Apache Heart (2 page)

             
“How could I refuse?  You make it sound so enticing!”  Randi smiled, and Dr. Cody offered a faint smile back.

             
As he poured their coffee, Randi had a chance to look her new boss over.  He was slim, a runner’s build, she thought, and he looked like he was probably mixed race.  His hair was dark brown, thick, and cut short in a spiky mop, and he had grey eyes.  The cheekbones said there was definitely some Native American in his heritage, but his complexion was too light, the nose not quite right; still, the overall effect was rather attractive.  Randi guessed he was about ten years older than her, maybe thirty-six or thirty-seven.

             
“You take anything in your coffee?”  Dr. Cody inquired.

             
“If it’s truly crappy, then a splash of milk if you have it.”

             
He held up a little plastic creamer cup, “One Mini-moo or two?”  Randi held up two fingers.  They sat down.

             
“I’ve seen your resume, I know you went to a good medical school and finished at the top of your class. Tell me a little about you, though, and why you wanted to come out here.”  He sipped at his coffee.

             
“I’d be lying if I told you the loan relief wasn’t a huge incentive, but you know, I’ve spent my whole life east of the Mississippi.  I’m from a little town on the New Jersey-Pennsylvania border, went to school in Philly, and the idea of working some place that really needs a doctor has its appeal.  I liked the idea of getting a lot of diverse experience, so I applied to Indian Health Services, and this is what shook out.  I imagine I could have just as easily ended up in Alaska or Idaho or some other state.  So it’s a little bit luck of the draw.”

             
He nodded, his face relaxing.  “If you don’t mind working hard, then you are going to get a lot of experience.”

             
“What about you, how’d you end up here?” 

             
Dr. Cody scratched his head.  “I grew up in Rio Blanco and I went to med school in Albuquerque.  My dad, from what I’ve been told, was a white guy who worked for a winter on the ski patrol at Sierra Blanco.  He impregnated my mom, and disappeared back to the East Coast and left her to raise me alone.  She’s mostly Apache with a little Mexican thrown in, so, anyway, here I am.”  He coughed a little nervously, “That was probably more information than you wanted.”

             
“Why don’t you give me an overview of what I need to do to get oriented?”  Randi said helpfully.

             
He seemed relieved to turn the conversation back to work.  “Lozen finishes the prenatal clinic at three.  She’s our most senior nurse, and frankly, she’s the pillar of the hospital.  She can give you a tour, and introduce you to the staff.  There are two internists and a pediatrician. We have five other RNs and some LPNs.  There’s a nutritionist, a pharmacist, a small lab that can handle anything that’s not exotic, and a radiology tech.  All in all, they’re a pretty talented group of folks.”

             
“Sounds like you’ve got the bases covered.”

             
“We try.  Anything surgical or critical we stabilize and then send them on to the regional medical center.  Minor traumas we handle here—stitches, broken bones, snake bite, that sort of thing.”

             
“Somebody better show me where the anti-venom is then!”  Randi found that she was warming up to Dr. Cody.  She didn’t think that their rocky start was personal.  He seemed like he cared.  “Dr. Cody…” Randi hesitated, but thought she should just be blunt, “Is there anything I should know about being a white girl working on a reservation?”

             
“If you’re respectful and do your job, people for the most part will accept you just fine.  There may be things that puzzle you from time to time, but if you don’t understand something, ask Lozen or myself.  We’ll try our best to explain.”

             
“Thanks, I appreciate that.  One other thing…I’m more likely to answer if you call me Randi instead of Dr. Green.”

             
“I’ll keep that in mind.”  He pushed back from the little table.  “And feel free to call me Elan.”

             
Randi wandered down to the prenatal clinic to observe what was going on.  She realized she probably didn’t look like much of a doctor in her dirty slacks and blouse, so she took a chair in the empty waiting room.  A door to one of the examining rooms opened, and Lozen had her hand on the shoulder of a young woman maybe eight months pregnant, but the concerning thing was her black eye.  Lozen patted her and sent her on her way, and then motioned to Randi.

             
“Domestic violence?” Randi asked.

             
Lozen shook her head up and down gravely, “Yeah, you know, Indians and firewater.  It’s a bad mix.”  The nurse unwrapped her stethoscope from her neck and slipped it in her pocket.  “Dr. Cody sent you to me for a tour, didn’t he?”  She smiled.  “I’m kind of the Welcome Wagon around here.”  They walked down the main hallway, and Lozen pointed out the lab and radiology and introduced her to the techs.

             
“Tell me about Dr. Cody, he’s kind of a hard one to read,” Randi said as they headed toward the pharmacy.

             
“Yeah, no kidding.  That one runs hot and cold.  But he’s an excellent doctor, and he does a good job of keeping this place afloat.  I try to forgive his quirks.” 

             
Randi wasn’t sure how curious she could be without seeming like she was just sticking her nose in other people’s business, but she realized, there was something about Elan that she found incredibly appealing.  She laughed and asked casually, “Any quirks that I should be warned about?”

             
“Oh, I don’t know, he’s moody, I guess.  Probably nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a little less work and a little more fun in his life.  I don’t think he’s had a date in the last five years.”

             
“Maybe he’s…” Randi hesitated, afraid to veer into out and out gossip.

             
“Gay?”  Lozen laughed, “No, I don’t think so.  He seemed pretty serious about one gal for a while, but she ran off with a cowboy from Montana.  I imagine she got tired of the moods.”

###

              Randi punched in the GPS coordinates she’d been given, and rolled out of the hospital parking lot.  She was renting a cabin at the edge of the reservation, and was anxious to get settled in, and maybe make a grocery run into town. 

             
The cabin was on a mountainside, and it had beautiful views. It was tiny, only a bedroom, kitchen, bath and living room, but it had the advantage of being fully furnished, and there was a woodstove and a deck with a picnic table.  She found the key lockbox, punched in the code, and let herself in.  Looking around with a satisfied eye, it hit her that this was going to be home for the next two years.  In the living room, she found a few boxes of basic necessities that she’d shipped ahead: kitchen stuff, sheets and towels, winter clothes, and a couple of boxes of books.  She went back to the truck and dragged in a couple of giant suitcases. 

             
She rummaged through the cupboards and then made a shopping list of all the mundane things she needed: garbage bags, toilet paper, laundry detergent, food staples.  Then she made up the bed, stacked towels in the bathroom, and unpacked her kitchen necessities.  Books went on a shelf in the living room, laptop on the kitchen table, and suddenly it started to look a little more like a home.  Looking at her watch, she decided she had time to run into town and hit up the grocery store despite the fact that it had been a very full day.  The good news was that it was Friday, and she had the weekend to get herself oriented before starting work bright and early on Monday.  Her task for Saturday would be investing in some new tires.

             
Rattling down the mountain in her truck, Randi started thinking about the two men she’d met that day.  What were the chances, in such a small place, of her path crossing with not one, but two hunky guys? Of course, one of them being her boss was a bit of a deterrent to romance, but she figured it couldn’t hurt to window shop, even if one had no intention to buy.  And while Elan might not have had a date in a while, well, neither had she.  Med school was pretty much guaranteed to turn your love life into shambles.  After a couple of terrible one night stands with other med students, and an ill-fated romance with a cop whose schedule would never align with hers, she gave herself over to a celibate existence focused on becoming the best doctor she could be.  Those days were over now, though, she thought, and there wasn’t any good reason for her to not look around and see what New Mexico might have to offer when it came to men.

             
She wheeled the truck into a parking spot at the small grocery, grabbed a shopping cart, and started trundling down the aisles throwing things in the basket.  She stopped in the meat department and thought that maybe she would treat herself to something nice to put on the grill for Saturday night, an intimate housewarming for one.  Looking around, she picked up a salmon steak in one hand and a ribeye in the other, debating the merit between tasty enough and healthy versus artery jamming and delicious.  Suddenly she heard a voice behind her.

             
“You don’t want that.”  Lee appeared next to her, and took the packages from her hands, tossing them back into the cooler.

             
“I don’t?”

             
He shook his head, “Nope.”

             
“Why not?”  Randi asked.

             
“Because we’re going up to the upper Rio Sierra to catch trout tomorrow.”

             
“We are?”  Randi was thrilled, but it was a little crazy to think about running off to the hills with a man she’d barely met. 

             
“I’ll be by at 7am sharp to pick you up.”  Lee pushed his cart on past.

             
“But wait, don’t you need to know where I live?”  Randi called after him.

             
“I know,” he said, without turning around.

###

              Randi had fresh coffee on when Lee drove up, and pulled a sheet of hot biscuits out of the oven.  They were the frozen kind, not homemade, but a guy couldn’t expect too much from a girl who’d only moved in the day before.  What she did have, though, was a jar of her mom’s sour cherry preserves. 

             
Lee tapped politely at her door and she went to let him in.  He was fresh scrubbed and shiny, wearing some faded blue jeans that rode low on his hips, lightweight hiking boots, and a dark blue t-shirt that hugged his muscles in all the right places.  “May I come in?” he asked.

             
“Black coffee and biscuits?”  He picked one of the biscuits off the sheet and took a big bite, “I knew you were my kind of person.”

             
“Sit down, I’ll pour you a cup.  And you really do not want to eat that biscuit without some of my mom’s sour cherry jam.”

             
He did as he was instructed, and Randi put a basket of biscuits and a couple of little plates with knives on the table, along with butter and the preserves.  She poured two big mugs of coffee and joined him.  “How’d you know where I lived?”

             
“I told you, this Indian knows everything going on in and around the rez.  I’m a first responder so it’s my job to know what’s up every nook and cranny.” He put a generous smear of the preserves on a biscuit,  “And your landlord is my cousin’s brother-in-law.”  

             
Randi smiled, “So everybody pretty much knows everybody’s business around here?”

             
Lee pressed his lips together and looked at the ceiling, pretending to think as he chewed.  He looked back at Randi as he swallowed, “Yep.  Welcome to the rez.”

             
“So how many people know we’re going fishing?”  Randi probed.

             
Lee ticked them off on his fingers, “My mom, my grandparents, my sister Maggie, my cousin Reggie, and Harold, who runs the gas station.”

             
“And by this evening?”

             
“Oh pretty much everybody.”  He reached for another biscuit as Randi furrowed her brow.  “We don’t really think of it as gossiping.” Lee clarified.  “It’s how we keep tabs on things, and the elders will comment if something isn’t to their liking.”

             
“This is all excellent information.  Makes a girl mind herself.”

             
“Yeah, that’s kind of the point.  Mostly, it’s a good thing.”  Lee took a big drink of his coffee, “Can we take the rest of the biscuits and preserves with us?  Those trout start hiding when it gets hot.”

             
“You bet, and I think somewhere I’ve got a thermos for the coffee.”