She didn’t want to think about that third option. Yes, she’d had her fair share of confrontations with adults who were violent and/or strung out on something. She’d usually been in a place that had back-up, though—other teachers at community centers, guards at a school, that sort of thing.
Here, she had Tammy and, next door, Clarence and Tara. A person would have to be an idiot to take on Clarence—the man was a tank—but Clarence left at five every day. Melinda was here until the last kid went home.
She wasn’t going to let a little fear rule her and she sure as hell wasn’t going to let it rule the children—not if she could help it. “Well?” she said, holding tight to the roller.
“Jamie,” he finally said, his voice so soft that she wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.
No last name. Well, it was a start. She let go of the roller. “It’s nice to meet you, Jamie.” He nodded his head, just a little. She leaned in. “You’re safe here. No one will hurt you, okay?”
At that, anything that had started to loosen up about the boy went all unreadable again. For a moment, she thought he was going to drop the roller and bolt on her. But after a tense moment, he started spinning the roller in his hands.
Yeah, this was a kid who needed to paint. “Come on,” she told him, leading him to a section of the wall that hadn’t been splattered on yet. “You can start here. We’ll have lunch in about an hour, okay?”
She kept an eye on the kids—and Jamie—as the afternoon progressed. He kept himself apart from the other kids, painting in careful, measured strokes. Every time she passed him, she made sure to tell him how even his section looked or how neat a job he was doing—any compliment she could come up with, she threw out there.
Not that the boy responded. Half the time, she wasn’t sure he’d even heard her over the joyful noise the rest of the kids were making. With time, she told herself. Rome wasn’t built in a day. The important thing was that the boy had come at all.
By the time Tammy headed out with Mikey, the wall was almost done. Nap time was shot to hell and back, though—the whole room reeked of paint and there was no way the smaller kids would lay down while the bigger kids kept painting. Luckily, on her trips to the warehouse store, she’d bought several fans. Once the wall was painted, she had two of the older kids—but not Jamie—set the fans up while the rest of the kids helped her carry the supplies outside. Thankfully, there was a hose bib at the back of the building so she could get the rollers cleaned up while the kids picked up their game of kickball.
Jamie didn’t join in. Instead, he hung back, standing in the meager shade of the building, watching the others. She didn’t like that he held himself back, as if he wasn’t allowed to have fun. He needed to interact with someone, even if that someone was her. “Here,” Melinda said to him, handing him the trash bag with all the used rollers in it. If she really wanted to, she could clean them out, but in her experience, re-using rollers led to shoddy walls. “Hold this.”
They worked in silence, with only the occasional break for Melinda to scold or hug, as the case may be. The shadows of the afternoon lengthened and parents arrived to pick up their kids.
Melinda could tell the paintin-the-hair thing wasn’t winning her any friends, but everyone was at least polite. It helped that the kids were obviously having way too much fun. A few parents promised to send the kids in their grubby clothes for tomorrow.
It wasn’t until the twins had gone home that Melinda realized Jamie was gone, too. He’d slipped off into the evening as silently as he’d arrived.
Damn. That boy was going to be a tough nut to crack.
She thought about him while she straightened up the center—as straight as it could get with everything on one side of the building. Then she got the rollers all ready for tomorrow. She really wished this place had a window so she could leave it open to air out overnight. Tomorrow, they’d have to open up all the doors and hope for a good cross breeze.
At six fifteen, she wrote a note to Nobody. He was cleaning the clinic, she was pretty sure. The trashcans were always emptied and the bathrooms were always clean in the morning, so someone was doing it. Even if it wasn’t Nobody, she owed whoever it was an apology for the state of the center.
Then she walked outside and locked the door. The sky was still a brilliant blue. She stood for a moment and let the sun warm her face.
Then she thought she heard something. Well, maybe not heard, but felt—like when someone was staring at her from across the road? Even as she thought it, she knew it sounded crazy—how exactly did one feel someone watching them?
But she did. “Jamie? Is that you?” She got no response as she scanned her surroundings. There weren’t a lot of places to hide out here. The immediate surroundings of the clinic were limited to a low hill, a barrel that was used to burn trash, some sad little shrubs and even sadder pine trees that looked like they’d given up. And grass. Plenty of knee-high grass.
She couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary—not even a critter slinking around in the grass. But she could feel something. Someone. Someone was out there. In the trees? There weren’t enough trees to hide behind, were there? “Hello?”
Nothing. And she didn’t hear anything else, either. Long day, she thought. She was hearing things. “Jamie, if that’s you, Tammy will be here around eight tomorrow. I’ll be here until six, okay? We’ll be here tomorrow. You can come back.”
A gentle breeze ruffled the sad trees, but there was no other response. She’d have to ask Rebel about Jamie with no last name. He was the medicine man, after all. If anyone knew about a young boy with a beaten face, Rebel would.
*
Nobody watched Melinda Mitchell drive away. She’d been wearing another long, hippie-style skirt and bright white tank top—he could still see the hot-pink bra straps. Was the rest of the bra hot pink, too?
Hell. He slammed the door on that train of thought and fast. So what if she was sparkling? So what if she’d left him one note? So what if she’d almost seen him that one time? Or this time? That didn’t mean he should be thinking of her like that. He’d had women, sure, back when he’d been a stupid teenager trying to prove himself—to someone. Anyone. It’d been a woman that had led to the fight in the first place.
Yeah, he was done with women. For their part, women were done with him, too. No one wanted a man as messed up as he was. Hell, he couldn’t blame them. His own mother had never wanted him. Why should now be different?
Except … except Melinda was different. Seemed different, anyway.
Had he done something to attract her attention? Stepped on a twig or something? He was usually silent, but she’d heard him. Jamie hadn’t been around by the time Nobody had gotten here. He knew. He’d checked.
This was the first night she’d stayed so late. He’d almost gone into the clinic before he’d realized she was still there.
So Jamie had come after all. He hadn’t wanted to. If it were up to Jamie, he’d stay out at Nobody’s place, brushing the horses, fishing and reading all day long.
It was one thing for Nobody to stay hidden from the rest of the world. No one cared about him, with the exceptions of Jamie and maybe Rebel. But Jamie was another matter entirely. People would notice the boy had gone missing. Eventually, anyway. Sooner or later, one of his parents would sober up and realize that their son had been gone for days, weeks even. The odds were good they wouldn’t care, but there was always a chance that one of them—Myra, more than likely—would report the boy gone.
Nobody knew what happened when kids disappeared. The cops got involved, Amber Alerts were issued, and people looked. People combed the land.
Nobody wanted to keep Jamie out with him, safe from the Lou Kills Deers of the world, but he couldn’t risk people finding him. And he especially couldn’t risk people finding Jamie with him. The law would take one look at Nobody’s record and assume that he’d taken the boy—that he’d meant harm to the boy.
If they locked Nobody up again,
Jamie wouldn’t have anyone. And Nobody couldn’t let that happen.
School was out for the summer. The boy needed somewhere he could go, something to do. Working with horses and fishing were all well and good, but the boy needed more than that. He needed … something. Nobody didn’t know what and that was the problem. He knew how to protect the boy, not raise him. Not make him a part of the tribe. He couldn’t be the boy’s family. That would be condemning him to a life on the outside with no hope of ever being a part of the rest of the world.
So Nobody had told Jamie to go to the new center, that the white woman would keep him safe during the daylight hours. He could be around other kids. He could make friends. He could be a part of the tribe.
All those things Nobody couldn’t have, couldn’t be.
He forced himself to do the clinic first, but he knew he was rushing. He still had her note in his back pocket. He’d gotten into the habit of reading it again right before he went to sleep. Would she have left him another note? Did he even want her to? He didn’t know what to say to her in either case.
Soon, he unlocked the center’s door. The place looked like it had been looted by vandals—everything was pushed to one side, and one wall had been painted.
What a mess. How was he supposed to clean that? He wasn’t. He couldn’t even see the floor—tarps were scattered everywhere. Shaking his head, he turned back through the door to clean the toilets—and then he saw it.
A folded piece of paper was taped to the door at what had to be her eye level, just below Nobody’s chin. He snatched it off the door, as if someone else might beat him to it.
Mr. Bodine,
As you can tell, we began painting today. You have my permission not to bother cleaning up this particular mess—I’m only going to make it worse tomorrow. I’m sorry that we’ve trashed your building so badly, but I promise it’ll be very pretty when we’re done! Remember—creative chaos!
Yours,
Melinda Mitchell
Nobody smiled—an actual smile, which was rare enough. His building? She had to be teasing him, but it didn’t feel like she was making fun of him—not like other women did. And she’d signed it Yours again.
Maybe he’d stop by Rebel’s again tonight. Maybe she’d be outside at that fire again, burning as bright as the flames themselves. He’d only passed by the place a few times after he was confident Jamie was safe for the night. Those had been late-night visits—long after all the lights had gone out. He hadn’t actually seen her again until today.
He promised himself he wouldn’t stay long—he had to check on Jamie.
Nothing good could come from it.
But he wanted to see her anyway.
*
“Jamie,” Rebel said, more to himself than to Melinda. “Yes. Jamie Kills Deer.”
“Kills Deer? Really?”
“That’s not the weirdest of them,” Madeline said, grinning over her glass of wine. “Wait until you meet Plenty Holes.”
Dude, it got weirder. “He showed up today, a huge fading bruise on his face. Should we call social services?”
Rebel and Madeline shared a worried look. “What?” Melinda asked. “That’s what I’d do in Ohio. Call social services. Or the police. Or both.”
“It’s … complicated,” Madeline said.
“What’s complicated? Someone’s beating the hell out of a kid.” When Madeline didn’t have an answer for that, she turned to Rebel. “Why is that complicated?”
“Social services will take the boy.”
“And that’s a bad thing because … why?”
Rebel looked as uncomfortable as Melinda had ever seen him. “They’ll take him away. They’ll put him in a foster home in Rapid City or Pierre—a white foster home.”
“Still not seeing why that’s bad—kind of far away, but not bad.”
“It’s complicated,” Madeline said again. “Because Indian kids are Indians, they’re marked as special needs, so foster families get paid more to take care of them.”
“And?” Because there had to be a catch here, one that would keep people from reporting child abuse.
“Some of the foster homes are in it for the money. Social services takes a child out of the only home and land they’ve ever known and puts them in a situation where they’re treated exactly the same. Not all,” he hurried to add as Melinda looked at him in shock. “But once social services takes a child, it’s almost impossible to get that kid back to the rez, even if there are relatives willing and able to take care of them.”
“What are you saying—that calling social services on a child abuser is asking for a kid to be kidnapped or something?”
“It’s happened,” Madeline said. “Who was it—last year? A girl didn’t get off the bus. Grandmother was waiting for her. Called the police, did the Amber Alert—and it turned out that social services had taken the girl out of school because they’d received a tip that her mother was on drugs. Just a tip. Nothing investigated, nothing proven. Just … gone.”
“Sheila is still in a foster home,” Rebel said quietly. “They cut her hair and made her take a white last name. Her grandmother cannot get her back.”
“He’s kidding, right?” Melinda asked her sister. Then, turning to Rebel, she added, “You’re kidding, right? Tell me you’re kidding.”
“It’s like the old days,” Rebel went on, not meeting her gaze. “They took our children, some in handcuffs, and shipped them to the east. They cut their hair and took away their names. They took away the language. They took away what it meant to be a Lakota. They thought they could break us,” he added in an angry tone that Melinda had never heard before. “Kill the Indian to save the child.”
An uncomfortable silence settled over dinner. “This is insane,” she finally said into the quiet. “You’re telling me my options are to either let an Indian beat him or let someone beat the Indian out of him?”
“Lou Kills Deer will not let his son go with anyone else.” The sorrow in Rebel’s voice told her that he’d already had this argument before. “No one else on the rez will risk pissing him off.”
“Not even you?”
That was one of those things she probably shouldn’t have said—or, at least, shouldn’t have said in such an accusatory tone. But she was furious. How was this even possible? Where was the freaking justice for Jamie and all the kids like him? Because she wasn’t so naïve to think that Jamie was the only kid getting smacked around on this rez.
But apparently she was naïve enough to think that she could help him out.
“We have to pick our battles, Mellie.” Ever the rational one, Madeline was speaking in her calm-down voice. Which usually only made Melinda that much madder. “We pay for the clinic and now the center. We do the most good that way.”
They’d had this conversation, on and off, for years. Melinda always wanted to do more. It hadn’t been enough that the family had spent Thanksgiving serving meals to the homeless. Melinda had wanted to spend every weekend at the shelter, trying to make the world a better place, one meal at a time. No, her parents had said. Mom worked on her pro bono divorce cases on the weekend; Dad had seen poor patients on Saturday. That was how they could help the most. Dishing out spaghetti wasn’t the proper use of their resources.
Melinda supposed it was true enough. Mom helped women get away from abusive marriages and get child support. Dad saved people’s lives and didn’t make them pay the crushing bills that went with it.
But it wasn’t enough. Not for her.
“This is ridiculous,” she said as she shoved away from the table. “Utterly ridiculous.”
“Mellie,” Madeline called out behind her, but she wasn’t in the mood to listen. She stomped outside so hard she was surprised she wasn’t leaving craters in the dirt behind her.
What kind of crazy world had she wandered into, where the only two options were both letting a kid’s spirit die a little more every day? Yeah, bad things happened to kids all the time in Columbus, too—but she’d
always been able to do something—call the cops, help a woman get her family to a safe house, foster a kid … When Shawna Gell’s father had killed her mother but was freed on a stinking technicality, Melinda hadn’t hesitated to take the little girl into her apartment. It had been inconvenient, sure, but she’d known Shawna was safe. Wasn’t that the most important thing? To keep the kids safe?
Not here, apparently. Stupid world.
Melinda’s anger burned hot. If she could have, she’d have punched something. Instead, she stomped frustrated circles around the unlit campfire.
What was she supposed to do tomorrow? Check Jamie for new bruises? Send him home with a prayer that nothing bad happened that night? Coast on warm, fuzzy thoughts of how, one day, the meek would inherit something and hope you didn’t get beat to death in the meantime?
Shit. She was going to cry.
Melinda hung her head, willing the tears not to get started because once they got started, she’d wind up crying her eyes out and she absolutely hated crying in front of Madeline. Her older sister was always so calm and rational and never, every lost her head over every little tragedy in this world. Oh, Madeline would come out and give her a sisterly hug and a pat on the back to try and calm her down, but she’d never understand how deeply Melinda felt the pain of others. Madeline was too clinical. She didn’t see people, she saw symptoms—problems to be solved.
Melinda had always been different. A bleeding heart, a soft touch, an idealist in a realist world. She knew she couldn’t save everyone. It was not just naïve to think that if she could just solve inner-city poverty or educational opportunities or child abuse that the world would be perfect—it was downright delusional. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try, by God.
Something snapped her head up. Had she heard a noise? Maybe not heard—more like what she’d sensed outside the center this evening. She looked over her shoulder. No one had snuck out of the house to try and reason with her. The sun hadn’t set all the way, but long shadows cast the trees in darkness. As far as she could see, she was alone out here. Just the crazy woman and the feeling that someone was watching her.
Nobody (Men of the White Sandy) (Volume 3) Page 5
