Eagle, Kathleen (9 page)

"You
want me to ship this thing to your son, I'll be glad to do it."

"What
about Carter's children?"

"I
offered. He said it would just be in the way at his house." Reese leaned
against the counter, feeling foolish about the rush her mere touch had just
given him. "I told him he oughta keep some stuff for his kids, but I think
he's pouting. I'm the one who ought to be pissed. It's nothing but a damn
headache."

Helen
stood, brushed crumbs from his shirt, put her plate on top of his. "So
you'll be around for a while?"

"A
couple of weeks at least." He smiled. "Maybe I'll take up
blackjack."

"Just
between you and me, it can become an expensive pastime. I don't recommend
it."

"No?
What do you recommend? Just between you and me."

"Riding.
Your dad has two—
you
have two very nice horses."

"Two's
good."

"In
fact, one of them is named Blackjack."

"General
Pershing." He could tell she was a little disappointed that he got the
connection before she had a chance to enlighten him. "It wasn't just
Custer and Crazy Horse. My dad was a soldier once, and he loved all kinds of
war stories. What's the other one's name?"

"Jumpshot."

Now,
that name did surprise him. There had been a time when basketball was the only
good thing they'd shared, but later, when he'd taken the ball and run with it,
run his own way, the old man had stepped back from him altogether, like a face
in a B-movie, ominously fading to black.

"He
was proud of you, Reese."

"Was
he? Did he tell you stories about me?"

"He
said you were busy and that he didn't get to see much of you. He said you
always gave him tickets to your games and that he tried to go as often as he
could."

"Which
wasn't often."

"He
said he didn't like to fly. But he loved watching you play. His face fairly lit
up at the mention of it."

"Lit
up?" He laughed. He'd seen him lit, but not the way she meant. "I
don't think I ever saw that."

He
hated the way these thoughts kept crowding into his head, even as he tried to
do these final things in a respectful way. Anger was useless and ugly. He
wanted Helen's memories now, those good things, respectful things, the fondness
he heard in her voice when she recounted them. "I haven't seen much of him
since I retired. I guess I didn't want to see what that did to his face."

"I
can tell you he worried about what it did to you," she said. "I
wanted to ask him more about your retirement."

He
glanced at her. She glanced away. It embarrassed her, his goddamn throwing-in
of the towel. It embarrassed him.

"Do
your injuries still give you problems?"

He
said nothing.

"I
remember reading about a back problem. Something about bone chips in your
ankle, too. But I see you still run."

"I
still run." He moved away from the counter and from her, but she followed.
"I'm a physical player," he explained, falling back on the old
defense. "I get in there and scrap. I have to make up for what I lack in
size and speed with something else, and my something else is—
was..." I
went down fighting.

"Heart,"
she said. He stared at her, dumbfounded, and she smiled. "I remember one
of the commentators saying you always put your whole heart into it, that you
were fun to watch because you played every game like it was a final
showdown."

"Did
your face light up when you heard that? It lit up when you said it." And
he felt incredibly relieved. It tickled him to see her blush, and tickled, he
always smiled. "Yeah, that's a good way to put it. I played from the
heart."

"Was
it your back? Was that the final straw?"

"It
was a combination of things. Nothing you want to hear about."
So chase
her away, away from that heart shit.
He folded his arms, took a hip-shot
stance, and gave her an utterly male snake-behind-the-back smile. "Sweaty,
twisted, bloody, pus-filled things you don't want to hear about."

"You've
just about convinced me."

"There's
a whole list of other terms, but those are the ones I can pronounce. Now, can I
offer you some more baloney?"

"This
was turkey." Her smile was sweet. "You look... very healthy."

"So
do you." He stepped closer. "Now what?"

"Now
we catch up?"

He
took that as an invitation to reach for her, but she foiled his intent.

"All
caught up," she said quickly, busying herself with putting food away. "We're
both healthy, your father is dead, and we're just sort of wondering why."

"He
got in the way of a pickup," he said offhandedly. "You must've been
hanging out with him a lot. Was he into blackjack?"

Reese
was half kidding, but when Helen slid him a guarded glance, he lifted an
eyebrow, his eyes demanding a reply.

She
shook her head, her negative reply barely mouthed. "So what was the
attraction?"

"I,
um..." There was something she wanted to tell him, but she was going to
make him dig for it. "My job."

"What
about your job?"

"He
helped me get it." She tossed their paper plates into the trash bag under
the sink. "Denver has become a difficult environment, at least where we
live. I wanted to come back to Bad River. It's a smaller community, and I still
have friends here." She closed the cabinet door and turned to face him.
"But things have changed."

"What's
changed? We've got ourselves a couple of flashy casinos, a little more money
floating around, more people coming through, more cars, more—"

"Crime.
More crime, Reese. More money means more crime. And your father might well have
been—"

"Now
wait a minute. I thought crime was supposed to go hand in hand with poverty.
You're gonna try to tell me that all the money you see rolling through your
casino is stirring up political trouble, corrupting the natives, and now
they're turning on each other, running each other down out there on the
highway?"

"It's
not my casino," she said. "It's your casino. I just work there."

"Then
you're getting more out of the place than I am. I just came home to..." He
shrugged. "I just came
back
to bury my father."

"You've
done that."

"Seems
there's more to it than putting him in the ground." He leaned against the
counter again, thinking how fine it felt to hang around the kitchen after a
meal and talk things over with a woman. This woman. They'd done the bedroom
scene together before, but never this kitchen scene. He'd probably been too
young for that. In those days he'd been a kitchen raider, not someone
interested in kitchen palaver. "So you think I oughta play
detective."

"I
didn't say that." She handed him a knife she'd washed. "But I think
that if Reese Blue Sky demands to know what happened to his father, and I mean
in a public sort of way, there'll be some people scrambling to get him some
answers. Other than just that your father got hit by a truck."

"They
want to appoint me to fill out the rest of his term. It's tradition, they say.
He's a fallen leader, and I'm his older son." He dropped the knife into a
drawer.

"Really?
You mean you'd be on the tribal council?"

"Until
the election in November. They say if I'm willing, the chairman can't refuse to
appoint me." He nudged the drawer closed with his thigh. "Apparently
it's true that there are two factions, two groups turning on each other, just
like you said."

"Like
you
said." She studied him, her arms wrapped around his billowy
shirt. "What if he died because someone wanted him dead, Reese?"

He
stared at her for a moment, wishing he could just crawl inside her head. For
starters. "Why don't you just tell me what you know?"

"I
know that he suspected some skimming, some scamming, some big-time siphoning
off of casino profits."

It
bothered him when she wouldn't look at him. She wasn't doing it out of
politeness. She was holding out on him, pure and simple.

"He
told you this?" Reese asked.

"In
a manner of speaking."

"What
manner of speaking? Like a whisper in your ear, or a big announcement to anyone
who cared to listen? You obviously cared to listen."

"I
did. I liked him. I enjoyed listening to him. He wasn't afraid to speak out,
Reese, and I think that may have been the death of him."

"Why
didn't he just call in the Feds?"

"Security
is handled by the management company,"

Helen
replied. "They've uncovered a couple of penny-ante card scams
lately."

"Yeah,
but if big money is missing, it's probably an inside deal."

"It
was no secret that your father believed the tribe was getting the worst end of
the agreement with Ten Star, and lately he was very critical of their
relationship with the tribal chairman. But..." She sighed. "Well,
your brother has a good position with Ten Star."

"Wouldn't
wanna jeopardize that."
Damn,
he thought,
was this jealousy he
was feeling?

"Your
father was in a tight spot, you see. And yet he spoke out. He made waves."

"And
he washed up in a ditch along the road." He was thinking maybe she cared
more than anybody, and that hurt for some reason, because he was also thinking
how he Could get lost in her eyes himself, how he'd done it a time or two. Her
eyes, her hair, her mouth, her... "How do you fit into all this,
Helen?" She stared at him, her eyes glistening with secrets.
"Helen?"

Her
response was barely audible. "I was his friend."

He
was sure there was more to it than that. "You'll be around for a
while?"

"I
will, yes."

"You're
serious about a job here?"

"I'm
serious about my job; yes, I'm very serious."

"I've
been through Denver a hundred times in the last ten years. If you'd left me a
number or an address..." He'd looked her up in the phone book a couple of
times, just for the hell of it. He'd decided that even if she'd been there,
she'd probably gotten married, changed her name. "What is your name
now?"

"It's
still Ketterling."

He
smiled. "Liberated and independent, that's you."

"That's
me."

"That's
Helen."

He'd
almost said
My Helen,
and, God, how moronic that would have sounded.
Like a big, dumb kid who had followed her around until she'd let him kiss her
and then touch her and finally crawl between her legs and worship her with his
whole huge horny self. He wasn't sure whether he was reaching for her or
remembering reaching for her, whispering her name or thinking it, touching his
lips to hers or dreaming it, until the sweet honey taste on his tongue settled
all doubt. This was really Helen. He was holding Helen in his arms.

She
rose on her tiptoes. He lifted her off the floor so that she wouldn't get a
stiff neck while he kissed her. Somebody moaned—he thought it was she—and he
let her slide down the front of his body. He meant to let her go, but his
tongue wasn't satisfied to quit completely, so his lips followed hers with
small kisses, little kisses, don't-want-to-stop kisses.

"Oh,
dear."

"Oh,
dear, what?" He buried his nose in her hair. "Oh, dear, he still
kisses good and he's not a big, dumb kid anymore?"

"You
never..."

"Yeah,
I was."

"Yeah,
you do." She had her arms around him, he realized now. He ducked back just
enough to look into her eyes, to see whether she meant to hold him or simply
hang on for the ride. She smiled. "You kiss good. You always did."

"You,
too."

"Better
now, though."

"Better
now," he agreed, and he started in for another kiss.

"Oh,
dear," she said with a soft sigh, but then she stiffened, her head cocked
like a wary animal. The pretty kind. "Oh,
dear.
Reese, someone's
here."

He
kept her tucked under his arm as he turned to look out the window that faced
the driveway.

Damn.
"It's
my brother."

"Hey,
Bro-gun!" Carter shouted. He'd
gone to the front door.

"The
man of a thousand nicknames," Helen whispered as she moved away from
Reese, trying to recover the tempo of their exchange without letting him see
that she'd missed more than a beat. Hard to believe, but there she was, getting
caught in his arms again and feeling far too satisfied for a woman who'd always
known better.

"Too
bad 'Magic' ain't one of 'em." He slid her a flirtatious wink, and damn if
it didn't make her feel giddy.

Carter
continued to announce himself on his way through the living room. "Unless
you're taking in laundry, I know that little outfit on the line out there
doesn't—" He barged into the kitchen with a triumphant grin, as though
he'd just found his way through a complicated maze. "I thought I
recognized the car. Looks like old acquaintances ain't been forgot."

"Hello,
Carter." Helen reached for the bread. "Would you like a sandwich?
We've got plenty left."
When in doubt, offer food.

"What
I'd like is a couple dozen of your shirts, big brother. I just might change the
uniform for some of our dealers." He waved off the sandwich offer but
lifted an appreciative brow. "Looks good on you, Helen."

Reese
folded his arms and leaned against the counter, proclaiming his territory.
"Not that any explanations are in order, but it all started with a
skunk."

"Aw,
jeez, I've been living in the outback too long, obviously missing out on the
latest fun and games. All I can think of is..." Carter's gesture invited
either of them to help him make the connection. "A black-and-white critter
that stinks."

"You
got it," Reese said. "Helen stopped in to pick up a raincheck on
lunch and ended up giving the dog a bath."

"Hell
of a host, isn't he, this man? I came by to check out a rumor." Carter
turned from Helen to Reese. "About you getting appointed to finish out the
old man's term on the council."

Reese
lifted one shoulder. "I've been approached."

"Who
approached you?"

"If
what you mean is which side, I couldn't tell. I'm not up on who's in whose camp
this week." But since Carter was still waiting for an answer, he added,
"Marvin Grass."

"Are
you thinking about it? I mean, is it a possibility?"

"Anything's
possible. Retired athletes go into politics all the time. Bill Bradley, J.C.
Watts, and now Jesse 'The Body' Ventura," Reese said, smiling. "I
voted for Jesse myself. Figured Minnesota could use a governor who's trained to
knock heads."

"Well,
hey, don't forget The Gipper," Carter said. "You're right, there's
some solid tradition here."

"Marvin
was pitching me Indian tradition. The oldest son."

"Probably
bullshitting you to get you to do it."

Reese
shrugged.

"And
I think you should."

Reese
eyed his brother speculatively, waiting for a laugh, maybe.

"Hell,
you've got it made in the shade, Reese. You can afford to do stuff like this.
In a couple of months you could straighten that bunch out, have them living in
the twentieth century by the time the twenty-first rolls around." Carter
turned to Helen. "My brother's not only a hero, he's also a businessman.
Those old guys, the ones that keep dragging their feet on the prospect of
making any progress, hell, they'd listen to the Big Gun."

"About
what?" Reese wanted to know.

"You
name it." Carter tapped Reese's flat belly with the back of his hand.
"You could spare a couple months, couldn't you? It would give you an
excuse to stay around for a while, give us a chance to kinda get to know each
other again."

"Again?"

"We
both got cheated, the way we grew up." Carter smiled. "You probably
don't know this, Helen, but I was adopted by a white family when I was just a
little guy. I didn't even know who I was until I was about fourteen. The old
man used the Indian Child Protection Act to claim me back."

"I
think I might have heard something about that."

"Yeah,
well..." He sniffed his hand. "Damn dog." He turned on the
faucet, dribbled some dish soap into his smooth palm, kept talking while he
lathered his hands. "I grew up out East. The folks who adopted me were
good to me, I'll say that. I got a good education. I didn't appreciate being
jerked out of school and coming here. But it all worked out. I went to Harvard
on a full ride, got my MBA, and then Ten Star provided the training I needed to
manage the casino. It all worked out."

He
shut the water off and shook drops off his hands. "But all that time I had
a brother I hardly knew. We lived together for a couple of years, then went our
separate ways. Now that the old man is gone, it's time we made up for some of
that lost time." Intent on Reese now, he accepted the dish towel Helen
handed him without even looking at her. "Don't you agree, Blue?"

"Sure.
I agree."

"And
besides, there's all kinds of casino business coming before the council, and
some of those guys, it just goes right over their heads. It's a new day for the
Bad River people, and we need educated leadership. I hate to say it, but the
old man was part of that old guard. He didn't understand the requirements of
this business."

"He
was concerned with the requirements of the people he represented," Helen
put in.

"Well,
yeah, his heart was in the right place, but not his head. The head gets past a
certain age, it just can't be expected to do the job anymore. Use it or lose
it, right, Bro-gun?"

Reese
was using his. "There's no conflict of interest, a councilman's close
relative being general manager of the casino?"

"Conflict
of interest? This is Indian country, brother. Hell, you know Indian country
better than I do, and that's just a fact of our lives." Carter laid his
hand on Reese's shoulder, which stiffened visibly. "Relax, there's no
conflict. I'm not a tribal employee. I work for Ten Star."

"Which
the old man had some kind of conflict with," Reese added.

"Like
I said, he didn't understand the business. He didn't understand how much money
it takes to do business. But you do." Carter gestured with his thumb.
"In and out. Couple of months. Not even enough time to dirty your hands.
Plus, there's the matter of your inheritance."

Reese
sighed. "I don't know why he did that, Carter."

"He
wanted you back here, just like he wanted me back. That's all. Plain and
simple. He left it to you to get you back here." He laughed. "Hell,
these are the ties that bind."

Reese
looked around. "Is that what these are?"

"Like
I said, better you than me," Carter replied too easily. "But I really
think you oughta hang out with us for a while, brother. Right, Helen? We'd like
to get to know the big man again, wouldn't we?" His grin was stupid and
suggestive and completely unwelcome.

"Speaking
of hanging out, I'm sure my clothes must be dry."

"I'll
get them," Reese offered, with a deferential glance at her bare feet.
"The yard's full of sand burrs."

"I
need to be going," Carter said, and they all started moving toward the
back door. "I just wanted to let you know that, well, if you're
considering that appointment, I'm behind you."

Helen
stood on the steps, the dappled shade of a cotton-wood playing over her as she
watched the brothers exchange some private words while Reese unclipped her
clothes from the line. It seemed such a personal service, performed
surprisingly unself-consciously, as though he handled her bra every day. As
though he handled laundry every day, which somehow seemed incongruous with his
big hands and the distinctively masculine way he used them. She thought herself
a fool for thinking how sweet he looked, saying his good-byes with her
wind-stiffened clothes tucked under his arm.

From
below the stoop he handed them up to her carefully, like an offering. "Are
we missing anything?"

"I
can't imagine what."

"Carter
hasn't heard anything from the cops since their initial investigation. Have you
said anything to him about your suspicions?"

"My
suspicions don't mean much. Nothing but..." She shrugged, clutching her
clothes to her chest, trying to suck herself into a small thing, an
insignificant deception. "I'm just a concerned friend. A mouse in the
corner. That's all."

"A
mouse, Helen? The kind that roars?"

He
chuckled, so enchanting her with his smile that his brother, like her small
lie, was out of mind even before he was out of sight. The roar of his engine
dissolved in their ears well before the car was gone. Reese's smile, with its
hint of sadness, was just between them. And her lie was so small it didn't have
to count right now. Her suspicions didn't point to anyone in particular, so
they meant nothing, little more than a squeak. For the moment.

He
took her hand, sat down on the bottom step, and drew her down beside him.
"I hear him, loud and clear. Always have. No matter where I am, I can hear
him. Even now."

"Your
father?"

"You
know what you have to do after somebody dies?" His eyes challenged her, as
though he expected her to doubt the obligation or ridicule it before she even
knew what it was.

She
shook her head. His eyes reminded her of his father's and of her son's. She
doubted nothing.

"You
have to feed the spirits," he told her quietly as he stared off into the
silent hills behind the pole barn. "You actually have to put food out for
them so they'll leave you alone. Even without a recent death, there's al- ways
that spirit world that crosses ours in ways you don't have to see or touch or
explain. At least he didn't."

"Do
you?"

Without
looking at her, he shook his head. "I guess I don't. I haven't thought
about these things in a while. I've been busy with... with
this
life,
the busy life. The elusive
good
life, which I can't see or touch or
explain, either. I just know..." Absently he rubbed his long thighs, and
she thought how soft his well-worn jeans looked beneath his swarthy hands.
"When I was a kid, we used to hunt a lot, the old man and me. We'd kill a
deer, he'd always cut off a piece of meat and leave it for the
wanagi.
You
have to feed the spirits. It might look superstitious to do a thing like that,
but what it really is..." He was turning it over in his mind, recollecting
and rediscovering. "It's a show of respect, an acknowledgment." He
looked at her now, surprised, maybe even glad to see her interest. "I did
that today."

"Killed
a deer?"

He
shook his head. "I fed him chicken. I went to the graveyard early this
morning. It should have been
wasna.
You know, pemmican. But I didn't
have any, so I took what I had. Chicken for two, marinated in some kind of
mustard sauce, which is what I cooked last night." His face brightened
with a slow smile. "Guess I must be a twentieth-century Indian, huh? I fed
the spirits with chicken from the grocery store. I told them it tasted like
rattlesnake."

She
smiled, too.

"I
don't know why I told you all that," he said. "Ten years ago I never
would have told anybody from your world that."

"It's
been—"

"Closer
to thirteen years. I know." He reached for her hand again.

She
let him take it, but she gave his a quick squeeze as she slid off the step,
still holding her clothes to her chest. A friendly but dismissive squeeze.

He
laughed. "Are you afraid of me, Helen?"

"Of
course not," she said too quickly. Then she laughed, too. "Even
though I am sort of underdressed at the moment, which makes me feel a little
insecure. It's a woman thing, you know."

He
nodded, amused, unconvinced.

"So
I'd better put my clothes on."

"Probably
a good idea."

She
mounted the steps, stopped on the top and stood directly behind him. She wanted
him to do something. She wasn't sure what, but something.

"If
you don't want to hear any voices, you probably should turn down that
appointment."

"Is
that a dare?" He looked up at her, studied her until she feared what he
might be reading in her eyes. "You think I'm afraid of him now? You think
just because I toss a piece of meat on the ground that I'm..." He shook
his head, and the sharp glint in his jet-black eyes softened. "Just in
case, you know? What can it hurt?"

"Did
it help?"

"Didn't
change anything." He shrugged. "It's all a bunch of nothing, right?
Nothing to do with you, nothing to do with ghosts, nothing to be afraid
of." He gave a quick, humorless laugh as he stood. "Nothing but a
random hit-and-run, nothing but a body and a box and a hole in the ground.
Nothing but a friend. That's a hell of a lot of nothing, when you think about
it." Their eyes met. His glittered. "And you're no mouse in the
corner, Helen. That's for damn sure."