Mackie looked at her with a contemplative expression.
To her dad, Mackie would tell the complete, honest truth if he asked. But he seldom did, being more interested in her handling of the situation rather than the particulars of the incident. Had she done the right thing? Could she have chosen a different path that would have led to a better result? Those were the things that were important to Kage.
Chelsea, on the other hand, would be given what Mackie thought her mom needed to hear. Not because Mackie was trying to avoid getting into trouble, but because, Chelsea firmly believed, Mackie made a huge effort to spare her mom any burden of pain or sorrow.
Mackie worried her mother. Both of her boys, Max and Michael, were joyous, healthy spirits. Mackie was born solemn and watchful, a hundred-year-old soul in a barely five-year-old body. She had moments of lightheartedness, but her usual state was wary. Kage said his daughter had the soul of a warrior.
“The girl I was supposed to share crayons with was chindi,” said Mackie, finally, which didn’t make sense. Chelsea was pretty sure, even with her mere bits and pieces of Navajo language, that chindi were evil spirits of the dead. “But not chindi,” added Mackie, even more obscurely.
“You aren’t supposed to say chindi,” said Michael direly. “ánáli Hastiin says bad things will happen to you.”
“Okay,” Chelsea said, abruptly cranky with trying to interpret what had happened at day care. Kage could talk to Mackie about it when he got home.
It was February and usually there was some rain this time of year, but today the skies were blue and the sun beat down and made her eyes ache along with her head. Chelsea didn’t have any pain reliever in the car, so she had to get home to find any relief. Any relief from anything.
“I think I’m going to have to talk to your grandfather about what he is teaching you,” she said.
“Not Granddad,” said Mackie. “ánáli Hastiin.”
ánáli Hastiin meant grandfather. But they only used the Navajo term for Mackie’s great-grandfather, Hosteen.
“Fine,” Chelsea said. “I will have a talk with ánáli Hastiin about what is appropriate to discuss with five-year-olds and what is not.” She shut the back door of the car with a little more force than necessary and started the drive home.
“So far this trip,” said Anna with wry amusement that would carry just fine through Charles’s headphones, “we’ve talked over current stock market trends and why they are good for us and bad for lots of other people. We’ve discussed the problems with using military tactics for police-type problems. We’ve talked about the literary license used when filming classic fantasy novels and whether the results were enjoyable or heinous. We’ve agreed to disagree, even though I’m right.”
We have not discussed the topic that we really need to talk about, my love. My mother used to say that no one does stubborn like a Latham, and I will prove that to you. We have time.
So she brought up the other topic he hadn’t been willing to cover. “Are you ready to tell me about where we’re going?”
Charles smiled, just a little.
She gave a huff of amusement. “I’m just trying to decide if it’s a birthday present or a job.” It would be a birthday present, she was sure. Her birthday was two weeks away, but Charles was never playful about work assignments from his father.
“Okay,” Charles told her agreeably, and she gave him a mock punch on his shoulder.
“Careful, now,” he told her, waggling the wings of the airplane just a little. “We might crash if you keep hitting the pilot.”
“Hmm,” she said, not worried. When Charles did something, he did it well. “Where are we going? Besides Arizona.” He’d already told her Arizona, sometime between the discussion about police work and the one about movies. “Arizona is a very big state.”
“Scottsdale,” he told her.
She frowned at him. She knew only one thing about Scottsdale. “Are we going golfing?” Her father enjoyed golfing on his infrequent vacations.
“No, we’re doing the other thing Scottsdale is famous for.”
“Going to a resort and hanging out with celebrities?” she said doubtfully.
“We are going to find you a horse.”
“Jinx is my horse,” she said immediately.
Jinx was a mutt that was, Charles had told her, probably mostly quarter horse. He’d acquired the aging gelding at an open auction, outbidding the meat buyer.
Anna had learned to ride on him.
“No,” Charles said gently. “Jinx is a great babysitter, but you don’t need him anymore. He’s a good horse to learn on, but he is lazy. He doesn’t like the long rides or being asked to speed up. You need a different horse. I have a good home in mind for him. He’ll be carrying kids around very slowly: he’ll be ecstatic.”
“There aren’t any horses that would suit me in Montana?”
He smiled. “I have an old friend who breeds Arabians. I talked to him on the phone the other day and it got me thinking about your birthday and about how it is time for you to get a different horse to ride.”
Anna sat back. An Arabian. Visions of The Black Stallion danced across her mind’s eye. She couldn’t stop her happy little sigh.
“I like Jinx,” she said.
“I know you do,” Charles said, “and he likes you.”
“He’s beautiful,” she said.
“He is,” agreed Charles. “He’ll also see you saddle up another horse with a sigh of relief and go back to sleep.”
“Arabians look like carousel horses,” Anna said, still feeling as though she were betraying the amiable gelding who’d taught her so much.
Charles laughed. “That’s true enough. The Arabians might not suit you; they don’t suit everyone. They are like cats: vain, beautiful, and intelligent. But you deal well enough with Asil, who is also vain, beautiful, and intelligent. Still, if they don’t have a good match for you here, we can find a horse nearer to home that suits you.”
“Okay,” Anna said, but in her heart of hearts she was riding a black stallion without bridle or saddle along a beach on a deserted island, and they were galloping full speed.
Charles must have heard it in her voice because he smiled.
Then a nagging thing—that she hadn’t immediately pounced on because she’d been dazzled by the horse part of what he’d said—suddenly caught her attention. “An old friend,” he’d said. Charles didn’t have many friends. Acquaintances, yes, but not friends—and he was very careful in what words he chose. The people he was close to were numbered on the fingers of one hand—Anna; his brother, Samuel; and his da. Probably Mercy, the coyote shapeshifter who’d been raised in his pack, would qualify. But that was it. Charles was nearly two hundred years old and he’d collected very few people to love.
“Tell me,” she said, “about your old friend.”
For a moment his face grew still and her stomach clenched.
“Joseph Sani is the best horseman I’ve ever seen or heard of,” Charles said slowly. “He’s a daredevil with no sense of self-preservation.” Most people would not have heard the half-despairing, affectionate admiration in Charles’s voice. “The more dangerous something is, the more likely he is to throw himself in the middle of it. He sees people—all the way through them—and he likes them anyway.” Cares about me went unspoken, but Anna heard it just the same. This Joseph was a man who knew her husband and loved him.
You love him, too, Anna thought. And I’ve never in three years heard you mention his name.