called after him. 'He doesn't know it yet, but it turns out he's already working this case.'
By the time Davy and Candace picked up their tickets at the counter and then went racing through the terminal to the gate, they were both worn out. Once aboard America West Flight 1, bound for Tucson, Candace fell sound asleep. Davy, although fidgety with a combination of nerves and exhaustion, fought hard to stay awake. They were flying in a 737, and Davy was stuck in one of the cramped middle seats, sandwiched between Candace, sleeping on his left, and a bright-eyed little old lady on the right. The woman was tiny. Her skin was tanned nut- brown. The skin of her lips and cheeks was wrinkled in that distinctive pattern that comes from years of smoking. Rattling the pages, she thumbed impatiently through the in-flight magazine.
David sat there, bolt upright and petrified, worried sick that if he did fall asleep, he would instantly be overtaken by yet another panic attack. If, as the emergency room doctor had insisted, the attacks were stress- induced, then Davy figured he was about due for another one. There was, after all, some stress in his life.
His experience with Candace in the hotel earlier meant that he was no longer quite so concerned about what she would think of him when another attack came along. What would other people think, though? The lady next to him, for instance, or the flight attendants hustling up and down the aisle, dispensing orange juice and coffee, what would they do? He could imagine it all too well. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' one of them would intone into the intercom. 'We have a medical emergency here. Is there a doctor on board?'
Stress. Part of that came from finishing school and going home and getting a real job without even taking whatever had happened to Lani into consideration. In the years while Davy was attending law school in Chicago, he had held himself at arm's length from his family back home. Somehow it seemed to him that there wasn't room enough in his heart for all of them at once-for the Arizona contingent and for the Ladd side of the family in Illinois. To say nothing of Candace.
Looking at her sleeping peacefully beside him, Davy couldn't quite believe she was there. In his scheme of things, Candace had always been part of his Chicago life, and yet here she was on the plane with him, headed for Tucson. Not only that, she was going there with Astrid Ladd's amazingly large diamond engagement ring firmly encircling the ring finger on her slender left hand.
Davy hadn't exactly popped the question. Nevertheless, they were engaged. Candace was planning a quick wedding in Vegas while Davy squirmed with the knowledge that his mother and stepfather had barely heard her name. He hadn't told them any more about her than he had told them about his other passing romantic fancies. It hadn't seemed necessary.
Now, given the circumstances, telling was more than necessary. It was essential and tardy and not at all one-sided. Just as he hadn't talked about Candace to his parents, the reverse was also true. There was a whole lot he hadn't told Candace, either.
The lush lifestyle in which Candace Waverly had grown up in Oak Park, Illinois, was far different from what prevailed in the comparatively simple house in Gates Pass. And if Candace's experience was one step removed from the Tucson house, it was forever away from Rita Antone's one-room adobe house-little more than a shack, really- which had been Nana Dahd' s ancestral home in Ban Thak.
Coyote Sitting, Davy thought. Just the names of the villages were bad enough. Hawani Naggiak — Crow Hanging; Komkch'eD e Wah'osidk — Turtle Wedged; Gogs mek — Burnt Dog. Davy knew them equally well in English and in Tohono O'othham, but what would Candace think when he tried to explain them to her?
Conflicting geography was one thing. What about when he started dealing in the crossed wires of personalities? There had been no particular need to tell Candace much about being raised by Rita Antone, who in turn had been raised by her own grandmother, Understanding Woman. Over time Davy had mentioned a few things, of course, but only the simple, straightforward parts, not any of what Richard Waverly, Candace's father, would derisively call the woo-woo stuff.
Davy had never mentioned Looks At Nothing's Peace Smoke, for instance. He hadn't told Candace or any of her family how the blind old medicine man from his childhood would light his foul-smelling wild tobacco with a flame sparked by his faithful Zippo lighter. He hadn't told them about Looks At Nothing's spooky way of knowing things before they happened or of the blind man telling others what he had 'seen' in his divining crystals.
How would Candace and her family react to a discussion of medicine men and divining crystals-and medicine baskets, for that matter? Or try scalp bundles on for size. The one from Rita's medicine basket-an Ohb scalp bundle, no doubt-was the main reason Rita's medicine basket was still sitting in his parents' safety deposit box eleven years after Rita's death.
Davy was sure now that the scalp bundle had been the primary reason Rita had insisted that it be kept out of Lani's hands until she was old enough to handle it with proper respect. Davy cringed at the idea of sitting down and trying to explain to Richard Waverly how improper handling of a scalp-bundle could bring on a bout of Enemy Sickness, the best cure for which was a medicine man singing scalp-bundle songs at night.
Old Man Waverly will just love that one, Davy thought.
And yet, those things-which he could imagine Candace and her family not quite understanding-were far too much a part of Davy's life and experience for him to dismiss them. The stories about I'itoi and Earth Medicine Man were as deeply woven into Davy's background as Aesop's Fables and the Brothers Grimm were into Candace's. How would somebody raised on watered-down versions of Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella respond to having her son or daughter hear about how I'itoi chopped the head off the monster Eagleman's baby?
Almost without realizing what he was doing, Davy reached into his pocket and pulled out Father John's rosary. At age twenty-seven, David Ladd closed his eyes and saw in his mind's eye those three aged adults who had played such important roles in his childhood-Rita, Looks At Nothing, and Father John. They were all so very different and yet, despite those differences, they had drawn a healing circle of love around him-a little half-orphaned Anglo boy-and held him safe inside it.
How had they done that? And if, from the vantage point of being that well-loved child, Davy himself couldn't answer that question, how in God's name would he ever be able to explain it to anyone else, including Candace Waverly?
By then the beads were laid out across his palm. He began slowly, one bead at a time, silently moving his lips as he recited the words. 'Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.'
Halfway through the process, probably somewhere over Colorado, someone tapped on his right arm. Startled, he looked up. The lady next to him was smiling a benignly cheery smile.
'I know just how you feel,' she said. 'I used to be afraid of flying, too, young man. But they have classes for that kind of thing these days. I took one at Pima Community College a few years back. You might look into taking one yourself. Those classes don't cost very much, and they help. They really do.'
Blushing furiously, Davy dropped Father John's losalo back into his pocket. 'Thank you,' he said. 'I'll try to look into it as soon as I have a chance.'
Leaving the hospital, Fat Crack Ortiz stopped by the Walker house in Gates Pass long enough to see that no one was home. After that he headed the Crown Victoria toward Sells. No doubt the dance was still going strong, but he didn't even pause at the Little Tucson turnoff. Instead, he drove on home.
When he had warned Brandon Walker of danger the day before, it hadn't occurred to him that the danger in question, the evil emanating from Diana's book, might fall on Lani. He had expected Diana herself to be the target, never Lani.
Once he reached the house, he was grateful to discover that Wanda still wasn't home. Although she tolerated his medicine-man status, she certainly wasn't thrilled by it. Gabe went straight to the wooden desk and retrieved Looks At Nothing's medicine pouch. Then he went outside. Using a stick of mesquite, he stood in the middle of the dirt-floored patio and used the stick to draw a circle around himself. Then he eased himself down on the hard ground in exactly the way the old blind medicine man would have prescribed.
With the porch light providing the only light, he opened the pouch and took out a rolled cigarette made from wiw — wild tobacco-that Fat Crack had carefully gathered and rolled into the ceremonial cigarettes. Digging further, he located Looks At Nothing's old Zippo lighter, which had become almost as much a part of the duajida — the nighttime divination ceremony-as the billowing smoke itself. Then, opening a second, smaller bag made of some soft, chamois-like material, Fat Crack peered inside at the crystals he knew were there.
In all the years Fat Crack Ortiz had been in possession of the medicine pouch, he had seldom touched the crystals or taken them out of their protective bag. But if any occasion called for the use of Looks At Nothing's most powerful medicine, this was it. Lani Walker was in danger. The old medicine man had been dead long before Rita
