“Well, if my culture is so darn foreign to you, Ms. Cussler, and you have no interest in it, then why are you here at Camp Chaparral? After all, the camp is designed to promote cultural awareness.” His jaw jutted forward.
“Well, Clint, you’re certainly doing a fine job of promoting cultural awareness. I’ve learned so much from you already!”
“Good, I’m glad,” he said. “I’m happy to give you a head start.”
“Good,” she countered. “Thank you. Are we there yet?” She locked her arms even tighter across her chest, stared straight ahead, and fumed.
“Yes, we’re here. Thankfully.” He followed the convoy down a pine-tree-lined narrow gravel road until they pulled up to a rustic, wooden, modified-A-frame building.
“Thankfully,” she echoed. “Thanks for the ride. It was enlightening. I’m sure I’ll see you around camp.” She jumped out of his now dusty SUV.
“Thank you, Ms. Cussler! I haven’t forgotten you did
me
the favor. And you better believe you’ll see me around camp.” His voice seemed to reverberate off the trees as she hurried away toward the vans in search of her luggage and her colleagues. She waved a hand but did not turn around.
“Well, hello there. I hope you enjoyed your ride in luxury while we crammed in here like sardines.”
Brad Holloway, a male nurse at the VA, grinned at her as she stomped up to the van. As tall and husky as he was, she barely saw him in her anger as she reached into the recesses at the back of the van and pulled out her bag.
“Hello! Earth to Jenny.” Brad waved a beefy hand in her face. Distracted, she looked up at him and forced herself to focus on his face.
“Brad! How was the drive up here?”
“I just said. We were packed in there like sardines, like we have been the whole six-hour drive from Boise, only this time, we had to keep the windows closed because of the dust.” He wiped perspiration from his forehead and the edge of his short, curly brown hair. “So, what was that all about? One minute you run into the bathroom, and the next minute you’re riding off on a black steed with an Indian. While we carry your bags in the covered wagon.”
Jenny’s head was turned slightly as she discreetly peered over her shoulder to watch Clint, who was greeting several other Native American men with handshakes and claps on the back. At Brad’s words, she swung around.
“What! Oh, that! Well, it was weird. He actually asked me to ride in his SUV to...”
No, too much information.
“Well, I can’t explain why, but he asked me to ride with him, and I did. Not my idea.” She jabbed a thumb toward her chest and held onto her bag as she wondered what to do and where to go.
“Okaaaaaaay,” Brad drawled with a skeptical eye and mischievous grin. “That sounds fishy.”
Jenny shrugged helplessly and responded to his grin. “I know it does. I can’t really say more.” She turned again to watch Clint. He and the men he’d greeted were walking toward a building painted a distinct ochre, a large wooden deck inviting the many people headed in that direction.
“Is that where we’re supposed to go?” She nodded in the direction of the building, reluctant to leave the safety of the van.
Brad followed her eyes. “Yeah, I guess that’s where we’re supposed to sign in and get our cabin assignments. Are you ready?”
“Where is everyone else?”
“They already went up there. See, there’s Kate and Tim.” He pointed to their colleagues, who stood in one of the growing lines of people checking in at several picnic tables on the large deck.
“Yeah, I guess we should.” Jenny put her bag back inside the van and followed Brad over to the check-in area. As she climbed the weathered wooden stairs of the deck, she noticed the large sign above the door: “Dining Hall.” Brad moved toward the nearest table to stand in front of a tiny, plump Native American woman who wore a headscarf topped by a tennis visor hat over salt-and-pepper braids which hung on either side of her grinning face.
“Name?”
“Brad Holloway.”
Jenny peeked around Brad’s solid mass to see the woman perusing a paper listing on a clipboard.
“Here you are. Deer cabin. Up on the hill behind the dining hall. You’ll see the deer sign on the outside of the cabin.”
“Deer cabin. Thanks.” Brad turned and stood to the side. “Do you want me to wait for you?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Jenny saw Clint throw several looks her way while he spoke to his companions. They were older men, shorter and plump, with varying hairstyles of braids, ponytails and shoulder-length hair, but all were Native American.
“Yes, please,” she said.
“Hello, sweetie, and what’s your name?”
Jenny’s eyes widened at the unexpected endearment. The little woman with the sharp black eyes and weathered face grinned. Jenny responded to her infectious smile.
“Hi,” she said louder than she meant. “Jenny Cussler.”
“Custer?” The woman’s grin faded.
“No, Cussler.” Jenny spelled the name.
“Oh, Cuss-s-s-sler. Hmmm...” She scanned her roster. “Here you are. Cussler. Squirrel cabin. Behind the dining hall and to the left. It’s got a sign of a squirrel on the front that the kids made. I’m Auntie Sara. Welcome to Camp Chaparral.”
Jenny reached out a hand, and the older woman looked at the proffered hand for a moment and hesitated before she took the tips of Jenny’s fingers.
“Hi, Auntie Sara.” Jenny didn’t take the limp shake personally. It seemed obvious the woman didn’t shake hands often. Jenny reminded herself to wait for a proffered hand in the future.
Auntie Sara gave Jenny a toothy grin in response and looked beyond her to the person behind. Jenny took the hint and moved off, rather in awe at her first interaction with an elder female of a Native American tribe. She threw a glance over her shoulder toward Clint who now leaned on the weathered railing of the deck while he chatted with his companions. He caught her look and nodded his head in her direction with an unsmiling face. Two of his companions turned around to follow his eyes. She jerked her head to the front, where Brad waited.
“We’re really here,” she said to Brad as they walked back to the van. “I’ve never spent time on a reservation before, never done more than stop in a gas station when I drove through.”
“I know. It’s different, isn’t it?” Brad said.
When they arrived at the van, Kate and Tim were pulling their luggage from the van.
“Well, where did
you
go?” Kate panted as she threw a quick glance over her shoulder while she attempted to drag her suitcase from the van. She waved Brad’s assistance away.
Jenny had already decided to play off the matter, the sooner to make it go away.
“Oh, you were crowding me too much, so in desperation, I asked one of the guys here for a ride.” She adopted an airy attitude and reached around Kate to help pull her bag from the van, after which she grabbed her own duffel, blanket, and pillow. Brad and Tim stood by, appearing at a loss, unsure what to do in the face of Kate’s rejection of their help.
“Uh-huh, okay. Like I believe that. I saw him...as soon as he stepped out of the building. And I saw your little beady eyes covet him. Hussy!” With the bag now wrestled down to the graveled road, Kate grabbed her pillow, tossed her short mop of curly hair, and sat down on top of her bag.
“Oh, please,” Jenny said with a twitch of her lips. “Hussy, indeed. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She toyed with the handle on her bag. “So, what cabin are you in? I’m in Squirrel.”
“Me, too,” Kate said as she rose and stared at her bag with a challenging look. “Tim’s in with Brad. I guess they try to keep us together.”
“I snore, Brad. I’m just telling you now.” Tim chuckled nervously. The slight gray-haired man pulled down his own luggage and prepared to lug it up a small incline past the dining hall toward the cabins in the near distance.
“Are you going to need some help with that, Tim?” Brad pumped his eyebrows up and down comically as Tim tried unsuccessfully to drag his suitcase on its wheels over the graveled surfaces of the paths and roads of the campground.
“Well, we could have driven the van up to the cabins. Look, other people are.” Tim pointed to several vans that were unloading their passengers and luggage alongside the cabins.
“You were driving, Tim. Do you want to load everything back up and head up there?” Brad looked around at the other vans parked nearby. “I think this is where we’re supposed to park.”
“No, I’m already on my way. You girls don’t mind, do you?”
“No, Tim, we
women
don’t mind hauling our bags up there, do we, Kate?” Jenny retorted.
“I haven’t been a girl for some forty years, Tim.” Kate hoisted her bag, clutched her pillow, and fell into step behind Tim, who continued to struggle through the loose gravel.
“Oh, sorry,
girls
wasn’t politically correct. Women! Sorry,” Tim tossed over his shoulder.
“Not for a long time, Tim. Try to keep up with the times,” Kate said as she repositioned her luggage and pillow.
Jenny exchanged a glance with Brad and laughed. Amidst the backdrop of a forest of centuries-old evergreens and the surreal vista of the snowcapped peak of Mount Adams visible in the distance through the trees, the conversation about modern political correctness seemed somehow ludicrous.
They muddled their way up the incline with the assortment of luggage, pillows, and blankets, with accompanying occasional snorts and mutters. Kate and Jenny veered to the left, where they climbed the wooden stairs of a small, beige-painted, modified-A-frame cabin adorned on all sides by gray weathered wooden shingles. They waved to Tim and Brad, who were working their way farther up the hill to the right.
Kate pulled open the old-fashioned screen door with a squeak and stepped into the cabin to the sound of women’s voices and laughter. Jenny followed, her fears of trying to sleep in a bunkhouse setting coming to the fore. The cabin featured several rooms, all with four single-wide bunk beds supporting plain blue-and-white-striped cotton mattresses. Four or five other women had already arrived and busied themselves setting up their home away from home for the week.
Kate and Jenny nodded to the women and moved toward the last two empty bunks. Kate dropped her pillow and blanket on one bunk and hoisted her bag onto the fragile-looking bed.
“Oh, Kate. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do this.” Jenny found herself in an unexpected panic. She hadn’t looked forward to sharing quarters with other women, but she’d had no idea she would instantly develop some sort of claustrophobic reaction to the sight of so many women in one small cabin.
Kate looked around and shrugged. “What choice do you have, Jenny?”
“I could sleep in the van...at night. No one would see me.”
“Are you serious?” Kate eyed her skeptically.
“Why not? It would be like camping...only in a recreational vehicle...an RV van...sort of.” Jenny clutched her pillow, blanket, and luggage, refusing to put them down.
Kate chuckled and shook her head. “It’s up to you. You’ll have to get the keys from Tim. Will you feel safe out there...in the dark?”
“I think so. I can lock the doors and cover the windows. It should be great!” Jenny warmed to the idea.
“Okay. Well, leave your stuff here and go get the keys. I’m going to change clothes. What are we supposed to be doing right now?” Kate asked.
Jenny dropped pillow and blanket on top of Kate’s bed and moved her suitcase next to it. She shook her head, still mulling over how to avoid sleeping in the cabin.
“Hey, do you guys know what we’re supposed to be doing now?” Kate asked a couple of middle-aged women on their way out the door.
“We meet down at the community area at three o’clock for family assignments.” One woman looked at her watch. “In about an hour.”
“Where’s that?” Jenny asked.
“On the other side of the dining hall where we checked in. Did you see it on the way up? A bunch of picnic tables and a big fire pit.”
“Oh, I remember,” Jenny said. “It had some sort of rustic patio covering over it, made from logs, with the boughs of trees as a roof.”
“That’s it.” The women went on out the door.
“Okay, let me see if I can get the key to the van, and I’ll be back.” Jenny hurried out the door and headed down the pine-needle path toward the gravel road between the cabins. She approached the cabin with the picture of a deer on the front and hesitated. She couldn’t just walk in. The men might be in a state of undress. Neither did she feel tempted to call out Tim’s name.
“You look lost, pioneer. Can I help you?” A familiar voice spoke from behind her. She bit her lip and turned slowly to see Clint standing on the cabin’s small wooden deck behind her. She kept her eyes fixed on the middle button of his light blue denim shirt.
“You weren’t looking for me, were you? Because if you were, this isn’t my cabin.”
Chapter Five
Jenny caught her breath and lifted her chin. She raised her eyes and deliberately narrowed them as she gazed at his handsome face with defiance.
“Hardly. I can’t imagine why I would. I’m looking for one of the men I rode up here with, one of my coworkers.”
Clint’s lips twitched, and she knew he was trying not to grin. Irritating man!
“Oh, a
coworker
. I see. Well, what’s his name? I’ll see if I can find him.”
“Thanks,” she muttered. “Tim.” She turned away and stared toward the community area of the camp below, where people had begun to congregate among the picnic tables and around a huge unlit fire ring.
“Just a sec,” he said as he opened the screen door and stepped in. Jenny heard the low hum of male voices. She wondered how many cabin mates Brad and Tim had.
To her surprise, Brad emerged, followed by Clint, who shrugged when Jenny raised her eyebrows.
“Tim is down at the bathroom. What’s up, Jenny?”
She looked at Clint, who now leaned against the wall with one booted foot braced against it and his hands in his pockets, appearing as if he had all the time in the world and intended to spend it right there.