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Mrs. Francisco was a kind old woman who didn’t mind having an extra mouth to feed. While her boys chatted away or kicked balls out in the yard, she would pat out and stretch the dough for making the Tohono O’odham staple called popovers—o’am chu—which she would slather with red chili and beans to feed her collection of starving boys, Gabe Ortiz included.
For years, Gabe’s mother’s failed attempts at making popovers had been the topic of ru
Fat Crack’s approval and unstinting support had contributed to her gradual acceptance and to her eventually being elevated to the office of tribal chairman, but no amount of feather-shaking by a medicine man could improve her pitiful cooking skills. Some people said that Chairman Ortiz suffered from Popover Sickness, and that was why her attempts at making the Tohono O’odham’s traditional dish were always such miserable failures. The basis of the dish is supposed to be a plate-sized crisply cooked disk of dough. Delia’s versions were anything but crisp, and the soggy hunks usually weren’t round, either.
For Gabe, Mrs. Francisco’s popovers were a revelation, and it was during those many shared mealtimes, sitting in the José family’s large warm kitchen, that Gabe’s friendship with Tim’s older brothers—Paul, Carlos, and Max—was cemented.
Over a period of several years, the José family had endured a run of bad luck. First their grandmother died. Then, the previous year, their father had been killed and their mother badly injured in a terrible car wreck. It had been one of those horrific multicar pileups that happens during dust storms when visibility rapidly drops to zero. With their mother still in a convalescent facility, the oldest son, Max, had ended up in some kind of trouble with the law and been sent to prison up in Florence. Now the second oldest, Carlos, had taken on the responsibility of holding the family together and keeping Tim from being placed in foster care.
So yes, Gabe thought, the José family might be having some troubles just now, but wasn’t that the time when friends were supposed to step up and lend support rather than walk away? That was what Gabe believed, and no matter what Gabe’s parents or Lani said, Gabe wasn’t going to give up on the José boys, because they were his friends.
Bright stars scattered across the black sky, and a rising moon made it possible for Gabe to see, but he was grateful when he stumbled off the narrow footpath and back onto the rutted road. Away from the warmth of the fire, the air was frigid. His breath came out in visible puffs. Shivering, he pulled the heavy blanket around his shoulders. Doing that helped keep out the biting cold, but it made it far more difficult for him to maintain his balance and negotiate the rugged path.
Across the valley, Gabe could see occasional headlights and taillights coming and going on the highway, but to his way of thinking, the road was still very far away.
Something small and invisible brushed through his hair and then was gone, sending Gabe into a momentary panic. A bat, he realized a moment later, once his heart stopped pounding. It wasn’t fair. Why was it that Lani could sit there in the dark by herself and not be afraid, when everything about the nighttime desert made him feel lost and scared.
He was still spooked from the bat encounter when something rustled in the nearby undergrowth. He stopped cold and waited, holding his breath. Suddenly a small herd of javelina burst out of a clump of manzanita, darted across the road in front of him, and clattered noisily down the hill. The fact that the javelina were well known to be terrified of humans didn’t help. In this case, Gabe was the one who was frightened. The desert seemed to be full of scary things tonight.
If he asked Lani why the desert night didn’t spook her, no doubt she’d tell him that it was because I’itoi was with her. Right. And she’d probably say that’s why she knew things that other people didn’t. What was the big deal about that? Gabe knew things, too, and I’itoi had nothing to do with it. For instance, he doubted I’itoi had been whispering in his ear last year when he had seen two of his junior high teachers, Mrs. Cadell and Mr. Ramos, together and realized that, although married to other people at the time, they were also in love with each other. When the affair had become common knowledge, the scandal had rocked the whole school district—and especially the teachers’ compound where both families lived. None of that had come as a surprise to Gabe. He had kept his private knowledge to himself both before and after it had become public. And it was the same way now with the new principal, Mrs. Travers.
He could tell there was something wrong with her, although he didn’t know exactly what. It was a sickness of some kind, and one she didn’t want anyone else to know about. That was probably the reason she kept such a close eye on him and made his life miserable—because she suspected that he knew something he shouldn’t.
At last Gabe reached the spot where the rutted two-wheeled track intersected with Coleman Road. Walking was easier now because the bladed dirt surface was smoother. The problem, of course, was that it was also far more traveled. He had taken no more than a few steps when he heard the sound of a vehicle approaching from behind.
It wasn’t that late, only about ten or so, but still he worried. Some of the people out and about at this time of night could be dangerous. The best case would be for the car to be filled with a bunch of Indians, high school kids maybe, out partying in the desert. That wouldn’t be so bad. No doubt they would offer him a ride. But what if the people in the car turned out to be a bunch of smugglers? Gabe knew that the bad guys who brought drugs and people across the nearby border were often armed and dangerous.
Then, of course, there was the last possibility, that the approaching vehicle would belong to the Border Patrol. If one of the Shadow Wolves picked him up, they’d no doubt turn out to be friends of Lani’s husband, Dan Pardee. Questions would be asked and Gabe’s answers would no doubt lead to more derision about how the tribal chairman’s son had been picked up out in the middle of the desert, walking around wearing a ratty old Navajo blanket. That would be good for a laugh, especially from Luis Joaquin.
Not wanting to risk that, Gabe vaulted over the low dirt berm that lined either side of the road and ducked down into a patch of mesquite. Losing his balance, he fell backward against a clump of cholla that had been invisible inside the mesquite. When his full weight landed on the cholla, three-inch-long spines shot through the blanket into his shoulder, backside, and back. Spears of pain took his breath away, and it was all Gabe could do to keep from screaming.
Covering his mouth with his hand, he managed to stifle himself and waited through the agonizing time—the better part of a minute or so—that it took for the vehicle, a green-and-white Border Patrol SUV, to finally reach him and drive past. Once the SUV was gone, Gabe struggled to his feet. The ends of some of the cholla spines still jutted out through his clothing. He pulled out the ones he could reach, then turned his attention to the blanket.
A foot-long branch of cholla along with a dozen smaller balls of thorns were embedded in the tightly woven wool. Without the blanket to keep out the cold, Gabe was already shivering. He needed the blanket’s protection, but first he had to remove the spikes. In the dark, with his hand shaking from the cold, that was far easier said than done. He found some rocks and used those to chisel away as much of the cholla as he could. The rocks worked fine on the bigger pieces—the ones he could see—but it would take light and a pliers to remove the spines that remained.