J. Jance - Kiss the Bees

"You're sure you'll be all right?"

"I'm fine," she answered. "Go now. Please go!"

She heard Davy shuffling back down the passageway just as Mitch Johnson groaned again. Feeling her way around the floor of the cavern, she located another stalagmite, one that was much smaller than the hulking giant behind which she had hidden. This one was about a foot in circumference and three to four feet high.

"Ants are very strong," Nana Dahd had told her. "When they have to, they can carry more than their own weight."

Positioning her back against the large stalagmite, she pushed against the smaller one with both her feet and all her might. She pushed as hard as she could, straining until stars of effort blazed inside her head. At first it seemed as though the rock would never come loose. But then she remembered who she was- Mualig Siakam-a powerful medicine woman, someone who, with the power of her singing, could determine who would live and who would die.

Had Mitch Johnson been a little baby, surely the Woman Who Was Kissed by the Bees, Kulani O'oks, would have refused to sing.

Pushing again, Lani Walker felt the stalagmite give way slightly, rocking gently and trying to come loose from its moorings like a giant baby tooth in need of pulling. She pushed again and the rock was looser.

All things in nature go in fours. It was the fourth push that broke the huge rock free. She felt it tottering toward her and she had to push it yet again to send it tumbling in the other direction. She heard it scrape across the lip of the hole. Then, for a space of several seconds, there was no sound at all, then there was a muffled bump as the limestone boulder hit something soft and came to rest.

Holding her breath, Lani listened. In the whole of the cave, except for the steady drip of water, there was no other sound, no other being. Mitch Johnson was dead. In the emptiness of his passing, Lani realized that the spirits of Betraying Woman and Andrew Philip Carlisle had disappeared as well. The three of them had joined huhugam — those who are gone.

This time, they would not come back.

"Lani, I'm here," Davy shouted. "Brian is with me. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," she called back. "It's safe to come in now. The evil Ohb is dead."

They say it happened long ago that after the Tohono O'othham defeated the PaDaj O'othham-the Bad People-the Desert People settled in to live near Baboquivari-

I'itoi' s sacred mountain-which is the center of all things. Much later, when the firstMil-gahn, the Spaniards, came, they mistakenly called theTohono O'othham the Bean Eaters after some of the food the Indians ate. And even later, otherMil-gahn — the Anglos-came to call them Papagos.

But the Desert People have always preferred to call themselvesTohono O'othham. They have lived forever on that same land near the base ofBaboquivari. There they have raised wheat and corn, beans and pumpkins and melons. There they learned to make chu-i — flour, andhahki — a parched roasted wheat that is also called pinole. There they learned to make baskets in which to store all the food they raised.

Other people knew that the Indians who lived in the shadow ofBaboquivari were a good people-that they were always kind to each other. It was that way then, and it is the same today.

Together, Davy Ladd, Brian Fellows, and Lani Walker made their way on hands and knees down the long passageway to the hidden outside entrance. Only when the two men helped the girl to her feet did they realize that other than a pair of bloodied socks, her feet were bare.

"Where are your shoes?" Brian asked. "You can't be out here on the mountain in bare feet. I'll go back and look for them."

"No," she said. "Don't bother. I'll be fine."

The morning sky was blue overhead. Lani stretched out her bare arms and let Tash' s warm rays begin to thaw her chilled body. She was standing on her own when a sudden dizzying spell of weakness overtook her, causing her to sink down onto the warm ground itself.

Concerned, Davy knelt down beside her. "Are you all right?"

"A little dizzy is all."

"How long is it since you've had anything to eat or drink?"

"I don't know," Lani said. "I don't remember." For her, time had stopped the moment she sat down to pose for the man she thought was Mr. Vega.

Brian stood up. "I have a Coke down in the car, and a blanket, too. Wait here while I go get them."

"Did he hurt you?" Davy asked quietly after Brian had hurried away.

Lani looked down at her chest. There was a stain on her flowered cowboy shirt where the wound on her breast had seeped into the brightly colored material. The stain barely showed. "Not too badly," she said.

A moment later she glanced up at Davy with a puzzled frown on her face. "What day is it?" she asked. "How did you get here so fast, and how long have I been gone?"

"It's Sunday," he answered. "Candace and I flew in from Chicago early this morning."

"Sunday?" Lani repeated. "You mean I lost a whole day?"

Davy nodded. "You disappeared yesterday morning on your way to work. You never made it."

She looked at him and frowned. "And who's Candace?"

Davy ducked his head. "My fiancee," he said. "We're engaged. But tell me what happened. Did he run you off the road? What?"

"I went to pose for him," she said. "He was going to let me have a painting to give to Mom and Dad for their anniversary. It was stupid. I see that now. He offered me orange juice and he put something in it, something that knocked me out. He did the same thing to Quentin. What about Quentin? Is he dead?"

Davy shook his head. "Not yet. He's halfway down the mountain, and he's hurt. It looks pretty bad to me. Brian is going for help. Dad and Brock Kendall are over at the charco. They'll have to bring in a helicopter. We won't be able to carry him out on a stretcher."

"How did you and Brian know where to look for me?"

Davy looked off down the mountain. Before he answered, he found it necessary to brush something from his eye. "Candace," he croaked. "Wanda Ortiz had called the house and left word for Dad to meet him at Rattlesnake Skull. Brian met Candace and me at the airport and brought us along out here. We were getting ready to walk over to the charco to find Dad when Candace sat down to tie her shoes and found this."

Reaching into his shirt pocket, Davy pulled out the tiny people-hair basket and placed it in Lani's hand. As her fingers closed over the precious kushpo ho'oma — her hair charm-tears of gratitude filled her eyes.

"But how did you know to look in the cave?" she asked a moment later.

Davy shrugged. "Brian and I saw it years ago on the same day Tommy first found it. Since the cave was right here and since we knew Quentin was involved, it was logical that's where you might be, that maybe he'd take you there." He paused. "According to Quentin, the cave is where Tommy died. He fell into a hole."

The same hole,Lani thought at once. It has to be the same hole. "Do you remember the story of Betraying Woman?" she asked.

"Yes."

"This is her cave, Davy," Lani said softly. "That old story Nana Dahd used to tell us was true. After the Tohono O'othham captured her, they brought her back here and locked her inside the mountain along with all her pots-her unbroken pots. Quentin had found the pots and was planning to sell them, at least he thought he was going to sell them. I broke them. All of them. Or at least as many as I could find.

"Afterward, when I was there in the dark and didn't know which way to go, kokoi — a spirit-showed me the way out. I think Betraying Woman's spirit led me to the passageway. Do you believe that? Is that possible?"

"Yes," Davy replied. "I believe it."

Lani laughed. "Probably you, but nobody else," she said. "I was in there for a long time," she continued. "At first I was so scared I could barely think, but then somehow I remembered the words to Nana Dahd' s old war chant, the one she sang to you that day in the root cellar. Do you remember? Repeating those words over and over helped me-made me feel brave, and strong.