Hour of the Hunter

“I’ve already explained that to you,” he said seriously. “Priests don’t marry.”

“But what about that new priest, the Pre. . pre. .” She stumbled over the long, unfamiliar word.

“Presbyterian?” Father John supplied.

“Yes. What about that new Reverend Hobson? He’s a priest with a wife and three children.”

“He’s not a priest,” Father John explained. “He’s a pastor-a Protestant, not a Catholic. Pastors marry. Priests don’t.”

“I don’t understand,” Rita said with a frown. “You’re all from the same tribe, aren’t you?”

Father John had never before considered the issue in quite those terms. “Yes,” he answered. “Yes and no.”

The first giant cactus, Hahshani, was a very strange thing. Growing up over the spot where Coyote had buried the little boy’s bones, he was tall and thick and soft, shooting straight up out of the ground until he finally sprouted arms.

The people and animals were curious, and they all came to look at him. The children played around Hahshani and stuck sticks into him. This hurt Giant Cactus, so he put out long, sharp needles to keep them away. Then the children shot arrows into him. This made Hahshani very angry, so he sank into the ground and went away to a place where no one could find him.

After Giant Cactus disappeared, the people were sorry and began looking for him. Finally Crow, who was flying over Giwho Tho’ag or Burden Basket Mountain, came back and told the people he had found the cactus hiding in a place where no animals ever went and where no people hunted.

The people called a council. Afterward, the chief told the people to prepare four large baskets, then he told Crow to take the baskets and fly back to Hahshani. When Crow reached Giant Cactus, Hahshani was covered with red, juicy fruit. As the chief had directed, Crow loaded the fruit into the baskets and took it back to the people. Crow placed the fruit in ollas that were filled with water, and then the ollas were set on the fire, where they were kept boiling from sunrise to sunset.

For four days, they cooked the fruit, and when it was finished, the chief told the people to prepare for a great wine feast. The people were puzzled because they had never tasted wine before. So all the people-Indians, animals, and birds-gathered around to drink the wine.

At the feast, everyone drank so much that they began to do silly things. Grasshopper pulled off one of his legs and wore it as a headdress. Nighthawk saw this and laughed so hard that his mouth split wide open. Since then, Nighthawk is so embarrassed by his big mouth that he only flies at night. Some of the other birds were so drunk that they began fighting and pulling out each other’s feathers. That is why some of them still have bloody heads to this day.

When the chief saw all this fighting, he decided that there would be no more wine feasts, so he carefully gathered up all the Giant Cactus seeds and gave them to a messenger to take far away. The people didn’t like this, so they sent Coyote after Messenger.

Coyote asked Messenger to show him what was in his hand. Messenger said no, but Coyote begged for one little peck, and finally, after much coaxing, Messenger gave in. He opened his hand, just the slightest bit. As soon as he did, Coyote struck his hand, and the seeds of Hahshani flew far into the air.

The wind was coming from the north. Wind caught Hahshani’s seeds and carried them up over the mountaintops, scattering them on the south sides of the mountains.

And that is why, to this day, Giant Cactus grows only on the south sides of the mountains. And since then, every year, the people have held the feast of the cactus wine.

The night was cooling fast. In the desert outside Sells, a coyote howled and was answered by a chorus of village dogs. It was a pleasant, peaceful sound that made both Papago men feel relaxed and at home.

For some time, Looks At Nothing sat smoking the wiw, the wild tobacco, and saying nothing. Fat Crack admired the old man’s concentration and stubbornness. He had heard stories about how the injured Looks At Nothing, returning to the reservation from Ajo, had shunned the white mans’ ways, including alcohol and store-bought tobacco and cigarettes. The only alcohol the medicine man consumed was the cactus wine made once a year from fruit of the giant cactus. He smoked only the native tobacco, gathered from plants growing wild in the sandy washes. The single exception, his post-World War II Zippo lighter, was more a concession to old age than it was to the Mil-gahn.

As the burning sticks of rolled tobacco moved back and forth between them, and as the smoke eddied away from them into the dark sky, Fat Crack could see why this particular tobacco smoke might still retain some of its ancient power.

“What do you believe caused the accident?” Looks At Nothing asked at last.

“A steer ran across the road in front of the truck,” Fat Crack answered. “When she tried to miss it, the tire caught on the shoulder and the truck rolled. That’s what Law and Order told me.”

“That may be how the accident happened,” Looks At Nothing said, “but it’s not what caused it. Do you know this Anglo child Hejel Wi’ithag lives with, the one she calls Olhoni?”

Fat Crack nodded. “Davy Ladd. His mother is a widow. Rita lives with them and looks after the boy. What about him?”

“The boy is the real cause of your aunt’s accident.”

“Davy Ladd? How? He’s only six. He was at the hospital. He sure wouldn’t hurt her. They say he saved her life.”

Looks At Nothing’s cigarette glowed softly in the night. He passed it back to Fat Crack. “The boy is unbaptized. His mother was born a Catholic, but he himself has never been inside a church. Do you know the old priest from San Xavier?”

It took a moment for Fat Crack to follow what seemed like an abrupt change of subject, but finally he nodded and smiled. Looks At Nothing and Father John were contemporaries, but the medicine man thought the Anglo was old.

“Yes. My mother told me about him. He’s retired now, but he still helps out sometimes.”

“He was once a special friend of your aunt’s. We must go to him tomorrow, in Tucson. We will tell him about this problem and ask his advice. I will call for singers to treat the boy in the traditional way, but Father John must do the other.”

This is crazy, Fat Crack thought. He was familiar with the old superstition that claimed being around unbaptized babies was dangerous and caused accidents, but supposedly only Indian babies were hazardous in this fashion. That’s what he’d been told.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked. “Why bother with two kinds of baptism when the boy isn’t even Indian? Besides, the accident already happened.”

“The boy is a child of your aunt’s heart,” Looks At Nothing said softly. “It doesn’t matter if he’s O’odham or not, and the accident isn’t the only danger.”

“It isn’t?”

“While she was in the ambulance, Hejel Wi’ithag saw buzzards, three of them, sitting sunning themselves in the middle of the afternoon, not in the morning like they usually do. It is bad luck to see animals doing strange things. It means something bad is coming, something evil. Not only is it dangerous for your aunt, but for two other people as well.”

The old man paused to smoke, and Fat Crack waited. “There is something very puzzling in all this,” Looks At Nothing continued finally. “The evil seems to be Ohb, and not Ohb, Apache and not Apache.”

Fat Crack was struck by the medicine man’s use of the old-fashioned word that means, interchangeably, both Apache and enemy.

“Yes,” Fat Crack murmured under his breath, agreeing without knowing exactly why. “You’re right. It is Ohb or at least Ohbsgam, Apachelike.”