Dance of the Bones

“I just gave you a compliment,” Mel said. “You’re supposed to say thank you.”

So I did.

There was a long silence in the car. Traffic was heavy. It was raining like crazy.

“So what do you think?” Mel asked at last.

“About what?”

“About TLC? Are you going to work with them again?”

I thought about it for a moment. “I just might,” I said. “I didn’t do much, but what I did felt damned good.”

CHAPTER 29

THEY SAY IT HAPPENED LONG ago that I’itoi, Elder Brother, came down from Baboquivari. He went to the villages of the Desert ­People, sat with them around campfires, and told them stories. He told them about how he created the water and the earth. He told them where Wind Man and Rain Man came from. He told them about the Man in the Maze and how the Desert ­People had emerged from the center of the earth.

The ­people loved Elder Brother’s stories so much that after I’itoi returned to his mountain, that was all the ­people wanted to do—­sit around and listen to the stories over and over. No one wanted to feed and water the cattle. No one wanted to plant the corn and melons. The men stopped going hunting and the women stopped cooking and minding the fires. Soon there was no food. Everyone was hungry, and the Desert ­People started fighting among themselves.

Up on Baboquivari, I’itoi heard all the quarreling and wondered what all the fuss was about. When he learned what had happened, he was very sad, for you see, nawoj, my friend, although telling stories is good, you must do other things as well.

And that is why, even to this day, among the Tohono O’odham, the time for telling stories is only from the middle of November—­Kehg S-­hehpijig Mashath, the Fair Cold Month—­to the middle of March—­Chehthagi Mashath, the Green Month. Those are the cold months, the time when the snakes and lizards go to live underground. That’s why the stories of the Desert ­People are winter-­telling tales. If a snake or lizard overhears a story, they can swallow the storyteller’s luck and bring him harm.

IT WAS FRIDAY AGAIN, A whole week later. Once again Leo Ortiz drove Lani and Gabe past Rattlesnake Skull charco at the base of Ioligam. Lani had been both surprised and gratified when a chastened Gabe had shown up in her office earlier in the week, asking if it would be possible for a do-­over of their campout. Hopeful that the events of the previous weekend might have somehow penetrated some of the boy’s defenses, Lani had agreed on the spot. With both Dan and her slated to work that weekend, it had taken some serious scheduling readjustments to make it work.

So now Lani, Gabe, and a very grumpy Leo were once again lugging their goods up the side of the mountain. “After everything that happened, I don’t understand why you have to come here again,” he grumbled as he dropped his bundle of firewood. “Couldn’t you camp somewhere else?”

“Stories have to end where they begin,” Lani said quietly.

Leo simply sighed and shook his head.

The changes in Gabe were remarkable. This time there was no surliness on his part. He hadn’t played video games on his phone during the drive from Sells, and he handed it over without a murmur of complaint to his father as Leo left. He set about building the fire pit without being told and waited quietly while Lani heated their simple supper.

It was after sunset when they settled down beside the fire. Gabe had been quiet during most of the evening and Lani didn’t want to push him. She knew he had things he wanted to say, and she didn’t want him to rush.

“I guess it’s too late to tell I’itoi stories,” he said. “I saw the snake.”

A rattler, still lethargic from hibernation, had crossed the path ahead of them on their hike up the mountain. Lani nodded. “I saw him, too.”

“Why did you let him go?”

“Why do you think?”

“Because the Tohono O’odham only kill to defend themselves or to eat.”

Lani smiled. “That’s right. The snake wasn’t bothering us, and I had no intention of eating him.”

“I was going to kill Henry Rojas,” Gabe admitted at last. “I had Tim’s knife. If Henry Rojas had opened the box, I would have.”

“I know,” Lani said, “and if you had, you would have been stuck out here for sixteen days. Your parents would have been fit to be tied. So would Mrs. Travers. She wouldn’t like you to miss that much school.”

“Is Mrs. Travers sick?” Gabe asked.

Lani gave him an appraising look before she answered. “She’s my patient, Gabe. I can’t talk about that.”

“If she goes to the Indian hospital, does that mean she’s an Indian?”

“I can’t talk about it.”

Until that moment, Gabe had always believed Mrs. Travers was an Anglo. Gabe nodded. “Okay,” he said.

After that, he was quiet for a time while the wind whispered softly through the manzanita.

“Mrs. José came to see me in the hospital,” Gabe said. “She’s your patient, too. I knew it already, but she told me herself that she’s dying.”

Lani didn’t respond one way or the other.

“My parents said that if that happens, Tim might come live with us. What would you think of that?”

“It might be good for both of you,” Lani said. “Just because Tim’s brothers did bad things doesn’t mean he’s bad. Maybe you could help him.”

“Maybe,” Gabe said. “I hope so.”

He tossed another log on the fire, but the boy still seemed troubled, and Lani suspected there was more to come.

“Henry Rojas was a bad man,” Gabe said at last. “Do you think Mrs. Rojas will stay in Sells? I heard that she’s thinking about moving back to the Navajo.”

Lani nodded. “That’s what I heard, too. After everything that happened, I don’t blame her. I don’t believe Lucy had any idea about what Henry was doing behind her back. And the evil Anglo woman he was working with—­the woman who had the José brothers smuggling diamonds for her—­reminds me of the Evil Giantess in the story of Little White Feather. Do you remember that one?”

“I remember some of it,” Gabe said. “I think you told it to me a long time ago.”

Lani smiled. “I’ll tell it to you again someday—­next winter maybe.”

“I had a dream last night,” Gabe continued after another pause. “It was a weird one. I think it was about the ­people that evil woman killed—­not just Carlos and Paul and Henry, but the other ­people, too.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I was walking through a cemetery—­a Milgahn cemetery somewhere in town, not here on the reservation. The graves opened up and skeletons started coming out of them. They made a circle around me, and even though they were only bones, I could tell them apart and knew all their names. They were holding hands and dancing. I should have been afraid, but somehow I wasn’t. That’s what was so weird. I wasn’t frightened.”

“That’s one of the things a medicine man or a medicine woman can do,” Lani said. “They can look at a dream and see what it means. The bones were dancing because after all this time the person who murdered them is finally facing justice. They were happy. You weren’t frightened of them because they weren’t scary.”

“Do you think I’ll ever be a real medicine man like my grandfather was?” Gabe asked.

“I think you can become one,” Lani replied. “You’ll have to study hard and learn a lot. Your father told me you said that I gave you some divining crystals.”

Gabe lowered his head. “That was a lie,” he said. Reaching into the pocket of his jeans, Gabe pulled out four tiny stones and held them out to her in the palm of his hand, where they sparkled in the firelight.