The Prodigal Cowboy. Kathleen Eagle

old familiar answer. Monday-through-Friday casual.

      “Of course I remember you.” Logan greeted her with a handshake when he came out to greet her. He was lankier than his son but not as tall, not quite as handsome. “Full scholarship to a fine college on the East Coast, right?”

      “University of California at Berkley.”

      “I meant West Coast.” He smiled easily. “I remembered the important stuff. Full scholarship, terrific college and Bella Primeaux. Your mother was so proud of you we could hardly stand it.”

      She lifted one shoulder. “Sorry about that.”

      “Hey, just kidding. We’re all proud of you.” He glanced through the plate glass that separated the sparsely furnished lounge from a small parking lot. “And we sure miss your mother. She was something else, wasn’t she?” He turned back to Bella, assuring her with a nod. “In a good way.”

      “She was the best nurse Indian Health ever had.”

      “She sure was.”

      “She could have been a doctor.” It was something she’d always thought, but she couldn’t remember saying it out loud before, giving due credit, open admiration. She’d felt it, but she hadn’t said it within range of her mother’s ear. What kind of range did Ladonna Primeaux’s hearing have now?

      “She was a damn good nurse.”

      “Yes, she was.” But she could have been a doctor. She’d said so herself, many times. What she’d never said was that she’d had a child to feed. “I ran into Ethan the other night.”

      “Where?”

      “In a bar,” Bella said, an answer that clearly surprised Logan. “Rapid City. I live there now.”

      “I watch you all the time on TV.” He lifted one shoulder. “Well, not every day, but whenever I watch the news.”

      She smiled. It was good to be watched and even better to be acknowledged. She owed him something in return. “Ethan’s following in your footsteps.”

      “How’s that?”

      “Training horses. He mentioned the wild horse training competition. He says he’s going to win the big prize.”

      “I hope he does. Help him make a fresh start. Hope he’s not spending too much time in the bars.” He glanced away. “I haven’t seen much of Ethan since, uh …”

      “Since he went to prison?”

      “He told you about that?”

      “He didn’t have to,” she said quietly.

      Logan gave a mirthless chuckle. “Made the news all the way out to California, did it?”

      “The news is what the media makes it, and I’m part of the media now. I know these things.” She smiled. “All we talked about was high school and what we’re doing these days. He gives you credit for raising him to be a cowboy.”

      “A cowboy? That’s down to his older brother, Trace. Although outside the rodeo, I’d say Ethan’s the better hand when he’s of a mind to be. They’re both good, mind you, but Trace goes in for a wild ride, and Ethan … well, he’s wild enough on his own.”

      “He was drinking iced tea.”

      “In a bar?” Apparently even more surprising.

      Bella nodded. “Straight iced tea.”

      “I saw him at the Double D earlier this summer,” Logan recalled. “First time in two years. Said he was entering the training competition. Said he was working for a rehab program.”

      “He told me he was a ranch hand. Square One Ranch. Something like that.”

      “Square One?” His tone put the news on par with tea in a bar. “That’s a program for kids in trouble. Hell, that’s right outside Rapid City. I didn’t know he was living that close by. He didn’t, uh …” Logan’s wan smile spoke of a father’s discomfort with being the last to know. “He didn’t say.”

      “I thought it was a cattle ranch. That’s interesting.” What was left out was always more interesting than what was said. Bella added it to her mental file marked Ethan. Also interesting was the way she’d filed him under his first name.

      Maybe because it was an old file. She was just realizing how far back it went and how carefully she’d kept it up. No surprise that he’d joined the army after he graduated. No surprise that he’d been gone awhile and come back home. No word of his military experiences, which was also no surprise. The return to Indian Country was never questioned. But he hadn’t stayed around long, and the next Ethan Wolf Track news flash had been surprising. Dirt sells, he’d said, and if she’d been a little further along in her career, she might have tried to track him down. Not because he was in trouble—no surprise there, either. Not because the story involved a woman—most of Ethan’s stories undoubtedly involved women. But there was an odd political connection.

      Ethan Wolf Track and a senator’s daughter? Now that was interesting. And Bella would have bet her new mobile phone that what was left out was far more interesting than what was reported.

      “He’s pretty sensitive about Senator Garth, isn’t he?” she asked.

      “Couldn’t say.” Staring out the window at a young couple getting into a pickup with a washing machine in the bed, Logan didn’t blink. No sensitivity there. “Ethan spent two years in prison for taking Garth’s car. His daughter was the one who took it, but she wouldn’t stand up for him. I’d say he was sensitive about her, but I’d just be guessing.” He turned to give Bella a what’re-you-gonna-do look. “Too damn stubborn for his own good.”

      “He said he worked over at the Double D when he was a kid.”

      “Couple of summers, yeah. Like I say, Ethan’s a good worker. I’ll bet he’s real good with those kids in the Square One program.”

      Bella wondered why Logan seemed so clueless about his son. If she were still alive, Ladonna Primeaux wouldn’t be betting or guessing, she would be asking. On the other hand, Bella herself wasn’t exactly being subtle about fishing for clues about the man’s family, and he was trusting her with what few he had.

      A twinge of guilt pushed her to switch tracks.

      “The Double D took some grazing land away from a neighboring rancher, didn’t they? I know some of it was public land, but wasn’t there a Tribal lease, too?”

      “Yep.” Logan smiled. He liked this topic. “We decided the Wild Horse Sanctuary took precedence. The Lakota are horse people.”

      “But Senator Garth has a longstanding friendship with Dan Tutan, who is—”

      “My wife’s father.” His smile broadened. “We just got married. Haven’t told Ethan yet.”

      “So, uh …”

      “Whose side am I on? The horses’ side. So’s my wife. I haven’t heard any objections from the senator. What’s he gonna do? The Tribal Council determines how the land will be used nowadays. It’s called self-determination.”

      “That term is so twentieth century,” Bella teased.

      “Yeah, well, some of us go back that far.”

      “All of us do. The whole relocation program and termination of reservations policy in the 1950s, and then the switch to Indian self-determination in the 1970s, seems like it was only yesterday.” She smiled. “We studied it in our high school history class. Ethan sat behind me.”

      He laughed. “Now that must’ve been interesting.”

      “It was unsettling.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts and held on tight as she glanced away. “What was interesting was twentieth-century American Indian history and how