Warrior's Embrace

by Peggy Webb

  She’d smile ...modestly, of course; then he would put his arms around her and say, “I love you, Katie. I’ve always loved you.”

  What he had actually said that day was “If a school that charges this much tuition can’t afford enough parking spaces, they ought to fire the administration and start all over.”

  Kate pushed her soup bowl away, her appetite gone.

  “Is that better, dear?” Martha asked her husband as she slid back into her chair.

  “It’s too soon to tell.”

  “Maybe the fan’s not turned on high.” Martha rose halfway from her seat, glancing anxiously at the ceiling fan.

  “Don’t fidgit, Martha. It makes me nervous.” Mick banged his glass onto the table. “Women!” he said, and that summed up his philosophy of life.

  Kate shoved her chair back from the table and stood up.

  “You’re not excused,” her father said.

  She drew herself up to her full height, five feet ten inches, and every bit of it imposing. They faced each other from opposite ends of the table, father and daughter, so much alike, with eyes as green as the sea and hair the color of flame. Years and grief had lined Mick’s face, but they’d done nothing to dim his hair.

  He stared at his daughter with her square jaw so like his own. She had his temper too, and his stubbornness. Kate was a Malone through and through. Every now and then he looked at her and felt a little bit of hope ...but it always died as quickly as it came. She was a woman. She would never carry on the Malone name. She would never replace Charles and Brian.

  The old pain settled around Mick’s heart, sapping his strength, draining his energy.

  Kate flattened her hands on the table and leaned toward him. “I’m a grown woman. I no longer need your permission.”

  “Katie Elizabeth!” Her mother’s hands fluttered about as if she were swatting moths, then settled over her heart.

  “And you don’t either, Mother.” With her head held high, Kate marched from the room.

  “Mick ...say something to her. Please.”

  “Let her go, Martha. She’ll come to her senses.”

  She already had. About the time he’d told her she’d do well to learn to make soup.

  Kate got her bags down from the top of the closet and began to pack. The first thing she put in was her winter coat. She’d heard the winters in Oklahoma were very cold.

  Her suitcases were half full when she became aware of him standing in the doorway.

  “And where might ye be goin’, Katie.”

  When her father lapsed into an Irish lilt and called her Katie, she always lost her resolve. But not this time. Taking a deep breath, she faced him.

  “I’m going to Oklahoma.”

  “What does Tulsa have that you can’t find right here in Charleston?”

  “I never said I was going to Tulsa.”

  “Where, then?”

  So, finally he was inquiring about her plans. Did that mean he cared?

  “I’m going to Chickasaw Tribal Lands.”

  “Do you hate me that much, Katie, that you’d squander a fine education off in the wilderness?”

  Guilt. He’d always used guilt to manipulate her.

  “I don’t hate you, Father. I never hated you.” Was it a lie? She didn’t know. “And it’s not a wilderness. Dr. Colbert says it has a very fine hospital.” He’d said other things too, the brilliant mixed-blood Chickasaw who had been her mentor during her student year at Massachusetts General. “You have talent, Kate, and a caring heart. There is a great need among my people for a doctor like you. You could make a real difference.”

  “You were going to practice right here in Charleston,” her father said. “We had it all planned.”

  “No, you had it all planned. You never consulted me. You told me.”

  “You’ve let that savage corrupt your thinking.”

  “Dr. Clayton Colbert is not a savage. He’s the finest endocrinologist in the nation.”

  They faced each other across the space that separated them—Kate beside her suitcase, Mick beside the door. Just once she wished he’d come close enough to touch her, come close enough to pat her cheek or take her hand and say, “Everything is going to be all right, Katie.”

  She waited, waited for the words she knew he would never say. Mick clenched his jaw and held his ground.

  “My mind is made up,” she said at last, “and there’s nothing you can do or say to change it.”

  “If you do this thing, if you go off to this wild land and waste your talents on people who are not like us ...you’re no daughter of mine.”

  She’d never been a daughter of his, not since that awful day thirteen years earlier. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes, but she bit down on her lower lip, counting on the pain to keep her from showing any weakness in front of him.

  “So be it,” she said, and returned to her packing.

  Mick watched her awhile longer, wishing he could take back his words. She had the same stiff-necked pride that had backed him into more corners than he cared to think about. Katie Elizabeth. His firstborn. He remembered the day she came into the world, red-faced, red-haired, and squalling. He’d thought she was the most beautiful thing in the whole universe. Still did. He’d planned to give her the sun and the moon, with all the stars thrown in for good measure.

  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.”

  Chapter 2

  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.

  Chapter 3

  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.”