Hour of the Hunter (27 page)

The blonde settled in the other chair, primly crossing his ankles, pulling the robe shut over his knees.

"Take off the wig," Johnny ordered. "It's dreadful, you know. I'd like to see you as you really are."

"Are you sure?" the blonde asked.

"I'm sure."

When the wig came off, Johnny found himself faced with a totally bald fifty-year-old man still wearing the garishly made-up features of an aging woman. The effect was disconcerting, like looking at your own distorted face in a fun-house mirror.

"What's your name?" Johnny asked.

"Art what?"

"Does it matter?"

"Only if I want to call you again."

"Art Rains."

"And what do you do, Art Rains? For a living, I mean."

Johnny was beginning to enjoy himself. Here was someone who hated small talk almost as much as he did, someone else who wasn't any good at it.

Knowing that made Johnny feel in control for a change, something that didn't happen to him very often.

"Believe it or not, for the past six years, I've been a housewife."

Art ducked his head as he made this admission, as though it were something he was ashamed of.

"I believe it all right." Johnny got up and poured two more glasses of champagne. "Here. Have another. It'll take your mind off your troubles, Art. You need to relax, lighten up, have some fun."

"What did you have in mind?"

Johnny shrugged. He was enjoying the tifte-d-tOte. It was a shame to rush into it. "I don't know. Not something terribly energetic. We're both a bit old for that sort of thing. Maybe start out with a nice massage. I have some lovely oils in the other room. Larry always said that I'm very good with my hands."

AA smiled sadly. "That's something else we have in common.

"Well, come on, then. Shall we flip a coin to see who goes first?

Although my mother always said company got to choose."

"I'll do you first," Art said, "unless you'd rather. .

"Oh, no, by all means. Suit yourself " Trembling with anticipation, Johnny took his glass and the almost-empty bottle of champagne and led the way into the bedroom. He set the bottle and his glass on the bedside table and stripped off his jacket and trousers. If Art had been much younger, Johnny might have worried more about how his body looked, but Art Rains wasn't any spring chicken, either.

Before Art had arrived at the hotel, Johnny had turned down the covers on the bed. Now, he lay facedown on the cool, smooth sheets and waited.

He sighed and closed his eyes. This was going to be delightful.

"Mind if I turn on the radio?" Art asked.

"Not at all."

Soon KHOS blared in his ear. Johnny didn't much like country-western, but it was a good idea to have some background music. After all, if this was very good, there might be a few inadvertent noises, A Holy Roller family might be next door.

A moment later, Johnny was surprised when, instead of a pair of well-oiled caressing hands touching his back or shoulders, he felt the weight of a naked male body settle heavily astride his buttocks. He didn't worry too much about that, though. There was certainly more than one way to do a massage. Johnny had heard the Japanese actually walked on people's backs.

Suddenly, a rough hand grabbed a fistful of hair and jerked his face off the pillow.

"Hey," Johnny said. "What's this ... ?"

The sentence died in the air. Johnny Rivkin never saw the hunting knife that cut him. In fact, he hardly felt it at first. He tried to cry out for help, but he couldn't, nor could he keep his flailing arms from the powerful hands that held him fast.

Rivkin's body leaped in the air, jerking like a headless chicken while Glen Campbell's plaintive "Wichita Lineman" lingered in the air and the almost-empty champagne bottle and glass fell to the carpeted floor but didn't break.

Johnny Rivkin's death was much bloodier than Margie Danielson's had been. Andrew Carlisle was glad he'd taken off all his clothes, glad he'd be able to shower and clean himself up before he left the room.

He had planned to let things go a little further, indulge in a little more foreplay, but buggering an aging queer didn't have much appeal.

Besides, Carlisle was inpatient He wanted to get on with it.

He waited out the ride, which wasn't that different from the other, although it seemed to take quite a while longer before Johnny Rivkin's gurgling struggles ceased. Fortunately, the hotel mattress was easy on Andrew Carlisle's sore knees. They still hurt from the scorching rocks at Picacho Peak.

I fell asleep, and even later day morning. With Rita gone, . and prospects for breakfast weren't good.

On her salary, eating out wasn't something Diana could afford often, but that Sunday morning seemed like a time to splurge. Both she and Davy had been through enough of a wringer that a special treat was in order.

They drove to Uncle John's Pancake House on Miracle Mile and waited through the Sunday morning crush.

Over brightly colored menus, Diana explained that Davy could choose from any number of Mil-gahn foods--eggs and bacon, buttermilk pancakes, Swedish pancakes, German pancakes-but popovers with honey or tortillas with peanut butter weren't an option.

The waitress, a crusty old dame from the eat-it-or-wear-it school of food service, arrived at their table pad in hand.

She fixed her eyes on Davy. "What'll you have, young man?"

Shyly, he ducked his head. "Swedish," he said in a strangled whisper.

"With the red berries."

"And what to drink?"

"How about you, ma'am?

"German pancakes and coffee."

The waitress nodded and disappeared, returning a few moments later with coffee and milk. She put the milk in front of Davy. "How'd you get all those stitches?" she asked.

Davy blushed and didn't answer. "He was in a car accident," Diana explained, speaking for him. "Out on the reservation."

The waitress frowned at that, but she left the table without saying anything more. A few minutes later, she was back, carrying a section of the Sunday paper. "This you?" she asked, holding the paper up so Davy could see it.

Davy looked at the picture and nodded. "What's that?"

Diana asked.

The waitress looked at Diana in surprise. "You mean you don't know about it?"

Handed the paper, a stunned Diana Ladd found herself staring into the eyes of a clearly recognizable picture of her son, complete with stitches.

"Your breakfast's on me this morning, sweetie," the, waitress was saying to Davy. "You sound like a regular little hero to me, saving that old woman's life. Wouldn't you like something else along with your pancakes, a milk shake maybe?"

"No," Davy said. "Thank you. Just milk."

The waitress left, and Diana turned on Davy. "How did your picture get into the newspaper?"

Her son glanced nervously at the paper. Next to his own picture was a smaller one, a head shot of the man who had spoken to him the previous afternoon. "The man had a camera. He took my picture yesterday while you were inside the hospital with Rita."

"You talked to a reporter?" Diana demanded, her voice rising in pitch.

"You let him take your picture?"

Davy squirmed lower in his chair until his eyes barely showed above the top of the-booth. "Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"He was a friend of my father's," Davy told her. "I was afraid you'd.get mad."

And, of course, he was right.

From George's Beat, a biweekly column by George O'Connell in the Arizona Daily Sun, June 14, 1975:

Seven years ago Friday a young Papago woman died brutally in the desert west of Tucson. Two men were eventually implicated in the death of twenty-two-year-old Gina Antone. One of them was a student of creative writing at the University of Arizona. The other was the English professor in charge of that same program.

The professor, Andrew Carlisle, was eventually convicted of voluntary manslaughter and second degree rape. He was sentenced to serve time in the Arizona State Prison at Florence, while his student, Garrison Ladd, committed suicide rather than face arrest and conviction.

Now, seven years later to the day, two of the families involved in that earlier tragedy are once more linked together in the news, only this time with a far different result.

On Friday, Rita Antone, the slain girl's sixty-five-year-old grandmother, was severely injured in an automobile accident on Highway 386, forty miles west of Tucson. Mrs. Antone now makes her home in Tucson with Diana Ladd, Garrison Ladd's widow, and her son, David.

Medics from the scene report that Mrs. Antone would probably have died without reaching the Indian Health Service Hospital in Sells had it not been for the quick-witted thinking of six-year-old David, who was himself injured in the accident.

One of the first to arrive on the scene after the single-vehicle rollover accident was Joe Baxter, a Tucson resident on his way to Rocky Point for the weekend. Baxter said that it was David Ladd's firm insistence that there was an ambulance available at the Kitt Peak Observatory that prompted him and a traveling companion to seek help there. Aid summoned from either Sells or Tucson probably would have arrived too late to save Mrs. Antone's life.

Years ago, when I was finishing my graduate degree in English at the University of Arizona, I was enrolled in a literature class with David Ladd's father, who, like many of our classmates, had delusions of being the Great American Novelist and creating a heroic masterpiece to leave as a legacy.

Mostly those dreams were just that-. dream and no action. However, I'm realizing now that there's more than one kind of masterpiece.

Gaarison Ladd's son, reticent about his own brave behavior despite injuries that required twelve stitches, is that heroic masterpiece, but he's certainly not the only hero In the drama.

Talking to him, I learned that Rita Antone, grandmother of the girl whose murder was linked to Garrison Ladd, is now a well-loved member of the Ladd family.

it strikes me as ironic (and more than a bit inspiring) that these two women, Diana Ladd and Rita Antone, an Anglo woman and an Indian, whose lives were first linked by death and mutual tragedy, have gone on to forge a relationship based on love and mutual respect.

It is an atmosphere in which two courageous women are raising a very responsible young man, one who in no way can be regarded as a chip off the old block.

In a world where bad news usually outweighs the good, where there are always far more questions than there are answers, it's refreshing to know this kind of thing can happen.

Longago, EvilSiwani, a powerful medicineman, became jealous of Titoi. Three times the medicine man and his wicked followers killed Titoi, and three times Titoi came back to life. the fourth time, when morning came, ntoi was still dead.

"That's all right," his followers said. "In four days, he will come back to life." But on the morning of the fourth day, Titoi was still dead.

Many years passed. One day some children from a village found an old man sitting next to a charco near where l'itoi's bones had been left to dry in the sun. The old man was making a belt to carry an olla. "What are you doing, old man?" the children asked.

"You must watch carefully," he said. "Something surPrising is going to happen."

So the children went home and told their parents. All the people from the village came to see the old man. They found him filling his olla with water. The people knew at once he was Titoi grown to be very old.

They wanted to talk to him, but before they could, he picked up his olla and started off toward the east.

There were many people along the way, but I'itoi knew these were the S-ohbsgam, the Apachelike followers of Evil Siwani, so he didn't speak to them. When Titoi arrived at the village in the East he asked to see the chief, then he sang his song and told them he was I'itoi, who had made them. He told them how the Ohb, the Enemy, had killed him four times, and how each time he had come back to life. The chief of the East listened to I'itoi's song. When it was finished, he said, "I may not be able to help you, but go to my brother in the West. Tell him your story. I will do whatever he says."

Fitoi traveled far until he found the chief of the West. He sang his song that told about how the medicine man and his followers, the S-ohbsgam, had killed him four times and how each time he had come back to life. The chief Of the West shook his head. "I don't know if I can help you. Go to my elder brother, chief of the North, and ask him. I will do whatever he says."

So Titoi went to the chief of the North, who listened to his song. "I do not know if I can help you," the chief said. "Go to my elder brother, chief of the South. I will do whatever he says."

Once more I'itoi traveled a long, long way, and once more he sang his song, about how Evil Siwani and the S-ohbsgam had killed him four times and how he had come back to life. As soon as the chief of the South heard this, he sent a messenger to the villages of all his brothers.

"Come," he told them. "Whoever wants to prove his manhood must come with me. This man has suffered much at the hands of Siwani and his S-ohbsgam. We must go and help him." And this, my Friend, was the beginning of the final battle between Evil Siwani and I'itoi.

Morning came and so did breakfast. Rita lay with her eyes closed, but she didn't sleep.

Understanding Woman went to the circle to visit with her friends while Dancing Quail gravitated to the younger women. Unfortunately, her new clothing and job at the mission didn't purchase what she wanted most-respect and acceptance from her peers. To the others, she was still Hejel Wi'ikam, still Orphaned Child. Girls who worked in Tucson still looked down on her.

Laughing easily, they gossiped endlessly about the latest one of their number who had "done bad" and been shipped home in disgrace. They giggled about exploits from their latest day off and speculated about who would marry next.

On the fringes of their laughter, Dancing Quail had nothing to say.

Several girls who were planning weddings were younger than she.

Finally, one of them turned on her, a mean girl she had known briefly in Phoenix.