Apache Heart (4 page)

             
He chuckled, “Yeah, that’s me. How was the fishing?”

             
“Great.  We brought back eight nice trout, five to seven pounders.”

             
“And the one that got away?” he joked.

             
“Oh, he was enormous!”  Randi spread her hands apart to an absurd length, and laughed.

             
“So how are you liking things around the rez?”

             
“Well, considering I’ve been here for all of three days, I’d say, I’m having a good time.  I met a bunch of nice folks at the hospital, went to the grocery, had a beautiful day fishing, unpacked some boxes, and now I’m getting new tires.  Wouldn’t you say that’s a pretty full agenda?”

             
“Yeah.  How about that Lozen, she’s something, huh?”

             
“From what I could tell, she’s the glue that holds that place together.”

             
“You know she sits on the tribal council?  She’s good for the whole community, not just the hospital… and she’s my cousin.”  He smiled.

             
“I’m beginning to think I’m the only person around who’s not related to anyone else.”

             
He raised an eyebrow.  “Stick around long enough, and that’s bound to change.” 

             
Randi laughed, “So you got any advice for the new kid on the block?”

             
He shook his head, “Nah.  It looks like you’re making the right friends.  Where you live, though, you should keep an eye on the wildfire threat levels.  You can find it on the National Weather Service website.”  Randi looked a little alarmed and Harold paused, “I’m not trying to scare you…chances are slim.  I think the Little Bear fire last year has us all a bit spooked.  More than two hundred houses burned.”

             
“That’s terrible. I hope no one was hurt.”

             
“Some, but no one died, so you have to be thankful for that.” 

             
The young guy with the air gun walked over, “You’re good to go.”

             
Harold nodded, “Okay then, I’ll ring you up.”

             
“So what should a girl with new tires on her truck go do on a Sunday afternoon?”

             
“I take it you’re not a gambler or a golfer?”

             
“Not hardly.”  Randi shook her head. 

             
“Then I’d say go take a hike—I mean literally, not figuratively.”  He pulled out a topographical map from a stack of wrinkled maps and atlases behind his cash register.  “Okay, we’re here, your place is up here, and if you go over here,” he tapped the map with a finger, “That’s a beautiful canyon hike.  Not too hard, not too easy, maybe four miles round trip.  You’ll like it.”

             
“Is there anything that marks the trailhead?”

             
“There’s a little parking area and a sign, you’ll see it.”

###

              Some time alone seemed like a good idea.  The weather was holding mild, and she knew soon it would be a lot hotter.  It was a good time to go exploring and to process her initiation into her new life.  As she hiked, Randi thought about things she’d like to do to fix her place up to make it feel more like her own and to make it more functional.  She definitely needed some things to put on the walls; she only had a few framed pictures of family and friends, and those she’d put on the dresser in her bedroom.  A good reading light, some shelves for the pantry, a new bathroom rug and a shower curtain that matched, a sturdy wastebasket for the kitchen.  All in all it was a mundane list, but thinking about it made her feel like she was a resident, not just passing through.

             
She thought about Elan’s statement about Northeasterner’s using the community to get rid of their loans, and she wondered how she could be more a part of the community.  She wasn’t a church-going type, and clearly she couldn’t participate in tribal functions except as a guest, but maybe she could volunteer with kids, help with softball or scouts or something like that.  She made a mental note to talk to Lozen about it.  She hoped too, that she’d make some friends when she was doing educational work through the fieldwork program. 

             
The hike was as beautiful as Harold had promised, and it felt good to work up a sweat.  Her body seemed to feel more alive than it had in ages, and she wondered if Lee had something to do with that. His behavior was on one hand enchanting and wonderful, and on the other, a little inscrutable and frustrating.  Maybe his lack of forwardness was a cultural thing, or maybe he was only interested in being friends.  It hit her that perhaps the sexual part of the attraction wasn’t mutual.  She hoped not, but only time would tell.

             
As she neared the little gravel parking area at the trailhead, Randi heard a car come screeching to a halt.  Through a clearing in the trees, she saw a man jump out from behind the wheel, and violently throw open the passenger door.  He reached in and grabbed the woman sitting there, and jerked her from the car.  Randi sucked in a breath; it was the pregnant woman she’d seen at the prenatal clinic with a black eye.   The man was yelling at her, and she silently struggled to get away. He wrenched her arm hard behind her, and then pushed her to the ground.  Randi dug through her little knapsack, found her cell phone and dialed 9-1-1. 

             
An anonymous woman’s voice, answered, “Sierra Blanca Tribal Police, What’s your emergency?”

             
Randi tried to keep her voice low, “This is Dr. Randi Green—I’m at the trailhead for Ghost Fork Canyon.  There’s a man in the parking area roughing up a pregnant woman.” 

             
“Are you in a safe location? The dispatcher asked.
              “Yes, I think so.”

             
“Don’t try to intervene, we’ve got officers on the way.”

             
“Please tell them to hurry.”  Randi clicked her phone off and then decided to snap a couple of pictures for evidence.  The woman was in a crumpled heap on the ground, her knee skinned up by the gravel.  The man stood over her yelling incoherently, but it had something to do with what she had done with some money.  She shielded her stomach with her hands, but said nothing.  Frustrated, the man kicked at the gravel, and then spun around, delivering a roundhouse kick to her belly.  She let out a cry as she tried to scramble away.

             
Where were the cops? Randi thought.  She knew it had only been a couple of minutes, but it felt like an eternity.  She realized it might take ten or fifteen minutes before they got there.

Screw not intervening
, she thought, and she popped out of the brush.

             
“Hey!  What’s going on here?” she yelled.

             
The man was clearly surprised, and he turned and snarled at Randi.  “None of your damn business.  Get the hell out of here.”

             
Randi stood her ground.  “I’m a doctor, let me help her.”

             
“There’s nothing wrong with her that a good beating won’t fix.”  He took aim again with his foot.  Randi looked at the pointy-toed snakeskin boots and knew that a jab from one had to really hurt.  She rushed at the man.

             
“Leave her the hell alone.”

             
Without a word or any warning, the man swung his arm and backhanded Randi across the mouth.  She could feel her lip split and then a trickle of warm, salty, blood in her mouth.  But he had chosen the wrong woman to smack; Randi had plenty of training for dealing with belligerent patients in a big city emergency room.  And she had the advantage of the man not expecting her to slam her knee in his groin.  He roared in pain, and fell to his knees.  For good measure, Randi kicked him in the balls again.  Quickly she helped the woman up.

             
“Where are the car keys? Randi asked, panting.

             
“In the ignition.”

             
“The cops are on their way, get in.”  She gently shoved the woman into the car, and Randi locked them in. “We need to get you to the hospital for an ultrasound and monitoring.”

             
“Who are you?”  The woman asked, suspiciously.

             
“I’m the new doctor at the hospital, my name’s Randi.”

             
The woman froze, “You shouldn’t have called the police.”

             
“What are you talking about?  He was endangering you and your baby.”

             
“I—I know, but this is a family thing.”

             
“Look, I’m not trying to interfere in your family, I’m just trying to make sure you are okay.  You already had a black eye.  It’s really common for battering to escalate during pregnancy.”  Randy tried to be as emphatic as possible.  “It’s not going to get better.”

             
They could hear the siren in the distance, and the woman got frantic, “Please, please, the cops can’t see me like this. Please get me out of here.”

             
“You want to take care of your baby?  Right?  You need to get away from him.  Go stay with family, or we’ll find a shelter, something.  That man is out of control—he might not stop until he kills you.”

             
“All right, you’re right, you’re right.”  She started to sob, but when Randi tried to put an arm around her shoulders, she flinched and scooted away.  She turned and looked at Randi with pleading eyes, “Please, please don’t tell my brother.”

             
Randi looked at her puzzled, “Who’s…your brother?”

             
“Lee—Lee Yahnahki.  I’m his sister, Maggie, and if Lee finds out, he will go after my husband, and he won’t stop until he kills him.”

###

              After they handcuffed Maggie’s husband, Joe, and put him in the back of the police SUV, the tribal cops gave Randi a little lecture about how she could have gotten hurt a lot worse than she did, but Randi could tell it was their script, and that they were actually a little impressed.  The younger one of the pair took a statement from her.  He made a few last notes.

             
“Ok Dr. Green, we’re going to take Joe and put him in the drunk tank until he sobers up.  Then we’ll figure out things from there.”  The officer flipped his notepad shut.

             
“I’m going to drive Maggie to the hospital, get her checked out.  Abdominal trauma is nothing to play around with given where she is in her pregnancy.” 

             
He nodded in agreement.  “One of us will drive their car back to the station.”

             
Randi walked back to her truck, where Maggie was sitting.  The older cop was speaking to her in Apache; his voice was soft, but there was urgency in his tone.  Maggie was shaking her head, and saying nothing. Finally he sighed, and gave up.  He turned to Randi and guided her away from the car a bit, speaking softly.

             
“I’m Maggie’s uncle—I’m trying to get her to go to her Mom’s house…after you get her checked out.”  He cleared his throat and added by way of clarification, “Maggie’s father passed a couple of years ago…cancer.” 

             
“She doesn’t want to do that?”

             
“I’ve persuaded her to go to the hospital with you, but she says she’s not going to press charges, and then she’ll go home.  Says that Joe will be sorry tomorrow when he sobers up.”

             
“And you’ll have to let him go?”

             
“It’s tricky with the domestic violence stuff.  We’ve got you as a witness, so he could be prosecuted without Maggie pressing charges, but it’s tough when the victim isn’t compliant.  Sometimes it makes things worse.”  Maggie’s uncle was clearly upset.  “And sometimes family members decide to take things into their own hands, and that’s no good either.”  He rubbed his jaw.

             
“I better get her in.  She’s not having abdominal pain, which is good, but that doesn’t mean that everything is okay.”

             
He handed Randi a business card.  “Call me.  Medical information can be released without her consent if it’s needed to minimize the threat to a victim.  And given how far along she is, we have to protect her
and
the baby.”

             
The reservation was feeling very small, Randi thought, as she got behind the wheel of her truck.  And what did Maggie’s uncle mean that, sometimes, family members take things into their own hands?  And Maggie had made that strange comment about Lee killing her husband.  It didn’t sound like she meant it figuratively.  Randi began to worry that maybe there was more going on with Lee than she knew.