Beyond the Cherokee Trail. Lisa Carter

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СКАЧАТЬ head, but grinned and scuffed his big toe in the grass.

      Eli expanded his skinny chest and pounded his fist against it. “We’re big, too. Real Snowbird Cherokee mountain men, not like those city boys.”

      Walker’s lips twitched. “I hardly think Wolftown qualifies as a city, and those boys are as Cherokee as you or I. Anyway,” he pinpointed one or two of the boys with a look, “don’t forget to practice your drills this week.”

      The boys groaned again. He held up his hand. “They build stamina and increase cardiovascular performance.” More groaning, like he’d assigned algebra or something.

      “No pain, no gain, no trophy at the festival. See ya next weekend. Ten a.m. sharp. And . . .”

      The boys had already started to shake their heads. They knew what was coming.

      Because he said it every week.

      He planted his hands on his hips. “If any of you, lazy bums, ever have a hope of getting a girlfriend, I’m begging you, please

       . . . hit the showers.”

      The guys rolled their eyes.

      Eli, his smart-mouth second cousin, jabbed him in the ribs with his elbow. “Like why don’t you follow your own advice, Coach?” He held his nose. “How about you set a good example and show us how to catch one of them sweet thangs?”

      “Not going to happen, dude.” He nudged Eli with his shoulder. “Too busy babysitting you sissies.”

      The guys laughed and fanned out to collect their equipment.

      Matt, team captain, initiated the rousing war chant the boys composed when Walker formed the group three years ago. They believed it made them sound more Cherokee, fiercer, warriorlike and that the chant struck terror in the hearts of intertribal teams like the Choctaw group from Georgia.

      Fighting a smile—because the only thing their proud war cry accomplished was to disgust the fairer sex of all races—Walker strolled over to where his mother waited.

      Shaking her head, she handed him the Cartridge Cove Volunteer Fire Department t-shirt he’d left draped over the fence. “Yeah, son, why don’t you follow your own advice and provide your old mother some more grandbabies before I expire from this earth?”

      He hunched his shoulders as he slipped the shirt over his head. As if his indomitable mother would ever be old. Like many of their Cherokee forebears, she’d probably still be kicking up her heels at the ripe old age of a hundred.

      Not to mention, nagging him to his early death about this police thing.

      “You didn’t file an application with the Sheriff like you said—”

      “Like you said.” He poked his head through the neck hole and shrugged his arms into the sleeves. “I never said. You know how I feel about that subject, Ma.”

      Irene placed her hands on her hips in a familiar, if unconscious, imitation of her son. “You’re more than qualified, John Walker Crowe. And, viewed as an up-and-coming leader among The People.”

      He untied the leather thong holding his shoulder-length hair out of his face. “Not by choice, I assure you.”

      Irene’s eyes narrowed. He’d seen that look before. Like when he’d tried her patience and she sent him out to cut his own hickory switch. “The elders have done their part for the tribe. It’s time for younger blood. Time to let the Old Ones retire to their farms and—”

      “And to checkerboard games at the Mercantile.”

      Her lips pursed.

      Walker possessed the good sense to take a step back at the expression on her face. At thirty-two, he’d been too old for hickory switches for years. But on second thought, did one ever get too old for a mother to snatch a knot in her child?

      “To whom much is given, much is required, John Walker. And after what happened this week at the Center . . .”

      He shook his head. “After what happened to me in Afghanistan, I swore I’d never pick up a gun again. And for the record, the abilities I’ve been given, I don’t want.”

      Some of the fight went out of her eyes. “Here,” she made a circling motion with her finger. “Turn around and let me scrape that hair out of your face. You’re making a right mess of it.”

      He handed her the leather band and pivoted. He bent his knees to accommodate her lesser height.

      “It wasn’t your fault, son.”

      He grimaced. She wasn’t going to let this go. Her hands finger-combed the strands of his hair.

      “Maybe like the elders, I’ve done my part, too, Ma. You ever think of that? For my country. Above and beyond. Time for me to retire to my farm.”

      She grunted. “You and those trees.”

      His knees were beginning to ache. Proof he wasn’t getting any younger, either. Probably a result of the uncomfortable, crouched position he’d often assumed in carrying out his specialty within the unit. Time for a new tactic. He’d learned a little something about strategy during his two tours.

      “I’m not warrior material like Uncle Ross,” he continued. “I’ve wished my reflexes had been a second slower, my aim a trifle higher . . . Hey—ow! Stop Mom. You’re hurting me.” He squirmed, trying to loosen her stranglehold on his hair—and his scalp.

      She shoved him away. “So you could’ve been the one brought home in a body bag?”

      Walker fell against the fence before righting himself.

      Her eyes welled into pools of liquid chocolate. “You’d rather your mother buried her son? As if I didn’t practically wear out my knees the whole time you were gone, praying, begging God to spare your life. You’d prefer more of your buddies had been blown away because you failed to stop that . . . that . . . ?”

      “Better me than somebody’s child,” he whispered.

      Irene’s shoulders slumped. He pulled her into an embrace. She returned his hug and then, punched him in the arm.

      Walker smiled. That was more like the tough, never-say-die bulldog of a single mother he’d always known.

      “Speaking of the townspeople and this festival . . .”

      There was more?

      She had that look in her eye again. He might not have been cut out for army life, but his mother, the gifted Cherokee quilter and potter, would’ve made an outstanding drill sergeant.

      “The council’s decided since you’re the head of the community development club this year, you’re the perfect tribe liaison for this PR woman the committee hired to spearhead the 180th commemoration of the Trail of Tears.”

      He’d been hiding out on his farm all winter, avoiding the joint tribal and town council planning meetings, hoping, praying such an eventuality wouldn’t come his way. “Why me, Ma?”

      She СКАЧАТЬ