“Look,” he growled, getting up and stuffing the information file back into the briefcase, “this is probably going to be, at the most, a two-day mission.” You won’t have to work with me very long. Ten thousand bucks for two days’ work isn’t a bad trade-off for having to work with a bastard like me, is it?”
She glared at him. “I was going to do this for nothing, Mr. McDonald, because I felt sorry for Ruth Horner. You have nothing to do with it.”
Wes nodded. Okay, he’d had that coming. He was surprised at how well she handled her own anger. Maybe he could learn a thing or two from her after all. “My boss is used to paying for what he gets, so keep the money and let me make the flight arrangements. All right?”
Diana hesitated. “I can’t tell my mother where I’m going?”
“Sure, just don’t tell her what you’ll be doing.”
She smiled a little. “You don’t know my mother, Mr. McDonald.”
“Oh?”
“Walk With Wolves is my mother’s name. She is a very well known medicine woman here on the reservation, and very much loved by our people. She reads minds as easily as you and I communicate with our mouths. Even if I don’t tell her, she’ll know.”
He snorted. “Come on!”
Diana’s smile broadened, but the look in her eyes was one of challenge. “You don’t believe me?” she taunted.
“No.”
“Good. You make the travel arrangements, then meet me at four-thirty, when I get off work. I’ll take you home to meet my mother, and you can see for yourself.”
“What’s to stop you from making a phone call to her in the meantime?”
Diana hated his snideness, his way of expecting the worst. “That does it! We’re going home right now,” she retorted angrily. “You’re so negative! So distrustful!”
Wes grinned just a tad. She was beautiful when she got angry, he’d give her that. Her eyes gleamed with a golden light of challenge, her full lips pursed and her cheeks turned rosy. “Okay, let’s go meet Mama,” he said, his tone still cynical.
“Be sure to follow me back to my office—to make sure I don’t try to call her,” Diana jeered.
“I intend to do just that,” he said silkily, falling into step at her side.
*
On the way home, Diana had Wes stop at the grocery and buy several bags of groceries.
“Why are we doing this?” he demanded at the checkout counter.
“Because it’s bad etiquette to visit a medicine person’s home without a gift.”
“Groceries?”
Diana nodded and watched him slip several twenties from his billfold. “That’s right. Mother gives the food away to those who need it.”
“Oh…”
“You thought it was for her?”
“Sure.”
“Just like a white man. You have no conception of true generosity of spirit.”
He slanted a glance down at her. “You have spunk, I’ll give you that.”
“I don’t care what you think of me,” Diana said in a low, warning tone, “but you’d best not be rude to my mother, or I’ll be in your face in a split second.”
Wes grinned fully. He believed her. Picking up the grocery sacks, he said, “Let’s go.”
Diana felt shaky with anger, with the urge to slap his rugged face. Even his smile was twisted, as if he was in some kind of internal pain only he knew about. And that underlying pain was what stopped her from really wanting to slap him. Somehow, Wes McDonald was a beaten dog, and she’d never kick a hurt animal, no matter how many times it snapped or bit at her.
*
Wes was impressed with the beauty of the reservation as they drove deeper and deeper into the foothills crowned by the magnificent Smoky Mountains. The dirt road they drove paralleled another creek, and he wondered if there were some nice, fat brown trout in there just waiting to be someone’s dinner. Soon the road narrowed, and they came into a hollow, a small meadow ringed on three sides by rounded hills aflame with autumn colors. At the far end of the yellow meadow stood a small log cabin surrounded by a white picket fence. A profusion of red geraniums graced its border.
Wes realized the log cabin was very old and in need of a vast amount of repair—beginning with its rusted tin roof. But the yard was neatly kept, the picket fence freshly painted and recently washed clothes hung on an outdoor clothesline. Obviously, this medicine woman didn’t have a dryer.
“What does a medicine person do?” he asked as he slowed the car for a big rut in the dirt road.
“My mother is a healer. She has gifts that have been passed down through our family for six generations. People from the reservation come to her if they’re ailing. She knows the ceremonies, the songs and herbs, so she’s able to help most of them. The ones she can’t, she sends to the hospital.”
“Wise woman,” Wes muttered. He felt Diana stiffen and glanced at her. “That wasn’t an insult. I’m saying your mother knows her limits as a so-called healer, and wouldn’t let a person die if she couldn’t help them.”
Biting back a retort, Diana said, “My mother is one of the most loving people you’ll ever meet, Mr. McDonald. But then, I have this feeling you don’t know what love is, so it’ll probably be lost on the likes of you.”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Are you always this solicitous or is it just me?”
“It’s you,” Diana agreed, her voice strained. “You work hard at making people dislike you, don’t you?”
“I don’t care what they think of me.”
“No kidding.”
“It’s the job that counts, Ms. Wolf. I’m very good at doing a job and doing it right. That’s where I get my satisfaction. I don’t need pats on the head or a hug.”
“Or love.”
He glared at her.
She glared back, her face set, her lips tight with challenge.
“Shall we declare a truce while I meet your mother?”
“You’d better.” Diana got out of the car and slammed the door. She didn’t even wait for McDonald, who was so utterly rude and hard that it sent her senses spinning. As she unlatched the white gate, her hands shook. Remember, she told herself, he’s a beaten dog. In some way, he’s been beaten until he believes himself to be ugly, hateful and bad. In her heart, Diana knew there was more to him than the defenses he presented to the world. Twice she’d seen his armor fall away for an instant—and twice she’d seen a vulnerable man beneath. But he was infuriating! Utterly infuriating.
Before she reached the door, McDonald was at her side, grocery bags in his arms. Shooting him a dirty look, she opened the door and stepped inside.
“Mother, we’re home,” she called.
Wes followed her down the darkened hall and to the right, where he saw a large, overweight woman in a well-worn, dark blue cotton shift sitting at the kitchen table. Her gray hair hung in neat braids, and several polished-stone necklaces hung around her large neck. Wes had to admit he liked her face; it was plump and red-cheeked, with the most brilliant brown eyes he’d ever seen. The smile Walks With Wolves gave him went all the way to his soul.
“Hi, sweetheart, I was expecting you early,” Walks With Wolves said, slowly, ponderously hefting herself upward. She hugged her daughter warmly, then devoted her attention to Wes, who had just set the grocery bags on the kitchen counter.
“Golanoh, Raven, came to me late this morning,” she told Diana, a twinkle in her chocolate-colored eyes as she made her way around the table toward Wes. “He came and sat on my windowsill and cawed at me. He told me a stranger, a warrior, was acoming our way.”
Wes was riveted to the spot. Despite Walks With Wolves’s immense weight—probably three hundred pounds on her five-foot-six-inch frame—she was the epitome of grace. She reminded him of those ample Hawaiian dancers, with their litheness and balletlike grace. Automatically, he held out his hand to the approaching woman. His senses were confused and an incredible giddiness—something he’d never felt before—consumed
him. Was it Walks With Wolves’s dancing eyes? The warmth, the sincerity of welcome in them? Wes felt as if he were the only person on the face of the earth, and she was devoting a hundred percent of her considerable attention to him and him alone.
The feeling was irresistibly warm—and, for Wes, simultaneously uncomfortable. Walks With Wolves brushed aside his hand, grinning widely and threw her arms around him. Wes had never been given a bear hug in his life, but he was now. The strength of the woman was amazing as she trapped him against her, squeezing him hard enough to make the air rush from his lungs. At the same time, he felt a heat that started in his toes and shot upward, like jagged, hot lightning. Suddenly dizzy, he felt himself lifted off his feet! It was only for a second, but when his feet reconnected with the tile floor and Walks With Wolves released him, he staggered a little. He leaned against the counter, staring, stunned, down into her smiling face.
“Wes McDonald. That’s who Golanoh told me was coming.” She patted his arm in a motherly fashion. “Come over here, sit down. Sweetheart? Will you get Wes some coffee? I think he needs a good, strong cup.” She poked him in the stomach. “You a little on the lean side for your height, eh? Been off your feed, have you?” She chuckled pleasantly, led him over to the table and pulled out a straight-backed chair. “Sit.”
Diana curbed a smile while she made fresh black coffee for the three of them. Leave it to her mother to already know and fix whatever was wrong. All the anger left her, and it was replaced with an effusive joy. The look on Wes’s face was priceless. He hadn’t expected Walks With Wolves to hug him. And when she had, Diana had seen a miraculous change come over his expression. She knew her mother, and the powerful healing that came from her heart. If Wes’s own heart had been closed, it was open now, because no one could stand in her mother’s presence and not feel love.
“So, you a warrior, eh?”
Wes rubbed his brow, still feeling dizzy. What had happened? He felt different. Something was still going on: explosions, fireworks, heat, light, all mixed deep within him on some internal, invisible level. He tried to tell himself he was crazy. That Walks With Wolves was crazy. That this whole damn situation was crazy. But it wasn’t.
Walks With Wolves sat across from him, smiling at him, her hands folded on the table. Her eyes twinkled like a brilliant, starry night. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever met, he realized, with the exception of her daughter. They both had sparkling eyes that spoke eloquently of what lay in their hearts and souls, full mouths that laughed and smiled easily.
“Yes, I’m a soldier,” he admitted, his voice strained.
“You feelin’ a little dizzy?”
He gave her a surprised look. “Well…yes, how did you know?”
She grinned and shrugged. “People who carry a lot of pain in their hearts get dizzy when their hearts fly open and the loads are taken away.” She pointed toward his chest. “Feel a little warm around your heart, eh?”
A little? It felt as if a burning brand was searing into him. Wes nodded and absently touched his chest.
“It’ll go away in a while, young man. You just sit there and thank the Great Spirit, have a cup of coffee and relax with us. It’s been a long time since you’ve relaxed, hasn’t it? Twelve years, eh?”
Completely shaken, Wes gaped at her. “How could you know?”
Diana giggled. She couldn’t help herself. The coffee was ready and she brought over three white mugs. “See? I told you she could read minds.”
Walks With Wolves lifted her head and raised her gray eyebrows. “I see you brought me food for the poor. That was kind of you, young man. The Great Spirit always rewards a person’s generosity toward the people who need it. You’re a good warrior, one with a heart.”
Diana set the creamer and sugar bowl on the table, watching Wes closely. He looked shell-shocked. All the while, he was slowly rubbing the region of his heart. Good; her mother had given him a healing. There was no doubt in Diana’s mind that Wes’s heart had been closed up tighter than Fort Knox before she’d gotten hold of him.
“Good thing Mother healed your heart wound,” Diana said as she sat down between them. “Otherwise, you’d have been headed for a heart attack down the road.”
Chuckling, Walks With Wolves said, “That’s right, young man. Give you another three years, and heart disease woulda set in. Yes, you are worthy of help in the Great Spirit’s eyes, or you wouldn’t have been brought to us.”
Wes didn’t know what to say. He felt uneasy, embarrassed, and at the same time completely welcomed into their small, humble home. “How do you know so much about me?”
“It’s in your aura,” Walks With Wolves said, making a general egg-shaped gesture around him with her index finger. “Your heart was closed up. You suffered early in life, maybe around age four.”
Wes scowled and saw Walks With Wolves swallow whatever else she was going to say.
“Well, anyway,” the medicine woman went on in a genial tone, “I know why you’re here. Golanoh told me this morning on the windowsill. He said a warrior with a closed heart comes to us. He wants my daughter, Diana, to help him. There is a woman who is missing, eh?”
Wes was stunned. He stared at her with an open mouth. He knew Diana couldn’t possibly have communicated with her mother. “Yes,” he mumbled, “she’s missing.”
“And you want Diana to find her?”
“We want her to try to pick up on the woman’s trail, to see if she can find us a lead.”
Walks With Wolves looked at her daughter, then nailed Wes with a lethal look. “Now, you don’t tell the whole truth. You know what it means to be a Cherokee warrior, young man? It means you never lie, you give away all you have to the old ones and the poor. You hunt for them. You protect all who are under your care. You give your life, if necessary. There aren’t many warriors left in this world, but if you want to be one, you gotta walk their path, eh? Now, tell me the rest.”
Squirming, Wes glanced over at Diana’s tranquil features. How beautiful she looked, how serene. He wished he could find that kind of peace, but he knew it could never be.
“If your daughter finds anything, we’ll use it,” Wes said abruptly. “I’ll take whatever she gives us and pass it on to the authorities. I hadn’t told her that before.”
“That’s better. You doubt my daughter’s gifts, eh? Well, you’ll change your tune.” She wagged a finger at him. “You ought not make such assumptions so fast. A good warrior lets the truth be proven to him. He don’t just make it up in his head before he sees all the facts.” Chuckling, Walks With Wolves said, “It don’t mean nothing, anyhow. You’ll see.”
He stared at the old woman. “Can you tell me anything about this missing woman?”
Chortling again, Walks With Wolves got up and went to the counter. She brought over the coffee and refilled their cups. “Now, young man, part of being a good medicine person is knowing when to say something and when not to.”
Wes gave Diana a questioning look, but she merely shrugged her shoulders. “You know something, then?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” She set the coffeepot back in place on the counter and sat down again.
Diana added cream and sugar to her coffee, squelching a smile. Wes was obviously shaken—so shaken that he was talking about the “top-secret mission” to her mother! Of course, anyone who came to her mother realized very quickly that she was a woman of immense power and that she came from her heart. She admired her mother’s ability to love—even someone as hard and hopeless as Wes McDonald. Maybe all Wes needed was a little love, a hug now and then. Who knew? Diana knew that she would find out.
*
“Your mother is something else,” Wes admitted with a frown as they stood by his car an hour later. The sun was high in the sky, the warm autumn temperatures bringing the fragrance of decaying leaves like perfume wafting on the breeze.
“She’s the soul of kindness,” Diana agreed softly. “And believe me, Mr. McDonald, your secret is safe with her.”<
br />
He nodded and stubbed his toe in the rich red dust of the road. “Might as well be on a first-name basis,” he mumbled. “Call me Wes.”
That was a large step for him, Diana realized. “Okay…you can call me Diana, if you want.”
He lifted his head and nodded. “Yes, I’ll call you Diana.”
In that instant, Diana saw the man, Wes McDonald, not the warrior with his thick armor in place. Heat crawled up her neck and into her cheeks, and she avoided his dark, hooded stare. Something had changed. Drastically. Her mother had healed his terribly wounded heart, she realized. And that was good. Wes would probably never realize the full extent of her mother’s gift to him, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was beginning to thaw—and that was a big step.
Running his fingers through his hair, he muttered, “I’ve got a lot to do. I’m staying at the hotel in town. How about if I pick you up tomorrow morning and we fly out to Sedona?”
She nodded. “That’s fine…Wes. I’ll call my boss. She’ll give me the rest of the day off and I’ll ask for a week of vacation. I know she’ll give it to me.”
A euphoria rose in him—completely unexpected, completely overwhelming. When Diana looked up at him, their eyes meeting, he felt a jagged bolt of happiness sweep through him. As Wes stood trying to assimilate what had happened, it occurred to him that for the first time in decades, he was feeling his emotions. Giving her a strange look, he opened the car door.
“Whatever your mother did is working.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing.” Abruptly, he got into the car. “I’ll call you.”
“You can’t. We don’t have a phone.”
Wes looked up at her through the open window in disbelief. “You’re joking.”
With a laugh, Diana gestured to her home. “We’ve never had a phone, a television or a dryer. The only thing Mother has given in to is having a washer and electricity as a source of light. She likes living close to the earth, Wes. I don’t think she’d even have a washer or electricity if she wasn’t so busy as a medicine woman.”
Seeing Is Believing Page 3
