Native Affairs Read Free

stay in Florida and live as hunters and fishermen rather than accept reservation life in the West. His father and grandfather made their living from the land.”
    “What happened to his mother?” Cindy asked.
    Paula glanced at her quickly, then looked back at the road. “She left him with his father and went back North. His father’s family raised him.” She paused and added, “He’s illegitimate. The story goes that his mother viewed his father as a good time, a little distraction during her vacation. She discovered she was pregnant and had the child up North, returning just long enough to leave the baby here—deposit him on the Fox doorstep, so to speak. As far as I know they never saw her again.”
    “How horrible for him,” Cindy said softly, thinking of the green eyes, surely the stamp of his absent mother.
    “Yeah, I guess it must have been pretty rough, being a half breed in a Southern town, and a bastard to boot. He was pretty much of a hellraiser when he was a kid. My brother Johnny wasn’t supposed to play with him.”
    “Because of his background?” Cindy asked, dismayed at such prejudice toward an innocent child.
    “No. Because he was always in trouble. My grandmother used to call him ‘that desperado’ and told Johnny that she would box his ears if she saw him with Drew. Which only made Johnny anxious to tag after him at every opportunity.”
    “Desperado,” Cindy repeated, laughing. “Isn’t that a little dramatic?”
    “Well, she was Spanish, you know, given to colorful expressions in her native language. She also called my father ‘that gringo’ until the day she died, at which point my parents had been married for thirty years.”  
    “Where is Johnny now?” Cindy inquired.  
    “Up in Atlanta. My father got him a job when my parents moved there. It was during our junior year, remember?”
    “I remember. So you’re the only one of your family left in this area now.”
    “Yup,” Paula said, pulling into the driveway of an apartment complex. “I wanted to come back here when we graduated; this place will always be home to me. And Johnny looks Fox up every time he comes to visit me. They were great friends.”
    “Fox was raised by his father’s family, then?”  
    “Until he was sixteen. He left home then, taking a number of lunatic jobs until he found his calling.”  
    “Lunatic jobs?”
    “Jobs only a lunatic would take. He has a natural cunning and amazing agility, so he always wound up doing things nobody else would try. Johnny told me about some of his adventures.”
    “Such as?” Cindy asked curiously, as Paula pulled into a reserved parking space in front of an ultra-modern brick building.
    Paula sent her an arch glance. “He fascinates you, doesn’t he?”
    “Answer the question.”
    Paula chuckled, shutting off the motor. “Let’s see. He was a bonded courier for a while, those guys with briefcases handcuffed to their wrists and pistols in their shoes.”
    “Briefcases full of diamonds, you mean.”
    “Right. He got shot doing that, so he switched to something safer, high rise construction work, teetering on six inch girders five stories above the ground.”
    Cindy burst out laughing.
    “But that was too dull, I guess, because the next thing I heard, he was riding shotgun on armored trucks transporting government payrolls.”
    “Good lord,” Cindy said, shaking her head.
    “So you can see how his training and experience were perfectly suited to his current occupation. He can go his own way, work when he wants to, and slake his thirst for adventure at the same time.” Paula gestured expansively at the building before them. “El Rancho Desmond, the second floor of it anyway. Let me help you take your luggage out of the trunk.”
    Each of the women took a bag, and Cindy followed Paula up an exterior flight of stone steps. They passed the potted palms flanking the entrance and went through glass doors, which admitted them to the first floor landing. The