‘Native American’ was a vast category that collected an incredibly diverse array of people, many of whom shared few traits of geography, culture, or physicality with each other. They all, however, shared a history of colonization. Neither Mac nor Victor—nor most of the Native people Reese knew—called themselves Native Americans. They said ‘Native,’ or ‘Indigenous,’ or ‘Shoshone,’ or—most specifically—‘Sawtooth Shoshone,’ all terms more accurate or precisely descriptive. That word ‘America’ didn’t mark the origin of their history or acknowledge the diversity of people like them. Thus, they dropped it off.
Even among the Shoshone tribe, individual bands had specifically identifying traditions, words, and histories that made them distinct from others among their tribe. Sawtooth Jasper Shoshone and Shoshone-Bannock, or any other Shoshone band, though they shared many things and were of the same tribe, were not identical, any more than Jasper Ridge and Orton were interchangeable towns. Like all communities, some things were only their own. They were as distinct as the people who dwelled in them.
Reese and Mac’s wedding ceremony was only their own as well. He was marrying a Sawtooth Shoshone woman, and the ceremony honored her heritage in every way. But she was marrying him, a white man, so they’d modified his part, removing the more sacred elements of the groom’s side of the ritual.
The weather this autumn had been wildly erratic, careening from unseasonably warm to unseasonably cool, from clear to stormy in fits. Mac had harbored a flimsy little hope that they’d get lucky and hit an unseasonably warm spell on their wedding day, so they could have at least held the actual wedding outdoors. In her people’s thinking, all sacred things should happen under the sky.
Instead, what they got was storms. So, late in the afternoon on a Saturday in the middle of November, Reese stood in the gathering room of the tribal council hall, dressed in a new suit, shirt, and tie. His back was to the wide windows that faced the Sawtooth Range—snow-capped and ferocious under the glowering grey sky—and he faced virtually all the residents of this reservation, and a goodly portion of the town, too. Their people, everybody dressed in their Sunday best.
They’d wanted a small ceremony, but their people had had other plans.
Still, they kept it mellow. The room wasn’t extravagantly decorated. People sat on folding chairs. But there were several arrangements of beautiful fall flowers and other foliage behind Reese and Chief Black Eagle.
No music played, and that was the most awkward part for Reese; the ambient sounds were no more celebratory than the usual soft rumble of many people speaking softly among themselves. It sounded like they were waiting for a town hall meeting, not his one and only wedding.
They’d planned a reservation wedding before, too, but that had been scheduled for June, outside, with the natural majesty of Idaho providing decoration and soundtrack.
But that had been the wrong wedding, at the wrong time. He’d been trying to save her back then, and Mac didn’t need a savior. Moreover, Reese could never have saved her. Her saving had had to come from within—and the need was greater than herself. For Mac to feel her feet on the ground and stand steady, she’d needed to help more than merely herself, because her sense of herself extended beyond the boundaries of her own existence. She’d needed a purpose. She’d needed to make her world stronger.
He was marrying Mac today, when the time was right. When she was ready, and he was ready, and their world was strong.
He stood alone, with only the chief, who would officiate, at his side. Best men and maids of honors weren’t part of this wedding tradition. But his friends and their families filled the front two rows, right in front of him.
Mac’s family, her mother and sister and nephew, were seated up front as well. Elaine had hurried up from the back a few minutes earlier and slid into her seat; she’d been helping Mac get ready. Reese watched as she picked up Frannie’s hand and gave it a squeeze.
That was a family treading water in a sea of trouble, but Elaine had been dry since Mac’s birthday. She looked like the effort wore hard, but she was trying, and that was something real, something good. It was hope, something the Mackenzies had had precious little of.
Moving Frannie home had been a good thing, too. She was back amongst her people, in a world she knew, and she was content.
The rumble of voices quieted in a wave, from back to front, and then their guests stood. Mac was back there, then. Reese grinned and smoothed his suit. Showtime.
With all those people standing in his way, he heard her before he saw her—and was blown away. He hadn’t known she meant to sing. She was singing the Shoshone Love Song, a lyric of her people that had been translated and arranged into a sweet, beautiful song.
As she sang, she came through the crowd of their people. She was dressed in her grandmother’s traditional beaded deerskin dress, with deerskin breeches and moccasins, the hide of all pieces tanned to a matching creamy color. Her hair was braided—she’d let it grow again in the year or so she’d been home, and the two gathered ends lay over each shoulder. Each braid dangled two feathers. Earrings in traditional beading dangled from her ears.
Dressed like this, singing exactly that song, Georgia Mackenzie had first drawn Reese’s notice, standing on the Miss Jasper float when she was seventeen years old. Damn. Almost half her life ago.
On that long-ago day, she’d stood on the float with her hands at her sides. Today, instead of a bouquet of flowers, she carried a basket. According to the tradition of her people, she’d woven it herself and filled it with fresh-baked breads and coiled stalks of wheat, their feathery tops rimming the wide mouth of the basket. It was meant to symbolize the gathering heritage of Sawtooth Shoshone women and say that she would nurture and feed him and their family always.
He’d seen it before in other reservation weddings, but, even though that deeply traditional way would not be the way of their marriage, Reese was moved to see that basket she’d made for him.
Walking down an unassuming aisle between their gathered people, she locked eyes with him and sang. She was alone, and so was he, and that was perfect. There was no one else in the whole fucking world right now.
She’d timed it just right so that she finished the song as she reached him. Her smile was bright and beautiful, and he couldn’t help himself. He leaned down and kissed her.
“You’re supposed to wait for that until I’m done,” the chief muttered with a jovial smirk, and everybody close enough to hear laughed.
“Sorry,” he said, still looking into Mac’s eyes. “Just can’t help myself.”
Still smirking, the chief nodded. He turned his attention to Mac, who bowed her head and handed Reese the basket. She didn’t speak; there were no words to this part of the ritual.
Reese took the basket and bowed his head. He set it on the floor between them. Next was his part of the ritual. There had been some heavy discussion about whether he should do this part, but Mac wanted to honor her history with the basket, and it was wrong for him to take from her without giving. As symbolism went, that was hardly ideal.
Finally, he’d hashed it out with Victor and Frank and the chief, and they’d decided the symbolism worked whether he was Shoshone or not.
So now, he pulled a sheathed hunting knife from inside his suit jacket. Nothing fancy; the symbol was important in its use, not its decoration. So this was the knife he used most often. He’d picked it up at the cabin and cleaned it up as like-new as he could make it. Setting it on his hands, he offered it to Mac.
The men of her people had been hunters. The knife said he would provide for her and protect her always.
He wasn’t Shoshone, but that was a promise he meant from the depths of his soul.
She took the knife and set it atop the basket.
Reese took her hand and wove his fingers with hers. They turned to face the mountains. Lightning lit the sky as Chief Black Eagle began to speak.
*****
After a big potlatch dinner in the same room
as the wedding, the party moved in a caravan to town, for a reception at the Jack. Reese and Mac went upstairs and changed into comfortable clothes, and they danced and laughed with their friends until the open bar started having an effect on their guests and things started to get too wild for his wife.
His wife. At last.
He left Heath and Linda in charge—Linda because she knew the bar second only to him, and Heath because he was big and ornery when he needed to be, and sober as a judge. They’d make sure everybody stayed safe. With their halfway drunk friends cheering and blowing bubbles—Emma’s idea—Reese swept Mac into his arms and carried her off in his truck to the cabin.
A honeymoon would come later, but they would have a real wedding night and spend it like they wanted: nestled in the woods with nothing and nobody around. Just them.
*****
Reese added another log to the fire and pushed the poker around, settling things until he was sure the new wood caught. On a November night like this, it would get frosty in the cabin if the fire went out. He was chilly enough standing here naked for just these few minutes to be in danger of shrinkage.
Satisfied the fire was well fed, he hurried back and got back under the covers with Mac. They’d made themselves a nest on the floor before the fireplace, with several blankets and pillows. He leaned his back against a sofa, and Mac returned to her place between his legs, reclining on his chest.
She purred like a curled cat and lifted his arm, setting it across her chest so that he held her more closely. She began to play with his new ring, brushing her fingers over the gold. “You were right. This is perfect.”
The choice to spend the night here had been obvious to them both. Their wedding had been so much about home in all its iterations—the reservation, the town, her heritage, his history, her family, his friends, their present, their future, all of it here. And this cabin was part of it, too. The place he came for quiet.
For a long time, they sat quietly, staring at the fire, nested together in peace. Reese replayed the day, marveling that, after all this time, so many years, he and Mac had found their way to this. They were a family. He had everything he wanted. It didn’t look quite like he’d once thought it would, there were changes he hadn’t foreseen, but he’d recognize it anywhere. It was home. Full of contentment, he sighed, and it rumbled like a purr of his own.
“What are you thinking about?” Mac asked.
“Just that I’m happy. Today, I have everything. What’re you thinkin’?”
“Same, I guess.”
He smiled. “You guess?”
“I’m happy, too. So happy. I feel perfect. I’m just thinking how long it took me to figure it out. For so long, I thought I was empty. Like there was this hole in me I couldn’t ever get full. I went looking for something to fill me up, and what I needed was right here all along.”
She’d said that before, so he nodded, and she tipped her head to his cheek.
“I just ... I feel full now. Every breath I take fills me up. I understand now. Things aren’t perfect, they’ll never be perfect, and maybe some things will always be broken. But it’s still home, and it’s still good, and all we can do is try. Together. I guess I had to see the world before I could see my home for all it is.” She turned and looked up at him, her dark eyes reflecting the firelight. “Thank you for waiting for me.”
He tightened his arms around her. “Thank you for coming home.”
Epilogue
This bright, clear day in the middle of June could not have been more perfect. An unmarred satin swath of azure sky calmed the serrated peaks of the Sawtooth Mountains, and lush green grasses waved in the softest of breezes. The spring rains had been good, and summer was rolling in mellow and well-rested.
Beautiful, freshly scented, comfortable. It was the kind of day that hid the flaws of life and the world and highlighted all that was right and good and worthy.
Just exactly the right day for the event it held. Reese, not much of a churchgoer and only the most vague of believers, lifted his face to the sun and the sky and offered up some thanks.
“She did good, your lady.” Morgan Cahill was at his side. Heath and the rest of the Cahills were with him, and all his other friends and family as well. All but Logan and Mac.
“Yeah, she did.” He looked up ahead and caught Mac’s eye. Dressed in a pretty, tailored blue dress and high-heeled black shoes, she looked every inch the professional. Her hair was loose, and skimmed down her back and over her shoulders in a straight, black curtain.
She grinned at him, and he blew her a kiss. Logan, standing at her side, laughed when she caught it in her hand.
“We’re here today,” Chief Black Eagle said into the microphone, “because of one woman. I’m sure she’ll name others that should be thanked, and that’s fine. But I want to talk about her. Georgia Mackenzie-Webb.”
Reese cheered at her name, and other voices joined in, hooting and whooping.
She blushed and gave him a quelling look, but Reese wasn’t sorry.
“Since she was just a tiny thing, Gigi’s been a wanderer. She used to wander off from home all the time, following a butterfly or going off to talk to a deer. Just toddling off down the road, in her diaper and little pink cowboy boots, dragging a ratty old blanket behind her.” Several of the older people in the crowd laughed. Elaine, at Reese’s side, chuckled and nodded her head.
Reese had never known this about her. As the image of Baby Mac toddling off alone formed in his mind, a lump filled his throat.
“It got to be we had a system of chasing after her,” the chief continued, “leading her back home. But I don’t guess any of us who are old enough to remember those little pink boots were all that surprised when she wandered off and stayed away, and I don’t think any of us ever had a doubt that somebody would lead her back home in time.”
Elaine swiped her hand across her cheeks.
Up ahead, standing behind the chief and to the side, not far from the door of the brand-new Sawtooth Jasper Reservation Resource Center, Mac’s head was bowed, and Logan put his arm around her.
“When Gigi came home, she brought the wisdom of all the great world with her, and with those wide eyes, it wasn’t long before she found something many of us had searched for, but no others had found. With her home eyes, she saw our need. But with her world eyes, she found our hope.” He turned and smiled at Mac, and they shared a deep glance.
The chief turned back to the crowd. “Today, we open the Sawtooth Jasper Reservation Resource Center. Expanded medical care. Mental health and addiction treatment and counseling. Employment assistance. And, we just got word that another grant has been awarded, so we’ll be able to start on the next phase: a new school and technology center.”
The crowd broke out into applause and cheers again.
“What this project means for our people is something as simple and beautiful as the building it’s housed in: this means hope. People of the Sawtooth Jasper Shoshone, and our friends, please join me in thanking our own Gigi.”
Now the crowd went wild, and Elaine began to sob. Reese pulled his mother-in-law close, and she held on. At her side, Frannie grinned and clapped, as if she understood what was going on. And maybe she did; she’d made some progress over the past several months and was beginning to be able to keep new concepts and events in her mind for longer periods of time.
Mac went to the podium and turned the mic downward so she could speak into it. It whined as she bent it, and she muttered “Fuck!”—which, of course, the mic picked up and sent out to the crowd. They laughed.
“Sorry. Um. Sorry. I, uh ... I had some notes, but I got nervous and wadded them all up, so I’m just ...” She stopped, took a breath, and tucked her hair behind her ears. “I don’t really want to talk about myself. I didn’t do this by myself at all. I had so much help. Logan Cahill and the entire Cahill family. They are of us, and we would not have this without their generosity and good spirit. Thank you.” The crowd applauded, and Mac waited
. “Chief Job Black Eagle, who encouraged me from the start and listened to all my weird ideas. He counseled me and helped me understand what problems to address first and how one flowed from another. Thank you.” Again, the crowd applauded. “Emily Gomez, of the mayor’s office in Boise, who made a jillion trips from the city to help me research and understand how to write grant proposals, which is really the only reason this project got done. And Honor Cahill, who shared her wonderful friend with me. Thank you both.”
She waited again while the crowd added their thanks, and then she met Reese’s eyes. “My husband, Reese Webb, who waited for me for ten years, and who has never wavered. You stand at my side and make me strong. You showed me that I am home anywhere I am, because I am loved. Thank you.”
While the crowd cheered and Heath and Victor slapped his back, Reese put both hands to his mouth and blew her a double kiss. She caught it and held it to her heart.
“And finally, to you, my people. Our spirit is strong, and the ember of hope has never gone cold. We know struggle, and need, and pain. But we know joy and hope and healing, too. Our love is fierce and our spirit is free. Thank you.”
The crowd went wild again, and this time showed no quick sign of settling back down. Mac wasn’t done, however, and, after a few moments of trying to wave them quiet, she yelled into the mic. “Hey! Excuse me!”
Everybody settled, chuckling.
“I’ve got one more thing, and then Logan Cahill has a few words.” She turned and nodded at her friend Roger, who tugged on a plain tarp hanging over the wall. It came down to show a large, elaborate mural beside the main doors of the center. Made of small, colorful round stones to mimic Shoshone beadwork, it was a portrait bust of a Shoshone chief, in full ceremonial dress.
Reese had seen the mockup proposal, from one of the artists on the reservation, but Mac had kept the final result a secret. And that final result was astonishing. The crowd oohed in soft wonder.
Anywhere (Sawtooth Mountains Stories, #3) Page 31