Kiss of the Bees

inconvenient presence of that meddlesome wife.”

“You?” Brandon asked.

Diana nodded. Her voice sounded far more self-possessed than she felt. “If I had gone to the dance with them that night,” she said, “my guess is I would have been the one who died at Rattlesnake Skull Charco, not Gina Antone.”

For sixteen days and nights Lani Walker stayed in the tent Baby and Fat Crack Ortiz had erected for her near the base of Ioligam. She spent her days weaving a rectangular medicine basket. When it was finished, the lid fit perfectly. Lani held it up to the light and studied the final product with no small satisfaction. It was not as well done as one of Nana Dahd’s own baskets, but it would do.

Each evening, about sunset, Gabe Ortiz would arrive by himself, bringing with him an evening meal and the next day’s salt-free food. The traditional dictates of the enemy purification process—e lihmhun—specify a period of fasting and of avoiding salted food.

On the final day of her purification exile, with the medicine basket complete, Lani took a flashlight and ventured into Betraying Woman’s cave one last time. There, shoved up against the stalagmite behind which she had hidden for hours, Lani found one of her two missing boots. She picked it up and took it with her when she continued on into Oks Gagda’s burial chamber.

This time when Lani entered the earthen-floored chamber, there was a feeling of utter emptiness about it. The spirits—kokoi—that had once inhabited the place were no longer there. Careful not to touch or disturb the decaying bones, Lani placed the shoe beside Betraying Woman’s bones as a kind of memorial, then she stepped over to the wall where all the broken pieces of blasted pottery lay in a dusty heap. Kneeling down, Lani picked up one shard of clay after another, examining each in turn, looking for one that would speak to her, the one that was worthy of inclusion in Lani Walker’s newly woven medicine basket.

The fragment she finally settled on was all black, inside and out. She chose it because the fine black texture reminded her of the touch of the bat’s wings against her skin. Pocketing her treasure, Lani was about to stand up and leave when she caught sight of something else reflected in the glow of the flashlight, something that would have remained completely hidden had she not moved several pieces of the pottery.

When Lani saw the tiny bones, she thought at first that she had discovered the skeleton of a tiny baby. It wasn’t, though. When she picked it up and the bones fell apart, she realized that what she had found was the moldering skeleton of a bat’s wing.

Awareness made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. I’itoi had given her a sign. Dolores Lanita Walker was Mualig Siakam—Forever Spinning, and Kulani O’oks—Medicine Woman as well. But she was also Nanakumal Namkam—Bat Meeter. Elder Brother had led her to this place and had shown her it was true.

Why not four names? Lani thought with a laugh. After all, all things in nature go in fours.

On that last night, Fat Crack brought along Looks At Nothing’s medicine pouch. After Lani and he had eaten, the medicine man drew a circle on the ground, a line that encircled both man and girl. The two of them settled down on the ground inside the circle.

“It’s time for your first Peace Smoke,” he told her. “Davy and Candace flew out of Tucson for Vegas this afternoon. They’re supposed to get married tomorrow, but before he left, Davy brought me these. He said they belong to you.”

Opening the medicine pouch, he pulled out two items and handed them to her. She recognized them at once as the treasures from Nana Dahd’s old medicine basket—the piece of pottery with the distinctive turtle design etched into the clay and the precious scalp bundle.

“Thank you,” Lani said. Opening her basket, she put the two additions inside and closed the lid.

“What else do you have in there?” Fat Crack asked.

“Nothing much,” Lani said. “My people-hair charm. A finger from a bat’s wing. And a piece of Betraying Woman’s pottery.”

“Bring it,” Fat Crack said. “The piece of pottery, I mean. After we have the Peace Smoke, you and I will study the pottery together.”

Using Looks At Nothing’s old Zippo lighter, Fat Crack carefully lit the wiw. And then, one puff at a time, they smoked the bitter-tasting wild tobacco, passing the lit cigarette back and forth, saying “Nawoj” each time it changed hands.

“How is Quentin?” Lani asked.

“Out of the hospital,” Fat Crack replied. “But he checked himself into a drug and alcohol rehab program.”

“Will he be better?” Lani asked.

Fat Crack shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. “He has let go of the secret of his brother’s death. Secrets like that can be very bad. They eat at you. Perhaps now, he’ll be able to get better.”

“Perhaps,” Lani agreed.

They were quiet again. Far off to the east, flickers of lightning touched the horizon. The summer rains were coming. They would be here soon—by the end of the week at the latest. In a way, Lani was sorry that when the deluges began she would be living back inside the house in Gates Pass with a regular roof over her head rather than a canvas tent.

Lani Walker wasn’t a smoker—not even of regular cigarettes. By the time the last of the wild tobacco smoke had eddied away into the nighttime air, she felt light-headed.

“Have you ever heard of divining crystals?” Fat Crack asked. His voice seemed to come to her from very far away.

“I’ve heard of them,” she said. “But I’ve never seen any.”

Fat Crack reached into the medicine pouch and pulled out the chamois bag. Untying it, he held open Lani’s hand and poured the four crystals into it.

“Looks At Nothing said I should keep them until I found a successor worthy of them,” he said. “It was through using these that I knew to look for you near Rattlesnake Skull that morning. Now I want you to try it.”