A Certain Kind of Hero (7 page)

Gideon's glance told Raina that she'd neglected her son's culinary education.

“I don't know how to make it,” she explained.

“You take a bunch of bread dough, smash it down, cut a piece off—” his quick hands made air frybread as he explained “—make a slit, drop it in hot lard….” He peered through the window. “You got any fresh frybread in there, Ron? I mean
fresh.
” Shoving his hand into his pocket for money, Gideon turned to relay the cook's nod to the outside world. Then, in competition with the fan inside, he shouted into the window again. “We've got a guy out here who's never had frybread.”

A round, sweaty, bespectacled face appeared in the window, followed by a paper plate with the sought-after sample. Ron adjusted his glasses and gave Peter the once-over. “
This
guy's never had
frybread?
”

“Boarding-school kid,” Gideon said as he pushed some bills across the counter. With a conspiratorial wink, he handed Peter the plate. “Spends all his summers at Disney World.”

“Geez, poor little guy. What did he cut his teeth on?”

“Mouse tail.”

Peter nearly choked on his first mouthful of frybread.
Gideon laughed and slapped him on the back. “If you like this part, we'll have the works. Indian tacos. How about it?” Peter nodded, and Gideon ordered three.

“Two for me,” said a voice at Gideon's back.

“Marvin, hey.” Gideon wasn't sure Marvin Strikes Many would accept his handshake. But it was powwow time, time to socialize, so Marvin relented.

Gideon breathed a sigh of relief. He wanted everything to go smoothly today. No politics, no taking any stands. He shoved his hands in his back pockets and grinned. “Is your oldest boy around? I've got someone I want him to meet. My brother Jared's boy, Peter.”

Peter was a little slow on the uptake with the older man's proffered handshake, but he had a mouthful of frybread to contend with.

“And this is Raina, Peter's mother.”

Marvin nodded, then gave a gesture toward the bowery, where the afternoon elimination rounds were taking place in the dance contests. “Tom's over dancing right now. Competing in men's traditional. It's his first year in twelve-to-eighteen.”

“Is that Arlen Skinner judging?” Gideon frowned slightly, craning his neck to get a look past the lineup of younger boys dressed in colorful double bustles, waiting outside the circle for their turn to dance. “Haven't seen him around in a while.”

“Some of us parents got together and asked him to come out and judge the dance contests,” Marvin reported with a clear sense of satisfaction. “Arlen's one of the real traditionals. He knows how it's supposed to be done.”

Gideon watched the old man take one of the boys aside and demonstrate a dance step, shuffling his moccasins in the grass.

“He sure does. It's good when the old ones do the teaching.” He glanced Peter's way and gave an instructional nod. “It's good when the young ones pay attention to them.”

“Arlen can still bring a buck down with an arrow.”

“He uses a compound bow,” Gideon pointed out as he indicated, again with a nod, that Marvin should help himself to the first two plates of Indian tacos Ron had served up.

“Nothing wrong with taking advantage of an improvement.” Marvin handed his money through the window and claimed the plates. “But Arlen still knows his culture. Knows his rights, too.” Hands full, he nodded his goodbyes and headed for the bowery.

“Good seeing you, Marvin,” Gideon said to the man's heels. “Glad you've got no hard feelings over that deer.”

Marvin plunked his plates on a bleacher seat, turned and watched the threesome wander from the chow wagon to the pop stand before he took exception to Gideon's assumption under his breath.

“What're you mutterin' about, nephew? Complainin' about the judging?” Arlen Skinner gave a dry laugh as he hiked his arthritic bones up to the plank seating and pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket. “Your boy did real good.”

“We've been working on his costume. Can you use some chow?”

The old man shook his head. “Could use a match,
ninininqwanis.
”

Marvin fished in his jeans pocket for a match for the man who called him his nephew. With his free hand he waved his son down. “Got something over here for you to eat.”

He offered Arlen a light, but his attention strayed back to the motley trio at the pop stand. Motley from his perspective, anyway. “What do you think of how Defender's doing as chairman?”

“I don't pay much attention to politics.” Arlen blew a stream of smoke and turned a cursory glance toward the man who held Marvin's interest. He registered his reaction with a grunt. “Looks like he's got himself a pretty white girlfriend.”

“That's his brother's wife,” Marvin informed him. “His brother Jared. The one that moved to the city and died of a heart attack.”

“You mean the lawyer? That's his wife?” Arlen pulled the cigarette from his mouth and took another look. “She don't look Indian.”

“Nope.” Marvin wagged his head. “The boy sure takes after his dad.”

“His dad?” Arlen squinted, staring harder now in a manner that would have been rude, had it not been necessary. “You're talking about the lawyer? The lawyer was that boy's dad?”

“Hardly looks like a half-breed.”

“If that's Jared Defender's boy, and if that's his only son, then he's no half-breed. He's my grandson.” Arlen took another drag on his cigarette, squinting through the smoke for a last look before he finally turned away, muttering, “The one my daughter gave away.”

G
ideon had promised to bring his canoe over to the lodge the following morning, and they planned to launch their outing from there. Raina had popped down to the little grocery store early and put together a picnic lunch, but she was beginning to think she would have to make a second trip if Gideon didn't show up soon. Peter had already eaten half the fruit she'd bought. He was working on a banana when Gideon called to say he would be a few minutes late. What he'd planned as a quick stop at his office was turning into a little more than that, he explained. Raina graciously refrained from mentioning that he'd long since passed a few minutes. Instead, she told him not to worry about it.

“He says he really wants to go, and we'll be doing him a favor if we hang in and wait,” Raina reported as she hung up the phone.

“Jeez, Mom, he's like the president of the tribe. He's probably got a lot of stuff going on all the time.” Peter dropped
the banana peel into the wastebasket, propped his feet up on the chair opposite the one he occupied and checked the grocery bag for another selection. “I wonder what Mark and Eric would say if I told them my uncle was a tribal chief.”

“I'm surprised you haven't told them,” she said absently as she turned for a backward inspection of her outfit in the mirror. She wasn't sure she liked the way the blue looked tucked into the white. “Can you see my shirt through these shorts?”

“Kinda.” Peter was more interested in slurping every drop of juice dripping from the plum he'd just bitten into. “It came up in a class once.” His mouth was still half-full, so the words sounded juicy. “Social studies.” He swallowed and licked his lips. “We were talking about current events. One of the other guys heard the name Defender on the news and asked if I was related. I said I didn't know.”

“Why did you say that?”

“'Cause I don't.” He shrugged and popped the rest of the plum into his mouth. After he spat the pit into the wastebasket, he allowed, “Not by blood, anyway. Figured I can say I'm related, or I can say I'm not. Depends on how you look at it and who's askin'.”

“What would you say now?” she wondered, the shorts forgotten.

He had to think about that one. “I guess I
feel
like he's my uncle.”

“Good.” She tried to ruffle his hair, but he leaned away. “Did you enjoy the powwow?” she asked.

“Sure, it was okay.” He reached for a magazine that was lying on the table next to the grocery bag. “I think I'd like to try spearfishing.”

“It's legal during the ice-fishing season,” Raina recalled.
“Maybe this winter we can come back and ask your uncle Gideon to—”

“Oscar says the best time for spearing is in the spring.” After a quick scrutiny, he tossed the schedule aside and snatched up another banana. “He says there's supposed to be a big celebration, traditional ceremonies, stuff like that. And there will be, once all this argument about who's got the say over how Indians do their fishing is settled. Oscar says it's a treaty right, and it's got nothing to do with state laws.”

“They're working on some sort of compromise so that the Chippewa can resume the practice peacefully, without—”

The knock at the door prompted another mirror check, which confirmed Peter's assessment. The blue
did
show through the white shorts. “Too late now,” Raina muttered on her way to the door.

But the man on the other side was not the one she was expecting. This one was wearing a uniform, a sidearm and a badge.

“Mrs. Defender?”

“I'm Raina Defender, yes.”

“Cletus Sam. I'm a tribal police officer.” He nodded politely, then glanced over her head, into the room. “I'm looking for Peter Defender. I'm carrying a court order for his—”

Court order?
Raina folded her arms, squared her shoulders and took a wide stance in the doorway. “Peter hasn't done anything. He's been with me ever since we got here.”

The officer produced a piece of paper with an official letterhead. “The judge issued an order for him to be taken into the custody of—”

“Custody?”
Raina stepped back into the room, instinctively falling back to protect her child as she examined the document with Peter's name on it, signed by Judge Gerald Half. The
names registered clearly enough, although the judge's was not familiar to her, but the rest made no sense.

She scanned the document again, but her eyes were working faster than her brain. “What does this mean—‘the terms of the Indian Child Welfare Act,' and this part about biological family members?”

“May I come in, ma'am?”

Raina gave a tentative nod. “I don't have the papers with me, but I assure you that I can prove that I am legally Peter's mother.”

“All I know is the boy is an enrolled member of the Pine Lake Band of Chippewa.”

“Yes, he is. So was my husband. We adopted Peter when he was a baby, and it was all perfectly leg—”

“Are you Peter?”

The policeman turned to the table, where the boy sat with the first bite of his second banana still in his mouth, looking from one adult to the other in total confusion. He nodded hesitantly.

“You wanna come with me?” Officer Sam asked, as gently as he might have petitioned a much younger child. “We're just goin' over to see Judge Half, over to the court.”

“I didn't do anything,” the boy said quietly.

“Nobody says you did, Peter. The judge will explain.” Officer Sam nodded to Raina and spoke just as quietly. “You can sure come, too, ma'am.”

But Raina's voice was on the rise. “Gideon Defender is Peter's uncle. He'll straighten this whole thing out as soon as he hears—”

“Maybe he will, Mrs. Defender. But the court is separate from the chairman, so I've got to do like the judge told me.” He gestured toward the paper, which was still in Raina's hand. “Gideon's office is right across the street, though, so you can
go right on over there and see what he has to say. I mean, it's not like anybody wants to do any—”

“I'm interested in hearing what this
judge
has to say.” She perused the document again, but the words wouldn't stay in focus, and the paper seemed to burn her fingers. “This is ridiculous. Peter has nothing to do with welfare, or whatever that act is supposed to mean.”

She stared at the man, hoping to convince him, searching for the magic words that would make such perfect sense that he would take his paper and go back where he'd come from. “I'm the one who's raised him. I'm his
mother.
”

“Yes, ma'am.” The officer turned to Peter again. “Nobody is going to hurt you, son. You're not in any trouble. The judge just wants to see you in his office. He'll explain everything.”

 

She was doing all right until the judge asked her to wait outside his office while he talked with Peter. “I have no jurisdiction over you,” the portly man with bulldog jowls explained. “Only the boy.”

Over her objections, Cletus Sam directed her to a chair, but it was on the other side of the door to the room she ought to be in. The room where Peter was. This was not defensible. She definitely had parental rights.
Legal
rights.

Gideon's blue pickup was parked across the street. Right across the street! Surely he could see what was going on here. Why wasn't he doing something about this? Raina fumed to herself. Getting herself in a huff expanded her confidence as she marched past his assistant and through the door labeled Chairman's Office.

Taken off guard, the assistant was a little late in sliding her chair back from her desk. “You can't walk in without—”

Standing next to his desk with a handful of papers, Gideon turned in surprise. Dressed in a T-shirt and cutoffs, he clearly
hadn't planned to spend the morning on official business. He looked poised, in fact, to set the rest aside.

“Gideon, thank God,” she breathed.

He smiled sheepishly as he selected one paper and put the rest in a desk tray. “I'm sorry to keep you waiting, Raina. I think that phone has eyes. I ought to know better than to—”

“Gideon, what in heaven's name is going on?” She closed the door and approached him tentatively. “Did you know that your judge sent a policeman over to the lodge to arrest Peter this morning?”

Gideon's eyes widened incredulously. “
Arrest
…Peter?”

“Yes.” She nodded once, then shook her head in confusion. “Well, take him into custody because of some child welfare law that says he can just take
my
son into
his
custody. I don't understand how—”

“Where is he now? Where is Peter?”

She gestured with an unsteady hand. “Right across the street.” In two strides he was at her side, turning her toward the door while she was still sputtering, “You have to
do
something, Gideon.”

On his way past his assistant's desk he tossed a letter under her nose. “You know what to do with this, Rosie?”

“Sure. Slam-dunk it into file thirteen.”

“No, you send out the standard reply. The Pine Lake Band has no intention of depleting the lake of all the fish, which were here before the Chippewa, who were here long before the North Woods Anglers Club started its annual fishing derby,
which
we wouldn't dream of interfering with, et cetera, et cetera.” Half of him was guiding Raina toward the outside door, the other half reaching back, still pointing to the letter. “Those guys spend a lot of money at the casino.”

“They say they're going to
boycott
the casino,” Rosie
pointed out. “Maybe you ought to call this guy, or else maybe—”

“Tell them we hope they'll reconsider. Just say—”

“Excuse me, Gideon.” Raina tugged on his arm. “Peter doesn't understand what's going on any more than I do, and he's probably scared.”

“Thanks, Rosie. Gotta see what the hell's goin' on across the way here.”

Gideon opened the front door and ushered Raina into the late morning sunlight. “The Indian Child Welfare Act,” he explained as they walked. “That's the law they're probably talking about. It's a federal law, and in Minnesota there's also a state law. The idea is to keep the children from being taken away from the tribe.”

“What are you talking about, Gideon? We adopted Peter when he was a baby. Jared and I—”

“He's Chippewa. Somebody must have taken a notion to file a complaint of some kind.”

“A
complaint?
”

They waited at the curb, both of them watching a car cruise by. The driver gave a nod, and Gideon returned the greeting. Then he turned to Raina. “I'm not sure why anyone would in this case, but you might need an attorney. We'll have to—”

“There's nothing to complain about. That judge has no right to take my son. Gideon, did you say something, or did someone approach you about—”

He shook his head. “I didn't know anything about this. As long as Jared was alive, there was no problem. Now, maybe there could be.” He sighed as he stepped off the curb, thoughtfully eyeing the sign across the street that said LAW AND ORDER: Pine Lake Band of Chippewa. “Let's go see what kind of a problem. And how big.”

They found Peter and Arlen Skinner occupying two chairs
in the judge's chambers, exchanging sidelong glances as though neither was quite sure what to make of the other. Raina didn't know what to make of any of it, but she was relieved to find that Peter hardly looked scared, although he did still look confused. At Gideon's request, the judge admitted her into the office. He introduced the old man, Arlen Skinner, as Peter's grandfather.

“Grandfather?” Raina echoed softly, trying the word out on her own tongue. She knew she was supposed to approach an elder with a respectful handshake, but her feet wouldn't move. She knew she wasn't supposed to stare, but she couldn't help it.

Peter's biological grandfather?

“Here's the paperwork on this so far.” The judge handed Gideon a file folder.

“Why didn't you talk to me about this before you served any papers, Judge?” Gideon looked the documents over, but he had a good idea what they would say. “This was some pretty fast work.”

“Since the boy was in the neighborhood, seemed like the sensible thing to do was serve the papers first, ask questions later.” The judge exchanged nods of previously determined agreement with the old man sitting quietly in the corner chair. “Peter here is a member of the Pine Lake Chippewa. He was enrolled by Tomasina Skinner, his birth mother. She didn't name his father. She's got him down as half Chippewa, so apparently his father wasn't a member of the band.”

“Is she…” Raina glanced from the judge's face to Gideon's and back again. “Is she trying to take him back now?”

“My daughter was killed in a car wreck,” Arlen said evenly. “Eight, nine years ago now.”

“Judge, my husband and I adopted Peter when he was a baby. Jared actually made the initial arrangements, but I
understand that Peter's mother—” The words, coming from her own mouth, stunned her.
She
was Peter's mother.

She turned slowly, like a player just enlisted for blindman's buff. A rising mire of uncertainty threatened to engulf her as she thrust her pleading gesture first in the judge's direction, then briefly toward the old man. But finally, as though she were awakening, recovering a full awareness of herself, she drew her hand back to her own chest.

“I…” She injected her voice with what starch she could muster and explained softly, “
I
was told that Tomasina, whom we never actually met, was allowed to choose the…to
choose
adoptive parents for Peter, and she chose us. We were looking for a child to adopt, and because Jared was Chippewa, we were…we were…”