words.
“I remember what he said in the hallway,” Rita continued slowly. “When the deputy’s back was turned and when he thought no one else was looking. He said he would come for you, for us. Let him.”
“Let him? Do nothing and wait for him to come after us?”
Rita nodded. “That’s right. I have one very old friend who is a powerful medicine man. He and my nephew will help us.”
An involuntary shiver ran up and down Diana’s spine. “You’re saying we should take care of Carlisle ourselves?”
“Yes.”
“But how can we when we don’t even know where he is?”
“He will come to us. We must let him.”
“And then what?”
Rita considered her words carefully before she spoke. “The Tohono O’odham only kill to eat or in self-defense. If Carlisle comes after us, then it is self-defense, isn’t it?”
It wasn’t as though Rita Antone was attempting to talk Diana Ladd into something she had never considered on her own. Selling the idea wasn’t necessary. For almost seven years now, Diana had longed to throttle Andrew Carlisle with her bare hands.
“How do we find him?” Diana asked.
“We don’t,” Rita answered. “Windmill doesn’t go looking for Wind Man. Neither will we. While we wait for him to come, we have much to do.”
It is said that long ago a young woman from the Desert People fell in love with a young Hiakim, a Yaqui, and went to live with his family far to the south. The mother of the girl, Old White-Haired Woman, loved her daughter very much and missed her. Every evening she would go out to the foothills and call to her daughter’s spirit, and every night there was an answer. One night, though, she heard nothing.
That night she went to her husband and said, “My daughter needs me. I must go to her.”
Her husband, who was also old and lame besides, shook his head. “You are a bent old woman, and the Hiakim live far from here. How will you find your way?”
“The Little People will help me,” she said. So the next morning she got up and called to Ali Chu Chum O’odham, the Little People, in their own language, for Old White-Haired Woman still remembered how to speak to them. As soon as they heard her call, the animals came right away.
“What do you want, Old Mother?” the Little People asked.
“My daughter’s spirit is calling me from far away in the land of the Hiakim. I must go to her, but I am old and do not know the way.”
“We will help you, Old Mother. We will help you go to your daughter.”
And so the birds brought Old White-Haired Woman seeds and grain to eat along the way. The bees brought her honey, and Coyote, who had once been in the land of the Hiakim, guided her footsteps. After many, many days, they reached the village where Old White-Haired Woman’s daughter lived with her husband and her baby, but the bent old woman found that her daughter was very sick.
“Mother,” the girl told Old White-Haired Woman, “my husband’s people are waiting for me to die so they can take my baby off into the mountains and teach him to be a warrior. I want you to take him back home to the Tohono O’odham, so he can grow up to be kind and gentle. You must leave tonight. Tomorrow will be too late.”
Old White-Haired Woman was tired and wanted to rest, but she knew her daughter was right. Late that day, she loaded the baby into her daughter’s burden basket and went through the village, this way and that, so people would think she was gathering wood. Then, when she was out of sight, she started back north.
Once more the Little People came to help her, but the next morning she could hear that a band of Hiakim warriors were following her trail. When they were almost upon her, she called out to I’itoi for help. He sent a huge flock of shashani, blackbirds, who flew around and around the Yaqui warriors’ eyes until they could see nothing. Meanwhile, I’itoi led Old White-Haired Woman and her grandson into a wash that became a canyon. In this way, they went north toward the land of the Tohono O’odham.
But Old White-Haired Woman was very tired after her long journey. Finally, one day, she could go no farther. “I must stop here,” she said. So I’itoi took the boy the rest of the way home. When he came back, he found that the old woman’s feet had grown underground and all that was sticking up were two sticks of arms.
“You are a good grandmother,” I’itoi said. “You may stay here and rest forever, but once a year, you will be the most beautiful flower on the earth.” He touched the sticks. Wherever he put his fingers, beautiful white flowers grew. “Once each year,” I’itoi said, “during the night, Wind Man will be heavy with your perfume, but when the sun comes up in the morning, you will be gone.”
And that, nawoj, is the story of Old White-Haired Woman and the beautiful flower that the Mil-gahn call the night-blooming cereus. The Desert People call it kok’oi ’uw, which means ghost smell, or ho’ok-wah’o, which means witch’s tongs.
Brandon Walker never clocked in, but he worked all afternoon Sunday just the same. Trying to get a lead on Andrew Carlisle, he finally was put in touch with Ron Mallory, at home, taking the frustrated assistant superintendent away from his typewriter.
“My name is Brandon Walker,” he said by way of introduction. “I’m a homicide detective with Pima County.”
“What can I do for you, Detective Walker?” Mallory asked cordially enough, but all the while he was wondering who the hell had given this joker his home telephone number.
“I’m trying to locate Andrew Carlisle. Your records department couldn’t give me a current address.”
Carlisle! Mallory thought, alarm bells chiming in his bureaucratic, cover-thine-ass mentality. Carlisle had only got out on Friday, and somebody was already looking for him?
“He’s in Tucson somewhere,” Mallory answered. “I can probably have an address for you next week. What’s this all about?”
The slight hesitation in Walker’s answer alerted Mallory that everything wasn’t entirely as it should have been.
“I was the arresting officer on that case years ago,” Walker said. “I’m concerned about him being released into the same area where some of the witnesses still live. He may go after them.”
Mallory took a deep breath and used his shirtsleeve to wipe the beads of sweat that suddenly dotted his forehead. “Look, Detective Walker,” he said, all trace of cordiality disappearing. “Andrew Carlisle was an exemplary prisoner. He never made a bit of trouble. He was released after paying his debt to society for that particular crime. It sounds to me as though you’re out to harass the poor guy.”
“Harassment’s got nothing to do with it,” Brandon Walker countered. “I’m not the only one who’ll be looking for him.”
“What do you mean?”
“When they come asking,” Brandon added, “I’d have that address handy.”
He put down the phone and then sat there looking at it. He had wanted to have some solid information before he called Pinal County. He wondered how his information would be received once the homicide detectives knew it
