Chapter Eight
The camp came awake with groans and even a few outright yowls of pain. Pogo and Rye fared better than the others, but only slightly. No one in this day and age spent full days in the saddle, not doing the kind of work they were doing yesterday. Muscles complained vociferously, and their owners gave them voice. Amid the grumbles, Kara got up, hissing and groaning like the others, but then she lifted her arms high over her head, filled her lungs with air and slowly bent forward until she could touch her toes. Carefully, she “walked” her hands forward, alternately flexing her knees to stretch the long muscles in her legs. The relief was immediate.
It was Champ who giggled and asked, “What’s she doing?”
“What I want to know is how she’s doing it?” Pogo groaned.
Kara turned her head first one way and then the other. “I’m stretching. And I’m doing it very slowly.”
“You’re a better man than me,” George quipped.
The crack didn’t sting as badly as it might have. After all, if a man like Rye was aware of her as a woman, she couldn’t be too manly. Nevertheless, the joke irritated. She went to one knee, then up to her feet. She put her hand to her waist and gave George a cool look. “Oh, I don’t think so. You can manage. So let’s see you do it.”
He chuckled. “No way.”
She caught him with a level look. “It wasn’t a request.”
He stared at her, anger and desperation growing on his face. The anger took precedent “I’m not—”
“Yes, you are,” Rye said offhandedly. “We all are.” Kara turned to find him standing in the middle of his bedroll. For an instant she considered telling him to mind his own business. She didn’t need his help to enforce her authority. But then she took a look at the incredulous, clearly resentful expression on Champ’s face as he stared at his father, and she decided that she’d made enough of a scene for one morning. “Show us again,” Rye said blandly, swinging his arms to work out the kinks there.
Nodding, Kara took up her position. “Dean, you stay put I don’t want you putting any weight on that ankle. We’ll work out your stiffness another way. The rest of you, listen up.” She demonstrated as she spoke. “Arms high. Lift that rib cage. Deep breath. Take it very, very slow. Forward at the waist, back straight. Bend your knees slightly. And walk out your hands—not too far. Now, right knee first And the left. Keep going.”
To her satisfaction, the groans and grumbles dwindled as the stiffness worked away. She talked them back up and gave a few instructions for stretching the muscles without getting down on the ground and rolling around. Cowboys hated that, she knew. By the time Dayna warned that breakfast was about to be served, everyone was moving much more easily. Spirits even seemed to have lifted somewhat, for all except one of them. Kara listened unapologetically when she overheard Champ complaining to his father as they washed up on the opposite side of the truck from her.
“What’d you do that for?”
“Do what?”
“All that dumb girl stuff? No one else would have if you didn’t make ’em.”
“It wasn’t dumb, Champ. We were all stiff and sore from the hard work we did yesterday, and Kara showed us how to make it better.”
“You didn’t do that stuff before,” Champ accused.
“Well, maybe I should have. A lot of the rodeo cowboys do it, bull and bronc riders, mostly.”
“But she’s acting like the boss! How come you let her act like a boss?”
“I don’t let her, son. She is the boss. All these cattle belong to her. We work for her.”
“Well, let’s work for somebody else! I don’t like her!”
“I can’t do that, Champ. I gave my word to Mr. Detmeyer before he died. I promised I’d help her get her cattle to New Mexico, and that’s what I’m going to do. You don’t want me to go back on my word, do you? What kind of man does that?”
“A man don’t,” Champ grumbled, “but women do! It ain’t fair! We can’t go back on our word, but she does hers!”
“You don’t know that.”
“But you said—”
“Champ, I think you may have taken some of the things I’ve said in the past a little too seriously. All women aren’t liars and cheats, son. Some of them are pretty much like us. I was hurt and angry when I said those things about your mother, and I regret doing it. It’s right to be careful, but it’s wrong to judge every woman by one woman. Besides, this is business with Kara. It’s different.”
“You like her!” Champ accused.
“You’re taking this too seriously.”
“You like her!” Champ bawled, hurt and fear sharpening his voice. “You like her, and I hate her! I hate her!”
The boy shoved past his father and ran away. Kara had edged around the front of the truck, eavesdropping unabashedly, and she stepped straight into Rye’s path as he made to go after the boy. “Let him go,” she said gently.
Rye’s face went white, then burned red. She couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed or angry. “I can handle my own son, thank you very much,” he rumbled.
“I just—He sounds confused,” she said. Rye wouldn’t look at her anymore. He made himself busy repacking toiletries in his kit. Kara swallowed, knowing she was making a mistake but unable to stop herself. “What did she do that made you hate her so much?” She didn’t add, “so much that you turned her son against her.” She didn’t have to.
He drew up tight, hands balled into fists, shoulders hunched, jaws working. Finally he said, “It’s none of your business,” but he said it without rancor or heat, so that she knew he was feeling shame.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry open old wounds.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, zipping the kit closed. “I’ll speak to Champ. He won’t be disrespectful, I won’t allow it.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It matters. I won’t have my son behaving like some spoiled, hateful brat. Now if you’ll excuse me...” He brushed past her, and she let him go, deeply saddened.
She’d known he’d been hurt; she just hadn’t realized how deeply, how mortally. The poison from those old wounds had spilled over onto his son—and onto her. And probably onto any woman who got too close. No wonder he kept her at arm’s length. She ought to be grateful that he did, given his—and his son’s—obvious bias. God knew she had enough on her plate already. She didn’t need more problems. And yet... She shook her head. No, she wouldn’t think about the ifs. She didn’t dare.
It went better than they had any reason to expect it would. Taking down and then restringing the wire as they left one property for another required more time than anyone wanted it to, but Shoes suggested that it really ought to be his and Bord’s job from then on. Bord objected, briefly, but the logic of the plan so completely outweighed any argument he could think of that he had no choice really but to shut up and accept this new duty gracefully. Henceforth, he and Shoes would take down the wire when they had to. The drovers would take the herd through and keep them moving, and Shoes and Bord would get out the comealongs and other tools, restringing before falling in with the caravan for the noon rendezvous.
Rye tried to keep a steadier pace that day, without so much back and forth, as much to keep from running his horse to death as for any other reason. As a result they spent some time going after breakaways. The herd was still green to the trail, but they were settling in about as well as the drovers. By lunchtime they’d come well over halfway toward that day’s goal, so he gulped down beans and fried potatoes while looking over his charts and trying to decide whether to bypass the site chosen only the night before in favor of a third or call it a day early and rest up for a hard drive tomorrow. It wasn’t a decision he could make alone. Much as he dreaded it, he had to talk to Kara.
He rode out with the clipboard balanced on his hip. “Got a minute?”
She neither answered nor looked at him, just reached for the clipboard. Obviously, she had been thinking along the same lines as he had. “I’ve had the luxury of riding over nearly every bit of the Canders Ranch. Walt and Granddad used to trade services during branding. Then Walt decided to retire.”
“Your grandfather commented about it a few times,” Rye confirmed. “He couldn’t see retiring himself.”
She smiled down at the clipboard. “Bet I know what he said.” She deepened her voice and approximated her grandfather’s slow drawl. “Walt’s pro‘bly the smarter man, but I wouldn’t do no good settin’ on my hands anyhow.”
Rye laughed, marveling that she could make him do so even now. “Close enough.”
She handed back the clipboard, saying, “If there’s another campsite within distance that meets our needs, I don’t know about it. We’ll be better off pulling in early. The rest will do us good. We’ll be making a hard drive tomorrow.”
He nodded. “Okay. Dean’s got something he wants to show us on the computer, anyway.”
“Don’t forget that Walt Canders is coming for dinner.”
Rye quipped, “I’ll have your mother pull out the good china.”
“I was thinking more along the line of a guitar and a harmonica,” she said. “He sounded intrigued on the phone. I figured we’d give him the old campfire treatment. He’s been awfully generous with us, after all.”
“Sounds good. I’ll see to it”
She nodded and turned her horse, walking it after a cow that was ambling toward a fresh patch of grass. Rye folded the clipboard against his side, watching her move away from him with genuine regret. Why couldn’t they just talk like friends? They enjoyed each other’s company, now that they weren’t trying to take each other’s heads off with every other word. Fact was, they often thought alike, just now being no exception. If only he hadn’t given in to the sexual attraction, they wouldn’t be avoiding each other. But maybe it was for the best, after all, considering Chase’s animosity. He’d spoken to the boy briefly that morning, but he knew that he had another long, detailed talk coming. How did he explain to an eight-year-old what he didn’t completely understand anymore himself? Maybe he’d better have a talk with Shoes before he said anything else to Champ. Shoes seemed to understand some element of his son’s personality that Rye himself didn’t.
He did just that at first opportunity. Shoes wasn’t quite as supportive as he’d hoped, though.
“What’d you expect?” his friend asked drily, sorting through a drawer in the side of his van. “You vilified Di’wana for two years. You think two of silence will undo that?”
Rye ignored the question in favor of justification. “Hell, Shoes, she cheated on me. She went with anybody who’d buy her a good time.”
“You took her off the reservation, Rye, introduced her to a life she’d never known before and left her alone so you could rodeo.”
“I was trying to earn a living!”
“She was just trying to live.”
“She didn’t have to sleep around!”
Shoes lifted an eyebrow at that. “Like you didn’t before you met her?”
“Before!”
“Granted. But she was unsophisticated, Rye. She didn’t know what she was getting into at first. Later she figured it didn’t matter. Soon as you got wind of it, you were going to throw her out, and she knew it, so why try to change?”
Rye stared at his friend in confusion. “Why didn’t you say any of this before?”
“Would you have listened before?”
Rye didn’t know how to answer that. Frankly, he was surprised he was listening now. Not too long ago he’d have walked away in righteous indignation the moment her name was mentioned. Rye pushed away his own confusion, opting instead to focus on his boy. “How do I explain this to my son?” he asked.
Shoes closed the drawer without picking out a tool and turned to face Rye. “Maybe you don’t,” he said. “He may not be ready to listen.”
“I ought to try, though, don’t you think?”
Shoes nodded. “Oh, yes. Especially as he’ll be seeing his mother before too long.”
Rye went very still, waiting for the old pain to sear through him. It wasn’t quite as bad as he expected, somehow. “Then you’re pretty sure your uncle won’t let us take the herd across the reservation unless I agree to let Di’wana see Champ?”
“Aren’t you?”
Rye reached for an answer and yet shied away from it.
“Weren’t you pretty sure that’s how it would be when you wrote the letter?” Shoes pressed. Rye didn’t answer. He didn’t know how. One part of him suspected that he’d always known it would come to that, another rebelled vehemently. Shoes took pity on him. “I’ll talk to the boy with you. Just don’t be surprised if he doesn’t hear us.”
They could have saved their breath. Champ had absorbed much more of his father’s anger and pain than Rye had realized. The idea of seeing the mother whom he could barely even remember infuriated him. He obviously felt threatened somehow, even though Rye and Shoes both took pains to assure him that he wouldn’t be leaving his father. They would still live together, work together. Rye wasn’t sure where, but they’d always found a place for themselves. They would again. Meanwhile, Granny and Papa and Uncle Jess would be happy to have them around for a time.
“But I still don’t want to see her.”
“Your mother’s name is Di’wana,” Shoes told him with just enough censure in his voice to make the boy bow his head, “and whatever else she is, she is still your mother. You need to see her.”
Champ looked to his father. “How come, if I don’t wanna?”
Rye swallowed. “Because a boy needs to know his mother.”
“I know she needs to see you,” Shoes told him. “She’s missed you, Champ, very much.”
“I don’t care!”
Rye took a deep breath. “Your grandfather is an important man in the tribe, Champ. You should know him and the people. They are part of your heritage. It’s a proud one, and it’s time you understood something about it.”
Champ turned a desperate face on his cousin. “You can teach me everything I should know!”
But Shoes shook his head. “No, Champ. I cannot. Your tie to our people is through your mother. You will have to deal with that as best you can.”
Champ knuckled away angry tears, but when Rye reached out to him, he wrenched himself from his father’s touch and stalked away. Rye sighed, knowing it would do no good to go after him now. Shoes clapped him on the shoulder pityingly and wandered away himself. Rye closed his eyes, regrets too numerous to count aching in his chest.
It was good to see Walt Canders again. He had aged, growing so thin that he seemed to have shrunk in on his bones, but he had the same hearty laugh and easy manner. He came early and surprised Kara by showing even Dean a few things available to them on the computer that they wouldn’t have known of otherwise. Dean had set up an Internet link, and they pulled down all kinds of information about the route they had chosen and what the weather was holding in store for them. Her grandfather had done his homework well, but it was good to have their assumptions confirmed by their research. “A nineteenth-century business with twentieth-century technology,” Walt pronounced it. “Best of both worlds, if you ask me.”
Dayna made a special dinner in Walt’s honor, remembering all his favorites: barbecue, beans, spinach wilted with hot bacon grease, biscuits spiked with cayenne and cheese. He praised her to the moon.
“A woman who looks like you and cooks that good ought to draw men like flies to honey.”
“She draws them,” Kara commented wryly. “She just doesn’t let them hang around.”
“Maybe she hasn’t drawn the right one yet,” Pogo muttered, and knowing looks went around the campfire.
“That’s right,” Dayna snapped smartly. “I haven’t.” And the knowing looks turned to teasing hoots.
Kara was surprised, then amused. The implication was that Pogo had an interest in her mother, but Dayna had let them all know that she wasn’t interested. Still, Kara couldn’t help giving Pogo a purely speculative lookover. Tall and lean with mossy green eyes, hair that had long since gone steel gray and was thinning at the crown, Pogo was of average looks, it seemed to Kara. His face was deeply tanned and lined with crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes. Yet he took pains with his appearance, shaving every morning when no one else did and parting his hair with painful precision, despite the fact that he was just going to plop a hat down on it. Dayna could do better, Kara decided, had done better, and she put the idea out of her mind when he volunteered to take first watch with Shoes so George could add his harmonica to the guitars that Dean and Rye pulled out.
The music proved to be a good idea. Walt loved it, and it kept Kara herself from dwelling on matters best left alone. No one noticed much when Kara left in search of a few moments privacy. Her agreement with Rye didn’t seem necessary now that they were on the trail. She let herself into the mobile home without much thought about who she might find inside. It was pretty cramped, with just enough space to walk through, but no one would deny that it made all their lives much easier. She moved into the so-called living area, which was nothing more than a narrow path flanked by a built-in couch on one side and a dining booth on the other. The kitchen came next, consisting of about a yard of combined cabinet and sink opposite a tiny stove, refrigerator and a chest-type freezer. Zigging left into the almost claustrophobically narrow hall, she reached for the doorknob of the tiny bathroom, only to pause at the sound of a voice.
“She’s a no-good cheat,” he said, “and she left me.”
Kara instinctively reached to push open the door to the single bedroom instead of the bath. Champ was on the floor, squeezed into the narrow space between the wall and the bed, Oboe at his side. He was walking two colorful superhero action figures between the patient dog’s ears and up his tail to a showdown on his back.
He deepened his voice. “‘She’s still your mommy. You have to go see her.’ No, no,” he went on in his own voice. “I don’t want to. She’s bad! ‘Prepare to fight then, boy, ’cause I say you’re goin’.’” He crashed the two action figures together with many and varied sound effects. “Pow! Kushhh! Chop-chop! Ugh! Ka-pow! Aaahhh! Splat!”
Kara leaned against the doorjamb and folded her arms. “Who’s winning?” Champ jumped like he’d been shot and hid the action figures behind his back. Oboe got up and came over for a pat. Kara obliged. “How you doing, boy? Having some fun with Champ, huh? Looks like fun. Sort of.” She shot a look at the boy, who glared guiltily. “How come you aren’t outside listening to your dad play?”
He shrugged. “Don’t have to.”
“Nobody said you did. I just wondered, that’s all.”
He shrugged again. Kara considered what she ought to say next. She didn’t have much experience with youngsters—unless they had long tails, white faces, and brands on their rumps. Still, something told her this one had problems and somehow she was part of them. She licked her lips. “Listen, Champ, I’m sorry you don’t like me, but you shouldn’t blame your father because I’m around. He’s just trying to make the best of a bad situation, you know.”
Champ glared at her. “Then how come he’s making me see my mom?”
Kara was lost. “What do you mean?”
“He says when we come to the reservation, I gotta go see her, even if I don’t want to.”
It clicked. “Your mother lives on the Chako reservation?”
He sent her a disgusted look. “She’s a Chako Indian.” Meaning, where else would she live?
“That means you’re Chako, too,” she pointed out.
“Half.”
“That’s enough to be counted part of the tribe.”
“So?”
“So you don’t live on the reservation. How was I supposed to know that she does?” He shrugged sullenly. Kara sighed. “Look, Champ, none of this is your father’s fault. He was trying to help me because—”
“He doesn’t have to help you!”
“He promised my grandfather that he would, and so he feels obligated, and frankly, Champ, I couldn’t do it without him. But I didn’t know when he said he could get permission for us to take the herd across the reservation that it was because of you and your mother.”
The boy’s chin wobbled, and his eyes filled with angry tears. “I don’t wanna see her!” he said, swiping at the tears.
Her heart went out to him. “I’m sorry, Champ. I...I’ll talk to your father. Maybe we can—”
“No!” he cried, lurching to his feet. “Just leave us alone! Leave us alone!” He squeezed past her roughly and pounded through the motor home, caroming off one obstacle after another until he reached the steps and ripped through the door. He’d left his superheroes behind on the floor, abandoned. As he had been abandoned? Kara bowed her head. How had this all gotten so complicated? She didn’t understand enough about the situation to know how to fix it, and yet talking to Rye about it might well make matters worse. She didn’t know what to do.
She still hadn’t decided when Walt took his leave and everyone moved toward sleep, knowing they had a hard day coming. She decided that she wasn’t sleeping next to Rye. Maybe it would make Champ feel better. She unrolled her sleeping bag between Shoes and George. Rye watched what she was doing, his hands on his hips, a question in his eyes, and she realized that he was going to force the issue if she didn’t. He ought to be aware of what his son was feeling, anyway, for the boy’s sake. Aware that many interested eyes were on them, she finished laying out her bed, then rose, dusted off her hands and walked straight to him.
“Can we talk?”
“I think we better.”
“Um, let me get my briefcase.” She headed toward his truck, hoping he would follow. He didn’t disappoint her, but when she reached the truck, she simply turned and put her back to the fender. He didn’t get within four feet of her.
“Okay, what’s up? You forget the security precautions?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think it matters much now, though. We left behind whoever killed the cattle.”
“You don’t know that. If somebody’s trying to stop this drive—”
“You don’t know that!” she retorted.
“And falling boulders?”
She shrugged. “Could’ve been an accident.”
He gnashed his teeth at that, but he didn’t argue. “I still think we ought to be careful.”
“Fine. This isn’t about that, though.”
He brought his hands to his hips once more in an obviously impatient gesture. “Yeah?”
She took a deep breath. “I spoke with Champ this evening.”
Rye grimaced. “Look, I’m sorry if he—”
She shook her head. “No. He, um, was playing with these two action figures, and one of them was supposed to be you, I mink, and he was beating you up for making him go see his mother.”
Rye sighed and pushed both hands over his face. “He’s angry right now, but he’ll get over it.”
“It’s because of me, isn’t it? Because of the drive, I mean. They’re insisting you let her see him before they’ll let us cross the reservation.”
He looked as though he wanted to scream. His hair had fallen forward from a natural center part and framed his upper face within two wide curves like parentheses. He swept a hand through it in frustration. “I let that be my excuse,” he said roughly, “but the truth is Champ needs to see her. He needs to see that she’s not the demon I painted her to be. He needs to find some common ground with her. I think I knew it a year ago or more.”
“What happened, Rye?” She felt she had to know.
He trained his gaze on the ground and prepared to tell her. “I told you that Shoes came to work on my folks place outside of Durango.”
“Yes.”
“Well, he doesn’t live completely off the reservation. Never has. He doesn’t get back these days as much as he used to, but back then he went home just about every opportunity. I used to go with him. That’s how I met Di’wana. She was too young, and you know how the Chako protect their children, but that didn’t keep us from getting together. She was crazy to get married, wanted to live in the white world. I...I thought she was as in love as I was, so I let her talk me into eloping.”
Kara gulped, unprepared for the pang that hit her. He hurried on, pushing the words out through his teeth.
“I had to make a living. I’d had some success on the rodeo circuit, so I went back to it and took her with me, but it didn’t go easy. She...she didn’t know how to act in my world. My friends were a pretty sophisticated lot, and she embarrassed me,” he admitted, squeezing his eyes closed. “When we knew she was pregnant with Champ, I rented a little house outside Phoenix. I had lots of rodeo friends there, and it was convenient. I left her there, and I went on rodeoing. I came home as often as I could, but she was lonely. She wanted some excitement She resented my having the freedom to come and go when she didn’t. She started going out, meeting people, men mostly.” He wadded his hands into fists and relaxed them. “I think she slept with everyone I knew before—” he cleared his throat “—before someone told me.”
Kara crossed an arm over her stomach in a effort to still the roiling there. “Rye, I’m sorry.”
He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Champ was about four. I...I took her back to the reservation, and I left her there. Champ and I went home, and I tried to stay drunk for the better part of the next year.” He shrugged wryly. “Guess I’m not an alcoholic, because it just eventually seemed to take more effort than I could put into it. But instead of trying to fix the mess I’d made of my life, I spent the next two years justifying it. I said some awful things to my son about his mother. Finally I realized I was just keeping the wound raw, and I stopped, but Champ’s a kid. He understood the anger and the pain instinctively. He’s having a harder time coming to terms with the idea of acceptance and...”
“Forgiveness?” she supplied gently.
His own ambivalence was demonstrated in agitation. Finally he said, “Shoes kept on trying to draw rein on me. The Chako, see, they have this notion that they’re actually responsible for the people they love. In their eyes, I’m as much responsible as her, and maybe they’re right. I know they’re right.” He put a hand to his head. “I’ve known it all along.”
Kara looked away. This then was what made him want his distance, not just his pain but his own guilt. She didn’t know how to help him with that, didn’t know that she had any right to try, considering that the boy and his feelings had to take priority. She said carefully, “Maybe we can take the longer route like Plummer planned. If we make good time tomorrow, then surely we can keep on—”
“No,” he said flatly. “And I’m not saying it just because I promised Plummer I’d get this herd through on time. There are some things I can’t fix, some things I can’t change, but there are some I can prevent. I won’t let my son grow up hating all women because of my failures. We’re crossing that reservation just like we planned. And he’s going to see his mother, make his peace.”
“What about you?” she asked softly. “Can you make your peace this way, Rye?”
He frowned and cupped a hand over his mustache, smoothing it. “I don’t count in this. Champ’s what matters.”
She nodded, understanding those feelings. “He seems to like Mother well enough. She hasn’t said anything about problems when we’re out on the trail.”
“He sees her as a grandmother type, like my own mother.”
“So it’s only me he has a problem with right now.”
He flashed her a guilty, apologetic look. “I think he senses... He seems to think any woman I might be attracted to is a threat somehow.”
There it was again, that something that was better than nothing. Even his son knew that Rye was attracted to her. That and a buck would get her a cup of coffee—most places. She wasn’t certain, anymore, that she could take comfort in it. She was right to keep her distance. They both were.
“We’d better get to sleep,” she said. “We’ve got a long day coming.”
He nodded, and for one moment, his gaze held hers, rife with regret and what might have been and could never be. She couldn’t bear to see it.
“Good night, Rye,” she whispered, hurrying back to her lonely place in the shadows.