“But how exactly does it work, and how much do I use?”
“That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it,” Andy had replied. “There may be a certain amount of trial and error involved. You should use enough that she’s tractable, but you don’t want to use so much that she loses consciousness or even dies as a result of an overdose.”
“You’re saying we should do a dry run?” Mitch asked.
“Several dry runs might be better than just one.”
Mitch thought about that for a moment. Andy’s health was so frail that he certainly couldn’t risk taking anything out of the ordinary.
“I guess I’d better be the guinea pig then,” Mitch said. “No telling what a shot of this stuff would do to you.”
Andy nodded. “We won’t give you that much,” he said reassuringly. “Just enough to give you a little buzz so you’ll know exactly what it feels like.”
“When should we do it?”
“This afternoon. You’ll have a soda break with a little added kick.”
That afternoon, at three o’clock, Mitch Johnson had served himself up a glass of scopolamine-laced Pepsi. They used only half the contents of that one-ounce bottle. From Mitch’s point of view, it seemed as though nothing at all happened. He didn’t feel any particular loss of control. He remembered climbing up on the upper bunk and lying there, feeling hot and a little flushed, waiting for the effects of the drug to hit him. The next thing he noticed was how everything around him seemed to shrink. Mitch himself grew huge, while a guard walking the corridor looked like a tiny dwarf. When Mitch came to himself again, he was eating breakfast.
“What happened to dinner?” he asked Andy irritably. “Did something happen and they skipped it?”
“You ate it,” Andrew Carlisle told him.
“The hell I did. I lay down here on the bed just a little while ago . . .” Mitch stopped short. “You mean dinner came and went, the whole night passed, and I don’t remember any of it?”
“That’s right,” Andy said. “This stuff packs a hell of a wallop, doesn’t it? Since the girl is physically so much smaller than you are, you’ll have to be careful not to give her too much. It makes you realize why some of those scopolamine-based cold medicines caution against using mechanical equipment, doesn’t it?”
They had been silent for some time after that. Mitch Johnson was stunned. Fifteen hours of his life had disappeared, leaving him no conscious memory of them.
“Did I do or say anything stupid while I was out of it?”
“Not stupid,” Andy replied. “I found it interesting rather than stupid.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve always wondered whether or not those three wetbacks were the first ones. And it turns out they weren’t.”
Mitch shoved his tray aside. “What the hell do you mean?”
“You know what I mean, Mitch. I’m talking about the girl. The ‘gook,’ I believe you called her. The one you raped and then blew to pieces with your AR-sixteen.”
Mitch Johnson paled. “I never told anyone about that,” he whispered hoarsely. “Not anyone at all.”
“Well,” Carlisle said with a shrug. “Now you’ve told me, but don’t worry. After all, what are a few secrets between friends?”
3
After I’itoi found the center of the world, he began making men out of mud. Ban—Coyote—was standing there watching. I’itoi told Ban that he could help.
Coyote worked with his back to I’itoi. As he made his men, he was laughing. Because the Spirit of Mischief is always with him, Coyote laughs at everything.
After a while I’itoi—the Spirit of Goodness—finished making his mud men and turned to see why Coyote was laughing. He found that Ban had made all his men with only one leg. But still Coyote continued to laugh.
At last, when they had made enough mud men, I’itoi told Coyote to listen to see which of all the mud men would be the first to speak.
Ban waited and listened, but nothing happened. Finally he went to I’itoi and said, “The mud men are not talking.”
But I’itoi said, “Go back and listen again. Since the Spirit of Mischief is in your men, surely they will be the first to speak.”
And this was true. The first of the spirits to speak in the mud men was the Spirit of Mischief. For this reason, these men became the Ohb, the Apaches—the enemy. According to the legends of the Desert People, the Ohb have always been mean and full of mischief, just the way Coyote made them.
When all the mud men were alive, I’itoi gathered them together and showed them where each tribe should live. The Apaches went to the mountains toward the east. The Hopis went north. The Yaquis went south. But the Tohono O’othham—the Desert People—were told to stay in that place which is the center of things. And that is where they are today, nawoj, my friend, close to Baboquivari, I’itoi’s cloud-veiled mountain.
And all this happened on the First Day.
At four o’clock in the afternoon, Gabe Ortiz climbed into his oven-hot Crown Victoria, turned on the air-conditioning, and sat there letting the hot air blow-dry the sweat on his skin. He loosened his bola tie and tossed his Stetson into the backseat, then he leaned back and closed his eyes, waiting for the car to cool.
All the back-and-forth hassling was enough to make Gabe long for the old days, before the election, when most of his contacts with the whites, the Mil-gahn, had been when he towed their disabled cars or motor homes out of the sand along Highway 86 and into Tucson or Casa Grande for repairs.
Why was it that Anglo bureaucrats seemed to have no other purpose in life than seeing that things didn’t happen? Delia Chavez Cachora was a fighter when it came to battling the guys in suits, but even she, with her Washington D.C.-bureaucrat experience, had been unable to move the county road-improvement process off dead center. Unless traffic patterns to the tribal casino could be improved, further expansion of the facility, along with expansion of the casino’s money-making capability, was impossible.
Delia was bright and tough—a skilled negotiator whose verbal assertiveness belied her Tohono O’othham heritage. Those traits, along with her D. C. experience, were what had drawn Gabe Ortiz to her during their first interview. He was the one who had championed her application over those of several equally qualified male applicants. But the very skills that made Delia an asset as tribal attorney and helped her forward tribal business when it came to dealing with Anglo bureaucracies seemed to be working against her when it came to dealing with her fellow Tohono O’othham.
Gabe had heard it said that Delia Chavez Cachora sounded and acted so much like a Mil-gahn at times that she wasn’t really “Indian” enough. She was doing the proper things—living with her aunt out at Little Tucson was certainly a step in the right direction—but Gabe knew she would need additional help. He had developed a plan to address that particular problem. Delia just didn’t know about it yet, although he’d have to tell her soon.
Davy Ladd was a young man, an Anglo who had been raised by Gabe Ortiz’s Aunt Rita. A recent law school graduate, Davy was due back in Tucson sometime in the next few days. By the time he arrived, Delia would have to know that Gabe had hired Davy to spend the summer months and maybe more time beyond that working as an intern in the tribal attorney’s office.