A Man Without a Wife

by Beverly Bird

  Ellen flushed.

  “However, for his sake—and purely for his sake—I’m willing to consider a compromise. I’m willing to expose him to his own birth culture, help him learn a little bit about it.”

  Ellen felt herself nod dazedly.

  “I’ll want an agreement in writing. I’ll educate him—that seems to be what you want—but in return I want the Supreme Court and all you social workers to leave him the hell alone.”

  “You’re suggesting...some sort of visitation to the reservation in exchange for him being kept out of the study?” Barbara clarified uncertainly. “That’s highly unorthodox.”

  “Too damned bad,” Dallas said flatly. “Take it or leave it.”

  Ellen looked at Barbara. Say yes. Don’t make this worse than it has to be. “It could work,” she ventured.

  Her voice ran over Dallas’s skin again like a breath. He fought the urge to look at her, and kept his eyes on the director instead.

  “Well?” he demanded. “Is it a deal?”

  “I’d have to secure approval from Washington,” Barbara stalled.

  “Then do it.”

  “There’d have to be some sort of supervision of the visitations.”

  Dallas thought about it. “I’d allow that, provided Ricky doesn’t know it’s supervision. As far as he’s concerned, we’re just going to have some fun on weekends, learning a little bit about something he’s expressed an interest in.”

  “Has he?” Ellen asked. She heard her own eager demand and flinched.

  His gaze finally came around to her, probing, watchful. She fought the need to look away.

  “They were talking about the Long Walk in his history class,” he allowed finally. “He thought it was interesting enough to do some further reading. Is that concentration camp still standing?”

  “I...yes,” she managed. “To some extent. Bosque Redondo. It’s east of Vaughn, a state memorial, although they give a lot more focus to the fact that Billy the Kid’s grave is there.”

  He saw something like disgust cross her perfect face. Even more than her anger had, the emotion altered it radically. She had the kind of eyes that showed every minute thing she felt.

  “Fine,” he answered, dragging his gaze away from her. “We’ll visit it. What about that canyon? He said something about a canyon.”

  Ellen felt dizzy. This was happening entirely too fast. Of course, it had nothing to do with her—she would be out of it after today. “Canyon de Chelly?”

  His brows shot up. “That was where they all hid from Kit Carson? I didn’t know that.”

  “They don’t teach it in Anglo schools with any regularity.”

  Dallas only shrugged. “Okay. We’ll go there, too. He’d probably get a kick out of that.”

  Barbara was warming to the idea. “That covers a good deal of Navajo history, but we’d need to introduce some culture as well to gain approval. And then they’d probably want a conference afterward, to ascertain his feelings on all of it.”

  “As long as I do the talking. No shrinks.”

  Barbara nodded, then frowned. “Unfortunately, I have no idea how to introduce culture under your terms, Mr. Lazo.”

  Ellen bit hard on her bottom lip. Don’t say it. She knew beyond a doubt that she had to stay out of this now. She had caused far too much chaos already...but something ached in her womb, something pushed the words out of her mouth anyway. “Uncle Ernie,” she blurted.

  They both looked around at her. She ran her tongue nervously over her lip to ease the sting where she had bitten it.

  Dallas watched it, rapt.

  The air was too close in here, he thought suddenly. Didn’t they believe in air-conditioning? They had babies here, for God’s sake. How could they keep the place so hot?

  “What?” he asked hoarsely, deliberately dragging his mind back to what they were talking about.

  “I have...an uncle,” Ellen managed. “Well, not in Anglo terms. He’s clan related, our clan grandfather, sort of a patriarch, except the Navajo are a matrilineally focused society.” She was babbling. She knew it and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. Why was he looking at her like that?

  Think, she ordered herself harshly. Was Uncle Ernie a wise choice? He was so thoroughly eccentric. What would a man such as Dallas Lazo think of him? Did it matter? No one knew more about Navajo culture than Ernie did. He lived it, breathed it, dwelled in an intricate sacred world the rest of them could only imagine. He knew the Holy Ones on a first-name basis.

  “He’s a shaman,” she finished lamely.

  “Fine,” Dallas bit out. “Arrange his cooperation. You’ve got four weekends. What’s this? April second? Through the end of the month we’ll spend our weekends on the reservation doing whatever you two deem appropriate. Then we’ll have your little conference. Then I don’t ever want to hear the words Supreme Court or Our Lady of Guadalupe again. Got it? My lawyer will be in touch on Monday.” He started for the door.

  Ellen breathed again. “Fine,” she echoed, grabbing her purse, getting up to follow him. “I’ll talk to Uncle Ernie and call you on Monday, Barbara. I guess you won’t be needing me for anything other than that. And...I’m sorry.”

  That was when Dallas’s gaze came back to her as hard as a slap. He went still and looked over his shoulder at her.

  “Oh, no, lady,” he said quietly. “You started this and you’re damned well going to see it through. When you swat at a hive, only a coward runs from the bees.” His eyes slid over her, head to toe, assessing. His expression was unreadable. “Somehow you don’t strike me as a coward.”

  Her throat tightened at that. If only he knew. If she’d had any courage eight years ago, they wouldn’t be here now.

  “I don’t...I’m not a social worker,” she answered. “I have no place in this.”

  “I think you’ve made one for yourself, whether you have the right degree or not.”

  He was crazy. He knew he was crazy. He wasn’t even sure if he was trying to achieve retribution or if he just wanted to rattle her enough to make her do that thing with her tongue again. Either way, oh, yes, he was crazy.

  Every shred of common sense told him to let her walk away from this mess now. But it wasn’t right. It just wasn’t equitable that she should wreak havoc on innocent lives, then stroll blithely away. He wasn’t sure who she thought she was, but he wasn’t going to let it happen, if only because now she seemed to want to extricate herself from it and he was just perverse enough to make her worry a little bit, too.

  Or maybe it was simply her voice, he thought, that low, throaty voice. It made him feel totally at odds with the controlled, grumpy man he had somehow become. The bottom line was that ever since he’d opened that letter this morning, ever since he’d cornered her against that wall, he’d felt more alive somehow, more aware of the world outside his own inner pain, than he’d been in years.

  Barbara Bingham had closed the door after them when they’d come into the office. Now he pulled it open wide with exaggerated chivalry.

  “After you, Ms. Lonetree. I guess I’ll be seeing you next Saturday.”

  * * *

  Ricky fidgeted impatiently in the front seat of the Jaguar. He twisted around one more time to see if his dad was finally coming back around the corner.

  He’d said he’d be gone ten minutes. But now it was thirty-five. He’d said he just had to talk to a client about an emergency, and then they’d go see the atomic museum. But now it was so late that even if they stayed overnight in a motel with a swimming pool they still wouldn’t be able to see the museum because tomorrow was Sunday and it would probably be closed.

  He let out a disgruntled sigh and was just about to face forward again when somebody did come around the corner. Only it wasn’t his dad. It was a lady, and something was wrong with her.

  She must be hot, he thought. She wore a raincoat, even though the temperature on the bank building said eighty-nine. It was the long kind and it flapped around her knees bec
ause she hadn’t belted it closed. And she had her hands in her pockets and she was sort of crying.

  He turned around as she came abreast of the Jaguar, watching her curiously. She glanced his way as she passed him and he flashed a friendly smile at her, then he wished he hadn’t. She took a few more steps and stopped, turning around again to stare at him.

  What was wrong with her? Her hair was all messed up. It was sort of brown gray and it stuck out from her head as if she hadn’t brushed it in a real long time. To Ricky’s dismay, she came back and knocked on his window.

  He set his jaw and looked determinedly at the dashboard. She knocked again. He couldn’t open the window. His dad would kill him. He had left the car engine on for the air-conditioning and so the radio would play, and he had said stay in the car no matter what because he would be right back.

  Except the lady wasn’t asking him to get out, he thought, not exactly. It seemed as if she just wanted to talk to him. He finally looked at her, slanting his eyes carefully in her direction. Her mouth was moving, but between the rush of the air-conditioning and the beat of the rap music coming out of the radio, he couldn’t hear what she was saying.

  Ricky tried to think what John Detective would do about this.

  John was the hero of that real neat comic book series that Benny always brought to the library. John was a kid, just like they were, but he was smart. John Detective would definitely help the lady, he realized. Ricky found the button on the armrest and lowered the window a little.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I need help,” the lady said in a rush.

  His heart moved kind of funny. This was definitely like something that would happen to John Detective. Still, he was wary, and he looked back over his shoulder to see if his dad was coming yet.

  He wasn’t. “What kind of help?” he asked suspiciously. “I can’t get out of the car.”

  “You don’t have to. Some men are following me and I need to give you something, so they can’t take it away from me if they catch me.”

  His eyes widened. “Wow.”

  “They won’t know you have it,” she assured him.

  She took her hand out of her pocket and thrust it through the partially open window. Ricky reared back. “Hey!”

  But she just held a little canister, like the kind camera film came in. He took it from her, if only to get her arm out of the car.

  “What am I supposed to do with it?” he asked.

  “Just keep it, honey. Put it someplace safe, then give it to your mom or dad on May first.”

  “I don’t have a mom any more.”

  “Your dad, then. May first. Can you remember that?”

  He scowled at her. Did she think he was dumb? “Sure. But why?”

  “Because there’s some important pictures in there. Something to do with your reservation. You’re Navajo, aren’t you?”

  How come everyone was talking about him being an Indian all of a sudden? “Do you know my dad?” he accused.

  The woman looked taken aback. “I—no. No, of course not. I just have to get those pictures back to the reservation and they’re following me, so I can’t take them there myself. But you’re going there, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t think so,” Ricky answered uncertainly.

  “You’re not?”

  “No.”

  “But you are Navajo? You look Navajo.”

  “I got adopted.” He’d had to explain that more today than he had practically in his whole life, he thought. Then again, that was the way things happened to John Detective, too, right out of the blue.

  She looked as if she was going to take the canister back. Ricky tightened his fist around it.

  “Okay,” he decided. “I’ll do it.” It probably had something to do with spies, he decided. Or maybe a bunch of warriors sitting around in front of a fire someplace. He wondered if warriors still did that, like when Kit Carson had been chasing them.

  The lady hesitated, then seemed to make a decision. “May first,” she repeated. “That part’s very important.”

  “Just give it to my dad then?”

  “That’s right, and tell him to take it to any tribal-council chapter house.”

  “How come I have to wait?”

  “Because what’s in there will matter on May first. If you give it to him too soon, maybe no one will understand.”

  Ricky scowled. “My dad’s pretty smart.”

  “I’m sure he is, honey, but I’ve got to be sure.”

  He shrugged. “Okay.”

  Suddenly the woman was backing up again, looking up and down the street. Then she started running. Ricky twisted around again to look behind the car. Two men came hurrying around the corner. Ricky’s jaw dropped as he watched them race past after her.

  Geez, he hoped that lady was all right.

  He looked down at the canister again, wondering what John Detective would do now. His teachers and his dad were always telling him to follow instructions. The lady hadn’t said to look inside, but John Detective probably would just because he never got into anything without knowing where he stood.

  Ricky looked back up the street. No one else was coming, not even his dad. He pried the lid off the canister and peered inside, then he let out a disappointed breath.

  It was just film, after all.

  He sealed it again, opened the glove compartment and pushed the canister inside, down in back of all the papers and stuff. He looked up into the rearview mirror. His dad was finally coming.

  Should he tell him about the lady now? He didn’t think so. Those hadn’t been her instructions. And it wasn’t as if he wasn’t going to tell him ever. He’d do it on May first, so he wasn’t keeping secrets from him. That date seemed pretty important to the lady, so Ricky figured he should probably do it just the way she said. After all, it wasn’t like there were diamonds in there or anything.

  He decided John Detective would follow her directions. And then he didn’t think about it any more at all, because his dad pulled open the driver’s side door.

  “Hey, Sport, guess who I just met?” he asked as he slid in behind the wheel. Something in his voice sounded funny, Ricky thought. Then he didn’t even give him a chance to answer, and that wasn’t like his dad at all.

  “A Navajo lady,” he went on. “Maybe we’ll drive out to the reservation next weekend and visit her. Would you like that?”

  “I don’t care.” What he’d like, he thought, was to know why everybody was talking about the Navajo Indians all of a sudden.

  Chapter 4

  It took Dallas all of thirty seconds to determine that the woman who had shoved at his chest in the orphanage wasn’t the same one who came to the Navajo ceremonial the following weekend. Her temper was carefully and deliberately banked this time. There was a cool distance in her eyes, as palpable as a hand she might have held out to keep him at arm’s length.

  The rite was taking place in rocky, open desert. There was a deep arroyo to one side of the area and an endless line of trucks and cars were parked along the chasm. They were old and utilitarian—as old as his Jaguar was, it still stood out like a mink at a garage sale. Dallas parked at the end of the line, feeling vaguely uncomfortable.

  Ricky didn’t. He spotted some horses drinking from a narrow stream at the bottom of the arroyo and he barreled out of the car. He wanted to go down and touch them.

  “I don’t know, Sport,” Dallas cautioned, getting out to look at them as well. “Maybe we should find out who they belong to first.”

  “Ask this lady.”

  And this lady turned out to be none other than the meddlesome, lip-biting Ellen Lonetree.

  Dallas watched her rusty gold Toyota pull up next to his Jag and the strangest damned thing happened to his system. It was as though summer lightning flashed inside him, the kind that was there and gone but left a feeling of electricity to linger just beneath his skin. Impossibly, the image of her tongue flicking over her lip shot into his mind again.

&nbs
p; “Hello,” he said as she got out of the car, then he grimaced. His voice sounded overbearing and cold. Even Ricky looked at him a little curiously.

  Not that he blamed himself. This was still all her fault. But the sun was pale and not quite hot yet in this high country above Albuquerque. The air tasted like baked earth and the first springtime shoots of buffalo grass. There were, Dallas realized, far worse ways to spend a Saturday.

  She didn’t answer him, at least not right away. She tossed her hair back haughtily, then she started to turn away toward the gathering of people.

  “Over here,” she said finally. “Uncle Ernie will be in the crowd somewhere, and Barbara Bingham should arrive shortly.”

  He would have liked a moment to watch her walk away. No exposed skin this time, he realized, and was surprised to find that he was disappointed. She wore clothing from neck to toe, like some sort of protective shield. Still, she looked damned good. Black jeans, black long-sleeved turtleneck. A flash of silver showed at her ears, beneath her hair, and he saw a simple silver-and-turquoise chain around her neck as she turned away.

  Ricky stopped her before she could go very far. “Hey, do you think I could go down there to look at those horses?” he asked. “Would anybody mind?”

  Ellen Lonetree went very, very still. Something happened to her face—something Dallas recognized, yet couldn’t place. It was like terror and pain, hope and joy all at once. It startled him, and he could only follow her gaze mutely to Ricky.

  His son stood beside the arroyo rim, practically jumping up and down in his excitement. “Please. I won’t hurt them.”

  “I...uh...”

  There was that husky quality to her voice again, Dallas realized, even in those two short sounds. But it was strained as well. There was no time to think about it, because she recovered quickly.

  “Haven’t you ever seen a horse before?” she asked softly, as though the truth was just dawning on her.

  “On TV.”

  She looked almost accusingly at Dallas. “You live in Arizona and he’s never seen a real horse?”