Witch Dance (14 page)

“I tried to make him over,” Melissa continued. “I tried to make him forget everything he ever believed in, everything that was Chickasaw.”

Shivers skittered along Kate’s spine. Could Eagle ever forget he was a full-blood?

“In the end, I think that’s what killed him. He could never buy back the dignity I took away.” Melissa covered her face with her hands and began to sob. “If I could have him back for one more day, one more hour . . .”

Speaking soothing words, Kate gave her hot tea and a sedative and put her to bed. Then, exhausted both physically and emotionally, she leaned against the bedroom door and closed her eyes. She needed about twelve hours sleep and then a week to absorb all that had happened. But one need overrode all others: to see Eagle and tell him she loved him.

Chapter 15

Witch Dance

Winston couldn’t find his way through the snowstorm. He kept stumbling and falling, and the wind was taking his breath away. An avalanche started high in the mountains and tumbled downward with terrifying speed. He took the full blow on his head.

“Winston . . . Winston . . .” Dovie was calling him from far away. “Wake up, honey. You’re having a nightmare.”

He struggled to sit up, and the avalanche knocked him back to the pillows.

“Winston!” Dovie’s scream brought Wolf and Star running. “Call Cole,” she yelled, jerking on her robe and slippers. “Find Eagle.”

“What’s the matter?” Wolf said,

“Something horrible is happening to your father.”

 o0o

Ada

The entire family gathered around Winston’s hospital bed. That was the way he wanted it. IV tubes were hooked into his arms, and the left side of his face was drawn from the stroke, but he could still talk. Barely. And he still had his wits, or so the doctors said.

“You were lucky, Winston. Your cognitive abilities are still intact.”

He’d need them for what he was about to do.

“My people are now without a leader.” His speech was excruciatingly slow and slurred, but they all seemed to understand. Dovie squeezed his right hand, and he squeezed back. She understood what he was going to do. Many a night they’d lain side by side in their big bed discussing this very thing: the transfer of the Mingo mantle of duty.

“You’ll be back in no time.” Cole’s eyes betrayed his lie. “A little medicine, a little therapy, and you’ll be back in the governor’s office, giving us all hell.”

Mingo released Dovie and raised his hand for silence.

Star tried to muffle her sobs, and Wolf tried to look grown-up. His younger children were scared, but he wasn’t about to give up and let them be without a father. No, he wasn’t going to die, at least not anytime soon if the doctors could be trusted, but neither was he going to recover. Not entirely. Part of him was gone forever, the physical and emotional strength that would allow him to lead his nation.

“My firstborn will take my place.” His eldest son’s face was impassive. That was good. A leader’s thoughts should not be discerned merely by the expression on his face.

Winston closed his eyes for a moment, gathering his strength. He had to get everything said now, in case the doctors were wrong.

“Both my oldest sons have great qualities, but only one of them will lead this nation.” He held out his hand, palm up. “Eagle.”

Cole’s wife put her hand over his arm, and he smiled at her.

“It was fated from the beginning, Anna,” Cole said.

An expectant hush fell on the room, and all eyes turned toward Eagle. With the perfect stillness in his face that Winston knew would soon become a trademark, Eagle moved toward the bed. Only his eyes betrayed his thoughts, his glittering, tragic eyes.

He took his father’s hand, and in the ancient tongue of his people he accepted the terrible mantle of duty.

“It shall be as you wish. I am Eagle Mingo with the blood of my Chickasaw fathers for generations back to the great chieftain Piomingo flowing through my veins. I will serve my people and my nation with honor. And I will never waver in my duties.”

Winston closed his eyes. He could rest now. The transfer of power was complete.

 o0o

Eagle knew she would come to him beside the river. And so he waited, waited beside the mystical fire, letting the new gold of autumn leaves and the hurried rush of the river transfuse his soul.

He saw the white mare coming from a great distance. And when the moon showed its face from behind the cloud, he saw her hair, luminous as the flames warming his skin.

Naked, he stood with his arms outstretched. And she came to them without words, without preliminaries.

He held her with his hands pressed against the flat of her back and her curves fitted softly against his body. The night wind blew her hair against his cheek and her skirts against his leg. The look, the feel, the taste of her seeped through his skin and into his blood, and he knew that she was a part of him, would always be a part of him.

In that crystal moment he would have traded his soul to be with her forever.

He kissed her softly, as if it were the first kiss in creation, too new to be treated with anything except gentleness. And when she began to hum deep in her throat, he devoured her with lips and teeth and tongue.

“I couldn’t wait to get back to you,” she whispered. “I couldn’t wait . . .”

Kate stepped out of her dress, and as it fell in a soft heap at her feet, the ceremonial leavetaking he’d planned flew from his mind, borne away on the winds of passion that swept over him. He took her down to his blanket, and surrounded by her burning flesh he made love in a firestorm of emotion, heaving against her with a silent intensity that sought to obliterate everything in the universe except their two bodies, melded and slick and desperate.

The moon turned her skin to silver and the glow of her entered into him, bone, sinew, and blood; and he knew that as long as he lived, the memories of this night would live too, a shining, untouchable core that was Kate Malone.

Beside them, the river sang its timeless song and their horses whinnied softly. Father Sky withheld his chilling breezes, sending instead the warm breath of Indian summer.

Eagle covered her until they lay at last with arms and legs entwined, temporarily sated. He laced her fingers tightly with his, and pressed their joined hands against his heart. His pain leapt upward and outward, bearing its unspeakable ugliness toward Kate so that she turned to him, uneasy and not understanding why.

“Eagle?”

Her eyes were the color of the sea under storm, and he knew that he would never again see them changing as the seasons do, from the bright emerald of laughter to the smoky gray of fear.

Silently he called upon the four Beloved Things Above to give him comfort, but they hid their faces from him and would not be found.

“Shhh.” He touched her lips with his. “Now is not the time for talking.”

Now was the time for saying good-bye.

Eagle left the blanket. In his tent were two large seashells and the feather of an eagle. Taking Kate gently by the arms, he positioned her, kneeling, upon his blanket.

“
Waka
ahina uno, iskunosi
Wictonaye
.” Facing her, he knelt and cupped her face. “
Waka
.”

“Oh, yes . . .” She threaded her fingers in his hair. “Yes, my golden Eagle.”

“Sexual fire is the magic of life,” he said as he kindled a miniature fire in the largest seashell. “All the powers of the universe come together to create this magic, just as you and I will come together.”

With the feather of his namesake he fanned the purifying smoke over their bodies. It curled around her thighs and drifted upward, ever upward, taking with it the power of the fire and the power of the eagle.

Kate’s body went slack, and she reached for him. He caught her hands and held them tightly.

“A while yet,
Wictonaye
. This must be done with ceremony.”

Sudden understanding made her weak. Braced against his hands, she leaned forward. Through the veil of smoke his face was unreadable, but nothing could hide the torment in his eyes.

“This is good-bye, isn’t it, Eagle?”

“This is good-bye.”

Kate held him fast. It was far, far too late for running away.

“Why?”

“While you were gone my father had a stroke.”

She bit her lower lip to still her cry of despair.

“I am the oldest son, the chosen one.” The smoke could not obscure the mark of the eagle on his thigh. “I will lead my people.”

Love for him beat against her heart like tides seeking the shore, but she kept her feelings inside. From the beginning she’d known that Eagle could never belong to her.

“We had our summer, Eagle.” His eyes burned into hers, and the smell of smoke became overwhelming. All the powers of the universe melded into a single explosion of sexual fire.

Kate and Eagle came together with such force that all the prairie became silent with awe. Even the winds stopped to watch and listen. In the dead calm there were no sounds except the anguished murmur of Muskogean. And when there were finally no ways left to say good-bye, the chosen one and his
Wictonaye
filled the night with their shattered cries.

They lay silent against each other, heaving. At last Eagle raised himself up and dipped the feather into the second seashell. The smell of lavender filled the air.

Kate didn’t move as he caressed her body with the feather. The fragrant water beaded her breasts and pooled in the indentation of her navel. Shivers skittered along her skin when he touched the cool, wet feather between her thighs.

Their gazes locked, held.

“If you would say to me, ‘Stay,’ I would give up everything for you, Kate. Everything.”

“How do you know I won’t, Eagle? How do you know I won’t get on my knees and beg you to stay?”

The feather brushed the blue-veined skin inside her thighs and behind her knees and in the arch of her foot. Sexual fires rekindled in Kate, but she held them inside.

“Because I know you, Kate. You’re too proud to beg.”

With Eagle bending over her, golden and delicious, and the scent of pheromones and lavender filling the air, Kate almost proved him wrong. In one graceful movement she stood to face him.

“Not too proud for one last good-bye,” she whispered.

He bracketed her hips, pulling her to him. The night was deep and watchful as he bade her a final farewell. When it was over, she knelt beside him, and, dipping the eagle feather into the lavender water, she cleansed his lips.

Her hand trembled when she laid the feather aside. That small weakness was the only one she’d allow herself.

“Good-bye, Eagle.”

“Take Mahli, Kate. She’s yours.”

Three months earlier she would have refused the extravagant gift, but her summer among the Chickasaws had taught her that gifts were not to be rebuffed.

“I’ll take good care of her, Eagle.”

“She’ll be receptive soon. I will breed her to the black. All I ask is for her colt.”

“Of course. When Mahli is ready, I’ll bring her to you.” She took a small step back, severing herself from him by degrees. Already his face was a mask. Even his eyes were unreadable. The fire was gone from them, and they were as deep and black as the bottom of the sea.

Needing one last contact, she touched his lips lightly.

“You will be a great leader, Eagle Mingo.”

“And you will be a great doctor, Kate Malone.”

His warm skin made her fingers tingle, and she curled her hand into a fist as if she could capture a part of him and take it with her. Her dress lay upon his blanket, crushed and wrinkled.

Eagle’s gaze never left her as she stepped into her clothes. She made herself walk away slowly, made herself ride away with dignity. Only when she was out of his sight did she set Mahli into a gallop. The wind caught her tears and flung them like dewdrops onto the prairie grasses.

At the campsite, Eagle walked down to the Blue River, and when he stood on the water’s edge he lifted his fists to the sky and renounced Loak-Ishtohoollo-Aba.

Chapter 16

By the time she reached home, Kate’s dignity had begun to unravel. She brushed Mahli down and put her in the stable, then went into her house.

There was nothing to greet her except emptiness. The fire she’d lit when she got in from the airport was still glowing. In happier times Dr. Colbert would have been waiting for her with a cup of hot tea.

Maybe tea would make her feel better. She went into the kitchen, put the water on, and found a tea bag. Would tea cure unrequited love?

Oh, the big dreams she’d had flying home to Witch Dance. The kitchen blurred.

“I won’t cry.” The teakettle whistled, and Kate reached for her cup. Why hadn’t Eagle fought for her? What was so almighty important about being a full-blood? The cup slipped from her hand and crashed onto the kitchen floor.

Everything in her life was broken—her dreams, her family ties, her teacup. Reaching into the cabinet, she grabbed another cup.

“Why?” she yelled. “Why?” With one mighty burst she sent the cup flying across the kitchen. It crashed with a satisfying smack against the wall.

Katie Elizabeth, you’re going to have to watch your temper.

Her father had said that to her when she was only five years old. Three little boys had come home with her from kindergarten, had eaten her cookies and played with her cat, and then they hadn’t let her be a cowboy.

“Girls can’t be cowboys,” the biggest one had said. Larry Joe Higgens was his name, and Kate didn’t like him to this day.

She’d put her hands on her hips and blessed him out, using every word she’d ever heard her father say. “Damnhell you, Larry Joe. Shitfart to good damnhell.”

Big Mick Malone had taken her on his knee and chastised her for losing her temper. Then he’d kissed her curls and said she could be a cowboy; she could be anything she wanted to be.

Oh, Kate
did
miss her father.

She stepped through the shards of china and reached for the telephone. Her mother answered on the second ring.