Tears of the Shaman

by Rebecca Daniels

It had been five days since the collapse of the tent, since the television and newspapers had reported on the freak event, and since Graywolf had barricaded himself in his hogan. Five days ago he’d wanted to prepare himself for the onslaught of publicity and unwanted attention he’d been so convinced would follow.

  But there had been no onslaught, no mob of reporters, no pursuit. He’d had five long days in the desert alone—five days to realize what a fool he was.

  The story was an old one now. The reporters were gone, the cameras had moved on to other places, the powwow was over, the crowds had vanished and the tribes had gone home.

  He remembered the accusations he’d made, the reproach he’d felt. Besides Sam Begay, she was the only other person who knew the truth of what had really happened in that tent, who knew that the evacuation had been no coincidence, no fluke of circumstance. And because she knew, he’d allowed his doubts and insecurities to gain the upper hand.

  He’d accused her of wanting a story, of using what had happened and what she knew to get a jump on the competition. He’d imagined it all happening again—the lurid headlines, the unwanted spotlight, the journalists and the crackpots—everyone after him for a piece of the action. All the unpleasantness, all the news hype and media blitz that he’d finally been able to put behind him would start all over again.

  He’d thought of Susan, believing the situations to be so similar, so much alike. He remembered how Susan had reacted—jumping into the spotlight and selling him down the river. He’d just assumed Mallory would do the same thing.

  His mind shifted to the series of articles in the Washington Chronicle that Hosteen Johnny had dutifully delivered to him each day. He’d read all three of the beautifully written pieces that had chronicled the lives of Ida and her family—their struggles, their sacrifices, and what they’d hoped they would gain for themselves and their nation by coming to the powwow. Nowhere in the articles had Mallory mentioned the tent collapse or a shaman’s vision that had averted disaster.

  He’d made a mistake—a big one. Mallory wasn’t Susan—wasn’t anything like her. She hadn’t betrayed him, hadn’t let him down and hurt him, and yet he’d treated her as though he’d expected her to do just that. He’d believed she would react the same way Susan had because...

  He opened his eyes, feeling cold inside despite the sweltering embers and feverish air. Why had he made that assumption? Why did he find it so difficult to give her his trust, his faith? Mallory and Susan were two different people, they led different lives, wanted different things out of life, and yet he’d been comparing the two almost from the beginning. Why? They had nothing in common except that they both were—

  He heard her words echoing in his head. Prejudiced. It was an ugly word—and it brought with it a history of bitterness and suffering. But could it possibly be that she had been right? Had he become so wrapped up in his own efforts to rectify the injustices his people had suffered at the hands of the White Eyes that he was blind to his own bias, his own intolerance?

  Staring into the fire, he imagined her face—the golden hair, the blue-green eyes, the flawless skin. Physically she was as far from Navajo as you could get, yet never had he met anyone more at harmony, more in tune, with the world around her.

  See me, now that I am one with another.

  At one. She was at one—she knew what it was to be in harmony, to be at peace with herself and with nature. She sensed her sister’s danger because it had thrown her world out of harmony. She hadn’t mocked and ridiculed his gifts, hadn’t used or exploited them, because she understood them. She understood they were a part of him, part of what kept him centered, what kept him in harmony. Never had he met a white person so attuned, so balanced, so Navajo in thought and expression.

  She had called Ida, Charlie and Esther her friends, and after having read the articles she’d written about them, he didn’t doubt her feelings were sincere. She had written about her friends with genuine love and respect, taking time to get to know them and understand something about their lives, and their dreams. He thought of her strength and determination during their long search through the desert, remembered her warmth and compassion with Ruth during those long hours of labor. She was a woman who held nothing back, who gave of herself to those who needed her, to those she loved.

  Love. She had told him she loved him. She had whispered those words to him over and over again. Would he ever hear those words again? Was her heart still open to him, or had his cruel words closed it to him for good?

  A sense of longing swept through him, and the tiny enclosure suddenly seemed sweltering and cramped. He thought of their night together, of the feel of her in his arms, of the passion they had shared. She’d opened her heart to him, given him her love, her compassion, and it hurt him now to think how little he’d given her in return.

  A coyote howled in the distance. The baleful cry sent a wave of loneliness through him. Despite the fact that he’d tried very hard to convince himself otherwise, their night together had been more than just a night of mutual attraction, more than just two people reaching out in the darkness. She had touched him that night, had found her way through all the barriers and the barricades, through the preconceived presumptions and veiled prejudices, to that carefully guarded place where he kept his love.

  In one fierce motion, Graywolf pushed out of the lean-to. Beneath the huge desert moon, he filled his lungs with the cool night air. The fresh oxygen moved through his system, clearing his head and causing his body temperature to drop. Sweat streamed down his body as his arms reached out for the stars. He called out to the cosmos—a piercing warrior’s cry to answer the lonely wail of the coyote.

  He wanted to be healed, wanted all the impurities out of his system, out of his soul. He wanted harmony again, wanted to know the peace and security of his place among man and nature. He shouted out again, calling for restoration, for rejuvenation, for recognition.

  See me. See me Changing Woman. See me Lord of the White Eyes. See me Yellow Hair. See me Love.

  He turned and ran to the small stream that ran behind the sweat house. He collapsed into the cool flow, letting the clear water rush over him, letting it take the poison of his foolishness, the toxin of his stupidity, along with it.

  * * *

  “Look, Wayne,” Mallory said, trying without much success to keep the exasperation out of her voice. “How many times do I have to tell you? There’s nothing else. You know everything.”

  “My reporter was there,” the editor from the Flagstaff Register argued. “She saw Sam Begay, saw Ben Graywolf.” He leaned forward and set his coffee mug down on the small table in Marissa’s breakfast nook. “She saw the look on your face.”

  “Then she saw something that wasn’t there.”

  “You sure about that?” Wayne asked, giving her a deliberate look. “You’re not holding out on me, are you? I mean, if you’re saving this for Glen, I can tell you this isn’t something the Chronicle’s going to be interested in. But the Register, it’s got great local appeal for us.”

  “Give it up, Wayne. This is old news,” Mallory said with a laugh. She stood up and reached for the empty coffee mug, thinking she would never again interview anyone without remembering this morning. Being on the hot seat was no fun, especially when you didn’t feel like talking. “Now, look, I’ve got a plane to catch this afternoon. You’re going to have to get out of here.”

  “All right, all right, I’m leaving,” he said with a good-natured smile and a resigned sigh. He stood up, lifting his suit coat off the back of the chair. “You know, we’re always looking for new people at the Register. I could make you an interesting offer.”

  Mallory smiled. “Thanks, Wayne, but I’m happy where I am.”

  “You sure?” Wayne asked, stopping at the door and

  turning back around to look at her. “Think about it. Arizona’s a great place—a lot of single men, clean air, good weather—and hey, your sister even lives here.”

  Mallory laughed and
shook her head. “I appreciate the offer, I really do, but I’m not looking for a man, and my sister is moving to California in a few weeks at the end of the school term.”

  Wayne shook his head. “Some days it just doesn’t pay to get up.”

  They both laughed then. After exchanging a friendly goodbye, Mallory stood at the door and watched as Wayne’s sporty foreign import sped down the street and disappeared around a corner.

  “Is this blue bag ready to go?”

  Mallory turned and walked back inside the house when she heard Marissa’s voice. “All ready,” she said, heading for the bedroom.

  “I’m going to need help zipping it closed,” Marissa said when Mallory walked into the room.

  Mallory surveyed the overstuffed soft-sided suitcase Marissa struggled with on the bed, and the two others that stood zipped and ready to go on the carpet. “Where did all this stuff come from? Are you sure all this is mine?”

  “Every skirt, shirt, sandal and sweater,” Marissa said with a grunt. “Now, get over here and sit on this thing so I can zip it up.”

  It actually took both of them sitting on the sturdy canvas bag before they could coax the zipper closed.

  “There,” Mallory said with a sigh, lifting the bag from the bed and setting it with the others. “That’s everything.”

  “Well, just to be sure,” Marissa said, dragging her heavy cast leg to the closet and sliding open the doors. “Let’s do a final check.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Mallory warned, stopping her sister. “I don’t have room for another thing. If I’ve forgotten anything, you keep it.”

  “Okay,” Marissa conceded with a laugh. “I just hope it’s something I can use.” She slid the doors closed and turned to her sister. “How did it go with Wayne?”

  Mallory sighed heavily. “About as you’d expected—awkward and unpleasant.”

  “That good, huh?” Marissa said, nodding her head. “What did you tell him?”

  “The same thing I told him the first time he came over, and the second—nothing.”

  “What makes him so sure there’s more to all this?”

  Mallory shrugged. “He knows Graywolf, knows about his...well, he knows about him. Unfortunately, he’s a good reporter and has put two and two together.”

  “I take it he hasn’t talked to Graywolf.”

  “No,” Mallory said, shaking her head. “He knows he’d get nowhere with him. He figured I’d be his best bet. If anyone was going to spill the beans, it would be me.” She gave a sad, cheerless laugh. “Apparently he wasn’t the only one.”

  “Graywolf didn’t believe it, either,” Marissa said. “Not really.”

  “You weren’t there,” Mallory reminded her. “You didn’t see him, didn’t hear the things he said.”

  “I didn’t have to be,” Marissa insisted. “Think about it, Mallory. He’s been plastered across the headlines in the past, and all he could see was it happening all over again. He was scared, and he struck out. How do you think he must have felt when he read your articles in the Chronicle? You don’t think he’s regretted what he said?”

  “Don’t tell me you think he read them,” Mallory said, tossing her hands in the air. “And I can’t believe you’re defending him.”

  “I’m not,” Marissa insisted, her voice softening. “Not exactly, anyway. I know you were hurt, and I know it wasn’t fair, but I’m not sure you’re seeing things clearly.”

  “Oh, he made it very clear,” Mallory said, adamant. “He doesn’t trust me—he never has and he never will.”

  “You told me yourself there had been someone else, a woman—a white woman in the past—who had hurt him, betrayed him.”

  “And so that automatically means I would betray him?” Mallory demanded emotionally.

  “No,” Marissa said calmly. “But it just means that he’s human, that he’s afraid of being hurt just like everyone else.”

  Mallory slumped down heavily onto the edge of the bed. “I told him I loved him. Didn’t that mean anything to him?”

  Marissa sat down next to her sister. “I’m sure it meant a lot.”

  Mallory looked at her sister, her eyes filling with tears. “I’m not her—I’m not that other woman. Doesn’t he know I’d never do anything to hurt him?”

  Marissa slipped a comforting arm around her sister’s shoulders. “I’m sure he understands that now.”

  The telephone rang, and Marissa reached toward the nightstand by her bed to answer it. As she talked, Mallory stood up and walked into the bathroom. She’d gone over all this a million times in her head since that day at the powwow, and it was driving her crazy. She heard his words over and over again in her head, saw the cold, angry look in his eyes.

  She had to stop thinking about it, had to stop thinking about him. Her flight back to D.C. would be leaving in a few hours. She didn’t want to spend what little time she had left with her sister rethinking all those painful memories. There would be time later for all of that—a whole lifetime.

  Washing her face with cool water, she did her best to shove all those painful feelings aside. She marched back into the bedroom, feeling determined and renewed, just as Marissa was hanging up the phone.

  “It’s a good thing I brought that carry-on bag,” she said with a forced cheeriness. “Or I never would have gotten all this stuff to fit inside....” But her words trailed off when she looked up and saw her sister’s expression. “Marissa, what is it? What’s the matter?”

  “It’s Josh,” Marissa whispered, her lips starting to quiver. “Oh, Mallory, he’s been arrested.”

  * * *

  Graywolf listened to the even, monotonous tone and felt his blood pressure rise. No answer—again. There had been no answer at Marissa Wakefield’s house all afternoon. Where the hell was she? More to the point, where the hell was Mallory?

  He slammed the telephone down hard, causing two of the officers sitting at a nearby desk to look up and stare.

  “Hey, easy on the equipment,” George Robins pleaded. “Taxpayers in this country frown on crazy Indians who come in here and break up the joint.”

  Graywolf ignored George’s mocking barb and pushed himself away from the desk. He walked to the window, staring out the plate glass to the street below. He’d driven straight to Sedona from his hogan, but he’d only confirmed what the unanswered telephone had already told him—neither Mallory nor her sister were there. He’d driven on to Flagstaff more out of frustration than anything else. If George couldn’t help him find her, he had no choice but to fly to D.C. and plant himself in her office until she showed up.

  He thought of the disembodied voice he’d talked to at the Washington Chronicle. It had told him only that Mallory Wakefield wasn’t expected back at the newspaper until Monday morning. The only suggestion the saccharine sweet voice could offer was that he try back then.

  Monday. Graywolf rubbed at his scratchy eyes. Today—or what was left of it—was Saturday. What was he supposed to do until then? This was driving him crazy.

  “Aren’t there some strings you could pull? Phone calls you could make?” Graywolf asked wearily, walking back to the desk and collapsing in the chair.

  “Another missing person?” George asked slyly.

  Graywolf gave him a dark look. “You could at least find out if she has a reservation on a flight out of here.”

  “The airlines aren’t supposed to give out that sort of information,” George reminded him.

  “They wouldn’t for me, but they would for you,” Graywolf insisted. “Look, George, flash them your badge, tell them it’s official police business or something.”

  George set down the file he was reading and peered at Graywolf over the top of his horn-rimmed glasses. “But it isn’t official police business. It’s a love-crazed Indian on the warpath.”

  Graywolf drew in a deep breath, feeling himself growing one step closer to desperation. He would admit to being in love, but not love-crazed—not yet anyway. “George...please.”

/>   George Robins reached a hand up slowly and pulled his glasses off. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized just how important this was to Graywolf, or how serious. Looking up at his friend, he reached for the phone.

  It didn’t take long to get the information he was after. Hanging up the telephone, George scribbled something on a Post-it and handed it to Graywolf. “She’s got a shuttle out of Flagstaff to Dallas at 7:30, then makes a connecting flight to National.” Stretching out his wrist, he checked his watch. “If you leave right now, you just might make it.”

  Graywolf kicked his feet to the floor and stood up, snatching the Post-it from George. “I owe you one, buddy.”

  “You bet you do—a big one,” George said as Graywolf turned and started for the door. “And take it easy,” he called after him. “Don’t expect me to be fixing any speeding tickets.”

  But Graywolf didn’t hear George’s warning, or anything else. He was already past the squad room and running for the elevator, his mind mapping the fastest route to the airport. He had to get to Mallory, had to stop her from getting on that plane, had to stop her from leaving. He wasn’t sure yet what he’d do when he found her, what he’d say. The important thing was that he find her, that he see her, that he hold her again.

  Chapter 16

  “Here, let me help you with that.”

  “Thank you,” Mallory said, smiling gratefully at the gray-haired man behind her. She let him take the clumsy carry-on bag she’d been struggling with, and helped him guide it into the overhead luggage compartment. She stepped to one side then, out of the aisle to let him pass. “Thanks again.”

  She slid into her window seat, hoping that by some miracle the two seats beside her would remain vacant. She wasn’t in the mood for conversation—frankly, she wasn’t in the mood for much of anything. The drive to the airport had been long and hot. She was exhausted, and just wanted to sit back and do nothing—especially not think. Unfortunately, that wasn’t easy to do.

  She turned and gazed out the small window, watching as a baggage cart loaded with suitcases circled close to the plane. This wasn’t an easy trip to go home from—so much had happened in her life, so much had changed. She thought of D.C., thought of the muggy weather the summer would bring, thought of the traffic, and the people, and her crowded, cramped apartment.