Hour of the Hunter

away was all she had left, her only shred of privacy or self-determination, Diana respected the gesture. She didn’t intrude, and she didn’t ask again.

An orderly brought dinner. Rita ate a few spoonfuls of watery vegetable soup before drifting back into her reverie.

The little adobe house the sisters made available to Rita and her grandmother was just outside the mission compound. One of the older nuns, Sister Mary Jane, set about teaching Rita the rudiments of Mil- gahn housekeeping, but the instruction process was hampered by Rita’s poor grasp of English. Sister Mary Jane also worried about the Indian girl’s lack of formal religious training. When apprised of the situation, Sister Veronica, the sister in charge, declared Rita far too old to be placed in one of the mission’s elementary classrooms or in one of the regular catechism classes, either. She enlisted Father John’s aid.

As early summer came on, Rita spent an hour with him each afternoon. During the worst heat of the day, his office was cool and quiet. Rita was happy to be there. She loved smelling the strange odors that emanated from his skin. She loved listening to the rumbly, deep voice that reminded her of late summer thunder on distant Ioligam.

At school in Phoenix, Rita Antone had been a miserably homesick, indifferent pupil, but in the mission at Burnt Dog Village, under Father John’s tutelage, she made swift progress.

Understanding Woman was the first to notice the change in her granddaughter, the way she chattered constantly about Father John and all that he said or thought or did. The older woman warned Dancing Quail to stay away from the priest, that thinking about him so much violated a dangerous taboo, but her wise counsel fell on deaf ears. Dancing Quail wasn’t listening.

Sister Mary Jane wasn’t far behind the old Papago woman in developing her own misgivings. It was probably nothing more than a harmless schoolgirl crush, she decided, but in time her concerns were passed along to Father Mark, Father John’s superior at San Xavier. Father Mark promised to address the situation as soon as he got back out to the reservation. He would be there, he said, in time for the rain dance at Vamori.

Unfortunately, he was one rain dance too late.

The Arizona Highway Patrol located Brandon Walker’s car abandoned in a rest area in Texas Canyon east of Benson. The ignition was on, but the engine wasn’t running. The car was totally out of gas when someone finally noticed it. Tobias Walker was nowhere in evidence.

Hank Maddern drove Brandon to the scene. Around them, huge bubbles of boulders loomed round and gray in the moonlight like so many fat, unmoving ghosts. The Cochise County Sheriff’s Department was summoned. The on-scene deputy reassured Brandon that a search-and-rescue team complete with bloodhound was en route as well.

Searching the car for clues, Hank came up with a partially used bottle of PineSol. “Why do you suppose he brought this along?”

“Beats me,” Brandon returned. “I can’t imagine.”

An hour later, the dog and his handler arrived. The hound picked up a trail almost immediately, and led off through the ghostly forest of rocks over rough, rocky terrain. The handler had ordered everyone to stay behind for fear of disturbing the trail. Brandon stood there in the shallow moonlight, listening for the dog and wondering what to do now. After this stunt, when they found his father, the consequences would be far more serious than just taking his name off the checking account.

At last the hound bayed, and a signaling pistol cracked through the night. They had found him. Sick with relief, Brandon took off in the direction of the sound, but he met the handler hurrying toward him.

“Where is he?” Brandon demanded. “Did you find him or not?”

“I found him, but you’d better send for an ambulance.”

“He’s hurt? Did he fall?”

“Probably. He may have had a stroke. He’s paralyzed.”

Without a word, Brandon turned and sprinted back toward the rest area. He wanted to sit down and weep, but of course he couldn’t. There wasn’t time.

Little Bear and Little Lion were dead, but the spirit of Wise Old Grandmother called them home. She told them where to find her body and what they should do with it. They found it just where she said it would be, and they buried her in a dry, sandy wash the way she had told them.

Four days later, they went back to the place and found that a plant had grown up out of her grave, a plant with broad, fragrant leaves that we call wiw and that the Mil-gahn call wild tobacco. Little Lion and Little Bear cut the leaves and dried them, just the way the Wise Old Grandmother had told them.

The people were worried when they saw the two boys they had killed were back home and living in their house just as they always had. The people called a council to figure out what to do. They did not invite Little Bear and Little Lion, but the boys came anyway and sat in the circle.

Coyote, who was also at the council, sniffed the air. “I smell something very good,” he said. “What is it?”

He went over to the boys, and Little Bear showed him some of the rolled-up tobacco. He lighted it and offered it to the man who was sitting next to him, but the man refused to take it.

Coyote crept close to Little Bear and said in the language of I’itoi, which all the animals and people used to speak, “Offer it to him again,” Coyote said, “only this time say, ‘nawoj,’ which means friend or friendly gift.”

Little Bear did as Coyote said, and once more offered the tobacco to the man sitting next to him. This time the man accepted it. He took a smoke and then passed it along to the man next to him, saying “nawoj” as he did so.

And so the tobacco went all the way around the circle. When it was finished, the people decided that Little Lion and Little Bear had brought them a good gift, this tobacco, and that they should be left to live in peace to raise it.

And that, nawoj, is the story of the Ceremony of the Peace Smoke, or the Peace Pipe, as some tribes call it, for the Tohono O’odham, the Desert People, do not use pipes.

Effie Joaquin waited until after nine when both Dr. Rosemead and Dr. Winters went home to their Saturday night poker game in the hospital housing compound. Only then did she go get the medicine man. With younger Indians, it usually didn’t matter, but with older ones, people who still clung to the old ways, if the medicine man wasn’t summoned, the patients might simply give up and not recover.

Effie didn’t much believe in all this singing of songs and shaking of feathers, but her elderly patients did. If they wanted a medicine man, she saw to it that one came to the hospital. Usually, he arrived late enough at night that the doctors didn’t notice. Effie was always careful to air out the acrid smell of wild tobacco before the doctors came back on duty the next morning.

Effie drove her pickup as far as the grove of trees where she knew Looks At Nothing would be waiting.

“Oi g hihm,” she said to the old man, opening the door. “Get in and let’s go.”

She drove back to the hospital and steered him down the hall. Letting him into Rita Antone’s room, she left him there, closing the door behind him.

Looks At Nothing had been in hospital rooms before, but this one was worse than most. As always, he was shaken by the sharp, unpleasant odors assailing his nostrils. Mil-gahn medicine was not pleasing to the nose, but in this room there was something more besides-a sensation so fraught with danger that it filled the old man’s heart with dread.

“Nawoj,” he said softly, testing to see if Hejel Wi’ithag was awake. “Friend.”

“Nawoj,” she returned.

Guided by the sound of her voice and tapping the ironwood cane, he made his way to the bed. When he was close enough, she reached out and grasped his hand.

“Thank you for coming.”