'Could you order it for me again, Mrs. Kennedy?' he asked, the day he returned it to the library. 'In two weeks' time, I barely got started. What I really need is my own copy.'
'I don't know,' she said. 'I'll see what I can do.'
It was a month before Mitch received a summons to the library. Noreen Kennedy, who was almost as wide as she was tall, smiled broadly at him. 'You'll never guess what I found,' she said, holding up a shabby volume Mitch instantly recognized as a much-used copy of the Nicolaides book.
'I got it from a used-book dealer in Phoenix who's an old friend of mine,' she said. 'We went to Library School together. Jack said he's had it in inventory for years and he only charged me five bucks. Can you afford to buy it, or should I just go ahead and put it in the collection?'
'I'd really like to have my own copy, if you don't mind,' Mitch said.
'I thought you would,' Noreen said, handing it over.
The book had been a godsend. When Mitch was sketching, the hours seemed to fly by. As the months went past, it was easy to recognize the increasing skill in the way he executed the exercises. While he sketched, Andrew Carlisle talked. It was as though he had an almost physical need to share his exploits with someone. Mitch Johnson became Andy's chosen vessel.
Andy's bragging about the tapes was how Mitch first heard about them. At first it made him uneasy that Andy had taken such pains to make a record of all he had done, but in the long run, Mitch realized that recordings were just that-mechanical reproductions. They didn't allow for any artistic license. Painting did.
There was a locked storage unit under the bed in the Bounder. In it were two 18-by-24-inch canvases. Each oil painting was of Larry Wraike, one before and one after. The first was of a moderately handsome overfed businessman in a well-pressed suit, the kind of dully representative portrait that an overly proud wife might have commissioned in honor of some special occasion. An art critic seeing the second painting would have assumed, mistakenly, that this was an imaginative rendition of a soul in torment.
Only Mitch Johnson knew that that one, too, was fully representational. He thought of them as a matched pair-'Larry Wraike Before' and 'Larry Wraike After.'
Half an hour after returning to the RV, when he held the unfinished drawing up to a mirror to examine it, the artist was pleased with the likeness. Anyone who knew Quentin Walker would have recognized him. The picture showed him sitting slump-shouldered, his elbows resting on the bar, his eyes morosely focused on the beer in the bottom of the glass in front of him. Quentin Walker Before.
Looking at the picture, though, Mitch Johnson realized something else about it-something he had never noticed before that moment-how very much the son resembled the father. That hadn't been nearly so apparent when Quentin first showed up in Florence as it was now. He had come to prison as nothing but a punk kid. The hard years in between had matured and hardened him into what Brandon Walker had been when Mitch first knew him.
'Well, I'll be damned!' Mitch said to the picture reflected back from the mirror. 'If you aren't your daddy's spitting image, Mr. Quentin Walker. Imagine that!'
5
They say it happened long ago that the weather grew very hot-the hottest year the Tohono O'othham had ever known. And all this happened in the hottest part of that year.
For many weeks the Indians and the animals had looked at the sky, hoping to find one cloud that would show them thatChewagi O'othham- Cloud Man-was still alive. There was not a cloud.
The water holes had been dry for a long time. The Desert People had gone far away to find water. The coyotes had followed the Indians. The wolves and foxes had gone into the mountains. All the birds had left. EvenKakaichu- Quail-who seldom leaves his own land, was forced to go away.
Gohhim Chuk- Lame Jackrabbit-had found a little shade. It was not much, just enough to keep him from burning. The tips of his ears and his tail were already burned black. And that,nawoj, is why that particular kind of jackrabbit-chuk chuhwi- is marked that same way, even today.
AsGohhim Chuk- Lame Jackrabbit-lay panting in his little bit of shade, he was wondering how he would manage the few days' journey to a cooler place. Then he sawNuhwi- Buzzard-flying over him.
Now it is the law of the desert to live and let live, that one should only kill in self-defense or to keep from starving. The animals forget this law sometimes when their stomachs are full and when there is plenty of water, but when the earth burns and when everyone is in danger, the law is always remembered. So Lame Jackrabbit did not run away when he saw Buzzard circling down over him. Buzzard knew the law of the desert as well as Lame Jackrabbit did.
Nuhwi flew in circles, lower and lower. When he was low enough, he called to Lame Jackrabbit. 'I have seen something very odd back in the desert,' Nuhwi said. When he was high up over the part of the desert which was burned bare, he told Lame Jackrabbit, he saw on the ground a black place that seemed to be in motion. He had circled down hoping it was water. But it was only a great crowd of Ali-chu'uchum O'othham, the Little People.
As you know,nawoj, my friend, the Little People are the bees and flies and insects of all kinds. Buzzard said these Little People were swarming around something on the ground. He saidNuhwi andGohhim Chuk must carry the news together because it might help someone. It is also the law of the desert that you must always help anyone in trouble.
Lame Jackrabbit agreed that what Buzzard had seen was very strange. Little People usually leave early when the water goes away. Lame Jackrabbit said he would carry the news.
But Gohhim Chuk, whose ears and tail were burned black, being lame, could not travel very well. So he found Coyote and told him whatNuhwi- Buzzard-had seen.
Ban- Coyote-was puzzled too. He said he would carry the message on to theTohono O'othham- the Desert People.
It was still dark when Lani's alarm buzzed in her ear. She turned it off quickly and then hurried into the bathroom to shower. Standing in front of the steamy mirror, she used a brush and hair dryer to style her shoulder- length hair. How long would it take, she wondered, for her hair to grow back out to the length it had been back in eighth grade, before she had cut it?
From first grade on, Lani Walker and Jessica Carpenter had been good friends. By the time they reached Maxwell Junior High, the two girls made a striking pair. Lani's jet-black waist-length hair and bronze complexion were in sharp contrast to Jessie's equally long white-blond hair and fair skin. Because they were always together, some of the other kids teasingly called them twins.
Their entry into eighth grade came at a time when Lani Walker needed a faithful ally. For one thing, Rita was gone. She had been dead for years, but Lani still missed her. When coping with the surprising changes in her own body or when faced with difficulties at home or in school, Lani still longed for the comfort of Nana Dahd's patient guidance. And there were difficulties at home. In fact, the whole Walker household seemed to be in a state of constant upheaval. Things had started going bad when her older stepbrother, Quentin, had been sent to prison as a result of a fatality drunk-driving accident.
Lani had been too young to realize all that was happening when Tommy disappeared, but she had watched her grim-faced parents deal with the first Quentin crisis. She had been at the far end of the living room working on a basket the night after Quentin Walker was sentenced for the drunk-driving conviction. Brandon had come into the house, shambled over to the couch, slumped down on it, and buried his face in his hands.
'Five years,' he had groaned. 'On the one hand it seems like a long time and yet it's nothing. He killed three people, for God's sake! How can a five-year sentence make up for that, especially when he'll probably be out in three?'
'That's what the law says,' Diana returned, but Brandon remained unconvinced and uncomforted.
'Judge Davis could have given him more if he had wanted to. I can't help thinking that it's because I'm the sheriff…'
'Brandon, you have to let go of that,' Diana said. 'First you blame yourself for Quentin being a drunk, and now you're taking responsibility for the judge's sentence. Quentin did what he did and so did the judge. Neither one of those results has anything at all to do with you.'
