by J. A. Jance
Old Limping Man told the people of the village. That night the people held a council to decide what they should do. They feared that someone had been left behind in the burning desert.
In the morning, Gohhim O’othham and a young man started back over the desert with some water. They traveled only a little way after Tash—the sun—came up. Through the heat of the day they rested. When Sun went down in the west, they went on.
The first day there were kukui u’us—mesquite trees, but the trees had very few leaves, and those were very dry.
The next day it was hotter. There were no trees of any kind, only shegoi—greasewood bushes. The greasewood bushes were almost white from dryness.
The third day they found nothing but a few dry sticks of melhog—the ocotillo—and some prickly pears—nahkag.
The fourth day there seemed to be nothing left at all but rocks. And the rocks were very hot.
The two men did not drink the water which they carried. They mixed only a little of the water with their hahki—a parched roasted wheat which the Mil-gahn, the Whites, call pinole. This is the food of the Desert People when they are traveling. While they were mixing their pinole on the morning of the fourth day, Old Limping Man looked up and saw Coyote running toward them and calling for help.
The carpenter who had helped refit the Bounder had questioned why Mitch needed a complex trundle-bed/storage unit that would roll in and out of the locker under the regular bed. “It’s for my grandson,” Mitch had explained. “He goes fishing with me sometimes, and he likes to sleep in the same kind of bed he has at home.”
“Oh,” the carpenter had grunted. The man had gone ahead and made the bed to specs, tiny four-posters and all, and now, for the first time, Mitch was going to get to use it. Leaving Lani Walker asleep on the bed above for a moment, he pulled the trundle bed out of the storage space and locked the four casters in place. Then, with the bed ready and waiting, Mitch turned his attention to the girl.
She was limp but pliable under his hands. Undressing her reminded him of undressing Mikey when he’d fall asleep on his way home from shopping or eating dinner in town. One arm at a time, he took off first her shirt and then the delicate white bra. The boots were harder. He had to grip her leg and pull in one direction with one hand and then pry off the boot with the other. On her feet were a pair of white socks. Mitch was glad to see that her toenails weren’t painted. That would have spoiled it somehow in a way he never would have been able to explain. After the socks came the jeans and the chaste white panties. Only when she was completely naked, did he ease her down onto the lower bed.
Just as he had known it would be, that was a critical moment. He wanted her so badly right then that he could almost taste it. His own pants seemed ready to burst, but he knew better. That was the mistake Andy had made. Mitch Johnson was smart enough not to fall into the same trap.
“I’ve spent years wondering about it,” Mitch remembered Andy saying time and again. “I had her under control and then I lost it.”
You lost control because you fucked her, you stupid jerk, Mitch wanted to shout. How could anyone as smart as Andy be so damned dumb? Why couldn’t he see that what he had done to Diana Ladd had made her mad enough to fight back? In doing that, Andy had lost his own concentration, let down his guard, and allowed his victim to find an opening.
But if Andy wasn’t brainy enough to figure all that out for himself, if he had such a blind spot that he couldn’t see it, who was Mitch to tell him? After all, students—properly subservient students—didn’t tell their teachers which way was up, especially not if their teachers were as potentially dangerous as Andrew Philip Carlisle.
In her dream Lani was little again—four or five years old. Her mother had just dropped Nana Dahd, Davy, and Lani off in the parking lot of the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. Davy was pushing Rita’s chair while Lani sat perched on Nana Dahd’s lap.
It was a chill, blustery afternoon in February, the month the Tohono O’othham call Kohmagi Mashad— the gray month. Davy, along with other Tucson-area schoolchildren, was out of school for the annual rodeo break, but as they came through the parking lot, they wheeled past several empty school buses.
“You see those buses?” Nana Dahd asked. “They’re from Turtle Wedged, the village the Mil-gahn call Sells. Most of the children from there are Tohono O’othham, just like you.”
Not accustomed to seeing that many “children like her” together in one place, Lani had observed the moving groups of schoolkids with considerable interest and curiosity. They were mostly being herded about by several Anglo teachers as well as by docents from the museum itself.
They were in the hummingbird enclosure when Nana Dahd began telling the story of the other Mualig Siakam, the abandoned woman who would eventually become Kulani O’oks—the great medicine woman of the Tohono O’othham. As Nana Dahd began telling the tale, one of the schoolchildren—a little girl only a year or two older than Lani—slipped away from the group she was with and stopped to listen. Drawn by the magic of a story told in her own language, she stood transfixed and wide-eyed beside Nana Dahd’s wheelchair as the tale unfolded. Rita had only gotten as far as the part where Coyote came crying to the two men for help when a shrill-voiced Mil-gahn teacher, her face distorted by anger, came marching back to retrieve the little girl.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the teacher shouted. Her loud voice sent the brightly colored hummingbirds scattering in all directions. “We’re supposed to leave soon,” the woman continued. “What would have happened if we had lost you and you missed the bus? How would you have gotten back home?”
Instead of turning to follow the teacher, the child reached out and took hold of Nana Dahd’s chair, firmly attaching herself to the arm of it and showing that she didn’t want to leave. “I want to hear the rest of the story,” the little girl whispered in Rita’s ear. “I want to hear about Mualig Siakam.”
“Well?” the teacher demanded impatiently. “Are you coming or not? You must keep up with the others.”
As the woman grasped the child by the shoulder, Nana Dahd stopped in mid-story and glanced up at the woman’s outraged face. “You’d better go,” she warned the little girl in Tohono O’othham.
But the little girl deftly dodged away from the teacher’s reaching hand. “Are you Nihu’uli?” she asked, taking one of Rita’s parchmentlike hands into her own small brown one. “Are you my grandmother?”
Lani never forgot the wonderfully happy smile that suffused Nana Dahd’s worn face as she pressed her other hand on top of that unknown child’s tiny one.
“Are you?” the little girl persisted just as the teacher’s fingers closed determinedly on her shoulder and pulled her away. With a vicious shake, the woman started back up the trail, dragging the resisting child after her and glaring over her shoulder at the old woman who had so inconveniently waylaid her charge.
Rita glanced from Davy’s face to Lani’s. “Heu’u—Yes,” she called after the child in Tohono O’othham. “Ni-mohsi. You are my grandchild, my daughter’s child.”
Confused, Lani frowned. “But I didn’t think you had any daughters,” she objected.
“I didn’t used to, but I do now.” Rita laughed. She gathered Lani in her arms and held her close. “Now I seem to have several.”
The dream ended. Lani tried to waken, but she was too tired, her eyelids too heavy to lift. She seemed to be in her bed, but when she tried to move her arms, they wouldn’t budge, either. And then, since there was nothing else to do, she simply allowed herself to drift back to sleep.
Breakfast took time. It was almost eleven by the time David was actually ready to leave the house. Predictably, his leave-taking was a tearful, maudlin affair. Yes, Astrid Ladd was genuinely sorry to see him go, but she was also half-lit from the three stiff drinks she had downed with breakfast.
David knew his grandmother drank too much, but he didn’t hassle her about it. Had she been as falling down drunk as some of the Indians hangi
ng around the trading post at Three Points, David Ladd still wouldn’t have mentioned it. Over the years, Rita Antone had schooled her Olhoni in the niceties of proper behavior. Among the Tohono O’othham, young people were taught to respect their elders, not to question or criticize them. If Astrid Ladd wanted to stay smashed much of the time, that was her business, not his.
“Promise me that you’ll come back and see me,” Astrid said, with her lower lip trembling.
“Of course I will, Grandma.”
“At Christmas?”
“I don’t know.”
“Next summer then?”
“Maybe.”
Astrid shook her head hopelessly and began to cry in earnest. “See there? I’ll probably never lay eyes on you again.”
“You will, Grandma,” he promised. “Please don’t cry. I have to go.”
She was still weeping and waving from the porch when David turned left onto Sheridan and headed south. He didn’t go far—only as far as the parking lot of Calvary Cemetery, where both David Ladd’s father and grandfather were buried. He rummaged in the backseat and brought out the two small wreaths of fresh flowers he had bought two days ago and kept in the refrigerator of his apartment until that morning.
Knowing the route to the Ladd family plot, he easily threaded his way through the trackless forest of ornate headstones and mausoleums. He didn’t much like this cemetery. It was too big, too green, too gaudy, and full of huge chunks of marble and granite. Davy had grown up attending funerals on the parched earth and among the simple white wooden crosses of reservation cemeteries. The first funeral he actually remembered was Father John’s.
A Mil-gahn and a Jesuit priest, Father John was in his eighties and already retired when Davy first met him. He had been there, in the house at Gates Pass and imprisoned in the root cellar along with Rita and Davy, on the day of the battle with the evil Ohb. Father John had died a little more than a year later.
In all the hubbub of preparation for Diana Ladd’s wedding to Brandon Walker, no one had noticed how badly Father John was failing. And that was exactly as he had intended. The aged priest had agreed to perform the ceremony, and he used all his strength to ensure that nothing marred the joy of the happy young couple on their wedding day. Of all the people gathered at San Xavier for the morning ceremony, only Rita had sensed what performing the ceremony was costing the old priest in terms of physical exertion and vitality.
Honoring his silence, she too, had kept quiet about it—at least to most of the bridal party. But not to Davy.
“Watch out for Father John, Olhoni,” Nana Dahd murmured as she straightened the boy’s tie and smoothed his tuxedo in preparation to Davy’s walking his mother down the aisle. “If he looks too tired, come and get me right away.”
The admonition puzzled Davy. “Is Father John sick?”
“He’s old,” Rita answered. “He’s an old, old man.”
“Is he going to die?” Davy asked.
“We’re all going to die sometime,” she had answered.
“Even you?”
She smiled. “Even me.”
But Father John had made it through the wedding mass with flying colors. He died three days later, while Brandon and Diana Walker were still in Mazatlán on their honeymoon. The frantic barking of Davy’s dog, Bone, had awakened Davy in the middle of the night.
Keeping the dog with him for protection as he peered out through a front window, Davy saw a man climbing out of a big black car parked in the driveway. As soon as the man stepped up onto the porch, Davy recognized Father Damien, the young priest from San Xavier.
Even Davy knew that having a priest come to the house in the middle of the night could not mean good news. He hurried to the door. “What’s wrong?” he demanded through the still-closed door as the priest’s finger moved toward the button on the bell.
“I’m looking for someone named Rita Antone,” Father Damien said hesitantly, as though he wasn’t quite sure whether or not his information was correct. “Does she live here?”
“What is it, Davy?” Rita asked, materializing silently out of the darkness at the back of the house.
“It’s Father Damien,” Davy answered. “He’s looking for you.”
Nana Dahd unlocked the dead bolt and opened the door. “I’m Rita,” she said.
The priest looked relieved. “It’s Father John, Mrs. Antone,” he said apologetically. “I’m sorry to bother you at this hour of the night, but he’s very ill. He’s asking for you.”
Rita nodded. “Get dressed right away, Davy,” she said. “We must hurry.”
They left the house a few minutes later. There was never any question of Davy’s staying at the house by himself. Ever since Andrew Carlisle had burst into the house on that summer afternoon, there had been an unspoken understanding between Rita and Diana that Davy was not to be left alone. On their way to town, Rita rode in the front seat with the priest while Davy huddled in the back.
“Where is he?” Nana Dahd asked.
“He was at Saint Mary’s,” the priest answered. “In the intensive care unit, but this afternoon he made them let him out. He’s back at the rectory.”
At the mission, Rita took Davy by the hand and dragged him with her as Father Damien led the way. They found Father John sitting propped up on a mound of pillows in a small, cell-like room. He lifted one feeble hand in greeting. On the white chenille bedspread where his hand had rested lay Father John’s rosary—his losalo—with its black shiny beads and olive wood crucifix.
Davy Ladd was an Anglo—a Mil-gahn—but he had been properly raised—brought up in the Indian way. He melted quietly into the background while Rita sank down on the hard-backed chair beside the dying man’s bed. Out of sight in the shadowy far corner of the room, Davy sat cross-legged and listened to the murmured conversation, hanging on every mysterious word.
“Thank you for coming, Dancing Quail,” Father John whispered. His voice was very weak. He wheezed when he spoke. The air rustled in his throat like winter wind whispering through sun-dried grass.
“You should have called,” Rita chided gently. “I would have come sooner.”
Father John shook his head. “They wouldn’t let me. I was in intensive care. Only relatives…”
Rita nodded and then waited patiently, letting Father John rest awhile before he continued. “I wanted to ask your forgiveness,” he said. “Please.”
“I forgave you long ago,” she returned. “When you agreed to help us with the evil Ohb, I forgave you then.”
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you so much.”
There was another long period of silence. Nodding, Davy almost drifted off to sleep before Father John’s voice startled him awake once more.
“Please tell me about your son,” the old man said quietly. “The one who disappeared in Korea. His name was Gordon, I believe. Was that the child? Was he my son?”
Rita shook her head. There was a small reading lamp on the table beside Father John’s bed. The dim light from that caught the two tracks of tears meandering down Rita’s broad wrinkled cheeks.
“No,” she answered. “I lost that baby in California. When I was real sick, a bad doctor took the baby from me before it was time.”
There was a sharp intake of breath from the man on the bed, followed by a fit of coughing. “A boy or a girl?” Father John asked at last when he could speak once more.
“I don’t know,” Rita said. “I never saw it. They put me to sleep. When I woke up, the baby was gone.”
“When I heard about the murder, I assumed Gina was…”
Again Rita shook her head. “No. Gina was my husband Gordon’s granddaughter, not yours. Gordon took care of me when I was sick in California that time when I lost the baby. If it hadn’t been for him, I would have died, too. Gordon was a good man. He was a good husband who gave me a good son.”
“Gordon Antone.” Father John said the name carefully, as if testing the feel of the words on his lips. “Someone else I must pr
ay for.”
“Rest now,” Rita said. “Try to get some sleep.”
Instead Father John reached out, picked up the rosary, and then dropped it into the palm of Rita’s hand before closing her fingers over it.
“Keep this for me,” he urged. “I have used it to pray for you every day for all these years. I won’t need it any longer.”
Without a word, Rita slipped the beads and crucifix into her pocket. Father John drifted off to sleep then. Eventually, so did Davy. When he awakened the next morning, the room was chilly, but Davy himself was warm. Overnight someone had put a pillow under his head and had covered him with a blanket. Rita, with her chin resting on her collarbone, still sat stolidly in the chair beside Father John’s bed, dozing. She woke up a few minutes later. The priest did not.
At age seven, this was Davy Ladd’s first personal experience with death. He had thought it would be scary, but somehow it wasn’t. He knew instinctively that in the room that night he had shared something beautiful with those two people, something important, although it would be years before he finally figured out exactly what it was.
In the three years David Ladd had been in Chicago, he had come to Calvary Cemetery often in hopes of establishing some kind of connection between himself and the names etched into the marble monuments of the Ladd family plot. The worldly remains of Garrison Walther Ladd II and III lay on either side of a headstone bearing his grandmother’s name. The only difference between Astrid’s grave marker and the other two was the lack of a date.
Respectfully, David put the wreath on his grandfather’s grave first. He had come to Chicago several times to visit his grandparents, first as a youngster and later as a teenager, flying out by himself over holidays along with all those other children being shuttled between custodial and non-custodial parents during school vacations. The flight attendants who had been designated to transfer him from plane to plane or from plane to the Ladds had always assumed that Davy was the product of a cross-country divorce. And some of the time he had gone along with that fiction, making up stories about where his father lived and what he did for a living. That was easier and far more fun than telling people the truth—that his father was dead.
