The Spirit Path

by Madeline Baker

“Is something wrong?”

  “I have a warrant for his arrest.”

  “Arrest!”

  “Yes, ma’am. He’s being charged with aggravated assault and destruction of private property.”

  Maggie blinked up at the lawman, unable to believe that the two bikers had actually had the nerve to file a complaint against Hawk.

  “May I come in?” Johnson asked.

  “Of course.”

  Johnson threw a hard, assessing look in Hawk’s direction as he stepped into the room. “You’ll have to come with me, sir.”

  “But it was self-defense,” Maggie said quickly. “They started it. One of them pulled a knife.”

  “Be that as it may,” the deputy said, still watching Hawk, “I have a warrant for his arrest and I’m going to have to take him in for questioning.”

  The lawman drew his weapon as Hawk took a step back. “I wouldn’t try that,” he warned. “Turn around. I’ll have to cuff you until we reach the jail.”

  Hawk stared at the lawman for a long moment, weighing his chances of making a run for it. The wasichu was tall and broad-shouldered. His skin was dark from long hours spent in the outdoors. One hand rested on the butt of the gun holstered at his side.

  “Hawk, don’t worry. Everything will be all right.”

  He didn’t believe her. Almost he was tempted to run but the white man looked as if he would be only too happy to shoot him in the back, and in the end he turned around, flinching as the lawman snapped the handcuffs in place.

  He was filled with a sense of dread as he got into the back seat of the car. He sent a last glance at Maggie, who was watching him from the porch, and then the car was moving down the driveway, going around the bend in the road, and she was out of sight.

  The jail was in the basement of the courthouse. They wrote down his name, his height and weight, searched him for weapons, removed the handcuffs, took his fingerprints.

  The booking officer frowned when Shadow Hawk stated he didn’t have a social security number, a residence or a job. Muttering something about “worthless Indians”, the officer locked him in a cell. Three sides were made of steel, the fourth was barred. There were four bunks in the cell, all empty. There were two other cells similar to his and one large cell that had twelve bunks. All the other cells were full.

  Hawk began to pace the floor, his anger building with each step. He had never been confined in such a small space, never known anything but freedom.

  As his restlessness grew, an image of Crazy Horse flashed through his mind. Maggie had told him that the Oglala warrior would be killed at Fort Robinson while trying to escape from one of the white man’s iron houses.

  Hawk clenched his hands at his sides, wondering if he would meet the same fate. Wondering if he would ever see Maggie again.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  She sat on the porch until the police car was out of sight, and then she turned the wheelchair around and went into the parlor. Bobby didn’t have a telephone, so she called the community center at Pine Ridge and left a message, asking the operator to repeat the message back to her twice to make sure she got it right.

  Hanging up the phone, she looked out the window, frowning when she saw the truck parked alongside the house. If only she could drive the darn thing, she could go into town and get Hawk out of jail. She tried to imagine what he must be feeling, thinking…

  Her throat grew tight; tears stung her eyes as she pictured him locked up in some horrid little cell. How would he bear it?

  She was crying now, the tears running unchecked down her cheeks as she maneuvered her wheelchair from room to room. They all held memories of Hawk. She remembered how he had followed her around, looking, touching, deeply intrigued by the phone and the TV and the stereo. He had been a little frightened too by the strangeness of it all, but he had hidden it well. After all, warriors didn’t show fear. She smiled a little, thinking of how quickly he had come to like watching television, remembering how just that morning he had cooked breakfast for her. Remembering how he had made love to her…

  She cried all that day, her heart aching for him. How alone he must feel!

  She had nightmares that night, horrible nightmares. Hawk was found guilty and sent to prison where he was ridiculed and abused until, finally, he lost all desire to live…

  The sound of the telephone woke her. Pulling herself into a sitting position, she reached for the phone beside the bed. It was Bobby.

  “Oh, Bobby,” she cried, “Hawk’s in jail and I don’t have any way to get to town to get him out.”

  “Jail!” Bobby exclaimed. “Why?”

  As quickly as she could, Maggie explained what had happened, breathing a heartfelt sigh of relief as Bobby promised to leave for Sturgis immediately.

  “Do you have enough money to post bail?”

  “I’ll get it, don’t worry.”

  “Bless you, Bobby. Hurry, please.”

  “I’m on my way,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

  Replacing the receiver, Maggie gazed out the bedroom window. “Don’t worry, Hawk,” she murmured. “Help is on the way.”

  * * * * *

  Hawk stopped in midstride, his head cocked to one side as he listened for the sound of her voice, and then he heard it again, the voice of the Spirit Woman, as clearly as if she stood beside him. Don’t worry, Hawk. Help is on the way.

  “Mag-gie.” Her name was a sigh on his lips, a faint ray of hope in a world darkened with despair.

  He had not slept the night before, only paced the floor, back and forth, back and forth, unable to relax, unable to rest. He had not eaten the food they’d brought him. Once, he had hunkered down on his heels in the corner and closed his eyes, only to be plagued by dark half-dreams of a life behind bars, and he knew he’d rather die than spend the rest of his life in prison, never to see the sunlit plains again, never to see the Black Hills. Never to see Maggie again. “Hawk.”

  He turned to see Bobby striding toward him. “You all right?” Bobby asked. Hawk nodded, thinking he’d never been happier to see anyone in his life.

  “Maggie told me you were here. I’ll have you out of there in a few minutes.”

  To Bobby’s surprise, Hawk was taken before a judge who happened to have some Indian blood somewhere in his background. He listened to Hawk’s explanation of what had happened, fined him $125.00 for disturbing the peace, and turned him loose with a warning not to let it happen again.

  “Are you hungry?” Bobby asked. “I haven’t had breakfast yet.”

  Hawk nodded. He’d had no appetite for food while locked up in the iron house, but now he thought he could eat a buffalo, horns and all.

  “Any place special you want to go?”

  “Go?”

  Bobby grinned. “There are places in town where we can eat. They’re called restaurants. Mom’s Cafe has good food. Wanna go there?”

  Hawk stared at the streets full of people. White people who stared at him as if he were some sort of strange creature. People like the lawman who had arrested him, refusing to believe a word he said, refusing to believe that the blond biker had started the fight. In Hawk’s experience, no white man had ever believed an Indian. No white man had ever kept his word. “I would rather go back to Mag-gie’s house,” he said at last.

  “Okay by me.”

  Bobby’s car was parked behind the courthouse. It was an old beat-up Chevy with cardboard covering the back window and a busted tail light, what the whites called an “Indian car”. But it got Bobby where he wanted to go. He slid behind the wheel, turned the key while Hawk climbed in beside him.

  Bobby drove in silence until they were out of town. And then he cleared his throat. “Can I, uh, ask you something?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think it’s possible for people to be born in the wrong time?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you ever have the feeling you didn’t belong, that maybe you should have been born in another time? I don’t know ho
w to explain it, but I’ve always had the feeling that I was meant to be a warrior, that I should have been born a hundred years ago.”

  “I have always known who I was and where I belonged,” Hawk replied. “Until now.”

  “Would you change places with me if you could?”

  Hawk started to shake his head, but then he thought of Maggie. If only it were that easy. If only he could send Bobby to the cave in his place.

  “I was going to stay with my family until it was time for me to go to college,” Bobby said. “But if it’s all right with you, I’d like to stay at Miss St. Claire’s. I thought maybe when you had a few minutes to spare, you might teach me how to be a medicine man in the old way.”

  “I will teach you what I know,” Hawk said. “Though I feel that I still have much to learn.”

  Maggie was waiting for them on the front porch. She thanked Bobby profusely for his help, assured him that he was welcome to stay, smiled her gratitude when he said he thought he’d go take a look at the horses.

  Bless the boy for realizing she wanted to be alone with Hawk, she thought, and then they were alone and she couldn’t think of anything to say.

  She gazed up at Hawk, who was standing near the edge of the porch, staring toward the Hills, and it was as if she could read his mind. Deep inside, he was angry, angry at Rocco and Vince who had tried to take his woman, then humiliated him by having him thrown in jail. He was angry at the officer who had taken him to jail, at everything and everyone that was white. Everyone except her, and it was tearing him apart. She was white, the enemy, and he loved her.

  “Hawk, are you all right?”

  He nodded curtly. His gaze focused on the Black Hills rising in the distance. He could feel the Sacred Cave calling to him, offering him safety and shelter within its walls. For a moment, he closed his eyes and he could almost feel the darkness hovering around him, promising to send him home.

  “I guess it was awful, being locked up,” Maggie said sympathetically. “I got you out of there as soon as I could.”

  “I am all right, Mag-gie,” he said. But the anger was festering in his soul. It had been humiliating, being locked behind iron bars as if he were an animal instead of a man. And the worst of it was having Bobby see him like that.

  * * * * *

  Hawk spent the next two weeks instructing Bobby in the ways of a holy man. It was like a crash course, Maggie thought as she watched the two of them together. And even as the thought crossed her mind, she knew that was exactly what it was. Hawk was endeavoring to teach Bobby all he knew about healing and living off the land because he was leaving. She could feel him withdrawing from her a little more each day, almost as if he were building a wall between them.

  She slid a glance at his profile, committing his finely chiseled features to memory, determined to paint him again before he was gone.

  She began that evening while he was outside with Bobby. She could see him clearly from her window and she began to sketch him, first his profile, then full-face, then riding the black stallion. Her fingers fairly flew over the canvas and when she finished the rough sketches, she knew they were going to be the best work she’d ever done. Her previous paintings of Hawk were good but lacked vitality. These caught his strength, his honor, his pride.

  Maggie smiled a secret smile. It wasn’t that her skills had suddenly improved, she thought, it was only that she knew him now, knew him more intimately than she’d ever known anyone else. And that made the difference.

  Leaning forward in her chair, she pressed a hand to her back, then went into the kitchen to prepare dinner, thinking how pleased Hawk would be when she served many of his favorites, steak and fried potatoes, corn on the cob, hot rolls, and lots of coffee. She’d make a cake too, chocolate, of course.

  The cake was made and frosted, the table was set and dinner was ready when she went outside to call Hawk and Bobby to come in for dinner.

  Bobby stood up as she wheeled her chair onto the porch.

  “Where’s Hawk?” Maggie asked, looking around.

  “He’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “He went for a ride.”

  Fighting down a surge of panic, she gazed up at the sky, assuring herself that the moon was still in its first quarter. He hadn’t gone to the cave then.

  “Dinner’s ready.”

  It was a quiet meal. Bobby ate quickly and then, sensing her need to be alone, excused himself and left the house.

  Feeling listless and alone, Maggie cleaned up the kitchen, wondering where Hawk was. He’d seemed so angry lately, so withdrawn. Maybe he’d left, though she had no idea where he’d go. Still, he was a warrior. He could live off the land if he had to, disappear into the Hills, and she’d never see him again.

  She tried to read for a while, but she couldn’t concentrate. Every time she heard a noise she looked up, her heart beating fast, hoping it was Hawk coming home. She tried to watch television but the eleven o’clock news seemed even more depressing than usual and she turned it off, only to sit staring at the blank screen.

  The house seemed suddenly small and empty and she went out the kitchen door and down the ramp that led to the back yard.

  Maggie came to an abrupt halt as she saw Hawk standing near the pool, his head thrown back, his arms lifted in an attitude of prayer.

  She had never been one for praying, not since the accident. But she knew that Hawk prayed morning and evening. He seemed unaware of her presence and she stayed where she was, wondering if she should go away and leave him alone.

  How beautiful he was standing there in the faint light of the moon. The wind played in his hair, whispering over his skin, caressing his cheek, touching him as she longed to touch him.

  He was silent for a long while, and then he was praying again, speaking in the Lakota tongue. It was a humble prayer, filled with thanksgiving and praise for Wakán Tanka, asking for nothing. And then she heard her own name fall from his lips. His voice was low and husky, filled with pain and an aching need that brought tears to her eyes.

  She had to get away from here, she thought, before he knew she was there.

  She started to turn around, intending to go back to the house before he discovered her presence, when Hawk’s voice stopped her.

  “Mag-gie, do not go.”

  He’d known she was there the whole time.

  He lowered his arms to his sides and walked toward her. Wordlessly, he knelt beside her. She was so beautiful it made him ache just to look at her.

  “Are you all right?” Maggie asked tremulously.

  “Yes.”

  “You missed dinner. You’ve been so withdrawn lately. And then you were gone so long, I thought maybe you’d left, that you weren’t coming back.”

  “Where would I go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She gazed up toward the Black Hills. The Sacred Cave was up there somewhere. On the night of the next full moon, he’d climb to the top of the mountain and she’d never see him again.

  “Spirit Woman, you make me feel weak inside.”

  “Do I?”

  “All my life I have known who I was, where I belonged, what path my life would follow. Until now.”

  “Is there nothing I can say that will make you stay?”

  “I do not belong here.”

  “Maybe you do! Maybe that’s why you were sent to me, because this is where you belong.”

  “Maybe I will not be able to go back. Maybe a man whose heart belongs to another, a man who is no longer whole, cannot travel the Spirit Path.”

  “Maybe,” Maggie murmured softly, and prayed as she had never prayed before, hoping that the magic of the cave would be denied him, that he would be forced to stay here with her. He’d never be sorry. She’d see to that. She’d be mother and father, brother and sister, lover and friend all rolled into one.

  She stared up into his face, her lips parting as he drew her into his arms and kissed her.

  At first there was no passion in his to
uch, only an aching sense of need, of hopelessness. He was lost and alone and he reached out to her as the only familiar thing in an alien land.

  Maggie held him close, wanting to comfort him. His eyes were filled with the same haunting sadness she had seen before and she longed to make him smile, to assure him that everything would be all right. But she had no words of comfort to give him, only the love in her heart.

  He kissed her again, the pressure of his lips increasing as the kiss deepened and became more demanding. He locked his arms around her waist, drawing the length of her body against his own, letting her feel his need.

  She never thought to deny him. She clung to him with all her strength, kissing him back, whispering his name as he caressed the clothes from her body, his lips kissing each exposed area of flesh, teasing and tantalizing, as they made love, there, in the shadow of the Black Hills beneath a blanket of stars. The wind was cool against her skin, but he quickly warmed her, covering her with his body, his hands fanning the embers of desire to flame, his lips kissing her until she was breathless, caressing her, speaking to her in soft Lakota as he made her his, vowing he would never love another.

  She wept then, her heart breaking for fear he would keep his word and spend the rest of his life alone, with only his mother to care for him.

  And then she wept harder because she was only a woman, and a jealous one at that, and she knew that he’d forget her once he returned to his own time, forget her and find a lovely Lakota maiden who would bear him beautiful daughters and strong sons. And she would be left with only the memory of his touch, a memory that would fade in time until she was left with nothing.

  Her fingernails raked the length and breadth of his back as their passion crested and in some primal corner of her mind she smiled as she dug her nails in deeper, hoping to leave her mark upon him, wanting him to be forever branded as hers.

  They lay locked in each other’s arms for long moments and then Hawk drew back, his gaze narrowed as he stared down at her.

  “Mag-gie, why do you weep? Have I hurt you?”

  She shook her head, unable to speak, ashamed of what she’d been thinking. She loved him and wanted only his happiness, and if he could not be happy here, then she would let him go and be glad for the time they’d had together.