hair had two distinct streaks of white flowing away from either temple. But her skin was still good, and with the help of a little makeup she'd look all right, not only for today's afternoon tea, but also for the photo shoot and banquet tomorrow.
Stepping into the shower, though, she was still chewing on what was going on between Brandon and her. It was too bad that if she was going to win some big prize that it had to be for Shadow of Death, a book Brandon had never wanted her to write in the first place. Not only that, it was unfortunate that what should have been her finest hour, the pinnacle of a writing career that spanned more than twenty years, should come at a time when Brandon, after being tossed out of office, was at his very lowest ebb.
The last month and a half, in fact, had been pure hell. She and Brandon had been at one another's throats ever since the engraved invitation had arrived, summoning them both to the awards festivities in New York.
Brandon had backed away from the gold-embossed envelope with both their names on it as though that rectangular piece of paper were a coiled rattlesnake.
'No way!' he had declared. 'No way in hell! I'm not going to New York for that, not in a million years!'
'Why not? It'll be fun.'
'For you, maybe. People are interested in you; they want to meet you. And while you're busy talking, someone will turn to me and say, 'What is it you do, Mr. Walker? Are you a writer, too?' And when I tell them I used to be sheriff but I don't do anything anymore, their eyes will glaze over and pretty soon they'll wander away. It's a ball doing that. I love it.'
Diana had winced at the sarcasm in his voice, but she also knew the perils of playing second banana. She had felt the same way about attending political gatherings-the rubber-chicken luncheons and living room campaign coffee hours-back when Brandon had been a candidate for public office. But she had gone. She had kept her mouth shut, she had put on her good clothes and company manners, and she had gone. She had served as the proper political wife and had behaved the way political wives the world over are expected to behave.
Part of what had made that easy to do was the fact that she had believed so strongly in what Brandon Walker stood for. She had backed his plans for cleaning up the sheriff's department, for getting rid of the crooks and putting an end to the graft and corruption.
To be fair, back when she was first published, he had been there for her, as well. Those first few book tours when he had sometimes been able to join her for a few days at a time had been a ball. Back then, his going to functions with her had been easier for him because he had been more sure of his own place in the scheme of things. The ego damage associated with losing the election-from being booted out of a job he loved-seemed to have knocked the emotional pins out from under him. It was almost as though there had been a death in the family, and the grieving process had left him lost and directionless.
But to Diana's way of thinking, the main problem with the Pulitzer and everything associated with it was that the accolades were all coming to Diana over Shadow of Death, a book Brandon Walker had opposed from the very beginning.
'Don't bring all that stuff up again,' he had warned her on the day Andrew Carlisle's letter had arrived from the Arizona State Prison. 'Let sleeping dogs lie.'
But she hadn't followed his advice. She had gone ahead and written the book anyway. And now, based on that, Diana Ladd Walker's stock had shot way up in the world of publishing. Sandy Hawkins, Diana's editor at Sterling, Moffit, and Dodd, was downright ecstatic. Requests for interviews and public appearances were flowing in. Meanwhile, Diana's marriage was in the toilet.
She and Brandon had argued bitterly over the trip to New York, with him citing any number of plausible but nonetheless phony excuses for not going. He didn't have a tux. With only one of them working, he couldn't see squandering all that money on his airfare. He hated being locked up in an airplane seat without enough room for his long legs. Most of all, in his opinion, Lani shouldn't be left home on her own, not with the end-of-school party season heating up.
'Why don't you say what you mean?' an exasperated Diana had demanded finally when she tired of arguing. 'Why don't you just admit it? You don't want to go.'
Brandon complied at once. 'You're right,' he had said. 'I don't want to go.'
'Fine!' Diana had stormed. 'Suit yourself, but one of these days you're going to have to get over it, Brandon. One of these days you're going to have to realize that losing that election was not the end of the world.'
She regretted her outburst almost immediately, but she had retreated to her office without an apology while Brandon had made tracks for his damned woodpile. And two weeks later, when Diana Ladd Walker flew off to New York, she had done so alone, with the quarrel between them still unresolved. A month and a half later, his role as 'author consort' was still a bone of contention.
When the invitation came for her to speak at the annual Friends of the Library banquet, there had been yet another firefight. This time, though, Diana had dug in her heels.
'Look,' she had told him. 'I can see your not going to the faculty tea. If I could get out of that one myself, I would. But the library banquet is something for the whole community, the community that elected you to office for sixteen years. People expect you to be there. I expect you to be there. We're married, Brandon. I don't want to spend my life out in public as one of those married singles.'
'But I hate all that crap,' he argued. 'I hate standing around with a drink in my hand, looking like a sap, and listening to some little old lady talk about something I've never heard of.'
'Get over it,' Diana had snapped back at him. 'If you were tough enough to face down armed crooks in your day, you ought to be able to stand up to any little old lady in the land.'
Stepping out of the shower, Diana stood toweling her hair dry. Suddenly, out of nowhere, something her mother had told her once came back to her as clearly as if she had heard the words yesterday instead of thirty years earlier.
Iona Dade Cooper had been at home in Joseph, Oregon, dying of cancer. Diana, away at school at the University of Oregon in Eugene, had finally been forced to drop out temporarily to care for her. Diana had been sitting in the chair next to her mother's bed telling of her secret ambition not only to marry Garrison Ladd but also to become a writer.
'You can't have it all, you know,' Iona had said quietly. 'If you try to do too much, something is bound to suffer.'
Standing in the bathroom thirty years later, Diana had to swallow a sudden lump in her throat. She remembered arguing the point with her mother back then, telling Iona passionately exactly how wrong she was.
'These are the sixties,' Diana had said with the absolute conviction of a know-it-all twenty-one-year-old. 'Women are moving into their own now, Mother. Everything is possible, you'll see.'
Iona Dade Cooper had died a few months later without seeing anything of the kind. And Diana, now several years older than her mother had lived to be, was forced to acknowledge that Iona's assessment was one hundred percent accurate.
Mom, you were right, after all,Diana Cooper Ladd Walker admitted to herself. You really can't have it all.
2
Now in that long ago time the earth-jeweth-was not yet firm and still as it is today. It was shaking and quivering all the time. That made it hard for the four to travel. So Earth Medicine Man-Jeweth Mahkai-threw himself down and stopped the shaking of the earth. And that was the first land.
But the land was floating around in separate pieces. So Earth Medicine Man called to the Spider Men.Totkihhud O'othham came out of the floating ground and went all over the world spinning their webs and tying the pieces of earth together. And that is how we have it today-land and water.
ThenI'itoi wanted to find the center of the earth. So he sent Coyote toward the south and Big Black Beetle to the north. He said they must go as fast and as far as they could and then return to him.
Bitokoi — Big Black Beetle-was back quite a while beforeBan — Coyote-returned. In this wayI'itoi knew that he had not yet found the center of the earth.
Then Spirit of Goodness tookBitokoi andBan a little farther south and sent them off once more. Again Big
