Hour of the Hunter

“Where were you?” she asked.

“Playing.”

“It’s time to come in now. I’m going to the reservation to sell baskets. If you want to go, you’d better ask your mother.”

Davy’s eyes widened with excitement. “I can come with you?”

“First go ask.”

Worried about disturbing her, Davy crept into his mother’s makeshift office. For a minute or so, the boy stood transfixed, watching Diana Ladd’s nimble fingers dance across the keys. How could her fingers move so fast?

His mother’s shoulders stiffened with annoyance when she sensed his presence behind her. “What is it, Davy?” she asked.

He sidled up beside her, standing with his fingers moving tentatively along the smooth wooden edge of the door that served as her desk. The child knew his mother wrote books at that desk during the summers when she wasn’t teaching. He didn’t know exactly what the books were about-he had never seen one of them-but Rita said it was true, so it had to be. Rita never told fibs.

She had explained that his mother’s work was important, and that when she was busy at her typewriter, he wasn’t to interrupt or disturb her unless absolutely necessary. This time it must be okay. Rita had told him to do it.

“What is it, Davy?” Diana Ladd repeated sharply. “Can’t you see I’m busy? I’ve got to finish this chapter today.”

Sometimes his mother’s voice could be soothing and gentle, but not now when she was impatient and eager to be rid of him. Hot tears welled up in Davy’s eyes. He stood with his face averted so his mother wouldn’t see them.

“It’s Rita,” he said uncertainly. “She’s going to the reservation today to sell baskets. Can I go along, please?”

Davy’s mother seemed to exist in a place far beyond his short-armed reach. He was never exactly sure how she would react. He had learned to maintain a certain distance, to be wary of her sudden outbursts. Rita was far more approachable.

During the school year, Davy got home from school long before his mother arrived home from her teaching job on the reservation. The child spent most afternoons in Rita’s single-roomed house, little more than a glorified cook shack, which was situated off the back of the kitchen of the main house. There, he ate meals at a worn wooden table, all the while devouring the stories the Indian woman told him. Often he spent hours watching in fascination while she used her owij, her awl, to weave intricate yucca and bear-grass baskets. Other times he stood at mouth-watering attention while she patted out tortillas and popovers to cook on an ancient wood-burning range that she much preferred to the modern gas stove in the main house.

While she worked, Rita heard Davy’s stories as well. Unlike his mother’s writing or paper-correcting, which demanded total concentration, Rita’s manual tasks were performed automatically, while her heart and mind were free with the gift of listening. Rita’s heavy, stolid presence was the single constant in Davy’s young life. She was the healer of all his childish hurts, the recipient of his daily joys and woes.

For once Diana Ladd broke through her own self-imposed reserve and affectionately ruffled her son’s lank yellow hair.

“Rita’s going to turn you into more of an Indian than she is,” Diana commented with a short laugh.

“Really?” the boy asked, his blue eyes lighting up at the prospect. “Will my hair turn black and straight and everything?”

“It might,” Diana returned lightly. “If you eat too many popovers at the feast tonight, it’ll happen for sure.”

“Feast?” Davy asked. “What feast?”

“Didn’t Rita tell you? There’s a feast tonight at Ban Thak. That’s the other reason she’s going today.”

Ban Thak, Coyote Sitting, was the name of Rita’s home village. Davy could hardly believe his good fortune. “You mean I get to go to the feast, too?”

Rita and Diana Ladd had evidently already discussed it and reached a decision, but the Indian woman always insisted that the child ask his mother, that he show her the respect she deserved.

The boy could barely contain his excitement as Diana kissed him and shooed him on his way. “Go on now. Get out of here. I’ve got work to do.”

Davy Ladd scampered eagerly out of the room. Bone, black as a shadow and almost as big as his six-year-old owner, waited patiently outside the door. The two of them raced through the house looking for Rita. Davy was quiet about it, though. He didn’t shout or make too much noise. Rita had taught him better manners than that. Children were never to shout after their elders. It wasn’t polite.

He found Rita in the backyard loading boxes laden with finely crafted handmade baskets into the bed of an old blue GMC. She stopped working long enough to wipe the running sweat from her wrinkled brown face.

“Well now, Olhoni,” she said, standing looking down on him with both hands folded over her faded apron. “What did your mother say?”

Only Rita called Davy Ladd by the name Olhoni, which, in Papago, means Maverick or Orphaned Calf. That name, the one he called his Indian name, was a jealously guarded secret shared by the boy and the old woman. Not even Davy’s mother knew Rita called him that.

“I can go, Nana Dahd,” he told her breathlessly.

Dahd was Papago for “Godmother,” but the title was strictly honorary. Davy had never seen the inside of a church, and there had been no formal ceremony. Like her name for him, however, Nana Dahd was a form of address Davy used only when the two of them were alone together.

Davy clambered up into the truck. He helped shove the last box of baskets down the wooden floor of the short bed to where part of a livestock rack had been spot-welded to the outside wall of the cab. He held the boxes tightly while Rita used rope to lash them firmly in place.

“She says I can go to the feast too. Shall I wear my boots? Should I get a bedroll? Can Bone come?”

“Oh’o stays here,” Nana Dahd told him firmly. “Dogs don’t belong at feasts. Go get a jacket and a bedroll. Even with the fires, it may be cold at the dance. You’ll want to sleep before it’s over. I’ll fix lunch before we go.”

“Oh, no,” Davy replied seriously. “I won’t fall asleep. I promise. I want to stay up all night. Until the dance is over. Until the sun comes up.”

“Go now,” Rita urged, without raising her voice. That wasn’t necessary. The child did as he was told. He sometimes argued with his mother but never with Nana Dahd. Finished packing, Davy stowed his small canvas bag in the cab of the truck and then made his way into Nana Dahd’s room.

He found her busily patting a ball of soft white dough into a flat, round cake. When the dough was stretched thin enough, she dropped it into a vat of hot fat on the stove’s front burner. Within seconds, the dough puffed up and cooked to a golden brown. Meantime, Rita patted out another. Davy had often tried working the dough himself, but no matter what he did, the ball of dough remained just that-a stubborn ball of dough.

Davy hurried to his place at the bare wooden table, while Bone settled comfortably at his feet. Rita placed a mound of thick red chili on the popovers, folded them over, and brought them to the table on plates. In the center of the table sat a small bowl piled high with cooked broccoli. While Davy wrinkled his nose in disgust, Nana Dahd ladled a spoonful of broccoli onto his plate next to the steaming popover.

“You know I hate broccoli,” he said, reaching at once for the popover.

Rita was unmoved. “Eat your vegetables,” she said.

Davy nodded, but as soon as Rita turned her back, he slipped the broccoli under the table to a waiting and appreciative Bone. The dog liked everything-including broccoli.

It is said that long ago there was a woman who loved to play Toka, which the Mil-gahn, the whites, call field hockey. She loved it so much that she never wanted to do anything else. Even after her child was born, she would leave the baby alone all day long to go play hockey. One day she went away and didn’t come back. The women in the village felt sorry for the baby, a