Reason To Believe (37 page)

He looked to her in a silent plea for deliverance and found her eyes alight with amusement. He sighed and shook his head. "I'm not the right man for this, Clara. You know that better than anybody."

"I don't know that at all. And it's not for me to say, anyway. I'm not Lakota. But Anna is."

"Yeah, well, she thinks her dad could be king of the mountain and chief of the tribe."

"She knows you have your weaknesses. She told me about seeing you on TV the time—"

He did a double take. "You didn't know about that?"

She shook her head.

"Did she tell you what I did when she told me she saw that thing?" Again she shook her head. "I never saw it," he told her, his voice suddenly gone soft and husky, "but I remembered when they stuck the camera in my face, damn lights blazing in my eyes. I was so drunk I didn't give a damn what they did to me, but when she told me what it was like for her, seeing me like that..."

He turned away. A long silence ensued, and she thought that was it, that was all he could tell her. But finally he looked up at the hoop, then let the details of the memory spin off his tongue.

"It was hell bein' sober that day. No way I could run from it. No place to hide. My little Annie, her voice real quiet and trembling. It was god-awful bein' sober that day." He risked a glance at his wife. When he found no censure in her eyes, he risked even more. "I cried. Right in front of my daughter. Something I hadn't let myself do, not since I was a kid, you know? But I just couldn't hold back."

He wanted Clara to know what he felt. Not pity for himself, but real shame. Shame for what he'd done, and shame for the unmanly way he'd behaved later. And regret. His daughter should not have witnessed either spectacle. They'd never talked about it since, and he often worried about how it had really affected her.

And Clara, since he'd assumed... "She didn't tell you?"

"No." She squared her shoulders, adjusting her reins. "She was very angry with me because I wouldn't go to any of the family sessions at the end of your treatment program. But you know why I couldn't. The family session came after..."

"After I told you about—"

"Yes," she said quickly. "I almost didn't let Anna go, either. She was so young. But I talked to your counselor, and he said it was as important for her as it was for you." Her glance briefly touched his. "He tried to tell me it was important for me, too, but I told him to go to hell. He offered several suggestions that I ignored, like getting counseling myself or going to Al-Anon. I told him..."

"To go to hell," he finished for her, and he had to smile, knowing that she could never have said such a thing easily or casually. He imagined her starching each word before she rolled it out.

But she shook her head. "That you were the one who needed counseling, not me. I hadn't done anything wrong, and I didn't have the time for that." She shrugged and added tentatively, "I may have been wrong about that. I've done some reading since, and I may have... needed some sort of..."

He smiled gently. "You should've come to the family sessions. I had to sit there and listen, not say a word. You could've cussed me out, dragged out every sin, every vice, every offense—"

"No, I couldn't. I couldn't admit that my mission had failed. I thought my love was strong enough to move mountains and change your ways. I thought my love had real power."

"Power over me?"

"Not
over
you."

"My little Clara-bow, trying to strong-arm me with love." He chuckled, then quickly turned serious again, searching her eyes for acceptance. "I've been workin' hard to change. I wanna be someone you can really like. Someone Annie can like. Mostly someone
I
can like." He shrugged his hopes off and stared at the hills. "I want people to like me, to look up to me. See, that's part of my problem. People are too damn fickle. One minute you're their hero, the next minute you're just some bum."

"Not with Anna. She's seen you at your worst, but she still thinks you're king of the mountain."

"I just don't want her to be ashamed to call me 'Dad.' "

"She and I were talking about how you take part in the ceremonies, how you talked with her about your beliefs, about the prayers and the circle." She turned to him and told him earnestly, "We don't think you're a fake."

He smiled. "You agree on that, huh?"

"All this humility is quite endearing, actually. When you were riding in rodeos, you were never this modest." She dropped her voice in an attempt to imitate him. "Hell, Ben Pipestone could scratch out anything on four legs, rope anything that moved—"

"I
could."
He chuckled as he watched a jackrabbit zigzag through the grass and disappear into a hole. "Thought I could, anyway. Back in those days, that was what counted."

"Winning counted, and you did that, too."

"For a while."

"But I took that away from you, didn't I?"

"No. I made a choice." He looked up and found the hoop leaning, so he repositioned the stick against the swells of his saddle. "But I made it in kind of a halfhearted way, so I could always tell myself that I could have been a world champion if I hadn't gotten tied down. What I didn't tell myself was that there's a reason why there aren't too many world champions. You gotta really want it, and I guess I didn't want it all that bad. I kept kickin' myself because it gave me an excuse to feel sorry for myself, which gave me an excuse to get drunk."

"You didn't do it that often."

"Often enough." He looked at her and wondered why she persisted in that belief. "More often than you know."

"I refuse to believe I could have been that stupid. That
blind."

"I'm just tellin' you the way it was. You weren't stupid. But there were things you didn't wanna see."

She'd had her mind on other things. Her child, her home, her friends, certainly her work. All worthy of her attention. But her husband had had a problem that she really did not want to see.

"You know what, Clara, I think I'm doin' it again. I'm facing a choice here with this pipe-keeper thing, and I don't wanna do it in a half-assed way. The thing is—" He pressed his elbow against the bag, just as he had countless times during the course of the day, making sure it was still there. Really there. "I believe in the things my father taught me. I believe the Lakota ways are good. I know right from wrong, what's good and what's bad. But I've done so goddamn many bad things in my life. How can I do what's expected in a sacred way? How can I even have the nerve to carry a sacred thing in my hands?"

"You were never short on nerve, Ben," she assured him. He looked for mockery in her eyes, but he found nothing but kindness. Her smile shielded him from the cold. "Or courage," she said. "You have that, too."

Because she was sincere in her assurances, he gave himself a moment to try them on and see if they could possibly fit. Nerve? He could buy that much. But it wasn't enough to get by on. Not anymore. Courage? Now that was a little different. That one he'd have to ponder some more.

"It's good to be able to talk to you again. That's something I miss a lot. When we weren't fighting..." He grinned, suddenly feeling a surge of deep-inside warmth. "Hell, you get right down to it, Clara, there's nobody I'd rather talk with than you."

"Or fight with," she allowed with a smile.

"Or make love with."

Her smile faded.

He glanced away. "Sorry I brought that up."

"It's okay." Her voice turned small and shy, the way he remembered it sounding long ago. "I miss that, too."

"How about lettin' me give you a Christmas present, then?"

She looked at him, her eyes at once brimful of fear and wonder.

He spread an easy smile over his heartache. "Just kidding."

Just kidding. With Ben, "just kidding" often translated to "I meant it, but we're both uncomfortable with it, so don't take it seriously." And she
was
uncomfortable with it. She actually wanted to sleep with him, and she hated herself for it.

No self-respecting woman could possibly feel that way.

She'd believed him when he'd called and said that his father needed him, so he'd be in Little Eagle for a couple of days. She'd thought the background noise was curious, but he'd said he was calling from a gas station. She'd believed that, too, since her father-in-law had no telephone.

She found out later that he'd called from a police station. Three days later, when she'd been on her way out the door to head down to Dewey's place, Ben had called from Mandan. He had referred himself for treatment for alcoholism, he'd told her, and he'd been admitted to the inpatient program. He would be living at the treatment center for a month.

Clara didn't believe that Ben was a
true
alcoholic. Days later during her first interview with the counselor, she told him as much, and the man had the audacity to question her choice of words. Ben was not a drunk, she said, resolutely unfazed by Bernie Tinker's smug attitude. He had been known to drink too much on occasion, but he could easily go for months at a time without drinking at all, and he had always held a steady job. He had always been a good father. The DUI was a serious matter, yes, but it didn't necessarily mean that Ben was an alcoholic. And if Mr. Tinker had jumped to that conclusion because of Ben's race, then perhaps he ought to consider...

What
about
her own family background? Her family had nothing to do with this. No, they had not approved of her marriage, and no, she was not close to her mother, and no, her father had not had a drinking problem. He was a social drinker, according to her mother, and yes, he'd gone to an early grave, but none of this had anything to do with Ben.

Had he had any extramarital affairs? Ben? Of course not.

Tinker explained that it was not uncommon for people to be protective of their alcoholic spouses, that her so-called denial was normal. It all sounded quite condescending to Clara, but she agreed to participate in Ben's treatment program, and she agreed to a counseling session with him that day.

He appeared at Tinker's office door wearing hospital pajamas and scuffs, which was completely out of character. Ben didn't own any pajamas. He looked haggard. He stood there awkwardly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and eyeing her nervously. Finally he cleared his throat. The first thing he said was that he was sorry for the mess he'd made of things, and the first thing she did was give him a hug. He put his arms around her and held on for dear life, as though he were a man awaiting execution.

"I want you to know that I am angry with you," she said, but she kept the anger from her voice. She prided herself on her control. "I just can't believe you got drunk and then got behind the wheel of that pickup."

"You can't?"

She drew back and looked him in the eye. "Ben, that's not like you."

"What do you mean, it's not like me? What do you know about me, Clara? I mean, really?" He let her arms slide through his grip, anchoring himself finally, fleetingly, squeezing her hands in his. "I've gotten caught before, remember? When you were away that time? You didn't find out until—"

"The insurance rates went up, but that was a long time ago."

"Why don't you both sit down?" the short, stout counselor suggested as he arranged two chairs a measured distance from each other. Then he sat in his desk chair and wheeled himself backward, withdrawing into the corner like a snail in a shell. The two men exchanged a look, as though they had concocted a plan in advance. Tinker gave a nod. Ben glanced toward the door, the window, finally the chair.

With a sigh he took the chair across from his wife. She waited. He watched. He braced his elbow on the arm of the chair and pressed the curled thumb of his fisted hand to his lips, still watching her. If he expected her to turn into a shrew, it just wasn't going to happen. Whatever he had to say, she was going to understand. He didn't need the drinking. He could count on her to help him quit.

"I've done things..." He stopped to clear his throat. "I've done things you don't know about, Clara. I referred myself for treatment because I don't wanna go to jail. But I got in here, I started right out lyin' about most things. I've been here for almost a week now, and I've thrown a lot of bull, like I usually do, and it's not workin'." He slid the counselor a glance, then stared at the toes of Clara's black flats. "Bernie's not buyin' it. But I don't much like the truth about myself. I like the bullshit a lot better. I always figured you did, too."

"That's not true. I love you for who you are, Ben. You know that."

"No, I don't know that." He curled his hands around the arms of his chair and lifted his gaze to meet hers. "Clara, if I don't know who I am anymore, how in the hell could you know?"