“Why’d you bring the shotgun along?”
“… I thought you were in danger. He’d killed before.”
And that silence tells me everything.
3:50 P.M.
I stood by Saskia’s hospital bed, my eyes on her face—taking in small details, cataloging our similarities and dissimilarities, then trying to look beneath the surface to who this closely related stranger really was. Her eyes did the same.
Neither of us had spoken since we’d said hello. I couldn’t imagine what she was feeling, but my response was flat and cold; for days I’d been steeling myself against this meeting, building up my defenses in case of rejection, and now I’d fallen victim to the distance I’d placed between us.
Saskia broke the silence. “When I gave you up, I thought I’d never see you again,” she said in her low-pitched voice that was very like my own.
“Until two weeks ago, I didn’t know I was adopted.”
“Robin told me what you’ve been through since then—including what happened in Modoc County. How did you know to go there?”
“I didn’t. I was curious about the land Austin planned to develop and thought I could pick up a lead to whoever ran you down. But once I was at Cinder Cone, I realized it was important because you mentioned it while you were slipping in and out of the coma.”
“I did?”
“Yes. You said, ‘cinder,’ ‘cone,’ and ‘find.’ I guess you wanted somebody to look for your Uncle Ray’s body.”
“I guess. I’ve always felt guilty for running away and not seeing that he got a proper burial.”
“The way I heard it, you had no choice.”
Silence fell again—heavy, uncomfortable. Saskia’s face was ashen, blackish shadows under her eyes. I knew I should reserve the tough questions for another time, but they were weighing on me, and I had a right to know.
“Why didn’t you report Ray’s murder after you escaped Joseph DeCarlo?” I asked.
“I was deathly afraid of him. He was rich, powerful, and I’d seen him shoot my uncle.”
“But you couldn’t have been that afraid. Otherwise, you’d never have allowed Fenella to blackmail him.”
“What?”
“Those checks she wrote you at the beginning of each semester in college and law school—where did you think the money was coming from?”
“She told me it was from your adoptive parents.”
“My parents never had that much money to spare in their lives. It came from Joseph DeCarlo.”
She shook her head as she absorbed the knowledge.
“Seems Fenella lied to both of us,” I said.
Saskia stretched out her arm and took my hand. “Don’t blame her, Sharon. She was a very caring woman. Neither of us would be who we are today if it wasn’t for her.”
“Think of who we might’ve been to each other if she hadn’t told so many lies, kept so many secrets.” I wanted to pull away, but instead left my hand where it was—a limp, unfeeling lump of flesh and bone.
Saskia’s mouth tensed as she realized I was not only angry with Fenella but with her as well. After a moment she said, “I want to ask your forgiveness. When I gave you up, I thought I was trying to protect you from Joseph DeCarlo, but I suppose it was selfishness as well. I had dreams; I wasn’t equipped to raise a child on my own.”
“Later on, after those dreams were realized, you never even tried to find me.”
“Because Joseph was keeping track of me—and he made sure I knew it.”
“What did you think he would do? He didn’t want me.”
“Exactly. And he would have done his best to turn your… Austin against you. That kind of rejection can be devastating to a child or a young woman.”
“Sounds like a pretty flimsy excuse to me.”
Tears welled up in Saskia’s eyes. “Please don’t do this, Sharon.”
I looked down at our linked hands, incapable of a response. After a minute I said, “There’re a few more things I’d like to know.”
“Yes?”
“Where were you during your pregnancy?”
“With Fenella and Great-aunt Mary.”
“Mary McCone was your great-aunt? That means I’m actually related to my adoptive family, in a weird way.”
“Yes.”
“Was it an easy birth?”
“No, difficult.”
“Well, some things don’t change. I’ve been difficult my whole life. Was I on time?”
“Exactly nine months from the date of your conception.”
I nodded. She’d told me what I needed to hear.
Saskia said, “Please don’t blame Fenella or your adoptive parents for the lies. If anyone’s at fault, I am.”
“I don’t blame anybody.” As I spoke I realized all my anger—at her, at Ma and Pa, at Fenella, at my birth father—was gone. I squeezed her hand, bridging the distance between us.
“So,” I said, “what shall I call you?”
“Why not Kia? Most everyone does.”
“And what will we be to each other? You’re my mother, but…”
“But your real mother is the woman who raised you. I can accept that. But you and I can be friends, can’t we? Let’s try.”
“Of course we can be friends,” I said. “In a way, we already are.”
9:50 P.M.
I stepped out onto the front porch of the Blackhawk house and breathed in the crisp autumn air. Robin had organized an impromptu barbecue tonight, inviting a few of her friends; now the guests had departed and she’d given me orders not to help her with the cleaning up. I went to the railing, looked through the trees until I found the near-full moon.
Someone moved in the corner of the porch. I turned, saw a tall figure whose hair glistened like cotton candy in the rays from the streetlight.
“Darcy?”
“Yeah.” The tip of a cigarette glowed, went out, and I caught the scent of marijuana.
“How come you didn’t join the party?” I asked.
“Had to work, and then when I got here you were all having such a good time…”
“And you wouldn’t’ve?”
He shrugged.
“You’re feeling bad because I saw your mother today.”
“My mother? Why not yours?”
“Because, as Kia and I agreed this afternoon, my real mother is the woman who raised me.”
“… You both agreed?”
“Yes. Just as Robin and I agree that my real sisters and brothers are the ones I was raised with. That doesn’t mean your mother and Robin can’t be my friends. You too, if you like.”
“… I guess.” He ventured a few steps closer to me. “How many brothers and sisters have you got?”
“Two of each.”
“What’re they like?”
I smiled, realizing I had a surefire way to cement our tentative friendship. “Which horror story would you like to hear first?”
11:27 P.M.
“What’d you say to Darce?” Robin asked. “The two of you were out there laughing, and he was still smiling when he left.”
“Oh, I just told him some stories that convinced him he isn’t the sorriest excuse for a brother on the planet.”
“What kind of stories?”
“About my brothers and sisters.”
“Will you tell them to me, too?”
“Now? It’s pretty late.”
“Why not?” She held up a bottle and two glasses. “We’ve got wine to finish.”
“Okay.” I sat down on the old-fashioned porch swing. “I’ll start with the time John and Joey rolled me up in the rug.…”
LISTENING…
“Will Camphouse is your nephew?”
“In a distant way. Our familial relationships aren’t as clearcut as whites’, or as formal.”
“Does that mean he’s related to me too?”
“… Possibly. There’s been so much mixing among the tribes, and other ethnic groups as well, that those connections are very diffi
cult to sort out. If you and Will want to be related, then you should consider yourselves so.”
“You speak as if you knew Fenella well, but you say you never met her.”
“I didn’t, but I feel as though I did. That year I returned to the reserve for Christmas, stayed into January. Talk of your great-aunt was rekindled when she sent presents, as well as two big crates of Florida oranges.”
“Can you think of anyone who might be able to tell me more about Fenella’s visit?”
“Well, there’s Agnes Running Horse, my cousin. She lives on the Middle Fork of the Flathead River near Glacier National Park.”
“Would she be willing to talk with me?”
“I’m sure she will.”
Something moved under the surface of your gaze, Elwood. Deep, dark, sad. At the time I couldn’t put a name to it, but now I think I have.
“Can you tell me who this man is, and where I might find these women?”
“Where’d you get this?”
“From Mr. Farmer. He named the women, but he didn’t know the man.”
“Yes—Lucy Edmo, Barbara Teton, Susan New Moon, Saskia Hunter. Barbara’s dead, breast cancer. Everybody thought Elwood would marry her, but they had a big fight the last time he came home to the reserve, and that was it. Saskia Hunter, I heard she went to college, made something of herself, but I don’t know what. I’m surprised Elwood couldn’t tell you; they were real good friends.”
Yes, Agnes Running Horse, I’m surprised too.
“You never even tried to find me.”
“Because Joseph was keeping track of me—and he made sure I knew it.”
“What did you think he would do? He didn’t want me.”
“Exactly. And he would have done his best to turn your… Austin against you. That kind of rejection can be devastating to a child or a young woman.”
“Was it an easy birth?”
“No, difficult.”
“Well, some things don’t change. I’ve been difficult my whole life. Was I on time?”
“Exactly nine months from the date of your conception.”
I think I know another reason you wanted to keep me from Joseph DeCarlo, Saskia. Are you working up to telling it to me? Or are you hoping I’ll figure it out on my own?
“So the photograph appeared in Newsweek…”
“And my father saw it. Up till then, he had no idea I was living with Kia. I went home before Christmas, stayed a couple of weeks—which didn’t please Kia one bit—and gave him a story about working on a ranch outside of Billings, Montana. He approved of that, assumed that eventually I’d come home for good.”
I’ll have to confirm that with you, Austin. And when I do, maybe then I’ll finally know the whole truth.
Sunday
SEPTEMBER 24
1:10 P.M.
“Come in, please,” Elwood Farmer said.
Nothing had changed here in his small living room since I’d last visited: a fire blazed in the woodstove; his students’ pictures adorned the walls; he wore the same plaid wool shirt; it could even have been the same cigarette clamped between his lips.
But, on the other hand, everything had changed.
He motioned for me to sit in one of the padded chairs facing the fire. “I’ve been expecting you.”
“Moccasin telegraph?”
He nodded.
“Then you know I found my mother.”
He squinted at me through the smoke from his cigarette, waiting.
“You said something to me when I was here before about familial relationships not being as clearcut in the Indian world as they are in the white. I’ve certainly found that to be true. My mother is the great-niece of the woman I thought was my great-grandmother. Which made my adoptive father a cousin at some remove or other. I don’t even want to speculate on what my adoptive brothers and sisters are to me.”
“Does it matter?”
“A few weeks ago I would have said yes, but now it doesn’t. Your nephew Will predicted I’d feel this way. He also said I’d eventually figure out what was more important than my own identity.”
“And have you?”
“I’m working on it.” I reached into my bag, took out a small gift-wrapped package. “I want to give this to you.”
Pleasure spread over his wrinkled face as he took it. I watched him tear the paper and free the silver-framed photograph from it. He studied the picture for a moment, looked questioningly at me.
“I ordered a copy of the original from Newsweek’s archives,” I told him. “It cost you a great deal to give up the one you had—which I’ll always treasure.”
He stared down at it, his fingers caressing the silver of the frame, as mine had caressed the buffalo bone.
“I know why it meant so much to you,” I added. “Agnes Running Horse thought it was because of Barbara Teton, and I suppose that’s partly true. But you also treasured it because of my mother.”
He continued to stare at the photograph.
“You could have told me who she was and what she was to you, saved me a lot of running around. And you could have prevented me from involving the DeCarlos.”
He looked up, oddly calm and unsurprised. “So you figured it out.”
“Yes. Austin was at his father’s ranch in California when I was conceived. You were in Fort Hall for the holidays. Kia was upset with Austin for going home. You’d just broken up with Barbara Teton. So you comforted each other.”
He set the photograph on the table between us, got up to tend the woodstove. When he sat down again he said, “Well, you have the essence of what happened. I’d gone home to ask Barbara to marry me and come to New York. She refused; instead, she wanted me to come back to the reserve. But I’d moved into a larger world, and there was no returning.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
He fished a cigarette from his shirt pocket, contemplated it, then replaced it. “Because until you came here this afternoon I wasn’t sure I had a child.”
“You must’ve suspected, though.”
“Yes. A number of years ago my cousin Agnes told me Kia was a couple of months pregnant when she ran away with Austin. I sent you to her thinking that Kia might’ve told her I was the father.”
“She didn’t.”
“Then I suppose Kia either thought you were Austin’s child or wanted to believe it.”
“She knows exactly whose child I am. She told me I was born nine months to the day of my conception. It’s not likely she forgot who she was with on that occasion.”
The dark, sorrowful current rippled in Elwood’s eyes. “But she still didn’t tell you about me.”
“I think she plans to, but it’s hard letting go of a lie you’ve lived with so long. Austin believed I was his daughter, and on some level the idea of punishing him by putting me up for adoption pleased her. I’m surprised she didn’t turn to you, though, after Joseph DeCarlo killed her uncle.”
He compressed his lips, stared at the flames flickering behind the glass door of the stove. In a moment he said, “Bad timing.”
“What d’you mean?”
“She left a message for me at my rooming house in New York, saying it was an emergency and asking that I call her. But a month earlier, I’d met the woman who later became my wife, and I was spending time at her place. When I finally picked up the message and called, the number turned out to be a phone booth at a truck stop. Kia, of course, was long gone.”
“Did you try to locate her?”
“No.”
“For God’s sake, why not?”
“I was young, in love, and studying hard.”
“And there was no room in your life for her.”
“That about sums it up.”
“What about me? Is there room in your life for me, or do I just go on pretending Austin’s my birth father?”
“I’ve never cared much for pretense.”
“Neither have I.”
“I’ve always wanted a child, someone I
could pass on the old ways and traditions to.”
“I need a father who can help me understand them.”
Elwood Farmer stood, lighting a cigarette. “Come back tomorrow,” he said.
“What?”
“Tomorrow we’ll spend the day together—after we’ve both had time to assemble our thoughts.”
And through the rising smoke, my father winked at me.
Tuesday
SEPTEMBER 26
10:10 A.M.
Ma’s eyes were sad as I finished telling her the story of the past three weeks. She looked away from me at the flowered wallpaper of her breakfast room, as if its cheeriness offended her.
“I suppose,” she said, “you’ll be spending a lot of time getting to know your new family now.”
“I’m planning to visit Elwood Farmer in November. I want to learn more about the Shoshones.”
“And your… mother?”
“I’m hoping she’ll visit me soon. I like her—her daughter and son, too.”
Ma sighed. “Life has a strange way of turning out. Andy and I thought adopting you would create an even stronger bond between us, but in the end it created a distance, because of all the lies.”
“So why couldn’t you tell me this when I first came to you with the petition for adoption?”
“I was afraid. I’d lost Andy—not when he died, but a long time ago, when the lies finally drove him away from all of us. You remember how he was—always hiding in the garage, till he finally slept there nine nights out of ten. I was afraid of losing you, too.”
“But by perpetuating those lies, you were guaranteeing you’d lose me.”
“Yes, I realize that now. I’ve finally succeeded in tearing apart what’s left of the family.” Ma’s eyes were bleak as they looked into an empty future.
I tried to understand. Thought of all the nights she’d spent alone when she needed Pa; of all the days, too, when he was withdrawn and depressed. She didn’t need any more of that kind of treatment from anyone—including me.
I put my hand on hers where it lay on the table. “Ma, the family’s intact. Elwood feels like a father to me, and that’s good because I miss Pa a lot. But Kia will be more like a friend or a favorite relative. I already have a mother.”
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