Eagle, Kathleen (37 page)

"You
won't push Blue Sky on me? Or sunshine, or happy days, or this cock-eyed
smile?" She touched the corner of his mouth and made him smile.

"Or
a slightly screwed-up heart."

She
ignored that part. "I love you, Blue Sky. I'd love you if your name were
Tommy Tornado."

"It
would have to be Whirlwind. It's all in the translation." He tucked his
hand behind the hollow of her knees and dragged her legs across his lap.
"Do you want to start the coffee first, or go straight to the sex?"

"Straight
to the what?"

They
both sat up straight as Sid appeared in the hall doorway in his underwear.

"Sacks,"
Reese said with a one-sided grin. "I brought over some sacks of...
socks."

"I
don't
know whether to laugh or puke. Do you guys realize what time it is?" He
folded his lanky arms. "Was the house still there? How about the
horses?"

"We'll
go out in a while, and you can check it all out for yourself," Reese
promised.

"Good."
Sid turned to retreat, but couldn't resist one last shot of twelve-year-old
wit. "By the way, you're not married, so you can't be sharing socks. Or
sacks. Now get to bed, both of you, or you'll be zombies. Come on,
Crybaby."

The
dog hauled himself up off the floor and followed the boy as though it was a
lifelong routine.
Click, click, click
went the claws on the hall floor.

"He's
sure got a mouth on him," Reese said after the clicking stopped.

"He's
at his best when he's playing my own tape back at me."

"You
should go back to bed," he told her.

"For
what? There's no chance of falling asleep now."

"Wait."
He snatched the remote for the TV off the coffee table. "This works
great." He clicked, muted, ran the channels until he found some guy
singing to a girl. Or she was playing doctor, and he was showing her his
tonsils. "No sound. It's like an electronic hypnotist." He pulled a
knitted afghan off the back of the sofa and unfolded it over their legs.
"We got no rules against a guy watching TV with his girlfriend, do
we?"

She
looked down at her nightgown. "We have a dress code and a curfew."

"Not
if we're over twenty-one." He drew her back into his arms, and she cuddled
like a kitten. "I like the way you're dressed, but you need socks."
He wiggled his stockinged toes. "See, I've got socks."

"I
like your socks. Nice, big socks."

He
was content now, pleasantly tired. He closed his eyes, snuggling, drifting,
muttering, "I'm a nice, big man."

Both
her men were sleeping like angels. Helen had tucked a pillow beneath Reese's
head and covered the big stockinged feet with the afghan, which he'd already
kicked off, but he slept soundly. He would sleep until she returned, and then
she would make his coffee.

First,
though, she had to go knocking on Titus Hawk's trailer-house door.

It
was early, but he came to the door, yawning, surprised, then curious.

The
morning sun glinted off the aluminum siding as she squinted up at Reese's
friend from the wooden steps that led to his door. After greetings and
apologies for the early hour, she balanced her stance between two steps and
launched into her concern.

"I
want to ask you about the file you gave Reese on Peter Jones. We're wondering,
Reese and I, because we've been trying to put some pieces together with all
these strange happenings lately and..."

Titus
shifted his bare feet, scratched his scanty beard, took a swipe at his rooster
tail, all the while looking to her for the point.

"Why
wasn't his license approved?" she asked. He told her he hadn't made coffee
yet, but he stepped back and invited her inside.

She
said she hadn't, either. "As a matter of fact, I'm not here. I want to ask
you a few questions, but it's not exactly my job to ask these particular
questions. I'm strictly an observer."

"Posing
as a dealer?" Titus directed her to a kitchen stool next to the counter,
then turned to the sink to fill his coffeepot with water. "You're not just
posing with Blue, are you?"

"You've
met our son," she reminded him as she took a seat.

The
trailer was furnished mostly in brown, worn but serviceable seating. Helen
recognized a couple of chairs from the old high school, where she'd taught. She
knew that government castoffs were officially destroyed, and she was glad the
chairs had been salvaged. Much of Titus's furniture looked like salvage, but
she'd always been impressed by the way people in Bad River made do. It was a
lesson she would have done well to take to heart before she got caught up in
trying to turn twenty-dollar bills into hundreds.

Titus
noticed her checking his place out, and when she glanced at him, she saw his
knowing smile.

"He's
a real nice kid," he told her as he set the aluminum coffeepot on the
stove and turned on a gas flame. "If you've looked at the file, you know
why Jones's license was on hold. His application is incomplete. They kept
telling us he was okay, he'd worked for Ten Star, and his file was being
transferred. I said, 'Hell, no, I ain't giving him a license to deal cards here
until I know he's really who he says he is.' And that's where we are with
it."

"But
he's been working."

"Yeah,
I know. They do this all the time."

"Ten
Star?"

"We
get this runaround, and pretty soon the guy moves on. I don't know how our
commission is supposed to do its job without their cooperation." He set
two brown milk-glass mugs on the counter and brushed some crumbs onto the
floor. "Reese says his dad asked for an investigation, but he didn't tell
nobody."

"And
that was wise." She looked him in the eye. "So you've had more like
Jones."

"Oh,
yeah, a few. I went along for a while, but lately I've been denying licenses
left and right. So Ten Star complains that they're short-staffed because the
commission is sittin' on the applications. I say send over the right
applications."

"Good
for you."

"I
know for a fact that our people apply for training, and they get put on hold.
Guys like Jones, hell, they put those guys right to work."

"White
guys."

"They
say Jones is Indian, but I didn't see any documentation." He braced his
hands on the counter. "I figure, they put my people on hold, I can put
their people on hold."

"What
did Carter Marshall have to say about Jones?"

"Not
much. Darnell recommended him personally, though, like I'm supposed to approve
his license based on that. I ain't gonna do it."

"What
about Chairman Sweeney?"

"He
wants to go along with Darnell pretty much. They say Darnell gave three hundred
fifty horses for pretty-boy Preston." His expression would have been
deadpan except for the twinkle in his eye. "Hell, I wouldn't give that
many horses for Marilyn Monroe."

She
blinked, frowned a little, pondered this strange bribe. "Three hundred
fifty horses for..."

"A
pickup. See, Indians used to give horses for—" He shook his head as he
turned back to the stove. "Well, for a lot of reasons. Just kidding."

She
laughed, but she knew it was too late.

Maybe
not quite. He flashed her a quick smile as he poured her coffee. "They say
Sweeney got his new pickup from Ten Star, but it's just a rumor."

"Are
there rumors about Carter?"

"Yeah."
He lifted one shoulder as he poured for himself. "I don't know anybody
who's been out to his house in Rapid City, but there's talk that he's getting a
lot of money from somewhere. Blue's got a lot of money, though, so
maybe..." He returned the pot to the stove. "Carter runs the casino
pretty good. The everyday operation, the way he deals with people. He's working
hard, from what I can see."

"And
he's Reese's brother."

"And
you're investigating him," Titus said, joining her at the counter again.

"No."
She read the doubt in his eyes. "I'm looking for people like Peter
Jones."

"Well,
you can sure have that guy."

"I
wanted to understand why he was allowed to work without a license," she
explained. She sipped her coffee. It needed milk, but she wasn't going to ask.

"Because
Darnell put him in."

"With
Carter's blessing."

"Darnell's
still looking over Carter's shoulder. Carter might be the manager of
Pair-a-Dice City, but Darnell's
his
manager. That's what I see." He
set a box of sugar cubes in front of her and handed her a spoon. "I don't
think Carter has a lot of blessings to hand out, you wanna know the truth. I
think he's fresh out of blessings."

Helen
returned to the apartment, scanned the documents and the photograph from
Jones's personnel file, and e-mailed them to the area office. She also sent
copies to her FBI contact. Then she made breakfast for her slumbering angels.

It
was a joy to watch them together. They would steal looks at each other—such
boys, hanging onto the cool facade—but anyone who loved them knew the wonder
they both felt when they looked at each other and thought...

My
own father. A
man
who knew things Helen didn't know, like why Sidney had missed a shot last night
and why he had a blister on his foot this morning, who knew exactly where the
blister was without being told.

My
own son.
A
boy who held his fork overhand, exactly the way Reese did, whose dark, thick
hair fell over his forehead the same way, and who flashed the same mischievous
smile in his eyes.

How
could she have kept them apart?

All
her answers were as useless as her excuses, which were as useless as her
regrets. Following their lead, she stole her own looks, tuned in on their
"man talk," and savored the joy of seeing them together, eating the
food she'd prepared, sitting at the table she'd set for them.

They
made a plan to spend the morning at the ranch, then drive to the Black Hills,
where they would spend the night and put Sidney on the plane the following day.

It
was hard to tell, after they arrived there, what he thought of his
grandfather's small house, the modest outbuildings, the rustic bower made of
poles and cottonwood boughs. When Reese explained the ashes in the backyard,
Sidney remarked that he'd rather visit his grandfather's grave than Mount
Rushmore. Wordlessly Reese put his arm around the boy's shoulders, took Helen's
hand, and led them inside.

"This
is something he'd want you to see," he said of the ruined battlefield
model on the kitchen table. "He put a lot of work into this. I'm sorry it
got broken."

Sidney
examined the chicken-wire-and-plaster construction. "I could fix it pretty
easy. It's really cool, except..." He stole a glance at his father and
gave a quick shrug. "Well, you could put this on CD-ROM, and then it would
take up less space, and it would do things."

"You
could?"

"Somebody
could. Probably already has." He lifted a small Indian from the pile of
bodies that had been dumped into the river, the low spot in the terrain. One by
one, he picked up a soldier, a horse, a tipi. "But maybe this is
different. If a computer crashes, I can't do anything to fix it, but I could
always put this back together."

Then
he said tentatively, "I don't have to go back to camp for the last session."
He looked up at Reese, then Helen, his eyes suddenly bright with what he
thought was a winning bid. "I could hang with you guys and do stuff around
here. It's only a couple of weeks."

"Oh,
but..."
But?
Helen wanted nothing more than to have him stay.

"Jeez,
you know what, Sid? Things are really—" Reese glanced at her, and she
warned him with a look.
Don't say risky. Don't say unsafe.

He
laid a hand on Sidney's shoulder. "But what I'd like to do is drive out
with your mother at the end of the session to pick you up."

Sidney's
attention was fixed on the small figure in his hand.

"I
was thinking we could even show up a day or two early," Reese said,
looking to Helen for encouragement.

She
couldn't offer much more than a tight smile. Reese was making the noble effort,
and his cause was just. But she'd been a parent for twelve years and knew the
signs. Sidney was quietly arming himself against disappointment, and nothing
Reese could say right now would turn that around.

But
Reese kept trying.

"I
could maybe teach a little ball-handling if the folks in charge could fit me
into the schedule. I put on clinics and do summer camps for kids all the time,
so I know the drill." He patted Sidney's shoulder. "What do you
think?"

"You
don't want me to stay?" Sidney said to the little Indian in his hands.

"I
don't want you to miss out on a great program."

"But
I just... met you."

"You
give me a chance to work things out with your mom, you're gonna see more of me
than—"

"Work
things out with
her?"
The boy looked up. "What about me?"

"Both
of you."

"How're
you gonna work anything out with me if I'm in Colorado?"

"You're
gonna have to trust me when I tell you that I will.
We
will. We have the
will, and we'll be looking for the way." He rocked Sidney back and forth,
a buck-up gesture. "Meanwhile, you'll be finishing up this great
wilderness experience out there, and your mom—"

Sidney
tossed the plastic figure into the pile of bodies in the river and bolted for
the back door. "Didn't you guys say something about horseback riding?"

Reese
cast Helen a doubtful look. "We'll have to flip a coin to see who rides
double."

"I'm
not going unless I get my own horse," Sidney announced as he flung the
door open. Crybaby was waiting for him on the back step. The dog had to
scramble to get out of the way.

"Flip
you for the saddle?" Reese suggested to Helen as they followed their son.

"That
would be gambling."

"Right.
You've ridden this range more recently than I have, so I'll just ride the rump
and play backseat driver." He shrugged when she offered him a sympathetic
smile. "Maybe I took a wrong turn already."

"No,
you did fine."

But
she knew they hadn't heard the last of Sidney's petition. He would turn his
full attention on the horses as Reese showed him how to catch them in the
pasture by shaking oats in the bottom of a feed bucket. But he would bring it
up again when he'd thought of another approach. Helen knew her son, and she
could see that he was just as determined to stay as he had been to leave a
couple of days ago.

But
for now, the meager conversation turned to bridles and cinch straps as they
saddled the two horses in front of the barn. Helen noted the approach of
Carter's flashy white pickup with its sleek custom topper.

"I
need to talk to you," he told his brother with little more than a nod to
Helen and Sidney. "It's important."

"Off
the hook." Reese patted the black paint's rump. "You guys take a turn
around the estate, but don't be telling too many stories behind my back. I
don't want to miss anything."

Sidney
was making a study of ignoring him, pointedly avoiding his eyes, and it wasn't
out of respect. It was pure, heavy-duty adolescent pouting. Reese remembered
exactly the way it was done.