Reason To Believe Read Free Page A

newcomer to the role of being "the responsible one" in this kind of situation, and he was spinning his wheels, running in circles.
    He'd been doing that a lot lately. His father was always expounding about the sacredness of the circle, but this was more like spinning his wheels in the clay ruts of his own private hell. His father was a holy man, a pipe carrier— the pipe carrier, to hear him tell it. Not all the Lakota agreed that Dewey Pipestone was rightfully the keeper of the pipe given to the people by the White Buffalo Calf Woman during a time that lived, at least in Ben's mind, only in legend and lore. Ben would have been hard-pressed to think of anything that all the Lakota were likely to agree on, but the "traditionals" upheld Dewey's claim to the title, and that was all that mattered to the old man. He took his calling seriously, even though the ravages of age made it more difficult all the time.
    Ben respected his father, and he didn't discount tradition, but he couldn't see himself as pipe-carrier material. The fact that he'd screwed up his marriage notwithstanding, he just wasn't big on ceremony. Besides that, he himself had been a shitty father. His daughter was thirteen, and he'd been out of the house for almost two years. He didn't know what she was taking in school this year or what kind of music she was listening to on the radio these days, whether she had a boyfriend yet or wanted one.
    Or where she was. Goddamn, he had no idea where she was or where else to look, and it was getting cold, and it was already darker than hell.
    He drove the length and breadth of Bismarck, dragging Main like a youth on the prowl, scouting out cars, scanning the sidewalks. But the Main he'd once dragged had been a hell of a lot shorter than this one. Fewer corners. Fewer white kids. More Indians.
    And it sure was a whole lot different when a man was looking for his daughter.
    Every carload of boys raised his hackles. Take a good look at these young bucks, he told himself. Cruising for tail. Horny as hell, every last one of them. Annie was thirteen, but she looked older, especially now that she was using makeup. What was her mother thinking about, anyway, letting her put that stuff on her face?
    Christ, he hoped she hadn't met up with a load of testosterone on wheels like the one in the slick red Mustang he'd just passed. A guy oughta carry a shotgun loaded for teenage boys, just in case. Blast his ass with saltpeter if he comes sniffin' around your daughter. Especially if he wears a cowboy hat and a pair of sharp-toed Tony Lamas with worn-down riding heels.
    Which was exactly what he'd been wearing the day he'd met Clara ...
     
    Actually, his father had met her first. The minute he saw the little white Escort turn off the blacktop and come bouncing along the rutted dirt road toward the house, Ben knew somebody from off the rez was looking for an "Indian expert." Anybody local would have skimmed the ruts and created a wing-shaped dust wake. Long before she drove into the yard, he'd figured the driver for a woman with a mission, and he also guessed she didn't know a hell of a lot about cars.
    She stepped out, closed the door, straightened her nice white skirt, and approached him without giving her poor gasping car a second glance. She carried a folded piece of paper. Clearly she had business to attend to.
    She also had great legs.
    "Is this where Dewey Pipestone lives?"
    Ben nodded.
    She shaded her eyes with a cupped hand. The warm breeze lifted her dark blond hair like a billowing cape. "Is he home?"
    Ben sat back against the hood of the car he'd been working on all afternoon. He'd gotten it started, but it wasn't going far without a whole bunch of parts he didn't have. He tipped his straw cowboy hat back with one finger. Let her get a better look.
    "Who wants to know? You a social worker?"
    "I'm a student, actually."
    Ahh. "Studying to be a social worker?"
    "Studying the history of the indigenous people of North America,