Kiss of the Bees

“What do you mean, whose orphanage?” Wanda asked.

“Who runs it?” Rita asked.

“It’s church-run,” Wanda replied. “Baptist, I think. It’s very nice. They only take Indian children there, not just Tohono O’othham children, but ones from lots of different tribes.”

“But who’s in charge?” Rita insisted. “Indians or Anglos?”

“Anglos, of course,” Wanda said, “although they do have Indians on staff.”

Diana walked back into the living room carrying a tray. “Indians on staff where?” she asked as she distributed cups of coffee. In view of the fact that Rita Antone made her home with a Mil-gahn family, Wanda Ortiz was a little mystified at Rita’s obvious opposition to the idea of Indian children being raised by Anglos. After all, Rita had raised Davy Ladd, hadn’t she?

“Running an orphanage for Indians,” Wanda Ortiz told Diana. “We were talking about the little girl I brought to TMC this morning. Once she’s released, if we can’t find a suitable relative to take care of her, she may end up in a Baptist orphanage up in Phoenix. They’re really very good with children.”

“Do they teach basket-making up there?” Rita asked, peering at her nephew’s wife. “And in the wintertime, do they sit around and tell I’itoi stories, or do they watch TV?”

“Ni-thahth,” Gabe objected, smiling and respectfully addressing his aunt in the formal Tohono O’othham manner used when referring to one’s mother’s older sister. “The children out on the reservation watch television, and those are kids who still live at home with their parents.”

“Someone should be teaching them the stories,” Rita insisted stubbornly. “Someone who still remembers how to tell them.”

After that, the old woman lapsed into a moody silence. By then Rita Antone and Diana Ladd had lived together for almost a dozen years. Diana knew from the expression on the old woman’s face that Rita was upset, and she quickly went about turning the conversation to less difficult topics. She wouldn’t have mentioned it again, but once Gabe and Wanda left for Sells and after Davy had headed off to bed, Rita herself brought it up.

“That baby is Hejel Wi i’thag,” Rita Antone said softly. “She is Left Alone, just like me.” Orphaned as a young child and then left widowed and with her only son dead in early middle age, Rita had been called Hejel Wi i’thag almost her whole life.

“And if they take her to that orphanage in Phoenix,” Rita continued fiercely, “she will come back a Baptist, not Tohono O’othham. She will be an outsider her whole life, again just like me.”

Diana could see that her friend was haunted by the specter of what might happen to this abandoned but unknown and unnamed child. “Don’t worry,” Diana said, hoping to comfort her. “Wanda said she was looking for someone—a blood relative—to take the baby. I’m sure she’ll find someone who’ll do it.”

Rita Antone shook her grizzled head. “I don’t think so,” she said.

A week later, Fat Crack Ortiz was surprised when his Aunt Rita, who usually avoided using telephones, called him at his auto-repair shop at Sells.

“Where is she?” Rita asked without preamble.

“Where’s who?” he asked.

“The baby. The one who was kissed by Ali-chu’uchum O’othham—by the Little People, by the ants and wasps and bees.”

“It was ants, Ni-thahth,” Fat Crack answered. “And she’s still in the hospital in Tucson. She’s supposed to get out tomorrow or the next day.”

“Who is going to take her?” Rita asked.

“I’m not sure,” Gabe hedged, even though he knew full well that Wanda’s search for a suitable guardian for the child had so far come to nothing.

Rita correctly interpreted Fat Crack’s evasiveness. “I want her,” Rita said flatly. “Give her to me.”

“But, Ni-thahth,” Gabe objected. “After what already happened to that little girl, no one is going to be willing to hand her over to you.”

“Why?” Rita asked. “Because I’m too old?”

“Yes.” Fat Crack’s answer was reluctant but truthful. “I suppose that’s it. Once the tribal judge sees your age, she isn’t going to look at anything else.”

Rita refused to take no for an answer. “Give her to Diana, then,” she countered. “She and Brandon Walker are young enough to take her, but I would still be here to teach her the things she needs to know.”

Gabe hesitated to say what he knew to be true. “You don’t understand. Diana and Brandon are Anglos, Rita. Mil-gahn. They’re good friends of mine as well as friends of yours, but times have changed. No one does that anymore.”

“Does what?”

“Approves those kinds of adoptions—adoptions outside the tribe.”

“You mean Anglos can’t adopt Tohono O’othham children anymore?”

“That’s right,” Gabe said. “And it’s not just here. Tribal courts from all over the country are doing the same thing. They say that being adopted by someone outside a tribe is bad for Indian children, that they don’t learn their language or their culture.”

There was a long silence on the telephone line. For a moment or two Fat Crack wondered if perhaps something had gone wrong with the connection. “Even the tribal judge will see that living in a Baptist orphanage would be worse than living with us,” Rita said at last. After that she said nothing more.

Through the expanding silence in the earpiece Fat Crack understood that, from sixty miles away, he had been