Witch Dance (10 page)

“Go, Unca Eaga! Go!”

“Yeah, Uncle Eagle. Run for the touchdown.”

His sons’ voices faded as voices from the past echoed in Cole’s mind.

“Ea-gle . . . Ea-gle . . . Ea-gle.”

The crowd was on its feet, screaming for their favorite quarterback. Even in his football uniform and helmet, Eagle stood out from the other players. It might have been his habit of lifting his arms toward the sky as he entered the field, or perhaps it was the way he ran, without seeming to touch the ground.

With the roar of the crowd in his ears, Cole blocked for his brother. It didn’t bother him that they weren’t yelling his name. Teamwork. That’s what winning a game required, and Cole would do anything to win the game.

Eagle would always be the hero, for he’d come from the womb first, bearing the mark of greatness on his thigh, a perfect print of the talons of his revered namesake.

Cole accepted Eagle’s greatness, accepted the role he played in his brother’s destiny: He was the prophet, the forerunner, the voice crying, “Make way. Make way,”

Eagle glided over the goal line, then lifted both arms toward the sky.

“Ea-gle . . . Ea-gle . . . Ea-gle . . .”

Cole was the first to offer his shoulder to carry his brother across the field in victory.

“You have fine sons, Cole.”

Eagle’s voice brought him back to the present.

“Yes. I have fine sons.” He handed the bridle of the stallion to his oldest. “Clint, you and Bucky go down to the barn and take care of Uncle Eagle’s horse.”

“Can we ride, Daddy?”

Eagle nodded his assent, and Cole gave his boys a leg up.

“You’ve taught them well,” Eagle said, admiring the way the boys handled the big black.

“I have. Bucky’s a natural. Clint’s more methodical and takes longer, but he never backs down from anything.” Cole propped a foot on the porch railing and nodded toward a chair. Eagle glanced at the rocker as if it affronted him, then joined his brother. “We haven’t seen much of you since you came home.”

Ignoring the implied criticism, Eagle studied the ranch.

“You have a great place, Cole.”

“Anna makes it beautiful and I make it successful.”

Cole’s idea of the proper order of things was not lost on Eagle, but again he refused to be lured into argument.

“Well, it
is
lovely. I’ll tell her when we go inside.”

Suddenly at a loss for words, Eagle watched Cole’s horses canter around the perfectly kept paddocks. The silence between them grew heavy. Cole shifted his other foot to the railing.

“Is this a social call or a business call?”

“You always did get right to the point, Cole.”

“And you didn’t answer the question.”

“It’s not a social call.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“Some of our people have been destroying Kate’s clinic.”

Not Dr. Colbert’s clinic, but Kate’s clinic. Cole’s mouth tightened. The slip of his brother’s lip was telling.

“Do you know anything about it, Cole?”

“Are you accusing me?”

“I’m not accusing you. Father said you’d been at the hunting cabin the last few days. I thought you might have seen something.”

“What I’ve seen is almost too shameful to speak of.” Cole’s hands tightened into fists. “What I’ve seen makes me want to deny I have a brother.”

Eagle willed himself to stillness.
Kate
. A thousand times he’d questioned his obsession with her; a hundred times he’d ridden the land and sighted the places that needed better roads and modern bridges. It was time, past time, to be about his life’s work; but all it took was a glimpse of her hair or the sound of her voice, filled with the soft, seductive cadences of her native South Carolina, and he was her love slave, hungering to bury himself in her fragrant body.

Was it any wonder that his brother should question too?

“You judge me, Cole. You judge without knowing and without hearing.”

“I’ve seen enough. She has led you astray, Eagle. With her bright hair and her white thighs she has made you forget who you are.”

“I will never forget who I am. I am Eagle.”

“She’s a white woman. Would you have her bear pale-skinned sons who don’t know a stallion from a jackass?”

“She will not bear my sons.”

“How can you expect otherwise? You’ve rutted her like a damned bull. Every time you look at her, she opens her legs.”

Eagle drew back his fist, wanting nothing more than to smash his brother’s face. He pictured the satisfying crunch of bone against bone, the sharp sting of flesh battering flesh.

“Hit me, Eagle. That’s what the white whore has brought us to. Brother against brother.”

Every muscle in Eagle’s body tensed, and his blood, hot for battle, roared in his ears. In the humming silence the brothers watched each other; then slowly Eagle lowered his fist.

“I’m ashamed that you spied.”

“I didn’t spy. I was riding by the river on the way to the hunting cabin. It didn’t take a damned Philadelphia lawyer to figure out what was going on.”

“You will not speak of her again.”

“The whole village speaks of her, riding all over the countryside on your white mare . . . with you at her side.” A muscle in the side of Cole’s jaw clenched and unclenched. From the distance came the sound of his boys’ laughter as they streaked out of the barn toward the house. The back door slammed, and there was more giggling as Anna ordered hands and faces washed.

Softened, Cole put his hand on Eagle’s shoulder. He wanted only what was best for his brother.

“Don’t jeopardize everything you’ve worked for because of this woman.”

“She will not turn me away from my visions.” Eagle whistled for his stallion, then turned back to Cole. “She is necessary to me.”

Love and anger, envy and admiration, mingled in Cole’s heart as Eagle leapt on the stallion’s back and galloped away.

He watched until his brother was out of sight, then went inside to join his wife and sons.

“Is Eagle staying for dinner?” Anna asked.

“No. He had other things on his mind.”

 o0o

Kate sat on the edge of the bed with her mother’s letter open on her lap. It was a long, newsy letter telling about Dottie Brainbridge’s new baby and Nancy Kellerman’s wedding dress that was shipped all the way from Neiman’s in Dallas and Barb Rothchild’s operatic debut in Atlanta.

“Charleston has been full of tourists all summer long,” Martha had written in her spidery hand, “and you know how your father hates tourists. I love them though. It perks one up to see the expectant look on their faces as they walk our cobblestone streets and sit under umbrellas, eating our famous pecan pie.”

Kate had left the window open, and breezes stirred the blue curtains. Flapping, they looked like the broken wings of birds.

She wished she could see her mother’s face, bright because the sight of strangers enjoying themselves made her happy.

“The cape jasmine beside the patio still blooms,” Martha wrote. “It seems unwilling to acknowledge that summer is almost over.”

Suddenly Kate was so lonesome for the smell of jasmine that she put her head between her hands and cried.

There was no one to hear, for Dr. Colbert had driven into Ada for lunch with friends. She gave vent to her tears until the far-off cry of a hawk reminded her of the many things she had to be grateful for in this strange and beautiful land.

She wiped her face and folded the letter. How silly of her to be crying over jasmine.

Perhaps it wasn’t southern flowers she was lonesome for, but friends. In South Carolina she could pick up the phone and call any of a dozen numbers, and there would be somebody on the other end of the line who would come over and talk for hours about anything under the sun, or who would join Kate for a walk on the beach or a drive into town to catch a movie or go on a shopping spree or merely for a reprieve in the shade of a striped umbrella at an outdoor café, where they would sip iced tea with a sprig of mint.

Here people moved to the other side of the street at her approach, or stared at her as if she were an alien who had recently landed from another planet. Sometimes they whispered behind their hands when she approached on her white horse.

There was another thing. The horse.

She probably would never have taken it if he’d said it was a gift. And yet she hadn’t put up much of a fight—any fight at all, to tell the truth—about taking it so she could race all over the countryside just to be in his bed. Or on his blanket, as the case happened to be.

Bought for the price of a horse.

Her South Carolina friends would be shocked. Even her mother, indulgent as she was, might not approve.

She really ought to give the horse back. The bad part was that she didn’t want to. The horse was her link to Eagle, and without Eagle she’d be desolate, a garden deprived of rain and sunlight, withering away in a sometimes-hostile land.

The mere thought of Eagle made her body go liquid. She wanted to race across the plains till she found him, then throw herself into his arms and have him do wonderful, exotic, erotic things to her in broad daylight.

The last time they were together—only six hours earlier, as a matter of fact, because she’d counted—he’d painted her face and breasts with vermilion and she’d painted him with cobalt. Remembering, shivers of pleasure ran through her. . . .

“You are Mother Earth.” His fingers were slick with paint and warm with lust, and they left trails of shivers where vermilion stained her skin, “You are rich and ripe and receptive to the penetration of rain from Father Sky.”

The blue paint pot was at her fingertips. Bending over Eagle with her hair brushing his chest, she caressed his face, spreading the blue paint, infusing him with the power of Father Sky. .

“
Ihullo
uno, iskunosi Wictonaye
,” he whispered. “
Ihullo
uno
. . . .”

It was hours later when she learned what he’d said. “Love me, little wildcat. Love me.

Remembering, she walked to the window and let the breeze cool her face.

Love
. Oh, God, she couldn’t be in love with Eagle Mingo. Not after what Deborah had told her: “The Mingoes trace their lineage all the way back to Chief Piomingo. They
never
marry one who is not full-blood.”

Besides that, there was her own work. How could she save lives if she spent most of her time wallowing on Eagle Mingo’s blanket and the rest of her time thinking about it?

No, she was obsessed. That was all.

The thing to do was find Deborah and plan a sightseeing trip to Ada. After all, it was the capital of the Chickasaw Nation and she’d never even seen it. Then she’d take Mahli back to Eagle and tell him the affair was finished and they should both get on with their work.

Altogether, it was a sensible plan.

Filled with purpose, Kate hurried to the small stable behind Dr. Colbert’s cottage, calling to the mare as she went.

Mahli knew the sound of Kate’s voice. The mare tossed her mane and pranced in place and whinnied.

“You like me, old girl, don’t you.” Kate rubbed the mare’s soft nose. “Yes, you do.”

The mare whinnied once more. It wasn’t much in the way of conversation, but it was about all Kate had.

She swung the Indian blanket on Mahli’s back and fastened the bridle. Then she led the horse outside and vaulted on, Native American-style. Eagle had taught her many things, most of them erotic, but some of them practical.

When she saw Deborah, the sensible plan went right out of Kate’s head. Deborah’s once-sleek, beautiful hair was a frizzy halo of reddish-purple around her lovely face.

Ignoring the stares and whispers that followed her down the crowded aisles of the general store, Kate hurried toward her friend.

“Just look at me.” Smiling ruefully, Deborah grabbed a handful of her hair and held it out for Kate’s inspection. “I look like an Irish setter with a coat full of cockleburs.”

“Who did that to you, Deborah?”

“I did. It all sounded so simple when I read the instructions. Bleach out the black and pour on the red. Then, presto! I’d look like the beautiful medicine woman.”

Kate wanted to weep for the lost beauty of Deborah’s hair. Instead, she said, “We’ll go into Ada and find a good hair stylist who can fix you right up.” Seeing the girl’s crestfallen look, she added quickly, “My treat.”

“You’d do that for me?”

“With pleasure. It will be small repayment for all you’ve done for me.”

Deborah gave Kate a broad smile. “You’ve got that right. Only yesterday I told two old setting hens clucking about you and Eagle that it was none of their business. They huffed out without buying a thing, but I didn’t care.”

Deborah turned to look at herself in the small cracked mirror that hung behind the cash register. Her ugly face topped by wrecked hair stared back at her.

“Irish setters are beautiful,” she said morosely. “This looks more like a fox’s tail.”

“I’m sure a good hairdresser will know what to do,” Kate said. “Soon your hair will be as gorgeous as ever.”

Deborah fought the tears that threatened. Kate was the kindest woman she knew, almost like a mother, except that she was far too young and beautiful. She had troubles enough of her own without Deborah wailing like a coyote over her silly hair.

“Thanks for the offer, but I’ll just whack it all off and start over. Hair grows, you know.”

Kate covered her disappointment by reaching for Deborah’s hand.

“I understand,” she said.

“My father . . .”

“Shhh . . . you don’t have to explain.”

“He found that material on nursing schools you brought me and he was awfully mad.”

“I’m sorry Deborah. I didn’t mean to cause trouble for you.”

Torn between loyalty to her father and her good friend, Deborah tried to make amends.

“He’s a good man. Really, he is. Not like everybody else. They say you’re a witch and Eagle is under your spell.”

“Nonsense. There’s no such thing as witches and spells.” A flush heated Kate’s neck. “Besides that, Eagle Mingo is not the kind of man who falls under spells.”