Eagle, Kathleen (12 page)

The
shirt's garish colors had dwindled to ink and ash. Reese added more sage despite
the way the pungent smoke burned his eyes. He wiped them with the back of his
hand and piled on more sage. Then, one by one, he burned the personal pieces of
his father's earthly life. The heat rolled over him, so intense that he took
off his own shirt. A plaid wool coat smoldered and gave off a singed-hair
smell. White smoke drifted toward the swaying tops of the cottonwood trees,
into the darkness.

A
song rose in the back of his throat, words of sorrow and contrition in a
language his brain had let languish but his heart remembered. His poor, clumsy
heart, which had all it could do to keep his big body going from day to day,
would not divest itself of the old, useless, fugitive fragments. So the song
found its way through his mouth, which gave it to the smoke, which took it into
the night.

Tunkasila,
hear me, for this spirit who comes to you was my father. See him coming alone,
he who led our people,
he ya he.

He
felt strange to himself, his body wondrously small and oddly obscured by the
huge sound of his voice and the echo that ricocheted from star to star. The
night sky had taken his song. He was so completely absorbed that he did not
hear anything but the crackle of the fire feeding on his father's clothes, nor
did he see any light but fire and star.

A
set of headlights bathed the road briefly before being extinguished. An engine
rumbled, idled, then fell quiet. The dog leaped to his feet, but did not bark.
A door opened and closed, softly. Respectfully. Reese marked none of this. He
stood close to the fire, sweat flowing freely, cleansing every pore as he sang
for the spirit of his father, sang his song through again and again, because
the trail was long and the night was vast. One small soul might easily be lost
without a strong-heart song to carry it to the other side, to make the
announcement so that those who waited would know it was time to receive this
one.

He
comes. See where he comes. This brave man comes.

When
he turned and saw Helen, there was no surprise in him. There was no
displeasure, no self-consciousness, nothing to keep him from her. He was filled
to overflowing, resonant with power and celebration, and he felt only delight
in seeing her. He lifted his arms, turned his palms up in invitation.

She
acknowledged the dog, but her eyes were on Reese. She started toward him
slowly, picking up her pace as she got closer. When she reached him she was
like a bird sailing into his arms. Without a word, he lifted her to his kiss.
There was fire in his heart and at his back, and she felt airy and cool next to
his sweat-slick body, her face above his, her lips kissing and kissing him. He
drank her kisses like water, hadn't realized his thirst until this moment, and
when she stopped the kissing to simply look and let him watch the fire dance in
her eyes, he swallowed, swallowed, savored the taste she'd left in his mouth.

Cool
hands came to his wet face, stroked his cheeks, and he thought her face
appeared to be wet, too. But the water was in his eyes. In his mouth, in his
eyes, from the fire, he thought. From the acrid smoke. She must have thought he
was crying, which, of course, he couldn't be. There could be no tears on the
face of Reese Blue Sky. But her fingers touched him so sweetly, stroked so
gently, he would not protest.

He
let her down slowly, a long, easy slide, and when her shoes touched his boots
he bent to kiss her more. He could tell that his kisses were welcome by the way
she clung to his shoulders and stroked his hair and answered him, kiss for
kiss. He wanted to bury his face against her, and he found himself down on one
knee, undoing the buttons on her white blouse, the hook between her breasts.
She stroked his hair, watched him, said nothing until he laid his face in the
valley between her breasts, and then what she said was not a word, but more
than a word. It was a come-to-me sound. He was welcome. He was safe. He was
where he belonged, at least for this moment. He kissed the swell of her breast,
stroked its lower curve with his tongue. She hooked her fingers into his hair.

He
closed his eyes and learned her shape all over again with his hands, the
once-familiar curve of her bottom, the firm curve of her belly, the womanly
curve of her hips. He wasn't looking for a zipper, but there it was at her hip,
so he opened it, pushed her skirt off her hips, ran his hands over her silky
slip.

He
looked up at her, a thousand wishes whirling inside his head, yet they were not
to be uttered, not even one. To wish out loud would break the spell. Instead he
tightened his arms around her hips, lifted her, and carried her to the pallet
of quilts he'd laid on the grass for his bed. He grabbed the top item from what
was left of his father's things—a shirt of some kind—knelt on the pallet, and
began mopping his torso. She took the cloth from him and did him this service,
blotting first his face, then his neck, his shoulders, his chest, handling him
carefully, as if she were cleaning some precious heirloom. He knelt there and
permitted this ministering of hers, testing his forbearance in the face of his
need to reciprocate.

The
invitation came in her eyes, and he answered with a hungry kiss. Her mouth was
succulent, moist, her tongue darting to meet his. He brushed the sides of her
neck with solicitous fingertips, peeling her blouse away as he tracked tight
muscle to her shoulders. Her blouse slid to the ground, freeing her arms to
hold him while he kissed her and tasted the cool sweetness she'd brought him
from the earthy side of the night. He unhooked her bra and pushed that away,
too, so that her breasts might touch him and be harried by the feel of him
while his hands skated unimpeded over her lovely, tapered back. Contact with
his chest honed her nipples to fine, sweet points.

He
kissed her again, let her taste his hunger as she slipped her hand between
them, over his belly, into his pants. Yes, he wanted her, and yes, he was
ready. He lifted his face to the blaze-warmed breeze, cleared his head with
starlight.

"Reese..."

"Shhh."
He held her close, trembling on the inside exactly the way she was trembling on
the outside. Eyes closed, he filled his head with the scent of burning sage,
the promise of heaven and Helen. "I'll go get what we need in a minute.
Don't send me away yet."

Her
fingers fluttered in his pants, and he groaned.

"I
don't want you to go anywhere," she whispered. "Let me—"

"You
want me to stay?" He smiled because he had to loosen his pants to
extricate her. "Hit or stay. Those are your choices," he reminded
her. "I'll stay and make you come, how's that?"

"You
can't..."

"House
rules," he whispered as he lowered her to his blankets. "My house, my
odds, my..."

He
worshipped her with his mouth, teasing, suckling her, flicking his tongue over
sensitive places, steadily nudging her until her breath was trapped in tiny
spasms and he could feel her teetering, topping off, echoing, "My...
my," and then, tumbling back to him, "My oh my oh my..."

He
held her, his body absorbing her delicate tremors, making them partly his. Not
the time to get up and walk away, but he couldn't think of too many options.
Too bad there hadn't been a box of condoms among the old man's personal
effects. He'd never heard about any repercussions from the
wanagi
for
using condoms they might have left behind, but he figured whatever he found
could well be holey.

Damn,
this was not time to bust out laughing, either.

"I
could use some water. Can I bring you something?" Reluctantly he moved
away. "You won't leave me, will you?"

"That
wouldn't be very nice, would it?" She caught his hand. "Anyway, I
still want a hit."

"Blackjack
or bust?"

"Blackjack
or..." She brushed her cheek over the back of his hand. "Or Blue Sky.
Much rather have Blue Sky. I've missed you."

"Really,"
he said, doubtful, but thinking maybe she meant for it to be true, and that was
enough. She wanted him now, and that, too, was enough.

He
fastened his jeans and disappeared into the house after telling Helen she was
to be the fire-tender until he returned. Huddled in a summer-thin quilt, not
for warmth but for cover, she watched him go, feeling something akin to the
rush she got when she'd won two or three hands in a row. She knew she was
pushing her luck, and that was the best part. Foolish, foolish, foolish. She
could lose everything. He could take everything. Why was she taking this
terrible, terrible chance?

She
sat up slowly. Close, so close to the flame. Reese was doing his duty to his
father, and he had given her a piece of it.
Tend my fire.
She added a
piece of dry cotton-wood and a handful of sage. The fire leaped to consume her
offering. She held the quilt open and scooped the white smoke inside, hoping it
would purify white skin as well as brown. She had no idea what words to use.
"Cleanse me," she whispered, adding, "For this one night. Wash
everything else away and let me love him just for tonight."

Whom
was she trying to fool? It was a selfish prayer, and she knew it. It was a dumb
thing for a woman in her position to utter, even in the dark with no one else
around. But she'd come to him in fire and darkness, and the power that drew her
there had little to do with past or future. It was truer than that, and the
only way to deny it was to separate herself from it. But it was too late. She
listened to the door close. She heard him speak to his dog. She watched him, a
tall shadow striding across the yard, prairie grass swishing against his jeans.

He
brought two bottles of spring water. "I ought to pour it over my head, but
that would wake me up, and this is one dream I don't want to..." His knee
cracked as he squatted next to her and handed her a bottle. "What made you
come?"

She
stared at him, he at her, and the laughter hit them both. She poured a little
water in her hand and splashed his face with it. Grinning, he replied by
pouring some in his hand and cooling her face with it, then her neck and chest.

"Feels
good," she said.

"Fire-tending's
hot work," he said as he stretched out beside her.

"I
was on my way home from work. I saw the fire."

"This
isn't on your way."

"No,
but I don't think I would have stopped otherwise."

He
studied her for a moment before tipping his head back for a long pull from the
bottle. Through the clear plastic she could see the fire dancing in the water.
He pressed his lips together, swallowed, gazed at the fire. "You would
have come this way only to drive past?"

"But
I saw the fire. I knew you must be..." She looked at the things left to be
burned, waiting there like a diminished pile of laundry. "I didn't want
you to do this alone. Maybe you're supposed to, but I..." She laughed and
groaned and shook her head. "Oh, I came anyway."

"Okay,
so I made you come, and I can do it again." He was smiling as he reached
out to tuck her hair behind her ear. "Again and again, but you know that.
You've known that since the beginning. I was born to please you,
remember?"

"Whose
line was that? Not mine, I hope." She nuzzled his palm and whispered,
"I do have some protection in the car, in my purse."

"In
my pocket," he said as he pulled her into his arms for a kiss. It was the
kind of kiss a man gave to a woman he shared his days and nights and all of his
secrets with.

She
wanted the kiss without the rest. Oh, maybe a little of the rest, a hint of
what it might have been like if she had wanted the rest, if he had wanted it,
if they had taken the risk.

He
withdrew from their kiss smiling, as though they were proving something to his
satisfaction. "We're smarter than we used to be, huh?"

"Older
and much wiser."

"Oh,
I'm gettin' there," he assured her. "That was the problem you had
with me, wasn't it? When we were alone, I was a man. When we were around other
people, I was still a boy to you."

Around
other people? She didn't remember them doing much socializing during their
short, sweet season together. But his dark eyes informed against some memory
that troubled him. She'd hurt him somehow, and the fact that she was unaware
made it worse. She remembered feeling a little awkward about some of her
colleagues having been his teachers. Maybe more than a little. What had she
done to cover that up?

He
could see her struggling to remember. His eyes twinkled in the firelight.
"But I'm catching up, Maggie May."

She
laughed. That damned Rod Stewart song he used to tease her with. If she'd
embarrassed him, he'd gotten back at her with that. "I'll always be
older," she insisted.

"Only
if you're looking at calendars. I used to be too damn big for my age. Now I'm
too damn broken-down for my age." He adjusted her wrap, brought his fists
full of blanket together beneath her chin, and touched his forehead to hers.
"Age means absolutely nothing to us now, and we both know it. That's one
strike you can't hold against me anymore."