“Benjamin Stormsinger, as I live and breathe,” Janette said with a bright smile.
Then she slapped him.
“You son of a bitch!” It took her own brother and her father to hold Janette off. Binesi put a hand to his face and stood utterly still. “You left me!”
“I left everyone,” he said.
“He’s getting a paternity test,” yelled her father in her ear.
She turned to her father, “A what?”
“I have agreed to a paternity test,” said Binesi. “I know that the child is not mine.”
“‘The child,’” spat Janette, “has blue eyes.”
“So does Sergeant Jameson.”
Janette glared at him, in the same manner as her father had about fifteen minutes before. “You dare to accuse me of screwing another man!”
“I will swear by the gods that I did not have sex with you.”
“Oh, that’s a whole lot of bullshit!”
Binesi raised an eyebrow, “What will you swear on that I did have sex with you?”
“I swore on the white man’s holy book so that I could get you to pay up some child support,” she yelled at him. “Now pay up, Stormsinger!”
He crossed his arms.
Black Eye then frogmarched him into the other room. A child was there, no more than a baby, sitting in a swing. The child looked up at Stormsinger.
The big man knelt down to the baby, and stared at it. Then he started to sing. Janette put her hands to her ears but her father stood still, not being afraid. Not afraid of the encroaching storm now, the answering thunder in the distance.
“Stop it,” whispered Black Eye, as chills went up his spine.
The baby started to cry, a wailing cry as if it was in pain.
Janette heard the cry and went to the baby, yanking it out of the swing, and running out of the room. The song ended, and Black Eye looked at the window beyond.
The sky was black with clouds.
“You called them,” Black Eye said, and saw the clouds light up as lightning sparked between them. “What gives you the right to call them?”
“That is what my father sang to me,” Binesi said, getting up from the floor. “It frightened everyone else except me.” He put a hand to his brother’s arm. “Let us go before they hunt.”
Black Eye took the baby and put her – her name was Lori – into the car and started driving to the hospital. Binesi looked out of the truck at the sky, his hand reaching up toward it. Black Eye thought his brother had lost his mind.
Or maybe, he was the only sane one there. Black Eye looked at the blue eyes of the baby and then the blue eyes of his brother. They were different. His brother’s eyes were blue like the sky. His grand-daughter’s eyes were blue like cobalt. Could it be…?
They went inside the hospital. Binesi gave his name and told him what they were there for. He asked how long it would take. “We have to send these things out – about a month or so.”
He turned to his brother, “I am going to MaaMaa’s, and then leaving in two days.”
“Oh, no, you’re not.”
“Will you have me arrested?”
“If I have to.”
Binesi was called in, and he rose, a smile crossing his lips and shaking his head, “No, you won’t.”
“Damn if I will,” Black Eye said, following with the baby.
The poor baby screamed while they took her blood, but Binesi was quiet while they took his. They walked out of the hospital, to be greeted by stormy skies. Black Eye felt a couple of drops and started walking quickly to the truck. Thunder was getting louder and closer now, with lightning and then thunder following soon after.
He looked to the side of him, and then behind him, to see that Binesi was standing at the stairs of the hospital, his hand outstretched toward the sky. “Ben!” yelled Black Eye, as the rain started to come down.
Then there was a loud crack of lightning and thunder at the same time, and he watched in horror as the lightning bolt hit Stormsinger.
“Gods, no!” He started running back, the baby still in his arms, screaming at Ben to let go.
But he watched as Binesi was encased in lightning, his whole body glowing, and the thunder rolling and continuing. Another crack, and another bolt hit him. Black Eye stood in the center of the courtyard, rain pelting him and the baby, whose crying was deafened by the roar of the thunder.
The song of the thunderbirds.
Black Eye watched as Stormsinger rose from the stairs, rose into the air, with both hands upraised and his head cast back, a welcoming sight as Black Eye had ever seen, and the lightning carried Stormsinger up into the clouds…
And then he was gone.