J. JANCE - Hour of the Hunter

“And we’ve found a place where you can go. It’ll be a good job, one that pays more than the sisters can.”

“But what about my grandmother?” Dancing Quail asked. “What will happen to her?”

“I will go home,” Understanding Woman said, speaking for the first time. “I will go home to Ban Thak and wait to die.”

Father Mark told Rita to pack her things, that the outing matron would leave shortly to take her to Tucson and the train. The girl left the convent with Understanding Woman.

“Please, ni-kahk ,” Dancing Quail begged. “Grandmother, please don’t send me away.”

Understanding Woman was adamant. “You must go,” she said firmly. “To lead a holy man or a priest away from his vows is very bad luck, for you and for him as well. You must go far away and never see him again.”

Without further argument, Dancing Quail gathered her things. This time she didn’t use a burden basket. The girls who worked in town said that burden baskets were old-fashioned and clumsy. One of the nuns had given her a cast-off leather case. Into this battered relic, she put her own meager possessions.

She was about to strap the case shut when Understanding Woman appeared at her side. “ Ni-ka’amad ,” the old woman said. “Granddaughter, here. This basket is not as good as that other one. Be careful not to lose it this time.”

Tentatively, Dancing Quail picked up Understanding Woman’s medicine basket, the last one the old woman ever made. She opened the top and peered inside. There were the things she remembered-a clay doll, another fragment of the same beautiful spirit rock, an arrowhead, and a hank of long black hair. Tears streamed down the young woman’s face as she replaced the lid and carefully wedged the basket in one corner of the case.

Because of Father John, her grandmother was sending Dancing Quail away, but with her blessing rather than without. The old woman’s puny medicine basket could offer only the slightest protection against the outside world, but it was far better than no protection at all. Besides, it was the only gift Understanding Woman had to give.

The two Indians left San Xavier and drove to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. Fat Crack had been here on business numerous times, and he knew his way around. He also understood the kind of treatment they could expect.

“I want to speak to Detective Walker,” he said, going up to the glass-enclosed cage that separated clerk from waiting room.

“He’s not in,” the clerk said.

“Can you call him?”

“He’s not on duty today.”

“I need to talk to him.”

“I’m telling you, he’s not in.”

“We’ll wait,” Fat Crack said, and showed Looks At Nothing to a chair. An hour later, they were still there.

Sheriff DuShane didn’t usually come in on weekends, but he had forgotten his golf clubs at the office, and he needed them now. He was surprised to find two Indians seated stolidly in the front waiting area. There were usually plenty of Indians in the cell-block, but not that many out front.

“What’s with the powwow in the lobby?” he asked.

The clerk shrugged. “Who knows? They want to talk to Walker. I told them plain as day that it’s his day off.”

“Like hell it is,” DuShane growled. “You call him and tell him to get in here to take care of it. I don’t need a bunch of Indians sitting around stinking up the place.”

“But he’s at the hospital with his father. .”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass where he is. You get him on the horn and tell him to take care of it. Brandon Walker’s in deep shit with me about now. He’d by God better not drag his heels.”

Brandon Walker was both mystified and relieved by the departmental phone call that summoned him from Tucson Medical Center. The relief came from having a legitimate reason to abandon his distracted mother who was still waiting for the appearance of the second-opinion doctor, a process that Brandon could neither stop nor speed up. He wondered why two reservation Indians would insist on seeing him this ragingly hot Sunday afternoon.

In the waiting room, he immediately recognized the younger of the two as the person looking after Davy Ladd in the hospital at Sells. The old man, blind and bent, leaning on a gnarled ironwood cane, was a complete stranger.

“Would you like to come back to my office?” Walker asked.

Fat Crack translated Brandon’s words. The old man shook his head emphatically, speaking rapidly in Papago.

“He wants to talk outside,” Fat Crack explained. “He wants to smoke.”

The crazy old coot could smoke in here where it’s cool, Brandon thought, but he shrugged his shoulders in compliance and followed the other two men outside into the ungodly heat. Fat Crack led them to a small patch of shade under a thriving mesquite tree. The old man sat cross-legged on the ground and opened the flap of a leather pouch that he wore around his waist. Removing a homemade cigarette, he started to light up. Brandon reached for his own cigarettes, but the younger man stopped him.

“Looks At Nothing would like you to join him,” Fat Crack said, sitting down next to the old man.

Obligingly, Walker left his package of filter-tips where they were. He squatted down close to the other two and waited. He tried unsuccessfully to estimate ages. The younger man was probably in his mid-to-late forties, but the older one’s sundried, weathered skin defied categorizing.

After deftly lighting his cigarette with a worn brass lighter, the old man puffed on it in absorbed concentration. He reminded Brandon of the aged Vietnamese villagers he had seen during the war, venerated old wise men who had seen one regime topple after another, and who had waited patiently for the inevitable time when the Americans would disappear as well.

At last the old man turned his sightless eyes in Brandon’s direction. He held out the cigarette, offering it to the detective. “Nawoj,” he said.

Brandon’s first inclination was to say thanks but no thanks, that he’d have one of his own, but instinct warned him that there was more at stake here than just refusing a certain brand of cigarettes, homemade or not.

“Take it,” Fat Crack urged. “Say ‘nawoj.’ ”

“Say what?”

“Nawoj,” Fat Crack repeated. “It means ‘friend’ or ‘friendly gift.’ ”

“Now-witch,” Brandon said hesitantly, mimicking the strange sounding word as best he could. He accepted the cigarette and took a deep drag while Fat Crack nodded approval. The smoke was far stronger than the white man had anticipated. He managed to choke back a fit of coughing.

“Indian tobacco,” Fat Crack explained as he in turn took the cigarette.

This is crazy, Brandon thought. What if someone sees me? But just then the old man started speaking in Papago. For a gringo, Brandon Walker was fairly fluent in Spanish, but this language wasn’t remotely related to that. He couldn’t understand a word. When the old one stopped speaking, the younger one translated.

“He says he’s sorry about your father, but that sometimes it is better to die quick than to be old and sick.”

Brandon’s jaw dropped. How did this aged Indian know about Toby Walker? “How does he. .?” Brandon sputtered, but the old man spoke once more. Again Fat Crack interpreted.

“He’s sorry to bother you like this, but we must speak to you about my cousin, about Gina Antone, who was murdered years ago.”

The blind man’s mysterious knowledge about Toby Walker was forgotten as Brandon’s finely honed detective skills took charge. “Gina Antone? What about her?”

“We want to know about the other man, the one who went to jail.”

“He’s still in prison. In Florence.”