Witch Dance (6 page)

“You never could lie well, Kate.” He patted her cheek. It was the only familiarity he would allow himself. “Bear with me. This is something I must do alone.”

“With my help,” she corrected him.

“Yes. With your help.”

The screen door banged shut behind her. Clayton’s bedroom was cool and dark with the shades drawn. He sat in a chair with the leg he’d twisted in his trick riding days propped on a footstool.

Was it possible to buy back dignity?

 o0o

The flowers lay scattered in the dirt, their stems broken and their petals crushed. In the white glare of the noonday sun they were an obscenity, delicate beauty deliberately destroyed, then left in the skeleton clinic like an omen.

Shading her eyes, Kate looked at the hillside. It was innocent and empty, as if the watchers had never been there.

Adrenaline pumped through her as reaction set in. The watchers had become the enemy. She wanted to run after them and throttle them for the wanton destruction of her property. Never mind that it was merely flowers. They were Eagle’s gift, flowers he’d picked with his own hands.

Sawdust and lumber chips bit her skin as Kate knelt in the dirt and gathered up her flowers. Then she poured a cup of water and arranged them as tenderly as if they were hothouse roses. The bruised blossoms drooped over the edges of the cup.

Holding her damaged bouquet aloft, Kate shook her fist at the desolate hillside.

“You won’t win, you cowards. I won’t let you win.”

Chapter 5

At the sound of footsteps in the hall, Deborah Lightfoot hid her book under the covers. It wouldn’t do to let her father know she was reading when she was supposed to be sleeping. Pipe dreams, he called her books.

“A young woman should have her mind on finding a good husband and raising babies,” he’d say when he caught her reading. “Not pipe dreams.”

The novel was set in Vietnam during the sixties, and the heroine was a nurse of uncommon courage.

That’s the kind of nurse Deborah would be. A nurse of uncommon courage. If she ever got to be one. Which was as likely as an antelope learning to fly.

Sighing, she pulled the sheet up under her chin and tucked the tiny flashlight she used when she read in the dark under her pillow. She let her breathing become even in case he checked on her.

Sometimes he did. Not that she minded. He’d done the best he could by them, by Deborah and her brother, Hal, but sometimes she wished he’d quit trying so hard.

The bedroom door next to hers creaked open, and she heard Hal’s muttered oath as a chair banged against the wall. Deborah swept back her covers and tiptoed into her brother’s room.

“What are you doing out so late?”

Hal whirled toward her, his long hair swinging over one dark eye. “You scared the devil out of me, Deborah. Don’t you believe in knocking?”

“Why should I knock? Do you have something to hide?”

“None of your business.”

Filled with a dread she couldn’t name, Deborah flipped on the light switch. At fifteen, Hal was all arms and legs. He stood with his feet spread apart in fighting stance and his hands gathered into fists at his sides. Fresh scratches reddened the top of one hand.

“Have you been fighting?”

“Lay off. You’re not my mother.”

Maybe not. But she tried to be. She’d tried since-she was seven years old and the mother they both adored was shot down in the general store like a rabid coyote, shot once in the throat and twice in the chest by a drug- crazed man who wanted the cash box.

Deborah never looked at the cash box without a sense of fear and revulsion, never touched it without wishing her mother had given it to the drug addict.

Brushing aside Hal’s objections, Deborah examined his fist. “You have a splinter. Let me get a needle and take it out.”

“Go to bed and leave me alone.” Hal jerked his fist away.

Only a year ago they would sit up hours, talking to each other. What had happened to the sunny-natured brother she used to know?

“It will fester.”

“Who gives a shit?”

“I do . . . and Father does.”

“All he cares about is that damned store.”

“That’s not true.”

Except partially. He
did
care about the store, cared so much that sometimes he failed to notice when Hal was three hours late getting home from school or when Deborah outgrew her dresses and wore them too tight and too short because she was afraid to ask for a new one. Money was scarce. If he couldn’t afford to pay extra help at the store, how could he afford to keep her in the style of Juanita Beard or Cassandra Black Elk?

Not that she wanted to be either one of them. Juanita was stuck-up and Cassandra was silly.

“Are you in some kind of trouble, Hal?”

“Cool it, Deborah. Go to bed.”

“You’d tell me if you were in trouble, wouldn’t you?”

He looked down at the toe of the shoe he was scuffing on the floor, then shrugged his shoulders and grinned at her. It was a heart-melting smile that made her forget he’d been uncooperative and sullen only seconds earlier.

“Of course I’d tell you, Miss Deborah Fixitfoot.” He held his hand out, palm up, and she placed hers over it, the way they used to when they were kids and made their pact, two against the world, Hal and Deborah, inseparable and unconquerable.

“’Night, Hal.” She kissed his cheek.

He jerked back, then gave her a sheepish grin. “I’ve outgrown that sissy stuff.”

“Nobody ever outgrows the need for a good-night kiss.”

“Sleep tight, sis,” he said when she got to his door. But she knew she wouldn’t. Deborah crawled under the covers feeling ninety instead of nineteen.

Hal was keeping secrets, and she had nobody to tell.

 o0o

The scream that ripped the air was pure rage.

Eagle’s head came up as the sound tore through the morning once more. It was a woman’s voice . . . coming from the direction of the clinic.

With water dripping from his face and shoulders, Eagle rose from the river’s edge and raced toward his campsite, whistling for his stallion. His mount thundered toward him, and Eagle vaulted onto his back while the horse was still in motion.

Wind dried the river water from his skin and ruffled his hair as he tore across the plains toward the clinic. He came upon it suddenly—the wanton devastation. What had once been a wall was now a heap of junk lumber, splintered and broken, with the sharp ends of nails glinting in the sun.

Kate Malone stood in the midst of the rubble, slinging broken boards with the force of a woman twice her size. Spots of anger rouged her cheeks.

“No . . . dammit . . . no! I won’t quit!”

“Kate. What happened?” Eagle bolted from his horse.

“Look at this. The cowards!” She prowled through the debris like an angry lioness, kicking at everything in her path. Her hair was loose and disheveled, as if she’d just arisen from bed. “They came in the night and did this.”

She hefted a board, and a nail tore her tender skin from wrist to elbow. She was so mad, she didn’t even notice.

Anger seared through Eagle. Not only had his people reduced Kate’s dreams to a pile of rubble, but they had caused her harm. He reached for the board, but Kate pulled away.

“I want to help,”

“I can do this myself. I don’t need you.”

“You’re in shock. Let me see about your wound.”

“I don’t need you or any of your people.”

With the swiftness of his namesake, Eagle captured her wrists and moved in on her, moved so close, their thighs touched, touched and retreated, then touched once more, trembling.

Long-held codes crumbled and resolve went spinning away like a tumbleweed before the wind. The temptation he’d avoided for twelve years was standing before him . . . and he had no place to run.

Nor did he want to. Kate was like new wine in his blood: He was drunk with her.

In one easy movement he wrested the board from her hand and cupped her face.

“You need me, Kate.”

“No,” she whispered. “I don’t need you.”

“Yes . . .” He tangled his hands in her hair and with great deliberation pulled her close, so close he could see the tiny bursts of gold in the center of her eyes. Green eyes. Green eyes and clear skin that would burn easily in the sun, pale skin that would never have the rich copper tint of the Chickasaw.

None of it mattered now. Fate had sent her to him, and fate would not be denied.

He leaned down so that their lips were almost touching.

“You need me as much as I need you,” he said.

And Kate knew he spoke the truth.

How much longer could she be brave with her dreams in rubble and this magnificent man seducing her in a voice that would make angels abandon their halos? He shone, golden and delicious, with the sun caught in droplets of moisture clinging to his bare chest.

Kate longed to lick them away one by one. She knew how his skin would taste, warm and musky as sin.

Her bones melted, and she leaned toward him, her vision forgotten in her quest to merge with the mighty Eagle, to be folded under him, to soar with him in swift splendor toward the heavens. A small sigh escaped her lips, and she breathed deeply.

Even the air was sweeter because he was a part of it.

“No,” she said again, but she knew her protest was weak.

His laughter was pure seduction, wicked and knowing.

“Another time, another place,
Wictonaye
, and all your denials will vanish like wisps of smoke in a firestorm.” He took her hand and led her to a clearing. “Come. I will tend your wounds.”

She would have followed him to the gates of hell. No, through the very gates and into the inferno itself.

Even the suggestion that he tend her wounds was somehow erotic.

“I’m a doctor. I can tend my own wounds.”

His eyes trapped hers as he traced the reddened path of the nail from elbow to wrist.

“To see such perfection marred is a desecration.”

“You have a great bedside manner.”

“You protest too much, Kate. Are you afraid of me?”

“No.” She lied with her eyes sparking fire, and her chin jutted out. She was afraid of him, all right. Not afraid that he would cause pain, but that he would cause ecstasy, so much ecstasy, she would lose her purpose.

“Even the brave are sometimes scared,
Wictonaye
.”

Water touched her skin, and she realized that he’d found the thermos and a paper towel and was now washing her wounds. So powerful was her attraction that even when he left, she knew she’d still felt his presence.

The water was soothing . . . and so was the touch of his hand upon her skin.

“In the ancient customs of my people, the eagle is invoked for healing.” His voice flowed through her like warm honey. “They solicit him as he soars through the heavens to bring down refreshing things, to dart down quickly on wings of lightning and provide succor for the wounded.”

He set aside the makeshift sponge without relinquishing his hold on her. Dark and deep with mysteries, he held her with his eyes as his hands continued their erotic massage.

“The eagle is the king of birds, prodigious in strength, swift of wing, majestic in stature . . . and so full of passion that he teaches all he loves to fly.”

His eyes never left hers as he lifted her arm to his lips.

“
Waka
ahina uno, iskunosi Wictonaye. Waka
.”

Heat seared her, but it wasn’t the heat of skin against skin: It was the heat of desire burst full flower in a strange land with a man who spoke in a poetic and mesmerizing tongue.

“In English, please,” she whispered.

“Fly with me, little wildcat. Fly.”

His lips burned against her skin once more, and she trembled. It was not mere wanting that shook her, but something much more complex. He set off silent explosions under her skin, just where his fingers touched— and deeper, in secret places that had never known such primitive longing.

Already she was flying, flying irrevocably toward the golden Eagle who had risen from the river and forever captured her soul.

“Eagle,” she whispered.

The passion that shimmered between them was almost palpable. Their senses were heightened so that even the air burned their skin.

Holding her captive with his dark eyes, Eagle cupped her face, then splayed his fingers through her hair.

“What magic do you possess, Kate . . . what witchcraft that makes me burn with the wanting of you?”

‘Do you burn, Eagle?

“Yes . . . as you do. I feel the passion in your skin.”

“It’s the heat.”

“No,
Wictonaye
. Your blood is hot with the same fever that rages through mine.”

“I have a remedy for fever . . . in my black bag.”

“There is only one remedy for this fever, Kate. Only one.”

Eagle leaned closer so that their bodies were partially joined—his legs pressed against hers, her shoulders bracketed by his arms, her chest barely grazing his. And in that moment the whole world rearranged itself, ripped itself from familiar moorings, and came together in fresh configuration, reborn.

Kate knew the remedy . . . and longed for it with the single-minded greed of a newborn seeking its mother’s milk.

She threaded her fingers through his hair and was actually pulling him toward her lips when she heard echoes of her father’s voice:
You’d do well to learn to make soup.

She backed away from Eagle and scrambled to her feet.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to prove by riding around on that stallion, seducing women.”

“Do I seduce you, Kate?”

“Yes, you seduce me, running around without your shirt.” She shoved her hair back from her overheated face. “Don’t you ever wear clothes?”

“I have no need of clothes,
Wictonaye
. I have nothing to hide.” He was toying with her.

“You’re a dangerous man, Eagle Mingo. I should have let you drown.”

Even his laughter was seductive.

“But you didn’t, Kate. You came to me in the river . . . as you will always come to me.” He held out his hand. “Come, we have work to do.”