The round-faced girl at the check-in desk-she looked all of fifteen-smiled at me. "Can I help you?"

"Yes. I have an appointment at fourteen hundred."

"Name?"

"Gunderson."

She stared at the computer screen as her fingers flew over the keyboard. "I don't need any additional paperwork filled out today, Sergeant Major. You can have a seat."

"Thanks."

The waiting room wasn't as full as I'd feared. The VA was notorious for overscheduling appointments. Puke-yellow plastic chairs were aligned between end tables strewn with magazines. A TV (no big flatscreen to entertain the vets) was bolted in the darkest corner. CNN blared. Several guys in wheelchairs watched the coverage detailing yet another suicide car bomber in Mosul. I shuddered, thinking of my early-morning flashback.

Once again I was the only woman in the room. I was used to the stares and the hostility from older vets who believed a woman had no place in the service, which was worse than getting hit on by new recruits who weren't intimidated by a woman in uniform.

Names were called. None of them mine. I'd cracked another copy of Reader's Digest and skimmed Humor in Uniform when a wheelchair rolled up.

A bearded guy pointed to the magazines on the chair beside me. "Done with those?"

"Yeah. Have at them."

"So can you tell me why everyone on the planet is interested in Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie? Because I sure don't understand the fascination."

He smiled and I realized he was an attractive guy, in a Kurt Cobain/'90s grunge metal kind of way.

"Probably because s.e.x sells," he said, answering his own question. "Plus, it's easier to stomach trivial stuff than the truth of what's going on over there."

"True."

"This is the first time I've seen you here." He groaned and hung his head. "Jeez. That probably sounded like some lame pickup line. Moving on. Which branch owns your soul?"

"Army. You?"

"Marines. I a.s.sume you're retired?"

"No. I'm active."

"And you're here?"

"My dad died recently, so I'm home on leave."

"Oh, man, that bites. I'm sorry. My folks are both gone."

Neither of us said anything.

He smiled sheepishly. "Well, that was another conversation killer."

"You do have a knack."

"Let's start over." He held out his hand. "Maxwell."

I clasped it and we shook. "Gunny." My military nickname popped out automatically.

"Name or designation?"

"Both."

He whistled. "A hot chick that can shoot. Be still my heart."

At any other time his flirtatious comment would've made me grin, but today I couldn't shake off the impact of my ghastly morning discovery. The other men were scowling at us, not because we were being too loud, but because we had the audacity to strike up a normal conversation. No one was normal here. For some it was a point of pride, for others a mark of shame.

War redefines normalcy for those of us in the service. Even the most gregarious soldiers can pull back into themselves after recurring combat situations and long-term deployments. Some never recover. Sadly, all these guys giving us the stink eye appeared to be alone. Had they isolated themselves on purpose? Was it easier to deal with horrific memories and life-altering injuries when you didn't have to explain yourself and your unpredictable moods to people who could never understand it unless they'd lived it?

One guy kept glaring at me. Rather than offer him a friendly smile, I returned his glare until he spun around and gave me his hump back.

Hah. Take that. The guy was too d.a.m.n young to be acting like a bitter old coot.

That could be you if you keep pushing away everyone who cares about you.

Care isn't the same as need, my inner loner argued. Hope needs me now, but does she care about me for the long run? Sophie's care felt... forced at times and based on Hope's needs, not mine. Jake needed me because of the ranch.

Sobering to think the only person who really needed me was Levi and he was dead.

The nurse called a name-Maxwell's apparently-and he rolled away with a jaunty salute.

I took the opportunity to look around at the other vets, hoping a dose of selftough love would wake my hermit a.s.s up, when I noticed an Indian man in a wheelchair at the back of the room.

Sungla.s.ses covered his eyes beneath the brim of a battered ball cap, the front emblazoned with the SCREAMING EAGLES emblem of Eagle River High School. I squinted at him. He'd been a big man at one time, wide shoulders, long, thick neck, large head, but with both his legs gone above his knees it was hard to gauge how tall he used to stand. My eyes kept flicking toward him, not because of his disability. Something about him looked familiar, yet I couldn't put my finger on it. Despite my mother's voice reminding me it wasn't polite to stare, I did it anyway.

The door swung open. A nurse approached him and spoke loudly. "Blacktower?"

"I'm blind, not deaf, so you don't gotta shout."

The nurse blushed. "Sorry. The doctor sent me out to tell you he's running behind."

He didn't bother to look up when he grunted.

Blacktower. Now I knew why he looked familiar. He was Hiram Blacktower's brother, Josiah, the disabled and partially blind Gulf War veteran.

A woo-woo feeling rippled through me again. What were the odds I'd run into him here?

My pragmatic side a.s.sured me those odds were above average in our spa.r.s.ely populated state. Since I was seeing the VA eye doctor, who rotated into this facility only once a month, logic dictated Josiah would be here at the same time. Healthcare choices for veterans were limited, and Indian veterans even more so. The Indian Health Service had a worse reputation than the Veterans Administration, so no surprise he'd chosen the lesser of two evils.

I tossed the magazine on a side table and headed toward him. "Mind if I sit here?"

Josiah grunted.

I flopped down. "Nice ball cap. Does that mean you are a Screaming Eagle alumni?"

No answer.

"I'm from Eagle River. Or I was. I've been gone the last twenty years in Uncle Sam's army. You a marine?"

A slight nod.

"Look. We haven't met, but when I heard your name and saw your ball cap, I realized I know your family. Hiram Blacktower is your brother, right?"

He mumbled.

"Excuse me?"

"I said yes. I'm sorry you know him."

Whoa. That was unexpected. "You two aren't close?"

"No. I keep my distance from him and have asked him to do the same."

"Why's that?"

Another pause.

"Come on. You wouldn't have said something if you didn't want to talk about him."

Another affirmative chin bob. "How well do you know Hiram?"

"I've crossed paths with him, mostly on a professional basis."

"Professional. Right." He snorted. "Even half blind and crippled I ain't the embarra.s.sment to our family name and our heritage that he is as a 'professional.'"

"You the only one in your family who's feels that way?"

"There is only us these days. The rest of our line has died out."

"I hear ya there. No more males are left in our family to carry on our name either."

Hightower c.o.c.ked his head. "I can't tell by the way you speak... are you Lakota?"

I nodded, realized he couldn't see it and said, "Some. My mother was part Minneconjou."

"Ah."

I couldn't tell if his response was meant to be insightful or condescending. "What?"

"Then do you know the old stories? Of Iktomi, the trickster?"

"A little."

"Then think of Hiram... like Iktomi."

Sweet baby Jesus in a manger. Parables were my least favorite part of Indian mythology. Why couldn't he just say what he meant? Rather than comparing a person to a rock or to a turtle or to smoke and expecting me to draw my own conclusions? I pretended to contemplate his wisdom for thirty seconds before I asked, "How so?"

"No matter how many times Hiram sheds his skin and tries to become someone else, the flesh beneath that skin remains red, not white."

Just another barbed reminder that race was always an issue in our culture, even within the same family.

"Being Indian isn't a hobby. Neither is being honorable."

Okay. I'd missed something. "What's being honorable have to do with anything?"

"It has to do with everything," Josiah chided me. "You ask him if what he's been doing is honoring our ancestors."

"Is this about him working for Kit McIntyre?"

Another no-answer, stoic-Indian moment.

Which p.i.s.sed me off. If Josiah wasn't tight with his brother, how the h.e.l.l did he know what Hiram was up to? I said as much.

Josiah faced me. I swear a jolt of power shot through me.

"When you see Hiram next, you ask him if he's proud. Tell him I told you to ask."

Before I could demand clarification, the nurse called his name and chattered loudly as she rolled him out of sight, leaving me with more questions than answers.

My appointment was a waste of time. Nothing'd changed with my eye or my vision. I'd say it was a relief, but it just added another layer of frustration of being stuck in limbo in all aspects of my life.

I called Jake to check in, but mostly to get directions to Hiram Blacktower's place. I don't know what I hoped to accomplish. Josiah's remarks unsettled me, and since I'd already gotten into a p.i.s.sing match with Hi's boss, I didn't have anything to lose by paying Hiram a friendly visit.

Hiram's place was more run-down than I'd antic.i.p.ated-not a good indication of his success in real estate or that Kit was paying him better than slave wages. I unhooked the lopsided gate at the entrance, pulled through the opening, got out again, relatched it behind me, and then putted up the driveway.

The house looked to be a one-room shack. The siding was a mora.s.s of colors plastered at odd angles in a poor man's attempt at a mosaic. The lone front window was covered in tinfoil. Probably switched out with plastic wrap in the winter months.

Four vehicles were parked in the yard. A Ford F-150, a Pontiac LeMans with the front end accordioned, a Dodge truck, and some type of foreign economy car. For a second I had an urge to check around the front end to see if chunks of gra.s.s hung off the grilles of either truck. Or if the sides were scratched from barbed wire. Or if it'd make that grinding noise if I started it up.

Did I suspect Hi had played the make-Mercy-a-hood-ornament game last night? h.e.l.l yes. I suspected everyone with a pickup, which left roughly 99.9 percent of the entire population of South Dakota.

My gaze tracked the high line wire that swooped from the pole by the road to the house. At least Hi had electricity out here; some folks didn't. I doubted he'd dug a well, so he'd have to haul water. I saw the faded blue plastic tank centered in the back end of the Dodge and knew he hadn't been the one who'd chased me-at least, not with that truck.

A horse stared at me from behind a rickety fence. I shivered and looked away. Horse one; Mercy zero. As I looked beyond the broken-down corral, I noticed a thatch-covered hut that resembled a dirt igloo. A sweat lodge. A heap of good-sized rocks stood off to the left. Wood was piled around the perimeter. Smoke snaked out of the top of the hut. I glanced at the clock in the truck. Hiram was performing a sweat? At this time of day? When it was already a million degrees? Just another reminder Hi wasn't the brightest crayon in the box.

Hiram stretched out of the tiny door of the sweat lodge and squinted at me. I couldn't see his lower half, and I knew most guys did the sweat naked. I so didn't want a glimpse of Hiram's dangly parts.

He waved vigorously.

I especially didn't want to see swaying dangly parts. I almost threw my truck in reverse.

Hiram strode toward me, not buck-a.s.s nekkid, but wearing a robe and a gigantic grin.

I climbed out of the cab. My ankle was still sore and I didn't feel like walking to meet him halfway, so I leaned against the driver's-side door and nonchalantly looked around at where he hung his moccasins. Stacks of stripped, long pine poles, probably for tipis, were evenly stacked on the other side of the fence. That bit of neatness surprised me, given all the rest of the broken, worthless c.r.a.p piled everywhere else.