashlight directly in her eyes.

"Nothing," Lani said. "Just trying to get comfortable."

"You stay right where you are," Mitch warned. "No funny business."

Lani said nothing more. Covering the perfectly round opening of the pot with the palm of her hand, Lani closed her eyes. With the cool rim of clay touching her skin, Lani let the words of Nana Dahd 's long-ago song flow silently through her whole being.

Do not look at me, Little Olhoni

Do not look at me when I sing to you

So this man will not know we are speaking

So this evil man will think he is winning.

Do not look at me when I sing, LittleOlhoni,

But listen to what I say. This man is evil.

This man is the enemy. This man is Ohb.

Do not let this frighten you.

Whatever happens, we must not let him win.

I am singing a war song, LittleOlhoni.

A hunter's song, a killer's song.

I am singing a song to I'itoi, asking him to help us.

Asking him to guide us in the battle

So the evil Ohb does not win.

Do not look at me, Little Olhoni,

Do not look at me when I sing to you.

I must sing this song four times,

For all of nature goes in fours,

But when the trouble starts

You must listen very carefully

And do exactly what I say.

If I tell you to run, you must run,

Run fast, and do not look back.

Whatever happens, Little Olhoni.

You must run and not look back.

Remember in the story howI'itoi made himself a fly

And hid in the smallest crack when Eagleman

Came searching for him. Be like I'itoi,

Little Olhoni. Be like I'itoi and hide yourself

In the smallest crack. Hide yourself somewhere

And do not come out again until the battle is over.

Listen to what I sing to you, Little Olhoni.

Do not look at me but do exactly as I say.

Lani paused sometimes between verses to listen. Outside the cave's entrance, cool nighttime air rustled through the manzanita, making a sighing sound like people whispering-or like a'ali chum — little children-gossiping and sharing secrets. Maybe it was that sound that brought Betraying Woman back to Lani's attention. Not only had she been left to die in the cave, her spirit was still there, trapped forever in the prison of her unbroken pots.

"Pots are made to be broken," Nana Dahd had told her time and again. "Always the pots must be broken."

And that was why, in Rita's medicine basket, there had once been a single shard of pottery with the figure of a turtle etched into it. The piece of reddish-brown clay had come from a pot Rita's grandmother, Oks Amichuda-Understanding Woman-had made when she was a young woman. After Understanding Woman's death, Rita herself had smashed the pot to pieces, releasing her grandmother's spirit. The only thing Rita had saved was that one jagged-edged piece.

For just a moment, in that dim gray light, Lani thought she saw the pale figure of a woman glide behind the man who called himself Mitch Vega. Lani saw the figure pause and then move on.

The shadowy shape was there for such a brief moment that at first Lani thought, perhaps, she had made her up. But then, as Lani kept on singing, a strange peace enveloped her. She felt perfectly calm-as though she were being swept along in the untroubled stillness inside a whirlwind. And since Lani understood by then that, like Betraying Woman, she was going to die anyway, there was no longer any reason for her to remain silent.

"Why do you hate them?" she asked.

"Hate who?" Mitch returned.

"My parents," Lani answered. "That's why you've done all this-drugged me, drugged Quentin, brought us here. That's the reason you drew that awful picture of me, as well. To get at my parents, but I still don't understand why."

"It's not your parents," Mitch said agreeably enough. "It's your father."

"My father? What did he do to you?"

"Did your father ever mention the name Mitch Johnson to you?"

"Mitch Johnson? I don't think so. Is that you? I thought your name was Vega."

"Mitch Whatever. It doesn't really matter, does it?" He laughed then. The brittle laughter rattled hollowly off the walls of the cave. "That's a pisser, isn't it! Brandon Walker cost me my family, my future, and twenty years out of my life, but I'm not important enough for even the smallest mention to Brandon Walker's nearest and dearest."

"What did my father do to you?" Lani persisted.

"I'll tell you what he did. He locked me up, and for no good reason. Those goddamned wetbacks are sucking the lifeblood out of this country. They were wrecking things back then, and it's worse now. All I was trying to do was stop it."

The word "wetbacks" brought the story back. "You're him," Lani said.

"Him who?"

"The man who shot those poor Mexicans out in the desert."

"So your father did tell you about me after all. What did he say?"

"He wasn't talking about you," Lani answered. "He was talking about the award. I was dusting in his study and I asked him about some of his awards. The Parade Magazine Detective of the Year Award was-"

"He was talking about his damned award?"

Lani heard the change in the tenor of his voice, the sudden surge of anger. The lesson she should have learned when she had slapped the drug-laden cup away from her lips seemed so distant now, so far in the past, that it no longer applied. What difference did it make? He was going to kill her anyway.

"That's why they gave it to him," she said quietly. "For sending you to prison. You killed two people and wounded another. I think you got what you deserved."

"Shut up," Mitch Vega-Johnson snarled. "Shut the hell up. You don't know the first goddamned thing about it."

Listen to me, LittleOlhoni, and do exactly as I say.

Once again Nana Dahd' s song came to mind and she began to sing quietly- jupij ne'e. She whispered the strength-giving words, not loud enough for Mitch to hear, but loud enough that they might fall on the ears of Betraying Woman, that they might reach out to that other trapped spirit who had spent so long shut up in the cave.

When Mitch had taken her prisoner and when he had hurt her, he had caught her unawares. Lani had learned enough about him now to realize that he was simply waiting for Quentin to finish loading the pots. When that task was accomplished, Mitch would come after Lani again-after Lani and Quentin both.

Minute by minute, the danger was coming closer, and singing Nana Dahd' s song was the only way Lani knew to prepare for it, to achieve ih'in. This time, when he came after her, she would be ready. Perhaps she would not escape-escape did not seem possible-but with the help of I'itoi and of Betraying Woman, Lani would meet her fate in a way that would make Nana Dahd proud. In the face of whatever Mitch Vega-Johnson had to offer, Lani would be bamustk — unflinching.

That was the other thing Siakam meant-to be a hero, to endure. Nana Dahd had given her that word as part of her name. Dolores Lanita Walker was determined that, no matter what, she would somehow live up to the legend of that other Mualig Siakam, to the other woman from long ago, the one who had been Kissed by the Bees.

Driving to the department, Brandon and Diana Walker said very little. Brandon had always thought that having a child die a violent death had to be a parent's worst nightmare. But it turned out that wasn't true, because having one child murdered by another was worse by far. There was no way for him to come to grips with the enormity of the tragedy, so he took refuge in action and drove.

Pulling into the familiar parking lot, he was struck by the difference between then and now, between when he used to park in the slot marked reserved for sheriff. Back then, he would have walked into the building to issue orders and direct the action. Tonight, instead of calling the shots, he was coming in as a family member-as the father of both victim and perpetrator. Instead of being able to tell people what to do, he was going to have to ask, maybe even beg, for someone to help him.

Shaking his head at his own powerlessness, he parked the car in a slot marked visitor.

"What are we going to tell them?" Diana asked, as they headed for the public entrance.

Brandon was still carrying the paper bag that held the cassette tape and plastic case. "Before I tell anybody anything, I'm going to try to get these to Alvin. That way he can start lifting prints. Once he's done with the tape, we'll try to get someone to hold still long enough to listen to it."

"Will they believe it?"

"That depends," Brandon told her.

"On what?"

"On the luck of the draw," he answered. "With any kind of luck, Detective Myers will still be home in bed."

Walking into the reception area, the young clerk recognized Brandon Walker immediately. "What can I do for you?" he asked.

"I'm looking for Alvin Miller," Brandon answered.

The clerk frowned. "I doubt he's here. I'm not showing him on the 'in' list."

"Do me a favor," Brandon said. "Try calling the fingerprint lab and see if he answers."

And he did. Within minutes, Alvin Miller had come out to the reception area to escort Brandon and Diana back to the lab. "What's going on?" he asked.

Brandon handed over the bag. "Do me a favor," he said. "We need prints lifted off these."

"All right," Alvin returned.

"Then I'll need something else."

"What's that?"

"You can call up prints by name, can't you?"

"Sure," Alvin answered. "If the prints went into the system with a name, then we can get them out that way, too. Whose name are we looking for?"

"My son's," Brandon Walker said, his voice cracking as he spoke.

"Your son's?"

Brandon nodded. "His name is Quentin-Quentin Addison Walker. He's only been out of Florence for a matter of months, so his prints should be on file."

Without another word, Alvin Miller walked over to a computer keyboard and punched in a series of letters. The whole lab was silent except for the air rushing through the cooling ducts and the hum of fans on various pieces of equipment. For the better part of a minute, that sound didn't change. Then, finally, with a distinctive thunk,a printer snapped into action.

Eventually, the print job was complete. Only when the lab was once again filled with that odd humming silence did Alvin reach out to retrieve the printed sheet from the printer. Preparing to hand it to Brandon, he glanced at it once. As soon as he did so, he snatched it away again and held it closer to study it more closely.

"Holy shit!" Alvin exclaimed.

"What is it?" Brandon asked.

"I haven't run the prints yet," he said. "I was just about done enhancing them, but I recognize one of these. Has your son been out to visit you recently?"

"My son and I are currently estranged," Brandon Walker said carefully. "He hasn't been anywhere near Diana's and my house since before he was sent to prison. Not as an invited guest," he added.

"But this print-the one right here on the end," Alvin said, handing the sheet over to Brandon at last. "That's the same print I took off the desk in your office and also off one of the pieces of broken frame."

Brandon looked down at the piece of paper in his hand. The last print, the one in the corner, had a diagonal slice across it. Nodding, he handed the set of prints back to Alvin.

"He almost cut his thumb in half with my pocket knife when he was eight," Brandon said quietly. "He took my pocket knife outside and was showing off with his little brother when it happened. You'll probably find the same prints on the tape and tape case as well."

"You think your son Quentin has something to do with your daughter's disappearance?"

Brandon Walker sighed. In the space of a few minutes' time, the former sheriff seemed to have aged ten years.

"With my daughter's murder," he corrected. "It's all on the tape, but before you turn it over to a detective, I want it checked for prints. Diana's and mine are on there along with whatever others there are. You understand, don't you, Alvin?" he asked. "I need to know for sure." He glanced in Diana's direction. "We both need to know."

"Right," Alvin said.

He took the bag and carried it over to his lab area, where he carefully dusted both the tape and the case with graphite, bringing out a whole series of prints. Then, using a magnifying glass, he examined the results for several long minutes.

Finally, putting down the glass, he turned back to Brandon and Diana. "It's here," he said. "On the case, at least."

Brandon Walker's eyes blurred with tears. His legs seemed to splinter beneath him.

"I was afraid it would be," he said. "We'd better go out front and talk to a detective. I'm sure whoever's assigned to this case will need to hear that tape as soon as possible."

"How come?" Alvin Miller asked. "What's on it?"

Brandon Walker took a deep, despairing breath before he answered. "We believe…" he said, fighting unsuccessfully to keep his voice steady, "… that this is a recording of our daughter's murder."

Together, Diana and Brandon Walker started toward the door. "Ask to talk to Detective Leggett," Alvin Miller called after him. "He doesn't know it yet, but it turns out he's already working this case."

By the time Davy and Candace picked up their tickets at the counter and then went racing through the terminal to the gate, they were both worn out. Once aboard America West Flight 1, bound for Tucson, Candace fell sound asleep. Davy, although fidgety with a combination of nerves and exhaustion, fought hard to stay awake. They were flying in a 737, and Davy was stuck in one of the cramped middle seats, sandwiched between Candace, sleeping on his left, and a bright-eyed little old lady on the right. The woman was tiny. Her skin was tanned nut-brown. The skin of her lips and cheeks was wrinkled in that distinctive pattern that comes from years of smoking. Rattling the pages, she thumbed impatiently through the in-flight magazine.

David sat there, bolt upright and petrified, worried sick that if he did fall asleep, he would instantly be overtaken by yet another panic attack. If, as the emergency room doctor had insisted, the attacks were stress-induced, then Davy figured he was about due for another one. There was, after all, some stress in his life.

His experience with Candace in the hotel earlier meant that he was no longer quite so concerned about what she would think of him when another attack came along. What would other people think, though? The lady next to him, for instance, or the flight attendants hustling up and down the aisle, dispensing orange juice and coffee, what would they do? He could imagine it all too well. "Ladies and gentlemen," one of them would intone into the intercom. "We have a medical emergency here. Is there a doctor on board?"

Stress. Part of that came from finishing school and going home and getting a real job without even taking whatever had happened to Lani into consideration. In the years while Davy was attending law school in Chicago, he had held himself at arm's length from his family back home. Somehow it seemed to him that there wasn't room enough in his heart for all of them at once-for the Arizona contingent and for the Ladd side of the family in Illinois. To say nothing of Candace.

Looking at her sleeping peacefully beside him, Davy couldn't quite believe she was there. In his scheme of things, Candace had always been part of his Chicago life, and yet here she was on the plane with him, headed for Tucson. Not only that, she was going there with Astrid Ladd's amazingly large diamond engagement ring firmly encircling the ring finger on her slender left hand.

Davy hadn't exactly popped the question. Nevertheless, they were engaged. Candace was planning a quick wedding in Vegas while Davy squirmed with the knowledge that his mother and stepfather had barely heard her name. He hadn't told them any more about her than he had told them about his other passing romantic fancies. It hadn't seemed necessary.

Now, given the circumstances, telling was more than necessary. It was essential and tardy and not at all one-sided. Just as he hadn't talked about Candace to his parents, the reverse was also true. There was a whole lot he hadn't told Candace, either.

The lush lifestyle in which Candace Waverly had grown up in Oak Park, Illinois, was far different from what prevailed in the comparatively simple house in Gates Pass. And if Candace's experience was one step removed from the Tucson house, it was forever away from Rita Antone's one-room adobe house-little more than a shack, really-which had been Nana Dahd' s ancestral home in Ban Thak.

Coyote Sitting, Davy thought. Just the names of the villages were bad enough. Hawani Naggiak — Crow Hanging; Komkch'eD e Wah'osidk — Turtle Wedged; Gogs mek — Burnt Dog. Davy knew them equally well in English and in Tohono O'othham, but what would Candace think when he tried to explain them to her?

Conflicting geography was one thing. What about when he started dealing in the crossed wires of personalities? There had been no particular need to tell Candace much about being raised by Rita Antone, who in turn had been raised by her own grandmother, Understanding Woman. Over time Davy had mentioned a few things, of course, but only the simple, straightforward parts, not any of what Richard Waverly, Candace's father, would derisively call the woo-woo stuff.

Davy had never mentioned Looks At Nothing's Peace Smoke, for instance. He hadn't told Candace or any of her family how the blind old medicine man from his childhood would light his foul-smelling wild tobacco with a flame sparked by his faithful Zippo lighter. He hadn't told them about Looks At Nothing's spooky way of knowing things before they happened or of the blind man telling others what he had "seen" in his divining crystals.

How would Candace and her family react to a discussion of medicine men and divining crystals-and medicine baskets, for that matter? Or try scalp bundles on for size. The one from Rita's medicine basket-an Ohb scalp bundle, no doubt-was the main reason Rita's medicine basket was still sitting in his parents' safety deposit box eleven years after Rita's death.

Davy was sure now that the scalp bundle had been the primary reason Rita had insisted that it be kept out of Lani's hands until she was old enough to handle it with proper respect. Davy cringed at the idea of sitting down and trying to explain to Richard Waverly how improper handling of a scalp-bundle could bring on a bout of Enemy Sickness, the best cure for which was a medicine man singing scalp-bundle songs at night.

Old Man Waverly will just love that one, Davy thought.

And yet, those things-which he could imagine Candace and her family not quite understanding-were far too much a part of Davy's life and experience for him to dismiss them. The stories about I'itoi and Earth Medicine Man were as deeply woven into Davy's background as Aesop's Fables and the Brothers Grimm were into Candace's. How would somebody raised on watered-down versions of Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella respond to having her son or daughter hear about how I'itoi chopped the head off the monster Eagleman's baby?

Almost without realizing what he was doing, Davy reached into his pocket and pulled out Father John's rosary. At age twenty-seven, David Ladd closed his eyes and saw in his mind's eye those three aged adults who had played such important roles in his childhood-Rita, Looks At Nothing, and Father John. They were all so very different and yet, despite those differences, they had drawn a healing circle of love around him-a little half-orphaned Anglo boy-and held him safe inside it.

How had they done that? And if, from the vantage point of being that well-loved child, Davy himself couldn't answer that question, how in God's name would he ever be able to explain it to anyone else, including Candace Waverly?

By then the beads were laid out across his palm. He began slowly, one bead at a time, silently moving his lips as he recited the words. "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen."

Halfway through the process, probably somewhere over Colorado, someone tapped on his right arm. Startled, he looked up. The lady next to him was smiling a benignly cheery smile.

"I know just how you feel," she said. "I used to be afraid of flying, too, young man. But they have classes for that kind of thing these days. I took one at Pima Community College a few years back. You might look into taking one yourself. Those classes don't cost very much, and they help. They really do."

Blushing furiously, Davy dropped Father John's losalo back into his pocket. "Thank you," he said. "I'll try to look into it as soon as I have a chance."

Leaving the hospital, Fat Crack Ortiz stopped by the Walker house in Gates Pass long enough to see that no one was home. After that he headed the Crown Victoria toward Sells. No doubt the dance was still going strong, but he didn't even pause at the Little Tucson turnoff. Instead, he drove on home.

When he had warned Brandon Walker of danger the day before, it hadn't occurred to him that the danger in question, the evil emanating from Diana's book, might fall on Lani. He had expected Diana herself to be the target, never Lani.

Once he reached the house, he was grateful to discover that Wanda still wasn't home. Although she tolerated his medicine-man status, she certainly wasn't thrilled by it. Gabe went straight to the wooden desk and retrieved Looks At Nothing's medicine pouch. Then he went outside. Using a stick of mesquite, he stood in the middle of the dirt-floored patio and used the stick to draw a circle around himself. Then he eased himself down on the hard ground in exactly the way the old blind medicine man would have prescribed.

With the porch light providing the only light, he opened the pouch and took out a rolled cigarette made from wiw — wild tobacco-that Fat Crack had carefully gathered and rolled into the ceremonial cigarettes. Digging further, he located Looks At Nothing's old Zippo lighter, which had become almost as much a part of the duajida — the nighttime divination ceremony-as the billowing smoke itself. Then, opening a second, smaller bag made of some soft, chamois-like material, Fat Crack peered inside at the crystals he knew were there.

In all the years Fat Crack Ortiz had been in possession of the medicine pouch, he had seldom touched the crystals or taken them out of their protective bag. But if any occasion called for the use of Looks At Nothing's most powerful medicine, this was it. Lani Walker was in danger. The old medicine man had been dead long before Rita Antone's ant-kissed child had been born. Nonetheless, his influence, even from the grave, had directed almost every aspect of Lani's young life, from her unusual adoption to the things she had been taught by the people who had been placed in charge of caring for her.

The responsibility of caring for the child had been left to a number of people, but Looks At Nothing's medicine pouch had been entrusted to Fat Crack alone. The treasured pouch had come to him with the understanding that the Medicine Man with the Tow Truck would save it for Looks At Nothing's real successor. For a time, while the children were young, Fat Crack had fooled himself into believing that the mantle would fall to one or the other of his own two sons-to either Richard or Leo. And then, when Rita had insisted on taking Clemencia Escalante to raise, she had told her nephew that perhaps the ant-marked baby was the one Looks At Nothing had told them about. Over the years, Fat Crack had come to believe that was true.

Carefully, patiently, Fat Crack unknotted the drawstring that held the chamois bag closed. Holding out an upturned hand, he dumped the collection of crystals into his palm. There were four of them in all. As soon as Fat Crack saw the four of them winking back the reflected glow of the porch light, he had to smile. Four crystals made sense. After all, as everyone knows, all things in nature go in fours.

Arranging them side by side, Fat Crack laid the crystals and the cigarette and lighter out on the spread leather surface of the pouch, then he reached into his hip pocket and pulled out his wallet. Carefully he thumbed through the school pictures of his own children and grandchildren until he found the one Lani had given him the year before at Christmas.

He lit the cigarette and let the smoke swirl around him in the late-night breeze. There was no one sitting in the circle with him, but Fat Crack raised the cigarette and blew a puff of smoke in each of the four directions, just as Looks At Nothing had taught him, saying "Nawoj" as he did so.

While the cigarette still glowed in his fingertips, Fat Crack lifted up the first crystal and held it over Lani's picture. Nothing happened. It was the same with the second crystal and with the third as well.

The sky was gradually lightening in the east and Fat Crack was already thinking how foolish he must look sitting there on the ground when he picked up the fourth crystal and held it over the picture. What happened then was something he could never explain. It simply was. The picture on the paper changed ever so slightly until something else superimposed itself over Lani's smiling face.

At first Fat Crack thought he was seeing the head of a rattlesnake, its jaws open wide to swallow something, its fangs fully exposed. This was not a snake's head. It was, in fact, a snake's skull- ko'oi koshwa. Then, as Fat Crack leaned down to examine the picture more closely, he realized the picture underneath the skull seemed changed as well. In the slowly eddying smoke, he saw that Lani's eyes were missing. Instead of eyes smiling back at him, there were only empty sockets.

The message from the divining crystals was clear. If Lani Walker wasn't already dead, she soon would be.

Fat Crack's hands shook as he carefully returned the crystals and lighter to the medicine pouch. He was just closing it and trying to decide what to do with this newfound, awful knowledge when the headlights from Richard Ortiz's tow truck flashed across the yard. With an agility that surprised Fat Crack even as he did it, he heaved his hefty frame up off the ground and hurried toward the truck. He reached the rider's door just as Wanda climbed out and turned to tell Richard good-bye.

" Oi g hihm," Fat Crack said to his son, hoisting himself up into the seat Wanda had just vacated. Literally translated, oi g hihm means "Let's walk." In the everyday language of the reservation, however, it means "Let's get in the pickup and go."

"Where are you going?" Wanda demanded, catching the door before Gabe had a chance to close it.

"To Rattlesnake Skull Charco," he said. "Call Brandon Walker and tell him to meet me there. Tell him that's where we'll find Lani. Tell him to hurry before it's too late."

"What's wrong with Lani?" Wanda Ortiz asked in alarm. "Is she hurt, sick? What's going on?"

"She's been kidnapped," Fat Crack answered without hesitation. "I believe she's been taken by someone connected to the evil Ohb. If we don't find her soon, that person is going to kill her, if he hasn't already."

Wanda nodded and stepped back from the truck. "I'll call the Walkers right away," she said.

Richard Ortiz shifted the tow truck into reverse. "We're not talking more of that old medicine-man nonsense, are we?" he asked dubiously.

This was no time for a philosophical discussion. "Shut up and drive, Baby," Fat Crack told his son. "And while you're at it, put the flashers on."

"You think it's that serious?"

"You bet," Fat Crack told him. "It's a matter of life and death."

Quentin had come back to the cavern, picked up the second load of pottery, and had gone to carry it back down the mountain. Soon he would be back for the third and last load. Lani knew that was when Mitch Johnson would make his move. That was when he would kill them.

But even with death looming closer, Lani no longer felt frightened. The whispered words of Nana Dahd' s war chant were helping Lani to remain calm in the face of whatever was to come. And the pot was helping her as well. Still undetected by either Quentin or Mitch, it lay nestled between her legs. Stroking the cool, hard clay seemed to offer as much comfort as Nana Dahd' s song. The presence of the pot seemed to take up where the people-hair basket had left off.

Across the darkened cave, Mitch Johnson was talking, his voice droning on and on, as much to himself as to Lani. When she finally started paying attention, he was talking about Quentin's reaction to the drug. "Scopolamine's interesting stuff, isn't it? Sort of like a combination of drug and hypnosis. I guess those guys down in Colombia aren't so stupid after all."

"That's what you used on us?" Lani asked.

"Andy claimed that scopolamine poisoning makes 'em hot as hell, red as a beet, mad as a hatter, and blind as a bat."

In that throwaway remark Lani almost missed the crucial name-Andy. Her heart lurched inside her chest. All night long she had been forging spiritual links between this man and the evil Ohb. Now, though, for the first time, there was some outside confirmation that connections between Andrew Carlisle of old and this new evil Ohb did exist. Lani had to know for sure.

"Who's Andy?" she asked, swallowing an entirely new lump of fear that rose dangerously in her throat.

"Did you say 'Who's Andy?' " Mitch Johnson asked in mock disbelief. "You mean here you are, smart enough to go to University High School, but you're not smart enough to figure all this out for yourself?"

"Who's Andy?" Lani repeated.

"A friend of mine," Mitch Johnson told her. "It turns out he was a friend of your mother's as well. If you've read your mother's book, then you know a whole lot about him. His name was Carlisle. Andrew Philip Carlisle. Ever heard of him?"

Sitting there in the dark, Lani's body was covered by another wave of gooseflesh. She felt sick to her stomach. It was true, then. She was shut up in the darkened cave with a man named Mitch Johnson, but she was there with Andrew Carlisle as well, with the vengeful spirit of the evil Ohb who had raped and tortured her mother.

"That's why you burned me, isn't it?" she said. Her voice seemed very small. In the emptiness of the darkened cave, it was hardly more than a whisper. "You did it for him."

"So maybe you aren't so dumb after all. This way your mother is bound to make the connection, but there won't be any tooth impressions for someone to take to court the way there were with Andy."

Andy. It was hard for her to comprehend that word. How could a person who was "Andy" to Mitch Johnson also be Andrew Carlisle, the monster who had frequented the stories of Lani Walker's childhood? She had spent long winter evenings, snuggled in Rita's lap, hearing the story again and again. Lani had loved hearing how two women, the priest, the boy, and the dog had overcome the wicked Mil-gahn man. Again and again Nana Dahd had told the powerful tale of how I'itoi had helped them defeat the enemy who was, at the same time, both Apachelike and not-Apache.

"I don't suppose you ever met him," Mitch continued. "You're much too young. He was already in prison for the second time long before you were born, but if you had met him, I think you would have been impressed. To put it in terms you might understand-the Indian vernacular, as it were-I'd say he was a very powerful medicine man."

Lani knew something about medicine men-especially about Looks At Nothing, who had been a friend of Rita's. And Fat Crack Ortiz was a medicine man as well. Whatever powers they had weren't used for evil or for hurting people. Mitch Johnson's sarcastic remark burned through Lani's fear and changed it to anger, like a powerful magnifying glass focusing the rays of the sun to ignite a piece of paper.

"You can call him a medicine man if you like," she said softly. "I call him ho'ok."

"Ho'ok,"Mitch Johnson repeated. "What does that mean?"

"Monster," Lani replied.

For a moment after she said it, there was no sound in the dark stillness of the cave, then there was a short hiccup followed by a hoot of raucous laughter.

Except it didn't sound like laughter to Lani Walker. In the dark it reminded her of something else-of the rasping, unearthly, bone rattling sound a cornered javelina makes when it gnashes its teeth.