Warrior's Embrace

by Peggy Webb

  And Wainwright. He hated that piece of shit, too. Driving around Tribal Lands in his gold Cadillac as if he owned the whole damned place. Chicago white trash was what he was.

  Still, he could be useful to Hal. He fortified himself with peyote then leaned against the wall until the thundering of the white buffalo was a distant echo.

  As he went up the stairs with his mops and rags, Hal remembered a saying of his grandfather’s: Be careful when you hunt for the rattlesnake that he does not find you before you find him, for the bite of the rattler is death.

  Hal knew how to be careful.

  o0o

  Kate’s head felt as big as a watermelon. Movement set off jackhammers behind her temples that caused her eyes to come unfocused.

  “You’ve done it now, Katie Elizabeth,” she said.

  Her sins had caught up with her. She’d never make it to the front porch for the morning paper, let alone to the clinic. Picking up the phone, she dialed Deborah’s number. Even the distant ringing of the phone set off minor explosions in her head. Fortunately she didn’t have to endure more than one ring.

  “Deborah?”

  “Why are you whispering, Kate?”

  “Shhh. Not so loud.” Thinking fast, she made an excuse. “Mark’s still asleep.”

  Too late, she realized that Deborah would wonder how a telephone conversation would awaken him unless they were in the same bedroom.

  “Hmmm” was all Deborah said.

  “Can you handle things by yourself today?”

  “Certainly. If there’s an emergency, I’ll call you.”

  “Thanks.”

  Coward, she said to herself when she hung up. She hadn’t wanted to face Deborah today, hadn’t wanted to see the glow of Eagle Mingo in her eyes. The hangover was merely a convenient excuse.

  “You’ll have to do better than this, Katie Elizabeth,” she muttered as she slipped into her robe.

  This was what living alone had reduced her to: talking to herself. And sounding like her father in the bargain.

  Could that be a sign? Was somebody trying to tell her it was time to get on with her life?

  She might start by being more responsive to Mark Grant. Blurred images came to her mind of herself licking his skin. By all the saints, had she actually done that?

  Holding her head together with the palms of her hands and sheer willpower, she crept through the house and onto the front porch to get the morning paper. Bending sent her into such a swoon that she closed her eyes. Reaching blindly, she encountered something soft and sticky.

  A dead bird lay on top of her newspaper, its neck broken and its wings ripped off.

  Kate sank to her knees and stared at the bird, horrified. How did it get there? She didn’t own a cat, and birds didn’t fall out of trees in that condition.

  She took the next leap in logic: Someone had put it there. But who? And why?

  She felt the bile rising in her throat, and leaning over the porch railing, she heaved. The crisp early morning breezes cooled her forehead and blew some of the cobwebs from her mind.

  She was being paranoid. There were plenty of stray cats in Witch Dance. She’d seen them nosing around the garbage cans behind the clinic.

  “Poor little thing,” she said, picking up the newspaper with the bird cradled inside.

  A blood-smeared headline caught her eye. “Governor Closes Witch Dance Tool and Die Plant.” Still kneeling, she read the rest of the story.

  “Governor Mingo personally investigated claims that Witch Dance Tool and Die dumped toxic chemicals into the creek that runs behind their property. Plant manager Lacey Wainwright claims the toxic spills were accidental. At this printing the governor has closed the plant, but says the closure is temporary, pending further investigation.

  “Clean-up efforts are under way, and until they are complete, the entire area around the plant is quarantined.

  “Employees at the plant, angry at the shutdown and temporary loss of jobs, charged ‘bleeding heart environmentalists’ with scare tactics. Dr. Kate Malone along with Dr. Mark Grant discovered the toxic wastes that led to the closure of the plant.”

  A recent photo of Eagle accompanied the article. Kate stared at it, racked by visions of Deborah in his arms. Her lover and her best friend.

  Was there any justice in the world?

  Sighing, she folded the paper carefully around the small broken bird and carried the bundle to the garbage can. When Mark asked, she’d say the paper boy forgot to deliver.

  No need to mention the dead bird. There were other, more pressing things she wanted to talk about. Such as whether Mark Grant would do her the honor of escorting her to the dance at the Chickasaw Cultural Center.

  o0o

  Anna sat across the kitchen table from her husband and tried to carry the conversation by herself.

  “I might take a job,” she said.

  Cole stared at her, silent. Clint’s brows drew together as he watched his father, waiting. Then he forced a bright smile.

  “That’s great, Mom.”

  Still, nothing from Cole. Two months earlier he’d have wrapped his arms around her and cajoled her with endearing words. “I can’t do without you at the ranch, Anna,” he’d have said. “What would I do if my sweet hummingbird were not here?”

  Two months earlier Bucky and Mary Doe had been alive. Anna wadded her napkin in her fist and tried not to cry.

  “Eagle said I could work in his office. His secretary is swamped.” Her husband stared right through her. “I know it’s not much, but it’s a start.”

  Cole picked up his knife and sliced his roast beef.

  “Whatever you want to do, Anna. It’s no concern to me.”

  “No concern to you? I’m your wife!”

  The knife clanked against his plate, and his chair fell over as he stood up.

  “Cole, where are you going?”

  He didn’t answer. His boots echoed on the polished wood floor as he made his way to the back door.

  “Cole?”

  Tears started in her eyes as she looked at her son.

  “Clint ...stop him.”

  “Let him go, Mother.”

  o0o

  The sun had left the sky and the first stars were beginning to show. In the distance a lone wolf howled, and the nighthawk answered. Cole listened to the night music and waited for peace to invade his soul. But it didn’t come. Peace had eluded him for many moons now.

  Behind him the kitchen windows glowed. Anna would still be sitting at the table. Thinking of the tears in her eyes, he wavered, then resolutely he started to the barn.

  Cold winds bit his skin. He probably should go back to get a coat, but the journey he had to take would not be postponed, not even for ten minutes.

  His mare whinnied when he entered the barn. They hadn’t ridden together in a long time, not since the night he’d carried his children into the mountains.

  Filled with purpose, he felt strength and power surge through him. He put bridle and blanket on his mare then vaulted onto her back. Nothing could take away his riding skills, not even alcohol.

  Outside, the sky had darkened and the stars brightened. Lights were on inside Cole’s house, and through the window he saw his wife. Anna. Love of his life. Keeper of his heart. Guardian of his soul.

  Impatient, his mare whinnied. Cole dug his heels into her flanks and raced down the road with the night wind singing in his ears.

  He had no soul.

  That was his mission. To find his soul.

  Chapter 26

  There was no doubt that Deborah Lightfoot was a beautiful woman. Her hair hung down her back like a bolt of black silk and her skin shone like polished copper. She was gentle, kindhearted, and intelligent. All the qualities a man would want in a woman.

  Or a wife.

  The vague dissatisfaction Eagle felt turned to full-blown unhappiness as he gazed across the room. Kate Malone was dancing in the arms of another man.

  “I haven’t had this much fu
n in years,” Deborah said, and Eagle leaned down to catch her voice above the music. With Kate he hadn’t had to bend so far. Her head had fit exactly on his shoulder.

  “Do you love dancing?” Foolish question. She’d just admitted as much.

  “Oh, yes. When I was a little girl I dreamed about being a ballerina. Of course, that was before I decided to be a cowboy.”

  “A cowgirl?”

  “No. I wanted to be a cowboy. I’d be in pictures, of course, and for once I’d be on the winning side.”

  Deborah’s laughter was infectious. Over the top of her head he saw Kate laugh at something Mark Grant had said. He pulled Deborah closer, determined to make the relationship work.

  “Let’s dance under the stars,” he said, leading her toward the open French doors. On the patio he wouldn’t have to see Kate and Mark Grant pressed together like a matching set of bookends.

  “Sounds like a wonderfully romantic idea.” Deborah smiled up at him. “I’m a sucker for romance, you know.”

  The trust in her eyes was absolute. He’d wrestle with his conscience tomorrow.

  o0o

  Mark Grant saw Kate’s eyes darken when Eagle left the room, felt the tension that came into her shoulders and back, heard her soft intake of breath. All the grand plans he’d made suddenly came crashing down around his ears.

  What a fool he’d been. Whistling while he dressed for the dance, thinking she’d finally noticed him. Picturing the two of them cuddled cheek to cheek on the dance floor then later, tangled together in his bed. Or hers. Heck, they might not even make it home. They might end up in the backseat of his car.

  Now, standing on the dance floor with his dreams vanished like dandelions in the wind, he found a shining nobility he hadn’t known he had. Obviously it had been meant for some ancient knight in King Arthur’s court and had missed its mark by several hundred years, but heck, he was smart. He’d grab whatever lifeline came his way.

  “You know, Kate, I’m mighty glad you asked me to this shindig, but I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

  She went still, watching his face.

  “I mean ...I’m as human as the next man. I’m not saying I wouldn’t like to take you to for a romp in my bed.”

  “I believe I was the one making that move.”

  “Yeah, well, you nearly succeeded.” He grinned to take the sting out of his words. “But a man has his reputation to think of. Too many one-night stands and they won’t let me wear white at the wedding.”

  “You’re leaving, aren’t you, Mark?”

  “Going to Africa is leaving, Kate. Going to Ada just means I won’t be in your house. This business with the children is nearly over. I can do what needs to be done from Ada.” He chucked her under the chin. “But heck, kid, if you get hungry for my cooking, haul ass over here and let me rustle up some grub. You might even talk me into a movie.”

  “Do you know how wonderful you are?” Kate cupped his face.

  “Grandma told me that once.”

  Kate kissed him softly on the cheek. He held her close for a moment then stood back, pasting a false, silly grin on his face.

  “Thank you, Mark. For everything.”

  He put his arm around her waist and led her from the dance floor, even pausing in the doorway so she could take one last look at Eagle, silhouetted against the French doors, dancing under the stars with Deborah.

  Noble to the bitter end, Mark thought. He ought to get some kind of humanitarian of the year award.

  o0o

  Melissa Colbert saw Kate leave. Standing at the punch bowl, surrounded by people who weren’t important to her, she gave a secret smile. The bitch had been so busy rubbing herself all over that man she was with, she hadn’t even noticed the visitor from Boston. Which was fine with Melissa. The element of surprise always had its advantages.

  She wondered if the man Kate was seducing this time belonged to somebody else.

  “We’re glad you’re here to continue Dr. Colbert’s altruistic work.” The speaker was Black something or other. She’d already forgotten their names, but it didn’t matter. “Everybody around here loved Clayton.”

  At the mention of his name, a dark fog began to fall over Melissa, descending first over her chest so that she felt smothered. Fighting panic, she searched the room, looking for something, anything, to hold back the darkness.

  And that’s when she saw him. He stood apart from the crowd, his handsome face dark and brooding, his stance relaxed and yet arrogant.

  “Excuse me, please,” she said.

  The man assessed her boldly as she approached, his eyes hooded and wary. “Hello, foxy lady.”

  “Hello. I’m Melissa Sayers Colbert.”

  “A woman with three names has to be important.”

  “I am.”

  “I’ve been watching you across the room.”

  “And I’ve been watching you.”

  “Do you like what you see?”

  “I’ll have to reserve judgment on that.” Melissa held out her hand, and he took it. She felt the heat of him all the way to her toes. Oh, she liked what she saw, liked it very much indeed.

  “Where are we going, Miss Foxy Lady with Three Names?”

  “Do you care?”

  “No. As long as I get what I want.”

  Her long white limousine was waiting for them outside the door. She gave her chauffeur directions then settled back against the white leather cushions.

  A beautiful copper-colored hand pushed her skirt aside.

  “My name is Hal Lightfoot,” he said.

  “It doesn’t matter, dear boy.”

  He was young, so young. And so very necessary.

  o0o

  The first snows had already fallen in the mountains and lay glittering like sugar over the tops of the trees and the roof of the hut. Its pristine beauty disguised the treachery of the mountain peaks and the jagged rocks that lay like sharks in the depths of the canyons.

  Traveling in the darkness, a lesser man than Cole might have lost his life. But Cole knew the land, knew how to survive its treacheries. Neither the bitter winds nor the freshly falling snow nor the distant screaming of the screech owl deterred him. The mountains called to him in voices of beauty and the stars bent low to give him light.

  His horse stepped into a hole drifted over with snow, but Cole knew he wouldn’t go down. Nothing could stop his quest.

  The dark winds cried with the voices of the coyote and the bobcat, but onward Cole traveled, winding upward toward the shroud of mists that covered the tops of the mountain. The Great Spirit caught time in a dark velvet net and held it captive for the duration of Cole’s journey. Day and night ceased. Hunger and pain no longer existed. There was nothing except the shrouded peaks and the need. The urgent need.

  Suddenly out of the mists came a vision, an ancient Spirit Talker wrapped in the buffalo robes. His bear-claw necklace gleamed in the moonlight.

  “I knew you would come,” he said, holding out his hand. It was warm and soothing. “I’ve prepared for you.”

  Smells of smoke mingled with the fragrances of medicinal herbs inside the small hut. Cole sat upon a bright red blanket while the old shaman covered him with the skin of a buffalo. He drew the tattered edges close and inhaled the scent of mold.

  “A few more suns and I will vanish from these mountains just as the council fires and the curling smoke from our lodge fires have vanished,” the medicine man said. “Gone are the bark canoes and the thunder of buffalo and the songs of our women.” A heady, pungent smell filled the air as the shaman puffed on his pipe.

  “I have had a vision,” he added. “In dreams filled with bending grasses and clear waters, the white buffalo came to me.”

  He passed the pipe to Cole, who drew the mind-freeing drug deep into his lungs. Closing his eyes, he heard the thunder of the hooves as the Great Divine Presence showed himself once more, emerging from the darkness as white as the snow itself.

  “I, too, see the buffalo.
”

  “It is good. It is a sign.” They passed the pipe between them once more, in perfect understanding. At peace at last, Cole lay upon his blanket and slept.

  o0o

  The beauty of being maintenance engineer was that he had access to the building even with the plant shut down, and nobody was ever surprised to see him with his mops and buckets. Outside the door marked MANAGER, Hal mopped the same spot over and over. In the old, thin-walled building, every word Lacey Wainwright uttered was as clear as if it were being broadcast over a microphone.

  “Dammit all to hell, Bruce, we’ve got to stop Eagle Mingo.”

  “We can’t stop Eagle Mingo. He’s the governor, and in Chickasaw territory that translates as the law of the land.”

  Bruce Graden was second in command, a skinny, whining man who looked as if he couldn’t run a public toilet, let alone a whole plant. What Wainwright needed was a real man, somebody with guts.

  “He’s getting too close.” Wainwright smacked his fist against his desk. The blow reverberated in the hallway. “We can’t let him find out that we deliberately dumped toxic waste into the creek. Have you got your story straight?”

  “Yes ...but what would it cost to dispose of it correctly? I mean, it seems to me ...with the lives of children at stake and all—”

  “Bullshit! Hog-tie me with a bunch of regulations, and I might as well kiss all my profit good-bye. We’ve got a gold mine out here, and I’m not going to let anybody destroy that. Nobody. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.” Bruce Graden headed for the door.

  Bent over his mop, Hal did some serious scrubbing until Bruce was out of sight. Then he leaned his mop against the wall and slicked back his hair.

  The rattlesnake hunt was over. It was time to move in for the kill.

  Lacey Wainwright didn’t look too happy to see him. That would all change in about five minutes.

  “Mr. Wainwright, I’m Hal Lightfoot.”

  “I know who you are. What I don’t know is what in the hell you want.”

  “What I want can wait. What I know is more important.” He sat in the chair without asking. Lacey Wainwright was not the kind of man who appreciated timidity.