by Peggy Webb
Calling on all his skills as a horseman, Eagle mounted Mahli’s back and grabbed the stallion’s reins. The horses leapt through the door, then raced with demonic speed across the pasture while Eagle tried to control their terror.
Behind him, fire trucks circled and water arced toward the blaze. Firemen swarmed into the adjacent stables to release stall gates, and Eagle’s other horses catapulted into the night.
By the time he brought Mahli to a halt and returned to the scene, the fire was under control. Kate sat on a tree root, drinking coffee someone had brought to her while a policeman stood guard, and Martin Black Elk stalked around with his hands rammed into his pockets and a scowl on his face.
“We’re damned lucky the fire trucks got here in time to save your barn,” he said.
The barn was the least of Eagle’s worries.
“I’m taking Kate out of here.”
“Six guards, and still he got through.” Black Elk shook his head.
“Did you find any signs at all?”
“None. Whoever did this is a genius ...or a madman. I’ll send more men to guard your house.”
“No. The only way I can protect Kate is to take her where no one will follow.”
o0o
They left in the middle of the night after everyone had gone.
This time Kate hadn’t questioned Eagle’s judgment, hadn’t even questioned where he was taking her. Riding a big bay from his stables, she kept pace with him. Snow had begun to fall once more, and it powdered their clothes and covered their trail as they traveled. She lost track of time, depending instead on Eagle, who possessed mysterious instincts that guided them through a world as white and silent as death.
They didn’t stop until dawn. Eagle held up his right hand, and Kate drew her mount to a halt.
“We’ll pitch camp here.”
It was a desolate place, high in the mountains, where nothing moved except a lone eagle winging his audacious way toward the rising sun. Their campsite, tucked under the shelf of an enormous rock, provided a natural fortress and afforded them a panoramic view of the mountains.
They tended and sheltered the horses; then Kate fell exhausted into the tent, bundled into a sleeping bag with all her clothes on.
Eagle kept watch until the sun spilled its unforgiving light around them, and then he lay down beside Kate. No person, either genius or madman, would attack such a place in broad daylight.
o0o
He came fully alert, drawn by a compelling force from a deep, dreamless sleep. Rolling onto his side, Eagle looked straight into the eyes of Kate Malone. Everything they’d ever been to each other shone in her green eyes, burned there until his skin caught fire and there was nothing he could do except try to put out the flames.
Wordless, he held out his hand and she tumbled down upon him, silky and fragrant, her body rich with the mysteries he remembered so well. There was no haste, for they were alone on the desolate mountain, alone in the cold sunlight and the ice-bound canyons.
She had not changed in five years except for the slight, more exotic ripeness of her body and the desperate edge to her desire. As he discovered her anew, he wondered how he could have chosen the howling loneliness of honor and duty over the eternal renewal of passion.
Fully sheathed in her, he lifted himself on his elbows so he could read her face and eyes. Still as a cat, she waited, her body trembling with the same carnal impatience as his. They stared at each other, breathless with fear and wonder.
There was no turning back now. From the moment he’d held out his hand, he had set them on a course that would rock the mountains and shatter the very foundations of their lives.
“Waka ahina uno, iskunosi Wictonaye,” he whispered. “Waka.”
Later, he would not remember who had moved first, but that slight nudge of hip against hip, of flesh against flesh, exploded through them like a thousand rivers unleashed and roaring through the canyons.
The sun climbed through the sky, gradually burning away the blue, but they knew neither time nor place nor hunger. For the two of them there was only discovery, time and again, of the slow sweet death of passion and the resurrection of fulfillment.
When bands of hot gold gilded the western mountaintops, Eagle spread Kate upon his blanket, arranging her lush and languid limbs for a celebration of the magic circle of life. Her lips closed around him as they began the slow spin on the medicine wheel that would take them through the sunset and into the gray edge of evening.
Afterward, sitting side by side, eating beef jerky and drinking tepid coffee from a thermos, they didn’t speak of what had happened.
“I’m going to scout around, Kate.” Eagle found her gun among her belongings and placed it in her hand. “Sit with your back to the wall and your gun aimed at the door. Shoot anything that tries to come through.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“No more than an hour.”
She reached out and touched his lips, once, softly.
“Be careful, Eagle.”
Armed with his knife and his rifle, he left her there, sitting with her gun cocked and aimed at the tent door. The snow stretched clean and untouched around their campsite. Eagle fed the horses the sweet oats he’d packed then set out to find the enemy.
All Eagle’s senses came alert. The enemy was out there, not watching, but waiting somewhere in a dark lair, waiting like an animal who knows his prey is nearby.
The first sign was a broken branch, less than half a mile from the campsite. Eagle studied the surrounding area. Either through carelessness or overconfidence the avenger had not bothered to cover his trail. Snow had covered his tracks, but the trees and bushes held evidence of his passing. A thread had been snagged from his jeans. Low-lying limbs had been knocked clean of their burden of snow. Some of them were crooked and broken.
Eagle tracked, following the clear trail. Around the side of a huge boulder he stopped, rooted to the spot by fear and a terrible sense of foreboding. Planted in the ground was the red war pole, and carved deep in the snow at its base was the perfect imprint of a man, lying spread-eagle with his face pressed to the earth.
The size and shape of his body were as familiar to Eagle as his own. Terror paralyzed him, and denial rose screaming through his throat. He bit his lip so hard, he tasted blood.
Kneeling, he placed his hand in the indentation, right where the man’s hand had been. A perfect fit.
“No,” he whispered. “No.”
He leaned close, studying the imprint, touching to assure himself that he was not deceived. There, his high cheekbones had been. And there, his wide chest. There, his coat had been open so the ornate belt buckle could press the snow. There, the scabbard for his knife. And there, his soft beaded boots.
Suddenly Eagle’s hand closed over a small object, a familiar Italian blue glass bead, ancient and cherished, twin to the ones that decorated his own boots. Clutching the bead in his hand, he shook his fist at the sky.
Eagle knew the avenger ...his enemy ...his brother.
o0o
“Kate. It’s Eagle.” He called her from a distance, and she put her gun down and met him outside the tent door.
The first thing she noticed was the red-painted pole in his hand. A sinking sense of dread spread through her, making her arms heavy and her legs limp.
“You found him?”
“No. Only signs.”
Silently he planted the pole outside their tent, planted it so deep and so hard that its top whipped back and forth as if strong winds were shaking it. Kate’s dread became a nameless terror. With one hand against her throat she moved toward the pole.
“Don’t touch it.” She stepped back, struck by the flat, deadly tone of his voice.
“What is it?”
“The war pole.”
“What does it mean?”
“It means the avenger prepares to go into battle.”
Looking at the ancient symbol, Kate understood that she was not the avenger’s target
this time: It was Eagle. He would have to remove her protector to get to her, but more than that, he understood that killing Eagle would be the worst punishment he could mete upon her. It would kill her spirit and her soul.
“We won’t speak of this again.” Eagle’s face was tragic, his eyes shattered, as if a giant hand had smashed all the light from them.
“No,” she said, for no amount of argument and pleas would get him to turn his face from fate. Moving with purpose, she put her hands on either side of his face. “Come inside, where it’s warm.”
He was in her before the tent flap closed behind them. With her arms and legs wrapped around him and the snow from his clothing melting on her skin, she knew that whatever happened, she would have this—a wild winter mating on a desolate mountaintop that would sustain her for years to come, just as their summer affair of five years past had sustained her.
“Make me fly, Eagle,” she whispered.
“Waka, Wictonaye. Waka.”
o0o
High above them, hidden by trees and boulders, the avenger arose naked from his tent. Leaving behind the steaming rocks that purified him, he dressed in buckskins and carefully painted his face. With the clay streaked on his nose and cheeks and forehead, he was as fierce as the bear, as agile as the panther, and as cunning as the fox, for he knew he must be all three in order to subdue the eagle.
He filled his war pipe with sumac leaves and tobacco, lighted it, and drew it deep into his lungs. The smoke circled his head, and the power of the warrior filled his body. When he had finished, he set the pipe aside and ate a sumptuous feast, one he had prepared with great care and hauled up the treacherous face of the mountain.
By the time the war feast was finished, the moon had risen. The avenger’s long knife glittered in the dark, brighter than the stars that studded the black sky. He swung it in a huge arc then lunged at the war pole. Metal clanged against wood, and a chunk of red fell to the snow and lay there like blood. Again and again he lunged, until sweat poured off his face and the pole was riddled with gouges.
The imaginary song of women rose up to cheer his victory. Bowing deeply to his audience, the avenger sheathed his long knife then began a slow circle around the pole, taking up the victory song. The circles became tighter and faster and the song louder, until the night was filled with the chant of war.
o0o
Kate slept curved against him, exhausted from three days of tension and lovemaking. With her hair spread across his naked chest and her lips pressed against his neck, he watched the first pale light of dawn filter around the tent flap.
It was time. The enemy would be waiting for him, honed to the sharpness of a steel blade by three days of preparation ...and armed to kill.
Gently he disentangled Kate. Softly he kissed her cheek and covered her. She would be safe. The red war pole had made it perfectly clear what the order of battle would be. First Eagle, then Kate.
He dressed lightly so clothes would not impede him. His knife lay beside their pallet, its blade catching a shaft of light. As Eagle took the knife up, he remembered the first one he’d owned, a twin to Cole’s, and how they’d raced around their backyard, whooping and fending off the imaginary hordes that attacked them, and how, later, they’d tumbled in a heap in the sunshine, laughing.
The sun would not shine on them today, and there would be no laughter. Quietly he slipped from the tent, going to meet his enemy.
His brother.
o0o
Cole stood on a bluff overlooking the Blue River, his feet planted wide apart, his painted face fierce, and his arms uplifted to the rising sun. He didn’t have to turn around to know his brother was there; he felt it in his bones. It was as if the other half of himself had crawled beneath his skin.
“You’ve come,” he said, turning.
“Yes. You knew I would.”
Eagle was not painted for battle, and yet Cole knew he was ready. There was tension in the way he stood, raw strength held in check by the sheer force of his will.
“It will be like old times,” Cole said. “Just the two of us.”
“No, Cole. Not like old times.” A sadness fell over Eagle as he held out his hand. “Come back with me. It’s not too late.”
“Never.”
“I’ll help you.” Eagle moved closer. “Please let me help you, Cole.”
Cole threw back his head, and the canyon walls tossed his laughter back into his face.
“Traitor! You with your white witch whore. Would you help me face a white man’s justice, a white man’s jail? I’d rather die!”
As swift as the eagle that circled the bluff, Cole’s twin moved in on him. Exultation filled Cole, and beyond the horizon he saw the white buffalo thundering upward toward the rising sun. It burned a white hole in the sky, and the whiteness spread until it surrounded Cole, bathing him in purity and righteousness. And out of the great burning center came the voices of his children, crying to him for vengeance.
His knife arced upward as he pulled it from his sheath, and the sun glinted against the long blade. Soon it would be red with his brother’s blood, and then the white witch would die and his children would cry no more.
o0o
Kate jarred awake and sat bolt upright. Eagle’s side of the pallet was empty. Panic pushed at her chest. He would never have left her without a word except for one reason: he had gone to do battle with the avenger.
“Eagle,” she called, knowing there would be no answer.
Her hands shook as she threw on her clothes. Scrambling on hands and knees, she looked outside the tent. Eagle had made no attempt to cover his tracks. She grabbed her gun and followed them, running. Snow sucked at her boots and cold winds burned her lungs.
Overhead, an eagle screamed at her, and voices drifted down from the bluff above.
“I won’t fight you, Cole.”
“Fight, damn you. Fight like a Chickasaw.”
“Eagle!” she screamed.
Her feet slipped in the snow, and terror gripped her as she clawed her way up the side of the bluff.
“Stay back, Kate! Don’t come any closer.”
“Fight! Fight for the witch woman!”
Kate topped the bluff just as Cole’s blade flashed toward Eagle’s throat. He sidestepped and saw her, crouching with the gun in her hand.
“Kate! No!”
Cole took advantage of the diversion, and in one swift move he had Eagle on the ground, the long blade at his throat.
“You’re too easy, brother. Has the witch woman stolen your powers?”
Kate leveled her gun at his back, but her hands were shaking so badly, she couldn’t hold it still. What if he moved suddenly and she killed Eagle? What if she didn’t miss and killed Eagle’s brother?
Eagle caught Cole’s wrist and forced the knife away. Panting, they struggled. The brothers were evenly matched, and it seemed they might stay on the bluff forever, locked in mortal combat.
Holding back her screams, Kate lowered her gun and leaned against a rock, sick with fear and regret. She’d set brother against brother.
With a mighty heave Eagle shoved Cole aside then rolled into a crouch, his knife still sheathed. Cole glanced from his brother to his brother’s woman. His blade made slow, menacing circles in the air.
“Who will it be, Eagle? You or the witch woman?”
Kate hardly saw the movement of Eagle’s hand, but suddenly his blade flashed in the sun. Cole lunged at him. Steel clashed against steel.
She couldn’t watch, and yet she dared not turn away. Kate covered her mouth with her hands. But some small sound must have escaped, for Eagle turned toward her, leaving himself vulnerable.
Cole’s knife slashed his buckskin shirt, and the blood bloomed from his chest.
“No!” Kate screamed. “Stop it!”
With terrible face and eyes Eagle lifted his knife and scored along the side of his brother’s cheek. Cole’s laughter filled the canyon, and Kate covered her ears against its madness.
Their battle raged while the sun climbed upward, and slowly it brought them to the edge of the cliff.
“Give up,” Eagle said.
“Never.”
“You can’t win against me.”
The truth was so obvious that even Cole could see. Panting, he lowered his knife. Fierce and protective love glittered in Eagle’s face as he held out his hand.
“Come with me. I’ll get help for you.”
For a moment the madness left Cole’s eyes.
“Come,” Eagle said once more, softly.
“To live forever in a place that has no sun? Kill me,” he begged. “Put your knife to my throat and let me die with honor.”
Wind and snow swirled around them as the brothers faced each other.
“Are you a coward?” Cole screamed. “Kill me.”
An eagle soared above them, its screams echoing Cole’s. Eagle’s hand tightened on his knife. Anguish filled his face as he hesitated. Then slowly, ever so slowly, he lifted the blade.
“No!” Kate screamed. “Don’t let him do this to you.”
Cole turned toward Kate, and for a moment she saw the kindhearted, loving man who had once been her friend and her champion.
“I never meant to do harm,” he whispered. His eyes swung back to his brother. “I love you . . .” He took one backward step. “Eagle!”
His plaintive cry echoed off the canyon walls. For an instant, shock and horror held Kate in place, and then she was running, running toward Eagle and wrapping her arms around his chest.
Together they looked over the precipice. Cole lay at the bottom of the ravine, his neck at a crazy angle and his left leg folded underneath his broken body. Already the falling snow was beginning to cover him.
“It’s over,” Eagle said.
His face was terrible as he led her away, as frozen as the blanket of ice that would soon cover his brother.
“Yes, it’s over,” she said, knowing it was so, for Cole would always be between them, lying at the bottom of the ravine.
Chapter 36
Martin Black Elk twirled his pencil in his hand as he listened to the governor’s story.
