“Me. I do.” She pointed to herself. He didn’t mention that she hadn’t done too well at it today. “You can leave now,” she added. She inched away from him, her arms sunk between her legs, as if she were trying to become invisible. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you.”
He stared at her. “Why?”
“You’re a Raincrow.” She trembled. “Go away. It’s important. And I’m not married to you either. People can’t get married before they can vote and have babies.”
“Well, I don’t recall asking you to do either one.”
“People have to stick to their own kind.”
“Is that what your aunt told you?”
“Aunt Alexandra is my friend. You hate her, so you’re not my friend.”
Jake carefully put a hand on her shoulder. She shivered and tried to move away, but he held just tight enough to stop her. He felt her fear and confusion, her unhappiness. He saw a thin gold chain peeking between the parted hair at the nape of her neck. Jake caught it with his fingertips and pulled. She grabbed at her chest, but the small stone popped up between the open collar of her shirt.
He remembered the mediocre ruby—not worth five dollars, he knew now—but a proud treasure when he’d found it. And when he’d given it to her.
She wrapped both hands around it and glared at him. Jake nodded. “You can’t tell a lie to me. Don’t even try.”
Her eyebrows shot up. She gazed at him desperately. “Please, please, go away,” she said in a small, fractured voice. “And don’t ever come back. When I’m old and have plenty of money, I can talk to you. But for now I have to do what’s best for Mom and Charlotte.”
The truth was suddenly clear to him. She was caught in the middle of her aunt’s twisted generosity, and Aunt Alexandra had made certain she wouldn’t stray. “Listen to me,” he said, moving around in front of her, then dropping to his heels so they looked at each other on the same level. “You take care of your folks. You take care of yourself. But don’t ever think you’ll get caught in a dark place where I can’t find you. That’s just the way it’s going to be. I’ll come to get you, and there won’t be a thing your aunt can do about it.”
She shut her eyes and clamped her mouth tight. Jake sighed, stood up, and walked to the corner of the delapidated old building. Mr. Black spotted him and blew the truck’s horn. Jake looked back at her. “See you later,” he said.
She whipped around and called his name. Jake halted. Her hands splayed on the stoop, she leaned forward and looked at him urgently. For a split second she wasn’t ten years old. Like watching a special effect in a movie, he saw an older version of herself superimposed on a small girl’s image. It shook him. He knew how he’d feel about her then, and the power of it sank in forever. “When?” she asked.
Jake blinked. The image was gone, but not the memory. He cleared his throat and said as casually as he could, “When you’re old enough to vote.”
It was new, and bright, and clean. Outside the huge plate windows was a wide covered walkway with wooden benches at regular intervals, and dwarf Japanese maples in handsome stone planters. Next door was a dry cleaners run by a young Vietnamese couple who had brought them a bowl of glazed orange slices as a welcoming gift. On the other side was a bookstore, and beyond that, a florist’s shop, a hardware store, and a shop that sold sports equipment. The parking lot was clean, and tall lampposts kept it well lit at night. The busy four-lane street brought a steady stream of customers into the shopping center.
No winos on the doorstep. No dank cellar full of dusty antiques. No exposed electrical wires or giant rats speeding across the kitchen floor.
Frannie sat down on one of the cardboard boxes waiting to be unpacked in the new home of New Times Health Food and Vitamins, and cried with relief. “This is incredible.”
Sam, who was placing packages of granola bars on brand-new metal shelves along one wall, stopped working and stared at her worriedly. Charlotte, who had been opening boxes under Sam’s supervision, gave a little mewl of alarm and ran to their mother. “What’s wrong, Mommy? Did you see a roach?”
“Not even one,” Frannie answered, wiping her eyes with one hand and riffling Charlotte’s short blond hair with the other. “I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe that a stranger walked into the old place a month ago and said he wanted a health food store in his new shopping center, and now, here we are. I can’t believe the rent isn’t a penny more than what your aunt was paying for the other place. I think your daddy is watching over us. I think he sent an angel to help us out.”
Sam began stacking granola bars again. “Mr. Gunther doesn’t look like an angel to me. He looks like a smart man who had an empty shop to rent.” She paused, and for Mom’s sake, added, “But maybe Daddy whispered in his ear.”
Charlotte leaned against Mom and looked at her earnestly. “When is Aunt Alexandra going to visit us? Doesn’t she want to see our new place?”
“I think your aunt’s in shock, honey.”
Sam jammed a package into place with firm resolve. I think Aunt Alexandra’s not real happy about our good luck. But she didn’t say that, because Aunt Alex was still, after all, paying the rent.
Mom’s angel walked up to the glass door and pushed it open with a cheerful shove. “Getting settled, ladies?”
Mom jumped up and said hello to Mr. Gunther, who owned the shopping center. They began discussing an ad Mr. Gunther planned to run in the Sunday paper, listing all the shops and their hours. Sam studied their new landlord furtively while she worked. Mr. Gunther was short and big-bellied, and he wore western shirts with little string ties at the collar, and pants that hung so low on his butt that he needed wide western belts with huge belt buckles to keep his pants from falling down around his cowboy boots. He had thin brown hair, and little gray eyes that disappeared when he smiled, and his stubby little hands were covered in rings made of silver, with colorful stones.
He was the strangest-looking businessman Sam could imagine, but very nice. “Now, where did I leave my notes for the ad?” Mom said, frowning.
“I put them in a file folder and marked it Ads,” Sam answered. “On the desk.”
“Thank you, sweetie. I’ll go copy them for Mr. Gunther.” When Mom went into the back room, and Charlotte trailed after her, Sam walked over to Mr. Gunther to study his rings.
“You are one solemn little lady,” he said, squatting down on his boot heels and grinning at her.
“I’m running a business,” she told him. “I intend to make a lot of money. To pay for the rent and the bills and send my sister to college someday. So nobody can tell me what to do.”
“My, oh, my. That’s a very respectable plan.”
“What do those letters on your pinkie ring stand for?”
He held out his right hand. The ring on his little finger was all silver, and the only ornament on it was three raised letters that looked like a G, a W, and a Y—but with curlicues attached to them.
“That’s the word for Cherokee,” he explained. “The Cherokees are the only Indians who have their own writing. A man named Sequoyah invented it, way back when.”
“Are you an Indian?”
“Yep.”
Her mouth dropped open. Mr. Gunther looked even less like an Indian than Jake did. Jake had black hair, at least, and a face that was mostly cheekbones, and deep eyes, and a tan. Mr. Gunther looked like an ordinary person. “I have an Indian … friend. But you don’t look like him,” she said.
“My great-grandmother was Cherokee. Besides, being an Indian is all up here.” He pointed to his head. “And here.” He tapped a ringed finger on the center of his chest.
“You think you’re an Indian, so you are one?”
He laughed and nodded his head. “Something like that.” He cupped his hands, palms up, as if he were holding a ball in them. “If you’re an Indian, here’s the world. Every being has a place, and everyone shares. The people, and the mountains, and the trees, and the animals.” He moved his hands apa
rt. “If you’re not an Indian, the people are on one side, by themselves. They’ve forgotten how to share. They don’t even share with each other.”
“So because you’re an Indian, you’re sharing your shopping center with us?”
He tapped the tip of her nose the way he’d tapped his chest. “I’m a bonafide rockhound, and when I see fine quality stones stuck in the mud, I can’t help but put them where I can watch them shine.”
The threads of a question had been scattered in her mind. Now they came together in a brilliant pattern. “My friend knows all about stones.” Her voice was a secretive whisper. “He knows where to find them. He gave me one.” She pulled her necklace from inside her sweater and let the ruby rock dangle between her fingers. “I bet he could show you where to find rocks. I bet you’ve heard of him, since he’s an Indian. His name’s Jake. Jake Raincrow.”
When Mr. Gunther pursed his mouth but said nothing, and just smiled at her, she exhaled slowly.
Mother came back then, waving a piece of notepaper at Mr. Gunther, and he winked at Sam as he stood up.
Sam walked to their beautiful big windows, and stood with her ruby clasped in one hand. Jake had sent Mr. Gunther to help them. Mom was happier now. Charlotte wouldn’t be squealing and jumping out of a rat’s way anymore. And as for Aunt Alexandra, well, Sam hadn’t asked Jake to help them, had she? She hadn’t broken any promise to her aunt.
And when she was old enough, and had enough money to take care of her family, so that she owed Aunt Alexandra nothing, she would find Jake, and tell him what she felt right now. I love you, Jake Raincrow.
Chapter
Ten
“Pomp and Circumstance” collapsed into chaos the moment the last of the honor graduates—which was Ellie—filed out of the school auditorium into a brightly lit lobby hung with banners celebrating the Class of ’79.
The majority of the senior class was still pacing up the center isle, held in check by protocol and the watchful eyes of a thousand family members and friends. As her classmates turned to her with shocked stares and questions, Ellie wished Jake—who was bringing up the rear of the class procession by reason of a respectable but ordinary grade point average as well as a lack of alphabetical priority—would hurry up.
Courage was a lonely thing.
The other honor graduates bombarded her so quickly that she could only stand in grim silence, listening.
“What happened to the valedictorian speech you practiced in speech class last week?”
“Are you crazy? Why’d you say all that stuff about the new people turning Pandora into their own private playground and turning everyone else into beggars? My parents aren’t ‘smug and condescending.’ When my dad was having our tennis court built, he let the whole crew of hillbillies swim in our pool during their lunch break.”
“God, Ellie, you made fun of Senator Lomax’s commencement speech! I saw Mrs. Lomax in the audience, and she looked like she wanted to kill you!”
“What was so awful about what the senator said? He was only pointing out that progress is a good thing.”
“My mom says we wouldn’t have this new high school if he and Mrs. Lomax hadn’t pushed the county to build it.”
Ellie removed her cap and took a deep breath. “Senator Lomax is a bullshit artist who married my uncle’s money to get ahead.”
The rest of the class was crowding through the auditorium doors and crowding the lobby, turning it into a black and white flower garden of robes and caps, of stares and whispers directed at her. Ellie looked around for Jake, but couldn’t see him.
She made another pivot and came face-to-face with Tim’s furious blue eyes. His face was as red as his short-cropped hair, and he had Uncle William’s blunt, broad features but none of his gentleness. Her cousin was junior class president, and he wore a sash over his dark blue suit, denoting usher status for the ceremonies. He was tall, thick-necked, with bulky arms and an oversize chest from weightlifting—a menace on the football field, where, over the years, his timidity had evolved into arrogance.
“You stupid cow,” he said. “You didn’t make a fool of my stepfather. You made a complete, fucking idiot of yourself and your whole family.”
Ellie held his gaze without blinking. “What I said is true. I don’t call it progress when a golf-course developer flattens the top of an Indian burial mound and turns it into the eighteenth green. Or when Pandora Lake is lined with so many boathouses, the wild ducks barely have a place to nest. Or when the chamber of commerce moves its annual dance to the country club and charges fifty bucks for a ticket. And what Orrin Lomax said about ‘wonderful new opportunities’ means only that people who drive Mercedes and own quarter-million-dollar homes have the opportunity to do exactly as they damn well please. If that upsets you and him and your cold-blooded mama, too bad.”
“My mother turned this backwoods town into something special, and if you had half the sense God gave a rock, you’d be glad.”
“Stop using the macho juice,” she said softly. “Steroids are rotting your brain.”
“I don’t take drugs.”
She shouldn’t say it. She had no proof. But, like Jake, she knew a lot of secrets about their classmates that couldn’t be proven. And the heady events of the night were combining with adult freedom to push her over the bounds of caution. She leaned toward him and whispered, “Yes, you do. You use steroids, and amphetamines, and sometimes after a game you’re so wired you drive up to Razorback Bald and drink a case of beer to calm down. And when you’re like that, you give your girlfriends a couple of slaps if they get on your nerves.” Ellie stepped back. “Now, shut your face and go pick on someone who cares what you think.”
He grabbed her forearm with one brawny, blue-veined hand. Other students latched on to his massive shoulders, yelling at him to let her go. Ellie jerked back, but he dug his fingers in until she thought they must be touching bone, and she felt his sweaty fear. “I’ll break your fucking arm if you tell lies about me,” he said.
Suddenly Jake’s broad hand clamped down on Tim’s wrist. Ellie looked up to find her typically mild-mannered brother’s eyes infused with a violent gleam. He’d discarded his mortarboard somewhere along the way, and coppery-black hair fell over his forehead. Years spent outdoors in the mountain weather had given him squint lines and darkened his skin; his eyes were cold green emeralds in that face.
Without a word he twisted Tim’s wrist. Tim gave a guttural yelp of pain and let go of her, then turned furiously toward Jake. Humiliation flashed through his eyes, and he glanced around at the eager, horrified audience. “You want to get into it?” Tim asked loudly. “You want me to beat the hell out of you?”
“No,” Jake said, drawling the word as if giving it real thought. “But if you put a hand on my sister again, I guess I’ll have to risk it.”
“You’re nothing. You’re less than nothing. You’re not even going to college. Mother says you’ll end up running some crappy rockhound shop and selling cheap garnets to tourists.”
“Could be.”
Jake’s lack of argument seemed only to outrage their cousin more. He hunched his thick shoulders and stepped closer, his jaw thrust out. “Everybody knows you don’t have anything to do with girls. I think you’re a fucking queer.”
“I doubt it.”
“That’s why my mother has kept her nieces away from you. Or maybe you just like little girls.”
Ellie gasped. Jake stared at Tim without a shred of outward reaction, but his arm brushed hers and she felt the slow, invisible ticking of his patience. Leave it to Jake, she thought with awe, to sort through insults as if they were meaningless pebbles, separating the gems from the plain rocks. “You listen to your mother too much,” Jake told him. “She’s the one you’re trying to prove something to. Not me.”
Tim shoved him. Jake took a step back, tall and lean, moving with the practiced grace of someone who’d negotiated sheer mountain cliffs since he and Ellie were old enough for Granny to take them i
nto the high ridges with her. “You probably shouldn’t do that again,” he warned, his voice never rising.
“Coward,” Tim said, and pushed him again. Jake’s right arm moved in a blur of motion. The next thing Ellie knew, Tim was sprawling on the floor, blood pouring from his nose.
Parents and other relatives were, by then, pressing into the lobby to find their graduates. There were general shouts of alarm, and people scurrying about, and Mother and Father were suddenly beside them, Father edging Jake, Ellie, and Mother behind him with an outstretched arm. For once, Mother was too shocked to do more than stay behind him, one hand wound in Ellie’s robe, the other in Jake’s. Father commanded the barricade, but Mother ruled the troops.
Tim sat on the floor, both hands pressed to his ashen face while blood dripped slowly onto his suit.
“Get up.” Aunt Alexandra pushed her way through the crowd and stood over him, her hands clenched. Tim’s eyes filled with shame. The strained dignity of the dispossessed overtook him, and he clambered to his feet, towering over her with wounded composure that reduced him to scrubbing one hand over his bloody face and wincing.
Alexandra gestured curtly at Father. “Don’t shield your flock like some Old Testament patriarch. If your black sheep wants to butt heads, get out of the way. Tim can take care of himself.”
“I didn’t raise my children to be professional boxers,” Father said. “And it seems to me that Tim has already gone down for the count.”
“Heard you broke your cousin’s nose last night,” Joe Gunther said cheerfully, standing in the front yard beside the open door of a car, a large wrapped package in his hands.
Jake walked out to meet him, draping a threadbare towel over one damp shoulder, and trailed by an enormous, half-grown bloodhound still soggy and morose from the flea dip to which Jake had just subjected him. Jake had named him Bo—short for bow-legged, not Beauregard. Bo wasn’t much of a tracking dog, but he was a great actor. He looked serious about the work, and people assumed he was the reason for Jake’s success. Jake’s reputation as a tracker had spread all over the mountains.