Read Wild Blood for Free Online Page B

the Xerox to her. “According to this document, I was born almost twenty years ago and adopted at the age of six weeks.”
    Miss Small frowned at the paperwork and tapped her chin with her index finger. “Cade … The name does sound familiar. But I won’t be able to tell you much until I look at your file.”
    â€œAnd where do you keep your records?”
    â€œMother ran the home for fifty years, and I keep most of the old paperwork in the attic. You’re welcome to go upstairs and look through the boxes if you like.”
    The thought of sitting in a closed attic in the middle of the Sonoran desert, sifting through a half-century of documentation was enough to make Skinner’s butt pucker.
    â€œWhich way to the stairs, ma’am?”
    It took him three hours and four pitchers of lemonade to finally locate the box containing the documentation for the year of his adoption.
    Skinner was grinning as he entered Miss Small’s kitchen, his T-shirt plastered to his back and his hair full of dust and cobwebs. “I found it!” he proclaimed, hoisting the cardboard file-box in triumph.
    Miss Small opened the container’s folding wings, running her arthritic fingers over the yellowed file folders. “Let’s see now … Abbott, Bishop, Cade … Ah, here we are!” She plucked a sheaf of papers free, flipping through the documents with the efficiency of an executive secretary. “Adopting parents: William Henry and Edna Marie Cade of Seven Devils, Arkansas. Oh yes, I remember now! Delightful couple. They had been disqualified as too old by the other agencies. That’s how they found their way to us. Mother could tell they were good folk. She had an eye for character.” Miss Small nodded her head slowly as she read. “Yes, it’s coming back to me now. I remember Mr. Cade most distinctly. He was a fine figure of a man; very much the Southern gentleman. You have some of his way about you.”
    â€œIs there anything in there about my birth mother? Where she was from? What her name was?”
    Miss Small handed him the folder. “See for yourself, dear.”
    The papers felt as brittle as papyrus under his trembling fingertips. It was barely twenty years ago, so why did he feel like he was handling the Magna Charter? There were some medical charts documenting the time he spent in the home as an infant—records of his weight, length, blood type and other such information stapled to a piece of paper that bore two tiny purplish smudges that, on closer inspection, turned out to be footprints. There was also what appeared to be a birth certificate. Skinner’s frown deepened as he read the document.
    â€œI don’t understand. The birth date is the same as mine … December 28th. But in the boxes marked ‘father and mother’s names,’ it says ‘unknown’. And this looks to be the actual birth certificate, not a copy. Aren’t these things supposed to be registered with the state?”
    Miss Small looked embarrassed. “Normally, that would be the procedure. But Mother—well, a lot of the women who came to Mother were from the reservations who worked as ladies of the evening in Tucson and Nogales. They’d come back home to have their babies. The law is that orphaned Native American children must be handed over to the tribal council. But many of the mothers—well; they wanted their children to have a chance at something better. Mother never filed the birth certificates for those of Native American descent. That must have been what happened in your case.”
    â€œWhere it says ‘Physician or midwife in attendance’ someone typed in ‘Root Woman.’ What does that mean?”
    â€œOh! That’s a midwife who used to bring Mother babies from the reservations. Most of them didn’t come into town, for fear it would get back to the elders, so they trusted Root Woman to deliver the