J. JANCE - Hour of the Hunter

I t is said that after that Iitoi climbed the steps of arrows and went to Eagle Mans cave. The woman was sitting there with her baby. I have come to kill Eagle Man, Iitoi told her.

But you cant, said the woman. He kills everyone.

He will not kill me, said Iitoi, because I have power. What time does he come home?

At noon.

What does he do?

He eats.

And after that?

He sleeps.

And the baby?

He sleeps, too.

Today, let it happen just that way, said Iitoi. Let him come home and eat and go to sleep. Let the baby sleep with him with his head facing in the same direction.

Where will you be? asked the woman.

I will turn myself into a fly and hide in that crack over there.

It happened just that way. Iitoi turned himself into a fly and hid in the crack. Eagle Man came home, ate his meal, and lay down with the baby to sleep. The baby was so small it had not yet spoken, but now it did. Papa, somebody came, the baby said.

What did you say? asked Eagle Man.

Do not listen, said the woman. You know the baby cannot talk.

Papa, the baby said again. Somebody came. But every time, the woman told Eagle Man not to listen. Finally, she sang a song so the baby would go to sleep.

When they were both sleeping, the fly came out of the crack and turned back into Iitoi. He took a stone hatchet from his belt and chopped the babys head off. Then he chopped Eagle Mans head off, too.

After Iitoi killed Eagle Man, the woman took him to a corner of the cave where there was a huge pile of bones. These were the bones of the people Eagle Man had killed.

First Iitoi woke up the people at the very top of the pile, the ones who had been dead for the shortest time. When they came back to life, their skin was a rich brown color. They were gentle and hardworking and laughed a lot.

I like you very much, Iitoi said. You will be Tohono Oodham, my Desert People, and live here close to my mountains forever.

The next people on the pile had been dead a while longer. When they woke up, they werent quite so industrious, and they were a little quarrelsome.

Youre all right, Iitoi said. You can live near me, but not too near. You will be the Pima, Akimel Oodham, and live by the river.

When the next people woke up, they were lazy and they fought a lot among themselves.

You will be Ohb, the Apaches, Iitoi said. You will be the enemy and live far from here in the mountains across my desert.

The bones at the bottom of the pile had been dead for such a long time that when they came back to life, their skin had turned white.

I dont like you at all, Iitoi said to them. You will be Mil-gahn, the whites. I will give you something with which to write, then I want you to go far away from me across the ocean and stay there.

And that, nawoj, my friend, is the story of Iitoi and Eagle Man.

The Indian girl staggered slightly as she sidled up to the pickup. Mr. Ladd, are you going to the dance?

Gary Ladd finished pumping gas into his pickup. He recognized Gina Antone, a young Papago who lived in Topawa, a village on the reservation that also housed the Teachers Compound where he lived with his wife.

Hi, Gina, he returned. My friend and I thought wed stop by for a while.

Our truck broke down, Gina continued. She was slender and attractive and more than a little drunk. Could you give us a ride? Weve got some beer.

Sure, Gary Ladd told her. No problem. He hurried into the trading post to pay for the gas while a laughing group of young Papagos piled cheerfully into the back of the truck.

It was early on a hot summers evening in June of 1968. As they settled into the bed of the pickup, the young people laughed and joked about the coming dance. None of them guessed that before the sun came up the next morning, Gina Antone would be dead, and that death, for her, would be a blessing.

The woman sat in the detectives car. He had left the engine running, so the air-conditioning stayed on. The interior of the car remained cool, even on this overheated June night. The woman listened curiously to the crackling transmissions on the police radio, but she mostly didnt understand what the voices were saying. She didnt want to understand.

Instead of getting out of the car, she sat and listened and watched. She saw the parade of flashing lights as the ambulances arrived. After that, she didnt want to see anymore. She turned away and focused instead on the luminescent hands of the clock on the dashboard as they moved from 8:00 to 8:10, from 8:10 to 8:15.

The detective hurried back to the car. Hes calling for you, the man said gruffly. Do you want to go to him?

No, she said quickly. No, thank you. Id rather stay here, if you dont mind.

The room was square and hot, and so was the man sitting at the gray-green metallic desk. Sweat poured off his jowls and trickled down the inside of his shirt. Finally, Assistant Superintendent Ron Mallory yanked open his collar and loosened his tie. God, it was hot-too hot to work, too hot to think.

Through his narrow window, Mallory gazed off across the green expanse of cotton fields that surrounded the Arizona State Prison at Florence. It was June, and irrigated cotton thrived beneath a hazy desert sky with its blistering noontime sun. Maybe cotton could grow in this ungodly heat, but people couldnt.

Ron Mallory hated his barren yellow office with its view of razor ribbon-topped fences punctuated with guard towers. The view wasnt much, but having an office at all, particularly one with a window, was a vast improvement over working the floor in one of the units. Mallory didnt complain, but all the while, he busily plotted his own escape.

Assistant Superintendent Mallory had no intention of working in Corrections forever. It was Friday. Maybe sometime this weekend hed find some time away from Arlene and the kids to work on his book. There was a wall in Chapter 11, some kind of story-structure problem that made it impossible to move forward.

He took another swipe at his forehead with a damp paper towel and waited for a guard to bring Andrew Carlisle into his office.

Damn legislature, he told a fly that sauntered lazily across the stacks of file folders on his desk. Why couldnt those idiots down in Phoenix find money enough to fix the prisons damn refrigeration units? The air-conditioning always went on the fritz the minute the temperature climbed above 110.

Buildings in the capitol complex in Phoenix were plenty cool. Hed damn near frozen his ass off when hed gone there as part of the official delegation begging the legislative committee for more prison money. Theyd as good as said it didnt matter if it got hot for the prisoners. After all, Prisoners were supposed to be punished, werent they? What about the guards? Warden Franklin had countered. What about the other people who work there? What about them? the committee had said. They didnt give a shit about the worker bees. Nobody did.

Irritably, Mallory slapped at the fly, but it eluded him and flew over to the window just as Mendez, Mallorys assistant, knocked on the door and put his head inside the sweltering office. Carlisles here, Mendez said.

Good. Send him in. Ron Mallory mopped his brow, knowing it wouldnt do any good. His face would be sopped with sweat again within moments. God, it was hot!

Ron Mallory had conducted hundreds of prerelease interviews in the time hed held the job. There was a standard protocol. Where are you going to stay? What kind of work do you have lined up? But this wouldnt be a standard interview, because Andrew Carlisle wasnt a standard prisoner.