Mitch shoved his tray aside. “What the hell do you mean?”
“You know what I mean, Mitch. I’m talking about the girl. The ‘gook,’ I believe you called her. The one you raped and then blew to pieces with your AR-sixteen.”
Mitch Johnson paled. “I never told anyone about that,” he whispered hoarsely. “Not anyone at all.”
“Well,” Carlisle said with a shrug. “Now you’ve told me, but don’t worry. After all, what are a few secrets between friends?”
3
After I’itoi found the center of the world, he began making men out of mud. Ban— Coyote—was standing there watching. I’itoi told Ban that he could help.
Coyote worked with his back to I’itoi. As he made his men, he was laughing. Because the Spirit of Mischief is always with him, Coyote laughs at everything.
After a while I’itoi—the Spirit of Goodness—finished making his mud men and turned to see why Coyote was laughing. He found that Ban had made all his men with only one leg. But still Coyote continued to laugh.
At last, when they had made enough mud men, I’itoi told Coyote to listen to see which of all the mud men would be the first to speak.
Ban waited and listened, but nothing happened. Finally he went to I’itoi and said, “The mud men are not talking.”
But I’itoi said, “Go back and listen again. Since the Spirit of Mischief is in your men, surely they will be the first to speak.”
And this was true. The first of the spirits to speak in the mud men was the Spirit of Mischief. For this reason, these men became the Ohb, the Apaches—the enemy. According to the legends of the Desert People, the Ohb have always been mean and full of mischief, just the way Coyote made them.
When all the mud men were alive, I’itoi gathered them together and showed them where each tribe should live. The Apaches went to the mountains toward the east. The Hopis went north. The Yaquis went south. But the Tohono O’othham—the Desert People—were told to stay in that place which is the center of things. And that is where they are today, nawoj, my friend, close to Baboquivari, I’itoi’s cloud-veiled mountain.
And all this happened on the First Day.
At four o’clock in the afternoon, Gabe Ortiz climbed into his oven-hot Crown Victoria, turned on the air-conditioning, and sat there letting the hot air blow-dry the sweat on his skin. He loosened his bola tie and tossed his Stetson into the backseat, then he leaned back and closed his eyes, waiting for the car to cool.
All the back-and-forth hassling was enough to make Gabe long for the old days, before the election, when most of his contacts with the whites, the Mil-gahn, had been when he towed their disabled cars or motor homes out of the sand along Highway 86 and into Tucson or Casa Grande for repairs.
Why was it that Anglo bureaucrats seemed to have no other purpose in life than seeing that things didn’t happen? Delia Chavez Cachora was a fighter when it came to battling the guys in suits, but even she, with her Washington D.C.-bureaucrat experience, had been unable to move the county road- improvement process off dead center. Unless traffic patterns to the tribal casino could be improved, further expansion of the facility, along with expansion of the casino’s money-making capability, was impossible.
Delia was bright and tough—a skilled negotiator whose verbal assertiveness belied her Tohono O’othham heritage. Those traits, along with her D. C. experience, were what had drawn Gabe Ortiz to her during their first interview. He was the one who had championed her application over those of several equally qualified male applicants. But the very skills that made Delia an asset as tribal attorney and helped her forward tribal business when it came to dealing with Anglo bureaucracies seemed to be working against her when it came to dealing with her fellow Tohono O’othham.
Gabe had heard it said that Delia Chavez Cachora sounded and acted so much like a Mil- gahn at times that she wasn’t really “Indian” enough. She was doing the proper things—living with her aunt out at Little Tucson was certainly a step in the right direction—but Gabe knew she would need additional help. He had developed a plan to address that particular problem. Delia just didn’t know about it yet, although he’d have to tell her soon.
Davy Ladd was a young man, an Anglo who had been raised by Gabe Ortiz’s Aunt Rita. A recent law school graduate, Davy was due back in Tucson sometime in the next few days. By the time he arrived, Delia would have to know that Gabe had hired Davy to spend the summer months and maybe more time beyond that working as an intern in the tribal attorney’s office.
Gabe thought it would be interesting to see how Delia Chavez Cachora dealt with an Anglo who spoke her supposedly native tongue far better than she did. Not only that, Gabe was looking forward to getting to know the grown-up version of his late Aunt Rita’s Little Olhoni.
Next to his ear, someone tapped on the window. Gabe opened his eyes and sat up. Delia herself was standing next to his car, a concerned frown on her face. “Are you all right?” she asked when he rolled down the window.
“Just resting my eyes,” he said.
“I was afraid you were sick.”
Gabe shook his head. “Tired,” he said with a smile. “Tired but not sick.”
“Are you going straight home?” she asked. “We could stop and get something to drink.”
“No, thanks,” he said. “You go on ahead. I have to visit with someone on the way.”
“All right,” she said. “See you Monday.”
As she walked away from the car, Gabe noticed she was stripping off her watch and putting it in her purse. When Gabe had asked her about it, she had told him that on weekends she tried to live on Indian time; tried to do without clocks and all the other trappings of the Anglo world, including, presumably, the evils of air conditioning, he thought as she drove past him a few minutes later with all the windows of her turbo Saab wide open.
