“I’ll tell him you called.” Which was code for: Butt out.
“Thanks, Mr. Moen. Please do.” She hung up.
This had been a long day and it was just past noon. She had hours of work and heartbreak to go. She needed her dog. She parked at the curb, rapped on Mrs. Golobovitch’s door and when Mrs. Golobovitch opened, Kateri asked jokingly, “Can Lacey come out and play?”
“Dear, I don’t have her.”
“What?”
“When you didn’t bring her to me, I was a bit surprised, but I called Stag and he told me Lacey seemed anxious and assured me he would keep her today.” Mrs. Golobovitch patted Kateri’s hand and beamed. “He’s such a nice man. I’m so glad you have someone to take care of you.”
“Um, he doesn’t … that is, I don’t need someone to care for me. I can take care of myself.”
“Of course you can. But isn’t it lovely that he’s there to protect and cherish you anyway?”
Kateri shut up. Mrs. Golobovitch held Old World views of men and women and love and marriage and, well, hell, she was right. It was lovely that Stag Denali had her back.
Mrs. Golobovitch added helpfully, “I believe they’re at the construction site on the reservation.”
The casino construction site. “They’ve already started building?”
“Site preparation. Soil testing, then scrape it down a few feet and get ready for the foundation pour.”
Kateri cocked her head. “Mrs. Golobovitch, how do you know all that?”
“Dear, I haven’t always been an old lady. When I came from Yugoslavia, I was a structural engineer. Here they wouldn’t honor my degree and give me reciprocity”—Mrs. Golobovitch waggled her finger at Kateri—“but I haven’t forgotten everything I knew!”
“Of course not. Forgive me. I should have realized.” Sometimes, Kateri felt as if she didn’t really know anybody. Like Stag, who saw that her dog was anxious and took Lacey to work with him. “I guess I’ll head over to the rez.” Which was a tough show for her. She was related to half the tribe. Half were proud of their first Native American sheriff. Half thought she had betrayed them by succeeding in a mainstream world. There was a lot of overlap in those groups, but one thing was for sure: most despised law enforcement. Then there was the “chosen by the frog god” thing. To say feelings toward Kateri were mixed was putting it diplomatically.
Of course, Stag was building a casino, which would bring prosperity to Virtue Falls and the rez … also gambling addiction, alcoholism, prostitution and suicide … so Kateri’s feelings were equally mixed. Toward her tribe, toward Stag, toward being involved with him …
Mrs. Golobovitch patted Kateri’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, dear. It will all turn out for the best. It always does.”
Except for Carolyn Abner of Springfield, Missouri, who died last night. “Thank you. I’m sure you’re right. Now I have to go get my dog.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Kateri didn’t need the sign telling her she’d crossed onto the reservation. Here the air grew misty, shades of gray and gold tinted the sky, the tears of fifteen generations soaked the ground, the odors of evergreen, ocean and marsh combined to smell like home. And yet …
And yet.
Ten-year-old Kateri left the house where her mother was sleeping it off and went looking for Uncle Bluster, real name Willis Warner. She found him in the usual place, sitting cross-legged under the twisted cypress overlooking the ocean. He wore an orange game cap on his head, dirty jeans and a starched shirt with no buttons. He rested his elbow on the battered blue-and-white cooler beside him and stared at his bare toes. She could see his lips move; he was talking to himself.
She stood at a distance and eyed the frosty one-liter bottle of vodka in his hand. Conversation best occurred when the level of the clear liquid was between one-quarter and three-quarters full. Too early and Uncle Bluster was sharp, angry and sarcastic. Too late and he became a pitiful, tearful former mercenary plagued by the ghosts of the people he had killed.
Two more swallows and he would be in the golden zone.
He lifted his gaze, saw her, took the two swallows and gestured her closer. “What do you wish to ask?”
Kateri scooted close, sat down with her knees almost touching his and pretended to think. Actually, she was thinking; thinking she couldn’t ask what she wanted to ask, which was, “Why doesn’t my mama love me?” Instead she said, “Tell me the legend of the frog god.”
Uncle Bluster narrowed his rheumy brown eyes. “I’ve already told you. So many times.”
“Again. Please. I love it when you tell me.”
“I wish all the kids listened like you. Showed some respect for the traditions. Learned about their collective pasts. Modern kids. No respect. They don’t respect me.” His voice rose. “Do you know I could kill you with one hand?”
“I know. You’re tough and you’re dangerous.” She touched the bottom of the bottle, urging it toward his mouth. She watched him swallow, wipe his mouth, and she asked, “When was the frog god born?”
Uncle Bluster belched; some of the belligerence eased out of him and he settled into the role of honored storyteller. In a sonorous voice, he began, “When the world was born, a giant monster grew in the depths of the ocean. He was the frog god, fearsome, dark and green, living in a universe lit only by fluorescent fishes that darted out of his reach, then died when he sucked them into his gullet. Yet the frog god hungered, for light, for heat … for love. He sought a mate. She spurned him, ran from him.”
“She became one with the sun, right, Uncle Bluster?”
He broke off and in an irritated voice, he asked, “Who’s telling this story? You? Or me?”
“You are. You are!”
“All right.” He settled to the task again. “She became one with the sun. For centuries he brooded, growing more and more wrathful about the deprivation he suffered. Finally he pushed his great legs against the ocean floor and leaped toward the surface, seeking light and heat! Seeking her and the sun! When he did, the earth shuddered, the ocean rose. Trees fell, waves pounded the shore.”
Kateri caught her breath, imagining the cataclysm of earthquake and tsunami.
“In our lands, the harbor filled. Boats were swept away. Men, women, children disappeared, never to be seen again, swallowed by the angry blue boil of the sea. They were a sacrifice to the frog god’s hunger. Yet”—Uncle Bluster paused, his arms lifted, his eyes on the horizon—“he failed. His mate escaped him. He sank once more into the depths. The sun continued its trek across the sky. Today and every day, he hungers. Soon the frog god will jump again.”
“What about me?” Kateri shifted. Leaves and needles crackled beneath her bottom. “Tell me about me!”
“The frog god is a great god, yet he can live only at the bottom of the ocean. He is imprisoned by his monstrous size, his inhumanity … by a god loftier than himself. Far and faint, beyond the drumbeat of his heart, he can hear a woman’s cry of defiance, of survival. She goes to the shore. She bathes her feet. She is not his love, yet he takes her, swallows her, kills her, disgorges her, making her a god of prescience and strength, an emissary on land of his greatness…”
“Is that me?”
“To every generation, a goddess is born whom the frog god loves … and destroys. Once upon a time, I foretold that your mother was that goddess. But she gave herself in love to a mortal man, she drowned herself in liquor and desperation.” His voice dropped to a mere whisper. “Be careful, Kateri Kwinault. Don’t go to the shore. Don’t swim in the ocean.”
“I have before and I’ve never seen the frog god.”
“You will.”
Kateri leaned forward eagerly. “Because I’m special, Uncle Bluster?”
He took a long pull of vodka, taking the level dangerously close to the three-quarter mark. “Don’t ask me. I’m only a drunk old mercenary sitting under a tree waiting for the day when the ocean rises and sweeps me away.”
With absolute certainty, Kat
eri said, “Uncle Bluster, the frog god will never take you. You keep his legend alive.”
Uncle Bluster’s gaze examined Kateri, and he saw too much. “Why are you really here? What is your real question?”
She shifted again, uncomfortable, hot, embarrassed. “I already asked—”
“You are special. But not so special I can’t tell when you lie.”
Kateri’s hands slid down over her belly. She had the cramps. She was bleeding. This was gross, uncontrollable—and the first time. She wanted her mother to be with her. But her mother was sleeping it off. Kateri burst out, “I want my mother! I needed her last night and she … she was in the bar, she was drunk, she was with a man, she was laughing. She doesn’t care about me!”
“Why did you want her, child?”
Kateri crossed her arms over her budding breasts. “I’m not a child anymore.”
“Oh.” He nodded. He understood. “No. You’re not.” Lifting his bottle, he took a long pull. “I remember the day you were born. I held your tiny body in my hands and saw you had the frog god’s eyes. Now you have stepped across the line and become a woman. Here.” He offered the bottle. “I guess you’re old enough now.”
Horror. Fury. Indignation. “No!”
“It’ll make you feel better.”
“Like you feel better? Like my mother feels better? Throwing up and drooling on yourself and complaining about your headache like it’s a disease you can’t help? No! I will never drink that shit.” Kateri wasn’t supposed to use words like shit, but she used it like adults used it, for emphasis and with contempt.
Still Uncle Bluster held the bottle out. “I said that, too, when I was your age.”
“Never!” she yelled, and stood up. “No!” She ran down to the beach, away from the sight of Uncle Bluster listing sideways from the slight weight of the outstretched bottle. She let the waves wash over her feet, listened to the inhale and exhale of the ocean as it advanced and retreated … approached and tugged at her.
She would never be like him. Like her mother. She wouldn’t. No.
Uncle Bluster always warned her never to go swimming in the Pacific. But Kateri couldn’t stay away. The ocean rhythms drove the beat of her heart and in her mind she sensed the currents, the underwater sway of the seaweed forests, the glorious depths and unimaginable secrets. In those places, she wouldn’t be in pain. She wouldn’t be unhappy.
She would be loved.
A long wave rolled toward her, covered her feet, rose to her knees, her thighs … it was coming up, coming fast. She started backing up. Backing up. Running backward. The water tugged at her, pulling the sand from beneath her feet, trying to make her fall, to submerge her in salt and wrap her in seaweed. Sure, she had imagined she could walk to the bottom of the ocean and still live and breathe. And sometimes—today—she wanted to sink into the depths and become one with the sea foam like the Little Mermaid. Not the Little Mermaid in the Disney movie, but the real Little Mermaid in Hans Christian Andersen’s dark fairy tale.
But she didn’t mean it. She didn’t want her vee-jay-jay to get wet. Her pad … she wore a pad … it was gross. Everything was gross. She was disgusting. She started sobbing, crying like she hadn’t ever allowed herself to do, her tears dripping into the ocean …
The wave retreated.
She wanted to turn and run, but she knew better now. She backed away, crying, bawling, broken apart by loneliness and anguish.
Hormones. Her teacher explained it was hormones. Yet Kateri’s emotions were real. Maybe the hormones brought them close to the surface, but she recognized her own desolation. And her right to that desolation.
She trudged home, and when she got there, she discovered her mother throwing up in the toilet.
She didn’t care. It was only later, when her father appeared, that she found out her mother wasn’t merely hungover.
She was sick. She had cancer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Kateri followed the plywood, orange spray-painted CONSTRUSHION! sign—someone could not spell—turned left onto a new, narrow dirt road cut through the forest and followed the increasing roar of heavy machinery. She parked at the end of the line of dusty, battered pickups, got out and walked over to the chain link that surrounded the job site perimeter. She arrived in time to see Stag gesturing wildly while he shouted directions at one of the excavator operators scraping the site.
Stag Denali. Square chin, cheekbones, dark intent eyes, dark hair. Denim shirt, washed and worn to a faded blue, hugging his shoulders. That perfect butt in the blue jeans … the old leather belt, the work boots, yellow hard hat and ear protection.
He looked like one of the Village People, only straight. He looked like the guy in the paper towel commercials, only not a cartoon. Plus, he was dirty.
Kateri wanted to lick the dirt off.
No. Focus. She had come for Lacey … who was nowhere in sight. There was only this gray shaggy mongrel who bounded toward her, ears flapping. “My God.” Kateri slid to her knees to embrace her filthy dog. “What have you been doing?”
Lacey looked up and smiled; even her teeth were dirty.
“Oh, honey.” Kateri petted her gingerly. “You look—”
“She’s been helping prepare the site.”
Kateri looked up into Stag’s amused face. “By digging?”
He pulled off his hard hat and ear protection and hung them on a hook on the fence. “And rolling. I’ve never seen a dog have so much fun.” Getting down on his knees beside Kateri, he licked his thumb and wiped her chin. “She got dirt on you.” He was still smiling, right at her, into her eyes.
Her heart sank. He’d heard what she’d said at the Gem Lounge. She broke a sweat. Hot summer. Streak of heat. Long sunny days. She was warm. Too warm. Really warm. Embarrassed. Blushing.
The heavy equipment behind them slowed and idled. Someone whistled suggestively.
Stag whipped his head around and stared, eyes narrowed. Just stared.
There were no more whistles. The engines began to roar again; things got very busy on the site.
Stag stood and helped her to her feet. “Come on. We’ll take Lacey to the stream and toss her in.”
She dusted her knees. “You’re going to toss my dog into a creek?”
“Naw, she’ll jump in by herself. She’s been in at least eight times today. In between rolling in the slash pile and bumming lunch off the guys. Come on, sweetie.” The sweetie was directed at Lacey, not Kateri.
Lacey flung herself into Stag’s arms and looked smugly at Kateri.
Stag headed into the woods. “All the guys adore her. Nifty threatened to steal her, but I told him she was your dog and he shivered and backed away. You inspire fear and awe, Kateri Kwinault.”
“From you?”
“You bet. I was afraid you were only using me for my body.”
He sounded so casual, so amused, and he looked so … so strong and manly.
Ugh. Manly. Who even thought stuff like that anymore? “I’m also using you for your dog-sitting abilities.” High five, Kateri! That was a smooth, noncommittal reply.
“You can use me however you want—as long as it’s forever.”
She stopped cold.
He kept walking, strolling along the shady forest path toward the sound of burbling water. And the way he walked … swaggering like a conceited ass, like he knew she was watching. At the same time, he held her dog against his chest in the most heart-melting …
No. No melting hearts. Kateri needed to remember who he was and that she didn’t entirely trust him. She hurried, and caught them as they reached the swirling pool under a rushing waterfall.
“There you go, sweetheart.” He put Lacey down. “Hop in.”
He only had to tell the little dog once. She clambered onto a fallen log that overhung the pool and leaped, landed with a splash, went under, came up and started swimming upstream, fighting the currents and joyously barking.
“I never knew she liked to swim,” Kateri
said.
“Sure.” Stag sat on the log and unlaced his boots. “I figure in high school she was not only the prom queen, she was also the swimming champ and the girl voted most likely to succeed.”
Kateri laughed, because he was so spot-on about Lacey’s doggy personality. And she stared, because after he removed his boots and socks, he stood up and stretched, his long arms extending way up. “What are you doing?”
“It doesn’t get hot here often, but when it does, it’s a steamer. I’m going to cool off.” He waded into the stream and offered his hand. “Want to come in?”
She almost put her hand in his, then common sense caught up with her. “No. No, I, um, I’m on duty and the shit has officially hit the fan.”
“I heard about the tourist. I’m sorry. You deserve a break.” That hand remained steadily outstretched.
She noted that he had a scar across his palm, a deep red mark, and his little finger curled almost into his palm. Seemed like the kind of thing she should have noticed before, but she’d always been involved with his other body parts. Right now, she stared fixedly at that hand. “I wish I could. I can’t. Don’t tempt me.”
The hand clenched, disappeared out of her line of vision. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Out of the corners of her eyes, she caught a glimpse of him falling backward—and the cold splash drenched her, head to toe. “Damn you!” She laughed, and wiped at the water on her uniform. “You are the most—”
“Charming man you’ve ever met?”
“That, too.” She watched him float seemingly without effort and oh, God, it did look refreshing. In more ways than one.
“Lacey’s looking a little more herself.” Stag gestured toward a branch. “Her towel’s hanging over there.”
Kateri took one look. “That’s Lacey’s towel?”
“She was in my car on the new leather seat. She does have dog claws, you know!”
“So you bought her a Barbie beach towel?” She knelt and called her dog.
Lacey paddled toward her.
“It was on sale!” He sounded defensive. As he should.