Owl Dreams, Page 2

CHAPTER TWO

  Sarah didn’t look through the peephole before she opened her apartment door and granted access to a very large, dangerous-looking man.

  He smiled, but wolves do that too before they bite you. He took a step forward, and extended his right hand. There wasn’t a gun in it—that was a plus—but a man like this wouldn’t need a gun.

  When she didn’t shake his hand, the man raised it, stereotypical Indian fashion, but he said, “Hello,” instead of “How.”

  Sarah shook her head, the way boxers do when they’ve been hit too hard to think clearly. She tried for a standard greeting, like “Hello,” “How are you,” “Pleased to meet you,” or just “Hi” but the words came out all at once and sounded like a frog doing an imitation of a horse.

  The man’s smile grew wider. Not exactly friendly, not exactly safe, but Sarah had to admit he was handsome in a prison-pen pal-boyfriend sort of way.

  “Native American.” Sarah knew that was the wrong thing to say, especially for an honors anthropology student at the University of New Mexico, but it was too late to take it back, so she extended her hand and hoped Indians didn’t have some kind of complicated secret handshake she didn’t know about.

  His hand swallowed hers completely. His touch was firm and callused, but so gentle that her pulse rate approached normal—until she got a close look at the prison ink on his arms. This man wasn’t like Indians she saw on the streets of Albuquerque every day. He wasn’t like the Indians she studied in anthropology classes. He was the kind of Indian you saw through bulletproof glass and iron bars—the kind who made negative stereotypes possible.

  She took advantage of the calm before the storm to get a good look at his face—in case she had to describe him to a police artist later on.

  High heels clicked across the hardwood floor behind her. Was her

  mother coming to her rescue? Unlikely.

  “Sarah. I see you’ve already met Archie. What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”

  The dangerous-looking man crossed his arms, perfectly framing the “Free Leonard Peltier” banner on his T-shirt.

  He said, “No problem. I have that effect on women . . . men too. My name is Archie Chatto.”

  Sarah felt herself relax. “The boyfriend from the Dog House Drive-In.”

  Archie said, “Your big sister has told me all about you. Haven’t you Marie?

  “Why yes.” Sarah’s mother flashed her an apologetic look and filled in the blanks in their made-up family history. “Sarah and I had the same mother, but different fathers. That’s why she has such a weird last name.”

  “Bible,” Sarah said. “It is a weird name and there’s an even weirder story behind it. Maybe Marie will tell you all about it someday. Too bad I couldn’t have a regular old Italian name like Ferraro.” She looked at Mom to make sure she had it right. Last names were like boyfriends for Marie. When one got inconvenient, she just found another.

  “There are lots of things Archie will find out in time.” Marie paused for effect. “If I decide to tell him.”

  Marie’s smile was as innocent as bait in a mousetrap. She talked while Archie and Sarah listened. That was good, because it gave Sarah an opportunity to define her role in her mother’s latest drama.

  It was good for Archie because it gave him a chance to be in close proximity to Marie, a place almost every straight man in the world wanted to be.

  Sarah never understood why men reacted to her mother the way they did. Of course there were biochemical explanations that had to do with things like dopamine and oxytocin.

  Marie chalked it up to stupidity. She explained it years ago, in the five-minute birds-and-bees talk most parents skillfully avoid. According to Marie, men were simpletons who wanted to be kings. Weak ones think they’re strong. Short ones pretend to be tall. Ugly ones preen in front of mirrors for hours every day. Marie blamed it on testosterone, the hormone that makes them fight, lose their hair, and fall in love with women who drive them like rental cars.

  Biology was Sarah’s weakest subject. She hoped it stayed that way.

  Marie kissed her new boyfriend on the cheek just below a scar that looked like someone’s initials. “Archie’s a full-blooded Apache. You know what that means.”

  Sarah knew all about the migration of Athabaskan tribes across the Bering Strait and through the Rocky mountains, but that probably wasn’t what Marie had in mind.