Page 22 of Lily's Eagle

Riding the open roads can only do so much when you know there’ll be no peace anywhere you stop. But I gave it my best shot to leave it all behind.

Now I’m standing in the vast parking lot in front to the double, barb wire-topped wall encircling the grey prison, where my father lives. The metal gate towers over me, looking tall enough to be a skyscraper.

Figures I’d go running like a child to my father with this. Not like he did much for me while I was actually a child, getting locked up for life, no parole, when I was eight, but I still always go straight to him with all my problems.

The prison he’s at is in the middle of nowhere, on a rare plain in these parts, covered with dry grass and drier earth, the redwood tree covered hills just a speck of green on the horizon.

I hate this place. Much more than my father does, I think. He’s gotten used to living behind the thick walls by now.

I ring the visitor’s bell and don’t think too hard about anything as I wait what seems like an eternity for a guard to come get me. I ignore them all, as they practically strip search me before finally admitting me to a yellow walled room filled with white plastic tables and chairs. Most of the tables are empty. I suppose that’s because a Wednesday morning isn’t a peak visiting time.

In one corner, a short, voluptuous lady wearing a gold sequined party dress, and with messy, thick dark hair spilling over her back and shoulders is talking quietly to a guy about my age.

He’s wearing prison orange, so he’s in for something bad, and she’s probably his mother, although she doesn’t look old enough to be. He looks like he’s about to die of fright. In the other corner a couple of grey-haired dudes are whispering to each other.

“Well, well, well, I didn’t expect to see you today,” Dad says, stopping me spiraling even further into pondering the pointlessness of existing in a place like this. “It’s been a hot minute.”

He sits in the much too small plastic chair across from me, the smile on his face betraying that he is actually glad to see me, despite his tone and accusations.

“I was in the neighborhood,” I say flippantly and chuckle as his booming laugh at my stupid joke fills the room.

At least he hasn’t lost his will behind these walls. That happens to some. Or so I hear. I have no intention of ever finding it out for myself.

“And something’s on your mind, am I right?” he asks, once he turns serious again.

I shrug.

“Go on, spill it,” he insists. “I can always tell when something’s bothering you. Is it her?”

I might’ve told my dad way too much about my problems with Lily over the years. He can read it off my face when it’s about her now, it would seem.

“Like I told you before,” he says and pauses to lean back, making the plastic chair groan under his weight. He’s a mountain of a man, descended from warriors. Long defeated warriors, but still. “Lily’s not for you. She’s Cross’ daughter and way out of your league.”

I lean forward and look down between my knees at the off-white linoleum floor, crisscrossed by black rubber streaks made by the shoes of all the many—too many—people who lived a part of their life in this prison visiting room. Like me. I spent a good chunk of my childhood here. An important part. Most of the memories I have of my father happened in this room. Sometimes in the corner, sometimes right here in the middle of the room, sometimes over by the tall, opaque windows with bars on them.

“She’s gone to the reservation to be with her people now,” I say with a guilt-inducing amount of venom in my voice. “So it’s not an issue anymore.”

He leans forward too, making his chair groan some more. Maybe it’ll break, and then we can get off this topic.

“She’s finally gone back to the Rez?” he asks, his voice soft and fond. “To Shallow Creek? She’ll like it there. It’s beautiful. But on the whole, she’s expecting too much.”

I snap my head up to look at him, ignoring the sharp pain in my neck it causes. “How would you know that?”

“I was born around there,” he says whimsically. “I never told you this?”

His face is the picture of wrinkly, wide-eyed innocence. It’s almost enough to make me doubt what I know for certain.

“You know full well you never told me shit about the tribe we belong to,” I snap. “Or the reservation you’re from.”

“This whole country is ours,” he says in a booming voice. “No white man’s borders apply to us.”

“And you certainly never told me we’re from the same place as Lily’s people,” I say, ignoring his pointless proclamation, which he always makes when he wants me to stop asking questions about our heritage. Plus, those borders are plenty real.

He sighs and runs his fingers through his long hair, which is more than just peppered with grey, even though he’s still in his forties. He used to keep it short when I was young, but I don’t think he’s actually cut it since being incarcerated.

“Yeah, it was me who brought her mother with me to Sanctuary after one of my trips up there. Picked her up on my ride back down,” he says in a near whisper. “Rose. She was a beauty. But of course, she preferred Cross in the end. Most of the girls usually did.”

I’ve often wondered about just how sane he’s staying locked up in here, and now I’m pretty sure the answer to that is a clear, “Not at all”. Is he making all this up to fuck with me?

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