Native Affairs (46 page)

“Sure does,” he answered. “Especially since the other team knows it’s a weak point and aims straight at it That’s why there are always a lot of clipping fouls against me.”

“Clipping?”

He demonstrated. “When someone is going to tackle you, he comes in like this,” he said, lowering his head and aiming for her legs. “But if he catches you in the back of the knees, it’s a violation, called clipping.” He made a chopping motion, as she had seen referees do during games. “With me, they’re always trying to nail that bad knee, and yet keep it legal at the same time, which is very hard to do.”

Jennifer absorbed this in silence. My God, he was going into each game just waiting for a bunch of gorillas to launch themselves at him, like a human target on a firing range. Up to this point, she hadn’t thought of football players as especially courageous, but it took guts to do what he did every week of the season.

He read her expression. “Don’t worry, paleface.

You’re looking at one tough Injun. My people survived massacres, disease, westward expansion, and the reservation system. The NFL isn’t going to do me in.”

Jennifer rolled up the last window and slammed the door. “What do you suggest doing about this?” she asked, jerking her thumb at the car.

“I’ll give you a ride, and I’ll call my garage in Yardley to come and get it.”

“Will they come so far?”

He smiled grimly. “For me they will. I just spent a small fortune there on my wheels. They’d better not say no.”

He opened the passenger door of his car for Jennifer and leaned in past her to shift some papers off the seat. His nearness set her pulse racing again. She waited until he got in beside her and said, to cover her nervousness, “What type of Indian are you?”

He arched an eyebrow at her, starting the car. “Type?”

Why did she always say the wrong thing? “Tribe, clan, I guess I don’t know the right word.”

“Blackfoot,” he said. “It’s part of the Algonquian nation.”

Ah, yes. She remembered that the sportswriters sometimes referred to him as the “Blackfoot Bullet.” Also the “Cawassa Comet.” They were very fond of tag lines.

“What does Cawassa mean?” she asked.

“It’s the town in Montana where I was born, on the reservation, about three miles northwest of Browning.”

“What language is that?”

“Pikuni. It’s a dialect of Ojibwa, spoken by the Blackfeet in that region, in the Northwest, and in Canada in the area of Lake Superior.”

“Ojibwa?”

He grinned. “Are you writing a book?”

Jennifer flushed, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I’m asking too many questions.”

He put the sports car in gear and drove out of the lot “Don’t be silly. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. I just couldn’t resist teasing you a little. You get so rattled, like a fourth-grade genius who missed the last word in the spelling bee.”

Jennifer giggled. He was right.

“Now, in answer to your last question, Ojibwa is the mother language of the Algonquian tribes; it’s more often called Ottawa or Chippewa.”

“Yes, I’ve heard those terms.”

“It’s rather like Castilian Spanish, with Pikuni the equivalent of an Andalusian variant They’re about as similar as modern Polish and Czech. I grew up speaking Pikuni, but I can follow a conversation in Ojibwa.”

“I see.”

“And ‘Ojibwa’ itself means ‘to roast until puckered up,’ which is a reference to the puckered seams on Blackfoot moccasins.”

“No kidding? What an odd way to get a name.”

He cast her a sidelong glance. “I hope you’re paying attention, because there’s going to be a test.”

Jennifer laughed, thinking that she had already had one test that day, when he had held her in his arms. She had passed it. This time.

He asked whether she would like to go home, or back to the office, and regretfully she told him to take her to the office. She still had to try to get in touch with the last player who hadn’t signed his papers.

Lee asked her why she had come to practice that day, and she explained the situation.

“Give that stuff to me,” he said. “I’ll see that Roger signs it and returns it to your office on Monday.”

“Would you do that? It would be a big help. Otherwise I’ll be trying to track him down for the rest of the weekend.”

“No problem. Still want to go back to the office?”

“I’m afraid so. That wasn’t the only thing I have left to do.”

He nodded and took the turnoff for Philadelphia.

They were back to the Freedom’s offices too soon. Jennifer could remember every word of their conversation in vivid detail—she felt as if it had been burned into her brain. It wasn’t particularly stimulating or witty, but she had shared it with Lee, and for that reason it was important to her.

Lee pulled to a stop outside the building. “Here you are,” he said. “Back the same day.”

“I can’t thank you enough for your help. And I owe you the money you gave that boy from Tony’s Garage.”

“Forget it. It was my pleasure. I’ll have the mechanic at my garage get in touch with you about the repairs.”

“Fine. And thanks again.”

He tossed his fingers in a tiny salute and drove off. Jennifer went into the lobby in a daze, filled with thoughts of Lee.

* * * *

The Sunday of the benefit game for the Heart Fund was clear and cooler than it had been, a precursor of fall. Jennifer arrived just as it was beginning, wearing Marilyn’s jogging suit and an apprehensive smile. She didn’t expect this to be her finest hour.

Dolores was waiting for her on the sidelines. “The first team is already in,” she said. “They’re going to start in a moment.”

“Good. I hope they never get around to me.”

“They will,” Dolores said cheerfully. “Tom said everybody will see some action, if only for a few minutes.”

“Great” Tom was an accountant in payroll, and he was managing the roster.

Jennifer shielded her eyes as she watched the action on the field. Lee and Joe Thornridge and a few others were out there, along with the cream of the Freedom’s amateur athletes. The crowd was large and vocal, screaming every time anybody made a move.

She and Dolores watched the game for a while, sipping soft drinks and surveying the onlookers wandering around Westminster’s campus.

It wasn’t long before Tom was waving at Jennifer, signaling her to join the players on the field.

“Every year I tell him I don’t know how to play this game,” she muttered.

“And every year he ignores you,” Dolores responded. “I know, I know. Go on, it can’t be any worse than last time.”

The “last time” Jennifer had crashed into the team bench while trying to catch the ball and gave Esther Lopinsky, one of the secretaries, a black eye.

Jennifer ran onto the field and watched nervously as Leo Smithers, the quarterback of the staff team, signaled her to come and talk to him.

“On the next play,” he said, “I’m going to pass the ball to you.”

“Uh, I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Leo,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know what to do with it once I get it, that’s why not.”

He rubbed his eyes wearily with his thumb and forefinger. “Look, Jen, all you have to do is try to catch the ball, and then run as hard as you can in that direction,” he instructed, pointing toward the goalpost at the end of the field. “Everybody else knows what they have to do. So don’t worry about it, okay? Just grab it and try to cross the line at the end.”

Leo called for a huddle, in which various team members said things Jennifer didn’t understand. But she kept Leo’s words in mind and stood where he placed her at the lineup.

She saw Lee, dressed in faded jeans and a white knit skivvy, watching her across the line of scrimmage. That didn’t make her feel any better.

Leo called out a series of numbers, and then faded back for the pass. Jennifer started to run, looking over her shoulder for the ball, hoping that Leo’s confidence in himself was justified and that he would be able to “hit her” no matter what she did.

When it became obvious that he was throwing to her, players from the pro club materialized from nowhere, heading in her direction. Terrified, she looked up to see the ball hurtling through the air toward her.

How did anybody ever catch these things? They were an impossible shape. She grabbed for it, got her fingers on the edge, and then it squirted out of her hands. She leaped after it and managed to catch it. At that moment Lee caught her about the knees and tumbled her gently to the ground.

Jennifer landed on her dignity, and then was up in a flash, yelling at the top of her lungs.

“Wait a minute! This is supposed to be touch football. That’s illegal, you can’t tackle anybody in this game!”

The onlookers were delighted. They stamped their feet and clapped, roaring their approval. Lee stood by, looking mysteriously smug, and hung his head when the referee came over to give him a tongue lashing. Jennifer told Tom to replace her and walked off the field.

The nerve of him, pouncing on her like that. She retied her sneakers, sitting on the staff bench, yanking at the laces viciously. When she raised her head again, Lee was standing in front of her.

“They threw me out of the game,” he said happily.

Jennifer stared at him, the light beginning to dawn. “You did that deliberately,” she said.

“Pure reflex. Couldn’t help myself.”

“I’ll bet.”

“However, since we both seem to be at liberty, why don’t we take a stroll around the grounds?”

“Stroll alone. After that little stunt I wouldn’t go around this bench with you.”

His face changed. “What’s the matter? You’re not hurt, are you?”

“Only my pride.”

He smiled engagingly, and she could feel her resistance melting away under the force of his charm. “Come on. This thing is going to be breaking up in another half an hour or so, and then they’re having a picnic. We’ll come back and get something to eat later.”

The desire to be with him overrode her previous annoyance. “I’m doing this against my better judgment,” she warned him. “The minute I lower my guard you’ll probably blindside me again.”

“Sounds tempting,” he said, motioning with his head toward the grassy copse beyond the playing field. “Let’s go. I’ll tell you about my great-grandfather, the shaman. That should interest a student of Indian folklore like yourself.”

It did. “What’s a shaman?”

“A medicine man, a caster of spells and a weaver of charms. Combination faith healer, herbalist, and grass-roots psychologist.”

They were walking away from the crowd, and the game noises faded in the distance. The sun was warm, and Lee pulled his shirt over his head to reveal a sleeveless tank top underneath. He spread the skivvy on the ground and gestured for her to sit on it She did, and he sprawled full-length beside her. A screen of trees blocked them from view.

“What kind of charms did your great-grandfather weave?”

“All kinds. Love charms, hate charms, charms to make you sick, charms to make you well. His specialty was healing, though. He would put on his saamis, the medicine hat, with feathers and magical bones, and cure anything that ailed you. He died when I was twelve.”

Too bad he’s not around today, Jennifer thought I could use a little help in curing myself of my growing infatuation with you. She stretched out on the grass and sighed.

Lee rolled over on his stomach and the sun glinted off his shining, coal-black hair, making it glow with highlights.

“That old man, he knew something, something that’s been lost forever now,” Lee said softly. “And I don’t think it’s possible to get it back.”

“I understand what you mean,” Jennifer replied. “That knowledge the old people had, I think we traded it for jet planes and microwave ovens and potato chips in a tennis ball can. And I’m not sure we’re better off now. The problems aren’t solved; they’re only different.”

Lee pushed himself up on his forearms and gazed down into her face. “I think you’re a very smart lady,” he said.

“Thank you, kind sir,” she answered, smiling. Her smile faded slowly as she met his gaze and awareness grew between them. Jennifer was very conscious of his almost naked torso above her, the proximity of that powerful, agile body. She tried to sit up, and he pinned her, holding her arms and leaning into her. Prone, submissive, she could feel the warmth of his skin against hers, his breath fanning her cheek. The black eyes seared hers. Then his lashes obscured them as his face came closer and he lowered his mouth to hers.

The kiss began tentatively, as all first kisses do, but it was only seconds before Jennifer was kissing him back passionately. She had known all along that she desired him, but the abstract idea was nothing compared with burning reality. His mouth was wonderful, drugging, sensitive and mobile, and a treasure of delights to explore. His tongue probed hers, and she yearned against him, eager for more.

“I’ve wanted to do that since the moment I met you,” he murmured, moving his mouth to her ear, and then back to her lips. He adjusted his position to lie more fully against her, and she gasped as she felt him, ready, against her thigh. His hands slid underneath her to press her to him, and she clasped her arms around his neck.