The Journey Home

by Linda Ford

  “They have to be specially made. John gave me an outline of her feet to send with the order. I suppose it takes time.”

  “I wonder if you’d give me a ride out to the reservation so I can give Star a little present.”

  “Sure. I planned to go tomorrow, anyway.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kody again borrowed Pa’s car to drive to the reservation. The sun shone with brittle determination. But it only made Kody smile. “One day closer to rain,” he murmured, reminding Charlotte of the old man in the hospital.

  “One more day of God’s blessing.”

  He didn’t argue. Seems God had been giving Kody many gifts lately, which made him nervous, suspicious, cautious. He wondered when the rug would be yanked out from under him.

  But Charlotte seemed bent on itemizing her blessings. “I am so grateful for my job. I love the work. And your father is getting better every day. I’m sure if I look around I can think of more things to rejoice about.”

  He glanced at her, saw the way her eyes caressed him, wondered if she counted him among the things she was grateful for. Her cheeks blossomed pink and then she jerked her attention to something out the window. He’d been staring, drinking in her smile and gentle spirit. He had no right to allow himself such thoughts. Not that he didn’t like to believe she might return his feelings of welcome, connection, acceptance, but love? No way. He couldn’t allow himself to love her. Even as he couldn’t admit he was Star’s father. Because nothing changed. Nothing ever changed. It never would. He would forever remain a half-breed, hated by most of the whites because he was too Indian, shunned by most of the Indians because he was too white. And anyone who loved him got the same cold shoulder from others. He would never do that to Charlotte. Yet he smiled, recalling how she’d purposely ignored the women in the park on that day when he’d admitted he had very deep feelings for her, when he’d kissed her and reveled in her acceptance. For a few delicious moments, he’d let himself think about what it would be like…

  He knew better than to even think about it.

  He shifted the conversation to Pa’s announcement he intended to go to church tomorrow. “I expect next thing we know Pa will be wanting to start preaching again.”

  Charlotte chuckled. “Your mother says he’s finally started to fight back from this stroke, and now she wonders if it isn’t as bad as having him lie there and do nothing. She said she doesn’t dare leave the house because the minute she does, he tries to do something she doesn’t think he should. Yesterday he climbed the stairs. She came home to find him sitting in the rocker in her sewing room. Said she almost had a heart attack.”

  They laughed, their eyes connecting with shared pleasure and amusement.

  “Its good to see Pa more like his old self.”

  “He’s been reading the Bible and making notes, but he complains to Martha he can’t read his own writing anymore. He asked her to make notes for him. She refused. ‘If I do,’ she said, ‘the next thing, you’ll be wanting me to hold you up while you stand at the pulpit.’”

  Again they laughed.

  “He’ll be standing there on his own before we know it if I know my pa.”

  “Are you going to accompany him to church tomorrow?”

  Pa had asked him, but Kody murmured something about having an important task to take care of.

  “Do you plan to give him some weak excuse?”

  He shot her a look. “Sometimes I think I liked you better complacent and submissive.”

  She lifted her chin. “Well, thanks to you, I’m not anymore.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. You stomped into my safe little house and literally forced me to leave.”

  He laughed. “How can you call that a safe place?”

  “Because it was familiar and where Harry told me to wait.”

  Harry! Kody had no use for the man. How could he ride off and leave the woman in his charge? Kody’s thoughts did a sudden turn. But leaving Star with Morning and John was not the same. Not even close.

  Thankfully they arrived at the Eaglefeathers’, sparing him having to argue further with himself or answer the challenge in Charlotte’s eyes.

  He’d brought more supplies, including some tinned beef. Charlotte and Morning made a stew with it. Charlotte waited until they sat back with cups of tea, helping themselves to biscuits from a tin he’d brought, before she got the package from the car.

  “Star, this is for you.”

  Star held the unopened parcel, her eyes sparkling. “Oh, goody! Just what I always wanted.”

  The adults laughed.

  Kody said, “Shouldn’t you open it first and see what it is?”

  Star carefully pulled the ends of the bow and removed the string. She scrunched it into a bundle and handed it to Morning. “I save it.”

  “I’ll put in a safe place.”

  Star folded back the paper. The sun flashed in the mirror and she jerked back, looking frightened.

  Charlotte knelt at her side. “It’s a mirror. You look in it and see yourself.” She held it to her face first and patted her hair. Then turned it to Star. “See.”

  Star stared openmouthed, then took the mirror. She touched her hair. Made faces and giggled.

  Kody laughed at her antics. And he pushed away the pain he would never quite get used to, even though he knew he did the right thing in leaving her here.

  He joined the conversation, but kept his eyes on Star. She struggled to her feet and hobbled toward him. He prayed God would use those special shoes to straighten her foot. He didn’t even bother to question why he felt he would pray for someone else but not himself.

  Star leaned her bony elbows on his knees. Although it hurt, he welcomed it. When he was alone in Canada, he would touch those twin spots and remember her looking up at him like this.

  She held the mirror for him to look into. Then she pulled it away and looked into his eyes so demandingly he almost shifted his gaze. “Eyes black,” she announced, and moved to John, where she did the same thing.

  “Eyes black,” she said, and moved to Morning’s knees. “Eyes black,” she announced again, then shifted to Charlotte’s knees. She looked into Charlotte’s face a long time. “Light eyes.”

  She sat down in the middle of the yard again and looked into the mirror. “Light eyes.” She lay the mirror down. “I get baby.” She hobbled into the small house.

  Kody’s insides curled like an angry fist. Charlotte was right. Star already recognized she was different.

  “Some of the children call her Light Eyes,” John murmured.

  Kody’s fists balled. His shoulder muscles tensed. Was his daughter to face prejudice even here? Because of something she couldn’t help or change? He leaned forward to the balls of his feet. He wanted to run. But where would he run? To Canada? Even there he would not be able to escape the pain this knowledge gave him.

  “They are not unkind,” John said, as if suspecting Kody’s fear. “Just stating a fact.”

  Slowly the tension seeped from Kody’s limbs, leaving him feeling beaten and chewed.

  He felt Charlotte’s gaze on him but couldn’t look at her. She would see his pain. She would guess his fears and use them to fuel her arguments.

  Star returned with her rag doll and played happily for the rest of the afternoon. Two black-eyed girls about Star’s age came over and squatted beside her. Star let them play with the mirror and shared her doll. The three of them giggled together like any little girls would.

  Kody smiled. She was accepted here, had friends. He was right to leave her. Even if it hurt all the way to the depths of his marrow and to the ends of every nerve in his body.

  Later he held the car door for Charlotte as they prepared to leave. She gave him a long, demanding look, which he ignored. She would have something to say about the afternoon on the ride home, but he figured if he had his say first, she wouldn’t get a chance to poke at his pain.

  “I remember when I was young,” he began, deter
mined to show Charlotte how prevailing prejudice was, even toward children, hoping it would silence her campaign to make him agree otherwise. “Ma had some ladies over for tea. I remember the little cakes they had and how they all managed to hold tiny little cups so daintily. They sat in the front room discussing some missionary project. I recall the door being open to let in a breeze, and I sat by it, looking outside, wishing I could be out there running and playing, but Ma insisted I dress up like a little man and sit through the visit. I watched a tall Indian walking down the street and thought how proud he seemed. His wife hurried after him, a papoose in her arms, a small child at her skirts. We didn’t often see Indians in town and I was fascinated by the buckskins and beads.” He laughed. “I thought they looked a lot more comfortable than my jacket and trousers. Then one of the women said Ma should send me with them. There were my kind. I had no idea what she meant. It was the first time I realized I was somehow different.” The first but not the last time he’d been sharply reminded how people saw him.

  He hadn’t gotten used to it. Every time he heard a similar comment, his heart shriveled. He’d meant for Charlotte to see how it felt to be always on the outside, but perhaps he should have chosen another story. One that didn’t remind him, didn’t fill him with dread that Star might experience the same thing.

  Charlotte made a sympathetic sound. “How utterly cruel of that woman.”

  Kody chuckled. “Ma was very angry. I knew it even though she didn’t show it. She picked me up and held me on her lap and hugged me tight and said to the woman, ‘Dakota is my son. He’s my kind of boy. He belongs right here.’” Remembering how safe he’d felt in her lap, he swallowed hard.

  Charlotte squeezed his arm. “You ma was right. You belong right here.” She seemed to promise so much with her simple words.

  He let the car creep to the edge of the road and crawl to a halt.

  He let himself look at Charlotte, let himself be drawn into her gaze, let the warmth in her look reach deep into his soul where he kept secret things locked away, where they’d been so long they were buried in a tangle of webs. It seemed her look eased open the door and as she talked, the cobwebs peeled back just a little.

  He couldn’t turn from Charlotte’s gaze. It offered the same kind of acceptance his ma’s arms had provided. A man could feel safe with her.

  He could no longer deny his feelings. He loved her. Somewhere in the distant recesses of his mind, he remembered they didn’t belong to the same world. He had no right to even think of loving her, but right now he wanted to let his thoughts drown in the warm depths of her eyes.

  The pressure of her hand on his arm had a gentle yet reassuring weight to it. Her touch made him want to confront people who dared say anything about his heritage. He leaned closer, breathed in her sweet, flowery scent, drank in her welcoming smile. He brushed his knuckles along her chin, enjoying the softness of her skin and the way her gaze clung to his. As if she accepted him just as Ma and Pa did. He wanted to believe it possible.

  He kissed her gently, then pulled back and smiled into her eyes. He could live like this, enjoying her presence.

  But the reality of who he was could not be avoided. He’d take it with him no matter how far north he rode. He’d live with it every day of his life. He had to accept how it affected his choices. And how it affected everyone he cared about.

  “I don’t belong anywhere.” His voice rasped. “I don’t know who I am. I don’t know my real mother’s name. Or who my father was.” His voice dropped to a croak. “Maybe he forced himself on her.” He meant to shock Charlotte. But the confession tore his deepest secret, his worst fear from him. “I could be just like him.”

  Tears glistening in her eyes, she rubbed her hand along his arm. “I think you mean you don’t know who your parents are. We all know who you are.”

  Her touch made him want so many things—the chance to be someone, the right to ask for a woman’s caress, to marry and have a family. But how could he hope for such things? He didn’t belong anywhere. Didn’t have anything to offer but an uncertain heritage. “Who am I?”

  She smiled. “That’s easy. You’re a good, kind man with a sense of humor who helps others even when it means a sacrifice.”

  He ached to believe her. He touched her cheek, her skin as soft as the petals on a wild rose.

  And white.

  He jerked back. “That’s what I do. But who am I? I don’t belong in the white man’s world. I tried living on a reservation and found out I don’t belong in the Indian world, either. I am neither. I belong nowhere. Except maybe in Canada.”

  The warmth of her hand on his arm threatened his determination. “Kody, you can’t keep running from who you are. What’s more, one of these days you’ll discover you have no reason to. You’ll realize a man is what’s in his heart, and you have a good heart.” As if to drive the point home, she pressed her palm to his chest, then red crept up her neck and she drew back, ducking her head.

  He wavered, torn between wanting to believe her words and the reality of what he’d seen and heard and lived all his life.

  Charlotte sensed his withdrawal and knew it came from years of being conditioned to believe he didn’t belong. Even though Martha and Leland loved him and accepted him wholly and freely, in Kody’s mind it didn’t outweigh what others said and how they’d acted toward him.

  She ached to be able to convince him not everyone cared about his heritage. She wished for a way to make him admit those who loved him had more value in his life than those who showed such unkind prejudice. But she knew her words would fall on deaf ears. She could only pray, and she did, fervently, the rest of the way back to Favor.

  She’d intended to point out how Star needed him to help her face the comments already coming her way. But Charlotte couldn’t contemplate adding to Kody’s distress and kept silent on the subject.

  They arrived at the Douglas home and Kody parked the car. Charlotte waited outside as he straightened things in the garage. She wanted to say something to bring back the closeness she’d felt in the car before he confessed how he didn’t know who he was, but Kody came out carrying his saddle.

  “I’m going to take Sam for a ride. He needs the exercise.”

  Charlotte watched as he cinched the saddle and rode away. This wasn’t about Sam needing exercise. This was about Kody dealing with his feelings. Lord, God, please send healing into his heart. Show him how he is valued by so many people. Help him to see there will always be unkind people. Lord, I love him. Bring him back to me. As always, I submit to Your plan.

  Kody slipped out of the house Sunday morning before anyone stirred. He had almost decided to go to church for the pleasure of seeing Pa enjoy it. But it wasn’t Pa he pictured. It was Charlotte. And he could not walk into church for the sole purpose of sitting next to the woman he loved but could not have.

  He saddled Sam and rode out of town.

  A few minutes later, he passed a very untidy campsite. He stopped to look around, found no one in the vicinity, although the ashes from the fire were still warm.

  The general filth reminded him of Shorty and Ratface, but he hadn’t seen them in days and figured they’d moved on.

  With a shrug of indifference he returned to Sam. “Don’t suppose those two are still hanging around, do you?”

  Sam snorted.

  “Yeah, you’re right. A person better be a little cautious just in case.”

  Sam lifted his head and whinnied.

  “You think they’re still looking for revenge?” He jumped into the saddle. “Maybe I won’t ride out of town, just in case.” He would make sure no one hurt Charlotte.

  He reined Sam around and headed back to Favor. “I kind of like having an excuse to hang about.”

  He could only describe Sam’s response as a hearty horse-laugh.

  He rose through town, checking the back alleys and hiding places—he knew most of them from childhood games. He saw nothing of the two men. It seemed they had gone elsewhere to cond
uct their mischief. He headed home. Ma and Pa and Charlotte would soon be back from church. He wasn’t any more averse to Ma’s cooking than he was to spending the afternoon in Charlotte’s company.

  Yeah, he knew he played dangerously close to the flames. But he could handle it for a few days. As soon as the shoes for Star came, he would leave. “Won’t hurt any to allow myself a little enjoyment,” he muttered, and earned a snort from Sam.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Charlotte was glad for her work at the hospital. Not only did she enjoy it, not only did it make her feel useful and appreciated, it kept her too busy to dwell on her relationship with Kody.

  She cherished every minute they spent together and wished it could be more, but Kody left early every morning, working at various ranches earning money. He said he wanted to provide John and Morning with enough supplies for the winter before he rode north.

  “I have to check on my pack and see what I still need,” he said as they finished supper one day. “Care to help me?”

  “As soon as I clean the kitchen.”

  Martha shooed her away. “I’ll do it. You’ve put in a long day. Besides, how many nice evenings do we get? Go enjoy.”

  Charlotte fought a short-lived battle with her conscience. But Martha was right. How many evenings would she get to enjoy Kody’s company? Each day she sensed his growing restlessness.

  “I need to think of being on the road again soon.” He shook his bedroll and hung it over the wooden fence to air.

  Charlotte didn’t bother to respond. He said it so often she’d begun to think he was trying to convince himself.

  “I can’t imagine what’s taking those people so long to send Star’s shoes.”

  Charlotte leaned against the fence and smiled as she watched him. “It’s giving you lots of time to get to know your daughter.” They went to the reservation as often as Charlotte could get away. She knew Kody went even more often.

  Kody paused from sorting through his things and smiled at her. “Can’t complain about that.”