A Certain Kind of Hero (14 page)

“What does he do with all that weight when he wants to fly?”

“He needs a good stretch of water for his runway. It takes some heavy-duty paddling and wing-flapping for him to get airborne, but once he's up, he can cruise over a hundred miles an hour.”

The deep chuckle at Raina's back sent a shiver sluicing through her. Gideon always told his stories, even the fables, as though they explained some truth, great or small. Some truth about him, she thought. Some simple truth about the enigma that was Gideon Defender.

“Of course, he's in serious trouble on the ground. On land he can't take off and can't walk worth a damn, 'cause his legs are stuck way back on his body for diving.” He stopped
paddling, and she followed suit, letting the canoe drift. “So here's this creature who thrives only in water or in the air—land is his nemesis—but when
Chimaunido
says, ‘Who'll help me make the land?'
mahng
turns out to be the right man for the job.”

In the distance, the loon yodeled peacefully again.

“
Mahng
was given the dentalium shell necklace as a reward,” Gideon concluded. “In our tribe, it's a sign of leadership. Only a leader may wear the
megis
necklace.”

Raina turned, squinting into the sun. “So where's yours?”

“I have one.”

“Really?”

“Would it surprise you to see me wear a necklace?” He smiled. “Feathers and beaded buckskins? Would it surprise you to hear me sing Indian? To see me dance in the traditional way?”

“No, of course not.”

“I have the
megis
necklace, and the responsibility that goes with it.
Mahng
is like my brother.”

Raina laughed softly. “You'd never guess that from the kind of welcome he just gave you.”

“Guess I'm kinda like the prodigal brother.” He dipped his paddle into the water again, but his eyes held hers. “Like I said, he was just protecting his wife and kids.”

“Maybe
I'm
the threat,” she muttered as she turned, facing forward. Maybe the bird could tell that she'd come from the city. Maybe she smelled of engine emissions, fluorocarbons and oil spills.

“I've read that acid rain and mercury might, umm…that they're a terrible threat to the loon.”
Might do them in,
she'd almost said, but she didn't want to be an alarmist. Something could be done to reverse the threat. Something could
always
be done. “I can't imagine these woods without that sound.”

“Without
mahng?
”

She felt his eyes on her, questioning her common sense. Without the loon, the North Woods would be desolate, but to Gideon, it was more than that.

“Without the diver, we'd have no place to lay our heads,” he said. “No earth at all. Some might doubt that, but what they will tell you is that there is nothing to prove it. The stories mean nothing. They aren't scientific.”

Another tremolo reverberated somewhere on the otherwise quiet waterway ahead of them.

“Doesn't that warning call sound like laughter to you? Kind of wild and desperate, like, ‘Look around you, brother! Wake up and smell the rain!'”

Suddenly she could feel his breath against the back of her neck. She shivered, and he gave a deep, throaty chuckle. “The rain should smell like Raina,” he said. “Clean and sweet. What would you do if I kissed you now?”

She closed her eyes and drew a deep, sharp breath. “Tip the canoe.”

He chuckled again. “That's what I thought.”

She heard him tuck his paddle in the rack. “Are we just going to drift?” she asked, her small voice floating on the water like the crystal notes from a music box. Every sound seemed to gain volume, in contrast with the quiet woods along the shore. It was midsummer, and birdsong had decreased with the season.

“I'm going to drop a line and catch us some lunch. What would you like with your mercury, honey? Bass? A little trout, perhaps?”

“Gideon!” She racked her paddle, stretched her legs and brushed her hands over her jeans. “Since I'm wearing plenty of sunblock, all I want is fresh sunshine with my lunch.”

“Sure you don't wanna order up a little purified air-conditioning, maybe some bottled water?”

“No, but I do wish I'd thought of putting on a swimsuit under my jeans—even though I'd have to slather on the sunblock—but I was afraid of causing a stir—” she eyed him pointedly “—among the mosquitoes.”

He made a pretense of taking a look around as he prepared his fishing gear. “Nothin' astir so far, except the damselflies.”

Noting that the water's edge was alive with the black-winged creatures that looked like flying metallic green sticks, Raina almost missed Gideon's lazy appraisal of her casual, ordinary, hardly provocative man-tailored shirt and jeans.

His smile was both slow and appreciative. “And me.”

Gideon didn't yet have lunch on the stringer, but he was in no hurry until another canoe appeared, disturbing their floating idyll. He cursed under his breath as he reeled in his line. A twelve-hundred-mile maze of waterways—interconnecting lakes and streams that the Park Service called canoe area wilderness, no motors allowed—and he had to run into two north-country good ol' boys. He knew damn well who they were. The hair standing up on the back of his neck told him that much.

They grinned and leered as they paddled closer. Whatever these boys had been drinking for breakfast wasn't part of Jim's supply pack. Regular clients of Jim's should have known better. Getting tanked on a canoe trip was a sure way to end up floating home facedown.

But it wasn't any of Gideon's business.

The interlopers slid off to the side, keeping their distance, but their voices carried well enough.

“Looky here, Chuck, these Indians do know something
about angling. All this time they had us thinkin' they couldn't catch nothin' without a spear or a net.”

Gideon watched the tip of his own rod as he reeled in his line. The man in the front of the other canoe pulled in his paddle, laying it across his thighs.

“Hey, how's it goin' there, Chief? What are they bitin' on?”

“Frybread,” Gideon quipped. He set his fishing rod down and picked up his paddle.

“No kidding?”

“Don't you recognize him, Daryl?”

The question had the man in front rubber-necking for clues while the bigger man wielded the rudder paddle, bending the course of the intruding canoe.

“He really is their chief,” the big one called Chuck said. “He's the one they interviewed on TV. You know, when they talked about this settlement the politicians have cooked up.”

“Sorry, boys, I'm unavailable for comment.” Gideon sliced into the water with his paddle, and his canoe surged forward. “Enjoy the fishing.”

“We will. Right, Daryl?”

“Damn straight. We always do, and we ain't gonna let nothin' change that.”

“You might wanna put your life vests on,” Gideon called out. Then he muttered, “Call yourselves sportsmen, you damn fools?”

“Don't worry about them, Gideon.” Raina glanced back at him as she reached for her paddle.

“Force of habit. I'll paddle,” he told her. “You just kinda casually keep an eye on those two turkeys over your shoulder. They make any sudden moves, you hit the deck.”

She did a double take. “Sudden moves? Like what?”

“Like they're reaching for something.” His deft, powerful
strokes had them skimming over the water. “You never know how hot under the collar those red necks of theirs are liable to get.”

The watch she kept over her shoulder was anything but casual. Her eyes widened. “Oh, my God.”

“What the—?” He reached for her even faster than he ducked. “I told you to—”

“It's just a cigarette.” She stayed his hand on her shoulder. “He took out a cigarette. It's okay.”

“The idea was to get down, not wait to find out what…” He shook his head as he switched his paddle from one side to the other. “Some of these guys are fanatics, Raina, which means you don't trust them when your back is turned.”

“Okay, I'm watching your back, and they're—” her eyes shifted to his face, and she gave a snappy smile “—out of sight now.”

Gideon kept paddling. They slipped through the water, both silent for a time. She didn't understand, and he didn't want her to. Bigotry didn't scare him much, except for her sake. He'd lived with it all his life. Usually it was more subtle. It was that all-knowing stare.

You're an Indian. We expect certain things.

People used to notice when he ordered shots with a beer chaser. Now they noticed when he ordered pop. Either way, he could almost hear what they were thinking. It wasn't so much that being noticed bothered him, but getting stares did. It was so damned disrespectful. But it had generally been a subtle kind of disrespect. Until lately. Until the Pine Lake Band of Chippewa had pointed out that the state had no jurisdiction over their treaty rights. Since then, he'd started to wonder whatever had happened to good, old-fashioned
subtle
prejudice.

No, it didn't scare him, except for
her
sake. But it did
embarrass him. Taunts from two jackasses who were probably too stupid to go on living should have meant no more to him than a little static on the radio. He congratulated himself for not launching himself at them headlong. They were bound to topple out before the day was over, and with no help from him.

But Raina had seen it. Raina had heard what they'd said. It was
their
disgrace, not his, but it chafed a raw place deep inside him, where a remnant of unearned shame had tied a terrible knot in his gut.

“I don't think they'll bother us now, do you?” Raina said finally.

“Probably not.” He eased up on his paddling. “Likely the only shot they had in mind was verbal.”

“Right.” She tucked her knees and spun on her bottom, reversing herself on the canoe seat so that she could offer a face-to-face, glad-we-got-past-that-one smile. “Just a couple of pigheaded jerks, right?”

“Probably perfectly nice guys, as long as nobody mentions Indians or fishing rights.” God, she was pretty. Her hair, cinched down by her billed cap, was poufed around her small ears and glistened in the sun like a counter display of gold jewelry. Her smile just naturally made
him
want to smile. “But I'll never witness that firsthand unless I do something about this Indian-looking face of mine.”

“Don't you dare.”

“What?”

“Change—” she leaned toward him, reaching for his smooth cheek “—anything.”

“You like my face the way it is?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “I always have.”

“Oh yeah?” In one fluid motion he slid off his seat and moved toward her, balanced on the balls of his feet. The canoe
drifted, its balance unaffected. “I've always liked yours, too.” Smiling, he laid his hands on her knees as he knelt before her. “Which is something you've always known.”

He slipped between her legs, bracing the insides of her knees against his hips. Thus bracketed, he took her chin in his hand. Her lips parted, and he covered her mouth with his. Her head fell back, and he deepened the kiss, making quick little stabs with his tongue. He felt her wind her hands into the loose front of his chambray shirt, brushing against his flat nipples and making them pucker, as though he'd gotten a blast of cool wind. He lowered his own hand, tracing the arch of her throat with his fingers as he withdrew his tongue to the corner of her mouth, then traced the slack seam of her lips with the tip.

“I like your mouth, Raina,” he whispered against it. “Always have.”

She clutched his shirt. “If those guys were to creep up on us now, they'd probably…”

“Probably what?” His mouth curved in a sly smile. “String me up to a tree?”

She gulped. “Say things.”

“You've got that right. In this neck of the woods, they would ‘say things' if they thought I might be messing with the wrong woman. But taking a walleye with a spear might just get me shot.”

“It's not that I care what they have to say.” She closed her eyes. “It's just that…”

“Whenever I get too close, it makes you nervous.” He gave her lower lip a brief nibble. “Did my brother make you nervous?”

“You move so much more…” Pushing her fists against his chest, she gave her head a quick shake. He made a silent vow not to ask for any more comparisons between brothers.

She looked up at him. “Do you always cut right to the chase?”

“That was a kiss, honey. Nobody's chasing anybody.” With a tip of his head, he reminded her of their surroundings. “You wanna run? You'll have to get wet first.”

“You'd never catch me in the water. I'm the one who taught Peter to swim.” She braced her hands on his brawny shoulders and taunted him with a coy smile. “I'm beginning to wonder whether you can even catch our lunch.”

“A direct challenge to a man's rod—” he gave a naughty wink “—cannot be ignored. Consider yourself off the hook—for the time being.”

F
or lunch there was pan-fried lake trout. The aroma, wafting beneath their noses on wood smoke and pine-scented air, was so mouth-watering that when Gideon flopped the first fish on Raina's plate she pounced on it like a ravenous cat. It took some fast tongue-juggling to keep from getting burned. Oh, but the flavor was fresh and delicate. Even the bit of meat she dropped in her lap was too good to waste, and Gideon laughed when she snatched it up and popped it into her mouth.

“There's more,” he offered.

“But not enough.” Seated cross-legged on a slab of granite, she held out her plate for another serving. “I can't remember the last time I had fish this fresh.”

“You should have married a fisherman.”

“No fisherman ever proposed.” It was an innocent remark, and true enough, considering she'd really known only one superlative fisherman in her life. And Gideon well knew who that was. She shrugged and added blithely, “I guess I should
have become a fisherman myself, but I'd rather go along for the ride and let someone else do the actual hooking.”

“Not being much of a hooker yourself.”

“I'm better at procuring.” She pulled a small fish bone from between her lips, the urge to smile brightening her eyes. “I'm hell on wheels with a shopping cart,” she added finally, “but, mmm, this is really my favorite kind of eating.”

“Mine too.”

“Thank you for providing fire and food.” She reached for his empty plate.

“Mind if I thump my chest and sound the call?”

“What call?”

“Mission accomplished. The male bragging call.” He slipped his hands beneath his hair, laced his fingers together at his nape and leaned back against the trunk of a white birch. “As opposed to the mating call, which is sort of a ‘heads up' warning.”

“Heads—” she arched one eyebrow in disbelief “—up?”

“We're talking about mating calls.” His eyes were alight with the pleasure he was taking in the natural way she played the game.

“You said
warning,
and you said—”

“Is it possible that behind this prim exterior lurks a naughty mind? I'm talking about the natural world here. I'm comparing me, man—fire and food provider—to—”

“Me, woman.” She shifted the plates to her left hand and offered a handshake with the right. “Hearth tender and food preparer. Glad to meet you.”

“You comedian,” he said with a chuckle. “Me whipped. I wish you could paddle as well as you can joke around, you woman.”

“No you don't. You hardly gave me a chance to do any serious paddling.” This was turning out to be a traditional
division of labor. He'd taught her to use sand, then water, on the plates for cleanup, which she did. But it was his turn to sit back and relax. She waggled a finger at him as she repacked the camp kitchen. “You're a one-man crew, Gideon Defender. A real loner.”

“You think so?” He smiled as she approached. She stood over him, a shapely shadow blocking only half the sun. Still smiling, he squinted against the glare. “I've been told that I'm a people-pleaser. Always trying to be somebody's champion.”

“Who told you that?”

“I don't know. Some counselor.”

From where he sat, she appeared to drop from the sky and land beside him, perching on the incline of another slab of rock. “What counselor?”

Her curiosity bore the seed of caring. He could hear it in her voice. All he had to do was water it.

“The one who helped me get off the bottle.” It had been a long time since he'd given any thought to talking with her about it. Suddenly he was thinking the time might be right, if he could just keep it light.

“When was this?”

“A while back.” He wouldn't have expected her to remember dates, but she looked as though she were hearing about his infamous bout with the devil's brew for the first time. And for some probably very pathetic reason, he liked that cloud of concern in her eyes. “You didn't know?”

“No.”

“Jared knew.”

“He kept your confidence, then. He never told me.”

“I don't know whose secret it was.” He shrugged as he eased his spine a few inches up the tree trunk. “It wasn't mine. I never told him not to tell you.”

“Maybe he thought you wanted it that way.”

“Maybe he thought he'd have to come to the center for family week.” He glanced away from the puzzled look in her eyes. “Like I asked him to. He said he didn't want to expose you to any truth-or-dare sessions.”

“I would have gone,” she assured him. “Or not. Whatever would have helped more.”

“In the end I finally decided to help myself. Getting treatment only started the process.” He rubbed the back of his neck and noted that she was hanging on his every word. His brother was dead, and here he was telling on him, when he had no right to lay blame at anyone else's door. “Jared was right, you know. Who knows what I would have said back then if I'd gotten the chance?”

“You can say whatever needs saying, Gideon. I'm no china doll. I can always talk back.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, you've got a mouth on you, all right.”

“Was that why you were living in the Cities?”

“No.”
Damn you, Defender, a
yes
would be a whole lot simpler.
“Well, partly. I went down there to find a better-paying job, but I was…”
See how complicated it gets?
He jerked at an innocent blade of grass. “It was a long time ago. So now I'm doin' okay. I'm doin'
good,
actually. I'm trying to…”

Somehow he'd missed any sound of movement, but when he lifted his chin, she was there. His heart tripped over the soft light in her eyes and landed quivering at the mercy of her moist lips touching his. Her kiss was deliciously delicate, like a touch of morning dew, or a close encounter with a hummingbird's wing, hovering for a moment, then drifting away.

He half expected her to vanish with the blink of his startled eyes.

“What was that for?”

“For you.” She sat back on her heels and braced her hands on her thighs, looking at him as though he were a bowl of flowers she'd just arranged. “For the man you are.”

“You think you know who that is?”

“I think I'm learning. You have more patience than you used to have. More self-control. But you're still…” She reached out tentatively and plucked at his shirtsleeve. “You always had a very strong presence, Gideon. Very masterful. I think Jared found it a bit intimidating.”

The incredible words stacked up one right behind the other, whap whap whap, like dominoes. He tumbled them with a laugh.

“You've gotta be kidding.”

“Jared was older, but you were stronger,” she insisted. “And I don't mean just physically. You were the one who took care of your mother when she was ill. Jared wanted to pay someone else to do it.”

Gideon shrugged. Like he'd had a choice when the woman was
dying.
“She wanted to be home.”

“I know she did. You're a very caring man, Gideon Defender.” She sat down next to him, stretching her legs out beside his. Had she waggled her feet side to side, they would have touched him midcalf. “And you're a born leader.”

As much as he enjoyed her praise, he still had to groan at the thought of him being a born anything. Hell-raiser, maybe. “Sometimes I think I'm just bluffing my way along as chairman. To hear Arlen Skinner and Marvin Strikes Many tell it, I got elected by default. My critics didn't bother to vote.”

“You've made a lot of improvements,” she pointed out, as though she'd taken inventory.

He told himself that he would have to remember how much credit this kicking-the-habit talk could earn him.

“How important is this treaty compromise to your program?”

“The compromise would be just that. A settlement. We'd gain a little land and some investment capital, and we'd return to some of our traditional practices without any interference from the state, which is what most of us want. In return, we'd give up some of our off-reservation treaty rights, which is what the state wants.”

He'd told himself that he wanted to get away from this for a while, but he found that he didn't mind sorting it out for the umpteenth time with her as a sounding board.

“It's important because it might keep the peace. And it's important for our self-respect. Guys like those two we ran into this morning have been calling the shots long enough. It's a sport for them, and that whole scene this morning was part of the game. It's all about who's in control.”

“They weren't.” She sounded disgusted. “They were totally out of control, like those men at the dock the first time you took us out on Pine Lake.”

“We've always fished and hunted for the same reason we gather rice and maple sap. For food. Traditionally, we fished with nets and spears. Those are the ways we were given to feed ourselves, and we value those ways. The reservations haven't changed that. The casinos haven't changed it, either.” His gesture dismissed both would-be agents of change. “The reservations took away most of the land. The casinos bring in money. Big deal.”

“Losing the land was no big deal?”

“We never owned it. We used it. And the treaty says we can still use it. We are who we are because of what Arlen called our Indian ways.” He looked to her for acknowledgment.
“Remember? He told Peter he would need his Indian ways. Not just fishing or smoking the pipe, but
the way
things are done. And the way we use what we've been given. Does that make sense to you?”

“Yes. So far.”

He couldn't blame her for reserving judgment. The jury was still out on how all this might affect her and Peter.

But he wanted her to understand that there was a lot to consider. “The only thing that changes is that sometimes people forget. You forget who you are, you start thinkin' you're nobody.” He searched her eyes for some sign that she could imagine what it was like.
I'm talking about myself now, Raina. I'm talking about myself at twelve, and I'm talking about Peter at thirty-eight.
“Sometimes you lose sight of what's important. Then you lose your way.”

“I can't imagine you losing your way.” She laid her small hand on his thigh.

Incredibly, it weighed heavily on him.

She smiled. “I'll bet you know exactly where we are right now.”

“You will, huh?” Relieved by the sudden switch in tone, he bobbed his chin, challengingly. “How much?”

“I'm betting on
you.
”

“I know.” He arched an eyebrow. “How much?”

“If you looked at a map, you would know exactly where we are right now. You could put your finger right on the exact spot.” He raised both eyebrows. She lowered hers. “Couldn't you?”

He laughed. “Why do you think I told Jim to forget the map? Wouldn't do me a damn bit of good.”

“Are we lost?”

Grinning, he tapped a fist on her knee. “We're on our way
to Hidden Falls, which is not on the map.” He gave her a flirty wink. “I know
the way
there, and I know
the way
back.”

“That's a relief.”

“I haven't guided anyone astray up here yet.” He nudged her shoulder with his. “'Course, there's always a first time.”

“Oh, look!” She pointed to the lake. “Another loon.” Her finger became an airbrush, tracing the big bird's graceful progress in the water.

Gideon watched, too. “See the white necklace? The stray shells scattered across his back?”

“You really have a necklace like that?”

“Sure do,” he said proudly.

She studied him briefly, then shook her head. “Nah, you're not gonna get us lost. Not even as a joke. It would be too embarrassing for you.”

He smiled mischievously. “But leading us astray is an altogether different matter.”

 

Not a trace of their visit was left on the shore when Raina climbed into the canoe. Gideon lifted the bow, gave it a push and hopped aboard without even getting his feet wet. They paddled close to the shore, carried the canoe across a portage, then slipped into a rapid stream. The current eddied, and paddling was mostly a matter of controlling the canoe's direction. Gideon handled the craft so skillfully that all Raina had to do was enjoy the swift ride.

Another portage took them back into glassy water. Reflections of the pines stretched across the lake like long fingers. A beaver's cruising head blazed a trail through the lily pads close to shore, slipping through the water with a stick in its mouth. The white water lilies bobbed in the beaver's gently rippling wake.

They followed a stream that grew so narrow, it seemed to
hold no promise as a passage. But the next portage enabled them to bypass the stream's bottleneck, which was, in fact, the hidden falls he'd promised her. The water tumbled over a six-foot drop, splashing into a clear-water cove surrounded by massive red and white pine. The pine scent, the soothing sound of falling water, the choir of crickets, the occasional call of a loon blended into a lovely island of serenity.

Gideon set the canoe down near the water's edge. Most of the portage work had been his. Those brawny shoulders had been shaped in part by years of carrying a canoe over his head, and his height allowed few paddling partners to measure up to the task of assisting. He flexed his shoulders as he surveyed the spot he'd cherished in recent years only as a memory. Maybe his mind had improved on it a little.

“Not much of a falls, huh?”

“I wasn't expecting Niagara.” Raina released the straps on the pack she'd been toting and lowered it to the ground. “It's a beautiful spot.”

“I don't know whether Jim routes people this way now, but he didn't use to. Neither did I.” He stretched, then used his fingers to iron the kinks out of his back. “We wanted it to stay like this.”