Hour of the Hunter

J.A. JANCE Hour of the Hunter

Prologue

I t is said that after that I’itoi climbed the steps of arrows and went to Eagle Man’s cave. The woman was sitting there with her baby. “I have come to kill Eagle Man,” I’itoi told her.

“But you can’t,” said the woman. “He kills everyone.”

“He will not kill me,” said I’itoi, “because I have power. What time does he come home?”

“At noon.”

“What does he do?”

“He eats.”

“And after that?”

“He sleeps.”

“And the baby?”

“He sleeps, too.”

“Today, let it happen just that way,” said I’itoi. “Let him come home and eat and go to sleep. Let the baby sleep with him with his head facing in the same direction.”

“Where will you be?” asked the woman.

“I will turn myself into a fly and hide in that crack over there.”

It happened just that way. I’itoi turned himself into a fly and hid in the crack. Eagle Man came home, ate his meal, and lay down with the baby to sleep. The baby was so small it had not yet spoken, but now it did. “Papa, somebody came,” the baby said.

“What did you say?” asked Eagle Man.

“Do not listen,” said the woman. “You know the baby cannot talk.”

“Papa,” the baby said again. “Somebody came.” But every time, the woman told Eagle Man not to listen. Finally, she sang a song so the baby would go to sleep.

When they were both sleeping, the fly came out of the crack and turned back into I’itoi. He took a stone hatchet from his belt and chopped the baby’s head off. Then he chopped Eagle Man’s head off, too.

After I’itoi killed Eagle Man, the woman took him to a corner of the cave where there was a huge pile of bones. These were the bones of the people Eagle Man had killed.

First I’itoi woke up the people at the very top of the pile, the ones who had been dead for the shortest time. When they came back to life, their skin was a rich brown color. They were gentle and hardworking and laughed a lot.

“I like you very much,” I’itoi said. “You will be Tohono O’odham, my Desert People, and live here close to my mountains forever.”

The next people on the pile had been dead a while longer. When they woke up, they weren’t quite so industrious, and they were a little quarrelsome.

“You’re all right,” I’itoi said. “You can live near me, but not too near. You will be the Pima, Akimel O’odham, and live by the river.”

When the next people woke up, they were lazy and they fought a lot among themselves.

“You will be Ohb, the Apaches,” I’itoi said. “You will be the enemy and live far from here in the mountains across my desert.”

The bones at the bottom of the pile had been dead for such a long time that when they came back to life, their skin had turned white.

“I don’t like you at all,” I’itoi said to them. “You will be Mil-gahn, the whites. I will give you something with which to write, then I want you to go far away from me across the ocean and stay there.”

And that, nawoj, my friend, is the story of I’itoi and Eagle Man.

The Indian girl staggered slightly as she sidled up to the pickup. “Mr. Ladd, are you going to the dance?”

Gary Ladd finished pumping gas into his pickup. He recognized Gina Antone, a young Papago who lived in Topawa, a village on the reservation that also housed the Teachers’ Compound where he lived with his wife.

“Hi, Gina,” he returned. “My friend and I thought we’d stop by for a while.”

“Our truck broke down,” Gina continued. She was slender and attractive and more than a little drunk. “Could you give us a ride? We’ve got some beer.”

“Sure,” Gary Ladd told her. “No problem.” He hurried into the trading post to pay for the gas while a laughing group of young Papagos piled cheerfully into the back of the truck.

It was early on a hot summer’s evening in June of 1968. As they settled into the bed of the pickup, the young people laughed and joked about the coming dance. None of them guessed that before the sun came up the next morning, Gina Antone would be dead, and that death, for her, would be a blessing.

The woman sat in the detective’s car. He had left the engine running, so the air-conditioning stayed on. The interior of the car remained cool, even on this overheated June night. The woman listened curiously to the crackling transmissions on the police radio, but she mostly didn’t understand what the voices were saying. She didn’t want to understand.

Instead of getting out of the car, she sat and listened and watched. She saw the parade of flashing lights as the ambulances arrived. After that, she didn’t want to see anymore. She turned away and focused instead on the luminescent hands of the clock on the dashboard as they moved from 8:00 to 8:10, from 8:10 to 8:15.

The detective hurried back to the car. “He’s calling for you,” the man said gruffly. “Do you want to go to him?”

“No,” she said quickly. “No, thank you. I’d rather stay here, if you don’t mind.”

Chapter 1

The room was square and hot, and so was the man sitting at the gray-green metallic desk. Sweat poured off his jowls and trickled down the inside of his shirt. Finally, Assistant Superintendent Ron Mallory yanked open his collar and loosened his tie. God, it was hot-too hot to work, too hot to think.

Through his narrow window, Mallory gazed off across the green expanse of cotton fields that surrounded the Arizona State Prison at Florence. It was June, and irrigated cotton thrived beneath a hazy desert sky with its blistering noontime sun. Maybe cotton could grow in this ungodly heat, but people couldn’t.

Ron Mallory hated his barren yellow office with its view of razor ribbon-topped fences punctuated with guard towers. The view wasn’t much, but having an office at all, particularly one with a window, was a vast improvement over working the floor in one of the units. Mallory didn’t complain, but all the while, he busily plotted his own escape.

Assistant Superintendent Mallory had no intention of working in Corrections forever. It was Friday. Maybe sometime this weekend he’d find some time away from Arlene and the kids to work on his book. There was a wall in Chapter 11, some kind of story-structure problem that made it impossible to move forward.