Exhaling slowly, Rogan watched as more of the women tumbled out of the dorms and headed to breakfast. He could smell pancakes on a hot griddle, and his stomach growled. But he didn’t feel like company this morning. He preferred to focus on the past and how it had shaped him.
After escaping the toxicity of their family home on the Tahlequah, Oklahoma, reservation, his sister, Sally, had gone into prostitution in Los Angeles. Rogan had discovered her fate when the cops came to juvey hall to tell him his sister had died of a drug overdose. Dead at age fifteen, at the hands of her unhappy pimp. Rogan recalled sobbing alone in his room. He’d been put in solitary confinement because he’d gotten into a fight with a bully, busting the white kid’s nose and taking out two of his front teeth. Rage over his father, who had sexually molested Sally from babyhood onward, had sickened Rogan. He hadn’t blamed her for running away; he’d wanted to leave with her. But who would take care of their mother? He was the oldest, so it was up to him.
And then, six months before his release from juvey hall, Rogan had gotten word that his brother had been murdered in New York City. Eagle Wing had become a mule, someone who willingly swallowed plastic bags of cocaine and brought them from South America to the U.S.A. Only Eagle Wing had been found with a bullet hole in his head, his body gutted, his intestines pulled out and the plastic bags of coke removed. Eagle Wing was tough and combative, but the weekly beatings by their angry father would make anyone that way. Rogan had cried then, too.
And when they’d given him his freedom on his eighteenth birthday, Rogan had gone back to the res to see his mother. She was still hooked on meth, looking like a leper, the sores on her body discharging terrible odors. And her mind was almost eaten up by the terrible drug. She’d barely recognized Rogan when he came back to the house—a house that held nothing but nightmarish memories for him. Rogan recalled his mother looking at him as if he were a stranger. Only after they’d talked awhile did she remember him. To Rogan’s sorrow, she didn’t seem to recall Sal or Eagle Wing at all.
Rogan had left, completely depressed, and angry at the white man’s world. He would do better for himself, he’d vowed. One thing Rogan had learned from his life was that whoever had the power had control. And that was something he’d sworn he’d have: control and power. No one would ever abuse him again. No one would take control away from him, either.
Spotting Blue Wolf, Rogan scowled. She was wearing tight jeans that did nothing for her thick body. And she was walking with her dearest friend, Alice White Elk, a woman from another tribe. They chatted and laughed, the sound carrying melodically across the empty yard.
Hatred welled up in Rogan. She was taking his power away from him now as surely as his father had taken it away from him as an innocent and unprotected child.
Moving his lips to form the word bitch, Rogan leaned against the stockade wall, feeling the rough bark through the fabric of his long-sleeved cotton shirt. He unbuttoned the cuffs and rolled them up to just beneath his elbows as Blue Wolf disappeared inside. Now, the familiar smells of frying bacon, hot cakes and coffee mingled in the cool mountain air, but Rogan scarcely noticed them.
Blue Wolf was like his father, he decided. How could he have been so blind to her real ambitions, and chosen her to carry the Storm Pipe? Although his father was an idiot, he’d known how to wrest control from Rogan and his siblings.
Blue Wolf was far more sneaky and subtle about it, and Rogan had recognized that fact far too late. She was not a product of fetal alcohol syndrome, but she did come from a family of drug users. And she’d done cocaine as a teen. Later, she’d been slapped into a women’s federal prison for ten years for selling the drug.
Facing the acid truth of his faulty judgment, Rogan began to amble along the wall again, hands clasped behind his back as he mulled over his complicated relationship with Blue Wolf. They’d been together nearly thirty years. She’d been his lover, his guide, and had never taken power away from him before this. Yet now, with her being the keeper of the ceremonial pipe, Rogan was seeing huge shifts in how she worked with him. Blue Wolf was no longer obedient. No longer the follower. No, she knew she had a special pipe and that she was in total control.
Bitter over that admittance, Rogan scratched his head and walked toward the closed gates of the compound, where one woman soldier was always on duty.
What to do about Blue Wolf? Rogan couldn’t just kill her outright. Visions of tossing her over the wall and down that three-thousand-foot cliff warmed his knotted gut. But who would then carry the Storm Pipe? Who among his other eleven women would obey him and not get ideas of power and control in her head as Blue Wolf had?
Rogan thought about Star Woman, who was forty. She was half-Cherokee and half-white. But she was willing to please and grateful to be involved in his quest for power. She’d been a pock-marked kid and her face permanently scarred when Rogan had lured her into his arms. She was ugly, that was all there was to it. She’d come out of a home of ten children, and being one of the youngest, she’d been ignored. Star Woman lapped up any attention. Perhaps Rogan could manipulate her to take on the handling of the Storm Pipe after he got rid of Blue Wolf.
Yet did Star Woman have the necessary grounding, the ability to handle the power of the pipe as Blue Wolf did? Rogan pondered that tricky question. Not everyone could manage the raw, universal energy. There was a recipe, if Rogan could call it that, to handling such a pipe. Carriers had to be completely grounded and in their body. They had to have unshakable focus. They were, body and spirit, the receptacle for a pipe’s energy. Most of all, maturity was essential. Did Star Woman have the necessary qualities?
Rubbing his chin, Rogan wheeled around and headed back along the wall. She was the youngest woman, dammit. Too malleable. Handling the invisible energy of a ceremonial pipe would be too much for Star Woman. Yet, she was the easiest to manipulate from his band of women….
For some reason, Rogan looked up just then into the ever brightening sky. When he spotted a huge, black raven flying overhead, croaking raucously, he scowled. He hated ravens and crows. They were the tricksters. The magicians. When one showed up, it meant something was about to go wrong. What the hell was it this time? Birds were always messengers. Who was coming? Rogan didn’t like unwelcome guests appearing at their compound. It happened from time to time.
Stupid white folks on vacation, lost and unsure of how to get back to Carson City. Off-roaders who’d taken their four-wheelers in the wrong direction. Damn. Rogan didn’t want tourists intruding on the busy agenda he’d laid out for today. They had a test run as a group scheduled for later that morning. Blue Wolf would have the Storm Pipe, coddled to her ample breast. It would not be smoked in these trainings. The other women would sit in a circle, knees and hands touching, to form a funnel through which the energy of the pipe could pass. Such training was essential so that nothing would go wrong during the actual ceremony.
The raven croaked again, grating on Rogan’s already sensitized nerves. Lifting his hand, he gave the black, shining bird the finger. Go to hell.
“I THINK WE’RE LOST,” Annie Ballard told Agent David Colby. She looked at the scribbled directions to Rogan Fast Horse’s compound that Joe Spearling had given them earlier. Up ahead, the dirt road they were on forked into a Y. Which branch to take?
Colby grimaced and pulled off the road. Around them, sparse pines grew interspersed with sagebrush and prickly pear cacti. The east slope of the Sierras wasn’t moist or verdant like the western side. The sunlight was bright and lanced through the windshield of the Toyota Land Cruiser. He punched up the air-conditioning and then ran his finger across his sweaty upper lip.
“Okay, let’s look at the map,” he told Annie. She handed him the open road map she held. Frowning, Colby traced their route from Carson City up into the Sierras. “The problem is this map isn’t going to show all the back roads crawling over these mountains,” he told Annie.
She nodded. “Plus, Joe’s directions aren’t exactly clear.”
/> “That’s because he’s a local. He knows the roads up here. For him, the map made sense, but for us out-of-towners, it doesn’t.” Colby removed his sunglasses and glanced around. The road was crossing a long, sloping meadow dotted with chunks of black basalt, cactus and yellowing grass.
“My intuition tells us we’re near Eagle’s Nest, where Joe said this medicine man, Rogan Fast Horse, lives.” Annie pointed to the left fork, which meandered upward across the rough terrain. “That’s the way. I feel it in my gut.”
David folded the map and handed it back to her. “Hey, you have a fifty-fifty chance of being right. Let’s take the high road. We’re on an adventure.” His watch said it was near 11:00 a.m. They’d eaten breakfast earlier at a Denny’s Restaurant. Annie had packed them a lunch, and now he was glad she had. The sky was an intense blue, with high, filmy white clouds that resembled strands of a woman’s hair. The day was beautiful, and he found himself enjoying Annie’s company as well as the rugged natural surroundings.
Chuckling, she put the road map away, but continued to hold Joe’s map in her hand. “Lead on, Macduff! I’m excited about meeting this medicine man. I’m hoping he’ll be able to help us.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” David murmured. “The FBI has a jaded history with Native Americans. Wounded Knee pretty well killed any goodwill between us and them—not to mention trust.”
Annie thought about the incident on the Sioux reservation decades before, in which an FBI agent had been killed. A Native American had been charged with the crime, but Annie had read enough about it to realize that maybe, just maybe, the wrong Indians were in prison. Colby was right that the event had forever changed how Indians saw the FBI.
“Okay, I’ll try not to get my hopes up too high,” she promised the agent. Still, she was eager to meet a real medicine man. What an honor and an opportunity!
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
WHAT WAS SHE GOING TO DO? Dana sighed and sat on a flat boulder. She was five miles from the winter hogan. Wednesday morning’s sky was apricot-colored, infusing her pounding heart with awe and appreciation as she cooled down from her daily run. Wrapping her arms around her drawn-up legs, she studied the orange ribbon of light silhouetting the mountains in the distance. The strong, steadying scent of sagebrush filled her lungs.
As beautiful as the morning was, Dana felt as if a proverbial nest of snakes had moved into her heart and gut. No matter what she did, how much she tried to forget Chase’s kiss, she couldn’t do so. Couldn’t escape it or hide from it. Since that incident, Chase had been quiet and painfully distant. Was he sorry he’d kissed her? More than likely.
Dana watched a black-eared jackrabbit hop from sagebrush to sagebrush, always alert for a nearby coyote. She felt much like the long-eared animal. She’d been playing hide-and-seek with Chase since that sudden burst of intimacy. Rubbing her damp brow, she closed her eyes and tried to steady her heartbeat. Why did Chase have to kiss her? Did he realize he’d awakened her, made her want to live again? More than likely he did, being a metaphysician like herself. They were far more sensitive to other people and their thoughts than most individuals. Dana was sure Chase could read her mind if he really wanted to, although she was certain he respected her enough not to go there. At least, most of the time. Otherwise, how had he known she needed to be held, kissed, protected?
In the distance, she saw movement. To Dana’s delight, it was a herd of about twenty tan-and-white-coated antelopes, foraging on cactus and dried tufts of grass. She was sure they knew she was here, and didn’t seem at all threatened.
Absorbing the healing qualities of dawn’s stillness, Dana contemplated the new day. It was yet to be written, yet to be acted upon. Dawn was a symbol of birth. Father Sun rose in the east, and on the medicine wheel, that was the direction of giving birth on some level of one’s self.
The apricot color intensified as the sun inched closer to the horizon. Dana loved this moment, where Mother Earth herself seemed to hold her breath as Father Sun rose to announce the day.
Whether he knew it or not, Chase had birthed a new era for Dana. And right now, with the mission bearing down on them, something good stirred in her yearning heart. Her grief still held her captive to the loss of her loved ones, but not as much as before. If Chase could see her aura now, her fields probably looked like a witch’s brew of conflicting energies.
Focus on the positive, she told herself.
As she continued her daily morning run, the pronghorns came within a quarter mile of her. Dana appreciated their small, gazellelike bodies, their spindly legs so thin they looked as if they could snap. Their coloring helped them blend in perfectly with the desert plains. What she liked most about them were their huge, shiny black eyes, which missed nothing. They would reach down, grab some grass, then quickly lift their head again, looking around as they chewed. They were always on guard and wary. And so must she be on Saturday morning, when she and Chase would scale the cliff to Rogan’s compound.
Slowly rising, Dana dusted off her gray sweatpants and turned around. As if knowing she was no threat, the antelope kept on eating. She had another five miles to jog, back to the winter hogan. Good. It was so tough to face Chase, to look at him and avoid gazing at his sensual mouth. Maybe, in that five miles, she could build up enough resistance against him and his masculine charisma to focus on the mission. As she began to lope down the sandy trail between the sagebrush, Dana wondered if Chase was at all disturbed by their hot, incredible kiss. He seemed absolutely impervious, as if it was in the past, done and completely forgotten. Was it? Did Chase consider the intimacy with her as part of his “duty” to Grandmother? To do whatever he must to prepare her to retrieve the Storm Pipe?
Determined, Dana focused on the path and picked up her pace.
CHASE SENSED Dana’s return from her morning run. This was his favorite time of day—early morning, when dawn and quietude blanketed Mother Earth. The sacred silence was pregnant with life, and as he stood over the small woodstove, stirring scrambled eggs, Chase absorbed the healing energy with pleasure.
Already it was Wednesday. Tomorrow they’d leave for Carson City, Nevada. They’d arrive Friday morning, and go check out Rogan’s Eagle’s Nest compound. And then, early Saturday morning, under cover of night, they’d climb that cliff, enter the compound and steal back the Storm Pipe. It sounded so easy.
Frowning, Chase added chopped-up Bermuda onion, diced ham and slices of red and green peppers to the heaping mound of scrambled eggs in the iron skillet. As he stirred the colorful mixture, the smells stirred his dormant sense. He had biscuits rising and browning in the oven. He enjoyed cooking. It wasn’t a task to him. Cooking was about life, about appreciating the colors, the fragrances. It was about eating the food that plants and animals gifted to humans so they could continue to survive, with gratefulness.
Chase sensed rather than heard Dana’s approach. The door to the hogan was open, rays of sunlight slanting in silently. Though his heart sped up, he focused on making breakfast. Trying to ignore Dana after their kiss was like trying not to breathe.
He picked up the handle of the skillet with a pot holder, walked over to the small table and put half of the Denver mixture on Dana’s plate, and half on his. As he set down the skillet in a basin filled with dishwater, it sizzled and spat, sending steam roiling upward like angry clouds. He grabbed some sliced sharp cheddar cheese and plopped it on top of the eggs.
Hearing Dana’s footfalls, Chase went to the oven, opened it and retrieved half a dozen browned biscuits. As he put them on a plate, she entered. Her hair was in braids, with runaway tendrils around her face from the run. Her golden cheeks were stained pink, her cinnamon eyes dancing with life. When she smiled tentatively, Chase put a choke hold on his body, so he wouldn’t respond to her.
“Come on, you’re just in time,” he growled. After setting a jar of honey on the table, he retrieved the percolator and poured steaming coffee into the chipped mugs.
“Smells wonderful, Chase. Th
ank you.” Dana quickly got out of her running shoes and padded over to the table. She’d already taken off her sweatshirt, the white tee beneath it clearly outlining her lean upper body. Sitting down, Dana cast a quick glance across the table as Chase sat opposite her.
“You’re welcome,” he said, then dived into the hot, steamy food. “How was the run?”
Dana ate the delicious scrambled eggs with relish. “Fine. I saw a herd of antelope this morning. There were some cute babies at their mama’s side.”
Chase slathered butter and then drizzled honey across a biscuit. “Good sign. Antelopes always bring a sense of peace.”
Far from it, as far as Dana was concerned. She nodded and continued to eat. Because the table was so small, their knees would sometimes touch. Chase seemed uncomfortable with the contact, but Dana enjoyed the physical connection with him. “I’m hoping for peace after we get the Storm Pipe back,” she said wistfully.
Chase quirked his mouth and took a sip of coffee. “I wish that, too, but we don’t know what Rogan will do once he finds it missing. I’m worried he’ll try to track us on the Other Side, find our energy trail and come physically to take it back. He’d do it, too.”
“I keep reminding myself Rogan is a sorcerer and that’s what he does best—hunts and follows trails of unsuspecting prey.”
“Before we climb to his compound, we need to cloak ourselves and our energy very carefully. I’m assuming there are guards inside the fortress. As I mentioned earlier, you’ll have to travel astrally to check out the layout inside and find where the pipe is hidden.”
Heart of the Storm Page 15
