Page 54 of It Takes a Thief

The seer asked me my goals. I wasn’t prepared, so I asked guidance from the Creator. Maybe it was a jibe at Ellis, who had somehow hurt my feelings by saying he wanted to focus more on work. But I soon had my answer. “I would like to get closer to my family. We’ve become alienated the past couple of years. I would hope that my husband will work less, because I desperately want to spend time with him, to cement our feeling as a family. This is what I need.” I added humbly, “I ask the Creator for forgiveness for all I have hurt.”

At first, I didn’t look at Ellis. I mostly squeezed my eyes shut against the smoke. The seer opened the door, letting in a welcome blast of cold air. We breathed freely of this air until he shut it again, much to my chagrin. Ellis had said there were four rounds, “endurances,” and he wasn’t kidding. We went outside between the third and fourth round to drink water and dry ourselves off with our towels, but no one said a word.

Each time, the lodge got hotter. But the seer was right. Each round, the lodge felt more and more like a womb. Hot, dark, and safe. I even felt free to glance at Ellis’ giant floppy male appendage. He had his knees up, arms wrapped around them, so his cock flopped on the blanket. If he didn’t hook up with women on the Rez, had he been a born-again virgin since his divorce? Work wasn’t everything. I wanted to tell Ellis he was making a huge mistake. He needed sex and companionship in his life. He didn’t even have a dog.

Each time the medicine man came in with more lava rocks, I felt about to die. But in a good way. I did feel I was becoming purified from within. Against the rules, I’d gone out drinking with Penny, Galileo—who drank orange pop—Desiree, Justin and Alyssa. Now I smelled it coming out my pores, and it disgusted me. This was a clear suggestion that I cut back on booze, too. I looked into the red-hot stones and saw Father Sky’s energy. My endocrine glands were releasing negative ions into the air, bringing on more relaxation. I nearly fell asleep. I rarely missed fentanyl, and I didn’t miss it now.

Nasty toxins were released, and I was glad there were only the three of us. Impurities in my vital organs were flushed out. A dipper of water was passed to me, and I poured it over my head. I swore I saw steam rise from my upper arms. The seer called upon the Brown Bear, the Owl, and the Thunder Bird to assist us to plunge deep inside ourselves. I had never achieved this sort of deep meditation while still technically awake. I was groggy, maybe about to faint, that must’ve been it. Ellis began to pray aloud in Diné. He had rolled over into a fetal pose. I had no concern about this whatsoever.

In the lava rocks, I saw an image of a skull and crossbones. I wasn’t sure if it indicated The Bare Bones MC or the death skull of impending mortality. But the seer poured more water on the rocks, and the image was eradicated. He prayed aloud some more, and the kid came to open the door.

What? Was it over? The seer crouched his way out the door. Ellis was still huddled like a baby. Was he reliving some childhood incident? I didn’t know what to do. There was a pool of sweat between my boobs and my crotch itched like hell. If there was a stream nearby I would’ve jumped into it gladly, though it was only in the forties outside.

I wandered outside, uselessly trying to pat myself dry with the soaked towel. The whole world flashed at me, like I was coming down off some hallucinogenics. Maybe I was. A plate of food was placed on a flat rock and I headed like a robot toward that. The usual Indian flatbread was there, and I was tired of that, but I picked up a slice of something that smelled of pumpkin bread and bit into it. Mmmm. The goodness flowed through me, stimulating my brain, until the assistant kid came up and told me it was an offering to the spirits that had helped during the ceremony.

Instead of feeling mortified, I just smiled and shrugged. I felt inviolate, as though nothing could bother me now. Then I remembered Ellis was still inside the lodge, huddled like a baby. I crawled back in, leaving the blanket off the door for air.

“Ellis.” I shook his arm.

“Mm.”

“Ellis. Paging Dr. Chesbrough. The sweat lodge ceremony is over.”

Unfurling his long limbs, he lay limply on his back. His eyes seemed to be focusing on my face. “Maddy. I made a horrible mistake.”

Uh-oh. Another dead patient? “Like what?”

“My prayer was answered, and it isn’t good. The answer isn’t more work. It’s more work on myself. Enhancing my experience of the outside world. Not to live in a tiny cocoon insulated from the world.”

He got up on one elbow. He sure didn’t seem to care that he was naked. He must’ve done this a hundred times. But the next part? I sure hoped he hadn’t. He put his hand on my arm. And his dick twitched.

“I think you’re the answer, Maddy. You’ve been sent to teach me that not all is work.”

But I still wasn’t uneasy. What I’d just gone through would stay with me for several weeks. My whole life, really. “Oh yeah? How am I supposed to do that?”

“By enticing me with your perfect body.”

What? Was that a good thing or a bad thing? “Oh, you mean, to distract you from work?”

“Exactly.” He ran the backs of his fingers across my breastbone, feeling the rise of my boobs. “I need a gorgeous distraction like you. In my bed.”

Just as he said that, “in my bed,” he slid his finger around my neck and pulled me down to kiss him.

It was so strange, kissing another man after being with the same one for so many years! His moustache bristled against my nose—Ford was clean-shaven most of the time—and his lips were dry. But he was loving and tender, all the things my husband was not, and I fell into the kiss, buying into the romance of it all. His natural sweat mingling with the sage created a manly scent that tickled my pleasure receptors. I ran my fingers through his salt and pepper, chemo-curled hair, and I let him slip his tongue into my mouth. I was so accustomed to being with Ford, my hand started automatically going for his erect dick, but I stopped myself. What sort of slut did he take me for?

I pulled back and smiled. I kissed him soothingly on the forehead. I was afraid he’d just been through an intense experience and was only kissing me out of confusion. “You’ll figure it out,” I said reassuringly, and left the sweat lodge.

I stood by the plate of godly food, stomach growling. I breathed in deeply. Icy air roiled all around me, but I was firm in my beliefs.

Nothing works as hard as the heart! Why was mine being tugged in so many directions?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

FORD

I rode up and down that crappy Highway 191 looking for Noodlum. I realized he could be any fucking where, especially after he no doubt saw me shading my eyes at him. From Hubbell Trading Post, he could’ve gone east to Ganado or west to Steamboat, even south to Greasewood. There were shitty little roads networking all over that Rez, and Noodlum just might know them better than me.

Searching for Noodlum was wearing me down. What if my highway job finished, but I hadn’t been able to bury Noodlum? I’d followed so many leads, people who told me they saw so-and-so wearing a Cutlass cut going east, west, north or south on such-and-such a road. I sent brothers out to track these leads. A couple of times they’d found actual Cutlasses, but upon being beaten, believed their stories that they had no idea who or where Noodlum even was.