Lakota Baby

“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.”