Witch Dance (17 page)

“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.

“I’ve come to help, Kate.”

“I didn’t ask for your help. I have a clinic full of sick children, and I don’t need the leaders of the Chickasaw Nation to tell me how to do my job.”

The old shaman faced Kate as erect as a war pole, and just as fierce. With his face painted the colors of the Ghost Cat, he looked like a man half his age. There was still power in his limbs and fire in his eyes. Whether Kate knew it or not, the Great One was not a man to alienate.

“Is Deborah inside with the children?” Eagle asked.

“Yes. Somebody has to be.” Kate looked pointedly at the shaman. The eyes that stared back at her were full of enmity

“Why don’t we all sit down and have a cap of coffee?”

“Coffee? I don’t want coffee. I want this man out of my clinic and away from my patients.”

“I have had a vision,” the shaman said. “The children of my people are dying. I have come to save them.”