Synopsis | Reviews | Excerpt
Spring
1973
Zane Lone Bull is tired of fighting for
lost causes. From the front lines in Vietnam to the home front in defense of
his Lakota people, Zane has seen his share of bloodshed. He’s determined to put
his past behind him, to build his horse business, take care of his family, and
steer clear of trouble. But the murder of his brother forces Zane to take up
what might be one more lost cause. Uncovering the facts about his brother’s
death leads Zane to one discovery after another, including a beautiful woman
seeking a truth of her own.
Michelle Benedict has inherited property
across the road from a cemetery where patients from a nearly forgotten insane
asylum are buried. Her fate, the truth about the man who’d married her favorite
aunt, and her future are tied to Zane Lone Bull, his brother, and a decades-old
mystery about a young boy.
Secrets long buried will shatter everything
Zane knows about his past as he and Michelle piece together the dark history of
the facility and the people who were committed there—many for reasons other
than insanity.
Unless Michelle can convince Zane that love
is worth every risk, the past may destroy him.
Coming soon!
Prologue
Canton, South Dakota
Spring 1973
FROM
THE UPSTAIRS bedroom window in her Aunt Cora’s house, Michelle Benedict watched
another old duffer step up to the fourth tee of the nine-hole golf course
across the road, crouch over his club, and do that funny little golfer’s dance
as he lined up his shot.
She
decided to watch him blow it.
For
blow it he surely would. The ghosts from the cemetery were working on him. She
could tell by the way he hesitated, focus straying as he adjusted his green
cap, then started over with his golf dance.
From
her vantage point she could see the four flag fluttering in the warm prairie
wind. It looked like an easy shot, but from where she stood, all nine of the
course’s holes looked easy. Not that she was much of a golfer, but Hiawatha
Golf Club’s flat layout contained only one real trap, and that was the Indian
cemetery between the fourth and fifth fairways.
"Damn, I landed on ‘sacred ground’
again,” she’d heard more than one golfer say. Some cursed it; others joked
about it. But ever since she’d inherited her aunt’s house, Michelle had taken a
serious interest in the old cemetery. She had some strong feelings about it.
Strange feelings. Defensive feelings, even though she didn’t know a soul who
was buried there. It just didn’t seem right to build a golf course around a
cemetery. Especially not this cemetery.
The old duffer finally swung his club
back and took a whack at the tee. The ball sailed into the clear blue sky like
a pop fly. The golfer touched the bill of his cap and watched the white dot
travel. Michelle knew exactly where it was going. She could feel it. She could
almost hear the wail of those ghost singers in her ear. The west wind would
have its way, and the ball would land on one of more than a hundred unmarked graves
behind the screen of shrubs.
According to club rules, the golfer
wasn’t supposed to drive his cart into the scraggly enclosure or play the ball
out or otherwise disturb the ghosts. He was supposed to take a two-club-length
drop.
Some golfers did. Some didn’t. To most
of them, the sunken plots probably just looked like big divots, and it wasn’t
as though any of the town fathers were buried there. Just a bunch of crazy
Indians planted for all eternity right in the middle of Hiawatha Golf Club.
Crazy Indians who had once lived under the watchful care of Dr. Tim Hubble,
Aunt Cora’s husband. The asylum, along with Dr. Tim and Aunt Cora, were gone
now. Only the cemetery remained, along with a house full of fussy furniture and
boxes of Dr. Tim’s papers.
And there was Michelle, of course, full
of fond memories of her aunt and funny feelings about what lay across the road.
Forty years had passed since the last grave had been dug over there, but
still...
There must be some family members
somewhere, she thought. Maybe they’d be interested in Dr. Tim’s records. Maybe
they didn’t know about the golf course. Maybe they’d agree with her that this
just didn’t seem right.
The wind nudged the ball, sliding
through the zenith of its arc, toward the hedge. Michelle smiled. The ghosts
were in the game today. Another golfer was about to visit the Indian cemetery,
sure enough. The old duffer shook his head and rammed the club into his bag as
the ball dropped out of sight.
Pine Ridge Sioux Indian Reservation,
South Dakota
Summer
1928
A PALE GRAY owl appeared suddenly,
startling a young vision seeker out of his prayerful reverie. It dropped from
the night sky, like one of those rockets the boy’s brother had seen in battle
during the Great War, and it fell on a mouse, the hunter snatching in silence,
the prey crying out its distress. A few quick wing flaps lifted the two back
into night’s dark bosom, leaving the boy to ponder in his hilltop seclusion.
It was a sign, the boy decided, for he
was named for the small owl whose rarely heard call heralded spring. Pagla, the
boy’s grandfather called him, and even though it was not the name that was
recorded for him on the Indian Bureau’s rolls or in the boarding school
teacher’s book, Pagla was who he truly was. So his grandfather had said, and so
it was. When he left the hill he would tell the old man about the owl. It was
one thing he must be sure to report.
It was his grandfather who kept the
vigil for him on the flat below his hill and tended the fire that would burn
until Pagla returned. His grandfather was a holy man, much respected by those
among the Oglala people who still kept the old ways. He had prepared the boy
for this, his first hanble ceya, which he had chosen to do on his
twelfth birthday. It was his decision, Grandfather had said, and one not to be
taken lightly. Together they had made prayers in the sweat lodge, and Pagla had
fasted, carefully preparing himself. He knew the risks they both took in making
this vision quest, for the spiritual practices of the Lakota had been banned by
the government in Washington, and many people, like his brother, Adam, had
forsaken them.
The Lakota were dreamers, Adam had told
him. Maybe in times past, a warrior could be a dreamer, but no more. A dreamer
might fill his lungs with gas and die without ever seeing the face of his
enemy. The white man’s wars were not won by counting coups. Those days were
over, Adam said. Nothing to be gained by taking risks. No one sang a man’s
praises when he died in battle so far from home. They would not even know what
name to sing, for he would be only one among the thousands. And no one would
care for his widow and orphans. Not these days. It was time to stop dreaming,
start facing reality, Adam said. Forget the pipe, forget the songs. They’ll
only get you into trouble.
Pagla dreaded trouble. He’d seen enough
of it already. There was trouble at school when he and his friends just barely
shared a little joke in Lakota, some story they’d learned from their parents or
grandparents. There was trouble when he couldn’t explain himself in English.
There was also trouble at home with not enough food to go around, not enough
blankets, never any money, and everyone getting sick all the time. And there
was trouble with Adam, who’d been searching for this thing he called reality in
the bootleg whiskey he’d acquired a taste for in the army.
After three days alone on his hill,
Pagla had accustomed himself to hot afternoons and bone-chilling nights. Hunger
was nothing new, and patience had been instilled in him long ago. But the
mysteries that surrounded him were more formidable in darkness than they were
in daylight. Each morning the light came as reassurance, and he told himself
that he was a man now, and he could see that he was the equal of all that lay
before him. He would not worry the next time the sun went down.
But he did. The time between sunset and
moonrise was the worst. He had to pull his blanket over his head to keep the
gnats from worrying his face and the mosquitoes from driving him to his feet.
He prayed for the night breeze, but when it came it rattled the grass, and the
sound sometimes fooled him into thinking that something was coming toward him.
He would pop out of his blanket and peek over his shoulder, then scold himself
and duck back under cover, where he’d feel something crawling on his neck. Then
he’d shiver. And he’d shake. And he’d shoo the creature away and try to get
back to his prayer for his brother, who couldn’t stop drinking sometimes; for
his grandfather, who couldn’t stop coughing sometimes; and for moonrise. Come
on, moonrise.
In darkness the familiar voices of the
prairie confused him with their new secrets. They reminded him that he, too,
had secrets. The government agent had warned his grandfather about keeping
secrets, and some of his own relations echoed the warning. "Give it up,” they
said. "If you don’t listen, they will send you away.” But his grandfather said
that hanble ceya would give a man strength and wisdom in the face of
these threats. You can never tell what the white man might do next, Grandfather
had said. Nothing was unthinkable anymore.
Even so, too much thinking could
drive a man crazy the way things were now. A man must still the noise in his
head, calm his heart, open his ears in the darkness, and listen. Just listen.
Strength and wisdom, Pagla reminded himself as he listened to the prairie
voices. The harmless night wind rustled the grass. The friendly crickets sang
their song. All that moved was one with the night, even the fire that burned on
the flat below his hill.
The prairie voices transported the boy
in a dreamlike state. He did not anticipate human intrusion. He heard nothing
amiss, sensed no danger until a loop was suddenly dropped over his shoulders,
slack jerked, ground yanked away. He responded with the lethargy of one
awakened from a deep sleep, momentarily unable to find his arms or legs. But it
was too late for his arms. He managed one kick before his ankles, too, were
tied together. A man’s voice pronounced him "heathen bastard,” and a burlap
sack was pulled over his face.
Weakened from fasting, terrified,
desperate for air, Pagla lost consciousness.
1
Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation,
South Dakota
Spring 1973
ZANE LONE BULL woke up scared.
It took him a moment to catch his
breath, get his bearings, and realize that the eerie moaning coming from the
back room was just Uncle Martin having another one of his dream fits. Zane
rolled to his side and sat up on the tattered sofa, planting his bare feet on
the hard-packed dirt floor of the two-room cabin he shared with his uncle. The
pre-dawn moaning was enough to give a person a bad case of the quivers. The old
man sounded like some tortured soul calling out from the grave.
The dog barked outside the door. Zane
dropped his chin to his bare chest and raked his hair back with splayed
fingers. He had enough nightmares of his own to contend with, but he figured
poor old Uncle Martin’s monster had to be a real beaut. That thought merged
with the predawn chill, blanketing his body with invigorating goose bumps.
Countless miserable, sweaty nights had given rise to his appreciation of
nip-in-the-air goose bumps. He snapped his jeans and reached past the cold wood
stove for the shirt he’d left hanging on the back of a kitchen chair. It was
still dark, but he knew where everything in the cabin was. There wasn’t much to
keep track of. He fished a cigarette and matches out of his shirt pocket, lit
up, and headed for the back room.
"Uncle, wake up.” Zane dropped into a
squat beside the bed. He couldn’t see a damn thing, but his hand homed in on
the warmth of the old man’s shoulder. "You’re okay, now. Nobody’s gonna hurt
you.”
Martin made a pitiful sound that might
have come from a small child. In a way, Zane realized, it did.
"Yeah, I know. I know how it is.” But
when the old man reached for him, Zane instinctively ducked away. He’d do the
comforting on his own terms, and ending up in one of Uncle Martin’s desperate
headlocks was not among them. "I don’t know who it is or what it is, but I knowhow it is. Whatcha gotta do is put that ol’ gigi on the run.”
Parking his cigarette in the corner of
his mouth, Zane flipped the switch on the big flashlight he’d put beside
Martin’s bed and beamed the light into the shadowy corners of the tiny room,
one by one. "Is he gone already? Must be one chickenshit gigi if he took
off that quick. Maybe we better try smokin’ him out.”
But the offer of a drag on Zane’s
cigarette was lost on the old man, whose eyes were still wide with fear.
"Yeah, you’re right.” Zane studied the
lengthening ash. "This ain’t good for you. I never used to smoke much before I
went to ’Nam. Now I can’t quit. Not that I’ve tried all that hard.”
Still wide-eyed, Martin watched Zane
savor the lungful of smoke he’d been offered. Almost as good as a cup of
coffee, and equally necessary. But Martin never indulged himself in either of
Zane’s morning rituals. He only watched.
"What are you thinkin’ about, old man?
What’s goin’ on inside that head of yours?”
Martin sat up and swung his legs over
the side of the bed. Summer or winter, the old man slept in long johns and
socks. Always kept his boots close to the bed at night. Wouldn’t go to sleep
unless he knew they were there.
"I envy you sometimes, you know? You
don’t ask no questions, nobody tells you no lies. Just keep to yourself.”
Zane’s knees cracked as he rose from the floor. "I’m learnin’ from you, Uncle.
Always did learn the hard way, but at least it’s some kinda way, huh?”
Martin leaned down to put his boots on,
his gray braids dangling over his knees.
"Just keep to yourself,” Zane repeated absently,
watching his uncle go through his predictable motions. He headed for the front
door in his droopy underwear, snatching his frayed straw hat off a nail on the
way out. Zane had to chuckle. Martin wouldn’t even make a trip to the outhouse
without that hat.
Pale daylight had begun to define
shapes in the front room—the bronc saddle in the far corner, the water cooler
on the little kitchen table, a 1971 calendar on the clay-chinked wall. Zane
didn’t mind doing that year over again. This time he wasn’t spending it behind
bars.
Martin’s nasal whine, an innocently
warped version of a Lakota acappella, soon rose beyond the door. He was
singing up the sun. Wordless, toneless, it was still a reassuring sound. It
reminded Zane that he was home, finally. Nothing fancy, but he didn’t need
fancy. He needed freedom, safety, and some peace of mind. With those
requirements satisfied, he could make do.
"Let’s go over the hill and get us some
breakfast,” Zane suggested when Martin came back inside. He didn’t know how
much the old man understood, but he knew his uncle would follow him whenever he
got ready to go. Nevertheless it pleased him to carry on this one-sided
conversation, to have someone of his own to talk to first thing in the morning.
"You think they’re up yet over there?”
Zane stuffed his pickup keys into his front pocket and grabbed his shirt off
the chair. "I’ll be takin’ a run down to Rapid today. Takin’ that hot-blooded
Arab back to the owner. I put a nice handle on him now, gave him the full
thirty-day Lone Bull training program. How long do you think it’ll take that
Hausauer to ruin him?”
Martin was choosing a threadbare plaid
shirt from a plastic basket full of folded laundry. He rubbed the saggy seat of
his long johns over his butt cheek, scratching.
Zane laughed. "Yeah, that’s what I say.
Drugstore cowboy, that one. Don’t know why he bothers with the horses. All he
needs is the snakeskin boots and the turquoise jewelry. But, hell, he pays
good. Long as we get our money, we don’t care whether he rides that gelding or
cooks him up for dinner.”
Martin was concentrating on a stubborn
shirt snap.
"I’ve seen people eat worse stuff than
that. I ain’t lyin’. There’s no limit when it comes to turning the human crank.
You name it, there’s somebody somewhere...” Who’ll eat it.Wants to eat it. Has to eat it. Has one item on the menu, and whatever it
is, it’s more than there was the day before. Zane had been there himself, and
so had his uncle. He had to think that only one of them remembered.
"So you don’t have to worry about any
of that, and neither do I anymore. Live our own lives, mind our own business,
same-old-same-old, no trouble, no sweat. No blood, either. And no tears.”
Another clever allusion lost on a man who didn’t know rock and roll from church
music, but that was part of the beauty of it. When Zane laughed, Martin
laughed. He clapped one hand on the old man’s back, opened the door, and
saluted the greening prairie, the growing intensity of blue in the sky, and the
brown dog lolling his tongue at him. "This is paradise, right, Soup?”
The rest of Zane’s family lived in a
little frame house about half a mile south of the cabin. Way back in the shadow
time of his early life, Beatrice Lone Bull, the woman he called Unci,
Grandmother, had taken him in. He had some vague memories of a different house
and a different place, but Unci had always been there along with her mute son.
She’d answered few questions about the other place, but he knew there were
family connections to Rosebud and Pine Ridge Reservations. Beatrice had brought
her two boys to Standing Rock and moved them all in with the Tusks, her sister
Cecilia’s family. The only unusual part was that they never went back, not even
to visit.
The cabin he shared with Uncle Martin
was the first home he remembered clearly. It had housed a lot of people in
those early years before they’d built the frame house. Eventually the numbers
had thinned out. Zane had joined the army. Cecilia’s husband and one of her
daughters had died, and two daughters had left home. But son Randy had a habit
of bouncing in and out of the nest, and two grandchildren had taken up
residence. Meanwhile, Cecilia and Beatrice stood their ground like two solid
tent poles. The family depended on them as surely as they did the allotment of
land and the two little houses they’d built on it. But the two women were long
past aging. One was old, the other ancient.
"Ain’t that right, Uncle?” Zane said as
they crested the rise that separated the two houses. "They’re old as the hills,
but they still make a damn good pot of cowboy coffee. Hey, looks like Randy’s
back.”
Randy Tusk was like a turtle, the way
he towed his shelter around. He was the proud owner of a dinky trailer, easy to
move with his ’55 Ford pickup whenever he felt like taking up residence in
town. The little propane heater wasn’t too reliable, which often put a crimp in
his claim on independence, especially in the winter. Lately he’d taken up the
political causes that Zane had championed for a brief, futile time after he’d
gotten his discharge. Zane was tired of fighting for lost causes.
The door on the
side of the trailer swung open, and Randy tumbled out. He offered Martin a
sleepy smile. "How’s it goin’, Uncle?” Then he turned, and his slender hand was
engulfed in Zane’s brawnier one. "Hey, Z.”
"What’ve you been up to, little
brother?”
Randy’s fingers went to work trying to
tame his night-wild hair. It had been at least a month since he’d refused
Zane’s offer of a haircut, saying he was going in for braids, like old Martin.
He squinted into the morning sun. "You heard about the latest at Wounded Knee?”
"Nope.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. It had
been almost a week since Zane had scanned the front page of the Rapid City
Journal. "I did my time. I got nothing to show for it. You carry a gun for
somebody else, I don’t care who it is, sooner or later you end up with their
spit on your face.” He rubbed his chin against his shoulder as if to rid
himself of the insult. "I don’t much care for the way it tastes.”
"There’s ways, Z. There’s other ways.”
"I don’t wanna hear about ’em before
coffee.” The three men headed for the house, where the smoke rising from the
chimney signaled warm promise. "I’m goin’ down to Rapid, take back that Arab,”
Zane told Randy. "Wanna come along?”
"Haven’t you heard? They don’t like
Indians down there very much these days.”
"First thing I did when I got out of
the pen, I took the RED POWER bumper sticker off my pickup.”
Randy grinned. Obviously Zane had
noticed the new FRYBREAD POWER proclamation pasted on the side of his trailer.
"Did that make a difference?”
"Haven’t had my tires slashed since.”
"Good for you.” Randy got the door, and
they both stood aside in deference to their elder uncle. "The answer’s in the
courts, Z.”
"Yeah, right.” Zane’s hand on Randy’s
thin shoulder forestalled him from following Martin inside. He wanted to let
Randy go his own way. He really did. But Randy had mentioned the wrong word.
"I’ve been to court,” Zane reminded him quietly. "What could I say but, ‘Sure,
I busted that asshole’s face.’ Didn’t give a damn about him being a deputy
sheriff. He was using Indians for target practice.”
Randy grabbed Zane’s shirtsleeve.
"There are other courts, Z. Other judges.”
"That one gave me two years, and I did
all but two months of it. I get out, I take a look around, and not one goddamn
thing has changed. Jesse’s still dead, and nothing we said, nothing we did made
any difference. The courts don’t work for us. The cops, the feds, the Bureau of
Indian Affairs, none of it works for us. The war over in Vietnam made more
sense to me. At least there you know why people are shootin’ at you. It’s
because you don’t belong there.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the
square-topped buttes on the eastern horizon. "I belong here. I ain’t messin’
with nobody anymore, and nobody’s messin’ with me.”
Randy looked up, his face inches from
the one he’d been looking up to all his life. "This is a shithole, Z. All we
got left is a shithole, but you wait. If somebody decides there’s money to be
made in shit, they’ll be lookin’ for a way to take this, too. All I want you to
do is talk to Cedric. Listen to what he has to say about challenging some of
these real estate titles. Before all these old people die off, if we can just
find some—”
"Somebody ought to show you a real
shithole.” Zane sighed, avoiding his brother’s eyes. He knew the kind of
invitation he’d see there, the enduring willingness to follow him anywhere.
"Ah, maybe not.” He laughed and waggled Randy’s shoulder like a rubber bone.
"But will you come down out of the clouds once, hey? They’ll be callin’ you
Hits His Head On The Sky.”
The two men laughed. Handing out advice
made Zane uncomfortable, and they both knew it. What little he gave went to the
man he called his brother, and it was always the same. "You could go to college
yourself, Randy. You always liked school. You’d do real good.” He smirked and
wagged his head. "Cedric barely made it through a year of law school, and he thinks
he knows it all.”
"I think he’s on the right track. I’ve
been checking some of the agency enrollment records, the BIA rolls. Going back
a ways, it gets real interesting.”
"Not to me. I ain’t listed on no BIA
rolls. No state records, nothing. Far as I know, I was never actually born.” A
grin crept slowly into his eyes. "Hatched, maybe. Like a damn rattlesnake.”
"But you never really checked, did
you?”
Zane imitated a warning rattle, his
eyes glowing with mischief.
Randy shook his head. Family was important
to him, but so were ancestors and origins, words Zane brushed off like corral
dust from the seat of his pants. "Maybe you ought to.”
Zane shook his head. "Like ol’ Beatrice
always says, it’s no good asking too many questions. So I stopped asking a long
time ago.”
"You boys get in here and shut the
door,” Cecilia called out from the kitchen. "You’ll be gettin’ this ol’
grandma’s cough started up again.”
"What is Auntie Beatrice to you, Z?”
Randy asked as he ducked through the doorway. "You ever ask yourself who—”
"We’ve got the same last name, and
she’s the only woman who didn’t end up throwin’ me out on my ear after I’d been
around her a while.” Zane followed Randy into the dim interior, where the air
was heavy with wood smoke and the smell of coffee and two layers of lard—the
ghost of last’s week’s frying and the promise of this morning’s.
He grinned at the withered woman who
sat by the stove, painstakingly peeling potatoes. Beatrice reminded him of the
everlasting pile of rummage in the church basement, wrinkles in a hundred
shades of brown and gray. "Ain’t that right, Old Woman?” he asked her vacant
eyes good-naturedly as he adjusted her sweater over her shoulder. "You stuck by
me. Guess I can do the same for you.” He glanced at Randy. "It’s like talking
to Uncle Martin. I don’t know if I’m gettin’ through to either one of them
anymore.”
Randy shrugged. "I knew my dad’s
background because he was from here, but I went down to Pine Ridge—”
"Jesus, Randy.” Zane shook his head.
"It’s hotter than hell down there now, and I ain’t talkin’ about the weather.
They’ve got Wounded Knee surrounded by weekend warriors just itchin’ for combat
ribbons.”
Randy shrugged off the warning and
strode into the kitchen, sidestepping the mattress in the corner of the front
room where the two grandchildren were peacefully nestled under a pile of star
quilts. He greeted Cecilia, who paused in her preparation of unleavened skillet
bread to give her son a prune-lipped peck. He was more interested in the big
white enamel pot of coffee on the stove.
He handed Zane the
first cup. "I went to the agency, not to Wounded Knee. Couldn’t get in, anyway.
They’ve got that whole area blocked off. But I heard that some of your old
friends are there, holed up behind some kind of makeshift barricade.”
"Yeah, well I wish them luck.” The good
kind, he added mentally, if there was any around for those who stuck their
heads up in the air when they heard gunfire. He’d stood his ground, shoulder to
shoulder with some of the people he figured to be at the Knee. He’d gone to
Southeast Asia to defend everybody’s so-called inalienable rights. He’d come
home to South Dakota, tried to defend the same rights, and found out what it
meant to be alienated. He tapped a fist on Randy’s shoulder. "But more than
that, I wish you’d stay out of it.”
Randy sipped noisily at his coffee.
"You ever wonder why that woman has no land?” He nodded in Beatrice’s
direction. She was just sitting there, hunched over a half-red, half-white
potato. "No lease checks coming in. Nothing.”
"She sold it, long time ago,” Cecilia
put in as she turned the slab of heavy bread in the big, black skillet.
"Uncle Martin doesn’t seem to have any,
either,” Randy persisted. "His father must’ve died pretty young, and he was
from Pine Ridge, right? You’d think Uncle would be getting lease checks from
Pine Ridge.”
"Before the Indian Reorganization Act,
they used to be able to sell allotted land outright. They needed money, sold
the land.” Zane cocked a reproving eyebrow. "You ever heard of the Depression,
Randy? The Dirty Thirties? Everybody was poor then. Even white people.
The ol’ lady did what she had to do, whatever that was. Right, Auntie?”
Cecilia moved the skillet off the
stove.
"If he got land from his dad, you think
she could have sold it? You think they’d let her?” Randy asked.
"Don’t give him any of that.” Zane
favored his aunt with a conspiratorial wink as she handed him a plate for his
breakfast. "He needs a lesson in what it means to go hungry. You really spoiled
him bad, Auntie.”
Cecilia giggled like a young girl.
Randy took the pancake turner out of
his mother’s hand and filled his own plate. "I’ve been checkin’ some of this
stuff out, hey. I think some of those sales weren’t really sales at all. And
I’m thinkin’ if the right kind of lawyer gets hold of the right kind of
records...”
"I don’t even wanna hear about it,”
Zane said. Randy glared, affronted, and Zane responded with an upraised palm.
"Hey, I’ve done my time. I deserve a life, for crissake.”
"Who doesn’t?”
"Nobody.” Zane took a stab at
conciliation. "Everybody deserves to do a little livin’ once in a while. So
let’s you and me go down to Rapid and kick up our heels tonight.”
"You can have Rapid. I’ve got places to
go, people to see.”
Zane shrugged as he carved up his
skillet bread, trying to remember a time when he might have said the same
thing. He understood the feeling of discontent, the need to be on the move, the
readiness to fight, but Randy was probably more particular about his
battleground than Zane had been, and he probably had a better idea of who his
enemies really were. Zane hadn’t always been too fussy.
"If I can come up with the kind of
records I’m talkin’ about, some kind of proof...” Randy set
his plate on the table and stood next to his chair, waiting for Zane to glance
up from his food. "If I do, will you even look at it? Just take a look?” He
dragged the folding chair away from the little Formica table and sat down,
pressing his face close to Zane’s, like an unrelenting pup. "Just take me
seriously for once.”
Take me with you, Randy had pleaded once when Zane was
home on leave. Tell them I’m old enough. They’ll believe you.
"Take a look for what?”
Randy shrugged. "For the hell of it.”
"The hell of it is”—Zane used his fork
to drive his point in Randy’s direction— "it won’t matter. Get that through
your head; you’ll save yourself a whole lot of trouble.”
"Can’t.” Randy scooted his chair over,
lining himself up with his plate. "I gotta pick up where you left off. We’re
warriors, remember?”
"I hung up my guns, little brother.
Ain’t feedin’ you no more fairy tales, no more pipe dreams. This is it.” He
poured a dollop of corn syrup on his blue plate and dipped a forkful of bread
into it. "I’ve seen worse. Believe me.”
"I never thought they’d kick the fight
out of Zane Lone Bull.”
"Don’t give me that hangdog look.” Zane
laughed. "All right, then, go on. Bring me your paper dragon, misunka,”he said, addressing him indulgently as his younger brother. "I’ll tear off
its wings for you.”
"Nah, you’d rather go down to Rapid and
get yourself laid. Or screwed.” Randy gestured for the surrender of the syrup.
"Which is it?”
Zane slid the bottle across the table,
his cold glance warning the younger man off the subject. There were certain
aspects of his life that were not open for discussion, not even to Randy.
Military life had taught him to value his privacy. Prison life had driven him
to guard it like a hellhound.
"Just kidding,” Randy mumbled. "I’ll be
staying around for a while. Maybe I’ll have something to show you when you get
back.”
HEAD HELD HIGH, the leggy gray gelding
circled the corral as if he were practicing for a performance. Zane watched him
in the side mirror as he backed the trailer up to the gate. He preferred a
horse with more chest, but he liked the Arab’s style. He didn’t mind riding a
good horse for somebody else, but he planned to be training his own registered
stock someday.
At the top of the big mirror, the
reflection of Zane’s would-be helpers appeared on the hill. Nine-year-old Sissy
and her seven-year-old brother Jojo would add a few minutes to his departure
time, but what the hell? Zane was back to living on Indian time. His little
niece and nephew were already tumbling down the well-worn path, racing to see
who could get to him first. He’d have to find a task for each of them, or he’d
have a fight on his hands.
Randy’s sister, Chickie, had dumped the
kids off on their grandmother shortly after Zane had been released from the
pen, which was over a year ago. She’d promised to come back and get them before
school started. They’d only seen her twice since then, and both times her
parting comments had started with "Next time I come back...”
Zane wondered if Chickie knew what she
was missing. Maybe she really believed her own bullshit. To some extent he
supposed everybody did. But it wasn’t right to feed it to the kids.
He took the halter and lead rope off
the pickup seat and greeted the pair with a broad grin as they came running to
him. "You guys wanna help me load this big, bad broomtail into the trailer?
He’s goin’ home today.”
They jostled for position, but Sissy
managed to outreach her brother for the halter. Jojo grabbed her arm with one
hand and a handful of her black ponytail with the other.
Zane pulled them apart. "Leave her
alone, Jojo. I told her not to be fightin’ you, and that goes both ways.”
"I wanna put the halter on,” the boy
whined.
"You can lead him over to the trailer.”
He flipped the lid on the toolbox he’d built in the back of his pickup and
produced a wooden brush. "I want him to look real nice when his owner sees him.
Somebody could brush him for me.”
"I will!”
"I will!”
"Lucky thing I’ve got two brushes, and
the horse has two sides.”
The gelding had come to Zane broke to
ride but bad-mannered, like some rich man’s kid. Zane looked the animal in the
eye as he approached. From the first, he’d respected the Arab’s intelligence,
and in one month the horse had learned to trust Zane’s soft-spoken commands and
his big, gentle hands. The horse stood quietly, allowing its trainer to claim
mastery by hooking an arm around its sleek, arched neck.
"I could comb his tail out, Uncle
Zane,” Sissy offered as she slipped the halter over the gray’s ears.
"Be sure and watch out he doesn’t kick
you.”
Zane lit a cigarette and stepped back
to let the two children show him what they’d learned. He was learning, too. The
part of his life he’d spent in the army and in prison had been devoid of
children. It was like fourteen years of winter. The worst part was, a guy got
used to it. He supposed it was like any other rut. Sterile as it was, the
routine became treacherously comfortable.
"Get his belly, too, but watch his
ears.”
"If he lays them back, he’s gettin’
mad,” Sissy recounted dutifully.
"’Atta girl.”
They went by their mother’s last name.
Footloose Chickie had never been married and didn’t want to be. Cecilia and her
brood were all Tusks. Zane was a Lone Bull only because Beatrice had taken him
in. She wouldn’t talk about his father, although he suspected she knew who he
was. She’d shown him a picture of his mother once, a long time ago, and then
she’d secreted the moldy old photograph away, which meant it was probably lost.
The old woman couldn’t remember much of anything anymore.
He remembered the little spots on the
woman’s face in the sepia-tone portrait. "Silver tears,” Beatrice had said.
Woman-talk, Zane judged. Even then—he figured he’d been about Jojo’s age—he’d
known it was nothing that fancy, just mildew. What had happened to her? Did she
run away? Did she die? What?
The old woman had offered him no more
clues. Only the curling photograph of a white woman. She’d looked white,
at least in the picture. He figured she’d gotten herself knocked up by an
Indian guy and didn’t want anyone to know. Getting into a fix like that was
probably a whole lot worse back in the Dirty Thirties than it was in the Age of
Aquarius. The guy was probably related to Beatrice somehow, or maybe he was
some kind of dissident or criminal. A bloodline that wasn’t worth claiming.
Or maybe Beatrice really didn’t know.
As far as she was concerned she had two sons, the younger one an abandoned
half-breed who called her grandmother, the older one a retarded mute who
couldn’t call her anything. "It’s no good asking too many questions,” this
woman who’d raised him had often said. "They might take you away. They can do
that any time they want. Got to be real careful.”
And she had been. Whatever secrets
she’d once known were long since forgotten. Zane had decided it was better that
way. There was no changing the past. No use bucking history. Since time had a
way of transforming a schemer into a visionary, one generation’s deeds and
misdeeds easily became the next generation’s treasured legacy. Who needed the
sordid truth? Not Zane Lone Bull, not anymore.
Ask me no questions,
I’ll tell you no lies.
Good advice. He’d learned it at the
knee of a woman who was already old and wise when she took him in, and now he’d
lived long enough to understand what damn good advice it truly was. The past
was a load of crap. Nightmares and regrets. He’d committed enough of his own
misdeeds. What little past he had was plenty.
And the future? Hell, that was whatever
went down between daybreak and nightfall. It was what Uncle Martin greeted with
his song. Over in ’Nam, guys had it down to so many days and a wake-up. In the
joint, guys did so many calendars. Zane didn’t own a watch, and he didn’t use a
calendar. He used his head. If he’d managed to stay alive and hang on to his
sanity from daybreak to nightfall, he figured he was doing okay.
Nowadays, he was doing better than
okay. He was free to go. He could walk as far as he wanted in any direction. He
could get on a horse and ride, hop in his pickup and drive. Just go whenever he
wanted to go. Do whatever he wanted to do. The only thing he’d ever been much
good at besides shooting off his mouth or his gun and generally raising hell
was breaking and training horses. He’d taken up beading and leatherwork when he
was in the pen, and people said he was pretty good at that, too.
Making a living with such talents
hadn’t struck him as a likely prospect when he’d finally been handed his
parole, but with the help of Rapid City western wear shop owner Marla Ferrell
he was doing just that. She’d introduced him to the kind of people who paid him
real cash money to teach their spoiled horses some manners. Her store was a
good outlet for his belts, jewelry, and beaded tack, and when he felt like
hanging out in town for a night or two, she was willing to share her bed. She
asked him no questions, he told her no lies. It worked out fine.
The Hausauer place was just north of
Rapid City, a picturesque spot with a view of the Black Hills, which formed a
jagged blue-black buttress for the southwestern sky. It had once been a cattle
ranch, but there wasn’t a cow in sight along the two miles of gravel road that
led to the brand-new two-story house. Zane passed the driveway and swung around
the house toward the pristine outbuildings, which included an indoor arena.
Zane envied the Hausauers their facilities, thinking it was a shame they were
going to waste. The big white barn was the only one serving any apparent
function. Two horses stood in one of the corrals outside. Zane had just backed
the trailer close to the steel corral gate when he saw the old man emerge from
the house.
The Hausauer patriarch was the only
real cowboy in the family. He was still shaped for the saddle, but the way the
joints were rusted in the old man’s hips and bowed legs, Zane figured Butch
would need a crane to get him seated.
"My son ain’t here,” Butch reported as
he watched Zane back the gelding out of the trailer, smooth as silk. "Was he
expecting you today?”
"I don’t know. The
deal was thirty days’ training, and that’s what it’s been.”
Butch shoved his gnarled hands into the
pockets of his quilted jacket and peered past the brim of his brown Stetson.
"Did he pay you up front?”
"Half.”
"I’ll take care of the rest if you want
to show me what he can do now. This one’s all looks and no brains if you ask
me.”
Zane nodded and handed Butch the lead
rope. "He’s touchy.” He hauled his saddle out of the back of the pickup. "Head
shy for some reason. He’ll take the bit, but you gotta go real easy with the
headstall.”
"Bill hasn’t got much patience. He
wants to be able to put a key in the ignition and take off. You and me, we know
it don’t work that way.”
Zane nodded again. As long as the old
man was willing to pay him, it was just as well Bill Jr. wasn’t around. He’d
rather deal with someone who had the experience to appreciate what he’d
accomplished. He saddled up the gray, rode him into an empty pen, and put him
through his paces, moving him easily through his gaits, reining him through
tight turns, backing him from one end of the pen to the other, all for the old
rancher’s amusement.
"I’m a quarter horse man myself,” Zane
said as he brought the gelding to an abrupt stop a foot short of the old man’s
well-worn boots. Butch didn’t budge. "But this guy’s sure fast, and he won’t
play out on you.”
"He’s never handled that good, I’ll
tell you.”
"You’ve got that right.” Zane swung
down from the saddle and offered the reins. "Like to give him a try?”
"My arthritis is actin’ up again. Could
mean rain. We could use a nice spring rain.” Butch rubbed his elbow absently ashe scanned the cloudless blue sky. "Old cattleman’s habit, I guess. Wishing
for rain. My boys don’t have much of a taste for it.”
"Rain?”
"Ranching. The spread I started out
with is down southeast of here. Down around Pine Ridge and Rosebud.” Butch
squinted up at Zane, studying him for something. "I ’spose you know that
country pretty well.”
Zane glanced toward the Hills and gave
a noncommittal shrug. "I’m from Standing Rock.”
"I was thinking there were some Lone
Bulls down where we’re from.”
"I suppose you’d find a lone bull injust about any pasture you wanted to visit this time of year. All kinds of
bulls around here, huh?” Zane smiled, thinking it was too bad Randy hadn’t come
along. He would have offered the old man a more serious response.
But Zane’s joke was lost on Butch, who,
like Randy, wanted to nail down those connections. "Lone Bull rings a bell.
’Course, I know a lot of them people down there. Have for years. Good cowboys
there.” He handed Zane several twenty dollar bills. "Like you. Indians always
did make damn good cowboys.”
Zane pocketed the money without looking
at it. The old man wasn’t likely to try to shortchange him. "You tell Bill to
let me know if he wants me to take on any more. Can’t take too many at a time,
and I’ve got quite a few lined up.”
"Blooded horses are about the only
livestock he’s interested in these days. Keeps talkin’ about land deals and
mineral rights.” Butch shook his head, surveying the grounds as though taking
inventory. "You build something solid, you turn it over to your kids when you
think you’ve been workin’ hard long enough and it’s time to take it easy, you’d
think they’d appreciate it and hang on to it at least.” He gave a disgusted
snort. "But, hell, they don’t know the value. They don’t understand the
sacrifices you’ve made.”
"Kids these days, huh?” Zane dumped his
saddle back in the pickup bed. "That’s too bad.”
"Maybe you’d be interested in coming to
work for us.”
The old man made it sound like a
genuine offer, but Zane knew better. Bill Jr. was running the show these days.
"I don’t think so. Sounds like your operation’s pretty much up in the air.”
Zane offered a handshake. "Besides, I got a family to look after, and this is
too far from home.”
ZANE PARKED HIS pickup and trailer in
the alley behind Boots and Saddles, Marla Ferrell’s upscale Western shop, and
dragged half a dozen beaded breast collars off the bench seat. Four of them
were on order, which meant he’d be leaving town pretty cashy this trip.
Marla squealed like a pig headed for
mud the minute he walked into the shop. Anticipating her next play, he filled her
arms with his beadwork. He’d let her put her hands on him later.
She smiled, disconcerted only
momentarily. "Didn’t you bring me any belts? I sold the last one to a woman
from Denver. She called and wants four more.”
"I got tired of making belts.”
"The temperamental craftsman,” she
cooed, tapping his chest with a long pink fingernail. "So difficult.” She
flashed him a coy smile as she set the breast collars on the shelf behind the
display case full of silver trophy buckles. "Such a turn-on.”
He knew his engaging wink would go a
long way.
She directed his attention to a tall
glass case containing some of his work. He’d found ways to make strings of
beads look like cascades of water. Plenty of time to experiment with stuff like
that in the joint. Marla called it an art, and she’d had a sign made using a
facsimile of his blocky signature, as if he were some kind of celebrity.
"See, I put your picture in the
display. The one I took that time we rode to the top of Harney Peak. That
deliciously dark look of yours says it all. Brooding artist who sees through
the eyes into the soul.” She opened a drawer and produced an envelope, handing
it to him with a flourish. "And I raised the prices, which is reflected in the
amount of your check. Most of your buyers are women, you know.”
He shrugged as he tucked the envelope
into his shirt pocket. "Most of the waist sizes haven’t sounded too promising.”
"Gifts for their husbands, crafted by
someone they want to fantasize about. Supper’s on me.” She headed for the front
of the shop, casting him a Mae West look over her shoulder. "After that I have
a fantasy of my own I’d like to try out on you.”
He chuckled. "Did you find a
black-and-white pinto yet?” She was always talking about the TV Westerns she’d
followed. Bonanza was her favorite. Zane hadn’t seen much TV. His cowboy
heroes rode the big silver screen.
"Not one with the exact same markings
as Little Joe’s. These things must be done right.” She flipped the red CLOSED
sign that hung in the window and then turned to him, smiling. "But there’s no
end to my fantasies, and they all involve getting you naked.”
"God, you’re shameless, Marla.”
"I have nothing to be ashamed of.” She
locked the door. "I’m going to Albuquerque early next week on a buying trip.
Wanna ride shotgun?”
Bracing his elbows on the display case,
he watched her put her shop to bed a little early, clearing counters and
straightening displays, rising on booted tiptoe to return a hat to its peg,
angling for a quick assessment of her short, dark hair and her bright makeup as
she passed a full-length mirror. She was attractive in a hard-edged way, the
same way he was. There was a chiseled leanness about her that was more than
physical and that struck him as a female version of his own sum and substance,
with no soft parts of any kind. If she’d been born a few years earlier they
could have been twins, maybe.
It was an irrational notion, but it
disgusted him.
Abruptly he pushed away from the glass
box. "That picture is the closest you’ll ever come to showing me off to your
business friends again. I feel like shark bait around those people.”
"They think you’re refreshingly
straightforward, exotic, and”—she gave him that licentious smile again—"a
little dangerous, which is very exciting.”
"Why do you get such a kick out of telling
people I’m an ex-con?”
"Because I know it doesn’t embarrass
you, and it’s such a wonderful conversation starter.”
"How do you know it doesn’t embarrass
me?”
"Nothing embarrasses you. You don’t
care what anyone thinks. That, among other things, is what I like about you.”
Neither her complacency nor the fact
that she missed the point of his question surprised him, but he had to work at
distancing himself from a vague feeling of displeasure, a troublesome aversion
to the cool impudence in her eyes.
She slipped her arms around his waist
and looked up at him invitingly. "What do you like about me?”
He offered a sardonic smile. "Your
sensitivity.”
"Don’t you mean my honesty? We both
want the same thing, so why play games?”
"You’re right. That’s what I like about
you.” He was too old for games. "If supper’s on you, I’m havin’ steak.”
"I know just the place.” She slid her
hands over the back pockets of his jeans. "I’m easy, but never cheap.”
They went to a reputable steak house
and had to wait in the bar for a table. Zane hadn’t eaten since breakfast. The
aroma of grilled meat expanded the hollowness in his gut. He laid claim to a
bowl of peanuts. He didn’t drink much anymore, but he was on his second beer
and feeling fairly mellow when Bill Hausauer appeared at their table and
magnanimously claimed that the next round was on him.
"The ol’ man says you really did a nice
job with that gelding. I’m anxious to try him out.” Bill hooked his thumbs in
his belt and took a wide, territorial stance. An easy smile brightened his
baby-pink face. He had the look of a man who spent a lot of money he’d done
nothing to earn. Chunky jewelry, spotless white Stetson, western-cut clothes
that no real cowboy would wear. His hands reminded Zane of soft white bread
dough. "He paid you what you needed?”
"And then some. You got yourself a real
nice colt.”
"If he handles good, I can probably
throw some more work your way. I’ll put in a good word for you with some people
I know. How would that be?”
"Tell them to get in touch with Marla.
My schedule’s gettin’ pretty tight.” Zane tipped the neck of the brown bottle
and let a long draught slide down his throat.
"Oh, yeah?” Hausauer chuckled. "Well,
that’s real good. Keeps you busy, and staying busy keeps a guy out of trouble.
Too bad those bucks down at Wounded Knee haven’t got nothin’ better to do than
take over some little church and insult the American flag by turning it upside
down.”
"That’s not an insult,” Zane said
quietly. The surrounding bar talk bubbling over the steel guitars was beginning
to get to him. "It’s a distress signal.”
"Looks like an insult to me. What do
you mean, distress signal? They started the trouble themselves.”
"An upside down flag is a military
distress signal. You look healthy enough, Bill. Did our Selective Service pass
you up?” Bill dismissed the notion with a guffaw. Zane figured old Butch had a
friend on the draft board. "Well, even if you’d been a Boy
Scout...”
"I don’t really give a damn what they
do down there. They’re only hurting their own people. I know lots of good
Indian people who don’t want nothin’ to do with that AIM bunch. I get along
with Indians just fine.”
"Zane was over in Vietnam,” Marla put
in.
"Fought for your country,” Bill
observed almost appreciatively.
Zane wished the man would either sit
down or move on. He didn’t like having people stand over him.
Bill elevated himself on the balls of
his feet.
Zane glanced down at the unscarred
alligator wing tips on the man’s cowboy boots.
Bill’s heels sank back to the floor. "I
went to high school with some Indian boys who went over there. Couple of ’em
didn’t come back. Those are the guys they dishonor when they show disrespect
for the flag. Guys like you.” He noticed a waitress dressed in a little
cheerleader skirt and gave her an imperious high sign. "Hey, bring this table
another round, honey. This man is a goddamn war hero.” He wagged a pale, chunky
finger under Zane’s nose. "I’ll be sending you some more horses for sure.”
Zane ignored Hausauer’s friendly
parting gesture as he drained the last of his beer. He set it down with a
resolute thunk. "Let’s get out of here.”
"But what about—”
Zane smiled as he scraped the floor
with his chair legs. "I’ll show you what I can do with a good fire and anything
that’s raw.”
Marla’s eyes brightened. "The mind
boggles.”
ZANE WOKE UP in the
early morning hours. Rain splattered on the pavement outside the bedroom
window, but he realized that it was the noise Marla made in her sleep that woke
him. It was halfway between purring and snoring, a grating sound that pushed
him closer to the window and the patter of the rain. He decided he’d sooner
wake up to poor old Martin’s tortured moans than this woman’s snooze tune. He wasn’t
sure why.
Business
had been good, food tasty, sex adequate, all thanks to Marla. But since he’d
slept all he could, he was ready to leave. And she was easy to leave, which was
the only part that bothered him. He really wanted to want to stay, to
feel some regret as he eased himself from her bed, not, he realized, out of
consideration for her peaceful state, but out of a lack of need for any parting
words. Or touches. She’d touched him all he wanted her to. He carefully claimed
his clothes from a mixed pile, shaking hers away without handling them. He got
dressed in the bathroom and left the apartment with hat in hand. He wanted to
feel the cold, cleansing rain on his face.
He
liked cold water. It woke him up, made him feel alive and alert. It felt good
to leave the lights of the city behind, roll the pickup window down, and smell
the infusion of rain and South Dakota clay. Back roads were the only roads
here, threading the way between huge pieces of prairie like a quilter’s running
stitch. Zane found comfort in the vastness of it, a sense of infinite privacy.
If he turned on the radio, he’d find only static. It was either too late or too
early, and he was beyond the reach of most signals. Quiet sounded good. He was
almost home.
Gray
dawn drifted reluctantly over the jagged horizon. A light drizzle gathered on
the windshield. Zane slowed down when he saw the light at the side of the road.
The headlights looked like bewildered eyes cocked askew on the slope of the
ditch. It didn’t surprise him when he got close enough to recognize Randy’s
pickup. Zane had offered a loan toward the purchase of tires with a little more
tread. Randy had said he was working on a trade with somebody, but he’d
obviously pushed those baldies beyond the limit.
Zane
parked on the gravel shoulder, stretched his back as he emerged from the
pickup, adjusted his hat to shed the drizzle, and headed across the road. He
wasn’t eager to find his brother passed out on the front seat. Not that he
hadn’t been there himself a time or two, but once the party was over, so were
the laughs. The passenger door hung open on the far side, but he didn’t see
anybody in the cab. Johnny Cash was singing "Folsom Prison Blues” for a pair
of wet crows perched on the right-of-way fence. If Randy was working on a
remedy, he was sure trying to top off his blowout with a dead battery.
"Where’s
the owner of this piece of junk?” Zane demanded officiously. "The wrecker’s
here, so get your ass in gear.” He reached through the open window on the
driver’s side, hit the lights, and shut off the radio. Then he noticed the keys
in the ignition. Then the blood on the split vinyl seat. His skin tightened at
the back of his neck as if somebody had opened a door behind him and walked
out, abandoning him to the cold. He stared at the blood, then followed its
trail slowly, moving only his eyes. Zane knew blood when he saw it, blood from
a wound, a bad one. He knew death when he smelled it. In the shadowy grass
beyond the open door a scuffed boot toe pointed skyward.
"Jesus.”
Zane’s
throat sealed up like a zipper. Morning shadows narrowed his field of vision.
All he could see was the boot. His first thought was that it was past time his
little brother had a new pair. The sole was almost worn through.
He
pushed away from the closed door and headed for the open one, absently
wondering whose legs were carrying him. In his head he called on God, but he
couldn’t open his mouth, couldn’t say his brother’s name until he saw his
lifeless face.
