“So why were you following me?” she asked, kicking off her shoes, and reveling in the feeling of soft, well-varnished and blessedly cool wood under her bare soles. She walked around the living room, picking up the little bits of popcorn and empty cups that told her he’d had the kids inside today, probably during the afternoon. He seldom let them into the house in the morning, teaching them instead the Osage games his father had taught him, and running the fat of too much television watching off them. But even he agreed that when the temperature climbed above ninety, there was no point in courting heatstroke. These were kids raised in air conditioning, born to parents with health insurance, not tough little Osage brats who never saw a doctor and ran around mostly naked in the Oklahoma heat. Toughening took time and required the parents’ cooperation and participation—perhaps when the children were older, he might teach them the way of the Warrior, if not Warrior’s Medicine. Grandfather agreed; the seed was planted and he took the long view of any of the gentle Tzi-Sho gens. Let the seed sprout and mature in its own time; these children would at the very least be a little less credulous, a little less inclined to let others run things for them, a little less prone to give up and go with the system, a little more likely to fight for themselves and their world. And of course, they would not be content to accept the stereotype of the “lazy, drunken, ignorant Indian.” For him, that was quite enough.

“Why were you so afraid of what you recovered?” Grandfather countered—and before she could dodge out of his way, those strong brown fingers had slipped off the joystick and she yelped as he pinched her rear. “And when are you going to start being nice to me?” he continued, with a meaningful leer. “A pretty girl like you should know an old man like me needs—”

Oh, so he’s in that mood. Should have guessed that a strong dose of Respectable Elder was going to bring out the Old Reprobate as soon as I got home.

“An old man like you needs a good whack upside the head!” she countered, skittering past him before those fingers could pinch the other cheek. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to be senile by now? You’re supposed to be drooling and in diapers so I can keep you in your bed and you wouldn’t be able to get into any more trouble!”

He chuckled, and shook his head at her.

She finished her cleanup, and dropped the popcorn bits in the paper bag she kept for bird scraps. The grackles would love the popcorn. “How’s the garden doing? How many kids did you bilk out of their allowances today?”