Warrior's Embrace (71 page)

Somewhere in Boston was the place she
dreaded, a place called The Towers that would bend her will and
break her spirit until she became docile and ordinary. Dipping his
fingers into the paint pot, Hal adorned himself with the blue of
Father Sky then drew a long path from her breasts to her thighs. As
he followed the path, he knew that he’d been destined for
greatness, and all the paths he’d followed had led to this softly
lit bedroom, where Melissa Sayers Colbert flowed beneath him like
the Blue River, turbulent and quixotic. With a triumphant Chickasaw
victory chant he fell into the river, deeper and deeper until he
was drowning.

“Clayton!” she screamed. “Clayton!”

“They’ll never take you from me, Melissa.”
The river sucked at him once more, and he closed his eyes, riding
the waves. “Never!”

Charleston, South Carolina

Kate rode along the edge of the water
bareback with her knees hugging the Appaloosa and her hair blowing
free. Along the beach, lights left over from Christmas glittered on
the rooftops of cottages, and in a few of the windows artificial
Christmas trees still shimmered with tinsel and glass
ornaments.

“Go, Osi.”

The big Appaloosa responded like his
namesake, galloping so fast over the sand, he seemed to be flying.
She’d bought him when she first came back to Charleston, bought him
on impulse one Saturday after she’d cried all through
Dances
with Wolves
at the matinee. Some sense of fate had prompted
her to name him Eagle.

That or insanity.

She slowed the stallion as she approached the
cove where the boating accident had occurred so many years before,
and for a moment she thought she heard the sound of crying. Brian
and Charles and Deborah and all the children of Witch Dance, crying
out for her to save them.

Suddenly she felt the chill of the January
wind and wished she’d worn a jacket. She untied the sweater that
hung around her neck and stuck her arms through the sleeves.

The sound of crying came to her once more,
borne on the wind. Osi whinnied softly, sidestepping.

“Whoa, boy. There’s nothing here except
memories.”

The crying became a whimpering, and out from
behind the dunes crawled a puppy, its reddish-brown fur bedraggled
and its ribs poking like sticks underneath its skin. Kate
dismounted and scooped the shivering mongrel into her arms.

“You poor little thing.”

The shivering stopped momentarily as he
looked up at her with soulful dark eyes.

“Don’t you worry about a thing. I’m not going
to leave you here to die.”

She mounted the Appaloosa, then headed to her
cottage. It was remote from the beachfront, set back among
hundred-year-old live-oak trees hanging with Spanish moss that
swept the ground.

In her stable Kate found a box for the puppy
and set him in a nest of hay while she tended Osi. By the time she
left the stable, stars had sprung out in the heavens, glittering
through the ghostly branches of the trees as if they’d been thrown
there by a careless hand. Her mother’s long white Cadillac was
parked in her driveway, and Martha was waiting for her on the front
porch.

“What in the world are you bringing home
now?”

“I found him abandoned on the beach. His name
is Coahoma.”

“Coahoma?” Martha followed Kate inside the
cottage and sat on the sofa with her brown pumps planted carefully
together and her hands folded in her lap.

“It’s Muskogean. It means ‘red panther.’”
Busy with the puppy, Kate heard her mother’s sigh. But Martha
wouldn’t say anything; she was far too civilized to start a quarrel
over Kate’s penchant for everything Chickasaw.

“I was hoping you might come over for dinner
on Friday.”

“I’m on duty at the hospital.”

“Saturday, then?”

“I don’t think so, Mother.”

“Katie ...you’ve been home over a month now.
With the new year and all, I thought . . .” She let her voice trail
off, and sat looking at her feet.

“Does Dad know you’re inviting me over?”

Martha pulled a lace-edged handkerchief from
her purse and swiped at an imaginary speck of dust on her skirt.
Then she folded the handkerchief into a perfect square and tucked
it back into her bag.

“He’s as stubborn as a post oak, Katie, just
like you. Not budging an inch, even after I hung the glass ball
with your name on it on our Christmas tree.” Martha sank back onto
the cushions with her hand over her heart, as if it had taken her
last ounce of energy to be so plainspoken with her willful
daughter.

Kate glanced at her own tree left over from
Christmas, a spindly little pine that nobody else had wanted. It
stood in the corner of the room, waiting to be planted, its roots
wrapped in burlap and one single string of popcorn hanging limply
in its branches. Kate remembered how she’d celebrated Christmas,
taking every shift she could at the hospital, then at the last
possible minute driving back to her empty cottage. On her way there
she’d seen a tree vendor standing on his lot, still trying to sell
his one last pitiful tree. She’d bought it, out of sympathy rather
than any holiday spirit; and then when she got home she couldn’t
bear the thought of going to bed, so she’d sat up most the night,
watching old movies and eating popcorn, then finally stringing the
leftovers so the tree wouldn’t look so forlorn.

“We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?” Kate grinned
at her mother, hoping humor would dispel the gloom settling in the
room like a fog rolling in from the sea; but seeing Martha’s
obvious distress, she relented.

“All right, Mother. I’ll be there Saturday
...but I’m not making any promises.”

o0o

Martha was thankful Katie had come early so
that the two of them had a little quiet time together before Mick
got home. He went to his office come hell, high water, or holidays.
She supposed she should have told him their daughter was coming for
dinner, but she thought the surprise of seeing her combined with
the spirit of the new year might soften him a little.

She did wish Katie hadn’t brought the dog
though. It might complicate things a bit.

“I see you’ve made Dad’s favorite cranberry
salad.”

“It wouldn’t be a company meal without
it.”

“He knows I’m coming?”

Martha bustled about the kitchen, ignoring
her daughter’s question. “Katie, would you hand me that spatula? I
can’t seem to get this icing to stay on the cake.”

“Martha!” Mick burst suddenly upon the
peaceful room like a big bear somebody had let out of his cage.
Martha wished that sometimes he’d walk in nice and easy and say
hello
. What was wrong with just saying
hello
?

He stopped short when he saw his daughter.
For a moment they stared at each other like perfect strangers, and
Martha was afraid one or the other of them would turn around and
walk out the door.

Katie was the first to break the silence.

“Happy New Year, Dad.”

“Same to ye, Katie.” He looked as if might be
about to walk over and put his arm around her, but suddenly he
turned back to Martha, all red-faced and blustery. “What in the
hell is that damned dog doing in my living room?”

A red flush came into Katie’s cheeks, and
Martha saw the effort she made to hold her temper in check.

“It’s my dog.”

Martha pressed her hand over her heart just
thinking about the confrontations Mick used to have with Katie.
Wouldn’t you think he’d be so glad to have her safe at home that
he’d moderate his opinions?

But what did she know? Mick was a senator and
Katie was a doctor, while she was just a rich little girl who’d
grown into a rich old woman whose husband didn’t love her and whose
daughter didn’t understand her.

“I’m too old to clean up dog piss,” he
said.

“Now, Mick,” Martha said. Anxious. Lord, why
did she always have to sound anxious?

“He’s trained.” Kate was nearly as tall as
her father, and when she was mad she looked taller. “And even if
Coahoma
did
wet the floors, it would be Mother cleaning it
up. Not you.”

“
Coahoma
! It’s not enough that you
went off and lived with that savage. Now we have to listen to you
calling your dog Indian names.”

“You don’t have to listen.” Kate wheeled
around and marched from the kitchen, her color and her chin
high.

“It’s a by God miracle she didn’t come back
carrying a half-breed child.” Mick poured himself a scotch on the
rocks. “She’s driving me to drink.”

Martha’s hands trembled as she dropped her
dirty spatula into the sink. She didn’t even bother turning on the
water.

“No, Mick. You’re the one who’s doing the
driving. You’re driving our daughter right out of our lives....”
Was she actually saying those things? The stunned look on Mick’s
face told her she was, and that furthermore, he was listening. “And
I’m going with her.”

She left the kitchen, but when she got
outside she thought about the spatula and almost went back in. Once
the icing dried on the blade, it would be like cement.

“Martha ...come back here!”

She could hear Katie in the living room,
collecting Coahoma and his toys.

Martha set her face toward the front hallway.
Let
Mick
clean the spatula for a change. Resolute, she
went through the front door, even slamming it behind her. Outside,
she climbed into Katie’s car and waited.

She’d worry about clothes tomorrow.

Witch Dance

The old shaman had been dead for days when
they found him. He was frozen cross-legged on the floor of his
mountaintop cabin with his eyes wide open and a look of shock on
his face as if death had surprised him. His tattered buffalo-skin
robe was wrapped around him, but it had done nothing to keep out
the cold. The door banged on its hinges and snow lay in drifts on
the cabin floor.

At the direction of Governor Mingo, he was
buried in the ancient ways, in a sitting position, his head
anointed with oil, his face painted red and facing the east. Eagle
stood with the mourners in a circle around the grave, knowing that
what he witnessed was more than the burial of a revered medicine
man: He was watching the passing of the old ways. As the songs of
lamentation rose toward Father Sky, he heard the whisper of
birch-bark canoes through still waters, saw the great painted
warriors thundering across the plains on their Chickasaw horses,
smelled the smoke from the council fires. He clung to the
archetypal memories as if he could implant them in the hearts and
minds of a nation by the force of his own will.

Around him, the mourners were not only
oblivious of his struggle but eager to be away from a ceremony that
obviously made them uncomfortable. Soon they would put aside their
ancient funeral songs and climb into their modern cars to return to
their houses, where Oprah exposed the sins of a nation on
television and the whiskey bottle waited under the kitchen sink to
help them forget their defeat.

The old ways were gone. His heart fell to the
ground and mourned.

o0o

Del Mar, California

Eagle hardly recognized his
sister-in-law.

“You shouldn’t have come all this way ...but
I’m glad you did.” Anna lay against the covers with her hands
folded protectively over her bulging womb. She’d changed her long
hair to a short modern style, and her lips and eyes were painted
like the California women he’d glimpsed on the streets.

She was beautiful, a woman he hardly knew
until she smiled. And then she became the Anna he’d known when Cole
had first brought her into the family—warm, animated, and
approachable.

“I’m glad, too.” He took her hand. “How are
you, Anna?”

“Fine. Wonderful, really.” She laughed.
“Except for being flat on my back. My sister shouldn’t have called
you.”

The call had come unexpectedly, not to his
home but to his office, where he’d been standing at the window,
watching the last snow of the season sputter against the sidewalks
and melt into slick puddles. “Anna has been in the hospital,” her
sister had said. “The pregnancy has made her very sick.” Shocking
news considering that the few notes Anna had written since she and
Clint moved had been brief and cheerful, telling him nothing really
about their life in California. He’d caught the next plane out, and
as was his way, had gone straight to the best source for
information.

“The doctor assured me that you and the
babies are going to be all right,” he said.

“Twin girls. Can you believe it?”

“Cole’s children.”

Anna said nothing, but smoothed the covers,
obviously flustered.

“He really loved you, Anna. Always. Even
during the bad times.”

Her glance slid away from his. “How are Dovie
and Winston?”

“They send their love. They wanted to come,
but Dad’s health is too fragile and Mom won’t go anywhere without
him.”

“Tell them I said hello.”

Suddenly Eagle ran out of things to say.
Embroidered curtains fluttered at the open window, and the sound of
waves filled the silence. Anna tried to hide her discomfort by
reaching to her bedside table for a sip of water.

The table was a frivolous piece of
furniture—French, Eagle thought. There was nothing of her former
life in the room, no Indian pottery, no colorful woven rugs, none
of the western prints Cole had loved. Everything surrounding her
was new and generic. It might have belonged to any woman anywhere
in the United States.

There was the sound of a car door, and then
footsteps in the hallway.

“Anna.” A tall man with blond hair and thick
glasses came into the room.

The first thing Eagle noticed was that the
man had come into the house without a key, and the second was that
he went straight to Anna’s bed without even noticing she had a
visitor.