Finding Their Son Read Online Free PDF Page B

you.”
    “Let’s mark it down to old times’ sake.”
    She backed around the corner of the building then crossed diagonally through the parking lot to the Sentinel Pass highway. A quick glance in both directions told her the road was as empty as her shop had been all day. “Are you hitchhiking?” she asked.
    “Yeah. My uncle has my car. I hope,” he added under his breath. “I caught a ride with some guy from Denver who talked the whole way. Like I asked to hear his life story.”
    Jack , she thought, finally placing the truck. “Did he say he was an orthodontist?”
    “Yeah. And he’s getting married next month. He seemed practically giddy about the idea.”
    She snickered. “Yep. That would be Jack Treadwell. He’s marrying my friend Kat.”
    The car picked up speed once they’d breached the summit. He put out his hand on the dashboard. She couldn’t help noticing the unusual tattoo—an unfinished spiderweb—in the triangular webbing between his thumb and index finger.
    “What’s that mean?”
    “Hell if I know. The old man who gave it to me mumbled something about connecting the dots of my life. I was messed up at the time. Didn’t even feel it until the next morning.”
    “Messed up? You mean like peyote? Cops aren’t supposed to do drugs.”
    He brushed his hand through his thick black hair. Some Native American men of her acquaintance let their hair grow long. Eli’s was a slightly shaggy military cut. The hint of silver at his temple was new. And sexy.
    Oh, chickadee, are you sure you wanna go down that road again?
    “… wanagi tacacku or spirit path,” he was saying. He made a sound of pure disgust. “Or so Joseph convinced me. He said blood quantum doesn’t make you Lakota. And even though I learned to teach the important dances, I’d missed out on the spiritual meaning behind them because I hadn’t made a vision quest. Like that was my fault.” His low grumble masked a cuss word or two, but she knew he wasn’t speaking Lakota because there weren’t any swear words in his father’s language.
    If she remembered her Pierre High gossip correctly,Eli’s mother was a white woman from Oklahoma or Kansas. Eli’s father worked at the state capitol, and Eli would visit him every summer, spending most of his time with his grandparents and cousins on the reservation.
    “My dad didn’t believe in the old ways. He called that sort of thing ceremonial crap.”
    Char remembered hearing talk about Eli’s father. Hardworking. Hard-drinking. The latter was something he had in common with her mother.
    “Whatever you do,” he told her, “don’t believe a word Joseph Thompson tells you. My uncle is a liar and a drunk.”
    “Joseph’s your uncle? I know who he is. He worked at the hospital with my aunt. How come he has a different name than you?”
    “My dad’s father died when he was a kid. Dad had a sister who died, too. Unci—” he said the Lakota word for grandmother with obvious love and respect “—got remarried to the grandpa I knew. They had Joseph and three daughters. Dad and Joe weren’t on speaking terms when Dad passed.”
    Char slowed to make the turn onto Main Street. “I remember your uncle had this long, elegant braid. I was envious because my hair gets to a certain length and breaks off.” She shook her head, aware that she was babbling. “Anyway, I take it this means you took part in hanblecha . I’ve never been invited to a vision quest, although I’ve participated in a naming ceremony and quite a few powwows. Someone mentioned you were teaching ceremonial dance and basketball at the youth center.” She kept her tone light to belie her curiosity. “Kind of an unusual combination.”
    “I quit ’em both,” he said without elaborating. “And this wasn’t an official ceremony. I agreed to go to a sweat lodgewith some of Joseph’s friends in Pine Ridge. Joe’s getting old. I didn’t realize just how badly he’s losing it until…”
    It was too late , she