Warrior's Embrace (53 page)

Viral hepatitis. The same as all six children
in her clinic.

Something terrible was happening to the
children of Witch Dance.

“They’ll need total bed rest and medication.
I’ll move two more beds into the clinic.”

“This outbreak of hepatitis is getting
serious, isn’t it, Kate?” Cole asked.

“Yes, it’s getting serious.” She patted his
hand. “But don’t you worry. I’ll take good care of your
children.”

“You always have.”

Five years before, he’d been her biggest
critic. Now Cole Mingo was her biggest supporter—and had been since
the night Mary Doe was born.

Working side by side with him, making room
for two more beds, Kate remembered how he’d gone all over town,
making amends.

“She saved the lives of my wife and my baby
daughter,” he’d told the townspeople one by one. “If it hadn’t been
for Dr. Kate Malone, they’d be dead.”

First they made small concessions to her.
Deborah’s father started leaving the cash register and greeting her
personally when she went into the general store. Women who had
avoided her on the streets turned to smile and wave. Small gifts
began to appear on her doorstep—a loaf of freshly baked bread, a
pair of beaded moccasins, a chocolate cake. Then old Mrs. Martin,
who owned the needlepoint shop, stopped her on the street one day
and handed her a sampler. HOME SWEET HOME it said.

“Take it,” she said, smiling her toothless
smile. “It’s yours.”

And that was Kate’s official welcome to Witch
Dance ...six months after she’d arrived.

The sampler still hung in the reception room
of the clinic. Everybody who came in remarked how kind Mrs. Martin
was to make it for Kate, and Mrs. Martin herself called attention
to it if nobody else noticed.

“See that,” she’d say, pointing a bony finger
at the framed piece of needlework. “I did it for the medicine
woman. I’m the first one in Witch Dance who ever did a thing for
her.” Then she’d point to the knots on her fingers and lean over to
whoever happened to be sitting next to her. “See that. Arthritis.
The medicine woman gives me magic pills made from sunshine to make
it go away. Not many women with arthritis can make a stitch as good
as Bethany Martin.”

Kate treated their colds and their
stomachaches and their headaches. And by the time Eagle Mingo was
officially elected to replace his father as governor of the
Chickasaw Nation, she was too busy to care.

Almost.

Sitting in front of the television, she’d
watched him address the Tribal Legislature for the first time.

“We remember the greatness,” he said. “We
remember the ancient times when the rivers ran sweet and clear, and
the verdant forests yielded up their game to us. We remember the
swift bark canoes and the bison dances and the sacred fires. And
remembering, we are proud.”

With her bare feet tucked under her, Kate
leaned toward the television, intent on Eagle’s face. Even the poor
reception couldn’t mar the high, elegant cheekbones and the fierce
eyes. Eagle Mingo was more than proud: He was noble.

“But we must not immerse ourselves in
memories, or we will grow dull and stagnant. We must move forward.
We must put all our intelligence and all our willpower to bear on
merging old ways with new so that we go into the twenty-first
century triumphant ...as we have always been triumphant.”

Eagle paused to lift his fists upward. Kate
held her breath, waiting.

“Unconquered and unconquerable!” he said.

The Chickasaw motto rang around the chambers,
and the crowd roared.

“Eagle! Eagle! Eagle!”

The camera followed him as he left the podium
and mingled with his people. They reached out to touch him, calling
his name ...just as she had done once.

“Eagle,” she whispered, but there was no one
to hear. The camera cut to a commercial, and Eagle was lost to
her.

Kate huddled on the sofa and cried until she
was too weak to move. Then she dried her tears and swore she’d
never cry for him again.

She’d kept her word. She hadn’t cried for him
since, not even on those rare occasions when their paths had
crossed.

“I’m scared,” Mary Doe said, bringing her
back to reality, and Kate moved toward her bed. “I want my Mama and
Daddy.”

“Shh, it’s all right, sweetheart. I’m here.”
She pulled up a chair and sat by the little bed.

“Will they come back to get me?”

“Yes. They’ll come back to get you.”

“You won’t leave, will you? I’m scared of the
dark.”

“No, my precious.” She took the small,
feverish hand. “I won’t leave you.”

Mary Doe’s long eyelashes fluttered down to
her pale cheeks, and soon she was fast asleep.

“Do you want me to stay tonight?” Deborah
asked.

“No. You go home and get some rest.” Kate
surveyed the room. Eight little beds, all in a row. “I’ll
stay.”

The bell over the front door tinkled when
Deborah left. Kate made rounds, then ate a light snack and returned
to Mary Doe’s bedside. A sliver of a moon was riding high in the
sky, and its pale glow fell across the child’s face.

How still. Like death.

Shivers ran down Kate’s spine, and she knew
she had to be watchful. Death had beat her once. She wouldn’t let
it win again.

o0o

The moment Eagle had scrupulously avoided
finally came. In seeing his beloved niece and nephew, he would at
last see Kate Malone. Alone. Without the buffer of large crowds.
Long after everyone had gone home, Eagle left his office in Ada and
headed toward the clinic.

He found her sitting there, by the bedside,
her hair aflame in the moonlight. As he stood in the doorway, the
five years they’d been apart vanished, and he was borne away by
memories as vivid as yesterday.

As if she sensed his presence, she turned her
head slowly. At that moment he couldn’t have said whether the
greater agony was in being with her or being apart. Her eyes held
his, burning, until he had to look away.

“Hello, Eagle.” Her voice was neutral, as if
they had never held each other while they soared toward a black and
gold sky.

“Kate.” He moved silently to the opposite
side of his niece’s bed. “I heard about the children. How are
they?”

“It’s viral hepatitis.”

He reached for Mary Doe’s tiny hand. Wary, he
and Kate watched each other, connected by the still form that lay
between them. After five lonely years, finally connected.

“So many beds,” he said, mentally
counting.

“It’s approaching the epidemic stage.” She
talked to him calmly, as if she didn’t feel the heat, didn’t see
the sparks. “Have you heard of any cases in Ada?”

“No. Apparently this disease is confined to
Witch Dance.”

In the bed next to his sister, Bucky
stirred.

“Uncle Eagle?”

“Yes, Bucky. It’s me.” He knelt beside his
eight-year-old nephew’s bed and smoothed the dark hair back from
the child’s flushed face. “How’re you doing, pal?”

“Not too good ...I’m scared.”

“It’s all right to be scared. Only the
foolish are never scared.”

“I’m not foolish ...but I did lie.”

“About what?”

“’Bout swimming in the creek. Mama said not
to.”

“When I was a little boy about your age, I
told a few whoppers myself. And so did your daddy.”

“Sure ‘nuff?”

“Sure enough.” Eagle smoothed the child’s
hair once more. “Now, you get some sleep. I’ll be right here.”

How natural he was with children, Kate
thought. How wonderful. She hated him for taking that away from
her, for denying her the joy of seeing his tender love for the
children she would have borne.

Children she would never bear. And all
because of him. Eagle Mingo had spoiled her for any other man.

And now, there he was, not six feet away from
her, sexy and delicious, making her melt inside with the same
quick, hot lust that overtook her the summer of ‘eighty-nine. That
still overtook her.

She hated him for that too.

“You don’t have to stay,” she said. “I’ll be
here.”

“All night?”

“All night.”

Memories of soft summer winds echoed through
the clinic, and whispers of love words spoken in the ancient
tongue. Kate’s heart kicked hard against her ribs, and she stilled
it with her hand.

“I’m staying,” he said.

“As you wish.” She turned away quickly,
before he could see the flush that crept over her neck.

But Eagle saw, and seeing, he broke his long
silence with Loak-Ishtohoollo-Aba. Silently he swore before that
accursed deity that while he had breath in his body he would never
set eyes on Kate Malone again.

o0o

Fear swept across Witch Dance like a prairie
fire. The Great One smelled it in the Wind and felt it in his
bones. At night, when he covered himself with the buffalo robe that
had belonged to his fathers for generations back, he dreamed of
death riding on a white horse. But its face remained hidden to him.
He fasted for days, and finally, stripped naked and cleansed by the
sacred fires that burned around him, he saw the face of death.

When the morning sun broke the sky, he arose
from his fast and painted his face with the colors of the mountain
cougar, infusing himself with the great strength of the Ghost Cat.
Then he assembled his medicine pouches, and descended the
mountain.

He was the only one who could conquer
death.

o0o

The windows in the governor’s office glowed
pink with the setting sun, and soon a velvet darkness would descend
on the land. In her clinic Kate would be bending over the tiny
forms in their white beds.

Eagle gripped his pencil so hard, it
snapped.

“That’s all, Linda,” he said, abruptly ending
his dictation and throwing the broken pieces of the pencil into the
garbage.

“Governor, I’m not leaving till we get this
letter done. You said it had to go out today, and if I haven’t gone
blind as well as senile, the day is almost over.” With her sensible
shoes planted firmly together and her hands on her hips, Linda
Running Deer faced him. “Besides that, I’m planning to leave early
tomorrow so I can watch ‘Days of Our Lives.’ There’s going to be a
murder, and I want to see who does it.”

Eagle suppressed his grin. Linda Running Deer
had backed down drunks and drug addicts and thieves: She wasn’t
about to quaver before the governor. That’s why he had hired her
away from the chief of tribal police. Martin Black Elk had puffed
and huffed about the best damned secretary in Ada being snatched
from under his nose, but Eagle had known even then that Black Elk
was secretly pleased. There was nothing Black Elk liked better than
being considered a man of good taste, and he bragged far and wide
that he had such good taste he had to select the governor’s
secretary.

“Are you trying to tell me what to do,
Linda?” He scowled, but only because he knew she’d be disappointed
if he didn’t. This was a game they played ...and relished.

“Damned right, Governor. If I didn’t keep you
straight, you’d be as bad as old Raymond Lightfoot, sitting in that
general store, not knowing sunup from sundown.”

Linda plopped herself into her chair and
whipped out her dictation pad. “What you need is a wife.”

“What I need is a new secretary.”

“I’m the only person in Ada who would put up
with your dark moods, and don’t you forget that. Now, do you want
this letter to go out today or next year?”

He always let her have the last word; that,
too, was part of their game. While he dictated, the sun disappeared
and the cool darkness came down over the land.

After Linda had gone home, Eagle drove from
Ada to his ranch in Witch Dance. The quiet pastures and peaceful
mountains transfused his soul. As long as he had the land, he could
survive. He became one with the night as he stood on his front
porch and stared up at the sky.

Suddenly the telephone jarred the silence.
Though the last thing he wanted to do was deal with someone else’s
problems, he couldn’t let it ring without answering: His sense of
duty was too well honed. He went inside and picked it up on the
fourth ring.

“Eagle Mingo,” he said.

“This is Deborah Lightfoot. Kate is going to
kill me for calling you, but I think you should come to the
clinic.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I know it’s ridiculous to bother the
governor with a problem like this, but the last time Kate had
problems with the medicine man, you solved them.”

“Can you be more specific, Deborah?” His
muscles were bunched across his shoulders, and he felt as if a vise
had suddenly squeezed his insides.

“He’s been coming in here every day for the
last three days, shaking his nasty old feathers and sprinkling his
filthy potions over our patients. He and Kate are out in the
reception room now, about ready to kill each other.”

“I’ll be right there.”

“Don’t tell her I called you.”

“I promise.”

He raced through the night on a black
Chickasaw horse with a single white star on his forehead, firstborn
of Kate’s Mahli and Eagle’s cherished black stallion, and as he
rode he remembered the summer nights so long ago when he’d taken
the same path. Desire curled through him like smoke, and with it
the selfish pleasure of seeing Kate again, no matter what the
reason.

When he arrived he could see her through the
window, cool and professional-looking in her white lab coat. But
there was nothing cool and professional about her eyes. As she
faced off against the shaman, they smoldered with temper.

The bell over the door tinkled as Eagle
entered the clinic. Kate whirled toward the sound.

“What is this?” she said. “An Indian
powwow?”

It was only then that he saw her great
fatigue. She had dark circles under her eyes, and her voice was
ragged with exhaustion.