Page 42 of Lily's Eagle

“Nothing that made any sense to me, but it sounded like you were having a nightmare,” she says. “You should consider going to see Frank’s sister Sharina, she’s a dream walker and she’s really good with bad dreams.”

She sounds like she’s describing the skills of a normal doctor, not this totally weird thing. How can anyone be “good” with bad dreams?

“Or maybe I could just get a dream catcher and be done with it,” I say. “Or better yet, maybe I can just get it tattooed on my chest.”

She scoffs. “That’s so ridiculous. If you weren’t so clearly Native, I’d be sure you were just pretending. A dream catcher is meant to absorb bad energy. Is that what you want it doing on your skin?”

I certainly don’t. And I should probably start watching what I say. I like Tina, we chatted a little before I fell asleep last night. I’m only being annoying because of the hangover.

“Any more of that coffee left?” I ask instead of answering her question.

“Sure, in the kitchen,” she says and follows me in there.

The door to Lily’s bedroom is still firmly shut. She had too much of the vodka too, so I’m not expecting her up anytime soon. By the looks of the grey sky outside, it’s barely past dawn.

“Just a friendly word of advice,” Tina muses as I pour myself a cup of the tepid coffee. “I would stop with the wisecracks about our culture, while you’re here. In a lot of ways, it’s all we got. And you clearly don’t know enough to be funny.”

I was ready with at least three wisecracks, but that last thing she said stopped me dead.

“I’m just over-compensating, I guess, since I don’t know how well I’ll fit in,” I say instead. “And that welcome last night… that didn’t give me a lot of hope.”

I finish the cup of coffee in two long gulps, barely tasting it and pour myself another.

“We’ve had a lot of biker gangs coming on the Rez to sell drugs, and worse. You just picked the wrongest possible night to come riding in,” she says. “We’re really a lot friendlier than that.”

She chuckles and so do I. “I’ll have to take your word on that for now.”

“Frank wants to see you today,” she says. “I told him you’re staying here with me and Lily.”

“So what is he, like the chief?” I ask.

She nods.

“And he decides who stays and who goes?” I add. It didn’t look like those gun pointing lunatics were all that willing to listen to him last night.

“If you are who and what you say you are, then he’s not gonna send you away, if that’s what you’re asking,” she says.

“Who’s sending who away?” Lily asks groggily behind my back.

I turn and see her as I haven’t in a very long time. First thing in the morning. Her long hair is crumpled and messy, her eyes are barely open and there’s an imprint of the pillow’s design, some sort of flowers, on her cheek. When we were younger, she’d sometimes sleep out in the vast garden around Sanctuary, and she’d insist I do too. She claimed it would help me get in touch with my roots. I wish we could go back to that simpler time. Or better yet, I wish we could start waking up next to each other again.

“No one’s doing that,” I say and make room for her to pour herself a cup of coffee. The scent of lush green grass and the fresh night air envelops me as she passes. I don’t know how she does it, but she always smells amazing.

“Get ready,” she tells me. “We should go see Ariana this morning.”

“You mean my aunt?” I don’t know how I feel about that. Not excited, that’s for sure. For one thing, I don’t know how she’s gonna react when I tell her my father told me nothing about her until a couple of days ago. Or about anything to do with us being Native American. I’d ask Lily, but Tina’s the one who’d really know. I just don’t know her well enough to know if I can trust her yet.

“Afterwards, we’ll stop by the Tribal Council building and see Frank. It shouldn’t take long. And then we can go pick up some of the supplies for the camp,” Tina says. “I got as much as I could yesterday, but my car was too small for everything. Your truck will be perfect, Lily.”

They both look out the window at it, so I do too.

Huge, slimy brown puddles are forming in the rutted front yard of the trailer, and they stretch all the way to the paved road about two hundred yards away.

“If we can get anywhere in this mud,” I say.

“Stop being so negative,” Lily says, and Tina adds, “This is nothing. You should see it after it’s been raining for a couple of days. We’ll be fine.”

I hope she’s right. But for some reason her words triggered a warning bell in my mind like we won’t be. Which is ridiculous, of course, but it’s kind of loud too.

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