Eagle, Kathleen (5 page)

"You
still have some issues with your father," she said carefully, still
waiting for his decision on a card. "But as far as the case being..."

"Issues?"
He
shook his head, admonishing her with a look, then a laugh. "Closure and
issues. You want to be careful about throwing that kind of psycho bullshit
around. Somebody might mistake you for a therapist. Or is that part of a
dealer's job?" He signaled, finally, that he would stay. "Gamblers
cry on your shoulder much?"

"No.
I'm just a machine. Almost as impersonal as a slot."

"As
a..."

"Slot"
she
said with a coy smile. "Machine."

"Ah."
He sat back, smiling because he was enjoying this exchange and because he had a
winning hand this time. "They don't talk back."

"And
I'm not supposed to. I'm supposed to shut up and deal the cards." She had
to draw to her sixteen, and she broke with an eight.

"I'm
more interested in the dealer than the cards, but please go ahead and deal. In
my game, when you're tied you have to keep playing."

"The
odds are against—"

He
glanced past her at the man who'd just appeared on the landing near the bar.
"Better shut up and deal. Your boss is looking."

"Your
brother?"

"I
have issues with him, too." He placed his next bet, the signal for another
hand. "My head is all messed up, Doctor Dealer. What I need is a new deal.
All new cards. Can you help me out?"

"The
best I can do is hit you."

"As
cold as that sounds, it's still real tempting, coming from you." He looked
at his cards. "But I can't take much of a hit. Pretty close to the edge
here, Doctor. Can you advise me?"

"No."

"I'll
take what I can get, then. Hit me. Hard, if you want." He looked up,
offered a slow, enticing smile.

Left
him feeling pretty silly when she didn't bite.

"What
you said about your father's case being closed, were you... I mean, it isn't
really closed, is it? The police..." She gave him a card, which they both
ignored.

"It
was hit-and-run. They figure the hitter had been running for a good sixteen,
eighteen hours by the time they found the body. Had a good head start. They
won't catch up to him."

"But
they're trying, aren't they?"

"They
say they are, but this is the rez. Crimes go unsolved here all the time. Our
own cops and courts don't do the big ones, the felonies. That's federal, which
is another world." He shrugged, glanced away, swallowed some resentments
he figured he'd inherited, the ones that came wrapped around your neck when you
were born on a reservation. "Anyway, what difference does it make? If they
find the driver, what, we've got more closure?"

"At
least you'll know for sure what happened. It's a terrible thing to just drive
away."

"You're
right about that. I'm good with this hand." He signaled that he was
staying with his cards, and he was working on a follow-up to the hand hint when
he noticed his brother ambling down the five carpeted steps as if he owned the
place. Damn, he was about to butt in and likely take over. Good old Mr. Smooth.

Helen
turned over the card they'd both lost interest in seeing. "And the thing
is, your father was an important man who had a lot of"—she glanced up at
Reese as she claimed the bet he'd just lost—"irons in the fire."

"How're
we doing over here?" Carter asked, moving in next to Helen. "I do
believe this is the first time my brother has actually set foot in our
establishment. What do you think of all this? Not too bad for a little
halfway-to-nowhere rez, huh?"

"It's..."
Reese made a pretense of taking a survey. "Flashy."

"Not
like what you're used to in the Cities, but for around here, this is
excitement. Not so much this time of day. Nights and weekends we draw quite a
crowd. This lady right here draws a crowd." Helen questioned the claim
with a look, and Carter grinned like a proud papa. "You do. The cowboys
wait in line for a seat at your table." He slid Reese a sly wink. "One
guy told me he just liked watching her hands."

"Good
way to lose your shirt," Reese said.

"Not
here. We're only interested in your money. Right, Helen? Gotta watch this guy.
If he starts betting his clothes, you call me."

"Yes,
I will, Mr. Marshall."

"Didn't
anyone offer you something to drink?" Carter signaled a woman with a tray.
"What's your pleasure? You know, you ought to take a look at the lodge,
brother. You'd be more comfortable here than out at the ol' man's place. I stay
here a lot myself. You don't know what kind of restless spirits might be
wandering around out there.
Gigis,
you know."

Reese
accepted a soft drink since the young woman had gone to the trouble of making
the detour. "When did you start worrying about
gigis?"

"After
my big brother left me with no protection." Carter washed the dry joke
down with his own drink, then hoisted the glass in his brother's direction.
"He went away and left me stranded with a bunch of ghosts. The old man was
stuck in the past. It was getting to the point where all he really wanted to do
was hold us back."

Us
meaning
the tribe. Reese still thought it remarkable that Carter had been able to turn
around so completely. Their mother had died shortly after Carter was born, and
a priest had persuaded their father to give the baby up. The church had placed
Carter with a white family in New York. Rose had gone to live with their
grandmother. Reese was old enough to go to school and make up his own mind, and
when his father had asked him whether he wanted to go away, too, he'd said no.
So he had stayed and looked after Roy. In his mind, that was what he was doing,
even though he was only about six.

Years
later, when Roy had dragged Carter back kicking and screaming from the
Marshalls of New York, Reese couldn't help wondering what the point of it was,
besides the fact that Carter was some kind of whiz kid and Reese was just
another Indian ball player. Roy had said that it was important for Carter to
know who he was, and since he'd been instrumental in getting the Indian Child
Protection Act through Congress, he was bound and determined to use it to get
his son back. Carter had been so miserable in Indian schools that eventually
Roy had let him finish up at a private school. But when he'd gone to Harvard
and discovered the term "Native American," Carter had stopped
kicking.

And
now he was managing the casino. Good for him, Reese thought. He looked good in
his blazer with the Bad River Sioux symbol embroidered on the breast pocket. He
was obviously pretty proud of who he was now and what he did, and Reese didn't
doubt that he was successful at it. His brother was smart as a fox.

But
the idea that the old man had wanted to hold
us
back inexplicably rubbed
Reese the wrong way.

"When
are you heading for home?" Carter asked.

"I
don't know yet."

"Not
before we play a little one-on-one," Carter said. "Sarah says if I
bring you along I can have Sunday dinner with her and the kids. I've been
living pretty much in the doghouse lately, but you could help me get back in
her good graces, and the kids would get a charge out of watching their dad play
round ball with their uncle."

"Yeah,
now
you want to play me."

"Hell,
you can still play an amateur like me, can't you? You're not
that
damn
stove up."

Reese
laughed. "Stove up" wasn't a Carter Marshall kind of expression.
"I'll bring the blindfold, little brother. How bad do you want me to make
you look in front of your kids?"

"You're
coming out, then? Hey, great." Carter nodded to a man with a walkie-talkie
on the upper level, indicating he'd be there soon. "You come, too, Helen.
And Rose, let's make it—"

"Rose
left. I drove her to the airport. Her flight was this morning, remember?"
Reese smiled when Carter whacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. The
truth was that Carter and Rose hardly knew each other. "She said to tell
you good-bye. You gonna help me with the ol' man's stuff?"

"You're
not serious, are you? About burning it?" He tapped Helen on the arm with
the back of his hand. "You'd think a guy like this would have given up the
blanket a long time ago, right? He thinks he has to torch the personal effects
or one of our local
gigis
is gonna get him."

"It's
what he would want. There are times when you just do it out of respect. But
anything you want to keep, other than..." Reese glanced at Helen. This
wasn't something they needed to be discussing in front of her.

"He
left it up to you," Carter pointed out. "He even put it in writing,
which sure surprised the hell out of me, that he'd bother with a will. But he
did, and it's out of respect that I'm leaving it all in your capable
hands."

Reese
shrugged. "I didn't know you two were on the outs."

"How
could you? You haven't been around enough to—" Carter started backing
away. The guy with the walkie-talkie was still waiting. "This isn't gonna
come between you and me, Blue. You're here, and that's good. For however long
you can be here, that's great. You're coming for Sunday dinner. Both of
you." He headed up the stairs.

"Sunday
dinner," Reese mused. "Sounds wholesome, doesn't it? Sunday dinner,
family gathering, nice, big Blue Sky. What do you say, Helen?"

Her
hands were folded, looking prim and patient next to the chip rack. "It's
hard for me to get away."

"From
this?"

"I
have a crazy schedule," she said, and he knew
she
knew exactly how
lame that sounded. He looked her in the eye and waited. "I don't think
it's a good idea, Reese."

"Whatever
you say." He wasn't going to ask her twice. "I'll be staying at my
dad's for a while. He dumped a lot of loose ends in my lap by leaving the place
to me. Said Carter wouldn't want it. I don't know what made him think
I
would, but..." He tapped the edge of the table with a fist and rose from
the stool. "So that's where I'll be."

She
nodded.

"Looks
like that line's forming." He jerked his chin, indicating the approach of
a couple of those cowboys Carter had mentioned, and he'd be damned if he was
going to share her with them. "Thanks for the lesson. You're still a good
teacher."

Getting
out of the casino turned out to be trickier than getting in. Reese hadn't been
home in a while, and it felt good to be recognized and remembered by old
friends and newly discovered shirttail relations rather than just basketball
fans. He was greeted by a cousin who used to help his father put up hay in the
summer and was now eager to tell him about his job in the casino restaurant. He
remembered going to school with one of the security guards, and there was a
cashier who had been a cheerleader back in the old days. "Hey, Titus is
here," she told him, and she pulled out her walkie-talkie. "Have you
seen him yet?"

"Titus
Hawk? He was at the funeral, but there were so many..."

So
many faces, and some had surely changed more than others, but Titus still had
that hook-billed nose and the scraggly goatee the team used to razz him about.
He'd been a quick, feisty guard, and he was still lean and wiry, still took a
boxer's stance, threw a playful punch, finally offered a handshake. Yeah, Reese
said, he could use some coffee. They found an empty table in a corner near the
bar and sat down to relive the glory days. Titus gave Reese a glimpse of
himself in terms of contemporary Bad River folklore. Once merely bigger than
average, he was now stronger, smarter, richer, cooler, better, and badder. He
owned the world.

"Might
as well pop that bubble right now," Reese said with a laugh. "I own a
limo service, some interest in a small chain of sporting goods stores, some
property that needs developing, some property that I never want to see
developed, a condo, and a cat that somebody dumped on me."

"What,
no yacht?"

Reese
shrugged. "Got a pretty nice canoe. Oh, and a Cherokee."

"A
Cherokee? What are they good for?"

Reese
caught the twinkle in his old friend's eye and bounced it back to him.
"Hell, she irons my shirts."

They
shared another laugh, proving to each other that some things hadn't changed.
Then Titus said, "Why don't you come home? We could use a limo service. I
don't like the idea of Reese Blue Sky chauffeuring them rich eastern Sioux
around."

Reese
chuckled. "They're not all rich."

"That
Mystic Lake bunch is, though, south of the Twin Cities there."

"They
did their time being poor."

"Like
you?"

"What,
you gotta be poor to be Sioux?"

"Lakota,"
Titus
chided. "We're Lakota again, man. Didn't you see the sign when you crossed
the river into Indian country? We took our real name back. Bad River Lakota
Nation."