Dance of the Bones

Instinctively being able to suss out something like that was a medicine man kind of thing. For the next three years, Gabe had followed Lani around like a puppy dog. On Tuesdays and Thursdays after school he would come to the hospital’s dialysis unit, where he seemed to function in the dayroom as a pint--sized medicine man, singing the healing chants Lani had taught him and reciting the ancient stories and legends for the patients. Long boring hours in the dialysis unit could be shortened by hearing the stories and legends of I’itoi someone remembered hearing long ago as a child living in one of the villages—-in Ge Oithag, Big Fields, or Komlick, Big Flat Place.

Lani had taught Gabe that the I’itoi legends in particular were winter--telling tales and were only to be told between the middle of November and the middle of March. Most of the time Gabe was careful to abide by that rule. Sometimes, when it was July and someone who would not live to see another November wanted to hear the story of Old White--Haired Woman or the story of the Peace Smoke, Gabe would tell the story anyway. It didn’t seem to him that I’itoi, the Spirit of Goodness, would mind that in the least.

Only when requested to do so did Gabe visit the rooms of individual patients—-the injured, ill, and dying. Even though he had not yet reached cheojthag—-manhood—-and was not yet a fully grown medicine man, the families of patients told Lani that there were times when having Al Siwani—-Baby Medicine Man—-visit their loved one was better than having no medicine man at all.

Lani had marveled at how, sitting in quiet hospital rooms and without even having access to her sacred divining crystals, Gabe had often known long before anyone other than the doctors about who would live and who would die. He talked to Lani about those things sometimes, but even then he had instinctively known to keep from mentioning them to the -people involved. And when Lani had asked how he knew those things, he could never explain it other than shrugging his shoulders and saying, “I just know.”

Then, for reasons the divining crystals couldn’t or wouldn’t tell her, Gabe had started pulling away. He had stopped coming to the hospital. He had started distancing himself from her. And now, much to Lani’s despair, her connection to Gabe seemed to be severed. He had walked away down the mountain, leaving her behind along with her last--ditch chance to save him from whatever was pulling at him. It was easy, sitting on the mountain, to ascribe what was happening to the Bad -People—-PaDaj O’odham—-who had come up out of the South to steal the Tohono O’odham’s crops and eventually to do battle with I’itoi himself.

So was that what this was all about? Lani wondered. Were the four José brothers with all their family troubles—-a dead father and an ailing mother—-the cause of all this? Were they somehow a modern--day equivalent of the PaDaj O’odham? And, if so, what did Lani have to do to extricate Gabe from their grasp?

Tossing one more piece of wood onto the fire, Lani slipped into her bedroll. Staring up at the stars, she remembered the story Nana Dahd had told her—-the one about the terrible time when Andrew Carlisle, the evil ohb, had captured both Nana Dahd and Lani’s brother, Davy, and held them prisoner in the root cellar. While there, Nana Dahd had summoned I’itoi to help them by singing a chant—-a healing chant—-speaking in the language of the Tohono O’odham. Lani had heard the chant often enough that she remembered every word, the same way one remembers a cherished lullaby. And it made her smile to know that while the song had been totally opaque to Andrew Carlisle, Davy had heard the words, understood them, and acted upon them: Do not look at me, little Olhoni.

Do not look at me when I sing to you

So this man will not know we are speaking,

So this evil man will think he is winning.

Do not look at me when I sing, little Olhoni, But listen to what I say. This man is evil.

This man is the enemy. This man is ohb.

Do not let this frighten you.

Whatever happens in the battle,

We must not let him win.

I am singing a war song for you,

Little Olhoni. I am singing A hunter’s song—-a killer’s song.

I am singing a song to I’itoi,

Asking him to help us and guide us in the battle

So the evil ohb does not win.

Do not look at me, little Olhoni,

Do not look at me when I sing to you.

I must sing this song four times

For all of nature goes in fours.

But when the trouble starts,

You must remember all these things

I have sung to you in this magic song.

You must listen very carefully