Authors: J. A. Jance
However painful that realization might be, Andrew Carlisle never for even a moment allowed himself to forget it. She had been far tougher, far braver, and more resourceful than he had ever expected. Carlisle’s proxy would have to be warned, in no uncertain terms, not to underestimate this woman. After all, look what she had done to him! He was locked away in prison for the rest of his natural life—shut up with no chance of parole while she was still out there somewhere, free to do whatever she liked.
Still courting elusive sleep, Andrew Carlisle tormented himself with wondering where Diana Ladd was at that very moment and what she might be doing. Right then, in the middle of the night, she was probably in that same little house down in Tucson, sleeping next to that asshole husband of hers, and reveling in the fact that one of her puny, stupid books had managed to edge its way onto the
New York Times
Best Sellers list.
There was a special radio station, available to Carlisle because he was blind, that provided audio editions of newspapers on a daily basis. Carlisle listened to the broadcasts every day. Recently, one of those had contained a feature article on Diana Ladd Walker and her newly released book.
“I have a husband and kids and a career I love,” she had said. “Most of the time I feel as though I’m living in a dream.”
Andrew Carlisle had heard those words, and they had galvanized him to action. Diana Ladd Walker was living the kind of life that had been forever denied him—one
she
had robbed him of through her own personal efforts. He felt as though every ounce of her success had been built on his own failure. That was unforgivable.
You may think it’s a dream right now
, he thought as he finally drifted off to sleep
, but with any kind of luck, I’ll turn it into a nightmare.
1
They say it happened long ago that the whole world was covered with water. I’itoi—Elder Brother—was floating around in the basket which he had made. After a time, Great Spirit came out of his basket and looked around. Everything was still covered with water, so I’itoi made himself larger and larger until shuhthagi—the water—reached only to his knees.
Then, while
I’itoi
was walking around in the water, he heard someone call. At first he paid no attention, but when the call came the fourth time, Elder Brother went to see who was shouting. And so
I’itoi
found
Jeweth Mahkai
—Earth Medicine Man—rejoicing because he was the first one to come out of the water.
Elder Brother said, “This is not true.” He explained that he himself was first, but
Jeweth Mahkai
was stubborn and insisted that he was first.
Now
I’itoi
and Earth Medicine Man, as they were talking, were standing in the south. They started toward the west. As they were going through the water—because there was as yet very little land—they heard someone else shouting.
Ban—
Coyote—was the one who was making all the noise.
I’itoi
went toward the sound, but Elder Brother went one way, and
Ban
went another. And so they passed each other. Coyote was shouting that he was the very first one out of the water and that he was all alone in the world.
I’itoi
called to
Ban,
and at last they came together. Elder Brother explained to Coyote that he was not the first. And then the three—Great Spirit, Earth Medicine Man, and Coyote—started north together. As they went over the mud,
I’itoi
saw some very small tracks.
Elder Brother said, “There must be somebody else around.” Then they heard another voice calling. It was
Bitokoi
—Big Black Beetle—which the
Mil-gahn,
the Whites, call stinkbug.
Bitokoi
told
I’itoi
that he was the very first to come out of the water.
I’itoi
did not even bother to answer him.
And then the four—Elder Brother, Earth Medicine Man, Coyote, and Big Black Beetle—went on together toward the east because, as you remember,
nawoj,
my friend, all things in nature go in fours.
JUNE 1996
Dolores Lanita Walker’s slender brown legs glistened with sweat as she pumped the mountain bike along the narrow strip of pavement that led from her parents’ house in Gates Pass to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum several miles away. Lani wasn’t due at her job at the concession stand until 9 A.M., but by going in early she had talked her way into being allowed to help with some of the other duties.
About a mile or so from the entrance, she came upon the artist with his Subaru wagon parked off on the side of the road. He had been there every morning for a week now, standing in front of an easel or sitting on a folding chair, pad in hand, sketching away as she came whizzing past with her long hair flying out behind her like a fine black cape. In the intervening days they had grown accustomed to seeing one another.
The man had been the first to wave, but now she did, too. “How’s it going?” he had asked her each morning after the first one or two.
“Fine,” she’d answer, pumping hard to gain speed before the next little lump of hill.
“Come back when you can stay longer,” he’d call after her. Lani would grin and nod and keep going.
This morning, though, he waved her down. “Got a minute?” he asked.
She pulled off the shoulder of the road. “Is something the matter?” she asked.
“No. I just wanted to show you something.” He opened a sketch pad and held it up so Lani could see it. The picture took her breath away. It was a vivid color-pencil drawing of her, riding through the sunlight with the long early-morning shadows stretching out before her and with her hair floating on air behind her.
“That’s very good,” she said. “It really does look like me.”
The man smiled. “It
is
you,” he said. “But then, I’ve had plenty of time to practice.”
Lani stood for a moment studying the picture. Her parents’ twentieth wedding anniversary was coming up soon, in less than a week. Instinctively she knew that this picture, framed, would make the perfect anniversary present for them.
“How much would it cost to buy something like this?” she asked, wondering how far her first paycheck from the museum would stretch.
“It’s not for sale,” the man said.
Lani looked away, masking her disappointment with downcast eyes. “But I might consider trading for it,” he added a moment later.
Lani brightened instantly. “Trading?” she asked. “Really?” But then disappointment settled in again. She was sixteen years old. What would she have to trade that this man might want?
“You’re an Indian, aren’t you?” he asked. Shyly, Lani nodded. “But you live here. In Tucson, I mean. Not on a reservation.”
Lani nodded again. It didn’t seem necessary to explain to this man that she was adopted and that her parents were Anglos. It was none of his business.
“I’ve tried going out to the reservation to paint several times,” he told her, “but the people seem to be really suspicious. If you’d consider posing for me, just for half an hour or so some morning, I’d give you this one for free.”
“For free? Really?”
“Sure.”
Lani didn’t have to think very long. “When would you like to do it?” she asked.
“Tomorrow morning?”
“That would work,” Lani said, “but I’d have to come by about half an hour earlier than this, otherwise I’ll be late for work.”
The man nodded. “That’s fine,” he said. “I’ll be here. And could I ask a favor?”
Lani, getting back on her bike, paused and gave him a questioning look. “What’s that?”
“Could you wear something that’s sort of . . . well, you know”—he shrugged uncomfortably—“something that looks Indian?”
Lani grinned. “How about the cowgirl shirt and hat I wore for rodeo last year? That’s what Indians all wear these days—cowboy clothes.”
“Whatever you decide,” the man said. “I’m sure it’ll be just fine.”
“I have to go,” she told him, putting one foot on the pedal and giving the bike a shove as she hopped on. “Or else I’ll be late today, too. See you tomorrow then.”
“Sure thing,” he called after her, waving again as she rode away.
Once Lani was out of sight, Mitch Johnson quickly began gathering up his material and stowing it back in the car. Soon the Subaru was headed back toward Gates Pass and toward the lookout spot up over the Walker house where he would spend the rest of the morning, watching and pretending to draw.
How was that, Andy?
he asked himself as he unpacked his gear once more and started limping up the steep hillside.
It worked just the way you always said it would. Like taking candy from a baby.
The dream that awakened David Ladd shortly before sunrise on the morning he was scheduled to leave his grandmother’s house in Evanston was the same dream that had been plaguing him and robbing him of sleep for weeks. It had come for the first time the night before he was to take his last law school exam—his final final as he thought of it—although he knew that the hurdle of passing the bar was still to come.
The recurring nightmare was one he’d had from time to time over the years, but the last time was so long ago that he had nearly forgotten it. In the dream he was standing alone in the dark—a terrible soul-numbing blackness without even the comfort of a single crack of light shining under the door.
He listened, waiting endlessly for what he knew must come—for the sound that would tell him the life-and-death battle had begun, but for a long time there was nothing at all from beyond that closed door but empty, breathless silence. Once there had been other living people trapped in the dark prison with him. Rita Antone had been there with him, as had the old priest, Father John. But they were both dead now—dead and gone—and Davy Ladd was truly alone.
Finally, from outside the terrible darkness, he heard a faint but familiar voice calling to him from his childhood.
“Olhoni, Olhoni.”
Olhoni!
Little Orphaned Calf—his secret
Tohono O’othham
name—a name David Ladd hadn’t heard spoken in years. Only Rita Antone—the beloved Indian godmother he had called Nana
Dahd
—and his sister Lani—had called him that. For years Nana
Dahd
had used Davy’s Indian name only when the two of them were alone and when there was no one else to hear. Later on she used it in the presence of Davy’s baby sister as well.
Once again Nana
Dahd
’s song flowed through the darkness, bolstering him, giving him courage:
“Listen to me, Little
Olhoni
.
Do not look at me, but do exactly as I say.”
David Ladd held his breath, straining to hear once again the comforting chanted words of the
Tohono O’othham
song Rita had sung that fateful day while the life-and-death battle between his mother and the strange bald-headed man had raged outside that closed and locked root cellar door. The man who had burst into their home earlier that afternoon was
Mil-gahn—
a white, but in the song Rita had used to summon I’itoi to help them, she had called Andrew Carlisle by the word
Ohb
. In the language of the
Tohono O’othham
—the Desert People—that single word means at once both Apache and enemy.
Nana
Dahd
’s war chant had cast a powerful spell, instilling a mysterious strength in Davy and in other members of the embattled household. That strength had been enough to save them all from the
Ohb’
s evil that awful day. Davy, Rita, the priest, Davy’s mother, and even the dog,
Oh’o
—Bone—had all been spared. At least, they had all lived. And at age six going on seven,
Mil-gahn
though he was, it had been easy for Davy Ladd to believe that
I’itoi
—Elder Brother—had interceded on their behalf; that the Spirit of Goodness had heard Nana
Dahd
’s desperate cry for help; that he had descended from his home on cloud-shrouded Baboquivari to help them vanquish their enemy.
Twenty years later, that was no longer quite so easy to accept. Even so, a grown-up David Ladd strained to listen and to gather strength from Rita’s familiar but almost forgotten words. She had chanted the song in soft-spoken, guttural Papago—a language the evil
Ohb
hadn’t been able to speak or understand. Back then Nana
Dahd
’s war song had served the dual purpose of summoning
I’itoi
to help them and also of telling a terrified little boy exactly what he had to do—what was expected of him.
But at the point where Rita’s song should have been rising to a crescendo, it dwindled away to nothing. And now, with Nana
Dahd
gone, Davy was once again alone in the dark—a helpless, terrified child listening from one side of a door while on the other his mother fought for her life against the evil
Mil-gahn
intruder.
In his dream, David waited—for what seemed like hours—for the shocking roar of gunfire that would signal the beginning of the final stage of that deadly battle. But the gunshot never came. Instead, for no apparent reason, the door fell silently and inexplicably open, as though it had been unlatched by a ghost, or by a sudden stray gust of wind.
In real life, when the door had crashed open, the
Ohb
had been lying on the floor, screaming in rage and agony, with his face burned beyond recognition by a pan full of overheated bacon grease. His skin had blistered and bubbled, leaving his features horribly distorted like a strange wax mask that had been left to melt in the searing sun. Injured and bleeding, Davy’s mother had stood over the injured man, still clutching the smoldering frying pan in her one good hand.
A terrified Davy had fled that awful scene. He had escaped through the slick, grease-spattered kitchen just as he had been ordered to do. Pushing open the sliding glass outside door, he had opened the way for his dog to get inside. Bone, outraged and bent on protecting his humans from the intruder, had hurtled into the room, going straight for the injured
Ohb
’s vulnerable throat.