“Vicodin.”
B&E with a narcotics charge? Levi was screwed. The cynical side of me thought maybe he’d finally done something serious enough to get him to straighten up. “Why did you bring him here?”
Jake sighed.
Guess I’d blown my chance for Aunt of the Year.
“Normally we’d send him off to the Juvenile Corrections Center in Rapid City, but Mr. Pawlowski isn’t pressing charges.”
My mouth dropped open. “Then why did he even call you?”
Sheriff Dawson crossed his arms over his chest and braced his feet wide. “Said he wanted us to ‘be aware of the problem’ but claims no harm was done since he got back his meds and his Lord Calvert.”
“That’s it?”
“No. He rambled about how he’d known the boy’s grandfather for more’n fifty years and remembered how tough it was when he’d lost his own pappy back in ’31.”
It amazed me how the old-timers talked like 1931 was last week, not last century.
Dawson added, “Mr. P. also swore your dad would’ve wanted this sort of thing handled by family.”
Levi glared at me from behind his fall of greasy brown hair. “Yeah? Well, she ain’t my mom.”
“Son, I got no problem taking you back to jail if you’d rather. Count yourself lucky I brought you here since nobody answered the door at your mom’s place.”
Super. In addition to dealing with my delinquent nephew, I had to worry about my delinquent sister.
“Can you keep an eye on him?” the sheriff asked.
Jake stepped up. “No problem, Sheriff. I’ve got lots of bales to unload.”
“Appreciate that.” Sheriff Dawson spun Levi around and unlocked the cuffs.
Levi rubbed his wrists, aiming his sullen face at the ground and trudging behind Jake toward the barn.
“You okay?” Dawson murmured.
My cap didn’t quite shield the sun from my eyes but I glanced up at Dawson anyway. Like my dad, Dawson was a big guy—six feet three inches, built like a Vikings linebacker. He even looked Nordic, with short-cropped blond hair and a broad forehead, razor-sharp cheekbones and a square chin. If the deep laugh and frown lines on his tanned face were any indication, he had a couple of years on me, which put him in his early forties.
I didn’t know much about him since he wasn’t a local, a transplant from “back east.” Most people think that phrase means the East Coast, but in South Dakota, “back east” means any mid-western location east of the Missouri River—in Dawson’s case, Minnesota.
“Just so we’re clear, Sheriff, Mr. Pawlowski had it wrong. My dad would’ve tossed Levi’s dumb butt in jail, family or not.”
“I figured as much. Didn’t seem productive to argue. Besides, I’m still feeling my way around being sheriff. Wyatt Gunderson left some mighty big shoes to fill.”
Sadness descended on me again. “Yeah, I’m sure he did.” I sucked at offering platitudes, so I didn’t bother.
I awaited a response that was a long time coming. Dawson tried to stare me down behind those dark glasses. An exercise in futility for him, because I always won. Always.
Finally he said, “Can I ask you something personal, Miz Gunderson?”
“Sure, if you call me Mercy. ‘Miz Gunderson’ makes me feel like an old maid.”
“Only a fool could set eyes on you and see an old maid.”
Whoo-boy. I’d be lying if I said his flattery rolled off me like water off a duck’s back. I wasn’t an ugly duckling, but I’d never been rodeo-queen material either. Mostly I’d gone out of my way to blend in. Still, it’d been years since I’d fallen for that “aw-shucks, I’m-just-a-good-old-boy” routine.
“Ask away, Sheriff.”
“Seems odd, with a spread this size, that Wyatt didn’t stick to ranching.”
If Dad had handpicked Dawson as his successor, why didn’t Dawson know the story? I hated rehashing personal family history. I leaned my backside against the dirty patrol car.
He followed suit.
“After my mom died, his heart wasn’t in ranching. Wasn’t in anything, really. He didn’t take care of himself. His diabetes got worse. Then he couldn’t do half the chores after they took his leg.”
“With Wyatt being handicapped, it surprised me he wasn’t behind a desk all the time at the sheriff’s office.”
“It was hard enough for him to be in a wheelchair. Strictly desk duty would’ve killed him.”
The diabetes eventually did. The image of my strong father lying weak in a hospital bed made me shudder, not that I’d seen his indignity firsthand.
“So, strapping on a gun and helping the community gave him a purpose?” Dawson asked.
“Yeah. But he couldn’t bear to sell his birthright outright, so he turned over day-to-day ranch operations to Jake. Jake’s cousins, Luke and TJ, work as hired hands.”
“Sounds like Red Leaf has been in charge a long time.”
I nodded.
“He must’ve been pretty young to take on such a big responsibility.”
“He was. But he knows what he’s doing. Makes sense when you consider members of the Red Leaf family have worked for us, in some capacity, for over a hundred years. It’s what Jake and Dad both wanted.”
“What about what you and your sister wanted?”
I shrugged. “She was young and I was uninterested.”
The thud of the wooden barn door echoed like a sonic boom. Jake, TJ, and Luke shouted to one another.
“You still ambivalent about running this ranch?”
I shrugged again.
“Are you gonna sell it?”
“Why?” My gaze snapped to his. “You interested in buying?”
“On my salary? You kidding?”
I wasn’t gullible enough to believe his rapid-fire denial.
He said, “I’m just as curious as the rest of the folks around here to know if you’ve lined up potential buyers.”
I scowled. “Don’t these people have anything better to do than gossip about me?”
“Nope. Long as we’re talking about it, lots of folks are plenty interested on what you’d been up to in the army.”
“It’s not that interesting, actually.”
“I hear ya. I was in the marines during Desert Storm.” He paused. “You’ve been in Iraq?”
I nodded.
“Wyatt didn’t talk much about your military duties.”
Because he couldn’t. How I’d earned my keep in service to Uncle Sam was on a need-to-know basis, so Dawson’s interest won him an abrupt subject change. “Why aren’t the locals talking about the Yellow Boy case?”
“They are.”
“Discovered any new info?”
“No.” His demeanor changed from amiable to brusque. “I don’t expect anyone will come forward with any either.”
“Why not?”
Dawson faced me. “Truth is, no one’s surprised that Indian kid ended up dead. He’d run away a half-dozen times before he was reported missing. Spent more time in trouble than he had at home recently.”
I remembered Albert’s parents, Estelle Apple and Paul Yellow Boy, from high school. Evidently neither of them had fallen into that brutal cycle of alcoholism and abuse that affects so many Indians living on the rez, and Albert’s disappearance and death sent shockwaves through the family. Since Levi and Albert were pals, and Levi was a pallbearer, Sophie had dragged me to the funeral. I’d gotten the impression Albert hadn’t been a troubled teen for very long. Then again, eulogies extolled virtues, not faults.
“So his death wasn’t from foul play?” I asked.
“‘Foul play.’ You sound like Wyatt. You really are a chip off the old block aren’t you?”
“That surprises you?”
“No.” He sighed. “I don’t know if it was an accident or something else.”
“That mean you’re done investigating?”
“Not a lot I can do at this point when no one will talk to me.”
He sounded a little whiny. Didn’t he know it’d take years for him to build up the trust my father had been granted?
Then again, maybe Dawson didn’t want that trust. Appeared he’d already written off the death as an accident. Wouldn’t be hard to believe he was another redneck who believed the only good Indian was a dead Indian.
I’d known more than my fair share of people sporting that attitude. I was temped to shoot them and eliminate their racism from further tainting the gene pool. Most days I refrained.
Most, but not all.
The screen door squeaked. My housekeeper/surrogate mother/babysitter/cook/chief meddler and Jake’s beloved grandmother, Sophie Red Leaf, limped down the porch steps. She shielded her eyes with a frayed kitchen towel. “Sheriff? Everything all right, hey?”
“Everything’s fine, Miz Red Leaf.”
“Not exactly fine,” I corrected. “Levi’s in trouble. The sheriff brought him here since Hope wasn’t home.”
“Where’s Levi now?”
“He and Jake are unloading hay bales.”
Sophie’s hard black stare nearly pinned my ears to my head. “Alone?”
Guilt kicked me in the ass; I could’ve been helping. But ranch duties were Jake’s job, not mine. I was JR to his Dusty. “No, TJ and Luke are here. Besides, the sheriff and I were discussing some other things.”
“Out here in this heat? Lord, Mercy, where are your manners?” She flapped the towel at me. “Sheriff, why doan you come on inside where it’s cool? I jus’ made a pitcher of iced tea. Think I can round up some of them gingersnaps you like so much, eh?”
Sophie knew Dawson’s cookie preferences?
“Hate to say no to those tasty sweets, Miz Red Leaf, but I have to get back to the station.”
“Lucky for you I’m bringin’ a fresh batch to the community center tomorrow night. But I’ll only share if a handsome young man such as yourself promises to save a dance for a gimped-up old
wigopa
like me.”
My head whipped to Sophie. Did she just bat her eyelashes? God help me, was my seventy-nine-year-old housekeeper… flirting with him?
“Gimped up? You? Hah. You’ll be dancin’ circles around me, for sure.” Dawson angled his head at me. “You goin’?”
Before I could scream
no way
Sophie clucked her tongue.
“Course Mercy will be there. Mebbe you’d better save her a dance, too, eh?”
“Be my pleasure.” The sheriff pushed away from the patrol car, brushing the dirt off his butt as he rounded the front end. He paused before climbing in. “When Hope turns up, tell her to call me at the sheriff’s department as soon as possible. Remind her she doesn’t want me to come lookin’ for her again.”
Again?
Puzzled, I watched dust devils engulf his car. When I turned around to ask Sophie what he’d meant, I found myself staring at her gingham apron strings as the screen door slammed behind her.
Hard to believe we were full-blooded sisters; we were exact opposites in so many ways. She was small and round—softly feminine with an ample chest, hips, and ass—whereas I was tall, long limbed and leanly muscled. Not a soft thing about me, inside or out. Hope’s fairer skin, blue eyes, and curly light brown hair were courtesy of our father and his Germanic forbearers.
My straight hair was the color of mahogany, as my mother’s had been. My skin wasn’t the reddish gold of our grandmother’s tribe, but as a quarter Minneconjou Sioux, my pigmentation held enough of the darker undertones that allowed me to easily pass as an ethnic woman in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Bosnia, and the other war-torn countries I’d been lurking in for the better part of two decades.
Hope and I did share the sharp Aryan facial features of Dad’s European ancestors. I had mom’s eye color: an odd shade of hazel that changed from green to brown with my mood.
What was Hope’s mood today?
Dressed in a floral-patterned gauzy tunic and frayed 501 cutoffs, she looked like a teenage hippie. A hippie who’d either scored some premium grass, or who’d just gotten laid, if her rosy cheeks and glassy eyes were any indication.
Either scenario made me shudder. But I’d inherited Hope and all her problems along with the ranch.
She plopped in Dad’s Barcalounger and lifted the damp ringlets from the back of her neck. Then she snatched the remote from the TV tray and flicked on the TV like she lived here.
An ad for Depends blared. Apparently Sophie had caught up on her soaps over lunch. Hope left the volume at 200 decibels and scrolled through channels.
“We need to talk about Levi,” I said loudly.
“In a sec.” She flipped to
Oprah
and popped out the footrest.
I snagged the remote and vanquished the Queen of Daytime TV.
“Hey! I was watching that.”
“Tough. Did you hear me say we needed to talk?”
“Can’t it wait until my show’s over?”
“No.”
Flower-child appearance aside, the petulant act wasn’t becoming on a thirty-three-year old woman. I inhaled a deep
uji
breath. Dealing with my sister required patience, and mine was in short supply today.
Hope had suffered more emotional trauma before age five than most people did their whole lives; consequently, when we were kids, I’d always let her have her way. Our father had fallen into the same trap. As an adult I refused to get sucked in.
“Where’d you go today? Sophie said she saw you at seven and you were sleeping.”
“Out.”
“Out where?”
“Just out, okay?”
I sipped my tea, the picture of nonchalance. “Out where?”
“I don’t report to you.”
“You do when your kid’s been in trouble and no one knew where you were, including the sheriff.”
“What happened?” She scrambled out of the chair. “Is Levi okay?”
“He’s fine.”
Hope sagged next to me on the loveseat. “Where is he?”
“Unloading hay with Jake.” During my brief rundown of Levi’s transgressions, her anxious expression changed to defeat.
She reached for my hand. Hers was so soft and frail. In comparison, mine felt hard and tough as an old baseball glove.
“I’m sorry. You got enough to worry about without adding Levi to the mix.” Tears spilled down her cheeks, leaving black mascara tracks on her ashen face.
I softened my tone and passed her a Kleenex. “The last month has been rough. On all of us.”
She delicately blotted the corners of her eyes. “Know where I was today?”
“Where?”
“At the cemetery.”
“Doing what?”
“Talking to Daddy.”
“Really?” To keep a conversation going with her, I had to respond to every question. Luckily one word answers were sufficient.
“Yeah. I go there sometimes. Do you?”
“No.”
“I feel like I have to go, because I don’t want to forget him like I did her.”
Her
. My pulse quickened. “It’s not the same, Hope. You were only three when she died.”
The window air conditioner kicked on and packed the void with cold white noise.
“What do you remember?” she asked softly.
My breath froze in my lungs.
“I mean, what do you remember about her? Mama.”
An unwanted image of my mother appeared—sprawled face-first in the horse stall, blood matting her hair, pink splotches soaking through her white eyelet blouse. Tan leather riding glove clutched in her right hand; the pulpy red mass that’d been her left forearm stretched out in the filthy hay. The rank smell of nervous horse sweat. Horseshit. My own urine-soaked jeans. The horse’s continual, loud, moist grunts of distress.
Mostly I remembered my helplessness, peeking through the slats at her motionless body.
Three decades later, the scene still haunts me. I’d neglected to take the saddle off the Thoroughbred we’d been boarding before I’d corralled her. The saddle had slipped beneath the horse’s belly, and the temperamental mare spooked. When my mother entered the stall to correct my oversight, the horse’s powerful hind legs connected with her head. Several times.
“Sometimes when I’m out there I try to talk to her,” Hope continued, oblivious to my guilt and grief, “but I can’t remember the sound of her voice.”
I’d never forget my mother’s high-pitched shrieks of pain. Her last words, garbled from a broken jaw. How she screamed at me to stay out. Screaming at me to run and get my father.
In her confused state, she’d forgotten Dad and Hope were in town, spooning down ice-cream sundaes so she and I could go riding alone. My mother had understood my obsession with horses. She’d shared it. Encouraged it.
That day cured my equine fascination. I haven’t been on a horse since.
Hope giggled, a tinny sound that startled me back to the present. “I’m sure folks who were driving by the Gunderson Cemetery thought, ‘There’s that crazy Hope Arpel, talking to herself in the family graveyard again.’”
“No one thinks you’re crazy,” I lied.
Before I braced myself for the million reassurances Hope always needed, the kitchen screen door banged.
Levi stormed in and slumped in the doorway, sweaty, covered in muck and fine pieces of hay, disaffected scowl distorting his face. “About time, Ma. Can we go home before Jake finds another shitty job for me to do?”
“Watch your mouth.”
“Why should I? Aunt Mercy swears all the time.” His brown eyes challenged me. “She even swore at me today. In front of the sheriff.”
Traitor. Next time we were alone I’d do worse than swear at him.
“Don’t blame her because you were caught breaking the law. I would’ve cussed you out too if I’d seen the sheriff hauling you from a cop car in handcuffs. You’re just lucky your grandpa ain’t around to see how you’ve been behaving.”
“Ma—”
“Don’t you ‘Ma’ me. You aren’t stupid. Why would you break into Mr. Pawlowski’s house? He’s such a sweet old man. Never been anything but nice to us.”
“Like you care.”
“That’s not fair. I care and you know it.”
“No, you don’t. You told Aunt Mercy where you’ve been?”
I lifted a brow.
Hope’s cheeks flushed, but she didn’t acknowledge his taunt. “That’s why you stole? To make me worry about you? To punish me for not being at your beck and call?”
His scraggly hair curtained his face as he dropped his chin to his chest.
“Why’d you steal, Levi? For the money?”
“Jeez, Ma, I didn’t do it for the money.”
“Then why? I’m serious, Levi. You better come clean about every sneaky thing you’ve been doing lately.”
My focus shifted to Hope. Raking Levi over the coals? Almost a responsible parental reaction from her for a change.
Levi kicked the doorjamb.
“Stop acting like a two-year-old and answer me.”
“I did it for an initiation thing, for a… club.”
“A club? Or a gang?” She leaped to her feet and got right in his pimply face. “Don’t even think about it. Those gangs on the rez are bad news. You know that.”
“It ain’t a gang.”
“Then what is it?”
“I told you. A club.”
What type of “club,” besides a gang, made potential pledges commit illegal acts?
None.
“Besides, it don’t matter now,” Levi added. “I got caught. They ain’t gonna let me in. Can we go? Shoonga’s been cooped up all day. Probably ripping the place apart.”
Shoonga was Levi’s corgi, a gift from Dad on Levi’s seventh birthday. While Levi had debated on what to name his new pet, Sophie and Jake had taken to calling the unruly pup the Lakota word for dog, which stuck.
That was the only year I’d been home for Levi’s birthday. Now, as I watched my nephew and the surly teenager he’d become, I wondered what’d happened to the boy with the ready grin and sweet disposition.
I half listened while Hope harangued Levi for another minute, which seemed to last an hour. When Levi began kicking the oak molding again, I said, “Enough. Take him home. Make sure you call the sheriff.”
Levi shot me a grateful look. It shocked me. Maybe getting arrested had been a good thing for him. For us all.
Hope twirled her keys and brushed past me. “We’re leaving. Right now.”
No good-bye. No thanks. No surprise.