Reason To Believe (33 page)

He looked at her and smiled warmly. She'd once asked him to explain the expression, the connection between
waste,
which meant good, and Chicago. She was always questioning, always interested in the whys and wherefores of things he'd generally shrugged off. Who knew? Who the hell cared?
What's so good about Chicago? It ain't the rez.

She smiled in return, remembering also. "Is that where you'd rather be now? Chicago?"

"Hell, no. What's in Chicago? I'm on my way to Wounded Knee."

"Me, too." She waved at Anna, who waved, then went back to untying her horse. "What were you thinking about yesterday, mostly?"

"Mostly about these kids." He scanned host Tom Scabbard's graveled yard. Billie, of late his favorite niece, was playing fetch with one of a pair of blue heelers, a breed popular with local ranchers, while Toby Two Bear, of late his ever-present tail, was trying to keep the other dog from stealing his breakfast.

"I was thinkin' about how they're goin' along on this ride, and it's harder than they thought, but they just keep on truckin'. About how they trust us." He looked at Clara. "About makin' the effort not to let 'em down."

She glanced away, looking toward sunrise. "Did you think about the baby?" No need to say which one. "Yeah."

"I did, too." Her eyes met his again. "I never really took the time to be sad about it, so it was about time.

And I told Anna about it last night. It was about time for that, too."

She looked to him for affirmation. He gave it in a brief nod.

She smiled wistfully and confided, "I used to tell myself that God took that baby from me because I didn't deserve it. Didn't appreciate it. I know I can be very selfish sometimes."

"You?"

"What's hard to believe? That I'm selfish, or that I can admit it?"

"Is that a trick question?" He leaned close, touching his arm to her shoulder. "I refuse to answer on the grounds that anything I say may be used against me." He straightened, his smile fading, his eyes brimming with the need to unburden himself. "And on the grounds that I was the one who didn't deserve the baby. Or Annie. Or you. So guess who God was gettin' back at?" With a thumb he shoved his hat back, as if to expose the face of a sinner. "I was right smack in the middle of the whole grand scheme. Me and my big ego."

"Really?"

He nodded firmly. "That's right. So don't go tryin' to steal any of my miserable thunder."

She said nothing for a moment, then confessed softly into her coffee cup, "I should have been more careful that night."

And he, just as softly, "I should have been there on time to pick you up."

Out of respect for his father, Ben rode into the center of the morning circle to dedicate the day's ride to the elderly. He prayed for
wolakota
for those who had lived long and given much, who had endured and had shown the way. His voice rose strong and true as he ended with a song, sending a thrilling shiver through his astounded wife.

In sixteen years she'd heard him sing only snatches of country tunes. "Sing it again," she'd plead, but he'd claim not to know all the words. In church he would occasionally join in humbly on a hymn's refrain. But there was none of that reluctance now. On this cold December day, without backup, without accompaniment, without apology, he sang in Lakota. Clara had always admired his voice, but never more than she did on this day, the day they dedicated to the elders. The day Ben offered a song for his father.

The journey continued across desolate, windswept grassland. The better part of the morning had passed when a pickup suddenly shot away from a cattle guard gate near a crossroads, headed straight for the riders. Rather than slow down, as any knowledgeable stockman would, the driver speeded up, his pickup challenging the horses to a game of chicken.

"Heads up!" Cheppa Four Dog called out as he backed his horse away from the road.

"Hold on to your hats, folks!" someone called down the mounted line.

"Watch the kids!"

All they could see behind the rocking and rolling steering wheel was the bill of a cap and a gap-toothed grin as the big blue pickup headed for their side of the road, then veered away at the last moment, horn blasting all the way to high heaven. Several horses balked, reared, pranced. One bolted, and Ben was ready to lend a hand when he saw the hoop take a dip, then drop from his view.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered through his teeth. "Elliot, help that woman, huh?" he shouted as he wheeled his horse. At the jab of Ben's spurless heels the big chestnut gelding sprang off his powerful hindquarters and stretched into a full gallop. Ben searched for the hoop as he circled wide, conscientiously avoiding the other horses. Voices registered distantly. "Ben!" Clara yelled. "Hey, Ben, your..."

The lead horse recovered its legs, but the hoop lay on the ground alongside the red blanket coat. "Dad!"

The old gray head bobbed up from the grass, then sank back down again as Ben knelt beside his father.

"He stepped on my leg. Don't think I can stand up."

"Just be still now." Ben took a quick look around and motioned to Howard White Calf. "Toss me your bedroll."

"Elliot's goin' for help," Howard reported, plucking his bedroll from behind the cantle as he swung down from his saddle. "Some of the vehicles are supposed to meet us this side of the river, so they should be close by."

"Put me in the wagon," Dewey mumbled in Lakota. "We must keep moving."

"We'll take care of you,
ate."
Ben's response came automatically in his native tongue. His father's face was drawn in pain, and it shook him, like a drill hitting a nerve, aggravating a long-forgotten but fundamental insecurity. "Where else is there pain?"

Dewey's gloved hand fluttered ineffectually. "My chest."

"Jesus," Ben breathed. Then, again in Lakota, "A rib, do you think?"

Dewey's hand went to his coat sash. "The pipe."

"It's here." Ben placed his father's hand on the leather pouch he carried at his waist. "Lie still."

"When the people need meat, take my horse," Dewey said, his Lakota words couched in shallow gasps. "Be careful for the little ones. Stay close to the women."

"Do you feel dizzy?"

"I feel old," he said, switching back to English. His eyes rolled back, momentarily exposing only white orbs. Ben gripped a handful of his father's red wool sleeve, and the brown irises reappeared, searching. "Where is my granddaughter? Tell her to bring me water."

Ben looked up, locating Anna a few feet away. He banked his own fear, hoping his daughter wouldn't see it in his eyes. "Annie, there's some water..."

She snatched the canteen off her father's saddle before he could finish his sentence.

Dewey had been x-rayed, sedated, his torso bandaged, his lower leg plastered in a cast. Tara Jean was down the hall filling out papers. Ben sat beside Dewey's bed, waiting for some sign that the old man would return to the living rather than follow the way of those whose spirits he seemed to reach out to more and more. The Old Ones, Dewey called them. The ancestors. It was as though he were fading into their world a little at a time. Soon he would complete the transition, but Ben wasn't ready for that to happen. Not yet. He knew that his own readiness had no bearing on eternity, but he couldn't seem to get his own head on any straighter than the old man's was.

Dewey stirred, searched the white room for his bearings, and found his son's vigilant eyes. "Why are you here? S'posed to be ridin' to Wounded Knee, aren't you?"

"I'm here because you're here, and the doctor says your leg is the least of your worries." Ben tucked his thumbs into his front pockets and leaned back in his chair, inwardly reassured, outwardly affronted. "You're old and sick, and you have no business being out there in all that wind and cold."

"Everywhere you look there are people living out in the cold. Who am I to be spared suffering?" Dewey sighed and stared at the ceiling. "And who are you?"

"Nobody. Nobody to be spared. And I haven't been spared."

"You've tried, and it hasn't worked." The old man glanced Ben's way. "So now what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to see that you let the doctors do their best work on you."

"How will you do that?"

Ben snorted. "You can't get up, old man. You've gone as far as you can go."

"Shoot me, then. Like an old horse. When I am dead, then I will have gone as far in this life as I can go."

Ben braced his hands on his knees and leaned forward. "What the hell do you want from me?" It was a challenge, barely controlled, barely audible. "You want me to stay, you want me to go? You want me to open a vein for you? What?"

"I want what your wife and daughter want. What your friends out there want. Your relations, your neighbors, what they all want." Dewey turned his head to the side and peered down his nose, the only way he could see his son's face. "We want for you what you want for us.

Wolakota."

"I don't have a goddamn clue what that is."

"Yes. you do. You know. Everyone around you can see that you know. Everyone can see it but you."

"I don't know what the hell you're talkin' about, old man. You talkin' about the mistakes I've made, the failure I've been? You think I can't see that? I've lost my home and my family. You think I don't know that?"

"Wolakota
is peace in the mind,
cinks."
The old man gingerly slid his hand up the middle of his torso to his chest and spoke in a strained voice.
"Wolakota
is peace in here. It does not come without sacrifice, and it does not come through separation."

"Separation is not my choice. I mean..." Ben sighed and slumped in his chair, searching for answers in the corners of the ceiling. "I brought it on, but it isn't the way I want to live. Christ, I've learned my lesson. She oughta be able to see that. I quit drinkin'. I changed my ways. Do you know how hard it's been?"

"Yes. You are doing a thing that is hard,
cinks.
But you are a strong man. That's why people look to you. They always have. Even when you were a boy, your cousins, all your friends, they would follow you for good or bad, wherever you wanted them to go." The leathery hand felt for the edge of the bed, groping to reach his son, who held himself back, tightly collected in his chair. "People have always turned to you, but you back away. There is a piece of you that you keep locked away, that you're afraid to take out and share because you know what it will require of you."

"You want me to carry the pipe. I said I would. I told you that I would do this for you on the ride because you shouldn't be—"

"You said you would carry the pipe on this ride to spare me. Because I am your father, and you are a good son. You want me to live another day, another season."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing. But you cannot carry the pipe for me."

Ben's back stiffened. "Why the hell not? You say I'm your son. You don't think I can ever be as good as you? Huh? You think I can never be—"
A spiritual man.

"What I think isn't important. What your wife thinks isn't important. It comes down to what you think. It's true you've changed your ways, how you act, what you put into your body, what you do with your hands." The old man paused to catch his breath. "Now there is this," he said, pointing to his temple. "And this," he added, touching the middle of his chest again. "Will you carry the pipe for yourself? Will you carry it for your family and your neighbors?"

Dewey closed his eyes, drawing deeply on reserves of strength for which he'd paid indisputable hardship dues. Then he looked Ben in the eye. "Will you carry it so that the people may live?"

Ben nodded once. "If you'll give it to me, I'll carry it."

With an affirming gesture Dewey called for the object he held dear to be brought forth from wherever his belongings had been placed. Ben took the pipe bag from the small closet and placed it in his father's hands.

Solemnly Dewey returned it to him. "Take it back to the people," he said.

Ben swallowed hard. The worn buckskin felt warm and soft, like a child's tender skin. He knew he was strong enough to carry it. He would guard it, keep it safe. But delivering it to the people in the way that his father had done, that
was
a charge for a spiritual man. Not a drunk. Not an adulterer. Not a man who had failed his own family so badly. But in his father's tired eyes he saw a spark of hope for himself. A promise of trust. Ben nodded once more.

Dewey lifted his hand toward the closet door, which still stood open, displaying a flash of red wool. "Take my coat."