J. Jance - Kiss the Bees

Looking at the skeleton, Lani knew immediately that the bones belonged to a woman of some wealth. The pots alone were an indication of that. Most likely there had been baskets once as well, but those, like the woman's flesh, had long since decayed and melted back into the earth-leaving behind only the harder stuff-the clay pottery and the bones. And one day, Lani's bones would be found here as well. Unknown and unrelated to one another in life, she and this other woman would be sisters in death. Lani took some small comfort in knowing that she would not be left there alone.

Across from her, Mitch sat down on something hard, something that supported his weight-a rock of some kind. In the moments before he switched off his flashlight, Lani realized he was rubbing his knee, massaging it, as though he had twisted it perhaps. It was a small thing, but nevertheless something to remember.

Sitting cross-legged on the hard ground, Lani reached out one arm, expecting to rest some of her weight on that one hand. Instead of encountering the dirt floor, her hand blundered into one of the remaining pots-one of the smaller ones. As Lani's exploring fingers strayed silently around the smooth edge of the neck of the pot, a powerful realization shot through her, something that was as much chehchki — dream-as it was understanding.

This pot had once belonged to Oks Gagda — to Betraying Woman. Lani knew the story. She had heard the legend from Nana Dahd and from Davy as well. The legend-the ha'icha ahgidathag — of Betraying Woman-was a cautionary tale that told how a young girl whose birth name had long since disappeared into oblivion had once fallen in love with an Apache-an Ohb. When an enemy war party had attacked her village, the girl had betrayed her people to their dreaded enemy. Much later, the bad girl was brought back home and punished. According to the legend, I'itoi locked her in a cave and then called the mountain down around her, leaving her to die alone and in the dark.

Lani had lived all her life with those beloved I'itoi stories and traditions, but there was a part of her that discounted them. Over the years she had stopped believing in them in much the same way she eventually had stopped believing in Santa Claus. Although legends of Saint Nicholas and the I'itoi stories as well may both have had some distant basis in fact, by age sixteen Lani no longer regarded them as true. The stories and the lessons to be learned from them were part of her culture but not necessarily part of her life.

She had been eight years old when Davy broke the bad news to her, that Santa Claus didn't exist. Nana Dahd was gone by then, so Lani hadn't been able to go to her for consolation. For the first time, without Rita there to comfort her, Lani had turned to her mother-to Diana Ladd Walker. And it was in her mother's arms that she had learned that the wonder and magic of Christmas hadn't gone out of her life forever.

Feeling the cool, smooth clay under her fingertips, Lani felt the return of another kind of magic. Oks Gagda — Betraying Woman-did exist. She had been locked in a cave by the falling mountain just the way Nana Dahd had said. But now Lani knew something about that story that she had never known before. Betraying Woman had been locked in a cave with two entrances. If she had known about the other entrance, she might have simply walked away, rather than staying to endure her punishment. In a way she would never be able to explain to anyone else, Lani Walker grasped the significance of what had happened. Oks Gagda had willingly chosen to remain where she was, choosing the honor of jehka'ich — of suffering the consequences of her wickedness-rather than taking the coward's path and running away.

A wave of gooseflesh raced across Lani's body. She had left her people-hair basket behind, but I'itoi had sent her another talisman to take the basket's place. Carefully, making as little noise as possible, she lifted the small sturdy pot from where it had sat undisturbed for all those years and placed it, out of sight, in the triangular space formed by her crossed legs.

"What are you doing over there?" Mitch demanded, shining a blinding beam from his flashlight directly in her eyes.

"Nothing," Lani said. "Just trying to get comfortable."

"You stay right where you are," Mitch warned. "No funny business."

Lani said nothing more. Covering the perfectly round opening of the pot with the palm of her hand, Lani closed her eyes. With the cool rim of clay touching her skin, Lani let the words of Nana Dahd 's long-ago song flow silently through her whole being.

Do not look at me, Little Olhoni

Do not look at me when I sing to you

So this man will not know we are speaking

So this evil man will think he is winning.

Do not look at me when I sing, LittleOlhoni,

But listen to what I say. This man is evil.

This man is the enemy. This man is Ohb.

Do not let this frighten you.

Whatever happens, we must not let him win.

I am singing a war song, LittleOlhoni.

A hunter's song, a killer's song.

I am singing a song to I'itoi, asking him to help us.

Asking him to 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 listen very carefully

And do exactly what I say.

If I tell you to run, you must run,

Run fast, and do not look back.

Whatever happens, Little Olhoni.

You must run and not look back.

Remember in the story howI'itoi made himself a fly

And hid in the smallest crack when Eagleman

Came searching for him. Be like I'itoi,

Little Olhoni. Be like I'itoi and hide yourself

In the smallest crack. Hide yourself somewhere

And do not come out again until the battle is over.

Listen to what I sing to you, Little Olhoni.

Do not look at me but do exactly as I say.

Lani paused sometimes between verses to listen. Outside the cave's entrance, cool nighttime air rustled through the manzanita, making a sighing sound like people whispering-or like a'ali chum — little children-gossiping and sharing secrets. Maybe it was that sound that brought Betraying Woman back to Lani's attention. Not only had she been left to die in the cave, her spirit was still there, trapped forever in the prison of her unbroken pots.

"Pots are made to be broken," Nana Dahd had told her time and again. "Always the pots must be broken."

And that was why, in Rita's medicine basket, there had once been a single shard of pottery with the figure of a turtle etched into it. The piece of reddish-brown clay had come from a pot Rita's grandmother, Oks Amichuda-Understanding Woman-had made when she was a young woman. After Understanding Woman's death, Rita herself had smashed the pot to pieces, releasing her grandmother's spirit. The only thing Rita had saved was that one jagged-edged piece.

For just a moment, in that dim gray light, Lani thought she saw the pale figure of a woman glide behind the man who called himself Mitch Vega. Lani saw the figure pause and then move on.

The shadowy shape was there for such a brief moment that at first Lani thought, perhaps, she had made her up. But then, as Lani kept on singing, a strange peace enveloped her. She felt perfectly calm-as though she were being swept along in the untroubled stillness inside a whirlwind. And since Lani understood by then that, like Betraying Woman, she was going to die anyway, there was no longer any reason for her to remain silent.

"Why do you hate them?" she asked.

"Hate who?" Mitch returned.

"My parents," Lani answered. "That's why you've done all this-drugged me, drugged Quentin, brought us here. That's the reason you drew that awful picture of me, as well. To get at my parents, but I still don't understand why."