Blood Trail - C. J. Box [92]
Alisha paused to angrily wipe a tear away, then continued.
“I’m sure you heard that she could have gone anywhere on scholarship, and she could have. And it wasn’t that she was scared like so many people think. It’s that her grandmother really was sick. Her grandmother raised her because Shannon’s mother was a violent alcoholic and her father could have been any one of seven men. Shannon owed her grandmother everything, so she stayed to take care of her because no one else would. I thought it was stupid and wasteful at the time because I didn’t have the right perspective. We all laugh about Indian time, but it can be a noble attribute in a circumstance like that. Shenandoah had only one grandmother and that grandmother had lung cancer. Shenandoah could go to college and leave her sick grandmother to die or she could stay and nurse her. She made the choice to stay because her grandmother had only a couple of years left but Shenandoah had many. Shenandoah put off her own reward to take care of the only woman who’d ever really loved her and encouraged her. What she did was noble, not stupid. How many high-school-age girls can make a sacrifice like that?”
Joe and Marybeth looked at each other. Their girls were upstairs sleeping in their beds. Would Sheridan or Lucy give up their dreams to stay home and take care of a parent? Joe hoped not. But in his heart of hearts, he also hoped so.
“So she stayed,” Alisha said.
“That’s what I’m curious about,” Joe said gently. “How did we go from there to here? When did she meet Klamath Moore?”
Alisha nodded. “I lost track of her for a while. I have to admit that for five or six years after I graduated high school and went to college and then on to my career, I really didn’t want to see her. I was ashamed of her. I heard she got fat and started bouncing from job to job, from man to man after her grandmother died. I am ashamed now that I felt so ashamed then. You know, this is tough for me,” she said, her voice cracking.
Joe heard Marybeth sniff back her own tears.
Nate rose to cross the room to comfort Alisha, but she shook her head at him.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just let me get through this.”
She turned back to Joe. “Shannon got a little wild for a while there. It happens very easily here, and I hate to say it but there are many people on and off the res who enable and encourage a fall from grace for American Indians. Bigots expect it and it suits the worldview of many liberals. Too many people, both Indians and whites, are more comfortable with an Indian girl who gets fat and fails than one who breaks out and does well. Shannon let herself fall, and she got mixed up with the wrong people for a while. I wasn’t here to help her like I should have been. I was only too happy to use her as an example of victimhood because that served me at the time with my professors. It was only later that I realized the only person I knew who truly thought for herself and did the right thing was Shenandoah. She wasn’t a victim, she was a warrior who did what was right. She used to call me and write me, and I was so wrapped up in myself I let myself lose touch with her. When I abandoned her, she took it hard.”
Alisha paused to fight back another round of tears. Then:
“But she got right again, from what she told me recently. She decided to go to college on her own, even though no one was offering her any scholarships anymore. To make some money to pay tuition she started up a little business where she guided and