Hour of the Hunter

departmental mechanics.

The air conditioner was out of order, but the high-output, police-pursuit engine roared to life as soon as Walker turned the key in the ignition. He peeled out of the parking lot in a hail of loose gravel and headed for Gates Pass, driving on automatic, his mind occupied elsewhere.

Diana Ladd. It had to be her. It didn’t seem possible that there would be two women in town by that same name. She had made a big impression on him. How long ago was it? June? Jesus, it had to be almost seven years ago since the first time he saw her. He had forgotten about her between times-had forced himself to forget because some things are too painful to remember.

When had she moved to town? Not town exactly. The address on Gates Pass Road indicated an almost wilderness area well outside Tucson’s city limits. She would have had more company in the Teachers’ Compound in Topawa, living in the shabby mobile home where he had first met her. Had she stopped teaching on the reservation then? Maybe she had taken a job with District Number One in Tucson. God, she’d been pretty. Even six months pregnant she’d been pretty. And defiant.

He remembered the last time he saw her as though it were yesterday. They were standing in the crowded hallway of the Pima County Courthouse after the judge announced Andrew Carlisle’s plea-bargaining agreement. The old Indian lady-what was her name? — was sitting on a bench off to the side. Diana Ladd came up to him, grasping his sleeve with one hand while the other rested on her bulging belly. He avoided her gaze, not wanting to see the betrayal and hurt in her eyes, but he couldn’t evade the accusation in her voice.

“How could you let them do it?” she demanded, outraged, indignant. “How could you let them get away with it?”

“There was nothing I could do,” he answered lamely. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“We all have choices,” she’d returned icily.

Drawing herself stiffly erect, she marched away from him, walking with the awkward dignity of the profoundly pregnant. She went straight to the bench and helped the old Indian lady to her feet. The two women walked past him, the younger carefully leading the elder, as though the old woman were blind or crippled or both.

And Brandon Walker, left alone in the midst of a milling crowd, looked after them and wondered what he could have done differently. Of course, that was years ago now. He was no longer as green, as naive. He knew now that Diana Ladd had probably been right all along. There were things he could have done, arms he could have twisted, debts he could have called that might have made a difference.

A golden sliver of moon peeked over the jagged-toothed canyon as he drove the winding road to Gates Pass. He had no delusions that Diana Ladd would appreciate his coming to find her and tell her the news. Hearing about the accident from someone she knew, even someone she didn’t like, would be less hurtful than hearing it from a complete stranger.

In his gut, he understood that, but Brandon Walker wasn’t looking forward to the meeting. He knew Diana Ladd hadn’t forgiven him for what had happened, and that was no surprise. He hadn’t forgiven himself.

At that time, long ago, Rattlesnake’s bite had no poison. The children laughed at him and played with him and tossed him in the air. Sometimes, for a joke, they would pull out all his teeth. This made Ko’oi, Rattlesnake, very unhappy.

One day Ko’oi went crying to First Born. “The children are always teasing me and making me miserable. Please change me so I can go live somewhere else and be happy.”

First Born had already changed many of the animals, so he took Rattlesnake, pulled out all his teeth, and threw them away. They fell in the desert, and overnight grew into the mountains we call Ko’oi Tahtami, or Rattlesnake’s Tooth.

In the morning, First Born gathered up a few small, sharp rocks from these mountains and threw them into some water. They grew sharp and white and long, just the way rattlesnake teeth are today. First Born gave them to Rattlesnake and said to him, “Here. Now the children will no longer torment you, but from this day on, you will have no friends. You must crawl on your belly and live alone. If anything comes near you, you must bite it and kill it.”

And that, nawoj, my Friend, is the story of how Ko’oi, Rattlesnake, got his teeth.

In a lifetime of serial matrimony, Myrna Louise Spaulding had worked her way through a list of last names far too numerous to remember. Like overly zealous Chicago voters, she cast her ballot in favor of marriage, voting early and often. She always married for love, never for money. She always divorced for the same reason-true love-which may have been true at the time but never lasted long. Myrna Louise wasn’t a risk-taker. She never slipped one wedding band off her much-used ring finger without having a pretty good replacement prospect lined up and waiting in the wings.

Her son, Andrew Carlisle, found his mother’s peculiar penchant disturbing at first, humorous later, and ultimately boring. In his opinion, if Myrna Louise had been any good at the game, she would have seen to it that she picked up a few good pieces of change here and there along the way. But no. With one minor exception, she always targeted bums and ne’er-do-wells who were far worse off mentally and financially than she was.

Her last husband, Jake Spaulding-who also happened to be her late husband-had managed to roll over and die before the divorce was final. Much to her stepchildren’s dismay, Jake died without first revising his will. He left Myrna Louise in sole possession of the little family house on Weber Drive.

As a neighborhood, Weber Drive didn’t have much to recommend it, unless you liked the multicolored jack- in-the-box on the corner, but the house constituted a roof over Myrna Louise’s head for a change. On her meager pension and with the widow’s mite she had lucked into after Jake Spaulding’s timely death, she figured she’d barely be able to cover both taxes and utilities.

A bit down-at-the-heels, Weber Drive still managed to be respectable enough, and even a bit self-righteous. Myrna Louise had made tentative overtures of friendship toward some of the neighbors. She was determined to fit in here, to really belong someplace at last. Her son’s unexpected arrival was a definite fly in the ointment. Those very same neighbors might well pull the welcome mat right out from under the mother of an ex-con.

“Why, what in the world are you doing here?” a stunned Myrna Louise demanded, covering her dismay as best she could when the opened door revealed her son waiting on her doorstep.

“I came to see my mama,” he said with a smile. “I thought you’d be glad to see me after all this time.”

“Oh, I am. Of course I am. Come in. Come in here right now. But why didn’t you let me know you were coming?”

“Because I didn’t know, not for sure, anyway. They like to keep people guessing until the very last minute. It makes for better control.”

She dragged Andrew into the living room and stood looking fuzzily up at him. Myrna Louise should have taken to wearing glasses years before, but she usually couldn’t afford it, and besides, she was far too vain. A driver’s license might have forced her into glasses earlier, but she’d never owned a car, not until now. Jake’s car was still out in the garage. She planned to sell it if money ever got really tight.

“So are you out on parole, or what?” she asked petulantly.

“I’m out period, Mama. Free as a bird.”

“Good,” she said. She paused uncertainly. “Andrew, I’d really like it if the neighbors didn’t find out. About where you’ve been, I mean. Not that I’m ashamed or anything, it’s just that it’d be easier. .”

“I’m still your son,” he began.

“Don’t let’s be difficult. You see, you’ve been having all that mail sent here, all those things for Phil Wharton, whoever he is. I’ve been saving them, keeping them here for you just like you said. Who is he anyway, a friend of yours or what?”

“It’s a pen name, Mama. I couldn’t very well send things out with my own name on them, now could I.”

“Thank goodness,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, that’s sort of what I’ve been pretending. That you were him, or at least that Phil Wharton was my son.”

“You’ve been telling your friends that I’m Phil?”