by Peggy Webb
“About Ricky? About the job?”
“About both, I guess.” She pressed the cold glass to her hot cheek. “Ever since I got back from Houston, Mike’s been after me to quit. He was scared to death when he saw what all was happening out there.”
Callie remembered her own fear when she saw Joseph shot.
“Who can blame him? It was frightening.”
“Yeah, but that’s not all. He wants to start a family.”
“What about you?”
Peg blushed. “I’ll tell you a little secret.” She glanced to the kitchen to be sure Mike was still occupied, then leaned closer to whisper. “Last night I didn’t use anything. When we discovered it, it was too late. I told Mike I forgot, but I don’t think I did, not really. Somewhere in this voluptuous body of mine beats the heart of a woman who longs to be cookie chairman in kindergarten.”
“Lord, Callie, I envy you.” She sighed.
Mike came through the door holding a platter of steaks, marinated and ready for the grill. When he passed his wife, he leaned over and gave her a little squeeze around the waist.
Callie thought about the mountainside camp, about waking up to find Joseph leaning on one elbow watching her sleep, about the way he would kiss her softly and whisper, Wake up sleepyhead so we can greet the new dawn properly.
I envy you, Callie thought, but she didn’t say it. Instead she smiled while Mike put the steaks on the grill.
“I hope you two are hungry,” he said.
“I don’t know about Callie, but I’m starved.” Peg put her arms around her husband from behind, then winked at Callie.
“I am, too,” Callie said, but she wasn’t talking about steak.
Joseph’s first sight of his homeland in three years caused him to pull his rented car off the road and simply stare.
The ancient Sioux considered the Black Hills to be the center of the universe, a place of spirits and holy matters. Joseph’s ancestors used to go up into the hills alone to pray to the Great Spirit and await visions. Spirit quests, they were called, and all the great Sioux warriors claimed their power from these solitary journeys that combined prayer and fasting.
Sitting Bull. Crazy Horse. Joseph knew the names of them all. His mother had told him. She used to spend hours in front of the fire at night telling the myths and legends, trying to keep the great Sioux spirit alive.
When had it all died? When he was thirteen and hiding in the stall in the boys’ bathroom, or when he’d entered college and come face-to-face with prejudice?
Nobody expected the Native American to amount to anything those days. In particular, they didn’t expect one young Sioux fresh off the reservation to have the unmitigated gall to try for medical school.
Though Joseph had dropped Hawk from his name when he’d discovered his father’s betrayal, there was no way he could change the color of his skin, his hair, his eyes. Still, it had been easier to call himself Swift.
And over the years he’d begun to think of himself that way, Joseph Swift, a self-made man without a past.
But when he returned to the Black Hills, Paha Sapa, the ancient Sioux called them, he could no longer deny his heritage. There it was, spread before him in all its grandeur: the land the Sioux had prized for its beauty and spirituality—and others had prized for its gold.
“And that, folks, is how the West was lost,” Joseph said.
He pulled back onto the road, and within an hour he was parking in front of his mother’s house, a modest bungalow differentiated from the others on the street only by the yard. His mother had a green thumb, and in the summer and spring her yard rioted with color and scent.
Joseph sat for a while appreciating the beauty before he started toward the door.
He rang the bell, and when Sarah saw him, she stood with her hand over her heart, speechless.
“Hello, Mom,” he said.
Suddenly Sarah became a whirlwind of activity, hugging, laughing, crying, sweeping wide the door, tidying the living room. Finally she wore herself out, and simply sat on the sofa staring at him.
“I can’t believe it’s really you.”
“It’s me, Mom.”
Guilt stabbed Joseph. In the three years since he’d last seen her, Sarah’s hair had gone from black shot through with gray to purest white. Wrinkles he didn’t remember now creased her cheeks, and she was bent like an old willow loaded down with branches. These were changes you couldn’t see in weekly phone calls home.
“I saw you on television down in Houston,” she said. “You look thin.”
Maybe he was. He hadn’t eaten much in the mountainside camp. At the thought of Callie, pain sliced through him, sharp as knives.
Would it ever ease? Would the day ever come when he didn’t think of her, want her, need her?
Need. The thought had come unbidden, and Joseph cast it away as if it were a rattlesnake. He didn’t need anyone. A man living alone can’t afford to need anybody.
“I have a casserole in the oven. Your favorite.” Sarah pressed her hand over her heart.
“I should have called, but I wanted to surprise you.”
Sarah reached for his hand, then tilted her head back so she could study his face.
“Something troubles you, Joseph.” She didn’t ask what it was.
“How is everything with you, Mom?”
“Retirement is boring. I miss the kids.” After she’d left medical school, Sarah taught science in elementary school. “But I keep busy—gardening, cooking, doing my beadwork.”
Sarah left the sofa to get an intricately beaded bag from her sewing basket. It was functional, but it was also art. Joseph noticed the price tag she’d attached.
“You could get three times that much,” he said.
“I do this for pleasure, not money. Greed corrupts.”
Joseph smiled. Sarah Brave Crow never changed. Until the day she died, she would still be teaching.
They ate the casserole, then afterward sat on the front porch to watch the moon and listen to the songs of the night creatures. Afterward, he slept in the bed of his youth. Sarah had never changed his room. It still had all his soccer trophies on the shelves, his posters of baseball heroes on the walls, and his collection of rocks from the Black Hills.
He had his first peaceful night’s sleep in many years, and when he woke up he told his mother about Callie.
“Do you love her, Joseph?”
Joseph couldn’t answer her. Love had not been a part of his vocabulary for years.
She left him sitting at the breakfast table, and when she came back she was carrying a sacred pipe and a small round stone.
“Do you remember the legend of the White Buffalo Woman?” his mother asked.
“I haven’t thought of it in a long time.”
Sarah ran her hands over the bowl of the pipe, carved in red stone, and when she spoke she reverted to a singsong cadence that mesmerized.
“The bowl of the pipe is your Mother and your Grandmother, the Earth, and the carving is a buffalo calf who represents all the four-legged creatures who walk upon Mother Earth. The wooden stem represents all things that grow upon her.
“The twelve feathers hanging from the pipe are from Wanbli Galeshka, the Spotted Eagle, and they are all the winged of the air.”
The past pulled at him, and Joseph fought the urge to bolt. But he could never be rude to his mother, so he clenched his jaw and waited.
“When you smoke this pipe you are joined to all things and all people on Mother Earth, and when you pray they all send their voices to Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit.”
Swaying, Sarah closed her eyes, and Joseph got caught up in her vision. He could almost see the White Buffalo Woman storming across the plains, holding aloft the sacred pipe and the smooth round stone, red as Mother Earth and the new dawn that comes from Father Sky.
She opened her eyes and pressed the pipe and the stone into Joseph’s hand.
“You are bound to all your relatives, Joseph, whether you w
ant to be or not.”
“I can’t take these.”
“I’ve saved them for you until you are ready.” Sarah gently closed his hand around the sacred objects. “You are ready, my son.”
Chapter Nineteen
Jenine Rayborn was not making things easy for Callie. Not that Callie expected any favors. She hadn’t even expected the second interview with Jenine to be particularly comfortable. What she had expected was that Jenine would show a little enthusiasm for Callie’s adoption quest. After all, if it hadn’t been for Callie, Ricky wouldn’t even be alive.
Joseph helped, too, of course. And Peg.
Still, Callie felt that she deserved an edge, and finally she told Jenine so.
“Miss Rayborn, I know you’re trying to ensure that Ricky has the best possible home, but don’t you think I deserve a little extra consideration here? If it weren’t for me and my colleagues, Ricky wouldn’t even be here.”
“I’m well aware of that, Dr. Red Cloud.”
Jenine picked up the letter from Ron vouching for Callie’s character and verifying that she was, indeed, no longer employed by the Center for Disease Control. In other words, Callie had removed herself from that danger.
The minutes crept by, and at last Jenine laid aside the papers.
“Dr. Red Cloud, I’m well aware of your expertise in medicine. What I’m not aware of is your expertise in child rearing.”
“Like all first-time mothers, I come to the job with no experience,” Callie told her. “But I was brought up with love, and I know the importance of love in the mother-child relationship.”
Jenine pursed her lips. “And there will be no father?”
Callie wanted to scream. “I think I’ve already made that clear. There will be no father.”
“I don’t mean to make this hard for you, Dr. Red Cloud, but we’ve already made two mistakes with Ricky. We can’t afford to make a third. It’s not good for the child to keep shuffling him around.”
“I understand.”
“This is going to take a while. We’ll have to do an on-site visit, see what kind of home you’ll be providing, what kind of hours you’ll be working.” She looked at Callie over the top of her glasses. “After all, you will still be practicing medicine.”
“The clinic setting is vastly different from private practice where I would be associated with a hospital. It’s almost like having a nine-to-five job, expect that I would take turns with Dr. Brenner being on call for emergencies.”
“I understand.”
Jenine came around her desk and took Callie’s arm. “I know you would like for me to tell you yes today, but we have to work within strict guidelines, and then sometimes we still make mistakes. I don’t want to make a mistake with this one. Ricky’s already been through too much.”
“I agree,” Callie said.
“This is going to take a few weeks, probably. Meantime, why don’t you go down and visit Ricky? He’s excited about seeing you again.”
Jenine smiled, and it was the first positive sign Callie had seen. She ducked into the ladies’ room, more to get herself under control than to freshen up. Ricky didn’t care a whit about how she looked.
Callie combed her hair, then pulled a lavender scented towelette from her bag and wiped her face.
“There,” she said. “That’s better.”
Her hand was on the doorknob when instinct screamed at her, Caution. Danger.
Callie cracked the door open and peered out. Joseph was striding down the hall, big as life and twice as heartbreaking.
Her heart beating like a trip-hammer, Callie eased the door shut.
Safe.
But was she? Joseph was only a few feet away, and she had to anchor herself to the washbasin to keep from racing toward him like some lovesick puppy.
“I probably should have called ahead,” she heard him say.
“No problem.” Jenine. Perky as a teenager. “Ricky will be thrilled to see you.”
Don’t say it, Callie prayed. Don’t tell him I’m here.
“You haven’t found a home for him yet?” Joseph asked.
“Not yet, but we’re still trying.”
Oh, God. Would she tell Joseph about Callie’s attempt to adopt?
Please, God, no, Callie prayed. Love couldn’t be contingent on a job, a child.
Could it be contingent on a heritage?
She quickly pushed that thought aside. Their voices were fading. Callie risked pushing the door open an inch so she could hear.
“What happened with the last family?”
“Ricky ran away.”
“Poor little guy.”
“I know. If we don’t find a home for him soon, I’m afraid he may end up as one of those hard cases, the ones nobody will take.”
Not if I have anything to do with it, Callie thought.
“I wish things could be different,” Joseph said.
Callie heard despair mixed with poignance in his voice, and she wanted to run after him, calling, Wait, let’s try one more time. Instead she stayed behind the bathroom door while their voices faded and they disappeared from sight.
Then she slumped against the sink, put her face in her hands and cried.
At the end of the hallway Jenine turned left toward her office, and Joseph turned right toward Ricky’s room. Pausing, he pulled the giant puppet he’d brought from Italy from its bag, then stood in the hallway untangling strings. He wanted the puppet to be exactly right when he saw Ricky.
Suddenly he froze. What was it? A sound? Instinct? He didn’t know. All he knew is that something touched his heart.
“Callie?” he whispered.
He glanced up and down the hallway. Nothing. The feeling was strong on him, like a wind blowing across a barren dessert.
Following instinct, he backtracked, turned the corner and walked slowly down the hall, swinging his head from right to left, looking, searching. For what? He didn’t know.
A sound. A soft click. Alert, Joseph froze. And then he saw it—a door closing.
He strode toward the door, and then stood still. It was the ladies’ bathroom. Callie was on the other side of the door. He was certain of it.
“Callie?”
When she heard Joseph call her name she thought she would die. Hand over her heart, she watched the door. What would she do if he came inside?
He knocked, calling to her again, softly. “Callie, are you in there?”
The sound she heard was her heart breaking in two. Slumped against the sink, she closed her eyes while silent tears streamed down her face.
“Callie?” A plea. A sigh. A heart beating in a voice.
Callie put her hand over her mouth to keep from calling to him. There was a small sound, the doorknob turning.
Oh, God, what will I do?
Then suddenly, nothing. No movement. No sound.
Callie wondered if she would faint. Joseph was still on the other side of the door. She felt him as surely as if hot coals were being pressed into her skin.
She tried not to breathe. Sweat beaded her forehead, and her legs began to tremble.
Callie waited. One minute. Two. She lost track of time, and then—footsteps. Distinct as hammers striking metal. Determined. Resolute.
Joseph was going away, but at least, this time, she had been spared another painful goodbye. Callie held her hand over her mouth until the sound of footsteps faded, then she eased out the door and raced toward her car.
Tomorrow she would see Ricky. Tomorrow when Joseph was gone.
Back at her hotel, she finished unpacking. The last thing she took out of her suitcase was Joseph’s harmonica. Callie pressed her lips to the cool metal, then set it on the bedside so that when she woke in the middle of the night she could put her hands on it and know that once everything had been real.
The next morning Callie called to be certain that Joseph was not there.
“He told Ricky goodbye yesterday,” Jenine told her. “He was on his way to catch a plane.”
Back to Italy, Callie thought. A world away.
“Thanks, Jenine. Please tell Ricky I’ll see him in a little while.”
When Callie opened the door to his room, Ricky was sitting in the middle of the floor talking to a puppet nearly as big as he was. He held one wooden hand and leaned close to the painted wooden face, his expression earnest.
“Joe said to tell you everything. Can I tell you a secret?” Ricky held on to the puppet’s long nose and forced the head to nod. “I’m gonna run away and find Callie so we can be a family.”
He looked so small and vulnerable sitting there baring his heart to a wooden doll. Silently, Callie made a promise to herself: We’re going to be a family, Ricky, no matter what it takes. Just you and me, kid, two against the world.
Then she stuck out her chin, pasted a big grin on her face and braced herself for what she knew was coming.
“Hi, kiddo. Miss me?”
“Callie!” Ricky launched himself at her, grabbed her around the knees and held on tight.
“Hey, if you’ll let go, I’ll come down there so we can hug each other.”
Chin jutted, Ricky tipped back his head so he could see her. “You promise?”
“I promise.”
It was an easy promise to keep.
Callie had one more meeting with Jenine before she left Houston for the conference in D.C.
“He’s going to try to run away,” she told Jenine, “so that he can be with me.”
“Don’t worry. He’s safe here.”
“Maybe he’s physically safe, but is he emotionally safe? Ricky has formed an emotional attachment to me, Miss Rayborn, and he’s determined to be with me, no matter what it takes.” She paused for effect. “I’m equally determined to be with him.”
Jenine shuffled papers around her desk, then picked up a glass paperweight and toyed with it. Callie plowed into the silence, determined to advance her case.
“I believe I’m the best possible choice you can make for a parent for Ricky, and I’m willing to work with you in any way I can in order to fulfill your requirements. All you have to do it tell me what you need.”
