Dance of the Bones (14 page)

Asking him to help us and 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 remember all these things

I have sung to you in this magic song.

You must listen very carefully

And do exactly what I say.

If I tell you to run and hide yourself,

You must run as fast as Wind Man.

Run fast and hide yourself

And do not look back.

Whatever happens, little Olhoni,

You must run and not look back.

Then, as seamlessly as if it were a new track on a much-­loved CD, the next war chant returned to her as well, with every word and every nuance intact. And as Lani recalled the words, she was once again inside Betraying Woman's hidden cavern beneath Ioligam, trapped there with her own personal evil
ohb
. Mitch Johnson, deputized by Andrew Carlisle to kill her, had been waiting for Quentin Walker—­the brother who was not her brother—­to return. It was while she and Mitch waited in an ugly, lingering silence that Lani had finally understood what would happen: once Quentin returned, Mitch Johnson would kill them both.

Lani had closed her eyes then, making the darkness of the cavern even darker. And now, sitting outside by the fire, she closed her eyes again. As she did so, all the sensations of that long-­ago time came spooling back to her along with the words to the chant. She could smell the sharp, acrid stink of Mitch Johnson's sweat; she could feel the calming touch of the damp soil against her skin; she could hear, somewhere in the far distance, the tiny drip of water; then suddenly and overhead, she felt the gentle touch of a bat's wing, ruffling her hair and telling her what she must do:

Oh, little Nanakumal
who lives forever in darkness,

Oh, little Nanakumal who lives forever in I'itoi's sacred cave,

Give me your strength so I will not be frightened,

So I will stay in a safe place where the evil ohb cannot come.

For years Betraying Woman has been here with you,

For years your Bat Strength has kept her safe,

Waiting until I could come and set her free

By smashing her pottery prison against a rocky wall.

Keep me safe now, too, little Nanakumal,

Keep me safe from this new evil ohb.

Teach me to be juhagi—­resilient—­in the coming battle

So this jiawul—­this devil—­does not win.

Oh, little Nanakumal who lives forever in darkness,

Whose passing wings changed me into a warrior,

Be with me now as I face this danger.

Protect me in the coming battle and keep me safe.

Even as Lani had sung those words long ago, with Mitch Johnson listening and not comprehending, she had realized that the chant had contained words that were hers and not hers, all at the same time. Her ­people believed in singing for power, and her words had come unbidden from some ancient magic place, the same place Rita Antone had tapped into as she sang her warrior chant to Davy Ladd even longer ago. It was no surprise that the words gave Lani comfort now—­the same kind of comfort and strength they had given her in that earlier time. Somehow she knew that in I'itoi's world, those two other times and this time were all the same.

Realizing she was growing drowsy, Lani looked at the fire and resisted the temptation to add another log. The fire had burned long enough that there would be plenty of coals to last until morning. Then she snuggled into her bedroll. The ground may have been hard beneath her body, but she was too tired to notice.

 

CHAPTER 13

THE BROTHER OFFERED TO PAY
I
'
itoi for saving his sister, but all the Spirit of Goodness asked for was a bobcat skin to hold arrows. Then Beautiful Girl and her brother went back home. Before many days passed, Coyote came once more to the home of Beautiful Girl with another message from Big Man, saying that the girl must marry Big Man. This time the brother was in the house and heard what Coyote said. The brother told his sister to pay no attention to that no-­account Coyote and to get rid of him because he might have mange.

This made Coyote very angry. He said that if Beautiful Girl did not marry Big Man, then the man would come along with the ­people from his village and kill both Beautiful Girl and her brother. Then Coyote went away.

The brother and sister talked things over. Beautiful Girl said she did not want to marry Big Man. She said she did not want to marry anyone. She said that if trouble came, she would run away to the Eastern Sky
—­
Si
'
al tahgio Kahchm. She said that she would stay up there in the Eastern Sky and only show herself to those who rose early in the morning to do their work. She said she would smile on the ­people who rose early and make them smile in return.

The brother, too, said he would rather live in the air, but he said that sometimes he would like to come back to the earth. He said he would like to come back with a bounce and a shake so ­people would know he was there.

When Coyote went back to the village and told his story, Big Man was very, very angry. He called all his friends together. The next day Big Man and his friends took their bows and arrows and went looking for Beautiful Girl and her brother. The girl saw them coming and tried to warn her brother, but he didn
'
t seem to care very much.

As Big Man and his friends came closer, Beautiful Girl saw there was no hope, so she hurried off to the Eastern Sky just as she had said she would do.

THE RATTLE OF AUTOMATIC GUNFIRE
echoing across the landscape startled Lani awake. The rest of the desert had fallen eerily quiet. Lani held her breath, listening, but she wasn't the only one who sensed danger. So did the Little ­People—­Ali-­chu'uchum O'odham—­and the insects fell quiet as well
.
It was oppressively dark. The fire had died down, and the moon had crossed over to the back of Ioligam, leaving that part of the mountain entirely in shadow.

Lani had heeded her husband's advice. She had come on the campout armed and had slept with her Glock under her bedroll. Retrieving it, she stood up and crept over to the edge of the clearing. Concealed by the sheltering manzanita, she peered down at the desert below. For a time—­she wasn't sure how long—­nothing happened. A long time later another blast of distant gunfire made its way up the mountain.

Lani darted to her backpack and dug through it until she found her cell phone. Although she had confiscated Gabe's phone, she had kept her own, turned off and tucked securely in an outside pocket. It seemed to take forever for the device to finally come online, but when it did, there was no signal, as in zero. She tried sending a text to Dan, but it bounced back as undelivered. The population in this part of the reservation was too scarce to warrant the building of private cell towers, and the tribe couldn't afford to install them, either.

Shaking as much from fear as from the cold, Lani wrapped the bedroll around her shoulders and returned to her lookout point. Even though the phone hadn't worked, the bright light from the screen had momentarily left her night blind. Once she could see again, she spotted a pinprick of light, bouncing here and there in a back-­and-­forth movement across the desert landscape far below.

In the dark, Lani couldn't be sure, but she suspected the action was in the neighborhood of Rattlesnake Skull charco. Pulling her eyes from the moving light—­a flashlight, presumably—­she stared off across the valley at a place where the lights from a single vehicle driving westbound on Highway 86 had just rounded the low-­lying hill a mile or so from the reservation boundary.

Lani knew that a permanent Border Patrol checkpoint was situated another mile east of the hill, just before the bridge over Brawley Wash. She had heard the gunfire quite clearly, and she knew that sound travels a long way on a still desert night. But she also knew from things Dan had said that the checkpoint guys generally spent the long chilly nights huddled around a space heater inside their guard shack with their music turned to the max. The fact that there were no red lights flashing on the approaching vehicle indicated that this was most likely a private one rather than some kind of patrol car. Or, if it did happen to be an official vehicle—­Border Patrol, Law and Order, or Highway Patrol—­it was someone doing a routine patrol rather than responding to a specific incident.

As she watched, the flashlight was extinguished. A moment later, a pair of headlights bloomed in the desert on what she was now sure was the near side of Coleman Road, the Rattlesnake Skull village side of the road. She watched, puzzled, as the headlights seemed to move backward along what had to be Coleman Road. When the vehicle reached the intersection with the highway, she thought at first that it was turning right to head into Tucson. That was exactly what Lani wanted to see happen. She glanced at her watch. The illumined dial said 4:16. If the driver turned right and headed into Tucson, the cameras at the checkpoint would maintain an exact record of who had passed that way at that hour of the night.

Unfortunately, the vehicle backed onto the highway, then changed gears and drove in the opposite direction. The whine of rubber on blacktop as the vehicle gathered speed carried across the desert to Lani's mountain perch. She watched and listened until first the headlights and finally the taillights were obscured by the bulk of Ioligam itself. Long after the lights disappeared, she could still hear the whine of tires. So he was driving in a forward gear now, but he had driven for the better part of a mile in reverse. Why would he have done that? Why?

As the sound faded, so did Lani's immediate sense of danger. Whoever had been down there shooting off a weapon was gone now. She staggered back to the fire. As she sat down to warm herself, she was filled with a smothering sense of foreboding.

Something was terribly wrong. That sense had been with her since she was first jolted awake, but it was only as the fire flared up with newly added wood that she allowed that terrible misgiving to turn into a cohesive thought. Gabe! What about Gabe? When he stormed off the mountain, he must have passed that way, but surely that was hours ago. He couldn't possibly have been involved in whatever had just happened down there. Surely not.

Shortly after the sounds from the one vehicle disappeared, Lani heard another one approaching and slowing. She stood up again and peered down the mountain as this new vehicle turned onto Coleman Road. Searchlights mounted on the roof sprang to life and probed the surrounding landscape. It seemed to her that some of the rays were pointed toward the same spot from which the gunfire had come, but by then the bad guys were gone. There was nothing left to see. In any case, the unsuspecting vehicle continued southward to Coleman Road.

With nothing else to be done, Lani heated a pot of water and made herself a cup of prickly pear tea. Then she sat with her trembling hands cupped around the metal cup, hoping the heat from that would help settle her. At last, seeking reassurance, she reached for her medicine basket.

Her first inclination was to open the pouch that held the
wiw,
the sacred tobacco, but she didn't. Her throat, unaccustomed to smoking, was still raw from the night before. Instead, she located her divining crystals. Had things gone differently that night, she might have given them to Gabe. Since they were still in her possession, she spilled them into the palm of her hand and then, one by one, she held them up, peering at the flickering flame through each hunk of crystal.

She wasn't sure if what she saw was in the crystal itself or if it was only in her mind's eye, but it was the same image she had seen in the sacred smoke—­a woman, a Milgahn woman who, despite being Anglo and not susceptible to Staying Sicknesses, was also a Dangerous Object.

Lani understood this even though she couldn't explain it. And without knowing what kind of Dangerous Object the woman was, it was difficult to tell what kind of treatment might be required.

And so, warmed by the fire, and with Morning Star gleaming in the east, Lani closed her fist around the stones and began to sing:

Oh, I
'
itoi who is also Spirit of Goodness and Elder Brother,

Please hear me as your daughter calls to you

Asking for your help. A dangerous object is loose in the world.

A dangerous object with silver hair and white skin.

I do not know who this woman is, but she is a danger,

A danger to a boy named Gabe Ortiz who is the son of my heart.

Help me to see my way to find this evil woman.

Help me understand why she is a danger.

Help me to protect Gabe, Elder Brother,

In the same way Nana Dahd protected Davy,

In the same way Betraying Woman protected me.

We need your help so the ghostly woman does not win.

As the sun came up over the distant Tucson Mountains in the east, Lani sang the song over and over, always in sets of four, because four is a magic number all by itself; because all of nature goes in fours.

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU
mean, one of them got away?” Ava demanded into the phone. “How is that even possible?”

“Sorry. I was struggling with Paul, and the youngest one got loose. I'm looking for him now.”

“Sorry my ass! You should be way more than sorry. What about the diamonds? Did you find them?”

“Not yet, but once I catch up with Tim . . .”

“He's what, twelve years old? Thirteen? You just let him take off and now you can't find him?”

“I know which way he went. I'll find him.”

“You'd better,” Ava said. “I want my diamonds back, and I want that damned kid taken out. Those asshole Indians stick together like dog shit on a shoe.”

“What about Max?”

“What about him?”

“Once he hears about what's happened . . .”

“Don't worry about Max. You take care of the kid and retrieve the diamonds. I already told you, I'll handle Max.”

“Yes, ma'am,” the man said. “I hear you loud and clear.”

Bristling with anger, Ava closed the phone. She heard the nurse out in the kitchen, banging around, starting another pot of coffee, and fixing Harold's breakfast. Ava didn't usually put in an appearance until all that had been handled. Right now, she needed to make sure the Max José problem would be handled sooner rather than later.

The crew she had in Florence had come in handy on more than one occasion. One was a guard; the rest were inmates—­lifers, mostly, with nothing more to lose. When they did a job for her, she made sure that all payments went to family members who were far enough removed from the action that nothing could be traced back to the actual doers or traced back to her, either.

Ava's operation was small enough not to attract attention from the cartels, and deadly enough that ­people usually did exactly as they were told. As for the guy who'd just called her? He was a dead man walking even if he didn't know it yet. Once he recovered her diamonds, he'd be gone, too. The desert was a big place with plenty of hidey-­holes where dumped bodies would never be found.

Ava finished her calls, knowing she'd done all she could for the time being, then she went back to bed, hoping to grab a little more sleep. It was going to be a busy day.

SOME TIME LATER, AFTER SUNRISE,
Lani was startled out of her contemplations by yet another gunshot—­a single one this time. Once again, she peered off the mountain, scanning the desert for any signs of life. No vehicles were visible. Was this related to what had happened earlier? In the silence that followed the gunshot there was no way to tell.

Leo Ortiz arrived a ­couple of hours later, at ten past eight. By then Lani had packed up her stuff and Gabe's as well. She'd also doused the fire with the remainder of her water and carefully buried the ashes. She heard Leo's powerful pickup growling its way up the mountain long before the man himself appeared outside the clearing.

Lani had considered hiking down the trail to meet him, but in the end, she simply sat beside the backpacks and waited. When Leo finally showed up, he was panting with exertion. He looked around the clearing and frowned. “Where's Gabe?” he asked.

That was not the question Lani was expecting. Her heart fell. Her stomach clenched. “Isn't he home?”

“He wasn't when we got home this morning. Why isn't he here?”

“He got mad at me and left,” Lani admitted. “He said he was going home.”

“You let him walk off just like that?” Leo demanded accusingly. “You should have called. It was just a dance. I would have left there in a minute to come get him.”

Lani didn't lie and claim she had tried to call. Instead, she held up her useless cell phone. “No signal,” she said.

“There's a radio in the truck,” Leo said. “I can call home on that.”

The trip down to the truck was made in heavy silence. Leo was naturally quiet, but he was also angry, and Lani knew it. As for Lani? If Gabe wasn't home, if he had been the target of some of those gunshots . . . She couldn't bear to consider it.

Leo flipped the two packs he was carrying into the bed of the truck, then went straight to the radio. “He's home,” Leo said a moment later. “Delia said he just woke up and scared her to death because she had no idea he was there. He was in his bedroom with the door closed. We didn't bother checking his room when we got home because he wasn't supposed to be there.”