Witch Dance (16 page)

Cole would never drive in such a manner, and Anna couldn’t drive.

Anna
.

Hammer and nails went flying as Eagle rushed down the ladder. He had his keys out before his feet touched the ground. The Jaguar burned rubber as he spun out of his driveway.

Cole’s truck lurched toward an embankment and teetered there, on the edge. Eagle could see them now, Anna at the wheel with Clint’s head close to hers. Bucky hung out the window.

“Anna!” The motor was still running as Eagle leapt from his car and raced toward them.

His brother’s truck was awash in blood.

“Help me Eagle.” Anna’s voice was weak. “I must get to Ada.”

Ada was too far. Both Anna and the baby would be dead before they could get there. Forcing back the terror that clawed at his gut, Eagle lifted her from the old truck.

“I’m here, Anna. Don’t worry.” Cole’s boys looked at him like frightened little soldiers. “Bucky, Clint, hop in the back of my car.”

They scrambled out of the truck, then sat up on their knees peering over the backseat. Eagle pushed the Jaguar to its maximum speed. Death rode shotgun.

He talked to reassure himself as much as Anna and the boys.

“You’ve done a good job taking care of your mother. When your little brother gets here . . .”

“. . . sister,” Anna said.

“When your little sister comes, she’ll know how brave her brothers are.”

“I b’ave,” Bucky said while Clint nodded solemnly.

Blood puddled on the front seat. Eagle pressed the accelerator to the floor.

There was only one person who could help them now.

Chapter 17

Kate’s coffee sat on the edge of her desk getting cold as she wrote a letter to her mother. “Things are going well with me. My clinic has brought modern medicine to Witch Dance, and I expect to make a great contribution to the health and welfare of the Chickasaw Nation.”

Lies. All lies.

She laid her pen aside and went to the window. The land was impossibly beautiful with high, clear skies untouched by pollution and tall, strong trees arrayed in as many colors as Joseph’s coat. She pressed her forehead against the windowpane. The glass was cool against her skin.

According to Deborah, the old prognosticators were saying the winter would bring many snows. Still, no one said much of anything to Kate. It was almost as if she didn’t exist.

She returned to her desk and picked up her pen once more. If she didn’t have patients soon, she’d have to leave Witch Dance. Her money wouldn’t last forever.

“Kate!”

At the sound of Eagle’s voice, she dropped her pen. Something was terribly wrong. Eagle Mingo, the last of the great stoics, never raised his voice.

“
Kate!
” he yelled once more.

And suddenly he was there, standing in the doorway, holding a pregnant woman. Her blood covered his arms.

“Merciful God!” Shock riveted Kate to the floor.

“Help her, Kate.”

Mentally she shook herself. If she didn’t get a move on, her first patient was going to die. And along with her, the baby.

“This way.” She ran ahead of Eagle, already planning how she would do the surgery without assistance. “Hurry. There’s no time to lose.”

Kate’s hands shook as she scrubbed. On the table the woman groaned.

“The children,” she whispered.

Two little boys stood in the doorway, clutching each other’s hands and watching with rounded eyes.

“Take them out, Eagle,” she said, working frantically as she talked. Time was running out. “There are coloring books in the reception room. When you get them settled, come straight back here.” She found the vein, and inserted the needle. The woman would be asleep very quickly, and then Kate could save them.

Two lives in her hands.
Brian and Charles
.

No. Mother and baby. She was not in the ocean; she was in her clinic with a patient who had placenta previa.

Sweat poured off Kate’s forehead. By all the saints, would she be equal to the task? She lifted her eyes to Eagle’s.

“I need you,” she whispered.

“I’ll be right back.”

She was only vaguely aware of his leaving. Time stood still as she worked.

“Don’t you worry,” she said. “I won’t let you die. I
won’t
.”

“Kate?”

Eagle stood in the doorway, his eyes and face tragic.

“Scrub up, then get in that gown and mask and those gloves.” She nodded toward the supply closet. “I’ll need you to take the baby.”

Thank God, he didn’t ask questions.

Who was she, this pregnant woman? And why was Eagle carrying her?

“Her name is Anna Mingo,” Eagle said as if he’d read her thoughts. Kate jerked her head toward him.

“My brother’s wife,” he explained. Over the mask, his eyes held hers.

God would surely strike her dead for the selfish, immoral thoughts she was having even while she tried to save lives.

“I’m going to save your brother’s wife . . . and his baby.”

“I know you will, Kate. Your hands are skilled.”

Hell was tame compared to the fires Eagle Mingo kindled. Kate kept her hands and mind functioning, even while her body went up in flames.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She lifted the tiny, puckered baby from its mother’s womb, and, trembling, held the infant toward Eagle.

“It’s a girl,” she whispered, unaware of the tears streaming down her face. “A perfect baby girl.”

Eagle braced his hands under Kate’s, and together they held the tiny miracle, a miracle that might have been theirs.

For a moment man, woman, and child were bonded by magic, and then reality intruded.

“Suction her while I suture the mother,” Kate said.

“How?”

“That syringe with the bulb.”

They worked side by side until the angry mewling cry of the newborn rent the silence.

There was no basinet for the latest Mingo except a large box lined with towels. With her patient taken care of, Kate prepared the makeshift basinet, then tenderly cleaned the baby while Eagle held her.

All her maternal instincts came to the fore, and she cooed softly to the newborn as she swaddled her in a clean towel.

“Yes, my precious, yes.” There was tenderness in her voice and wonder in her face as she touched the tiny cheek. “You’re a fighter, that’s what you are.” Kate counted the baby’s fingers and inspected her toes. She ran her hands over the tiny rib cage, then lifted her face to Eagle.

“She’s perfect,” she whispered.

Two shiny tears traced down her cheeks. Aching with love and gratitude, Eagle reached toward Kate’s glistening face. She stood in the humming silence, waiting.

To touch her would be to undo everything he’d worked for, everything he believed in. He let his hand drop and pretended to be busy arranging the baby’s makeshift blanket.

“Will Anna be all right?”

“She’ll be fine.” Kate stepped apart, her face a mask of professionalism.

“You saved their lives. The Mingos won’t forget you.”

Nor would she forget them. Especially Eagle. Always, Eagle.

They put the baby in her box then called the boys, who immediately fell in love with their baby sister. By the time Anna awoke, Cole had arrived, breathless and terror-stricken.

“You have a daughter, Cole,” Anna whispered. “Her name is Mary Doe.”

Cole kissed his wife and his baby, then took Kate’s hand.

“I’ll always be grateful to you.”

Standing quietly in a corner, Eagle watched, remembering the sweet burden of the baby and the glow on Kate’s face as she counted the tiny toes.

She glanced across the room then slowly made her way to him.

“Thank you for helping, Eagle,” she said.

“Do you need me for anything else, Kate?”

She stood before him like a long-stemmed rose, and in that fragile crystal moment he hoped she would say,
Yes. Yes, Eagle Mingo. Stay.

“No, Eagle,” she said, as he’d known she would. Kate Malone was too proud to beg. “I don’t need you.”

The moment shattered with an almost audible tinkle.

Eagle left her quickly, going out the door without saying good-bye. He got into his car and drove away at a terrifying speed, never stopping until he came to the Blue River.

And when he stood on its banks he lifted his clenched fists to the sky.

“
Waka
ahina uno, iskunosi
Wictonaye
,” he cried. “
Waka
.”

His lonely cries echoed through the hills and came back to him as the howling of a wolf.

With arms outstretched he sank to his knees and hid his face against Mother Earth.

She received his tears, taking them deep into her bosom, where they would transfuse and be sent up to Father Sky. And in the winter when the winds blew cold and the snows piled in drifts over the prairies of Witch Dance, Kate would gaze at the brightest stars in the heavens, never knowing she was seeing the tears of Eagle.

Book 2

The Witch Dance

Up from the waters rose a serpent, spewing his venom over the land,

And neither the hatchet nor the bow nor the cries of the people could break his back.

Stars fell from the sky like tears, and the lamentations of the women echoed over the land.

Two who were brave defied the death dance and were whirled away on the wind.

Chapter 18

Chickasaw Tribal Lands

Autumn 1994

“Can’t catch me . . . can’t catch me,” Bucky chanted as he ran.

“Can too . . . can too.” Mary Doe was right behind him.

Nothing ever stopped his little sister. She could do anything a boy could . . . almost.

Bucky glanced over his shoulder. She was gaining on him, and if he didn’t do something quickly, she was going to win. Surefooted as a mountain goat, he stepped onto the narrow footlog that crossed Witch Creek.

Mary Doe wouldn’t dare follow him, because she was afraid of heights.

Beneath him, the water skipped over the pebbles. Brown leaves and a rusty tin can floated by. And one big fish, belly-up.

Halfway across, Bucky turned to stick out his tongue at Mary Doe.

“You think I’ll let that old creek stop me, Bucky Mingo. Watch.” Mary Doe rolled up her jeans and waded into the water.

“Mary Doe! Don’t.”

“I’m not going to let you win.”

“Mama said don’t play in the water. It’s too cold.”

“It’s not cold . . . see?” Holding her nose, she plunged under.

Bucky felt his heart sink. Mary Doe was sure to win now. She could swim like a fish.

He ran as hard as he could across the log, but Mary Doe got to the other side first. She was waiting for him on the bank, wet and grinning.

“I won.” Bucky could see a big gap where her front tooth was missing.

He’d worried when Mary Doe first got that hole in her smile, but Daddy had said when he was little his teeth fell out too. Not to worry, he’d said, they would grow back.

“I knew that all along,” Bucky had told his daddy. “I was just checking to see if you did.”

Of course he hadn’t exactly remembered the details, but he certainly didn’t remember looking as ugly as Mary Doe with that big old hole in her smile.

Now she stretched her mouth from ear to ear, grinning because she beat him.

“I’m telling,” he said, feeling mean. “I’m telling you went swimming when it wasn’t even summer.”

Mary Doe stuck out her chin. Daddy always said she was the stubbornest of the bunch.

“If you tell, I’ll beat you up,” she said.

“You can’t whip me. You’re a sissy.”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“Am not!”

“Bucky! Mary Doe! Stop that fussing and let’s go.” Clint climbed down from the tree, shoved his knife back into his pocket, and took their arms. High up in the tree, where he’d been sitting, a newly carved heart shone white against the bark. C.M. loves L.W., it said. “Nobody’s going to tell anybody anything, understand?”

Clint looked as fierce as that old bobcat Bucky had seen up in the mountains the previous fall. He’d be glad when he got to be thirteen so he could boss everybody around.

They sneaked Mary Doe in the back of the house so Mama wouldn’t see her wet clothes. Later, after they’d all gone to bed, Bucky was dreaming about running across Witch Creek, winning.

“Bucky Bucky . . .” He opened one eye. Mary Doe was standing by his bed in her pajamas. “I don’t feel so good.”

“It’s ‘cause you got cold in the creek, Mary Doe. Hush up and go back to your own bed.”

“No, I really don’t.”

She fell onto the floor and just lay there.

“Mary Doe,” he whispered. She didn’t respond. “Mary Doe.” Bucky jumped out of bed and knelt beside his sister. She didn’t move.

Suddenly he didn’t feel too good either.

“Mama!” he yelled. “Daddy!”

His head got dizzy, and he felt the floor coming up to meet him.

 o0o

All the beds in the clinic were occupied. Three years earlier, when Kate had added the six-bed unit to the clinic, she’d never dreamed it would have two people at one time, let alone six.

She moved from bed to bed, checking pulses, studying charts.

“Kate?” Deborah appeared in the doorway, her skin dark against the crisp white of her nurse’s uniform. “It’s the Mingo children.”

“Pull their charts, Deborah. I’ll be right there.”

After Deborah left, Kate stood amid the white beds and pressed her hand over her heart. The Mingo children! Not them too.

“Everything is going to be all right,” she assured Anna and Cole later as she examined the children, but in her heart she knew it wouldn’t. All the signs were there. The yellow-hued skin and eyes, the fatigue, the brown-colored urine sample.

Viral hepatitis. The same as all six children in her clinic.

Something terrible was happening to the children of Witch Dance.

“They’ll need total bed rest and medication. I’ll move two more beds into the clinic.”