Montana Mavericks, Books 1-4

by Diana Palmer

  If he’d learned anything from his divorce, it was that it wouldn’t do any good to pretty things up for her. If she ever did fall in love with him, it had to be with the “real” him. With the Indian him. He couldn’t deny who and what he was for anyone, ever again. Not even Maggie.

  The thought made him nervous as hell, but he was not without weapons in this fight for her affections. What he had to do now was put them to good use. The question was, where should he start?

  After a busy morning spent checking out of the motel, moving into Sara’s house and typing the rest of Wanda’s research paper, Maggie climbed into the passenger seat of Jackson’s pickup. She sat back and took a moment to catch her breath while he drove west out of Laughing Horse, on the same road he’d taken to go to the buffalo jump.

  He took the north fork this time, however. Ten miles beyond it, he made a left turn onto a dirt lane cut into a stand of towering ponderosa pines. Since Jackson appeared to be in one of his quiet moods, Maggie contented herself with watching the scenery. The lane twisted and turned back into the trees, growing narrower and more weed-choked the farther they went.

  “Whose place is this?” she asked after fifteen minutes of bouncing from one pothole to the next.

  “Mine.”

  “Did you forget something this morning?” she asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Then why are we stopping here?”

  “Because I think it’s about time you interviewed me,” he said, giving her a smile that was far too bland to be completely innocent. What the heck was he up to, anyway?

  “Do you really think that’s necessary?” she asked. “We’ve spent a lot of time together.”

  “And we’ve spent all of it talking about other people. Don’t you want to hear about my ideas for the tribe’s future?”

  “Don’t I already know most of them?”

  “Maybe. But I want to be officially on the record.”

  Jackson slowed down. Maggie glanced away from him, then felt her mouth drop open when she caught sight of the clearing ahead of them. He braked to a complete stop, as if he knew she needed a moment to absorb the entire scene.

  Sheltered on two sides by the pines, the two-story log home perched at the top of a small rise, facing east. Front picture windows looked out over a broad field of native grasses. Solar panels covered the roof, and a rock chimney protruded at the north end of the building. A detached two-car garage sat fifteen feet to the south. A pair of pinto horses grazed in a fenced pasture beyond the garage.

  “It’s lovely, Jackson,” she murmured, giving him a bemused smile.

  He muttered a soft “Thanks” and drove on up to the garage. He climbed out of the cab, hurried around the front of the pickup and opened her door for her. When she stepped down beside him, he took her hand and led her inside.

  Most of the main floor had been left in one large, open space, with room divisions suggested by the placement of furniture rather than interior walls. A sofa and two easy chairs were grouped around an oval braided rug in front of the fireplace. A trestle table and matching chairs created a dining area, which was separated from the kitchen by a freestanding work island.

  Sunlight poured in through the large windows in each exterior log wall, accenting the warm golden tones in the wood used just about everywhere—the built-in bookcases, the kitchen cabinets, the banister flanking the stairway to the second floor. Thriving green plants, fat pillows covered in calico prints and an overflowing box of toys in the living room added vivid colors to the cozy atmosphere.

  Jackson hung his Stetson on a peg mounted by the door, then led the way to the kitchen. “Come on. Let’s see what we can find for lunch.”

  Maggie followed at a slower pace, pausing in the dining area to study a small but intricately carved wooden statue of a hawk, its wings spread as if it were poised for flight.

  “My father made that for me when I was six,” Jackson said. “He told me it was a little piece of home I could take to boarding school with me.”

  “It’s beautiful. He’s very talented.”

  Leaving the statue, Maggie walked slowly to the work island.

  “He was,” Jackson said. He took a can of chili out of a cupboard and set an aluminum pot on the stove. “He died four and a half years ago.”

  “I’m sorry. I know how much it hurts to lose a parent.”

  With swift, economical movements, he dumped the chili into the pot and switched on the burner, then went to the refrigerator for a block of cheese and an onion. “The hurt, I can handle. I have a harder time coping with the guilt.”

  “Why do you feel guilty?”

  “Because I helped to kill him.”

  Jackson turned away from her undoubtedly shocked expression and rummaged in drawers and cupboards, coming up with a knife, a cutting board and a grater. He left again and came back with a couple of bowls, shoving one of them, the cheese and the grater across the countertop to Maggie. She eyed him with exasperation for a moment, then picked up the cheese and went to work while he attacked the onion.

  “I don’t believe that, Jackson.”

  He gave her a long, steady look. “I didn’t do it with a knife or a gun, but I helped kill him, all right.”

  “What happened?”

  Jackson cleared his throat and went back to chopping the onion. “When I told you I turned my back on the tribe, I wasn’t kidding. After I started college, I never came home if I could avoid it. And I was damn good at avoiding it.”

  “Because you didn’t get along with your father?”

  “That was part of it,” he agreed. “But it was more because of the pressure I always felt from everyone to come back to the res. Have you ever watched the boys play basketball after school?”

  Though she felt confused by the abrupt change of subject, Maggie nodded. “I’m no expert, but some of them look awfully good out there.”

  “They are good. Good enough for full-ride basketball scholarships, but the recruiters don’t offer them to Indian kids anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they won’t stay in school. They get stuck in some big dorm with a bunch of white strangers. They’re scared and lonesome and their classes are harder than they expected. They come home for a weekend and go out drinkin’ with their buddies, and all they hear is how they’re never gonna make it, and how they think they’re better than everybody else. It’s like the friends who got left behind can’t stand to see them succeed.”

  “That’s a shame,” Maggie said.

  “It’s a damn waste. Every high school basketball star I saw leave this place for college before I did ended up right back here before the first year was over. I decided that wasn’t gonna happen to me. I’m the only guy from this reservation who actually got a degree out of sports, and I never could have done it if I hadn’t stayed away.”

  “Was that hard for you?”

  He stirred the bubbling chili, then brought two more bowls to the work island and poured the contents of the pot into them.

  “The first year was the worst, because my family kept begging me to come home. After that, they kinda gave up. It got to be a real pride issue. I wasn’t like those drunks on the res. I was this tough guy who could make it on his own.”

  “That’s a perfectly understandable reaction,” Maggie said. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  “Thanks for the sympathy,” he said with a wry smile. He carried the bowls to the table, and pulled out a chair for her. “But that’s not why I’m tellin’ you all of this.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” Maggie said, bringing the cheese and chopped onion to the table. When they were both seated, she asked, “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I want you to understand why the tribe’s welfare is so important to me. It’s more than a convenient career choice.”

  “I figured that out a long time ago,” she said. “But go ahead and finish your story.”

  “There’s not much left. I went to law school
at Georgetown, married a white woman, and went to work for a big Wall Street firm.”

  “Whoa, back up one,” Maggie said, hoping her eyes weren’t bugging out as far as she thought they were. She’d heard he was divorced, but nobody had ever mentioned that little tidbit of information about him before. “You married a white woman?”

  “I told you I was an apple, didn’t I?” he said, raising one shoulder in a half shrug.

  Maggie glanced toward the living room. “Whose toys are those, Jackson?”

  He laughed. “Relax, I don’t have any kids. I keep the toys around for my nieces and nephews. I’ve got a bunch of ’em.”

  “Oh. Go on, then. What happened next?”

  “We were a nice yuppie couple. Nancy was a stock trader. We raked in all kinds of bucks, and had one hell of a good time. Then, one day, my youngest sister tracked me down and told me our father had suffered a coronary. He was in intensive care in Billings, and he was asking for me.”

  “Did you get home in time to say goodbye?”

  Jackson nodded. “Yeah. He was stabilized by the time I got there, and everyone seemed to think he’d be all right. But then he demanded to see me alone. He begged me to take care of my mother if he didn’t make it. I promised I would. Hell, I’d have done anything to ease his mind. But he had another heart attack right then, and they couldn’t bring him back. He’d never even met my wife.”

  Her eyes stinging with unshed tears, Maggie reached across the table and laid her hand over his clenched fist. “Sometimes those things just happen. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Yes, it was. If I’d come home once in a while, or at least stayed in touch, I would have known he was having health problems and refusing to go to the white man’s doctor. Hell, I could have paid his doctor bills with the money I blew on tickets for Broadway shows and numbered prints. He was the tribal council chairman, and I could have used my law degree to help him the way I’m helping Uncle Frank now.”

  “It’s always easy to see those things in hindsight, Jackson, but you can’t change anything. What good does it do to beat yourself up like this?”

  He pulled his hand out from under hers. “It helps me to remember what my pride and selfishness caused, and appreciate the beauty of the tribal system. When my father died, I found out I wasn’t one bit different from those drunks on the res. I’d be one of them, if Uncle Frank hadn’t straightened me out in time.”

  “So, you’re working for the tribe as a way to atone for your father’s death?”

  “There’s no way I could ever do that. But when I cut myself off from the tribe, I hurt myself as much as I hurt anyone else, including my father. At this point, I’m still tryin’ to get my own identity back.”

  “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

  “It goes back to the issue of values, Maggie. To a Cheyenne, preserving the tribe is a sacred responsibility. We’re taught from an early age it’s more important to share and get along with the group than it is to seek personal glory and achievement. Competing successfully in the white society meant I had to deny almost every lesson my parents had taught me. It took my father’s death to make me realize my values were so screwed up, I didn’t know who I was anymore.”

  “Is that when you moved back here?”

  “About six months later. My wife hung in there as long as she could, but my sudden search for my native roots seemed pretty bizarre to her. When she filed for divorce, I came home.”

  Maggie winced. “First your father, then your wife. That must have hurt.”

  “It did at the time. But in the long run, I think it was for the best that my marriage ended when it did. At least there weren’t any children involved, and now I’m where I belong.”

  Jackson pushed back his chair and cleared away the empty bowls. Sensing he needed a moment’s privacy, Maggie stayed at the table. A lump grew in her throat as she let her gaze roam from one end of the room to the other. This was by far the nicest house she’d visited on the res, but it was obviously meant for a family.

  Did Jackson ever feel lonely here? she wondered. As lonely as she sometimes felt in her Washington apartment? Or did the tribe offer all the companionship he wanted? He was so self-contained, she couldn’t be sure, but she had the impression he hadn’t made as complete a transition back to his native roots as he had led her to believe. Perhaps he’d found a measure of contentment, but he didn’t really seem…happy.

  He returned to the dining area. “You look too serious, Schaeffer. Why don’t we take a break and go for a walk?”

  “That sounds great.” Standing, she rubbed her fanny and gave him a rueful grin. “We’ve been sitting too much lately.”

  Chuckling, Jackson went back to the refrigerator, pulled out a couple of carrots and pointed them toward the rear of the kitchen. “We’ll go out that way and visit the horses first.”

  Glad to see his mood lightening, Maggie followed him outdoors. “Oh, wow…” she said, pausing at the bottom of the steps to study his backyard.

  There were crooked hopscotch boxes drawn in colored chalk all over the small cement patio. A sandbox filled with toy trucks and plastic pails sat off to the right. A wooden jungle gym filled the space between a couple of spindly-looking trees she couldn’t identify, and beyond that was a vegetable garden that had been tilled, but not yet planted. A huge cottonwood tree grew behind the garden.

  “This is quite a spread ya got here, Mr. Hawk,” she drawled, hustling to catch up with him. “Looks like your nieces and nephews visit a lot.”

  “Yeah, they do,” he said. “The rest of my family lives about five miles up the road. I try to make it fun for the kids to come visit Uncle Jackson.”

  “Why don’t you live with the rest of your family?” Maggie asked. “Everyone else around here seems to do that.”

  “When I first came back, I wasn’t welcome. It’s taken time to heal the wounds I caused, and earn my family’s respect again.” He grinned suddenly and looked back at the house. “They all thought I was nuts when I started building this place.”

  “You built it yourself?”

  “Most of it. Uncle Frank helped me clear the trees and put up the walls. I think he figured if I stayed busy enough out here, I wouldn’t be tearin’ up the bars in Whitehorn.”

  “It’s a beautiful house, Jackson, but why did you make it so big?”

  “I intended to give it to my mother, but she was too attached to the house my dad built for her. She let me help her fix that one up, though. And, you know, I guess there’s still enough apple left in me, I kinda like havin’ my privacy.”

  “Have all the wounds with your family been healed, then?”

  “You’ll see for yourself next week. I’ve been given strict orders to bring you over for supper when we’re done typing the kids’ papers. Would you mind?”

  “Why would I mind?”

  He turned to her with a broad smile. “Because they’ve all been tryin’ to marry me off for the last couple of years. You’ll be a prime candidate as far as they’re concerned.”

  “How big of a group are we talking here?” Maggie asked, silently ordering her heart to stop its sudden thumping. He hadn’t said he thought she’d be a prime candidate, only that his family would. Since she had no intention of staying here, what did it matter, anyway?

  “I have two younger sisters and two brothers. They’re all married and have at least three kids apiece. Then there’s Uncle Frank and Aunt Sally and their four kids and their families. My mother also has two younger sisters, who’ll probably bring their whole families along, and on my father’s side—”

  “Enough, enough!” Maggie said with a laugh. “I get the picture.”

  “I doubt it. They’re about as subtle as a bunch of terrorists with machine guns when it comes to matchmaking.”

  “Would you rather I declined the invitation?”

  “Nope. Just givin’ you fair warning, so you won’t feel embarrassed.”

  If he only knew how many of
the elderly members of the tribe had already extolled his virtues to her when he’d been out chopping wood and the like, he wouldn’t worry about that, Maggie thought with a grin. They arrived at the fenced pasture. Jackson called the horses over and gave Maggie a carrot. She fed it to one of the mares, while he fed the other one.

  “They’re beautiful,” she said, stroking the animal’s smooth neck. “Do you ride them much?”

  He shook his head. “They’re not broke yet. I got ’em about a week before you came, as payment for some legal work. I’m really gonna have to watch the kids this summer. Some of the boys are gettin’ to the age where they’ll try to ride anything with four legs.”

  The horses lost interest when the carrots ran out. Jackson and Maggie strolled along the fence line toward the trees. At the end of the pasture, they came to a small creek. Maggie spotted a ring of stones with a pile of ashes in the middle. Next to it was a waist-high dome-shaped frame built with saplings and fishing line.

  “Is this going to be a tent for the kids?” she asked, walking closer to inspect it.

  Jackson laughed. “Aw, come on, Maggie. Haven’t you ever seen a sweat lodge before?”

  “Uh, no. We didn’t have too many of those in Denver. Is it like a sauna?”

  “Yeah. We use it to purify ourselves and to pray. It’s part of our religion.”

  “Are you really into this religion thing?”

  “I’m learning about it. Uncle Frank helped me with a vision quest when I’d been home for a year. I pierced for the first time at the Sun Dance last summer.”

  Sweat lodge, vision quest, Sun Dance? Maggie shook her head in amazement. Every time she thought she was starting to see him clearly, he tossed out some new thing that blurred her image of him all over again.

  “What?” he asked, sitting on a log near the campfire ring. “You look confused.”

  She ambled over to join him, collecting her thoughts as she walked. “All of this sounds kind of…mystical,” she said, for lack of a better word.