Chapter 18

I got up the next morning, not in any hurry, since Dog had said to meet him in the afternoon. Cecelia and Darlia were in the weight room, as I found when I went hunting. I've given up trying to remember what to call which machine – to me they're all torture devices. But Cecelia's had 'em for years, and free weights before that, and the homemade weights that her father rigged up for her before the free weights. She's told me about using a piece of pipe with coffee cans filled with dirt hanging from it – dirt from her yard, coffee cans her parents had used the coffee out of, the pipe from she doesn't remember where.

Just now she was doing an exercise which had her sitting down, holding onto a handle with her palms down, and pulling it toward her. I usually can tell which muscles she's working on because they're the ones that are working most conspicuously, but with this one all I could figure was that she was working her whole arms. She was shiny with sweat, the veins and tendons stood out in her arms like cables, and the muscles in her upper arms coiled and relaxed like living things.

In the back of the shed, where Darlia has her free weights, she was doing curls. Cecelia adamantly refuses to allow the girl to do anything which could possibly drop a weight on her chest or back unless she's there to spot, and I agree. Darlia's as strong as a horse, and she's been doing this for five years, but she's still a child – and anyway Cecelia herself never did bench presses or squats or anything else, when she was using free weights, without someone to spot for her. No matter how strong you are, you have to be careful, she says. She has the same respect for large masses hanging above her that we both have for guns.

I leaned on the wall beside the door until Cecelia got done with whatever it was she was doing. "Have you come to watch me?" she asked between breaths.

"Naw – though it's always fun. You're the best lookin' chick I know of, an' this is part of why."

"Yes, you've told me of your dislike of skinny women." She was using shorter sentences than usual until she got her breath back. "Except, that is, when they're in shape."

"Yeah, and you are that. I remember the first thing I ever saw about you that I liked was the way your forearms look muscular."

"That must have been the time you reported over lunch."

"Yeah, it was. But anyway, what I come out here for was to implement our plan."

"Our plan?" She was breathing more calmly now, though still in deep inhalations as she tried to get enough oxygen back into her system.

"Yeah – if the investigation goes into August. And it looks like it will. Today's the 24^th, which means there's only a week left in the month. Maybe it'll all break loose today, but I ain't a-gonna guarantee it."

Cecelia nodded and turned to Darlia, who realized we were watching her, put down the weights she was using, and looked back at us. "Did you guys want something?"

"You remember, 'Lia, that we talked about you going up to the rez if we couldn't go to the desert next month."

"Yeah."

"Well, I can't guarantee we'll make it to California, so I wondered if you wanted us to go ahead and arrange for you to go up north."

"I guess you can't wait till the last minute."

"We could, I guess, but then the ticket would cost an arm and a leg. It's already gonna cost considerable, with just a week before the end of the month."

Darlia frowned. "I really would like to go to the desert."

"You know we can cancel the reservation if I do clear up this case."

"You can?" She may be 11 and smart, but she's never made airline reservations.

"Yeah, we can."

"Okay, Daddy, then go ahead and do it. I hope we get to cancel, but if not I'd love to visit the rez. I'm forgetting some of my Lahtkwa."

"Forgetting my left foot – you're gonna get fluent in that language if you ain't careful."

"I want to be, Daddy – I speak English 'cause I'm American, and I speak Spanish 'cause I love it and anyway Gacela speaks Spanish, and I want to speak Lahtkwa 'cause I am Lahtkwa."

"Speaking of which," I said, "you've got your card, right?" The federal government requires enrolled members of Indian tribes carry an ID card that tells what percentage of Indian they are. Darlia's a quarter-blood – I'm half Indian, and my father was a full-blood.

"Yeah, in my wallet. Of course I never need it when I'm up there."

"Yeah, but just in case."

Darlia turned to Cecelia, who hadn't said a word through all that. "Is it okay with you if Daddy makes the reservations now?"

"It is, honey. I, like you, hope that we can cancel them, but if not then I do want you to have a vacation, and I support your efforts to learn your ancestral tongue. One of the things that slavery stole from me is the language my ancestors spoke. I don't even know, and can't find out, what tribe I'm descended from – or tribes, as my ancestry is no doubt tangled. And without that knowledge, I don't know which African language I might want to learn. By all means, Darlia, study Lahtkwa for a month."