Montana Summer Ch. 13

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Darkness had fallen by the time supper was finished and everything cleaned up. The fire crackled merrily in the stone fire pit. The warmth of the fire felt good to the people sitting in a circle around the blazing campfire, and as soon as the sun had set, an autumn chill descended. Contentment radiated from everyone's face. The supper had been delicious. They had feasted on Dutch oven chicken, baked new potatoes and fresh green beans from Esther's garden. For desert they had eaten apple crisp with whipped cream.

Bill stared into the fire. There was something mesmerizing and comforting in watching the dancing flames, they were ever moving and changing. Every now and then a loud pop would emanate from one of the burning pieces of wood, and sparks would fly into the air like a miniature display of fireworks.

The long talk that he had with Charlie earlier in the day had set him at ease. He smiled at the thought of Charlie. He was sure that by the time Charlie was done explaining Hell, it would seem more like the annual Rotarian Bar-be-que.

"I don't suppose you brought your guitar with you?" Charlie finally broke the silence.

Bill slapped his knee. "Well, as always, the wife thought it would be a better idea if I left it at home..."

"But, as always, he probably chose to ignore the advice of his wife." Suzanne shook her head and laughed as she interrupted her husband.

Bill's face carried a look of mock hurt. "You cut me to the quick. Did you think I would go against your advice, and bring my guitar along?"

Suzanne laughed. "Oh, of course I would think that. You've done it far too many times for me to expect otherwise."

Shaking his head, Bill replied, "Well, for your information, I did not bring my guitar with me."

Suzanne looked askance at her husband and then raised her eyebrows. "But..."

"Well, if Ryan would be so kind as to go to his truck and fetch my guitar from the back seat." Bill's face now had a wry smile. "Technically, I did not bring my guitar up here. Ryan brought it."

Ryan stood up and laughed. "Oh sure, get me in trouble now."

Charlie got up from his chair at the same time. "Let me get my fiddle."

After retrieving the guitar from his truck, Ryan sat back down and watched Charlie tune his fiddle. "I didn't know that you played."

"Yes, I learned from my father. He was a good fiddler when he was alive. It was the one thing that made my father proud, that I followed in his footsteps when I took up the fiddle. This was his favorite one," Charlie replied.

"What about you, Walt? Do you play too?" Ryan asked.

Walter nodded. "Well, I can play a bit on the guitar."

Bill looked up from his guitar. "Don't let him try to fool you, Ryan. Walt is a damned fine guitar player."

The two men began to play. Ryan had heard his uncle play before. Somehow it sounded different with the fiddle. They was a plaintive and forlorn quality to the music, and Ryan found the feelings of regret and pain almost palpable as he listened to them play. He couldn't remember the words to the song, but he remembered that it had something to do with a woman lamenting her lost love.

Jessi had spread a blanket across Becky, Ryan and herself. She reached under the blanket and searched for Ryan's hand, and once she found she put her small hand in his. A smile grew on her face. She knew her mother teased her father about bringing the guitar along, but she also knew that her mother loved to listen to him play. Some of her earliest memories were of her father playing and singing to her to sleep.

Off in the distance, the mournful howl of coyotes only added to the music. Bill and Charlie seemed to be lost in what they were playing. Charlie's eyes were closed as he played and Bill stared off into another time and place as his fingers moved over the strings of his guitar. For Ryan, it was the perfect ending to a weekend of camping.

The thoughts of what would come were on Becky's mind. Each time she looked up from the fire and at her mother, she would catch her staring at her. Her mother had smiled at her the last time she looked up and mouthed the words, "I love you." That had restored some calm inside of Becky.

She had taken a walk with her mother earlier in the afternoon after she had awoken from her nap. Feelings that she had let her mother down threatened to overwhelm her. Janice had reassured Becky that no matter what happened that she would continue to love her and give her whatever help and support that was needed. It was the first time since Becky had thought she was pregnant that she didn't feel that she was alone.

Suzanne felt herself being filled with feelings of sadness. Her little girl was grown up and would be off at school for most of the next nine months. She looked at Becky, whom she had regarded as almost a part-time daughter for the past twelve years. They both had grown up to be attractive young women. Gone were the days of when they would come in with skinned knees or jars containing frogs or butterflies.

She prayed that Becky wasn't pregnant and at the same time she gave thanks that she had the foresight to get Jessi on birth control. Her heart sank when she looked at Jessi and Ryan. It would take a blind man to miss that the both of them were in love. To Suzanne, it was a love that could never be fulfilled, but she had suspicions that the two of them had been intimate. It was only her self-denial that kept her from admitting what she knew deep down inside, that her daughter had given herself to her nephew. She only hoped that the separation of Jessi being in Missoula would cause them both to come to their senses.

It seemed like Charlie and Bill had been playing forever when they set their instruments aside to take a break. Ryan was a little disappointed that the music had stopped. Bill had got from his lawn chair and excused himself.

"I enjoyed that." Charlie's face was beaming with happiness. "It reminds me a bit of when I was young and my father would play way into the night with his friends."

"I'll tell you what," Ryan replied. "I could sit here all night and listen to you and Uncle Bill play."

"You'll see some real playing after we hold the Hunka ceremony. There is quite a bit of excitement in the people and all seem to be looking forward to it."

"When is it going to be?" Ryan asked.

"I think in about a month. I got a hold of Nathan Two-Horse last week and he will be coming down from Rosebud to do the ceremony."

"Oh." Ryan was a bit surprised. "I thought someone from here was going to do it."

"Well, we talked about it at the council meeting last week. Louis thought it would be better to get Nathan down here as he has conducted many Hunka ceremonies. Those shamans have a lot of secret rituals and Louis hopes to learn some from Nathan," Charlie explained. He wouldn't have objected if the council had settled on Louis, but he was much happier having Nathan conducting the ceremony. This was an important rite to the Lakota that was beginning to make a comeback and, with Nathan it would follow all of the old customs.

"Are we going to get together before the ceremony?"

Charlie nodded his head as he set his cup of tea down. "Yes, I want to start getting with you a couple of nights a week within the next few days. Do you remember the Hunka from your dreams?"

Ryan furrowed his brow in thought. "Sort of, bits and pieces anyway. It's a funny thing about those dreams. Some of it, I guess what is important for me to know, is as clear as day and other things are almost foggy. Like when you and Walt put up the Tipis, you would think that would have been something I would have seen hundreds of times, but I couldn't remember anything about it."

Charlie looked skyward as if he would find an answer by peering at the heavens. "Dreams are mysterious things. I think a man can spend his whole life in just trying to understand one dream." Charlie looked down from the sky and at Ryan. "Like I told you before, I think a lot of the times the journey one makes in achieving an understanding of one's dreams is more important than the meaning of the dream itself."

Ryan nodded. He hoped Charlie was right, as he felt no closer to understanding what most of his meant than he when he first had them. The one thing that stood out in his mind the most was that he felt the dreams were meant to teach him an understanding of the Lakota and of their ways.

"It's getting late." Bill had returned. "I think I'm going to turn in."

Jessi had been dozing and the warmth of the fire and the music had made her sleepy. She looked at Becky and then leaned over Ryan and gave her a gentle shake. "Becky, we need to get to bed, we've got a long day ahead of us tomorrow."

Becky lifted her arms above her head and stretched. "Yeah, we do."

Esther and Rose helped Suzanne gather up the cups and carry them into the cabin. The men folded up the chairs and put the fire out. As soon as the fire was out, it was nearly pitch black, as the moon hadn't risen yet.

Ryan had hoped to spend a little bit of time with Jessi tonight but that didn't look like that was going to happen. Just before her and Becky went into the cabin she had squeezed his hand and whispered her love for him in his ear and then followed her mother and friend into the cabin.

Ryan fished his small flashlight from his jacket pocket and looked at the dim outlines of the other men. "I guess I'll head off to bed."

With their well wishes echoing in his ears he made his way to his tent and quickly undressed and got into his bed. Sleep was quick in coming and his head had barely touched the pillow before he was fast asleep.

In the cabin, Bill lay next to his wife in the bed. It was so quiet Bill swore he could hear time passing. His eyes were wide open as he stared into the black abyss of the night. So much had happened today, and he was a changed man. Things that he had always regarded as superstitious hooey had manifested their reality to him today.

Suzanne had been married to Bill McFayden for enough years to know when he was asleep and when he was awake in bed trying to make sense of a problem. Tonight she knew he was laying along side her deep in thought. It wasn't as if he tossed or turned, it was just something she could sense.

"What are you thinking about, Bill?"

His hand reached over and found hers. He had been thinking about how to tell his wife what he now believed to be the truth regarding Jessi and Ryan. There was a fierce debate raging inside of his mind on whether to tell her the truth or make something up. The big problem was that if he made something up,his wife would see through his deception. Finally, in the end, the truth won out. "I was thinking about Jessi and Ryan."

Suzanne let out a sad sigh. If it were any other boy, she would have been happy for her daughter. There was no doubting the depth of the love that they shared with each other. "I just don't know what to do, Bill. Short of sending Ryan packing down the road, I just don't know what to do."

Bill snorted. "I don't think sending Ryan packing down the road would do a blessed thing. They would still find each other and I think we would lose a daughter in the end."

Suzanne had no doubt that what her husband said was the truth. If she had thought that sending Ryan away would have had the slightest possibility of success, she would have already suggested it. A smile grew on her face and she knew she would have never gone through with it. Suzanne loved her nephew as if he were her own son. Ryan was a remarkable young man and in the short time he had been here, he had touched almost everyone he had come in contact with.

"I know," Suzanne replied. "And that's why I never suggested it. I just don't want either of them to be hurt and all I can see for them on the road that they are heading is heartache and grief."

Bill thought that this could be the opening that he had been waiting for. "What if, and I'm just saying, what if. What if Jessi and Ryan weren't related? What would you say then?"

"Don't you start talking nonsense, Bill McFayden." Suzanne's reply was curt.

Bill rolled over and faced his wife in the dark. "No, seriously. What would you think of Ryan and Jessi if they weren't related?"

"I would be happy for them. A little worried because they are both so young, but I would be happy for the both of them. I think Ryan is going to make some girl a fine husband one day."

Bill took a deep breath. He felt it was now or never to tell Suzanne what he knew and what he believed. "I want you listen to what I'm about to tell you, and try to keep an open mind." He paused for a minute and when he heard no objection from his wife, he started to relate what he knew. "Both Ryan and Jessi have told me the same story. When Ryan was in the hospital in Missoula, he and Jessi were in his room late at night. They said one of them ghost riders, Spotted Owl they called him, came into the room. Ryan said he told them that Jessi would make him a fine wife and that she would bear him a son."

"That's just balderdash, Bill McFayden, and you know it," Suzanne interrupted her husband.

He put his finger to her lips. "Just let me speak my piece and then you can have your say." Bill continued his story. "Ryan said that he told this Spotted Owl that it was impossible, that Jessi was his half sister. Well, they said that Spotted Owl touched Jessi and inferred that there was no blood relation between them."

"How can you give any truck to a story like that?" Suzanne scoffed at the idea.

Bill shook his head. "I know. That's what I felt when they first told it to me." Bill paused for a minute. "Until this morning, until I saw the ghost riders for myself."

"Are you sure that's what you saw? Could you have still been half dreaming? You were barely awake! Bill, are you sure you just weren't fooled by the early morning mists?" Suzanne knew she had already offered these suggestions earlier in the morning. She was like a drowning woman, grasping at any possibility.

"No, it was real." Bill's voice got really quiet. "When the one in the lead stopped and looked at me, I knew it was real. I could feel him looking into my soul."

"Then that would mean that Roy isn't..." Suzanne's voice trailed off.

Bill reached up and stroked his wife's face. "I know what it means."

"But, it just isn't possible." Suzanne felt close to tears.

Bill tried to soothe his wife. "Do you remember everything about that night? I know I sure as hell don't."

Suzanne didn't answer. She knew her memories of that night were blurred by both the drugs that had spiked their drinks and by the passage of time.

Finally she spoke, "Then who is Jessi's father?"

"I am," Bill spoke with conviction. "I held her when she was sick and you needed some sleep." A warm glow flowed through Bill's body as he remembered Jessi growing up. "I'm the one that built the monster trap for her closet when she was three. Who taught her how to ride a bike, and then how to ride a horse? I'm the guy that showed her how to fish, and how to shoot. Who the other person is doesn't matter. All he did that night was donate some sperm."

"I didn't mean it that way, Bill, and you know it. No man could be a better father than you have." Suzanne had regretted what she had asked the moment it passed over her lips.

"Well, Ryan and Jessi told me that they are going to get some sort of DNA tests done to confirm that what they think is true."

Suzanne buried her head into her husband's shoulder and began to sob. The lurid visions of that awful night came flowing through her mind like a river that has broken through a dam.

---

It was a holiday Monday and it was early. It was six in the morning to be precise. Milt Walker sat at his desk at the Sheriff's Office with a cup of coffee. It was the perfect time to try to get some of the administrative work that was associated with his job done. The phones were quiet.

He was reading the forensic report on the arrows that he had sent to the crime lab. There had been no fingerprints on any of the arrows. Detailed examination of the arrows had revealed exactly what the museum had told Milt, that the arrows were consistent with arrows made in the latter half of the nineteenth century by the Lakota. No modern materials had been used at all in their construction.

After reading the reports, Milt placed them in the file with all of the other information regarding the case. The last meeting that he had with the district attorney regarding this case had gone much better than the first. As Milt had predicted, there were no calls coming in for demands that the killers be found and justice served.

Talk had changed, as had the season. Cattle prices and feed prices were as popular as ever. Now that school had started, the hot topic of discussion was the upcoming high school football season. Expectations were high for the current team. The first two games were going to be key to the season. The local team would play their arch rival and perennial division championship contender at Homecoming, and the second game would be against one of the teams that made it all the way to State last fall.

Milt Walker smiled as he thought about the weekly re-hashing of the Friday night football games at the local café. One of the pictures on his desk was of his son in his football uniform. His son had proven himself to be a formidable tackle in his sophomore year. He would be a full time starter this year and hopes were high for a college scholarship.

The ringing of the telephone brought Milt out of his daydream. He answered the phone, knowing full well that it was his wife.

"What are you doing down at the office?" she asked.

"I got up early and thought I would sneak down here and get some paperwork taken care of while it was still quiet. I should be home in about a half-hour," Milt replied.

"Okay," his wife answered, and she sounded like she had just gotten up. "I'll wait a while and then I'll get breakfast started."

"See you in a few." Milt responded before hanging the phone up.

He looked at the file on his desk and then picked it up and walked over to his file cabinet. He looked at the four drawers in the cabinet and tried to decide which was the least used. After deciding that the third drawer was the least used he "accidentally" placed the file at the back of the drawer, right behind the file titled Inventory of County Furniture: Sheriff's Department.

Satisfied that it would take a miracle for anyone else to find the file, Milt donned his hat and headed home for some breakfast, and hopefully some football talk with his son.

---

Dawn was just breaking when Suzanne woke up. She was grateful that the morning had come as she had slept fitfully through the night. It was as if she would doze off for a few minutes and then suddenly wake up. Over and over, she thought about what her husband had told her. It was a fantastic story and one that she had a hard time believing. There was no doubt in her mind that he was telling her the truth as he saw it, but it was still hard for her to come to grips with it.

If Roy wasn't Jessi's biological father, then who was? She could have sworn that he was the only person that she had sex with that night and the only other man that she had sex with besides Bill. Maybe Bill was right and maybe it could have been the drugs that she had consumed in that spiked punch that had clouded her memory. Suzanne just didn't know.

Deep down, she knew how Jessi felt. She had felt the same way the first time she had gone out with Bill. Her own mother had been shocked because, at the time, Bill was seen by many around town as nothing more than a rowdy young cowboy with not a lot of prospects.

Suzanne smiled and looked at the man who had shared her bed for over twenty years. He had proven her mother wrong, especially after she had gotten pregnant with Jessi. A lot of the qualities that had been in Bill as a young man were present in Ryan. Uncertainty reigned supreme in Suzanne this morning.