floating free of gravity, and in that blissful suspension she knew with the wordless knowledge of the heart that God would forgive her, for with their joyful outcries she and Michael answered the moans of all the wounded and all the mourners’ laments, with the wet smack of flesh upon flesh they annulled the strikes that insensate steel had made against flesh. Mourning, steel, blood—all that was no; all this was yes, and what God would begrudge such an affirmation?
Douglas
He had clipped the newspapers, the Arizona Republic, the Tucson Daily Star, others, and pasted them in a scrapbook. He wanted to keep the bad memories fresh; he never wanted to forget them.
RANCH FAMILY SUES TUCSON DEVELOPER FOR $16 MILLION
Attorneys for Edith Brady, owner of the Baboquivari ranch, yesterday filed suit in civil court alleging that the purchase of 10,000 acres of the 25,000-acre property was obtained under fraudulent circumstances by WebMar Associates, one of the state’s largest housing developers.
STATE TO INVESTIGATE TUCSON DEVELOPER
Arizona Attorney General Laura Altobuono announced today that her office has opened a criminal investigation into the purchase of a ranch property by Web-Mar Associates, builders of Rancho Vista, Tucson’s largest retirement community. A civil suit has already been filed against the firm, owned by Weldon E. Braithwaite and Martin Templeton, both of Tucson. The allegations are that the two developers in effect bilked Edith Brady, 86, heir to the Baboquivari ranch, in the $16 million sale of . . .
INQUIRY INTO WEB-MAR WIDENS
Web-Mar Associates, already beset by a civil suit and a state investigation into its purchase of a Spanish land grant ranch, has attracted the attention of federal investigators. . . . Web-Mar is alleged to have signed a contract agreeing to restrict development of the property to ten-acre parcels, but then drawn up another contract allowing high-density housing to be built and hoodwinked the ranch’s 86-year-old owner into signing it in a complex shuffle of documents. According to informed sources, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Phoenix is looking into evidence of financial links between Web-Mar and Enrique Cabrera, boss of Mexico’s biggest drug cartel . . .
COURT RULES IN FAVOR OF PLAINTIFFS IN BABOQUIVARI SUIT
FEDERAL PROBE LAUNCHED INTO DRUG LORD’S
TIES TO TUCSON DEVELOPMENT FIRM
WEB-MAR DECLARES BANKRUPTCY
WEB-MAR CEO FACES CHARGES OF MONEY
LAUNDERING—PARTNER CLAIMS NO KNOWLEDGE
OF DEALINGS WITH MEXICAN KINGPIN
BRAITHWAITE TRIAL OPENS TODAY—
DEFENDANT PLEADS NOT GUILTY
WEB-MAR CEO WILL TAKE THE STAND
TUCSON DEVELOPER KILLED IN CAR BOMB BLAST—
COCAINE CARTEL THOUGHT RESPONSIBLE
Weldon E. Braithwaite, 59, defendant in a federal trial on alleged money-laundering between his firm and the boss of a Mexican drug ring, was killed early this morning when a powerful bomb exploded in his car as he was leaving his home for a second day of testimony.
PART TWO
Warlord
THE JINN VISITED him so often that he’d achieved a rapport with it, speaking to it as he would to a living man. “I will do today what it is said you wish me to do, so why are you here? Why do you trouble me this day?”
Abbas sat across from him, staring with wordless reproach. Ibrahim Idris detested that expression, but he knew it would do no good to look away, because no matter in what direction he looked Abbas would be there, the haft of the knife protruding from his ribs, his wide-set eyes glaring judgment.
“It is the opinion of the elders and my kinsmen that if I make peace with your mother’s lineage, you will trouble me no more. Very well, a murda takes place this very day, and trust that I will make peace, so go away.”
But Abbas remained.
Ibrahim took the copper pot from the fire and refilled his cup with sweetened tea. “Listen, this much I know. God would not permit you to trouble me because I beat you for committing rape. It was you who drew the knife on me. On me! The uncle who was as a father to you!” He flung the tea into his nephew’s face and watched the scalding liquid fly right through him and spatter in the dust.
“Ya, Ibrahim. Saddled and bridled and everyone is ready.”
It was Kammin, leading Barakat by the reins. At the Dinka servant’s approach, the jinn vanished, rising with the campfire smoke through the branches of the tree beneath which Ibrahim had passed a troubled night. A distance away, resembling a flock of egrets in their clean guftans and jelibiyas, the elders and the heads of the lineages that stood with Ibrahim’s, the Awlad Ali, were gathered around a haraz tree.
“You are like the haraz,”