Reason To Believe (24 page)

Clara and TJ exchanged doubtful glances.

"Nope," TJ assured him, suppressing a smile. "They're unarmed."

"I remember they had a ride or something last year. I think they were the ones broke my fence down."

"I don't know about that." TJ stepped away from Clara's horse and directed the man's attention toward the shady spot where some of the men had congregated to share a smoke. "You could ask my dad about it. He's the one in the black and red coat."

"Big chief, huh?" The rancher watched the press vehicles drive past. Then he took another look at the men, the horses, a group of women and children sitting in the grass closer by with more horses.

Then, finally, back to the two he'd started with. "Tell them they can let the fence down and water their horses in the creek. But they got to put it back up or I'll have cows from here to Texas."

"You want to relay that, Clara?"

"Maybe you should. You talk Indian better than I do." Clara turned a sunny smile on the dour old man. "But we will explain it to them. I'm sure they'll appreciate your generosity."

"You think there'll be something on the news tonight?"

Clara shrugged. "Might even make the network news."

"No kidding? That Tom Brokaw, he's a South Dakota boy, you know." He adjusted his stately high-crown cowboy hat. "You tell the chief to help himself to my water. It's gonna take some ridin' to get to Pine Ridge. Do they have winter gear and all?"

"Have you ever slept in a tipi?" TJ asked. The man shook his head. "It's almost like a house, really."

"Well, I 'spoze..." He hooked a gnarly forefinger over the brim of his hat as he backed away. "Nice meetin' you, ladies. You have a nice ride."

"What should we tell them?" Clara asked as she and TJ marched side by side toward the outdoor sanctum, the mare in tow.

"We'd better tell them if they don't cut it short, it's gonna be on the six-o'clock news, complete with that guy's account of how a bunch of Indians came and pissed in his creek." TJ's blue-black hair glistened in the sun as she shook her head ruefully. She imitated the gravelly voice. "'Do they have winter gear?'" Then, in her own voice, "Why? Do you think it might get cold? Just a little bit
osni?
Jeez. They probably never thought of that."

Picking up the pace, TJ tipped her head back and laughed. The sun shone brightly in her face. "I used to say my brother sometimes acted too dumb to live, but even then he wasn't
that
dumb." She turned to Clara, and her smile faded. "What's wrong?"

They stopped walking. Clara shrugged and glanced away. "You know what? I almost asked him if he remembered to bring long johns."

TJ thought for a moment, then laughed. "You know how cold it gets in that shop of his sometimes?"

"It's not heated?"

"He's got a couple of space heaters, but it still gets cold. He's used to it, though. All we had growing up was a wood stove."

"I just..." Clara looked down at the toes of her boots. "You know, force of habit. It's not that I think he's dumb. Just... sometimes he doesn't take care of himself the way..." The way she would, damn it, so who was the stupid one?

"It's none of my business, Clara. I know my brother's no angel, and you've probably got good reason to divorce him, if that's what you have to do. Whatever he did..." TJ waited until Clara looked up.

She didn't expect Clara to tell her. The great thing about TJ was that she didn't have to know the details. She got the picture without them. "He's off the booze. I don't think he's fallen off the wagon once since he came back to the rez."

Staring into the trees, Clara nodded.

"I wouldn't lie for him, either, not to you. You're my sister."

"I know." Clara nodded again, staring hard, fighting tears, her voice giving her trouble. "I know."

"He's lonesome for you." Again TJ waited. Clara took a deep, cleansing breath and finally looked into those dark, deep-set eyes again. Eyes so much like Anna's. Eyes that reminded her of Ben. "I just thought you should know that, too," TJ said.

Clara pressed her lips together tight and nodded. She was okay. But she didn't dare try to speak just now.

A playful bark drew TJ's head around. "Annie! Billie! Get away from that dog."

The girls were trying to catch up to them, but a scrawny yellow mutt wanted to play. "He keeps following us," Billie said.

"Sssst! Go on!" TJ picked up a small rock and whizzed it over the dog's head. He jumped for it, missed, and went chasing after it.

Clara's laugh was a little shaky, but it was a laugh.

TJ shook her head. "Damn farmers'll be saying the Indians stole their dog next."

"You mean the dog-eatin' Sioux?" said a familiar male voice.

Clara groaned inwardly. Ben's favorite trick in the world was to creep up on people from behind. This time he'd used her horse as a blind. He'd brought Howard with him, sneaky as you please, and they were both grinning. Must have been a sight, women throwing rocks at innocent dogs.

"Hell, that's a sheepdog," Howard said. "They stink like sheep. We don't eat no damn sheepdog. Right, Ben?"

"Don't be bad-mouthin' sheepdogs," Ben warned. "I got one at home."

Over the top of her saddle he caught Clara's eye. "At the kennel," she said quietly. She gave a brief, wistful smile, then jammed the toe of her boot into the stirrup and hauled herself into the saddle without asking for a leg up.

And without asking exactly what Ben thought he meant by saying that he had a sheepdog at
home.

"Hey there, pretty lady, where's the fire?"

Ben urged his gelding into a ground-eating lope. Clara was trotting well abreast of the hoop and the staff, but he could tell by the quizzical look she shot him when she turned toward the sound of his voice that he'd dragged her back from some dreamworld. He chuckled. "You don't wanna get ahead of the leaders."

She noted her advancing position, smiled bashfully, and reined in her mare. "I guess I was daydreaming."

"You'll be in the front row of the picture." He nodded toward the ubiquitous photographers who'd taken the high ground up ahead.

"Might be fun to make the evening news."

"Indians hire white scout. Details at ten." The laughter they shared came easily, just as it had earlier. His gaze drifted toward the western horizon. "Looked like you and TJ had your heads together back there at the creek. What did she tell you?"

"Maybe it was the other way around. Maybe I was telling her."

He turned, surprised by her challenging undertone. Hadn't they just enjoyed an inside joke? Hadn't his cleverness pleased her?

The hint of defiance in her eyes faded as she lifted one shoulder. "She was mostly grumbling about that rancher we told you about. Joking around, you know."

No, he didn't know. His sister and his wife. The two women in his life who knew him best, putting their heads together, combining what they knew into a composite picture that would probably scare the shit out of everybody, including him.

But Clara didn't look too scared. She even smiled
a
little. "She said... she just wanted me to know that you've been on the straight and narrow. That you've really quit drinking."

The corners of his mouth took an appreciative dip. "You believe her?"

"I believed you."

He nodded. He wanted to ask her when she'd believed him, but he just left it there. It was past tense, so it didn't matter now. No point in asking her to give it another shot, believe him one more time.

But he gave a lopsided smile. "I can balance
a
checkbook now. You believe that?"

"I never doubted that you
could,
if you ever decided you wanted to."

"Well, I still don't want to, but I have to. I've got
a
business to run. I even took a couple of courses at the tribal college. Got my columns in order, my debits and my credits. It used to scare me, you know?"

"Keeping books?"

"Seeing the whole thing laid out there in black and white." He stuck his left hand out and studied the palm of his split-cowhide glove like the page of a book. "My debts against my credits. The credit side always looked pretty skimpy. And I didn't wanna look at the debts in broad daylight." His saddle creaked as he shifted his weight. "They made me write 'em down when I was in treatment. All the debts."

As usual she chose to ignore the reference.

"How do you account for horses in your books?" He questioned her with a glance, and she clarified, "You said you took them in trade."

"Yeah." He shrugged. His system still had its weaknesses. "I've got a separate page for that. I think you have to make a place for it on your own time. I've got plenty of time on my hands these days, time and skill that I can trade for stuff. Cash isn't everything."

"And people can't always pay what they owe. That's just a fact of life."

"But they need to try." Total up your debts and try to make amends. Maybe it wouldn't be enough, he'd been warned. But you had to try. He chuckled. "Good ol' TJ, stickin' up for her wicked brother. That's kinda nice. I like it."

"It's not so unusual, is it? She's your sister."

"But she
isn't
my mother. She never could quite get that through her head."

"There's something about you, Ben, that just begs to be mothered."

"Not anymore." He watched her golden hair flutter away from her face, brightened by the cold air. Pink nose. Pink cheeks. Laughing eyes the color of late summer grass. She looked achingly like the girl he'd married. He grinned. "I ain't kiddin' you, Mama, I took the cure. Weaned off the bottle, gave up the breast."

"You're a big boy now, hmm?"

"Damn right. Motherless bastard and proud of it."

"Sounds like a line from Peter Pan, or a cowboy's twisted version of it." She gave him a pointed look. "Got news for you, cowboy, the Wendys of the world are wising up."

"That's okay. That's just fine with me. See if you can get TJ to join the movement, okay?" But his sister was the same kind of maverick he was. It was hard to imagine her taking up any cause, especially his. A wistful smile played across his face. "She really was stickin' up for me, huh?"

"That pleases you?"

"I guess it does." He was surprised. "She had to look after me a lot when we were kids, especially after the ol' lady took off. I've thought about it some lately, thought it was probably hard for her, being the responsible one. Our other sister—you know, Lila, the one who lives in Montana—she was always kind of a birdbrain."

"Ben!"

"Still is. She got herself hooked up with another loser now. She just can't learn. And then, you know, our brother that died, he was..." Hard to remember, harder to describe. "My dad's true son, him."

Our brother that died.
That was the way Ben always referred to Richard, the Pipestone she'd never met. He'd been involved in some kind of a freak accident when he was a teenager. No one liked to talk about it. Out of a traditional respect for the dead—or fear, Clara was never quite sure—his name was seldom mentioned.

"But you were the baby," she acknowledged, smiling indulgently.

"Now, why do you wanna go usin' fightin' words on me when we're havin' such a nice talk here?"

"Sorry." Fighting was the last thing she wanted. They'd fallen back and drifted farther abreast of the group, and she wanted to pass the time in conversation with a man who had, it was true, never ceased to intrigue her. "You've never told me very much about your mother."

"There isn't much to tell. She ran off two days before my tenth birthday. TJ made me a pitiful cake, kinda thin and flat with sugary white frosting. I remember that cake, but my mother's face is a hazy gray blur in the back part of my mind."

"But you were her only child."

"You kiddin'?" He shook his head, chuckling humor-lessly. "I've probably got more half brothers and sisters than you'd care to count. I just haven't heard about them."

"Then why would you think they exist?"

"'Cause that's the way she was, all right?" Fury flashed in his eyes, then subsided just as quickly. He sighed. "That's just the way she was. She made my ol' man look like a fool, but he kept takin' her back. 'Til she finally stopped comin' back, and even then, he kept hopin' she would. No fool like an old fool." He offered a sad smile. "See, you did the right thing, Clara."

"What?"

"Kickin' me out. I was..." He glanced away, and his voice dropped to a place more within himself than without. "You did right. You did what he should'a done. He just couldn't."

"You never heard from her after she—"

He shook his head.

"Maybe she..."

He laughed, his eyes intent upon the herringbone clouds sliding over the edge of the horizon, straight ahead. "Maybe she got hit by a truck."

"Ben—"

"That would explain why she never..." He shrugged off whatever his mother had not done, for what she had done was quite enough. "You know, you gotta have a reason. I mean, you need to believe there was some kind of a reason."