Native Affairs (8 page)

“Why should I?” he answered simply. “She didn’t identify with me.”

“You’ve never had any contact with her?” Cindy persisted, wondering if she might be pushing him too far, but eager to understand everything about him.

He was silent for a few moments, considering her question, or his answer to it. Then he said, “When she left me with my father, she said she didn’t want to be bothered about me in the future. ‘Bothered’ was the exact word. I gather that I was an embarrassment, not exactly the right bloodline, you understand. As a small child I was curious, of course. Once I became old enough to understand the implications of the situation, I realized that contacting her would be futile, and probably painful. I don’t want anybody who doesn’t want me,” he concluded in a defiant tone that brought quick tears to Cindy’s eyes. In those words she heard the child’s rejection and the man’s determined vow to overcome it.

“It was her loss, Drew,” she said to him, with a catch in her voice that she hoped he missed.

He didn’t miss it. He glanced at her and smiled briefly. “Don’t be unhappy, princess. It was a long time ago.”

“I can’t imagine a mother abandoning her child that way,” Cindy added slowly.

“No, I’m sure you can’t,” he replied, in a tone which made her turn her head to look at him.

“Don’t hate her, Drew,” Cindy said. “She was weak, and you’re not. It’s always difficult to understand a flaw in someone’s character when you don’t share it.”

“I don’t hate her anymore. When I was younger, her leaving me was sad, but now it’s only... interesting.”

“Interesting?” What an odd choice of words.

“Yes. I felt sorry for my father, when he was alive, because he loved her. He carried that sorrow to his grave. But now that he’s gone, so is the reason for the emptiness she left. I never knew her and so I never missed her.”

“What was he like?”

Fox glanced at her. “My father?”

“Yes.”

A small smile played about his lips. “Quiet. Very smart, but not showy about it. He loved me, and I miss that. In anyone’s life there are only a few people, if that, who love you that way—completely, selflessly. He was that person for me and I know I’ll never be loved like that again.”

Cindy was silent, unable to get words past the lump in her throat. This was the man Paula saw as aloof and uninvolved? She didn’t know him. She simply didn’t know him.

Her reverie was interrupted by a chuckle from Fox, low and self-conscious. “Wow. You sure are getting me to talk. I don’t think I’ve blabbed that much about myself in twenty years. The FBI could use your services.”

“I didn’t mean to pry,” Cindy said, surreptitiously dabbing her damp lashes with a fingertip.

“You didn’t. Something about you gets me going. In more ways than one,” he concluded dryly, and she could feel her face growing warm.

He glanced over his shoulder and pulled off the road into a grove of orange trees. A fruit stand stood at the edge of the orchard.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked. “It’s great stuff, fresh squeezed, the best in the state.”

“Oh, yes, please. I’m getting awfully thirsty in this heat.”

Fox helped her out of the truck and she sat at an oak table under the trees while he went to get the drinks. He returned with two tall wax cups filled with orange juice swimming with pulp. He handed her one and watched with amusement as she swallowed half the contents in one gulp.

“Fabulous,” she pronounced, pausing to take a breath. “Delicious.”

He shook his head as he drank from his own glass. “It doesn’t take much to please you, does it?” he asked rhetorically.

“Cold juice on a hot day would please anybody,” she answered.

“That’s not what I meant,” he said, but when she looked at him inquiringly, he merely shook his head again and didn’t elaborate.

Cindy watched him as he stood a few feet away from her, one leg up on the bench where she sat, an elbow propped on his upraised knee. His shirt was open at the neck, exposing the strong column of his throat. The honey tan skin glowed with the dull finish of polished marble warmed by the sun. His eyes, narrowed against the glare of the sun, were emerald slits outlined by black lashes as thick as a child’s. A slight breeze ruffled his hair and scattered the wisps, like drifting black feathers, across his forehead.

“Why do you look at me like that?” he asked abruptly, and Cindy started, chagrined that she was caught staring.

“I...” she said and stopped.

“You what?” he prompted. “You can tell me.”

“I like to look at you,” she answered simply.

His expression changed, became intent, listening. “Why?”

“Your features are different, intriguing, a combination of traits that shouldn’t go together but somehow do. You don’t look like anybody else.”

“That makes me sound like a freak,” he said, half smiling, half serious.

“Oh, no,” she protested, concerned that he had misunderstood her. “I think you’re beautiful.”

He tossed away his empty cup and reached her in two strides, pulling her into his arms.

“You keep saying things like that to me,” he whispered against her hair, “and we’ll never make it to Eli’s.”

“Who’s Eli?” Cindy asked dreamily, her eyes closing.

“My grandfather,” Fox replied, a trace of amusement in his voice. “Remember him?”

“Vaguely,” she sighed, relaxing into his shoulder, and he laughed softly.

“Miss Warren, you wouldn’t be making a pass at me in a public place, would you? What an unprincesslike thing to do.”

Cindy pulled back to look into his eyes, making sure that he was kidding. He grinned wickedly and then kissed the tip of her nose.

“You’d never forget yourself so far, would you, princess? Well, you’re not exactly what I’m used to, but a refreshing change.” He hugged her briefly and then set her away from him, wagging his finger under her nose. “Now you must promise to behave yourself and not make any more disarming statements.”

Cindy’s brow knit in puzzlement. “I don’t know what you mean, Drew. You asked me a question and I answered it honestly. You wouldn’t want me to lie, would you?”

Fox studied her for a moment, and then asked quietly, “Do you have a boyfriend back home in Pennsylvania—somebody special?”

“No, not really.”

“Nobody?”

“Well, I’ve dated a few other graduate students casually, but that’s not what you’re talking about, right?”

“How about before, in college, or in high school?”

Cindy considered the question. “Well, I went to an all-girls’ school until I was eighteen, and then in college I was usually pretty busy, trying to keep my scholarship. It was a work scholarship, and I had to hold down a campus job and keep my grades up and...”

She stopped talking when she saw that he was waving his hand in a gesture of dismissal. “So you’re saying that you’ve never had a serious relationship with a man?”

“No, I never have.”

His expression indicated that he found the information incredible. “What’s wrong with the men up north?” he asked, as if talking to himself. “Are they blind, or dead?”

Cindy shifted uncomfortably, sensing that this new awareness on his part might change their relationship.

He glanced at his watch and extended his hand. “We’d better get going, princess. Eli gets itchy if anybody’s late; he still doesn’t trust cars, considers horses an infinitely more reliable form of transportation.”

They climbed back into the truck to complete the journey, but Cindy could tell that he hadn’t forgotten what she’d told him in the grove. He was quiet and thoughtful for the rest of the drive, and she began to wonder if she’d been wrong to tell him the truth. Maybe she should have pretended to experience she didn’t have. But as soon as that idea formed in her mind, she dismissed it. He would have been able to tell, he seemed able to read her easily. Still, his reaction worried her. If he preferred sophisticated women who’d been around with a lot of men, she guessed she wouldn’t interest him much longer.

After about twenty minutes more on the main road Fox turned off onto a dirt track that wound through citrus groves and scrub grass for another couple of miles. At its end the vegetation became denser, until the path stopped in an area fronting a still lake. In the background, right on the shore, stood a stucco house with a large rear veranda completely enclosed by screens.

Fox had barely turned off the motor when the front door of the house opened and a young man in his twenties came out, wearing a straw Stetson with the inevitable jeans and work boots. His shirt was different, however; definitely handmade, with the distinctive Seminole multicolored stripes. Fox was helping Cindy out of the truck as he greeted them.

“Hey, Drew, good to see you.” He eyed Cindy appreciatively. “Who is this?”

“Cindy, this is my cousin, Walter Fox. Walter, this is Cindy Warren, from Pennsylvania,” Fox said.

“Pennsylvania,” Walter echoed, extending his hand. “That’s somewhere up around the north pole, isn’t it?”

Cindy shook hands with Walter, smiling. “You’ve got the general direction right, though not quite so far.”

“Walter thinks civilization stops at the Florida border,” Fox said. He glanced at the house. “Is the old man inside?” he asked Walter.

As if in answer to a summons, the screen door to the patio opened and a man emerged. Cindy watched his approach, hoping that Eli would like her.

If she had had some idea of Fox’s grandfather as a bent, shriveled ancient in a serape, smoking a corn cob pipe, it was quickly dispelled when she met him.

“Cindy, this is my grandfather, Eli Fox,” her companion said. “Eli, this is Cindy Warren, the lady I told you about.”

Cindy’s hand was lost in the old man’s weathered one as she wondered what Fox had said. Eli looked her over, his keen eyes missing nothing. He was robust, with streaks of white running through his coal-black hair, and looked much younger than his years. He was shorter and more Indian in appearance than Drew. Dressed in tan shorts and a polo shirt, with thongs on his bare feet, he looked like a Long Island retiree about to water his zinnias.

“How do you do?” he said politely. “Andrew tells me that you are interested in our legends and would like to talk to me about them.”

“Yes, if you have the time. I’m doing a paper on the folklore of the southeastern Indians.”

“A college paper?” he asked, faint amusement showing in his tone.

“Yes, a master’s thesis.”

“Do you hear that, Andrew? They’re teaching college courses on our spirit stories now.”

“Yeah, Eli, I know,” Fox replied, smiling indulgently at Cindy. “Do you think you can help this young lady with her research while Walter and I do the lawn?”

“Certainly,” Eli said, making a sweeping gesture toward his back porch. “Will you join me on the patio? The boys get together to do the yard work about once a month. I tell them I can handle it, but they think I’m a feeble shut-in incapable of manual labor.”

This was so far from the obvious truth that Cindy laughed. “Oh, Mr. Fox, I don’t think anyone would make that mistake about you,” she said, as they walked together to the veranda. It was pleasant and cool inside, and a pitcher of iced tea had already been prepared. It was on a stand just beside the door. Cindy could hear the voices of Drew and his cousin as they assembled their tools, and soon the soothing drone of the mower punctuated the late morning stillness.

“Call me Eli,” Fox’s grandfather said, as they sat down on the lawn chairs provided, and he poured the tea. “Now,” he went on, handing her a glass and settling back in his chair, “how did you meet my grandson?”

Cindy described the rather unorthodox circumstances of their meeting to the old man, who nodded and seemed to find nothing strange about his grandson diving through a window onto Council Rock’s main street. In his turn he told her about his move to this new house, how Fox persuaded him that he would be better off in modern surroundings, and how Fox took great pains to find property where his grandfather would be comfortable. His every word was suffused with love for his dead son’s child. Cindy found herself thinking that while Fox might have lacked a mother’s care, he had missed nothing of affection thanks to these people who had raised him.

“Well, enough of this,” Eli said suddenly, interrupting himself. “How can I help you?”

Cindy removed a yellow legal pad from her large purse. “I’d like to ask you some questions, and I’d like to take notes, if I may.”
 

Eli gestured for her to scribble away.
 

“I’m especially interested in the Green Corn Ceremony, the
busk
, as you call it. Can you describe to me the rituals involved, and the stories that were told?”

Eli nodded and launched into a flood of remembrance that gave Cindy writer’s cramp trying to keep up with him. The information was pure gold, however, and she had filled several pages with her own brand of shorthand when a sound from outside caused her to look up.

Fox was cutting the weeds at the side of the driveway with a scythe. Stripped to the waist, his muscular torso streaming sweat, he swung the tool in a rhythmic arc, his whole body swaying gracefully in time to the motion of his arms. Cindy stared for several seconds before tearing her eyes away, but Eli had noticed her attention wandering from their interview.