“But….”

“No buts. I am Tacoma Rivers, Staff Sergeant in the US Army. I am a Lakota warrior. I can no more stand by than you can. If there is to be a battle, I mean to be there.”

“Ina will never let that happen.”

“Ina doesn’t have a choice in the matter. I am wichasha. I run my own life, and rule my own destiny.”

“And cower like a hokshila when Ina shoots one look at you,” Koda replies, smirking.

Tacoma can’t help but laugh, knowing his sister’s words for truth. Their mother runs the house with an iron fist, and no one dares deny her reign, not even her husband.

“I need to do this, Dakota,” he says finally. “No matter what, I need to do this.”

Taking her brother’s hand in hers, she gives it a firm squeeze, and looks deep into his eyes. “I know.”

Falling silent again, both turn to the sliver of the moon as it rises over the skeletons of trees as old as time.

6

“No. You won’t go. I forbid it.”

“Ina.”

“Mother.”

“No. This discussion is finished. Now leave me, both of you. I have dinner to prepare.”

Stepping away from the juggernaut who is their mother, Tacoma shoots a pleading look to Koda, who rolls her eyes and steps forward, careful not to touch. “Ina, please.”

Themungha whirls, eyes fierce and filled with tears she won’t allow to fall. “I told you to leave me be, Dakota.”

“I can’t do that, Mother. I won’t do that.”

“Who is winyan here?” she demands, her brow like thunderheads amassing before a storm.

“We both are.” Her eyes soften. “Please, Ina. We need to talk about this.”

Sighing, Themungha looks at her daughter, then past her to where several not-quite familiar faces stare back with varying degrees of discomfiture. “Go on with you!” she demands, scowling and flapping her arm at them. “I’ll let you know when the meal has been prepared.”

The small group scatters like startled quail, leaving only mother, daughter, and son behind.

“Start talking.” Arms folded across her chest, Themungha is a formidable sight. Tacoma swallows hard, but Dakota refuses to be cowed.

“I’ll talk only when you are ready to listen to my words, Ina.”

The thunderheads reappear, then scatter. Proud neck unbent, Themungha nevertheless lets her daughter know by her body language that she’s ready to listen.

“The danger. It isn’t over, Ina.”

“All the more reason you are needed here, Dakota. To protect your thihawe. There is no greater need than that.”

“Our family is protected, Ina. I have seen it. I have spoken with our neighbors, the men and women and children who have come to live here. They will protect this place, and everyone in it, with their lives.”

Themungha’s voice carries with it deep, biting sarcasm. “Oh, and you are demanding that they do what you will not?”

“I demand nothing from them, Ina. They do what they do of their own free will. As I do. As Tacoma does.”

“And that is supposed to make me feel better?” her mother shouts, all but shaking the rafters. “That they will stay and fight, and you will run?”

“I’m not running, Mother. You know this.”

“All I know is what I see. You are leaving us to defend ourselves while you go who knows where and take my oldest son with you.”

Tacoma steps in, his voice even, but firm. “I would go with or without Dakota, Mother.”

Themungha turns to her son, tears finally spilling over onto her rounded cheeks. “Takuwe?”

“Because I am needed.”

“You are needed here!”

Tacoma shakes his head, saddened by his mother’s tone, yet resolute. “I am needed there more.”

Themungha turns away, her face and almost ugly in its anger. “Let the washichun take care of himself.”

“Ina!” Tacoma gasps.

She rounds on them both. “It’s true!” she shouts again. “Where were they when our land was stripped from us? Where were they when our women were raped and our men were slaughtered like sheep? Where?!?”

“Not even born,” Dakota replies, her voice flat and devoid of any emotion. Tacoma stares on, shocked at his mother’s sudden bigotry.

“Oh?” Themungha retorts. “And I suppose it was ghosts who sent you home battered and bloody from school? It was ghosts who spat in your face when you walked into town? Who called you names that took the light out of your eyes and put a stone mask on your face instead? Was it, chunkshi?”

“You know it wasn’t, Ina.”

With a savage nod of her head, Themungha puts her hands on ample hips and stares at them both, obviously believing the matter decided to her satisfaction.

“Mother,” Dakota begins softly. “You raised me to be the woman I am. A woman who will fight for what is right, and just, and good. There are thousands of innocent women and children trapped in prisons all over this country. Thousands more wander, lost and alone, and in fear for their lives. If I turn my back on them because they are not Lakota, I am no better than the people who beat and spit on me because I am.” Lowering her head just slightly, she levels her gaze into her mother’s bottomless eyes. “Is that the woman you raised me to become?”

She sighs when there is no answer.

“If so, then I’m sorry I failed you, Ina.” Turning to Tacoma, she says, “I’ll be leaving at sunrise. With you or without you.”

“I’ll be there,” Tacoma replies.

After a last, long look at their mother, brother and sister turn away and leave the room.

When they are gone, Themunga’s face crumples. Her body shakes with sobs finally released. A soft tread heralds the entrance of Wanbli Wakpa, who approaches his wife and wraps her tenderly in his massive arms. Stroking her hair, he comforts her as best he can, knowing it can never be enough.

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE LIGHT FROM the setting moon shines into the window as Koda wakens and slips out of the too-narrow, too-short bed. Placing her stockinged feed carefully on the floor, she uses the moon’s light and her own uncanny hearing to determine the positions of her two youngest brothers, snoring softly on the floor directly ahead. Housing space being pinched as it is, Phoenix and Washington now share this room, and both had spent the better part of the evening before begging and cajoling their eldest sister to spend her last night at home with them. It took even longer for her to finally give up and agree to use the one bed they both shared, which had, as she’d predicted, made for a mostly sleepless night for her.

Straightening, she suppresses a groan as her stiffened and cramped muscles protest the abrupt change in position. She arches, hearing her spine crack along its length, then freezes as one of her brothers—Phoenix, she thinks—snuffles at the disturbance, turns, and falls back into a deep sleep.

Think I’m gonna need a Maggie Allen special when I get back.

The tiny smirk slides from her face as she realizes that this is the first time she has thought of Maggie in three days.

On the other hand, at odd times during those same days, she’s found thoughts of the scientist, Kirsten King, sliding effortlessly into her mind. Random thoughts, really, nothing very specific. That they’re there at all is somewhat of a surprise to her, however. Surely she has better things to think about than how that radiant smile had transformed the young woman into someone beyond beautiful, or how her eyes sparkled like clear-cut emeralds. Or even how her hair, so reminiscent of the summer sun, might feel to her fingers.

Jesus, Dakota. You already have a woman who shares part of her life, and her bed, with you. Who respects you and cares for you. Why the interest in an arrogant, overbearing, closed minded, closed mouthed scientist who has about as much warmth as a North Dakota winter?

Because, another voice, still her own, tells her, she’s not like that. Not deep inside, where it counts.

Knowing that this internal conflict isn’t something she’s going to resolve any time soon, she pads silently to the window and takes a quick look outside. The fading night is clear as crystal, though she can tell by simply feeling the glass that the warm spell has continued to hold. Traveling should be good.

Turning away from the window, she looks down upon her sleeping brothers. Both sleep like the dead, and the picture clenches a fist in her heart. For the first time, she wonders if leaving is truly the right thing to do. The image of Phoenix, thirteen, and Washington, barely eleven, clutching rifles too big for them and falling silent beneath a hail of android ammunition causes her belly to roil and her palms to become slick with clammy sweat.

Suddenly, the room seems too cramped, and a primitive part of her considers panic. The door slips open and Tacoma comes partway through, a look of concern on his face. The siblings’ eyes meet, and Koda immediately finds herself begin to calm. Releasing a slow breath, she holds up one finger. Tacoma nods and steps back out of the room, leaving the door the tiniest crack open.

Looking down once again, she tries to memorize the shape of their faces, knowing all the while that should she ever see them again, they will have become men instead of the boys who sleep so peacefully before her. Will I even recognize you? Or will you have become strangers to me, merely another face passing by in my life? She wipes a tear from her eye. Please, never let that happen. Please.

Squatting down, she kisses the tips of her fingers, then brushes them lightly against the downy cheeks of her brothers. “I love you,” she whispers. “Never forget that. Never.”

Coming again to her feet, she pads silently to the door before turning and giving them both one last, lingering look. Then, eyes full, she opens the door and steps through, closing it quietly behind her.

Tacoma meets her in the hallway and slings a gentle arm around her shoulders. “You okay?” he whispers.

Nodding, she gives him a half-smile. “You should have been a shaman.”

He laughs softly. “Remember what I told you, tanski. Wakan Tanka had a little mix-up with the two of us. He gave me the warrior vision and you the shaman vision, and we’re stuck walking these paths.”

“Not always,” she replies, threading an arm around his waist as they start down the long, dark hall. “Not always.”

They meet up with a shadowed figure who steps out of his room and stands before them.

“Hey, Houston,” Koda whispers, giving him a poke to his thick chest. At sixteen, he stands on the cusp of manhood, and is already showing the stamp of the handsome, rugged man he will shortly become.

“Hau, Koda. Hau Tacoma.”

“You remember what I told you, right? If you get even the faintest whiff of trouble, you SOS Ellsworth and there’ll be a squadron of Tomcats here so fast you won’t be able to sneeze.”

“Yeah, I remember. I’ll keep an eye out, don’t worry.”

“Alright, then.”

“So…I guess this is it, huh? Do you….” He falters for a moment, then regains himself. “Will you come back?”

Reaching out, she places a hand on her younger brother’s shoulder, squeezing it. “I will. When this is over, I will. I promise.”

Nodding, he swallows hard, fighting tears they all know are a hairsbreadth from wanting to fall. “We’ll all hold you to that, you know. Both of you.”

“We’ll be back, little bro,” Tacoma remarks, slapping Houston’s side. “Count on it.”

With a final nod, he steps aside, then joins them as they continue their walk down the hallway.

They enter the brightly lit kitchen, then stop in surprise. Themungha stands with her back to them, stuffing the last of some frybread wrapped in wax paper into a large cloth sack. Dusting her hands on the apron she wears, she turns to her children. Her eyes are circled by sooty smudges, betraying a lack of sleep, and her face is set like stone. But she shows them none of her previous anger as she lifts the sack from the counter and hands it to Dakota. “Food. For your journey. Eat it before it gets cold.”

Dakota takes the sack, looking at her mother. “Ina, I….”

“No. No more words. They’ve all been said. Now go. Both of you.”

Handing the sack to Tacoma, Dakota steps boldly forward and wraps her arms tight around Themungha’s still, stiff form. “I love you, Ina,” she whispers into one warm ear. “I will always love you.”

After a moment, Themungha softens, returns the hug, then grabs Koda’s face and covers it with small kisses. “I love you, chunkshi. With all my heart.” Releasing her daughter, she steps back. “Be safe. Come home.”

“I will.” It is as solemn a vow as she knows how to give. Without bothering to wipe the tears from her eyes, she turns, grabs the sack from Tacoma’s limp hand, and leaves.