Dance of the Bones Read online

  It was during that period of time that she had come to truly understand her relationship to Kulani O’oks, that long-ago medicine woman, whose given name was Mualig Siakam—­Forever Spinning.

  That was the secret Indian name Rita Antone, Lani’s beloved Nana Dahd, had given the child long ago just as the old woman had also given Davy, Lani’s older brother, his secret name Olhoni—­Little Orphaned Calf. As a child Lani had believed that she’d been called Mualig Siakam because of her love of dancing and twirling. It was only on those nights with Fat Crack that she came to understand that Kulani O’oks and Mualig Siakam had been one and the same.

  After the confrontation in the cavern, two more secret names had become part of Lani Walker’s store of names: ­Gagdathag O’oks—­Betraying Woman, the name of the girl the ­people of Rattlesnake Skull village had left to die in a cave as punishment for her treachery—­and Nanakumal Namkam—­Bat Meeter. That was the spirit of Betraying Woman, a ghostly presence that had kept Lani company during the terrible hours she’d been locked in the limestone cavern with a killer. It was the fluttering wings of a tiny bat that had given her the courage to fight back.

  Now traveling up that narrow road for the first time in many years, Lani understood she would need help from all those names and spirits if she was to accomplish her goal that night. She would need them, and so would Gabe Ortiz. If Lani’s plan worked as she hoped, he would come away from this night with a secret Indian name too—­Ali Gihg Tahpani, Baby Fat Crack, in honor of his grandfather, and also after his uncle Richard, who shared the same name but who was simply called Baby.

  The Toyota ground to a halt. “This is as far as we go,” Leo announced. “Everybody out. From here on we walk.”

  Lani stepped out onto a shoulder that was so rough she had to struggle to maintain her footing. When Gabe finally clambered out of the backseat, she stood there waiting for him with her hand outstretched.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Phone,” she answered. “Give it to me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re leaving it with your dad.”

  “But what if I decide I want to go home? What if I need to call him?”

  “Then you’ll have to do it the old-­fashioned way,” Lani told him. “Try smoke signals.”

  Reluctantly Gabe handed over the phone. “That’s not fair,” he said.

  “This isn’t about fair,” Lani replied, dropping the phone on the passenger seat of the truck. “It never has been.”

  By then Leo was at the back of the vehicle unloading gear from the luggage compartment. Leo gave a snort of suppressed laughter. Lani heard it and hoped Gabe had not.

  “Oi g hihm,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  “Where to?” Gabe asked.

  “There’s a clearing up there,” she answered, pointing first to a point farther up the mountain and then to a spot nearby where a faint path disappeared into the brush. “It’s not all that far, but it’s steep. You’ll need to watch your step.”

  “YOU GONNA BE ALL RIGHT now?” Aubrey Bayless asked, pushing John Lassiter’s bulky wheelchair into his cell and locking the wheels close enough to the metal cot that the prisoner would be able to manage the last bit of distance on his own.

  “I’m fine, Aubrey,” Lassiter said, levering his heavy frame out of the chair and onto the narrow bed. “Thank you for bringing me back.”

  Big Bad John Lassiter was still big, but the bad part had largely disappeared. Multiple sclerosis had turned him into a wheelchair-­bound mass of mostly uncooperative muscles. It was hard to tell if he was still bad because, on occasion, he was also virtually helpless. He lived alone in a cell not because he was a danger to himself or others, but because none of the other inmates at the Arizona State Prison in Florence was willing to help him with his ever-­increasing physical deficits.

  That job usually fell to Aubrey Bayless, a kind, grizzle-­haired old black man who primarily functioned as an orderly inside the prison’s infirmary. It was there the two men—­prisoner and caregiver—­had gradually developed a friendship. On those occasions when John wasn’t confined to a hospital bed, Aubrey voluntarily helped him in and out of his cell as well as back and forth to the dining room and elsewhere.

  “When you gonna agree to see that daughter of yours?” Aubrey wanted to know. “Those guys in the visitors’ office tell me she keeps asking and asking.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you?” John replied wearily. “I don’t have a daughter. I signed away my parental rights to that girl the moment she was born.”

  “You maybe signed ’em away, but I don’t think she be listening,” Aubrey countered. “They say she even gots the same thing you got. She’s what, not even forty years old, and she already stuck on one of them scooters.”

  That hurt. The idea that MS was hereditary and that he’d most likely passed his own ailment along to an offspring he’d never met seemed grossly unfair. All Big Bad John knew about his daughter was her name—­the name her adoptive parents had given her—­Amanda Wasser.

  Years had passed between the time Amos Warren disappeared and when his remains had been found. By the time John was charged with his murder, his onetime girlfriend, Ava Martin—­the one who had caused all the trouble—­was years in his rearview mirror. At the time John was taken into custody, he and his then girlfriend, Bernadette Benson, had actually started thinking about getting married. By the time the baby was born, he’d been found guilty and sentenced to life without parole for Amos’s murder.

  Bernadette had come to the prison visitors’ room, hugely pregnant. She had begged him to marry her and give the baby his last name, promising that she’d keep the child and raise it on her own, but John had steadfastly refused. Why give the poor kid the name of a guy who would be spending the rest of his life in prison? Bernadette had no education beyond high school. Without John’s support, she was barely scratching out a meager existence working as a waitress.

  “Why not give the kid up for adoption?” he had asked her. “Why not let him have half a chance at a decent life?”

  Of course, the baby had turned out to be a girl rather than a boy, but Bernadette had come around to John’s way of thinking. He’d been surprised when she had put the baby up for adoption, signing away her parental rights at the same time John gave up his. He knew how much Bernadette regretted that decision because she herself had told him so, saying over and over that, more than anything, she wished she had kept the baby after all.

  The other thing about Bernadette Benson that had surprised John Lassiter was that, although she had let their child go, she had continued to love him no matter what. For years she had faithfully driven back and forth between Tucson and Florence once a week to spend a few short minutes talking to him through a plexiglass barrier. Bernadette’s visits had ceased abruptly in 1983 when she had been fatally injured in a late-­afternoon one-­car rollover on her way back home from the prison.

  John’s mind had drifted away. When he came back to the present, Aubrey Bayless was still talking.

  “And she be the one who been talking to them JFA folks about getting your ass sprung out of here. You should be givin’ her a chance to at least know you, man. Seems like you owe her that much.”

  John Lassiter had no idea how Amanda had reinserted herself into his life. He had refused to meet with her mostly because he was too ashamed to do so. He didn’t want to have to sit there, as a convicted killer, and look her in the eye. And he had no idea how or why she had managed to persuade the ­people from Justice for All to go to bat for him, but her efforts on his behalf hadn’t and wouldn’t make him change his mind about seeing her.

  The old Big Bad John would have jumped all over Aubrey and told him to give it a rest and mind his own damned business, but this John Lassiter was painfully aware of how much he depended on the kindness of this good-­hearted old man.


  “I’m not making any promises,” John said as Aubrey backed out of the cell and slammed the barred door shut behind him. “I’ll think about it.”

  CHAPTER 5

  YOUNG GIRL RAN BACK TO the village as fast as she could, but she was too late. Before she could sound an alarm, the Apaches were already there. The men who had been out working in the fields hurried to do battle while the women and children ran to hide.

  You must know, nawoj, my friend, that Ioligam, I’itoi’s sacred mountain, is full of caves. Because I’itoi lives in these caves, the Desert ­People usually stay away from them. The caves are Elder Brother’s quiet place, and the ­People do not want to bother him. But when there is danger, that is where they go.

  That day, as the Ohb descended on Rattlesnake Skull village, that’s where the women and children ran to hide—­in one of the caves—­and the cave they chose was the one where Young Man had been staying. When they found him there, knowing he was Ohb, they attacked him with clubs and beat him very badly even though Young Girl told them she loved him and begged them to leave him alone.

  The ­people of Rattlesnake Skull village were very angry when the Apaches stole all their food. And when the ­people learned that Young Man, an Ohb, had been living in one of I’itoi’s sacred caves and that Young Girl had been feeding him, they held a council to decide what they should do.

  BY THE TIME LANI, LEO, and Gabe set out walking, the sun had long since sunk past Ioligam’s summit, and that part of the mountain was already shrouded in shadow. Within a few steps, the white buildings atop the mountain that comprised Kitt Peak National Observatory disappeared from view.

  As Lani had warned, it was a steep climb. They might have been covered with sweat from exertion, but a chill wind blowing out of the east dried the moisture on their perspiring bodies as soon as it formed.

  Even though it had been years since she’d come this way, Lani could have led the way with her eyes closed. She walked past the path she knew would lead to the tiny entrance they had used to enter the cavern on that day so many years ago. She had awakened from a drugged stupor to find herself Mitch Johnson’s prisoner. She had traveled to the mountain with him and Quentin Walker, a man whom Lani had never regarded as a brother, although he was Brandon Walker’s son. It had taken time that awful day for Lani to realize that, rather than being Mitch’s ally, Quentin was as much Mitch’s prisoner as she was.

  This time, leading Leo and Gabe, she headed straight for what had once been the main entrance to the vast cavern complex and to the part of the mountain that had long ago been brought down in order to entomb a living prisoner.

  For years after that day, Lani had refused to go anywhere near Ioligam. Finally, on the occasion of her twenty-­first birthday, she had gathered her courage as well as her brother, Davy, and Davy’s good friend and almost brother, Brian Fellows, and the three of them had returned to the mountain. Brian, the son of Brandon Walker’s first wife, Jane, and a subsequent husband, was Quentin’s and Tommy’s half brother. Though there had been no clearing back then, they had gone to the collapsed main entrance armed with tools—­pickaxes, shovels, and rakes—­for the very purpose of creating one.

  Together the three of them had chopped down brush, pulled out the roots, and turned over and smoothed out the disturbed earth, leaving behind a small clearing hidden under a thicket of sheltering manzanita. In one corner of the space they had used a collection of loose rocks to form a small circle in which they had erected a small wooden cross. When the memorial was finished, they had placed a lit candle inside the circle as a remembrance in honor of Betraying Woman.

  Lani’s old friend and mentor, Fat Crack, was long dead. That day, Davy and Brian became the other two ­people who knew the truth about what happened to Mitch Johnson. Lani had come here today hoping that perhaps she could share that story with someone else—­with Fat Crack’s grandson and namesake. Now she wasn’t so sure she’d be able to tell Gabe anything at all about her battle with Mitch Johnson.

  When Lani reached the clearing and set down her backpack, she was surprised and gratified to see that both the cross and the long empty glass that had once held the candle were still there and undisturbed. Lani smiled to herself when she saw them. Dan might think otherwise, but the fact that those relics remained reassured her that this part of Ioligam was still a sacred place.

  Leo was the next to arrive. With a dull thump he dropped the bound bundle of firewood that he had brought from Bashas’ store in Sells and set down the plastic gallon jug of water he had hauled up the mountain. Then he wiggled free of his backpack, one loaded with foodstuffs, enamel-­covered tin dishes, and utensils that Lani had prepared and packed in advance of the expedition. Gabe, carrying what should have been the lightest load, arrived last, panting and out of breath. As he slumped to the ground, Lani noticed he was munching on something.

  “What are you eating?”

  He opened a clenched fist to reveal the remains of a half-­eaten Snickers bar. Lani knew that diabetes, often called the Tohono O’odham Curse, continued to wreak havoc on the reservation. Her response had been to take a principled stance against the use of processed sugars and flour in her own family.

  Gabe had always been short and stocky. Lani, along with Gabe’s parents, worried about his diet and the possibility that he, too, might be plagued by the same disease that had cost the boy’s grandfather both his legs and eventually his life. It was for that reason the tortillas she had brought along for this trip had been made with flour ground from mesquite beans. Since Lani viewed this as a ceremonial occasion, Snickers bars were definitely not on the menu.

  “Where did that come from?” she demanded, snatching the rest of the half-­eaten candy bar out of his hand.

  A sullen Gabe shrugged. “From the store,” he said.

  “And how did it get up here?”

  “In my backpack,” he answered.

  “What else is in your backpack?” she demanded. “Let me see.”

  Within minutes, from among the approved items in his pack—­some extra clothing, a canteen, and his grandfather’s blankets—­Lani unearthed several pieces of contraband: a plastic-­bound six-­pack of Coca-­Cola cans, two bags of potato chips, and three more candy bars. She handed all the confiscated loot, including the remains of the original candy bar, over to Leo.

  “Please take these back to the truck,” she said to him. “They won’t be needed here.”

  “You’re sure you want to do this—­that you’ll be okay?” Leo asked.

  “I’m sure.”

  “All right then,” Leo said. “Delia and I are going to the dance at Vamori tonight, but I’ll come back for you in the morning when the dance is over.”

  Gabe watched sourly as his father disappeared taking the goodies with him. “If I can’t drink Coke, what can I drink?” he wanted to know.

  “You’d be surprised what a little prickly pear juice and honey can do for a cup of hot water.”

  “Right,” Gabe grumbled under his breath. “I can hardly wait.”

  Lani ignored his complaints. “Okay,” she told him, “it’s about time you got off your duff and helped me make camp.”

  “Why should I?” Gabe objected. “Why do I even have to be here? Why can’t I just go back to town with my dad?”

  “You’re here because I think you should be, and so do your parents,” Lani growled back, “and as long as you’re here, you’re also going to do what I say. Now get busy.”

  “Doing what?”

  In her years as a doctor, Lani Walker-­Pardee had encountered her share of surly adolescents, and Gabe was currently running true to form.

  “Like gathering some rocks to make a fire pit.”

  He made a beeline for the first rocks he saw—­the easy ones—­those surrounding Betraying Woman’s cross. “Not those,” she told him. “Those stay where they are. Find some others. It’ll b
e dark before long, and we’ll need to have the fire going by then.”

  “Right,” he muttered sourly. “Who cares about having a fire?”

  “You will,” she warned him, “about ten minutes after the sun goes down.”

  Gabe huffed off to do as he was bidden. Watching him go, Lani felt a hint of despair. Maybe Dan and Leo were right. Maybe Baby Fat Crack Ortiz really was a lost cause.

  SITTING ALONE IN MY SEATTLE penthouse, I was a very lonely and glum version of J. P. Beaumont that Friday evening. I sat in the family room in my new leather easy chair and gazed out the window at the setting sun and the busy boat traffic on Elliott Bay far below. From my bird’s-­eye view, the ferries and lumbering container ships looked like small toys—­about the size of the rubber-­band-­powered plastic toy boats I used to sail on Seattle’s Green Lake back when I was a kid.

  Though I didn’t like to admit it, my beloved recliner’s replacement wasn’t half bad. It was made of smooth reddish-­brown leather and offered the kind of comfort the broken and dying springs in the old recliner could no longer provide. Even so, I wouldn’t have gotten rid of the recliner if I hadn’t been strong-­armed into relinquishing it by Jim Hunt, my once and again interior designer.

  I glanced at my watch, sighed, and heaved myself out of the chair. The last thing I wanted to do that night—­the very last thing—­was go to the Behind the Badge Foundation’s Gala and Auction down at the airport Hilton. And I most especially didn’t want to go solo. My reluctance had nothing to do with the organization sponsoring the event. After all, Behind the Badge helps maintain Washington’s Fallen Officer Memorial. It also supplies much-­needed scholarship assistance to the sons and daughters of fallen officers. But the truth is, I would have much preferred whipping out my checkbook and mailing a sizable donation to actually making an appearance.

  This was supposed to have been a fun event—­a double date of sorts, a foursome made up of my wife, Mel Soames, and me, along with my son, Scott, and his wife, Cherisse. Having aced his stint at the Police Academy, Scotty was now a full-­fledged member of the Seattle Police Department. Tickets to the event had been a Christmas present to Mel and me from Scott and Cherisse, and the four of us had planned to go together.