Reason To Believe (34 page)

"I don't need it. I have—"

The riders continued their journey. Since there was no way to get word about their pipe carrier, Alta Two Bear came forward during the noon meal and offered to take Clara, Anna, and her cousin Billie to Eagle Butte. Sheila Bird and Cheppa Four Dog said they would take care of the horses.

Ben emerged from Dewey's room just as the rest of the family converged at the door. TJ took the girls in to see their grandfather, leaving Ben alone with his wife.

Clara pointedly noted the pipe bag and the coat in Ben's hands. "How is he?"

"He broke his leg. He's got a bronchial infection. He also has a spot on his lung."

"Pneumonia?" Clara asked fearfully, glancing at the closed door to Dewey's room, then back into her husband's dark eyes.

Ben shook his head. "They think there's more to it."

"He's known about this... spot?"

"We've all known there was something wrong, haven't we?" He sighed as he lowered himself wearily onto a bench sitting next to the long, bare hallway wall. "They're taking about transferring him to a bigger hospital, but he's turnin' a deaf ear. He wants us to go on with the ride. He wants me to wear this damn coat. He's gonna let me—" he lifted his burdens one at a time, the coat, then the bag "—carry the pipe, I guess."

"You can do it, Ben. This morning in the circle..." She sat beside him on the bench and laid her hand over his forearm. "I've never heard you sing like that."

His weary smile told her that he was grateful simply to have her at his side. "I sounded pretty good, huh?"

"I've always thought you had a wonderful voice, but whenever I tell you that, you always make a joke of it."

"How about spiritual? Did it sound like the voice of a real live
spiritual man?"

"It gave me a spiritual feeling."

"That's not..." He shook his head, then leaned it back against the wall. "Hell, maybe that's what the job's all about, huh? Spread the feeling." He chuckled dryly. "I'm good at that."

"You're good at many things. More than you know, I suspect."

"You tell me, then. Tell me I've got the makings. If you say it's true, I'll believe it. My instincts are a little shaky yet."

Clara slid her hand over his rugged knuckles, deftly slipping her slender fingers between his beefier ones. He closed his eyes and pressed her fingertips into the center of his palm, grateful now for her touch, for some part of her to hold on to.

Anna stuck her head out the door, scouting the hallway for her parents. When she saw them sitting on the bench holding hands, her eyes widened a little. She smiled. "Lala says he wants us to get back on the road. He wants us to tell everyone he's doing okay and to keep on going." She stepped into the hallway, followed by her aunt and her cousin. "He wants to see you, Mom."

Ben's hand slid away and fell behind as Clara rose instantly, favored by the summons.

She approached the chair close to the bed, taking quick, subtle survey of the white cast, the white blanket, the white plastic bracelet encircling the brown, weathered wrist. Hospital white made her uncomfortable, for she remembered seeing her father for the last time under similar circumstances.

Dewey's voice rustled like crisp parchment, and his eyes avoided hers as he spoke. "My son wants to take over for me, I guess. Wants to put me out to pasture. They turn an old stud out to pasture, I think they're supposed to put some fillies in there from time to time." He gave a dry cackle. "If they do, it's gonna be nice."

"You and I know he can do this, but Ben isn't so sure. So I wouldn't count on being retired to any pastures just yet."

"We can all count on it. To me it doesn't seem like a faraway place anymore. It's closer than Wounded Knee. Even closer than Little Eagle." He motioned, and she slid her chair closer to the bed. He lowered his voice, as though he were telling secrets. "It's very close. And I know the way. I am seeing where the road leads."

"But it's a circle, isn't it? I mean, it's not the end of the road, is it?"

"I want to tell you something about your husband." Dewey lifted an unsteady forefinger and managed to give her a wan smile. "When he was a boy he used to hear things about his mother. People said she was a loose woman. They said she traded her body for money and drinks, or even just to hitch a ride. They said she seduced the high school boys. They said she mocked me behind my back. When she left us, I thought the talk would stop, but it didn't. Not for a long while.

"Ben was a scrapper, and whenever anyone brought up the subject of his mother, he would fight them, as if that proved that none of it was true. And so the talk all but stopped. Until a girl that he was sparking asked him if he thought I was his real father. She said she'd heard I probably wasn't. I was just an old man who went goofy over a young, beautiful woman."

He rolled his gray head back and forth on the pillow and glanced at the ceiling in wonder. "I look back now, and it sure doesn't seem like I was that damn old. Not then. But goofy? I guess you could say that." His dry laugh rattled in his throat. "Anyway, when this girl started saying things, Ben couldn't very well punch her in the face, so he came after me."

"He hit you?"

"Only with questions. The same questions she had asked him. I told him I was his father. He asked, how did I know that? I told him he shouldn't have to ask. So he didn't. He never asked again."

Dewey paused. Clara could feel the heaviness in his silence as he considered the point he wanted to make to her. She offered him water, and he accepted a sip from the straw.

His tentative glance ricocheted off hers. Then he drew a shallow, painful breath. "I raised him. He's my son. If he doesn't believe that, then nothing I can say will change anything."

"I know what you mean. He has a blind spot."

"We all do. Every one of us." He held up two leathery hands, one before his face, one near the long gray braid behind his ear. "There are parts of ourselves that we can never see, not even with a mirror here, a mirror here."

"Can't we see those parts in other people's eyes?"

"If we're not afraid to look, but we don't always want to believe what we see."

"Maybe we shouldn't always believe what—"

"Daughter, you think too much!" His thin cackle cut off her philosophical ruminations. "No end to it, chewing the ideas to death. Jeez, you make me tired."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

He wagged a finger. "A sick man can only be just so wise, and then has to sleep for a while."

"Of course." She rose to her feet. "I talk too much, too, don't I?"

"You sure talk a lot." His lips sketched a thin smile. "But you listen also. And you're easy on the eyes. Come back to see me, and I will give you more stories for your paper," he said, losing track of time and space again as he nodded off to sleep.

Clara closed the door softly behind her, glancing up as Ben approached. He looked so handsome in the red blanket coat, his black hair lying in rich contrast over the thick cowl collar. His demeanor literally took her breath away. Handsome and strong and fiercely independent. But the image of a boy taunted by treacherous rumors and a confusing mixture of emotions lingered in her mind as she put her arms around him and pressed her cheek to his.

The gesture surprised him, but he welcomed it without question, hugging her back. He'd take whatever he could get. "TJ says she'll stay here tonight if I can catch a ride with Alta," he told her. "I need to catch up to the riders."

"We do, too. Alta's waiting in the lobby."

"Tonight was gonna be kind of a special doings for Christmas Eve. But without him..."

"You'll do fine."

He squeezed her again, sucking up her solace for all he was worth. Of course he'd do fine. It was no big deal. Say a few prayers, sing a few songs, smoke the pipe.

The sacred pipe.

Okay, so he'd treat it with respect, which was a tall order, considering the most respectful thing he could do would be to keep his own evil hands off it.

He figured she'd read his thoughts when she drew away. He stepped back, lapped his father's red coat in front, tied the belt, adjusted the large fringed collar. He knew damn well he looked like a big red bird, but he returned the smile Clara offered as she admired the overall effect. Hardly the right style for the bronc buster she'd fallen for way back when, but he sure liked the way she was looking at him now as he settled the pipe bag at his hip.

He had to chuckle to himself as they headed outdoors. This would not have been a good outfit to wear if he'd been leading the way to Wounded Knee a hundred years ago. A big red bird would have been a sitting duck, and a holy man would have been a prime target. He thought about the pictures he'd seen of Jesus wearing a bright white robe parading into town on a donkey. Didn't he know there were soldiers just lying in wait for him, for crissake?

For Christ's sake.
What, was he comparing himself to Jesus now, just because he was wearing his dad's coat? And on Christmas Eve, to boot. He damn well better get a grip and remember who he was, or he was liable to get struck by lightning in the middle of the winter. Trotting right up there in front—zap! Fried to a crisp by an angry God, right in front of friends, family, everybody he cared about.

He'd be expected to take the lead. Hell, as long as he was forkin' a horse, he could do that, easy. One thing he knew how to do was stay on a horse.

He'd be expected to carry the hoop.

The
sacred
hoop.

The Christmas Eve camp was set up out in the middle of nowhere, at least from Clara's perspective. From Ben's it was on the north fork of the Bad River. Supper was served off pickup tailgates, shared around the campfires. The soup was meatier and thicker than usual, and the fry bread was filled with raisins. Simple treats combined with comfortable camaraderie made the occasion festive. The riders found satisfaction even in their fatigue, for it was hard-earned and evenly shared among them.

Swaddled in blankets and seated on saddles, tarps, and hay bales, the group gathered around the fire in front of the big canvas tipi. Ben offered prayers and conducted a pipe ceremony. After that the group sang traditional

Christmas music, taking turns introducing their favorites. Then Dan Medicine brought out a hand-held dance drum, and the celebration became a blending of traditions. The riders joined hands, formed a circle around the fire, and danced the
kahomni,
the loose-kneed side step that some called the forty-nine.

The Ghost Dancers had danced in the same formation, basically the same slow step. But a century ago they had danced until they were exhausted. They had danced because they were hungry and destitute, frightened and desperate. They had danced because their energy was all they had left to sacrifice. They would not believe that God had deserted them, but nothing made sense anymore.

"The whites hate everything that is good, and we do not understand why," Sitanka, the man who was called Big Foot, had said. In their unthinkable feeding frenzy, the white interlopers had slaughtered women, children, herds of buffalo whose numbers had once seemed infinite, even the very ground the people walked upon, slashing it open everywhere to take the gold they coveted, to plant their seeds, to make clouds of dust for the wind to carry away. And the Lakota could no longer fight them in this—had nothing left to fight with but their faith and their physical presence. Even that, the whites would try to take. Even that.

But they had not succeeded. For on the eve of Christmas, one hundred years after the hoop had been broken, a fire burned bright on the Dakota plains. A circle of survivors kept time with the rhythm of Earth's heartbeat, dancing to celebrate their faith and their perseverance.

And this time there were non-Indians among them. There was Paul Olsen, the white rancher who, like Angus Barnes at an earlier campsite, had offered the riders shelter in his home, his barn, his yard, wherever they could find room. There were the journalists who would tell the story, and there was the woman who had borne the pipe carrier's child. These were friends, witnesses to the occasion, sharers in the mending of sacred dreams.

The nights in December were dark and cold, and they were bound to get colder. The journey had already taken a toll. There was still a long road ahead. But they had come this far together, and there were many things to celebrate.

And Christmas was not the least among them.

Around the campfire circle they shared Christmas memories over cups of
pejuta sapa,
deliciously hot "black medicine." There were remembrances of Christmas feeds and communal giveaways and gift-bearing Santa Clauses whose booming voices had sent children scurrying under the chairs in the basement of many a mission church on the Sioux reservations across the Dakotas. The non-Indian fire-dreamers recalled their traditions, tinged with the same nostalgia whether they'd originated in the next county or halfway across the world. A German journalist taught the circle to sing "O Tannenbaum." A Japanese photographer spoke of the Shinto reverence for the ancestors, and his memories of visiting the temple as a small child and being delighted by the profusion of red.