J. Jance - Kiss the Bees

How had they done that? And if, from the vantage point of being that well-loved child, Davy himself couldn't answer that question, how in God's name would he ever be able to explain it to anyone else, including Candace Waverly?

By then the beads were laid out across his palm. He began slowly, one bead at a time, silently moving his lips as he recited the words. "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen."

Halfway through the process, probably somewhere over Colorado, someone tapped on his right arm. Startled, he looked up. The lady next to him was smiling a benignly cheery smile.

"I know just how you feel," she said. "I used to be afraid of flying, too, young man. But they have classes for that kind of thing these days. I took one at Pima Community College a few years back. You might look into taking one yourself. Those classes don't cost very much, and they help. They really do."

Blushing furiously, Davy dropped Father John's losalo back into his pocket. "Thank you," he said. "I'll try to look into it as soon as I have a chance."

Leaving the hospital, Fat Crack Ortiz stopped by the Walker house in Gates Pass long enough to see that no one was home. After that he headed the Crown Victoria toward Sells. No doubt the dance was still going strong, but he didn't even pause at the Little Tucson turnoff. Instead, he drove on home.

When he had warned Brandon Walker of danger the day before, it hadn't occurred to him that the danger in question, the evil emanating from Diana's book, might fall on Lani. He had expected Diana herself to be the target, never Lani.

Once he reached the house, he was grateful to discover that Wanda still wasn't home. Although she tolerated his medicine-man status, she certainly wasn't thrilled by it. Gabe went straight to the wooden desk and retrieved Looks At Nothing's medicine pouch. Then he went outside. Using a stick of mesquite, he stood in the middle of the dirt-floored patio and used the stick to draw a circle around himself. Then he eased himself down on the hard ground in exactly the way the old blind medicine man would have prescribed.

With the porch light providing the only light, he opened the pouch and took out a rolled cigarette made from wiw — wild tobacco-that Fat Crack had carefully gathered and rolled into the ceremonial cigarettes. Digging further, he located Looks At Nothing's old Zippo lighter, which had become almost as much a part of the duajida — the nighttime divination ceremony-as the billowing smoke itself. Then, opening a second, smaller bag made of some soft, chamois-like material, Fat Crack peered inside at the crystals he knew were there.

In all the years Fat Crack Ortiz had been in possession of the medicine pouch, he had seldom touched the crystals or taken them out of their protective bag. But if any occasion called for the use of Looks At Nothing's most powerful medicine, this was it. Lani Walker was in danger. The old medicine man had been dead long before Rita Antone's ant-kissed child had been born. Nonetheless, his influence, even from the grave, had directed almost every aspect of Lani's young life, from her unusual adoption to the things she had been taught by the people who had been placed in charge of caring for her.

The responsibility of caring for the child had been left to a number of people, but Looks At Nothing's medicine pouch had been entrusted to Fat Crack alone. The treasured pouch had come to him with the understanding that the Medicine Man with the Tow Truck would save it for Looks At Nothing's real successor. For a time, while the children were young, Fat Crack had fooled himself into believing that the mantle would fall to one or the other of his own two sons-to either Richard or Leo. And then, when Rita had insisted on taking Clemencia Escalante to raise, she had told her nephew that perhaps the ant-marked baby was the one Looks At Nothing had told them about. Over the years, Fat Crack had come to believe that was true.

Carefully, patiently, Fat Crack unknotted the drawstring that held the chamois bag closed. Holding out an upturned hand, he dumped the collection of crystals into his palm. There were four of them in all. As soon as Fat Crack saw the four of them winking back the reflected glow of the porch light, he had to smile. Four crystals made sense. After all, as everyone knows, all things in nature go in fours.

Arranging them side by side, Fat Crack laid the crystals and the cigarette and lighter out on the spread leather surface of the pouch, then he reached into his hip pocket and pulled out his wallet. Carefully he thumbed through the school pictures of his own children and grandchildren until he found the one Lani had given him the year before at Christmas.

He lit the cigarette and let the smoke swirl around him in the late-night breeze. There was no one sitting in the circle with him, but Fat Crack raised the cigarette and blew a puff of smoke in each of the four directions, just as Looks At Nothing had taught him, saying "Nawoj" as he did so.

While the cigarette still glowed in his fingertips, Fat Crack lifted up the first crystal and held it over Lani's picture. Nothing happened. It was the same with the second crystal and with the third as well.

The sky was gradually lightening in the east and Fat Crack was already thinking how foolish he must look sitting there on the ground when he picked up the fourth crystal and held it over the picture. What happened then was something he could never explain. It simply was. The picture on the paper changed ever so slightly until something else superimposed itself over Lani's smiling face.

At first Fat Crack thought he was seeing the head of a rattlesnake, its jaws open wide to swallow something, its fangs fully exposed. This was not a snake's head. It was, in fact, a snake's skull- ko'oi koshwa. Then, as Fat Crack leaned down to examine the picture more closely, he realized the picture underneath the skull seemed changed as well. In the slowly eddying smoke, he saw that Lani's eyes were missing. Instead of eyes smiling back at him, there were only empty sockets.

The message from the divining crystals was clear. If Lani Walker wasn't already dead, she soon would be.

Fat Crack's hands shook as he carefully returned the crystals and lighter to the medicine pouch. He was just closing it and trying to decide what to do with this newfound, awful knowledge when the headlights from Richard Ortiz's tow truck flashed across the yard. With an agility that surprised Fat Crack even as he did it, he heaved his hefty frame up off the ground and hurried toward the truck. He reached the rider's door just as Wanda climbed out and turned to tell Richard good-bye.

" Oi g hihm," Fat Crack said to his son, hoisting himself up into the seat Wanda had just vacated. Literally translated, oi g hihm means "Let's walk." In the everyday language of the reservation, however, it means "Let's get in the pickup and go."

"Where are you going?" Wanda demanded, catching the door before Gabe had a chance to close it.

"To Rattlesnake Skull Charco," he said. "Call Brandon Walker and tell him to meet me there. Tell him that's where we'll find Lani. Tell him to hurry before it's too late."

"What's wrong with Lani?" Wanda Ortiz asked in alarm. "Is she hurt, sick? What's going on?"

"She's been kidnapped," Fat Crack answered without hesitation. "I believe she's been taken by someone connected to the evil Ohb. If we don't find her soon, that person is going to kill her, if he hasn't already."

Wanda nodded and stepped back from the truck. "I'll call the Walkers right away," she said.

Richard Ortiz shifted the tow truck into reverse. "We're not talking more of that old medicine-man nonsense, are we?" he asked dubiously.

This was no time for a philosophical discussion. "Shut up and drive, Baby," Fat Crack told his son. "And while you're at it, put the flashers on."