Whitehorse (28 page)

"I'm not feeling so good." He shoved his hands into his back pockets and stared at the floor.

Hashing a look at Officer Parker, she said, "What about the charges?"

"No charges this time. He's lucky. Grand theft auto isn't exactly a misdemeanor. Obviously he made quite an impression on the lady."

"Like father, like son," Jane said. "Can we go now, officer?"

"I suggest you find him a place to sober up before taking him home. He could probably use some food by the looks of him, not to mention a bath."

Jane pointed toward the door and Johnny turned, moved out of the office and through the station lobby, to the door marked Exit, out into the parking lot of black-and-white squad cars. "Get in," she said, pointing to a baby-blue
Lincoln
by the curb.

Sinking into the beige leather seat, he watched Jane Foster round the car, her long dark hair not unlike her daughter's.

Sheesh. Her daughter. The last person in the world he wanted to know about this stupidity was Leah Foster.

Jane slid in beside him. The musky scent of her cologne in the confined space made his stomach queasy.

The engine purred and the heater automatically kicked on as Jane backed the Town Car out of the parking space and headed down
Main Street
. Flipping open her purse, she dug out a pack of cigarettes, then punched in the car lighter. "You smoke, Johnny?"

He shook his head no.

"Good. It's bad for you. I've tried to quit a hundred times at least, but I've had to face the fact that I like the crap. Guess it's a little like your drinking. You know you shouldn't do it. It's going to make you sick, but you do it anyway." The lighter clicked and she reached for it, pressing its glowing end to the tip of the cigarette in her mouth. She inhaled deeply, closing her eyes.

Johnny pressed the window down button, allowing fresh air into the car.

"You don't say much, do you, Johnny?"

He looked out the passenger window at the dark countryside and wondered what time it was.

"It's that Apache mystique, huh? What's that belief? By talking too much, or telling too much, you—"

"Give away your soul."

"Right." She laughed, then coughed, then inhaled again.

They continued to ride in silence for a while, then Jane said, "Must have been a bad one tonight. What did he hit you with?"

"Doesn't matter."

"What set him off?"

"What else? Jack Daniel's."

"It makes him crazy. Makes you a little crazy too, huh?"

"Life makes me crazy."

"It makes us all crazy, Johnny. We could all be out there boozing and fighting and raising hell, but some of us find less violent and self-destructive means to work out our problems."

Turning his eyes on her, he said, "That
why
you're screwing my old man?"

She hit the brakes hard, causing the
Lincoln
to fishtail before sliding to a stop in the middle of the black, deserted highway. Reaching across his lap, she yanked on the door handle and shoved open the door. "Get out. Get out of my car, you ungrateful young shit."

Johnny stepped out onto the asphalt, then looked back. The overhead light made Jane look sallow, the skin around her eyes dark as soot. "You're a nice lady," he said. "And nice-looking. I just think you can do better than him."

Tires squealing, the
Lincoln
shot away, leaving Johnny standing in the road, head pounding and stomach churning, watching the red taillights grow small in the distance. Then the brake lights flashed and the car backed toward him, weaving from side to side before sliding to a stop beside him.

"Get in," she said.

He opened the door and got in.

Again they rode in silence. As they sped past the driveway entrance to his house, he looked at her.

"I can hardly take you back there considering your condition. The last thing you need is to get into another brawl tonight. Besides, that cut on your cheek needs seeing to. If you're worried about Leah, you needn't be. She already knows about their hauling you in. She was still up when Officer Parker called."

"Great." He slouched into the seat.

The house glowed from every window. Leah stood in the open front doorway, fingers tucked into her jeans pockets as she watched the car pull up to the porch and stop. Jane got out. Johnny took his time, watching Jane bound up the steps and speak to Leah before disappearing into the house.

He closed the car door and leaned against it.

Leah moved down the steps, shoulders slightly hunched as she stopped at the edge of the light, bare toes with their polished nails slightly hanging over the lip of the stair. Flamingo Fruit Passion, he thought. Had it only been that morning when she'd shown up at the barn looking like a bouquet of fresh-cut flowers? And smelling just as sweet? Making him hate his life more than he ever thought possible?

"I made sandwiches," she said softly. "Sometimes it helps to put something in your stomach."

"How would you know?"

"My mom has a little too much sometimes. I fix her peanut butter on crackers. But you don't look like the peanut-butter-and-crackers sort, so I made ham and cheese." She rubbed her arms and curled her toes under. "It's really chilly. Let's go in, okay?" She turned and bounded up the steps, her hair dancing around her shoulders.

Taking a resigned breath, Johnny followed as far as the door, then paused, allowing his eyes to adjust to the bright lights flooding down from the massive chandelier over the foyer. There were fresh-cut flowers on every table, and portraits on the walls.

"Are you coming?" Leah shouted from a hallway leading off the foyer.

He walked carefully over the black-and-white marble-tiled floor, his gaze fixed on Leah where she stood in the shadows, her smile encouraging him onward; then she slipped through another illuminated doorway that turned out to be the kitchen, nearly as big as his father's entire house. There were pots and pans hanging on hooks from the ceiling. Glistening countertops and sparkling glass cupboard doors. A stone fireplace on one wall, bookcases on another, loaded with cookbooks that looked as though they had never been opened.

Leah opened the refrigerator and reached for two sodas, along with an apple and orange and a bowl of grapes. "Sit." She pointed with her foot toward a three-legged stool next to a counter bar.

Johnny glanced around. "Where's your father?"

"
Washington
. Where else?" Grinning, she laid out the food next to his plate. "You can relax. He isn't going to come roaring through the door like the cavalry or something."

"I don't think he'd like me here."

"Like I said. He isn't here. When he isn't here I do what I want and see who I want."

"And when he is?" He picked up a grape and rolled it in his fingers. "Are you Daddy's good little girl when he's home? See who Daddy wants you to see? Go where Daddy wants you to go?"

Leah slid onto a stool and reached for her soda. "I pretty much do what I want to do. How's your face? When we're done here I'll clean it for you."

He shrugged. "I've had worse."

"Do
you
like
your
father?" Leah asked.

Tossing down the grape, he reached for the sandwich, not sure he wanted it, thinking he probably should eat it, feeling very strange standing in such a grandiose kitchen and talking so nonchalantly with the girl he'd had a crush on for months—who, until this morning, had not even acknowledged his existence.

"I like him sometimes. When he's sober."

"Then you acknowledge that he's stupid when he drinks."

Johnny removed the lettuce from the sandwich and set it aside. "Your point?" He flashed her a look, suspecting already what her point was going to be.

"Just that you see what drinking does to your father. What he becomes. Why do you want to be that way?"

"I don't."

"Johnny, stealing a car and a woman isn't exactly smart. And I don't think you would have done it if you hadn't been drinking. You're very lucky that the lady took pity on you."

"Is that what she took on me?" He shook his head, remembering Janice's head in his lap. "Let's just say we hit it off and leave it at that."

Leah frowned and stared at him hard. There was a tiny crumb of bread on her lip, and he wondered with an odd sort of spitefulness what she would do if he leaned over and licked it off.

"Well." She cleared her throat. "Have you given any thought to what you're going to do with your life?"

"What are you? A social worker?"

"No. Just someone who sees a tragedy in the making when I look at you. To say you're good-looking is an understatement. But I think you know that already. I asked Mr. Dilbert, the principal at school, about you last week. He told me you're a straight B student but your attitude sucks. You fight too much. You're consistently late for class and you enjoy getting in the teacher's face. He said you drove Mr. Dubach so far over the edge last year that the two of you wound up in a fistfight."

"He called me a stinking Indian."

"I know Mr. Dubach. He's a good guy. For him to get nasty he must have been pushed to the edge. Why do you get so angry at being called an Indian? It's what you are."

"It's the
stinking
that pissed me off. I happen to be proud that I'm Apache."

"Great. Then if Apache is something to be proud of, why don't you act it? Represent your heritage in a shining example. Educate us. Teach us what it means to be a Native American."

"I think I've done a good job of that tonight," he said angrily, throwing down the sandwich. "You want to know what being Native American is,
Pindah-Lickoyee?
It is living in poverty. It is existing like animals in a zoo, where people stick their cameras in our face and take pictures of us like we're oddities. It is dealing with a government that goes back on its promises to us. We listen to the horror of Hitler and the Holocaust, of a government that wiped out millions of innocent men, women, and children, and the world weeps for them, Leah. But who weeps for us? Who remembers that the white man swept over our country and slaughtered us, left our children's corpses to feed the coyotes, and those who remained were gathered like cattle onto parcels of shitty land and left there to die of starvation and white man's diseases, and the loss of our dignity?"

Leah reached over and laid her hand on Johnny's, and she smiled. "Then you should know by now that it will do you no good whatsoever to fight with your fists. Anger only begets anger. Use your brain, Johnny. Show us all what it
could
mean to be Johnny Whitehorse."

Her hand squeezed his, then drew away, yet her gaze remained on his, the blueness of it a tranquility that made him feel weightless. "So," she said, her lips still smiling, "ever played football? You look like you would make a great tight end."

FOURTEEN