Eye of the Storm (17 page)

"I'll be careful."

He rode Midnight Lady bareback, without even a bridle. Twisting his fingers in her mane, he directed her with a slight tug of one hand or the other and the pressure of his thighs against her sides. Minutes passed before he could breathe without the odor of smoke in his nostrils.

He found his grandmother inside the cabin. After a hug she examined him for a moment. "You grow more like your father each time I see you." She pointed to his eyes. "They speak of dark thoughts. What troubles you?"

"There was a fire during the night. The house was destroyed."

"I'm grateful all of us were somewhere else." Despite the awful news, a light twinkled in her eyes. "You and your friend were somewhere else?"

He grinned. "We slept under the stars last night."

"I thought you might." She sighed and sadness replaced the humor shining in her eyes. "Is anything left of the place?"

"Of the house, nothing.
The barn and the corral survived."

"I can't believe it is gone. Your grandfather built that house for me when we married. Made it like the places back east where he went to school, said it was time we had a piece of the twentieth century here, to show the next generation there was another way to live."

Stormwalker placed a hand on his grandmother's arm. "I'm worried about your living out here by yourself."

"Your concern for my safety touches my heart," she said, "but I have seen the course of my last days and know them to be peaceful and without pain." Her eyes grew misty as she gazed at him. "It is you who must beware."

"Why do you say that?"

She closed her eyes and spoke in a soft, strong voice. "I had a strange dream, in a language I don't know. No one behaved in an understandable way, nothing was as it seems. Blue mists and gray shadows tumbled and swirled like clouds in a summer storm, and thunder and lightning broke the sky. A man in a uniform was there. He was up to no good, that I felt, though who he was and what he was about, I could not tell. And there was the double man," she said. "Beware of him. He has two faces, neither one to be trusted." She looked at him. "You will climb a rocky path to be free of danger, but shelter waits in the Black Hills and truth, and there you must go."

"Must I make this journey alone,
Unci
?"

"It might seem you are alone, Grandson, but a kindred spirit follows in your pathway, and waits for you at journey's end. At that place the storm will end and the man called Stormwalker will be no more, though he lives and breathes and watches the seasons come and go."

Her eyes revealed a serene light glowing in their depths, and although he tried to uncover the identity of the spirit, she put him off, saying, "I have told it all."

When he prepared to leave she motioned with her head. "Someone waits out there."

He saw the figure seated behind the wheel of a tan jeep that nearly, but not quite, faded into the surrounding yellow-brown field. "You've got good eyes. That's my nemesis."

"Maybe so, but he is not the double man. This one is as he seems, a blunt instrument wielded by others, and hasn't the wit or imagination to be anything else." She sighed. "The others are the ones to watch for.
Strange men in strange uniforms.
And the double man."

"You've given me a lot to think about."

"Good," she said. "My breath has not been wasted."

"Your breath is never wasted with me," he said and bent to kiss her cheek. "I always hear your words."

She gripped his wrist with fierce power. "Do more than hear my words," she demanded. "Take them into your heart, for I have not come this far to outlive you!"

"I'll remember," he said and left.

He thought about heading straight home without acknowledging the presence in the jeep; instead he rode toward it. Now, they faced each other.

"How do, Bill?" Stormwalker quietly greeted the deputy. "You got business out this way?"

"Just
makin
' rounds,"
Winter
replied.
"Part of the job."

"I didn't think you had jurisdiction on the reservation."

"Tribal Council asked us to patrol the perimeters 'cause they don't have the manpower to do it themselves."

Stormwalker
listened to the tone of
Winter's
voice and tried to understand the departure from his usual belligerence.

"How often do you make the run out here?"

Winter shrugged. "Twice a week, maybe three times if
nothin
' pops elsewhere."

"How about keeping an eye on my grandmother?"

"What the
hell.
. . ?" Winter jerked off his sunglasses as if to better see the crazy man before him.
"Why me?"

Stormwalker watched his eyes as a series of emotions flickered through them: surprise, confusion, suspicion.

 
Stormwalker kept his gaze locked on
Winter's
. The man had no opportunity to look away, to gain time to think and perhaps deny the request. Stormwalker knew he was forcing him to fall back on his instincts. He hoped they would be only the oldest and the best, those rooted in the traditional values of loyalty and honor and the enduring principle of the strong protecting the weak.

He was drawing on an old custom that permitted a warrior going off to battle to appoint another man to watch over his family, the old ones, his wife and children in case he didn't make it back. This was considered a great honor, one that was rarely refused. A man carried that responsibility until released, or until his own death.

"You say you're out this way on a regular basis," Stormwalker said. "Grandmother is old and I worry about her." He eyed the man. "She's a special person, Bill, and has no part in your beef with me. So if you say you'll watch out for her, I'll believe you."

"Your grandmother . . ."
Winter
said cautiously.

Stormwalker nodded. "And my mother, if you agree to extend your protection to her."

Amusement sparkled in
Winter's
eyes as if he recognized
Stormwalker's
purpose, but he kept his face solemn, as befitted the occasion.
"Anyone else?"

Reluctant to press his luck with the man, Stormwalker hesitated briefly,
then
added, "Alexandra McLaren . . ."

Winter seemed to make an instant decision. He shook his head emphatically.
"Nope, not your mother.
And
especially not McLaren. She's in the battle with you. Not no one '
cept
your grandmother." He threw back his shoulders. "Whatever happens, I'll see no harm comes to her."

Although he'd wanted more, Stormwalker nodded and turned toward home. If Bill Winter honored the custom, no matter what else happened, at least Grandmother would be safe.

"Hey,"
Winter
said.

Stormwalker shifted position to face him.

"Sorry about your mother's house."

Stormwalker could find no clue to the man's thoughts in his expression. "A lot of good memories went up in smoke."

"And a lot of bad ones, too," Bill added.

Tempted to probe the cryptic remark, Stormwalker decided against it. He turned away again and urged Lady into a walk. He patted the mare's graceful neck. "Wonder if I should take his words as an admission of guilt?"

Chapter 10

The debris from the fire was warm and damp and smelled of smoke as Stormwalker worked steadily to clear the ground. He loaded the remnants into the bed of a borrowed pickup and sifted through the soggy ashes to salvage any items still worth saving: a Zuni fetish in the form of a bear carved from obsidian, a battered gold ring and a comb of silver and turquoise blackened by the fire. When these few had been set aside for later examination, he went over the area with a rake to expose the clean brown earth.

He welcomed the crackle of knee and shoulder joints, the loosening of vertebrae, and the stretching of muscles that had forgotten the feel of physical labor. Tomorrow he might be stiff; he might ache. Today he was grateful for the activity that put to use a body held too long in check.

The sweat poured down his face and glistened on his bare skin. It cooled him as he worked, and he made no effort to wipe it away. He simply removed the bandanna from around his neck, coiled it tightly against his forehead and tied it at the back of his head.

He moved to the area that had been the front room of the house, picked up a sledge hammer and, with a mighty, strangely satisfying swing, landed the first of the blows destined to demolish the fireplace and chimney.

As the red brick crumbled to the ground, Zan's voice behind him asked sadly, "Couldn't you save what was left?"

"If we're
gonna
start over, we need to start clean."

He realized how much he'd missed her, though the choice to be alone had been his. When he turned, desire stirred at the sight of her in a yellow halter and frayed denim cutoffs.

A pair of work gloves showed from a hip pocket and a towel hung over one shoulder. She looked like a goddess as she unscrewed the top of a thermos jug and held it out to him. He drank thirstily of the cold, sweet liquid. She reached out and draped the towel around his neck, pressing the rough fabric against his chest to blot up the moisture.

He felt her gaze, dark and hot as he lowered the jug to the ground beside them. Her hands lay lightly against his chest and he covered them with his own.

"Stop looking at me that way."

"What way?"

"As if I were a present you can't wait to open." He examined eyes that seemed to reflect the late afternoon sun, lips that parted to show the tip of her tongue as it rested on the edge of her straight white teeth.

She threw back her head and laughed with delight at the reference to the old Elton John song, then looked him up and down before settling on his face. "You are," she said.

"I'm also dirty, smelly and unfit for human contact."

"I don't care," she whispered and came a step closer.

"I do." He backed away. "In the old days, a man would never have come to his woman without washing away the grime of the hunt or a battle."

She tilted her head. "Every once in a while you harken back to the old traditions. It always surprises me."

He shrugged. "Just because I don't flaunt my heritage doesn't mean I've forgotten." His eyes went dark. "Does that bother you?"

"No, it doesn't bother me." Zan passed a hand down his towel covered chest. "You don't show that side of yourself much, that's all."

Her touch distracted him from the conversation and he forced himself to focus. "Don't I?"

 
"You know you don't. You keep part of you private, like Dar used to."

 
"It isn't deliberate," he said. "It's just who I am and I've never found it necessary to make statements about that."

"I suppose trying to correct the damage caused by that Marine Lance Corporal, that other Lakota, wasn't making a statement?"

He grinned suddenly. "Yeah, and look where that got me."

"Indeed!" she said with an answering smile.

"I don't keep much from you, you know." He touched her cheek.

"I do know." She sighed. "I'll try to remember that when I start feeling insecure." She pulled on her gloves.

"What are you planning?"

"To help."

"This is heavy work."

"I'll stop when you do."

They worked side by side for the next two hours, managing to load the stove and the double sink and its plumbing into the truck. The refrigerator proved too heavy, so they removed the door and heaved that onto the truck bed.

"That's enough for today," Stormwalker declared.

"Don't quit on my account," Zan protested. "I'm not tired."