Witch Dance (36 page)

But she stood unmoving, her arms wrapped around herself as much to ward him off as to keep out the spring winds still chilly in the high mountains. The wind soughed between them, crying out for their isolation.

He opened his mouth to speak, though he didn’t know what he would say. How could he bind her to him with words when he couldn’t bind her to him with deeds?

“Please don’t say anything, Eagle. If you call me
Wictonaye
, I’ll lose my resolve. If you speak to me of flying, I’ll spread myself on the ground at your feet and beg you to take me with you.” She held up her palm. “No . . . don’t speak to me yet. I have to finish what I came to say”

He watched her silently, but his eyes spoke to her of love, and she turned her face away so she wouldn’t see. His stallion pawed the ground, impatient, and hers whinnied, skittish,

“I’m going to rebuild my clinic as a memorial to Deborah, and I’m going to rebuild a life here in Witch Dance. A real one this time, Eagle.”

Without him. Her stance and her stubborn chin made that perfectly clear. There would be no more summer affairs beside the Blue River, no more explosive matings in the mountains.

“The clinic will be a good thing. The old shaman is dead, and Witch Dance needs you.”

Witch Dance needed her, she thought, but not Eagle. Governor Eagle Mingo would never need her.

She mounted her stallion in one fluid movement. The time had come to go.

He took a step forward, and for a moment she thought he meant to catch her bridle so she couldn’t leave. But he stopped short of the Appaloosa.

“If I can help you in any way, let me know. The governor’s office is always at your disposal.”

“You can help me by staying away, Eagle.” She tossed her hair and held her back erect. She would not ride away a defeated woman. “If any man ever rides up to my door again to carry me off on a horse, he’d damned well better mean it.”

She wheeled her stallion away, wanting to shut out the sight of him quickly before she could change her mind.

“Kate!”

His voice was not a plea, but a command. She brought her mount to a halt and looked back at him over her shoulder. His eyes sucked her into him so that she went spinning away, caught forever on the medicine wheel.

She held her breath, waiting. At last he spoke.

“Good luck, Kate.”

“I don’t need luck. I plan to make my own.”

The Appaloosa thundered off and disappeared down the side of the mountain. Kate could hardly see through the blur of her tears, but she sat tall and straight on her stallion in case Eagle Mingo had come to the top of the ridge to watch.

 o0o

Alexandria, Virginia

Martha’s suitcases lay open on the bed. Outside her open French doors she could hear Cousin Clara whistling as she walked toward the paddocks, where she would leave explicit and lengthy instructions for the care of her Thoroughbreds.

One last dress hung in the closet, waiting to be packed, a blue sequined gown that Clara had said made her look classy but available, like a woman who might be interested in a man but didn’t necessarily need one. Martha took the dress off the hanger and held it against her body, then twisted around to see herself in the mirror.

She looked like what she was, an old woman trying to appear young.

“Silly old fool,” she said. But she put the dress into the suitcase anyhow. No sense in going off to Europe half cocked, which was another of Clara’s favorite sayings, one she’d used the day they went shopping together for their trip.

“Clara, you’re going to corrupt me,” Martha had said.

“It’s high time somebody did.”

Martha went through the French doors and stood on the balcony, watching her cousin. Clara strode through the paddocks like a woman who knew exactly where she was going and what she was going to do when she got there.

Martha envied that, Clara’s sense of purpose. She herself still felt as if she were drifting around in a little boat in a big, scary sea. She wondered if she would ever be able to find any direction without Kate . . . and without Mick.

At the thought of her husband, her hand flew over her heart, and she thought she might be turning into one of those women who suffered dizzy spells.

“Martha.”

As if her thoughts had popped out of her head and become real, Mick stood in the center of the room next to her bed, where the blue sequined gown spilled out of the suitcase.

“Mick . . . I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry.”

Mick Malone
apologizing
? Was the world coming to an end?

“You look good, Martha.”

Suddenly she was glad that she’d dyed her hair red and that her dress was pink, and that her new shoes made her look three inches taller.

“Thank you, Mick.”

He glanced at her suitcase, and then back at her, suddenly an old man, his bones shrunken too small for his skin and his bluster nothing more than a faint breeze.

“Are you going somewhere, Martha?”

Was she? Even with Mick standing in the room?

“Yes. Clara and I are taking a little jaunt to Europe.”

He stood watching her while the grandfather clock in the hallway chimed the hour. Then slowly he moved across the room.

“Am I too late?”

Almost shyly he reached out and squeezed her hand. She wished he would tell her that he loved her, tell her that he was sorry for all the months and years of isolation. But it was enough that he had come.

“No, Mick. You’re not too late.”

Chapter 42

Witch Dance

Indian paintbrush colored the hills and red-tailed hawks wheeled upward to the burning blue sky. Eagle rode hard, his long hair braided and blowing in the wind. Just the other side of the ridge, Kate’s clinic stood under the trees with an OPEN sign on the door. He hadn’t seen it, but he knew.

Governor Eagle Mingo knew everything . . . except how to live with a broken heart.

He raced toward the Blue River and, stripped naked, swam until his arms were heavy. Lying on a rock, he let the sun dry his skin while the seductive music of the river called to him.

Kate. Kate.

He heard her name everywhere, in the voice of the river and the silence of the stars, in the new dawning of the east and the gentle sleeping of the west. At last, his skin warm from the sun, he rode toward his father’s house.

Winston sat in his favorite chair under the trees, propped up by cushions and shelling peas from Dovie’s garden.

“I thought you might come today,” Winston said.

Today. An auspicious occasion. A turning point.

The wedding invitation lay open on Eagle’s hall table, engraved with their names, Anna Mingo and Larry Carnathan.

Eagle dismounted and leaned against the trunk of a massive oak.

“Are you and Mother all right?”

Winston’s black eyes could still pierce in spite of his age and his illness.

“What use is it to keep trying to fly with a broken wing?” Winston popped open the green pods and forced the peas out with his thumbnail. “The old ways are disappearing, Eagle. Nothing we can say or do will stop that.” He cast the empty shell carefully into the open paper sack sitting beside his chair; then he studied his son. “Dovie and I are fine. How about you?”

“Kate lives and breathes no more than fifteen minutes away from my ranch, and I am separated from her by honor and duty and a tradition that I can no longer justify.”

“Where is the honor if your heart shrivels within you? What is duty that it should steal your happiness?”

“Our nation . . . even our family is becoming homogenized.”

“One man alone can’t stop it.” Winston reached for the peas, and concentrated as he popped them into the pottery bowl he held on his lap. “In my illness, I’ve had much time to think, and I’ve come to believe that courage is more important than blood.”

The courage of a woman who rebuilt her clinic from ashes. Eagle pushed away from the tree and knelt beside his father’s chair to help shell the peas.

“. . . And that old blood can become stagnant if it’s not mixed with new,” Eagle added.

“You’ve given this much thought,” Winston said.

“Yes. I was compelled to. The roots of my heart are forever entangled with Kate Malone’s, and the strongest winds cannot separate us.”

A breeze ruffled Winston’s long gray hair as he silently performed the task that Dovie had set for him. Eagle waited beside the chair, his hands moving among the peas and his heart already flying across the prairie.

“And what conclusions have you come to?” Winston asked finally.

“A wise leader can adopt the exigencies of modern society and yet retain tribal heritage.”

“You are very wise, my son.”

 o0o

Kate escorted her patient to the door—Bethany Martin, her face shriveled like a prune and her hands curled under with the arthritis that constantly plagued her.

“I knew you’d be back.” Bethany gave her a toothless grin, then pressed a box into her hands, its sides greasy from the cookies that were stacked inside.

“And how did you know that, Mrs. Martin? Are you taking up clairvoyance as well as needlepoint and cookie making?”

“Nope. Plain old common sense.” She tapped Kate’s chest with a knotty finger. “You’ve got a stout Chickasaw heart. You’re unconquered and unconquerable.”

“You bet your sweet boots, I am. Nobody’s going to drive me out of Witch Dance again. Not ever.”

Bethany giggled. “My boots are no longer young and sweet, but they still get me where I’m going.”

Kate watched as the old woman climbed into her car, adjusted her hat then set off in a cloud of dust.

Her first patient. And there would be many more.

When the dust settled, she tipped her face to the sky and the noonday sun fell over her like a benediction. There was a new warmth to the sun, a new welcome in the sky. Kate knew that she was finally home.

She had turned to go back inside her clinic, when she heard the thundering of horse’s hooves. Shading her eyes, she looked into the distance.

Eagle Mingo rode into view.

He stopped at the top of the hill, backlit by the sun. Hope thrummed through her, but she stood still at the door, not yet trusting, not yet believing. On the hillside Eagle dismounted and stood gazing down at her as if he, too, could neither trust nor believe.

Suddenly the silence was rent with the cry of an eagle. As the majestic bird spiraled upward, the sun lay along his wings and spread its heat outward, burning, until the glow touched their hearts.

Without taking his gaze from Kate, Eagle bent to gather a bouquet of Indian paintbrush. She reached behind her and turned the sign on the clinic door. CLOSED FOR THE DAY.

Eagle mounted his stallion, then, holding the flowers high as he might carry a banner of victory, he raced down the hill, riding hard, straight toward the clinic. Kate cast aside her white lab coat and started running, running to meet the future.

When the horse was even with her, Eagle dismounted. His eyes never left hers as he held out his hand.

“
Waka
ahina
uno, iskunosi Wictonaye. Waka
.”

“Yes,” she said, reaching out to him. His hand closed around hers.

“This time forever,” he said.

Epilogue

The Eagle

The river sang its timeless song, and out of its waters rose the Eagle, magnificent and golden.

The sun slanted along his wings and reached outward, spreading its warmth to the one who lay upon the colored blanket, touching her hair with fire.

His heart.
His soul. His mate.

He glided downward softly, tenderly, folding her in his wings until he was lost in the deep womb that had nourished his sons

 The End

.

Acknowledgments

I want to thank the following people who so generously shared their time and talent with me during the writing of this book: Glenda Galvan, Chickasaw Nation, Ada, Oklahoma; Buddy Palmer, Julian Riley, and the staff of the Lee County Library, Tupelo, Mississippi, for sharing their knowledge of Chickasaw history; Dr. Charles Montgomery and Ruth Ann Wilson, R.N., Tupelo, for medical information; and Dr. Lynn Cox, All Animal Hospital, also of Tupelo, for unabashedly describing the mating ritual of horses.

A special thanks to Earl J. Cacho of Victorville, California, for allowing me to use his face on the original cover. A renowned wildlife and western artist, Earl is from the Tarasco tribe of Michoacan, Mexico.

I’ve taken literary license with some of the magnificent Indian customs and legends, and I take full responsibility for any errors I might have made in portraying the sickness that stalked the Chickasaw children. In any event, I could not have written
Witch Dance
without the help of these wonderful people, and I am eternally grateful to them.

 -o0o-

Excerpt from Donovan’s Angel (Donovans of the Delta)

 Book One

Peggy Webb

Chapter One

The crisp, dry leaves rattled like old bones as Martie swung her rake briskly back and forth. She sang as she worked, lifting her lusty contralto voice in joyful abandon. Nearby, a large blue-gray Siamese cat gingerly tested the growing pile of leaves with a delicate paw.

Plop! A tattered marigold landed at Martie’s feet. “Why, thank you, Baby.” Dropping the rake, she knelt beside her gangly-legged golden retriever puppy and playfully scratched the soft, pale fur under her neck. “Where have you been this morning?”

Baby’s tail thumped the ground as she bathed her adored owner’s hand with a wet, pink tongue.

Giving her puppy one last pat, Martie picked up the drooping yellow flower and stuck it behind her ear. Baby pranced happily around the yard, stopping long enough to give the cat a thrill by nipping at his tail, and then she disappeared through a gap in the tall clapboard fence.