Reason To Believe (16 page)

And he—standing up front with a group of his buddies—looked every bit the cowboy hero he'd always been, even though he'd given up the rodeo long ago to become a family man. He was still tall and lean, dark and handsome. Such an imposing figure, he could have taken over and run this whole show. On a horse he was pure physical poetry. And he was the pipe carrier's son. This was his domain, and these were his people.

Clara watched him turn his head at the sound of a pretty woman's voice, calling his name. She watched him lean closer to hear what the woman wanted, or maybe what she offered. He nodded. Clara's stomach knotted up so tight so quickly, she had to turn away and scold herself for noticing, for questioning, for giving a damn.

"I don't wanna stay in that motel tonight, Mom," Anna told her as they headed for the chair where Clara had left her jacket and her purse. "Billie says it's haunted."

"Oh, Anna, don't be silly."

"I'm not kidding. Some woman caught her boyfriend steppin' out on her and shot them both."

Stepping out on her.
Clara hated that expression. It sounded like a game.

Shooting them both, however, did not. She shook away the image that flitted through her mind. The faces were too familiar. "I'm sorry, Anna, but that's the only motel within—"

"I can stay with Billie. You can, too, if you want."

"I don't think they have room for me," Clara said, conscientiously replacing the ugly fantasy with a memory of the time she and Ben had stayed at his sister's home, putting three children out of their bed and adding to the stress on the already overtaxed bathroom. "But yes, you can stay with Billie."

"You're still gonna sleep in that haunted place? What if they give you the same room those guys died in?" Anna grimaced and shuddered dramatically.

Clara laughed. "If you don't believe in ghosts, they don't bother you."

"I believe in them. So does Dad."

"I don't. You'll need to get your overnight bag out of the car." She was fishing in her purse for her keys when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ben follow the woman out the side door.

It didn't matter, she told herself. All that mattered was that her cousin Billie was dragging Anna away, giggling with her, distracting her so that
she
had not noticed. She located the keys in her jacket pocket and tossed them jauntily to her daughter. "Don't stay up all night, Anna. If you do, you'll regret it tomorrow."

"Excuse me, is that your daughter?" said a male voice.

For another moment Clara's attention belonged to Anna. Absently she gave a nonverbal answer, more a sound of appreciation than confirmation. She smiled when Anna and Billie playfully bumped hips on their way out the door, then she turned to find an attractive, silver-haired man waiting for his answer. She laughed. "That's my daughter."

"She's beautiful. How did you ever..." He waved his own question away with a sheepish gesture. "I'm sorry. You don't know me, and I'm about to ask you how you got your daughter. Cheeky of me, right?" He looked directly into her eyes, his smile filled with practiced charm. "Robert Cady."

Clara offered a handshake. "Clara Pipestone."

"Ah,
Pipestone.
I was about to make the rude assumption that your daughter was adopted.
My
wife and I—that is, my ex-wife—we tried to adopt an Indian child, but her tribe refused to let her go. Can't blame them, really, after all they've been through. But we had Mattie in our home for five years as a foster child, and we wanted to make her our own. But eventually we lost her."

"That must have been very difficult."

"It was. She'd be about your daughter's age. I lost touch with her." He fingered the buttons on the thirty-five-millimeter camera he had slung around his neck by a black strap. "My own fault. I run around a lot, looking for stories like this one." He plopped his hiking boot on the seat of a folding chair and gestured inclusively. "This is fascinating, isn't it?"

"Yes." Reflexively she glanced toward the side door, looking for Ben.

"You're a very brave woman." Robert Cady braced his forearm across his knee. "I mean, I noticed that you were among those taking the pledge, as it were. And I know how cold it gets here. I've been all over the world, and I can't think of too many places where the wind is any more relentless than here. It has no mercy."

"Are you riding with us?"

"I don't ride. But I'll be following you in old Harvey." He smiled, a little indulgently, she thought. "My pickup. Any friend as faithful as he is deserves a name, don't you think?"

Clara couldn't help giggling as she tried to imagine Ben christening his pickup. He'd called the old bomb by a lot of names, but none of them as cute as "Harvey."

"I know." Again the indulgent smile. "I sound a little off, but I'm really harmless."

"I'm sure you are. And I'm really quite a coward, but don't tell anyone."

"There's a difference between cowardice and fear. I doubt you have a cowardly bone in your body. But if you have a healthy fear of what may happen on a risky venture like this, then I would say you're human." This time his smile reached his blue-gray eyes and came across with more sincerity. "Since it's a secret, I won't tell anyone."

"You givin' away secrets, Clara?"

She nearly jumped out of her Keds, as though she'd been caught in the proverbial act of doing something she shouldn't. Which, of course, was absurd. She was still and always straight-arrow Clara.

And Ben was still Ben, still suspicious of men who approached her. Not
all
men. She'd never quite figured out the distinction between the men who didn't bother him and those who raised his hackles. But Robert Cady was suspect. She could see it in Ben's bearing. Like the dominant male in the herd sensing some intangible threat, his whole being—his stance and substance—suddenly overpowered the space he occupied and its perimeter.

Clara looked up at him, willing herself to appear anything but submissive.

Ben returned a shuttered look. Then he forced himself to smile. "You gotta be careful around these reporters."

"I'm not exactly a reporter." The interloper offered a handshake. "Robert Cady. This trip I'm a photographer, but I'm more of a jack-of-all-trades."

"Ben Pipestone. Master of none."

"Clara's husband, right?" Cady glanced from Ben's eyes to Clara's and back again.

"Let me give you a tip," Ben said as he withdrew his hand. "Watch where you point your camera. People get touchy when it's aimed at sacred things." And to Clara, softly, "Secrets are something else. We don't have many left."

"We were just sharing a few personal anxieties," Cady said. "I was telling Clara that I admire her courage. This is quite an undertaking."

Ben winced at the sound of his wife's name on the stranger's tongue. Then he shrugged, resurrecting his more customary, easy smile. "Something to keep us busy. Things kinda slow down around here in the winter."

"Your father's the shaman, I take it."

Ben chuckled. "The what?"

"The man who does the—"

"Pipe bearer," Ben said. "My father is the carrier of the sacred pipe."

"Do you use the term 'medicine man'?"

"We use the term
wicasa wakan.
Holy man, I guess you might say. Pipe bearer, that's what he is. But what he
does
—" the smile dropped away again, and Ben might have fried the camera with his eyes "—is what we'd rather not have you photograph."

"I understand perfectly. I feel a real kinship with sha—" Cady caught himself and shrugged apologetically. "I
think
of them as shamen, I guess, because they're a special breed the world over. And I think, maybe in another life, I might have been one, too."

"Talk to my dad," Ben suggested, his eyes brightening gradually with a spark of mischief. "Maybe you can get to be one in
this
life, and the world will be down one cameraman."

Cady laughed good-naturedly. "I think I'd better be careful what I photograph."

"Now you're gettin' the idea. Nice meeting you, Cady." Ben's handshake served as a cordial dismissal.

"What was that all about?" Clara asked after the man had gone his way.

"What?" Ben's tone was all innocence, but his eyes gleefully proclaimed his guilt.

"You're not usually that unfriendly."

"No?" He considered her assessment as he glanced over his shoulder at the retreating photographer, then shifted to another one who was packing up his video equipment. "Guess I don't like having my picture taken. These guys act like they own the place, getting right up in your face with their damn cameras."

"Robert wasn't in
my
face with his camera."

"Robert, huh?" Ben shoved his thumbs into the front pockets of his jeans. "He's really got cold hands. You notice that?"

"No, I didn't." He actually looked half-contrite, and she wanted to smile, chuckle a little, ease him off his self-made hook. But she didn't. "I thought you'd left."

He lifted one shoulder nonchalantly. "Somebody needed a boost. Ever since I opened the shop, you'd think I owned the only set of booster cables on the rez. I oughta start charging."

"Don't you?" Her challenge surprised him. She
tsked
him, but gently and with a smile. "It's your business. I had to pay a locksmith twenty dollars when I locked my keys in the car at the Kirkwood parking lot, and all he did was slip a blade thing through the window."

"Yeah, well, somebody calls me at the shop, then I charge."

"I didn't even
call
this man. He happened to overhear me grumbling when I was turning my purse inside out looking for my keys."

"Jesus, Clara." He scowled. "You're gonna get hurt one of these days, gettin' yourself stranded like that without—"

"The point is, when it's your business, people expect you to charge for your services."

"Don't give me any lectures about—"

"You just gave
me
one."

Now they both scowled. For a moment the waning activity around them—the winding down and packing up, the soft buzz of voices heading home—all of it blurred and faded around their standoff.

Finally Clara turned away, slipping her arm into her parka.

"Look, if you need a place to stay tonight, you can use mine," Ben offered. "It's not much, but there's a bed and a shower." He retrieved her purse from the chair and handed it to her. "I can stay at my sister's place."

"Anna's gone with... uh-oh, with Billie, and she has my..." She patted her jacket pockets, irrationally hoping she might hear a jingle.

But Ben produced the keys from his back pocket, grinning as he dangled them in front of her nose. "I saw her outside."

"Thanks. I..." She held out her hand. He dropped the keys in her palm. She shrugged, meekly smiling. "I almost forgot."

"Almost
forgot," he echoed, crowing. "So Annie's gone with Billie, and you were gonna be locked out of your car, up shit creek without a paddle or a sleeping bag."

"I'm taking a room at the motel in McLaughlin."

"The Bunkhouse?" He groaned. "You don't wanna stay there, Clara."

"Because it's haunted?"

"Because it's a dump. My place is a dump, too, but it's free." They were ambling toward the door now, neither in a hurry. "I'm not in the business of renting rooms."

"I'd rather stay at the motel."

"Suit yourself."

She looked at him askance, unconsciously inviting more wheedling.

He was right. The place was a dump. It was basically two long trailers, arranged in an
L
and cut up into small, dingy rooms with water-stained ceilings and dark, warped, eighth-inch paneling. The bathroom was a four-square-foot afterthought with a dribbling shower. The rusty porcelain sink had no stopper. The miserly faucet released water only as long as Clara held the handle. When she sat on the bed, the screechy springs sagged to the floor. Then the furnace kicked in, rattling like a freight train.

None of this was conducive to a good night's sleep. She turned the TV on in the hope that a late-night talk show would relax her, bore her, lull her to sleep. But the black-and-white picture was snowy, and there was no sound.

Okay, bring on the ghosts.

It was a careless challenge, made under the shadowy glare of a bare light bulb. With a sigh Clara turned the light out and sank noisily into the deep pit of a lumpy mattress.

Then the walls closed tightly around the bed and began to taunt her.

H
e couldn't sleep for thinking of her staying in that goddamn motel. It griped him that she had chosen a dumpy motel over his dumpy apartment. Why would Clara, always looking for ways to save money, choose to
pay
for shabby accommodations when he'd offered her equally dumpy accommodations at no charge? The answer wouldn't have come as any surprise if he hadn't started letting himself believe that maybe she didn't hate his guts as bad as she used to.