Chapter 2

The end of the line on the Railrunner going north is literally the end of the line. We got off the train, and just a little further on the tracks came to a stop – if the train's brakes had failed, it would have crossed a street and plowed into buildings on the other side. Or maybe not, since there's a bumper or whatever the proper name is, which would either have come apart when the train hit, or stopped the thing so suddenly there would probably have been a derailment. I was glad the brakes worked, not that the chance they wouldn't was terribly large.

We'd consulted maps, both paper and online, before the trip, and so we knew that the places we wanted to see were within walking distance – painfully easy walking distance for me, but though Cecelia can walk, she prefers not to. This is a lady who'll run 10 miles without stopping, but if she has to walk more than half a mile or so she almost always drives. Darlia takes after me in that respect – she loves to walk. But she was on the Lahtkwa reservation for a month, spending time with my brother Memphis and his wife. Though he was born in California as I was, roamed the world for eight years in the Air Force, and brought back a wife from Korea, once he was out of the military Memphis settled on the rez, became one of the most traditional members of the tribe, and hardly ever leaves the reservation. He call that "going to the States" – the Lahtkwa Nation has been very quietly, but very stubbornly, asserting its rights as a sovereign nation under the treaties that established the reservation. To the traditionals, they really are a separate, independent nation that's not part of the United States. They regard the Treaty of 1897, the last one between the Lahtkwa tribe and the United States, as equivalent to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution all in one document.

But I leave all that to the tribe. I grew up white, and I think white most of the time. All I knew for sure was that I missed Darlia, though I'm glad that she's taken an interest in that part of her heritage. She speaks fluent Chicano Spanish, and between yearly trips to visit Cecelia's family in Leanna, Alabama, and the year we'd spent in Red Hawk, Oklahoma while I served as chief of police, she's learned how to sound black, even if she doesn't look it. She doesn't look white, either – somewhere in the mixture of my genes and Cecelia's, Darlia came out exotic, with dark blonde naturally curly hair that's so long the weight smoothes it into a slight wave, golden skin that tans as easily as mine does but much darker, a chunky build that's become completely muscular thanks to weightlifting under Cecelia's careful supervision, and only her nose to prove that her mother's black. On the other hand, I'm not sure she could prove by her appearance that I'm half white. On the other hand – which makes three, even though I'm not Gil the ARM – I can't see that it matters what colors her parents are, or whether she can prove it. It's bad enough that the federal government makes her carry a card to prove that she really is one quarter Lahtkwa, and that I've got to carry one to prove that I'm half Indian.

That wasn't what I wanted to think about, though, so as I took Cecelia's hand and we started walking I pushed it all out of my mind. "It's nice up here, isn't it?" I asked.

"I don't recognize the word 'int, '" Cecelia said. "Please define it."

I chuckled. "C, you grew up around people who were lucky if they finished elementary school – Daddy never got past his freshman year of high school, and it was a Jim Crow school at that, where separate was most definitely unequal. Don't tell me you ain't never heard that mispronunciation."

She smiled. "You have caught me out – I must confess that I heard that, and worse, during my youth, and even employed them in my ignorance. But I have put away those childish errors, and speak my mother tongue with, if not elegance, at least fluency and precision. You might make the occasional attempt to do likewise."

"You ain't never gonna give this one up, are you?" And she wouldn't, either – she's been gigging me about my English since 1994, when we became friends, and she does it at least once a day. If she didn't do it, I'd want to know who she was and what she'd done with my wife.

But she ignored that, for she knows me as well as I knows her, and no doubt had heard in my voice my willingness to leave the gentle feud alone for now. Instead she said, "We're visiting the Roundhouse first, as I recall."

"Cecelia, you ain't forgot nothin' since you was two," I said. "Yeah, we're going up there first. The legislature ain't in session right now, an' even if I wanted to they wouldn't let me in to give Bill Richardson a piece of my mind, but I still wanna see the place. I've seen the outside, but that's it."

"Do not give away pieces of your mind – at least not without turning a profit on the deal. I value that mind too much to see you sell it cheaply, or make a gift of it to those who lack appreciation for a fine instrument." Now she chuckled. "Do not toss pearls without even getting a pork chop in return."

"Yeah, you done read The Fountainhead too – and liked it about as much as I do. But you're assuming I'm as smart as Howard Roark, an' that ain't likely."

"You certainly are no architect, though your rough ideas for the office were perfect." While we'd been in Red Hawk in 2009, we'd had a contractor remodel the house next door – which we'd bought before we left – into new office space for my PI business. The view for which I'd paid healthy rent since 1992 was going away, with a new office building replacing it, and so the old office wasn't worth the price anymore.