J. JANCE - Hour of the Hunter

Carlisle shook himself out of what was almost a stupor and found he was sitting on the floor in front of Diana Ladd’s couch. Both the boy and the old woman were tied up, although he didn’t remember finishing the job. They were both watching him with strange expressions on their faces. Had he blacked out for a moment or what?

These episodes were beginning to bother him. It had happened several times of late, and it scared the shit out of him. Was he losing his mind? He’d come back to himself feeling as though he’d been asleep when he knew he hadn’t been. Sometimes only seconds would have passed, sometimes whole minutes.

He inspected the knots. They were properly tied, but he had no recollection of doing it. Somehow it seemed as though his body and his mind functioned independently. He’d have to watch that. It could be dangerous, especially in enemy territory.

“Who are you?” the boy demanded.

Carlisle looked hard at the child, recognizing some of Gary Ladd’s features, but the boy had a certain toughness that had been totally lacking in his father.

“Well, son,” Carlisle said in a kind tone that belied his words, “you can just think of me as retribution personified, a walking, talking Eye-for-an-Eye.”

Davy Ladd frowned at the unfamiliar words, but he didn’t back off. “What does that mean?”

Andrew Carlisle laughed, giving the boy credit for raw nerve. “It means that the sins of the fathers are visited on the sons, just like the Good Book says. It also means that if you don’t do every single goddamned thing I say, then I use my trusty knife, and you and your mother and this old lady here are all dead meat. Do you understand that?”

Davy nodded.

The room was quiet for a moment when suddenly, sitting there, looking him directly in the eye, the old lady began what sounded like a mournful, almost whispered chant in a language Carlisle didn’t recognize. He glowered at her. “Shut up!” he ordered.

She stopped. “I’m praying,” she said, speaking calmly. “I’m asking I’itoi to help us.”

That made him laugh, even though he didn’t like the way she looked at him. “You go right ahead, then. If you think some kind of Indian mumbo-jumbo is going to fix all this, then be my guest. But I wouldn’t count on it, old woman. Not at all.”

“Why did you do it?” she asked.

“Do what?”

“Why did you kill my granddaughter?”

Prosecutors and lawyers and police tend to limp around questions like that. Carlisle wasn’t accustomed to such a direct approach. It caught him momentarily off guard.

“Because I felt like it,” he said with a grin. “That’s all the reason I needed.”

A while later, Coyote followed the trail to where Cottontail was sitting. “Brother, you tricked me back there, and now I really am going to eat you up.”

“Please,” said Cottontail, “don’t eat me yet. I don’t want to die until I have seen a jig dancer one last time. Do this for me and then you may eat to your heart’s content.”

“All right,” said Coyote. “What do you want me to do?”

“Come with me over here,” said Cottontail. “First I will plaster your eyes shut with pitch. Then, when your eyes are shut, you will hear firecrackers popping. When that happens, you must dance and shout. When the dance is over, then you may eat me.”

So Cottontail plastered Coyote’s eyes shut with pitch, then he led him into a cane field. When Coyote was in the middle of the field, Cottontail set fire to it. Soon the cane started crackling and popping. Coyote thought these were the firecrackers Cottontail had told him about, so he began to dance and shout. Soon he began to feel the heat, but he thought he was hot because he was dancing so hard. At last, though, the fire reached him, and burned him up.

And that, my friend, is the story of the second time Cottontail tricked Coyote.

From the sound and cadence of that softly crooned chant, someone listening might have thought Rita Antone was giving voice to some ancient traditional Papago lullaby. It included the requisite number of repetitions, the proper rhythm, but it was really a war chant, and the words were entirely new:

“Do not look at me, little Olhoni.

Do not look at me when I sing to you

So this man will not know we are speaking

So this evil man will think he is winning.

“Do not look at me

When I sing, little Olhoni,

But listen to what I say.

This man is evil.

This man is the enemy.

This man is ohb.

Do not let this frighten you.

“Whatever happens in the battle,

We must not let him win.

I am singing a war song for you,

Little Olhoni. I am singing

A hunter’s song, a killer’s song.

I am singing a song to I’itoi

Asking him to help us.

Asking him to guide us in the battle

So the evil ohb does not win.

“Do not look at me, little Olhoni,

Do not look at me when I sing to you.

I must sing this song four times

For all of nature goes in fours,

But when the trouble starts,

When the ohb attacks us,

You must remember all the things

I have said to you in this magic song.

You must listen very carefully

And do exactly what I say.

If I tell you to run and hide yourself,

You must run as fast as Wind Man.

Run fast and hide yourself

And do not look back.

Whatever happens, little Olhoni,

You must run and not look back.

“Remember it is said that

Long ago I’itoi made himself a fly

And hid himself in the crack.

I’itoi hid in the smallest crack

When Eagle Man came searching for him.

Be like I’itoi, little Olhoni.

Be like I’itoi and hide yourself

In the very smallest crack.

Hide yourself somewhere

And do not come out again,

Do not show your face

Until the battle is over.

Listen to what I sing to you,

Little Olhoni. Listen to what I sing.

Be careful not to look at me

But do exactly as I say.”

The song ended. Rita glanced at Davy, who was looking studiously in another direction. He had listened. He was only a boy, one who had not yet killed his first coyote, but she had trained him well. He would do what he’d been told.

In the gathering twilight, Rita glanced at the clock on the mantel across the room. Seven o’clock. Fat Crack must come for her soon, because the singers were scheduled to start at nine. The very latest he could come was eight o’clock, an hour away.

One hour, she thought. Sixty minutes. If they could stay alive until Fat Crack got there, they might yet live, but deep in her heart, Rita feared otherwise. As he tied them up, she had looked into Andrew Carlisle’s soul. All she saw there were the restless, angry spirits of the dead Apache warriors from Rattlesnake Skull Village. They had somehow found this Mil-gahn ’s soul and infected it with their evil. Andrew Carlisle was definitely the danger the buzzards had warned her about, the evil enemy who Looks At Nothing said was both Ohb and not Ohb , Apache and not Apache. And although the process had been started, Davy was still unbaptized.

The man sat on the floor in front of her, unmoving, seemingly asleep although his eyes were open. She had heard of these kinds of Whore-Sickness trances before, although she herself had never witnessed one. She knew full well the danger.