White Wolf

Chapter Three

She was breathtakingly beautiful, like a wild animal trapped inside a woman’s body. To Dain, she looked more wolf than woman. He couldn’t help but smile as he halted, craned his neck upward and simply absorbed the golden radiance of her features. He saw her full lips curve into a smile of welcome—and he felt an incredible warmth come over him, blanketing his head and shoulders, and falling around him like a thick cloak. A security blanket, Dain decided.

He placed his hands on his hips and grinned back at her, feeling like a reckless kid of nineteen again. The sunlight emphasized the ebony quality of her braided hair, and now that he was closer, he could see the details of her clothes and jewelry. A leather thong hung from her neck and disappeared inside the thick, fuzzy green sweater she wore beneath her white deerskin jacket. He saw a huge piece of turquoise-and-silver jewelry wrapped around her right wrist.

Drawn to her hands, which were long and expressive, he vaguely wondered if she was an artist. And then Dain recalled that she was a rug weaver. She was taller than he’d expected; probably around five foot ten or eleven inches. He could tell that despite her ethereal radiance, she was a strong woman who could live in this godforsaken desert and not only survive, but probably thrive.

“I’m stuck,” he said by way of greeting, gesturing to his vehicle.

“Yes, you are. In more ways than one, I’d say.”

Her low, husky voice flowed across him like a lover’s caress. Her eyes sparkled with laughter and even though her mouth never lifted into a smile, Dain felt her smile. But he knew she wasn’t making fun of him. It was a benign, loving thing he felt.

“I’m looking for a medicine woman. Her name is Tashunka Mani Tu. Are you her?”

“What do you want with her?”

Dain saw her expression close up, heard her voice lose some of its embracing warmth. The white wolf pricked up his ears in interest, watching him. “They said she could heal anyone. I need a healing from her.”

Her lips lifted, the corners curving slightly. “She doesn’t cure anything.”

His brows fell and he felt sudden anger. “They said she cured cancer.”

Not wanting to show her fear, she lifted her hand in a graceful gesture and said, “The only person who can cure you is yourself.”

Erin wrestled within herself. Why did he have to be a white man? Anything but a white man!

Thunderstruck, Dain swayed, caught himself and glared at her. The momentary lightness he’d felt in her presence was smashed beneath the tunneling, annihilating anger that surged through him now. Her low, vibrating words were like a slap in the face.

“Just what the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m not responsible for whether you keep or get rid of the tumor you carry.” Panic set in and she felt as if she wanted to run—but she knew her duties as a healer, so she remained, even though every shred of her being wanted to flee from this angry white man.

His eyes narrowed and his mouth became a thin line of fury. “Who the hell do you think you are?” he snarled. “They said you cured anything. Well, I want to be cured.” He jabbed a finger up at her. Instantly, the white wolf was on his feet. The animal gave a low, warning growl, the hackles on his neck standing up.

“Maiisoh,” Erin murmured in her native tongue, looking down at her wolf, “be patient…”

The animal reluctantly sat down and stopped growling. Nevertheless, his amber eyes never left Dain.

Dain had no idea what the woman had said, but when he saw the wolf sit down, he felt less threatened—for the moment. But when he looked at her, saw how she stood there with such a serene look on her face, his anger rose once again. He was dying and she really didn’t give a damn! Fury made his voice vibrate. “They said to bring you groceries and ask you to help me.”

Erin saw the dark anger in his narrowed blue eyes and felt it all the way to her soul. He was pale, his brow beaded with small droplets of perspiration. A small piece of her felt compassion toward him, but the rest of her simply wanted to run and disappear—as she had done so many years before, from her own reservation.

“Then the groceries are a payment, not a gift of generosity?”

He stared at her. “Luanne Yazzie said to bring you groceries. Do I give a damn whether they’re payment for your services?”

“You should,” she said as lightly as possible, gesturing toward the vehicle in the wash. “I was hoping you would come with open hands and an open heart.” Her experience told her no white man ever had an open heart. Not ever. They were selfish. Self-serving. Why had this white man been sent to her?

“Is that what you want?” he growled. “You want me on my knees, begging you? Well, lady, I don’t beg anyone for anything. You got that? I followed the rules of this reservation. I brought groceries. Now I expect something in return.”

Her lips curved a little more. She couldn’t help but smile at his blatant arrogance and self-righteousness. Fine. She’d treat him like all the rest who came to her with this type of belligerent attitude. “Very well, Mr…?”

“My name is Dain Phillips.”

“All right, Dain Phillips, you are approaching me with your groceries to buy something from me? Is that correct?”

Suddenly, Dain didn’t trust this woman. He heard the lightness in her voice, as if she was teasing him, and that angered him even more.

“You tell me how many groceries you need to cure me of cancer and I’ll make damn sure you’re supplied with them.”

Laughter bubbled up from her. She saw the dark disapproval on his square face, felt the anger aimed at her. She countered his anger with her compassion for his situation.

“I have never been approached with such an offer,” she admitted, trying to hide the slight smile that pulled at the corners of her mouth.

“Well,” he said waspishly, “though you find this so damned funny, you still haven’t told me who you are. Are you Tashunka Mani Tu?”

“I am many things to many people,” she replied, sobering. Over the years, her fame as a healer had traveled to other reservations. Lakota people who came to see her for help always called her Tashunka Mani Tu, which meant Walks With Wolves. “Who do you need me to be for you?”

“I don’t need you to be anything for me,” he retorted.

“Then you must leave, for I cannot help you heal yourself.” She turned around.

“Wait!” Dain shouted, lifting his arm.

Erin hesitated and looked across her shoulder. “I cannot heal you. You can only heal yourself, Dain Phillips. Groceries will not force me to support your desire to be well. You come like the coyote, the trickster. Groceries mean only one thing to you—a source of payment for services rendered. I was hoping the groceries were a gift given from your heart. A gift without expectations attached to it.” In her heart, she prayed he would leave.

“Now hold on just a minute,” Dain yelled, struggling up the slick, clay bank as she walked away from him, surrounded by sheep. When he climbed out of the wash, she turned toward him, her hand on the staff. The white wolf was at her side, watching him through wary amber eyes.

Breathing hard, Dain moved brokenly toward her, his legs visibly trembling from the sudden exertion. “Just a minute,” he rasped, gesturing at her with his index finger. “Just who the hell do you think you are, lady? What right do you have to judge me or these damn groceries I brought to you?”

Erin felt her heart twinge as a feeling of compassion stole through her. She studied the man before her. Dain Phillips was at least six foot two and weighed close to two hundred pounds. He was obviously in good muscular, if not athletic, condition. He wore a bright red wool jacket over a dark blue denim shirt and tan pants that were splattered with red clay. Once again she felt his desperation and understood it better than he could at the moment.

Calmly, she lifted her hand. “I have not judged you. You have judged yourself.”

“What are you talking about?”

She allowed his anger to bounce harmlessly off her. His blue eyes snapped with fury and his otherwise nicely shaped mouth was a thin line of bitterness. “You brought groceries to buy something from me that I cannot give you.”

“Dammit, take the stupid groceries then! I don’t care what the hell you do with them!”

“There are two elderly Navajo women who live near me. They have no transportation, and with the winter coming on, they can use the food.”

“Fine,” he rasped, “they can go to them. Now what about you? What’s your name? You haven’t said whether you’re a medicine woman, yet.”

“Some people call me Asdzaan Maiisoh. That is Navajo for Wolf Woman. Some call me Tashunka Mani Tu— Lakota for Walks With Wolves. Others call me Erin Wolf, the name listed on documents when I was born on the Eastern Cherokee Reservation in North Carolina. The federal government refused to accept my given Cherokee name, Ai Gvhdi Waya, so my mother chose the name Erin, which is Gaelic, from Ireland. Unlike most white names, which have no meaning, the Irish give as much importance to what a name means as we do. Erin means peace.” She frowned. “You may call me anything you like, so long as it’s not derogatory.” No white man respected Indians and she did not expect it from him.

Ignoring her last comment, Dain studied the woman before him. Peace. Yes, he could see why she was named for that. For a moment, he hated the fact she seemed so damn calm and serene when he felt almost on the edge of losing not only his composure, but his control as well. Her face reflected an inner peace and he wanted to take that from her for himself. The sunlight bathed her, gave her coppery skin a beautiful radiance that was almost unearthly, he thought as he continued to stare at her.

He was mildly aware of the sheep bleating now and then, and the fact that the animals had encircled him where he stood. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw them nibbling at sparse strands of grass sticking out of the red sand, and the sight, combined with the feel of the sun on his back, made some of the inner chill within him abate.

“I’m not very good with Indian names,” he began, “so bear with me as I refer to you as Erin Wolf.”

Her eyes sparkled with silent laughter. “It will take three days before the wash dries enough for you to drive your car out of there.” She gazed up at the clear, light blue sky. “The Navajo rain yei have been kind to you. It’s not going to rain for at least another week, so you’ll be able to retrieve your car.”

“What’s a yei?”

“Navajo for god.”

“I don’t believe in such things.”

She smiled.

Dain glared at her. “Well, what do I do?”

“I’d suggest that you walk back to the road and hitchhike back into Many Farms. Go home, Dain Phillips. What you seek I do not have.” Never had she meant her words more than now.

He stared at her as panic set in, eating away at his anger, his strength. “But…” He floundered, opening his hands. “But Alfred and Luanne Yazzie said you’ve healed many Navajo of all kinds of disease. Why are you sending me away if you can cure me?”

In that moment, Erin saw not a man standing before her, but a scared child. The image of a tousle-haired, freckle-faced little boy in a pair of coveralls and a red-and-white-striped T-shirt crying his heart out flashed before her eyes. The boy stood in the highly polished hallway of some huge, old home and her intuition told her that what he felt was utter abandonment.

Gently, she whispered, “I am not abandoning you, Dain Phillips. You are abandoning yourself.” Shaken by what she’d seen and felt, Erin suddenly felt guilty. Her past experience with one white man was coloring her perception of this man. Her parents had taught her that skin color meant nothing—but she knew differently. Inwardly, she wrestled with her own dark prejudice.

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.