Hour of the Hunter

siwani. He had learned much since those early days, not the least of which was a certain humility about who had the most direct access to God’s ear. Over the years, he had come to suspect that God listened in on a party line rather than a private one.

Patiently, although he was dying of curiosity, the old priest waited to hear what Looks At Nothing had to say. Father John knew full well that it was the medicine man and not Fat Crack who was the motivating force behind this visit. And he knew also that whatever it was, it must be a matter of life and death. Nothing less than that would have forced stiff-necked old Looks At Nothing to unbend enough to set aside their ancient rivalry.

It was August, hot and viciously humid. The summer rains had come with a vengeance, and the Topawa Mission compound was awash in thick red mud. As Father John picked his way through the puddles from rectory to church, the Indian materialized out of the shadow of a nearby mesquite tree. He moved so easily that at first the priest didn’t realize the other man was blind.

“Understanding Woman has sent me,” the man said in slow but formal English. “I must speak to you of Dancing Quail.”

Father John stopped short. “Dancing Quail. What about her? Is she ill? She missed her catechism lesson yesterday.”

The other man stopped, too, unexpectedly splashing into a puddle. As he struggled to regain his balance, Father John finally noticed that his visitor couldn’t see.

“Dancing Quail will have a baby,” he said.

“No! Whose?”

For the first time, the blind man turned his sightless eyes full on the priest. Without being told, Father John understood his visitor must be the young medicine man from Many Dogs Village, the one people called Looks At Nothing.

The blind man faced the priest, but he did not answer the question. He didn’t have to, for under the medicine man’s accusing stare Father John knew the answer all too well. His soul shriveled within him. His fingers groped for the comforting reassurance of his rosary.

“How far along is she?”

“Since the Rain Dance at Ban Thak, she has missed two mash-athga,” Looks At Nothing said, “two menstrual periods.”

“Dancing Quail has told you this?” Father John managed.

“Dancing Quail says nothing. It is her grandmother who has sent me. We who have no eyes have other ways of knowing.”

“I will quit the priesthood,” Father John declared. “I will quit and marry her.”

“No!” Looks At Nothing was adamant. “You will not see her again. She is going far away from here. It is already arranged with the outing matron. She will go to a job in Phoenix. You are not to stop her.”

“I’ll speak to Father Mark, I’ll. .”

“You will do nothing. A man who would break one vow would as easily break another.” An undercurrent of both threat and contempt permeated Looks At Nothing’s softly spoken words. “Besides,” he added icily, “Father Mark has already been told.”

“You want her for yourself!” The accusation shot from Father John’s lips before he had time to think.

Looks At Nothing recoiled as though he’d been slapped. In his earlier, hotheaded days, such an insult might have merited a fight to the death. The man he had killed in Ajo had died for much less, but now the medicine man simply stepped back, putting a yard or so of distance between them.

“I am mahniko,” Looks At Nothing said slowly and with great dignity, “a cripple, marked by I’itoi as a holy man. You would do well to be the same.” With that, he turned and walked away.

Determined to plead his case to his superior, Father John left at once for San Xavier. Father Mark refused to consider the idea of the younger priest renouncing his vows to marry the girl.

“What’s done is done,” he said. “She’s gone. Forget about her. You have a vocation.”

Father John returned to Topawa to find that both Dancing Quail and Understanding Woman had disappeared from the mission compound. He heard that the old woman died the following year, alone in her hut in Ban Thak. Father John didn’t see Dancing Quail again for almost thirty years, but he prayed for her daily, for her and for her child as well.

Looks At Nothing pulled a cigarette and lighter from the cracked leather pouch he wore around his waist. Father John watched with some admiration as the blind man, with steady hands, used a Zippo lighter to fire the ceremonial cigarette, the Peace Smoke, as the Papagos called it.

The medicine man took a long drag and then passed it to the priest. “Nawoj,” he said.

“Nawoj,” Father John returned. He had never learned to appreciate the sharp, bitter taste of Indian tobacco, but he inhaled without betraying his opinion. He passed the cigarette along to Fat Crack, who took his turn.

“We are here to talk about the boy,” Looks At Nothing announced.

“What boy?” Father John asked, confused by the medicine man’s statement. Who was he talking about?

“His name is Davy Ladd,” Looks At Nothing continued. “He is the son of the woman Dancing Quail lives with.”

Rita Antone’s old name spun out of the past in a whirlwind of memory that gathered both old men into its vortex while Fat Crack was left temporarily mystified. Dancing Quail? Who was that? It was a name he’d never heard before.

Father John caught himself. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Davy Ladd. I remember now. What about him?”

“He is unbaptized,” Looks At Nothing answered. For a moment, nothing more was said as the cigarette once more made the rounds. “Unbaptized in both the Mil-gahn way and the O’odham way. He is a danger to himself, to his mother, and especially to Dancing Quail.”

“Why do you tell me this?” Father John asked. “What does this have to do with me?”

“His mother was once a child of your church, your tribe. She has fallen away and has never taken her baby to the church. You must fix this.”

Father John’s first impulse was to laugh, but he had long since learned to suppress those inappropriate inclinations.

“Siwani,” the priest said placatingly. “Baptism is a complicated issue. I can’t just fix it, as you say.”

Looks At Nothing rose, and for a moment stood over the other two men, leaning on his cane like a strange three-legged bird.

“You must,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone that brooked no argument. “You must, or Dancing Quail will die.”

With that the old medicine man turned and made his way out of the room, while Fat Crack followed closely behind.

Chapter 13

They say it happened long ago that some quail were out eating during the harvest, Coyote crept up on them and ate them all except for one small quail who hid himself under the thick flat leaves of Ihbhai, of Prickly Pear. The frightened quail waited while Coyote ate up all his brothers and sisters. When it was safe, Quail ran home crying, “Coyote has eaten us all. He has eaten all my brothers and sisters.”

One wise old quail heard this and decided to get even. He waited until one day when Coyote was sound asleep. He cut Coyote open and took out some of his tail fat, then Quail sewed him back up, filling the empty space with rocks. After that, Quail flew off somewhere, started a fire, and began roasting the