J. JANCE - Hour of the Hunter

Father John stopped abruptly. “This is. .” Fat Crack began.

“S-ab Neid Pi Has,” Father John supplied, speaking Looks At Nothing’s Indian name in perfectly accented Papago. “This old siwani and I have met before,” he said.

Father John stepped forward, reached out, took Looks At Nothing’s gnarled old hand, and shook it. “ Nawoj ,” he said. “Welcome.”

Brandon Walker was worn out with trying to find a comfortable position on the post-modern waiting-room furniture, but he had nonetheless managed a few catnaps during the early morning hours while his mother came and went from brief visits with her husband. It was just like when President Kennedy died, Brandon thought. The doctors didn’t tell everything they knew all at once for fear of starting a panic. Brandon suspected they had known last night that there was no hope of recovery for Toby Walker, but they wanted to give the family a chance to adjust to the situation. Brandon took the news as a direct act of mercy from a God he was surprised to learn he still believed in. Louella might continue to insist it wasn’t true, couldn’t possibly be true that Toby was dying, but her son knew better.

Each time a pale and shaken Louella emerged from the room, she was that much more entrenched in her disbelief. “I want a second opinion,” she announced at last.

Brandon rubbed his forehead. “What’s a second opinion going to buy you except another doctor bill?”

His question provoked Louella to outrage. “How can you mention money at a time like this? That man in there, that so-called doctor, says we should turn off the respirator. Just like that. As though it’s nothing.”

“Pop’s not there, Mom,” her son said gently. “He hasn’t been for a long time, really. Turning off the machine would be a blessing.”

He started to add “for us all,” but thought better of it.

“No! Absolutely not. I won’t have it.”

“If he lives, he’ll be a vegetable, Mom. He won’t know either of us. He won’t be able to eat on his own or stand or breathe.”

“But he’s still alive !” his mother hissed. “Your father is still alive.”

Too tired to argue anymore, Brandon capitulated. “I’ll go talk to the nurse about a second opinion,” he said.

He went to the nurses’ station and asked to speak to the head nurse.

“She’s on her break,” the clerk said.

He nodded. “That’s all right. I’m going to the cafeteria for some coffee. I’ll talk to her when I get back.”

He walked down the long breezeway to the cafeteria. It was mid-morning now and hot, but he felt chilled inside and out. The air-conditioning seemed to have settled in his blood and bones.

How would he ever make Louella see reason? She was his problem now and no one else’s. Toby was still breathing with the help of his respirator, but he was really out of the war zone. It didn’t seem fair for the focus of the battle to be immune to it.

Brandon took his cup of muddy coffee and a cigarette-he had finally bought a pack of his own-to a table in the far corner where someone had left most of a Sunday paper lying strewn with a layer of toast crumbs and speckles of greasy butter.

He started to toss the paper aside, and then stopped when he recognized Davy Ladd’s serious picture staring out at him from the top of the page. He read the article through twice before his weary brain fully grasped the material.

Why in the world would Diana Ladd have permitted Davy to be featured in the paper like that? He would have thought she’d want to preserve her privacy. After all, if she had an unlisted phone number, why go advertising her location on the front page of the second section of a Sunday paper?

Shaking his head, he tore out the page and stuffed it in his pocket. Brandon Walker was the very last person to pretend to understand why women did some of the crazy things they did. If, prior to the fact, Diana Ladd had asked his advice, he would have counseled her to keep Davy’s name and picture out of the paper at all costs. You could never tell what kind of fruitcakes would be drawn to that kind of article or how they would behave.

But the truth of the matter was, Diana Ladd hadn’t asked his advice, so MYOB, buddy, he told himself. You’ve got trouble enough of your own.

The three men wandered over to one of the many ocotillo-shaded food booths that lined the large dirt parking lot. In each shelter, two or three women worked over mesquite-burning fires, cooking popovers in vats of hot grease, filling them with chili or beans, and then selling them to the hungry San Xavier flock, churchgoers and tourists alike.

Father John led them to a booth where he evidently had a charge account of sorts. The women took his order and quickly brought back three chili popovers on folded paper plates and three cans of Orange Crush. No money changed hands.

“Shall we go into my office to eat?” Father John asked. “It’s much cooler in there.”

They went to a small office hidden behind the mission bookstore where Father John was obliged to bring in two extra chairs so they could all sit at once. While eating his own popover, Father John observed the fastidious way in which the medicine man ate. Chili popovers are notoriously messy, but Looks At Nothing consumed his meticulously, then wiped his entire face clean with a paper napkin.

Father John flushed to think that there had once been a time when he would have thrown a visiting siwani out of the mission compound, especially this particular siwani . He had learned much since those early days, not the least of which was a certain humility about who had the most direct access to God’s ear. Over the years, he had come to suspect that God listened in on a party line rather than a private one.

Patiently, although he was dying of curiosity, the old priest waited to hear what Looks At Nothing had to say. Father John knew full well that it was the medicine man and not Fat Crack who was the motivating force behind this visit. And he knew also that whatever it was, it must be a matter of life and death. Nothing less than that would have forced stiff-necked old Looks At Nothing to unbend enough to set aside their ancient rivalry.

It was August, hot and viciously humid. The summer rains had come with a vengeance, and the Topawa Mission compound was awash in thick red mud. As Father John picked his way through the puddles from rectory to church, the Indian materialized out of the shadow of a nearby mesquite tree. He moved so easily that at first the priest didn’t realize the other man was blind.

“Understanding Woman has sent me,” the man said in slow but formal English. “I must speak to you of Dancing Quail.”

Father John stopped short. “Dancing Quail. What about her? Is she ill? She missed her catechism lesson yesterday.”

The other man stopped, too, unexpectedly splashing into a puddle. As he struggled to regain his balance, Father John finally noticed that his visitor couldn’t see.

“Dancing Quail will have a baby,” he said.

“No! Whose?”

For the first time, the blind man turned his sightless eyes full on the priest. Without being told, Father John understood his visitor must be the young medicine man from Many Dogs Village, the one people called Looks At Nothing.

The blind man faced the priest, but he did not answer the question. He didn’t have to, for under the medicine man’s accusing stare Father John knew the answer all too well. His soul shriveled within him. His fingers groped for the comforting reassurance of his rosary.

“How far along is she?”

“Since the Rain Dance at Ban Thak, she has missed two mash-athga, ” Looks At Nothing said, “two menstrual periods.”

“Dancing Quail has told you this?” Father John managed.