Witch Dance (32 page)

She dipped her finger into a paint pot, then drew careful circles around her breasts.

“
Ni’tak
intaha
,” she whispered. “The days appointed are finished.”

She dipped her fingers again then raked them down her body from breastbone to pelvic bone. Her pupils dilated at the sight of so much red. Like blood.

Clayton would be proud of her. At the thought of her lover, Melissa became almost frantic in her haste. Soon he’d be with her and they would lie together on the silk sheets sealed at the hips, sealed so tightly that nothing could tear them apart.

The blue slash she painted across her cheeks wavered off course, and the yellow she put on her lips got out of line, but that didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered except being ready for Clayton.

When she’d finished painting herself, she selected a knife from the kitchen and lay down upon the bed. “Soon, my darling,” she whispered.

She heard his key in the lock and his footsteps as he came into her bedroom. She turned herself so that the bedside light could show her handiwork.

“My God,” he whispered.

“Do you love me?” she asked.

He came to her swiftly, and knelt beside the bed.

“You know I do.” He bent over her hand and pressed it to his lips. “I love you, Melissa. I
really
love you.”

“Will you do anything for me, Clayton?”

His beautiful skin glistened in the lamplight as he stared at her.

“Will you?” she whispered.

He touched her breasts and his fingers came away red.

“Anything, my love.”

Smiling, she put the knife in his hands.

 o0o

Every movement Kate made vibrated through him like a bowstring turned loose after the arrow has been launched. Eagle’s house had become a mine field. If he turned his head too quickly, he would catch her watching him in ways that set him aflame. If he wandered through the house in the middle of the night, he would glimpse her, struck with the same wanderlust, standing at the window with the moon washing her skin silver.

Now, sitting across the table from her, he was surprised to see that look on her face again. He lifted his coffee cup . . . carefully, as he did everything these days.

Kate picked up her cup with equal care.

“I’m going to the barn to check on Mahli,” she said. “She hasn’t looked good since . . .” Her voice trailed away.

“I’ll go with you.”

“I’m afraid she won’t be with me much longer. I’d like to spend some time with her.” Their eyes met. “Alone.”

“After I check the barn, I’ll leave you. One of the guards can escort you back to the house.”

They walked side by side to the barn, not touching. The night was cold and clear, with stars shining down on the snow and reflecting their light in patches that looked like celestial stepping-stones.

Only a fool would try to penetrate the wall of guards around the governor’s house on such a night.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Kate looked up at the sky.

“Yes.” Her face and hair were surrounded by a nimbus.

Waka
ahina uno, iskunosi Wictonaye. Waka.

As if she’d read his thoughts, she turned to him.

“We can never go back,” she whispered.

“No. Never.”

Silently, he held the barn door open. She went straight to the stall and stood with Mahli between them while he checked for signs of intruders. Nothing was out of place. The sweet smell of hay and the rich smell of loamy earth lulled and soothed, just as the stars had done.

“You’re safe, Kate. Just call one of the guards when you’re ready to come back.”

“Yes, Governor.” She saluted, then came out of the stall and curtsied. “Anything you say, Governor.”

The irony of her submissive attitude made them both laugh, and the laughter somehow saved them. When he went back to his house, Eagle’s spirits were almost light.

He got a file folder and sat in a chair by the window, facing the barn. At his request, Martin Black Elk furnished him with copies of every report regarding Kate’s case. The latest was on Melissa Sayers Colbert, widow of suicide victim Dr. Clayton Colbert, with addresses in Boston and Ada, Oklahoma—socialite, heiress, and recently a patient at a mental institution.

A memory stirred in the back of his mind, a memory of the look on Clayton Colbert’s face when Eagle had welcomed Kate to Witch Dance with a bouquet of Indian paintbrush. It had been the look of a man desperately, hopelessly, in love.

Revenge was a powerful motivation.

Suddenly the back of his neck prickled, and he turned slowly to the window. A curl of smoke rose from the barn, and the acrid smell of burning filled the air.

Paper scattered to the floor as he raced from the room.

“Kate!” he yelled. There was no answer except the crackle of flame shooting toward the sky

Eagle almost stumbled over the bodies of the tribal policemen he’d left guarding the door. Kneeling quickly, he felt their pulse, then burst through the barn door.

Smoke billowed around him.

“
Kate
!”

“Over here.” She was struggling to lead Mahli and Heloa through the flames. The black stallion reared, and his hooves smashed against the ground, cutting deep grooves.

“Let him go, Kate! He’ll kill you.”

“He’ll burn, Eagle. They’ll all burn.”

Kate’s voice had the high, bright edge of hysteria. Eagle had a flashback of Deborah lying in a pool of blood amid the blazing clinic.

Not again. He wouldn’t let the avenger win again.

He jerked the reins away from her and carried her outside. The police guards had swarmed from their posts and formed a bucket brigade. In the distance the fire truck’s siren wailed.

Eagle pulled the burliest guard out of the lineup and thrust Kate toward him.

“Don’t let her out of your sight.”

Inside the barn, his stallion was thrashing the air with his hooves. Mahli’s nostrils flared as she screamed with terror. Smoke burned Eagle’s eyes and lungs, and flame licked up the hay on its ruthless march toward the walls.

Calling on all his skills as a horseman, Eagle mounted Mahli’s back and grabbed the stallion’s reins. The horses leapt through the door, then raced with demonic speed across the pasture while Eagle tried to control their terror.

Behind him, fire trucks circled and water arced toward the blaze. Firemen swarmed into the adjacent stables to release stall gates, and Eagle’s other horses catapulted into the night.

By the time he brought Mahli to a halt and returned to the scene, the fire was under control. Kate sat on a tree root, drinking coffee someone had brought to her while a policeman stood guard, and Martin Black Elk stalked around with his hands rammed into his pockets and a scowl on his face.

“We’re damned lucky the fire trucks got here in time to save your barn,” he said.

The barn was the least of Eagle’s worries.

“I’m taking Kate out of here.”

“Six guards, and still he got through.” Black Elk shook his head.

“Did you find any signs at all?”

“None. Whoever did this is a genius . . . or a madman. I’ll send more men to guard your house.”

“No. The only way I can protect Kate is to take her where no one will follow.”

 o0o

They left in the middle of the night after everyone had gone.

This time Kate hadn’t questioned Eagle’s judgment, hadn’t even questioned where he was taking her. Riding a big bay from his stables, she kept pace with him. Snow had begun to fall once more, and it powdered their clothes and covered their trail as they traveled. She lost track of time, depending instead on Eagle, who possessed mysterious instincts that guided them through a world as white and silent as death.

They didn’t stop until dawn. Eagle held up his right hand, and Kate drew her mount to a halt.

“We’ll pitch camp here.”

It was a desolate place, high in the mountains, where nothing moved except a lone eagle winging his audacious way toward the rising sun. Their campsite, tucked under the shelf of an enormous rock, provided a natural fortress and afforded them a panoramic view of the mountains.

They tended and sheltered the horses; then Kate fell exhausted into the tent, bundled into a sleeping bag with all her clothes on.

Eagle kept watch until the sun spilled its unforgiving light around them, and then he lay down beside Kate. No person, either genius or madman, would attack such a place in broad daylight.

 o0o

He came fully alert, drawn by a compelling force from a deep, dreamless sleep. Rolling onto his side, Eagle looked straight into the eyes of Kate Malone. Everything they’d ever been to each other shone in her green eyes, burned there until his skin caught fire and there was nothing he could do except try to put out the flames.

Wordless, he held out his hand and she tumbled down upon him, silky and fragrant, her body rich with the mysteries he remembered so well. There was no haste, for they were alone on the desolate mountain, alone in the cold sunlight and the ice-bound canyons.

She had not changed in five years except for the slight, more exotic ripeness of her body and the desperate edge to her desire. As he discovered her anew, he wondered how he could have chosen the howling loneliness of honor and duty over the eternal renewal of passion.

Fully sheathed in her, he lifted himself on his elbows so he could read her face and eyes. Still as a cat, she waited, her body trembling with the same carnal impatience as his. They stared at each other, breathless with fear and wonder.

There was no turning back now. From the moment he’d held out his hand, he had set them on a course that would rock the mountains and shatter the very foundations of their lives.

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

Later, he would not remember who had moved first, but that slight nudge of hip against hip, of flesh against flesh, exploded through them like a thousand rivers unleashed and roaring through the canyons.

The sun climbed through the sky, gradually burning away the blue, but they knew neither time nor place nor hunger. For the two of them there was only discovery, time and again, of the slow sweet death of passion and the resurrection of fulfillment.

When bands of hot gold gilded the western mountaintops, Eagle spread Kate upon his blanket, arranging her lush and languid limbs for a celebration of the magic circle of life. Her lips closed around him as they began the slow spin on the medicine wheel that would take them through the sunset and into the gray edge of evening.

Afterward, sitting side by side, eating beef jerky and drinking tepid coffee from a thermos, they didn’t speak of what had happened.

“I’m going to scout around, Kate.” Eagle found her gun among her belongings and placed it in her hand. “Sit with your back to the wall and your gun aimed at the door. Shoot anything that tries to come through.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“No more than an hour.”

She reached out and touched his lips, once, softly.

“Be careful, Eagle.”

Armed with his knife and his rifle, he left her there, sitting with her gun cocked and aimed at the tent door. The snow stretched clean and untouched around their campsite. Eagle fed the horses the sweet oats he’d packed then set out to find the enemy.

All Eagle’s senses came alert. The enemy was out there, not watching, but waiting somewhere in a dark lair, waiting like an animal who knows his prey is nearby.

The first sign was a broken branch, less than half a mile from the campsite. Eagle studied the surrounding area. Either through carelessness or overconfidence the avenger had not bothered to cover his trail. Snow had covered his tracks, but the trees and bushes held evidence of his passing. A thread had been snagged from his jeans. Low-lying limbs had been knocked clean of their burden of snow. Some of them were crooked and broken.

Eagle tracked, following the clear trail. Around the side of a huge boulder he stopped, rooted to the spot by fear and a terrible sense of foreboding. Planted in the ground was the red war pole, and carved deep in the snow at its base was the perfect imprint of a man, lying spread-eagle with his face pressed to the earth.

The size and shape of his body were as familiar to Eagle as his own. Terror paralyzed him, and denial rose screaming through his throat. He bit his lip so hard, he tasted blood.

Kneeling, he placed his hand in the indentation, right where the man’s hand had been. A perfect fit.

“No,” he whispered. “No.”

He leaned close, studying the imprint, touching to assure himself that he was not deceived. There, his high cheekbones had been. And there, his wide chest. There, his coat had been open so the ornate belt buckle could press the snow. There, the scabbard for his knife. And there, his soft beaded boots.

Suddenly Eagle’s hand closed over a small object, a familiar Italian blue glass bead, ancient and cherished, twin to the ones that decorated his own boots. Clutching the bead in his hand, he shook his fist at the sky.

Eagle knew the avenger . . . his enemy . . . his brother.

 o0o

“Kate. It’s Eagle.” He called her from a distance, and she put her gun down and met him outside the tent door.

The first thing she noticed was the red-painted pole in his hand. A sinking sense of dread spread through her, making her arms heavy and her legs limp.

“You found him?”

“No. Only signs.”

Silently he planted the pole outside their tent, planted it so deep and so hard that its top whipped back and forth as if strong winds were shaking it. Kate’s dread became a nameless terror. With one hand against her throat she moved toward the pole.

“Don’t touch it.” She stepped back, struck by the flat, deadly tone of his voice.

“What is it?”

“The war pole.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means the avenger prepares to go into battle.”

Looking at the ancient symbol, Kate understood that she was not the avenger’s target this time: It was Eagle. He would have to remove her protector to get to her, but more than that, he understood that killing Eagle would be the worst punishment he could mete upon her. It would kill her spirit and her soul.