J. Jance - Kiss the Bees

Lani had been too young to realize all that was happening when Tommy disappeared, but she had watched her grim-faced parents deal with the first Quentin crisis. She had been at the far end of the living room working on a basket the night after Quentin Walker was sentenced for the drunk-driving conviction. Brandon had come into the house, shambled over to the couch, slumped down on it, and buried his face in his hands.

"Five years," he had groaned. "On the one hand it seems like a long time and yet it's nothing. He killed three people, for God's sake! How can a five-year sentence make up for that, especially when he'll probably be out in three?"

"That's what the law says," Diana returned, but Brandon remained unconvinced and uncomforted.

"Judge Davis could have given him more if he had wanted to. I can't help thinking that it's because I'm the sheriff…"

"Brandon, you have to let go of that," Diana said. "First you blame yourself for Quentin being a drunk, and now you're taking responsibility for the judge's sentence. Quentin did what he did and so did the judge. Neither one of those results has anything at all to do with you."

Lani had put her basket aside and hurried over to the couch, where she snuggled up next to her father. "It's not your fault, Daddy," she said confidently, taking one of his hands in both of hers. "You didn't do it."

"See there?" Diana had smiled. "If Lani's smart enough to see it at her age, what's the matter with you?"

"Stubborn, maybe?" Brandon had returned with a weak smile of his own.

"Not stubborn maybe," Diana answered. "Stubborn for sure."

So the family had weathered that crisis in fairly good shape. The next one, when it came, was far worse. As near as Lani could tell, it all started about the time the letter arrived from a man named Andrew Carlisle, the same person Nana Dahd had always referred to as the evil Ohb. Within months, Diana was working on a book project with Andrew Carlisle while Brandon stalked in and out of the house in wounded silence.

Lani was hard-pressed to understand how the very mention of Carlisle's name was able to cause a fight, but from a teenager's point of view, that wasn't all bad. The growing wedge between her parents allowed Lani Walker to play both ends against the middle. She was able to get away with things her older brother Davy never could have.

It was during the summer when Lani turned thirteen that the next scandal surfaced concerning Quentin Walker. Still imprisoned at Florence, he was the subject of a new investigation. He was suspected of being involved in a complex protection racket that had its origins inside the prison walls. By the time school started at the end of the summer, a sharp-eyed defense attorney had gotten Quentin off on a technicality, but all of Tucson was abuzz with speculation about Brandon Walker's possible involvement with his son's plot.

The whole mess was just surfacing in the media the week Lani Walker started eighth grade. At home the inflammatory newspaper headlines and television news broadcasts were easy to ignore. All Lani had to do was to skip reading the paper or turn off the TV. At school that strategy didn't work.

"Your father's a crook." Danny Jenkins, the chief bully of Maxwell Junior High, whispered in Lani's ear as the yellow school bus rumbled down the road. "You wait and see. Before long, he'll end up in prison, too, just like his son."

Lani had turned to face her tormentor. Red-haired, rednecked, and pugnacious, Danny had made Lani's life miserable from the moment he had first shown up in Tucson two years earlier after moving there from Mobile, Alabama.

"No, he won't!" Lani hissed furiously.

"Will, too."

"Prove it."

"Why should I? It says so on TV. That means it's true, doesn't it?"

"No, it doesn't, s-koshwa — stupid," she spat back at him. "It just means you're too dumb to turn off the set."

"Wait a minute. What did you call me?"

"Nothing," she muttered.

She turned away, thinking that if she ignored him, that would be the end of it. Instead, he grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked it hard enough that the back of her head bounced off the top of the seat. Tears sprang to her eyes.

"Leave her alone, Danny," Jessica Carpenter ordered. "You're hurting her."

"She called me a name-some shitty Indian name. I want to know what it was."

Lani, with her head pulled tight against the back of the seat, clamped her lips shut. But just because Lani stayed quiet, didn't mean Jessica Carpenter would.

"I'm telling," Jessica yelled. "Driver, driver! Danny Jenkins is pulling Lani's hair."

The driver didn't bother looking over her shoulder. "Knock it off, Danny," she said. "Stop it right now or you're walking."

"But she called me a name," Danny protested. "It sounded bad. Koshi something."

"I don't care what she called you. I said knock it off."

Danny had let go of Lani's hair, but that still wasn't the end of it. "Why don't you go back to the reservation, squaw," he snarled after her as they stepped off the bus. "Why don't you go back to where you belong?"

She turned on him, eyes flashing. "Why don't you?" she demanded. "The Indians were here first."

Nobody liked Danny Jenkins much, although over time his flailing fists had earned him a certain grudging respect. But now, the kids who overheard Lani's retort laughed and applauded.

"You really told him," Jessica said approvingly later on their way to class. "He's such a jerk."

Going home that afternoon, Lani and Jessica chose seats as far from Danny as possible, but after the bus pulled out of the parking lot, he bribed the girl sitting behind Lani to trade places. When Lani and Jessica got off the bus twenty minutes later, they found that a huge wad of bubblegum had been plastered into Lani's hair.

They went into the bathroom at Jessica's house. For an hour, the two of them struggled to comb out the gum, but combing didn't work.

"It's just getting worse," Jessica said finally, giving up. "Let's call your mother. Maybe she'll know what to do."

Lani shook her head. "Mom and Dad have enough to worry about right now. Bring me the scissors."

"Scissors," Jessie echoed. "What are you going to do?"

"Cut it off."

"You can't do that," Jessie protested. "Your hair's so long and pretty…"

"Yes, I can," Lani told her friend determinedly. "And I will. It's my hair."

In the end Jessica helped wield the scissors. She cut the hair off in what was supposed to be a straight line, right at the base of Lani's neck.

"How does it look?" Lani asked as Jessica stepped back to eye her handiwork.

Jessie made a face. "Not that good," she admitted. "It's still a little crooked."

"That's all right," Lani said. "It'll grow out."

"So will mine," Jessie said, handing Lani the scissors.

For a moment, Lani didn't understand. "What do you mean?"

"Cut mine, too. People tease us about being twins. This way, we still will be."

"But what will your mother say?" Lani asked.

"The same thing yours does," Jessica returned.

Fifteen minutes later, Jessie Carpenter's hair was the same ragged length as Lani's. Before they left the bathroom, Lani gathered up all the cuttings into a plastic trash bag. Instead of putting the bag in the garbage, however, she loaded it into her backpack along with her books.

"What are you doing?" Jessica asked.

"I'm going to take it home and use it to make a basket."

"Really? Out of hair?"

Lani nodded. "Nana Dahd showed me once how to make horsehair baskets. This will be an o'othham wopo hashda — people-hair basket."

Hair had been the main topic of conversation that night at both the Walker household and at the Carpenters' just up the road.

"Whatever happened to your hair?" Brandon Walker demanded. "It looks like you got it caught in the paper cutter at school."