Warrior's Embrace

by Peggy Webb

  Desolate, she pressed her face into his chest and her tears soaked the front of his shirt. Softly, he touched her hair. Astonished, Anna looked up into the face of her husband.

  “Sweet lhokomuk,” he whispered. “My sweet lhokomuk.”

  Standing on tiptoe, she wrapped her arms around his neck and felt the blessed touch of his lips upon hers. She clung to him with the urgency of a parched desert wanderer who had suddenly discovered water.

  “My darling ...my love.” As she swayed against him, the months of their discord vanished.

  Locked together, they fell upon the sweet-smelling hay, desperate in their haste. With the hungry grunting of animals, they tore aside restraints until at last they were joined, legs tangled, hips melded, wild in the ancient rhythms they knew so well. There were no sweet words, no erotic meanderings, no tender caresses, only the hard straining of bodies too long denied.

  If Anna missed the whispered love music of Muskogean and the slow-melting heat of kisses that started at the throat and went to the outer edges of her being, she wasn’t about to say so. It was enough that Cole was in her, filling her with his hard flesh and the sweet semen that spewed from him like warm honey.

  Afterward she lay in his arms, hoping for the soft love words she remembered so well. But he lay silently against the hay, holding her so tightly, she could barely breathe.

  “Cole?” When he didn’t answer, she lifted herself on her elbow and kissed his lips. “I love you, Cole.”

  His eyes were black pools, sucking her down until she was filled with his tragedy and his despair.

  Winds moaned around the eaves and snow drifted through the cracks. Anna shivered, suddenly so cold, she had to bite her bottom lip to keep her teeth from chattering.

  “I’m cold, Cole. Let’s go inside.”

  They straightened their clothes, then went into the house, side by side, not touching. Inside the warm kitchen, where they’d made love against the refrigerator and on the floor and in the pantry, giggling like teenagers, Cole sat on a tall stool, as silent as the mountains. And Anna knew she was losing him. She put water on the stove for tea then, and stood in front of him, forcing him to look at her.

  “Your loss is mine too, Cole. Your pain is mine.” She might as well have been one of the kitchen appliances for all the notice he took. “Every day of my life I feel the emptiness ...and it hurts so much, I want to fall with my face to the ground and never get up.”

  “But I don’t give in, Cole. I won’t be defeated. I have my son and I have you.” She caught both his hands. “Let’s leave here. Let’s go to California and make a fresh start.”

  Water boiled over, hissing like snakes in the quiet room. The front door banged open and Clint called, “Hey, anybody here? I’m home.”

  Cole squeezed her hand, then abruptly he released her and stood up.

  “I’m sorry, Anna.”

  His footsteps echoed on the tile floor and the back door banged shut behind him.

  “Hey, where’s Dad going?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He forgot his coat.” Clint lifted Cole’s leather jacket with the sheepskin lining off the coat rack.

  “Maybe he’ll be right back.” Anna knew she was lying to herself.

  Cole didn’t come back, not even when all the stars left the sky and the snow came down so thick, she couldn’t see the trees in her front yard.

  o0o

  Wrapped in his buffalo robe, the shaman stood in the doorway of his cabin and watched the snow cover the tops of the mountains. The north wind wailed his winter song, and the smoke from his pipe curled upward to join the wind. Out of the smoke and the snow came the white buffalo, charging across the mountaintops like thunder. With its dazzling white skin, it flashed by so quickly that he was temporarily blinded.

  Feeling his way, the medicine man went inside and shut the door. He’d seen the sign. Soon the white witch would be driven from the land, and once more it would be filled with peace and light, its people begging for the return of the Great One.

  Filled with power, he cast aside his robe and pipe and began the ancient dance of his ancestors.

  o0o

  Winds buffeted the barn door, and snow sifted through the cracks to cover the piles of hay like powdered sugar. Eagle leaned against the side of an empty stall with his arms wrapped around himself, not certain whether the cold he felt came from outside or whether it was a bone-deep malady destined to freeze his soul.

  Anna had been in tears when she called him. Cole never touched her anymore, she said, spilling intimate secrets that Eagle had no right to hear. He took no interest in his son, none in her work, and he wouldn’t even talk about moving to California for a fresh start.

  “He can’t seem to work through his grief, Eagle,” she’d said. “I don’t know what to do anymore. Please help me.”

  Cole stared at him with eyes as black as tar pits, showing nothing, neither love nor welcome.

  “Anna sent for you,” he said.

  “I came to help,” Eagle said, ashamed of himself. Anna shouldn’t have had to call for help. He should have been there to offer. He’d failed his family.

  “Get on your horse and leave.”

  In spite of his months of grieving, Cole still had the look of a man who could wrestle with the cougars that prowled the mountains and come out a winner.

  “No. I won’t leave. Not until you talk to me.”

  Cole turned his back and began to pour feed into a bucket.

  “Let’s talk about your family, Cole. Anna loves you, and Clint worships you. How can you turn your back on them? And what about our parents? They’re old and needy.”

  Dovie cried over her lost grandchildren every day, and Winston, whose stroke had left him emotionally fragile, was unable to provide the kind of comfort and support she needed. Wolf and Star, away at school in Boston, had no idea what was happening to the family.

  Yesterday, standing in Dovie’s kitchen with a mug of hot chocolate warming his hands, Eagle had listened to his mother’s anguished ramblings.

  “Remember when you were six years old and so sick . . .” She laced her hands tightly together across her lap. “How can you remember? You were almost dead ...like our little Bucky and Mary Doe.”

  Her voice broke, then she pulled herself back together. “Cole sat by your bed the whole time, refusing to even come to the kitchen for meals. I had to bring his food on a tray.”

  Dovie reached a fragile, blue-veined hand toward Eagle, and he clasped it tightly. “He loves his family so. Why doesn’t he come to see us now?”

  If there were any mercy left in the universe, it would surely have rained down upon Dovie Mingo’s head. She was good, a woman whose purity of heart should have kept her folded under the protective wings of the Great Spirit.

  But Eagle knew there was no mercy. Sometimes there was not even justice. There was only courage.

  “Your family needs you,” he said.

  “Go to hell.” His brother didn’t even turn around.

  “You’re a coward, Cole.” Leaving his place by the stall, Eagle towered over his brother with his hands balled into fists. “You’re a yellow-bellied coward!”

  Cole launched himself upon his brother. His fists were hard and deadly. Eagle let himself become a punching bag, taking blow after blow in the stomach without flinching.

  “Take that back.”

  “Imilha!” Eagle said. “Coward!”

  Grunting with effort, Cole swung repeatedly, until finally he sagged. Eagle wrapped his arms around his brother, and together they fell upon the hay. Lying side by side, staring up at the silver sunlight sliding through the barn’s rafters, the brothers drifted backward to a time when they could bend over the creek and see their twin reflections in the sweet water singing over the rocks, a time when dreams were as high and bright as the kites they flew on the March wind.

  “Remember that dog I had?” Cole said. “Sally?”

  “Sally was mine.”


  “Ours.”

  “She was the best squirrel dog in Witch Dance.”

  “They don’t breed squirrel dogs like that anymore.”

  “No. They don’t.”

  “Bucky loved dogs.” Cole began to cry.

  Eagle comforted his brother as if he were a child, and Cole’s tears wet the front of his shirt. When the racking sobs ended, Eagle pulled him to his feet.

  “There is a grief counselor in Ada you and Anna should see, Cole.”

  “No. No doctors.”

  “Do it for Anna, Cole. I’m going in the house and tell her to set up an appointment.” Eagle started toward the barn door, then turned and held his hand out to his brother. “Coming?”

  “Not yet. But soon, Eagle. Soon.”

  Eagle pulled his coat collar close as he walked through the snow Lights beckoned from the windows of Cole’s house, and inside he could see Anna, bent over her sewing with the graceful sweep of her hair hiding her face.

  What would he tell her about her husband? That he didn’t want anybody’s help? That the dead were more important to him than the living?

  She looked up and smiled when he entered the room. Eagle decided he would temper the truth with mercy.

  o0o

  When Kate saw the note slipped under her clinic door, she recoiled. Instinctively she pulled her coat collar close and swiveled her head, searching the area for intruders. It was only five o’clock, and shadows still lay on the land.

  Was that movement behind the silver maple on the hillside? Kate shrank into the clinic doorway, partially hidden. A flurry in the nearby treetop made her jump. Lifting her gaze, she saw an owl climbing toward the rising sun, beating its wings on the air.

  “By all the saints, I’m going to have to do better than this.”

  If she didn’t get control of herself, she’d be such a bundle of nerves that she’d be of no use as a doctor. She took a deep, steadying breath, then bent and picked up the note.

  “Please help me, Doctor Kate. My husband won’t let me bring Adam and Rachel to you. Come to them, please. They are very sick from the Witch Creek. Marjorie Kent.”

  Kate leaned against the door, weak. She’d thought the war was over, but it seemed she’d won only the first battle.

  She grabbed her black bag and went into the stable to saddle Mahli. The Kents lived in back country. Her car would never get through the rough terrain, and her old mare would be hard pressed to make it.

  “It’s just you and me, old girl.” Kate rubbed the mare’s velvety nose. “I hate to ask you to do this, pal, but it’s the only way”

  Mahli whinnied and tossed her mane. A high-priced Thoroughbred would never have lasted as long as Mahli, but she was a Chickasaw horse, built for endurance as well as speed. Mahli’s speed was no longer anything to brag about, but she would go until she dropped in her tracks.

  Kate set a sedate pace, saving Mahli’s strength for the rough terrain near the Kent place. Cold winds whipped her hair and reddened her cheeks, but Kate was oblivious of the weather. She was remembering summer winds and summer stars and Eagle Mingo waiting on a rainbow-colored blanket.

  You will come to me, he’d said, and she had, riding the back of her mare as pale as moonlight.

  When Mahli was gone, her last fragile tie to Eagle would be dead. Kate shivered, chilled to the bone by wind and memories.

  At the foot of the Arbuckle Mountains, Mahli balked. The road leading upward was hardly more than a faint trail through huge boulders and thick scrub brush.

  “Come on, girl.” Leaning low, Kate rubbed Mahli’s neck. “You can do it.”

  Mahli started upward, gingerly finding her footing among the rocks. Clouds obscured the sun, and thunder rumbled like the distant beat of war drums. A flock of ravens, black as night, rose upward, crying their discontent.

  Mahli sidestepped, her ears flattened. Shivers ran through Kate once more, and she glanced over her shoulder. Was someone hiding behind the rocks, or was it merely a shadow? Suddenly she wished she hadn’t come alone. There was nothing for miles around except rocks and scrub brush and patches of trees. She could vanish, and it would be days before anyone found her.

  Instinctively she reached toward the black bag hanging from her saddle. It contained more than medical supplies; inside was her .38 Smith and Wesson.

  Behind the rocks, the man laughed without sound. Did the white witch woman think he was afraid of her gun?

  Thunder crashed, closer now, and jagged lightning streaked across a sky as gray as death. As the man lifted his face upward, the awesome power of Father Sky filled him and a vision of the sacred circle almost blinded him. First the darkness, then the light. First the storm, then the calm. Out of the gray skies would emerge a rainbow whose light would fall upon the land until all the people knew, and knowing, they would remember, and remembering, they would sing. Their songs would lift upward on the wings of eagles, and bending down, he would hear them and be blessed. He, the avenger.

  Kate’s horse turned into the dark pathway of trees, and the man knew where she was going. There was only one family who lived at the end of that trail, and Kate Malone was taking the long way around.

  Clinging to the sheer face of huge rocks, the man climbed. Almost, he could spread wings and fly like the eagle.

  Below him, the witch woman’s skin glowed in the dark woods, as white as death.

  o0o

  Lacey Wainwright was fit to be tied. His lawyer sat in a fat chair across from Lacey’s desk, talking nothing but pure bullshit, and that rat-faced little pipsqueak he’d hired to cover up all this mess was nowhere to be found.

  He punched the intercom and bellowed to his secretary, “Get Hal Lightfoot in here.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. Hal is out.”

  “Well, when he comes in, you tell him his ass is fired.”

  The overpriced lawyer cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. Paper-shuffling sonofabitch. Didn’t they ever bring good news?

  “Now, about this class action suit against Witch Dance Tool and Die. The parents are charging wrongful death as well as intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

  “I’m not interested in what a bunch of disgruntled Indians have to say. What I want to know is what you’re going to do about it?” It was all that Kate Malone’s fault. If she’d kept her nose out of his business, he’d be kicked back in his chair right now, smoking a cigar and dreaming about a vacation to the Bahamas. Hell, he’d even be willing to go to New Jersey. Anywhere would be better than this stinking rat hole.

  “I’m not certain you understand the seriousness of this charge—”

  “I don’t have to understand. That’s what I’m paying you for. Now, what in the hell are you going to do about it?”

  “There is a procedure I will follow, of course. I will put together an irrefutable body of evidence proving that there was absolutely no intention on the part of Witch Dance Tool and Die to dump toxic chemicals into Witch Creek.” The skinny lawyer leaned toward Lacey with his squinty eyes watering. He looked like a damned long-necked, nearsighted turkey. “You do have company policies listing correct methods of disposal, don’t you?”

  He had policies running out the wazoo, thanks to that damned nosy governor. It had cost him a fortune to clean up Witch Creek, and he’d had to put every damned move he made on paper.

  “Hal Lightfoot’s got all of that.”

  “The man you just fired?”

  “Don’t you know a joke when you hear one? Hal Lightfoot is my right-hand man. When he gets back, he’ll explain everything to you.”

  Lacey clamped down on his cigar. Hal had better explain everything. If he didn’t, he’d be back in the basement so quick, his head would swim.

  o0o

  Marjorie Kent was a large woman with a sweet smile, a tendency toward hives, and rheumatoid arthritis. Kate had been treating her for three years, and now Marjorie stood in the doorway, wringing her hands.

  Kate looped Mahli’s bridle over the p
orch railing.

  “I thought I’d never get here. How are the children, Marjorie?”

  “I shouldn’t have asked you to come.” Marjorie glanced anxiously over her shoulder.

  “Nonsense. You know I’m always willing to make a house call.” Kate unhooked her medical bag and strode toward the porch steps. She was cold and glad to be out of the woods. The smoke coming from Marjorie’s chimney was the best thing she’d seen all day.

  “Maybe it would be best if you just go on back.”

  “Marjorie, what’s wrong?”

  Marjorie glanced over her shoulder once more, and that’s when Kate heard it, the distinctive sound of the gourd rattle.

  “You called in the shaman?”

  “No. My husband did.” Marjorie continued to block the doorway. “The medicine man just arrived.”

  “It’s all right, Marjorie.” Kate put a hand on the woman’s arm. “The shaman and I understand each other. I’ll cause no trouble.”

  Reluctantly, the woman stood aside. The room was dark and smoky, with all the blinds drawn and the ancient chimney malfunctioning. Rachel and Adam lay on quilted pallets in the middle of the floor, and Kate’s old nemesis danced slowly around them, waving his rattle and chanting in a singsong voice.

  Even without checking, Kate knew that her worst fears had come true: Witch Creek had not yet claimed all its victims. Fever burned in the eyes of the children, and a faint yellow cast tinged their skin.

  She hoped it was not too late. Approaching the shaman, she tried for the right combination of authority and cooperation.

  “I came to help,” she said.

  The shaman continued to dance as if he had not heard her.

  “Oo’ole,” he chanted, invoking the eagle to dart down as quick as lightning and hide his children in the protective lee of his wings.

  “I have powerful medicine,” Kate said, refusing to give up.

  The shaman was so old, the whites of his eyes were yellow, and when he turned his face toward her, Kate had the sensation of looking into the eyes of a snake. Pure venom radiated from him.