Legacy of Evil

by Sharon Buchbinder

  Chapter Twenty

  One month later

  The code team had brought Bronco back, but now questions about his care filled her conversations with the St. Vic’s financial management office. Right or wrong, he had no living family, and she was for all intents and purposes, his wife. Every day was an argument.

  “No, he did not have any advanced directives. He’s a young healthy man, why would he file those?”

  “No, I don’t have written power of attorney or health care proxy. Why are we discussing this? This is a clinical decision, not a financial one.”

  “He has excellent healthcare coverage. What do you mean ‘they’re’ talking about denying his coverage? He’s in a long-term care unit, not the ICU. I want to speak to your supervisor. Now.”

  At the end of each day, after caring for her home, horses, dogs, and Bronco, her ritual was to join Tallulah and Lucius at the hotel for dinner on her way back to the reservation and get her baby fix. This evening, while Franny and Gaucho frolicked in the high grasses, Emma sat on the wrap around porch and rocked the sleeping infant in her arms. Miriam’s personality was like Franny’s, sweet and infectiously happy. The child breast fed with gusto, slept through the night, napped four hours a day, and gave her parents nothing but joy.

  “I don’t know what the holdup is. It’s half-past five. Normally, Lucius is back from his three o’clock physical therapy appointment by now.” Tallulah placed a tray with a bottle of wine and three poured glasses on a wooden table next to the rocker. “Ho hum, another day in paradise. I never get tired of this sunset.”

  Emma snuggled with the baby and watched the clouds pile into a quilt of blue, purple, red, and orange overhead. “It is a gift, like your darling girl.” A little fussing came from the bundle in her arms. “Oh, she heard her Mama. She wants you now.”

  Tallulah cooed and placed the infant at her breast. Miriam began to nurse noisily. “This girl loves to eat. Just like her mother.”

  Emma toyed with the wine glass swishing the contents without drinking. “So, I have an important matter to discuss with you.”

  “What’s that?” Tallulah’s gaze snagged Emma’s. “About Bronco?”

  Emma shrugged. “Yes and no.” She took a deep breath, set the glass down, and sighed.

  Tallulah gazed at Emma, concern etched on her face. “You can tell me anything, Lucius and I are here for you.”

  “My friend—such a quaint term—did not come calling this month.” Emma held her hand up. “Before you say it’s stress or ask me why didn’t you use protection, let me tell you, minus the gory details, we used spermicidal condoms.” She reached into the back pocket of her jeans. “This is the last of those bad boys. Apparently, Bronco had them in his wallet a long, long time. The expiration date on them is from two years ago.”

  Tallulah sucked in her breath. “Ohmigod.”

  “Yes, the love of my life did not update his inventory. And now, thanks to the miracle of at home tests, which are ninety-nine point nine percent accurate, it appears I’m expecting.” She gazed at Miriam. “Not that I’m complaining. My biological clock has been ticking and—”

  The rocker on the other side of Tallulah began to move of its own accord.

  “The absentee ghost has made her long awaited return.” Emma pointed at the chair. “Perhaps you’d like to translate?”

  Just as Tallulah shifted the baby to the other breast, a white van pulled into the circular driveway. “There he is now. Perfect timing.”

  The passenger side door opened, and Lucius climbed down with the assistance of a cane. “Thanks for the ride, Marjorie.” He closed the door and waved as she sped out of the driveway kicking up dust. Hanging onto the railing and pushing with his cane, he took the stairs one at a time. “That woman can talk the ear off of an elephant. Sorry I’m so late. The therapist had a family emergency. I had to wait an hour to be seen.” He kissed Tallulah, grabbed a glass, and headed straight for the rocker next to his wife.

  Both women shouted, “Don’t sit in that rocker!”

  He stopped. “Is Beautiful back?”

  Emma nodded, and Tallulah said, “Yup.”

  “What’s the special occasion? We ain’t seen hide nor hair of her in a month.”

  “Pull up another chair,” Tallulah said. “You’ll want to hear this sitting down.”

  Eying the women and the manic chair, he complied. “Shoot.”

  Emma took a deep breath. “I’m pregnant.”

  The rocker shook so hard it whacked the side of the hotel.

  “I see her,” Tallulah said. “She’s not angry. She’s thrilled, excited, and worried.”

  “This should be good,” Lucius said. “What on earth can she be worried about?”

  Tallulah squinted and nodded. “The baby’s father—she says she’s been searching for him for weeks. I guess that’s why I haven’t seen her around here for a while. Beautiful says, he’s not here—with her—and he’s not there—with Emma.”

  “That’s one way to describe it,” Emma said with a trace of sarcasm. “Neither here nor there.”

  Lucius’ head snapped up from his wine glass. “Neither here nor there—dammit, ladies. He’s where I was. He’s in limbo.”

  “If she says I need to tell him I love him, please know I’ve been sitting at his bedside for the last thirty days saying that and asking him to marry me. The last thing he told me through Gaucho was that he didn’t deserve to live because he killed his brother and he wanted to die. That’s the day they called a code on him.” A tear slid down her cheek. Hormones. Already.

  Tallulah stared at the wildly moving chair and held her free hand up. “Stop. I need to concentrate.” She nodded. “Lucius has been in limbo, you love this man and now are expecting his child. Together you can bring him back.”

  Emma stared at Lucius. “You’re the key. I can’t cross into that space, but you can—with Beautiful’s medicine stick.”

  Shaking his head, Lucius said, “I’m kinda beat. Any chance we can do this tomorrow?”

  The rocker flipped over and crashed into the railing.

  “I’m guessing that’s a no,” he said. “Okay, okay. Let me grab the Medicine stick and a sandwich for the ride to Billings. Let’s see what we can do.”

  She whistled for Gaucho. He needed to be there when they did this.

  A short ride later, they stood in the hallway outside the hospital room with the bobcat in his service jacket on a leash. They pushed the door open and stopped. Gaucho stood stock still, bristled and hissed. His black-clad back to the door, a man stood at Bronco’s bedside. The monitors chirped and beeped erratically indicating a declining heart rate. Thinking it was a physician or technician, Emma cleared her throat. He didn’t respond. “Excuse me, is he okay?”

  The man turned. Emma gasped and staggered back into Lucius. It was Jack, Bronco’s twin. “They told us you were dead—”

  The Obergruppenführer's features dissolved into a grinning skull, like the insignia on the lapels of his uniform, and then he disappeared in a flash of black, oily smoke.

  Shaking like an aspen, she grasped Lucius arm. “This is why Bronco isn’t coming back. His brother is haunting him, here at the hospital, feeding his guilt and despair. He felt responsible for leaving his brother behind, but he was just a kid, a baby, really. His mother had no choice.”

  He patted her hand and thumped his cane. “Never fear, Lucius Stewart is here.”

  Pulling the folding chair closer to the bed, he sat down, extracted the buckskin package from his pocket and opened it with care. “I suggest we place Gaucho in bed with him. You hold his hand and tell him your news. He needs to know you need him here, now, in this world not drowning himself in a river of remorse.”

  The cat required no prompting. He leaped onto the bed, positioned himself alongside his partner, and placed his head on Bronco’s chest. Emma grasped his hand, glanced at Lucius, and nodded. At her signal, Lucius gripped the Medicine stick and disappeared.

 
; “Bronco, we’re not giving up on you. I just saw your brother’s spirit here, he’s the reason you haven’t come back to me. He’s enraged, an evil being without a body, who wants you to suffer. Well, screw him. You and I have a bigger reason than ourselves for you to return to the land of the living. We’re going to be parents, Brandon Winchester, and our little boy or little girl or maybe it’s twins—they do run in your family after all—our child, our children need two parents, you and me. Come back to me Bronco, come back to the promise of something bigger than us. Please come back to your future.”

  His index finger, which had been resting in her palm lifted, then wriggled, the first time she’d seen any movement in a month’s vigil. She kept talking, her voice growing louder.

  “Lucius, Tallulah, Stephanie—we all love you and miss having you with us. Let go. Release the guilt that’s been holding you back. Forgive yourself. You were a kid in an unbearable situation. You had no control over your father. There was no way you could have prevented your brother from becoming a monster. Let it go, please, for the sake of your unborn child, let it go.”

  The last words she spoke were practically a shout and as they flew from her mouth, Lucius shimmered back into the chair, dripping sweat. “I saw him. Talked to him, tried to explain. He’s stuck, really stuck. It’s as if he’s padlocked himself to a massive boulder and threw away the key. I’m not sure I can do this alone.” His eyes pleading, he said, “Come with me.”

  Her heart beating like a caged bird, fear mixed with hope. “He wriggled his fingers. First time in a month.” Emma licked her dry lips and closed her eyes to give herself a moment to think.

  Would going with Lucius cause harm to her unborn child? And, if the evil spirit of Jack could torture Bronco like this, what would he do with to his brother’s child? No matter how many arrows she painted in the infant’s room, she couldn’t be sure they would ward off an evil spirit with this magnitude of malevolence. She couldn’t stay awake twenty-four seven and she couldn’t post guards on the crib. She needed Bronco at her side to help protect their baby.

  At length, she opened her eyes and nodded. “I risked life and limb for him. What’s a little thing like limbo?”

  She reached over grabbed Lucius’s arm. The world shifted sideways, blurred, and grayed. Through the ashen mists, she picked out shapes and shadows, some moving, some sedentary. From a distance a woman keened, the sound winding its way through the murk, her mournful voice rising and falling to the thudding of Emma’s heart. Fear gripped her—until she saw Bronco. He stood next to a swirling vortex of colorless leaves—or were they? He turned his head and smiled. “I see you brought reinforcements, Lucius.”

  Emma wanted to run to him, pull him close, and kiss his face, but feared he would vanish into the mist if she did. “I’m the big guns.”

  His sad eyes gazed at her with longing. “I don’t deserve you. You’re too good for me.”

  “Have you not heard a single thing I’ve said to you over the last month? I love you. I want you to come home. And by the way, you’re a father.”

  “You weren’t just saying that to get me to return?”

  “Have you ever known me to lie to you?”

  He shook his head. “No, never. I—I just don’t know.”

  “I know. I have faith enough in you for the two of us. You will be a wonderful father. You are a good man. You saved a city. You saved me from being a childless, unloved old maid.” She paused. “Unless you don’t love me?”

  His eyes widened. “Love you? I worship you. You’re the biggest, baddest Amazon goddess I have ever met.”

  “This badass woman needs her badass man to raise what will probably be a brood of badass children.” She extended her hand. “Come home with me, please. I love you. I miss you. I need you at my side, my partner in life and love forever.”

  He reached out, took her hand, and she gasped.

  When she opened her eyes, Bronco was awake and gazing at her in a way she’d never seen before. He licked his dry lips, and his voice emerged in an amazed croak. “Did you say you’re pregnant?”

  Lucius whooped, Gaucho head butted his partner, and Emma said through her tears, “Yes, I did. You can thank those old condoms in your wallet.”

  He waved her over, and she leaned in to give him a kiss. “No, I can thank you. I never thought I’d find a woman I’d want to spend the rest of my life with—much less make me a father.”

  “Enough to have a real Crow wedding feast with all the cousins, aunts, uncles, and every relative in the tribe?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ll move in with me?”

  “I capitulate to all your demands. In return, I have just one condition.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’d like an Elvis impersonator to officiate. I loved those photos.”

  “You can have Elvis, Buddy Holly, and the Big Bopper.” She laughed. “As long as we do it at the Hotel LaBelle and Beautiful can be there.”

  “Well, she is family, isn’t she?”

  She kissed the tip of his nose and bumped his forehead. “Together forever.”

  And behind them Lucius whispered, “And beyond.”

  Epilogue

  Two Months Later, Hotel LaBelle, Montana

  Hand at the base of her back, Emma stood at the open window of the honeymoon suite, rubbed her baby bump, and smiled. The sun glinted off the Yellowstone River in the distance, and a small herd of mule deer waded in for a drink. Half the Crow Nation had arrived, filling the parking pad and surrounding grassy areas with pick-up trucks, four wheel drives, vans, and motorcycles. The dance floor, hammered into shape by Lucius and Bronco, had withstood the weight of a beetle-shaped car to ensure it would last through the night. Stephanie waved her hands, and directed the band to its place on the grass next to the dance floor. Emma doubted she’d be doing the Electric Slide anytime soon, but she would enjoy watching everyone else put on their best dance moves.

  Servers circulated with trays of champagne flutes, while Lucius inspected the bars—one at each corner of the party—to ensure everything was in place. Franny trailed close behind Tallulah as she directed a small army of interns from the Montana State University hospitality program, all dressed in white shirts and black slacks. Armed with a pitcher and a napkin folded over her arm, she instructed the team on the proper form for pouring water at the white clothed tables. Emma was so engrossed in the scene below, she jumped at the rap on the door.

  “Bronco, you’re not supposed to see me,” she called.

  “It’s just me, come to give you some brotherly advice,” Bert answered.

  Emma opened the door, leaned down, and hugged the man who would be giving her away. Handsome in his white suit and beaded vest, he wore the halo war bonnet of eagle feathers well.

  She ran a hand over the feathers. “Nice hat, bro’.”

  “I wasn’t planning to dress this way.” He adjusted the red, white, and blue beaded band on his forehead. “But the Tribal Council insisted.”

  “Because you earned the right to wear it.” She shook her head. “Everyone respects you, knows you represent the best of us. You’re a role model, young people look up to you. That includes keeping our culture alive.”

  “Enough about me.” He indicated her clothing with a wave of his hand. “What about you and your outfit? Make-up, turquoise jewelry, braided hair, beautiful beaded headband, white elktooth dress—”

  “Which will require the jaws of life for me to get out of it,” she grumbled.

  “Moccasins worth thousands of dollars—”

  “Stephanie gave them to me. My feet wouldn’t fit into my boots. Too swollen.”

  “What do you expect? You’re carrying twins!” He grinned. “I think you should name them Curtain Boy and Spring Boy.”

  She snorted. “Not a chance.”

  “How about Thrown-Behind-the-Curtain and Thrown-in-Spring?”

  “No, a thousand times, no. Those are legendary twins with great powers. The bab
ies are going to be perfectly normal.”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”

  “How about you shut up and listen to the music?” She pointed out the window. “Everyone’s in their places. Time for us to go.”

  “That’s just telling the guests to be seated.” He grabbed her hand. “I know I don’t say this very often”—he shrugged—“okay, never. I love you Sis. You are one helluva of a Warrior Woman and you are going to be a terrific mother.”

  Tears blurred her vision. “Don’t. Stephanie spent an hour on this damn make-up.”

  “Bronco is a very lucky guy. I want you both to be as happy as I was when I was with Susan.”

  Emma’s heart stuttered. Susan Foxtail was a rehab nurse who took care of him and helped him get back on track when he lost his legs to the IED. Killed by a drunk driver, Susan’s name rarely left his lips after her funeral.

  “Without her love and support, I wouldn’t be the person I am now. She came into my life when I most needed her. She was a gift from the Great Creator. Someday, if I’m lucky, I’ll find a woman like her.” He squeezed hard. “You are blessed with a man who adores you. Bronco is your soul mate, a warrior who matches your spirit. Never forget how fleeting life can be. Each moment is precious.”

  “Look what you’ve done.” Tears splashed on her dress. “Now I’m in big trouble.”

  He handed her an embroidered handkerchief. “Tallulah said you should have this. It was her grandmother’s.” The music grew louder. “Now that’s our cue.”

  Emma nodded, took a deep breath, and lifted her simple posy of Montana wild flowers, purple blue lupines, and yellow Echinacea flowers. “Let’s do this.”

  A short time later they arrived at start of the path to her beloved. The guests stood and a palette of vivid colors met her eyes at every step. From tiny infant to the oldest of the elders, everyone had come in their best apparel. It looked like a miniature version of the Crow Fair—minus the Indian relay races. She nodded at Marjorie Longjaw and Jimmy Two-Toes, who gave her a grin and a wave. There was Otterlegs holding hands with Wanda, a petite red-headed deputy who gazed at Tommy like he was a god. Her best friend from high school, Jessica, was in from Pryor with her husband Noah Littlebear.