Heart of the Storm
Out of the red-violet dawn, a dark shape came, flying directly toward her. The wings of the bird were curved and long. Dana watched in fascination as the winged one drew closer. Her heart beat in anticipation, not fear.
As the great blue heron materialized from the shadows, a strange sense of elation soared through Dana. The red-and-gold colors of sunrise were filling the sky when the blue-gray water bird called to her.
Come, Daughter! Ride upon me! I will take you west. Come, mount me and we will fly together!
The heron cocked its head, its black eyes sparkling with life. In the dream, Dana moved forward to mount its broad back. Without fear, she settled astride the bird and gripped the soft feathers of its long, thin neck. The great wings flapped, and Dana felt the power of the heron thrumming through her as it turned and began its journey toward the southwest. Where were they going? A sense of adventure and happiness filled Dana.
The landscape changed remarkably beneath them. Dana gasped as she recognized the red desert of the Four Corners area. It was the Navajo Reservation, where her adopted grandmother lived! How many times had she come here to visit Agnes Spider Woman? So many, especially when she was a child growing up. Every year, her family had driven from South Dakota to Arizona to visit her Grandmother Agnes. How Dana had looked forward to those warm, happy visits.
As she saw the red desert dotted with juniper, cypress and piñon trees, an ache started in her heart. An ache of loneliness for her grandmother, who loved her fiercely. Since the murders of her mother and Hal, Dana had run away, and hadn’t once gone to visit Agnes. No, like a coward, she’d run east and immersed herself in teaching children, trying to forget her pain, to forget her past….
The heron flew over an eight-sided hogan, built of long timbers with mud in between. It was surrounded by tall, mighty cottonwoods to give it shade from the brutal summer heat. Dana instantly recognized the box canyon with its red-and-white sandstone and limestone walls. This hogan was where Grandma Agnes lived. And standing outside, in a long, dark-blue cotton skirt and long-sleeved red velvet blouse, and a heavy necklace of turquoise and silver, was her adopted grandmother. She was waiting for Dana.
The heron landed gently. Dana slid off the bird’s back and she thanked it. Turning, she saw her grandmother smiling warmly, her arms opening.
“Grandma!” Dana cried, and she ran up the red clay slope to where Agnes stood.
In the dream, Dana felt her grandmother’s thin, strong arms wrap around her. As soon as they embraced, Dana began to cry—deep, wrenching sobs welling up from within her. Agnes murmured her name and, with one trembling hand, gently caressed her hair. She understood Dana’s grief.
For the first time since Cora and Hal’s death, Dana felt totally loved and protected. She had had to be so strong after their deaths. All the paperwork to fill out, all the meetings with the county sheriff, the detectives…It had been an endless nightmare of ongoing pain for her. No one knew who had killed them. They still didn’t know. That bothered her all the time.
“Grandmother…” Dana pulled back from her embrace to gaze at her. “It’s so good to see you again. I’m so sorry I didn’t come home after…well, after.”
“Grandchild, do not worry,” Agnes whispered, smiling into Dana’s eyes. “I understand. What is important is that when I asked you to come, you did. That is all that matters.” She touched Dana’s wet cheeks, her fingers shaky. “Tears are good. They are cleansing and healing. You keep crying. Better out than in.” She gave Dana a luminous smile.
Stepping back, Dana held her grandmother’s thin, worn hand. “Are you all right?”
“Of course. I have come to you in your dream to ask you to visit me. When you awake, you must pack and drive out here immediately. I need your help, and will tell you why once you arrive.” Agnes held Dana’s startled look. “You will come, won’t you, Granddaughter?”
“Of course, Grandma. I promise.”
“Good. Come to my hogan. Be here by the full moon.”
“I’ll be here, Grandma. I will come home.”
As soon as Dana whispered those words, she felt herself spiraling downward. The scene with her grandmother dissolved. Accustomed to the sensation, Dana knew her astral body was coming home to her physical form….
Sunlight slanted through the open window, filling Dana’s bedroom with brilliance. She rolled onto her back, her arm still wrapped around the pipe bag. Gently, Dana placed it on the pillow again. The dream was alive and vibrant within her. Sitting up and sliding her feet from beneath the covers, she wriggled her toes on the thick, dark-green carpet.
Outside, a robin was singing melodiously. The sky was light-blue and cloudless, the breeze fragrant with the scent of flower blossoms. The world looked different to Dana as she stared wonderingly out the window. It was 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning…and the vivid dream became a wake-up call.
Running her palm across her purple duvet cover, Dana closed her eyes and allowed the full beauty of the dream and of her grandma’s love to shimmer through her. Her heart opened like a flower, and she drew in a tremulous breath. Home. She was going home. Agnes had asked her to come visit.
As she opened her eyes, Dana felt relief from the guilt she’d carried since the murders. Her grandmother had asked her to come and stay with her. Instead, Dana had run like a coward and hidden in the white man’s world.
The familiar odor of burning sage came to her. Oh! How she loved the smell of ceremonial smudge, being wafted to cleanse her of any negative thoughts and feelings. Dana could sense her adopted grandmother in astral form nearby. Even though she couldn’t see her with her eyes, Dana felt her loving and powerful presence. She had been taught astral travel at an early age. It was an easy way to visit a friend or loved one anywhere, in the blink of an eye. The sage was her grandmother’s calling card. A welcome one.
Lifting her head, Dana looked around her small bedroom. “I’m coming, Grandma. I’m coming home to you….” she said aloud.
Dana could swear she heard her grandmother’s cackling chuckle, felt her hand rest gently on her shoulder. The sensation was comforting. Strengthening. For too long, Dana had been off the reservation, disconnected from Mother Earth and all her relations. She’d run to the empty world of the white man instead.
Not happy about her choices, but knowing she couldn’t change the past, Dana slowly got to her feet. The warmth of the sun embraced her as she walked to the curtained window. Seeing the robin singing in the Jonathan apple tree made Dana smile.
Her grandmother was near. She could feel her standing at her side, her arm wrapped lovingly across her shoulders. A sharp longing to be back on Native American land plunged through Dana.
There was such a difference in energy, living on a reservation versus in the mechanized world of whites. Indians still had an invisible connection, like an umbilical cord, between themselves and the land. Mother Earth pumped energy and love into the “children” who were still attached to her. As a result, Native Americans cared for and honored the earth. They gave daily prayers of gratitude for being alive, for being nourished and fed. They were reverent toward their true mother, for without her, no one would be alive.
“Yes…” Dana whispered, her throat suddenly closing with tears. “I’ll leave today, Grandma. I’ll call the school and get someone to fulfill my contract.” As a teacher, she would miss her children. Dana felt badly about that. Right now, she needed healing and help. “I’m coming home, back to where I belong.” Even though she was born and raised in South Dakota, the southwest was her favorite place to live. Many times in the past, she’d spent wonderful moments with Agnes in Arizona and had come to call it her real home over time.
As she turned from the window, she noticed something on the carpet. Frowning, Dana padded to the end of the bed and picked it up. It was a blue-gray feather—a feather from a great blue heron.
How she had missed the daily magic and synchronicity in her life. Gazing at the feather as she straightened, Dana understood that the dream had been more than just a pleasant experience. The great blue heron was her grandmother’s spirit guide. And Agnes had sent her here to call Dana home.
Caressing the feather with her fingers, Dana understood the gravity of the invitation. Finally, after a two-year-long dark night of the soul, she was going home….
CHAPTER FIVE
“I’VE BEEN EXPECTING YOU, Chase Iron Hand. Enter.” Agnes waved into her hogan. Although not related to him, he had visited and lived with her as a young boy. Chase saw Agnes as his adopted grandmother and she loved being that for him. He had just come off the bluff after a four-day vision quest, and taken the sweat lodge that must precede his speaking about his vision with her. Sunlight lanced in the doorway where he stood, awaiting her invitation.
He was dressed now in a white cotton shirt, the long sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows. The jeans he wore hugged his strong, powerful body. Agnes was pleased to see that Chase wore the black buffalo horn choker around his thick neck, an abalone disk attached to it. She had given it to him as a departing gift when he was a young man about to go to West Point Military Academy.
Chase’s military short black hair, still damp from the sweat, gleamed with blue highlights. He had obvious Indian features, a square face and high cheekbones, and a restless gaze constantly moving around to check out his territory. Golden cougar eyes. Agnes was pleased with Chase’s alertness. It was what had kept him alive during his years in Delta Force.
Turning to prop the door open to welcome in the morning air, Chase smelled the wonderful fragrance of sage. He knew that each morning, as the sun rose, Grandmother lit the sage in a rainbow-colored abalone shell, stood in her doorway and sang the sun up. The white smoke was healing and uplifting in a spiritual sense. It got one clean and in harmony for the coming day.
“Come sit.” Agnes gestured for her tall, well-built young man to sit on a red-black-and-white wool rug she had woven fifty years earlier. She watched as Chase moved with the boneless grace of a cougar to settle opposite her, legs crossed. She accepted the dried, wrapped bundle of sage that he handed her. That was a sacred calling card, regardless of nation—a gift of sacred sage from one party to another. It was a sign of respect.
Searching Chase’s eyes, Agnes saw that the four days of the vision quest had exhausted him. But that was the point of a quest: to wear down the physical body and mind enough so that the Great Spirit could talk to the supplicant’s heart in dream language.
When Agnes handed him a cup of steaming sage tea in a chipped blue pottery mug, he took it with a slight nod of his head. Chase had not eaten nor drunk anything in four days. Agnes watched as pleasure wreathed his coppery face, his eyes closing slightly as he sipped the fragrant, life-infusing tea. Sage cleansed a person physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. It was one of the most powerful members of the plant kingdom.
“This hits the spot, Grandmother,” Chase growled. “Thank you.” He savored the medicinal taste as the tea trickled down his gullet into his shrunken stomach and brought him back to life.
Pleased, Agnes lifted a beat-up copper teakettle and placed it nearby so that Chase could drink all he wanted. A person coming off a vision quest was dehydrated, no question. And sage tea was the perfect way to replace lost fluids. “I’m glad.”
Without hesitation, Chase drank two more cups of the tepid tea. After pouring a fourth cup, he looked over at the aged woman, whose shoulders were drawn back with unconscious pride. “I’ve missed sage tea,” he admitted, his voice raspy. “I’ve missed a lot, I think.”
Even in her nineties, Agnes Spider Woman was beautiful. Elegant. Chase wondered if he’d ever find a woman who had these inner qualities that shone through like sunlight, as they did in Agnes. At thirty years of age, he had given up hope of finding such a woman, convinced he had only bad luck with the opposite sex.
“You needed to leave the reservation to find yourself, Chase. There is nothing wrong with that.” Agnes spoke gently, seeing pain cloud his golden eyes momentarily. “We each have a journey we must take. And there are many tributaries to the Red Road, paths that we are called to take from time to time. Joining the army to feel your way through the white man’s world was one you had to take. I understand this.” Agnes watched Chase nod, his mouth twisting in a grimace. His face was deeply weathered by time he’d spent in harsh outdoor elements. Agnes knew that Delta Force was a very specialized unit whose members trained hard physically. That showed in Chase’s forearms, where the muscles jumped each time he lifted the cup of sage tea in his large, callused hands.
“Tell me of your vision,” Agnes entreated, folding her hands on the dark-blue velvet skirt she wore, her legs crossed beneath the fabric.
Chase wrapped his hands around the warm mug as it sat on his left knee. Closing his eyes, he allowed the vision to congeal before him once more. “I saw a great blue heron come flying out of this thunderstorm that was stalking me, Grandmother. And at her side flew a nighthawk. Lightning danced around the three of us, and I was sure I was going to be struck by it. The heron landed in front of me, a lightning bolt in her beak. The nighthawk landed next to the heron. Before my eyes, the nighthawk turned into a beautiful young woman.” Chase opened his eyes and grinned boyishly at his composed teacher. “She was a looker, Grandmother. Black hair and the most startling cinnamon-colored eyes I’d ever seen. They were the color of fresh, reddish-brown earth plowed up after a hard winter.”
Agnes nodded. “And did this young woman speak to you?”
“Yes,” Chase murmured, sipping the tea. “She asked for my help. I said how can I help you? She told me to go to the red rock country where you live, and meet me here on the next full moon.” Chase frowned. “And then the woman turned into you, Grandmother.” Shrugging, he said, “That was the end of my vision.”
“A good vision,” Agnes said, pleased.
Chase waited. It would do him no good to press her for an explanation of his vision. Patience was one of his strengths, so he waited. Outside, he could hear the merry chirp of a robin, and farther away, the trilling of a cardinal. He had hearing like a cougar, which was his spirit guide.
“I must tell you a story.” Agnes filled Chase in on the Storm Pipe being stolen from the Blue Heron Society two years earlier. When she mentioned Rogan Fast Horse, she saw Chase’s eyes instantly narrow with rage. His mouth thinned, as if he were struggling to hold back a barrage of toxic comments. Oh, she could feel Chase’s reaction, and because she was clairvoyant, she saw the angry red colors swirling in his aura, confirming his reaction.
Flexing his scarred fist, Chase waited until Agnes finished telling him the full story. Then silence fell in the hogan.
Taking in a deep, ragged breath at last, Chase expelled it. Agnes tilted her head to one side, like a bird listening for a worm.
“Just before I went to West Point, I met Rogan at a powwow,” Chase told her. “He cheated in the bow and arrow competition to win. I saw him do it. And so did the elders who were the judges. When they announced him as winner and not me, I challenged Fast Horse, because I wasn’t going to let him get away with it. The elders were wary of his sorcerer’s powers. Afraid that he would harm them or their families if they didn’t let him win.”
“But you weren’t afraid.”
“I was, Grandmother, but I also knew what was right. In that instant, I felt as if the Great Spirit had chosen to work through me because the elders were too afraid to confront Rogan about his cheating.” Looking down at his hands, his blunt nails and the thick calluses that covered his palms, Chase said softly, “There was a knife fight.” He touched his brow with his index finger. “I cut Rogan across his forehead. He bears the scar to this day. I won the knife match and he swore to curse me, to be my mortal enemy until the day I died.”
“Powerful words to invoke.”
Shrugging, Chase looked around the shadowy confines of the hogan. The woodstove was in the center, the metal pipe leading up through the top of the mud-and-timber roof. “Rogan doesn’t know humility. I taught it to him that day. I won the match and the rewards. I knew he was a sorcerer, but I also had faith that the Great Spirit would protect me from Rogan’s rage.”
“Did he?”
“Yes,” Chase said, a note of sarcasm in his deep voice, “after four years at West Point, I volunteered and was allowed into Delta Force for eight years.” He looked at his right arm, which bore many small, puckered scars. “Other than getting caught down in South America by rebels, held prisoner and tortured for six months before I managed to escape, I don’t think Rogan got to me.”
“He did not,” Agnes confirmed with knowledge and conviction. “And I am sorry you had to suffer so much in the army, Chase.” She gestured to his arm.
“It wasn’t fun,” he agreed grimly. Meeting her watery eyes, he asked, “So Dana Thunder Eagle must go after Rogan herself? I’ve fought him, Grandmother, and there isn’t a woman alive who could do what you’re asking of her.”
“We of the society realize this. That is why the Great Spirit sent you that vision. You are the other key to us reclaiming the Storm Pipe.”
Chase allowed her words to filter through him. Closing his eyes, he replayed the vision again in his head. Yes, she was accurately interpreting the dream. Sighing, he looked at her once more. Agnes sat there resplendent in her agelessness, the sun touching the silver strands of her flyaway hair. The lines in her face were a road map of her life. Chase knew she was a tough old buzzard, and her lean, thin body proclaimed her power regardless of her age. Admiring Agnes for her strength and great, warm heart, he offered, “Grandmother, I’m tired. I just left the army. I’ve been fighting the bad guys for so many years. Well, I’m just…tired.” Chase didn’t like admitting it, but he was. Six months of daily torture had reduced him to a level he never wanted to admit to anyone. And he needed time to reclaim his tortured spirit, heal from the awful, daily beatings, and try to become whole again.
“I understand,” Agnes murmured. Reaching out, she placed her thin fingers on Chase’s arm and squeezed it. “That is why you came home. Home to find your true calling. Dana must be toughened up not only physically, but to tap into her warrior side emotionally, mentally and spiritually.” Agnes lifted her hand and poked her index finger in Chase’s direction. “I need you to turn her into a warrioress, capable of reclaiming the Storm Pipe.”
“You want me to teach her the art of war? That’s all? And I won’t have to do anything else other than be her teacher?” That appealed to Chase under the circumstances. Right now, he was at a low ebb. The fact he’d allowed himself to be captured by the rebels was humiliating enough. But to be tortured and finally break, giving away secrets he’d sworn never to divulge, was a blow that had broken his spirit.
When he’d finally made his escape and got home, he’d left the army, defeated and wounded on every level. He’d put good men’s lives on the line because he’d squealed like a pig going to slaughter. Chase wasn’t proud of himself. And right now, he felt mortally wounded spiritually, which was why he’d come back home to Agnes in the first place.
And now, both she and the vision he quested for were asking him to reconnect with violence and war. Feeling as if he could teach this woman was enough of a demand on him. Chase didn’t even want to attempt to take on Rogan right now. It just wasn’t in his spirit to do so. “I can train her,” he stated. “But I won’t go with her to retrieve the pipe.”
Nodding, Agnes said, “Then that is enough.”
“I’m not a soft man, Grandmother. I’m hard. The training I’ve had is brutal. I don’t know how to be gentle or cajoling. Dana sounds soft. Unprepared. If I become her teacher she may quit. Do you realize that she could walk away, because she doesn’t have the heart or passion for this mission you want her to undertake?”
“Choices are always before us.”
“The kind of training needed to ensure her survival against Rogan will be harsh,” Chase warned grimly. “I won’t coddle her, Grandmother. I can’t. You’re saying we have five weeks to prepare Dana for this mission before the Storm Pipe has recharged enough to kill again under Rogan’s direction. Five weeks. That’s just not enough time.”
“It has to be,” Agnes declared. “You saw Dana in your vision. I know she is a beautiful woman and I think you are swayed by that. Beauty can be strong. A pretty face is not always weak, as you assume.” Touching her blouse above her heart, Agnes added, “In here, I know she has the stamina and courage to answer the challenge you throw at her.”
“So, weaver of people’s lives, when do I meet my student?” Chase knew that Agnes had spider medicine. She had the power to combine people and situations together when she felt it best. Trusting her, he acknowledged that spider medicine was like any other kind: good or bad, depending upon how the energy expressed itself through the individual. And Agnes was one of the purest-hearted people Chase had ever known. He trusted her more than anyone else in his world. His father had been a reservation policeman until he was killed trying to stop a bank robbery. His mother had died six months later of a broken heart, leaving Chase to be passed around from one relative to another until he was old enough to go to West Point. His time with his adopted grandmother Agnes had left the deepest impression.
“Tomorrow, Dana arrives. She will come and you will introduce yourself to her.”
Though he had his doubts, Chase said nothing, just nodded.
“The two of you will work as a team here in the box canyon. There is a small hogan farther up where you’ll stay. The winter sheep hogan has everything you’ll require. Dana will need your brawn and your cleverness as a warrior, Chase. You will pass your experience on to her so that she can confront Rogan and take the pipe back.”
Even though Chase had never met Dana, his protective nature was already at work within him. Oh, he knew that women could be warriors; he’d seen his share on the res, growing up, as well as while he was serving in the U.S. Army. Still, that didn’t erase the age-old conviction that was alive and well within him: that women and children were to be cherished, loved, protected and defended. Chase knew he’d have to readjust this mindset to work Dana into a tough, well-trained warrior. In five weeks. That seemed an impossible time frame.
But when Chase saw the hope burning in Grandmother’s eyes, he kept his worries to himself.
He did not want to disappoint his extended family, especially this most sacred of women elders. He’d already disappointed the U.S. Army, and humiliation still ran hot through him. Clearly, the Great Spirit was setting him up for another test. Perhaps by training this unknown woman, he might salvage his pride, his manhood, and learn to live with what he’d done while imprisoned in South America.
When Agnes passed some homemade fry bread to Chase, and a bowl of fragrant lamb stew, he thanked her. Fasting for four days had left him feeling like a hungry cougar. Dipping the dark, whole-grain bread into the bowl filled with thick chunks of lamb, onions, brown gravy and potatoes, he said a prayer thanking all those who had given their lives so that he might eat.
The moment he took a bite, Chase savored the flavors. Yes, he was home. Finally. It had been a circuitous route, he thought, as he swiftly ate to stop the gnawing in his stomach. Restless, he’d left the res because he was curious about the white man’s world. And he’d tasted it—at West Point and for eight years after graduating. Now, because he’d failed as a warrior, because he’d broken under torture and interrogation, he’d crawled to Agnes, his pride stopping him from going back to Grandmother Doris on his home reservation. Instead, he’d come here to Agnes on the Navajo reservation to reclaim his shattered spirit. He hoped he would lead a productive, honorable life once more.