Eagle, Kathleen (27 page)

The
backyard overlooked the Bad River, which glistened as it rushed past the
cutbank in the bright summer sun. Reese had several Styrofoam cartons lined up
on the table. Flat slabs of frybread filled the two paper plates, and he was
adding the taco meat and beans.

"I
think you were right about Dad's death," he told her as she set the water
down for the dog.

"Right
about what?"

"Dozer
says there was a piece off a headlight housing found at the scene. The cop who
found it is sure that's what it was. Later, it disappeared."

"Evidence
disappeared?" She climbed over the seat across from him.

"The
guy who found it kinda got persuaded he hadn't found what he thought he'd
found. He hasn't been on the force long. He's unsure of himself and procedures
and all that, but he told Dozer, just between them—which, of course, includes
me—that he had no doubt about that piece of metal. This is a guy who worked on
cars all his life."

"So
who's covering up?"

"We're
not ready to place any bets, but..." He slid a plate toward her and handed
her the salad container. "Helen, do you think this Darnell has any kind of
criminal connections, like mob connections, like..." He took a deep breath
and expelled it on a demand. "You need to bow out of this, Helen. Call in
reinforcements from the BIA or the FBI or whatever. I don't like the idea of
you—"

"What
idea? You have no idea what you're talking about." She smiled, so he'd
know she wasn't trying to be mean, and then she forked lettuce onto her taco
meat. "I'm trained to spot card scams. Okay? No big deal. You're the one
who needs to be careful."

"Were
you working with my father? If somebody ran him down—" He stayed her hand
with his. A chunk of tomato fell on the table. Crybaby lapped at his water.
Reese's eyes were suddenly full of fire. "If somebody ran him down, Helen,
and if you're the one who was working with him—because I know he asked for an
investigation, and if you're... They kill people, Helen. You don't have to do
this. I don't want you to. You're fired, okay? You're done."

He
was serious. He was sweet and fiery-eyed, and he seriously thought he could
tell her what to do. She laughed.

"Who
do you think you are, Reese Blue Sky? One council meeting and suddenly you're
hiring and firing?"

"I'm—hell,
I'm—we've been together a lot lately, Helen. We've even been lying together.
Have
lain
together."

"Very
good," she said, still smiling. "But just because you've got
that
right doesn't
give you the right to—"

"Loving
you gives me the right." He said it so forcefully, he looked as though
he'd scared himself. He lowered his voice, but not his gaze. Dappled light and
shade played over his beautiful face. "If I have the right to love you, I
have the right to care what happens to you."

Her
throat felt tight. The river rushed in her ears. She wasn't sure where her next
breath was coming from as she stared across the table. "That... rolled out
fairly trippingly."

"Trippingly?"
He came up with a lopsided smile. "Is that, like, tripping over it? I
didn't trip over it. I've been hanging onto it." And then, softly, "I
would've told you a long time ago, but I was scared shitless."

"You
were
scared?"

"You
said it yourself. I was a big, dumb, shy—"

"I
never said that. I never thought..." She shook her head. Deep breaths,
deep breaths.
"Quiet.
You
were quiet, and you were young, and you were determined to try things."
The forgotten fork fell from her hand. "I couldn't be sure. Reese, I've
kept things, too, because I was scared. I'm
still
scared. The
risks..."

"It's
always been risky, you and me. Even before I turned pro, even without the heart
thing, it was crazy for me to go chasing after you that time I saw you at the
rodeo. Remember? But there was something that passed between us every time we
saw each other, and I had to take a shot, even though..." He caressed the
back of her hand with his thumb as he spoke. "Even though I fully expected
to get shot down."

"I
don't know why. What passed between us was obviously crazy on both sides."
She was smiling now, laughing a little. "But there's always more
excitement in the long shot than the sure thing."

"If
you have a shot at the goal, you take it. That's the only way you can hope to
win." He shoved plates and lettuce and plastic forks aside. "Helen,
what you give me whenever we make love feels like more than a one-shot deal,
more than a great rush. It feels like a beginning, even now, like there's more
to come. If we want it."

"Do
you know what love is, Reese? Do you know what it takes to—"

"Jesus
Christ, will you stop talking to me like you think I'm a child?" He closed
his eyes and nodded. "Yes, I do. I know it's me not wanting you to get
hurt. I know it's me telling you I'm not going to let them do to you what they
did to my father. I know it's me keeping you." He clutched her hand.
"I'm about to dive over this stupid table, Helen, me keeping you safe and
making you happy. It's me
keeping you.
It's me not ever letting you out
of my life again."

"That
sounds like something I'd say. Keeping you."

"Then
say it. Say you want to keep me."

"Saying
it and wanting it doesn't make it possible." But the truth might, and the
truth was in her pocket. All she had to do was take it out and trust him with
it. "I want what you have. I want the right to love you."

"The
right?" He scowled. "Don't you have that? I mean, okay, maybe you
need to tell me what you know about love that you think I'm too dumb to—"

"Stop
that!" She smacked the table with her free hand. It smarted, and she
immediately felt stupid. "That's not what I think. I've never..." She
sighed. "Oh, I underestimated you, all right, but not your intelligence. I
never thought—"

"Well,
here you are!"

They
were there, indeed, nose to nose and a table apart. And there was Carter,
standing next to the corner of the house with a big, silly grin on his face.

"Mind
if we interrupt?"

They
didn't see anyone else.

"I
brought a surprise. You ready?" Carter looked over his shoulder, gestured.
"Hey, Surprise? Where'd you go? Come on, they're in the backyard."
Turning back to Reese and Helen, he shoved his hands in the pockets of his
khaki slacks and took a few steps closer. "Listen, when I picked him up at
the airport, I realized I probably should have checked with you first, but he
said he had..."

Helen
went numb as she extricated herself from the picnic table. Her heart hopped
into her throat, jammed it up, jackhammered in her ears. Sidney ambled around
the corner of the house trying to look cool and easy, but, oh, the mischief
danced in his kohl-brown eyes. He was full of himself and the accomplishment of
surprising her, and he hardly spared a glance at anyone else because he was
more than a little glad to see his mom. It had been a while since he'd taken
part in such an unrestrained hug with her right out in front of people.

And
it felt so good to hold him in her arms again.

Helen
leaned back to look at him. His dark hair fell into his eyes. She couldn't
resist trying to brush it back, which he permitted briefly before he turned his
head away from the gesture. By now he was grinning triumphantly, and, oh, he
was beautiful. The sun had turned his skin deep chestnut, dewy with exuberant
man-child sweat, glowing with good health and newfound independence and
reunion.

But
her first question was automatic. "Is everything all right?"

"Everything's
great." He gripped her shoulders, playfully rocking her back and forth.
The motion on top of the shock made her dizzy. "Surprised you, huh?"

"Oh,
yes. How did you—"

"Mr.
Marshall got me a plane ticket. We have a break between sessions, and I want to
stay for the second session, but Mr. Marshall said it would be cool to surprise
you, so I said okay. He said the casino has a special fund for family
emergencies. Or, not exactly emergencies, but like..." He looked to Carter
for help.

"Special
contingencies," Carter said, offering Sidney an encouraging smile.
"General manager's discretionary fund. I haven't given it a name yet. This
is one terrific young man you've got here, Helen. He said he'd never been to
South Dakota, and I thought it was about time we remedied that."

"Well,
he's been through South Dakota, but we haven't..." It was so good to see
him. She couldn't take her eyes off him, couldn't stop delighting in the
familiar look and sound of him, couldn't stop noticing new details. "My
gosh, what are they feeding you at camp? You've grown an inch, I swear!"

"A
lot of mystery meat, but I think they lace it with the stuff they give calves,
you know? That..."

"Ralgrow?"

Reese's
voice reverberated on the single word, supplied to complete Sidney's quip. One
word, one meaningless word, a slapping reminder. Helen turned from her son to
meet his father's gaze.

Carter
came to the rescue. "This is my famous brother, Reese Blue Sky, the guy
you said you'd heard about."

"Yeah,
we've got some All-Star basketball videos, and you're on some of them."
Sidney's eyes lit up in the presence of the hero rising from the picnic bench.
"Mom told me she knew you in person from, like, before you turned
pro."

"My
son, Sidney," Helen said. The chips were about to fall, and she was
shaking inside.

Reese
offered his hand. "Hey, Sid, how's it going?"

"Great.
Jeez." Gleefully Sidney pumped the hand of a champion. "You played
for the Mavericks, right? Point guard."

"Right.
It was..." Like Helen, Reese was finding it difficult to take his eyes off
Sidney, but she couldn't tell how he felt. He was completely composed. He even
managed to smile. "It was a few years back."

"Yeah."
After the handshake, Sidney stuck his hands in the back pockets of his hiker's
shorts. "Yeah, they really suck now."

"They
need a point guard," Reese said. "Your mother's told me a lot about
you, Sidney. I hear you play all kinds of sports."

"Yeah,
but basketball's my best. I'm a lot bigger than most guys my age."

"You
sure are." Reese speared Helen with a pointed glance. "You just had a
birthday, didn't you?"

"June
eighth. I turned twelve." He grinned. "You know what, Mom? These
Nikes are getting too small already."

"We'll
get you some new ones this weekend."

"I've
got four days. Aw, man, you should see..." Sidney always got his hands
into the act when he told a story. This one involved heights. "We went on
a three- day hike, you know? Up in these mountains? They're called the San
Juans, and we were up at about twelve or thirteen thousand feet, which is,
like, thin-air city. And we had to rope up 'cause we were scaling rocks, man.
It was so cool. And you know what we saw?"

"Do
your hiking boots still fit? You weren't wearing—"

"No,
we got those bigger, Mom, remember?"

Reese
was interested in only one voice right now. "What did you see, Sid?"

"Petroglyphs.
You know, those really old, old paintings, like stick figures only better,
because they're like... You're Sioux, right?"

"Lakota."

"Yeah,
me, too, from my dad. He died."

Deafening
silence greeted this news. Helen stared at the ground. Her face blazed.

"I'm
sorry to hear that," Reese said.

"I
never knew him." Sidney shrugged. "Anyway, these petroglyphs are
probably Anasazi, ancestors of the Pueblo people. Probably. Some scientists
question that, but not the Pueblo people, and I figure they should know. It's
their tradition. Scientists end up theorizing a lot, but traditional people,
they know what they know. At camp they bring in speakers, or we go on day
trips. Do you live here?"

"I
grew up here," Reese said. "I'm from here, and I'm here now. Carter
maybe told you, our father just died."

"Jeez.
Was he pretty old?"

"Pretty
old, yeah, but..." Reese laughed. It was a joyous sound, an unbridled
response to Sidney's enthusiasm. "I don't think he knew the Anasazi
personally, but I bet he knew a lot about them."

"Did
he teach you how to play basketball?"

"He
started me out. He, uh—" Reese looked at Carter as if to say, Did you
know? Carter kept grinning as though he'd just played Santa Claus and everybody
had gotten the gifts of a lifetime.

"You're
still trying to get used to him being dead, aren't you?" Sidney asked,
honest sympathy delivered in a child's guileless tone. "My friend's
grandma died last year, and he said that was hard because she lived with them.
But after a while it gets easier, he said. Hey, pup." He greeted Crybaby
with a pat on the head, got his hand sniffed and licked in return.