J Jance - Queen of the Night

When Delia first returned to Sells, she would have walked up to Lani at the picnic table and immediately demanded to know what she wanted. But time had passed. Delia’s Aunt Julia, along with Fat Crack and Leo Ortiz, had counseled her on ways of fitting in. She had learned, for example, that it was better to stop and wait to be acknowledged before speaking. The old Delia would have pressed for information as to why Lani had sent Gabe to awaken her. The new Delia stood silently waiting for an invitation to be seated and allowing Lani to speak at a pace of her choosing. An expertly rolled cigarette lay on the table along with a worn leather pouch Delia remembered had once belonged to Fat Crack.

Finally Lani motioned Delia to a spot at the table. “Do you know about Little Lion and Little Bear?” she asked.

“I guess,” Delia said with a shrug. “I believe Gabe told me that story once. Aren’t those the two boys who were raised by their grandmother, the ones who had beautifully colored birds?”

“Parrots,” Lani said, nodding.

“People were jealous of the boys because they wanted the colored feathers. They killed the grandmother, but the boys managed to escape. Before they, too, were killed, they threw the birds off the mountains to the east, thus creating Sunrise and Sunset. Right?”

Lani smiled. “Yes,” she said. “Do you know what happened then?”

Delia was dying to ask for Lani’s decision about taking Angie, and the old Delia would have done so at once, but now she knew better. Posing that question directly would be rude. Instead she went back to what she remembered of the story.

“I thought the legend ended once the boys were dead.”

“No,” Lani said. “There’s more. The spirit of the grandmother called for the dead boys to come home. She told them where to bury her body. Four days after they did that, a plant grew up there-wild tobacco, wiw. Little Bear and Little Lion harvested it the way Wise Old Grandmother told them.

“The people who had killed the two boys were worried when the boys came back. They called a council. They didn’t invite Little Bear and Little Lion to join them, but the two dead boys came anyway, bringing the tobacco with them. When the people sat in the circle, the two boys sat there, too. Coyote was there and told them they should light the tobacco and pass it to the person next to them, saying ‘ Nawoj, ’ which means ‘friend’ or ‘friendly gift.’ And that’s the origin of the Tohono O’odham’s peace smoke.”

“As opposed to the peace pipe in all those cowboy movies.”

Nodding, Lani held up Looks at Nothing’s venerable old leather pouch in one hand and the hand-rolled cigarette in the other. “That’s what I have here.”

“Wild tobacco?” Delia asked warily. Her first husband had returned from his round of powwow travels with a penchant for smoking peyote, and the results of that had been nothing short of disastrous. “That’s all it is-tobacco?”

Lani nodded. “Botanists will tell you it’s really called Nicotiana trigonophylla, and that’s all it is, Indian tobacco. It was harvested and dried the same way Little Lion and Little Bear’s grandmother told them to; the same way Fat Crack taught me; the same way Looks at Nothing taught him.”

“But what’s it doing here?” Delia asked.

“I’m proposing that you and I should have a council and smoke the peace smoke,” Lani said.

Delia was mystified. “But why?”

Lani smiled to think how much Delia sounded like her son just then.

“On the day my brother Davy was baptized,” Lani answered, “Looks at Nothing, Fat Crack, an old Catholic priest named Father John, and my father all smoked it together. Until that happened, Davy was a boy with two mothers and no fathers. From that moment on, he was a boy with two mothers and four fathers. The four men hadn’t been friends before that, especially Looks at Nothing and Father John, but from then on they were. I’d like for us to do the same thing-smoke the peace smoke and become friends.”

“Because of Angie?” Delia asked.

“Not just because of Angie,” Lani said. “Fat Crack told my father once that someday he hoped the two of us would be friends. I’m beginning to think maybe he was right.”

With that she lit the cigarette, using a match rather than the lighter. She took a long drag, and then passed the cigarette to Delia. “Nawoj,” she said.

For a time the two women sat in silence with the desert heat shimmering around them and with the sweet-smelling smoke enveloping them as well.

“When I first came back here I was jealous of you,” Delia admitted at last. “I didn’t understand why Fat Crack spent so much time with you. I thought he should be teaching what he knew to Leo or Richard, to one of his own sons, instead of to someone else, especially to someone who was being raised by Anglos. Now, though, I understand why. Leo and Richard weren’t interested in all those things-not the way you are. Not the way Gabe is.”

Delia passed the cigarette back to Lani.

“And then, even though he was a Christian Scientist, Fat Crack insisted that we should invest tribal money in turning you into a doctor. I lobbied against that as well. I thought your Anglo parents should foot the bill for your education. Now, though, I understand that, too, because I see what you’re doing. Yes, you’re a medical doctor, but you understand the traditional ways and take those things into consideration.”

There was another period of silence, punctuated by puffs of smoke. “Did you know my mother is gay?” Delia asked.

Lani shook her head. “No.”

“My parents broke up when I was little,” Delia said. “For a long time I assumed it was because my father was a drunk. It turns out that was one reason for the split, but it wasn’t the only one. My mother was attracted to women. Ruth Waldron, the woman who eventually became my mother’s partner-who still is my mother’s partner-came from money, old East Coast money. Ruth saw to it that I had every educational advantage her money could buy.”

“So you were a girl with two mothers, too,” Lani murmured. “Just like I was with Diana Ladd and Nana Dahd.”

Delia smiled and nodded. “With Fat Crack’s encouragement, the tribe saw to it that you got your education. An Anglo paid for most of mine. I’m hoping that between the two of us we can do the same kind of thing for Angelina Enos-give her the same kind of advantages that were given to us. So have you made a decision?” Delia asked. “Are you willing to take her?”

“Yes,” Lani said. “I am, and I’m willing to take her today. I think it’s criminal that the Escalantes would turn her away just as they turned me away.”

“Good,” Delia said. “I’m glad to hear you say that.”

“But how will all this work?” Lani asked. “I can’t just walk into the hospital and insist that they hand her over.”

“Yes, you can,” Delia said. “Right after I spoke to you I called Judge Lawrence. He’s drawing up a court order declaring you to be Angie’s temporary guardian. All you have to do is go by his place and sign it.”

Lani was taken aback to think that Delia had known in advance what her decision would be. “What about later?” she asked. “What if some other relative of Angie’s comes forward and offers to take her?”

“They won’t,” Delia declared. “They didn’t come for you, and they won’t come for Angie.”

Delia Ortiz took one last drag on the smoldering remnant of the cigarette. “Nawoj,” she said again as she passed it back.

Much to her surprise, Delia Ortiz realized that somehow the wiw had done its magic work. Through the haze of sweet-smelling smoke it seemed entirely possible that she and Lanita Dolores Walker could be friends after all, exactly as her father-in-law, Fat Crack, had intended.