She threw her empty cup under the seat and checked her reflection. Thanks to blasting the a/c, her hair was good. The necklace Mellie had given her as a going-away present—a huge, sea-green disk of turquoise on a brown leather strap—hung just above the deep V of her favorite girly shirt—a pink, short-sleeved sweater that was thick enough she didn’t have to wear a bra with it if she didn’t want to. She’d even applied some lip gloss in hopes of getting better service today. Plus, her bag was a Hermes—a twenty-year-old Hermes that she’d inherited after her mother died—but still. Nothing got service in an art gallery like the announcement that money had entered the building. It had felt good to dress up a little. Mellie would be proud. She felt less like a doctor in the trenches and more like a normal woman.
It took less than twenty seconds. “May I help you?” The saleslady was the kind of delicate redhead that probably earned money on the side doing tasteful modeling sessions for serious artists. Like Mellie had done for a while.
“Yes. I need a gift for my sister.” She bit back Mellie’s something Indiany. “Something nice.”
The saleslady’s eyes hit the turquoise, the bag and the boots in one fell swoop. Then she smiled warmly. “Of course. I’m sure we have something you’ll both love.”
Yeah. Madeline mentally snorted. Something expensive.
The tour began with sculpture and moved on to paintings. They paused so that Karen, as the young saleslady insisted Madeline call her, could get them some coffee. Then they continued on to jewelry.
Nothing was quite right. There were some beautiful things, things Mellie would like, but nothing sang to Madeline. Not at those prices, anyway. She kept thinking how many antibiotics she could get for a two-thousand-dollar, signed Fritz Scholder print.
“We also have some lovely Native beadwork. Original pieces,” Karen offered as she led the way up a sweeping set of stairs behind a velvet rope. Madeline kept her smirk to herself. That’s what a Hermes bag got a girl. Behind the velvet rope.
“Original is good.” After all, Mellie was one of a kind. She’d like something no one else had.
This was more like it. Shirts dripping in color, moccasins with every square inch covered in tiny beads, hair ornaments, chokers—all definitely ”Indiany” Her eye was immediately drawn to a long, green—well, bag, she guessed, with an old-style pipe next to it, all under a glass case at the end of the aisle. “That’s beautiful.”
“Isn’t it?” Karen perked up with hope as she unlocked the case. “It’s a ceremonial pipe bag. Brain-tanned buffalo hide, hand-carved soapstone pipe on a locally harvested cottonwood stem. Not a reproduction, but an original. One of a kind.” She took out the bag. There was something oddly sensual about the way her fingers stroked the fringe. “It’s by a local artist. Jonathan Runs Fast. He’s one of our top sellers, and is perhaps the most important artist in this medium in the world. His work is in museums. Mr. Steinman—the gallery owner—got one of his pipe bags in the Museum of the American Indian in Washington.” She held it out to Madeline. “Go on. You can hold it.”
Madeline moved carefully. She wasn’t likely to drop something like this bag, but still... The leather was as soft as any baby’s bottom. “Wow.” She didn’t know leather could be better than silk. This was brain-tanned? She’d overlook the gross factor. She didn’t have sheets this soft, for crying out loud. She studied the complicated pattern on the body of the bag. “What’s it supposed to be?”
“The buffalo on the prairie after the spring rains, I think.”
Madeline squinted, but she could see the brown things were supposed to be the buffalo, and the green would be the grass. Abstract, but also representational. Mellie would totally groove on this. “He carved the pipe himself?”
Karen’s eyes were glowing with something between desire and awe. “He does everything by hand—even hunts the animal and tans the hide.”
A man who both hunted and wielded a needle and thread? She would believe that when she saw it. “A local artist?” She didn’t know any local artists, but she knew semi-local Indians. She might be able to get non-gallery verification about this sales pitch. Clarence had to know someone who knew something. Clarence knew everyone.
Karen pointed to a framed sheet of paper next to the pipe. “He lives somewhere out on the White Sandy Reservation, not too far from here.”
Madeline froze the moment the word White was out there. That was local. Too local. Moving at what felt like a glacial pace, her eyes found the paper. There, under the title “Jonathan Runs Fast: Traditional Master of Fine Art” was a picture. Sure, the guy in the picture was minus the straw cowboy hat, and his white, button-up shirt was underneath a dark sports coat. But the man in the picture looked exactly like her professional pain in the ass—the vaccine-hating, non-translating Rebel himself.