Warrior's Embrace (57 page)

He knew the cause.

Cole didn’t bother with a glass but drank
straight from the bottle. Kate Malone’s voice sounded like serpents
hissing in his ears.

Or maybe it was the liquor. Had the whiskey
turned to snakes? Did it speak with the
sente
soolish
?

Covering his ears, Cole dropped the bottle.
It crashed at his feet, sending whiskey and glass flying.

Cole gazed down at the mess. The room spun a
moment, then righted itself. He had desecrated Bucky’s room.

Hurrying, stumbling over his feet and the
small furniture, Cole went into the bathroom for towels. On his
knees he scrubbed at the wreckage. Hard. He didn’t even notice when
the broken glass cut his hand.

All he saw was the whiskey and the blood.

Melissa Sayers Colbert wore a plain black
designer suit with a pearl and diamond choker that had been in her
family for three generations. Her hair stylist had arranged her
hair in a simple French twist. She sat with her legs demurely
crossed at the ankles and her hands folded in her lap.

Folded and still. No fidgeting. Fidgeters
didn’t get out of The Towers.

The Towers
. How she hated that name.
As if she’d spent the last four and a half years at some great and
glorious height instead of in a bare room that contained nothing
she could use to cut her wrists or hang herself.

“You look good, Melissa.” Dr. Marlin Houston
looked like Buddha sitting behind his desk with his disgustingly
fat belly and his bald head, but Melissa didn’t tell him so. Her
release depended on him.

“Thank you.”
Keep
it simple. Say
nothing to tip him off
.

“You’ve made great progress these last three
months.” Dr. Houston folded his fat hands and propped them on his
belly.

Clayton hadn’t had an ounce of extra fat on
his body. She remembered how he used to stand with his shoulders
back and his hips jutted slightly forward so that he looked relaxed
and arrogant at the same time.

Her hands began to tremble and she hid them
behind her purse.

Don’t think about Clayton until you get
out.

“This is the most rewarding part of my job,
Melissa. Signing the release.” He wrote his signature with a
flourish then smiled at her. “I expect I’ll be seeing your picture
again in the society pages before too long.”

“Perhaps.” She let her own smile match his.
Demure. Not triumphant. Not secretive.

“What are your immediate plans?”

“I thought I’d do a little traveling.”

“Good. It’s a great time of year to see the
sights.”

She knew Witch Dance had some beautiful
sights. Clayton had talked about them enough so that she could
picture them without ever setting foot on Tribal Lands. But it
wasn’t the sights she was going to see.

Back in her bare room she opened her purse
and took out the cards. Then she spread them on the bed and counted
them. Eight. One every Christmas and one every year on the
anniversary of Clayton’s death.

Although she knew them by heart, Melissa read
them all again. Then she put them back in her purse and closed the
snap.

Did that redheaded bitch think eight cards
made up for stealing Clayton?

o0o

Kate and Mark worked tirelessly every day,
searching medical records, questioning parents, and following false
leads. And at night they fell into separate beds, exhausted.
Finally the pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

All paths led to Witch Creek.

They left early Saturday morning, on horses.
The creek was swollen with recent rains, its muddy waters
overflowing the banks in some spots.

“Holy shit!” Mark said as two large carp
landed at his feet, their bloated bodies ready to explode. He knelt
quickly, studying the fish then gazed out over the creek. Rusty
cans and broken sticks floated by ...and other dead fish. “Pay
dirt, Kate. Look at that.”

Across the way the Witch Dance Tool and Die
Plant spewed plumes of smoke into the air, running full tilt. The
eight o’clock whistle rent the silence, and a large group of
blue-shirted workers poured out the front door, while another large
group went inside, changing shifts.

Quickly Mark and Kate gathered samples of the
water.

“What do you bet we find carbon tet?” he
said.

Kate had a sudden vision of children playing
in the water, laughing in the sunshine while the deadly solvent,
carbon tetrachloride, was absorbed through their skin. It made
perfect sense. And yet to find a factory guilty of pollution of
that nature, either intentional or otherwise, would be politically
and economically explosive.

“We can’t know that yet.”

“Until we do, this place had damned well
better be off limits to everybody in Witch Dance. Who can do that,
Kate?”

One man. Eagle Mingo.

“Monday I’ll go and see the governor,” she
said.

o0o

Eagle watched for her out the window like a
jealous lover. Kate’s car stopped at the curb and Mark Grant helped
her out. They stood close, too close for mere colleagues.

Anna had told him all about Mark, describing
the young doctor in excruciating detail, right down to his boyish
grin, never knowing that every word she uttered lacerated Eagle’s
soul.

Witch Dance was a small village where
everybody’s business was up for discussion, particularly the
business of the governor’s former lover. Eagle was ashamed of the
way he had stationed himself beside the village gossips the past
week, listening for the latest word on Kate. He became a regular at
places he usually shunned, Graden’s Pool Hall, Jimmy Running Bear’s
Bar.

“The medicine woman’s found herself some new
medicine,” a man at the bar had said Saturday night. “A doctor with
a great bedside manner.” He slapped his hand on his knee, tickled
at his own pathetic humor.

Depraved maniac that he was, Eagle picked up
his beer and casually changed stools so he’d be closer.

“So I heard,” the woman with him said. “My
brother was coming off the night shift at the plant and saw them
down at Witch Creek together. Kissing.”

“Kissing? You don’t say?”

“Well, he could have been mistaken, but he
said it sure looked like it to him.” She slugged back her drink.
“He’s staying right there in her house. I don’t even have brains,
and I’ve got that figured out.”

“You got brains, honey, but they’re not in
your head.”

“Where are they, Joe?”

“In the right place, Pearl.”

The memory of that conversation still plagued
Eagle. He’d released her five years before. What right did he have
to know what she was doing now? Or to care?

“Dr. Malone is here,” his secretary said over
the intercom.

“Send her in.” Eagle didn’t have to freeze
his face into a careful mask: It had been frozen for years. So had
his heart.

“Hello, Kate.”

“Eagle.”

There was a brightness to her smile and a
quickness to her step that hadn’t been there before. Was Mark Grant
responsible? Were the sleazy gossips right?

“As you know, I’ve been investigating the
death of my patients.”

He didn’t pretend ignorance. He made it his
business to know everything that went on in Tribal Lands. Kate, of
all people, knew that about him.

“Yes.” So far, so good. He sounded
interested, yet cool and removed. As befitted a governor.

“Dr. Mark Grant is helping me.”

How? Is he cooling your hot skin with his
tongue? Do you fly with him as you did with me?

Waka ahina uno, iskunosi Wictonaye.
Waka.

Her voice flowed over him like warm honey as
she told him of their discoveries at Witch Creek ...and their
suspicions.

“The area needs to be quarantined,” she
said.

“Even before the investigation is
complete?”

“Yes. I’m not willing to take chances with
the lives of children. Are you?”

The minute she asked the question, Kate was
ashamed of herself. For the first time since she’d walked into the
office, Eagle dropped his careful mask.

“Do you think I’ll let more children die if I
can prevent it?” Suddenly the thunderous rage went out of him, and
he became businesslike once more. “If Witch Creek is polluted, as
you and your colleague suspect, then the rest of the investigation
will be the responsibility of this office.”

“But—”

“I know you, Kate. I’ve seen you charge into
battle with a mop.”

Memories threatened to be her undoing.

Be generous, Kate, he said as she tangled
herself around him like a morning glory vine.

She stood up. While she still could.

“I’m interested only in the medical aspect of
this investigation, not the political. I’ll do my job and you can
do yours. Without me and my formidable mop.”

Eagle watched until she was out the door,
then he went back to the window and watched her walk all the way
down to the street. She smiled when she saw Mark, smiled when he
put his hands all over her, helping her into the car.

Eagle gripped the edge of the windowsill. It
wasn’t Kate’s mop that was formidable. She was a powder keg and he
was the match. Or was it the other way around?

Where would they go in Kate’s red car? Back
to her cottage to make love on her white sheets while the setting
sun gilded her skin and turned her hair to flame?

Sitting at his desk, Eagle suddenly felt
drained of all energy. Overwork was partially responsible. There
was more to do in his second term as governor than in his first.
More industries were discovering the advantages of locating on
Tribal Lands. Some of the legislators wanted owners of gambling
casinos to be allowed building permits. There was an ongoing battle
between environmentalists and the manufacturers.

He went back to the window to see if he could
catch a glimpse of Kate’s car. She was long since out of sight.

Foolish at his age to be watching out the
window for a woman he couldn’t have.

He was not getting any younger. Perhaps his
father was right. It was time for him to be looking for a wife.

“I’m getting old,” Winston had said. “I’d
like to live to see your issue, Eagle.”

His issue. They would have to be full-blood,
of course. Mentally he ran down his list of full-blood women. Most
of them were already married, and the others were far too young.
Only one woman came to mind. She was lovely, intelligent, and
single. A perfect candidate to bear his
issue
.

Everything in Eagle recoiled at the idea.
Visions of his future came to him, a future empty of love and
devoid of children. A brilliant image of Kate flashed into his
mind, Kate, with the wind and the sun in her hair, galloping across
the prairie on Mahli.

He’d sacrificed his love for the good of the
Chickasaw Nation. Surely he could sacrifice his pride for the sake
of family.

With his jaw set in steely determination, he
picked up the phone and dialed. Never let it be said that Eagle
Mingo had destroyed the sacred lineage.

“Hello?” The female voice at the other end of
the line was full of life and spirit.

“This is Eagle Mingo,” he said, committing
himself to a course of action that would forever rip asunder the
fragile ties that still bound him to Kate Malone.

Deborah hated keeping secrets. More than
that, she hated feeling like a traitor. Actually, she hadn’t
betrayed anybody, not yet anyhow; but she was certainly tempted.
Oh, how she was tempted.

“Deborah . . .” Kate came up behind her, and
she nearly dropped the chart she was working on. “You’re as jumpy
as a cat today. Is anything wrong?”

“No.” Now she was a liar too. “Just the
excitement of sending all our patients home.”

“Not all of them, Deborah.”

The pain in Kate’s voice nearly broke her
heart. She put an arm around her best friend’s shoulders.

“Three survived. Just remember that.”

“I’m trying.”

“While you’re at it, think how many lives
you’ve saved by finding out about the carbon tet in Witch
Creek.”

“It’s not over yet. And anyhow, I didn’t do
it alone. Mark helped.”

“Are you going to the benefit dance for the
Chickasaw Cultural Center with him?”

“How did you know he’d asked?”

“I have eyes and ears, Kate, and they rarely
ever fail me, especially when I’ve been eavesdropping.” Kate
laughed. “You should go. It’s time to move on beyond . . .”

“Eagle?”

“Yes.” Deborah felt her face flame. Was she
trying to help her best friend, or was her advice self-serving? She
turned quickly toward the coffeepot.

“What’s the matter with you, Deborah?”

“Nothing’s the matter with me.”

“Oh, yeah? Since when have you started
turning your back instead of looking me straight in the eye and
telling me exactly what I should do? I no longer fall apart at the
mention of Eagle Mingo’s name.”

The cup slipped from Deborah’s hand, sending
hot coffee and glass shards across the floor. She and Kate reached
for paper towels at the same time. Deborah stepped back,
red-faced.

Sudden comprehension dawned on Kate.

“
You’re
the one who is upset. What’s
going on?”

“I didn’t mean to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“Eagle asked me to the dance.... But, Kate, I
said no. I would never betray my best friend.”

Had the earth stopped spinning? Kate
wondered. Was that why she felt off balance?

“Why on earth did you say no? He’s single;
you’re single. He’s full-blood; you’re full-blood. It’s a perfect
match.”

“I can’t do that to you, Kate.”

“It’s over between us. It’s
been
over.”

“You wouldn’t be upset if I said yes?”

“Of course not.” Not upset. Crazed was more
like it. Kate was crazy with rage and jealousy and pain. Maybe she
needed a psychiatrist.