Tootsies Read online

  Tootsies

  Copyright © June 2010 by Sarah Black

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  eISBN 978-1-60737-801-3

  Editor: Raven McKnight

  Cover Artist: Justin James

  Printed in the United States of America

  Published by

  Loose Id LLC

  PO Box 425960

  San Francisco CA 94142-5960

  www.loose-id.com

  This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id LLC’s e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

  * * *

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  ~ * ~

  And they rock, and they rock, through the sensual ageless ages

  on the depths of the seven seas,

  And through the salt they reel with drunk delight

  and in the tropics tremble they with love and roll with massive, strong desire…

  —DH Lawrence, Whales Weep Not

  Chapter One

  The headache spiked down through his left eye, and David raised a feeble hand to fend it off. Today was working up to be the worst day of his life—following the best day of his life, which made it even more painful.

  “I understand youthful exuberance and high spirits, David. Naturally you wanted to celebrate the publication of your first book of poetry. But those of us in positions of public trust must avoid even the appearance of impropriety. You understand?”

  The voice that was echoing around his skull belonged to Dr. Amy Prentiss, his mentor and the English Department head, and they were both sitting in the office of the dean of Arts and Letters. No, he did not understand. Any of it. The last coherent thought he could remember was seeing the beautiful copies of his first book of poetry, Sand Creek, signed and dusted, being placed tenderly in the front window of Undiscovered Books in downtown Boise. Then he went out to lunch to celebrate—chicken enchiladas and nachos supreme at Amigos—and then he went back to work. English comp for freshmen, then office hours, then he… Oh, right. He’d decided to continue celebrating at the Top Hat. He had never been before, but the grapevine suggested this was a friendly bar. He remembered thinking, downing his third tequila sunrise, that the fresh-squeezed orange juice he was drinking would give him cold virus protection for a month.

  “You can take an administrative leave of absence pending an investigation, or you can just resign, if that would make you feel better.” The dean sounded hopeful, and David raised his pounding head and uttered a groan of protest that came out as a small tequila-rich burp.

  He swallowed hard. “Sir. I’m confused. I still don’t understand what’s going on. And I’m afraid I have a migraine.”

  Eyebrows flew up at this. The dean leaned back in his office chair. “Is that what we call them these days?” He turned to the woman sitting next to David. “Dr. Prentiss, can you explain to this young assistant professor that we do not drink and dance in gay bars and have sex with our students?”

  “David…” Her voice was gentle.

  “He was not one of my students!”

  “I understand, but he was a student of this university,” she began. “As I explained, even the appearance…”

  The photos were on the dean’s desk. They were dancing; that was all! He didn’t even know the guy! What the hell was going on?

  Dr. Prentiss had him under the elbow, helping him up. Out in the hall, she pushed him kindly against the wall. “You look like you’re about to fall over. Listen, I should probably wait until you’re feeling a little better to explain the facts of life to you, David, but poetry is a tooth-and-claw world, utterly vicious. You have no idea.” She gave a little shiver. “Your book is brilliant. You got two rave reviews, and for your first book! That is really extraordinary. And you made it so easy for one of your more jealous-hearted colleagues to stick a knife in your back. I don’t know if you were set up. I mean, this student you were dancing with, he looks thirty if he’s a day. Regardless, someone was kind enough to photograph you dirty dancing with a student in a gay bar, with a drink in one hand and his ass clutched in the other. Just let this be a lesson, David, and keep your back to the wall when you’re surrounded by poets who are having dry spells.”

  * * *

  Thirty-six hours later, David lay in bed staring at the ceiling and brooding about the destruction of his life. He was going to take a leave of absence. He could not stand the thought of resigning his job and slinking away like a guilty weasel when all he had done was go dancing and drinking at the Top Hat. He was sure now that Amy was right and he had been set up. The guy had asked him to dance, if he remembered correctly, had slid up next to him at the bar with a pretty blue-eyed smile and handed him a tequila sunrise and told him he had read Sand Creek and loved his poetry. It had never occurred to David to find it odd that a stranger in a bar would recognize him as the author of a book of poetry that had been released to the public just hours before. The asshole had probably never read poetry in his life.

  David was going to his grandpa’s cabin. When he was a boy, he had spent every holiday in Stanley, in a log cabin just inside the Sawtooth Wilderness. His parents would drop him off and head for the airport in Sun Valley, destination someplace with sun and white sand beaches, and he and Grandpa would settle into their routine and watch the snow pile up to the roof. David remembered those short weeks as the very best of his childhood, with the gruff, bearded, pipe-smoking grandpa who loved him despite his lack of any traditional boy skills. It was his grandpa who had told him for the first time that if he wanted to be a poet, he should not let anything stop him. Grandpa had explained that there was room in the world for everyone, that they didn’t all need to know how to chop wood and hunt deer, and that someone needed to write the poems.

  David climbed out of bed and called his mom.

  “Honey! I got my copy of the book. It’s beautiful, darling. I’m so proud of you.”

  “Thanks, Mom. Did you read any of the poems?”

  “I did, sweetie. ‘Sand Creek’ and ‘Wounded Knee’ and that one about Buffalo Hump. Strange name for a warrior. So, each poem is from a real Indian massacre?”

  “Yep. I used a different point of view for each poem. Sometimes the narrator was one of the soldiers, sometimes one of the people of the native tribes. I used Edgar Lee Masters as a sort of template.”

  “Ah. Well. The book is beautiful, honey! I’m so happy for you. I did notice…”

  “What?”

  “Well, the poems seem sort of grim, darling. I mean, white people really came off as the bad guys.”

  “We were the bad guys, Mom.”

  “Okay, sweetie. I just tho
ught…well, that’s all in the past now, and I wish you could write some poems people would enjoy reading. You know, something sort of uplifting.”

  “Mom, I’m thinking about going up to Grandpa’s cabin in Stanley. You still have it, right?”

  “Of course, honey. I can’t imagine why you would want to go now. It’s almost Halloween, and the snow is probably piling up.” He could hear her shiver over the phone. “You always liked to go up there, but I thought it was Grandpa, not the cabin. I mean, it has an outhouse, for God’s sake!”

  “Mom, when the weather is below freezing, the outhouse doesn’t smell bad. Everything is frozen.”

  “Oh, honey. Why don’t you come to Hawaii with your father and I?”

  “I want some time by myself, Mom. It’s a poet thing.”

  “I remember that boy who lived down the river from Grandpa. He was Indian, wasn’t he? I haven’t thought of him in years. What was his name? I wonder if he was the one who got you thinking about Indian massacres and such. What a strange boy he was. Well, to be frank, you were too, honey. And look at you now! Your own book of poetry! Assistant professor!”

  “Mom…”

  “Just go to Sam’s Club before you leave town and stock up on canned fruit and vegetables, darling. And meat. Oh, and don’t forget toilet paper and candles, and you better get a new ax. For firewood,” she explained. “Sweetie, you can’t imagine how much I hated going to that cabin when I was a girl.”

  “I know. Grandpa told me. Why did you keep it, Mom? After he died?”

  “He always meant for you to have it, David. Said there would come a time when you would need to spend a winter snowed in on the Salmon River, and I should keep it for you. I didn’t understand, but your grandpa, he always seemed to know you better than anyone, honey. So I saved it for you.”

  “I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you too, darling.”

  * * *

  The boy’s name was Quanah Parker Running Bear, and he lived with his father in a cabin a half mile down the Salmon River from David’s grandpa. David’s mom was right. Quanah Parker had been the source of his first fascination with Native American history, and David could still remember the combination of delight and terror that came over him in Quanah Parker’s company. He was a year older and several inches taller. Every year when David arrived, he would make his way down the river, and somewhere along the way, Quanah Parker would ambush him, stealing out of the woods in silent moccasins, sending homemade arrows whizzing by his head until David would freeze, captured. Usually Quanah Parker tied him to a tree, then told him a story of a famous Indian massacre. When he was punished enough and Quanah Parker would untie him, David would crouch down next to the older boy, watch him play with his knife or his bow and arrows, help him make a small campfire, and listen to his stories.

  His mom was right about Quanah Parker Running Bear being a strange boy. He went to school in Stanley, in the one-room schoolhouse, and spent most of his time roaming the wilderness with a bow and arrow and pretending it was 1760. The last year before Quanah Parker had been sent off to boarding school, David was thirteen and Quanah Parker fourteen.

  Quanah Parker had ambushed him near the river and captured him in a hail of arrows as usual. He had marched David to a lodgepole pine and tied his hands in front of him with a lariat of intricately braided rawhide. He wrapped a piece of woven belt around David’s waist, securing him to the tree. Then Quanah Parker had stood in front of him, eyes narrowed, studying his prisoner. He was wearing blue jeans and moccasins, a plaid flannel shirt, and a battered barn coat that looked two sizes too big for him. He was taller this year, and his hair had grown out almost to his waist, a messy tangle of black.

  David was bursting with his news. “Quanah Parker, you told me you were Cheyenne and Arapahoe, but I know where you got your name! Your mother was Cynthia Ann Parker, kidnapped by the Comanche from the Pease River in Texas. She lived her whole life with the tribe and was kidnapped back by the Texas Rangers in a terrible raid! You were the last great Comanche war chief and led your people to the reservation in Oklahoma when it was clear defeat was inevitable!”

  Quanah Parker Running Bear narrowed his eyes. “Ha. You know nothing. The true story, the secret history of my people, is told warrior to warrior.” He studied David and then shook his head gravely. “I can’t tell you. You are not a warrior.”

  David did not say a word, just stared at Quanah Parker. The boy sighed and loosened the blue bandanna from around his neck. “I don’t know. It might kill you. The warrior’s way, it’s not for the weak.”

  “I’m not weak, Quanah Parker.”

  The boy leaned in close to him, and David could smell wild mountain air and wood smoke coming from his hair. “But are you afraid? You could get hurt.”

  “I trust you.”

  Quanah Parker took the bandanna, wrapped it around David’s mouth, and tied it behind his head. It smelled like the sweat on the back of his neck, under that wild black hair. “You’ll have to wear a gag. So you won’t scream.”

  David felt his eyes grow wide and a tingle of terror snake down his belly. Quanah Parker stuck his hand in the pocket of his jeans, brought out an old black pocketknife. He opened the blade and held it up between them. The knife blade was dull, but he sawed through a long piece of his black hair. Then he cut a brown curl from David’s head.

  Quanah Parker held the hair from both their heads together in his fist; then he opened his hand and sliced into his palm with the knife. David watched the blood well up, shocking bright red. Quanah Parker unwrapped the rawhide from his wrists, and David held out his left hand, palm up. The cut Quanah Parker made was tiny, almost delicate. “I can take it,” David said, holding his palm out. “It doesn’t hurt.” But Quanah Parker refused to make it bigger, said all they needed was a drop of blood from each of them.

  They clasped hands, staring into each other’s eyes, and David felt the small pieces of hair soaking up the blood from their hands. When Quanah Parker pulled away, he rolled the bloody locks of hair into a ball and put them into the tiny buckskin bag he kept around his neck on a thong. “Now you are my squire,” Quanah Parker said. “I can tell you the secrets of our people.”

  They made a campfire and sat together next to the juniper logs. David had not pointed out to Quanah Parker that squires belonged to the knights and not to the Indians. It made perfect sense to him that a warrior as fierce and dangerous as Quanah Parker should have a squire. He combed out the tangled black hair, braided it with thick pieces of buffalo hide, and when the hair was lying neatly over Quanah Parker’s shoulders, he moved around to the front. Quanah Parker had brought his war paint. David knelt in front of him, painted two bloodred streaks across each dark cheek, then a black line down his nose. David studied him. “I think you’re ready for combat,” he said.

  “We need to steal some horses,” Quanah Parker said. “The Comanche were the Lords of the Plains. The thunder of our hoofbeats across the prairie grass would cause the stoutest and bravest men to rush inside their forts, hiding and praying we would pass. We were not interested in the men. We had come for the horses!”

  Quanah Parker led him deeper into the woods, to where his fat old pony was tied to a tree, eating ferns. He pulled himself into the saddle, then reached a hand down for David. “Put your foot on mine.”

  David slid his foot into the stirrup, and Quanah Parker pulled him into the saddle. The tugging had started the cut on Quanah Parker’s palm bleeding again, and he pressed his hand to David’s cheek, first one side and then the other, leaving smears of blood. “Now you are starting to look like a warrior,” he said, and David felt a flush of heat and pride in his chest. “Quiet. We don’t want to alert the settlers.”

  David wrapped his arms around Quanah Parker’s waist and rested his head against the older boy’s back. He could smell the wood smoke from their campfire on their clothes, feel the promise of snow in the cold air as the old horse clomped silently on pine needles, making h
is slow way home. David was nearly lulled asleep when he felt Quanah Parker stiffen. “Soldiers!” he said, his voice a harsh whisper, and he wheeled away, kicked the pony into a slow trot, bent his head low over the saddle horn. “Quick! We have to get back to the camp!”

  When they reached the riverbank, Quanah slid from the horse’s back, and David jumped down after him. Quanah Parker tossed him the pocketknife, grabbed his bow, and slid an arrow against the bowstring. David opened the knife blade. “Back to back,” Quanah Parker said, and David pressed against him, stared downriver, ready for the approaching soldiers.

  Quanah Parker let out a war whoop and shot off his arrow, David spun around, knife at the ready, and the boys had stared into the incredulous faces of James Running Bear, Quanah Parker’s father, and Caleb Miller, David’s grandfather. The two men had looked at each other for a long moment, then turned back to the boys. James Running Bear spoke. “Aren’t you two getting a little old for this?”

  Quanah Parker and David had to go to the clinic for tetanus shots. When David woke the next morning, he’d had Quanah Parker’s buckskin bag around his neck.

  Chapter Two

  David enjoyed packing for the cabin very much. He felt like he was peeling away the layers of an oniony life that he had only been half trying to live. He said good-bye to his freshman comp students without the smallest feeling of regret and cleaned out his cubicle in the English department one quiet Tuesday evening, thus avoiding his smirking colleagues. Amy Prentiss, perhaps grateful he was going quietly, arranged for him to teach a couple of online poetry classes, which would give him food money. If his pickup truck didn’t crash, he would make it through to the spring. Amy suggested he might come back and teach a summer class and slowly work his way back into the department. David thought that what he really needed was a few quiet, snowed-in months where he could think. Think and write poetry and decide if the life he had picked out for himself was the one he really wanted to live.