by Porter, Cat
I shot her a glare. “Your sugar daddy doesn’t know you have a kid, does he?”
A blush crept over her pale skin. “No, he does not,” she replied, her gaze darting around the trailer.
“I can assume he doesn’t know about me either?”
Her features softened. “He knows about you.” A beaming smile. “He’s very proud of you and your service to our country.”
“Aw, lucky me. Big points for you.”
“Oh, Richie, really…”
Miller explored the dark trailer, grabbing onto the edge of the small dining table, his toy stuffed under an arm. Yeah, lucky me. Neither I or this little kid asked to get born out of Cindy but born we were. I’d survived her. Would he?
I crossed my arms. “I’m guessing you know Dad died, right? So you want money or something, is that it? Because there’s isn’t any, so don’t bother. You don’t need an official divorce anymore, so you can go marry sugar daddy free and clear.”
“That’s exactly what we’re going to do.” She licked at her lips.
“Yeah, and?”
“Jason’s been wanting to see his boy for a while now, but he hasn’t been sending too much money so I’d said no. It’s not easy with a toddler. So many expenses, left and right. I got mad, he got mad, but I called him now and said forget the money and take your son.”
“There’s a deal. How’s that going to work? He’s always traveling, isn’t he? Where’s he going to take the kid? On tour with him? Motels? Bars?”
“Miller has a grandma at Pine Ridge.”
“On the reservation?”
“Hmm.”
“You’re sending your kid to that reservation? Do you know what goes on there? The Feds were just shooting people up there, people who dared to speak out on how shit things are for them, total shit—”
“Oh, stop. He’ll be with his people.”
“His people?”
“You know what I mean. With family.”
“You’re his fucking family.”
Miller’s mouth puckered at my sharpness.
“Don’t take that tone with me,” she said. Miller stilled, his gaze darting to our mother.
“He’s what, two years old?” I said. “You ever going to see him again? How do you think this is going to affect him? Have you even thought about that?”
“That’s why it’s better now that he’s so little. He won’t remember.” She let out a breath, her attention focusing through the dirty, smudged window.
“Jesus Christ, are you kidding me?”
A pickup truck pulled to a stop in front of the trailer. Same truck I remembered from years ago that had come to take my mother away.
Jason.
“What the hell is he doing here?” I muttered going to the doorway.
“I told him to meet me here to pick up Miller.”
“So no one would see? Is that it? Christ!” I ripped open my screen door as Jason LeBeau walked the few steps from his truck to my trailer.
He pushed back his red baseball cap, and those dark, stern eyes, his son’s eyes, met mine. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“She here?” he asked, his sharply-cut chin raised.
“Inside.”
He went in, and I followed. Cindy straightened, a hand flicking down her pants. I had no idea how this was going to go, but I didn’t believe much of what Cindy told me.
“Where is he?” he said, his deep voice firm, hands mounted on his waist. Cut to the chase. Did he know what Cindy had planned?
“Miller, honey, Daddy’s here,” said Cindy stretching out a hand to the boy.
Miller was frozen, rooted to the spot in front of the small fridge, staring at the tall stranger his mother had called “Daddy.”
“He got big,” Jason said, staring at him, squatting down. “It’s been so long. Hey there, boy. Come over and say hello.” He stretched out his arm, his voice gentler. “Come on. Come here. It’s me, Daddy.”
Miller stepped forward, clutching his stuffed animal, eyes blinking.
“You still got the buffalo, huh?” Jason said. “You still got it?” Miller smiled and hugged the stuffed animal close to his chest. “You remember when I got it for you, right? At Wall Drug? You and me? We stopped for donuts, and we saw this buffalo together, and you had to have him. Remember? Tatanka?”
Miller’s fingers settled on his father’s mouth as the Lakota word for buffalo escaped his lips. “Yah!” Miller’s face lit up as if he’d been party to the best secret in the world.
A huge grin broke over Jason’s face. It suited him, a smile. I imagined he didn’t do it very often. “That’s right, son. That’s right.” Jason scooped him up as he lifted to standing. My mother’s face beamed. Was she happy that things seemed to be going her way in quick time just as she’d hoped?
The boy toyed with the rim of his father’s baseball cap. “You sure did get big,” Jason murmured, a hand rubbing his son’s back.
“When was the last time you saw him?” I asked, but Jason ignored me.
“I have his bag outside,” Cindy’s voice came all sweet and soft. “He’s no trouble at all. Never loud or whiney. Such a good boy.”
Jason ignored her too. He and his son were having a moment. They stared at one another, recognition. Identification. Miller’s small hand rubbed at the line of his father’s jaw. “Dad-dy.”
“That’s right, baby—it’s Daddy,” Cindy said. “You and Daddy.” She turned to me. “See? It’s all good,” she mouthed. “Okay then, I’m off.”
“You what?” I said.
That earned me Cindy’s sour glare.
I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her outside. “You’re just taking off? Dumping your kid with your old boyfriend, who you don’t have any use for no more, and you’re off on your next adventure?”
“Richard,” she clipped, “this is none of your business.”
“You made it my business when you scheduled your dump-off at my house. That’s your kid, Ma. Your boy. You’re going to give him away, give him up—” Like you did to me, was on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed the words back down like drops of sour vomit. Always controlling my vomit.
“This here’s his daddy!” she said loudly. And in that desperate screech, I knew she was at the end of her rope. That this, she was sure, was finally the answer to all her hopes and dreams. “I’m not dumping him with strangers!”
“Your kids are just what—disposable?” I lobbed back at her.
“You had your dad, and Miller has his daddy and a grandma.”
“He should have his mother too, Cindy,” said Jason from the doorway. “We can do this if you—”
“There is no more you and me. I told you a thousand times already, Jason, that’s not what this is about. I have plans.” Her eyes flared, lips tightening. She meant business. “I’m leaving for Oklahoma tomorrow.”
“You what?” Jason’s voice was low, his fingers spreading over Miller’s back.
“What would I do?” Cindy glared at both Jason and me. “Live in Pine Ridge? Are you kidding me? Miller is Indian—”
“Lakota,” the word steamed from Jason’s lips, his tone severe.
“Yes, and he should be with his … tribe.”
“Red only goes with red, huh?” I said. “Guess that didn’t bother you much when you were getting off on red cock.”
She smacked me, and stinging heat exploded on the side of my face. “Get off my property, Cindy.” Her lips pursed together, her chin trembling slightly.
“Richie’s got a point.” Jason descended the stairs. “I get enough of that shit everywhere I go. Don’t need it from you, and my son definitely doesn’t need it from you.” He adjusted Miller in his grip. “I’m gonna raise him right. With our people on our land.”
A hand brushed my shoulder and lay there. Miller’s fingertips dug into my shoulder. His eyes filled with water, his face crumpled.
I took his tiny hand in mine. “It’s okay, bud. You got Daddy.” I let go.
Miller’s fingers pressed into his dad’s hard shoulders.
Jason LeBeau, his son in his arms, stalked across my weedy yard into the full sun. Two dark eyes stared back at me over Jason’s broad, sculpted shoulder, and something twisted inside my chest, pinching there. Was Miller scared? Was he pleading with me to intervene, make it better? How the hell could I make this shit better for him?
Jason’s truck tore out of my dirt driveway. My mother left in her car. In the doorway of the trailer lay Miller’s small stuffed animal. Miller had dropped his precious buffalo.
Dammit.
I gripped the small furry toy. Would he be okay? Would I ever see him again?
I would.
Years later, when we needed each other the most. When hell and high water had crashed through his world and mine and done their horrifying worst.
Chapter Four
“Another.”
The bartender refilled my glass with Jack Daniels, and I sucked it down. That liquid heat slid down my throat and instantly warmed my belly. My tongue ran over my gums, enjoying the warm layered flavor of the whiskey. Half price drinks for all vets said the sign on the bar. I was taking full advantage.
Another night of not being able to sleep and Miller’s little buffalo staring at me from the table where I’d put it. Tonight the rain was driving hard and thundering against the trailer. Would I ever not mind the sound of heavy rain again? I couldn’t breathe right in that trailer, the aromas of my childhood had merged with the stench of my horrors. Then the nausea had begun swelling up inside me in that familiar way. The voice wouldn’t stop. The panic built. The shouts rose through the rain.
“We only got two! What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do?”
I’d gotten the hell out of that trailer as fast I could, started up the old pickup and came here, to Dead Ringers Saloon, an enormous bar on the road leading south out of Rapid. In high school, Noah and I would get in here with fake ID’s. One time we’d brought girls with us, but that night they wouldn’t let us in. Humiliating. Now I had real ID. Army ID.
I slugged more whiskey to blot out that yelling … shake off the sting of that cold … the pounding rain slick on my skin … the burning throb of my arms as I pulled, pulled, pulled through the mud.
“A beer, please,” I said to the bartender. Better slow down on the hard stuff. I still had to drive myself home at some point tonight.
Drumsticks clacked together. The band that had been setting up when I first arrived now jammed from a small stage, their rock and roll jolting in my veins. My body moved to the rhythm of “Dream On.” Thank you, Aerosmith. I’d had enough of Elton John and that Captain & Tennille on every radio station lately. The song finished and another began, but this time a woman’s voice filled the big bar, clear and strong. Linda Ronstadt’s words filled the saloon, telling us we were no good. That voice was sure and confident, and she hit all the right notes in her own way. I didn’t miss Linda on this track.
Not at all.
I swiveled around on my stool, tilting my head to search for the singer. That voice made it a necessity. A tall girl with long brown hair, bell-bottom jeans and boots, and a faded red, cut-off Bob Dylan concert T-shirt. She seemed to be a little younger than me, but her height and presence on that stage made you think she was older, wiser.
A throng of women danced by themselves in front of the band, belting out the song along with the singer. A warm smile lit up her face, and she danced to the edge of the stage waving her arms, taking them higher, taking them with her into a triumphant anthem.
A smile tugged at my lips, and I drained my beer as I leaned against the bar watching her. That voice was powerful, and she didn’t seem to have to work hard to make it do what she wanted. She was having a good time doing her thing.
I envied that.
A few songs later, she hit “Blue Bayou.” Couples rushed the floor to dance to the ballad. Her voice was yearning for a better love, an idea of her good love. A slight sadness laced every verse, but there was hope there, and the hope kept building. Heat tightened my belly. She believed it. It was like a hymn to her, and her finish was breathtaking. She wasn’t showing off how she could carry the tune way high, making it fancy; it was real. She segued into “Hurts So Bad.” Heat swarmed in my veins the way her voice slid around every word.
The couples dancing applauded her, and she said a euphoric “Thank you!” into the mic. She turned and gave the band members each a high five and left the stage. The band quickly erupted into a hard driving guitar solo with the drum beating a hard backup.
I ordered another beer.
“Tab please, Al,” a breathless voice said next to me to the bartender.
It was her, the singer. Now she wore a light brown suede coat with fringe on it. Colorful flowers were embroidered up and down the sides and the back. She had flair like no other girl here tonight. Like no other girl I’d ever seen before. She gulped at the soda, glancing at her watch.
“Hey,” I said. “You were real good up there.” Three whiskeys made me chatty.
Her face turned a bright shade of pink, as pink as that big ring she wore. She blinked. “Oh. Thanks.”
“You going to sing some more?”
“Um, no, not tonight.”
“Why not? You’re not with the band?” I asked. Her hair was a reddish brown under the lights of the bar, her eyes a lighter brown.
“I’m not with the band. The guys let me come in sometimes and do a few songs.” She shrugged. “It’s fun.”
“That’s nice of ‘em.”
“They’re friends of my brother’s. They’re cool.” She pulled out a clear lipstick that said “Kissing Potion” on it and wiped the vial over her dark-pink lips, making them shiny and glossy. And strawberry flavored, judging from the label.
The sweet berry scent rose between us, and I adjusted myself on my stool. “Cool,” I murmured. She took another sip of her soda, our eyes hooked on each other. On her hand was a ring with a big pink stone on it. Like her, bold but sweet. “I like your ring.”
“Thanks.” She glanced at it. “Oh wow, look at that. It’s so bright. First time.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a mood ring. When the color goes this deep pink and violet it means I’m really excited and happy and…” She giggled.
“What?”
“And passionate.”
“You sure do look that way to me,” I said.
Our glances met, and she smiled, her keen eyes studying me. This time, my face heated. This time, all the pieces inside me seemed to line up right for a change. “You in the army?” she asked.
“Just got out.”
“Congratulations. My brother was a Marine.”
“Oh yeah? He here with you tonight and the band?”
Her mouth tightened. “No. He never left Vietnam. POW.”
“Shit, I’m real sorry.”
She only nodded draining her soda glass. Crunching on ice, she glanced over at the front door. “Oh, damn—my ride’s here.” She set the glass on the bar and wiped at her mouth. “Got to go.”
“What’s the rush? Are you some kind of Cinderella?”
She let out a laugh. “Something like that.” She took off, but then stopped and ran back toward me, that fringe shimmying on her coat. Something inside my chest swelled a little as she got closer.
“What’s up?” I said, my voice catching in my throat, a tickle going off in my veins.
She touched my arm. “I wanted to say thanks for the compliment on my singing.”
“I wasn’t shitting you.”
“I know, I could tell. And I appreciate that. I really do.”
“You’re good. You’re a real good singer. Don’t ever stop.”
Her face lit up, eyes glimmering. She raised up on her toes and brushed my cheek with her lips. Soft, delicate lips, a hush over my flesh. My eyes closed for a split second, relishing that brush of sweetness.
She ran off again, her fringe shimmying. But th
at scent of strawberry remained.
Chapter Five
I nursed another beer listening to the band’s next set. They were good, but I fucking missed the girl.
Loud, deep voices by the entrance had me craning my neck to see what was going on. Biff, the owner, was towered over by a bearded, bulky, blond guy in leather, his muscular arms covered in tats. A biker with an eagle patch on his vest. They spoke heatedly, and Biff showed him down the hallway toward the back offices. Biff returned, but his face was tight, his lips a thin line. He wasn’t happy.
“Hey, Biff, everything all right?” I asked him.
“Yep.” His intense gaze darted up at me for a moment. Everything was not all right.
“You need help?”
“Nah, Richie.” He shook his head. “Go back to your beer, and forget it.”
“He giving you a hard time? Shaking you down?”
“No, no, it’s nothing like that. You don’t want to get involved.”
Once a lieutenant had reprimanded me for giving plasma to a wounded Vietcong. He’d ordered me not to waste our medical supplies on the enemy. He was wrong. In training, I’d been taught that a medic could override an officer in any lifesaving situation in combat. I’d paid no heed to the lieutenant’s order.
And now, I paid no heed to Biff.
Pushing past him, I charged down the hall to where voices rumbled, doors closed and opened. Four more bikers were hovering over a corner of the office. Groaning and hissing rose from the group.
“What’s going on?” I took in the man sprawled on the sofa, a blood-covered hand clamped on his side. He was bleeding. I could smell the blood from the doorway. It made me nauseated, and it made me dart forward on automatic. Squatting by the victim, I put my hands on the wound. The slide of blood over my fingers … a horror and a clarity. I knew what to do. I could function here.
“Let me see,” I muttered, moving the bloodied hand out of the way, my upper back muscles bunching painfully as they always did when I worked.
“Who the hell is he? What are you doin’ in here? Get out!” A knife came to my neck, arms pulling me back. “Don’t you fucking touch him.”