Follow the Sun (39 page)

Sometimes they sat in her living room late at night eating popcorn and watching reruns of
The Lone Ranger
, and they broke each other up ad-libbing rude dialogue that made “Kemosabe” the only polite word Tonto said. Sometimes they watched old westerns and spent half the time yelling things like “Call off the war party! They’ve sent for John Wayne!” and “Watch out. Running Buffalo, that white man’s from Washington!”

Among other delicious secrets, they developed a game that when strangers came up to James in public and asked if he was Indian he feigned a blank look and Erica spoke to him in Spanish.

No, James would answer in horrible high-school Spanish that he faked considerably, he was Rodriguez y Montasantonio, a diplomat from a small island country off the coast of Surador, in South America. He was in town to see the President.

She’d translate for the strangers, and they were always suitably impressed.

Because James wanted to know more about the way she’d grown up, she resurrected talents she thought she’d forgotten. She taught him how to fold dinner napkins into artistic designs, how to choose a good chablis, and how to do a respectable imitation of a Boston accent.

And finally, after he’d lived at her condominium for three weeks, he offered to show her his home in Virginia. She’d almost given up hope of seeing where he lived, because he seemed reluctant even to talk about it.

In honor of the trip he retrieved his car from storage at a Washington garage. She’d begun to wonder if he had an aversion to owning a car, since he always rented cars or took taxis.

Now Erica knew it was simply that he didn’t need to own more than one car, not when he had the perfect car already. He drove her through the Virginia mountains in a mint-condition, cherry-red Chevrolet convertible, circa 1957. It was a lovely dinosaur that gleamed from the fins in back to the big chromed grill in front.

The car confirmed her suspicions. James liked a flashy lifestyle more than he wanted to admit, and he was going to have a hard time readjusting to the quiet simplicity of the reservation.

Then they arrived at his home. It was only a ninety-minute drive from Washington, but it belonged in another century.

“I told you it wasn’t modern,” James said solemnly, after they traversed the two-mile gravel road through dense woods, across a creek via a wooden bridge, to the top of a ridge, where Erica saw a small cabin built of hand-hewn logs.

She got out of the car and began to laugh. Even though she wanted him to be too cosmopolitan to leave Washington and her, she was so proud of him that she couldn’t help chuckling at her misconceptions.

“A caveman,” she announced, “would have found this a bit primitive.”

James held out a hand. “Come see.”

There were no modern utilities of any kind; just a well with a hand crank to draw water, a fireplace for heating and cooking, and oil lamps for light.

Inside, among crowded bookcases, animal skins, woodworking tools, and photographs of the family. Erica gazed in awe at magnificent oversized furniture ruggedly designed but impeccably crafted.

She stroked the sleek maple of a dresser and ran her fingers over the Cherokee symbols that he’d etched into one corner. “I know these.
Wa-ya
. Wolf. Is that your signature?”

James slid his arms around her from behind and looked over her shoulder. “Yeah. What do you think?”

“I think you could make a great reputation for yourself, selling this kind of furniture throughout the Southeast.”

He chuckled. “You plan big. You think Becky can sell her beaded boots to Neiman-Marcus.”

Erica nodded. Now seemed an appropriate time to mention her idea. “And I think if you were my partner we could buy up some of these shops in Cherokee and turn them into places the tribe could use as a craft co-ops.”

She rushed on, feeling anxious about James’s reaction. “The two of us have the money to take a risk—we could bring in really topnotch native arts and crafts from all over the country. And why should the shops just sell native items? Art is art. We could bring in white artists too. You know, give them a classy place to show their work to an incredible number of tourists.

“You want to sell furniture? Sell it in one of your own shops. With a little luck and the support of the tribe I bet we could start something important.”

James’s hands tightened on her stomach. “And
you’d want to supervise that project?” he asked in a soft, unfathomable voice.

Oh, damn. The thought of having her around that much made him nervous. He was afraid she’d want to stay permanently. “Well, no. You could supervise it. I’d be your long-distance partner, I suppose.”

“Forget it.”

He let go of her and walked to a window, where he stood looking out, with his hands shoved in the back pockets of his jeans. Erica swallowed tears of sorrow that had more to do with herself than the proposed shops.

“Why not, James?”

“It’s a good idea, but you’re the key promoter. I’m not a businessman—not really. I just want to build furniture. You’re the wheeler-dealer. You’re the one who would need to be in North Carolina all the time.”

Where I can watch you pick out a nice Cherokee wife and start a family? No, thanks
.

“I don’t think I could live on the reservation,” she murmured, thinking of the one home she wanted but couldn’t have. She loved Dove’s place; she’d missed it more than she’d ever let James know. She could live there if she had work … and James.

He turned around, his face shuttered. There was no anger in him, or if there was, it was carefully submerged. “Maybe I can find someone to help you with this idea. Travis has a lot of friends on the tribe council. He’d know who to ask. But you really ought to think about getting a place on the reservation and living there at least part of the year.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said cheerfully.

They stood there in awkward silence, as if neither of them had any idea what to do next. “Well,” James said abruptly. “I didn’t just bring you here to brighten up the place. Help me pack.”

I
T WAS ALL
over in a week’s time. He was home, his stuff neatly arranged in Dove’s house,
his
house,
and Erica was still in Washington. She’d tenderly made love to him one last time and cried a little when he left.

He was miserable.

He was miserable, and on his first day home he was the guest of honor at a barbecue that seemed to have drawn half the Cherokee tribe.

“My grandson has come back to his people,” Grandpa Sam said solemnly, gazing down at James from where he stood atop a chair in the front yard of the Tall Wolf home. In honor of the occasion he’d put on an outfit Becky had made for him—buckskin leggings held up by leather garters, a long buckskin loincloth, a colorfully striped thigh-length shirt belted with a braided sash, and a matching turban wound around his head.

That was the way Cherokee men had dressed in the early 1800s, and it had not only a certain nobility to it, it had sex appeal, James thought. When Grandpa Sam moved just right, he flashed a bit of brown thigh from under the hem of his shirt. The women in the crowd applauded and whistled. Grandpa bowed.

Travis braced an arm against Grandpa on one side to keep him from toppling over; Echo braced him on the other side. Grandpa Sam had had a few snorts of his favorite vodka.

“My other grandson has come home,” he repeated, holding out his arms toward James. “Now I have all my grandchildren around me.” Grandpa Sam grasped his heart. “As soon as they all marry and give me great-grandchildren, I can die happy.”

With that announcement he climbed down and went off arm in arm with a small army of his cronies. Travis got up next. “My brother is an inspiration to me,” he said, his gaze holding James’s. “He’s always tried to make his family proud. He’s always loved his family and his tribe, and now he’s come home, where we can take care of him, the way he deserves.”

Travis got down, walked through the crowd, and hugged James silently, which was Travis’s way of saying
a great deal. After he turned and walked away, James stood without moving, his throat closed with emotion. If only Erica had been there to see that miracle. She’d helped make it happen.

He returned the tentative smiles and handshakes of people who’d never thought they’d see him and Travis as true brothers again. James was kissed on the cheek by a pretty young woman whom he remembered vaguely as one of Becky’s classmates, and he was faintly aware of interested smiles from other women.

“Where is your friend from Washington?” one of them asked. “Are you going to marry her?”

“I’m never going to get married,” he said with a devilish grin, and winked at her as he walked away. She giggled.

Two pairs of female hands latched on to his arms. “Now,” Echo said sternly.

“Yes,
now
,” Becky added. “Come with us.”

They pulled him into the house and shut the door. Both of them put their hands on their hips and eyed him like angry chickens studying a fox.

“You can’t ignore us any longer. Why didn’t Erica come with you?” Becky asked.

“When is she coming back?” Echo demanded.

James was in no mood to explain that their big brother had fallen desperately in love with a woman who didn’t love him. But if he didn’t explain he felt reasonably certain that Echo and Becky would enlist Travis and Grandpa Sam and that together they would make him more miserable than he already was.

“She doesn’t belong here. She knows that she wouldn’t be happy here, and she’s honest about it. But I’m sure she’ll visit again.”

Becky said something in Cherokee. He believed it was some sort of womanly insult aimed at him. “Did you ask her to come back?”

“In a way.”

“Did you tell her that you loved her?”

“No. I don’t recall telling either of you that I loved her either.”

Echo tossed up her hands. “Are we blind?”

Becky jabbed a finger at him. “Are
you
blind?”

“No, but I wish I were deaf.”

“Of course she won’t come back if she thinks you don’t love her,” Echo protested.

James held up both hands patiently. “Now, sisters, I know neither of you has had a lot of experience with these kinds of relationships—”

“Arrrrgh,” they said, more or less in unison.

Becky tapped his arm vigorously to emphasize her words. “Erica has too much dignity to chase a man who keeps saying that when he gets married he’s going to pick a nice safe Cherokee woman who’ll be sure not to run off and leave him.”

“It’s not like that,” James insisted, frowning. “Has she ever told you that she loves me?”

Echo eyed him proudly. “She has too much dignity to talk about her feelings for you. I think she knew how much trouble there was between you and the family, and she didn’t want to make any more. But we don’t have to hear the words to know how much she cares. She told us about the steroids you took.”

James stared at his sisters in dismay. “Why?”

“So we’d understand how hard you tried to make us proud all those years when we just thought you were a jerk.”

Becky shook her finger at him, “Now, don’t change our new opinion. Go get Erica.”

About that time the front door opened. Grandpa Sam and Travis came in. “What’s going on?” Travis asked.

“I’m being bullied by misguided sisters,” James said wearily.

Grandpa Sam grasped his arm and looked down at him seriously. “Why didn’t Eh-lee-ga come home with you?”

James shook his head in defeat. Surrounded by angry warriors. Now he knew how Custer had felt. He looked at Travis for support.

Travis crossed his arms and smiled pleasantly. “You’re one dumb jock if you let her get away.”

James groaned. “Look, she’s headed for Boston right now to go to a party for her stepfather. He’s just been appointed to the President’s cabinet. As in President of the United States. You see what kind of life Erica leads? She’s my best friend, but she doesn’t love me, and she’d never move down here even if she
did
love me.”

“I figured out some of that writing of Dove’s you sent me,” Grandpa Sam informed him. “And two of those Gallatin medals.” He put a hand on James’s shoulder and said solemnly, “I think you need to hear what I’ve learned.” He smiled patiently. “And then I think you’ll want to go to Boston and bring Eh-lee-ga home.”

CHAPTER 11