Witch Dance (24 page)

Violent shivers overtook her. Someone had been in her house, someone who hated her. Still holding the doll, she hugged herself hard to keep the shivers from becoming convulsions.

A glimpse of white at the bottom of the bread box caught her eye. Kate leaned over so she could read it without touching it.

You’re next, witch.

The note was scrawled in blood.

Kate dropped the doll on top of the note and slammed the lid of the bread box shut. Outside her window a whippoorwill called. Or was it a signal of some kind? She knew that many of the Chickasaws were excellent at bird imitations.

The hair at the back of her neck stood on end. The darkness had eyes.

Moving methodically, she checked the locks on all the doors and windows and lowered all the shades. In the safety of her bedroom she sat huddled in the middle of the bed. Wind moaned around the eaves, and the old house creaked and groaned. Funny, how she’d never noticed the noises before. Now every one raised prickles on her skin.

Something clattered against the side of the house, and she jerked, covering her mouth with her hands. The banging noise came again. Tiptoeing, she peeked through the shade.

A loose shutter. She remembered now. Mark had noticed it last week.

In the growing darkness the objects in her room loomed large, took on a life of their own. Had she left her robe hanging on the chair like that? And her high-heeled shoes? She remembered kicking them off the day before, and now they sat side by side, perfectly aligned, like soldiers waiting to go to war.

The antique wardrobe in the corner was big enough to hide a full-grown man. Kate jerked the door open so hard, she set the clothes swinging on the rack. The silky skirts whispered against each other, then settled into place. She reached inside and felt into the dark recesses of the wardrobe.

Nothing there. She was letting herself get spooked.

She jerked up her pajamas and marched into the bathroom, careful to lock the door. Bathed and dressed for bed, she sat down at the vanity and reached for her hairbrush. It was not there.

Pushing away the panic that threatened, she began a methodical search. She had misplaced it. That was all. People with too much on their minds frequently misplaced things.

The hairbrush was nowhere in the bathroom, nowhere in the bedroom. At last, emotionally exhausted with the search, Kate turned back the covers. And there on her pillow was her hairbrush. It lay on a black silk cloth. All the hair had been carefully plucked from the bristles and arranged in a red circle upon the black silk.

Another white note was pinned to the silk:
Your tormentor sees all, knows all. Nothing is safe from me.

Kate stifled the screams she felt welling in her throat. She felt violated.

Outside her window the mournful call of the whippoorwill sounded once more. Moving swiftly and surely, Kate went to the wardrobe and took down a gun.

Someone wanted her dead, but she had no intention of being an easy target.

Book 3

The Passage

When the land grew weary with strife,

The Great Spirit sent rains to wash away the blood and winds to blow away the anguish.

From the center of Father Sky came a bright light, shining on all the earth’s people.

And into the light flew the Eagle, his great wings outstretched, protecting the pride and the spirit and the honor of a nation.

Chapter 28

Martin Black Elk had been in police work for twenty-five years, serving the last ten as chief of tribal police, but he’d never seen tracks covered as well as those of the intruder who came into Dr. Kate Malone’s house. Except for the things he’d meant to leave behind—the notes, the circle of hair, the black cloth, and the doll— there was nothing.

“Do you think you can find out who did this?”

The dark circles under her eyes were evidence of a sleepless night, but otherwise Dr. Malone looked as if she would personally deal with the next person who came to her house uninvited. Her voice was firm and her chin was high. She was packing a gun, too. That was the first thing he’d noticed. She was some gutsy woman.

But then, he already knew that. She’d fought like a tiger to save his grandson’s life. That’s one reason he didn’t mind giving up his Saturday morning.

“It’s going to be hard, Dr. Malone. Whoever did it didn’t leave me much to go on. I’d like a list of people you think might have a reason to do this.”

“That list would include just about everybody in Witch Dance.”

Martin stuffed the notebook back into his pocket. What she said was true. She’d had enemies from the day she started building the clinic, and there were people out of work at the tool and die plant who hated her.

“I’m going to do my best to find the perp. In the meantime, don’t talk to the press. I’d like to keep this out of the papers.”

“I have every confidence that you’ll find him.”

“For you, I’ll move heaven and earth. I owe you for saving Graham.”

“I did only what any other doctor would do.”

“You went beyond the call of duty. A man doesn’t forget things like that.”

She shivered as she glanced at the evidence bag.

“It’s probably a prank.” She didn’t look as if she believed what she was saying.

“I wouldn’t count on it. Too much is happening in Witch Dance right now, and you’ve been right in the center. You’ve made enemies.” He nodded at the gun on the end table beside the sofa. “Do you know how to use that thing?”

“Right now I know enough to hit the side of a barn, but when I’ve finished practicing, I’ll be able to give you a run for your money.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Black Elk gathered the evidence in bags and headed for the door. “Call me if anything else turns up, Kate.”

“You bet.”

“And, Kate . . . be careful.”

When Black Elk got back to his office, he examined the evidence once more. The circle of hair was the most disturbing, and the most telling. The sacred circle. The medicine wheel. What goes around comes around. Kate’s would-be assailant was out for revenge . . . and he knew the Chickasaw culture.

Unconquered and unconquerable.

Whoever was after her wouldn’t stop until he got what he wanted . . . and he wanted Kate Malone dead.

 o0o

Twelve empty soup cans were lined up on the fence posts behind Kate’s cottage. Standing with her feet apart and the gun in both hands, she squinted one eye and took aim. The loud report made her ears ring and sent a crow squawking toward the sky.

She opened her eye and counted the cans. Twelve.

“Damn,” she said.

She shifted her stance and took aim once more. The bullet twanged against the steel trough, and water spurted out the hole.

“Hell’s bells. Who could do anything with this damned coat on?”

She jerked off her coat, tossed it across the fence then resumed her position.

In quick succession she got off four shots. All the cans were standing.

“If you think I’m giving up, you’re sadly mistaken.”

This is what being scared had reduced her to: talking to tin cans. She reloaded her gun and took aim at the carrot soup can. It hadn’t been fit to eat. Maybe her father had been right when he’d said she ought to learn to make carrot soup.

“Prepare to die,” she said, and then with both eyes open she squeezed off a shot.

The twang of a solid hit rang in the still, cold air as the carrot soup can became airborne.

Mick Malone would have celebrated with a good Cuban cigar. But then . . . Mick Malone wasn’t around to see her triumph.

With her jaw set, Kate stood back and took aim at the pea soup.

The watcher on the hillside smiled, knowing his time was about to come.

 o0o

Shameless. That’s what she was.

Only her second date with Eagle Mingo, and already Deborah was trying to maneuver him toward bed. She was succeeding, too. Partially.

He hadn’t sounded too enthusiastic about a Saturday horseback ride, though she knew that was one of his favorite pastimes; but he hadn’t declined either. She guessed that was a good sign.

And now, windswept, chilled, and surfeited with racing, she was making her way into his house. If rumor could be trusted, he considered his house off limits to women. Some said he eased his sexual ache with a woman in Tulsa, but others said he hadn’t had a woman since Kate Malone, that he was celibate, like some kind of priest worshipping at her shrine.

“Are you cold?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He bent to stoke the fire. She’d hoped for something else. Moving close, she held her hands out to the blaze. The heat from the fire warmed her skin, but it couldn’t compare to the sexual heat that warmed her body.

Eagle glanced up, and Deborah held her breath under his solemn regard. Without changing expression he reached for her. She went into his arms in slow motion, wondering, now that she had come this far, how she would ever fight the ghost of Kate Malone.

She’d had many beaus in her time, but she’d never been kissed by an expert like Eagle Mingo. If his heart was not in the kiss, she couldn’t tell. Nor did she want to. All she wanted was to be swept on the wave of sensation all the way to his bed.

Heady with love and excitement, she was only vaguely aware of having her blouse unbuttoned, barely conscious of being led away from the fire and down the hall. But suddenly she saw his bed, and she knew she was in the inner sanctum, a place where no woman had been allowed.

“This is not love, Deborah,” he said as he moved them inexorably toward the bed.

“I know.”

“It will never be love.”

“I don’t care.”

He would never know how she lied. Love was a beautiful dream she’d had once, but like all dreams, it faded in the light of reality. She was twenty-six years old, and every night she still went to her cramped little room at the back of the general store. When morning came, she woke up to the quarrelsome voice of a father who hardly ever remembered her name.

He needed to be in a nursing home, but her salary at the clinic wouldn’t stretch far enough to add those expenses, and Hal was no help at all. She rarely ever saw him, and when he did come to visit, he was distant and unapproachable. The brother she’d once known and loved was filled with a subterranean darkness that Deborah didn’t dare explore.

Even if Eagle Mingo wouldn’t be the love of her life, he would be her way out. Sighing, Deborah stretched upon his bed, bartering her body for freedom. The red light from his telephone answering machine cast a ruby glow across her cheek.

Cupping her face, Eagle bent toward her. With his warm breath fanning her cheek and his lips only inches away, he tensed. The light on his answering machine beckoned.

Without a word he snaked out his hand and punched the message button.

“Eagle, I just thought you needed to know . . .” The voice of Black Elk, chief of tribal police, filled the room. Deborah closed her eyes, trying to shut out reality

“Somebody is trying to kill Kate Malone.”

Eagle grabbed the phone and punched Black Elk’s number. Holding her blouse together over her naked breasts, Deborah sat up, listening to one side of a brief, clipped conversation.

“This is Eagle. What’s happened to Kate?” His back was rigid with tension.

“When?” Deborah heard his long, shuddering breath.

“Do you know who did it?”

Black Elk’s reply was a muted, distant murmuring, and when it ceased, Eagle replaced the phone. In the screaming silence Deborah held her breath. Finally, he turned to her.

“I’m sorry, Deborah.”

She sat on the bed, watching him leave. His footsteps echoed down the hall and through the den. Still clutching her blouse, she heard the front door slam, then the distant pounding of horse’s hooves.

Humiliation came over her, and on its heels a deep, creeping shame. Her best friend’s life was threatened, and she hadn’t even asked any questions. The shame stayed with her while she buttoned her blouse and mounted her horse. By the time she got home, her humiliation was beginning to abate. But not the shame. It would be with her always, a black thread woven into the fabric of her life.

“Deborah, is that you?” Her father was having a lucid moment.

“Will you find my bow? I have to go out and kill an elk. The children are hungry.”

“Yes, Father, I’ll find your bow. But first, let me make you a nice bowl of soup.”

Outside her window the sun painted the earth pink and gold, and in her imagination Deborah heard the thundering hooves of a black stallion racing across the prairie.

Eagle, going to Kate.

 o0o

He heard the shots long before he reached her house. Leaning low, Eagle urged his stallion to a gallop.

Another shot rang out just as he topped the hillside. Below him Kate was silhouetted against the setting sun, coat off, red hair blowing in the wind. And in her hand was a Smith and Wesson .38. Eagle pulled his mount to a halt then sat on the hillside, watching, as relief washed through him.

She got off two quick shots, and two tin cans kicked into the air. Eagle smiled for the first time in months.

“Go, Heloa,” he said to his mount.
Heloa
. Thunder. Issue of Kate’s Mahli and Eagle’s black stallion. A magnificent product of an explosive mating.

Kate heard him coming. She turned to him with the gun in her hand and a big unlit cigar in her mouth. Her face registered neither shock nor surprise. And certainly not welcome.

“Got a light?” she said.

Eagle dismounted and held a match to her cigar. It was man-size, a big Cuban variety that would stink to high heaven.

The end of the tip glowed as she took a draw. Her eyes watered and her face turned slightly green, but she didn’t back down. Watching him, she took another draw

“You’ve taken up smoking, I see.”

“Yep. Today. Went all the way to Ada for these things.” She flicked an ash his way. “And you’ve taken up prying.”