Ban Namkam appeared at his mother’s house early the next morning, startling the Gambel’s quail and doves into flight and a momentary silence. He stepped out of a pickup that was older, more battered, and even dustier than Abuela’s, a tall and ocotillo lean man in faded jeans, a short-sleeved white shirt and well-worn cowboy boots. His long black hair was pulled back into a ponytail, his skin richly darkened by sun and genetics. When he smiled at Bettina, her pulse couldn’t help but quicken. Compared to the boys at school Ban was all presence and bigger than life. But while he was as handsome as ever, he remained just as oblivious to Bettina’s admiration now as he’d been the first time they’d met. When he casually ruffled her hair by way of greeting she could have bitten his hand.
Don’t say it, she willed, but of course he did.
“I swear you get taller every time I see you,” Ban told her.
Bettina could only grit her teeth. No soy una nina, she wanted to tell him. See, I have breasts and everything. But of course she didn’t say a word, only hung her head and stared at her feet, feeling stupid and impossibly young. Then she caught her abuela grinning at her and that only made her more self-conscious.
Discreet questioning of Ban’s mother the night before had allowed that, yes, he was still very much unattached. Unfortunately that was enough for Bettina to become the recipient of much gentle teasing on the part of both Loleta and Abuela for the remainder of the evening, not to mention this morning as well.
“Look, nieta,” Abuela said when they saw the dust of Ban’s pickup approaching the house. “Here comes your boyfriend.”
Bettina’s warning glare had only made her abuela smile, but at least she said nothing now.
Truth was, Bettina wasn’t sure she even liked him anymore anyway. At least so she tried to convince herself. Look at him. He was obviously too full of himself, too caught up with his own importance to even notice that she was quite grown up now, thank you. Yes, his uncle Wisag Namkam was a calendar-stick keeper, marking saguaro ribs with cuts and slashes to help him remember important events, his father Rupert a medicine man, but so what? A man should be judged by his own deeds, not by the importance of his family.
Bettina sighed. Except Ban’s deeds did speak for themselves. He followed the traditional ways, but he was also working on a doctorate in botany at the University of Arizona. He was handsome, smart, kindhearted, loyal. She sighed again. And totally oblivious to her. It wasn’t fair. Why couldn’t she be more like Adelita? Her sister always had a boyfriend.
“Are you still in this world?”
Bettina blinked, then realized that her abuela was speaking to her.
“Sí,”she said quickly. “Where else would I be?”
Abuela gave Loleta a knowing look and they both rolled their eyes. Happily, Ban didn’t notice. He was looking off into the distance where the Babo-quivaris rose from the horizon, their tall and stately peaks towering high above the surrounding bajadas.
“I haven’t been to the cave since Papa took me when I was a boy,” he said, turning back to the others. “I hope I can remember how to find it once we reach the cliffs.”
“Bettina will help you,” his mother said. “I hear she has an affinity for lost places and causes.”
Abuela snickered.
Ban looked from her to his mother, aware of undercurrents, but unsure of what they were.
“Why don’t you ask Rupert?” Bettina said.
Ban shook his head. “He’s out at the rainmaking camp till the end of the week. They’re rebuilding the roundhouse for this August’s ceremonies.”
Bettina knew that. She’d just wanted to switch the focus of conversation to anything but herself. She gave her grandmother a pleading look.
“I’m sure Ban will find it just as easily as his father,” Abuela said, relenting.
Loleta nodded. “Probably better, if the peyoteros are at the camp.”
They drove to Ali Cukson—Little Tucson, a Papago village just a fraction of the size of the sprawling metropolis of Tucson some fifty miles away—and then up into the Baboquivari Mountains, a special permit on the dashboard of Ban’s pickup since neither Abuela nor Bettina were tribal members. Above the white wake of dust stirred up by their wheels flew turkey vultures and Harris hawks. Coyotes watched them from the ridges, roadrunners darted across the road in front of them, and a bobcat was startled into immobility by the unfamiliar presence of the truck before it faded away into the brush.
At the end of their road they came to a canyon that held an abandoned stone cabin with a flood-water field, the latter overgrown now with mesquite, catclaw, creekside desert olives, and wild chile bushes. Ban parked the pickup and they stepped out to stare up at the cliffs rising hundreds of feet above them. Bettina hoped for a glimpse of a coatimundi, the raccoonlike animal that Ban had told her could sometimes be found here. This canyon, he told her, was one of the few places in the States where it could be found—it and the five-striped sparrow. But neither made an appearance today. There was only a crested caracara, floating high up on a thermal, long-necked and long-tailed against the bright blue of the desert sky.
Shouldering backpacks, they started up the canyon on a narrow trail leading through the dense undergrowth, flushing quail, startling the Mexican jays and phainopeplas. Further up the canyon they walked among the Mexican blue oak, mulberry, and enormous jojoba that prospered here in the more humid narrows. They passed by puddles of standing water in the otherwise dry wash, continuing to follow it until a white-necked raven flew by with a laughing cry. Ban watched its flight for a long moment.
“A guide?” Abuela said.
Ban smiled and nodded, then led them away from the creekbed, up a steep slope, leaving the shade behind.
It was hotter out in the sun, walking along the exposed slope. The bajada here was all thorn and spine as they wound their way between ocotillo, cholla, prickly pear, barrel, and saguaro cacti. But if the way grew harder, the view became ever more spectacular. They could follow the paths of all the drainages that led down from the western slopes to empty into Wamuli wash. To the east, the sharp peak of Rock Drawn in at the Middle rose to its awesome height.
They rested there for a while, drinking from their canteens, rendered silent by the panorama—even Abuela, who almost always had something to say. Finally they turned their backs on the view and climbed the last stretch to the cliffs. When they reached the thornier scrub at their base, they were a thousand feet above the desert floor, with the cliffs rising up behind them another thousand feet.
This part of their trip had been simple, if arduous, but finding I’itoi’s cave was another matter entirely. They spent a half-hour searching, finding only small overhangs and caves—nothing like what I’itoi’s cave should be.
“You have been here before?” Abuela asked Ban when they finally took a break.
He nodded. “But only that one time with Papa and he led us right to the cave. I thought I’d have no trouble finding it, but everything seems different today…” He shrugged.
“Ybien,” Abuela said. “I’ve not come this far to give up now.”
Bettina’s heart sank. What had been an adventure this morning had lost much of its luster by now. She was hot and tired, scratched, and more than a little frustrated that the entrance to the cave remained so elusive. Usually a foray into the desert with her abuela was a much more relaxed affair—rambles rather than such formidable treks. For the past half-hour she’d been more than ready to head back down the forty-five-degree slope to where they planned to camp in the canyon.