Hour of the Hunter

will do it.”

“A real medicine man? What will he do?”

“Don’t ask so many questions, Little One. You will see when time comes. He will baptize you in the way of the Tohono O’ odham. Have you spoken to the priest yet?”

“Priest?” Davy returned. “Oh, the one out at San Xavier?” Rita nodded. “Mom saw him, this morning. She said he was coming to see me today, this afternoon, I guess. I don’t know why.”

Rita sighed in relief. Father John had asked, and Diana had consented. “I do,” she said. “Listen, Olhoni, you must listen very carefully. You are very old not to be baptized, not in your mother’s way and not in the Indian way, either. Most people are baptized when they are babies. This is not good, so we are going to fix it. I asked Father John to speak to your mother, because where the Anglo religion is concerned, it is better for Mil- gahn to speak to Mil-gahn. Do you understand?”

Davy nodded seriously, but Rita doubted she was making sense. “When Father John comes to see you, do whatever he asks.”

“But what will he ask?”

“He will speak to you of the Mil-gahn religion, of your mother’s religion.”

“But I thought you said a medicine man. .”

“Olhoni,” Rita said sternly. “You are a child of two worlds, a child with two mothers, are you not?” Davy nodded. “Then you can be a boy with two religions, two instead of none, isn’t it?”

Davy thought about it a moment before he nodded again.

“So tonight,” Rita continued, “whenever Fat Crack comes to get me, I will go out to Sells and be there for the start of the ceremony. I will return during the day, but each night I must go again. On the fourth night, the last night, you will come, too. Either your mother will bring you, or I will come back for you myself.”

“Will there be a feast?” he asked.

“Yes, now get up. I need your help.”

Davy scrambled off the bed. “What do you want, Nana Dahd?”

“Over there, in the bottom drawer of my dresser, there is a small basket. Bring it.”

Davy did as he was told, carrying the small, rectangular basket back to the bed. “What’s this?” he asked.

“My medicine basket.”

As he handed it to her, something rattled inside. “What’s in it, Nana Dahd? Can I see?”

With some difficulty, Rita had managed to pull herself up on the side of the bed. Now, she patted the mattress, motioning for Davy to sit beside her. “You’ll have to.” She smiled. “I can’t.”

Davy worked at prying off the tight-fitting lid. It was a testimony to Understanding Woman’s craftsmanship that even after so many years, even with the repairs Rita had made from time to time, the lid of the basket still fit snugly enough that it required effort to remove it. When it finally came loose, Davy handed the opened basket back to Rita.

One at a time, she took items out and held them up to the light. After looking at each one, she handed it to Davy. First was the awl, the owij, Rita called it. Davy knew what that was for because he had often watched her use the sharp tool to poke holes in the coiled cactus to make her baskets.

Next came a piece of pottery.

“What’s that?” Davy asked.

“See the turtle here?” Rita asked, pointing to the design etched into the broken shard. Davy nodded. “This is from one of my great-grandmother’s pots, Olhoni. When a woman dies, the people must break her pots in order to free her spirit. My grandmother kept this piece of her mother’s best pot and gave it to me.”

Next she held up the seashell. “Grandfather brought this back from his first salt-gathering expedition, and this spine of feather is one my father once gave to his mother when he was younger than you are now. The clay doll was used for healing.”

Next, Davy saw a hank of black hair. “What’s that?” he asked.

“It’s something we used to use against the Ohb, the Apaches,” Rita explained. “Something to keep our enemies away.”

At the very bottom of the basket were two last items-a piece of purple rock and something small made of metal and ribbon.

“What are those?”

“A spirit rock,” Rita answered, holding up the fragment of geode. “A rock that’s ordinary on the outside, but beautifully colored on the inside.”

“And that?” he asked.

“That is my son’s,” she said softly, fingering the frayed bit of ribbon. “Gordon’s. His Purple Heart. The army sent it to me after the war.”

“What war?”

“The Korean,” she said.

“Did your son die, too?” Davy asked.

“I guess,” she answered. “He joined the Army during World War II and stayed in. He never came home after Korea. The Army said he was missing, but he’s been missing for twenty-six years now. I don’t think he’s coming home. His wife, Gina’s mother, ran off some place. With no husband, she didn’t want a baby. I took care of Gina the same way I take care of you.”

Rita looked down at the little cache of treasure lying exposed on the bedspread. “Put them all back for me now, Davy. I want to take them with me.”

One at a time, with careful concentration, Davy put Rita’s things back in the basket then he fitted the lid on tight.

“I’ve never seen this basket before, have I?” he asked, handing it back to her.

She took it and slid it inside the top of her dress, where it rested out of sight beneath her ample breast and above her belt. “No, Olhoni. You have to be old enough before you can look at a medicine basket and show it proper respect.”

“Am I old enough now?”

“You have not yet killed your first coyote,” she said, “but you are old enough to see a medicine basket.”

By four o’clock that afternoon, Carlisle had set up camp on the rocky mountainside overlooking Diana Ladd’s home in Gates Pass. Using Myrna Louise’s cash, he had bought an AMC Matador from a used-car dealer downtown who claimed to be “ugly but honest.” So far that seemed to be true of the car as well. The layers of vinyl on the roof were peeling off and the paint was scarred, but the engine itself seemed reliable enough.

He had constructed a rough shelter of mesquite branches. The greenery not only provided some slight protection from the searing heat, it also offered cover from which he could spy on the house below without being detected. Sitting there with his high-powered binoculars trained on the house, he watched the comings and goings, counted the people he saw, and planned his offensive. During the long hours, he had to fight continually to stave off panic. In all his adventures, this was the very first time things had gone so totally wrong. He bitterly resented the fact that his own mother was the main fly in the ointment.

In taking the Valiant, Myrna Louise had complicated his life immeasurably. For one thing, she had forced him to spend some of his limited cash on a new vehicle. More seriously than that, Margie Danielson’s gun was still in the trunk of the car Myrna Louise had stolen right out from under his nose. So was Johnny Rivkin’s suitcase, for that matter-the bag containing the clothing and wigs Andrew Carlisle had planned to use for his getaway.

But far more serious than all the others put together was the loss of time. Everything had to be compressed and hurried, without opportunity for the kind of careful planning Andrew Carlisle considered to be the major prerequisite for getting away with this particular murder. Instead of having days to work out the logistics of his attack against Diana Ladd, it would have to be done in a matter of hours. He would have to retrieve the damning evidence from his mother either before or after the main event.

Carlisle knew that his mother hated staying in hotels, and she had severely limited resources besides. Like an old war-horse, she would, in all likelihood, head directly back to the barn, unless of course the cops picked her up for reckless driving somewhere along the way. The very thought of that possibility caused his heart to beat faster.