With two long steps Cat crossed the room. Then, in a lightning-fast move, he smashed his fist into the man’s midriff. As the drunk doubled over with pain and the effort to draw breath, Cat hit him with a blow across his jaw that flattened him. Without bothering to look at the man sprawled on the floor, Cat held a hand out to Abby. She came to him, and he led her out of the room in which the only sound was now the low hum of the jukebox.
Once outside, Cat paused for a second and took a deep breath, then let it out silently. Then they walked to the truck and started for home. Abby found herself unable to speak, still in a kind of shock from the episode.
Finally Cat spoke. “I’m sorry you had to be a part of that. I never should have taken you there.”
She looked at his profile and the deadly hands on the steering wheel. “Do things like that often happen to you?”
“Often enough.” He glanced over at her for a moment, then looked at the road again. “I figured you for a street fighter, but you looked kind of shook-up in there.”
Abby shook her head. “It wasn’t the fight. I’ve seen worse. And it wasn’t even what that stupid jerk said.”
“Then what was it?”
Abby hesitated, then answered. “It was the fact that it happened... in this day and age. The attitude behind the words. That’s what stunned me. I guess I couldn’t believe it was happening.”
He gave a short, bitter laugh. “Believe it, because it happens all the time. I’ve been hearing crap like that since I left the reservation at fifteen to go to school. I left college because of it. I heard it in boot camp, and in the military, and I’ve been hearing it ever since I got back. I should be used to it by now.”
“But you’re not?”
He shook his head. “Just when I begin to think it doesn’t matter, something like tonight happens and I realize...” He left the thought unfinished.
“Is that why you came back to the reservation? Because you knew you’d be accepted there?”
“Accepted? Lord, lady, are you naive!” His voice was bitter, his anger obvious. “They didn’t accept me any more easily than the white community does. I’ve been under a microscope all my life while the leaders tried to figure out if my loyalties lay with my mother’s people or my father’s. They watch me even closer now, just in case I show any signs of slipping and selling out to the white man. I’ve never found the word acceptance in any book I’ve ever read.”
Chapter 8
Left to her own devices the following Saturday, Abby was in her kitchen making sandwiches when a short rap sounded at her front door. Simultaneously she heard the door slam back on its hinges, a heavy booted step enter her living room and Cat roaring out her name.
She stood in the kitchen doorway and asked quietly, “What have I done now?”
He hadn’t seen her in a week; he realized now that he’d missed her and that, as angry as he was, he was still glad to see her again. His eyes took in the grubby sweatshirt and paint-spattered jeans, the bare feet and tousled hair, the dab of white on the tip of her nose. In his eyes, she was beautiful.
“What are those kids doing next door?” he asked with forced patience.
“What does it look like?” She didn’t want another confrontation, but she could feel one coming.
“Why are they in there slinging paintbrushes?” he recited slowly, then discarded any pretense of tolerance. “Is that your idea of cheap labor or something?”
“The school was badly in need of paint. What would you suggest?”
“Do it yourself,” he answered sourly.
“I started to,” she replied, matching his tone exactly, then assuming a normal tone, “but they volunteered their help. When we finished they decided to decorate the walls with murals. It was their idea, and I didn’t see any harm in it.”
“They ought to be doing other things,” he persisted. “They’ve got other responsibilities.”
“It’s Saturday, Cat.” She took a step closer, and her resentment became more evident. “Did you see anyone in that room who should be somewhere else at this moment, working on some other project?”
He thought and shook his head.
“Have any of the parents complained because this is keeping their children from their chores?” Again he responded in the negative, and she prodded, “Is there one child, even one, who looks as if he or she has been beaten, blackmailed or otherwise coerced into being there?”
By now they were face-to-face. Abby was coldly furious, and Cat was wondering how to shut her up and get her into his arms, because more than anything he wanted to kiss her, and he suspected that was the real reason for his being there in the first place. He sighed and took the direct approach. “All right,” he said quietly.
That stopped her, and she looked at him suspiciously. “All right? What does that mean?”
“First, may I please have the knife?”
She lifted her left hand, looked at the bread knife and blushed. “I...I was making sandwiches for the kids. I... guess I forgot,” she stammered helplessly.
He took the knife into the kitchen and returned to where she stood. “You looked as if you might use it on me,” he teased.
She softened. “In another minute I might have been tempted.” She took a breath, the first in minutes, it seemed. “What does ‘all right’ mean?”
“It means you’ve made your point.” He eased her into his arms. “And I’ve got other things on my mind.” His lips claimed hers, stifling any protest she’d intended to make and bringing to life the familiar fire only he could spark in her.
By now they knew the shape and taste of each other’s mouths, the feel and contours of each other’s bodies, and they came together like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, in a perfect fit. Cat felt it and knew it would be hell to let her go. Abby felt it and cursed the obsessions that would drive him away. Each vowed silently to capture the moment as completely as possible.
As Cat’s tongue explored her mouth, seeking out the warm, slippery wetness, tasting, touching her deeply, Abby slipped her hands beneath his T-shirt to feel the smooth, firm muscles of his chest and back. She pressed herself against him, savoring the feel of his hard chest against her breasts, the strength of his arousal throbbing against her. Cat slid one hand beneath her sweatshirt to fondle a bare breast, teasing the nipple until it came erect, while his other hand went to her firm bottom and pressed her closer, his hips rotating against hers.
Suddenly, locked together, they no longer were two separate people, but seemed to be extensions of the same warm, pulsing entity. Lips, hands, bodies touched, explored, craved and demanded, equally and in unison, until it was impossible to separate the passion of one from the other, the breath of one from the other, or to tell who gave or took the most. Not that it mattered.
They parted finally, tearing themselves from each other’s arms. Abby went to the window seat and huddled in a corner, wrapping herself in her own arms to control her shaking body. Cat lit a cigarette and stood by the mantel, looking across the room at her.
“Does it frighten you to know we can do that to each other?” She nodded silently. “I hope so, ’cause, lady, it scares the hell out of me!”
Although she already knew the answer, she asked anyway. “Why should it scare you?”
“Because I can’t afford to get involved with you, and I find it damned difficult to remember that!”
She flushed at his accusing tone and lowered her eyes, unable to meet his steady gaze. Realizing how angry he sounded, he sat beside her. All thought ended as he pulled her up to lie across his lap and gently lowered his lips to hers once more.
His hands slipped beneath her shirt and traveled slowly along her bare spine, his fingertips seeking and finding the most sensitive areas, soothing her muscles and nerve endings until a lovely, languorous warmth flooded through her. She nuzzled closer to him, her head on his shoulder and her lips against his neck.
“How do you do that?” she murmured drowsily.
She f
elt his laugh rumbling in his chest. “A healer taught me when I was just a kid.” He kissed her softly and let her head slip back to his shoulder. “I’ve used it to great advantage ever since, both as a healing art and otherwise.”
“I’ll bet,” she sighed. “Can I assume this is ‘otherwise’?”
“You can.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered, “I’m glad.”
“You are? And why is that?”
She smiled shyly and shrugged. “I guess you make me feel good.”
He looked at her with a rueful expression. “Me and the Ghost, huh? Terrific.” She was puzzled. “I heard you whisper something like that to him the day we brought him home.”
Abby thought a moment and remembered the day with a smile. “You two have a lot in common, you know.”
“Like what?” he scoffed.
“Well.. .you’re both intelligent, strong, half-wild and unpredictable, and...”
“And?”
“And--” her forefinger traced a line down the side of his face from temple to chin “--very, very beautiful.”
“A man can’t be beautiful.”
“To the right woman, he can.”
His brow wrinkled, and he drew back slightly. “Don’t say things like that, Abby.”
“Have you gone shy on me?” she teased.
“That isn’t it, and you know it.”
“Then what?”
“I’m not any of the things you want me to be... or that I would be if I could. I don’t want you... caring about me, or thinking there might be something between us.”
She moved out of his arms and leaned back against the window frame. “You mean something more than a few stolen moments whenever the biological urge hits?” she asked coldly.
Cat winced inwardly at her brutal interpretation, but nodded. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
Often as Abby made her way through the village in the weeks that followed she would find a group here or there, obviously very absorbed in some activity. On closer inspection she would discover an older man or woman instructing three or four children of various ages and sizes in the art of carving, or the making of pipes, of beading, or working with buckskin and hides. Always at these times the children heard tales of the old days and the ancient ways, the oral history of the tribe, passed on to them as it had been for countless generations.
Enthusiastic about their accomplishments, the children brought their handiwork to school; all their efforts, whether childish and awkward, or more polished and mature, were praised and shown with pride. Shelves were built to display these newly learned crafts, which soon decorated the smaller of the two schoolrooms and overflowed into the council building.
Abby was ecstatic. Her plan was succeeding far better than she could have imagined. She saw the young people who, with the help of their elders, were exploring, experimenting, using their skills and talents to express their feelings about themselves and their heritage, seemingly unaware of the fact that they were learning and absorbing, but doing so just the same.
She spent her free time putting the finishing touches on her own place and in continued explorations of the countryside. There were visits to the ranch, picnics and outings with the children and gardening with Martha, and the first weeks of summer passed peacefully. Until one night...
She never knew what woke her at one a.m., or why she went to the window on the side of the house facing the school. But when she pulled aside the curtain and peered out, she noticed a light moving back and forth inside the building. She watched it for a few minutes, then went for her long-handled flashlight and slipped out the door. As she did so the light went out, and she waited to see if anyone left the building, then quietly moved across the twenty-foot space and entered. Her bare feet made no sound as she searched the room, her light dimmed by a scarf placed across its face.
Her search uncovered the forms of two children, curled against each other, sound asleep. She took a step forward and her foot hit something. Directing the beam downward, she saw an empty cookie box from the school’s supply of snacks. Angling the light so it illuminated the area without shining in the children’s eyes, she knelt down and examined them. They were two brothers, one in the second year, one in the fifth, quiet boys, who gave her no trouble--Aaron and Billy Walks-Around-Slow, she recalled. Anissa’s cousins.
Abby had been told that the boys’ father had been a talented artist when he was young, but that he had never used that natural ability. Instead he had drifted in and out of one odd job after another, always on the edge of poverty, with the family more often than not recipients of some form of government aid. Their mother, Doretta, sometimes worked in a factory in Crossroads, but the job was seasonal and lasted only a short time each year.
Are things so bad that they’re forced to steal food? Abby wondered. And why aren’t they sleeping at home? She placed a gentle hand on Aaron’s shoulder, and his eyes came open. She laid an index finger against her lips and motioned him to follow her to a table a few feet away.
“How would you and Billy like to spend the night at my house and then have breakfast with me in the morning?”
“You’re not mad at us?” the boy asked.
Abby smiled. “No, I’m not mad.”
“Well... I guess it’s all right.”
“Good. Shall we wake Billy?”
“Nah. I’ll carry him.”
“He’s not too heavy?”
“Nah. He’s just a little kid. He don’t weigh much.”
Abby made a bed for Billy on the couch, but Aaron insisted on sleeping on the floor beside his brother, in case he woke up during the night, so she settled him into her sleeping bag, with a pillow for his head, then sat cross-legged on the floor next to him.
“Why were you sleeping in the school?”
He looked at her miserably, his black eyes large in a thin, dark face; his lower lip began to tremble, and he bit it.
She put a hand on his arm. “I only want to help you and Billy. I can’t do that if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”
Eventually she learned that his parents had gone looking for work, leaving the boys to care for each other. The couple had been gone five days this time. They had gone on such searches before, leaving the boys alone each time.
“Enough talk,” she said finally. “You go to sleep now.” She pulled up the sleeping bag to cover his shoulders against the night chill and rose to go to her bedroom.
“Miz Abby?” the boy called to her.
“Yes, Aaron?”
“You gonna get my folks in trouble?” he asked in a worried voice.
She stopped. “Why would I do that?”
“’Cause they left us. Don’t do nothin’, please? They can’t help it. They try.”
“I’m sure they do,” Abby reassured him. “Now go to sleep.”
Abby found no rest. She spent the night wrestling with the problem. From all the reading she’d done she knew that such things rarely happened. In principle the community functioned as an extended family, with all children a common responsibility. No child was ever allowed to go hungry or unclothed or without a place to sleep. With dozens of almost-aunts, -uncles and -cousins, and every elder considered to be a grandmother or grandfather, helping hands were numerous, and even the poorest families would share. What had gone wrong in this case?
By morning she’d decided that only the school board could act this time. She fed the boys an enormous breakfast and walked them over to their house to pack some clothes, then headed them out toward the jeep parked in front of Martha’s house.
“Where we goin’?” Billy wanted to know.
“It’s a surprise, but one I think you’ll like.”
Aaron looked suspicious. “You takin’ us away to a government boardin’ school?”
“Good heavens, no! Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Our pa said we wasn’t to tell anybody about them bein’ away, ’cause if anyone found out, they’d send us away
to a government boardin’ school. An’ we don’t wanna go.”
“Yeah, we don’t wanna go.”
Abby smiled as Billy chimed in. “I’m taking you to Mr. Matthews’s ranch to visit with Anissa and Penny. You can stay there till your folks get back. There are horses to ride and dogs to play with, and plenty of food, and you won’t have to sleep on the floor of an old, dark school. It’ll be fun. You’ll see.”
Aaron conceded skeptically, “Well... all right. But only till my mother and father get back. That’s all.”
“Of course,” Abby agreed.
After turning the boys over to Hank and Jacinta, Abby headed back to Twin Buttes, hoping to find some members of the school board in the council building. Emma was in the office, and she brought together the other members so that Abby could talk to them.
“I didn’t know what else to do. Anissa’s parents are away--that’s why she’s at the Matthews ranch. And it turns out that Martha’s spending the weekend there, too. I would have kept them with me, but I thought they’d be better off out there.” When Abby had finished, she paused and waited for a reaction from the others.
“You did the right thing,” Emma said, looking around the room. “Of course, we all knew that Slow had a drinking problem and that Doretta’s really struggling to keep that family together, but never that it was as bad as this. You must know we would have done something.”
“I do, but now what?”
“I don’t want the bureau takin’ them kids away from us.” Noah Spotted Eagle’s tone was adamant. “We got to take charge and do somethin’ ourselves.” Heads nodded in agreement.
“We got to find work for Slow, so Dorrie can stay home and care for those boys.”
“...or find a job for Doretta, till he gets on his feet,” someone else added.
“And someone’s got to watch the boys meantime.” Finally Abby offered a suggestion. “What if we talk to Dorrie and Slow about leaving the boys at the ranch for the summer? Maybe without having to worry about them for a few weeks things will be easier. It could give them a little breathing room, don’t you think?”
Colton's Folly (Native American contemporary romance) Page 11
