by Kelly Irvin
Andy returned Christine’s small salute and faced the bug-spattered windshield. The white-knuckled ride from Lewistown to St. Ignatius had lasted for days it seemed, despite driver Chuck Larson’s attempts to reassure Andy that he was a safe, defensive driver. “Never had an accident yet, not even a parking ticket.”
Neither had John. Until the day he died. The 140-mile drive from St. Ignatius to Eureka would take two and a half hours. Despite the cool autumn air that wafted through the open window, sweat trickled down Andy’s temples. His throat tightened. The bitter taste of bile burned the back of his tongue. The pit of his stomach heaved. The roar of the engine filled his ears.
Glass shattered. Brakes shrieked. The acrid smell of the air bags filled his nostrils.
He closed his eyes and opened them. He gritted his teeth against the vomit that rose in his throat.
“You know, it might work better if you sat in the back seat.” Chuck’s concerned expression bounced from Andy to Jasper. “You don’t mind, do you, son? This man’s got a case of PTSD, sure as shootin’. I don’t want him hurling in my van.”
Jasper’s frown said he did mind, but the driver ruled on these trips. Everyone knew that. He had no choice but to switch with Andy, but not before he offered him a hard warning stare. Still in his early twenties, Fergie’s son had his father’s brownish-red hair, receding hairline, and dark-rimmed glasses. He even had the start of a paunch. And the same severe frown. To look at him must remind Lucy of what Fergie looked like in the early years of their marriage.
“I know my place,” Andy murmured the words as he passed Jasper. “Don’t you worry.”
He gulped fresh air and forced himself into the seat next to Christine. Donut stuck his head between the seats from the cargo compartment and barked. “Hush. You can’t come up here.”
Donut huffed and pulled back. Christine’s hand crept across the vinyl seat and grasped Andy’s. “How are you?”
Her sweet concern warmed him. He drew his first easy breath since the predawn darkness. The nausea abated. “Better.” Acutely aware of Chuck and Jasper in the front seat, Andy kept his voice soft, barely above a whisper. Maybe the road noise would rob the two men of the ability to eavesdrop. “Wondering how you are and what you’ve been doing.”
Her cheeks turned pink. She squeezed his hand and let go. “I’ve been learning.”
Her penchant for reading books about historical figures and faraway places had made buggy rides interesting. She regaled him with little-known—or necessary—facts about those people and places. The way her mind worked intrigued him. Trying not to note the rising speed of the van and the whiz of oncoming traffic at the intersection that would take them to Highway 93, Andy focused on the soft, instrumental music that floated from the speakers over their heads. “Learning is always gut, as long as you’re sure what you’re learning is fact, not fiction. I thought you liked working at the store. You said you did. I was surprised when I got your letter. What changed?”
Would she tell him about the man with the strange last name? They had nothing if they couldn’t be honest with each other.
“I did. I still want to work there, but Onkel Fergie didn’t approve of how I was learning. A friend took me to The People’s Center in Pablo. Onkel said it was wrong for me to go.”
“It was wrong,” Jasper piped up. Obviously the road noise wasn’t enough. “You went in a car with a stranger, an Englischer, without telling Mudder or Daed. You sneaked around, which means you knew it was wrong.”
“He’s not English. He’s a Native Indian.” Her tone remained respectful, but something sparked in her deep-blue eyes. Raymond Old Fox was important to her. Andy’s chest tightened. He grabbed the door handle and held on. Christine scooted around in her seat so she faced him. As if to make it clear her words were for him and not Jasper. “Did you know the store and the school and Onkel Fergie’s farm are all on the Flathead Indian Reservation?”
Andy wracked his brain, trying to remember what he knew of Montana history. Very little. His early years were spent in Berne, Indiana. After his family moved to the countryside a couple of miles from Lewistown, he only had a few years of school left. He learned some US history and a little of Montana, like the Lewis and Clark expedition, the gold rush, and such. Not much of it stuck. A sawmill worker and furniture maker had little need for US history. “I don’t think I did. Why is that important to you?”
“Our ancestors came to the United States to escape persecution. So did many of the first settlers from England. Later on they spread out and claimed land that belonged to the original people who lived here. The Native Indians.” Her words were slow and deliberate. “It seems important to me to know that our people bought land from folks who had no right to own it in the first place. I try to put myself in their shoes . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Andy shifted in his seat and forced his gaze from her face. Christine glowed. Fergie was right to be concerned about this Raymond Old Fox. Not for any physical attributes or attractions. The man had done something far more dangerous than capturing her heart. He had her mind in the palm of his hand.
“I’m not a scholar.” He stopped and scrubbed at his face with both hands. These words had to be chosen with care or she would be driven closer to something far from her Plain beliefs and values. And to this man.
Pain beat in his chest where his heart should be. “We do need to respect the history and culture of others, while clinging to our own. It’s important not to lose sight of why we came to the new world.”
“It was new to us, but old—very old—to the aboriginal tribes who peopled this land since before the Ice Age.”
How did a simple man such as himself answer such a learned statement?
“You’ve been talking to one of the Kootenai or Salish people who live on the rez.” Chuck chimed in just in time. “Those of us who get along with them—which is most of us in Mission Valley—feel for them and the way they were treated. But that don’t make us the bad guys. We weren’t around when they were driven onto the rez or when their land was sold off after the Allotment Act. We benefited from it, granted, but we had no ill intent. The main thing we try to do now is take good care of the land we have and get along with everyone around us.”
That sounded like a good plan. A way of being good neighbors in an awkward situation. But it didn’t address the more personal question that pestered Andy like a pesky bee buzzing around his ears. He leaned toward Christine, but she turned her head away from him. She seemed entranced by the passing scenery.
“What else did you learn from Raymond?” He lowered his voice to a soft whisper. “Anything that . . . involves us?”
Nothing. It seemed she wouldn’t answer him.
Fine. He leaned his head against the headrest and tried not to look out the window. He closed his eyes and focused on the wordless music piped in over his head. Breathe. In and out. In and out. Gott, help me understand what is going on in her head. Why does she care about ancient history that isn’t even our history?
“You moved to West Kootenai when you were grown.” Her voice, barely audible over the music and the van’s rumbling engine, sounded strained. “You spread your wings. Is it so strange that a woman might want to do that too?”
Plain women didn’t have wings. They longed to marry and have children and grow old with their husbands. He eased his head so he could see her without lifting it. “You said you wanted to grow old in West Kootenai.”
“West Kootenai was the only place I knew. I liked my life because everything was clean and neat and orderly. Cleaning houses was perfect for me.” She tugged at her seat belt as if the restraint bothered her. “Then the fire made a mess of it. It doesn’t matter how many times you clean a house, it gets dirty again. Raymond says life is messy. It’s meant to be that way. I worked a new job. I met new people—”
“Like this Raymond.”
“Like Raymond. But it’s not just him.” She shook her head and frowned. “I wish I could explai
n it. I walked a trail high on the mountain with a deep river below me. If the rocks and stones crumbled below my feet, I would fall into the river and drown. That’s how my life feels right now. There’s nothing orderly about it.”
“I would catch you.”
Her frown grew. “You say that now, but you kept secrets from me.” She pressed her hands together in her lap. Her voice dropped to a mere whisper. “It hurts me to know that. How can I trust that you don’t have other secrets?”
“I don’t. I promise I don’t.” Her words cut Andy like a hook on the end of a fishing line that flailed in a strong wind. He couldn’t be sure where the next cut would appear. Nor could he capture the line. “How do I know you’re not traipsing around the countryside with this man for reasons other than the ones you speak aloud?”
“It’s not what you think. I’m not the one who can’t be trusted. My life suddenly changed. I realized I’ve lived my whole life in the most beautiful place in the world and I never appreciated it. I could lose it all to fire or to my parents moving to Kansas. I didn’t do justice to the time I had in Kootenai.” Her gaze went to the window, but her expression said she saw something far, far away. “I didn’t recognize the connection we have to nature. We take that for granted. The Natives don’t. They see themselves as part of nature. Their spirituality—what we would call faith—is intertwined with animals and trees and plants and birds. It made me see all those things differently. We’re knitted together with nature, but we don’t acknowledge it or give nature her due.”
She drew a long breath. Her cheeks had turned pink. Her face shone as if she’d received a precious gift. She trod precariously close to sacrilege. All this natural beauty came from God the Father. She was blinded by light that came from Raymond and his so-called spirituality. Words had to be chosen carefully or they would drive her farther into this stranger’s world. “The fire made all of us stop and think.” He should not take her words personally. Something bigger was at stake. “It’s important to do that, but we must never lose sight of the hand of Gott in all this. He is sovereign. He is the Creator. But I’ll not rush you to draw these conclusions. I have my own crumbling trail to walk.”
“Winona.” Bitterness soaked the name.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about her.” Andy raised his head a fraction. Jasper’s head drooped, his chin touching his chest. The man slept. Chuck peered at the highway. “It’s in the past. It didn’t seem necessary to drag it into our present.”
“You loved another before me. That influences how you treat me. It influences what you believe about women and about what I may or may not do.”
She was too smart for her own good. Maybe too smart for a simple man like himself. Maybe this man Raymond interested her because of his learnedness. Maybe he had book learning. Maybe that’s why cleaning house didn’t appeal to Christine as much anymore. “I’m sorry I disappointed you. I only wanted to leave it behind.”
“But you couldn’t. Which is why you returned home. Not because of your daed’s health.”
“It was both.” His protest sounded weak in his ears. “Even now nothing is resolved.”
“So you can imagine yourself living there, close to your bruder and Winona?” Christine stared at him. “Because your father insists? Even though you’d made up your mind to make Kootenai your home?”
With me. The rest of the sentence wrote itself on the space between them.
“I’m still considering what to do. My father is ill. I want to honor his wishes.”
Sorrow replaced her frown. “That’s understandable. I just wish . . .”
“I know.”
“So you have your trail to forge and I have mine.”
“Do you think our trails will cross in the future?”
“Daed would say Gott has a plan.” She ducked her head and shrugged. “I hope so.”
Despite the sentiment of her words, her tone suggested she leaned toward a future where their trails ran parallel, never touching.
Andy would do more than hope she was wrong. He would pray.
Not only for their future, but for her salvation, which now seemed in peril.
22
St. Ignatius, Montana
Stalkers end up in jail. Raymond slumped against the seat in his Volvo and pounded a rhythm on the wheel to the rap song on the radio. What was he doing here? When Christine hadn’t shown up at their meeting place the previous day, he’d chalked it up to a change in her aunt or uncle’s schedules at the store. Not to their conversation at the falls. His unbelief in her God bothered her, no doubt, but she hadn’t let it deter her from the conversation. She didn’t dump on his people’s beliefs.
So where was she now? Both Lucy and Fergie were at the store today. No sign of Christine at the school or at Fergie’s house. Life would be so much simpler if she had a cell phone.
Raymond snorted. He might be a technophile, but he also recognized the beauty of being disconnected from the world. The immense quiet and the relief when the constant chatter and the resulting cognitive dissonance disappeared came each time he went to the primitive area with his brothers and great-uncles and the elders. The sweats brought a freshness, a freeness he could not experience in front of a computer screen, a TV screen, or a phone screen. Plain folks had the right idea, even if it inconvenienced him.
As much as a relationship with such a woman remained beyond the realm of possibility, Christine still managed to burrow under his skin with her burning desire to know. To understand. A rare quality in people her age—or his age. She had a grip on his mind, if not his heart. A white woman in an apron and prayer covering.
A prayer covering, for crying out loud.
Was it the white man’s blood in his veins that surged like a tidal wave when she drew near?
A desire to explore his white man’s heritage?
No.
He had no white man’s heritage. The white man abandoned him. His Native mother didn’t leave of her own accord, but she also abandoned him.
A sharp rap on the window broke the silence. He jumped and glared into the brilliant sun that made it hard to see his attacker. He squinted and put his hand to his forehead.
Lucy glared back at him.
He rolled down the window. Which meant shoving it down the last two or three inches. “Hey, Lucy, how are you?”
“Gut.” She held out a chunk of cheese wrapped in plastic wrap. Horseradish cheddar. “Take this.”
“What’s this?”
“Take it. Cheese for your great-grandma.”
He accepted her offering.
Silence for two, three, four beats. He sucked it up and entered the fray. “You know that’s not why I’m sitting out here.”
“I was hoping you were taking a phone call. You’d finish up, get out of your car, do your shopping, and then go about your business.” Gazing at the Mission Mountains in the distance, Lucy pushed her glasses up her nose with one finger. She looked down on him. “When you didn’t come in, I figured I’d come out. She’s not in there.”
“I know.”
“She’s gone to Eureka.”
His chest tightened. He cleared his throat. “For good?”
“As far as you’re concerned, that would be for the best, but no, she’ll be back in a few days.”
His lungs inflated again. “Okay. I should get to my gramma’s. How much do I owe you for the cheese?”
“It’s on the house this time.” Glancing at her store, Lucy crossed her arms. Her ample chest heaved. “The gift of the cheese comes with the right to give you some free advice. I’ve seen enough of you over the past two years to know you’re a decent young man. You take care of your great-grandma. You’re kind and polite and plainspoken. I know my husband asked you to leave Christine alone. There’s a reason for that. You’re young and you can’t see the trials that lie ahead. Us older folks have been there and done that. You need to find someone more suited—”
“You mean someone like me. An Indian.”
He’d have to give her that one. “I’ve only ever dated Native girls my whole life.”
“Those two decades or so you’ve been around?” Lucy chuckled, but she sounded more perturbed than amused. “You can’t date my niece. Not because you’re an Indian but because she’s Amish. We don’t marry outside our faith. Her eternal salvation is at stake or I wouldn’t be out here talking to you. Amish women don’t do this.” She pointed at herself, then at him. “I have no idea what you believe in, but I do know what we believe. Did she tell you she’ll have to leave her family and friends if she marries outside her faith? She’ll never be able to see them again.”
“Whoa, whoa, hold your horses.” Heat scorched his face despite the fall breeze that floated through his car. “Who said anything about marriage? We visited a museum. We hiked at Kootenai Falls—”
“You took her all the way to Kootenai Falls?” Lucy’s hands went to her red cheeks. “You say you’re not interested in marrying her, but you’re spending hours alone with her. Where I come from that’s serious courting.”
“I’m sorry. I know you don’t understand my ways any more than I understand yours. I mean no harm.”
“Then stay away.”
Still mumbling under her breath, her arms flailing, Lucy whirled and marched back to the store.
The entire twenty-minute drive back to Arlee, Raymond chewed himself out. That conversation couldn’t have gone worse. Antagonizing Lucy Cotter only made life more difficult for Christine. What had he been thinking? Not thinking with his brain, that was the problem. This situation resulted from thinking with his heart instead of his brain.