Hour of the Hunter (31 page)

The last month and a half, Iona Cooper was in the hospital in La Grande.

During that time, Diana's world shrank even smaller.

Sympathetic nurses brought Iona's food and looked the other way when Diana ate it, not that she ate much. She was listed as a guest in the La Grande Hotel, but she went there only to shower and change clothes.

Most of the time she slept sitting up in a chair beside her mother's bed.

The two women spent most days entirely alone, with sporadic interruptions by passing doctors and nurses. Max Cooper came by a few times during the first week or so, then he disappeared and didn't return. Iona asked for him sometimes, but Diana refused to call him and beg him to come. If he couldn't come on his own, the hell with him.

There was nothing Diana could do except be there with a comforting word and touch during Iona's occasional lucid moments, whatever hour those increasingly rare moments surfaced. The rest of the time, Diana's sole function and focus was as her mother's advocate, as an insistent voice in the bureaucratic wilderness, demanding medication and attention from busy nurses and attendants whose natural tendency was to ignore an uncomplaining patient.

During the last week, Diana prayed without ceasing for the struggle to be over, for it to be finished. The afternoon before Iona died, Diana went back to the hotel to shower and change clothes. She checked for messages, as she always did. There was one: See the manager.

Mr. Freeman, the manager, a bespectacled older gentleman who had always treated Diana with utmost kindness, came out from his little office behind the desk. He was carrying a check that Diana recognized instantly as one she had written only the day before.

"I'm very sorry, Mrs. Ladd, but there seems to be some problem with the check."

Diana was mystified. "How could there be a problem?"

she asked. "There's plenty of money in the account."

Constantly worried about money, her mother had waited far longer than she should have before agreeing to go to the hospital, but then she maintained that her daughter and son-in-law shouldn't have to shoulder any additional expenses on her account including Diana's at the hotel.

Since Iona's initial hospitalization, Diana had been a signer on her parents' checking account. Iona insisted Diana use that account and no other each week when she paid her hotel bill.

Tentatively, apologetically, the manager handed over the offending check. Stamped across the face of it scribbled red letters were the words ACCOUNT CLOSED!

"I don't know how this can be, Mr. Freeman. I'll have to check on it later. I need to get back to the hospital right now."

"Of course, Mrs. Ladd. Don't you worry. Later win be fine."

That afternoon, before the bank closed in Joseph, and while nurses were busy changing Iona's bedding, Diana called Ed Gentry. He was full of apologies.

"Your father came in and closed that account two days ago. Since he's a bona fide signer, there wasn't a thing I could do about it. If you're short, Diana, I'll be happy to advance you some cash."

"No," she told him. "I'm fine."

The next morning, when it was finally over, Diana prepared to have it out with Max Cooper. He hadn't even bothered to come tell his wife good-bye. She tried calling, but no one answered. Finally, after paying the bill with her own money, she checked out of the hotel and drove back to Joseph. She'd done what she could, but all other arrangements would have to wait until her father arrived in La Grande with his new checkbook.

Driving up to the house, Diana tried the door, but it was latched from the inside. She knocked, only to have the door opened by a complete stranger. The last thing Diana expected was to find a strange woman ensconced in her mother's place, someone Diana didn't recognize and who didn't know Iona's daughter, either.

"Yes?" the woman said tentatively, as though Diana were some kind of suspicious door-to-door salesman.

Something about the possessive way she opened the door warned Diana this wasn't some thoughtful neighbor come to help out in time of trouble.

"I live here," Diana said, pushing her way into the kitchen. "Who are you?"

Just then Max came into the room from the living room.

One thumb hooked under his suspenders, he carried a can of beer in his other hand. At nine o'clock in the morning, he was already swaying slightly from side to side. "What's going on here?" he demanded.

Diana looked at him with absolute loathing. "Who is this?" she spat, pointing at the woman.

"Francine. Francine Duncan. You mean you two haven't met? Francine, this is Diana."

Oh," Francine said.

"And where were you?" Diana demanded furiously, moving past Francine to stand directly in front of her father.

"Where've you been for the last month and a half?"

"Busy," he mumbled. "I been real busy around here.

Besides, like I told you and your mother both, I can't stand hospitals."

"You won't have to worry about it anymore," Diana said. "It's over.

She's gone."

Max Cooper sank to the floor as though someone had suddenly lopped him off at the knees. Francine rushed to his side. "Oh, Max, I'm sorry.

I'm so, so sorry."

"You stay out of this," Diana snapped. "Nobody asked YOU."

She left Joseph that afternoon and never went back.

The boxes came two months later, a week after Max and Francine's handwritten, after-the-fact wedding announcement. Diana came home from school and found the boxes sitting waiting for her on the patio of the apartment in Eugene. A note on the top one said, Your mother's things.

Ten years later, Diana had yet to crack the masking tape on even one of those boxes. Knowing Francine had packed them had somehow desecrated Iona Dade Cooper's possessions. Diana didn't know if she'd ever be able to bring herself to touch them.

Andrew Carlisle had looked down on Myma Louise for as long as he could remember, but this was the first time he ever remembered hating her.

He went to the tiny, spartan bedroom assigned to him in his mother's house and fell onto the narrow bed while his whole body throbbed with abhorrence.

How could she have done this to him? How could she?

A Less Than Noble Savage was gone, completely gone.

Oh, he still had a rough, rough draft, but six years of refinements had been obliterated. It was as though Myma Louise had amputated a part of his body. This was his baby, his creation, something he'd nurtured and suckled throughout the endless days in prison.

At times, polishing the exploits of his main character was all that had kept him sane. Carlisle had liked his brute of a protagonist, Clayton Savage, had related to him both as a man and as a character. This modem-day, selfappointed, bloodthirsty renegade had only one objective while slicing and dicing his way through double-spaced manuscript pages-making sure Custer Diedfor Your Sins, that powerful Native American polemic, was more than just a catchy title.

And now the new and revised Clayton Savage was lost to him, another sin to lay at Diana Ladd's door. Something else for which that bitch would be held accountable.

Practicing biofeedback, a trick they'd taught him in the Joint. Carlisle managed to get his breathing back under control. Don't get mad-get even, he told himself That was the secret.

Finally, with the embryo of a plan forming in his head, he got up and went over to the dresser. Deliberately, he felt along the front of it until he found a loose piece of fascia board. He tugged at it until it broke off in his hands, then he went out into the living room still carrying the broken piece. He walked past his mother, who had not yet moved from her rocker.

"Where are you going?" She asked the question mechanically, strictly out of habit, even though she didn't want to.

She had no need to know where her son was going or what he would do, but she was unable to change a lifetime's worth of asking.

"To the lumberyard," he said. "I need some glue. A piece of wood broke off the dresser in my room."

Away from the house, away from her, he was able to think more clearly.

He bought the glue for the dresser. He also bought some caulking compound and a caulking gun.

He told the man at the check stand that he was installing a tub in an add-on bathroom.

By the time he came back home, Andrew Carlisle was his old self again, his old charming self.

"Sorry I was so upset earlier, Mama," he said. "It's not that big a deal, really. Besides, you're right. It probably wasn't all that good a book in the first place."

"You're not mad at me anymore?"

"No," he lied. "Not at all. How about going out to dinner?

We could go someplace special, for a steak or whatever YOU like."

Myrna Louise's eyes lit up. She was always game for going out to dinner. "I really like that place over in the shopping center," she said. "Lulubelle's or whatever. They have good ribs."

"That settles it," her son told her with an easy smile.

"That's where we'll go then, and tomorrow, if you like, we could ride down to Tucson together. I have a few more errands to run. It's a long drive. It would be fun to have some company."

Late in the afternoon, Diana and Davy drove out to Sells. Right after they arrived, Diana took Davy around to the side of the building and held him up so he could speak to Rita through the open window. Then, warning him not to talk to anyone else in her absence, Diana left him in the lobby and went down the hall to Rita's room.

"Davy sure looks good," Rita said. "The cut on his head isn't too bad?"

"No. It's fine. He's proud of all his stitches."

The two women were quiet for a moment. Over the years, they had spent so much time alone together that long silences between them were not unusual. There was nothing in the older woman's placid countenance to warn Diana that a storm was coming.

"My nephew was here earlier," Rita said at last. "He came to give me some news."

"Oh? What's that?"

"Carlisle."

At the sound of the name, Diana's heart caught in her throat. ,what about him?"

"He's out."

"When?"

"Friday. Already he has killed again."

"No. Are you serious?"

Rita nodded. "Fat Crack told me. They have arrested an Indian, but it was Carlisle who did it. He bit her."

"My God," Diana breathed. "I'll have to get in touch with Detective Walker right away and let him know."

"No," Rita said. "Detective Walker already tried with Carlisle, and he failed. Gina is dead. Your husband is dead, and now Carlisle is free.

We will not give Detective Walker another chance."

"What are you saying?" Diana asked. She knew what Rita was thinking, but she didn't dare put it into words.

,,I remember what he said in the hallway," Rita continued slowly.

"When the deputy's back was turned and when he thought no one else was looking. He said he would come for you, for us. Let him."

"Let him? Do nothing and wait for him to come after us?"

Rita nodded. "That's right. I have one very old friend who is a powerful medicine man. He and my nephew win help us."

An involuntary shiver ran up and down Diana's spine.

"You're saying we should take care of Carlisle ourselves?"

"Yes."

"But how can we when we don't even know where he is?"

"He will come to us. We must let him."

"And then what?"

Rita considered her words carefully before she spoke.

"The Tohono, O'othham only kill to eat or in self-defense. If Carlisle comes after us, then it is self-defense, isn't it?"

It wasn't as though Rita Antone was attempting to talk Diana Ladd into something she had never considered on her own. Selling the idea wasn't necessary. For almost seven years now, Diana had longed to throttle Andrew Carlisle with her bare hands.

"How do we find him?" Diana asked.

"We don't," Rita answered. "Windmill doesn't go looking for Wind Man.

Neither will we. While we wait for him to come, we have much to do."

Chapter Twelve

IT IS SAID that long ago a young woman from the Desert People fell in love with a young Hiakim, a Yaqui, Indian went to live with his family far to the south. The mother of the girl, Old White-Haired Woman, loved her daughter very much and missed her. Every evening she would go out to the foothills and call to her daughter's spirit, and every night there was an answer. One night, though, she heard nothing. IVY That night she went to her husband and said, daughter needs me. I must go to her."

Her husband, who was also old and lame besides, shook his head. "You are a bent old woman, and the Hiakim live far from here. How will you find your way?"

"The Little People will help me," she said. So the next morning she got up and called to Ali Chu Chum O'othham, the Little People, in their own language, for old White-Haired Woman still remembered how to speak to them. As soon as they heard her call, the, animals came right away.

"What do you want, Old Mother?" the Little People asked.

"My daughter's spirit is calling me from far away in the land of the Hiakim. I must go to her, but I am old and do not know the way "We will help you, Old Mother. We will help you go to your daughter."

And so the birds brought Old White-Haired Woman seeds and grain to eat along the way. The bees brought her honey, and Coyote, who had once been in the land of the Hiakim, guided her footsteps. After many, many days, they reach the village where Old White-Haired Woman's daughter lived with her husband and her baby, but the bent old woman found that her daughter was very sick.

"Mother," the girl told Old White-Haired Woman, "my husband's people are waiting for me to die so they can take my baby off into the mountains and teach him to be a warrior. I want you to take him back home to the Tohono O'othham, so he can grow up to be kind and gentle.

You must leave tonight. Tomorrow will be too late."

Old White-Haired Woman was tired and wanted to rest, but she knew her daughter was right. Late that day, she loaded the baby into her daughter's burden basket and went through the village, this way and that, so people would think she was gathering wood. Then, when she was out of sight, she started back north.