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Je
“Jen?” he said softly.
She had never heard that tone from him before. He, who was always so sure of himself, sounded…shaken.
“Right here,” she said, stepping forward.
He looked at her for a moment, and then reached down and pressed her hand.
Alarmed, she said, “Lee, are you all right?”
He swallowed. “Sure. Fine. Just…stay here, okay?”
In that moment, she would have done anything he asked. “I’ll be right behind you.”
He nodded. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
The photographers snapped pictures, and the reporters held up their microphones to catch his words, as he began a dialogue with the children, answering their questions and telling them stories. As he relaxed, and the effects of what had been bothering him initially wore off, he loosened his tie and pulled a chair forward to lean on as he talked.
His audience was fascinated. They listened, quiet as cloistered nuns, their eyes round, while he described the rigors of the Sun Dance, a solemn ceremony performed by the Indians of the Plains for hundreds of years. Je
The cottonwood tree was then stripped, painted, and raised as a pole in the center of the dancing ground. At dawn, the dancers were prepared for their ordeal. The warriors were decorated with colors that showed what degree of pain they had chosen to suffer. Some would merely fast and dance, others would have bits of flesh cut from their bodies, and the bravest were those who had agreed to have skewers implanted through flaps cut in their skin. They were attached to the tree, or to buffalo skulls, by rawhide thongs, and would dance until the skin of each man ripped free from the skewers, experiencing, through their great pain, a communion with the spirit of the sun.
Je
One child, bolder than the others, began to beg for a demonstration. Je
“What are coups?” a towheaded midget in the front row asked in a piping voice.
Lee explained that coups were blows delivered to the enemy by touching him with a coup stick. It was like a game of tag, he said, but a dangerous one, in which you had to get close enough to an armed enemy to touch him, but had to get away again to tell the story. The tribal council then listened to the story of the deed, and if it was determined to be the truth, supported by witnesses, the brave was awarded a coup feather, a tail feather of the male golden eagle. The warrior collected these, and when he had enough, he wore them in a war bo
By this time, the reporters had material for their stories, and the nurses were making noises about getting the children back to bed. When it was time for Lee to go, amidst much protest, the redhead who had talked the most touched Lee on the arm and said wistfully, “Sure wish we could have seen that dance.”
The members of the press were gone, and Lee said goodbye to the staff, promising to return. He pushed his hair back from his forehead and exhaled sharply.
“Do you think you could go along without me?” he asked Je
This was another breach of the rules, but she wasn’t about to debate it with him. “All right, Lee. You look tired, though; you’d better get out of here early enough to get some rest before tonight By the way, what was upsetting you when you first came in?”
His eyes flashed to her face. “Oh, nothing.”
“Something, I think.”
He sighed. “It was just, well, I had a brother who died of leukemia when he was eleven, and this sort of brought it all back to me. I had forgotten how… painful... it is to see sick children and not be able to help them.”
Je
“I did want to help them, once. I wanted to be a doctor. Did I ever tell you that?”
“I think you mentioned it, yes.”
He nodded slowly. “All water under the bridge, now, I guess.” He eyed her, his head slightly tilted to one side. “I’ll see you tonight, then.”
“Yes.”
His lips curved in the trace of a smile. “Thanks for the moral support.”
“That’s my job,” she said lightly, and then was sorry for the superficial comment. His expression changed.
“Ah, yes, the job. You are very good at your job.”
The closeness between them had vanished in an instant Je
She was almost to the glass double doors at the end of the hall when something made her stop. Lee’s behavior had been abrupt, suspect in a vague way, as if he had wanted to be rid of her. The story about the fund raiser had sounded hastily manufactured. What was he up to? Je
Her suspicions were confirmed when she got back to the ward. Two nurses stood by the doors, like sentinels, blocking entry. They recognized Je
Lee was in the middle of the room, barefoot and bare chested, his shirt and shoes discarded on a nearby chair. Je
Je
When she looked again he was beating out the rhythm on one of the bedsteads, watching the children as they continued without him. Je
It was not so bad once she found the courage to admit it to herself. She knew that nothing could ever come of it, he had made that eminently clear that morning, but acknowledging it gave her a secret treasure to hold next to her heart She loved Lee Youngson, probably had since the day she’d met him. And just for that moment, before she could consider the heartbreak and the pain that would surely follow, she was glad.