J. Jance - Day of the Dead

She had been annoyed when tribal chairman Gabe Ortiz, at Aunt Julia’s instigation, had shown up on her doorstep to offer unsolicited advice about her personal life. She’d been astonished when he offered her the job of tribal attorney, but she suspected that was only a thinly disguised smoke screen for her interfering auntie’s private agenda-that Delia should dump Philip Cachora and come home to the reservation. Delia had turned the job down cold.

She had fallen hopelessly in love with Philip Cachora, and she was determined to keep him. She had met Philip at the grand opening of a show at the National Gallery, an exhibit of works by what they termed “Emerging Native American Artists.” After growing up as an urban Indian, Delia was increasingly uncomfortable with the phrase Native American. Educated in the best private schools Ruth Waldron’s Boston pedigree had wangled, Delia saw life through essentially Anglo eyes. For her, the words Native American conjured up pictures of loincloth-wearing savages.

She went to the gallery opening with her friend and roommate, Marcia Lomax, who worked for the Department of Justice. They went on a pair of free tickets given her by Delia’s boss. They expected to show up, have a few drinks, nosh on the free food, and then go to a movie.

Delia and Marcia were standing and chatting in front of a massive full-length oil portrait of a handsome Indian man with much of his face obscured by a pair of mirrored sunglasses. He wore a tattered straw cowboy hat-a Resistol-and an equally tattered American flag wrapped around him like a toga. The piece was called Promises.

“Well, ladies,” a pleasantly deep male voice said. “Have you figured out what it means?”

Delia turned from the portrait to the voice and did a double take. The painting seemed to have come to life, reflective sunglasses and all, although the straw hat had been replaced by a huge black felt Stetson and the flag by a designer tuxedo. As far as Delia was concerned, the affectation of wearing Ray•Bans inside meant two things-trouble and phony.

“I take it we’re looking at a portrait of the artist as a young man?” Delia asked.

He pretended to wince. “Not that much younger, I hope. But yes, I’m him, or vice versa. The name’s Philip Cachora. Where are you two from?”

“Justice,” Marcia replied.

“BIA,” Delia chimed in.

“I mean, where are you from?” Philip insisted. “Or is Justice the name of a little town somewhere in the middle of Tennessee or Missouri?”

“I work at the Department of Justice,” Marcia answered. “I’m from Milwaukee.”

Delia shook her head. “Forget it,” she said. “Nobody’s ever heard of where I’m from.”

“Try me.”

“Sells, Arizona,” she said.

Philip Cachora’s jaw dropped. “No shit!” he exclaimed. He tipped his hat. “If you’ll pardon the expression.”

“How about you?” Delia asked.

“Vamori,” he said.

Delia and Marcia exchanged glances. “Okay,” Delia said. “We give up. Where’s that?”

“About twenty miles southwest of Sells, actually,” he replied with a grin. “Obviously you’re not up on Tohono O’odham geography. What’s a nice Indian girl like you doing in a place like this?”

“I’m a lawyer,” Delia answered. “For the BIA.”

“Where’s your family from?” he asked, moving in on Delia in a way that effectively edged Marcia out of the conversation. She shrugged and then obligingly strolled on through the exhibit, leaving Philip and Delia alone. “I mean, from what villages on the reservation?”

“My father came from Big Fields originally,” Delia said. “My mother’s family came from Little Tucson. That’s all I know. I left the reservation when I was seven and haven’t been back.”

“That’s a long time,” he observed.

“Twenty years,” she agreed. “What about you?”

“I wanted to be an artist. Halfway through high school I opted for a boarding school in Santa Fe. I’ve been there ever since-in Santa Fe, not in boarding school. Twenty years more or less, too, but who’s counting? I make a good living. I paint Indians wearing flags and sell them to guilt-ridden limousine liberals. One guy who paid ten thousand bucks for a painting very much like this one asked if I’d ever been on the warpath. I told him I’d never been off it.”

They both laughed at that. “And then,” he added, warming to the topic, “there are always a few rich babes who figure if they buy one of my paintings they also qualify for a roll in the hay. The trick is to pry them loose from their money without getting dragged into beddy-bye.”

“You look more than capable of fending them off,” Delia observed. She glanced down the gallery and caught sight of Marcia standing near the doorway entrance into another room, chatting with someone she knew.

“Do you have plans for dinner?” Philip asked.

“Yes,” Delia said quickly. “My friend and I are booked.”

“What about tomorrow?”

“I think I’m busy then, too.”

“Come on,” he said. “I’m just a country bumpkin in town for a day or two. Couldn’t you find it in your heart to show me a few sights? I mean, we’re practically neighbors.”

It was a blatant pickup line, and Delia couldn’t help laughing. “I’ll bet you use that one a lot,” she said.

He grinned, an engaging, white-toothed grin. “It usually works, too,” he said.

“Not this time,” she told him. “Sorry.” She ducked away and caught up with Marcia.

“You escaped,” Marcia said.

“Just barely,” Delia returned. “It was a near thing.”

But that wasn’t the end of it. By three o’clock the next afternoon, a bouquet of red roses landed on Delia’s desk at the BIA. She was both pleased and annoyed-flattered that Philip Cachora had gone to the trouble of tracking her down and dismayed because the nation’s capital offered so little anonymity. An hour later her phone rang.

“What’s your Indian name?” Philip asked as soon as she answered.

“I don’t have one,” she replied.

“How can you be Indian and not have an Indian name? I’m going to give you one,” he added after a moment. “I think I’ll call you Moikchu.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” he told her with a laugh.

Delia’s mother was the one who translated the word. Moikchu meant Soft One. When Delia first learned what it meant, she accepted the name as a compliment. It was only later, after everything had sorted itself out, that she wondered if the word couldn’t also be used to mean soft in the head. Because when it came to Philip Cachora, she was certainly that.

“Now tell me,” he continued, “are you really booked for dinner tonight, or were you just trying to get rid of me?”

“What time and where?” she asked, giving in. After all, for a twenty-seven-year-old struggling young professional, flowers and the offer of a free meal held some appeal.

She took a cab from her office in Interior to Philip Cachora’s hotel, the Dupont Plaza. From there they walked the few blocks to the Iron Gate Restaurant on N Street NW. It was April and particularly balmy. With the air perfumed by hanging wisteria, they had an elegant romantic dinner at an outside table. When Delia fretted about the prices, Philip reassured her.

“Listen,” he said. “I’m here on a grant. I’m on display as one of an endangered species-you know, Indian-artist-under-glass. This is all on somebody else’s nickel. Have a ball. Order whatever you want.”

Then he smiled across the table at her and asked, “What exactly does a smart lady lawyer do for the BIA?”

“I analyze treaties.”

“No shit!” he exclaimed.