Perry sighed more loudly than I had. Looking a little bemused, he said to me, “Nice work, counselor.”
“If you only knew,” I said with a grin. Still, I was surprised. Perry was typically stingy with praise.
But then he said, “You know, Naomi, if you’ve had second thoughts about leaving, your old office is still vacant.”
I got it now. He wanted me back. But I’d just had a heady taste of major league mediating. I’d gotten gods to agree, for crying out loud. And I knew Perry still worked for Leo Durant.
“I appreciate the offer,” I said. “But you know that Robert Frost poem about two roads in a wood?”
And Joseph, bless him, knew exactly which verse I had in mind, and recited it by heart:
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
I grinned at Joseph and took his hand.
Perry nodded. “Well. If you change your mind, you know where to find us.”
“Again, too brief a visit,” Charlie said with regret. He held the lobby door open for us as we trailed out.
The wind had kicked up, blowing what was left of the snow into mini-drifts against the building. “Are you sure you can’t stay and celebrate with us?” Looks Far asked him.
“As much as I would love to stay and hear about how corn pollen got into Durant’s hotel room…”
“It was masa harina,” Joseph said quietly, but mirth tinged his voice.
Charlie ignored him. “I’ve got livestock that need looking after,” he continued. “And I want to get back home before all the festivities start. I hear they’re planning quite a show down here tonight.”
“That’s right,” I said, startled to have forgotten. “It’s New Year’s Eve, isn’t it?”
“Yes, indeed,” Charlie said. “Fireworks, drunk drivers, the whole shebang. Any sane person would want to be safe at home before all that gets going.” He shook hands around our small circle. “Naomi, many thanks for your help with all this,” he said when he got to me. “I’m not sure what was going on at the end there, but I could have sworn there was Someone Else in the room with us when Durant tore up that contract.”
“Nope,” I said with a grin. “Just me.” I wasn’t lying; by then, Everybody Else had left.
Charlie looked dubious, but he didn’t press for more. “Don’t forget to call me about those documents you need,” was all he said to me as he got in his car.
“So what’s next?” I said as we watched Charlie drive away. All at once, I felt a little lost. It hit home that I would probably never walk into the building behind me again.
“First, I would suggest getting out of this wind,” Joseph said, huddling into his coat.
“And then,” Looks Far said, “you two should round up George and Shannon and come on up to my place. We’ll have a celebration feast, maybe some dancing and drumming. Start the New Year right.”
“We’re in,” I told Looks Far. “I’ll call Shannon right now.”
Ten hours later, the five of us sat, swaddled in blankets, on Looks Far’s plateau. Dinner was long since over. While it cooked, George and Joseph had impressed us with their dancing as Looks Far drummed and sang. Now we passed a bottle while watching fireworks dot the plains below us.
“I think I can see all the way to Kansas,” Shannon said dreamily.
“I think it’s fuckin’ cold, that’s what I think,” George said. “Looks Far, how come you’ve never put in any of the common comforts up here?”
“You always ask me that, George,” Looks Far said, “and my answer never changes. I like it here just the way it is.”
I was drifting off, snuggled against Joseph, when he said, “You know it’s not over, right?”
I sat up a little. “What’s not over?”
“The war in heaven. We’ve won a battle, that’s all. But Loki will be furious when he realizes how much he’s lost. He and Brock are going to keep making trouble for us. And we haven’t even started on White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman’s Jehovah project yet.”
I groaned.
“And don’t forget Naomi’s father,” Shannon said.
I remembered, ruefully, that I had never had a chance to resume searching for him. “You’re not helping, Shannon,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Joseph said, waggling a finger at me. “Don’t forget your father. We’re gonna help you find him.”
“Oh, so it’s a group project now?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said. “We’re a team, aren’t we?”
“Joseph,” I said, “shut up and kiss me.”
“Are you pushing me?” he asked with a wide coyote grin.
I hooked an arm around his neck and pulled his lips to mine. “Only if you want me to.”
Author’s Note
First, the disclaimers:
1. My day job is at a law firm, but none of the people at Perry’s firm are modeled after anybody I’ve ever met, worked for, or worked with.
2. Similarly, I am not a lawyer. I’ve had some training in legal research and a short course in real estate law while in paralegal school, but I am by no means an expert. If I messed something up, please remember that this is a work of fantasy and may be set in an alternate universe.
3. I am pretty confident that I am neither Ute nor Lakota. My understanding of their gods and cultures is based solely on what I’ve read. If I messed something up, see item 2 above.
4. I haven’t lived in Colorado since 1999, although I have visited from time to time since then. The settings in this novel are as accurate as my (admittedly faulty) memory and Google Earth can make them. If I messed something up, see item 2 above.
Now, the appreciation part:
Kurt Vonnegut once said there are two kinds of people: the ones who are fabulously well-to-do, and the ones who have doodly squat. I consider myself to be fabulously well-to-do in terms of my support team. Heartfelt thanks this time around go to Susan Strayer, who read the first and second drafts, and confirmed all my worst fears (she is a terrific editor! You should hire her!); my Sisters of the Silver Branch, Susan Reed, Anne Brophy and Judy Gibson, for their advice on cover design and their general moral support; and my friends at kevinswatch.ihugny.com, particularly the guys in the Loresraat who told me about GIMP, and the folks who participated in the discussion on greed in The Close back when I was beginning to think about the “big ideas” behind this series. Thanks, too, to the authors and bloggers at The Indie Exchange, who are chock full of good advice on every aspect of indie publishing, and especially to Donna Brown, who runs it. This book would be a disaster without all of you.
Lynne Cantwell
March 2012
About the Author
Lynne Cantwell is a former broadcast journalist who has worked at Mutual/NBC Radio News, CNN, and a bunch of other places you have probably never heard of. She has a master’s degree in fiction writing from Johns Hopkins University. She lives near Washington, DC, with her daughter and her daughter’s cat. This is her third novel.
Discover other titles by Lynne Cantwell at the Kindle Store:
The Maidens’ War
SwanSong
Lulie: a short story
Find Lynne on Teh Intarwebz:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/LynneCantwell
Twitter: http://twitter.com/lynnecantwell
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/LynneCantwell/e/B005JTP5NE/
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/696603.Lynne_Cantwell
Blog: http://hearth-myth.blogspot.com
Here’s a sneak preview of Fissured: Book Two of the Pipe Woman Chronicles, coming in September 2012!
I think it was Shakespeare who said, “The course of true love never did run smooth.” Good thing he’s dead, or I’d have to punch him.
That thought occurred to me one e
vening in early February, when I arrived home from work to find that I couldn’t get in my own door. It had been a rough day – they all seemed to be rough days lately, what with getting the private mediation practice going – and this was just about the last straw for me. I felt like I had two choices: whimper like a baby, or get pissed off. I opted for the latter.
I set down my litigation case (which is the size of a suitcase and about as heavy) and pushed hard on the door; something gave on the other side, and the door opened just wide enough for your average supermodel to walk through. I, however, have a fair amount more padding than your average supermodel. I did fit, once I’d shucked off my down coat, but it required a good but of grunting, as well as a howl when the door handle gouged a rift in my midsection.
Once inside, I discovered the problem. Joseph’s work boots littered the entryway, and the top of one of them had wedged itself under the door.
Joseph himself sprawled on the sofa, one hand propped behind his head and the other holding the remote. His hair – long, black, and slightly wavy – was pulled back into its customary queue, but it was rucked up on the throw pillow his head was resting on. His long legs overshot the other end of the sofa, his stocking feet perilously close to the lamp on the side table. He was steadily clicking through the channels, but I could tell he wasn’t concentrating on the screen – his deep blue eyes were too unfocused.
“Joseph,” I said loudly. “A little help here?”
“Naomi!” He jumped up off the couch. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“No idea how you could have missed it, with all the racket I made,” I said testily, pointing to the offending footwear.
“Whoops, sorry. I kicked them off and tossed them from the couch. I guess my aim wasn’t very good.” He unstuck his boot from under the door, then lined up the pair neatly in front of the closet – but not before rescuing his jeans jacket from the back of the chair nearest the door and hanging it inside. He even fetched my coat and litigation case in from the hallway and put them away, too.
“There,” he said. “Hi.” And then he gave me a proper welcome home.
Maybe I should have put air quotes around “home”. The condo we were currently making out in, in Denver’s LoDo neighborhood, was undoubtedly my home. But Joseph lived with his roommate and fellow Ute Indian, George, in a double-wide out on the plains, more or less in the direction of Denver International Airport – although more often than not, he slept here.
A few weeks earlier, a Lakota Sioux goddess had charged him with being my Guardian. Why did I need a Guardian, you ask? Why, because She had chosen me to save the world.
Like they say on Facebook, it’s complicated.
When I’d met Joseph Curtis in December, I was engaged to marry Brock, the asshole I’d been dating off and on for about ten years. Joseph wasn’t my type at all – too thin, too secretive, and (she admitted, shamefacedly) too blue-collar. Then, well, various things happened, I broke up with Brock for good, and Joseph and I went through some pretty unusual experiences together – including the discovery of a primal physical attraction, the origin of which kind of mystified us both.
Now that the woo-woo had receded a bit, though, the problems in our relationship were resurfacing – problems that I suspected could develop into fatal flaws. We seemed to disagree on everything I considered important to building a long-term relationship: where we preferred to live, for one thing; our individual levels of ambition, for another.
And, of course, his habit of leaving his stuff all over my apartment drove me batshit.
If only I didn’t feel this visceral need for him.
“How was your day?” he asked when we came up for air.
“Oh, you know,” I said. “I did paperwork, met with two prospective clients, did more paperwork, went out for a networking lunch, organized my office, and did more paperwork. I think I might have actually practiced law for fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“That’s better than yesterday, though, right?”
“Not by a lot,” I smiled tiredly, “but yeah.”
He grinned. “So things are looking up,” he said.
“Oh, absolutely.” I sighed. “I had no idea how much work was involved in running your own business.”
“But even if you’d known, you still would have left your old job.” It was a statement, not a question. Until just a few weeks ago, I had worked for one of the most prestigious law firms in Denver. Then one of the firm’s clients enlisted us to help him force Joseph’s grandfather out of his home, and I decided I couldn’t work for a law firm that would help someone do such a despicable thing. So I quit. Which was just as well, as it turned out; the firm was going to phase out my mediation practice anyway.
“So how was your day?” I asked as we ambled toward the kitchen. “You seemed distracted when I came in.”
“Hmm? Oh. No, not really. What should we thaw for dinner?” He dropped his arm from around my waist and headed toward the fridge.
“Oh, come on. Don’t try to bullshit me,” I said. “You were clicking through the channels so fast, you couldn’t even see what was on.”
“Was I?” He continued rummaging through the freezer, his back turned to me.
A thought struck me. “Nothing weird happened today, did it?” I asked him. “Nothing, y’know, woo-woo-ish?”
He turned around, frozen entrée in hand. “I’d rather not talk about it on an empty stomach, if you don’t mind.” He consulted the package. “This thing is going to take about half an hour in the oven. Is that okay, or are you starving?”
This is what I meant by “too secretive” – this “man of mystery” routine of his. He’s what some Native Americans call a skinwalker: someone who can change shape pretty much at will. Some skinwalkers are limited in the number of animals they can morph into, but Joseph can take on just about any form. It had certainly proved to be a useful skill in our battle to save his grandfather’s home, but it freaks a lot of people out, and some Indians believe skinwalkers are evil. So out of necessity, Joseph had developed a corollary talent for misdirection. If asked a question he didn’t want to answer, he would evade or delay. He didn’t do it malevolently – I was certain he didn’t have an evil bone in his body – but the habit was ingrained and a lot of the time he did it subconsciously.
He was getting much better about it, at least around me. He recognized how hard it is to build trust in a relationship if one person is constantly avoiding difficult discussions. But still, sometimes he forgot. Like now. And sometimes – especially lately – I didn’t have the energy to call him on it.
To be perfectly honest, I was beginning to wonder whether this match made in White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman’s heaven was worth the effort.
I was suddenly exhausted. “Why don’t you pick,” I told him. “I kind of don’t care. I think I’m going to go take a nap.” Then I went into the bedroom and shut the door.
He didn’t follow me. Maybe he was afraid I’d punch him if he did.
I took the time to hang my silk dress and blazer neatly on hangers to air out – new entrepreneurs don’t have an unlimited dry cleaning budget – and donned a t-shirt and sweatpants before crawling into bed and turning out the bedside lamp. I was tired. I had never had to concentrate so hard on business development before, and the schmoozing was wearing me out. Plus I was finding that the bookkeeping was beyond me. I was going to have to hire an accountant this year, for the first time in my life. Where the money was going to come from to pay for it, I had no idea – it seemed as if I was spending so much time generating new business that I didn’t have any time to make money. I was sure there was a happy medium – a balance between doing paying work and doing the stuff that you need to do to run a business – but I hadn’t found it yet.
I thought I might be too keyed up to fall asleep, but I must have nodded off while Joseph was banging kitchen cabinet doors. I found myself drifting through a jungle. A hot, damp mist was rising around me as I wandered a game path t
hrough the undergrowth. I heard the cry of a big cat nearby, and then a voice at my ear hissed, “Beware!”
I jolted awake. The room was only a little bit darker than when I’d gone to bed. My alarm clock said about twenty minutes had passed.
“That was spooky,” I said aloud, hoping the sound of my own voice would dispel the lingering sense of dread the dream had engendered. It didn’t work. Groggily, I got out of bed and shuffled out to the living room.
Joseph was back on the couch. He sat up when I opened the door, though, and made room for me. I sank down next to him, blinking, while he rubbed my back with one hand.
“Sorry,” I said. “Just couldn’t do it right then.”
“I know. I’m sorry, too.”
I sighed and leaned against him. “Weird dream.”
“Tell me,” he said, snugging me to him. I wrapped my arms around his waist and told him about it. I felt him stiffen when I mentioned the big cat.
“You had the same dream?” I asked, pulling away a little bit.
He hesitated. Clearly this was the thing he hadn’t wanted to tell me about earlier. Then he sighed in defeat. “No. But I went for a run this afternoon” – went for a run, in Joseph-speak, means I shifted into the form of a coyote and chased prairie dogs out by the trailer for a couple of hours – “and on my way home, I could have sworn I saw a jaguar.”
“That’s weird,” I said. “They don’t typically live around here, do they?”
He shook his head. “I see mountain lions occasionally, especially up near Grandfather’s, but jaguars are mostly jungle cats. I thought maybe it had gotten loose from some wild animal collector’s menagerie, but I pretty much know about everybody in the metro area who collects exotic animals and as far as I know, nobody has a jaguar.”
“And you’re sure it wasn’t a mountain lion?”
“Positive. Mountain lions don’t have spots.”
“Weird.”
“Yeah.” The kitchen timer dinged. “Come on, dinner’s ready.”
I waited until we were settled at the breakfast bar with our plates of chicken casserole and glasses of wine before I brought it up again. “You think the jaguar you saw was real?”
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