Witch Dance (35 page)

Around him, the mourners were not only oblivious of his struggle but eager to be away from a ceremony that obviously made them uncomfortable. Soon they would put aside their ancient funeral songs and climb into their modern cars to return to their houses, where Oprah exposed the sins of a nation on television and the whiskey bottle waited under the kitchen sink to help them forget their defeat.

The old ways were gone. His heart fell to the ground and mourned.

 o0o

Del Mar, California

Eagle hardly recognized his sister-in-law.

“You shouldn’t have come all this way . . . but I’m glad you did.” Anna lay against the covers with her hands folded protectively over her bulging womb. She’d changed her long hair to a short modern style, and her lips and eyes were painted like the California women he’d glimpsed on the streets.

She was beautiful, a woman he hardly knew until she smiled. And then she became the Anna he’d known when Cole had first brought her into the family—warm, animated, and approachable.

“I’m glad, too.” He took her hand. “How are you, Anna?”

“Fine. Wonderful, really.” She laughed. “Except for being flat on my back. My sister shouldn’t have called you.”

The call had come unexpectedly, not to his home but to his office, where he’d been standing at the window, watching the last snow of the season sputter against the sidewalks and melt into slick puddles. “Anna has been in the hospital,” her sister had said. “The pregnancy has made her very sick.” Shocking news considering that the few notes Anna had written since she and Clint moved had been brief and cheerful, telling him nothing really about their life in California. He’d caught the next plane out, and as was his way, had gone straight to the best source for information.

“The doctor assured me that you and the babies are going to be all right,” he said.

“Twin girls. Can you believe it?”

“Cole’s children.”

Anna said nothing, but smoothed the covers, obviously flustered.

“He really loved you, Anna. Always. Even during the bad times.”

Her glance slid away from his. “How are Dovie and Winston?”

“They send their love. They wanted to come, but Dad’s health is too fragile and Mom won’t go anywhere without him.”

“Tell them I said hello.”

Suddenly Eagle ran out of things to say. Embroidered curtains fluttered at the open window, and the sound of waves filled the silence. Anna tried to hide her discomfort by reaching to her bedside table for a sip of water.

The table was a frivolous piece of furniture—French, Eagle thought. There was nothing of her former life in the room, no Indian pottery, no colorful woven rugs, none of the western prints Cole had loved. Everything surrounding her was new and generic. It might have belonged to any woman anywhere in the United States.

There was the sound of a car door, and then footsteps in the hallway.

“Anna.” A tall man with blond hair and thick glasses came into the room.

The first thing Eagle noticed was that the man had come into the house without a key, and the second was that he went straight to Anna’s bed without even noticing she had a visitor.

“How are you, darling?” he said, bending to kiss her on the lips.

“Larry . . . we have a visitor. My brother-in-law from Oklahoma.”

The man Anna called Larry turned, not at all flustered at having been caught kissing Cole’s wife.

“Hello. I’m Larry Carnathan.” He stuck out his hand. “You’re Eagle Mingo.”

“Yes.” His handshake was firm and his gaze unwavering as Eagle assessed him. Self-assured. Determined. Not a man to be taken lightly, Eagle decided.

“You’ve come a long way to see Anna. Why don’t I leave you two alone?”

“You don’t have to leave, Larry.” Anna thrust her chin out as if she dared Eagle to contradict her.

“I won’t go far. Just to the kitchen to make us all a pot of coffee.”

They heard his footsteps disappearing down the hall. In the humming silence, Anna fidgeted with the covers.

“He’s my sister’s accountant,” she said finally. “I met him when I first moved out here. He’s been good to me.”

“You and this man have made plans?”

“Yes. I’m going to marry him.” Her chin came up. “I need a father for my children, but more than that, I love him.”

“They have a father.”

“Cole’s dead, Eagle.”

Eagle heard his brother’s cry as he fell over the edge of the cliff. He wanted to shut his ears, but he couldn’t. Cole’s haunting cry had become the lamentation of a nation, falling over the edge of a cliff into oblivion.

“He lives through his children, Anna. They will carry on the Mingo name, the Mingo traditions.”

“Clint will remain a Mingo if he wishes . . . he’s old enough to choose. But my babies will be called Carnathan . . . like their adoptive father.”

“They are Cole’s children. If you do this, you desecrate the Mingo name.”

“Cole desecrated the Mingo name.”

The fearsome truth glittered in Anna’s eyes, and Eagle understood that both he and Cole had vastly underestimated this woman.

“Didn’t you think I’d guess?” she added. “Didn’t you think I’d add up all his absences, his erratic behavior?”

“No one else knows . . .”

“No. Nor will they ever.” Anna folded her hands over her vast abdomen. “I will tell the babies their tribal history, but I won’t burden them with paralyzing traditions and a name they’ll have to defend.”

In the face of her implacable will, Eagle was defenseless.

“My father’s spirit will never recover from this final blow.”

“You underestimate Winston, Eagle. You always have.”

There was a discreet knock. Larry Carnathan stuck his head around the door.

“Is anybody ready for coffee?”

Eagle knew that his response would set the course for the future. With the waiting stillness that had characterized his ancestors, he studied the man who would raise his brother’s children, studied him, and saw his strength and his courage.

“Coffee sounds like a good idea,” he said.

Chapter 40

Charleston, South Carolina

Every morning Martha cooked bacon and eggs and biscuits, in spite of what her daughter said about cholesterol, and every evening Kate stopped on her way from work to pick up some special treat for them, the Italian ices they loved so well, or boiled peanuts from the vendor on the corner near the hospital.

Often now, her mother sang. And three days a week she put on her striped cotton uniform and did volunteer work at the hospital. Gray Ladies, they were called.

“How do you like being a Gray Lady, Mother?”

“I love it. But what do you suppose they’d call me if I dyed my hair red?”

“They’d call you beautiful. Do it.”

Restless, Kate went to the window. Soon it would be spring. Though the lilacs weren’t yet blooming, their fragrance was already in the air, as if it had been borne in from some exotic and faraway place on breezes drifting across the sea.

The news reporter on
Wake Up, Charleston
was giddy with the sighting of a bluebird she’d seen on the way to work. As Kate leaned on the windowsill, listening to the woman’s drawl, thick as molasses, she remembered the musical rhythms of Deborah’s voice telling her she should wear a hat in the sun, and the mesmerizing cadence of Eagle’s voice as he wooed her in Muskogean.

“And now here’s what’s happening around the nation,” the woman on television intoned. “In Tupelo, Mississippi, a new furniture market is opening, and in Ada, Oklahoma, Governor Eagle Mingo announced the opening of Native Arts, Incorporated, at the site of what was once a tool and die plant.”

Suddenly his voice was more than a memory; it filled the room, flowing through Kate like the Blue River, until she was full of the sound and the music of it.

“The new enterprise has two purposes,” he said, “to employ the people who need work as well as to preserve and promote Chickasaw culture.”

His face filled the screen, chiseled and so beautiful, it took away Kate’s ability to breathe. The camera panned to woven baskets and hand-painted pottery, and the honey-voiced Southerner waxed eloquent about the art; but Kate still saw and heard Eagle. Only Eagle.

“Katie.” She felt her mother’s hand on her arm. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“You remind me of the way I used to look forty years ago when I knew Mick would be calling.”

Kate walked toward a chair, keeping her eyes on the television screen, although she knew that she’d seen the last of Eagle Mingo.
Wake Up, Charleston
featured sound bites, not in-depth reporting.

The cameras were panning across a zoo now, in Washington, D.C., honing in on the pandas.

“Mother, what are you going to do?”

“I thought I’d go down to the nursery and buy some plants. Don’t you think flower beds would look nice in front of the cottage?”

“I’m not talking about today. I’m talking about the next few months, the next few years.”

“My future, you mean?” Martha laughed then inspected her hands. “I don’t know, Katie. I don’t need the money, but I realize I can’t depend on you the rest of my life to keep me company and make all my decisions.”

“Wasn’t there anything you wanted to do? Any burning ambition you had when you were young?”

“Not like you. You’re like Mick. Both of you always knew exactly what you wanted.”

A long silence fell over them. Finally Martha went to the window and opened it wider to let in the breeze.

“I used to think I might like to be a concert pianist,” she said almost timidly. “But my hands are too stiff now and my skills too rusty. It’s far, far too late for those dreams.”

“If I left, would you stay here? At the cottage?”

“You’re leaving, aren’t you, Katie?”

Until that moment Kate hadn’t known it was so; but suddenly she understood that she had to leave, that the redemption she’d spent years trying to find had been inside her all along, waiting to be discovered. At last she forgave herself for the death of her brothers, the death of the Chickasaw children, and most of all, the death of Deborah.

“Yes, Mother. I’m leaving.”

Martha untied her apron and began to tidy up the kitchen.

“Don’t you worry a minute about me. I’ll be fine. I might even go up to Virginia for a while to visit Cousin Clara. She’s been after me to go to Europe with her.”

“Dye your hair red first,” Kate said, hugging her mother.

“I might just do that.”

Kate turned her face to the open window, where bird- song drifted through on fresh breezes. Spring had come, and, with it, peace.

Chapter 41

Witch Dance

The land was coming alive after a harsh winter. In the mountains, patches of snow still clung to the ground, shaded by enormous trees, but in the valley the grass sprang up fresh and green, and flowers threaded like colored ribbons along the edge of bluffs and the banks of the river.

High above the land where ravens nested and eaglets tested their wings on maiden flights, Eagle stood alone, staring into the ravine. There was no sign of violence now, only the quiet beauty of a land renewing itself. On the place where his brother had died, flowers grew, more vivid then the ones around them. An eaglet lost its confidence and landed among the blossoms, squawking.

“Fly, little one,” Eagle said. “Fly”

And while he watched, the eaglet spread its wings and lifted upward, growing stronger and more beautiful as it flew toward the sun.

Eagle tipped his head back to watch the flight, and as he lifted his head toward Father Sky, he slowly lifted his arms.

“Loak-Isthtohoollo-Aba.
Alail-o
. I am come.”

The eaglet bent its wings and swooped close, crying out ancient secrets to him, and the vision that had been in Eagle’s mind all winter became so real, he could almost touch it.

Kate was riding Indian-style, sitting proud and erect the way he always remembered her. He lowered his arms and stood with his feet planted apart as the big Appaloosa topped the ridge and cantered close, stopping a few feet from him.

“Hello, Eagle.”

His soul wept for her, and his heart cried out, but he stood apart, wrapped in dignity and the heavy mantle of duty.

“Hello, Kate.”

She stared at him with eyes that held memories. Even across the distance his skin burned with her and he felt the warm, sweet melting of his flesh into hers. Her bottom lip trembled ever so slightly. She caught it between her teeth as she dismounted.

For a small eternity they faced each other, watching, waiting, wanting. Finally the eaglet swooped between them, its cry breaking the screaming silence. Kate turned abruptly and walked to the edge of the cliff.

He wanted to reach out to keep her from falling over the edge, wanted to cry out
Stop
. Instead, he remained as still as the carved mountains around him.

She stood at the edge of the cliff for a long time, and when she turned to him, there was a hint of tears in her eyes.

“Aren’t you going to ask why I’m here?”

“Kate, you were never one to keep secrets. You’ll tell me.”

“Damn you, Eagle Mingo.”

He smiled at the quick spots of color that came into her cheeks. Nothing about Kate Malone had changed. At least he had that.

“Why are you here?” he said.

“Because I knew you would be here, standing just as you were when I first saw you with your arms lifted to the sky. I knew those things, Eagle, because you are still here . . . inside me in ways that no man has ever been or ever will be.” The hand she had spread over her heart clenched, catching the fabric of her blouse and drawing it tight across her breasts.

Eagle wanted to take the clenched hand and gently pull it apart, wanted to lift it up to his lips and taste the sweetness of her palm. The high mountain wind whipped her hair around her face. He could almost reach out and touch it, that bright hair of his visions, that silky, flaming mass that moved him in ways not even he could fathom.

One small movement. That’s all it would take to send him flying across the space that separated them. If she had lifted her hand to hold back her hair, the sight of soft, blue-veined skin of her underarm would have been his undoing. If she had shifted her right foot, thrusting her hips forward ever so slightly in the provocative angle that used to drive him mad, he’d have covered her with wings that would carry them on a flight from which neither of them could ever return.