Warrior's Embrace (38 page)

And now look at them. They couldn’t even be
in the same room without quarreling.

“Is there something else you want to say?”
His daughter looked at him the way she would a stranger.

“No. I’ve had my say.”

He left her with her suitcases and her
foolish notions. A good Bourbon whiskey was what he needed. The
saints only knew how he managed to survive in a household full of
women.

He was on his third whiskey when Martha
tapped on his door.

“Don’t just stand there with your mouth
working like a fish,” he bellowed. “Come on in.”

He hated the way she scuttled about. Like a
damned gray mouse. Her hair was gray, too. And her face. Martha had
let herself go since the boys had died.

“What did you say to her, Mick? She slammed
out of the house like a cyclone.”

“Don’t take that accusing tone with me,
Martha. Why is it that everything that goes wrong around here has
to be my fault?”

“I’m not accusing you, Mick.” She squeezed
her hands together and looked down at her feet. The woman he
married would have spit fire to be talked to like that. He guessed
he ought to be ashamed of himself, but he wasn’t. Shame couldn’t
bring back his sons. Nothing could bring them back.

“Well, Martha, you came in here ...now speak
up.”

Martha went to the window and pulled the
drapes. “Look at her out there, Mick, staring at the ocean.”

“She always does that when she’s upset.
She’ll come to her senses.”

“It’s not good for her to be out there all by
herself.” Martha squeezed her hands together.

“She’s a grown woman ...as she so succinctly
told me at my own dinner table.”

Martha stared out the window. Kate was
walking along the beach now, taking long strides, her dress
billowing around her legs and her hair lifting in the breeze that
came off the ocean. Was she remembering? Martha wondered. What was
she thinking? She never knew what her daughter was thinking these
days. She never knew what
anybody
was thinking.

“She blames herself, you know.”

“For God’s sake, Martha, stop that damned
whispering. Speak up so I can hear you.”

“Nothing, Mick. It was nothing.”

Martha left the room, then got her crocheting
and worked until she heard Mick go to bed. When she heard his
snores, she put down her needles and slipped out the back door.
Kate was still by the water, sitting on the end of the pier,
hugging her knees.

Martha squatted beside her and touched her
hand almost shyly.

“Kate ...honey.”

Her daughter looked at her, dry-eyed. It was
too late for tears. Far too late.

“I ...don’t know what to say to you,
Katie.”

The ocean lapped at the pier, and overhead a
sea gull screamed at them. They reached for each other at the same
time. Arms clinging, foreheads pressed together, they rocked in
silent agony.

“It will be all right, Mother,” Kate
whispered. “Everything will be all right.”

Chickasaw Tribal Lands

Summer 1989

Brave words
. She’d said brave words
to her mother that night beside the ocean, then later, when she’d
kissed her good-bye. “Don’t worry, Mother. I’ll be fine.”

“He didn’t mean what he said ...I know he
didn’t.”

It didn’t matter anymore. Kate had Fitzgerald
money from her mother’s people, and Malone pride straight from her
father. What more did she need?

They’d clung together a moment longer, then
Kate had climbed into her car.

“Write to me,” Martha said. “Let me know how
you are.”

How she was, was scared to death and
lonesome, as lonesome as she’d ever been in her life. Standing in a
general store in Chickasaw Tribal Lands beside the hoop cheese,
enduring the suspicious if not downright hostile stares of the
locals, she wanted to run. Self-consciously she smoothed her shorts
over her pale legs. She wished she’d taken advantage of the South
Carolina sun the few days she’d been home. Then maybe she wouldn’t
stand out like an onion in a field of sunflowers.

“All right,” she said to herself. “Just ask
directions and then go home.”

Home. Now, there was another thing. Home was
no longer an antebellum mansion in South Carolina; home was
someplace she’d never seen in a strange land among strange people.
She’d soon remedy that; she’d soon remedy a lot of things.

“May I help you?”

The young woman who spoke looked to be about
nineteen, and she was exquisite, with luminous black hair that hung
straight to her waist, skin the color of polished copper, and
finely defined cheekbones.

“May I help you?” she asked again,
smiling.

Kate could have wept at the sight of a
smiling face.

“Yes, I seem to be lost.” She held out the
wrinkled map as if that explained her predicament.

“You’re a visitor here, then?”

“No. Actually I’ve come to stay.” More brave
words, she thought as she held out her hand. “I’m Kate Malone, and
I’ll be practicing medicine here.”

“A medicine woman?” The girl’s dark eyes
sparkled as she shook Kate’s hand. “You don’t look like a medicine
woman.”

Kate laughed. “What’s a medicine woman
supposed to look like?”

“Ancient as the hills with crow’s feet around
her eyes and gray hair. You’re too young and too beautiful. And
your hair is as bright as the paintbrush that colors the land.”
Without waiting for permission, she reached out and rubbed a strand
of Kate’s hair between her fingers.

“I wish my hair were that color. Can you tell
me which product to use to get that stunning result?”

“I’m afraid not. I was born with red
hair.”

“And I was born with hair that looks like a
horse’s tail.” The girl looked morose, then her face brightened.
“But I’m smart, and I have many boyfriends.”

Kate didn’t doubt it for a minute. The young
woman had so charmed her that she’d almost forgotten why she’d
stopped at the store.

“Do you know where Dr. Clayton Colbert
lives?”

“If I tell you, you’ll only get lost again.
Why don’t I show you?”

“You’d do that for me?”

“Yes, but don’t get the idea that I’m
generous and kindhearted. I never do a favor without asking for one
in return.” The girl held out her hand once more. “I’m Deborah
Lightfoot. Is it a deal?”

“It’s a deal.”

Later, streaking along behind the young
woman’s Jeep and trying her best to keep up, Kate figured she was
breaking every tribal law on the books. Speeding ...They were
roaring along at ninety miles an hour. Noise pollution ...Deborah’s
radio blared rock and roll loud enough to cause deafness.
Destruction of property ...She wasn’t certain, but she thought
Deborah had plowed down a fence post on that last curve they
took.

It was a great relief when they finally
arrived at their destination all in one piece.

“That was quite a ride, Deborah. I thought
you were going to be my first patient.”

“Are you not a daredevil?”

Kate looked at the mountains rising behind
Dr. Colbert’s house, listened to the calls of birds she couldn’t
identify and the far-off howling of an animal she didn’t know, felt
the gathering darkness across the vast, primeval land.

She was a stranger here, a white woman who
knew neither the Chickasaw customs nor the Chickasaw culture. And
yet she’d left everything that was familiar to her, not out of
whim, not out of a temporary pique at her father, but out of her
own great need. If she worked long enough and hard enough, if she
saved enough lives single-handedly, without the aid of big
hospitals and fancy equipment and big-name doctors, the bad dreams
might go away and her father might forgive her.

“No, I’m not a daredevil,” she said. Just a
weak mortal with a mission.

“Welcome to Witch Dance,” Deborah said, then
revved the engine till her Jeep was straining and shuddering like a
stallion eager for the race.

Kate said good-bye, got her bags out of the
car, and went inside to meet her mentor.

Charleston was another world away. Her life
of atonement had begun.

Houston, Texas

Summer 1989

Eagle Mingo worked without a shirt, striding
around the construction site with the intensity of a warrior and
the proud bearing of a full-blood. Descendant of a long line of
Chickasaw chieftains, including the great Opya Mingo, or Piomingo,
as the history books called him, he carried the mark of his
ancestors—high, finely defined cheekbones, fierce black eyes, and
smooth bronze skin.

Marcus Rayburn kicked back in his swivel
chair in the trailer that housed the temporary offices and watched
the show. Brenda and Betty, the two secretaries, couldn’t do their
typing for gazing out the window, and Rosalind, the head
bookkeeper, left her books so many times to go to the water cooler
that Marcus got up a bet with Jim Clancy about when her next trip
would be.

“Bet she won’t last five minutes without
coming to get some more water,” Marcus said.

“Ten.” Jim wadded the paper he was working on
into a ball and tossed it into the garbage can. He missed, and the
paper ball lay on the floor with a dozen others that had missed
their mark.

“What d’you want to bet?”

“A cold beer.”

“Make it two, and you’re on.”

Five minutes later the door to Rosalind’s
office opened and she sashayed out, fluffing up her hair and
pursing her freshly painted lips.

“Thirsty, Roz?” Marcus said.

“It’s this heat.” Her face turned pink.

“Yeah, it’s the heat all right,” Jim said
after her door closed behind her. “Body heat. Brought on by a
pilgrimage to the Chickasaw shrine.”

“I won,” Marcus said. “Damn. It’s going to be
dull around here when he leaves.”

“Yeah. No more swooning females.”

“No more competition. Not that he ever
notices. You’d think he was made of cast iron or something, the way
he can resist temptation.”

“Resist bait, you mean. The way the women go
after him, it’s pure bait.” Jim stood and stretched his long, bony
frame. “I for one will be glad to see him go. He’s giving the rest
of us a bad name, working out there in the heat like a hired
hand.”

“I wish I could say he’s all brawn and no
brain, but my mama taught me never to tell a lie.” Marcus got his
hard hat off the top of his cluttered desk and rammed it onto his
head. “Besides that, I like the guy. Best damned engineer I’ve ever
seen. It’s going to be a shame to lose him.” He stalked toward the
door. “Up and at ‘em, Clancy. We’ve got a job to do here ...if
Mingo hasn’t already finished it while we dawdled.”

The trailer door banged behind them as they
went out into the bright, hot Texas sun.

Eagle stood beside a stack of galvanized pipe
and watched them come—Marcus with his wry wit and deep drawl, Jim
with his easygoing ways and his locker- room humor. He was going to
miss them.

“Ever think about puttin’ on a shirt to make
it easier on the females,” Jim said, grinning.

“I like the feel of the sun on my skin.”

“Yeah, well, if I let the sun on this skin,
I’d look like a speckled egg.”

“You do anyhow, Jim,” Marcus said. “Hey,
Mingo. Have you reconsidered?”

“No. I must go home.”

“Witch Dance. That’s a hell of a name for a
town.” Jim pulled off his hat and scratched his head. “What’s it
like?”

“Like no other place in the world.”

Just hearing the name conjured up lovely
images for Eagle, and such longing, he wished he could leave now
instead of waiting until the following day. Indian paintbrush would
be in bloom, and red-tailed hawks would be sailing the blue skies.
The air would be so sweet and clear, a man could see the mountains
and beyond. And the Blue River would be singing its ancient song.
He could almost hear its music.

Witch Dance. He’d fished its streams, raced
across its meadows, and hunted in its mountains. Witch Dance. A
land of vast expanses and green sanctuaries and relentless beauty.
It called to him across time and space, and in his heart he
answered.

“Listen, pal,” Marcus said, “if it’s about
pay, I’ve heard through the grapevine that old man Shamus would
double your salary to get you to stay.”

“This is not about pay,” Eagle said. “It’s
about commitment.”

His people needed him. When he’d left twelve
years before to earn his engineering degree, he hadn’t intended to
stay away so long. But there had been so much to learn, so much he
needed to know.

“You will return, my son?” his father had
asked.

“I will return.” He’d clasped his father’s
shoulders. “I won’t let you down. Nor my people.”

“There will be temptations.”

There had been many temptations: easy money,
big cities, fast women. But always Eagle had kept his vision before
him. His people needed the prosperity and progressiveness of the
new ways as well as the purity and strength of the old. They needed
the modern roads he knew how to build and the strong bridges he
could construct. They needed the hospitals and schools and banks
and factories.

He could build them all. And he would ...on
tribal lands for the benefit of his people.

“I can’t argue with that, Mingo.” Marcus
clapped him on the shoulder as the five o’clock whistle sounded and
workers on the construction site began their noisy leave-taking.
“How about a farewell match at the old dartboard in Sally’s Bar?
Best three out of five. I need to redeem myself.”

Eagle reached for his shirt, grinning.
“Marcus, the thing I’m going to miss most about you is your eternal
optimism.”

“Prepare to lose your shirt, Marcus,” Jim
said.

“Does that mean you’re going to bet against
me?”

“I always put my money on the winner. Mingo
hasn’t lost a game yet. It’s damned voodoo magic or something.”