“You mind if I go?”
Naomi and Gigi both spun in the same direction and saw Reese in the doorway from the main hall. His hair was mussed, like he’d run a hand through his bedhead and called it good, and his shirt was pack-rumpled, but otherwise, he looked fresh and rested. He’d slept a total of fourteen hours.
“Hey!” Gigi went to him and lifted her chicken-hands. He ducked under and gave her a hug. “How are you today?”
“I’m okay. Still a little spun, but I think my brain’s back in gear. Looks like a feast is about to happen.” He followed her to the island and gave Naomi a quick cheek kiss. “You think she’d talk to me at all?”
Naomi squinted up at him. “Maybe. At least, she owes you an apology.”
“No, she don’t. What Hall did’s not on her.”
A terse grunt suggested Naomi disagreed. “Sheriff Murphy called earlier. He wants to talk to you about what happened. And somebody from your insurance, too.”
Reese sighed and pulled a hand through his hair. “I think I’d rather talk to Nat than them.”
That made Naomi smile. “Go, then. Don’t let her get too far. And take a raincoat—and one for her, too. The last thing we need is people taking sick.”
*****
Morgan and Logan came back with Frank Thomas right behind—and another truck behind him, carrying Job Black Eagle and Nathan Stands—the tribe’s chief and police chief. They were the last to arrive, and by then the rest of the family and friends had opened the formal dining table to its full, extravagant extent, ready to seat twenty-two people, so two more mouths meant nothing more a little reorganization and another couple place settings.
Nobody questioned why Morgan and Logan—and, it turned out, Frank—had gone to the reservation and come back with the two most legitimately powerful people there, but still it was a point of consternation, particularly for Reese. Obviously, they were here to talk about Evan Hall. But Reese was already fried. After his talk with Natalie, which had gone well enough that she’d come back with him and returned to work in the kitchen, he’d called Sheriff Murphy. That call had gone on for a while, and when it was over, he was pale and grim again. And had an appointment to go into the station in the morning.
He was full up for the day with talking about Evan Hall and what had happened to the Jack, and he was barely polite to the chiefs.
When dinner was over, they left the dishes stacked for later. Gabe took the kids to the media room. As soon as they were gone, a pall settled over the long table, but Morgan didn’t let it last long. He cleared his throat and said in his well-worn, deeply graveled voice, “You know you gotta let the agents come in and get him.”
He looked right at Chief Black Eagle.
The chief answered, “Morgan, respect to you. We’re sitting at your table, and you’ve shared good food and good company with us. You have always been a good friend to my people, and you’ve made family with us. But I will not let you tell us what we ‘gotta’ do. It’s not your call. You have no vote in tribal matters.”
“Logan, Emma, and I do,” Heath said. He spoke quietly, as he usually did, but there was no doubt or weakness in his tone.
Job nodded. “True. This is why Nathan and I are here. You three are one with us. But none of you have ever used your vote before.”
Nathan Stands leaned in and added, “If you throw in, it won’t go like you want. You’ll just make bad blood out of good. Most of us want Hall and his shitheads gone, but we don’t want Feds stompin’ over tribal land to get it done. All we’ve got is that little bit of land, and our sovereignty over it. I’m not lettin’ Feds in without a warrant. If they don’t have a strong enough case to get a warrant, they don’t have a good enough reason to cross into our land. Hall’s a shithead, but he’s a Shoshone shithead. He’s a Sawtooth Jasper shithead.”
“You could get it done yourself, Nathan,” Logan grumbled. “All the shit he pulls right there at home? But you turn a blind eye to the shit the Warriors do on the rez. You’re just as scared of them as anybody.”
Nathan eyes narrowed. “Look at the rich boy, decidin’ all of a sudden to play Indian. You don’t care how we run things except when one of your white buddies has a problem with a Native. Then you remember you got more in your blood than white. Doesn’t work that way, Mr. Cahill.”
Logan dropped a fist on the table, and their glasses all rattled. Everybody flinched but Reese.
Gigi understood Logan’s frustration, and felt something like it herself. Evan Hall needed to go. He was a scourge on the reservation and now in town, too. But Chief Stands’ challenge, harsh as it was, wasn’t wrong. She’d thought the same thought about the Cahill family. Logan and his siblings were Shoshone. Their mother had been raised on the reservation. They were members of the tribe. But they didn’t identify with them. They didn’t call themselves citizens of the tribe. They held themselves apart.
They held themselves above.
They didn’t see it that way, they probably didn’t realize it could come off that way—not until right now, maybe, when Stands had shoved it in Logan’s face, but it was true. They didn’t use their tribal voice because, in their minds, they were being respectful, not throwing their weight around like they did in town. And okay, that wasn’t a bad point. Still, though, it meant turning their backs on part of their heritage, and the people who shared it.
Gigi sat back in her chair, trying to work out a host of new thoughts overrunning her brain. Reese sat beside her, his arms crossed, staring at the table, like he was about to shut down again, and that worried her more than anything else. She put her hand on his thigh. He noticed, at least, and covered her hand with his.
Honor set a calming hand on her husband’s fist. “Okay, let’s take a breath. We need to approach this from another angle. I think Chief Stands is right—it’s a bad precedent to let the Feds onto the reservation without a warrant. If they can make a case for RICO or General Crimes, they’ll get a warrant, and the question will be moot. If they can get an OVer to flip, it’s a strong bet they’ll make RICO, and that should end the Warriors once and for all. But you could weaken future cases if you establish a precedent for warrant-less access now.
Logan snatched his hand out from under Honor’s. “That’s crap, counselor. He needs to get gone right now. He’s a fuckin’ menace. He threatened you. And Nat. And all of us. He burned down the goddamn Jack!”
“We don’t know that. Not for sure. The investigation isn’t complete.”
He laughed and shoved his chair back to jump to his feet. “Yeah, we do. Don’t lawyer this, darlin’. We know. He’s amping up, and I am scared to hell what he’ll do next.”
“I have to lawyer it. It’s my job. And it’s what we need right now—somebody to see this like a lawyer.”
“Loge, sit,” Reese said. It was the first thing he’d said since they’d finished dinner. “Just sit down.” When Logan did, Reese sighed and asked, “Did he threaten you directly, Honor?”
Natalie answered. “It’s what he said, the night he broke up the bar.”
“You were there?”
“No, but Linda said. He said he was going to tear apart everybody in his way, starting with my big-city lawyer. He said—he said he’d tunnel his way right through her.” Natalie’s cheeks flamed bright, and she looked at Honor. “I know he didn’t mean it, though. Not like everybody’s taking it.”
God.
Logan hit the table again. Morgan reached over and set his hand on his son’s arm.
Reese turned to Honor. “I’m sorry.”
She smiled. “This isn’t on you. Or you, Natalie. I’m safe. I’m not looking to take risks, and I don’t go anywhere without a buddy.” Covering Logan’s fist with her hand again, she made him look in her eyes. “Personally, I’m as sure as you are that the fire at the Jack was Hall’s doing, but we’re talking here about what should be done, and nobody, not us, not the federal agents, not the tribal police, or the council, nobody should act until we have proof. That will only mak
e more trouble.”
Logan scowled at the wall. “In the meantime, he sits on his ass on the rez like a fucking king, and can hurt us whenever he wants.”
All this information, this certainty and uncertainty, the conflict and concern, had turned Gigi’s head into a whirlpool. She turned to Chief Black Eagle, who was the greatest authority at the table, at least to her. He’d led the tribe all her life.
“Can I ask a question, Chief?”
He gave her a grandfatherly smile. “Of course, child.”
“What do we do now? Until the Feds make their case. Or if they don’t. How do we keep him from hurting anybody else?”
He turned his attention from her to Morgan Cahill, sitting at the other end of the table. “I’ve known Evan all his life. He’s trouble, and he’s troubled. But he’s not a maniac. Right now, he’s scared and desperate. You all know that he feels an ancient resentment about the world outside tribal lands, and now he feels directly attacked and righteous in his fight. We can only make that worse if we act against him, too. What we do is let him be. Let things settle.”
“Are you suggesting we let him get to Nat?” Victor asked. “Because I will kill him myself before I let him touch her again.”
“Vic, shut up,” Natalie snapped. She turned to the chief. “If it would help, I could go back to him.”
“NO!” Victor and Frank both yelled.
Chief Black Eagle stayed calm. “No, Natalie. It’s not safe, and it won’t help. It could even make things worse. You need to stay away from him.” He looked at Morgan again. “If the Thomases can stay with you?”
Morgan nodded. “As long as they need.”
Naomi cut in. “We have a home, Job. We can’t be guests here forever while Evan stalks the reservation like a rabid bear.”
“I understand. I don’t think it will be much longer. He didn’t act out like this until that Boise gang was arrested. Either those arrests will bring the federal government to us with a warrant, or they will not, and things will return to normal. Either Hall will be arrested soon, or he will not. In either case, the threat will ease, because he’s gone, or because he feels safe again. We wait it out.”
Victor scoffed. “Yeah, because that’s always worked out so well for our people, waiting for the government to do right by us.”
“Hush, Victor,” his mother hissed. She turned to the tribal police chief. “Back to normal is the Warriors cooking drugs and selling them to our people for money they should be using to buy food for their children. Back to normal is Hall interrupting tribal meetings and bullying his neighbors for working in town. Why are we stuck with that normal?”
“You know why, Naomi,” Chief Stands answered. “He leads more than the Warriors. He’s a hero to a good number of our people. I can’t get tribal charges to stick, and he retaliates when I try and fail.”
“Sounds like we need the Feds to get a RICO case together,” Emma’s husband, Wes, said. “Is there anything more you can do to help them along, Honor?”
Honor shook her head. “Natalie is my client. I follow her lead and do what’s best for her.”
Natalie dropped her head. “I can’t tell on him. I can’t.”
Logan jumped to his feet again, knocking his chair back. Natalie flinched as it crashed to the floor. He stormed from the room.
When Honor started to get up, Heath rose. “I got him. I’ll talk to him.” Honor nodded, and Heath kissed the top of her head and followed his brother.
Reese leaned across the table and set his hands over Natalie’s, who’d begun to cry. “Hey, it’s okay. Remember what we talked about today. It’s okay.”
*****
That night, as they lay together in the dark, Gigi listened to the strong beat of Reese’s heart against her ear. Rhythmic and sure. She set her hand beside her head and spread her fingers so she could feel it there as well, and let the throb move through her until her pulse matched his.
His fingers played through her hair, and she sighed at the restful delight of the sensation. But there was something on her mind, and sleep wouldn’t come until she took it off.
“What did you and Nat talk about?” He’d calmed her, and thus the whole room, at the table tonight.
“I just ... it wasn’t anything profound. We sat in the gazebo, with the rain thundering down around us, and we just talked. I told her I didn’t blame her, because she’s not responsible for what he does. No matter what he says his reasons are, the choices he makes are his.” He sighed, and his heartbeat sped a little. “That fucker’s my age, and he’s got this little girl all twisted up. I want to put my hands around his throat for that more than anything else. She was a good kid. She still is. But damn, Hall’s got her inside out.”
He huffed and shifted, sitting all the way up against the headboard, and switched on the nightstand lamp. “You know, she told me she was fifteen when he first went for her? Fifteen!”
She sat up, crossing her legs so she could face him. “I didn’t know—that’s two years earlier than I’d heard. He would’ve been like thirty-six. That’s gross. Her parents didn’t know, did they?”
He shook his head. “Frank would have lost his mind. They still don’t know it started that early, and I promised I wouldn’t say. You can’t, either. I just needed to get it out, and, you know”—he gave her a piece of a crooked grin and picked up her hand. “Spouse clause. I can tell you and not break my promise.”
She smiled. “Is that in effect already? We haven’t even told anybody we’re engaged again yet.”
“Yeah—I guess we got derailed. I’m sorry.”
“Are you apologizing for the Jack being burned down? Seriously?”
“No. I’m apologizing for letting it get to me so bad. You’re right—it’s just a building.”
Curling up with him again, Gigi wrapped her arm around his waist. “You have nothing to apologize for. And I was thinking earlier today that I slighted your pain, saying that to you. It’s a way we’re different, and I didn’t see it. For me, roots are hard. My family is ... complicated. They’re sick, and miserable, and I’ve lost the ones who understood me. Dad and Maw used to call me hubijo—old woman—and say I had the heart of an old one, made for roaming, like our people before your people came. Mom and Frannie don’t understand. Maybe they’re right. But packing light’s always been easy for me. It’s carrying the load of my life that’s hard.”
She reached over and picked up her bracelet off the nightstand. “But today, as I was putting this on, I thought about why it’s so important. It’s the only possession I have I care about at all, and it’s not because it’s expensive, or pretty. It’s both those things, but it wouldn’t matter if it was something that came out of a cereal box. I care about it because my Dad gave it to me. It’s more even than that. I care about it because he took me out on his bike, and we rode way up in the mountains, and we sat on a bluff and looked out over the whole world, and he told me why he loved me like he did. Not just because I was his daughter, but because he saw himself in me, and in me he saw he was good, that he had value, because I was good, and he made me.”
Reese put his hand on her cheek and brushed tears away she hadn’t known she’d shed. She sniffed and went on, “I don’t think I’m saying it right to show why it was important, and as I’m saying it, it maybe sounds kind of shitty. I was his favorite, and he didn’t bother to hide it from Frannie, and that’s probably one reason we don’t get along. But that day, what I heard was my daddy, who I loved with everything I had, thought I was like him and was proud of us both. He thought I made him better, and it meant everything to me. He was so unhappy all the time, but I made him happy.”
The light caught the silver and made it gleam. “He gave me this bracelet that day. That’s why it’s so important to me. It does hold a memory. As long as I have this, I won’t go a day without thinking of that best day I ever had with him.” She wiped her face and set the bracelet down. “So I’m sorry I said the things you lost don’t mean anything. I u
nderstand that they do, and you need to mourn for them. Before I had you, I had this one root to my family, and it’s dear to me. Your life was full of roots, and they all got torn up at once. I will do everything I can to help you keep your memories fresh and alive. We’ll make a place to sink our roots in deep. You and me, and all the things we love and the memories we keep. Forever. I promise.”
Reese’s eyes welled, and he pulled her in close and held on tight.
Chapter Nineteen
Gigi stepped into the shower and sighed as the hot downpour from the huge disc of the showerhead rained over her body. They’d been guests of the Cahills for three weeks now, and she still got a little thrill when she stepped into this marvelous shower. She’d thought she’d known the Cahills well, but living in their house, she’d gotten a host of new insights into this family. They were more wealthy than she’d realized, for one thing. Like, they honestly did not have to think about money at all, and even the rooms they didn’t use were tricked out like five-star hotels. Okay, maybe four-star. But still.
Another key thing she’d learned, living here while there was tension and possibly menace around them all: though the Cahills were so close-knit that their family fabric was weatherproof, they fought all the time. Heath and Logan argued routinely, and got right up in each other’s face to do it. Logan and Honor argued. Emma and her brothers. Emma and Wes. Anya and Kendall. Emma and Honor. Morgan and his sons. Morgan and Wes. The only ones who seemed never to fight were Heath and Gabe, but Gabe didn’t seem to fight with anyone. If things got too hot, she walked away and came back to talk when the shouting was over.
It was reassuring, to see this powerful, functional family at odds with each other. Because nothing ever carried over and became a grudge. Cahill arguments burned hot until they were resolved. Even when Gabe left the room, they all knew she’d be back—and her leaving had the effect of cooling everybody off. Like that was when they all knew they’d crossed the line, and they all stepped back together.
In Gigi’s family, conflicts were never resolved. Even petty disagreements lasted years, lifetimes, pulsing like an infection under every moment of every day—or they died on their own, incinerated by the fever of bigger problems.
Anywhere (Sawtooth Mountains Stories, #3) Page 23