Native Affairs (50 page)

On the way back he was quiet and merely nodded when she reminded him of the time she would return for him. She watched him walk up the path to his house, admiring, as always, the broad shoulders and narrow waist, the perfect proportions of his athlete’s body. The sun made a shining black helmet of his hair. Then she tore her eyes away and ordered Max, in a firmer tone than was necessary, to take her back to her apartment.

She told herself sternly that she really hadn’t been hoping Lee would ask her inside.

* * * *

They were due at the hospital at two, and Jennifer ate a quick lunch before changing into a tailored dress and brushing her hair. She glanced at the evening dress laid out on the bed for the dinner that night Sponsored by the Freedom’s management, it was being held at the Bellevue Stratford downtown, to welcome the new players and kick off the season. It was a social event, rather than business, so she wouldn’t be going with Lee. For lack of a better idea, she had asked John Ashford to escort her, and she assumed Lee was bringing a date also.

Jennifer shook her head. One thing at a time. She had to get through this afternoon first. She would worry about tonight when the time came.

Lee remained introspective during the ride to the hospital. He sat next to her in the back seat of the limousine, his knee almost touching hers, staring out the window. He had changed also, into dark slacks and a light blue shirt and a knit tie. He turned once to find her watching him, and she looked away.

A group of reporters and a news team from a local television station were already waiting outside the ward when they arrived. A cameraman with his equipment strapped to his shoulders zeroed in on Lee and followed his every move. Lee glanced at Jennifer quickly, uncertainly, as if for guidance, and then plunged ahead.

The kids could hardly control their excitement. The ambulatory cases had been assembled at one end of the ward, where rows of folding chairs were interspersed with wheelchairs and cots. The children who were bedridden had been propped up with pillows so they could see better. Nurses and aides stood by, beaming, to shake hands with Lee as he entered. A hospital spokesman, who had met them in the lobby, cleared the way and led Lee to a vantage point where he could address the group.

Lee’s reaction to the sick children was not lost on Jennifer. His sharp eyes took in everything, and they filled with compassion at the sight of illness and incapacity in ones so young. He paused a couple of times, once by the bedside of a little black boy who had tubes running from his nose and the inside of his arm. He sat on the edge of the child’s bed, as everyone waited for him, and talked to the boy for several minutes. He stopped again to tell a girl of about nine or ten, who had a broken leg in traction, about the time he had broken his own leg. He reassured the girl that his was as good as new now, and hers would be, too.

Jennifer walked just behind him, and she could see his face change during his progress through the ward. When he got to his appointed spot, he looked around for her.

“Jen?” he said softly.

She had never heard that tone from him before. He, who was always so sure of himself, sounded…shaken.

“Right here,” she said, stepping forward.

He looked at her for a moment, and then reached down and pressed her hand.

Alarmed, she said, “Lee, are you all right?”

He swallowed. “Sure. Fine. Just…stay here, okay?”

In that moment, she would have done anything he asked. “I’ll be right behind you.”

He nodded. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

The photographers snapped pictures, and the reporters held up their microphones to catch his words, as he began a dialogue with the children, answering their questions and telling them stories. As he relaxed, and the effects of what had been bothering him initially wore off, he loosened his tie and pulled a chair forward to lean on as he talked.

His audience was fascinated. They listened, quiet as cloistered nuns, their eyes round, while he described the rigors of the Sun Dance, a solemn ceremony performed by the Indians of the Plains for hundreds of years. Jennifer was as riveted as the children by the narration. Lee told of the preparation involved, the feasting, the courtships, and the selection of the assistants for the rites by the shamans. Virtuous women were chosen to chop down the sacred cottonwood tree, used as an integral part of the dance. Later, a mentor would be chosen from the shamans to be in charge of the activities.

The cottonwood tree was then stripped, painted, and raised as a pole in the center of the dancing ground. At dawn, the dancers were prepared for their ordeal. The warriors were decorated with colors that showed what degree of pain they had chosen to suffer. Some would merely fast and dance, others would have bits of flesh cut from their bodies, and the bravest were those who had agreed to have skewers implanted through flaps cut in their skin. They were attached to the tree, or to buffalo skulls, by rawhide thongs, and would dance until the skin of each man ripped free from the skewers, experiencing, through their great pain, a communion with the spirit of the sun.

Jennifer watched the children’s expressions as Lee detailed, vividly, the endurance of the dancers, the trancelike state of the participants as they approached union with their god. It was clear that this group had never heard anything like it. She hadn’t, either.

One child, bolder than the others, began to beg for a demonstration. Jennifer could tell that Lee was tempted, but he glanced at the reporters crowding around him, and it was obvious that he didn’t want to be filmed for presentation on the six o’clock news. The spokesman had acquired a following, and Lee shushed them with the promise of another story. Jennifer watched, overwhelmed with tenderness, as Lee lost the last of his reserve and sat cross-legged on the floor, telling the children about the Blackfoot societies, through which the men of the tribe advanced all their lives. As boys they entered the Little Birds, where they learned the art of warfare. After three trials, a boy went on to the Pigeons, and when he was finally accepted as a warrior, to the Mosquitoes. He gave the Pikuni name for all of these. And, Lee said, if a man had the largest number of coups in his society, and had become a living god, then he could join the Mutsik, the society reserved for the bravest and best warriors. Lee’s grandfather, Spotted Horse, had been a Mutsik, Lee told them proudly, and a great chief.

“What are coups?” a towheaded midget in the front row asked in a piping voice.

Lee explained that coups were blows delivered to the enemy by touching him with a coup stick. It was like a game of tag, he said, but a dangerous one, in which you had to get close enough to an armed enemy to touch him, but had to get away again to tell the story. The tribal council then listened to the story of the deed, and if it was determined to be the truth, supported by witnesses, the brave was awarded a coup feather, a tail feather of the male golden eagle. The warrior collected these, and when he had enough, he wore them in a war bonnet.

By this time, the reporters had material for their stories, and the nurses were making noises about getting the children back to bed. When it was time for Lee to go, amidst much protest, the redhead who had talked the most touched Lee on the arm and said wistfully, “Sure wish we could have seen that dance.”

The members of the press were gone, and Lee said goodbye to the staff, promising to return. He pushed his hair back from his forehead and exhaled sharply.

“Do you think you could go along without me?” he asked Jennifer. “I’m through here, but I want to talk to the administrator about some fund raiser they want me to do. I don’t want to hold you up, so you might as well go home. I’ll call a cab.”

This was another breach of the rules, but she wasn’t about to debate it with him. “All right, Lee. You look tired, though; you’d better get out of here early enough to get some rest before tonight By the way, what was upsetting you when you first came in?”

His eyes flashed to her face. “Oh, nothing.”

“Something, I think.”

He sighed. “It was just, well, I had a brother who died of leukemia when he was eleven, and this sort of brought it all back to me. I had forgotten how… painful... it is to see sick children and not be able to help them.”

Jennifer was silent.

“I did want to help them, once. I wanted to be a doctor. Did I ever tell you that?”

“I think you mentioned it, yes.”

He nodded slowly. “All water under the bridge, now, I guess.” He eyed her, his head slightly tilted to one side. “I’ll see you tonight, then.”

“Yes.”

His lips curved in the trace of a smile. “Thanks for the moral support.”

“That’s my job,” she said lightly, and then was sorry for the superficial comment. His expression changed.

“Ah, yes, the job. You are very good at your job.”

The closeness between them had vanished in an instant Jennifer lifted her hand in farewell and headed out to the parking lot, as Lee turned away.

She was almost to the glass double doors at the end of the hall when something made her stop. Lee’s behavior had been abrupt, suspect in a vague way, as if he had wanted to be rid of her. The story about the fund raiser had sounded hastily manufactured. What was he up to? Jennifer turned around and retraced her steps.

Her suspicions were confirmed when she got back to the ward. Two nurses stood by the doors, like sentinels, blocking entry. They recognized Jennifer as Lee’s companion and let her pass.

Lee was in the middle of the room, barefoot and bare chested, his shirt and shoes discarded on a nearby chair. Jennifer remained hidden behind an examination screen as Lee selected the redhead and two others to follow him as he demonstrated the Sun Dance. Gracefully, without a wasted motion, he showed the children the ancient, time-honored movements, pacing slowly in a circle, chanting softly under his breath. The kids, two boys and a little girl, mimed his every gesture, carefully, solemnly, as if their lives depended on getting it right. Lee looked like nothing so much as Pied Piper, his charges trailing after him in intricate procession.

Jennifer bit her lip and closed her eyes, smitten completely. How sweet he was to do this. He had come back on his own, without an audience, so as not to disappoint the kids.

When she looked again he was beating out the rhythm on one of the bedsteads, watching the children as they continued without him. Jennifer saw the bent dark head, the softly falling hands, and knew that she was in love with him.

It was not so bad once she found the courage to admit it to herself. She knew that nothing could ever come of it, he had made that eminently clear that morning, but acknowledging it gave her a secret treasure to hold next to her heart She loved Lee Youngson, probably had since the day she’d met him. And just for that moment, before she could consider the heartbreak and the pain that would surely follow, she was glad.

She put her finger to her lips to indicate that she wished to remain undetected, and one of the nurses nodded as she slipped out again. The other followed her into the corridor.

“That is one very nice man,” the nurse said to Jennifer.

“Yes, he is,” Jennifer agreed.

“Those kids will be talking about this for weeks,” her companion went on. “Just think, a famous person like that taking the time for them. It’s made my day, I can tell you.”

Jennifer exchanged a few more pleasantries with the woman and then left During the ride home she kept seeing Lee dancing with those children, an image she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, dismiss from her mind.

* * * *

Jennifer was determined to look her best that night. She might not be Lee’s date, but she would see him and longed to make a lasting impression. After their dinner date she was sure that he wanted her; this gave her a heady feeling of power which she couldn’t resist using. She deliberately chose her sexiest dress, a black off-the-shoulder taffeta with a scalloped hemline and puffed sleeves. She piled her hair on top of her head, adding earrings and a matching pendant of brilliant oval aquamarines surrounded by tiny diamonds. The jewelry was an anniversary present from Bob, which he, in a rare burst of chivalry, had refused to take back when they were divorced. The center stones enhanced her eyes, and the severe dress made her hair seem paler by contrast. When she was ready, she studied her reflection in the mirror and was sure that she had never looked better in her life.

Lee thought so, too. As she walked into the main dining room of the Bellevue Stratford with John Ashford, she saw Lee standing to one side with Joe Thornridge. Lee was resplendent in a white dinner jacket with satin lapels, a ruffled silk shirt, and narrow black pants with a black bowtie. His eyes traveled over Jennifer slowly and then met hers. In them, she saw a reflection of her own desire. Her breath caught in her throat, but she merely inclined her head coolly to acknowledge him. Lee did nothing, simply looked back at her with those searching, fathomless eyes. Jennifer turned her head and moved on.

Dolores was waiting at their table, with her date, a commercial photographer whom Jennifer had once met briefly. After she and John were seated, she looked around for Lee.

She had hoped that he would be placed out of her sight, but found to her dismay that he was only two tables away, with Joe Thornridge and his wife, a delicate blonde in a pastel pink dress. She had a clear view of Lee’s chiseled profile and gleaming hair. And, unfortunately, an equally clear view of his date.