"You dropped out of school."
The statement hardly needed verification, but he nodded. Mary drew a deep breath. "May I ask why?"
"There was nothing for me there."
She felt frustrated by the calm, flat statement, because she couldn't sense any uncertainty in this unusual boy. As Wolf had said, Joe had made up his own mind and didn't intend to change it. She tried to think of another way to approach hum, but Wolf's quiet, deep voice interrupted.
"Miss Potter, you can finish talking after you get into some sensible clothes. Joe, don't you have some old jeans that might be small enough to fit her?"
To her astonishment, the boy looked her over with an experienced eye. "I think so. Maybe the ones I wore when I was ten." For a moment amusement sparkled in his blue-diamond eyes, and Mary primmed her mouth. What did these Mackenzie men get out of needlessly pointing out her lack of attractiveness?
"Socks, shirt, boots and coat," Wolf added to the list. "The boots will be too big, but two pairs of socks will hold them on."
"Mr. Mackenzie, I really don't need extra clothes. What I have on will do until I get home."
"No, it won't. The high temperature today is about ten below zero. You aren't walking out of this house with bare legs and those stupid shoes."
Her sensible shoes were suddenly stupid? She felt like flying to their defence, but suddenly remembered the snow that had gotten inside them and frozen her toes. What was sensible in Savannah was woefully inadequate in a Wyoming whiter.
"Very well," she assented, but only because it was, after all, the sensible thing to do. She still felt uncomfortable about taking Joe's clothes, even temporarily. She had never worn anyone else's clothes before, never swapped sweaters or blouses with chums as an adolescent Aunt Ardith had thought such familiarity ill-bred.
"I'll see about your car while you change." Without even glancing at her again, he put on his coat and hat and walked out the door.
"This way," Joe said, indicating that she should follow him. She did so, and he looked over his shoulder. "What happened to your car?"
"A water hose blew."
"Where is it?"
She stopped. "It's on the road. Didn't you see it when you drove up?" An awful thought struck her. Had her car somehow slid off the mountain?
"I came up the front side of the mountain. It's not as steep." He looked amused again. "You actually tried driving up the back road in a car, when you're not used to driving in snow?"
"I didn't know that was the back road. I thought it was the only road. Couldn't I have made it? I have snow tires."
"Maybe."
She noticed that he didn't sound very confident in her ability, but she didn't protest, because she wasn't very confident herself. He led the way through a rustic but comfortable living room and down a short hallway to an open door. "My old clothes are boxed up in the storage room, but it won't take long for me to dig them out. You can change in here. It's my bedroom."
"Thank you," she murmured, stepping inside the room. Like the living room, it was rustic, with exposed beams and thick wooden walls. There was nothing in it to indicate it was inhabited by a teenage boy: no sports apparatus of any kind, no clothes on the floor. The full-size bed was neatly made, a homemade quilt smoothed on top. A straight chair stood in one corner. Next to his bed, bookshelves stretched from floor to ceiling; the shelves were obviously handmade, but weren't crude. They had been finished, sanded and varnished. They were crammed with books, and curiosity led her to examine the titles.
It took her a moment to realize mat every book had to do with flight, from da Vinci's experiments through Kitty Hawk and space exploration. There were books on bombers, fighters, helicopters, radar planes, jets and prop planes, books on air battles fought in each war since pilots first shot at each other with pistols in World War I. There were books on experimental aircraft, on fighter tactics, on wing design and engine capability.
"Here are the clothes." Joe had entered silently and placed the clothes on the bed. Mary looked at him, but his face was impassive.
"You like planes," she said, then winced at her own banality.
"I like planes," he admitted without inflection.
"Have you thought about taking flying lessons?"
"Yes." He didn't add anything to that stark answer, however; he merely left the room and closed the door behind him.
She was thoughtful as she slowly removed her dress and pulled on the things Joe had brought. The collection of books indicated not merely an interest in flying, but an obsession. Obsessions were funny things; unhealthy ones could ruin lives, but some obsessions lifted people to higher planes of life, made them shine with a brighter light, burn with a hotter fire, and if those obsessions weren't fed, then the person withered, a life blighted by starvation of the soul. If she were right, she had a way to reach Joe and get him back in school.
The jeans fit. Disgusted at this further proof that she had the figure of a ten-year-old boy, she pulled on the too-big flannel shirt and buttoned it, then rolled the sleeves up over her hands. As Wolf had predicted, the worn boots were too big, but the two pairs of thick socks padded her feet enough that the boots didn't slip up and down on her heels too much. The warmth was heavenly, and she decided she would pinch pennies any way she could until she could afford a pair of boots.
Joe was adding wood to the fire in the enormous rock fireplace when she entered, and a little grin tugged at his mouth when he saw her. "You sure don't look like Mrs. Langdale, or any other teacher I've ever seen."
She folded her hands. "Looks have nothing to do with ability. I'm a very good teacher-even if I do look like a ten-year-old boy."
"Twelve. I wore those jeans when I was twelve."
"What a consolation."
He laughed aloud, and she felt pleased, because she had the feeling neither he nor his father laughed much. "Why did you quit school?"
She had learned that if you kept asking the same question, you would often get different answers, and eventually the evasions would cease and the real answer would emerge. But Joe looked at her steadily and gave the same answer as before. "There was nothing for me there."
"Nothing more for you to learn?"
"I'm Indian, Miss Potter. A mixed-breed. What I learned, I learned on my own."
Mary paused. "Mrs. Langdale didn't-" She stopped, unsure of how to phrase her question.
"I was invisible." His young voice was harsh. "From the time I started school. No one took the time to explain anything to me, ask me questions, or include me in anything. I'm surprised my papers were even graded."
"But you were number one in your class."
He shrugged. "I like books."
"Don't you miss school, miss learning?"
"I can read without going to school, and I can help Dad a lot more if I'm here all day. I know horses, ma'am, maybe better than anyone else around here except for Dad, and I didn't learn about them in school. This ranch will be mine someday. This is my life. Why should I waste time in school?"
Mary took a deep breath and played her ace. "To learn how to fly."
He couldn't prevent the avid gleam that shone briefly in his eyes, but it was quickly extinguished. "I can't learn how to fly in Ruth High School. Maybe someday I'll take lessons."
"I wasn't talking about flying lessons. I was talking about the Air Force Academy."
His bronze skin whitened. This time she didn't see a gleam of eagerness, but a deep, anguished need so powerful it shook her, as if he'd been shown a glimpse of heaven. Then he turned his head, and abruptly he looked older. "Don't try to make a fool of me. There's no way."
"Why isn't there a way? From what I saw in your school records, your grade average will be high enough."
"I dropped out."
"You can go back."
"As far behind as I am? I'd have to repeat this grade, and I won't sit still while those jerks call me a stupid Indian."
"You aren't that far behind. I could tutor you, bring you up fast enough that you could start your senior year in the fall. I'm a licensed teacher, Joe, and for your information, my credentials are very good. I'm qualified to tutor you in the classes you need."
He took a poker and jabbed at a log, sending a shower of sparks flying. "What if I do it?" he muttered. "The Academy isn't a college where you take an entrance exam, pay your money and walk in."
"No. The usual way is to be recommended by your congressman."
"Yeah, well, I don't think my congressman is going to recommend an Indian. We're way down on the list of people it's fashionable to help. Dead last, as a matter of fact."
"I think you're making too much of your heritage," Mary said calmly. "You can keep blaming everything on being Indian, or you can get on with your life. You can't do anything about other people's reactions to you, but you can do something about your own. You don't know what your congressman will do, so why give up when you haven't even tried yet? Are you a quitter?"
He straightened, his pale eyes fierce. "I don't reckon."
"Then it's time to find out, isn't it? Do you want to fly bad enough that you'll fight for the privilege? Or do you want to die without ever knowing what it's like to sit in the cockpit of a jet doing Mach 1?"
"You hit hard, lady," he whispered.
"Sometimes it takes a knock on the head to get someone's attention. Do you have the guts to try?"
"What about you? The folks in Ruth won't like it if you spend so much time with me. It would be bad enough if I were alone, but with Dad, it's twice as bad."
"If anyone objects to my tutoring you, I'll certainly set him straight," she said firmly. "It's an honour to be accepted into the Academy, and that's our goal. If you'll agree to being tutored, I'll write to your congressman immediately. I think this time your heritage will work in your favour."
It was amazing how proud that strong young face could be. "I don't want it if they give it to me just because I'm Indian."
"Don't be ridiculous," she scoffed. "Of course you won't be accepted into the Academy just because you're half Indian. But if that fact catches the congressman's interest, I say, good. It would only make him remember your name. It'll be up to you to make the grade."
He raked his hand through his black hair, then restlessly walked to the window to look out at the white landscape. "Do you really think it's possible?"
"Of course it's possible. It isn't guaranteed, but it's possible. Can you live with yourself if you don't try? If we don't try?" She didn't know how to go about bringing someone to a congressman's attention for consideration for recommendation to the Academy, but she was certainly willing to write to every senator and representative Wyoming had seated in Congress, a letter a week, until she found out.
"If I agreed, it would have to be at night. I have chores around here that have to be done."
"Night is fine with me. Midnight would be fine with me, if it would get you back in school."
He gave her a quick look. "You really mean it, don't you? You actually care that I dropped out of school."
"Of course I care."
"There's no 'of course' about it. I told you, no other teacher cared if I showed up in class. They probably wished I hadn't."
"Well," she said in her briskest voice, "I care. Teaching is what I do, so if I can't teach and feel I'm doing some good, then I lose part of myself. Isn't that how you feel about flying? That you have to, or you'll die?"
"I want it so bad it hurts," he admitted, his voice raw.
"I read somewhere that flying is like throwing your soul into the heavens and racing to catch it as it falls."
"I don't think mine would ever fall," he murmured, looking at the clear cold sky. He stared, entranced, as if paradise beckoned, as if he could see forever. He was probably imagining himself up there, free and wild, with a powerful machine screaming beneath him and taking him higher. Then he shook himself, visibly fighting off the dream, and turned to her. "Okay, Miss Teacher, when do we start?"
"Tonight. You've already wasted enough time."
"How long will it take for me to catch up?"
She gave him a withering look. "Catch up? You're going to leave them in the dust. How long it takes depends on how much work you can do."
"Yes, ma'am," he said, grinning a little.
She thought that already he looked younger, more like a boy, than he had before. He was, in all ways, far more mature than the other boys his age in her classes, but he looked as if a burden had been lifted from him. If flying meant that much to him, how had it felt to set himself a course that would deny him what he wanted most?
"Can you be at my house at six? Or would you rather I come here?" She thought of that drive, in the dark and snow, and wondered if she'd make it if he wanted her to come here.
"I'll come to your house, since you aren't used to driving in snow. Where do you live?"
"Go down the back road and take a left. It's the first house on the left." She thought a minute. "I believe it's the first house, period."
"It is. There isn't another house for five miles. That's the old Witcher house."
"So I've been told. It was kind of the school board to arrange living quarters for me."
Joe looked dubious. "More like it was the only way they had of getting another teacher in the middle of the year."
"Well, I appreciated it anyway," she said firmly. She looked out the window. "Shouldn't your father be back by now?"
"Depends on what he found. If it was something he could fix right then, he'd do it. Look, here he comes now."
The black pickup roared to a stop in front of the house, and Wolf got out. Coming up on the porch, he stomped his feet to rid his boots of the snow caked on them and opened the door. His cool black gaze flickered over his son, then to Mary. His eyes widened fractionally as he examined every slim curve exhibited by Joe's old jeans, but he didn't comment.
"Get your things together," he instructed. "I have a spare hose that will fit your car. We'll put it on, then take you home."
"I can drive," she replied. "But thank you for your trouble. How much is the hose? I'll pay you for that."
"Consider it neighbourly assistance to a greenhorn. And we'll still take you home. I'd rather you practiced driving in the snow somewhere other than on this mountain."
His dark face was expressionless, as usual, but she sensed that he'd made up his mind and wouldn't budge. She got her dress from Joe's room and the rest of her things from the kitchen. When she returned to the living room, Wolf held a thick coat for her to wear. She slipped into it; since it reached almost to her knees and the sleeves totally obscured her hands, she knew it had to be his.
Joe had on his coat and hat again. "Ready."
Wolf looked at his son. "Have you two had your talk?"
The boy nodded. "Yes." He met his father's eyes squarely. "She's going to tutor me. I'm going to try to get into the Air Force Academy."
"It's your decision. Just make sure you know what you're getting into."
"I have to try."
Wolf nodded once, and that was the end of the discussion. With her sandwiched between them, they left the warmth of the house, and once again Mary was struck by the bitter, merciless cold. She scrambled gratefully into the truck, which had been left running, and the blast of hot air from the heater vents felt like heaven.
Wolf got behind the wheel, and Joe got in beside her, trapping her between their two much bigger bodies. She sat with her hands primly folded and her booted feet placed neatly side-by-side as they drove down to an enormous barn with long stables extending off each side of it like arms. Wolf got out and entered the barn, then returned thirty seconds later with a length of thick black hose.