J. Jance - Day of the Dead

She saw the worried look on Lani’s face and heard her say “…not make it…” Then she heard nothing more. When the contraction overcame her, Delia no longer cared if she was standing up or lying down.

When she came to herself again, the space above her was filled with stars. Somehow she was moving through or maybe under them. I must be dead, she thought. The baby and I are on our way to heaven. But then Lani’s face obliterated the stars. This time she held a long, pencil-thin flashlight between her teeth. Her long hair whipped around her face. That was when Delia finally understood that she was in the backseat of an open convertible. As they bounced along over a rough dirt road, she realized Lani was there in the backseat with her. Before Delia could make sense of any of that or say a single word, she was overwhelmed by another powerful spasm.

I’m not dead, Delia told herself. I just wish I was.

Kneeling between the Invicta’s front and back seats, Lani tried to keep her face in front of Delia’s. “Breathe,” she urged. “Pant like a dog. It’ll help you deal with the contractions.”

If Delia had ever heard of Lamaze, none of it was accessible. The contractions were coming too hard and fast. By the time Kath slowed for the intersection with Highway 86, Lani knew they’d never make it to the hospital in Sells in time. “We’ll have to stop,” Lani called to Kath. “Soon!”

Wanda had offered to let them use her pickup, but Lani had nixed that idea. Putting a woman in labor in the bed of a pickup seemed like a bad idea, but the backseat of Diana’s Invicta was only marginally better.

“Should we put the top up?” Kath had asked once Delia was lying in the backseat.

Lani shook her head. “No time,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Now, as Kath put the Buick in park along the shoulder of the road, she asked, “Have you ever delivered a baby before?”

“No,” Lani returned. “But it’s probably pretty self-explanatory.”

Seconds after they parked, Wanda pulled her Dodge Ram pickup up beside them. She jockeyed it around until her headlights blazed in through the Buick’s back door, lighting the scene. In the brilliant glare of Wanda’s high beams, Lani saw the unmistakably wet and shiny glow of a baby’s emerging head.

Steeling herself for the task, she reached out and grabbed the baby’s head, easing it forward. “Do you have anything sharp?” she asked. “We’re going to need to cut the cord, and we’ll need a string to tie it with.”

“There’s a Leatherman in my purse,” Kath replied.

“Bring it.”

Moments later Lani Walker held a squalling, slippery infant in her arms. Wanda Ortiz was there, too, holding a handful of clean towels-extras she’d brought along just in case they needed them at the feast house. While Wanda wiped off the baby boy, Lani’s fumbling fingers tied the rubbery umbilical cord with a piece of hem snipped from one of Wanda’s towels. Then she cut it with Kath’s Leatherman. Lani had just finished that when Wanda handed the baby back to her. Quiet now, he lay in her arms wrapped in the soft folds of an immense flannel shirt.

Lani looked down at him. In that moment she understood why Fat Crack and Nana Dahd had so patiently answered all her questions. It was so she-Lani-would have those same answers to pass along to someone else.

Did you ever teach Baby or Leo the things you teach me?” she had asked Fat Crack once as he showed her how to collect and dry wiw-the wild tobacco used in the Peace Smoke.

He shook his head. “No,” he said after a while. “They’re not interested.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. Maybe if I had been a medicine man the whole time they were growing up, it might have been different. By the time Looks at Nothing showed up and started teaching me, Baby and Leo were already too old and didn’t want to learn.”

“Weren’t you too old then, too?”

“That’s what I thought,” Fat Crack chuckled. “But not according to Looks at Nothing. I guess he was right.”

“What about me? Am I too old?”

“No, Kulani O’oks,” Fat Crack said softly. “You’re just right. Aunt Rita knew the moment she saw you that you were special-that she could pass along whatever she knew to you for safekeeping. I’ve learned the same thing, but the gifts we’ve given you aren’t yours alone, Little One. They are treasures for you to know and keep and then pass along when you find someone who’s worthy.”

Looking down at that tiny baby-his fists clenched, his eyes pinched shut against the glaring headlights-Lani Walker knew who this child was. Leo and Baby hadn’t been interested in learning the lore and traditions their father had wanted to teach his sons, but this child-this baby boy-would be, and Lani would be there to pass it along.

“Is he all right?” Delia asked.

In reply, Lani turned to her and smiled. “He’s perfect,” she said, handing the baby to his mother. “Beautiful and perfect. What are you going to name him?”

“Gabriel Manuel,” Delia Ortiz said. “After his two grandfathers.”

Lani heard a strange whirring sound. “Get out of the way,” Kath ordered. “I’m raising the top. We’ll need to turn up the heat long enough to take this mother and baby to the hospital, where they belong.”

Time dragged by moment by moment as a worried Brandon Walker tried to concentrate on the pages of faxed material.

Ralph Ames’s researchers had been incredibly thorough in finding out all there was to know about Lawrence Stryker and his wife as well. The material detailed their respective childhoods-Larry’s growing up in impoverished circumstances in L.A. to Gayle’s high-society, old-money background both in Tucson and on her father’s family ranch northeast of Marana. There were old articles detailing Lawrence’s fourth-place standing in his graduating class at Emory University Medical School and newer ones about him and Gayle being named Tucson’s Man and Woman of the Year. There were literally dozens of articles that told about the founding of Medicos for Mexico and about Larry’s and Gayle’s unstinting and heroic efforts to make life better for those less fortunate. There was even a copy of Bill Forsythe’s public disclosure forms-the same forms Brandon had seen years earlier-with their names front and center on the campaign donor list.

With all that mound of material, it wasn’t until well after midnight that Brandon found the needle-the one thing he’d been looking for. It was there in the form of a tiny article culled from a congressional committee doing oversight on the BIA’s Indian Health Service. It spoke about the appallingly large number of poorly trained and /or unethical physicians who for years had been allowed to practice nonstandard medicine on Indian reservations all over the country. Only a few physicians were mentioned by name. Dr. Lawrence Stryker’s name was listed in a group of doctors who had been dismissed following allegations of sexual impropriety.

There were no further details-no discussion of who had lodged the charges or when the events took place, but now Brandon Walker had a pretty clear suspicion of why Larry Stryker had left his position at Sells. Neither Emma Orozco nor Andrea Tashquinth had mentioned Larry Stryker’s name in that connection. They might have had their suspicions but very little reason to bring them up. Stryker was Mil-gahn; they were Indians. Based on past experience, they would have had no expectation that people in authority would listen. In fact, no one had been listening back then. But Brandon Walker was listening now. He was hearing them loud and clear.

It was all strictly circumstantial. Still, Brandon was convinced Larry Stryker had molested Roseanne Orozco. When the girl turned up pregnant, Stryker got rid of her. What could be simpler than that? Blame it on Roseanne’s poor father. Blame it on anybody. Meanwhile the good doctor went off to live his exemplary do-gooder life. Supposing Brandon’s suspicions were correct, what the hell was he going to do about it?