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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 honor 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 favor.”
    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