A Certain Kind of Hero (6 page)

“You're in my way,” Gideon said calmly.

“No, you're in my way.” The man settled one hand on his hip, but on the other hand, that finger was still jabbing. “You're trying real hard to get in
my
way.”

Gideon returned a level stare. “This gesture shows me that you have no manners. Touch me with it, and you will have no finger.”

The man sniggered, then checked to make sure he wasn't alone and sniggered again. But the finger came down.

This was a public landing. Gideon had half a notion to punch this blockhead's lights out. He could take him easy, and the three jerks backing him to boot. A few years back there would have been no question. Just impulse. But now, besides the fact that he had a woman and two kids with him, he had to remember who he was and what he stood for.

Damn.
Standing for more than just Gideon Defender could be a royal pain sometimes. He couldn't walk away and leave Raina and the boys with the boat as long as these guys were
standing there. He was going to have to back down and take the boat back to the lodge rather than load it up here and take his guests up the road to his cabin. He didn't have his own dock. Couldn't afford it. This was prime tourist territory. Thanks to all the damn treaties, the Pine Lake Band was land poor. Three thousand meager acres and some hunting and fishing rights were all they could call their own. The only dock space they actually owned was at the lodge.

Public
landing? Hell.

“You need any help getting your boat out of the water, Gideon?”

No one had noticed the timely appearance of Bill Lucas, a conservation officer with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The gang of four didn't seem too pleased when they turned to find him walking up behind them.

But Gideon was glad to hear his old friend's voice. “Not if these boys would just step aside so I can go get my pickup.”

Bill's uniform probably had something to do with the way the small crowd parted for him. “You boys have a problem with that?”

“No problem at all,” the Redskins fan said, “unless they're taking more than their rightful limit.”

“How does that concern you? I don't see a badge on any of you.”

“I own a cabin on this lake.” The claim was made by one of the three backups. “Along with my dad, that is. That's how it concerns me. All this talk of the state cuttin' some kinda deal with the Indians, I was just tellin' this one here, we're not gonna stand for any gill nets, and none of their spearfishing, either.”

“You talk to your legislator about it. You call the attorney general's office,” Bill suggested. “You don't bother these people. This is a public landing. We don't want any—”

The Twins cap got another adjustment as its wearer did some more posturing. “We just want to let 'em know what's comin' down the pike if they don't drop this thing. You remember the violence in Wisconsin over the same issue.”

“We're trying to avoid the kind of trouble they had over treaty rights in Wisconsin.” Bill glanced his friend's way. “Gideon here's Chippewa. He can go over to Wisconsin and do all the spearfishing and gill netting the law allows.”

“Yeah, well, go on over to Wisconsin, then, 'cause you ain't gettin' anywhere with that here.” The four started edging away as the summer cabin owner made his final point, driving his finger toward the dock like a nail. “We won't stand for it here.”

His buddy added his concurrence—a quick glare and another adjustment of the baseball cap—and the four sauntered down the dock toward a club cab four-wheel drive pickup that was parked at the end.

“His family's probably been coming up to their summer cabin on the lake for what—two, three generations?” Gideon's gesture was one of empty-handed frustration. “You know how long
my
family's lived on this lake year-round? You know how many generations, Bill?”

“No, do you?” Bill raised his palms and chuckled as he shook his head. “No, don't answer that. You'll be reciting the whole history for me again.”

“For you guys it's history, for us it's tradition.”

“Either way, anybody can see you've got a good case.” Bill shrugged. “Anybody with an open mind, that is. Seems like the more we talk this compromise up, the more guys like that dig in their heels. Never gonna change his mind.”

“Then we'll end up in court.”

Bill nodded. The department recognized that possibility. And dreaded the likely outcome.

Gideon turned his attention to the boat and the three people who were waiting for him. He leaned down to offer Raina a hand.

“Catch anything?” Bill asked Oscar, who was still in charge of mooring the boat.

Oscar smiled. “Supper.”

And that had always been just what fishing meant to Gideon's people. Supper.

S
upper was a joint project. Gideon had done some shopping with the intention of pleasing his guests at any cost. Raina was amused by the choice of skim milk or whole, butter or margarine, white potatoes or red. “Or rice. If anyone hates potatoes, I've got rice.” He offered every salad leaf imaginable, whole wheat or white bread, three flavors of ice cream, for which he was sorry he didn't have any marshmallow cream.

“Marshmallow cream?” Peter pretended instant nausea.

“Hey, that stuff's good, man,” Oscar said.

“Are you starting a restaurant?” Raina wondered with an appreciative smile.

Gideon shrugged. “I know kids have sensitive taste buds.”

“I'll eat anything,” Oscar promised. And he did. He ate
everything.

“Me too.” But Peter asked for
his
fish—the one he'd caught himself—red potatoes and blue cheese on his salad.

The blue cheese was one request Gideon hadn't anticipated. “Next time,” he promised.

Raina liked his house, and she made a point of telling him so. It had no feminine touches and didn't need any. Made of logs and furnished with a functional combination of old chairs and new stereo equipment, it was comfortable. And it was Gideon.

After supper he and Raina sat on the little screened porch at the back of the house, enjoying the chorus of crickets, listening to the water lapping at the shoreline, sharing coffee. He had a view of the lake, which glistened with the pink and purple shades of twilight, but he possessed no pricey piece of lakeshore. He didn't have much of a yard, but he was within shouting distance of the end of the neighbor's dock, where the boys sat, dangling their feet in the water like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.

“When you guys get tired of donating blood, there's a can of repellent up here,” he called out. Through the dusky shadows, he smiled at Raina. “Specially formulated to ward off the Minnesota state bird.”

“Mosquitos?”

“Want some? I think there's a hole in the screen somewhere.” She shook her head. “Not your scent, huh? Yours is more flowery.” He leaned across the arms of the wicker chairs they occupied, the arm of his touching the arm of hers, and drew a deep breath. Another mistake, he thought, as his blood rushed to harden his sex. That scent was all it took. “The same one you always wore.”

“One bottle lasts me a long time,” she said, as though it might possibly be a relic from years past. “Actually, I haven't worn it in a while. I haven't been dressing up much, or…” It sounded like an apology. “Perfume is one of the frivolities I'd all but given up lately.”

“Nice touch for a fishing expedition.” He wanted to keep his thoughts to himself, so he teased, “Classy bait.”

“It wasn't—”

“Intentional, I know.” It was working its magic on him, anyway. “I don't know what to make of this visit, Raina. After all this time, you suddenly show up with—”

“Peter. I came for Peter's sake.” By way of apology, she touched his arm. “That's becoming a familiar refrain for me, isn't it? And it's not the whole truth.” Her sigh seemed distant in the near darkness. “I never intended to stay away. I enjoyed teaching here. We had friends here, and Jared's family, of course. I suggested to him once that we leave the rat race and come back here. I thought maybe he'd like to offer the Pine Lake Band his legal services, and I could go back to teaching.” She sighed and shook her head, remembering her husband's answer. “‘You can't go home again,' he'd say. And that always bothered me.”

“Why?”

“Because I was afraid it was because of me that he stayed away. Because of me that he was so—” she waved her hand, the gesture evaporating into the shadows “—driven to succeed. And that's what killed him. That's what—”

“Are you looking for credit or blame?” His tone sounded sharper than he'd intended. He tempered it. “Either way, you're way off base. Jared was always ambitious. I'm surprised he came back here when he did, even for a short time.” He remembered Jared's explanation. The high school history teacher had quit in the middle of the school year, and Jared needed to earn some money so he could continue with law school. “But if he hadn't, he wouldn't have met you.”

“If you hadn't introduced us…”

“It might have prolonged the agony for, what, another week?” He'd told himself they would have met, anyway,
even though she was an elementary schoolteacher. For some reason, Gideon had wanted it to be
his
idea when she met his brother.

“What agony?”

“You and me.” He chuckled, remembering. “Fire and ice.”

“You were the one who had a thing for ice.”

“You bet I did.”

“And a thing for fire
water.
”

“That, too,” he admitted quietly. “Which wasn't your style. And neither was I.”

“Nor I yours. So you introduced me to your brother.”

After several moments of seemingly respectful silence, he asked, “Do you miss him, Raina?”

She turned, ready to challenge his insolence, but the words dissolved on the tip of her tongue when she saw the distant look in his eyes. And the sadness.

“Do you ever think you hear his voice and go looking out the window, just for a second actually expecting him to be there?”

“Your voice sounds exactly like his on the phone.” She remembered his call early one morning. No hello, no name, just a voice, a continuation of a dream. He'd said he was sending her some old yearbooks. She'd struggled to find more than a two-word answer. “A bit unsettling in kind of a bittersweet way,” she told him now in the hope that, if he remembered, he would forgive her reticence after the fact.

But he had other recollections to share.

“We were close when we were kids, up until he went away to boarding school. They wanted me to go, too, but…” He shook his head, the way he had back then. “No way. I'd heard all about how strict those teachers were. Make you study so hard you get cross-eyed. When Jared had to get glasses, I got
to say ‘I told you so.' I don't know why, but he really liked that. Studied so hard he had to have glasses.”

Gideon slid down and rested his head against the back of the chair. “He was there for three or four years before they sent him home. They found out he had a heart murmur, and I guess he'd been sick with pneumonia, and they were scared something might happen to him. He looked okay to me. All I know is, it nearly killed him right then, 'cause he was making straight
A
's. He said the school here was too easy for him.” Gideon shook his head slowly, rolling it back and forth against the chair. “Damn show-off. Too
easy
for him. I was lucky to graduate.”

“He said you hated school.”

“He was right. Damn desks were too small.”

“He thought he'd outgrown his heart problem,” she recalled. “At least, that was what he told me.”

“He knew it all, my brother. Knew all there was to know about everything. Damn walking encyclopedia.” He turned his head her way. “I used to think he could probably walk on water and recite the Bible backwards if he wanted to. And it was the kind of thing he just might do if somebody challenged him to.” His smile was a bright spot in the dark. “Me, I couldn't see taking up a challenge unless there was some fun in it.”

“We saw so little of you after we were married, Gideon.” She looked him in the eye, challenging him for the truth. “Why was that?”

“You were busy, and I was…you know, knockin' around.” He turned his attention to the ceiling. “You think you've got all the time in the world, you know? You tell yourself, maybe next summer, maybe Christmas. Last time I talked to him, I called to tell him I was running for chairman. I thought, if I got elected, we'd kinda be—” with a wave of a hand, he minimized the notion “—on equal footing in a way.”

“In what way?”

“I don't know. Importance, I guess. Here we're like an apple and an orange, but I'm thinkin”—” He cut off the comparison so abruptly, she thought he'd bitten his tongue. “Forget I said apple. I didn't mean apple. I'd give anything just to have one day back—one
hour.
”

“What's wrong with ‘apple'?”

“You know, red on the outside, white on the inside. Some of the more traditional members of the band get disgusted when—” He gave a quick shrug. “I remember calling him that a time or two, along with a few other things. I had no right to judge my brother. Right now, today, I'd like to hear some of his answers. But damn him, he took them all with him.”

“Tribal law wasn't his field,” Raina said quietly.

“Doesn't matter. He'd have the answers. He always did.
Good
answers, not just bull—”

“I miss him, too, Gideon.” There, she thought. She'd finally answered his original question. She'd made him work for it, too. It was the biggest chunk of himself he'd ever shared with her. He'd earned some trust. “So does Peter. Peter has so many questions about so many things. Things I only know about secondhand.”

“Because you're a woman?”

“And because I'm not Chippewa.” She sighed. “And also, I guess, because I know very little about his background. Jared was able to make all the arrangements through the tribal court, even though he was born in a Minneapolis hospital. That's where we got him. He was so little, so…” Her wistful smile faded. “Anyway, I know he needs…someone like you.” She shook her head. “No—
you.
He needs you, Gideon. You're his uncle. You
are
Chippewa, and you're—”

“Hell, lately some people have called
me
‘apple.' Taste of
my old insult, comin' back at me.” He chuckled humorlessly. “Anyway, I can't replace—”

“We're not looking for a replacement,” she assured him. “Or answers, really. Peter needs to learn how to find his own answers.”

“What does he want to know? Who his parents are?” He peered at her, his eyes burning with the question. Abruptly he turned away. “The answer to that is you and Jared.”

“He knows he's adopted.”

“He knows you raised him. That makes you his mother.”

“He needs to learn more about his Native heritage, Gideon. And with Jared gone…”

“Jared didn't know his heritage from—” Jared had answers, but not
those
answers, damn it. Those were the answers Gideon had. At least, he had
some.
A few. “Look, Raina, the problem is that this whole treaty rights issue is pretty dicey right now, and people are circling their wagons up here.” He chuckled. “Some analogy, huh?”

“It's an interesting choice of words.”

“These are interesting times. It can be tricky just figuring out who your friends are. Tell you what—we'll take in the powwow tomorrow, give Peter a taste of smoked fish and frybread. How's that?”

“Will you take us canoeing before we go?”

“I could,” he supposed. “With a canoe you can avoid the boat landings. One of these days I'm liable to blow my cool and bash somebody's face in. Then I'd sure as hell make the front page of every newspaper in the state. And not the way I'd want to.”

She touched the back of his hand with her cool fingertips. “After what I saw today, I don't know how you've resisted this long.”

“No choice.” Her soft touch had the same effect on him
as her scent had. Old reflex, he told himself. The evening shadows covered for him nicely. “Anything I do reflects on the people. Gotta mind my manners.” He smiled playfully. “Mostly.”

“I won't ask what ‘mostly' means.”

 

It meant that as long as he was playing the gentleman escort, he would behave himself and dress the part. Gideon's idea of dressing up coincided in some ways with Raina's. He broke out a bottle of men's cologne that reminded him of the north woods on a chilly spring evening. He thought he could detect a hint of spruce, a touch of balsam and a splash of fresh water from a swift, icy current. And he wore his dress shoes—moccasins with floral beadwork—and his hair-pipe choker with the abalone shell tickling his Adam's apple. The small leather bag he wore tucked inside his shirt was generally not for show, but the beaded belt was.

Damn, he felt good-looking.

It was too hot for the sport jacket he usually wore for official occasions. And the jeans, well…short or long, jeans were always Gideon.

The powwow was held in a traditional circular bowery. The focus was music and dancing, and the costumes splashed color in every corner of the fairgrounds. The prizes for the dance contests drew dancers from out of state, and even though styles had blended in recent years, Gideon was able to point out the differences between the American Chippewa and the Canadian Cree moccasins, both with floral beadwork. He noted the Ojibwa influence on the local Dakota designs, as opposed to those of their Western Lakota cousins. There were even visitors from the Southwest, and Raina was impressed with Gideon's knowledge of Zuni, Hopi and Navaho silver work, which was available for sale at some of the stands.

Peter was interested in everything that was going on around him—the costumes, the dance steps, the people, the food—but Raina could tell he was feeling a little awkward. He was like a saddle horse's colt catching a glimpse of a herd of mustangs. Was this really who he was? If he left his mother's side, would those strangers let him run with them, or would they kick up their heels in his face and leave him standing there looking stupid?

“What do you like to eat, Peter?” Gideon asked as they approached the chow wagon. “Corn dogs or Indian tacos?”

Peter checked the list of choices on the sign next to the sliding window. “What's frybread?”