Running Off Radar, page 3
Maji grinned sheepishly. “I try never to go commando in borrowed pants. But, yeah. I’m wearing my least ripe clothes, and I wouldn’t stand near me.” At Rose’s laugh she added, “Thanks. I promise to shop in the morning.”
While Maji washed up, Rose unpacked. The living area of the suite had no bureau and only a small coat closet, so she used the bedroom’s, taking care to leave half of each drawer and plenty of hanging space free. It felt perilously like moving in together. There was bedding for the sleeper couch in the living area, but she’d wait to use it until they had a chance to talk. The idea of just falling into bed with Maji made her heart race but her head ache. Rose had counted on a return call from Maji—anytime in the past three weeks—to talk about what Maji accepting her invitation to this week in Sitka might mean.
The sound of the shower stopped and Rose fled the bedroom, leaving out some clothes that might fit Maji’s shorter, less curvy frame well enough for an evening event. She looked out the picture windows at the harbor and to Sitka Sound beyond it. Curious about the curtains on the west side of the suite, she opened them and found a balcony. Out in the cool afternoon, she could see Mt. Edgecumbe, the iconic dormant volcano. The air felt fresh and soft with hints of evergreen, sea salt, and a recent rain. Rose smiled to herself. This was a gorgeous spot and she would spend her days with colleagues from interesting places, learning about things that fascinated her. And in her off-hours, whatever the two of them did or did not do this week, she would get to know the real, civilian Maji a little better. For now, that was enough.
Behind her Maji’s voice called, “Rose? You still here?”
Rose turned, and the sight of Maji with one towel wrapped around her hair, and another tucked in just above her breasts, quashed her que sera, sera delusions.
* * *
The look on Rose’s face almost drove Maji back into the refuge of the shower. She should have known better. They needed to talk, and soon. But right now she felt nearly human again, clean at last. And she couldn’t get dressed until all of the wound dressings were replaced.
Rose’s expression changed to concern the second she spotted the fresh bandage on Maji’s arm. Or maybe it was the bruises. “How badly are you hurt?”
“All superficial. But there are two spots I can’t reach. I’m sorry.”
Rose ran her fingers lightly over the discolored areas around the edges of the wound dressing, and then up to Maji’s sun- and wind-burned cheeks. “Stop apologizing for things you can’t control. You chose to be here.” She leaned in and put her lips softly on Maji’s, a gift and a promise with no demands. Before Maji could lose her senses, Rose stepped back. “Now show me how to help you.”
So Maji lay on her front on top of the quilt on the king-size bed while Rose gently peeled the damp medical tape and wound dressings off the chewed-up patches of skin. The one on her lower back didn’t hurt much, but the strip of abrasions on the back of her right thigh stung when the air hit it. Through her own controlled breathing she heard Rose stifle a gasp.
“I don’t suppose I should ask how this happened?”
“No.” Maji stopped herself just before the word sorry popped out again.
“Well, let’s let them breathe a bit. Stay there.” Rose returned a moment later and began smoothing lotion over Maji’s back and shoulders. Maji closed her eyes and tried to block out the images that flooded in, focusing instead on Rose’s touch. But the contrast between what she’d seen over the last few weeks, the hell she’d gotten herself successfully into and back out of, and the sweetness of being with Rose in a quiet, safe, and clean place was too much. Tears leaked out and she shuddered as she opened her eyes again, staring at the bureau across the room.
“Are you all right? Should I stop?” Rose’s hands paused, resting on the small of Maji’s back, warm just above the towel.
“I’m just a little wiped out,” Maji said, hating the wobble in her voice.
“Mm-hmm.” Rose was too polite to call bullshit on her. Or too nice, maybe.
“It’s been a rough few weeks. But I’ll be fine. Better by the minute.”
A few minutes passed as Rose moisturized her feet, her calves, her arms. “I’ll let you get the rest yourself. Hand me the ointment.”
Maji reached for the tube of prescription antibiotic the medics had sent her home with and passed it back to Rose without rolling over. At least all my parts move in the right direction. If she slept tonight, tomorrow she could go for a run, eat six meals, and get back to normal. “Don’t worry about hurting me. Just glob it on.”
Rose did better than that, and Maji concentrated on breathing rather than flinching. “Did you help someone?” Rose asked.
Maji smiled. Rose had some well-founded suspicions about Maji’s covert work for the Army, based on what she had seen and heard last summer. But she had attended Hannah’s self-defense camp too, and the core values resonated strongly with her own. Maji boiled the mission debrief down in her head, looking for a succinct answer. She had infiltrated, gotten two high value targets to a safe house, and exfiltrated without blowing her cover. And she’d handled it well enough to avoid any blowback to the villagers. So, yes. As a bonus, she’d managed to not get blown up, shot, or raped. Exfil had banged her up a bit, but nothing was broken and she hadn’t cracked her skull again. “Yeah. We did.”
“Good.” Rose stood and pulled the far side of the bed’s quilt over Maji. “Do you want me to wake you for the Warming of the Hands?”
Clean and cuddled in soft warmth, sleep was already encroaching. “I’d like to go. Just give me ten to get ready.” Maji reached up and snugged a pillow under her head. Such luxury. “If I have a nightmare, don’t get too close, okay?”
“Hooah, Sergeant,” Rose whispered, brushing a strand of hair off Maji’s face. “See you in two hours.”
Chapter Three
Rose’s enthusiasm about attending an event hosted in the Sitka Tribe’s community house was endearing. “It’s a modern recreation of the traditional longhouse, of course. A great place to entertain and, I suppose, also hold ceremonies and meetings and classes. No one lives there, though, as they would have before the Europeans invaded.” She squeezed Maji’s hand. “I hope there’s dancing.”
“But they’re going to feed us too, right?” Heather had intimated as much. Whatever the welcome involved, Maji hoped it started with dinner.
Rose laughed, turning them just before Totem Square Park on to Katlian Street. “Yes. Herring roe is a big deal here, and the harvest just ended. So I expect we’ll get to try those. What else, I don’t know.”
“Well, you are all about traditional foods for the next four days, right?”
“Yes. I just don’t know what’s in season. I didn’t do my research very well.”
Maji heard the self-judgment in Rose’s voice. “How many classes are you teaching?”
“Three. One intro to anthropology, one upper-level undergrad course on food and culture, and one graduate seminar. It’s a small college.”
“Wow. It’s good you could get away at all.”
Rose’s thumb caressed the back of Maji’s hand as she answered. “It was important to me. There are people attending that I’d have to travel abroad to meet otherwise. And…” She paused. “I wanted to see you on neutral territory. Does that make any sense?”
Maji nodded. Rose was working to build a professional life at a new college, while Maji had just wrapped up her master’s degree at Columbia. Rose’s family—the few left who mattered—were all in California now. Alaska would seem far enough from the worlds of career and family. “Perfect sense. I’ll keep myself occupied while you work. And…I’m not making any assumptions about what you do or don’t want.”
Rose gave a self-deprecating laugh. “As if I knew. Honestly, I almost jumped your bones earlier. And I had a big speech ready, about taking things slow and actually getting to know each other.”
“How about tonight I sleep on the couch and tomorrow we talk over breakfast and dinner? Are you free for dinner?”
Rose stopped and faced her. “Is that what you want, or what you think I want?”
“I want to make love all night and stay in bed all day tomorrow.” Maji’s confession earned her a deep blush from Rose and a shy smile. “But I’m seriously exhausted and you have people to meet.”
“Let’s play it by ear,” Rose said, brushing her lips against Maji’s ear. Then she turned back toward their objective for the evening. “We must be close.”
Sure enough, in another half a block they saw a large, almost warehouse-like building with a signboard reading Sheet’ka Kwaan Naa Kahidi Community House. A few people milled about at the entry, dwarfed by the three-story wooden panels on either side of the doorway. Each panel was decorated in Tlingit designs carved into the wood, painted in red and black and pale blue.
Maji stopped, eyeing Rose’s colleagues. “Is this okay?” she asked, holding their joined hands up.
“I’m delighted to be seen with you,” Rose said. “But then, I’m out at work. So it’s your call really. Will you get in trouble?”
Maji wished again that she were traveling under her civilian name. Joint Operations Special Command knew she was queer and didn’t give an actual damn. But she’d prefer not to spend vacation dodging questions about her role in the military, or making Rose lie for her, either. Damn it, anyway. “Tell you what,” she said finally, “if I get worried, I’ll let you know. Until then, let’s try acting like normal people.”
“By holding hands in public? A lot of women would love for that to be normal.”
Sadly, Rose was right. “Well, let’s fake it till we make it, then. You game?”
“I’m all in,” Rose replied, with a look behind the light words that made Maji suspect she meant much more than what seemed so simple on the surface. Would it ever be that simple for them?
* * *
Whatever Maji meant by normal, Rose wasn’t ready to admit how inordinately exciting it sounded to her. That would feel like pushing, asking for something Maji had insisted she couldn’t give. But as bizarre as last summer had been, the most mundane moments were the ones that always came back to her. Cooking together, talking about books, hanging out by the pool. Maji was easy to be with, whenever she laid her armor down.
Lost in thought, Rose didn’t notice Javier, her friend and translator from her first trip to Peru, until he was within feet of them. “Javi!”
“Rosita!” He beamed at her and kissed her on both cheeks.
Rose kept her hold on Maji’s left hand as she introduced them. “Javi, this is Ri. Ri, my friend and colleague Javier Mendez.”
“Nice to meet you,” Maji said.
As the two shook hands politely Rose asked, “What on earth are you doing here, Javi?”
“Following my bliss, as they say. I missed you last summer, when you canceled our trip. And then I heard such sad news about your family. I really hoped to see you again. And here you are.”
Or a card would have been nice. “Oh. So are you attending the conference?”
“That’s what my grant says,” he replied with a wink. “But seriously, I’m really starting to get into ethnobotany. Maybe we could compare notes over a drink after this…” He waved a hand toward the sound of the crowd inside.
“Not tonight. Maybe lunch tomorrow? We could sit together then anyway.”
Javi seemed to notice their joined hands for the first time. “Sure. Mañana. Excuse me.”
As they watched him slip into the building around the short line of people waiting to get in, Maji asked, “A surprise?”
“For both of us, it seems. He’s always been a bit unpredictable, though.”
“Did he know how to reach you?”
“Only my work email changed. He should still have my cell number.” Rose saw the wheels turning behind Maji’s neutral expression. Well, it was her training to be suspicious, and she didn’t know Javi like Rose did. They reached the door and received a warm welcome from a man in the familiar Tribal Tours outfit of black slacks, white shirt, and button-adorned black vest. Following his instructions, they found seats at a table in the large room inside, on the top tier in the amphitheater style setup.
* * *
Maji scanned the room, both from habit and curiosity. So this was what a longhouse looked like. The wooden walls and beams gleamed, reflecting the light from the ceiling fixtures. At the far end, behind the stage, more huge wooden carvings decorated the wall, a screen of art between them and the backstage area. The look of them was distinctive, highly stylized yet clearly evoking birds and other animals. Maji wondered which images were the Raven and Eagle of the afternoon’s discussion.
Something out of sight smelled tantalizing and Maji noticed an open door at the far end of the long room, offering a glimpse of people hurriedly preparing trays of plates. And in the center of the recessed floor, a square, rock-lined fire pit waited with a neatly built arrangement of wood. Would dinner be cooked there? Or was it ceremonial? The room smelled like food, not smoke, and she didn’t see where an indoor fire could vent. Not your worry. You’ve ID’d all the exits, now chill out.
As the rest of their group settled into seats, three people walked onto the stage. Holding a microphone, the short woman with graying hair introduced herself as the vice chair of the Sitka Tribe’s council. “On behalf of the tribal government, thank you for coming to our land to learn. Tonight we will welcome you as we have welcomed travelers to our territory for over ten thousand years. But first, a few words from your conference hosts.”
Another woman, younger and wearing a navy business suit, introduced herself as the conference organizer. She handed the mic to a tall, lanky man with a beautiful button blanket worn like a cape. He spoke a moment or more in a language Maji assumed was Tlingit. “Interesting phonology—makes me want to see some written words,” she whispered to Rose.
In response, Rose smiled without taking her eyes off the speakers and gave her hand a squeeze under the table.
When he switched to English the speaker translated, “My name is Warren Paul. I am Coho Raven, L’uknax.ádi clan. We welcome you to our home tonight with the Warming of the Hands.” He paused. “In the old times, we traveled thousands of miles on the sea, throughout Southeast and well beyond. Travelers always arrived tired and hungry, and often cold. A host village would warm them, feed them, and give them a place to sleep. Since it’s nice out and you have lodgings, let’s get right to the food.” The group murmured its approval. “You all were smart to visit around herring season—we have eggs for you harvested in the subsistence manner. Who here grew up with herring eggs?” At least a dozen hands went up. “If you’re from Southeast, keep those hands up.” All but four went down. “Tomorrow you’ll learn why Native Alaskans from as far away as Barrow share this gift of the spring. Or maybe even tonight if you take them out—but don’t believe a word of those tales if you do.”
The group chuckled as servers began to carry trays out, setting paper plates laden with food, bundles of plasticware in paper napkins, and paper cups in front of the guests. Teens in dance regalia carried pitchers of water and juice to the tables, performing their task with seriousness as well as care for their obviously custom-crafted clothing. Maji looked at the offerings, some recognizable to her and some not. The most obvious were a nice chunk of salmon, something that looked remarkably like macaroni salad, a small heap of tossed salad, and a lump of yellow fish roe.
Rose leaned into her, pointing her fork at the large yellow eggs. “The main attraction.”
The man to Rose’s right overheard and said in a good-natured tone, “If you don’t like ’em, send ’em my way.”
“Mighty kind of you,” Maji replied, matching his tone.
“Al’s all heart,” a woman nearby said, nudging the man. “And all stomach.”
After everyone had been served and some of the group had already dug into their suppers, Warren the Coho Raven walked back to center stage, wincing as the mic’s repowering caused a squeal of feedback. “Sorry about that. I’ll turn this thing off in just a minute. Now, while you enjoy the feast, I give you the Naa Kahidi Dancers.”
In the expectant silence a row of dancers, from young and tiny to elderly and stout, and of all sizes and ages in between, filed onto the stage. Warren handed the mic to one of the people decked out in regalia, a fortyish woman with light brown hair and a fair complexion. She introduced herself in Tlingit and then explained, “As we like to do, we will start with an honoring dance for our veterans. What you may not all know is that the United States first peoples weren’t even considered citizens until 1924. But we have served proudly to defend our home in every major conflict the US has gotten into, just like we Tlingit defended this land against the Russians, many years ago.”
She called on the group to self-identify any veterans of World War II or Korea, but no one responded. At the call for Vietnam veterans, two men and one woman rose and made their way to the stage. The largest group rose when the call for anyone who served between ’Nam and 9/11 was made, with younger conference attendees rising last.
Maji felt Rose nudge her and release her hand when the dance leader called for anyone who had served since 9/11. Maji shook her head, giving Rose a frown.
Rose raised an eyebrow at her. “Go up and be honored, Sergeant.”
Maji rolled her eyes but complied.
The drumming and singing began the second Maji, along with another woman and two men, found their places near the wings of the stage with the older veterans. She was glad that the dancers held her attention and the diners’ as well. The few times she’d had to stand and be recognized, generally in dress uniform or in formation with her unit, she’d never felt such a visceral reaction. Was it the drumming? The voices? Or perhaps it was the sight of the people onstage, repeating for her a dance passed through centuries of generations. When her group was dismissed, she headed past the clapping audience directly to the restrooms down the hall.
