Kiss of the Bees

The moon had long crossed the peak of the mountain, leaving the cave in total darkness. There was no light —at least there shouldn’t have been. But as Lani searched the darkness for which way to go, a light did appear. Not a ray of light, and not a beam either. It looked more like a shadow glowing in the dark. It seemed to hover there on the far side of the cave before disappearing into nothing.

Some people have claimed that what Lani saw was little more than a cloud of dust set loose by Mitch’s scrambling feet. But for Lani, for someone steeped in the ancient legends of I’itoi and in the traditions of the Tohono O’othham, there was no doubt about what she had seen.

The phosphorescent cloud came from the pots, all right, but not from dust. Freed now from her clay prison, Oks Gagda herself had come to show Lani the way.

Setting off across the dirt floor of the cave once again with more confidence than the darkness warranted, Lani walked to the place where it seemed to her the cloud had disappeared. She held one arm in front of her to keep from running into the rock wall, but that wasn’t necessary. At the very spot where the cloud had disappeared, the passageway into the outer cavern opened up before her.

She paused there for a moment, wondering. If Betraying Woman had deceived her own people, could her guidance now be trusted? But there were no other options. One step at a time, Lani set off down the passage. Any moment, Mitch Johnson might return to the cave to find her, bringing the spirit of his friend, Andrew Carlisle, with him, but Lani Walker was no longer alone. Elder Brother himself was with her and so was Betraying Woman.

Lani had reached the point in the passage where she felt rather than saw the walls open out around her. She was just congratulating herself on getting that far when she heard cursing and scraping coming from the front entrance of the cave. Mitch Johnson was coming back. For one heart-stopping moment, she froze. There was nothing more she could do. Mitch had her trapped in the cave. Now he would surely kill her. Or worse. Either way, she had come to the end of her endurance.

Out of the depths of Lani’s despair, Nana Dahd’s comforting words returned to the girl once more:

“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 Walker was already inside a crack in the mountain; already in a cave very much like Eagleman’s cave, with a pile of bones moldering in the far corner just the way the bones of the people Eagleman had eaten had moldered in the corner of his cave. And there were cracks inside this crack. The curtains of falling stalactites and the growing mounds of stalagmites that she had glimpsed with Quentin’s flashlight earlier all offered places where I’itoi could possibly have hidden and where Lani might hide herself as well.

Lani Walker had grown up in two worlds, understanding much of each. She knew instinctively that the Mil-gahn, Mitch, might look at the pile of debris and immediately assume that she had followed him out, climbing up and out. It might not occur to him that she would stay inside the mountain; that without benefit of a light she would have nerve enough to trust herself to I’itoi’s power and move into the enveloping darkness rather than away from it.

With him scrabbling through the one passage and with Lani trapped in the other, there wasn’t a moment to lose. Halfway down the passage, the man-made earthen covering yielded once more to bare, jagged rocks. She could feel the sharp edges under the soles of her boots. She remembered that just before Quentin had ducked into the passage, she had glimpsed the walls of the huge cavern receding far into the mountain.

Clinging to the dank, wet wall and using it as a guide, she turned left from the mouth of the passage and fled along the side of the cavern, into the heart of the mountain.

Into the heart of I’itoi’s sacred mountain, she told herself. That is where I am going. Either I will be safe there, or that is where I will die.

Hardly daring to breathe, she scraped along, still clinging to the wall, testing each tentative stepping place before she put her weight down. She came to the first break in the wall. Feeling around it with both arms, she realized it was a stalagmite, one three feet wide and about that tall, rising up from the floor of the cave. It wasn’t large, but perhaps it was large enough to hide her. She ducked behind it just as the first jagged beams from Mitch’s flashlight flickered into the cave and then slid across the otherworldly surface of the far wall.

Lani pressed herself against the sheltering stalagmite and held her breath. She didn’t dare peek out for fear the beam from the light might reveal her face glowing white in the darkness. She marked his progress by watching the bouncing ray of his flashlight as he came across the room and by the curses and moans that accompanied his every step. She couldn’t make out exactly what he was saying, but every once in a while the word “knee” surfaced and there was something about “cops.”

Perhaps, in clambering up and over the debris, he had reinjured the knee that had been bothering him earlier. That would explain the knee part. As for the cops, Lani couldn’t imagine what he meant. It didn’t seem possible that there would be police officers outside looking for her. How could there be? How would anyone know where to look?

After what seemed an eternity, Mitch disappeared into the second passageway. Lani was tempted to stay where she was, but since this was the first hiding place she had found and the one nearest the opening to the second cavern, it was also most likely the first place Mitch Johnson would look when he came searching for her again. She would have to do better than that.

Hoping the noise of his own movements would mask hers, she crept on, trying to suppress the ragged breaths that threatened to catch in her throat and ignoring the sweat that trickled down the back of her neck. Two steps farther, her foot slipped off a sharp edge into a pool of icy water. The splash sounded like an explosion in her pounding ears, but when she stopped still and waited, there was no answering sound from the other room. Perhaps he hadn’t heard it.

Barely able to breathe, she moved on. A dozen more steps into the mountain, she found a gap between two stalagmites and burrowed her way into that, stopping only when she came up against solid rock.

Closing her eyes against the darkness, she let Nana Dahd’s comforting words spill over her soul:

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