White Wolf

Dain was shaken by her words. How the hell did she know that what he was feeling so sharply was abandonment? Flattening his lips, he yelled, “I’m here, damn it! I came in good faith! I bought the stupid groceries I’ll give to those two old women! Now, you owe me, damn it! You can’t send me away. I won’t go!”

Erin raised her brows as her heart wrenched in despair. “You won’t go?”

“No.”

Prejudice stared her fully in the face. The wounded part of herself screamed, No, go away! Clenching her hands at her sides, Erin realized the Great Spirit was testing her. She had been tested before and nearly died. This was a test of faith, a trial by fire of the worst sort. Taking in a deep, halting breath, she said, “Then I guess you had better go back to your car, get whatever luggage you have and come with me.”

Nonplussed, Dain just stared at her for a moment. “Where are we going?”

“To my hogan.” She pointed toward a set of low, rounded red hills in the distance. “We are about five miles from my home. If you are determined to stay, then you need to have enough clothes—and food.”

He was feeling weak again, and hot. The fever was beginning to boil up from his toes, calves, and into his thighs. Soon Dain would begin to feel light-headed and he’d have to lie down until the fever passed. He saw Erin watching him expectantly. There was no way he could carry anything five miles in his present condition. Anger boiled through him. He’d be damned before he’d tell her he couldn’t make the trek by himself, or that he needed help.

“Just tell me where you live. I’ll get there,” he snapped.

Erin whispered, “What does it cost you to ask for help?”

Her soft, compassion-filled words caught him off guard. Still, he snapped his mouth shut and glared. “I said I’d get there. Even if I have to crawl, I’ll get there.”

“You stopped asking for help when you were eight years old.”

Shock bolted through him and his eyes widened at her words. For a moment, he hated her for knowing the truth deep inside him. And then he realized there was no way she could have such intimate knowledge of him. His mind raced for answers, but logical solutions eluded him. Dropping his chin, he stared at his muddy, soaked hiking boots.

“Asking for help is natural,” Erin continued, her voice wary. “Even animals, when they are sick, will go to a healthy animal to be licked, protected and cared for. Humans are no different.” She forced a gentle smile for his benefit. “Perhaps that was beaten out of you long ago, but if you want to heal yourself, you must learn to ask for help.”

Pride wouldn’t allow him to speak. He drew himself up to his full height, his hands resting tensely on his hips. “I see your game. Your arrogance precedes you, Ms. Wolf—or whoever the hell you want me to think you are. I see through your games. You’re no different than a businessman or a board of directors at a corporation. You’re manipulating me. Trying to take my power away from me. Well, it’s not going to happen. It’ll be a cold day in hell when I ask you or anyone for help, believe me.”

Shrugging, Erin said, “Fine, believe what you want to believe, Dain.” She gestured to the road, mostly washed away by the recent rain. “Your life has been in your hands at all times. I do not wish to take anything from you, but rather, invest it back into you. But you don’t see that yet. Follow these tracks. You will go past a series of hills, and then, down below the mesa, is my hogan. I must continue to walk with my sheep so they may find enough to eat today. I will be back at the hogan near sunset.” She hoped he would never show up.

Dain watched in disbelief as she turned and spoke in a foreign language to the white wolf. Instantly, the wolf was up on his feet, herding the sheep along the wash, where there were new sprigs of grass to eat. At first Dain hated Erin Wolf. And then, as he felt the fever and weakness begin to eat away at his anger, he almost shouted out for help. But he didn’t. To hell with her!

He stood his ground on locked knees as he watched her disappear from sight down a draw that led into the huge gulch about half a mile away. So what should he do? Turning, he looked at the truck. Should he walk back to the highway and hitch a ride back to Many Farms and leave? Go back to the East Coast? And do what? Die?

Shoving his fingers through his short black hair, he glared in the direction Erin and her sheep had disappeared. What an enigma she was! She’d said she couldn’t heal him—that he could heal himself. Snorting violently, Dain turned around and began to clump back to his vehicle. Hell of a thing! Well, no doctor had ever told him that. Just the opposite. They all said they couldn’t help him with their drugs, radiation or fancy, million-dollar pieces of equipment. And though some may have inferred they could help eradicate his tumor, they all eventually found out they couldn’t.

As he slipped and slid down the wall of the wash, Dain cursed out loud. The words echoed off the walls.

As he trudged drunkenly back to the vehicle and jerked open the door, he felt the fever draining him, as it always did. Out of breath due to his weakness and the six-thousand-foot altitude, he climbed into the truck and laid his head back on the seat, closed his eyes and literally trembled. Exhaustion claimed him, all his anger destroyed in the wake of the fever. He hated the fact that the tumor was controlling him. All his life he’d worked to make sure nothing ever controlled him again, and yet this damn tumor was doing exactly that.

Erin’s oval face with its high cheekbones danced gently behind his closed eyes. Her light brown eyes danced with such life in their depths—life he wanted for himself. Sitting there, feeling like a rag doll that had had all the stuffing knocked out of it, Dain clung to her serene, beautiful features. Her image haunted him and for a moment, in his fevered state, he wondered if she were really an angel in disguise.

She’d admitted she couldn’t heal him. He had to heal himself. How? Intrigued by her challenge, his mind bounced over their conversation. During the last year all he’d heard was how doctors could heal many things—just not his illness. So why was she saying he could heal himself, that she couldn’t do it for him?

As he lay weakly against the seat with the warmth of the sun just beginning to strike the top of the truck, Dain tried to understand what Erin had said. If healers didn’t heal, just what the hell did they do? Medical doctors healed with their shots, their drugs and their expensive equipment. If she was who she said she was, he knew she’d healed others of terrible, encroaching diseases. Why would she lie to him then?

Barely opening his eyes as he felt trickles of sweat winding their way down his temples, Dain cursed. She was an arrogant bitch. Oh, he’d met her type back in the boardrooms and halls of power around the world. Erin didn’t fool him. What had thrown him off guard was the fact that she was Indian and a shepherd.

But a voice, barely heard, niggled at him. Was she really arrogant? Wouldn’t arrogance, true arrogance, preclude her saying something like, “Of course I can heal you of your brain tumor”? And had she said that? No.

“Dammit,” he snarled, forcing himself to sit up. Reaching for a thermos filled with water, he unscrewed the cap with trembling hands.

Okay, so maybe she wasn’t arrogant. At least, not in the true sense of the word. She’d promised him nothing. She’d thrown his disease back into his lap, into his hands, which no doctor anywhere in the world had ever done to him.

Something wasn’t right, Dain decided as he poured himself some water. He gulped it down and poured some more. Soon the dryness in his mouth abated and he stashed the thermos away. Lying back, he sighed raggedly. The fever was eating at him, making him feel weak as a baby.

He opened his eyes. How the hell had she known about him being abandoned as an eight-year-old? How? Stymied, he tried to explain it with the kind of logic that had made him billions. She lived out in the middle of a godforsaken desert where there weren’t any phone or electric lines. And besides, he made damn sure that his life story wasn’t privy to any news media, having had things about it sealed up permanently through court injunctions. No, Erin couldn’t have known about his young, miserable life—but she had. How?

“Damn her,” he muttered weakly, closing his eyes again. Because he didn’t have a logical answer for her intimate knowledge, he felt a little frightened of her. That was power over him, as far as he was concerned. And yet the look in her eyes when she’d shared that with him had touched him as nothing ever had. He’d seen such love and pity for him in her eyes. He hated pity in any form and he had wanted to hate her in that moment, but the feeling wouldn’t form within him. If anything—and Dain fought this feeling violently—he’d sensed he could trust her with his life.

It was a silly, crazy thought brought on by the fever, he rationalized. Or some stupid hallucination of hope that would dissolve when the fever left him in a couple of hours. Trust! Yes, she had a trustworthy face. He liked her voice, even if he didn’t like what she’d said to him. It was a low, husky voice laced with honeyed warmth that was undisguised, untainted by anything except…what? Truth.

Well, here he was again with that word and Erin Wolf. Truth and trust. His damnable heart, the heart of that eight-year-old boy, wanted to trust her and believe her truth. The man did not. Not now. Not ever.

So what was he going to do? Hitchhike back to the highway, stay here with the truck or go to her hogan? The prideful part of him said to leave and walk to the highway. The rational part said stay with the truck for the next three days, wait for the ground to dry out sufficiently and then drive back to Many Farms. He certainly had enough groceries in the back to live off of in the meantime.

But his heart whispered that he should go to her hogan and leave everything in the vehicle.

Dain didn’t know what to do, so he slept as the fever ate away more and more of his limited supply of energy. He couldn’t even think straight. He was crazy to think of going to her hogan. He wasn’t going to give the arrogant woman the pleasure of showing up on her doorstep. His pride wouldn’t let him.

As he spiraled into darkness, he heard what he thought was singing. It was a woman singing. It was Erin, he realized from the dark embrace of sleep. The song, soft and gentle, was in an Indian language. As he lay there, feeling very warm and safe, the song embraced him and he sighed. Yes, it was a lullaby. He had no idea what the words were, but the song was so beautiful that it brought tears to his tightly shut eyes.

In his sleep, he felt the warmth of tears oozing from the corners of his eyes, trickling down his face. The song was warm and husky, filled with love and hope. And though he had no idea what the lyrics meant, it didn’t matter. He felt their meaning, felt it vibrating through him, touching his walled-off heart and wrapping him in a sensation he’d never experienced before.

A part of him panicked because he never wanted the song to end, because it fed him, nurtured him like the arms of the mother he’d never known, and he felt as if Erin were invisibly with him, cradling him against her tall, strong and protective body. He swore he could feel his head resting against her full breasts, hear the beating of her passionate heart, which throbbed with such vital life. Feel her arms move protectively around him, drawing him in.

Yes, he was being held and rocked gently as she sang to him. Dain knew she was there even if he couldn’t see her in the inky blackness. He could smell the odor of wool, taste the sunlight that had touched her skin, and he heard the lulling bleat of sheep in the background.

A broken sigh slipped from him as he relaxed within her invisible arms. He felt her compassion and it soothed his fevered body and gave him a sense of peacefulness he’d never known. The song continued to flow through him, touching him with the lightness of a feather. For the first time in his life, he felt safe. Safe! The sensation was wonderful to Dain, and he surrendered to it—and to her.

The lullaby continued—haunting, melodic and healing. As he moved deeper and deeper into the darkness of sleep, Dain let go of all his anger, his fears and, finally, his anxieties. He slept the sleep of a baby who was protected by a mother who loved him, a mother who would protect him—always.

Chapter Four

One step in front of the other, one step in front of the other…

Dain kept repeating that litany as he forced his foot to lift, move forward and then land on the damp clay ground beneath him. It was dusk. An all-pervading silence flowed across the land as the sun’s rays withdrew from the desert. Looking up, he saw the remnants of the fiery red-and-orange sunset touch the long, wispy clouds high above him.

Those clouds had reminded him of Erin’s hair. Even though it had been plaited, he knew that her hair was long, thick and flowing just like those reddish clouds that moved slowly across the darkening vault of the sky.

Trying to take his focus off his own misery, which was considerable, he kept his gaze locked skyward as night descended. Never had he seen stars look so close, or glimmer so brightly, as they now did. He turned to see the bare outline of Rainbow Butte, behind him in the distance. Dain’s mouth thinned momentarily as he resumed his slow progress. This land had a raw, primeval beauty about it—just as Erin did.

Erin. Tashunka Mani Tu. Ai Gvhdi Waya. Asdzaan Maiisoh. Maybe Luanne Yazzie had been right: the medicine woman was more walking dream, a waking miracle…an angel, perhaps, in human form. Many names for a woman who was many things to those who needed her. He sighed. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore. When he’d awoken at sunset, he’d felt more rested than he could ever recall being. He’d slept all day! Twelve hours! At first, he’d thought that impossible, because he’d met her at sunrise. But the sun was edging toward the western horizon when he awoke, and that convinced him.

He must have needed the sleep. But the real miracle was the fact that he’d slept without being woken by that white wolf nightmare that always stalked him. Dain had never been able to take naps or sleep during daylight. His days were spent busily plotting new strategies to take over yet another corporation somewhere in the world. His waking hours were war-game hours, and he felt sleep was a waste of time.

All the anger he’d felt toward Erin had disappeared once he’d slowly come out of his protective cocoon of sleep. As he sat there in the truck, which was still warmed from the sun’s last rays, he felt two things. First, that he had no anger in him—at least, he couldn’t feel any—and second, that he was going to take her up on her offer and walk five miles to her hogan. Her words, softly spoken, still echoed in his head as he walked between two low, rounded hills. What does it cost you to ask for help?

With a snort, Dain shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket as he concentrated on staying upright. The ruts from vehicles were nearly nonexistent, and with darkness deepening quickly, the landscape was now becoming indecipherable—like that twilight zone he usually slept in.