Buffalo Summer

She snatched the stack of papers yet again and rose from her chair, walking to the window and staring out. Her heart was hammering and her mouth was dry.

“I told him I’d ask around for someone who could help out,” Pete continued. “It would be an easy job. You’d live right there, on the ranch. Room and board included. Caleb McCutcheon’s a good man and the buffalo herd is tiny, nothing like the size of ours.”

“I appreciate your coming,” she said. “But I am not interested.”

“Take the job, Pony. It pays more than what you make here as a teacher, or what you’d make hoeing weeds in some farmer’s field.” Pete Two Shirts turned and walked out without another word. She stayed where she was until the sound of his boot heels and the faint ring of his spurs faded from her burning ears.

One summer. One buffalo summer…

When she finally returned to her desk, the children’s papers she held in her trembling hands were hopelessly crumpled, and no amount of smoothing could flatten them. She wanted to ignore what Pete had said, but he was right. She needed the money. And if the job paid well, did she have the right to deny her students such a windfall?

Unlike many of the children she taught, Pony had been handed the best of everything, the best that any Indian born on the rez could ever hope to have. Her brother Steven had pushed her hard, pushed her to do well in school, pushed her to apply for colleges, and when the pushing had opened doors for her, he had made sure those doors stayed open by footing the bill for her education with the money he earned as an environmental lawyer. She’d graduated from one of the best schools in the country, had gone on to get her master’s degree in early childhood education.

Steven had sacrificed so much for her since the death of their parents, and she loved him fiercely. She’d loved him ever since she’d been a little girl and he’d tolerated her pesky company, defended her against his taunting friends, lifted her onto his broad shoulder and carried her when her legs grew tired. Later, as she grew older, he’d driven off unwanted suitors. He’d never asked for anything in return for being the best brother a girl could ever have. That was Steven’s way. Yet when he changed his name to a white man’s name and chose to live in the white man’s world, she couldn’t understand that his needs might not be the same as hers.

Her resentment toward the lifestyle he had chosen had limited her visits to his pretty little house in Gallatin Gateway with the name Brown stenciled in big block letters on his mailbox. It had taken her a long time to realize that her brother had the right to walk his own path.

Last night when she had had gone to see him to ask him about Caleb McCutcheon and the job at the Bow and Arrow, the neatly stenciled letters on his mailbox had read Young Bear. Unbeknownst to her, he had taken back his own name. His hair had grown long again and was drawn back the way he used to wear it. He had looked so good, so handsome, standing there in the doorway of his cozy little house, that she had been momentarily unable to speak, overwhelmed by a sudden and poignant surge of remorse that brought her to the verge of tears.

“Pony,” he said. “It’s good to see you. It’s been a while. Christmas, wasn’t it?”

She blinked the sting from her eyes. “It’s good to see you, too.”

He nodded. “Come in. It’s not a teepee but it’s comfortable.” He stood to one side for several moments, and when she didn’t move he reached out and drew her firmly inside, closing the door behind her. “I’m cooking supper. You can watch me and tell me all the things I’m doing wrong.” He turned and walked back into the kitchen, picked up the spatula he’d left on the counter and added strips of cooked chicken into the stir-fry mix that was sizzling in the wok. He shook in a generous splash of soy sauce, added a little more water and a small mound of freshly grated gingerroot. He stirred for a few minutes before turning off the gas burners beneath both the wok and a pot of steamed brown rice. “There’s plenty here for both of us,” he said, taking two plates from the cupboard.

“I’m not hungry,” Pony said, standing uneasily on the other side of the counter. Steven paused for a moment to look at her and then divided the rice between the two plates and spooned the stir-fry over the mounds. He carried the plates and silverware to the table, returning to the kitchen to strip two paper towels off the roll, grab two glasses from the counter and a quart of milk from the refrigerator. “Unless you’d rather have wine or a beer?” he said, pausing at the refrigerator.

“Milk’s fine.”

“Sit then, and eat. You’re too thin.” He dropped into a chair and Pony did the same.

“I came here to ask you about Caleb McCutcheon.”

“I know,” Steven said, pouring the milk. “Pete called me. He told me that he’d gone to see you at the school to tell you about the job.”

Pony wasn’t surprised that Steven already knew. Pete Two Shirts was his boyhood friend, and they still kept in close touch. “I know nothing about buffalo. The job would be a farce.”

Steven ate for a while then picked up his glass of milk and drank half of it. Finally he lowered the glass and studied her across the table. “You know enough,” he said. “McCutcheon would be lucky to get you. Now eat. This stuff is good for you. It’s not sage hen or buffalo tongue, but it’s healthy.”

She picked up her fork and stabbed it fiercely into a piece of broccoli. “Why do we always argue?”

“You’re mad because I don’t live on the rez like you do, because I don’t champion the Indian’s fights the way you do.”

“The way you should,” she said vehemently.

“The way you think I should,” he amended.

“Steven, you paid my way through college,” she said, leaning toward him. “You made it possible for me to do the things I’m doing now. Working with the children, teaching school and lobbying the Bureau of Indian Affairs, trying to make things better. If you and I don’t do these things, who will? The changes have to come from us.”

Steven finished his meal and glass of milk while she sat and watched him, the same piece of broccoli still speared on her fork. He wiped his mouth on the paper towel. “McCutcheon’s a good man. Go talk to him about the job.”

“Is he one of those rich movie stars?”

Steven laughed at her disapproving glare. “Caleb was a star, but not in the movies. He was a professional baseball player with the White Sox. He grew up as a poor kid in the slums of Chicago and pitched his way to the top of the world. People still sing his praises, and he hasn’t played for years. He had to retire when a baseball shattered his ankle during the World Series.

“Is he married?”

“Until recently. He was divorced last fall, shortly after he bought the Bow and Arrow. Seems his wife didn’t share his dream of living on a remote ranch.”

“Any children?”

“Nope.” Steven looked at his sister and grinned. “He definitely ranks up there as one of the most eligible bachelors in the State. If I were you, I’d hurry right over there.”

“I’m not looking for a man. I’m applying for a job.”

“Just filling you in on the particulars. No need to get testy.”

“Even if I go to talk to him and he offers me the job, what will I do about the kids?”

“How many are there now?”

“Five. Nana’s watching them tonight,” she said, referring to her aunt.

“Five.” Steven poured himself another glass of milk. He fixed her with a solemn gaze. “Pony, you can’t save the world.”

“I know that, but I can help make their lives a little better.”

“I’ll send you more money. I didn’t know there were that many kids. The last time we talked, you just had the two boys.”

Pony set her fork down abruptly and raised the folded paper towel to her eyes, holding it there for a long moment, hiding from him until he reached out and squeezed her arm gently. She lowered her hand and blinked rapidly. “I can’t turn them away,” she said in a voice tight with pain.

“I know.”

Her eyes stung. “And I can’t walk away and leave them for the summer. Nana can’t take care of all of them. There’s no point in even thinking about taking that job, even if it were offered to me.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask this, but these other three kids you’ve taken on…are they juvenile delinquents like the first two?”

“They’re not delinquents, Steven. They’re school dropouts that I’m tutoring. They’re just confused. They’re living in a mixed-up world and they don’t know where they belong.”

“Teenagers?”

Pony nodded.

“All boys?”

She nodded again. “The girls tend to stay with their families. The boys rebel against everything, especially their parents.”

Steven pushed his glass with one finger, back and forth. “Can any of them ride a horse?”