Hour of the Hunter (2 page)

The two of them hiked up the mountain behind Davy's house, scrambling over warm red cliffs, straying further than they should have from the house. As the hot sun rose higher overhead, both boy and dog went looking for shade. Bone crept under a scrubby mesquite, while Davy hunkered down in the narrow band of shade at the foot of a perpendicular outcropping of rock.

It was there he found the cave with an opening so small he didn't see it for a while even though he was sitting right next to it. Poking his head in, he decided it wasn't a cave after all, because caves were flat, and this one went up and down like a tall chimney in the rock. A circle of blue sky showed at the very top. He wiggled through the small opening and found that, once inside, there was barely room enough for him to stand up straight. Despite its small, confined size, the place was surprisingly cool. Davy warily checked it for snakes.

People and dogs weren't the only ones who needed to escape the heat.

Suddenly, outside, Bone set up a frantic barking. Peering out, Davy saw the dog, nose to the ground, searching around wildly.

Hide-and-seek was a game they played sometimes-the solitary child and his singularly ugly dog pretending to be scouts heading off a band of marauding Apaches, maybe, or hunters stalking mule deer in the mountains.

With a joyous bark, the dog discovered the boy's hiding place.

Panting, he thrust his big head into the opening and tried to climb in as well. There wasn't room for both of them to be inside at once, and Davy came out laughing.

It was then he heard Rita calling him from far below.

"Come on, Bone," the boy said. "Maybe it's time for lunch."

But it wasn't. Rita Antone, the Indian woman who lived with them and took care of him, waited in the yard with both hands planted sternly on her hips as the boy and the dog returned from the mountain.

“Where were you?" she asked.

“Playing."

“It's time to come in now. I'm going to the reservation to sell baskets. If you want to go, you'd better ask your mother."

Davy's eyes widened with excitement. "I can come with you?"

"First go ask."

Worried about disturbing her, Davy crept into his mother's makeshift office. For a minute or so, the boy stood transfixed, watching Diana Ladd's nimble fingers dance across the keys. How could her fingers move so fast?

His mother's shoulders stiffened with annoyance when she sensed his presence behind her. "What is it, Davy?" she asked.

He sidled up beside her, standing with his fingers moving tentatively along the smooth wooden edge of the door that served as her desk. The child knew his mother wrote books at that desk during the summers when she wasn't teaching.

He didn't know exactly what the books were about-he had never seen one of them-but Rita said it was true, so it had to be. Rita never told fibs.

She had explained that his mother's work was important, and that when she was busy at her typewriter, he wasn't to interrupt or disturb her unless absolutely necessary. This time it must be okay. Rita had told him to do it.

"What is it, Davy?" Diana Ladd repeated sharply. "Can't you see I'm busy? I've got to finish this chapter today."

Sometimes his mother's voice could be soothing and gentle, but not now when she was impatient and eager to be rid of him. Hot tears welled up in Davy's eyes. He stood with his face averted so his mother wouldn't see them.

"It's Rita," he said uncertainly. "She's going to the reservation today to sell baskets. Can I go along, please?"

Davy's mother seemed to exist in a place far beyond his short-armed reach. He was never exactly sure how she would react. He had learned to maintain a certain distance, to be wary of her sudden outbursts.

Rita was far more approachable.

During the school year, Davy got home from school long before his mother arrived home from her teaching job on the reservation. The child spent most afternoons in Rita's single-roomed house, little more than a glorified cook shack, which was situated off the back of the kitchen of the main house. There, he ate meals at a worn wooden table, all the while devouring the stories the Indian woman told him.

Often he spent hours watching in fascination while she used her owij, her awl, to weave intricate yucca and bear-grass baskets. Other times he stood at mouth-watering attention while she patted out tortillas and popovers to cook on an ancient wood-burning range that she much preferred to the modern gas stove in the main house.

While she worked, Rita heard Davy's stories as well.

Unlike his mother's writing or paper-correcting, which demanded total concentration, Rita's manual tasks were performed automatically, while her heart and mind were free with the gift of listening. Rita's heavy, stolid presence was the single constant in Davy's young life. She was the healer of all his childish hurts, the recipient of his daily joys and woes For once Diana Ladd broke through her own self-imposed reserve and affectionately ruffled her son's lank yellow hair.

"Rita's going to turn you into more of an Indian than she is," Diana commented with a short laugh.

"Really?" the boy asked, his blue eyes lighting up at the prospect.

"Will my hair turn black and straight and everything?"

"It might," Diana returned lightly. "If you eat too many popovers at the feast tonight, it'll happen for sure."

"Feast?" Davy asked. "What feast?"

"Didn't Rita tell you? There's a feast tonight at Ban Thak. That's the other reason she's going today."

Ban Thak, Coyote Sitting, was the name of Rita's home village. Davy could hardly believe his good fortune. "You mean I get to go to the feast, too?"

Rita and Diana Ladd had evidently already discussed it and reached a decision, but the Indian woman always insisted that the child ask his mother, that he show her the respect she deserved.

The boy could barely contain his excitement as Diana kissed him and shooed him on his way. "Go on now. Get out of here. I've got work to do."

Davy Ladd scampered eagerly out of the room. Bone, black as a shadow and almost as big as his six-year-old owner, waited patiently outside the door. The two of them raced through the house looking for Rita.

Davy was quiet about it, though. He didn't shout or make too much noise.

Rita had taught him better manners than that. Children were never to shout after their elders. It wasn't polite.

He found Rita in the backyard loading boxes laden with finely crafted handmade baskets into the bed of an old blue GMC. She stopped working long enough to wipe the running sweat from her wrinkled brown face.

"Well now, Olhoni," she said, standing looking down on him with both hands folded over her faded apron. "What did your mother say?"

Only Rita called Davy Ladd by the name Olhoni, which, in Papago, means Maverick or Orphaned Calf. That name, the one he called his Indian name, was a jealously guarded secret shared by the boy and the old woman. Not even Davy's mother knew Rita called him that.

"I can go, Nana Dahd," he told her breathlessly.

Dahd was Papago for "Godmother," but the title was strictly honorary.

Davy had never seen the inside of a church, and there had been no formal ceremony. Like her name for him, however, Nana Dahd was a form of address Davy used only when the two of them were alone together.

Davy clambered up into the truck. He helped shove the last box of baskets down the wooden floor of the short bed to where part of a livestock rack had been spot-welded to the outside wall of the cab. He held the boxes tightly while Rita used rope to lash them firmly in place.

"She says I can go to the feast too. Shall I wear my boots? Should I get a bedroll? Can Bone come?"

"Oh'o stays here," Nana Dahd told him firmly. "Dogs don't belong at feasts. Go get a jacket and a bedroll.

Even with the fires, it may be cold at the dance. You'll want to sleep before it's over. I'll fix lunch before we go."

"Oh, no," Davy replied seriously. "I won't fall asleep. I promise. I want to stay up all night. Until the dance is over. Until the sun comes up."

"Go now," Rita urged, without raising her voice. That wasn't necessary.

The child did as he was told. He sometimes argued with his mother but never with Nana Dahd.

Finished packing, Davy stowed his small canvas bag in the cab of the truck and then made his way into Nana Dahd's room.

He found her busily patting a ball of soft white dough into a flat, round cake. When the dough was stretched thin enough, she dropped it into a vat of hot fat on the stove's front burner. Within seconds, the dough puffed up and cooked to a golden brown. Meantime, Rita patted out another. Davy had often tried working the dough himself, but no matter what he did, the ball of dough remained just that-a stubborn ball of dough.

Davy hurried to his place at the bare wooden table, while Bone settled comfortably at his feet. Rita placed a mound of thick red chili on the popovers, folded them over, and brought them to the table on plates.

In the center of the table sat a small bowl piled high with cooked broccoli. While Davy wrinkled his nose in disgust, Nana Dahd ladled a spoonful of broccoli onto his plate next to the steaming popover.

"You know I hate broccoli," he said, reaching at once for the popover.

Rita was unmoved. "Eat your vegetables," she said.

Davy nodded, but as soon as Rita turned her back, he slipped the broccoli under the table to a waiting and appreciative Bone. The dog liked everything-including broccoli.

It is said that long ago there was a woman who loved to play Toka, which the Mil-gahn, the whites, call field hockey. She loved it so much that she never wanted to do anything else. Even after her child was born, she would leave the baby alone all day long to go play hockey. One day she went away and didn't come back. The women in the village felt sorry for the baby, a little boy. They fed him and took care of him.

One day, when he was old enough, the little boy took four drinking gourds and went searching for his mother.

First he met Eagle. "Have you seen my mother?" the little boy asked.

"Give me one of your drinking gourds, and I will tell you where to find your mother." The boy gave Eagle a gourd, and he said, "Go toward those mountains. There you will find her."

The boy walked until he neared the mountains. There, he met Crow.

"Have you seen my mother-?" he asked.

"Give me one of your drinking gourds, and I will tell you where to find your mother." The boy gave Crow a gourd, and he said, "Climb these mountains, and you will find her."

The boy climbed in the hot sun until he reached the top of the mountains. There, he met Hawk. "Have you seen my mother?" he asked.

"Give me one of your drinking gourds, and I will tell you where to find your mother." The boy gave Hawk a gourd, and he said, "Your mother is at the bottom of these mountains. Go there, and you will find her."

The boy walked until he reached the bottom of the mountains. There, he met Mourning Dove. "Have you seen my mother?" he asked.

"Give me your drinking gourd, and I will tell you where to find her."

The boy gave Mourning Dove his last gourd, and he said, " Your mother is on the other side of this valley. Go there, and you will find her."

The boy walked until he met some children playing.

"Have you seen my mother?" he asked.

"Yes," the children said. "She is down on the field playing hockey."

"Go tell her that her son is here and that I want to see her." The children went to the woman and told her, but she was busy playing hockey and wouldn't come. When the children came back and told the little boy, he was very sad.

"Since my mother will not come to me, I will find a tarantula hole and go live there." He found a tarantula hole and started to go in it.

Just then his mother came, but the boy was already disappearing into the ground. The mother tried to pull him back, but it was too late.

The only thing left to see was a single bright feather that the little boy had worn in his hair.

The mother was very sad, and she began to cry. Ban, Coyote, was passing by, and he heard her. He went to see what the noise was all about. She told him that her son had just been buried in the tarantula's hole, and she asked Coyote to dig the child out, When Coyote began to dig, he found that the little boy was not far underground. Coyote was hungry with all his work, and he didn't see why he should take the child to a mother who had never done anything but play field hockey, so Coyote ate the little boy. When the bones were picked clean, Coyote gave them to the mother along with the bright feather. "Someone has eaten your child," he said. "This is all I could find," The woman was even sadder.

She kept the feather, but she asked Coyote to bury the bones of her child once more.

That night she watered the ground over the bones with her tears, and in four days a green thing began to grow out of the place where the bones were buried. It was a'alichurn hahshani or Baby Saguaro, the first giant cactus in the whole world. And that is the story of The Woman Who Loved Field Hockey.

As they neared Three Points, Rita Antone shifted down into second. The rickety '56 GMC creaked and shuddered.

Like the woman who was its owner, the twenty-year-old truck was showing signs of age. Despite a serious miss in the engine, Rita had every confidence it would limp along out to Sells and back to town with no problem, but she planned to stop by the gas station and talk to her sister's boy about it.

Rita still thought of Gabe Ortiz by his boyhood name of Gihg Tahpani, or Fat Crack, but her nephew hardly qualified as a boy anymore. He was middle-aged now, a well-respected reservation businessman, with flecks of gray leaching through his straight black hair. It was Gabe's faithful mechanical ministrations that kept the old Jimmy running.

Rita knew that when Fat Crack looked at the truck, he would wipe his hands on a grease rag, shake his head sadly, and scold her because the front end was out of alignment and the tires were nearly bald, but Rita would tell him as she always did, "No tires, not now, not this time."