Hour of the Hunter

spent three full days in the hospital being treated for a concussion, but he had convinced the doctor that he had to be dismissed in time to go to a feast in Sells on Friday. The doctor had grumbled, but in the end he had let the old man have his way.

The cigarette passed from the priest to Fat Crack to the detective, and back, at last, to the medicine man. Far to the west, a thundercloud rose over the desert. Periodically, lightning lit up the cloud’s billowing interior, but the rains had not yet come. The California river toads still slept quietly in their hardened mud beds.

“He is a good boy,” Looks At Nothing said, “but I am worried about one thing.”

“What’s that?” Father John asked.

He was sure it would be some complaint that the other part of the bargain, the Mil- gahn baptism, was going too slowly, but he had only just got out of the hospital that very afternoon. Davy Ladd was scheduled to be baptized during the eleven o’clock mass at San Xavier the day after tomorrow. What more did the old man want?

But Looks At Nothing’s objection had nothing to do with that. “Edagith Gohk Je’e,” he said, calling Davy by his new Indian name. “One With Two Mothers, this boy, has too many mothers and not enough fathers.

“There are four of us,” Looks At Nothing continued, “and all nature goes in fours. Why could we not agree to be father to this fatherless boy, all four of us together? We each have things to teach, and we all have things to learn.”

As soon as Brandon heard the words, he knew Looks At Nothing was right. No matter how much Rita Antone and Diana Ladd loved Davy, they could not be his father. A lump caught in Brandon Walker’s throat as he listened. Fatherless himself for three days now, Brandon Walker felt for Davy Ladd almost as much as he hurt for himself.

It grew quiet in the circle. No one said aloud that he would or would not accept the assignment. That was a foregone conclusion. The decision had been made for them long before they were asked. Looks At Nothing had decreed it so, and that was the way it would be.

Davy himself came running up just then. “What are you guys doing?” he demanded. “I looked around the feast house, and you were all gone.”

“We were talking,” Brandon Walker said.

“What about?”

“You.”

“About me? What were you saying?”

“That somebody needs to take you into Tucson for a haircut,” Brandon said, affectionately ruffling Davy’s hair, but being careful about the stitches.

“You mean it?” Davy asked. “Honest? To a real barber?”

“That’s right,” Brandon Walker replied with a slight grin. “You see, Davy, mothers don’t give crew cuts. Barbers do.”