Kiss of the Bees

“What if we’ve lost her?” Diana asked in a small voice. “What if Lani’s gone for good?”

“She isn’t,” Brandon returned fiercely. It wasn’t so much that he believed she wasn’t lost. It was just that when it came to his precious Lani, believing anything else was unthinkable.

Brandon’s initial reluctance about adopting Clemencia Escalante disappeared within days of the child’s noisy entry into the Walker household. He was captivated by her in every way, and the reverse was also true. It wasn’t long before his daily return from work was cause for an ecstatic greeting on Clemencia’s part. When he was home, she padded around at his heels, following him everywhere, always underfoot no matter where he was or what he was doing.

When it came time to work on turning their temporary appointment as foster parents into permanent adoptive ones, Brandon had forged through the reams of paperwork with cheerful determination. Later, during caseworker interviews, he was charming and enthusiastic. But when the time came to drive out to Sells to appear before the tribal court for a hearing on finalizing the adoption, he was as nervous as he had been on the day he and Diana Ladd married.

“What if they turn us down after all this?” he asked, standing in front of the mirror and reknotting his tie for a third time. “What if we have to give her back? I couldn’t stand to lose her now, not after all this.”

“Wanda seems to think it’ll go through as long as we have Rita in our corner.”

The four of them rode out to Sells together. Rita and the baby sat in the backseat—Clemencia sleeping in her car seat and Rita sitting stolidly with her arms folded across her lap. She said very little, but everything about her exuded serene confidence. They found Fat Crack waiting for them in the small gravel parking lot outside the tribal courtroom. While Brandon and Diana unloaded the baby and her gear, Rita turned to her nephew.

“Did you do it?” she asked Fat Crack, speaking to him in the language of the Tohono O’othham. “Did you look at her picture through the divining crystals?”

“Heu’u—yes,” Fat Crack said.

“And what did you see?”

“I saw this child, the one you call Forever Spinning, wearing a white coat and carrying a feather, a seagull feather.”

“See there?” Rita said, her face dissolving into a smile. “I told you, didn’t I? She will be both.”

“But—”

“No more,” Rita said. “It’s time to go in.”

Molly Juan, the tribal judge, was a pug-faced, no-nonsense woman who spent several long minutes shuffling through the paperwork Wanda Ortiz handed her before raising her eyes to gaze at the people gathered in the courtroom.

“Both parents are willing to give up the child?” she asked at last.

Wanda Ortiz nodded. “Both have signed terminations of parental rights.”

“And there are no blood relatives interested in taking her?”

“Not at this time. If the Walkers’ petition to adopt her is denied, my office has made arrangements to place Clemencia in a facility in Phoenix.”

“Who is this then?” Molly Juan asked, nodding toward Rita.

“This is Mrs. Antone—Rita Antone—a widow and my husband’s aunt,” Wanda replied.

“And she has some interest in this matter?”

Ponderously, Rita Antone wheeled her chair until she sat facing the judge. “That is true,” Rita said. “I am Hejel Wi i’thag—Left Alone. My grandmother, my father’s mother, was Oks Amichuda, Understanding Woman. She was not a medicine woman, although she could have been. But she told me once, years ago, that I would find one, and that when I did, I should give her my medicine basket.

“Do you know the story of Mualig Siakam?”

Molly Juan nodded. “Of course, the woman who was saved by the Little People during the great famine.”

Brandon Walker leaned over to his wife. “What the hell does all this have to do with the price of tea in China?”

“Shhhh,” Diana returned.

“Clemencia has been kissed by the ants in the same way the first Mualig Siakam was kissed by the bees,” Rita continued. “Clemencia was starving and might have died if the ants had not bitten her and brought her to my attention. Some of her relatives are afraid to take her because they fear Ant Sickness. The Walkers are Mil-gahn, so Ant Sickness cannot hurt them. And I am old. I will die long before Ant Sickness can find me.

“The Walkers are asking for her because everyone knows that I am too old to care for her by myself, just as her own great-grandmother was. But I know that this is the child Oks Amichuda told me about—the very one.”

“And you think, that by keeping her with you, you can help her become a medicine woman?” Molly Juan asked.

Rita looked at Fat Crack. “She already is one,” Rita said. “She may not be old enough to understand that yet, and I will not tell her. It’s something she must learn for herself. But in the time I have left, I can teach her things that will be useful when the time comes for her to decide.”

Rita started to move away, but Judge Juan stopped her. “Supposing you die?” she asked pointedly. “What happens then? If Clemencia is living with a Mil-gahn family, who will be there to teach her?”

“The Walkers have a son,” Rita answered quietly. “His Mil-gahn name is David Ladd. His Indian name—the one Looks At Nothing gave him when he was baptized—is Edagith Gogk