After the Thunder (22 page)

“The witch killed him.”

That hostile whisper rose in the air, coming from several voices.

“No, you fools. He is an
alikchi
,” someone else said clearly.

Arguments began in the growing crowd. Cotannah glanced worriedly at Walks-With-Spirits, but he was still looking calmly at one person and then another.

A small child, a little, toddling boy, bobbled into view, obviously trying to run and play with some other children who had darted out from behind the adults. All the children moved toward them but the smallest one was left behind, limping along at a hobbled gait, reaching out with his little arms to try to hold back the child nearest him. Walks-With-Spirits began watching him closely.

“Go on, now,” Folsom Greentree boomed, making her turn back to him. “Go back to your family, Cotannah Chisk-Ko, and don’t run around the country with a witch. The Court has decided who killed Jacob Charley.”

“But they’re wrong!” she cried. “I know …”

His expression and his voice turned thunderous.

“Turn your horses around and ride out! I want no witches throwing death curses on my place.”

Her throat aching with painful disappointment, Cotannah pulled Pretty Feather around, starting to do as she was told. But she couldn’t give up.

“Walks-With-Spirits is an
alikchi
!” she shouted. “And he did not kill anyone. Tay Nashoba, your Principal Chief, believes he is innocent!”

All eyes turned to her.

“Do any of you know of an enemy of Jacob Charley’s who might have caused his death?”

“Not by witchcraft,” some hard voice yelled. “You’re riding with the only witch I know!”

From the corner of her eye she saw Walks-With-Spirits move and she thought he was going to turn his horse, too, but instead he leapt down and walked straight toward the hobbling child, who had thrown himself into a lurch of a gait in a determined effort to run. A sudden silence fell, then individual voices rang out.

“Don’t let him touch that child!”

“Sunflower! Keep him away from your baby—he’s a witch.”

“Let her alone! Maybe the
alikchi
can heal him.”

Walks-With-Spirits reached the child and held out his arms. The baby stopped trying to run and stood looking up at him.

“He’ll say a death curse!” a woman’s voice screamed.

A young woman who Cotannah took to be Sunflower, the mother, quickly pushed her way through the crowd and Walks-With-Spirits began talking to her. She nodded and he reached down to pick the child up, he stroked the toddler’s cheek and spoke to him, too, then held him out for his mother to hold him while he felt of his legs. He extended them—one, clearly, was two or more inches shorter than the other. He began speaking to the mother, again, but he was too far away for Cotannah to hear what he was saying.

All the cries of advice and the mutterings and murmurings stopped when Walks-With-Spirits turned around and stared into the crowd.

“I will not harm this child,” he said, and his rich voice carried all over the grounds.

Then he turned back to the mother, gave her a nod of the head as a signal, and, as she held her child, Walks-With-Spirits took the boy’s shorter leg in both hands and, his lips moving in a chant, pulled on it, worked with it, massaged it at the hip. The child gave a sharp, high cry of pain.

A burly man pushed forward toward them, but when Walks-With-Spirits turned around and met his gaze, the man stopped in his tracks, glowering. Walks-With-Spirits’s very stance, his height, and the way he held himself was intimidating enough, Cotannah thought, but the straight, hot look from his topaz eyes would catch a wet field on fire.

He gazed all around him, then, and even the last of the whispers and noises died away. Soon the woman bent over and set the child onto his feet again. He tottered and swayed.

“Now see what you’ve done, Sunflower …”

Whoever was calling to the mother hushed then, because
the little boy took a step, a small one, and then another. He got his balance and began to run. A bit wobbly in the knees, perhaps, but in a normal run, not the lurching, hobbling gait he’d used before.

Walks-With-Spirits turned and looked at Folsom Greentree, who was staring at him in stunned amazement, then he met the eyes of another person and yet another. After that, he turned his back on Greentree and spoke to the boy’s mother. Then he strode back to his horse and mounted.

He turned to ride away and Cotannah followed, her heart soaring to the skies.

“Surely, surely, with that many people seeing that you have such good medicines they’ll start to say you’re an
alikchi
, they’ll talk against your sentence and someone, somewhere in this Nation, will come forward and tell who did kill Jacob.”

He held his horse back until she caught up.

“Don’t get your hopes up so high,” he said. “The ones like Folsom Greentree who believe I’m a witch will always believe it. They won’t admit that they’re wrong, they’ll only say that I helped the boy through my witch powers.”

“No!” she cried. “We’ll win them over, a few at a time if we have to. Let’s ride straight through to Tall Pine as fast as we can, and tomorrow we’ll start looking for the names of Jacob’s enemies.”

“Tomorrow I will be in the woods with Taloa and Basak.”

The words slammed into her stomach like a fist. Words and thoughts began tumbling over and over in her head.

“What are you talking about?”

“When I get you safely back to Tall Pine I’ll take
some time in the woods alone to try to regain my balance.”

She turned, leaned into her stirrup toward him with pain rushing through her. Was her newfound calm going to desert her when he did?

She didn’t even care at that moment, for the only coherent thought she had was that she wanted him with her.

“And after this you’ll do nothing?” she cried. “You’ll leave your life in my hands and go off into the woods to play with your pets?”

“My life is in the Great Spirit’s hands,” he said.

Incredulous, she stared at him while the disappointment grew stronger and stronger until it turned to a sick dismay in her blood. How had she ever thought that when she was with him, she was home?

It was true, though. God help her, even now, she knew it was true.

And she knew that she would feel a bitter loneliness without him at her side.

She wouldn’t give up on finding out the whole story of Jacob’s death, though, she would not.

“I was wrong in thinking that this quest is bad for you,” he said. “I, too, have learned to see.”

“And just what is it you do see?” she asked, her voice filled with hurt.

“That this search will cause you to grow whether or not it brings you what you seek.”

She looked at him for a moment, stared into his topaz eyes which at that moment were the eyes of a stranger. The serenity in them, the distance with which he was looking at her tore the heart right out of her body.

“And that’s exactly the reason I’m going on with it,” she said, her heart and her voice holding icy calm. “I
want to grow up and take responsibility for the consequences of my own actions. All I’m doing is assuaging my guilt.”

She touched her heels to Pretty Feather and flew past him down the sunny road to Tall Pine stretching endlessly ahead.

T
hey rode hard, all the rest of the day and into the night, arriving at Tall Pine a little before midnight. The dogs roused and started barking when they were coming up the drive, and by the time they reached the house Tay and Emily were on the porch, coming down the steps to greet them. Walks-With-Spirits dismounted and spoke with them briefly while Cotannah was removing her numb body from Pretty Feather’s back, and then, without a word to her, he was gone.

She stood leaning against her horse, watching as he led his mount through the spotty moonlight toward the barn lot, handed the reins to the sleepy stableboy who met him halfway, and walked on until he vanished into the dark. Like a shadow. He was gone from her.

Her whole body felt hollow, light enough to blow away on the slightest breeze, yet it was too heavy for her to move even one foot or one hand. The whole night was empty, now, even if the sky held the moon and stars and high, scudding clouds, even if the air smelled of cedar and dew and mint from the garden. The whole world was empty, now.

“’Tannah?”

She jerked upright and looked around at the sound of her name.

“I’m sorry,” Emily said, as she took her by the arm. “Poor Cotannah, were you about to go to sleep standing up?”

“I guess,” Cotannah muttered.

“We must get you to bed,” Emily said, leading her toward the steps as if she were too feeble to decide what to do on her own. “Unless you want something to eat first. I’m sorry Walks-With-Spirits wouldn’t stay.”

“He said he needed some solitude,” Tay said, handing Pretty Feather’s reins to the stableboy who came for her. “But he has a long walk, and it’s awfully late. I had hoped we could talk over the trip.”

“We didn’t find out one helpful thing,” Cotannah said. “And he healed a little boy, so there’ll either be more people saying he’s a witch or a few more saying he’s an
alikchi
. Either way, it probably won’t make any difference.”

“Where did he do that?” Emily asked.

“At Greentree’s Crossing. We went there because Folsom Greentree subscribes to the
Oklahoma Star
.”

Tay came to her other side as the three of them entered the house.

Cotannah gave a great sigh.

“Come into the kitchen and give me a snack and I’ll tell you all about it.”

She wasn’t hungry but hoped food would fill up a little of the emptiness and she couldn’t go up to her room and be alone right now, she just couldn’t, even if she was so exhausted she could hardly stand.

So Emily heated milk and made hot chocolate while Cotannah washed up on the back porch and Tay took it upon himself to set out the cold roast beef and homemade yeast bread, imitating Daisy while he did so,
which made them all laugh. But that was not enough to comfort Cotannah. She poured out the whole story of the past two days—except for the kisses and intimate talks—and tried to make herself think of nothing but the task of proving Walks-With-Spirits’s curse had nothing to do with Jacob’s death.

“I couldn’t get a feel about Jacob having a connection to Millard Sheets,” she said in conclusion, slumping wearily against the back of her chair while she sipped the hot, sweet drink. “Sheets could have known Jacob well or he could never even have heard of him before he was killed. He’s an impossible man to read—that is, until you get on the subject of Indians in general, and then he’s a walking barrel of hate. All I know is that he’d do anything to destroy the Nations.”

Tay shook his head.

“Well, then, I’ll have to dig deeper to get to the source of the rumors that Jacob had friends among the Boomers,” he said.

Cotannah drained her mug and set it down, then flattened her palms on the table to push herself up from the chair onto legs so tired they threatened to give way at any moment.

“If you’ll try to find out more about that tomorrow, I’ll start working on Jacob’s enemies in business.”

She turned to Emily.

“Mimi, you said he’s known to have several. Do you know who they are?”

“I know Sally Redhawk’s son was in a cattle deal with Jacob that went bad,” Emily said thoughtfully. “Who else quit dealing with him, Tay?”

“Nate Bowlegs. He refused to lay the bricks for the new mercantile because Jacob wouldn’t pay him the contracted price for some work he did for him before.”

Cotannah’s exhausted brain almost refused to take in
the information she’d asked for, but she forced it to work. She had to keep thinking to hold her feelings at bay.

“Can you all look into those two? And I’ll have a visit with Peter Phillips to try to get some more names. He’s bound to have looked into Jacob’s business dealings before he went in partners with him.”

“But if he does know something, he won’t want to tell it,” Emily said, getting up to start clearing the table. “Remember that he told the Lighthorse he didn’t know of a single enemy Jacob had except for Walks-With-Spirits.”

“Oh, that’s right!”

Cotannah considered that.

“But that was when they first told him that Jacob was dead—he was too shocked to think. And he’s always really gallant and charming to me, so I can get him talking, I’m sure. I get the feeling he likes me.”

Emily looked up.

“Be careful. Don’t let him like you too much or lead him to think that you’re trying to …”

“Don’t worry, Mimi, dear. I won’t go walking alone in the woods with him.”

“Well, then, you have my permission,” Emily said, and flashed her a smile that was more sympathy than encouragement.

“Sleep well,” Tay said, and he, too, seemed to pity her.

She fought back tears as she went on upstairs ahead of them and, though she was growing more and more exhausted by the minute, she managed to keep her mind on puzzling out what would be the best way to approach Peter Phillips. The instant her head hit the pillow, though, her rational mind turned itself off, and her aching heart took possession of her body and her thoughts.

She had promised herself to be upright and honest and responsible from now on but she had lied to Walks-With-Spirits when she said that she was compelled to save his life only to assuage her guilt. Even if she’d had nothing to do with the dangerous predicament he was in, she would still be just as determined to save him from death.

The false words ran through her mind, again and again, as she lay there agonizing because she could not call them back. That was the only lie she’d ever told him, and that fact proved how special he was to her.

She lied to most men all the time.

At dinner that evening, she started working on Peter Phillips.

“You must be ready for a good, hot supper and an evening of sitting on the porch watching the lightning bugs dance,” she said, smiling at him as she offered him the bowl of mashed potatoes with butter melting on top.

He smiled into her eyes as he took it.

“Do I look that weary?” he said. “It’s just that you’re so young and fresh, my dear. That makes us elders frail and pitiful in your eyes.”

“Oh, listen to you go on, now,” she said, flashing him an openly admiring look. “You aren’t old at all, and you certainly aren’t frail! I was just referring to the fact that now you must have twice as much work to do since … you have no partner now.”

His pleasant face fell into mournful lines.

“That’s so true. I still haven’t fully realized that Jacob isn’t coming back and that I must see to every detail myself.”

“None of us can realize Jacob isn’t coming back,” Emily said, from her place at the foot of the table. “His
death is the most shocking we have had here in the Nation for a long while.”

Phillips’s only response to that was a heavy sigh. He turned his attention to his food, and although Tay made one more unobtrusive try at getting him to talk about Jacob, he said nothing. The table conversation became general and went straight to the question of Walks-With-Spirits’s guilt or innocence.

Most of the boarders and visitors expressed a strong belief in his innocence, to agree with Tay and Emily if for no other reason, but Peter Phillips didn’t add his voice to the chorus. When the meal ended, pleading a need for fresh air, Cotannah wandered out onto the side veranda.

To her delight, Phillips joined her almost immediately.

“You mentioned fresh air, my dear. May I escort you on a walk through Miss Emily’s flower gardens?”

She accepted his proffered arm.

“That’s most thoughtful of you, Mr. Phillips.”

And it was. She would be within screaming distance of the house, yet they’d have enough privacy that he might say something he wouldn’t say in public.

But he asked her a question before she could think of one for him.

“Did you and your shaman friend have a successful trip to McAlester?” he said, watching her narrowly as they descended the steps.

He saw the surprise on her face and chuckled.

“My spies are everywhere, my dear,” he said, teasing with his voice and his twinkling blue eyes.

She forced a laugh that she hoped sounded natural.

“My, my,” she said, returning his narrow look, “I had no idea you were that determined to prevent me from shopping anywhere else but your mercantile.”

He laughed, too.

“No, I’m not quite that greedy. And I’m not a fortune-teller, either.”

He gave her a broad smile, but his eyes were assessing her as if to see whether she actually believed him or not.

“To tell you the truth, Bogue Henry came into town and mentioned that he’d seen you and Walks-With-Spirits riding west onto the McAlester Road, but I had no idea whether that was where you went.”

She smiled at him, thinking quickly what to say next. Knowing the ubiquitous grapevine that ran through the Nation, he had most likely already heard that she’d been seen in McAlester and soon he’d hear the whole story of the visit to Greentree’s Crossing.

Suddenly she stopped in her tracks and gripped his arm a bit more tightly, gasping as if a new idea had just occurred to her.

“You know, I wonder if you could help me?”

Confiding in him might lead him to confide in her in turn.

“I would be honored.”

“Yes, of course you could help,” she said, with her most dazzling smile. “Why didn’t I think of this before? You would know whether Jacob had any enemies, wouldn’t you, and who they are?”

He patted her hand and smiled down at her in his avuncular way.

“I don’t wish to upset you, my dear, but in answer to such a serious question I must speak honestly. It seems to me, as it does to many other people, including the Judges of your Choctaw Court and the people who heard the death curse put on Jacob, that your medicine man would fall into that category.”

“I know it seems that way,” she said, sighing softly and letting her gaze drift off to fix on the middle distance
for a moment, “but—not to speak ill of the dead, you understand—I’m sure I’ve heard rumors that Jacob had other enemies of long standing.”

She glanced up at him quickly, hoping to see his real feelings in his eyes.

“As an astute man of business, you would have looked into Jacob’s reputation before throwing in with him for a partnership, I dare say.”

He favored her with a blazing smile and stuck out his chest proudly.

“You are rather astute yourself, my dear.”

Then, just as quickly as he had smiled, he frowned.

“Did you learn anything helpful yesterday?”

For an instant, his blunt question stopped her heart. He knew. Somehow, she had the feeling he already knew where it was she had gone. Could it be that he and Jacob both had had some connection with the Boomers?

He quickly explained, as his blue eyes filled with sympathy.

“I overheard Tay and Emily talking about your mission,” he said. “My dear Miss Cotannah, I hate to see you getting so involved in this ugliness, no matter how much regard you may have for the medicine man.”

His voice dropped lower and he spoke very gently.

“You do know that it’s possible his curse killed Jacob.”

“Why, Mr. Phillips!” she said, forcing a smile. “I would never have guessed that you were so superstitious.”

“I heard the curse with my own ears,” he said solemnly. “It sounded very efficacious to me.”

A decision leapt, full-blown, into her mind, almost before she knew she was considering it. She would give the Boomer connection one more chance—if Jacob had
been allied with them, it would give two possible sources of danger for him, the Boomers themselves and unbending Choctaw patriots like Folsom Greentree. A subscription to the newspaper really meant nothing, but it was all she had.

“I really do trust your judgment, Mr. Phillips,” she said sweetly, “and your experience. Did you ever hear or see any evidence that Jacob could have been working with the Boomers somehow?”

His eyes widened.

“The Boomers? What a preposterous idea! My dear, Jacob was raised by his father, Olmun, who is one of staunchest …”

“But Jacob didn’t always agree with Olmun, remember?” she interrupted. “Right here at Tall Pine, at the table of the Principal Chief, Jacob would talk about how we need to adopt even more of the white man’s ways if we want to survive. You know Olmun didn’t approve of such talk.”

When he made no answer, she pushed on.

“If Jacob said all that, it could have been preliminary to openly advocating individual allotments, couldn’t it? The Boomers would have paid well for him to do that.”

“Yes,” Phillips said, frowning thoughtfully and drawing her hand more firmly through his arm as they went down the broad, stone steps that led from the flower garden into the grassy side yard, “but I believe Jacob did love his father, and he wouldn’t ever have dishonored him by saying such a thing openly even if he did believe it.”

“Jacob dressed in fine fashion, though,” she said, slowly, as if just now thinking the problem through, “and he may have had other expensive tastes as well.”

Phillips smiled, shaking his head, and gave a low, mirthful chuckle.

“Jacob was entirely dependent financially on Olmun, you know, and he wasn’t the kind of man to jeopardize that.”

“Oh, I see.”

“I’ll share something with you if you’ll promise not to tell,” Phillips said abruptly. “May I entrust a confidence to you, Miss Cotannah?”