Reason To Believe (28 page)

"These
are
relaxed."

"Yeah, well,
I
won't be until we get you married off to some..." He puffed out his chest and flexed his left arm to illustrate the cut of a man he would require.

"Married off! Jeez, Dad, get with the twentieth century."

"What?" he protested guilelessly.

"Clue him in, Mom." Anna flipped her braid over her shoulder as she backed away, spotting Billie in the chow line. Somebody had just put out a cooler of pop. "Women don't get married off anymore, Dad. Just get me a German shepherd."

Ben shook his head as he watched her walk away. "I still think those jeans are too tight."

"Maybe I should try tighter ones," Clara muttered, absently rubbing the inside of her own thigh. She looked up to find him scowling at the prospect. "Mine are the matronly style, and they're chafing."

"You can take a break any time," he told her. "That's why TJ's followin' along with the trailer. You don't have to keep this up."

"After you," Clara said. She wasn't sure where such a notion had come from, or why she voiced it.

"Just what in the hell—" he adjusted the brim of his hat, then postured, thumbs hooked over the frayed slashes that were the front pockets of his jeans "—is that supposed to mean?"

"It means it's too soon for me to think about throwing in the towel."

"I'm not talking about throwin' in the towel completely. Just givin' it a rest."

"If you can hang in there, then so can I," she said, deciding her criteria on the spot. "I'm tougher than I look, remember?"

"No doubt about it. Tough as nails. But there's no contest between you and me, Clara. I mean..."

"You mean, you're bigger and stronger, so this is easier for you than it is for me."

"Yeah." He shrugged. "Well, that's just the way it is. It's no big—"

"I can do this," she insisted calmly. "I'm not quitting."

"Nobody said—" Ben flapped his arms at his sides, exasperated. "What is with you guys? You and the ol' man both. So damn stubborn, you'd think this was life or death." He stepped back, making a quick cutoff gesture. "I'm just sayin' don't ride yourself into the ground. That's all I'm sayin'."

"Sound advice," she acknowledged. "Are you offering it around to everyone, or just your father and me?"

"I offered it to Toby, and
he
listened. There are maybe one or two people on this ride who think I might just know a little bit about..." He sighed, confessing with a candor she told herself not to take too seriously, "There are more than one or two people on this ride that I'm a little concerned about. I know nobody asked me to be. But, you know, Toby... he played out the first night. And last night you came pretty close."

"I made it last night, didn't I?" His assenting nod was surprisingly gratifying to her. "I've made a commitment. A vow. I'm sticking with it."

"All the way on horseback," he recounted for her.

"Yes. That's my plan." And she toasted it with the last of her coffee, then swallowed with a firm nod. "Right now, that's my thinking."

The Indian community of Green Grass on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation was, in a sparsely populated state dotted with small towns, too small to be listed on most maps. But the cold, tired, famished riders were welcome there. After they held the circle for evening prayers, all they had to do was dismount, and the designated wranglers were there to assist with the horses.

Clara's body was as sore as it had ever been in its thirty-seven years, but she realized that she was not alone in her misery, which made it easier to bear and with less complaint than she would have voiced a week or even a day ago. She saw that her tent had been erected and that wood for the campfires had been gathered, and she silently thanked TJ and the rest of the supporters. At this moment, she valued the barest essentials and wished only for the simplest of pleasures. Like one of the bone-weary horses, she followed the others of her own kind, trusting them to lead her to a resting place, asking no questions, offering no opinions.

Ben caught up with her on the way to the small church with the open door and the lights blazing in every window. He pulled her aside.

"Did I hear somebody say she'd give anything for the use of a bathtub?" His smile flashed in the dim winter twilight. "I've found her one."

"Oh." Clara permitted the marvelous image to enter her mind. "Oh, a bathtub. Where? Wait, I need a towel."

"I have towels."

"And clean—"

"Clothes. Annie helped me out there. If you'll just follow—" he grabbed her arm, grinning as he resolutely set her behind him "—
after
me. Five paces behind."

She hesitated. This was the old joke between them, the test of how badly she wanted him to do something for her.

"For a bathtub?" he said, as if she needed a reminder. "Full of nice, hot water."

With a little whimper, she followed. It was the girlish, petulant sound she used to make in bed sometimes when he had her wanting and he withheld, just briefly, just to make her want even more. That sound alone made it worth his while to do her this service, even if he'd had to beg from door to door for the use of a tub. But it hadn't been that difficult. Members of the tiny community were more than willing to let hot water heaters be drained in behalf of the Wounded Knee riders.

"What about Anna?" she asked, skipping a step to catch up with him as their boots swished through the dry prairie grass toward a small trailer.

"Got her and Billie, TJ, and Dad all taken care of. This place belongs to an old rodeo buddy. Him and his wife are over at the house next door, helpin' get the food ready. Second wife. His first wife lives across the way."

She mounted the wooden steps behind him. She wasn't interested in first and second wives. "I don't care about food, but a bath would put me next door to heaven."

"Next door to heaven, and me with the keys." He set his duffel bag next to the door and tried three keys in the padlock, springing it open with the third one, then led the way inside and turned on the kitchen light. The quarters were cramped but clean and warm. Ben reached through the darkened doorway next to the stove and found another light switch.

Quickly shedding her parka, Clara glimpsed a small blue bathroom sink. She smiled.

Ben tossed his jacket over the back of a chair. "You wanna go after me, then?"

"That would be fine," she said tightly.

"Course, that won't leave much hot water. In fact, we'll probably have to use the same water. I'd say the tank is maybe ten, fifteen gallons." He grinned slowly. "Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind using your bathwater. Might be kinda sexy."

"Dirty bathwater?"

"Sweetened." He handed her the towel he'd pulled out of his bag. "It's all a matter of how you look at it. Sexiness is in the eye of the beholder."

"Pickin's pretty slim, are they?"

"I already picked." From his bag he produced a bra and a pair of lacy white panties. "I like these. I'm gonna enjoy bathing in the runoff from what goes in 'em."

She rolled her eyes incredulously. "Cowboy poetry at its finest. You go ahead. I'd feel as though I had to hurry."

"Not at all. I'll just sit outside the door, imagine you taking your clothes off, listen to you plunk your feet in, one at a time. Then you'll slide down slowly, and when I hear you say 'ahhhh... mmmmm... heaven...'" He closed his eyes dramatically. "At that moment my own reward will come."

"Really."

"Oh, yeah. Believe me, it will be my pleasure to let you go first." His eyes were full of warm laughter. "After you?"

"If you insist."

He did. And he leaned against the kitchen wall and listened, just as he'd said he would. He listened to the water trickle back into the tub and imagined her soapy hand gliding over her silky skin. He closed his eyes and listened and remembered how it felt to slide a wet hand over her shoulder, breast, belly, and, ah, cleanse her deeply and thoroughly until she sighed for him. Ordinarily he preferred visual stimulation, but since all he could get was the audio, he let the dripping and soft splashing have its way with his head, for one head had a way of bringing out the ache in the other one. That insistent, throbbing, rock-hard ache was contained but hardly inconspicuous in his cowboy-cut jeans. After all the teasing he'd given her, if she came out now, she'd have the last laugh.

She did. She came out looking soft and satisfied, smelling damp and fresh as spring rain, smiling until she caught the hint of lust in his eyes. She glanced down, then away. She moistened her lips. Then her eyes, windows on her own need, sought his again. For one sad, silent moment they were both totally exposed, completely empathetic to each other's hunger.

The evening meal was served in a tiny church, where riders were given first chance at the food and the folding chairs. Most of the photographers had gone on to Bridger, where many more riders from the South Dakota Sioux reservations would join in the journey. But Robert Cady had stopped in Green Grass. He was particularly interested in the way the communities along the route responded to the ride, for, as he told Clara when they came together over a second cup of coffee, he thought the significance of the ride was reflected in the faces of the people it touched along the way.

Clara thought about the faces they'd met along the way so far, some skeptical or suspicious, some supportive, some even envious. She nodded. "That's a good way of putting it."

"Not that the faces of the riders themselves don't tell the story," he assured her. "They do,
you
do. Quite poignantly. But the difference between the reception in Timber Lake and this one in Green Grass..."

"Is like the difference between a wake and a wedding," she finished for him.

"And it isn't a matter of race," Cady said. "You and I are both white."

"Yes, and there are other non-Indians on the ride," Clara mused. "Several white ranchers have given us a place to stay. That reflection you're talking about, you can see it in their faces, too. You're quite right." She realized that it was a relief to talk with this man, not because he mattered to her, but because he did not. She had nothing to prove to him. Their conversation was simply an exchange of words.

"As for what you'll read in
this
rider's face, well, it's early yet," she confided. "The poignancy is liable to turn to pure pain, and then..." She sighed. "I'm not a quitter, but I don't suffer well, either."

"Who does?"

"It's a matter of keeping my commitment." She studied the black contents of her cup. "I didn't know what I was getting myself into, really. It's a different world out here." She looked into the eyes that were blue, which made them like hers, a rarity in the present context. And a rarity for them both, being in the minority. "I feel a bit like the robin who got her seasons mixed up or something."

"Ah, but you're not a snowbird, you're a prairie dweller, and the wise prairie dweller knows that winter is the time to hole up and stay warm." He smiled benevolently, knowingly. "And under ordinary circumstances I suspect you would do just that. Just as Big Foot and his band would have done, under ordinary circumstances. We know what drove them." He lifted his brow inquisitively. "Do we know what drives you?"

"I'm not driven." She banished the notion with a jerk of her head. "I'm not by nature much of a risk taker, either. But I will say that my circumstances have not been what I would call ordinary since the day I met Ben Pipestone." She glanced at the door, wondering why she'd bothered to notice when he left the building, probably to smoke a cigarette, and why she glanced reflexively toward the door every now and then, anticipating his return. "For better or for worse, it has never been ordinary."

"Then I envy you... and him." Cady took a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it, offering it to her. "They were showing me the route. They drew it out for me. After you leave here, you head for Cherry Creek, the area where the refugees from Standing Rock joined up with Big Foot's camp after Sitting Bull's murder. There's not much between here and there." He traced a penciled line with his finger. "You go to Bridger for another vows ceremony for the riders joining up down here. So that's another day's ride." His eyes met hers. "But, then, you must know all this."

"Actually, I'm just along for the ride." She laughed, a little ill at ease for having told him more than she'd intended. "This country is all quite new to me. Hardly the beaten path. I have to trust the people up front." Which was part of her challenge, letting someone else be completely in charge. "I know where we're supposed to end up, but I have absolutely no idea how we'll get there."

"Then it really is an adventure."

"Very much so. And a self-discovery in a way. I was just barely hanging on by the end of the day, but now that I've had a nice hot soak in a bathtub... all of a sudden I'm very easy to please." She included her coffee in her pleasures, gesturing with the cup.