Day of the Dead - J. A. Jance [64]
Fourteen
They say it happened long ago that the Tohono O’odham first came to the northern lands looking for new hunting grounds. Because it was very hot and dry, the first thing the hunters needed to find was water. In some mountains with very steep slopes they came upon a hollow shaded by mesquite trees, and in this hollow was a pool of water. There was a rock in the middle of the pool and on it sat a coyote.
When Coyote looked up and saw the hunters, at first he was very frightened because he didn’t know what the hunters would do to him. Then he looked back into the pool and said in a very loud voice, “Stay down there. Don’t come out and hurt these people.”
This, nawoj, my friend, was back at a time when the Indians and the animals all still spoke the same language. When the hunters heard this, they were very puzzled because coyotes usually run away and hide somewhere.
The hunters stopped at the edge of the water and looked around, but they could see nothing. Finally, one very old man stepped nearer and asked Coyote why he was talking.
“Can’t you see?” Coyote asked. “I’m talking to my people who live in this pond. I do not want them to come out and kill you.”
The hunters were surprised and told Coyote that they did not know his people lived in the water. Poor Coyote was trembling with fright but he answered bravely. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Up here many coyotes live in the water except when they hunt.” And then, looking back down into the water he said, “Do be quiet and let these people have some water.”
And so, one by one, with Coyote watching, the hunters came to the pond and drank. After that, whenever Coyote saw the hunters coming, he would hurry to the pond. And there he would be, sitting on his rock, where the hunters first saw him.
And that, nawoj, is where the village of Ban Thak—Coyote Sitting—is to this day, near the rock where Coyote sat to guard his pond.
Please tell me about your sister,” Brandon said to Andrea.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything. Was Roseanne smart?”
Andrea Tashquinth stared off into the middle distance. “I think she was smart,” Andrea said finally. “When someone told a joke, she’d laugh along with everyone else. She never did any homework, but she could read. She loved reading books, especially the Bible. One of the nuns at Topawa told my parents there was a convent where she could go, a contemplative convent—where no one was allowed to speak. When our mother told Roseanne about it, she smiled and nodded. It was something she would have been good at and someplace where she would have fit in.”
“Did she have boyfriends?”
Andrea shook her head adamantly. “No. Never. We didn’t hang around with boys the way some girls do. Our parents wouldn’t let us. They wanted us to be good girls. They didn’t want people to think we were too easy.”
“But Roseanne was pregnant when she died,” Brandon pointed out. “How do you think that happened?”
Andrea Tashquinth shrugged and didn’t answer.
“You say Roseanne didn’t have a boyfriend, and both you and your mother seem to think your father had nothing to do with it. Besides your father, then, were there any other men or boys who were around your house regularly? A visiting cousin or younger brother, perhaps?”
“No,” Andrea answered. “Not that I remember.”
“What do you remember, Ms. Tashquinth?” Brandon asked.
It was warm sitting in the Suburban with the hot afternoon sun beating down on the roof. Through the windshield, Brandon saw families with laughing children pile out of pickups, vans, and SUVs. They trailed in and out of the store, returning with carts piled high with groceries. Silence lingered for several long moments. Brandon Walker was content to keep quiet forever. Andrea was the one who blinked.
“It had to be at the hospital,” she whispered finally. “I tried to tell Law and Order that at the time, but nobody was interested in what I had to say. Nobody listened.”
“What hospital?”
“That one,” Andrea said, gesturing with her head in the direction