Lakota Baby

The loss of Chaska Lonewolf as a husband and financial provider for the family had devastated Joe’s mother. She’d taken Joe from the reservation, the only home he’d ever known, and gone to work in Rapid City, where she’d met and married Kevin Brandt. Shortly after the wedding, Kevin’s ex-wife had dumped six-year-old Paul on the new family and left town.

School wasn’t easy for a Native American boy in a white man’s world, but Joe had kept his head low and studied hard, determined to return to the reservation and his way of life as soon as he was old enough. The time had come sooner than he’d expected when Kevin was laid off and once again the family was destitute.

They’d packed up their meager belongings and moved back to the reservation where Kevin drank, bragged about Paul and berated Joe every chance he could get. A miserable life for a little boy who’d lost a loving father. No wonder he’d pushed Maggie away. What had the white man done for him besides give him pain?

Maggie felt deep compassion for the ten-year-old Joe. She’d struggled with the truth of Dakota’s parentage. He deserved a father like Joe’s. He deserved Joe. But Joe had spelled it out in his parting speech. There was no room in his life for her. So Maggie had to make arrangements to keep the tribe from knowing the baby was Joe’s.

Her first instinct was to leave her job and run as far from the reservation as she could. But the teens she’d been working with needed her almost as much as her unborn baby. When Paul started coming around her work, flirting with her, she jumped at a solution.

As it turned out, Paul was the only one who’d known she was pregnant before she married him. He’d been patient, waiting for her to get over the man who got her in that condition. In love with her from the start, he waited throughout her pregnancy, showering her with encouragement and as much affection as she’d let him. But when the baby was born, the wall of her emotions for Joe still stood between them. Maggie wanted to love this man who’d stepped in and helped her in her time of need, but she couldn’t.

Paul must have realized this because he spent more and more time working at the casino. Maggie never saw him. For the most part, she and Dakota were on their own.

Without her son, Maggie felt more alone in the world than ever. If not for Joe, she didn’t know what she’d do.

AFTER MAGGIE’S INTERVIEW, Joe dropped her off at the youth center, despite his better judgment. She’d insisted, saying she needed time to check on her kids and to think.

He’d grabbed her hand before she slipped out of his vehicle. “Promise me you’ll call if you need anything?”

“I will,” she said, climbing down.

“I’ll pick you up around three.”

Her head jerked up and she stared at him, her eyes glassy as if she had to concentrate to focus. “No need.”

A gentle smile lifted his lips. “You don’t have your car here.”

“Oh.” She was preoccupied, and rightly so with her baby missing. “Okay.” That was all she said before she turned and walked toward the building, pulling her coat tightly around her.

Joe wanted to go after her and coax her into telling him everything going on in her head. He felt like she was living detached from him and the world around them and he couldn’t get through to her.

With his stomach knotted, he swung his SUV to the west, bumping along a rutted track that shouldn’t be called a road by anyone’s standards.

Fifteen minutes later, he pulled into a dirt driveway and sat for a moment, staring at the one-story clapboard house standing alone on a knoll. The yard was free of clutter with not even a bush to adorn the base of the building. Two naked cottonwood trees edged up out of the dead grass, a poor break against the bitter north wind.

A nondescript house for one of the most respected members of the Painted Rock Tribe. Matoskah, or White Bear, had been the tribal Medicine Man for as long as Joe could remember. His reputation for native cures for common physical ailments had Lakotans from towns scattered across the reservation traveling the lonely back roads to seek his help. But more than the cures for disease and sickness, people sought him out for spiritual healing.

And that was the reason for Joe’s visit.

With the burden of a child’s life weighing on his shoulders, Joe needed focus and a mind clear of emotions, memories and confusion.

A mind clear of Maggie.

How could he still be upset that she’d married another man? He’d told her to take a hike, that she had no place in the life of a Lakota. Of this Lakota.

What they had shared was lust—deep, powerful lust. Not enough to maintain a relationship, not on a reservation where poverty and destitution were the norm. For some of his people, lust might be enough. But he and Maggie were from two different worlds. She was white and Joe was a dark-skinned Indian, sworn to uphold the ways of his people and preserve the Lakota bloodline and traditions for future generations.

Memories and regrets punctured his soul the day of his stepbrother’s funeral, when he’d seen what he could have had. Maggie and her baby—a family to call his own.

Shoving his shoulders back, he knocked on the faded door and waited in the cold. After one long minute, Joe stepped from the concrete stoop and strode around the house. In the backyard stood a dome-shaped structure. Vapor wafted in the bitter morning air, a hazy fog lifting from the taut hide stretched over arched willow branches.

A smile lifted the edges of Joe’s lips. Only Matoskah kept his sweat lodge erect year-round, when others were dismantled after powwow and tourist season ended. The buffalo hide, darkened with age and years of smoke, held the secrets, hopes and dreams of many Lakotans, divulged in the way of the ancients.

Joe hesitated to intrude on the shaman’s meditation.

“Enter the womb of our people, Son of Lonewolf.” Age did little to diminish the powerful voice of the tribe’s trusted healer. And how did he always seem to know who stood outside the lodge?

Holding the flap of skin aside, Joe stooped to crawl like an animal into a den, the steam rising from the rocks embracing him. He squatted to the left of the entrance and let his eyes adjust to the light from the fire’s coals and the little bit filtering through the thick skin overhead. Before the steam could escape, Joe turned to secure the flap, sealing the lodge.

Vapor swirled around him and he inhaled, accepting the surge of power that coursed through his veins. No matter how many times he’d been in a sweat lodge, he could count on that blanket of peace permeating his body and soul. Overdressed for tradition, he unzipped his coat as sweat beaded on his upper lip and forehead.

To the right of the entry, a hunched and wrinkled figure sat cross-legged, facing the coals and steaming rocks in the dug out center of the small space. Naked except for a meager loincloth, Matoskah sat staring at the glowing coals. The flap of supple deer skin was his one concession to modesty in the spiritual haven of his ancestors where the Indian was meant to be naked in the womb of the earth.

Joe reached out to grasp the spiritual leader’s forearm. “Mitaku oyasin, chante wasteya, nape chiyusa pe.” My relative, with a good heart, I shake your hand. The words brought back an image of his father sitting across a similar bed of steaming rocks from an eight-year-old Joe. He’d taught him that the words symbolized the importance of family and the completeness of the circle—only one of many lessons his father would teach him of the Lakota way of life, lessons he’d promised to pass on to his children and his children’s children.

Matoskah grasped Joe’s forearm in a firm grip. “Hau kola.” Hello, my friend.

“Forgive me, Matoskah, for intruding on your reflection. I have need of your counsel.”

The old man nodded and resumed staring into the coals.

Joe struggled to suppress his impatience. He felt out of place with too many clothes on his skin and too many thoughts churning in his head. But he forced himself to sit as the shaman did, drawing in a long, deep breath of the thick air. He closed his eyes, absorbing the souls of his ancestors, reaching for the combined wisdom of their years.

“What makes you as gray as the day outside, Joe Lonewolf?” Matoskah asked, the words swirling around the lodge like smoke from a peace pipe.

Joe opened his eyes and stared at the aged man. “A child is missing.”

Without looking up from the bed of rocks, Matoskah’s head dipped in a single nod. “I have heard.”

“It’s Maggie’s child.” Joe hadn’t meant to say anything about Maggie, but there it was, blurted out like a teenager unable to think before he speaks.

“I understand.”

What did the old man understand? Joe sat on his tongue, afraid to open his mouth and spew forth more of his hurt and anger. He’d come to cleanse his mind, not to stir the air with his confusion.

“This woman is not of our people.”

“No, she’s not. She’s one of the social workers with Indian Child Welfare Association. She works with the reservation teens.”

The old man inclined his head. “I know of her.”

As close-knit as the reservation was, Joe wasn’t surprised.

“She’s done well for our youth, working with those who abuse drugs and alcohol,” Matoskah added.

“Yes.” Maggie had thrown herself into her job, winning the hearts of many, including Joe. Had he not been so blind, they might have been together today.

“You must find this child.”

“I know.” The old man wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already believe. Joe wanted him to tell him what to do about Maggie, but the question lodged in his throat.

“You fear you will fail?”

Was that it? Was he afraid he wouldn’t find Maggie’s baby? “Yes.”

“Is your fear of failure for the child or for the woman?”

Joe leaned back. “The child, of course.”

“And if you fail the child, you will not fail the woman?”

The answer was obvious, why would the shaman ask it? Joe dragged in a deep breath of the moist air, cleansing his nostrils and lifting the cloud from his head. “Yes.”

“I sense hurt and resentment toward this Maggie.”

Joe’s chin dipped to his chest, his shame an almost overwhelming being seeping into his pores like the steam. “Yes.” As if the haze cleared, Joe realized some of his confusion stemmed from his anger toward Maggie for marrying his stepbrother. “Will my anger cloud my judgment and ability to find her child?”

“Only you can know this. Do you mistrust her because she is not one of your people?” Matoskah had that uncanny way of reading Joe’s thoughts before he’d completely formulated them himself.

“I did,” Joe admitted, his softly spoken words drifting toward the ceiling with the stone vapor. After a year in the desert country of Iraq he’d come to realize he didn’t trust himself where Maggie was concerned.

The shaman laid a hand on Joe’s arm. “When you were in battle, did you care about the color of your soldiers? What religion, what race?”

Joe sat straighter. “No, they were my brothers.”

“Does a child have a choice of what color, religion or race he is born into the world with?”

“You know they don’t. But that doesn’t change the world for our people on the reservation.”

“We are all brothers, Joe Lonewolf.” Matoskah lifted a cup of water and poured it onto the glowing stones. Steam hissed and rose in a cloud to fill the room. “Children are wakanyega, sacred beings. The child is one with the earth, one with our people, as is his mother. Look for this child like you would look for your own son, and remember, not all is as it appears. That is all you need to know. Mitaku oyasin.”

My relative.

Joe extended his hand and grasped his mentor’s forearm. “Pilamaya.” Thanks. Then on all fours, he crawled from the sweat lodge into the frigid air outside, welcoming the swift rush of cold filling his nostrils and stinging his cheeks.

Look for this child like you’d look for your own son. Dakota wasn’t his son but he was a child, part of the circle of life and born of mother earth. His focus would be on finding the baby alive. Once he’d accomplished that mission, he could decide what to do about his feelings for Maggie.

Chapter Four

Maggie unlocked the door and entered, automatically reaching in to switch on the lights of the large gymnasium. Her snow boots made echoing clopping sounds as she crossed the painted concrete court to her office on the opposite side.

As she pushed the glass door open, a lump lodged in her throat. A colorful playpen stood in one corner as if waiting for her to place Dakota in it with his toys.

How many times had she brought Dakota to work with her? Had she set herself and her child up for this disaster? Had one of the teens who’d visited the center on multiple occasions seen Dakota and figured he’d be a good trade for something?

“Damn.” Maggie slapped her hand to the doorframe and closed her eyes against the sting of tears. She could imagine Dakota crying for his mommy, holding out his hands for her to pick him up and make him safe. The tears squeezed through one at a time until she gave up and let them flow, hunching her shoulders in despair.

So caught up was she in her misery, Maggie barely heard the sound of the outside door opening. When the sound of rubber boots stopped in front of her, she looked up into Winona Little Elk’s dark face.

“Come, thiblo.” Daughter. Heavy, warm arms curled around her shoulders and drew her into a maternal embrace.

“Oh, Winona, where is he? Where’s my baby?” Maggie wailed into the older woman’s wool jacket.

“I don’t know. I miss him, too.” Her shoulders shook with her own silent sobs and the two women stood holding each other until the storm passed.

After several minutes, Maggie pulled back and gave Winona a wobbly smile. “I’m sorry. I should be strong.”

“Look at me,” she snorted. “I’m just as bad.” Winona’s brown eyes were red-rimmed and puffy and she rubbed at the moisture clinging to the sunkissed, leathery skin of her cheekbones. “I love my hoksika.” Little boy. Her words were a mix of English and the sometimes harsh, yet beautiful native Lakota language she’d grown up speaking with her parents and grandparents.

Maggie paced in front of the government-issued metal desk littered with files and work she’d thought so important only yesterday. Now nothing was as important as finding Dakota. She stopped and faced her son’s caregiver. The woman who was more a grandmother, more than a babysitter to her child. “Why, Winona? Why would someone take my son?”

“Joe will find him and ciks agli.” And bring your son home. Her voice rang with conviction as she stood with her back ramrod-straight and her ample shoulders pushed back. Winona’s waist-length hair hung in long braids over her shoulders, the gray ropes a stark contrast to the black wool of her winter jacket. The woman was Lakota and her proud lineage shone through in her high cheekbones and deep-brown eyes. Then her shoulders slumped forward. “Do you think one of the tribe took hoksika?”

“I don’t know anyone but the teenagers and people of the tribe. Who else would take him?” She hesitated for a moment and made a decision. “Winona, I had a call this morning from the kidnapper.”

Winona’s eyes widened and she reached for Maggie’s hands. “What did they say? What did they want?”

Maggie’s brows furrowed. “That’s the problem. They want to use Dakota as a trade.”

“A trade for what?”

“I don’t know.” She threw her hands in the air and turned away, searching her office for the answer and coming up blank. She sighed and faced Winona. “The man said something about trading Dakota for what was stolen.”

“What do you mean, ‘what was stolen’?”

“I wish I knew. I’d give it to them. Hell, I’d give them everything I own to get Dakota back.”

Winona’s eyes narrowed into a ferocious scowl and she tapped her finger to her chin. “What would someone want so badly they’d take our hoksika?”

“I’ve tried and tried to come up with something. But frankly, I don’t have anything of value. And I certainly haven’t stolen anything.”

“You think the kidnapper is Lakota?”

“I think so. The meeting place is on the reservation at Coyote Butte.” Maggie stepped behind her desk and sank into her battered office chair. “I don’t even know where that is, much less what I supposedly stole.”

The older woman shook her head. “I don’t understand the ways of the young people of my tribe. Have they no shame? Drug use and alcoholism is a disgrace, child abuse unforgivable and that casino should never have been built.”

“I thought the tribe was happy about the money the casino brings to the community.”

Winona’s lips thinned. “Money is not everything.”

“Your husband, Tom, works there, doesn’t he?” Having worked on the reservation for almost as long as the casino had been open, Maggie knew the benefits the tribe received from the profits. New roads, a new clinic and next year the new school would be complete. “What’s wrong with the casino, other than the usual habitual gamblers?”

“Tom isn’t sure, but he has the feeling there are illegal activities going on there. He just can’t put his finger on it.”

Maggie leaned forward. “What makes him think that?”

“He’s a janitor, and as a janitor, he’s somewhat invisible. He sees things.” She shrugged. “That’s all he will say.”

“Do you think someone from the casino took Dakota?” Maggie pushed away from the desk and stood.

“I don’t know.”

“I’ve never been there, even when Paul was alive.”

“Did Paul tell you anything about his work or the people there?” Winona asked.

“No.” Maggie sat down again and buried her face in her hands. “I’ve made such a mess of my life. And poor Paul is dead.”

“Does Joe know Dakota is his son?”

For a full five seconds, Maggie’s heart stopped beating. When it started up again, it pounded against her rib cage, threatening to burst out with the force of her lie. Slowly, she lifted her head from her hands and stared at Winona. “How did you know?”

“Dakota may have your red hair, but he has the skin and eyes of his father’s people.”

Maggie jumped to her feet, and grabbed Winona’s hands. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

Pudgy brown fingers patted hers. “I won’t tell what is not mine to tell. But why?”

“Joe didn’t want me because I wasn’t Lakota.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Winona waved her hand around the room filled with pictures of the teens Maggie worked with on a daily basis. “You care about our children more than most of the people on the reservation.”

“He said I didn’t fit in his way of life. I didn’t belong.” She dropped Winona’s hand and turned to the window overlooking the indoor basketball court.

“Men can say stupid things when they’re going off to war. They aren’t in their right minds.” Winona’s lips twisted. “If he’d known about the baby—”

“No!” The old hurt and fear surfaced and Maggie frowned. “I was scared. Afraid that if I told him about the baby, he’d take him away from me and raise him within the tribe. I’d lost Joe, I couldn’t lose my baby as well.” And if he’d decided to marry her, he’d have been doing it out of obligation, not love. She couldn’t stand to be an obligation. She’d thought she’d be better off marrying someone else than being in love with a man who’d never love her in return.

“So you married Paul?”

“Yes.” Maggie’s chin tilted up. “I thought if I married Paul, everyone would think Dakota was his. I made him promise not to tell.”

“What was in it for Paul?”

Paul. Dear, sweet Paul. Regret burned in Maggie’s gut. In her attempt to protect herself and her son, she’d put Paul in the situation she most wanted to avoid. Paul had stepped in when she was desperate, but despite his love for her all she felt for him was platonic affection. She’d tried to sleep with him but couldn’t, not with the knowledge she still loved her baby’s father. He’d given up his chance to choose a woman who’d love him to help Maggie. And he’d died before she could make things right. “Paul loved me.”

“You should tell Joe about Dakota. He has the right to know. Especially, since it’s his son who’s missing.”

“I know.” Maggie clasped her hands together, twisting the simple gold band around her ring finger. She’d insisted she didn’t want a diamond engagement ring. A band was all that was necessary to keep her secret.

She slipped the ring from her finger and shoved it into her pocket. “You’re right, Winona. I should tell him. But I want to be the one who tells him. Please don’t mention it. The news should come from me.”

“Yes. It should.” Winona touched a hand to Maggie’s cheek. “I promised Tom I’d fix lunch for him. Will you be all right alone? I could tell him to fix his own lunch.”

“No. I’ll be fine.” Winona’s offer to stay with her touched her. She’d made a few lasting friendships over the two years she’d worked at the reservation. Maggie trusted the older woman with her life and that of her son. She was the family Maggie didn’t have.

“Call me if you need anything. Even if only for a shoulder to cry on, thiblo.”

“Pilamaya.” Maggie responded with one of the few Lakota words she knew. Then she pulled the older woman into her arms and hugged her tightly, struggling to be strong when all she wanted to do was curl into a fetal position and cry. “I miss my baby.”

“I know, I know.” Winona patted her back once more and then held her at arm’s length and said, “Trust him.” After a long hard look, the old Lakota woman left.

The empty gym echoed with the sound of the outside door closing behind her. A blast of icy wind filtered across the concrete floors to send a chill across Maggie’s skin. She wrapped her arms around her middle, shivering, and wondered if Dakota was warm enough.

The door screeched open and Maggie looked up, half hoping Joe would walk through. Her hopes died when Leotie Jones slipped through and advanced across the concrete with her high-heeled boots grating against the silence. “Oh, good, you’re here,” was her only greeting. No How are you? or Hello.

Maggie squeezed her eyelids shut for a moment and willed Leotie to go away. I don’t need this. Not now. Then she opened her eyes and forced herself to be pleasant, something that wasn’t easy around the self-centered woman. “Leotie,” she said, dipping her head in acknowledgement.

“I just stopped by to tell you how sorry I was about your baby.” She cinched the belt circling the waistline of her long, black leather jacket.

“Thanks.” She couldn’t help it that the one word implied anything but gratitude. Leotie had had it in for her from the first day Maggie had set foot on the reservation. Or should she say from the first day she’d run into Joe Lonewolf and instant attraction had practically ignited the dry prairie grass all around the youth center? Leotie considered Joe her territory and saw Maggie as an encroaching outsider. She’d done everything in her power to get between Maggie and Joe and spoil any chance of a blossoming relationship.

“I was hoping we could forget about the past and, you know, let bygones be bygones, and all that.” Leotie stared around Maggie into her office. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” Although her words sounded cheerful, the slight curl of her lip indicated she wasn’t impressed with the sparse furnishings or the two hard plastic chairs positioned in front of Maggie’s desk.

“Normally, I would. But there’s nothing normal about the way I feel today.” She stared hard at Leotie, hoping she’d get the message and leave. “Leotie, I’d rather be alone.”

“I see.” Leotie’s forced smile turned into a sneer and she crossed her arms over her ample chest, flipping her red-streaked black hair over her shoulder. “Joe’s working the case, isn’t he?”

This was more Leotie’s style—cut to the chase. Maggie braced herself for the attack. “Yes, Joe’s working the case.”

“You know he’ll never marry you, don’t you?”