Colton's Folly (Native American contemporary romance)

by Simons, Renee

He looked at her sharply, hearing the hint of mockery in her tone, but her face was bland. He walked to the sink to dump his coffee, and as he did so he got a whiff of her perfume and felt her warmth, though they never touched. As he looked up from rinsing his cup their eyes met with the familiar electricity. I want her as much as I ever did, he thought grimly. Will I never be safe from her?

  He walked to the door and turned. “I know you have no reason to heed my advice, but do it anyway.” He left her, hoping his hasty retreat wasn’t too obvious.

  * * *

  Abby did take Cat’s advice, although the distance from the reservation to Crossroads was too great to please her. If labor began without warning, as it had with Sian, the hospital would be too far away to do her any good. Still, the monthly checkups were important, and the fee for the clinic reasonable. She kept her appointments with Dr. Carrera and followed the exercise and nutritional plan he designed for her.

  The children displayed a sincere interest in her progress, so she devised a chart to keep track of all her vital statistics. Her pregnancy was converted into a semester project and included in the curriculum for science, biology and home economics. The students seemed pleased to be a part of things, and she herself blossomed under the care and attention of so many friends.

  Gifts for the baby began coming in, some to the school, some to the Tallman house, causing Abby to wonder whether the paternity of her child was common knowledge. Not that it mattered. The presents all found their way to Abby’s bedroom, where she’d set up a nursery in one corner.

  Sometimes before turning in she spent a few minutes dreaming and admiring the gifts. Her favorite was the cradle Cutter had carved from a hollowed-out section of tree trunk. Decorated with delicate carvings of animals and flowers, it could stand on its rockers or hang suspended from a frame Billy Zuniga had built. There was a blanket from Nellie, and an entire set of baby boy’s clothing from the “ladies.” When Abby laughingly questioned their choice she was told, “It’s a boy. You have the look.”

  The most recent addition had come only that day, from Star Blanket. “This is a gift for the mother, not the child,” the old woman had said. It was a vase some two-feet high in mat black finish, embellished by the black glazed figures of two eagles soaring in tandem in four positions around the body of the piece. “They mate for life, just as you have,” Star Blanket had said.

  Abby had sighed. “I think perhaps that’s true for only one of us.”

  Star Blanket had shaken her head. “I’ve seen him. He is lonely and torn apart by conflict, and would share this child with you if he could.”

  “He doesn’t love me, Star Blanket.”

  “He is hiding from the truth, but he can’t escape it. It is only a matter of time.”

  “I’m not sure I care anymore.”

  The woman had smiled and touched her arm. “You do a little hiding yourself.”

  A knock on Abby’s front door roused her from her thoughts, and from the warm comfort of her sofa and the fire blazing in the hearth. She peeked out the front window and groaned at the sight of the man standing on her porch. Still, she opened the door and smiled brightly. “Hi, Hank. What brings you here?”

  He stepped inside, looked her up and down and then focused on her face. What had started as a scowl softened to a kindly expression of concern. “Motherhood agrees with you.”

  “Thank you.” She took his arm. “Come warm yourself at the fire.”

  “Your smile will do nicely, thank you.”

  She tilted her head to one side. “I haven’t had a compliment that pretty in a long time. Thank you.”

  Abby lowered herself to the sofa, and Hank stood watching her, his back to the fire. “Now I understand why all we’ve had from you is phone calls. You’ve been hiding from me.”

  She looked down at her clasped hands. “I didn’t want a lecture.” Then, looking up, she added pointedly, “And I don’t want one now.”

  He rose and paced from the sofa to the hearth. “Damn it all, anyway! What the hell’s gotten into that cousin of mine?” He looked at her again. “And you...you know better. How could you let it happen?”

  Abby gave him an impish look and broke into a broad smile. “You don’t really want me to tell you, do you?”

  He had no choice but to join her in laughter. “You know what I mean, Abby.”

  “I wanted this child, Hank,” she explained, suddenly serious. “I’ll have it and raise it and love it. If things work out I’ll do that here, and he’ll be brought up among his own people and know who he is and where his roots are. Cat can be a part of that or not--the choice is his.” She smiled again. “I needed him to make this baby, but I don’t need him to raise it.”

  Hank returned the smile. “Then you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine. Everyone has been just wonderful--supportive, generous and, above all, understanding and accepting. I’m not alone.”

  Abby walked him to the door, received his kiss on her forehead and watched him make his way to his waiting four- by-four. A smile was on her face, but inside she was hurting. Why couldn’t Cat be as open and as loving as the rest of his family?

  Because winter was slow in coming, representatives from various reservations in the area decided to meet to discuss voting strategy for the next year’s elections. Cat headed for Standing Rock, a half day’s ride to the east, hoping to get some heavy thinking done on the way there and back. The other delegates simply hoped to complete the two-day conference and get back to their reservations before the first heavy snowfall, which was long overdue.

  He frequently caught himself woolgathering during the meeting. Only by applying an extra effort of will was he able to keep his mind on the business that had brought him.

  Late on the second day, after the body of the meeting was over, the delegates sat around the oval table, catching up on the latest happenings.

  “I hear you have a new teacher,” remarked Dan Black, the delegate from Pine Ridge. “They say she’s doing a good job. That so?”

  Cat wasn’t surprised that others knew about Abby. The tribal grapevine was nothing if not efficient. “Yeah, she’s okay. I had my doubts at first, but it’s working out.”

  “One of your people?” someone asked.

  He shook his head. “White woman, from the East. But she seems to know what we need.”

  The conversation moved on to other subjects, and it was dark by the time the meeting broke up and everyone got under way. Cat began the drive home, his mind moving relentlessly back to Abby.

  One thing was certain: he loved her. He wanted her, and only her. That she still loved him was a source of wonder to him and, he knew, had more to do with her understanding and enormous capacity for forgiveness than anything else. It was more than he deserved. And what did she deserve if not a commitment from him? He thought about what that familiar word meant. He’d lived with it all his life. His commitment to his people had affected almost his every thought, every action. What would happen to that commitment if he married her? Would marriage be an act of disloyalty toward his people, a betrayal of the promise he’d made to his uncle?

  There was no doubt that she cared about the people of Twin Buttes; she had proved herself, and they had recognized that and shown their appreciation of her dedication. She’d done her job so well that her reputation had already begun to travel beyond their own small community.

  So why was he hanging back? Why did he still refuse to accept what was so clear to everyone else? Could this be a holdover from the days when he had looked upon his mixed heritage with hatred and shame? When he still feared that the white man in him would betray the red, and therefore had to be denied, even destroyed? Had he made her pay the price for his self-hatred?

  If that was so, then how much longer would she have to continue paying for feelings that no longer existed? Feelings that she had been swept away like dead grass? Somehow she had brought him back to the way things had been before ... before his father had died, before the war and
its terrors, before all the empty, lonely nights.

  She had made him remember the good in men like his father. And through her hard work and patient giving of herself, she had shown him what he should have known from the beginning: that the measure of a man, or a woman, lies not in ancestry, but in actions and the purpose to which a life is dedicated. But he had refused to see, and when he had chosen instead to put her out of his life, she had accepted his decision. She had continued to love him while giving him the thing he’d said he wanted--freedom. Even then, when he’d come to her, she had been there for him every time.

  Suddenly he saw it all clearly for the first time...so clearly that he winced. All the years of rejection and bitterness had blinded him to the fact that, despite everything, with her he had achieved the acceptance he’d sought elsewhere and failed to find.

  It was late, and he was tired. He saw the lights of a roadside bar and pulled in. The sound of a jukebox mingled with laughter and talk greeted him as he opened the door, stepped into the smoky, blue-lit interior and walked to the bar. He slid onto a high stool and ordered a beer, then went back to his thoughts. Now she carried his child. He found himself picturing a sturdy, healthy baby with black hair and dark eyes. Or would they be blue-green, like Abby’s? Either way, he--or she--would be more white than red, part of two different worlds, but perhaps wholly welcome in neither.

  How the hell can I leave my child alone in the world, knowing what he’ll have to go through? He asked himself. Yet how can I prepare him for people, on the reservation and off, who will torment him, demean him and test him beyond endurance, until he finds himself barely able to justify his existence, even to himself? What can I give him to make him strong enough to withstand the hatred, the intolerance, the hypocrisy? How much self-respect can I instill in him? How much courage and motivation?

  And what if I have a son who rejects my people, as I did my father’s? It could happen. What then? He lit a cigarette and took a long drag. I don’t know what then, he thought as he exhaled. But between us Abby and I could figure out something. Or learn to accept, as my mother did.

  That would be the hardest thing for him to do, he realized, but not impossible. Not after what Abby had taught him about acceptance and understanding and love. Maybe they could work it out. And maybe they wouldn’t have to. With a mother like Abby, maybe there wouldn’t be any need.

  Suddenly he needed to get back. He threw down some money and left without finishing his beer.

  It had snowed for three days, a slow, steady, relentless storm that first dusted, then buried, then smothered the land until nothing stirred in a world of vast, silent whiteness. Abby had canceled classes midway through the second day so the children could stay close to their homes.

  Suffering from a fierce case of cabin fever, she went out on the third day, but the snow was deep, hip-high in some places, and moving through it was heavy work. Afraid for the baby, she retraced her steps and returned to the shelter of her house, draping her wet clothes over the shower rod to drip-dry. The next afternoon the storm ended, and by the following morning everyone was out clearing the roads. Once that chore was completed, the men trekked out to the Buttes to check on their cattle. The herd seemed fine, but the snow was three-feet deep, and cattle just didn’t have the sense to dig beneath it. Ahead lay the task of bringing feed out to them.

  Bales of hay were loaded on sleds and hauled out to the animals, an all-day job, even with all hands working. The men returned home at night, exhausted, and preoccupied with the problem of providing more feed and obtaining the money to pay for it.

  Late the next afternoon Abby was finally able to take her walk. As she made her way down the snow-covered but passable street she noticed a tractor trailer pulling up to a group of storage sheds near the main corral. Its side read “Bridges’s Feed and Grain,” leading Abby to shake her head and wonder about the strange turn of events that had brought one of Richie’s attackers to the reservation’s rescue. She watched as the men formed an assembly line to unload blocks of salt, thirty-pound hay wafers, and sacks of pelleted feed and protein supplements, passing them from hand to hand, then storing them in the sheds for future use. As they worked, it became obvious that Bridges had brought enough to last through most of the winter. It occurred to Abby that sometimes a guilty conscience came in handy, if one was the recipient of the payoff.

  When the job was finished the men gathered in one of the sheds to warm themselves with steaming coffee. Abby followed them inside and stood in a shadowy corner as Cat spoke for the others.

  “We really appreciate what you’ve done, but we want a bill. We want to pay for all this.”

  “Well, if you insist.” Bridges looked around at the faces, some nodding in agreement, some strangely sullen, but all serious. He continued, “You know, every year maybe a half dozen or so of my men leave for other parts. If some of you are willing, maybe you could work it off. I’d train you, teach you how to use the machinery to process forage and silage, how to chop and steam and press. Then you’d know how to harvest your own when the time came. We could work out some kind of co-op deal, maybe. Save you all some money down the road, and make things easier for me. What d’you think?”

  Abby followed Bridges’eyes as he looked around the circle again, searching for volunteers, but getting no reaction. He looked disappointed, and Abby found herself thinking, Well, what did you expect, instant forgiveness?

  Again Cat spoke for the group. “That’s a good offer. We’ll discuss it and let you know, okay? We’ll call you in a few days, one way or the other.”

  Cat walked Bridges outside, and by the time he reentered the shed a heated discussion had begun. The men had made themselves comfortable, perching on stacks of feed bags and climbing stall railings to sit with booted toes hooked around posts or heels wedged into the slatted sides.

  Abby watched Cat’s face as the men talked, following his gaze as it roamed over the faces; she knew that in addition to listening to their words he was reading their expressions, their body language, gauging their tempers and inclinations while keeping his own opinions to himself.

  Joshua Allen, a young man in his early twenties, was speaking angrily. “Ain’t no way I’m gonna work for that paleface! I didn’t ask him to come out here like the Great White Father taking care of his good little children. Haven’t we had enough of that charity crap already?”

  Someone else spoke up. “Josh, look, it’s only charity if we don’t pay him back. No matter what his motives were, we can turn this into anything we want it to be.”

  Abby silently applauded the man’s logic and looked over to see a tiny smile turn up the corner of Cat’s mouth.

  A third man agreed, adding, “That’s why the job changes things. It puts us on an equal footing... like the barter system. We’d be exchanging goods for services. We wouldn’t be accepting charity. We’d be working for all this.” He motioned to the feed now filling the area around them.

  “Do you think working for him would put us on an equal footing with him? You think he’s gonna feel that way?” asked Joshua. “Man, are you naive!” Abby winced at the anger and bitterness in the young man’s tone.

  Another voice chimed in. “If he didn’t respect us as men, he wouldn’t have made the offer in the first place. We won’t be equal in skill, because we’ll be learning from him, but we will be acting like men, and he’ll know it. And we will, too.” Talk continued as the men debated back and forth, some siding with Joshua and others disagreeing. The noise rose and fell in waves, with Cat a quiet island at its edge. Finally he caught the eye of one of the older men and nodded for him to come forward from within the midst of the group. The man moved slowly, and as he did, the talk quieted to a murmur. He stood at Cat’s side, whispered something with which Cat seemed to agree, then calmly waited for total silence.

  Lance Carter was one of the elders; that alone would have granted him the respect of the others. However, through the years his wisdom had helped to bring stability to t
he community. Descended from a line of warriors renowned through the generations for their bravery and loyalty, he had been an advisor to Chief Hawk and a council member for years.

  When all heads were turned in his direction he spoke. “It is not enough to debate angrily with each other like children. We may be meeting in a shed instead of sitting around a council fire, and the smoke in the air may not be kinnikinnick, and we may not all be chiefs or sub-chiefs. Still, a decision must be made today that concerns the entire village and its future. Therefore we must be calm and orderly and examine all sides with as much care and wisdom as we have.

  “Since all the council members are here and this is a policy decision that needs a council vote, I think it best that we suspend this informal discussion and hold a formal meeting instead.”

  The council members agreed, and one of the younger men left to spread the word to the women and any men not already in attendance. Before long everyone who had an interest and could break away from their activities had packed into the shed. The doors were left open a foot or so to dissipate the smoke, and the talk continued, this time in an orderly fashion, as Abby stepped back even farther into the shadows.

  What surprised her most during the discussion was the way people listened to each speaker, while periodically looking over at Cat as if to determine his reactions in the same way that he analyzed theirs.

  Anyone who had an opinion was given an opportunity to express it, and all questions were answered, or at least discussed. The council members listened quietly as each person spoke; then each of them gave his opinion. Finally it was Cat’s turn. Abby watched with a shiver of awe as virtually every eye turned to him, and for the first time she felt his importance to these people and saw the high regard with which they viewed his opinions. She knew, somehow, that she was seeing something more than curiosity, or even the respect with which they treated the other council members.

  He spoke slowly, his voice steady and well modulated, so that those farthest away heard him clearly, while those close to him were spared a shouted harangue. They heard instead the sincerity of his feelings and the thoughtful deliberations of a man who cared deeply for the future and welfare of his people.