J. Jance - Day of the Dead

It was one of the dog’s most endearing peculiarities. For some reason, from the time she had come into their lives, the dog had focused her attention on the shadows planes and butterflies left on the ground rather than on the moving objects themselves. Chasing shadows was a game she played by herself, often to the point of exhaustion.

“Dummy,” Brandon told the dog, giving the winded animal a loving pat on the head in passing. “When are you ever going to wise up?” He sat down next to Diana. “I’m going out to the reservation today,” he said to her. “To see Fat Crack. Want to come along?”

“I wish I could, but I’d better not,” Diana said. “My deadline’s actively ticking at this point.” She paused. “Lani’s worried about him. When you get back home, give her a call and let her know how he’s doing.”

“It won’t be good news,” Brandon said, sipping his coffee.

“You know that, and I know that,” Diana returned. “Deep down, Lani probably knows it, too. She understands how serious this is even more than the rest of us. Her biggest worry is that Fat Crack won’t last long enough for her to get home. She wants to be here for him.”

“Just like he was for her,” Brandon returned.

That fateful day on Ioligam was still seared in Brandon Walker’s memory. By the time he had arrived, Mitch Johnson, Lani’s kidnapper, was already dead. Lani had killed him. Brandon had hurried there expecting to retrieve his daughter and take her home. Fat Crack had blocked his way.

“Where is she?” Brandon demanded of his longtime friend. “Is she all right? Why isn’t she here?”

“Because she killed a man,” Gabe Ortiz returned quietly. “She has to stay by herself. She has to fast and eat no salted food and pray for sixteen days.”

“Sixteen days!” Brandon exclaimed. “Out here by herself? Are you nuts? What the hell are you thinking?”

“It’s what Lani’s thinking,” Gabe replied, “and that’s what counts. It’s what she wants to do. It’s what she has to do.”

Brandon had always known Lani was different, from the moment she had walked into his life as a toddler and wrapped her tiny fingers around his heart. It had hurt him when others called his baby Kuadagi Ke’e Al-the Ant-Bit Child, but that was the reason Lani was Brandon’s in the first place. According to Rita Antone, Lani’s blood relatives had refused to take her in because they were scared of her. They were convinced that because she had been singled out by I’itoi, she was a danger to her family members. Nana Dahd believed that being ant-bit made Lani special.

Brandon Walker had heard all that, but he hadn’t really paid attention, and he certainly hadn’t believed it. For him, Lani was the light of his life. He had adored her, spoiled her, loved her. Now, for reasons he couldn’t understand, she seemed to be rejecting that love.

“Why?” Brandon had asked again.

“Because she really is Kulani O’oks,” Fat Crack explained. “Lani is destined to be a great medicine woman. To do that-to really do that-she has to abide by the old ways.”

One look at Fat Crack’s impassive face told Brandon he was losing. No amount of arguing would do any good. He tried anyway.

“It’s almost summer,” Brandon said. “Hotter’n hell during the day and freezing at night. Where will she sleep, Gabe? What will she eat?”

“I’ll look after her,” Fat Crack said quietly. “It’s my job, one siwani-one chief medicine man-to another.”

“But…”

“Please, Brandon,” Fat Crack added. “It’s what she must do.”

Brandon Walker had gone home empty-handed that Sunday afternoon. He had held a weeping Diana in his arms and tried to explain it to her. Although the two of them had never discussed it afterward, he suspected she didn’t like this new reality any better than he did. He wondered sometimes if Diana felt as betrayed as he did to think that Lani had turned to Fat Crack in her hour of need-to Gabe Ortiz rather than to her parents.

When Fat Crack finally brought Lani home to Gates Pass sixteen days later, she was a different person. She had been a carefree teenager-little more than a child-when she was taken from them. She returned as a serious-minded young woman who was far more in tune with her Indian heritage than she had ever been before.

From then on, the relationship between Lani and her adoptive parents was forever altered. There was no blow-up-no identifiable breach or specific argument. Things were just different. Brandon was smart enough not to blame Fat Crack for the changes that had occurred. Dolores Lanita Walker was still their Lani, still at home with them. She learned to drive, got her license, and graduated from high school at the top of her class. Yet Brandon knew Mitch Johnson had succeeded in robbing him of something precious when he had kidnapped Lani.

He had stolen her innocence. No one in the world-not even Fat Crack Ortiz-could give it back to her.

I’ll talk to her about Fat Crack’s condition,” Brandon told Diana now, staring down into a mug where his forgotten coffee had long ago gone cold. “If I have to, I’ll even lie to her about it.”

“No,” Diana counseled. “Don’t do that. If the news is really bad, we can fly her home early. She’s already canceled walking through graduation-which she figured you’d appreciate. And she’s made arrangements with her professors to do some exams early.”

“Which means she already knows it’s bad news,” Brandon observed. His eyes sought Diana’s over the rim of his coffee mug. “And so do I. You’re sure you can’t come along?”

“I’m sure,” Diana said. “I’ve got to work.”

“All right, then,” Brandon said. “See you later.”

J. A. Jance

Day of the Dead

Eight

At eleven o’clock on Saturday morning, Sue Lammers went into the family room to check on her husband, Ken, who had spent all morning glued to the Golf Channel watching a tournament.

“Is it over?” she asked.

“This is a different one,” he said, barely taking his eyes off their flat-screen TV. “On ABC. It just started.”

What Sue Lammers saw right then was red! When they had first moved to their manufactured home on Fast Horse Ranch south of Tucson, they had loved it. She and Ken both worked hard all week-she as a purchasing agent for University Medical Center and he as an economist for Pima County. On weekends, they worked on the house and the yard, gradually creating a beautifully landscaped retreat out of rough, untamed desert.

But that was before satellite TV had crept in and ruined Sue’s little Garden of Eden with the forbidden fruit of unlimited weekend sports. Now, with that ugly little satellite dish perched like an overweight eagle on the roof, life wasn’t the same. Football folded into basketball, into baseball, and back into football in an unrelenting cavalcade, with golf, auto racing, and the National Hockey League plugged in here and there for good measure. It was all Sue could do to get Ken to tear himself away from the tube long enough to eat an occasional meal at the table instead of on a tray. As for his lifting a finger around the house or yard? Forget about it.

Grumbling to herself, Sue left the room. Ranger, their five-year-old German shepherd, followed her down the hallway and into the bedroom. As soon as she took her hiking boots down from the shelf in the closet, Ranger went on full alert. For him, boots meant only one thing-the tantalizing prospect of a walk. Ears up, nose quivering with excitement, Ranger watched as she pulled the boots on and laced them up.

“That’s right, old boy,” she told him. “I may not be able to get Daddy off his duff, but I sure as hell don’t have that problem with you.”