Kiss of the Bees

Dan Leggett turned to face Gabe. “Mr. Ortiz,” he said, “we have a fingerprint from the bones that matches one found in the Walkers’ house. I said she may have been involved. What I didn’t say is that her involvement may have happened under duress.”

“Duress? What does that mean?”

“It means Lani Walker may have been kidnapped,” Dan Leggett said. “No one has seen her since she left to go to work sometime around six yesterday morning. She didn’t show up for her shift or for a concert date with a friend yesterday evening.”

“Kidnapped?” Brian Fellows echoed.

Delia came to the door and motioned to her elderly aunt. “He’s talking, but in Tohono O’othham. I don’t remember enough of that to be able to understand.”

Again the people left in the waiting room drifted into silence. Gabe Ortiz walked across the room and sat down in a chair, burying his face in his hands. “Mr. Ortiz seems very upset about all this,” Dan Leggett observed. “Is he related to Lani Walker somehow?”

Brian Fellows nodded. “He and his wife are Lani’s godparents.”

“Oh,” Dan Leggett said. “That explains it then.”

A few minutes later, Julia Joaquin emerged from the ICU. Walking stiffly, she passed directly in front of the waiting detective and deputy, going instead to where Gabe Ortiz was sitting. Dan Leggett and Brian Fellows trailed after her.

“Manny only remembers seeing a man, not a woman,” the old woman said, speaking to the tribal chairman, addressing him softly in Tohono O’othham rather than English. “The man was tall and skinny—a Mil-gahn. And he was driving an orange truck of some kind.”

“The girl wasn’t there?” Gabe asked.

Julia Joaquin shook her head. Gabe Ortiz sighed in obvious relief.

“What are they saying?” Dan Leggett asked, and Brian translated as well as he could.

“Manny Chavez’s back is broken and he may be paralyzed,” Julia Joaquin continued, still addressing Gabe Ortiz, rather than any of the others. “Do you know of a medicine man who is good with Turtle Sickness?”

“I do not,” Gabe answered. “But I will find out.”

“Thank you,” Julia said. She turned to the detective just as Brian finished translating once more.

“Turtle Sickness?” Dan Leggett repeated.

Julia Joaquin nodded.

“How can you call it a sickness? Somebody hit him in the back with a shovel!”

“Turtle Sickness—paralysis—comes from being rude,” she explained firmly. “My brother-in-law has always been a very rude man.”

Just then Delia Cachora returned to the waiting room. “Aunt Julia told you what you needed to know?” she asked.

Dan Leggett nodded. “She certainly did,” he said.

Gabe stood up and took Julia Joaquin’s hand in his. “I’m glad the ant-bit child wasn’t there.”

Julia nodded. “I am, too,” she said.

“Ant-bit child?” Delia Cachora asked. “What are we talking about now?” She seemed almost as puzzled about that as Dan Leggett was about Turtle Sickness.

Julia Joaquin turned to her niece. “There was an old blind medicine man, years ago, who was always telling people that an ant-bit child would someday show up on the reservation and that she would grow up to be a powerful medicine woman.”

Delia glanced warily at Detective Leggett. “Aunt Julia,” she cautioned, but Julia Joaquin disregarded the warning.

“Kulani O’oks,” she continued. “She was the woman who was kissed by the bees. Looks At Nothing said the ant-bit child would be just like her, that she would save people, not harm them, not even someone like Manny.”

“Thank you,” Gabe Ortiz said to Julia. “I’m sure you’re right.”

The tribal chairman left then. Dan Leggett handed Delia Cachora a business card. “I’d appreciate it if you’d keep us posted on your father’s condition,” he said. “In the meantime, Deputy Fellows and I will head back out to the department to see if there’s anything else we can do.”

The two officers left the waiting room together. Once outside, Dan Leggett stopped long enough to light a cigar. “So Lani Walker’s supposed to be a medicine woman when she grows up,” he said. “That one takes the cake. Have you ever heard anything like it in your life?”

As the cloud of smoke ballooned around Detective Leggett’s head, Brian Fellows realized there was a certain olfactory resemblance between that and wiw—the wild tobacco Looks At Nothing had always used in his evil-smelling, hand-rolled cigarettes. The smell brought back a string of memories, including Rita Antone saying much the same thing Julia Joaquin had just said, that Davy’s new baby sister would one day grow up to be a medicine woman. It came as no surprise to him that Looks At Nothing would have been the original source of that story, and it hardly mattered that the old medicine man had been dead for years before Lani Walker came to live in the house in Gates Pass.

“Actually, I have,” Brian Fellows said. “I’ve heard it before from any number of people.”

“The medicine-woman part?”

Brian nodded.