Free Kiss of the Bees by J. A. Jance Page A

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