Hour of the Hunter (38 page)

They had breakfast, a cheerful, family-style breakfast.

Myrna Louise was careful not to fuss too much. Afterward, while she cleaned up the kitchen, Andrew loaded the car.

Lida Givens, that nosy old bat from next door, came over to the fence to see what he was doing and to chat for a while. "Going on a trip?" she asked.

He nodded. "It's been a long time since Mama had a chance to get out of town. We're going to drive up past the Grand Canyon and maybe on up through the canyon country of Utah. That's always been one of my favorite places."

"Never been there myself," Lida Givens asserted.

"Wouldn't know it from a hole in the ground. I much prefer California."

Andrew started for the car, then paused, snapping his fingers as if at a sudden afterthought. "Say, are you going to be in town for the next week and a half to two weeks?"

"Reckon. Don't have any place to go at the moment. The kids are busy with their own jobs and families. They don't like me dropping in unless I give them plenty of advance warning. Why?"

"Would you mind bringing in the mail? And if you see the paper boy, tell him to put us on vacation until we get back."

"Sure thing. I'll be happy to."

"I'd appreciate it," Andrew Carlisle told Lida Givens with a sincere smile. "Living far away, it's been a real blessing for me to know my mother's in a place with such terrific neighbors."

"Think nothing of it," Lida said. "That's what neighbors are for."

Myrna Louise was delighted to get in the car and go for a ride someplace, even if it was just an overnight jaunt. Excited as a little kid, she packed a bag and had it waiting by the door for Andrew to load while she did the breakfast dishes.

Years ago, not even that long ago, she would have left the dishes sitting in the sink to rot while she went away, but not anymore. Not in her cozy little house on Weber Drive. What would the neighbors think if they happened to glance in a window and see that she'd left without doing the dishes?

She was pleased that Andrew seemed to have forgiven her for burning up his stupid manuscripts. She probably shouldn't have, really. Writing had to be a lot of work, but he seemed totally at ease this morning, whistling to himself as he loaded the car. She watched out the window as he stopped briefly to chat across the fence with Lida Givens, the lady from next door.

Thank God Andrew was making the effort to be sociable for a change, Myrna Lou] thought, and than le hadn't done anything to dispel the Phil Wharton myth. Lida Givens had a son who was a dentist and a daughter who sold real estate out in California somewhere. It was particularly important that Andrew keep up the Phil Wharton charade with Lida Givens even if he didn't do it with anyone else.

At nine they headed for Tucson. The heat was incredibly oppressive, and the Valiant had no air-conditioning. They drove with the windows open and the wind roaring in their ears. Far to the south and east, thunderclouds edged over the horizon, but they were only teasers, hints of the coming rainy season that would bring blessed relief from some of the heat but they would bring additional humidity as well.

"Have you made any plans?" Myrna Louise shouted over the noise of the car.

It was fine for Andrew to come and visit for a day or two, but she certainly didn't want to be saddled with him on a permanent basis. She was eager to know how soon he'd be moving on.

"I'm looking for a place somewhere around Tucson, someplace I can afford, so I can get back to writing."

"Good," Myrna Louise breathed. Tucson was both close enough and far enough away.

"I don't like oatmeal," Davy complained, picking at the cereal in his bowl.

"Not even with brown sugar and raisins?" Diana asked.

Davy shrugged. "They help, I guess. I just like tortillas better.

Why don't you fix tortillas?"

"I don't know how."

"Will Rita make tortillas for us when she gets home today?"

Diana thought of the huge cast covering Rita's smashed left arm. "She won't be doing that for a while," Diana said.

"At least not until after her arm comes out of the cast."

"You mean we can't have any until she gets better? That could take a long time."

"Maybe I could try making some," Diana offered tentatively. "I mean, if Rita were here to coach me and tell me what to do."

Davy's jaw dropped. "Really? You mean you'd learn to make them yourself?"

"I said I'd try."

"Do you swear?"

Davy's unbridled enthusiasm was catching. This was the first sign of life Diana had seen in her son for several days. She put her hand over her heart and grinned at him.

"I swear," she said.

Davy helped clear the table, then went to feed the dog, fairly skipping as he did so. He had been so strangely subdued that it pleased her to see him acting like his old self.

It was such a small thing, really, promising to make tortillas, but it signified something else, she realized, something much more important.

Promises made meant they would have to be kept, and that implied a future-a future with her in it.

Before, she had thought about sorting Gary's and her mother's things as an ending, as a means of putting her house in order in preparation for yet another catastrophe.

Now, for the first time, she saw the other side of the coin.

It could go either way. She might just as easily be doing it as a beginning, as a way of putting the past behind her and finally getting on with her life.

I'll do the dishes first, she thought, then I'll get started.

It is said that on the Third Day, l'itoi gave each tribe a basket.

When all the women were busy learning how to make baskets, I'itoi saw that it would be good for each one to mark her baskets in a different way so they would know who had made each different basket and what it should be used for.

So 1'itoi brought the women seed pods from the planting, which the Mil-gahn call devil's claw. He showed all the women how to weave the black fiberfrom the seedpods into their baskets to make a pattern to mark their baskets, and by each pattern, the baskets would be known.

Now while all the women were working so hard learning to make the baskets, many of the Little People were watching as well. The birds especially, watching from a big mesquite tree, were curious about what I'itoi and the women were doing. Finally, u'u whig, the birds, came down from the tree and stole some of the fiber for making baskets.

They flew back to the tree with it and tried to make a basket of their own. But they had not watched Fitoi closely enough, and when their basket was finished, it slipped around and hung upside down on the bottom of the branch.

When this happened, the birds began to laugh. I'itoi heard them laughing and came to see what was so funny.

When he saw what they had done, Titoi was very pleased.

He told the birds that they might make baskets for themselves. He said they should call their baskets nests and use them for homes.

And that is why, my friend, the u'u whig, the birds, make nests even to this day, and all this happened on the Third Day.

Diana had barely moved the first stack of boxes out of the root cellar and into the kitchen when the phone rang. She looked at it warily, afraid of who might be calling. Her number was unlisted, but there were probably ways to get unlisted numbers if you knew how to go about it.

"Hello," she said.

"Diana Ladd?" questioned a strange male voice.

"Who's calling please?" she asked, while her heart hammered in her throat and her knees wobbled.

"My name is Father John. I'm the associate priest, semiretired actually, out at San Xavier Mission on the reservation. Is Diana Ladd there? I need to speak to her."

A priest? She didn't know any priests, not any at all.

Why would a strange priest be calling her? Was this a trick? Was it Andrew Carlisle pretending to be a priest?

She wouldn't put it past him.

"This is Diana," she said at last.

"Good. I'm sure this is all going to sound very strange," the man continued, "but I was wondering if it would be possible for me to stop by and pay you a visit?"

Pay a visit? At the house? Did he know where she lived?

"Why?" she asked.

"We have a mutual friend," he said mysteriously. "Rita Antone, the lady who lives with you."

Funny, Diana returned. "I don't recall her ever mentioning your name."

"I'm not surprised. We had a falling out years ago. I'm just now getting around to mending fences."

"Look," Diana said impatiently. "Rita isn't here. If you want to talk to her when she gets back. . ."

"It's you I need to talk to, Mrs. Ladd," the priest interrupted.

"It's about Rita, but I don't need to see her. In fact, it would probably be better if I didn't. I saw her in the hospital yesterday.

I'm afraid my visit upset her."

He sounded priestly. The inflections were right, the tone of voice, the attitude. "Father," Diana said, "I'm very busy right now.

Couldn't this wait a few days?"

"It's a matter of life and death," he insisted. "I must see you today."

"Where?"

:'I could come there."

'No," she said at once. "Absolutely not." She wasn't dumb enough to invite a strange man into her home. "I could come out to the mission, I suppose," she suggested.

If the caller had been Andrew Carlisle posing as a priest, that would have been the end of it. Instead, he agreed readily. "Good," he said, "but would you please not bring the boy?"

"I have to bring him," Diana told him. "Rita is my only sitter. She isn't here."

"Well," he said, "all right then, but I must speak to you in private.

Perhaps the boy can go over to the convent and visit for a little while.

One of the nuns over there, Sister Katherine, is particularly good with children. I'm sure she would be happy to watch him for us if I ask her to. How soon can I expect you?"

"By the time we get cleaned up and ready to go, it'll probably be around an hour."

"Fine," he said. "I'll be waiting in my office, which is just behind the bookstore. Ask anyone, and they'll direct you."

Diana hung up the phone. So Father John wasn't a fake, but why would a former friend of Rita's want to talk to Diana? That was more than she could understand.

She went to the back door. Davy was swinging high on the metal swing set his grandparents from Chicago had sent as his previous year's Christmas present. On her own, Diana never could have spent that much money on a single toy.

"Come on, Davy," she called. "You have to come in now and get cleaned up."

"How come? Me and Bone are playing."

"Bone and I," she corrected firmly. "Come on. We have to go to church."

He came to the door, frowning and sulking. "To church?

I didn't know this was Sunday," he said. "And why do we have to go anyway? Rita goes to church. You never do."

"Today's an exception," she said. "And it's Monday, not Sunday, so wipe that frown off your face and let's get going. If you're lucky, maybe somebody out there will be selling popovers."

"Popovers?" he asked, brightening. His mother might just as well have waved a magic wand.

"That's right. We're going to San Xavier. There are usually ladies selling popovers in the parking lot."

The very mention of popovers put Davy in high gear.

Tortillas and popovers. Beans and chili. He much preferred Indian food to Anglo. Maybe she would have to break down and learn to cook Indian food after all, and not just tortillas, either.

Chapter Fifteen

THEY SAY THIS happened long ago. Cottontail was sitting next to a tall cliff when Ban, Coyote, saw him sitting there. Coyote was very hungry.

"Brother," he said to Cottontail, "I am going to eat you up."

"Oh, no," said Cottontail. "This you must not do, for I am holding up this cliff. If you eat me up, it will fall down and crush us both."

Coyote looked up at the tall cliff, and he was afraid that Cottontail was right. "Come over here, Coyote," said Cottontail. "You stand here and lean against the cliff. You hold it up while I go around to the back of the mountain and find a big stick to help hold it up."

"All right," said Coyote, and that's just what happened.

He came over and stood beside Cottontail to help hold up the cliff. As soon as Coyote was standing there, Cottontail ran off somewhere.

Coyote stood there for a long, long time, leaning against the cliff, holding it. He waited and waited, but Cottontail didn't come back.

Finally, Coyote got tired of just standing there. He thought that if he ran very fast, perhaps he could get out of the way before the cliff could fall on him. So Coyote let go of the cliff and ran as fast as he could. But when he let go, the cliff didn't fall down after all. That was when Coyote knew Cottontail had tricked him.

This made Coyote very angry. "I will follow Cottontail's trail," he said. "The next time I see him, I will eat him UP."

And that, nawoj, is the story of the first time Cottontail tricked Coyote.

They stopped in front of an old two-story house along Speedway.

"What's this?" Myrna Louise asked.

Andrew reached in his pocket and pulled out an envelope.

"Run this inside for me," he said. "They'll give you another envelope."

"But what is this place?" she asked again.

"It's a rental agency," he said. "They're helping me find a place to live. I'll wait here in the car. Give them this and tell them your name."

Myrna Louise started to say that she was a lot older than he was, and if anyone was going to sit in the car, it ought to be her, but it didn't seem worth starting an argument when the day was going so well.

She got out of the car.

Inside, behind a counter, a young woman was busy talking on the phone.

Myrna Louise grew impatient standing there because the receptionist was only talking to her boyfriend. While waiting, she looked around.

Nothing indicated that this was a real estate office. Shouldn't there have been signs, something that said what kinds of properties they rented?