J. Jance: Kiss the Bees

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 wasBitokoi — Big Black Beetle-which theMil-gahn, the Whites, call stinkbug.Bitokoi toldI'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, LittleOlhoni.

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.