Kiss of the Bees

“Nothing,” Lani said. “Just trying to get comfortable.”

“You stay right where you are,” Mitch warned. “No funny business.”

Lani said nothing more. Covering the perfectly round opening of the pot with the palm of her hand, Lani closed her eyes. With the cool rim of clay touching her skin, Lani let the words of Nana Dahd’s long-ago song flow silently through her whole being.

Do not look at me, Little Olhoni

Do not look at me when I sing to you

So this man will not know we are speaking

So this evil man will think he is winning.

Do not look at me when I sing, Little Olhoni,

But listen to what I say. This man is evil.

This man is the enemy. This man is Ohb.

Do not let this frighten you.

Whatever happens, we must not let him win.

I am singing a war song, Little Olhoni.

A hunter’s song, a killer’s song.

I am singing a song to I’itoi, asking him to help us.

Asking him to guide us in the battle

So the evil Ohb does not win.

Do not look at me, Little Olhoni,

Do not look at me when I sing to you.

I must sing this song four times,

For all of nature goes in fours,

But when the trouble starts

You must listen very carefully

And do exactly what I say.

If I tell you to run, you must run,

Run fast, and do not look back.

Whatever happens, Little Olhoni.

You must run and not look back.

Remember in the story how I’itoi made himself a fly

And hid in the smallest crack when Eagleman

Came searching for him. Be like I’itoi,

Little Olhoni. Be like I’itoi and hide yourself

In the smallest crack. Hide yourself somewhere

And do not come out again until the battle is over.

Listen to what I sing to you, Little Olhoni.

Do not look at me but do exactly as I say.

Lani paused sometimes between verses to listen. Outside the cave’s entrance, cool nighttime air rustled through the manzanita, making a sighing sound like people whispering—or like a’ali chum—little children—gossiping and sharing secrets. Maybe it was that sound that brought Betraying Woman back to Lani’s attention. Not only had she been left to die in the cave, her spirit was still there, trapped forever in the prison of her unbroken pots.

“Pots are made to be broken,” Nana Dahd had told her time and again. “Always the pots must be broken.”

And that was why, in Rita’s medicine basket, there had once been a single shard of pottery with the figure of a turtle etched into it. The piece of reddish-brown clay had come from a pot Rita’s grandmother, Oks Amichuda—Understanding Woman—had made when she was a young woman. After Understanding Woman’s death, Rita herself had smashed the pot to pieces, releasing her grandmother’s spirit. The only thing Rita had saved was that one jagged-edged piece.

For just a moment, in that dim gray light, Lani thought she saw the pale figure of a woman glide behind the man who called himself Mitch Vega. Lani saw the figure pause and then move on.

The shadowy shape was there for such a brief moment that at first Lani thought, perhaps, she had made her up. But then, as Lani kept on singing, a strange peace enveloped her. She felt perfectly calm—as though she were being swept along in the untroubled stillness inside a whirlwind. And since Lani understood by then that, like Betraying Woman, she was going to die anyway, there was no longer any reason for her to remain silent.

“Why do you hate them?” she asked.

“Hate who?” Mitch returned.

“My parents,” Lani answered. “That’s why you’ve done all this—drugged me, drugged Quentin, brought us here. That’s the reason you drew that awful picture of me, as well. To get at my parents, but I still don’t understand why.”

“It’s not your parents,” Mitch said agreeably enough. “It’s your father.”

“My father? What did he do to you?”

“Did your father ever mention the name Mitch Johnson to you?”

“Mitch Johnson? I don’t think so. Is that you? I thought your name was Vega.”

“Mitch Whatever. It doesn’t really matter, does it?” He laughed then. The brittle laughter rattled hollowly off the walls of the cave. “That’s a pisser, isn’t it! Brandon Walker cost me my family, my future, and twenty years out of my life, but I’m not important enough for even the smallest mention to Brandon Walker’s nearest and dearest.”

“What did my father do to you?” Lani persisted.

“I’ll tell you what he did. He locked me up, and for no good reason. Those goddamned wetbacks are sucking the lifeblood out of this country. They were wrecking things back then, and it’s worse now. All I was trying to do was stop it.”

The word “wetbacks” brought the story back. “You’re him,” Lani said.

“Him who?”

“The man who shot those poor Mexicans out in the desert.”

“So your father did tell you about me after all. What did he say?”

“He wasn’t talking about you,” Lani answered. “He was talking about the award. I was dusting in his study and I asked him about some of his awards. The Parade Magazine Detective of the Year Award was—”