At four that afternoon, Gary got up and came out into the living room of their shabby, school-owned thirteen-by-seventy-foot mobile home. “Hello,” he said sheepishly.
“Hello,” she returned. “How are you?”
“Hung over as hell. That cactus wine is a killer.” Gary had uttered the words without even thinking, and then, as they registered, he turned ashen gray.
Diana didn’t understand what was happening at the time, but she remembered the incident later with terrible clarity as the nightmare of Gina Antone’s death began to unfold around her. What he said was nothing more than a slip of the tongue, but it was a clue. If she had paid attention, it might have warned her of what was to come, but she wasn’t smart enough to pick up on it, and what difference would knowing have made? She couldn’t have prevented what happened any more than she could have hoped to stop a speeding locomotive bare-handed.
She remembered Gary groping blindly for the back of a chair and dropping heavily into it. He had buried his face in his hands and wept. It was the first time Diana ever saw her husband cry.
Her own nausea totally forgotten, she hurried to comfort him and to bring him a glass of chilled iced tea. Whatever was wrong, she would do her best to fix it for him. Whatever it was, she would somehow smooth it over. After all, she had Iona’s shining example to follow, didn’t she? That’s exactly what her mother would have done, had done for all those years, all her life. Smoothed things over. For everyone.
Fat Crack’s tow truck looked at home among the others parked in the dusty San Xavier parking lot. Many of the vehicles had out-of-state licenses or rental stickers, but by far the majority were beat-up old pickups, station wagons, and sedans that belonged to the regular parishioners. Hard as it was for out-of-state guests to fathom, the musty-smelling mission still functioned as a church, with a regular schedule of well-attended masses.
While Looks At Nothing stayed in the truck, Fat Crack went to the door of the church and waited for Father John to come out. He did at last, accompanied by a somewhat younger-looking priest.
“Father John?” Fat Crack asked tentatively.
“Yes.”
“My name is Gabe Ortiz, Juanita’s son, Rita Antone’s nephew.”
A concerned frown furrowed the old man’s forehead. “I hope your aunt’s all right.”
Fat Crack nodded. “She’s fine. She’s in the hospital, but fine. I have someone over here who needs to speak to you.”
“Of course,” Father John said, excusing himself from his colleague.
Fat Crack led the way. They entered the row of parked cars a few vehicles away from the tow truck just as Looks At Nothing climbed down from his seat. The old medicine man stood leaning on his cane. He seemed to stare right through them with his glazed and sightless eyes.
Father John stopped abruptly. “This is. .” Fat Crack began.
“S-ab Neid Pi Has,” Father John supplied, speaking Looks At Nothing’s Indian name in perfectly accented Papago. “This old
Father John stepped forward, reached out, took Looks At Nothing’s gnarled old hand, and shook it. “
Brandon Walker was worn out with trying to find a comfortable position on the post-modern waiting-room furniture, but he had nonetheless managed a few catnaps during the early morning hours while his mother came and went from brief visits with her husband. It was just like when President Kennedy died, Brandon thought. The doctors didn’t tell everything they knew all at once for fear of starting a panic. Brandon suspected they had known last night that there was no hope of recovery for Toby Walker, but they wanted to give the family a chance to adjust to the situation. Brandon took the news as a direct act of mercy from a God he was surprised to learn he still believed in. Louella might continue to insist it wasn’t true, couldn’t possibly be true that Toby was dying, but her son knew better.
Each time a pale and shaken Louella emerged from the room, she was that much more entrenched in her disbelief. “I want a second opinion,” she announced at last.
Brandon rubbed his forehead. “What’s a second opinion going to buy you except another doctor bill?”
His question provoked Louella to outrage. “How can you mention money at a time like this? That man in there, that so-called doctor, says we should turn off the respirator. Just like that. As though it’s nothing.”
“Pop’s not there, Mom,” her son said gently. “He hasn’t been for a long time, really. Turning off the machine would be a blessing.”
He started to add “for us all,” but thought better of it.
“No! Absolutely not. I won’t have it.”
“If he lives, he’ll be a vegetable, Mom. He won’t know either of us. He won’t be able to eat on his own or stand or breathe.”
“But he’s still
Too tired to argue anymore, Brandon capitulated. “I’ll go talk to the nurse about a second opinion,” he said.
He went to the nurses’ station and asked to speak to the head nurse.
“She’s on her break,” the clerk said.
He nodded. “That’s all right. I’m going to the cafeteria for some coffee. I’ll talk to her when I get back.”
He walked down the long breezeway to the cafeteria. It was mid-morning now and hot, but he felt chilled inside and out. The air-conditioning seemed to have settled in his blood and bones.
How would he ever make Louella see reason? She was his problem now and no one else’s. Toby was still breathing with the help of his respirator, but he was really out of the war zone. It didn’t seem fair for the focus of the battle to be immune to it.
Brandon took his cup of muddy coffee and a cigarette-he had finally bought a pack of his own-to a table in the far corner where someone had left most of a Sunday paper lying strewn with a layer of toast crumbs and speckles of greasy butter.
He started to toss the paper aside, and then stopped when he recognized Davy Ladd’s serious picture staring out at him from the top of the page. He read the article through twice before his weary brain fully grasped the material.
Why in the world would Diana Ladd have permitted Davy to be featured in the paper like that? He would have thought she’d want to preserve her privacy. After all, if she had an unlisted phone number, why go advertising her location on the front page of the second section of a Sunday paper?
Shaking his head, he tore out the page and stuffed it in his pocket. Brandon Walker was the very last person to pretend to understand why women did some of the crazy things they did. If, prior to the fact, Diana Ladd had asked his advice, he would have counseled her to keep Davy’s name and picture out of the paper at all costs. You could never tell what kind of fruitcakes would be drawn to that kind of article or how they would behave.
But the truth of the matter was, Diana Ladd hadn’t asked his advice, so MYOB, buddy, he told himself. You’ve got trouble enough of your own.
The three men wandered over to one of the many ocotillo-shaded food booths that lined the large dirt parking lot. In each shelter, two or three women worked over mesquite-burning fires, cooking popovers in vats of hot grease, filling them with chili or beans, and then selling them to the hungry San Xavier flock, churchgoers and tourists alike.
Father John led them to a booth where he evidently had a charge account of sorts. The women took his order and quickly brought back three chili popovers on folded paper plates and three cans of Orange Crush. No money changed hands.
“Shall we go into my office to eat?” Father John asked. “It’s much cooler in there.”
They went to a small office hidden behind the mission bookstore where Father John was obliged to bring in two extra chairs so they could all sit at once. While eating his own popover, Father John observed the fastidious way in which the medicine man ate. Chili popovers are notoriously messy, but Looks At Nothing consumed his meticulously, then wiped his entire face clean with a paper napkin.
Father John flushed to think that there had once been a time when he would have thrown a visiting
