Warrior's Embrace (41 page)

Winston studied his son. Some deep secret
pleasure was hidden in his eyes.

“You know the woman ...Kate Malone?”

“Yes. Her clinic will benefit our
people.”

“She’s not of our blood.”

“You see too much, Father.” Solemnly Eagle
placed both hands on Winston’s shoulders. “I am Chickasaw. I will
never mix my blood.”

Satisfied, Winston nodded. “May the Great
Spirit guide you.”

Eagle made his peace with his mother, then
said good-bye to the rest of the family and rode off toward the
shadowed mountains. The land was alive with scents and sounds. He
rode bareback, the way he loved best, feeling himself one with the
night-seeking creatures.

When he came close enough to hear the whisper
of the river, he pitched camp. Although it was the middle of summer
with heat rising from the earth and warm winds blowing across the
land, he built a fire. There was something mystical about a fire,
something powerful.

As his ancestors had done before him, Eagle
opened himself to the fire so its strength could transfuse his
soul. It was not a conscious move on his part, but an instinctive
one. Myths and legends aside—and Eagle knew them all—there was a
basic truth in the act of transfusion. A man’s psyche was affected
by his surroundings on levels he never dreamed. Beauty transfused
harmony; ugliness, hatred. Nature transfused peace; mechanization,
strife.

Stripped naked, Eagle paid homage to the four
Beloved Things above in Muskogean, the ancient tongue of his
people; then he spread his blanket under the stars, letting peace
and harmony flow through him. Flames from his campfire leapt upward
with a brightness that rivaled Kate Malone’s hair.

The newly arrived medicine woman intruded so
suddenly in his thoughts that desire caught him unaware. And he
knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was nearby that perhaps
her nearness had led him to his campsite, and that she had already
transfused his soul when he’d first touched her. When he’d carried
her from the river.

He lay on the blanket, staring at the stars,
with Kate Malone heating his blood like a flame.

o0o

The watchers had moved closer, a small, tight
band of them, standing as silently as the trees that bordered the
clinic. Dr. Clayton Colbert gave them no more than a passing
glance.

It was the man on horseback who held his
attention. Eagle Mingo.

Everybody in Witch Dance and for miles around
knew him, firstborn of the Chickasaw Nation’s governor, preceding
Cole from the womb by mere seconds, dragging his reluctant brother
by the heel, some said, emerging with a lusty war whoop that made
every nurse on the maternity floor stop to listen. He’d been gone
since he was eighteen, and twelve years had honed him to the
lethal, keen edge of a knife blade.

Riding on his fine black stallion, he sliced
into Clayton’s consciousness and stayed there, striking sparks.
Every nerve ending quivering, Clayton glanced at Kate. The lure of
Eagle Mingo shone in her eyes. She stood motionless, the hammer
hanging forgotten in her right hand, watching him as if destiny had
come a-riding.

The black bile of despair clogged Clayton’s
throat. His grip tightened on his own hammer as Eagle dismounted
and strode toward the lumber skeleton that would soon be a
clinic.

“Kate.” Eagle stood tall and magnificent
before her.

She flushed as if he’d kissed her. The
intimacy in his voice was more riveting than the most searing
embrace she’d ever imagined.

“What brings you to the clinic?” she
asked.

“I’m looking for the doctor.”

“Any particular reason?”

“Yes. This.” He held out a bouquet of Indian
paintbrush, freshly plucked. “On behalf of my people, welcome to
Witch Dance.”

His skin drew hers like a magnet, and when
she reached for the flowers, she couldn’t let go.

“Thank you.”

She had turned to liquid. Neither her hands
nor her feet would move. Eagle closed her fingers around the
fragile flower stems; then, stepping back, he nodded in the
direction of the watchers.

“Are they causing trouble?”

“No. Only observing.”

“I spoke with them. They’re merely
curious.”

“I hope so.”

“When they become accustomed to the idea of
the clinic, they’ll leave.”

His bow was formal, but there was nothing
remotely formal about his eyes. His burning gaze held Kate as her
tongue flicked out and wet her bottom lip. Eagle watched as if he
were guarding a recently staked gold claim.

Envy and despair rendered Clayton helpless.
There was a low moan like an animal in pain. To his horror, he
realized he’d made the sound. Not only that, but he’d shown his
true colors to Eagle.

Clayton felt himself shriveling under Eagle’s
intense scrutiny. He wanted to trot off to his house like a whipped
puppy and pee in the middle of the rug. Instead, he held his
ground, returning the fierce stare with his head high.

They were like two proud bucks—one hoary with
age, the other virile with youth—rutting after the same doe. The
air was thick with challenge.

In a quicksilver shift Eagle nodded formally
toward Clayton, then mounted his horse and galloped away.

The entire encounter couldn’t have taken more
than three minutes, but Clayton felt as if he’d been wading through
quicksand for three hours. His hands shook as he poured himself a
cup of water.

“You know him?” he said when he was finally
calm enough to turn toward Kate. The glow of Eagle Mingo was still
on her skin.

“I met him yesterday at the river.”

She didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t dare
ask.

“Well ...it’s good that the governor’s son
approves of your being here.” Blackguard. Liar. Clayton squashed
the paper cup and water ran over his hands.

“Let me get you another.” Kate laid her
flowers on the sawhorse and gave them one last, lingering caress.
Fresh envy slashed at Clayton.

“Your face is flushed.” Kate’s hands were
cool when they touched his, cool and tender as the stems of
flowers. “You’ve been working too hard. Sit over here and
rest.”

She led him to a shade tree with the same
care he’d seen her lavish on the old people who populated the
hospital wards. He wasn’t old—sixty, with most of his hair and his
body gone only slightly to fat—but he must seem ancient to her,
abloom as she was with youth and lust.

His gut clenched again as she plopped down
beside him and stretched out her bare legs, tanned now from the
sun. Smiling, she patted his arm affectionately, as if he were an
elderly uncle or a favorite pet.

God, how he hated it, that casual touch
...and how he loved it. That was his burden to bear, his cardinal
sin: He was in love with her.

His wife knew.

“Don’t lie to me, Clayton,” she’d said before
he left. “You’re not building this clinic because of altruism.
You’re building it so you can lure
her
to your side.”

“I’m building a clinic to help my
people.”

“You had no people until you met me. And
don’t you ever forget it.”

How could he? She never let him.

Sitting in the shade with the scent of Kate
making his old sap rise, he thought of Melissa Sayers Colbert, the
woman he’d left behind. Elegant, sophisticated, with the kind of
cool beauty that drew second glances. Patron of the arts, chairman
of numerous foundations, and benefactor to the underdog—including
an outcast half-breed Chickasaw named Clayton Colbert. He owed his
medical degree to her and his fancy Beacon Hill house and his
chairmanship of the Department of Endocrinology.

He’d been a broken-down trick rider in a Wild
West sideshow when she found him sleeping on a pier in Boston
Harbor. Melissa Sayers of the Sayers Chocolate fortune had a habit
of slumming in her chauffeured white stretch limousine.

She’d meant to give him a hot bath and a
square meal and send him on his way. Then she’d discovered that
cleaned up, he had the kind of sex appeal that was hard to
resist.

Melissa Sayers didn’t even try. For six
months he’d lived in her penthouse surrounded by every luxury he’d
ever imagined. Did he want a new suit? All he had to do was ask. A
new car? No problem. All it cost him was a few hours of sexual
performance, much like a trained tiger.

Later she’d discovered that he had a mind to
match his body, and she’d decided to keep him. Permanently.

She gave him respectability and success, but
the price was too high. In the end, it cost his dignity.

He felt a cool hand on his forehead.

“Are you all right, Dr. Colbert?”

Dr. Colbert.
Not even Clayton. Kate
saw him as her mentor, her friend, perhaps even a father figure.
But he didn’t dare put so much as a fatherly arm around her
shoulder.

“I’m fine, Kate. I guess I need to rest.”

“You shouldn’t be working in this heat. I’ll
walk you to the house.”

He was selfish enough to let her. Walking
along in the drift of her perfume, feeling the brush of her thigh
against his, was a simple pleasure he could steal without her ever
knowing.

“I wonder if we should hire a crew to help
with the building, Dr. Colbert?”

“You think I’m too old, Kate?”

“It’s not that. The work will go faster and .
. .” She flushed at her lie. “You’re certainly not
old
,
but perhaps you’re too old to be working so hard in this heat.”

“You never could lie well, Kate.” He patted
her cheek. It was the only familiarity he would allow himself.
“Bear with me. This is something I must do alone.”

“With my help,” she corrected him.

“Yes. With your help.”

The screen door banged shut behind her.
Clayton’s bedroom was cool and dark with the shades drawn. He sat
in a chair with the leg he’d twisted in his trick riding days
propped on a footstool.

Was it possible to buy back dignity?

o0o

The flowers lay scattered in the dirt, their
stems broken and their petals crushed. In the white glare of the
noonday sun they were an obscenity, delicate beauty deliberately
destroyed, then left in the skeleton clinic like an omen.

Shading her eyes, Kate looked at the
hillside. It was innocent and empty, as if the watchers had never
been there.

Adrenaline pumped through her as reaction set
in. The watchers had become the enemy. She wanted to run after them
and throttle them for the wanton destruction of her property. Never
mind that it was merely flowers. They were Eagle’s gift, flowers
he’d picked with his own hands.

Sawdust and lumber chips bit her skin as Kate
knelt in the dirt and gathered up her flowers. Then she poured a
cup of water and arranged them as tenderly as if they were hothouse
roses. The bruised blossoms drooped over the edges of the cup.

Holding her damaged bouquet aloft, Kate shook
her fist at the desolate hillside.

“You won’t win, you cowards. I won’t let you
win.”

At the sound of footsteps in the hall,
Deborah Lightfoot hid her book under the covers. It wouldn’t do to
let her father know she was reading when she was supposed to be
sleeping. Pipe dreams, he called her books.

“A young woman should have her mind on
finding a good husband and raising babies,” he’d say when he caught
her reading. “Not pipe dreams.”

The novel was set in Vietnam during the
sixties, and the heroine was a nurse of uncommon courage.

That’s the kind of nurse Deborah would be. A
nurse of uncommon courage. If she ever got to be one. Which was as
likely as an antelope learning to fly.

Sighing, she pulled the sheet up under her
chin and tucked the tiny flashlight she used when she read in the
dark under her pillow. She let her breathing become even in case he
checked on her.

Sometimes he did. Not that she minded. He’d
done the best he could by them, by Deborah and her brother, Hal,
but sometimes she wished he’d quit trying so hard.

The bedroom door next to hers creaked open,
and she heard Hal’s muttered oath as a chair banged against the
wall. Deborah swept back her covers and tiptoed into her brother’s
room.

“What are you doing out so late?”

Hal whirled toward her, his long hair
swinging over one dark eye. “You scared the devil out of me,
Deborah. Don’t you believe in knocking?”

“Why should I knock? Do you have something to
hide?”

“None of your business.”

Filled with a dread she couldn’t name,
Deborah flipped on the light switch. At fifteen, Hal was all arms
and legs. He stood with his feet spread apart in fighting stance
and his hands gathered into fists at his sides. Fresh scratches
reddened the top of one hand.

“Have you been fighting?”

“Lay off. You’re not my mother.”

Maybe not. But she tried to be. She’d tried
since-she was seven years old and the mother they both adored was
shot down in the general store like a rabid coyote, shot once in
the throat and twice in the chest by a drug- crazed man who wanted
the cash box.

Deborah never looked at the cash box without
a sense of fear and revulsion, never touched it without wishing her
mother had given it to the drug addict.

Brushing aside Hal’s objections, Deborah
examined his fist. “You have a splinter. Let me get a needle and
take it out.”

“Go to bed and leave me alone.” Hal jerked
his fist away.

Only a year ago they would sit up hours,
talking to each other. What had happened to the sunny-natured
brother she used to know?

“It will fester.”

“Who gives a shit?”

“I do ...and Father does.”

“All he cares about is that damned
store.”

“That’s not true.”

Except partially. He
did
care about
the store, cared so much that sometimes he failed to notice when
Hal was three hours late getting home from school or when Deborah
outgrew her dresses and wore them too tight and too short because
she was afraid to ask for a new one. Money was scarce. If he
couldn’t afford to pay extra help at the store, how could he afford
to keep her in the style of Juanita Beard or Cassandra Black
Elk?