She didn’t say that because of their unrivaled superiority, Rita Antone’s baskets were always the first to sell. Such high praise would be considered excessive and rude. It was enough to say that Rita’s baskets were gone. The old woman nodded a brief acknowledgment of the understated compliment.
Davy appeared just then, lugging the first box of baskets. He waved at Edwina, then hurried back after the next load.
“The bald-headed baby isn’t bald anymore,” Edwina observed as the door closed behind him. “He’s sure big. Is he in school?”
“He just finished kindergarten. He’ll be in first grade next year,” Rita answered.
Davy returned with the second box of baskets, smiling shyly at Edwina as he put it down on the floor. Edwina had heard all the reservation grumblings about Rita Antone, often called Hejel Wi’ithag, or Left Alone, by other Papagos. Gossips said it wasn’t right for her to squander all her hard-earned knowledge on Davy Ladd, an Anglo at that-a boy whose father, convicted or not, was ultimately responsible for Rita’s own grandchild’s death. No one could understand why she would abandon her people to go live in Tucson with the killer’s Anglo widow and her white-skinned baby.
Edwina, still considered a reservation newcomer after a mere twenty years, accepted as a given the special bond that existed between Rita Antone and Diana Ladd. She remembered how the people had unaccountably closed ranks against the bereaved woman after Gina Antone’s death, saying that the old woman was bad luck. Diana and Rita, united by nothing more than mutual grief, had been each other’s strongest allies in that time of trouble. Edwina Galvan didn’t fault either woman for their continuing alliance, nor did she begrudge Left Alone her devotion to the blond-haired boy. In fact, Edwina rather liked him herself.
It took Davy several more trips before all the baskets were assembled in a pile on the floor in front of the counter. By then, Rita was seated on a chair behind the counter drinking a glass of water and fanning herself while Edwina went through the boxes one by one, examining each basket in turn, writing the price on a piece of masking tape that she affixed to the bottom of each basket after first making a note in the ragged notebook that served as her master record.
“You’ve sure been busy,” Edwina commented offhandedly as she worked. “What are you going to do with all your money?”
“Saving it for my old age,” Rita answered. At that, both women laughed. Rita was sixty-five years old. Among the Papago, in a population with the highest blood-sugar count of any known ethnic group in the world, one decimated by the ravages of both diabetes and alcoholism, Rita Antone was already well into a venerated old age.
“Does she give you any of that cash?” Edwina asked Davy with a smile. He shook his head seriously. Edwina reached into her pocket and extracted a quarter. “Here, I’ll give you some,” she said. “Go get yourself a Coke. The machine’s right outside.”
Davy dashed eagerly out of the gift shop. Rita and his mother didn’t let him have sodas often, so this was a special treat. He found the machine with no trouble and felt terribly grown up as he inserted the coin all by himself and pressed the selection button. A can rolled into the slot with a satisfying thunk. Grabbing it and turning at the same time, he ran headlong into the little Anglo girl who had watched him make trip after trip carrying loads of baskets. The impact of the unexpected collision knocked the soda can out of his hands. It fell to the ground and rolled away.
“Watch where you’re going, dummy,” he muttered. He retrieved the can, but when he opened it, half its contents blew into the air. Disappointed, he flopped down onto the steps to drink what was left. Moments later, the little girl joined him, bringing her own soda with her.
“Is that woman you’re with a Indian?” she asked.
It was bad manners to ask such questions, but Davy answered anyway. “Yes.”
“Are you a Indian, too?” she persisted.
“Maybe I am,” Davy answered, growing surly. “And maybe I’m not, either. What’s it to you?”
With that, he stomped away, not sure what about the question had made him so angry. He hurried across the parking lot to where two quarrelsome ground squirrels argued over an abandoned crust of bread. Suddenly, the automatic door of an outbuilding opened, and an ambulance eased into the sunlight.
At first Davy thought he was going to get to see it drive off with lights flashing and siren blaring. Instead, the driver parked directly outside the door, shut off the engine, then went back into the garage. He returned moments later carrying a bucket of soapy water, a brush, and a fistful of rags.
Disappointed, Davy finished what was left of his soda and went looking for Rita.
Andrew Carlisle took his time. He was in no hurry to leave the scene of his triumph and return to the car. After drinking his fill from the rocky pool, he washed the blood from his back, shins, and knees, letting the hot sun dry the moisture from his chafed skin. He took real pleasure in knowing that his victim had fought him and lost. He was a slight man, but the years of working out in prison, especially his total concentration on strengthening his hands, had paid off.
Only after he was fully dressed did he once more turn his attention to the dead woman. Andrew Carlisle was not a man accustomed to cleaning up his own messes, but in this case he made an exception. Dragging her by one arm, he hauled her into the shallow stream and washed her thoroughly, carefully rinsing off whatever traces of himself he might have left behind. Touching her now no longer aroused him, but he enjoyed looking at the ruined breast and knowing he had caused the damage. That was a trophy of sorts, something to be proud of.
When he finished cleaning her up, he dragged her back out of the water and arranged her to his liking, leaving her lying faceup in the searing sun, then he surveyed the area, gathering her clothing and sandals into a small, tidy stack. He shook an almost full package of Winstons out of the woman’s shirt pocket, and was happy to see that a book of matches had been shoved inside the cellophane wrapper.
He squatted there and smoked his cigarette. Little time had passed, but already a few alert flies and ants were beginning to do what flies and ants do with dead flesh. He observed their purposeful movements with detached amusement, wondering idly how the insects knew about the unexpected bounty good fortune had laid at their doorstep. Was there some kind of secret signal, some code? Did an alert scout sound a special buzzing alarm that said, “Hey guys, follow me. Come see what I found”?
By the time Carlisle finished the cigarette, there were far more ants and flies than there had been when he first lit up. He ground out the cigarette and placed the butt along with the accumulated stack of clothing. He returned to the corpse and removed the jewelry-three rings, a Timex watch, and a single gold-chain necklace- wresting them roughly from the body not because they might be valuable or worth selling but because any delay in identifying the body would work to his advantage.
Systematically, he went through the pockets of her shorts and shirt, finding nothing but the car keys and his own sixty-five dollars. “You should have asked for more, honey,” he said aloud to the dead woman as he returned the bills to his wallet. “Believe me, your pussy was worth it.”
He returned to the pitiful stack of belongings and wrapped them as well as his discarded cigarette butt into a secure bundle, which he stuffed inside his shirt. The cigarettes, matches, and car keys went into a pocket. He made one last careful search of the area to make sure he had missed nothing.
Most of the terrain was rocky except for the hooker’s makeshift earthen bed. With a mesquite branch, he swept the area clean of footprints, adding the branch to his bundle as well. When he was certain he had removed all visible incriminating evidence, Andrew Carlisle turned and walked away.
Welcome to the world, he thought. Payback time has started.
Diana Ladd leaned away from her typewriter and rolled her shoulders, trying to relieve the tension caused by several uninterrupted hours before her trusty Smith-Corona. The writing wasn’t going particularly well, but she refused to quit.
It was probably weariness that made her drop her guard for a moment, allowing the unwelcome, errant thought into her consciousness-if only Gary were here to give her a back rub.
Disgusted with herself, she choked the thought off smothering it as quickly as she could. Seven years after Gary’s suicide, her mind and body both still played those kinds of tricks on her. She felt betrayed by the treachery of her own flesh, by the aching longings that sometimes awakened her in the middle of the night. Gary was dead, dammit, and she wouldn’t have wanted him around any longer even if he weren’t.
