Jake sighed. Even Ellie wouldn’t understand if he tried to explain about a little girl he’d met only once. “I have to protect her from Aunt Alexandra.”
“Why?” Ellie asked, leaning over him. When he didn’t answer, she shook him without much sympathy until he rolled over in self-defense and stared at her. “What did Aunt Alexandra do, God durn it?” she demanded.
He could barely whisper the words. “Uncle William hit her, and she pushed him down the stairs.”
Mom heard a different drum in her head. And she danced to it. That explained a lot, Sam thought. At six years, she had figured out one of the great mysteries of life.
Mom was not a hippie as some of the other American kids in school teased; that would have been the opposite of what Daddy believed in, so it just couldn’t be true.
But she knew she was right about Mother. One of her earliest memories was of losing Mother in the base PX. Not that Sam had wandered away—Mother had, in absentminded pursuit of a lady she’d recognized as one of her palm-reading people. So Sam had suddenly been left in the confusing wilderness of the grocery aisles, holding baby Charlotte by one hand. Even then she’d recognized that she had to be in charge, and it wasn’t quite the way things were supposed to be for a kid. Humiliated but stoic, she’d led Charlotte to a riser with big cans of nuts stacked on it, and they’d sat on the edge, gazing up solemnly at the shiny cans, waiting.
Before Mother came hurrying back, a half dozen grown-ups asked them if they were lost. To which Sam replied each time, “No, we just like to hang around with nuts.”
She was not, and never would be, like Mother, no matter how sweet and good Mother was. Daddy would not give up if he were in this predicament. Neither would Sam.
“When will I get to see Jake?”
Sam had asked that question when Mom told her they were going to visit Aunt Alexandra, and when they were packing to leave Germany, and again on the plane, and on the second plane after they switched planes in Atlanta, and in the big car Aunt Alexandra had sent to get them in Asheville, and now, in the quiet of their bedroom in Aunt Alexandra’s gigantic house.
They had come back to the town where she’d said her first words, the place where she vividly remembered wanting to talk, for the first time—all because of a dark-haired boy who’d made her feel needed.
Many things weren’t clear to Sam, but that was. She understood that Uncle William was dead, and that dead, for a person, was the same as dead for Frau Miller’s schnauzer, Schnapps, who had lived next door to them until he’d been run over by a bus. She understood that dead people were buried with more hoopla than dead dogs. Frau Miller had wrapped Schnapps in newspapers and put him in a garbage can.
Obviously, since Mom had gone to the trouble to leave Daddy and Charlotte for a week, and had taken Sam with her to fly in planes all the way back to America to see Uncle William get buried, he was not just going to be put in a garbage can. There wouldn’t have been much use in coming here just to see that.
“Sweetie,” Mom said now, sitting cross-legged on the white carpet with her long skirt in a heap between her knees as Sam faced her resolutely, “You were such a little girl when you met Jake. That was three years ago. I thought you’d forget all about him.”
“I don’t forget. Because I talked to him, and you said it was magic. I don’t think there are many people in the world who can do real magic, so Jake must be special.”
“There’s something I need to explain to you about Jake.” Mom smoothed a wrinkle in Sam’s shirt. “Jake’s mother and your uncle William were sister and brother, okay? And because Uncle William married my sister—your aunt Alexandra—that makes Aunt Alexandra Jake’s aunt too.”
“That’s nice.”
“Well, when Aunt Alexandra married Uncle William, he gave her a very special present.” Mom held up her left hand, where her ring, with its tiny glass wedding rock, caught the light from sunshine pouring through the bedroom window. “When two people get married, the man gives the woman a present to show everyone that they love each other. Uncle William gave your aunt a present like my diamond. He gave her a big red rock called a ruby.”
“He must have loved her a lot.”
Mom looked sad. “Yes, I’m sure he did. But the ruby he gave your aunt was one that had belonged to his family for a long, long time, and, well, some people thought he should have given it to Jake’s mother—Uncle William’s sister—instead.”
“But that would mean he’d be married to his sister. I don’t think that’s the way things are done.”
Mom looked up at the ceiling for a while, as though she were trying to figure out what held it up. “The ruby wasn’t the kind of present a man gives to his wife. It was supposed to belong to Jake’s mother.” Mom exhaled the way she did whenever Sam asked several questions in a row. “The point is, Jake’s mother doesn’t like Aunt Alexandra because Aunt Alexandra owns her ruby. And now that your uncle William is … gone, Jake’s mother and Aunt Alexandra don’t have to be nice to each other for any reason.”
“Aunt Alexandra should give the ruby to her.”
“Well, your aunt won’t do that. Which is why Jake’s mother and nobody else in her family likes her.” Mom paused, and looked at Sam with her head tilted. “You know what honor is. Daddy talks about it all the time.”
Sam nodded. “It’s the Ten Commandments and the Pledge of Allegiance rolled into one. It’s the rules good people have to use.”
“That’s right. And so the rule is: Because your aunt won’t give the ruby back, Jake’s family can’t be friends with her. And because you and I are part of Aunt Alexandra’s family, they can’t be friends with us either.”
Sam stared at her. “Jake won’t be my friend?”
“Not the way you think he is, sweetie.”
“But he was my friend before.”
“He didn’t know the rules then. And neither did you. Now you’re both old enough to understand them.”
“No! Then I don’t want any honor!”
“Sammie, I’m sorry. You can say hello to Jake at Uncle William’s funeral, but I don’t know if he’ll talk to you. He’s a big boy now. He’s going to be so sad about Uncle William. He may not feel like talking to—”
“He talked to me before I could even talk back.” She clenched her hands, squinted, and fought a tide of tears that burned behind her eyes. Crying was not honorable either, Daddy said. She did not want to have any honor, but she didn’t want to break Daddy’s rules. Still, none of this made sense. “He talked to me,” she repeated. “And I’m going to talk to him some more. Whether he wants me to or not.”
She ran to the window, where the sunshine was so bright it made her eyes cry all by themselves, so no rules were broken.
“This is all about a dumb rock,” she whispered angrily. “A dumb red rock.”
Jake stood stiffly in the crowded church vestibule. At his eye level, the whole world was made up of men’s ties and women’s bosoms, a suffocating wall of adults who brushed him as they jostled their way into the sanctuary, leaving behind a cloud of cologne, perfume, and perceptions. Judges and lawyers, bankers and mayors—and they felt more sad for themselves than for Uncle William, because the weather was nice, and there were other places they’d rather be. He was wounded by their boredom; why had they come for the funeral then? He stared into their middles and hated them; he wanted to be alone, away from their false kindness.
Ellie had already gone inside, with Mother and Father. He was supposed to go right now. But he thought he’d punch someone if he bumped into many more lies. He edged along the wall, got to a staircase, and bolted up it two steps at a time. The narrow loft at the top was empty and cool. He leaned on the railing, looking down on the sanctuary already packed with people, and took deep breaths of air untainted by fake flower scents and fake leather scents, by fake sorrow and selfish curiosity.
Mother, Father, and Ellie sat on the front pew on the left side with some of Mother’s relatives. There was a sma
ll space for him beside Ellie, but he thought he’d strangle if he had to sit there. He’d be within spitting distance of Uncle William’s bronze casket covered in white roses.
I killed him. Maybe Samantha would hate me if she knew what I did, even if it was an accident. Maybe she’s already decided to hate us Raincrows, just like her aunt.
The front pew on the right, across from his family, was empty. But as he watched, a door opened on the side near the organist’s box. Aunt Alexandra walked in, thin as a whistle and wearing a black dress, holding Tim’s hand. Tim wore a black suit and tie as spiffy as any adult’s, a high contrast to Jake’s brown jacket, rumpled tan trousers, and skewed brown tie. Behind Tim was a lady with long straight blond hair, a black skirt that swung jauntily above the tops of black platform shoes, and a short black jacket with puffed shoulders.
Mrs. Ryder. Jake craned his neck and clutched the balcony’s railing. She turned and held out a hand to some person who hadn’t appeared yet.
Samantha walked into the sanctuary, and his heart did a slow flipflop. She was twice as tall as he remembered, which meant her head now reached her mother’s elbow, and she was dressed in an identical black suit, even down to the platform shoes, with long golden hair streaming down her back.
He, who had little interest in girls for girls’ sakes, felt heat zoom up his cheeks and knew, without doubt, for right or wrong, that she was as fine a girl as he had ever seen.
He had promised himself to Aunt Alexandra’s blood niece. But Aunt Alexandra had murdered Uncle William. His uncle. What could he do? Father said, If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.
If he didn’t warn Samantha, knowing what he knew about her aunt, he would be a coward. But he couldn’t tell her what he knew—he couldn’t tell anyone.
Shivering with the dilemma, he watched her sit with her mother and aunt. People were still rambling around, finding their seats. The minister hadn’t come out of the back yet. But there wasn’t much time. Unless Jake took bold action, he might never get to talk to Samantha. Aunt Alexandra certainly meant to keep her away from him. Samantha would go back to Germany, and who knew when he’d see her again?
Hardly thinking, he reached into a back pocket of his slacks. Hidden under the tail of his jacket was a foot-long piece of hollow river cane—a miniature of the long cane blowguns the old people sold in the tourist shops up at Cherokee, the main town on the reservation. Keet Jones could kill a rabbit at fifty yards with a sharp wooden dart; he’d taught Jake and Ellie how to shoot.
Jake glanced around the loft for a safe missile. He grabbed a hymnal from a wooden rack attached to one of the pew backs, and opened it. Could you go to hell for tearing a page out of a church song book? What if he took only the very first page? It was blank.
He compromised by tearing off one corner of that page, easing the scrap along, convinced each tiny ripping sound could be heard in every corner of the church. He put the hymnal back and fixed a hard pebble of paper and spit, then loaded his piece of cane and took aim at the back of Samantha’s head.
His heart pounded like an engine. It was a long way from the loft to the front pew. If he hit the wrong head, or Samantha squealed on him for hitting her, he’d find out exactly what hell was like, right here, today.
He gave it his best shot. The spitball hit home squarely in the middle of Samantha’s hair. She slapped a small hand at the back of her head, pulled the gummy wad out, stared at it, then twisted around and searched the crowd with glaring eyes.
Up, up, up. She saw him. Her mouth popped open. He leaned on the railing as casually as he could, holding the blowgun in the air like a peace offering. He couldn’t think what else to do.
She whipped around and leaned close to her mother. He could see that Samantha was saying something to her.
Telling what the awful Raincrow boy had done to her, in church, at their uncle’s funeral, no less? Jake sighed heavily, and waited.
“I need to go the bathroom,” Sam whispered.
Mom, who sat between her and Aunt Alexandra, and was holding Aunt Alex’s hand, leaned down and whispered back, “Can’t you wait?”
“I know where it is. I can go by myself. Please?”
“Well, hurry. And don’t talk to any strangers.”
Sam looked at her solemnly. It’s him. It’s Jake. “Oh, I won’t,” she promised.
Chapter
Eight
Back through the cool hallways inside the church. Through a door into the hot, bright sunshine. Around the hedges and along the edge of the lawn. She ran, breathless and uncertain, but determined. She darted among the grown-ups on the front steps, into the little room at the back of the sanctuary, and halted.
He was waiting on the stairs. Gosh, he was so tall, and his hair was black as night, with little bits of red in it. And he was a boy, one of those creatures she disdained. But not like the boys in her first-grade class at the school for kids of servicemen, a big boy, at least a fifth-grader, she guessed.
It was heady stuff. It was the same feeling she got when she hugged her favorite stuffed animal, only a thousand times larger.
She approached him slowly. His eyes stayed right on her, as if she might be from outer space. Then he held out one hand. A distant memory returned, of being much smaller, of looking up at him the way she was doing now, and of taking his hand. It had been all right then; it would be all right now.
She grabbed his hand and followed him up the stairs.
“Go find your brother,” Father whispered to Ellie. Father had one arm around Mother, who was staring straight at Uncle William’s coffin, her hands clenched in the lap of her black suit. “And tell him to get his fanny back in here right now. The service is about to start.”
Ellie’s skin itched with the feeling that Jake wasn’t too far away, in fact, that he was at the back of the sanctuary. She eased around furtively, looked up, and inhaled with a long, low sound of alarm when she saw him sitting with Aunt Alex’s niece in the tiny loft. She whipped around and gazed steadfastly into space. She didn’t want to get her brother in trouble. He was going to be in enough of that. “Go on now,” Father said. “Go get Jake.”
“I—I—hmmm, he, well—”
The minister came out of a side door, and the organist started playing. Mother jumped as if she’d been asleep, and glanced at them. Her eyes were red and tired. “Where’s Jake?”
Ellie gazed at her parents, mouth open in silent torture. Father squinted at her. “Ellie,” he said, drawing her name out.
She motioned numbly toward the back of the church. They looked. “My God,” Mother said under her breath. “They did manage to find each other. I won’t have it. I won’t have him sitting with Alexandra’s niece. I’m sorry. I just won’t.”
“Let’s allow William one day of peace,” Father said grimly. “Let it be for right now.”
Mother faced forward, looking ashamed, Ellie thought, and said nothing else.
“I know about the rock,” Sam said carefully. They sat in the middle of a pew in the empty little hiding place upstairs. His long legs reached the floor. Hers didn’t. “The rock that makes you hate my aunt Alexandra.”
“It’s not just a rock, it’s a star ruby. It belonged to my family way back when there was nobody else except Indians around here. Aunt—your aunt, she won’t give it back to us.”
“Do you hate me too?”
“No.”
“Then why do you look mad?”
“Because you’re a Duke, and it’s not right for me to like a Duke.”
“My name’s Ryder. My daddy’s an M.P. for the army, and he’s Sergeant Ryder, okay? I’m not a Duke.”
“Yes, you are.” He looked at her sadly. “Because your mother is one.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my mom!”
“I didn’t say there was. Just that she’s your aunt’s sister. And your aunt is a Duke.”
“Aunt Alexandra is your aunt too.”
“Not anymore. Not sinc
e Uncle William …” His voice trailed off, and he stared away, frowning. “Not anymore,” he repeated, and sighed. “Listen to me. Your aunt wants you to belong to her. She’d be real happy if you could live with her like you’re her daughter, because you’re special, and she knows it.”
“I’m not gonna live with Aunt Alexandra. Why would I do that? Mother and Daddy wouldn’t let me, and I wouldn’t go anyhow.” She peered at him to see if he was joking. What a crazy idea.
“I’m just saying—don’t ever think she’s your friend. She’s a mean person. She’s … she’s like a spider, and if you get stuck in her web, she’ll run over and wrap you up before you can bat an eyelash.”
“Oh, no, she won’t. I’m a spider too. I know how to make webs.” She pulled something from a deep pocket in her odd black skirt. Her eyes became even more serious. “Here,” she said softly, pressing something into one of his hands. “I made this for you.”
He studied the odd little knitted blue square, no wider than his palm, with a perfect gold R stitched in one corner. He couldn’t remember him or Ellie being able to make anything so delicate when they were her age. “You made this all by yourself?”
“Sure.” Her mouth flattened and she scrutinized him as if insulted.
“I told you you’re special.” He carefully tucked the gift in his jacket pocket. His skin tingled. California. The name came to him out of nowhere. His heart sank. Her family was moving to California. “I like it. What is it?”
“I don’t know. But I worked on it a long time. My daddy says it could be a blanket for a bug’s bed.”
Jake fished in another jacket pocket, sorting through odds and ends he carried with him all the time. Bits of quartz and other rocks. His touchstones. He could feel the mountains in them. He produced his favorite, a lumpy, purple-brown rock with a silvery glimmer. Holding it on his palm, he told her, “This is a kind of ruby.”
She bent over it. “It’s not red. Looks like a rock to me.”
“A lot of them aren’t red. I didn’t say it was a very good ruby, but it’s my favorite.” He popped the stone in his mouth, plucked it out, and polished the uneven surface on his jacket sleeve. “Look.” He tilted his hand, and light shimmered across the surface. “It’s got silk.”