She threw the window open wider.
“Do you think Jacob was poisoned, too?” she asked, and turned to look at him.
But he had come up right behind her, fast, and his protruding belly pressed against her back as he reached up with both arms and pulled the window all the way down. He locked it.
“You’re going to give me that bottle, and you’re going to do it now, Missy.”
He sounded so cruel that her heart leapt into her throat, but she leaned into him seductively. “If I did take something of yours, did you ever think that it was only so that you would come to see me?” she purred. “Maybe I only wanted to have a private talk with you.”
“So you could hold me up for money?” he growled, stepping back from her, trying to see into her eyes. “Is that your game? You think I’m a rich man because I’ve got a new brick building and a store full of expensive merchandise?”
She drew back, threw her hands in the air and pretended great shock. “Whatever are you talking about?”
His eyes narrowed to slits. “So that’s it. Well, let me tell you, little girl, I’ll tear this room apart and your beautiful body, too, before I’ll pay you one penny for that bottle. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Well, the best I can tell without understanding the subject of this conversation, you’re insulting me,” she said, making her voice rise, trying to sound angry instead of afraid. “You may leave my room, now, Mr. Phillips.”
He came toward her again.
“Not without what I came for, I’m not leaving. And I may just help myself to you while I’m here.”
He grabbed her upper arms with his fat, soft hands and jerked her to him with a strength that stunned her. She tried to turn her head away but he clasped her close to his rounded front with one hand and used the other to hold her chin in a vise grip and kissed her wetly, right on the mouth, so grindingly hard she couldn’t even get her breath.
Pure panic raced along her nerves.
Walks-With-Spirits stood in the open field that stretched from the back of the courthouse in Tuskahoma to the edge of the woods. He shouldn’t have come in so soon, he thought. Even though he’d promised to come in the evening before the dawn of his execution, and the Lighthorse had been waiting for him, he should have waited until right before first light.
Because now he couldn’t think, and he couldn’t regain his balance.
He turned his back to the lanterns hanging in scattered trees near the building and tried with every scrap of strength left in him to remove this place and these Lighthorsemen from his thoughts so he could be at harmony in his spirit. He faced the south, the direction called white, the color of happiness and peace.
He said the incantation for removing enmity from his heart, said it silently four times.
Now. Listen! I am Walks-With-Spirits.
All the White Pathways are mine!
I am wrapped in White Pathways!
Black Red Mockingbird! You have just come to make my soul beautiful!
After he finished, he stood still with his eyes closed, hoping for harmony in his heart.
Yet turmoil still filled him, unmerciful in its constant onslaught.
Cotannah.
He had thought he’d found his peace about her and even about her stubborn determination to find evidence against Peter Phillips, but this tumult came from Cotannah.
And it was rooted in more, much more, than her sadness about his death. Also, it was more than his own reluctance to be going from this world and leaving her behind.
He slipped out of his moccasins and pressed the soles of his bare feet to the face of the Earth Mother, praying for wisdom to come to him through the ground, feeling for balance. Oh, Great Spirit, he was losing the true balance that he’d achieved at Blue River.
He waited for the peace to come and slow the rapid beating of his heart.
When it didn’t come, he knew. The turmoil he felt was danger.
Cotannah was in danger, and a vision was coming to him.
The vision came clear, but only for an instant. Walks-With-Spirits stood with his head bowed and his eyes closed to look at it.
Sure enough, Cotannah was with Peter Phillips. She was trapped in the man’s arms. Peter Phillips was holding her against her will, he was kissing her …
A lancing of jealousy cut through Walks-With-Spirits’s heart but it soon faded. The real blow was the striking lightning of fear that burned through him. Evil was stalking Cotannah, the man meant to harm her.
“Turn around here and look at me, Medicine Man.”
The growling voice came from directly behind him, and it froze the vision on the backs of his eyelids. It refused to change. He waited another minute, but it would not tell him more. Then it was gone.
Slowly, resting his weight on the balls of his feet, he turned around.
Two Lighthorsemen stood there, directly in his face, straddle-legged and tense, as if they expected him to fight.
“Take off your shirt,” said the tall one.
“Aren’t you a little early with that order?” Walks-With-Spirits said.
To his deep aggravation, the sound of the rough voice not only had stopped the movement of his vision, it had intensified the tumult inside him. His muscles had gone taut and were strumming like bowstrings.
Cotannah needed help.
He had to go to her, he had to help her, he had to run!
“That’s not for you to say,” the shorter one said. “I can cut the rag off you if I need to.”
That one’s voice held just the smallest tremor. He was afraid, Walks-With-Spirits realized.
And so, come to think of it, was the other. They were starting to worry about being the ones who must shoot him—just in case he might be able to use his powers here after he’d gone on over to the next world.
“Maybe I’ll make my shirt disappear by magic,” he said.
Each of them stared at him, their own shirts billowing about them in the stiff breeze coming out of the south. It was cold, that before-dawn wind, and that was why they wanted his shirt off him now—just to punish him a little for being a shaman, or a witch. Whatever they thought him to be, they knew he was stronger than they, and so they craved power over him.
The shirt he wore was the soft skin of one of his brothers, the deer. Its fringes lifted and fell in the fingers of the wind. He crossed his arms, grasped it by the tail, and pulled it off over his head.
“Which of you wants to wear it and see what luck it brings to you?”
They both took a step back.
He smiled a little.
Then he let the shirt fall and walked forward, right between them, right into that cold wind from the south.
“Over there on that blanket,” the rough-voiced one shouted, “so we can sight the distance.”
Several men and horses were standing in the middle of the field, a pale square spread on the ground at their feet. Walks-With-Spirits walked toward them.
The moon was bigger now, and it gave enough light to make white streaks between the gray shadows and the yellow stripes of the lanterns. The blanket, he could see as he reached it and walked onto it, was woven of threads the color of raw cotton.
Good. It was close to white. That was a good omen.
“Kneel,” commanded one of the Lighthorse waiting at the chosen spot.
Slowly, Walks-With-Spirits went to his knees.
A man he’d never seen before stepped away from one of horses and came toward him, holding something in one hand.
Finally, he could see that it was the pot of paint. The man stopped in front of him, dipped two fingers in, and drew a white cross on the naked skin over Walks-With-Spirits’s heart.
Once his heart was marked they moved back and left him alone, so Walks-With-Spirits knelt there with his eyes closed and tried to calm himself enough for the vision to come to him again. When it did, it was the same.
No, the image was the same but the sense of danger to Cotannah was stronger no
w. Peter Phillips truly was evil.
Walks-With-Spirits’s muscles reacted, his instincts guiding them, long before the men standing around talking to each other near him knew what he would do. He was on his feet and running, he was throwing himself into an empty saddle on a ground-tied horse before one even noticed that he had even moved.
Phillips had killed Jacob. It was as clear to him now as the moon and stars overhead. He would have sensed that truth long ago whenever he was near the man if he hadn’t been consumed with jealousy at seeing him with Cotannah. Cotannah had unsettled his peace ever since the moment they met.
But now his only peace was with Cotannah.
And Phillips would kill her, too, if he didn’t get to her in time.
“Hey! Hey, there! What th’ hell …”
More shouts rang in his ears and then men were running toward him from every direction, yelling, as he picked up the reins and wheeled the horse around.
“Hold it! Hold it or I’ll shoot!”
Walks-With-Spirits spoke softly to the horse, who immediately did as he was asked and reared high into the air.
From his back, Walks-With-Spirits began to shout an incantation in the Choctaw tongue.
“Ha! Listen! I am sent by the Ancient One to bring justice to this Nation!
“I am the Red Horse Running, you cannot catch me.
“The eyes of the Seven Eagles will be in my body,
“Ah-hulu! Run from my path and save yourselves!”
Then the horse was flattened out along the ground, galloping toward Tall Pine and Cotannah.
They were beginning to leap onto their mounts and chase after him, the Lighthorsemen and the others, but this horse was fastest of all. The Great Spirit had led him to the best running horse, the Great Spirit was giving wings to this horse.
And the Great Spirit was laying the portentous words on his tongue.
“Now! Listen! I am the Avenger!
“I have come to remake the Medicine for the People!
“I am not to be interfered with!
“Diamondback Rattlesnake, with me you rest!”
His pursuers dropped back a little bit, he could tell by the sounds of their horses’ hoofbeats. He smiled. Good. Let them be even more afraid. Giving such respect was good for them.
After what seemed a lifetime, Cotannah was able to pull her mouth free and step out of the trap of Peter Phillips’s arms. It surprised her that he let her go so easily.
“Why, you do take a girl’s breath away,” she cried, trying to smile.
He reached out and let his hand fall, deliberate and heavy, on her shoulder.
“You strike me as the kind of little tart who likes it rough,” he said. “But just in case I’m wrong about that, you might want to give me back what you took from me.
Her mind raced as fast as the blood pumping wild through her veins. What tack to take? Should she go on the verbal attack? Could she get him into a shouting match loud enough for the rest of the household to hear?
Maybe she could provoke him into yelling that he was the one who killed Jacob.
“I’m not giving you anything.”
He advanced on her, pure menace in his slitted eyes.
“You damn sure are.”
“I can’t,” she said quickly, “if I don’t even know what it is you’re after.”
“You damn sure know, all right.”
“Peter, you have to stop talking in riddles. Please.”
He turned abruptly, and her heart lifted because she was thinking that he was going to give up and leave, but she should have known better. He went to her armoire, jerked open the door and starting pulling clothing out, throwing clothes in every direction.
“I’ll find it,” he said, “and then I’ll make you pay for not telling me where it is, for making me look for it.”
“What if I already gave it to Tay?”
“You didn’t. I watched his face at supper. He’s in the dark.”
“Several hours have passed since supper.”
“I don’t care if you gave it to the Judges themselves. Nobody can prove a thing against me.”
He continued to toss her things everywhere.
“So this … whatever it is that you think I stole from you could be evidence in a crime? Perhaps a murder? Jacob’s murder?”
He ignored her completely and continued searching until he’d gone through every corner of the armoire, then he moved on to the chifforobe.
“You think you’re so clever, Cotannah,” he said. “But you’ve outsmarted yourself this time, gal. You should’ve confided in somebody instead of trying to get more out of me than I intend to tell.”
“What in the world are you talking about? You’re the one who came to my room, if you recall.”
“But you were all ready for me,” he said, turning away from his task to look around the room as if counting the hiding places left.
“I was not. I had no idea that you were coming here.”
“Do you normally keep a bottle of whiskey and two glasses sitting on your table?”
As he spoke, he strode across the room, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her down into one of the chairs.
“Let’s have a little drink, darlin’,” he said roughly. “It’d be a shame to waste the hospitality you’ve prepared.”
Her blood began roaring in her head. She was completely losing control over this situation that she’d felt so confident about. No, to face the truth, she had lost control of it several minutes ago.
He poured each glass half-full.
“Drink up,” he said, and he suddenly sounded as jovial as ever. “And think about whether you want to give me back what’s mine or have me beat it out of you.”
A devil of rebellion took over her tongue.
“I don’t know what makes you think I won’t scream the house down,” she said. “Besides, you’d better not mess with me. I learned to fight from the Mexican vaqueros, and once I escaped from a whole bunch of bandidos.”
“But not from me, honey,” he said, lifting his glass and tossing down his drink. “You won’t escape from me.
He scowled at her and his eyes turned to ice.
The thought crossed her mind that perhaps this was the time to scream for help.
“Drink that,” he said.
She took a sip.
“All of it,” he demanded.
She drank a little more.
“Tell me how you think you’re going to get out of this,” she said, “before I yell for Tay and all the other men in this house.”
“You won’t yell for anybody as long as you think there’s the remotest chance you can get me to talking while we’re alone,” he said. “Because I proved to you at supper that you can’t trick me into talking in public. You’re a stubborn girl, Cotannah, my love, and that will be your downfall.”
She smiled at him and lifted her glass, pretended to sip at the drink.
“Your downfall was keeping that bottle,” she said. “Why did you? Did you plan to use it again?”
He smiled a smile cold enough to freeze a summer day.
“Why, what are you talkin’ about, Miss Cotannah?” he said, in a eerie imitation of her voice. “Use what again?”
Then his face went solemn and hard.
He poured himself another drink, then left the glass on the table and reached across it to take her wrist in a painful, twisting grip.
“Drink that one, and I’ll pour you some more,” he said. “Don’t give me any guff about it.”
“What’ll you do if I don’t? Put a little monkshood in it?”
“Very funny. Drink that.”
She tried to pull free, but he was so much stronger than she that she couldn’t believe it. He looked fat and flabby, but his muscles weren’t.
It wasn’t panic that she suddenly felt. It was a simple certainty that she was making no progress, that she could not make him confess or trick him into confessing and that it was time that she got some help.
“Drink it yourself.”
She threw her drink in his face and jerked her arm free, leapt up to run for the door.
But he was also quicker than she’d ever thought possible, and he caught her before she could get the key in her hand, clapped his hand over her mouth.
“You’ve done yourself in, now, sweetheart,” he growled, and she knew it was true.
So she twisted in his arms and kicked at his shins, elbowed him in the ribs and bowed her back until she freed her mouth enough to scream. At first, for one horrible, frozen second, she thought she was too scared to make the slightest of sounds, but then she got out one loud cry before he tried to close her mouth again.
She bit his finger and he pulled his hand back and she screamed.
The next instant he was smothering her with both hands but it was all right because somebody was running in the hall, somebody was rattling the doorknob.
“It’s locked!” Emily screamed. “Cotannah, oh, ’Tannah!”
“Damn it, Phillips, open up!”
It was Tay’s voice, roaring.
Then the roaring was inside her head and everything went black.
To Walks-With-Spirits’s great shock, not one of his pursuers had fired a single shot, and now he was thundering into the house yard at Tall Pine. None of them was even in hearing distance yet, even though he felt sure they were galloping their horses on his trail as fast as they could. Or maybe not.
He grinned to himself. Maybe they had deliberately stayed behind far enough so that he couldn’t cast a spell on them.
Probably. He had shouted at them when they’d first left Tuskahoma, at the top of his lungs, that he was sent on this mission by a medicine vision, and then, when no one answered, he had begun chanting again, in the Choctaw tongue, every charm of protection that he knew. So far, it had intimidated them into staying far back and not shooting at him.
“Only an alikchi could make such an impossible escape!” one of them had yelled, and then they had all been silent.
As he rode into sight of Tay and Emily’s house, he gave a great, shuddering sigh of relief that the Lighthorse were afraid of his powers. They had followed him somewhere back there, but they wouldn’t keep him from saving Cotannah, thanks to the powers of the Great Spirit.
And to the powers given this gallant, spirited horse who had carried him so swiftly. He was surefooted in the darkness, and he’d raced even faster when the trees thinned and the moon and stars gave them light. The time had dragged at first, then it had passed in a flashing moment, it seemed, and Walks-With-Spirits’s heart was in shreds when the two of them jumped the horse over the fence and galloped up to the house at Tall Pine.
After the Thunder Page 32
