understand, she seemed to be rejecting that love.
“Why?” Brandon had asked again.
“Because she really is Kulani O’oks,” Fat Crack explained. “Lani is destined to be a great medicine woman. To do that-to really do that-she has to abide by the old ways.”
One look at Fat Crack’s impassive face told Brandon he was losing. No amount of arguing would do any good. He tried anyway.
“It’s almost summer,” Brandon said. “Hotter’n hell during the day and freezing at night. Where will she sleep, Gabe? What will she eat?”
“I’ll look after her,” Fat Crack said quietly. “It’s my job, one siwani-one chief medicine man-to another.”
“But…”
“Please, Brandon,” Fat Crack added. “It’s what she must do.”
Brandon Walker had gone home empty-handed that Sunday afternoon. He had held a weeping Diana in his arms and tried to explain it to her. Although the two of them had never discussed it afterward, he suspected she didn’t like this new reality any better than he did. He wondered sometimes if Diana felt as betrayed as he did to think that Lani had turned to Fat Crack in her hour of need-to Gabe Ortiz rather than to her parents.
When Fat Crack finally brought Lani home to Gates Pass sixteen days later, she was a different person. She had been a carefree teenager-little more than a child-when she was taken from them. She returned as a serious- minded young woman who was far more in tune with her Indian heritage than she had ever been before.
From then on, the relationship between Lani and her adoptive parents was forever altered. There was no blow-up-no identifiable breach or specific argument. Things were just different. Brandon was smart enough not to blame Fat Crack for the changes that had occurred. Dolores Lanita Walker was still their Lani, still at home with them. She learned to drive, got her license, and graduated from high school at the top of her class. Yet Brandon knew Mitch Johnson had succeeded in robbing him of something precious when he had kidnapped Lani.
He had stolen her innocence. No one in the world-not even Fat Crack Ortiz-could give it back to her.
I’ll talk to her about Fat Crack’s condition,” Brandon told Diana now, staring down into a mug where his forgotten coffee had long ago gone cold. “If I have to, I’ll even lie to her about it.”
“No,” Diana counseled. “Don’t do that. If the news is really bad, we can fly her home early. She’s already canceled walking through graduation-which she figured you’d appreciate. And she’s made arrangements with her professors to do some exams early.”
“Which means she already knows it’s bad news,” Brandon observed. His eyes sought Diana’s over the rim of his coffee mug. “And so do I. You’re sure you can’t come along?”
“I’m sure,” Diana said. “I’ve got to work.”
“All right, then,” Brandon said. “See you later.”
J. A. Jance
Day of the Dead
Eight
At eleven o’clock on Saturday morning, Sue Lammers went into the family room to check on her husband, Ken, who had spent all morning glued to the Golf Channel watching a tournament.
“Is it over?” she asked.
“This is a different one,” he said, barely taking his eyes off their flat-screen TV. “On ABC. It just started.”
What Sue Lammers saw right then was red! When they had first moved to their manufactured home on Fast Horse Ranch south of Tucson, they had loved it. She and Ken both worked hard all week-she as a purchasing agent for University Medical Center and he as an economist for Pima County. On weekends, they worked on the house and the yard, gradually creating a beautifully landscaped retreat out of rough, untamed desert.
But that was before satellite TV had crept in and ruined Sue’s little Garden of Eden with the forbidden fruit of unlimited weekend sports. Now, with that ugly little satellite dish perched like an overweight eagle on the roof, life wasn’t the same. Football folded into basketball, into baseball, and back into football in an unrelenting cavalcade, with golf, auto racing, and the National Hockey League plugged in here and there for good measure. It was all Sue could do to get Ken to tear himself away from the tube long enough to eat an occasional meal at the table instead of on a tray. As for his lifting a finger around the house or yard? Forget about it.
Grumbling to herself, Sue left the room. Ranger, their five-year-old German shepherd, followed her down the hallway and into the bedroom. As soon as she took her hiking boots down from the shelf in the closet, Ranger went on full alert. For him, boots meant only one thing-the tantalizing prospect of a walk. Ears up, nose quivering with excitement, Ranger watched as she pulled the boots on and laced them up.
“That’s right, old boy,” she told him. “I may not be able to get Daddy off his duff, but I sure as hell don’t have that problem with you.”
Still pissed at her husband, Sue took Ranger and left by the front door without even bothering to tell Ken they were leaving. She took the whistle-Ranger was well trained and would come on the run after only a single blast from the whistle-and didn’t bother with a leash. This far out in the country, leashes weren’t really necessary. She let Ranger live up to his name by racing along before and alongside her, calling him back only when she saw other people coming their way-joggers, hikers, or bicyclists. Trains were another story. The power-line access road where Sue and Ranger often walked ran along the railroad tracks, and trains spooked Ranger. When he heard one coming, he would race back to Sue and cower with his head next to her knee until the noisy thing had rumbled past and out of earshot.
This morning, though, there were no trains on the horizon as Sue Lammers, still seething with resentment, strode along the rugged, rutted excuse for a road that ran under the power line. Is this why I’m working my heart out all week? she wondered. So I can spend my weekends alone with a dog instead of with my husband?
For weeks she had watched as the round flat leaves of the prickly pear sprouted buds. Now, in late April, the desert was a bright sea of yellow. Somehow, seeing the desert bloom like that made her feel better. Wasn’t that the whole point of going for a walk-to feel better?
Ahead of her, half a mile or so away, Sue spotted a dark-colored vehicle parked on the shoulder of the real road that ran parallel to where she was walking. Seeing a parked car made her uneasy. There was no legitimate reason for anyone to be parked along there-no houses, no businesses. In the distance she could see a figure moving back and forth between a clump of mesquite and the back of what she assumed was a pickup truck.
Sue knew many people were too cheap to pay to go to the dump. They’d rather come out into the desert and use it as a personal trash heap. Meeting up with one of those lowlifes made Sue Lammers uneasy, especially when she was out walking alone-Ranger notwithstanding. She reached into her shirt pocket and pulled out her cell phone. A new tower had recently been erected in their neighborhood, making cell-phone reception better. She was relieved to see that she had a good strong signal.
She was only a few yards closer when the person who had been walking to and from the vehicle-she could see now that it was actually a dark-colored pickup with what appeared to be a camper shell-turned and seemed to see her. He jumped into the driver’s seat and sped off, sending a cloud of dust spewing skyward. Relieved to watch him drive away, Sue kept walking. She had been about to lift the whistle to her lips to summon Ranger back, but with the pickup gone, she dropped the whistle and left Ranger free to explore.
Sue was still a few hundred yards short of where the vehicle had been parked when she heard the distant rumble of a train. Ranger heard it, too. The dog had been a long way ahead of her. Now he came loping back. As he drew closer, Sue saw he had something in his mouth. At first she thought it was a stick, but it wasn’t a stick. It was an arm-a bloodied human arm.
“Drop it!” Sue screamed in horror. “Drop it right now!”
Ranger did as he was told, then scampered to her side as the train rumbled nearer.
Feeling faint, Sue Lammers struggled to get her cell phone out of her pocket. Her fingers felt like thick, clumsy sausages. The phone slipped from her grasp and fell to the ground. Landing on a rock, it bounced once and exploded. The plastic back fell off and the battery popped free. As Sue knelt to retrieve the scattered pieces of her phone, Ranger made another grab at his prize.
“Leave it!” she exclaimed, but by then the train was right beside them, drowning out everything. Whether he heard her or not, Ranger complied, leaving Sue scrambling on her hands and knees as she reassembled the broken phone.
