The Ashtons: Walker, Ford & Mercedes

A few moments later, silence engulfed him. No one could think of anything to say, so they resumed their meal, making noise with spoons and forks and butter knives.

He glanced at a clock on the wall and imagined it ticking. Like a bomb, he thought. Like the day Spencer had taken legal custody of him and his sister, the day he’d been told that both of his parents had died.

Charlotte had been too young to understand, to comprehend the cold, harsh reality of never seeing Mommy and Daddy again. But she’d cried just the same.

Walker stopped eating. His childhood memories were scattered, lost in the darkness of his mind. But not about that day. He remembered it vividly.

“Why did you do it?” he asked Mary, unable to hold back his emotions, to keep faking this reunion. “Why did you give us away?”

Two

“I’m sorry, Walker.” Mary’s voice quavered. “I should have explained everything right away. But I thought…I hoped…we could get to know each other first.”

He pushed away his plate. “Why?”

“So you wouldn’t judge me so harshly. So you wouldn’t think I was trying to turn you against Spencer.”

“I already told you. My uncle is dead.”

“This is his fault,” Tamra said. “He forced your mother to give up her children.”

“Oh, yeah? With what? A gun?” Unable to sit at the cramped table any longer, he rose from his chair and glared at the young woman Mary had raised. “Did he force her to take you in, too? To be your mom instead of ours?”

Tamra came to her feet. Suddenly she looked like a female warrior, her mouth set in a determined line, her dark eyes blazing with anger. “That isn’t fair.”

“You want to talk fair? There’s no excuse for what my mom did. None whatsoever.” He rounded on Mary. “I prayed for you. I called you an angel.” Much too edgy, he blew out a hard breath. “When Spencer rescued us, I was so damn grateful. And so damn scared. Do you have any idea what being an orphan feels like?”

She didn’t answer. She just swallowed the lump that seemed to be forming in her throat.

“I know what it feels like,” Tamra said.

He spun around, gave her a cold look. “And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“No. It’s just that I understand.”

“Yeah, right. You. The perfect Indian.”

“Perfect?” She started clearing the table, moving at a frustrated pace. “You have no idea what I’ve been through. I wasn’t raised in a mansion, Walker. My father ran off before I was born, and my mother was all alone, trying to survive on welfare. To find us suitable places to live.”

“It’s not the same thing.” He gestured to Mary, who crossed her arms, hugging herself. “She let me think she was dead. At least your parents were honest.”

“Don’t point at her.” Tamra clanked the dishes. “Don’t do that. It’s not proper.”

“Says who? People on the rez?” As if he gave a damn about Lakota etiquette. “Maybe someone should have told her that lying to her kids wasn’t proper.”

“Mary was on the verge of a breakdown when she lost your dad. And Spencer preyed on her emotions. He—”

Walker cut her off. He turned to his mom, needing to hear it from her. “Is that true?”

She nodded, and he realized how frail she looked, sitting alone at the table, listening to him and Tamra argue.

He resumed his seat, his heart pounding horribly in his chest. He wanted to call her a liar, but he knew his uncle had never tolerated gentle-natured women, especially when their wounds were still raw.

Yet he’d loved Spencer. He’d patterned his life after his father’s power-hungry brother.

“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me what he did.”

“He came to see me in the hospital, right after your dad died. I was injured in the accident, nothing life threatening, but I still needed medical care.”

“How did he force you to give us up?”

“He threatened me. He said he would get Social Services involved. That he would prove that I was an unfit mother.”

“But you weren’t.” Walker studied the shadows under her eyes, the lines imbedded in her skin. “Were you?”

“Oh, God, no.” She reached across the table and brushed his hand. A featherlight touch. The touch of a mother who’d lost her son. “I never abused my babies.”

“I have no idea how you treated us.” Which made Spencer’s threats seem even more plausible, he thought. More frightening. “I can’t remember you and Dad. I just can’t.”

“It’s okay.” Mary’s voice went soft, sad. “It’s been a long time.”

“Yes, it has.” Uncomfortable, he turned in his seat and noticed Tamra stood nearby. She’d fixed a pot of tea, some sort of herbal brew. When she offered him a cup, he looked up at her, and their gazes slammed straight into each other.

Heat. Emotion. The gates of Lakota hell.

He shouldn’t be staring at her. Not like this.

Only, he couldn’t seem to break eye contact.

And neither could she.

God help him, he thought. Suddenly he feared they were destined to be lovers, like misunderstood characters in a movie who yelled and screamed, then kissed like demons. He wasn’t a fortune-teller. He couldn’t predict the future. Yet he could feel the passion. The danger that awaited him.

He’d never been involved in a turbulent relationship. His affairs had never bordered on pain, on the kind of emotion that ripped a man apart.

But everything about Pine Ridge tore him in two.

Finally Tamra shifted her gaze, pouring Mary’s tea. Afterward she sat next to Walker again, and he could smell the lotion on her skin, a disturbing blend of summer botanicals. A fragrance that made him want her even more.

Soft, airy, far too real.

Mary looked at both of them. “Neither of you deserve this.”

“We can handle it.” He turned to Tamra, then considered bumping her arm. But he knew no one would laugh this time. His left-handed antics wouldn’t ease the tension. Nor would it change what was happening between him and Tamra.

“Yes,” she agreed. “We can handle it.”

Under the table, her leg was only inches from his, and the near contact made him warm. He didn’t understand why she affected him so deeply, why she made him yearn for a forbidden liaison.

Was he trying to punish her? Or was he hell-bent on torturing himself?

“Finish your story,” he said to Mary, trying to redirect his focus, to clear his head. “Tell me the rest.”

“I was afraid of Spencer. Of his money, his power.” She sipped her tea, clutching the cup with both hands. “When I was growing up, Lakota children were being put into foster care. Into white people’s homes because their own families were too poor.”

“And you thought Spencer could do that to us? That he could convince Social Services to take me and Charlotte?”

“Yes. I’d been away from the reservation for a long time. Married to your dad, being a farmer’s wife. But in the end I was just a poor Indian all over again. Except, this time I was mourning my husband and drugged with painkillers from the hospital. I couldn’t think clearly.”

“But this was the eighties. Wasn’t there something your tribe could have done to help you? To stop Spencer from taking us?”

“The Indian Child Welfare Act could have made a difference. But I didn’t know about it then. It went into effect after I left the reservation.” Her breath hitched, catching in her throat. “My life with your father was over. He was gone and the farm was in foreclosure. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere but here.” She glanced at the window, where a small breeze stirred the curtains. “But at the time, all I had to come back to was a rundown shack and an alcoholic brother.” She shifted her gaze. “Spencer threatened to use that against me. To drum up phony evidence that I was a drinker, too. That I hurt you and Charlotte. He knew people who would testify, who would lie for him.”

Once again, Walker battled his confusion. He wished Mary had fought for her rights. That she’d done whatever she could to keep him and Charlotte. Yet he was glad Spencer had been his uncle.

“I didn’t want my children growing up in foster care and thinking that I’d abused them,” his mother said. “To me, that was worse than being dead.”

Was it? Walker didn’t know. He didn’t have kids. He didn’t have anything in his life but his work, the career Spencer had groomed him for.

“There’s more,” Mary told him. “Something else your uncle did. It seemed horrible at first. Only it didn’t turn out to be a bad thing.”

“Really? What was it?”

“Money.” She nearly whispered, then raised her voice a little louder. “His attorney sent me a thirty-thousand-dollar cashier’s check after I got back to Pine Ridge. I didn’t want to cash it at first.”

“But eventually you did?”

“Yes.” She reached for his hand. “I did.”

Walker wanted to pull away from her. But he allowed her to touch him, feigning indifference, pretending that he could deal with the money.

With the sale of two small children…

The following day Tamra arrived at Walker’s motel, per his request. He met her outside, looking like the city boy he was, with his well-tailored clothes and men’s-fashion-magazine haircut. He wore the thick dark strands combed straight back and tamed with some sort of styling gel. Short but not conservative, at least not in a boring way.

Walker Ashton’s hair had sex appeal.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey, yourself.” She noticed that he seemed troubled. She hoped they wouldn’t end up in another argument. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I just want to talk.” He reached into his pocket and removed some coins. “How about a soda?”

“Sure.” She walked to the vending machine with him and chose an orange drink. He picked grape. From there, they headed back to his room.

She felt a bit odd going into the place where he’d been sleeping. She knew she shouldn’t, but being with him in an intimate setting caused her heart to pound unmercifully in her breast.

She looked around his room and noticed the western motif. He’d chosen comfortable accommodations on Highway 20, but he was probably used to five-star hotels. This, she imagined, was foreign to him.

The window air conditioner was on full blast, with color streamers attached, blowing like international flags.

She sat at a pine table, and he leaned against the dresser, a big, sturdy unit that doubled as an entertainment center. She suspected that he’d climbed under the covers last night and watched cable TV.

What else would he do in a cozy Nebraska town?

“How old were you when my mom took you in?” he asked.

“I was five, but my mother was alive then. We both moved in with Mary. My mom and your mom were friends, and we didn’t have anywhere else to go. It was winter. We would have frozen to death on our own.” She flipped open the top of her soda, memories swirling in her mind. “My mom died two years later. So I was seven when Mary became my guardian.”

“How old are you now?”

“Twenty-six.”

A frown slashed between his eyebrows. “You’re only a year older than my sister.”

She nodded. Did that bother him? Did it make him feel even more betrayed? She wanted to ask him if he’d called his sister, if he’d spoken to her in France, but she decided to wait until he finished interviewing her. She could see the unanswered questions in his eyes.

“Is that common on the rez?” he asked. “To just raise someone else’s kid?”

“Yes.” She tried to relax, but he was making her self-conscious. The way he watched her. His hardedged posture. “The Lakota have an adoption ceremony called Hunka, the making of relatives. It’s conducted by a medicine man or another adult who’d been a Hunka. This ceremony provides a new family for a child who doesn’t have a home.”

“Did you and Mary do that?”

“No.” She lifted her soda, took a sip, placed the can on the table. Walker’s gaze followed her every move. She tried to avoid eye contact, but it didn’t help. She could feel him looking at her. “In those days Mary wasn’t connected to her heritage. She was defying tradition, isolating herself from the community. A Hunka ceremony would have been too Indian. Too Lakota.”

“So she just kept you without adopting you?”

“Yes.” Tamra tasted her soda again, wishing Walker would quit scrutinizing her. “We could do it now, though. People of any age can become Hunka if both parties agree.”

“Don’t,” he said.

“Don’t what? Have a ceremony?” Tired of his male dominance, she lifted her chin, challenging him. “That’s not your choice to make.”

“I don’t want you to be her adopted daughter. I don’t want to be related to you.” He moved away from the dresser. “And I’m sure you know why.”

Did she? She glanced at the bed, at the maroon and blue quilt, at the plain white pillowcases. Then she looked at him. A bit woozy, she took a steadying breath. “Nothing’s going to happen.”

“Yes, it is. Sooner or later, we’ll end up there.”

There.

His bed.

She struggled to maintain her decorum, to seem unaffected. “That’s awfully presumptuous of you.”

He finished his drink, then grabbed the chair across from her. In one heart-stopping move, he spun it around and straddled it. “I’m not saying that I want it to happen. I’m just saying that it will.”

Tamra felt as though she’d just been straddled. Ridden hard and put away…

…wet.

She moistened her lips. “I’m not going to sleep with you.”

“Yes, you are.” He didn’t smile. He didn’t flirt. But he shifted in his chair, bumping his fly against it. “We’re going to tear off each other’s clothes. And we’re going to be sorry afterward, wondering what the hell we did.”

“I don’t have affairs. Not like that.”

“Neither do I.”

“Then why are we having this stupid conversation?”

“Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you last night.” He made a tense face. “And it’s pissing me off.”

She shook her head. He had to be the most difficult man she’d ever met. “Everything pisses you off, Walker.”

He squinted at her. “Did you think about me last night?”

Her pulse tripped, stumbled like a clumsy little kid playing hopscotch in the rain. “No.”

“Liar.”

Yes, she thought. Liar, liar, pants on fire. But she’d be damned if she would admit it. She’d slept with the windows open, letting the breeze stir her hair, her half-naked body. “You’re not my type.”

“You’re not mine, either.” He paused, then checked her out, up and down, from head to toe. “But you’re hot, sexy as sin. For an Indian,” he added, making her scowl.

“I wouldn’t go to bed with you if you were the last half-breed on earth.”

He smiled at that. “Good. Then it won’t happen. We’re safe.”

She was already safe. She’d been on the Pill since her baby girl died. Since she’d decided that she wasn’t getting pregnant again. At least not by a man she wasn’t married to.

Walker rocked in his chair, and she tried to think of something to say, something to wipe that cynical smile off his face. She certainly wasn’t going to discuss birth control with him. She knew that wasn’t the kind of safe he was referring to.

He was talking about their emotions, their feelings.

Sex they would regret.

“What did my mother do with the money?” he asked, changing the topic so abruptly, she merely blinked at him.

“What?”

“The thirty grand. How’d she spend it?”

Tamra took a moment to gather her thoughts, to compose her senses. “Maybe you should ask her about this.”

“I’m asking you.” He leaned back. “It’s easier for me to talk to you. You’re—” the cynical smile returned “—not as vulnerable.”

He had no idea, she thought. He didn’t have a clue. But how could he? She hadn’t told him that she’d lost a child. That she understood his mother’s pain. “Mary bought the mobile home we’re living in. It was used, so it wasn’t very expensive.”

“So there was money left over?”

“Yes. And she invested that.”

“Really?” He seemed surprised. “Were they sound investments?”

“Sound enough. There was enough to help me go to college.”

“Damn.” He dragged a hand through his sexually appealing hair, messing it up a little. “My mom sent her non-Hunka kid to college. Doesn’t that beat all?”

“Beat all what?” Struggling to keep her cool, she blew an exasperated sigh. “I worked hard on my education. I earned a scholarship, too.”

“To a tribal college?”

“To San Francisco State University.”

He practically gaped at her. “You went to SFSU? You lived in California? Where I live?”

“That’s right.” She’d spent her entire childhood dreaming of bigger and better things. “And I brought Mary with me.”

“Why San Francisco? Why did you choose a university there?”

“Because I knew Spencer had taken you and Charlotte to Northern California. And I wanted Mary to feel like she had a connection to her children, even if she was never going to see them.” Tamra finished her soda and cursed her pounding heart. “So we rented a little apartment and tried to make a go of things. I got a part-time job and earned a degree in marketing, and Mary got a full-time job, working at a hospital. Later she became a certified nurse’s aid.”

He sat on the edge of the bed. “A marketing degree. And you came back to Pine Ridge?”

“Yes, we did.”

“Why?”

“Why not? This is our home.”

“Fine. Don’t tell me the whole story. I don’t care anyway.”

But he did, she thought. Or he wouldn’t be so hurt about Mary letting him go. “Have you called your sister yet? Did you tell Charlotte that you found your mom?”

“Yes.” He made a face at the phone, cursing the object as if it were his enemy. “But she’s not coming back to the States. Not for a little while. Can you believe it? She thinks I need to spend some time with Mary first. To get to know her.”

“Sounds logical to me.”

“Because you’re a woman. Your kind stick together.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “I think I’m going to like your sister.”

“I’m sure you will.” He quit snarling at the phone and noticed her smile. “Don’t patronize me. I’m being serious.”

“So am I.” But she laughed in spite of herself. “You’re just so agitated all the time, Walker. Everything upsets you.”

“And you think that’s funny?” He grabbed a pillow off the bed and threw it at her.

She caught it and tossed it back at him. Then they both fell silent.

“Want to get a pizza with me?” he asked suddenly.

Was he inviting her on a date? No, she thought, not after his spiel about their warped attraction. He was probably just bored, looking for something to do. “Sure, I guess. But on the rez. Not here. And I have to stop by a friend’s house first.”

“I noticed the pizza place at Pine Ridge. But I haven’t eaten there.”

“Don’t worry. It won’t make you sick.”

He shrugged off her sarcasm. “It’s a franchise I’m familiar with.”

She came to her feet. “I’ll drive. And on the way I’ll teach you about Lakota protocol.” She dug through her purse, snagged her keys. “Indian 101.”

“I can hear it now. Don’t point, Walker. And don’t get drunk on the rez.” He followed her out to her truck. “All those winos I saw must have missed your class.”

Wiseguy, she thought. “Just listen and learn.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He climbed in the passenger seat, and she gunned the engine, wondering what she’d just gotten herself into.

Three

Walker studied Tamra’s profile. He had so many questions about her, about his mother. He was even curious about Lakota protocol. Although he wasn’t sure why.

“Who told you I was looking for my mom?” he asked.

“I heard it through the moccasin telegraph. Someone who knew someone who knew someone else.” She turned onto the highway. “You’re lucky that Mary works at the PHS. That people are familiar with her. It’s not easy to locate someone on the rez.”

“No, I suppose not.” Which was what he had been counting on. “Everything is so spread out.”

She continued driving. By Walker’s standard, her pickup was old, an early-eighties model with plenty of mileage. But it seemed reliable enough. At least, he hoped so. He knew there were places in Indian Country where neither cell phones or CB radios worked. But for now they were still in Nebraska.

“Did you forget about my lesson?” he asked.

“No. I’m just deciding where to start.”

He examined her profile again, thinking how striking she was. Her prominent cheekbones, the slight imperfection of her nose, the way her hair framed her face. Her eyes fascinated him, too. Whenever she looked at him, heat surged through his veins.

A sexual response, he thought. Lust in the first degree.

“We’ll start with respectful eye contact,” she said, making him blink, making him realize how closely he was watching her. “In the old way, you’re supposed to avoid eye contact with your elders. And children were taught not to stare. When you stare at someone, you’re challenging them.”

He glanced away. He’d been staring at her from the moment they’d met. Of course, she’d done her fair share of locking gazes with him, too.

“As for pointing,” she went on to say, “the Lakota gesture with their lips.”

He frowned. “Their lips?”

“Like this?” She moved her mouth in his direction.

He tried it and made her laugh.

“You’re overdoing it, Walker. You look like Mick Jagger.”

He laughed, too. “What other social laws should I know about?” he asked, deciding he enjoyed her company, her relaxed sense of humor.

“Addressing a family member by a kinship term is part of the old way.”

“Like mother, son, daughter? That sort of thing?”

“Yes. But some of the terms are quite specific. Older brother. Younger sister. Male to female. Female to male.”

He leaned back in his seat, knowing this would be important to Charlotte. “What’s the term for younger sister?”

“From a male to a female? Tanksi, I think. Sometimes I get confused. I’m still learning the language.”

Walker nodded. He suspected that Mary hadn’t raised Tamra in a traditional manner. Not after the things she’d said about his mother avoiding the Hunka and other Lakota ceremonies. “Does my mom speak the language?”

“She’s not fluent, but she’s working on it. We’re both trying to make up for the past. For the years we didn’t embrace our culture.” She kept her hands on the steering wheel. “But we’re still not overly traditional. We just do the best we can, trying to respect others.”

Walker tried to picture Tamra in San Francisco, far away from the Lakota. Knowing that she’d chosen SFSU because of him and Charlotte made him feel closer to her. But it made him uncomfortable, too. She’d grown up in his shadow, and now he was struggling to survive in hers.

“Are their different types of Sioux?” he asked, still trying to absorb his culture. “Or are they all Lakota?”

“There are three branches,” she responded. “Lakota, Dakota and Nakota, who are also called the Yankton Sioux.”

“So where does Oglala come into it?”

“It’s one of the seven Lakota bands. It means ‘they scatter their own’ or ‘dust scatters.’” She sent him a half-cocked smile. “But the Oglala have seven bands of their own, too.”

“Okay, now you’re confusing me.” He shook his head and laughed. “So much for Indian 101. This is turning into an advanced course.”

She laughed, too. “It’s not as complicated as it sounds.”

“If you say so.” He glanced out the window and noticed they were on the reservation, heading toward the town of Pine Ridge. He recognized the road.

“What kind of work do you do?” he asked. “What keeps you busy around here?”

“I’m the director of volunteer services for a local nonprofit organization. We supply food and clothing to people on the reservation.”

He raised his eyebrows. “An Indian charity?” Was that the extent of her life? Everything Lakota?

“It’s important,” she countered. “It’s meaningful.”

“Yes, but being the director of volunteer services doesn’t require a marketing degree. Sounds like a waste of your college years to me.”

She gave him a quick, sharp look. “I coordinate media events, too.”

Small-time stuff, he imagined.

By the time they arrived in downtown Pine Ridge, tension buzzed between them. So much for enjoying her company, he thought. For her easy sense of humor. But he supposed it was his fault. He’d criticized her job.

He considered apologizing, then decided that would be dishonest. Her education wasn’t being utilized, not to its full potential. She’d cheated herself by coming back to the reservation, by living on her homeland.

The town of Pine Ridge had one traffic light and four water towers. There was plenty of activity, generated from the Billy Mills Auditorium, tribal offices and the Oglala Department of Public Safety, but Walker noticed that a lot of people were doing nothing, just sitting on a bench, talking away their boredom.

Tamra stopped for gas at Big Bat’s, a convenience store, eatery and gathering place for locals. He’d heard it was Lakota owned and operated, unlike some of the businesses on Pine Ridge. He had to admit it was impressive, something he hadn’t expected when he’d first arrived. But even so, he hadn’t been inclined to hang out there.

The pizza place was in town, too. As well as a taco stand and a market.

“Are you still interested in having pizza with me?” he asked, as they left the gas station. “Or did I blow it?”

“I’ll eat with you. But after we go by my friend’s house, remember?”

Yeah, he remembered. “Is this a traditional friend? An elder? Should I avoid eye contact?”

“Michele is the same age as me. We went to high school together, and she won’t care if you stare at her. She’ll probably like it.”

A smile twitched his lips. “The way you do?”

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

She ignored his last comment, so they drove in silence, past empty fields and into a hodge-podge of unattractive houses.

“So what’s the deal with Michele?” he wanted to know. “Why are we visiting her?”

“I’m loaning her some money. Her daughter’s birthday is coming up, and she’s short right now.”

He looked out the window, saw sporadic rows of wire fences, garments hanging on outdated clotheslines. “Is she on welfare?”

“She’s a single mom. And, yes, she receives Aid to Dependent Children.” Tamra’s truck rattled on the roughly paved road. “Does it matter?”

“I just wondered.” He couldn’t imagine not having any money for your child’s birthday. But he knew his parents had been destitute at the time his dad died. If he looked deep within himself, he could recall the shame it had caused him, the feeling of despair.

For Walker there had been nothing worse than being poor.

Michele’s house was a pale-blue structure with a set of worn-out steps leading to the front door. It was, Walker thought, a stark contrast to the diversity of the land. The grassy plains, rolling hills, buttes and mesas. The beauty he’d refused to appreciate.

A little girl, maybe three or four years old, sat on the steps, with a loyal dog, a mutt of some kind, snuggled beside her.

Although a group of older kids played in the yard, he sensed she was the upcoming birthday girl.

“How many kids does Michele have?” he asked Tamra, as she parked her truck in a narrow driveway.

“Just one. The rest are her nieces and nephews.”

Walker watched them run through the grass, tagging each other with laughter and adolescent squeals. “Do they all live here?”

She nodded. “Along with their parents. There’s a shortage of houses on the reservation. They don’t have anywhere else to go.”

He thought about his trilevel condo, the sprawling rooms with French doors and leaded-glass windows. The redwood deck and private hot tub. The enormous kitchen he rarely used.

He ran his hand through his hair, smoothing it away from his face, trying to shed the sudden guilt of having money. “That’s a lot of people in one house.”

“It’s a common situation.”

“How common?”

“The Tribal Housing Authority is trying to provide homes, but they have a waiting list of at least twelve hundred people. It’s been like that for a long time.” She turned to look at him. “When I was growing up, before Mary took us in, my mom and I drifted, trying to find a permanent place to stay. In the summer we camped out, but in the winter we had to find some sort of roof over our heads.”

He pictured her as a little girl, living like a half-starved gypsy. “Why are these houses so close together and my mom’s by itself?”

“Mary lives on her family’s land allotment, which is what most families did in the old days. They had log cabins, with gardens and animals.” She sighed, her voice fading into the stillness of her truck. “But as time passed, it became increasingly difficult for people to remain on their land allotments. They couldn’t afford to improve their homes, to stay in the country with no running water or electricity. And some families lost their land altogether, so they had to move into government projects.”

“Like this?”

She nodded. “It’s called cluster housing. It was instituted in the 1960s to provide modern conveniences. But the lack of economic infrastructure created reservation ghettos.” Tamra reached for her purse. “Cluster housing is only a portion of the problem. There are families who still don’t have electricity or running water. People staying in abandoned shacks or old trailers. Or camping out or living in their cars, the way my mom and I did.”

He couldn’t think of an appropriate response. He’d witnessed the poverty, seen signs of it all over the reservation, but until now he hadn’t let it touch him.

They exited the vehicle, and Tamra called out to the older kids. They grinned and waved at her. Walker wondered why they seemed so happy, so lighthearted and free. He could barely breathe.

The little girl on the steps grinned, too. She wore a pink top, denim shorts and a couple of minor scrapes on her knees. Brownish-black hair fell in a single braid, neatly plaited and shining in the July sun. Her feet, dusted with soil from the earth, were devoid of shoes.