Land of Bones and Tears

Chapter Nine
 

Storm Clouds Gathering

Luke always claimed that no matter how crazy I was about a woman, there invariably came a moment when I saw her with all her flaws, and the degree of clarity then was always directly proportional to the deepness of hue in the rose-colored glasses I’d been viewing her through before the break-though. The break through the glasses, that was, he always made a point of saying, like I was stupid or something.  Naturally, I’d always told him he didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, but fact was, no one other than my grandfather had ever known me better, nor longer, than that overgrown Irishman.  Linton has been a close third over the years, but he’s never offered an opinion on the subject, pointing out with respect to himself that anyone who’d “willingly aligned himself with Luke O’Keefe since the Thatcher administration had no legitimate grounds upon which to offer criticism of another’s romantic liaisons.”

Linton really did talk like that sometimes — funnier than hell. Better than those BBC shows we get on cable. 

That crash with reality, or the glasses, call it what you will, had never happened with Grace…until she screeched like a banshee when she saw me comforting Colleen over being homesick. Thing was, I’d never looked upon Colleen as anything other than Luke’s niece…not really…until I saw Grace looking at me like I was doing something wrong. And I saw the scene through her eyes.  It was like having one of those epiphanies of mine in reverse. I’d never been attracted to young women, not for relationships, though if I was on leave and at loose ends, chances were I wouldn’t be refusing if they were offering, which they tended to do more often than not. Simple fact of life when you’re blessed with good genes, and, as the Pup would say, in my case, I happened to be blessed with genes that had left me looking good in my jeans despite my age, which is on the shady side of forty. Very shady.  Age has never been an issue for  me since you only have to look at my grandfather to realize that Redravens look good at any age. Again, simple fact, not braggin’. And point of the matter was, my personal taste tended to run to women at least my age…at least, always had.

And yet….

Colleen wasn’t like your typical woman her age; she wasn’t like anyone, but herself, and suddenly, I was pissed off at Grace, the person I’d looked up to for most of my life, for treating her like some object  when she of all people should have known better.  As Luke would have said, that pedestal I put women I get involved with on crumbled with almost an audible crash. Like a pair of rose-colored glasses being stomped on with a size fifteen boot.  Military issue.

I moved away from Colleen slowly. I didn’t want her to think I felt ashamed of Grace seeing me with her. Nor did I want the kids, who were watching wide-eyed to get the wrong idea; they respected Colleen and well they should. She deserved their respect and she had worked hard to get it. No easy job. Damn Grace, for making a scene. I was embarrassed, but only because I’d forgotten to call back and reschedule the meeting. After I made the first call moving it back an hour, I totally forgot to call back again. I’d got caught up in doing the roof work and forgot all about Grace. I doubted that explanation would go over well but I couldn’t think of a better one.

I heard a low voice whisper, “Try Rio, that explanation usually works well for me.”

I choked on a laugh. She was her own person, but she was still such an O’Keefe, and lord knew, some of them would laugh at their own funeral. She did serve to remind me that I’d faced a hell of a lot worse with O’Keefes than a spitfire of a jealous woman, and I always had their backs, just as they always had mine.

“Grace, I’m sorry, but I got caught up in working on the roof at the school and then in bringing supplies over here and completely forgot to call you back to reschedule our meeting. There was no need for you to drive out here, though it was nice of you to make the trip. “

I blinked at the curse word that came out of her mouth. Colleen hustled the kids out of the room as they started to laugh. She stifled their laughing pretty quickly too, I noted with part of my mind, even got some of them to call respectful greetings to “Mrs. Parkins” before they left the room.  Not Tommy. That boy had narrowed his eyes and was taking his time leaving. He was watching Colleen’s back.  And, to my surprise, I realized he was waiting to make sure I was okay with being left alone.

“Do you need anything, Colonel?”  Tommy stood at a reasonable imitation of parade attention, about ten feet from the bristling fury of an apparent woman scorned, and me at my most sheepish. I needed to work on my image if a slip of a boy thought I needed protection.

“No, thank you, we’re good here, Tom.” It occurred to me that it might be a good idea to keep a semi-neutral third party nearby when talking to a furious female, something that I normally did as a matter of course but I was a bit off my usual game lately. I could hear Grandfather’s voice in my head as clearly as though he was in the room, saying, “Lately, boy?  You’ve been as blindly foolish about that Grace as ever you were when you were a pup so lately must be the past thirty years because it looks like you never stopped.” 

Tough when you found yourself being reprimanded in your own mind by an old man and couldn’t find the words to win the argument. Bad way to enter another argument, I was thinking as I turned toward Grace. But first.

“You know, Tom, if you wouldn’t mind,” I caught the boy’s attention before he left the building. He turned expectantly. “Would you finish unpacking that barware over there? It’s pretty special, comes from the O’Keefe family pub back home. I don’t want to leave it lying there in those packing crates. If you could take it over to the kitchen, wash it up and then put in up in the cabinets until those shelves are rebuilt, that would be great. They need to be handled with care, understand. Miss Colleen’s uncle sent them special to help her feel more at home out here.”

The boy brightened right up.  He straightened his shoulders. “I can do that, Colonel. We don’t want the kids messin’ with something like that.” He walked over to the boxes I’d indicated — you would have thought he was handling crystal the care he took.  I smiled faintly; even Grace had a bemused look on her face as we both watched him move the boxes carefully to the kitchen to begin washing.

I pointed toward some chairs at the far end of the room but still in view of where Tommy was buckling down to work on the O’Keefe barware. “Why don’t we sit down and talk, Grace. Seems like we have a few things to get straightened out.”

She nodded. I knew that look, the look that said, I’ve revealed too much of my true self and need to retrench, fast. It told me more than anything else could that the Grace I’d been looking to discover underneath the politician’s wife, hell, the politician herself, was gone. All these weeks, I’d been spending so much time looking, waiting, hoping to find something that I thought I’d been waiting for my whole life.  Not the perfect woman, but the perfect woman for me.  Grace had been the first person outside of my two grandfathers to believe that there was something in me worth nurturing, worth fighting for — she was certainly the first woman I’d ever met who believed in me, and for the longest time, she remained the only woman — that counted for a lot with me. Too much, that same persistent voice in my head said, and more and more it was sounding less like my grandfather and more like me.

“Steve, I’m sorry for over-reacting when I came in,” Grace’s hand was on my arm. She was standing close. Too close.  The fragrance of White Linen wafted over me and for once, it had no effect other than to remind me of another woman, who smelled of rain and beer, and on occasion, a new shampoo. More often, roofing materials, I thought, smiling. Grace thought the smile was for her and pressed closer.  She leaned up on her toes, but thing is, at more than a foot shorter, she wasn’t going to be able to steal a kiss without my cooperation and I wasn’t cooperating. Not now.

“Not a problem. Let’s sit down, Grace.” My voice was friendly but cool. I’ve done this scene dozens of times. Dozens of dozens. Now that the illusion was broken, I was on firm ground. It was unpleasant to get through but now that I was back to being myself, I had the advantage — I was no longer that stupid kid to her woman of the world. I was the experienced well-traveled military officer, spy, man of the world, and she was the girl back home who’d never traveled more than a few thousand miles from the backwater where we’d met. She’d done well, mind you, politician’s wife who’d had her own career while helping her husband to state office, all while raising two nice kids. Now the husband was eying the governor’s mansion or a run for Congress, and she was still the perfect wife, trotted out whenever she was needed for a dinner or an early campaign event. But she was a bit bored now that the kids were grown and out of the house.  Enter me.

I wasn’t a saint. If a married woman was willing to cheat, that was between her and her husband, as far as I was concerned — unless I was friends with the husband. Or somewhere in his chain of command. So the fact that Grace was married wasn’t a deal killer for me, much to my grandfather’s disgust, and Luke’s disapproval.  No, in this case, the way she looked at Colleen a little while ago, that was what finally took the proverbial scales off my eyes.  She wasn’t a nice person.

“Why don’t we go somewhere and….”

I cut her off. “No, Grace. We won’t be going anywhere. Not any more and not ever.” Her face fell. Then hardened.  Then changed once more. It would have been interesting to watch if I were still interested in her.  I wondered why I’d never noticed how obvious she was. Damn. I wasted thirty years in a crush that was so much a … waste.

Now it was all over but the screaming. I leaned back in my seat, putting a little more distance between us, especially between me and her cleavage, which was still pretty fine, even if attached to a termagant. I folded my arms across my chest, wishing she’d take a cue and follow suit.

“Steve, there is no reason for old friends such as we are to be on the outs simply because Colleen is a bit irresponsible and….”

“Excuse me? What did you call her?” She got the full benefit of the glare that I’d perfected as a Sergeant.  I’d achieved higher ranks, but my glare had reached its peak back then. I was gratified to see that she quailed pretty much the same as any raw recruit did. Hadn’t lost my touch.  Grace wasn’t sure whether to play this angry or sad. She turned bright red. Then paled. Then red again.  She’d settled with angry, I figured. Really preferable, all things considered.

“I am sure that I do not know why you are taking that tone of voice with me, Steven,” she began, flipping her hair back. “I came here when you didn’t show up, as planned, because I thought something might have gone wrong. And what do I find but that girl hanging all over you….”

I chuckled. Best way to defuse something, I’ve always found, is to refuse to take their high dudgeon seriously. Defending Colleen or me too strenuously would feed into her sense that something had been going on, which she knew darn right well hadn’t been, not in front of a dozen youngsters. But I had to get her to concede that. And to admit that her real concern wasn’t that nothing was going on between us, because the truth was, there wouldn’t be anything wrong, not really, if there were anything going on between Colleen and me, not if it were done in an appropriate way.

And that was the strange idea that was beginning to take hold of my thoughts. Sure, I was a lot older, but that wasn’t any of Grace’s business.  She sure was ready to make it her business. Her voice was edging up into a screech again.

“I came in here to find her pressed all over you, in front of a dozen impressionable children and you….” I held up a hand. She stopped.

“While this jealousy is amusing, Grace, it’s neither attractive nor productive. You saw nothing more than Colleen crying on my shoulder.” I sent a mental apology — she’d hate that I revealed her moment of weakness to Grace but there was no getting around it. She had been crying, and it was her effort to hide her tears that had caused her to press her face against me. Nothing amorous about it, more’s the pity, but I wasn’t about to say that now, it was one of those rare situations where the truth sufficed. “Colleen was feeling homesick, as I mentioned earlier to Tommy. Seeing things from her home, getting a letter from one of her uncles, brought it on, and before you start saying it means she is too young to be here, I’ll tell you right now, you’re never too old to be homesick. You’d know that if you’d ever done any traveling away from home like she’s done for her work, as I’ve done for most of my life.”

She tightened her jaw at that. Not much she could say to the truth — she hadn’t ever followed the dreams she’d talked about when she was young and supposedly idealistic. I could see the wheels turning as clearly as if her brain were on view — how to recover this situation and turn it to her advantage, she was wondering, and whether she still wanted to. The pickings sure must be slim around here; either that, or she just didn’t like to lose. Part of both, I was thinking. It wouldn’t help Colleen for her to have Grace really gunning for her, I realized, so maybe a little damage control was in order. Not my usual game — that was more Luke’s style, but I could do it.

“I should have called you,” I offered, smiling easily. “It was completely my fault.  Tell me how I can make it up to you?”

Her eyes narrowed – she hadn’t forgotten my words of a few minutes ago — but she was nothing if not confident, and it had been a long time since she’d been turned down by anyone,  I suspected, so she probably thought it had just been my ego talking. She smiled and whatever charm I once saw in her smile was gone for me; it was like knowing how a magician does his trick and wondering how you’d ever been fooled into thinking it was magic.

“Dinner tonight would be a good start,” she cooed, reaching for my arm again.

Just then, there was a crash and a yell from the bar.  Tommy! Damn, I’d forgotten he was there, he’d been so quiet.

“Col. Red, could you help me? I seem to have cut myself! But don’t worry, I just dropped some of the old stuff, not Miss Colleen’s good stuff.” Tommy appeared with a dishtowel held to his forearm, where a red stain was rapidly growing larger.

“Oh my God,” Grace said, in a faint voice. The brave young woman who once bundled my bloody body into her car and held my back together with her own shirt must be long gone as well — this woman looked ready to faint at the sight of a little blood, well, more than a little, on a dish towel. I walked quickly over to the boy, grabbing a fresh clean towel as I did.

“We’re heading to the hospital.  Grace, rain check. I’ll call you later. Tom, press this down hard. How the hell did you manage to do this?” I grabbed the kid up in my arms, told him to keep the arm higher than his heart, then kept up a steady stream of curses until we got to my truck and I bundled him into the seat. I ran around and got into the other side and jumped into the driver’s seat.

“Do you feel faint? Can you tell if it’s still bleeding through?  You must have hit the artery from the looks of it. Colleen’ll have a conniption.  I’ll have to call her as soon as I can but in the ….” I felt a hand reach over to grab mine.

Tom was smirking at me. He had the bloody towels lifted away from what was indeed a cut on his forearm, but a narrow, shallow, deliberate,  cut that was nowhere near any arteries or veins, it was already coagulating — he must have cut his arm on purpose to fake an accident!  And get us out of there without Grace, I realized. I didn’t know whether to kill him or hug him.

I pulled over on a side road and gave him my best glare. He met it manfully. “Well, aren’t you going to thank me?”

“That, son, is what we call kicking the can down the road. You got me out of there, but you do realize that I was aiming to avoid having her bring her wrath down on Colleen — now she’s going to be even madder when she finds out you weren’t hurt. And trust me, she will find out. She’ll call the hospital and check on your treatment.”

He paled, as much as one of our darker skin can. “I didn’t think of that. My plan wasn’t so good after all, huh?”

I took pity on him. “Nah, it was a good plan. Just needs some refinement. You got two choices, way I see it. We can worsen that little scratch, enough to need stitches, but as I recall, you weren’t too fond of hospitals before…or  we go have Grandfather fix you up, but that will leave Mrs. Parkins coming after us sooner rather than later. And eventually she’ll probably take after Miss Colleen next.”

His face cleared…and hardened. I would have thought it hardened more than should have been possible for a boy his age but I knew better. I’d lived on a reservation at his age too.

“Do what you have to, I’ll face my folks for Miss Colleen’s sake. Maybe it’s time I get it over with anyway. Rather have it out for a good reason than a bad one, you know?”

There was real courage under the bravado. I found myself admiring the kid. And hating that it was my stupidity that made him have to make any kind of choice. I searched my mind for a better plan than the first one that had occurred to me.

“Will this do?”

Fuck. While I’d been thinking…not my strong suit today…the damn fool kid had gone and “improved” upon the cut on his arm. It really did need a doctor now, as he’d both widened and deepened it. Cursing a blue streak, I snapped at him to cover it up and stop the bleeding, if he could do it without getting enough germs in it to start six kinds of infection. He just grinned at me, a crazy manic kind of grin.

Damn, he reminded me of me as a kid. Or as I’d been as a young private in the Marines with Luke, before things got so serious. Luke would get a kick out of this kid.

I broke a few speeding laws getting the kid to the hospital in the next county but I wanted to take him to the one on the military base where I had a friend who would sew him up on my say so and not worry too much with things like parental consent. He was in my care and it was an emergency; that would be enough for Lt. Dabers.  Tommy’s relief was palpable — that’s what Linton would have called it. Me, I would say it was written all over the kid’s face as soon as he realized that no phone calls were being placed to his folks.

Once Lt. Dabers left the room after sewing his arm up, he turned to me, the tension making his body practically shake.

“Is she going to call my folks now? How? She never asked for my mom’s number and I never heard you give it to anyone unless it was when you and her talked all quiet when the nurse was cleaning me up but it really would be better if I called and….”

“No folks, no home numbers, I called in a few favors is all,” I told him, enjoying the sight of his jaw dropping, but not as much as the pure relief that hit him before he covered it up. I continued, “I figure, twenty-eight stitches was enough grief for one day, you didn’t need to deal with your mom ripping you a new one.”

His eyes flickered. Not the mother then. The stepfather. Of course. It’s always the stepfather who is the one who comes down hard, often for no good reason, just because he can. I thought so when I met him before, right when we first arrived but with one thing and another, I never followed up on it. I realized I would need to have a talk with the man sometime soon. No more delays. Just not right this minute, when the kid needed some rest.

“Come on,” I said gruffly. “Let’s get you dressed and we’ll hit a drugstore to get some of those painkillers Dabers prescribed. I’ll let Colleen…Ms. Colleen know we’re on our way back so she’ll get have some food ready and if I know her, she’ll have the rest of the kids back at my house, all ready to make a fuss over you.”

I’d sent a message to Colleen after we’d arrived at the base medical facility, telling her that Tommy’d had a small accident and I’d taken him here for treatment. She hadn’t even questioned why, no doubt figuring it out right away. She texted me that she’d let his folks know he’d be working late and that she’d expect us when she saw us.

She really was a smart girl…no, a smart woman. I wondered how Luke would handle it if I were to tell him that I was attracted to his niece. Hell. And he was the O’Keefe who was like a brother to me, I thought, considering the other half dozen large men who called the girl niece. Of course, I only really gave a damn what Luke thought. No, that wasn’t true. I cared what the Pup thought too, but I really didn’t think he would mind. He wasn’t one for leaping to judgments based on things like age, or what other folks thought was proper. Luke usually wasn’t either, but he had some funny notions when it came to the women in his family. Look at how he reacted to Linton and his sister Angel having had that one time fling — and Lord knows Angel had to have been the instigator in that little episode. Course, it didn’t help that the “one time” resulted in a love child, one whose paternity had been a well-kept secret for years. All things…and all the possible fathers considered, you’d think Luke would have been relieved that Linton was the little tyke’s father, but not him. It knocked him for a loop and almost broke up a love that had lasted for almost twenty years. And he calls me crazy.

Maybe I should tread lightly…and slowly…in pursuing this, I decided. And not say anything to Luke until I was damn sure this was what was best for me, and especially best for Colleen.

Mind made up, I hurried Tommy along. Way past time to head back to the others.

********************

I listened to the sound of the kids with Grandfather — he really was so good with them — but one ear was cocked, tuned to a different frequency. Pretty much like Cheyenne, who kept looking toward the door every couple of minutes, as though to ask, where are the others, especially my favorite?
 

Because for all that he was tough on her, Red was already supplanting Grandfather in Cheyenne’s affections. It bugged me and I complained to Vasha about it — a lot. Fickle puppy, she would leave Grandfather’s side at once as soon as she heard his truck turn the corner down the street and make the last quarter mile to our house. Not that my ears knew that’s when she started barking or anything. Not definitely. I walked to the front window and peeked out.

Red’s truck wasn’t the only one pulling up in front of the house. Two other vehicles were pulling up to a stop right behind his — one was a beat-up old pickup and the other was a late model sedan with government plates. Neither seemed to bode well.

Two men were walking toward Red and Tommy: Tommy’s stepfather, who looked meaner than a junkyard dog, and Greg Parkins, who looked like the type of politician who posed with his rifle and junkyard dogs to make a point about how tough he was on crime — right before he shot the poor dogs in the back of the head just for being there.

I told the kids to stay inside with Grandfather and grabbed my jacket. I was stopped.

“I think this is one battle you should sit out, Colleen. Let me go join my Raven,” Grandfather said, a bright light in his eyes. “You stay with the young people. I will send Tommy in to you, I suspect that he will need to be fed and perhaps a bit of a fuss made over him.”

Sitting out battles was never my style, but obeying my elders, especially when I respected them as I did Grandfather, was, so I nodded and turned back toward the gang.

“Nate, would you fire up the grill again for me? I’m sure that Tommy and Red will be hungry and they probably wouldn’t want to eat alone so….”

There wasn’t any need to finish the thought. I had plenty of volunteers for the job of “keeping them company” while they ate. We all made a mass exodus toward the back of the small house. Which was good, I figured. Even if it got loud out front, there was less chance of the kids overhearing. But I soon found a reason to excuse myself — ostensibly to retrieve something from my room — and I stood by my bedroom window in order to eavesdrop. Shamelessly. It was really becoming a bad habit. I told  myself I’d work on it. Soon. When people stopped having so many conversations that I wanted to hear outside of my presence.

“Stephen! Long time, long time!” The politician had his hand outstretched. Red looked at him blankly for a moment, and then smiled his own version of a political smile. I’d seen it once before and it had spooked me to no end. It was a bit like a barracuda seeing the man with the bucket of fish at the aquarium sizing up the number of fish in the bucket versus the size of the arm on the man.

Tommy’s stepfather didn’t like being ignored but he was a bit outmatched in this present situation. Still, you had to give the man credit for trying, if there was such a thing as credit for being boorish, that is. If there was, then Richard Standing Bear certainly deserved it.

Though was it correct to call a man whose name was Standing Bear boorish, I could hear my twin’s irreverent voice that was never far from my mind wondering? Damn, how I missed hearing her real voice, even now, after all these months of silence.    

“Redraven, I have a bone to pick with you!” the man blustered. Nathaniel had joined them by this point and that noble figure was enough to quell better men than Standing Bear. I couldn’t see him from where I was but I was willing to bet all he did was raise an eyebrow. It was what he did to get the dogs to behave and I noticed that both Vasha and Cheyenne were sitting like ladies at his heels.

“Greg, Rich, good to see both of you. Steve, I’m glad you’re back. Tommy, you’re no doubt starving and tired after a long day working. Go join the others in the back. I am sure Colleen set them to work grilling some steaks for you both. The Colonel will be joining you in a few minutes.”

Ah, nicely done, I thought, admiringly. Grandfather managed to remind both men of Red’s status as a serving officer — and he reminded Standing Bear of Tommy’s importance to us, and that he had in fact been working hard, as he did most days. Which was more than could be said for his stepfather.

The conversation got a little low-voiced for a few minutes, much to my frustration, but they were moving toward the chairs on the porch so I thought I’d be able to pick up a bit more before the other two men left. To my chagrin, they didn’t stop there, as I’d expected, but came right on in, trapping me in my room!

“We can talk here. The young people are outside, and I expect that Colleen is with them. I prefer that we continue this conversation here rather than provide more gossip for the community, which you claim is already working overtime, Greg, spreading rumors about my son. Not that it hasn’t done that before, which I would think you better than most would know better than to believe.”

Before “Greg” could respond, Rich, Tommy’s stepfather and all-around jerk, decided he’d been ignored long enough.  “What about my boy? Who’s looking out for his reputation? He hangs around with….”

I didn’t need to see it to know what was going on…at least two thousand yard starts were being sent his way. But I was dying to see the effect. Not for the first time, I wished I had the same type of peephole that Colette and I’d put in our room at home so we….

Damn these stupid tears. I brushed them away. When would I stop crying every time I thought of my twin? It wasn’t like she was dead, I reasoned. Just almost died, because of me, came the thought. And the natural follow-up, and tried to kill herself because of what I did. No good response to those facts…not in Colette’s voice, either in my head nor ever in my hearing again. Her therapist after Haiti, after the suicide attempt that no one knew about except me, told her I was the problem, and getting away from me and our “toxic” relationship would be the beginning of healing for her.

I helped as much as I could, the only way I could, by allowing her to follow that advice. And when she sent word that she wanted to come home, I did what I could to get away, far away. Not by telling Mom that I wanted to go. No, that would have been too obvious and would have caused questions. I was far too clever for that. I made like the biggest basket case in the world — wasn’t hard, I was half-way there — to the point that she was ready to do anything to get me better.

Even call her brother Luke and have him make arrangements for me to work more than halfway across the country.

Sometimes I’m fucking brilliant.

But not right now. I realized with a start that I’d been sitting for some moments with tears coming down my face and had lost track of time, and the conversation in the next room. What had happened out there?

I must have said that out loud because the next thing I knew, strong arms were wrapping around me and pulling me against a rock hard chest.

“Nothing to cause tears; that’s for sure. So I’m guessing these tears are due to your own private storm, not the tempest in a teapot that occurred out there and Grandfather easily quelled. Don’t you think it’s about time you told me about your sister?”

Feeling safer and more at rest than I had in a long time, I thought maybe he was right. But until I was sure….

I took a deep breath and pushed away. “I’m good, but thanks for the cuddle. You want to tell me what I missed?”

He looked at me searchingly, but must have decided to let it rest. “Sure. Let’s go grab a bite to eat first though. Then you can hear all about the fancy party we’re invited to…you, me, Grandfather….”

I screeched. “I have nothing to wear!”

Red laughed. “Now you sound like a typical O’Keefe. Call your uncle…the model, not the engineer,” he recommended.

I did exactly that, even before eating again.
 

Return to Land of Bones and Tears