Warrior's Embrace (50 page)

“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 leave-taking 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.

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.

“Katie? It’s so good to hear from you.”

“How are you, Mother?”

“Fine, just fine.” When had Martha Malone
ever admitted to anything else? “How are things with you?”

“I’ve had better days.”

“Anything I can do, honey?”

Yes. You can kiss the hurt and make it go
away.

“No ...it’s just my period coming on.... Is
Daddy there?”

“He’s ...I don’t know.... Let me check,
okay?”

Kate heard Martha’s footsteps tapping lightly
against the wooden floor. It would be polished to a high sheen and
smelling of lemon wax. Sun spilling through the beveled glass door
would be casting a rainbow on the wall.