Witch Dance (12 page)

“The medicine woman has chosen her protector wisely.”

“She didn’t choose me; I chose her.”

“Why?”

“Because I believe Witch Dance needs her.”

“They don’t need her; they have me.”

“There is room for both of you. The old ways and the new should blend with harmony.”

“What does she know of the curative powers of sarsaparilla and the root of the huckleberry? Can she find the black locust and the bear-wolf weed?”

“Her medicines are different.”

“I have seen these medicines at the big hospital in Ada. I spit upon them.” He spat on the ground.

Somewhere in the mountains around them a bobcat screamed.

“The medicine woman will stay in Witch Dance with or without your consent.” Eagle waited long enough for the shaman to absorb the full import of his words. “I will tolerate no violence against her or her clinic. Nor will the governor.”

“Winston knows?”

“I didn’t think it necessary to tell him. I believe the three of us can work this out.”

“Three?”

“You and me and the medicine woman.”

“It will be as you say.”

The Great One stood beside his hut and watched Eagle Mingo leave. Colds winds blew off the mountains, the winds of change.

Chapter 11

The white witch woman was not afraid of him, even with his face painted.

The old shaman listened to her clear voice telling how she would cure the sick, and watched while the son of Mingo stood beside her, daring with his dark eyes that any harm should come to her. The Great One listened quietly and with respect, as if he intended to give his full cooperation.

“I want to work with you,” Kate Malone said, “not against you.”

And then she told of her experience in the big hospitals of the East and showed her degrees, hanging on the wall of the clinic that stunk of fresh paint. The shaman kept his face still. What did any of her credentials matter? She knew nothing of the
sinti
abeka
that sets the stomach out of order nor the
iyaganaca
abeka
that sends the patient out of his head and falling to the ground. And what could she, the white woman who spoke with the soft cadences of the South, know of the burning ghost disease, the
colop
anatitci abeka
, that makes the feet swell and big blisters develop?

Filled with spiritous liquors, the medicine man listened, and listening, he dreamed. He dreamed of great waters filled with terrible evil, and of the anguish of women that rose up like birds scared from their nests.

In the midst of his dreams another woman entered the clinic, breathless in her haste,

“Hal has run away . . .” she said, not even noticing the Great One. “He left this awful note.” With her short, terrible hair quivering like porcupine quills, the distraught young woman began to read. “‘Everybody in Witch Dance can go straight to hell. When I come back you’ll all be sorry.’” Tears streamed down her face. “What am I going to do? I knew something was wrong . . . how can I ever tell Father?”

“Everything is going to be all right, Deborah,” Kate said.

“Come. I’ll help you.” Eagle took her arm and guided her into one of the back rooms, but not before the Great One had another vision.

Blood. So much blood, running red over the snow.

“Can I count on your cooperation?” Kate was asking.

“Practice your medicine with my blessing.”

He left with the visions still swirling through his head. There would be no further need for him to fight Kate Malone. Not even his blessings could save her from the dark course of fate.

Chapter 12

Charleston, South Carolina

Martha had left the invitation open on the hall table, where she knew Mick was bound to see it. She sat in the rocker on the sun porch with her hands folded in her lap and tried not to twitch as he walked in.

“Did you have a good day, dear?”

He loosened his tie and reached for the glass of lemonade she had waiting for him on the wicker table.

“That’s a foolish question, Martha. It’s hotter than hell out there. How could anybody have a good time in hell?”

I could
, she wanted to reply.
If only you loved me
.

She didn’t say that, of course. What good would it do? It would only stir up Mick’s temper, and she was about to stir it up anyway, so why spoil the next few minutes?

“Glen Ellison called you about that new power plant—”

“Solid rocket booster plant, Martha. If you’re going to tell something, get it right.” Mick set his glass down so hard, the ice rattled. “Now I guess I’ll have to spend all evening jawing with him on the damned telephone.”

Martha’s heart came up in her throat. Kate used to laugh when she’d say that.

“My heart’s in my throat,” she’d say.

“That’s physically impossible, Mother,” Katie would reply, laughing.

Oh, dear merciful Father. Her Katie.

Martha swallowed so her heart went back down to its rightful place. She had to be brave just this once for her Katie.

“Did you see the invitation on the hall table?” She sounded like a timid gray mouse. No wonder Mick no longer loved her.

“What invitation?”

She could tell by the way his face mottled that he was lying. He’d read Kate’s invitation, just as he read all her letters when he thought nobody was looking.

Deep down, her Michael Malone was a wonderful man. Long ago, right after the boys died, and later after Katie left for medical school, Martha would plan how she would leave him. She wouldn’t take a thing except the clothes on her back and enough money to get as far as her folks in Virginia.

She wouldn’t even take the car, but would go on the bus, being frugal. She even planned what she’d say to him in her good-bye letter.

Dear Mick, I love you fiercely. Always have and always will. But I can’t stand to live in this lonely prison you’ve shut me up in.

She never wrote the letter, of course, partially because she didn’t want to leave behind as her last testament a sentence ending with a dangling preposition. But mostly because she knew that deep, deep down Mick was a wonderful man.

“It’s an invitation to the open house of her clinic in Witch Dance.” She spoke all in a rush before she could lose her courage. “I’ve planned how we can go. Matilda can water the plants when she comes to clean, and Jim can take care of your insurance clients” —Mick looked like a peach pit with his face all bunched up and turning red— “that is, if you have any scheduled . . . not that I would try to run your business . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she twisted her hands together.

Fidgeting. Knowing how Mick hated it.

“Hellfire and damnation.” He leapt up so fast, his chair fell back against the polished Mexican tiles. “As if I didn’t have enough to do without running off to some godforsaken land to sip tea with savages.”

He left the room so fast that the soles of his shoes left scuff marks on the tiles. Martha stared at the black marks for a while.

Finally she got up to fetch a scrub brush and some good floor cleaner. Bent on her knees, she felt like a scrub woman . . . or a suppliant at early Mass.

She’d never wanted Mexican tiles in the first place.

Chapter 13

Ada, Oklahoma

The invitation lay open on Winston’s desk.

Not wanting to think about all the ramifications of that simple piece of paper, he surveyed his office. Some governors in the past had opted for fine furnishings and rich appointments, but Winston had surrounded himself with simple things—a plain oak desk, neither fancy nor expensive, and the most basic, functional chairs.

Why should he sit in the lap of luxury while most of his people contented themselves with the basics? Basics were good enough for any man.

He picked up the invitation. It was a simple printed card, not engraved, not ostentatious, nothing that would call attention to the fact that Kate Malone was Virginia blueblood on her mother’s side and the daughter of a fighting Irish senator.

The invitation was visible evidence that she was a smart woman. But then, Winston already knew that.

How else could she have held his eldest son enthralled for the better part of the summer?

“The Honorable Governor and Mrs. Winston Mingo,” the card said.

Dovie wouldn’t go, of course. He’d take the card home and show it to her, but she would ignore it as she’d chosen to ignore Eagle’s involvement with the medicine woman all summer.

Once Winston had tried to talk to her about it, at the beginning of the summer, when the whole thing happened, when it was evident that Eagle had more on his mind than sleeping under the stars.

“Do you remember that summer I worked on a rig off the shore of Louisiana, Dovie?”

“I remember everything you ever did, Winston Mingo, including that business with the girl.”

“Charlsie was her name, a lively, honeyed-talking, confection of a girl. She almost made me forget who I was. I never knew why except that there was a slow, sweet wildness in her. Do you suppose that’s what has Eagle enthralled, that Kate Malone is wild at heart?”

“I suppose that you should feed the dog. And on your way out, water the petunias by the back door. If we don’t get some rain soon, they’re all going to die.”

Remembering, Winston drummed his fingers on the invitation. No, Dovie would not go.

Would he?

He stuffed the invitation in the top drawer of his desk and walked toward the window. Halfway there, he reeled. Steadying himself on the edge of the bookshelves, he held on until his equilibrium returned.

A little dizzy spell. Probably inner-ear trouble. Dovie kept telling him that he was going to have to see a doctor.

There was no putting anything past Dovie. She knew everything . . . except what had happened the night before. As he lay beside her in their cherrywood double bed, he heard the owl call his name.

o0o

Boston

“If you go back to Witch Dance, you need not bother coming home. Ever again.”

Melissa Sayers Colbert quivered with rage. Clayton stood at the window with his back to her, rigid. Between them, the invitation lay on the table like an accusation.

“I won’t have it,” she continued. “Do you hear me, Clayton?”

“I hear you, Melissa.” He didn’t even turn around.

With her fists clenched, she wanted to scream. And then she realized she was already screaming, yelling like some common wife off the back streets of Boston. She forced herself to unclench her fists and take a moderate tone.

“Kate Malone used you to get what she wants, and now that she has it, do you think she’s going to look twice at you?” Melissa hated the way he bowed his head, like a broken man. Where was the man she used to love, the sexy, spirited man who could do anything? The man she
still
loved?

“Please, Clayton . . . look at me.” He turned slowly, still hunched over in his defeat. “Am I not enough for you?”

“Melissa . . . don’t.”

“You used to say you couldn’t get enough of me . . . of this.” She ripped aside her blouse. Buttons rolled onto the Oriental rug and the sound of tearing silk rent the silence. Her fingernails scored her tender skin as she grabbed her bra. It was nothing more than a delicate bit of lace, and it tore easily.

“For God’s sake, Melissa . . .” Clayton jerked up her torn blouse and moved to cover her.

“Not this time, Clayton.” She shoved his hands aside. “I won’t let Kate Malone come between us this time.”

Quickly, she knelt in front of him and opened his zipper. He was flaccid, but that didn’t deter Melissa. She knew exactly what to do, exactly what he liked.

“Stop, Melissa . . . please. You’re only humiliating us both.”

She raked the tips of her long red fingernails over his sensitive flesh. Power surged through her as he began to pulse in her hand.

Clayton tried to regain control, but his body betrayed him. Defeated, he stood in his richly appointed study in his fancy house and looked down at the top of his wife’s head. Her mouth was warm and wet, and she made soft, catlike sounds of satisfaction.

A half-breed at stud. Bought and paid for with Melissa’s money. Rage and semen spewed from him.

With the easy grace of a tigress she rose to face him. Even with her lipstick smeared she was very much in control.

“Did you think I’d let her win, Clayton?”

She didn’t even pick up her torn clothes when she left the room. Rigid, Clayton stood in the wreckage, afraid to move lest he shatter.

There were no sounds in the house except the ticking of a clock that had belonged to the first Sayers to set foot in New England, and even that sound was discreet, as befitted anything connected to the Sayers name.

Without bothering to zip his pants, Clayton picked up the invitation and went to the Louis XIV desk. Sun poured through the French doors and warmed his cold skin.

He ran his hands across the invitation. The words blurred. Witch Dance Clinic. Dr. Kate Malone.

He closed his eyes, envisioning her bright hair and the intoxicating smell of her skin. Dr. Kate Malone,
his
Kate, with her future still before her.

Still clutching the invitation, he reached into the top right hand drawer of his desk. His fingers closed around the cold steel.

With slow deliberation he laid the gun on top of the desk.

 o0o

Witch Dance

“Nobody’s coming.”

“I’m here, Kate.”

She was standing in the doorway of the clinic, looking at the empty road. Not a speck of dust marred the horizon. With Deborah’s help she’d mailed a hundred invitations, and not a soul had come to the open house except Eagle.

She felt his hands on her shoulders. Gently but firmly he turned her around.

“What do you see?” he asked.

“A flower garden, thanks to you.”

He had brought dozens of flowers, roses of every color and even white ginger, shipped from Hawaii. It was the closest thing to jasmine he could find, he’d said, knowing her love for the waxy, fragrant flower of the Deep South. Her mother had sent flowers too—purple violets with yellow throats—and had signed both their names, Mick and Martha. Dr. Colbert sent orchids, and Deborah had come early, while her father was still asleep, and brought a bouquet of Indian paintbrush she’d picked on the hillside. It was in a prominent place in the reception room.