Montana Standoff (16 page)

During the course of multiple lively conversations, the subject of her occupation came up.

“I'm an attorney,” she responded over her shoulder to the gentleman who'd asked.

“Oh?” he said. “Do you work with Steven?”

“Well, no, not exactly,” she said, blushing as Steven caught her eye.

Pony waited until the meal was nearly over before she asked her brother, “Did you stop to see Luther Makes Elk on your way here?”

“As a matter of fact, we did,” Steven replied after a lengthy pause, leaning his elbows on the table and turning his bottle of beer between his palms. “That's why we were a little late getting here. He gave me an old rifle. He said it was at the battle of Little Big Horn.”

Caleb perked up. “No kidding? Was it by any chance a Winchester?”

“I don't know much about guns. He said his great-grandfather was a scout for the bluecoats.”

“Did he mention which officer?” Caleb leaned over the table, his expression intent.

“Never mind all this talk of guns,” Pony interrupted. “What did Luther say about our wedding?”

Steven shook his head. “Well, Pony, it's like this,” he began slowly.

“Steven,” Molly said, her disapproval mirroring Pony's. “This is not a joking matter.”

Steven glanced between the two of them and relented. “He said yes.”

“Yes? He said
yes?
” Pony came off the bench with a cry of delight. “He said yes!” She flung her arms around Caleb from behind. “We are doing the seven sacred steps.”

“That's great, that's good news.” Caleb patted her arm. “Do you have the rifle with you?” he said to Steven.

“Caleb,” Pony protested.

He swiveled on the bench seat to look up at his bride- to-be. “It's not every day a person gets close to a weapon that was at the battle of Little Big Horn, and I think everyone here should see it. It's an important piece of history.”

Pony sighed. “It is a depressing piece of history.”

“What do you mean, depressing?” Steven teased his sister. “We Indians won the battle, didn't we?”

“You'd better show it to him.” Pony frowned. “He won't rest until you do.” And then to Molly she said, “Caleb collects old guns.”

“It could be worse,” Molly responded with a philosophical shrug. “One of my uncles collects old farm tractors.”

 

S
TEVEN FETCHED THE RIFLE
from the Jeep and carried it to the picnic table, still wrapped in the oilcloth Luther had presented it in. He laid the long bundle on the table in front of Caleb and let him unwind the shroud, an act he performed with a kind of reverence while the other guests rose from their tables and gathered around to watch.

“Was the gun a birthday present?” Bernie asked.

“No. Luther didn't know this was a birthday party,” Steven said. Then he gave his sister a suspicious glance. “Or did he?”

Pony shook her head. “I haven't seen Luther in ages.”

Caleb had the rifle in his hands. “By God,” he marveled. “It's a Winchester 66. This rifle could very well have been at Little Big Horn. I can research it, all I need to do is write down the serial number and call up an old friend.”

“Really?” Molly said. “How does that work?”

“If it's an army-issue weapon, the tracking system works pretty good. All soldiers were given a rifle, of course, and a record was kept of its serial number and who it was issued to. At the end of a soldier's enlistment he returned the rifle. Obviously, this one was never returned to the quartermaster, but most of those old army records still exist. I should be able to find out who it belonged to.”

“Wow,” Molly said. “That's kind of neat.”

“Maybe it belonged to General George Armstrong Custer,” Badger said, smoothing his mustache. “That would really be something.”

Caleb laughed. “I guess to hell it would. That would make it a pretty valuable birthday gift.”

“How valuable?” Pony asked.

“It would depend on who wanted to buy it and what they were willing to pay, I guess,” Caleb replied. He handed the rifle to Steven, who handed it to Guthrie, who handed it to Badger, who handed it to Charlie. By the time it returned to the table everyone had examined it, and Molly was still wiping the cold, greasy feel of it from her hands. “Well, seeing that gun was a real treat,” Caleb said, wrapping the oilcloth around it once again. “Almost as good as doing the seven sacred steps will be,” he teased his future wife.

Once the rifle was put away, the festivities began with the presentation of a multitude of mostly humorous birthday gifts to Steven, including a deluxe first-aid kit and a box full of things like linaments for sore muscles and extra-strength aspirin. After the joke gifts, he was given a new leather briefcase and an engraved wall plaque lauding his involvement with the creation of the school, which he accepted from Pony along with a hug and a kiss. “Thank you for making our school a reality,” she said.

Steven read the plaque and then looked at his sister. “Pony seems to think this wouldn't have happened without me, but this is a shared vision both she and Caleb brought to life. Without the two of them, there wouldn't be a School of Native American Studies at the Bow and Arrow. All I did was file the legal papers. They did the real work, and they deserve all the credit.”

Caleb stood beside Steven and raised his bottle of beer. “All I have to say is, I don't know the first damn thing about how to legally create a school. This man here stepped right in and guided us through the entire complicated process, and let me tell you, it was a complicated process. I don't know when I've ever had to jump through so many hoops. He even made a special trip out here when the official papers arrived at his office because he knew a phone call wouldn't have sufficed. Steven Young Bear is without a doubt the hardest man to read that I've ever known, but on that day he was as revved up as we were. I'd like to propose a heartfelt toast to a great man and a dedicated attorney who was instrumental in making Pony's dream come true.”

“Hear, hear,” Badger said, lifting his own bottle. “Now for the love of bald-headed consumption, let the partying begin.”

 

T
HE SOUND SYSTEM
was pretty good, for a jury-rigged setup put together by Bernie and Pony, both of whom admitted to knowing nothing about woofers and tweeters and generators and nonstop auto CD programming. The area for dancing was ringed by the picnic tables and freshly mown, and as soon as the generator was fired up and country music filled the valley, folks just naturally jumped up to dance.

“I promised I'd teach you the two-step, and I'm a man of my word,” Steven said at Molly's elbow as they stood on the sidelines and watched the fun.

Molly felt a momentary qualm. “There's something you should know before you even try,” she said, her fingers twisting the stem of the wineglass in her hand. “I have two left feet.”

“Says who?”

“My mother insisted that we all learn the social graces at a young age, so we had to take lessons in ballroom dancing, as if we'd be doing a lot of that throughout our lives. It was horrible, and I had to dance with one of my brothers, which made things even worse. I think the whole experience soured me on dancing for life.”

“Ballroom dancing is about as far from the Texas two-step as you can get,” Steven said, gesturing. “Look at them. They're all having fun, even Badger, and he has to be as old as Luther.”

“Does Badger live here, on the ranch?”

“Most of the time. He and Charlie sort of came with
the place when Caleb bought it. They were hired on by Jessie Weaver's father back in the late fifties, which was about the time Ramalda came, too.”

“Talk about long-term employees,” Molly said, dutifully impressed.

“They're more like family. There were plenty of hard times when no paychecks changed hands, but they're a loyal bunch.” Steven took the wineglass from her hand and set it on the picnic table. “The sun's setting, Red Hair,” he said. “It's time to dance.”

Before she could voice another protest, his hand closed on hers and the next thing she knew she was in his arms and she'd forgotten all about not being able to dance, not even liking to dance, and thinking she had two left feet. She was a little giddy from two glasses of wine and she melted into the solid strength of him, letting go of any attempt to make sense of the steps and the moves. She simply closed her eyes and enjoyed the sensation of being close to a man she was falling more deeply in love with by the moment.

Another song followed the first, and another after that, and only when they both felt the fatigue of the long days and the sleepless nights did they take a break. Steven brought her another glass of wine and they walked away from the noise of the party, down past the ranch house and the pole barn to where the creek sparkled like molten gold in the sun's last rays. They sat down side by side, shoulders touching, and Molly leaned into him gratefully. She felt as if a hollow place inside of her were slowly filling with a depth of peace like she'd never known, and she needed to sit in quiet abeyance and experience every precious mo
ment until she was full and the flow, like the swinging shift of a flood tide, eased within her. “Thank you, Steven.”

“For what?”

“For asking me here. I don't know when I've ever had such a good time with such wonderful people in such a beautiful setting. If I stay here much longer I might begin to understand why you want to protect all this,” she said, indicating the purple mountains that drew a rugged line against the western horizon.

“Then maybe I should tie you up and keep you here.”

“You wouldn't need to tie me up,” Molly murmured. “Just build me a little cottage on the bank of this river, and let me adopt Bonnie and Bandit.”

“Bonnie and Bandit?”

“The two as yet unclaimed puppies. And of course, I'd want a horse or two.”

“Of course,” he said. “How about a buffalo?”

“Hmmm. I'll have to think about that one. Absa's cute, but my hunch is she's going to get a whole lot bigger.” Molly took a sip of wine. “I really would like to ride up and see the herd.”

“The boys looked pretty disappointed when you kept on dancing. I think they probably had the horses saddled and ready to go before we were done eating,” Steven said.

“Really?” Molly lifted her head off his shoulder to look at him.

“I'm sure they'll take a rain check. It'll be dark soon, and we have to get on the road.”

She sighed. “I don't want this day to end.”

“There'll be other days as good.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“There's going to be a wedding here in a few weeks and it just so happens that I'm giving the bride away. I need a date. Want to come?”

“Oh, Steven.” Molly leaned toward him and tenderly kissed his bruised cheek. “If I ever find paradise, it will be a place just like this. Yes, I'll come. I'd love to come to your sister's wedding.”

 

“B
UT YOU CAN
'
T LEAVE
,” Pony protested when they walked back up to the ranch house to say their goodbyes. “This party is for you.”

“We have a long drive ahead of us,” Steven said.

“Exactly why you should spend the night,” Caleb pitched in, coming to stand beside Pony and drape an arm over her shoulders. “Besides, the boys are anxious to show Molly the buffalo herd. We could all ride up to Piney Creek after breakfast tomorrow. You'll be on the road after lunch and get home well before dark. That's a much better plan, don't you agree?”

“I think it sounds wonderful,” Molly said, “but I don't have anything with me for spending the night, and no clothes fit for a horseback ride tomorrow.”

“That's not a problem,” Pony said. “I can get you everything you need. Please say you will stay.”

Molly turned her pleading gaze on Steven. “Could we, Steven?” she said.

He reached for her hand. “All right,” he relented. “But I'm not riding tomorrow.”

“I promise I won't ask you to, just as long as you promise to dance one more dance with me tonight,” Molly said.

And so they danced until the stars shone down out of that wide, dark sky and most of the guests had departed and Ramalda had made it perfectly clear, in a jumbled mix of broken English and rapid-fire Spanish, that it was late, too late for the boys, too late for Mr. Steven who was injured and needed his rest, and too late for her, for she had worked hard all day, cooking this most delicious feast. Steven became aware of this diatribe only when Pony turned down the volume on the sound system and they heard Badger saying, “Dang it, old woman, have you forgot what it's like to be young? Lookit that full moon rising. Now, ain't that worth losing a little sleep over? Love keeps its own time. Always has. Leave 'em be.”

They turned to look at the moon and Steven felt Molly's arms tighten around him. “It's so beautiful,” she murmured, resting her cheek against his chest. He felt her shiver a little and pulled her closer.

“It's getting cold,” he said, “and Ramalda's right. It's late and you've had a long day.”

“Is that your way of telling me you're tired?” she said with a smile in her voice.

“It's my way of keeping the peace with Ramalda,” he said. “It must be midnight or later, and she gets up at 4:00 a.m.”

“But why?” Molly murmured in protest.

“Because that's what time the day begins when you live on the Bow and Arrow.”

“Does that mean
we're
getting up at 4:00 a.m.?”

“Don't you want to see the buffalo?”

“Will they be awake that early?” she said with a soft laugh. “Oh, Steven, thank you for letting us stay. Thank you, thank you.”