Dance of the Bones Read Online Free Page A

didn’t plant and grow. Instead, they traveled in marauding bands, stealing from others. It was no accident that in the language of the Tohono O’odham and in the languages of many other tribes as well, the word for “Apache” and the word for “enemy” were one and the same. On the Tohono O’odham reservation, Dan Pardee, a member of the Border Patrol, was a respected law enforcement officer, but behind his back and by ­people who didn’t know him well, he was often referred to as the Ohb —­the Apache.
    Lani attributed the fact that she and Dan—­opposites in many ways—­had met, fallen in love, and married to the behind-­the-­scenes workings of Ban—­Coyote. Ban had a reputation for being a trickster—­someone who loved practical jokes. The irony of Dan and Lani’s relationship, an American Indian take on Romeo and Juliet, was apparently one of those.
    For years now, Daniel Pardee had worked as a member of the Shadow Wolves, a unit of the Border Patrol made up entirely of Native Americans who operated exclusively on the Tohono O’odham Nation, patrolling the areas where the international border with Mexico passed through tribal lands. Even though Dan was Apache, he was regarded with a good deal of trust on the reservation not only because of the respectful and honorable manner in which he did his job, but also by virtue of his being married to Lani, who, despite her relative youth, was a well-­respected tribal elder.
    â€œLook,” Dan argued. “I know how serious you are about your obligations as a godmother, and I understand that the location on Kitt Peak is the same place you went to when you were a girl. I also know that you stayed out there day and night by yourself for a number of days. But the world has changed since then, Lani. Things aren’t like they used to be. The desert around the base of Kitt Peak is a dangerous place now—­a war zone.”
    Lani sighed. “But that’s the whole problem. Ioligam is where we need to go.”
    â€œYou can call the mountain Ioligam all you like and claim it as a sacred place, but believe me, the smugglers who are out there—­terrorists who are using observation posts, combat gear, encrypted radio transmitters, and AK-­47s to protect the cartels’ drug shipments—­don’t see it that way. Too many of the bad guys out prowling the desert night after night are armed to the teeth, and they don’t give a crap about the Tohono O’odham belief system. They shoot first and ask questions later. It’s not safe, Lani. You can’t go. I won’t let you.”
    â€œLook,” Lani said, “with all the Anglos coming and going from Kitt Peak, it’s a lot more dangerous on the other side of Baboqui­vari and in the valley north of Ajo than it will be where we’re going. As for smugglers on foot? They’re more likely to stick to the lowlands. I doubt they’ll bother climbing partway up a mountain when they could just as easily go around it. Besides, it’s not a matter of your letting me do anything, Dan,” she reminded him gently. “That’s not how it works. Gabe’s parents asked me for help, and I have to give it to them. This is important. I simply have to go.”
    Micah, Dan and Lani’s four-­year-­old son, had been sitting on the floor, happily playing with a set of giant Legos, ones his mother deemed safe to play with because they were too large to be swallowed. Now, sensing tension between his parents, he looked up from his solitary game and gave his mother a beseeching look with his striking azure eyes. “Can I go, too?” he asked.
    Brandon Micah Walker-­Pardee had been named after Lani’s Anglo adoptive father, Brandon Walker, and after Dan’s grandfather, a full-­blooded Apache named Micah Duarte. Part Anglo and part Indian, the boy resembled neither of