Native Affairs

by Doreen Owens Malek

  She managed to find all but one of the players she needed to see. Roy O’Grady told her that the missing man had been taken to a specialist for an examination for a possible torn ligament, but would be back by the end of the practice. Frustrated, Jennifer realized that she would have to hang around until the man returned. Well, she certainly wasn’t going to sit in the stands like some gawking groupie and watch Lee Youngson perform. She decided to take a drive and return when the time was right to see the last player and finish the job.

  This idea was abandoned when she couldn’t get her car to start All she heard when she turned the ignition key was an ominous grinding noise.

  Sighing, she walked back to the field and asked where there was a phone that she might use. She was directed inside the administration building of the college, where there was a pay phone in the lobby.

  Jennifer had no idea which garage to call, since the one she usually used was twenty miles away, and she was not familiar with any in Westminster. There was a telephone book attached to the booth by a chain, and she picked a name out of the yellow pages, dialing with one hand and searching for her VISA card with the other. She had exactly fifteen dollars in cash and the strong feeling that it wouldn’t be enough to cover a fraction of what this would cost her.

  It took her three tries before she could get a garage to send a mechanic out to her location, and then she waited thirty minutes for him to arrive.

  The person who finally showed up looked as though he should be incarcerated in a home for wayward boys. A pimply teenager in filthy overalls with a two days’ growth of scraggly beard, he took a bigger interest in Jennifer than in the state of her malfunctioning car. He stared at her legs while she tried to explain what had happened, and then stuck his head under the hood and poked a few things with a selection of greasy tools he had brought with him. Jennifer stood anxiously nearby, wondering how long this was going to take.

  He straightened and turned to face her. “Lady, this car has got to be towed. We can send somebody out for it later, and I can give you a ride back to the station in the truck.”

  That suggestion had little to recommend it The truck wasn’t in much better shape than its driver, and an excursion in the country with this lecherous adolescent wasn’t exactly what Jennifer had in mind. She was hesitating, trying to decide what to do, when she heard voices behind her.

  The practice had broken up, and the players were heading out to their cars. She saw Lee, walking in a group of three, talking to a husky guy at his side who was gesturing in the air, obviously delivering a punch line. Lee laughed, and turned his head, catching sight of Jennifer. He stopped, and she saw him say something to his companions, who then followed his progress towards Jennifer with their eyes.

  Lee took in the scene at a glance. “Hi, Jen,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  Jennifer was ashamed of how glad she was to see him. She had thought she was long past the point where she had to depend on a man to solve her problems, but Lee as an alternative to Greasy George was a no-choice situation. Lee would help her.

  “My car broke down, and the garage sent this man to take a look at it.”

  Lee took his wallet out of his pocket and handed the boy a folded bill before Jennifer could protest “Thanks for coming out,” he said. “I’ll take care of this now.”

  The boy shrugged and shambled off toward his truck. Lee turned his attention to Jennifer.

  “How’ve you been, paleface?” he asked, slamming the hood of her car. “Aside from this encounter with Tony’s Garage, that is.”

  “I wonder if that was Tony,” Jennifer said. “He doesn’t look old enough to drive.”

  “Or clean enough,” Lee added, and Jennifer smiled.

  “That’s better,” Lee said. “Now let’s see what we can do about this car.”

  He was pulling his own keys from his pocket when a black Corvette cruised past with two of Lee’s teammates in the front seat.

  “Look out, Chief,” one of them yelled.

  The other whistled shrilly and gave Lee the high sign, cackling madly. Then the driver honked the horn and the car sped away on screeching tires.

  Lee shook his head, and Jennifer could have sworn there was a faint tinge of red sweeping up his neck under that dusky skin. “Those guys,” he said. “I keep hoping they’ll grow up, but they keep disappointing me.”

  “Why do they call you ‘Chief’?”

  He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Because I’m Norwegian, Jennifer.”

  Jennifer swallowed and tried again. It had come out wrong, the way everything always seemed to when she tried to talk to him.

  “I meant, why do you let them call you that? I would have thought you wouldn’t like it.”

  He glanced at her curiously. “Why wouldn’t I like it? They’re my friends. I’m not some hypersensitive loony with a chip on my shoulder, Jennifer. It only bothers me when I think somebody is trying to put me down because I’m an Indian.”

  “The way you thought I was when we first met,” Jennifer said, before she considered it Then she bit her lip. She hadn’t wanted to remind him of that.

  But he only smiled slightly. “That’s right.” He lounged back against the door of her car and folded his arms. “But now you can call me Chingachgook or Running Water for all I care.”

  Jennifer laughed, and he leaned forward to tilt her chin up with a long, brown forefinger. “Just as long as you call me.”

  She sobered and stared into his searching, depthless eyes. The shouting and horseplay of the departing players faded into the background, and it was as if they were alone in the parking lot She wanted to kiss him, had to restrain herself from doing so then and there, with all of his teammates milling around them. And he knew it His eyes became heavy lidded, slumberous, and his lips parted, as if in anticipation of a caress.

  “Hey, Chief, you posin’ for a statue?”

  The voice rang out behind them, and they sprang apart guiltily, as if caught in some misdeed. The Freedom’s quarterback sauntered up to them, grinning widely.

  “Jennifer, I’d like you to meet Joe Thornridge, my bodyguard,” Lee said sarcastically. “He substitutes for my mother when she isn’t available to keep an eye on me. Joe, Jennifer Gardiner.”

  Joe stuck his hand out to Jennifer, whose small one was lost in his huge, meaty palm. “How do, ma’am?” Joe said in a thick Southern accent. “I’ve seen you at the offices. Pretty hard to miss, I’d say. And I met your secretary, Dolores.”

  I’ll bet you did, Jennifer thought with amusement.

  “You better watch out for the Chief, here, little lady,” Joe said warningly. “He’s got all those fancy moves, ya know? If you need anybody to take over for him, somebody a little safer, say a Southern gentleman, you just let me know.”

  Jennifer smiled. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “I think your wife is calling you, Joe,” Lee said.

  Joe sent Lee a wounded look.

  “Scram, kid,” Lee said.

  Joe slung his duffel bag over his shoulder and ambled off, caroling, “Remember what I said,” back to Jennifer.

  “I’ll remember,” she answered.

  “I’d forget, if I were you,” Lee said darkly. “He’s got two kids already and a pregnant wife.”

  Jennifer glanced at him, amazed. He was only half kidding. Could he possibly be jealous? Joe had only indulged in some good-natured teasing. There was no reason for Lee’s testy reaction.

  They were alone in the lot now; the last of the men had left when Joe did.

  “Well, I guess we’d better see about this car,” Lee announced and turned to walk around it. His legs suddenly buckled under him and Jennifer had to rush to catch him, to keep him from falling to the ground.

  Despite his slim appearance, he was quite heavy, and she staggered under his weight. He clutched at her, and she eased him against the rear fender of her car.

  “That’s one of my fancier moves,” he grunted. “Trick knee,
it gives out on me at the damndest times.”

  He was speaking directly into her ear, draped over her for support As she stepped back, he held her, pulling her into his arms.

  This was their first real physical contact, and it completely unraveled Jennifer. His body was lean, hard, and totally male. He ran his hands down her arms and across her back, molding her to him. She resisted the strong impulse to cling and refused to allow herself to melt into him. When he saw that she was not going to cooperate, he released her, and she moved away from him, flustered.

  “Are you all right now?” she asked faintly.

  “I was better a minute ago,” he answered, referring to their impromptu embrace.

  Jennifer wouldn’t discuss it. As far as she was concerned, it had been a mistake.

  “What causes that to happen?” she asked, moving to lock the doors of her car.

  He had no choice but to follow. “I’ve had three operations on that knee in five years,” he replied. “At this point, it’s held together with chewing gum. I just have to move the wrong way, and it collapses.”

  “Does it give way during games?” she asked.

  “Sure does,” he answered. “Especially since the other team knows it’s a weak point and aims straight at it That’s why there are always a lot of clipping fouls against me.”

  “Clipping?”

  He demonstrated. “When someone is going to tackle you, he comes in like this,” he said, lowering his head and aiming for her legs. “But if he catches you in the back of the knees, it’s a violation, called clipping.” He made a chopping motion, as she had seen referees do during games. “With me, they’re always trying to nail that bad knee, and yet keep it legal at the same time, which is very hard to do.”

  Jennifer absorbed this in silence. My God, he was going into each game just waiting for a bunch of gorillas to launch themselves at him, like a human target on a firing range. Up to this point, she hadn’t thought of football players as especially courageous, but it took guts to do what he did every week of the season.

  He read her expression. “Don’t worry, paleface.

  You’re looking at one tough Injun. My people survived massacres, disease, westward expansion, and the reservation system. The NFL isn’t going to do me in.”

  Jennifer rolled up the last window and slammed the door. “What do you suggest doing about this?” she asked, jerking her thumb at the car.

  “I’ll give you a ride, and I’ll call my garage in Yardley to come and get it.”

  “Will they come so far?”

  He smiled grimly. “For me they will. I just spent a small fortune there on my wheels. They’d better not say no.”

  He opened the passenger door of his car for Jennifer and leaned in past her to shift some papers off the seat. His nearness set her pulse racing again. She waited until he got in beside her and said, to cover her nervousness, “What type of Indian are you?”

  He arched an eyebrow at her, starting the car. “Type?”

  Why did she always say the wrong thing? “Tribe, clan, I guess I don’t know the right word.”

  “Blackfoot,” he said. “It’s part of the Algonquian nation.”

  Ah, yes. She remembered that the sportswriters sometimes referred to him as the “Blackfoot Bullet.” Also the “Cawassa Comet.” They were very fond of tag lines.

  “What does Cawassa mean?” she asked.

  “It’s the town in Montana where I was born, on the reservation, about three miles northwest of Browning.”

  “What language is that?”

  “Pikuni. It’s a dialect of Ojibwa, spoken by the Blackfeet in that region, in the Northwest, and in Canada in the area of Lake Superior.”

  “Ojibwa?”

  He grinned. “Are you writing a book?”

  Jennifer flushed, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I’m asking too many questions.”

  He put the sports car in gear and drove out of the lot “Don’t be silly. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. I just couldn’t resist teasing you a little. You get so rattled, like a fourth-grade genius who missed the last word in the spelling bee.”

  Jennifer giggled. He was right.

  “Now, in answer to your last question, Ojibwa is the mother language of the Algonquian tribes; it’s more often called Ottawa or Chippewa.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard those terms.”

  “It’s rather like Castilian Spanish, with Pikuni the equivalent of an Andalusian variant They’re about as similar as modern Polish and Czech. I grew up speaking Pikuni, but I can follow a conversation in Ojibwa.”

  “I see.”

  “And ‘Ojibwa’ itself means ‘to roast until puckered up,’ which is a reference to the puckered seams on Blackfoot moccasins.”

  “No kidding? What an odd way to get a name.”

  He cast her a sidelong glance. “I hope you’re paying attention, because there’s going to be a test.”

  Jennifer laughed, thinking that she had already had one test that day, when he had held her in his arms. She had passed it. This time.

  He asked whether she would like to go home, or back to the office, and regretfully she told him to take her to the office. She still had to try to get in touch with the last player who hadn’t signed his papers.

  Lee asked her why she had come to practice that day, and she explained the situation.

  “Give that stuff to me,” he said. “I’ll see that Roger signs it and returns it to your office on Monday.”

  “Would you do that? It would be a big help. Otherwise I’ll be trying to track him down for the rest of the weekend.”

  “No problem. Still want to go back to the office?”

  “I’m afraid so. That wasn’t the only thing I have left to do.”

  He nodded and took the turnoff for Philadelphia.

  They were back to the Freedom’s offices too soon. Jennifer could remember every word of their conversation in vivid detail—she felt as if it had been burned into her brain. It wasn’t particularly stimulating or witty, but she had shared it with Lee, and for that reason it was important to her.

  Lee pulled to a stop outside the building. “Here you are,” he said. “Back the same day.”

  “I can’t thank you enough for your help. And I owe you the money you gave that boy from Tony’s Garage.”

  “Forget it. It was my pleasure. I’ll have the mechanic at my garage get in touch with you about the repairs.”

  “Fine. And thanks again.”

  He tossed his fingers in a tiny salute and drove off. Jennifer went into the lobby in a daze, filled with thoughts of Lee.

  * * * *

  The Sunday of the benefit game for the Heart Fund was clear and cooler than it had been, a precursor of fall. Jennifer arrived just as it was beginning, wearing Marilyn’s jogging suit and an apprehensive smile. She didn’t expect this to be her finest hour.

  Dolores was waiting for her on the sidelines. “The first team is already in,” she said. “They’re going to start in a moment.”

  “Good. I hope they never get around to me.”

  “They will,” Dolores said cheerfully. “Tom said everybody will see some action, if only for a few minutes.”

  “Great” Tom was an accountant in payroll, and he was managing the roster.

  Jennifer shielded her eyes as she watched the action on the field. Lee and Joe Thornridge and a few others were out there, along with the cream of the Freedom’s amateur athletes. The crowd was large and vocal, screaming every time anybody made a move.

  She and Dolores watched the game for a while, sipping soft drinks and surveying the onlookers wandering around Westminster’s campus.

  It wasn’t long before Tom was waving at Jennifer, signaling her to join the players on the field.

  “Every year I tell him I don’t know how to play this game,” she muttered.

  “And every year he ignores you,” Dolores responded. “I know, I know. Go on, it can’t be any worse than last time.”

  The �
��last time” Jennifer had crashed into the team bench while trying to catch the ball and gave Esther Lopinsky, one of the secretaries, a black eye.

  Jennifer ran onto the field and watched nervously as Leo Smithers, the quarterback of the staff team, signaled her to come and talk to him.

  “On the next play,” he said, “I’m going to pass the ball to you.”

  “Uh, I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Leo,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t know what to do with it once I get it, that’s why not.”

  He rubbed his eyes wearily with his thumb and forefinger. “Look, Jen, all you have to do is try to catch the ball, and then run as hard as you can in that direction,” he instructed, pointing toward the goalpost at the end of the field. “Everybody else knows what they have to do. So don’t worry about it, okay? Just grab it and try to cross the line at the end.”

  Leo called for a huddle, in which various team members said things Jennifer didn’t understand. But she kept Leo’s words in mind and stood where he placed her at the lineup.

  She saw Lee, dressed in faded jeans and a white knit skivvy, watching her across the line of scrimmage. That didn’t make her feel any better.

  Leo called out a series of numbers, and then faded back for the pass. Jennifer started to run, looking over her shoulder for the ball, hoping that Leo’s confidence in himself was justified and that he would be able to “hit her” no matter what she did.

  When it became obvious that he was throwing to her, players from the pro club materialized from nowhere, heading in her direction. Terrified, she looked up to see the ball hurtling through the air toward her.

  How did anybody ever catch these things? They were an impossible shape. She grabbed for it, got her fingers on the edge, and then it squirted out of her hands. She leaped after it and managed to catch it. At that moment Lee caught her about the knees and tumbled her gently to the ground.