Kier stayed quiet for a while, wanting to deal squarely with his need to reconcile things with her.
"Let's cut through the baloney," he said finally. "The wine cellar isn't the issue. What we're really talking about is this rock-hard inner self of mine that-yes, is stubborn-but more than that, can't consider a white woman as a mate. And we're talking about one more thing. A bigger thing I think."
"What's that?"
"Whatever happened to you, that has you so angry."
"You dragged me around in a blizzard instead of driving to a phone booth."
"But that's not it," he said.
"Are you a mind reader?"
"Is it the divorce?"
"No."
"So what is it?"
''You first. Why do you think I care what you think of white women? You're going to say that I'm somehow attracted to you and that this is some kind of issue with me."
"You're trying to say you're not?"
"Kier, all the problems in life don't revolve around you, for God's sake."
"My unwillingness to be with another white woman, in your mind, is just a rejection of the white man's civilization and ultimately of you. Same with the government. But the reason it bugs you so much-"
"Kier, please spare me. Why are you talking about my feelings? Talk about your feelings. Don't tell me about mine. That's my job."
Kier's anger exploded inside him. He quit talking and sat staring at the dreamers on the wall.
"Okay. Okay. I'll just listen. You talk," she said. "Let's not degenerate. You just talk."
"You're sure?"
"Definitely sure."
"Now I don't know what to talk about," he said.
"Stop stalling before I scream."
"It started with my mother. All my life I have felt my mother's love. Always I have wanted to please her. But more than that, bigger than that, I wanted to be like my grandfather and never betray my heritage. Indian people are being swallowed up. We haven't preserved what is Indian. Often we're not good at what is white. I have gotten along pretty well in both cultures. That's what I was raised to do. But I can't let myself disappear into the white man's world, get fat off peddling Indian mysticism. I almost did that once."
"So you're going to marry an expectation instead of loving a person. It makes poor Willow sound like a political statement. God. I thought I was cynical."
"Ah. So you know all about Willow."
"Well, Claudie told me. I'm a snoop at heart. That's why I'm a cop."
"So now you've decided I'm not in love with her when you don't know either of us."
"We got naked in the same hut. I know you."
"Well, let me explain my side of this."
"Go ahead."
"I guess," he said, sighing, "I don't quite look at my relationship with Willow the way you and Claudie do."
"Let's leave Claudie out of this."
"Okay, the way you do. You know the saying about 'stir-the-oatmeal kind of love'? It's not Hollywood, but it's caring." He watched her with eyes that pleaded for her understanding, even as he supposed it was something that she did not intend to give.
"You see there, you've just admitted it. This is some dogeared old affection that's like friendship. It's not really love."
''It's what I want. I'm not looking for anything else. Anything glamorous."
He heard her take in a deep, ragged breath. "So that's it. Okay. I can respect that. I suppose there're a lot of happy families out there stirring the oatmeal. Personally, I'd rather be passionately in love, howling at the moon, screwing my brains out till we knock the bed over."
Kier thought about that and realized that nothing good could come from continuing the debate.
"I judge from the long, Indian-like silence that we've exhausted that topic. Let's try another unfinished topic."
She leaned closer against him, placing her hand on his chest. He surmised that the rummy, frivolous feeling that accompanied exhaustion was relaxing her. He took hold of her shoulder and pulled her tight. She let her body meld to his.
"Back there on the cliff you were starting to tell me about your boyhood fears of the TV bear. I interrupted you."
"Well, it wasn't just the TV bear. To this day when bears come to a camp in the night and they wake me, my heart races for a few seconds. Like when I was a child."
"Kier afraid of a bear?"
"No. I'm afraid of things that I can't control. It just happened that the TV bear captured my imagination when I was young."
"How about love? You can't control that. Or the pain of it.”
"Never thought of it that way."
"Maybe it's time you did. I still remember certain very powerful emotions from my growing up. When I was a little girl, I always wanted my daddy's attention."
"Every little girl wants that."
"Yeah, but this was a big deal in my life. Really big. He wasn't the cuddling type. Never touched me. I'd sit for hours and daydream that I'd found a way to impress him. I have these memories of getting all excited about something, trying to tell him, and him not even looking up from the paper."
Kier held her close, but said nothing. She put her head on his chest.
"Is it something to do with your dad, that you're upset about?"
"No, it's not."
"Let me ask a question?"
"Okay."
"Why were you visiting your sister?"
"I'm not up to this yet."
"Can't talk about it?"
"Not now. Tell me about Willow."
"What's there to say? In a couple months we'll get engaged, get married, the whole thing."
"Did you ever tell Willow all this… this stir-the-oatmeal and native-loyalty stuff?"
He made no immediate reply. As he thought about her question, he was not searching for an answer, but searching for a reason. He could not think of one, except the anxiety that accompanied the thought.
"No."
"Well, I pray for the poor woman's sake that you do before you propose."
Chapter 22
There is no single day when green fruit turns to summer sweetness.
" The view definitely takes your breath away."
They looked out over several hundred thousand acres of snow-covered rock and timber. Rock under snow and ice made blue-white mountains stretching to the horizon.
"It looks as good as a Bierstadt," she said.
"You can't feel the solitude in a painting."
"You don't freeze your ass off or die from exposure in a museum," she said. He caught himself frowning. "Oh, all right. But it would be a hell of a lot easier to appreciate it over a hot cup of coffee."
Man Jumps cave emerged far enough down the mountain to be below the sub-alpine forest and in the true fir belt. By the look of the trees, they stood at 5,500 feet, maybe slightly lower.
Below them grew the mixed conifer forest with its Douglas fir, white fir, ponderosa pine, sugar pine, and incense cedar.
"We're up in the true fir, aren't we?" Jessie said. Obviously she was beginning to discern the different species, which served as a primitive altimeter.
To reach the forest from the mouth of Man Jumps cave they had to go laterally along a narrow rock-strewn ledge that followed the face of the cliffs for about a thousand feet.
Kier knew she was trying to look unafraid, even calm, but her head nodded an involuntary "yes" when he asked if she'd like to ride on his back.
"I should walk on my own," she said.