Dark Rain opened the door and stared at the handsome man before her.
“Boozhoo, Nimaamaa.”
“Stormsinger?” He looked different. He looked…healthy.
“Eya’,” he said, and hugged her fiercely. She burst into tears, feeling the strength of his embrace, the love and the joy.
She parted from him, kissing his forehead. “Stormsinger, I thought you were dead!”
“I almost was, Maamaa. Can I come in?”
She moved aside, and let her son come inside the small cramped trailer. He had to duck his head to get past the doorway. He wore a blue and white snap-down shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. He carried nothing with him.
“I don’t know where the rumor started that I was dead,” he said, heading to his old room. He stood, disappointed. It had been cleaned out, turned into a sewing room for his mother. He couldn’t blame her.
“We hadn’t heard from you in months. You went to the city, and we thought the city ate you up.” She touched his arm, to reassure herself that he was, indeed, real, and not a spirit to haunt her.
“It did,” he said, turning to face his mother. “But the Thunderbirds saved me. I sang with them.”
His mother again wept, tears of joy. Again he hugged her, kissed the top of her silver hair, and laid his chin on her head. “I have to go back to the city,” he said quietly, “There is much I need to do there.”
“Will you come back?”
“Of course, as often as I can, Maamaa.”
“Let me make you some of your favorite food. Are you hungry?”
“Starving,” he said, and sat down at the trailer’s rickety kitchen table.
“Tell me of the Thunderbirds,” she said, getting out a frying pan to start pan-frying some steak.
As he was in the middle of his story, there was a knock on the door. His mother went to answer it, and he heard the voice first, “Maamaa, Larry saw Stormsinger.”
“I know,” said Maamaa, and stepped aside. The man standing at the doorstep looked a lot like Binesi, except he had gotten fat. His long hair had braids on the side, and feathers threaded through it. Binesi rose from the table. “Nisaye,” he said.
“Nishiime,” the man whispered. “Are you real?”
Binesi laughed, “Of course, I’m real.”
His mother was smiling, looking between the two. “Go to him, Black Eye,” she said.
Black Eye stepped down from the trailer’s step, fury in his eyes. “No. No, not after what he did to his own niece.”
“I was young then,” said Binesi. “Very stupid.”
“You hurt her, and brought shame upon her and the family.” Black Eye glared. “When I come back, I will have a gun.”
“Nisaye, I am sorry—“
“It’s not me you should apologize to! You should apologize to Janette, and her son!”
“That child is not mine, I’ve told you this.”
“Janette knows whose it is, and she has said all this time it is yours.”
“I did not touch her in that way!”
He glowered, “You didn’t fuck her, you mean. Like you did with her friend, and half the girls under the age of 18 that live here on this reservation! There are a lot of fathers here who want your hide, but I’m going to be the first one to get it!”
“Black Eye,” he said calmly, walking to him.
Black Eye reached out and grabbed Binesi by the front of his shirt and yanked him outside, throwing him to the ground. Binesi rolled, getting quickly and easily to his feet, getting just out of the way of a vicious kick from Black Eye.
Their mother yelled at them to stop it, but Black Eye was not to be denied. He hauled off to punch him, but Binesi dodged. He held up his hands saying, “Nisaye, please—“
Another kick, another dodge. Black Eye ran at Binesi, to try to tackle him, but Binesi dodged again, giving him a little push in a direction away from the gas tanks that powered the trailer, and toward the grass beyond. Binesi moved behind his brother, and stood still, waiting.
“Fight like a man!” he roared in English.
“I will not fight you over something that is not true.”
“I demand you to prove it.”
“Prove it? How?”
“You get a paternity test.”
Binesi said, “I will do so.”
His brother stopped, stood up slowly. “You will?”
“Yes.”
“Come with me to the hospital. Right now.”
He looked back at his mother, then went to her. “Keep it warm for me.” He kissed her wet cheek, and followed his brother to his truck.
There was a baby seat in the middle of the truck’s bench seat.