J. JANCE - Hour of the Hunter

First Looks At Nothing was treated with ritual dolls. When that didn’t work, singers were called in who were good with Whore-Sickness. For four days, the singers smoked their sacred tobacco and sang their Whore-Sickness songs. When the singing was over, Looks At Nothing was still blind, but during the healing process he came to see that his life had a purpose. I’itoi had summoned him home, demanding that the young man turn his back on the white man’s ways and return to the traditions of his father and grandfathers before him. In exchange, I’itoi promised, Looks At Nothing would become a powerful shaman.

By the time Understanding Woman summoned him to Ban Thak, Looks At Nothing, although still very young, was already reputed to be a good singer for curing Traveling Sickness. He came to Coyote Sitting, sang his songs, and smoked his tobacco, but unfortunately, he arrived too late. Dancing Quail’s parents died, but he did manage to cure both Understanding Woman and Little Pretty One. Looks At Nothing was still there singing when Big Eddie Lopez, dispatched by the outing matron, brought Dancing Quail home from Phoenix.

Riding to Chuk Shon inside the train rather than on it, Dancing Quail was sick with grief. With both her parents dead, what would happen if she had to live without her grandmother and her baby sister, too?

Soon, however, it was clear that Understanding Woman and Pretty One would recover. Dancing Quail was dispatched to pay Looks At Nothing his customary fee, which consisted of a finely woven medicine basket-medicine baskets were Understanding Woman’s specialty-and a narrow-necked olla with several dogs representing Many Dogs Village carefully etched into the side.

Dancing Quail approached the medicine man shyly as he gathered up his remaining tobacco and placed it in the leather pouch fastened around his waist. At the sound of her footsteps, he stopped what he was doing. “Who is it?” he asked, while his strange, sightless eyes stared far beyond her.

“Hejel Wi’ikam,” she answered. “Orphaned Child. I have brought you your gifts.”

Looks At Nothing motioned for her to sit beside him. First she gave him the basket, then the olla . His sensitive fingers explored each seam and crevice. “Your grandmother does fine work,” he said at last.

They sat together in silence for some time. “You are glad to be home?” he asked.

“I’m sorry about my parents,” she said, “but I’m glad to be in Ban Thak. I do not like school or the people there.”

Looks At Nothing reached out and took Dancing Quail’s small hand in his, holding it for a long moment before nodding and allowing it to fall back into her lap.

“You will live in both worlds, little one,” he said. “You will be a bridge, a puinthi .”

Dancing Quail looked up at him anxiously, afraid he meant Big Eddie would take her right back to Phoenix, but Looks At Nothing reassured her. “You will stay here for now. Understanding Woman will need your help with the fields and the baby.”

“How do you know all this?” she asked.

He smiled down at her. “I have lost my sight, Hejel Wi’ikam,” he said kindly, “but I have not lost my vision.”

Fat Crack drove his tow truck south past Topawa on his fool’s errand. Rita had told him that Looks At Nothing still lived at Many Dogs Village across the border in Old Mexico.

The international border had been established by treaty between Mexico and the United States without either country acknowledging that their arbitrary decision effectively divided in half and disenfranchised the much older-nine thousand years older-Papago nation.

Because Many Dogs Village was on the Mexican side, Fat Crack would have to cross the border at The Gate-an unofficial and unpatrolled crossing point in the middle of the reservation. Once in Mexico, he would have to make his way to the village on foot, or perhaps one of the traders from the other side would offer him a ride.

Supposing Fat Crack did manage to find the object of his search, how would he bring the old man back to Rita’s bedside in the Indian Health Service Hospital? According to Fat Crack’s estimates, if Looks At Nothing were still alive, he would be well into his eighties. Such an old man might not be eager to travel.

The Gate was really nothing but a break in the six-strand border fence surrounded by flat open desert and dotted, on both sides, with the parked pickups of traders and customers alike. Owners of these trucks did a brisk business in bootleg liquor, tortillas, tamales, and goat cheese, with an occasional batch of pot thrown in for good measure.

Fat Crack approached one of the bootleggers and inquired how to find Looks At Nothing’s house. The man pointed to a withered old man sitting in the shade of a mesquite tree.

“Why go all the way to his house?” the man asked derisively. “Why not see him here?”

Looks At Nothing sat under the tree with a narrow rolled bundle and a gnarled ironwood cane on the ground in front of him. As Fat Crack approached, the sightless old man scrambled agilely to his feet. “Have you come to take me to Hejel Wi’ikam?” he asked.

Fat Crack was taken aback. How did the old man know? “Hejel Wi’ithag,” he corrected respectfully. “An old widow, not an orphaned child.”

Looks At Nothing shook his head. “She was an orphan when I first knew her. She is an orphan still. Oi g hihm, ” he added. “Let’s go.”

Fat Crack helped the wiry old man climb up into the tow truck. How did Looks At Nothing know someone would come for him that day? Surely no one in Many Dogs owned a telephone, but the old man had appeared at The Gate fully prepared to travel.

Devout Christian Scientist that he was, Fat Crack was far too much of a pragmatist to deny, on religious grounds, that which is demonstrably obvious. Looks At Nothing, that cagey old shaman, would bear close watching.

Brandon Walker dreaded going home. He figured that after he’d spent the whole night AWOL, Louella would be ready to have his ears. He stopped in the kitchen long enough to hang his car keys on the pegboard and to pour himself a cup of coffee, steeling himself for the inevitable onslaught. Instead of being angry, however, when his frantic mother came looking for him, she was so relieved to see him that all she could do was blither.

“It’s a piano, Brandon. Dear God in heaven, a Steinway!”

“Calm down. What are you talking about?”

“Toby. I worry about buying food sometimes, and here he goes and orders a piano. For his sister, the concert pianist, he told them. His sister’s been dead for thirty-five years, Brandon. What is Toby thinking of? What are we going to do?”

“Did the check clear?”

“No. Of course not. Do you know how much Steinways cost? The store called me and said there must be some mistake. I told them it was a mistake, all right.”

“Where’s Dad now?”

“Inside. Taking a nap. He said he was tired.”

“Let’s go, Mother,” Brandon ordered. “Get your car.” This time he wasn’t going to allow any argument.

“The car? Where are we going?”

“Downtown to the bank. We’ll have to hurry. It’s Saturday, and they’re only open until noon. We’re closing that checking account once and for all.”

Louella promptly burst into tears. “How can we do that to your father, Brandon, after he’s worked so hard all these years? It seems so. . so underhanded.”

“How many Steinways do you want, Mom?” His position was unassailable.

“I’ll go get my purse. Do you think he’ll be all right here by himself if he wakes up?”

“He’ll have to be. There’s no one else we can leave him with. We’ll hurry, but we’ve both got to go to the bank.”