A Father's Vow

by Myrna Temte

  Julia nodded, but still felt irrationally reluctant to allow him out of her sight, even if it was only to make a phone call. Maggie offered him the use of her office, then excused herself and Jackson to go back to their work. An oppressive silence immediately descended on the reception area like a thick, black cloud of smoke, hovering between Julia and Sam Brightwater.

  Promising herself she would bite off her own tongue before breaking that silence, Julia stuck her hands into her front jeans pockets and ambled over to the far wall to study the contents of a glass trophy case. Though there were neatly typed cards explaining what each trophy was for and who had won it, none of the information registered in her brain; she was too painfully aware of Sam’s brooding presence on the other side of the room to take in anything else. She could only hope he was every bit as uncomfortable as she was. If she ignored him long enough, surely he would get the message and go away. Right?

  Sam waited a few moments, struggling to control his temper. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was about Julia that still bothered him so much. Actually, it probably had more to do with the almost…pathetic eagerness Dan had shown at the idea of meeting her than with anything Julia herself had said or done. That didn’t mean Sam was willing to leave his mentor to her tender mercies, however, when he wasn’t even sure she had any. Following her across the room, Sam intentionally crowded her until she could no longer ignore his presence.

  “Touching performance,” he said softly. “Very touching.”

  She spun around to face him, her cheeks flushed, her eyes glinting with the light of battle. “Excuse me?”

  “That was a very touching reunion with your…father,” Sam said.

  “Do you have any reason to doubt that he is my father?”

  Sam shook his head. “Not really.”

  “Then what is your point, Mr. Brightwater?”

  “Dan’s a good man. I don’t want to see him get hurt.”

  She raised her chin, and if she’d been a porcupine, her quills would’ve been standing on end and quivering to beat hell. “I have no intention of hurting him or anyone else, but what I do is no business of yours.”

  “Anything that affects a member of this tribe is my business, Ms. Stedman.”

  “Is that supposed to be a threat?”

  He raised one shoulder in a negligent shrug. “Take it however you want. Just remember, I’m a real close neighbor, and I’ll be watching everything you do. And while you’re at it, remember we’re not the Northern Cheyenne sitting on those coal and natural gas deposits you probably read about. That’s on the res over at Lame Deer. Daddy won’t be getting any big royalty payments for you to inherit someday.”

  “Oh, I see,” Julia said. “You think I came here for money. I couldn’t simply want to meet my own father?”

  “He’s been here most of his life. Seems like even if you really did think he was dead, you could’ve come to pay your respects before this.”

  “That’s none of your concern, either.”

  He gave her another shrug and opened his mouth, but closed it again when Dan opened Maggie’s office door and strode out to join them. Julia sent Sam a look that could’ve blistered paint, then turned back to Dan.

  “We’re all set,” Dan said with a broad grin. He sandwiched Julia’s hands between his palms as if he just had to touch her again to assure himself she hadn’t disappeared during his absence. The gesture both pained and worried Sam. Dan was so vulnerable to this woman…

  “Your grandmother’s gonna throw a big party for the whole family tomorrow night,” Dan said. “She wanted me to bring you out to her place tonight, but I told her I was gonna be selfish and keep you all to myself.”

  Sam stepped forward and clapped his old friend on the back. “I’ve gotta get back to work, Dan. I’ll see you later.”

  “All right, Sam,” Dan said. “Thanks for comin’ out to tell me about Julia so fast and all. You’ll come to the party tomorrow night, won’t you?”

  “I’ll look forward to it,” Sam said, knowing it was a lie even as he said the words. “See you then.”

  “Yeah.” Dan waved him off, but didn’t even bother to look at him.

  Sam left the tribal center, climbed into his pickup and sat there for a moment, staring at the building without really seeing it. His mind wandered back over a decade, to a day that painfully reminded him of today. He’d barely turned twenty, his mother had died the previous winter, and he had just watched his little sister Amy drive off with her brand-new husband. Sam had seriously doubted that Amy’s man would be able to provide her with the necessities of life, much less any comforts or conveniences.

  One disaster after another had decimated the Brightwater clan over the years. His mother’s relatives were all Southern Cheyenne and therefore lived in Oklahoma. With Amy’s departure, Sam had felt as if he was doomed to spend the rest of his life with no family to call his own.

  And then Dan Talkhouse had roared up in an ancient truck, a six-pack of root beer under one arm and a carton of ice cream in a grocery sack tucked under the other. He’d invited himself inside, made them each a float and proceeded to tell Sam the tribal system prevented a person from losing his whole family, because the rest of the tribe would always be there for him.

  From that moment, Dan had adopted him, and they had formed a family of two within the larger Talkhouse clan. Sam liked to think he had filled a void in Dan’s life as much as Dan had filled a void in his own. But Dan’s real child finally had come home. What possible need would Dan have for Sam now?

  Sam cursed under his breath, telling himself such thoughts were childish, irrational and unwarranted. There was no reason for Sam to start feeling like an outsider again. It was only natural that Dan would want to focus his attention on Julia for a while, but with time, that would pass.

  When the newness of discovery had worn off, and Julia had gone back to wherever she’d come from, Sam’s relationship with Dan undoubtedly would return to normal. There was no logical reason to assume that nothing would ever be the same. So why did he feel as if he’d just lost his dad all over again?

  Three

  “Well now, Daughter,” Daniel said. “Where do you wanna go?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Julia said. “I just want to spend time with you.”

  Nodding gravely, Daniel gave her hands a loving pat. “We have a lot to learn about each other, eh?”

  “I’m sure we do.”

  “How long will you stay?”

  “A week,” Julia said. “Should I get a room in Whitehorn, or is there a motel out here?”

  “You don’t need no motel. You’ll stay with me.”

  “Oh, but I couldn’t impose—”

  “That’s right, you couldn’t impose, Nahtona,” Daniel said. “You are my daughter. My family. Come. You follow me home, and then I’ll take you for a ride and show you the rest of the res.”

  Julia allowed him to hustle her outside, got into her little car and started the engine. For an instant, while she waited for Daniel to climb into his big, dusty wrecker and get settled, she thought she could hear her mother’s strident voice, chiding her. Dammit, Julia, I taught you better than this. You were supposed to leave all that dumb Indian stuff alone. Don’t you know you’re going to ruin your whole life?

  Shaking her head, Julia reversed out of the parking slot and followed her father’s truck onto a narrow, graveled road. She had tried living her mother’s way, but there had always been something important missing from her life. She didn’t know if she would discover it here with her father, but she believed that she owed it to herself, and to Daniel, to find out.

  At first it took all of Julia’s driving skills to avoid the bigger potholes, stay out of the ditches and keep her father in sight. Dust billowed up from Daniel’s rear tires, sifting into her car and coating every surface, including her teeth. The driving gradually became easier, though, and as they continued on and on under a blazing sun and a bright blue sky, she beg
an to notice more of the scenery.

  While rugged and beautiful, the mountains in the background were nothing new to her. Colorado had its own gorgeous mountains to look at. It was the homesteads that amazed her here, and not because they were big or impressive. Just the opposite was true, in fact. Some places looked pleasant enough. But others…

  Well, she’d seen plenty of urban poverty in Denver. She’d seen rural poverty, too, out in eastern Colorado, as well as in pictures of certain areas of the Deep South and in Appalachia. But she’d never seen anything quite like the Laughing Horse Reservation.

  The sagging fences, the yards filled with rusting junk piles, the ramshackle houses and sheds with peeling paint and weeds growing through crumbling cement steps gave her an impression of a despair that went deeper than words. Why even a horse would ever laugh at this place was completely beyond her understanding.

  The funny thing was, she’d heard white customers complain about how much money the government spent on welfare for “those damn lazy Indians” since she’d been old enough to wait tables.

  She’d rarely paid much attention to such talk because she hadn’t identified enough with the Indian part of her heritage to take offense. But now… She couldn’t help shaking her head in appalled disbelief.

  Good Lord, her father lived here. Her grandmother lived here. And who knew how many other of her relatives lived here.

  Julia had never thought of herself as a wealthy person. Her mother had worked hard to keep them within the lower-middle class, and Julia had contributed whatever she could from the time she’d had her first baby-sitting job. Wealth, however, was obviously a relative thing; compared to some of these homes, Julia and her mother had lived very well indeed.

  Daniel turned off into a gap in the bushes on the right side of the road. Julia glanced around for landmarks that would help her find the place again, and noticed a large, well-kept blue house to her left. The name on the mailbox in crisp black letters was S. Brightwater. How interesting. He really was a close neighbor, and whatever he did for a living, he must earn plenty of money.

  She made the turn and followed the wrecker down a long, surprisingly rut-free lane. Daniel’s house was much smaller than Sam’s and not nearly as well maintained, but all of the visible windows were intact and the yellow paint job certainly looked better than the worst ones she’d passed. His yard had more weeds than grass, but at least his junk pile was over by the prefabricated metal building that must be his repair shop. She parked in front of the house and climbed out of the driver’s seat.

  His smile literally stretching from one ear to the other, he opened his arms wide, as if embracing her and the whole countryside, as well. “Welcome home, Julia.”

  Odd though it seemed, for the first time in longer than she could remember, she did feel at home here. Slowly, she turned this way and that, taking in the soaring peaks in the distance, the lower hills behind the house that still had just a touch of spring green in spots. She allowed her gaze to trace a line of low, bushy willows along the little creek that wound its way from behind the shop, around the east end of the house and on down beside the lane to the fence.

  And there, directly across that narrow road, sat Sam Brightwater’s house. The sight of it was enough to make her shiver with an apprehension she didn’t completely understand. Oh, drat the man. If she could have only this one week with her father, she was not about to let Sam Brightwater ruin it for her.

  During the next six days, however, Julia discovered that was much easier said than done. Daniel drove her all over the res, proudly introducing her to his family and friends, sharing his favorite boyhood spots with her and showing her the various community-service projects in which he invested his time and energy. At least once, sometimes twice or even three times a day, they encountered Sam Brightwater.

  Since no one else ever expressed any surprise at his presence, Julia assumed that Sam must share many of her father’s interests in improving conditions on the reservation. She admired that. She also admired the strong bond of affection and respect between her father and Sam.

  The two men frequently argued over all sorts of issues, but it was obvious that they both enjoyed each other too much to take any of their disagreements personally. Glad to know her father had such a good, loyal friend, Julia honestly wanted to like Sam Brightwater. She would have liked him a lot, if he ever, for so much as one second, got over his ridiculous suspicions about her reasons for coming to find out about her father.

  Surely by now he could see that she understood Daniel was not a rich man; she’d grasped that fact from her first glimpse of his shabby little house. But she was still here, wasn’t she? Despite his lack of material wealth, she didn’t consider Daniel to be a poor man, either. He had way too many friends for that.

  Besides, if being rich ever had been important to her, she would hardly have become a public-school teacher, now, would she? Unfortunately, Sam either couldn’t or didn’t want to get that basic idea through his thick skull. In fact, the man simply refused to understand a single thing about her.

  He didn’t do it openly, of course. She had to give him credit for recognizing Daniel’s love for her, just as she recognized Daniel’s love for Sam. Neither Sam or Julia wanted to upset Daniel, and their relationship was quite civilized…on the surface. The second Daniel turned his back, however, Sam never missed an opportunity to express his displeasure in her continued presence.

  For Julia, it felt like having a drugstore clerk insist on following her around, as if he feared she might try to shoplift a bottle of aspirin. His attitude infuriated her and hurt her feelings. In all modesty, Julia would have to say that most people liked her. So why didn’t Sam?

  Since she couldn’t find a satisfying answer to that question, she ignored him as best she could and concentrated on learning about her father. Daniel was a fascinating man who had both a wide variety of life experiences and a gift for storytelling that made him a delightful companion.

  Julia found her other “new” relatives to be equally delightful, and even after her grandmother’s party, she felt as if she’d barely scratched the surface in getting acquainted with them. By the end of her week’s vacation, she was so depressed at the prospect of leaving Laughing Horse, she could barely think about it without weeping. She had a nice apartment, friends and a good job in a suburb of Denver, but none of it held much appeal compared to the joy of finding her father and a huge family.

  Unfortunately, a teacher’s salary only stretched so far, and she couldn’t afford to take off any more time. Besides, while everyone but Sam Brightwater had welcomed her, no one had invited her to stay any longer; perhaps they were even getting tired of having her around by now. Her mother had always said that dead fish and company both start to stink in three days, and she’d already been here for twice that much time.

  When she couldn’t justify putting it off another second, she dragged her suitcase out from under her father’s bed and began to pack. Though his room was the only real bedroom in the house, he had insisted on giving it to her. He had slept on a battered sofa in the living room, and his raucous snores had rattled all of the windows. He undoubtedly would be glad to sleep in his own bed again when she was gone.

  Julia glanced around the small room, satisfying herself that she’d packed everything she wouldn’t need before morning, then sat on the bed beside her suitcase and stroked her palm over the hand-sewn quilt her great-grandmother had made for Daniel when he’d left home. The stitches were so tiny and precise, each one made with love, patience and hope for a young man’s future. Julia blinked at the stinging sensation in her eyes, looking up when she caught a whiff of her father’s cigarette.

  He stood in the doorway watching her, one hand raised in a now-familiar gesture that meant he was about to launch into a story. When he saw her suitcase, however, he frowned. “What the heck’s that thing doin’ there?”

  “I told you I could only stay a week,” Julia said. “I’ll have to leave early
tomorrow to get back in time to start my summer job.”

  The lines on her father’s brown, leathery face suddenly deepened, aging him at least ten years. Moving slowly, he stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray on the dresser, came over to the bed and sat beside her. “Aw, hell,” he grumbled, taking her hand between his callused palms. “I don’t want to let you go yet. I feel like we’re just gettin’ kinda… comfortable with each other, you know?”

  Smiling, Julia nodded, then rested the side of her head against Daniel’s shoulder. “I know. I’m not ready to go, either, but I need to pay off my college loans.”

  “You owe lots of money?”

  “Just one more summer’s worth, and I’ll be free.”

  “You should have applied for an Indian scholarship. The BIA has plenty of funds for—”

  “Mom wouldn’t allow it,” Julia said.

  Daniel cursed under his breath, then sighed and shook his head. “Well, why don’t you get a job around here? You can stay with me, and—”

  “Dad, I couldn’t go on taking your bed.” Or eating your food, she added silently, knowing he wouldn’t appreciate her concern for his finances. In spite of his reassurances, she knew darn well he couldn’t afford to spend so much on groceries. Sam had made it a point to tell her so.

  “Bah,” Daniel insisted. “That kinda talk’s for white people. A Cheyenne’s always got plenty of room for family.”

  He shot her a sideways glance, as if checking to see whether he needed to bring out bigger artillery. She’d already learned her father loved a good argument, and she had to smile again at the realization that he considered her important enough to warrant his best efforts. He caught her looking at him and flashed her an oh-so-innocent grin.

  “What kind of a summer job you got in Denver?” he asked.