Sacred Ground

After taking his time with his bogus examination, he rose to his feet, brushed as much of the dust off his pants as he could, and finally headed back to the site office as the first of the men arrived, lunchpails in hand. He nodded to them as they came in, just enough that they knew he recognized them, not enough to encourage familiarity.

He retired to his office and sat down at his desk; drumming his fingers restlessly on the blotter, he watched the men arrive, and listened to the phone ring in the secretary's room. She was certainly fielding a lot of calls this morning.

He was annoyed, to say the least. The Talldeer bitch was smarter than he had given her credit for. And what was she going to do with his little surprise? Obviously she was smart enough to disarm it and then take it away, presumably to check for prints. Was she smart enough to realize that it could be used as evidence without prints on it? He hoped not…

Or did she take it because she thought some of her own people might have set it, and she didn't want to leave any more evidence of sabotage for the law to find?

Or did she take it just so that he couldn't reset it with more bait and a better hiding place? Like the mice taking the cheese and then running off with the trap so it couldn't be used again?

Hard to say. But whichever it was, he would have to work to see that she didn't suspect him. He had feelers out, and none of the information he was getting made him think that the cops thought of him as a likely suspect. He had to see to it that Talldeer eliminated him from her list, too.

The secretary tapped timidly on his door, jarring his concentration.

"Come in," he said, wondering what the problem could be this early in the day. And a little irritated with the secretary as well. Why did she have to slink around like a timid little chipmunk?

"Mr. Calligan, sir," she said, with an air of someone who was bearing bad news. "Almost half the men have called in sick. They all say they're having dizzy spells and their doctors told them not to operate heavy machinery while they're dizzy." She paused a moment, then added, worriedly, "they don't know when they'll be back; their doctors all want to run tests. This is definitely going to put off the completion deadline, sir."

"I understand that," he snapped, as if he were angry, glad to finally have one legitimate outlet for his irritation. "I'll deal with it. You put an ad in the paper, then contact the state employment service and see if you can get me some replacements. We need them now! If those goldbricks think they can coast and find their jobs waiting for them, they're I going to get a big surprise. And they'd better not file for workman's comp, either!"

She wouldn't find any experienced men, of course. After all the "bad luck" that had been hitting this project, only a fool would risk himself or his machinery.

Of course, if she did come up with anyone, he'd find something wrong with most of them. He'd be conducting the interviews and making the hiring decisions himself.

But she didn't know that he would be rejecting everyone she found, of course. She winced away from his obvious anger, and retreated back to the safety of her own little cubicle hastily, leaving him alone behind his closed door.

She would have been very surprised to see that he was smiling a moment later.

So, the plan was working. The little "accidents" he had arranged continued to mount up. Although-he frowned- there were some things happening that he hadn't arranged. Things that had no business occurring, like those sinkholes opening up under equipment. It was almost as though there really was a curse at work.

No, that was stupid thinking. Shit happened. Sinkholes opened up all the time, and possums would eat almost anything. Especially if it was greasy. No big deal.

Now the workers were calling in sick, and some of them were staying off the job. He would have to put in some extra work to make certain the roster stayed empty, and at the same time put up a convincing show of trying to replace the men gone absent. It would take a lot of time, going through the motions in order to keep his tracks covered, but with any luck the time of year would work for him. This late in the building season, virtually every heavy-equipment operator was booked for the rest of the year. Those who couldn't make a living here had moved on to other climes. Surely he could find a way to disqualify everyone who applied-

He pulled the medicine-pouch out of his pocket and stroked it, then grinned as the perfect answer occurred to him. Easy enough-just get into the records at night and change the phone numbers of those who applied! Then, when Shirley gave them their callback, she'd get wrong numbers, no-answers, or disconnected messages.

And if the workers attributed that to the curse as well, who cared? It would only reinforce what he wanted.

That would put the project into a delay-delays would continue to mount, until it was at least a year behind schedule. That shouldn't take long; with half the workers already gone, he had doubled the time it would take to complete this thing-if it even could be completed. If anyone from O.U. ever did get down here, that in itself might shut the project down while they sifted dirt in search of nonexistent artifacts.

Then, as things looked to be at their worst, he would set fire to the office one night. Within a month or two he would be able to declare bankruptcy. And with no records left to betray where the money had all gone, he would walk out of there completely clean. The Indians would get the blame for everything, from setting the fires and explosions to breaking the back of the company by walking out on the job. The local economy was in piss-poor shape; that wouldn't win them any friends in the media. Two birds with one stone- and no one would be likely to be sympathetic to complaints about curses and other superstitious bull when a multimillion-dollar project had just gone belly-up. People were far more likely to figure statements like that to be half-assed excuses than anything worth a moment of time and consideration.

And his good buddy at the insurance company would pocket his slice of the pie, and pass Calligan's share on to him.

A foolproof scheme. All he had to do was to stay cool, keep his brains about him, and get rid of the Talldeer woman. Permanent would be best, but it was a dangerous goal, now that his initial trap had been sprung. He didn't think she suspected him, but if he made any more blatant attempts at taking her out, the chances of her putting him on her list increased with every try. There was no telling what she'd told her boss by now. He had to make certain she took a fall, and that the blame fell on her own people. Then he could spread some rumors that it had been to silence her, that she had been on the verge of discovering an Indian gang out here; one selling peyote and other drugs to guys on the construction crews.

Yeah, that would work. He'd get her and the people she was trying to protect, all at once.

Now that was a sweet scenario... and it was one he could even put into motion now.

His hand went to the desk in front of him, and he stroked the old medicine-bundle while he thought things through. Maybe it was already time to plant some of those rumors.

He picked up the phone and dialed a particular regional talk-show host who was known for his flamboyant, near-yellow journalism and his willingness to say anything about anyone so long as it was bad. One also known for being something of a bigoted jerk, as well, who'd made his feelings known quite strongly on the subject of Indian activism and Indian-run high-stakes bingo and other gambling. He was no friend to the red man, arid that would put him right where Calligan wanted him.

The rumors would be flying soon. They might even spur some legitimate news investigations. That would make things difficult for the Talldeer woman and whoever was egging his workers on. Now we'll see who the smart one is. . . .

"Hi, is this Bob Anger? This is Rod Calligan of Calligan Construction. I've got a story you might be interested in…"

Now, at last, days too late so far as she was concerned, Jennifer was able to talk freely with Calligan's ex-workers. As important to her investigation as the ones who actually saw something when the dozer went up were the ones who had been involved in other "accidents." Not in the leasts because not all of those accidents had the flavor of the Little People about them.

Now that she had seen them, she honestly didn't think' this band of mi-ah-luschka was capable of setting explosives or sabotaging hydraulics. For all that they were powerful spirits, as far as she knew, they were limited in what they could do to what they understood. And that was important to her investigation.

There wasn't a one of those she had seen who was even familiar with a muzzle-loader, much less a bulldozer. Most of them came from the time of Watches-Over-The-Land and before. They could understand that the heavy machinery was a threat, and cunningly dig pit traps for it to fall into, just as they had dug pit traps for wapiti and even the occasional bison when they had been among the living. They could not understand that pouring sand into hydraulic fluid reservoirs would ruin a vital part of the machinery. They saw that the men on the site guarded and valued the dynamite sticks in the shed-which were only sticks to them. They knew that possums would eat anything, particularly if one poured bear fat over it. They would not understand that those sticks could be made to release lightning and thunder.

Not that they were stupid, and she suspected if anyone ever was around them long enough to teach them the ways of the modern world, they would be more of a menace than even she could dream. But they were facing something completely alien to the world in which they had lived and died, and faced with the alien, they could only improvise with what they themselves knew.

So the questions remained; who had raided the burial hill and cached the relics here? Who had sabotaged the dozer? Who was continuing to sabotage the site? And who had set the trap that had so nearly caught David?

Most of all-were all these acts done by the same hands?

She had to report back to Sleighbow at Romulus that if there had been any threats against Calligan or the site before the explosion, none of his men had ever heard about it. So in that much Calligan was clear.

She had no doubt that the man was a snake; the stories her mother conveyed from other realtors made that perfectly clear. If she looked long and hard enough, she would probably find some way in which he had deceived Romulus. She needed a reason to continue to stay on the case, one that would continue to supply a paycheck, and one that would let her pursue the answer to her questions.

It was time to call Sleighbow and establish that reason. David himself was in her office when she made that call, so that he could see and hear just where her loyalties were with his own eyes and ears.

She put it on speakerphone so he could hear both sides of the conversation.

"Mr. Sleighbow," she said as soon as she had identified herself and what he had asked her to investigate, "I have to be up front with you. There are more unanswered questions than answered ones with Calligan so far as I'm concerned, but the job you asked me to do is finished. I can't find any evidence of any threats to Calligan and his property prior to the explosion. Whatever else is going on, he did not deceive Romulus in that regard."

David looked blank. He obviously could not see where her statement was leading.

"Oh?" There was a long pause. "I find your phrasing interesting, Miss Talldeer. Do you have any reason to think Rod Calligan has attempted to deceive Romulus Insurance in any other way?"

She sighed, as David frowned, and she made an abrupt gesture to him to warn him to be silent. "Let me just say this much, Mr. Sleighbow. The information I have leads me to think that Mr. Calligan is less than ethical in his business practices. He is continuing to suffer accidents-some appear to be outright sabotage, and some simply seem to have no possible natural explanation. It may be that he has some business rival that he has annoyed, or some less-than-legal associates that he has angered, and he is attempting to cover their retribution up by claiming that it is all the work of Native American and ecology groups. I am not going to attempt to guess what kind of policy he took out with you, but I suspect that such a situation would not be covered, especially if he deliberately concealed illegal activities and associates."

"You are quite right, Miss Talldeer," Sleighbow replied, his voice even and betraying no emotion. "And those are interesting speculations."

"They're only speculations, sir," she said warningly, making a hushing motion at David, since he looked ready to jump in again. "I have not found any evidence to indicate anything of the sort. All I have found is that he is considered to be less than ethical by his peers, and that there do not appear to have been any terrorist-type threats prior to the explosion. Other than that, I can only say that while I have not actually met the man, the things I have uncovered would make me unlikely to use his services even if he were the only contractor in the three-state area. I certainly would not recommend him to anyone else. My personal feelings are that a man like that collects enemies, and a man like that may well have been involved with some kind of organized crime figure at some time. But that is, strictly a personal feeling and I have no facts to justify it. And I will admit to a slight prejudice against him because he seems to be attempting to make Native Americans into scapegoats for what has been happening to him."

There was a moment of silence, punctuated by the ticking of someone using a keyboard. "I respect and appreciate your candor, Miss Talldeer," Sleighbow said at last. "And I also respect the 'hunches' of a private investigator with some experience. 'Hunches' seldom prove to be as mystical as most people think." The keyboard clicks returned. "I've noted your observations. If you have no objection, I would like to authorize you to continue to investigate. However, in light of the fact that there have been more 'accidents' and that you yourself said that you are not Nancy Drew, you may feel free to withdraw, and I will find another investigator to take up where you left off."

David was practically bursting out of his chair, but he kept quiet, at least. Jennifer pretended to give the matter a moment of thought, although her answer was a foregone conclusion. "I would like to continue, sir," she said. "I hate to leave something half done."

"Good." A few more clicks signaled a few more keystrokes. Jennifer was now certain that he was recording this interview and adding it to the records. "You're on indefinite retainer. I respect your honesty enough to be certain you will tell me when you feel your investigation has come to an end. Two suggestions, please. Don't hesitate to call me if you feel you are in over your head. I'll see to it that you are fairly compensated. And if you do uncover some kind of criminal activity, please report it not only to me but to your local police and the state's attorney general."

"Yes, sir," she promised, with some satisfaction. Sleighbow hung up then, and she took the phone off "speaker" mode.

David practically exploded. "What were you doing?' he shouted. "I thought you were-"

"Didn't I just, truthfully, manage to get the suspicion away from the Rights Movement?" she interrupted.

"Yes," he said, after a moment. "But what was all that crap about organized crime?"

"Complete truth, just not all the truth." She leaned back in her chair and regarded him through narrowed eyes. "Calligan is the kind of man who might be involved with criminals, even organized crime. I said I didn't have any evidence. Sleighbow just gave me carte blanche to go look for some.

So now I have a legitimate reason to continue poking around Calligan Construction. I could hardly mention that I'd seen the Little People while I was poking around Calligan's site illegally."

David subsided. "I guess not," he said, reluctantly. "But I don't see why you couldn't do what you want."

She shrugged. "I have to have a reason for staying on Calligan's back if the cops ask," she pointed out. "My own personal curiosity doesn't count, and since I'm Indian it could be taken as harassment, and that's illegal. I've got plenty of evidence that no protest group threatened Calligan-now I have to prove that there weren't threats from sources he wouldn't report. It's still work, David, and. it's work I can do while I'm checking up on other things." She! stared up at the ceiling for a moment. "You know," she said, half to herself, "I'd kind of like to find something to nail Calligan to the wall. If half of what I've heard about him is true, he's long overdue to be nailed. I suspect him of being behind Bob Anger's broadcast this morning."

David looked blank. "Who?"

She blinked, and focused on him again. "You mean you haven't-oh, that's right, you haven't lived here for a while, Local talk-show host, makes Rush Limbaugh look like a Franciscan monk. The only reason he hasn't been sued is because the people he insults are either too poor to sue, or he doesn't name names when they have the money for lawyers." She reached into her drawer for the padded envelope that had come by messenger from the office of the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, pulled the cassette out of the envelope, and stuck it in her cassette deck. "This was the broadcast this morning."

She watched David's face as he listened, his expressions running the entire gamut from incredulous, to disgusted, to angry . . . trying to guess the moment when he would ballistic.

She was a little off. Before he could explode, she snapped the recorder off.

"There's more where that came from," she offered. "About another forty-five minutes' worth. Where are you going?" she added, as he launched himself for the door.

"I'm going to do something about that-"

"Wilma Mankiller's office is already handling it," she said, cutting him off. The news that the Principal Chief of the Cherokees was already involved stopped him with his hand on the door. "They sent me a copy of the tape, since I passed the word that I'm on the case to her office. I told them when Sleighbow hired me, just on the off chance that anyone in Cherokee Nation had anything useful to tell me that I hadn't already heard on my own."

"Oh yeah?" he said, still poised to go out. "And just what are they doing about it? That bigoted jerkoff, I mean."

"Ignoring it," she replied blandly. "And him."

"What?" He stared.

"Think about it, David," she said impatiently. "This idiot is only looking for publicity. Anything any Indian says or does about this is just going to give him more of what he wants. A few of the media press went over to Wilma's office this morning for her comments. Fortunately, she had a good zinger waiting for them. She simply looked at them and said, 'I thought you guys were here for the real news,' and gave them press releases about the improvements to the Tribal Police system."

"She's got to be doing more than that!" David cried.

Jennifer shrugged. "Why?" she responded. "This guy is nothing, David. The only people who believe him are people we'd never touch anyway-people who not only don't have a clue, they couldn't buy one if you gave them a roll of quarters. We've got a real problem to deal with. Let Wilma handle Bob Anger. If he keeps it up, she'll find a way to get him put down. Probably," she added thoughtfully, "by convincing the 'Morning Zoo' DJs to turn both barrels on him.

What they did to Oral Roberts is nothing compared to what they can do to him."

David shook his head, but returned to his chair. Jennifer went back to her list, crossing off "Call Sleighbow."

"You know," she said after a moment, "this business with Bob Anger-"

David looked at her hopefully. "We should do something about him?"

She shook her head violently. "God, no! No, now that I think about it-it smells like a trap. As much of a trap as that medicine-pouch was. We were meant to lock horns with Anger-to give his accusations some legitimacy."

He frowned at her. "Yeah? What makes you say that?"

"The timing, mostly." She ignored his growing scorn and took out the cassette tape to stare at it, as if by doing so she could make it give up its secrets. "Someone is getting nervous. Someone knows that you and I are working together, now. That someone is the person who tipped Anger off." She glanced at him sharply. "And before you ask, no, it isn't 'just a hunch.' It's my own trained deduction combined with Medicine skills. I sense the hand of The Enemy here, and threat from the West, the country of war and death, Here-" She held up the cassette and shook it for emphasis. "I see a false war-trail here; The Enemy has gone elsewhere. If we follow the bluff, we will lose him."

David shrank back a little in his chair, acutely uncomfortable. "Well ... if you say so…"

"I do," she told him firmly.

He sighed, and although she could see that he was struggling against a sharp retort, he kept his mouth shut. "All right," he said after a moment. "What's the plan?"

"Oh, your favorite." She pulled out a list, and groaned. "Legwork, legwork, legwork," she said sweetly, and handed him his half of the list.

Jennifer leaned over the table at Ken's Pizza and batted her eyelashes flirtatiously at the plainclothes officer across from her. He batted his eyes right back at her, then wiped his mouth with a napkin.

"So, Jen, what is it you want out of me this time?" he asked. "You never buy me lunch unless you want something."

"Moi?" she exclaimed in mock-horror. "Want something? Why, Wild Bill, I am crushedl How could you say something like that? Can't an honest citizen buy lunch for one of Tulsa's finest without wanting something?"

"Not when they're you, they can't." But "Wild Bill" Cody, a casual friend of Jennifer's who'd recently been promoted to the Detective Unit, didn't look or sound as if he was unhappy about the situation, so Jennifer decided to continue pursuing the intention that had led her to meet Cody at headquarters and invite him to lunch.

She pouted. "You eat my pizza, you drink my soda, then you make terrible accusations that I'm bribing you."

"Statements, not accusations," he retorted. "And the Three-Ninety-Five all-you-can-eat Lunch Buffet is below the five-dollar limit that constitutes a bribe, as you are well aware. So what do you want? I don't fix tickets and I don't give out confidential information."

"I know that," she said with annoyance. "All I want is office gossip. You used to be in Fraud. What's the word on Rod Calligan?"

"Current or history? Never mind, both, I know." He took a long pull on his cola, and the ice clicked against the plastic when he put it down. "History is, Fraud has him on the list of people who might go over the line some day. You know, people who have enough complaints against them that we figure it's worth watching them in case their companies get in trouble and they start looking for creative ways to finance things? But you also know that list-"

"Is real long." She nodded. "That's the way it is around here. A lot of people skate on thin ice but never fall in. Any hint he's ever been involved in the illegal artifact business?"

Wild Bill shook his head vigorously. "Nothing but the usual contractor-type stuff. But that's where the current gossip comes in. There are a lot of people looking really closely at this explosion of his. Could be what he says it is. Profile from the FBI says it also fits with someone who's trying an insurance scam. So we're stalling. Other thing is, normally when there's real terrorists involved in a bombing, someone slips up. Leaves fingerprints, or something that can be traced back to them, or-more often than not- somebody has to boast about what he did. Whoever set this one is either real lucky or real slick, and terrorists don't fit that profile."

She nodded, wryly. "Uh-huh. They're too busy being passionate and idealistic to be slick. Gotcha. So?"

"So we're being real careful. And Calligan is being a real pain, because we haven't arrested anybody." Cody played with his glass. "He doesn't bug the department about it- but every time somebody comes around to ask him a couple more questions, he always brings it up, real resentful." The officer gave her a look from under his bushy eyebrows. "That's off the record. Anything else is confidential."

"No problem." She picked up the check, and fished a ten out of her purse to cover it, handed both bills to a passing waitress, and waved away change. Cody rose, and so did Jennifer.

"That's all you wanted?" He seemed mildly surprised.

"That's all," she said cheerfully. "Painless, wasn't it?"

"Wish my dentist was that painless." He grinned broadly. "Make sure you call me next time you need office gossip. I can always use a free lunch."

"And I can always use a friendly face. Don't get into any trouble, Cody," she said, as they parted at the door. "And don't forget what my grandfather always says."

"What's that?" he asked, pausing for just a moment.

"Don't believe everything you hear." She arched her eyebrows significantly. "At least when it comes from the mouths of guys you have on lists." He "fired" a finger at her. "Gotcha, Jen. Be seein' you!" She laughed. "Next time you need a free lunch!"

_CHAPTER TWELVE

So, another day like the past six. Same song, different verse. David glared at the neat little scrap of paper-torn off as precisely as if it had been cut-and shoved it into his pocket. Legwork. Right. Jennie was awfully fond of sending him off chasing things, and half the time he thought it was just to get him out of her hair.

He wasn't used to being ordered around by a woman, much less by one who used to be his girlfriend. It was kind of hard to take.

But Jennie just wasn't the same girl he knew back in college-she was so serious all the time. Businesslike, impersonal. Hardly ever smiled, for one thing, much less laughed. Except when she was trying to get his goat, being sarcastic, or trying to give him a hard time. She always had some kind of smart answer, too.

And she didn't fit his idea of a real woman anymore, not with that cool, emotionless attitude of hers. Like she'd been taking lessons from Mr. Spock or something. Not a hint that they had ever been close.

She dressed so damned aggressively, in jeans, leather jackets, boots-or really severely tailored suits-no makeup, no jewelry, nothing feminine. She was obviously used to doing everything herself; even when he offered to drive her somewhere, she declined. Too damned independent, that was what it was. She wouldn't give up control for anyone or anything.

He'd tried making suggestions about this case; mostly she didn't even give him an argument. Instead, she just ignored them, acted as if he hadn't even said anything.

That was bad enough; he was used to people listening to him, and asking for directions. He didn't like being ignored. But what was the most humiliating was that when he'd gone ahead and followed through with his own ideas himself, what he'd tried had usually backfired on him. Like two days ago, when he'd tried to tail Calligan's new foreman, the guy who'd moved up from assistant after the first foreman went up with the dozer....

He'd figured the foreman probably knew something, and tailing him seemed like a good idea. After all, no one on the whole crew had a better opportunity to plant something like a bomb than the foreman or the foreman's assistant. The man had spotted him, and had tried to lose him. Stupidly, he'd tried to keep up. That was when the foreman picked up his cellular phone and called the cops.

Too late, he'd seen the man talking on the handset and looking back at him. That was when David figured out what had just happened and had tried to get away.

At that point, the foreman had turned the tables on him and had started tailing him, keeping up a running cellular report as he did so.

The end of that story was inevitable. The cops had pulled him over, and he'd spent the rest of the afternoon at the station while they checked all fifty states for any outstanding warrants on him, even parking tickets. They didn't find any, but when they came back now and again to check on him, their file folder with his name on it kept getting thicker and thicker. He figured that before the afternoon was over, he'd cost them a couple hundred bucks in fax charges.

They couldn't hold him forever without charging him with something, but they could keep him for twenty-four hours at least, and they didn't have to make his stay comfortable. And they had the right to question him every time a new addition to his file came in. He could have shut up and demanded an attorney, but he figured that would only make things worse. They knew he was an activist by now, and for all he knew, Oklahoma had a "stalker" law he could be charged under. Or they could try and hold him on suspicion in the Calligan sabotage.

So he chose the appearance of cooperation. His story, made up out of desperation, was that he was trying to see if the foreman was the source of the anti-Indian stories in some of the papers. He knew what Jennie would have done to him if he had dared to drag her name in. Finally they let him go with a warning that any more incidents would leave him open to harassment charges, and that Oklahoma did indeed have a "stalker" law he could be prosecuted under. But now he was "red-flagged," and he was pretty sure they had that full file on him just waiting for the moment he did something else stupid.

He hadn't told Jennie about the incident. He knew what she'd say, and he wasn't in the mood for "I told you so." He hadn't tried anything that might get him the attention of the Tulsa cops again.

Whenever he suggested she might act along the lines of working Medicine, she just gave him an opaque look. He hadn't dared follow his own suggestions along those lines; for one thing, he didn't even know where to begin, and for another, even if he did, after his one and only experience with the Little People, he wasn't too eager to have anything more to do with the Spirits.

This list she had given him now-it was all perfectly ordinary stuff. Finding out if any Osage artifacts had been offered to any of the local galleries, antique stores, or collectors in the last six months. Tracking down everyone who was licensed to handle explosives in this area. Finding out everyone in the area who could be considered an expert on Osage culture who wasn't Osage. Interviewing all the men on Calligan's construction crew to find out if they had seen any person or vehicle hanging around the site a great deal, either before or after the explosion.

It looked like make-work, or something to keep him occupied while Jennie did all the important things. He resented that, but he didn't dare make the accusation that she was sloughing him off.

Why?

Because she had scared him, that was why! He had to admit that as well, and he resented both the fact and having to admit it.

She waited patiently for him to say something. He sighed with disgust.

"Isn't this more along your line?" he asked, patronizingly. "You could do most of this on the phone-"

"I could if I had the time, which I don't," she replied, imitating his tone perfectly. "If I could afford a secretary, it would be his job. Since there are things to do that only I can get way with, like trading information with the cops, you're going to have to do the other stuff if you want to get anything accomplished. It's a fair distribution of effort. I have other cases to work on, David-I have to make a living. No P.I. of my small-time stature works full-time on anything. You have the time I don't to do this kind of thing."

He came very close to wincing when she mentioned the cops, and he hoped she didn't notice. Or had she somehow found out about that little run-in he'd had? Was she rubbing it in?

It would be just like her, he thought sourly. Every time he tried to get into the dominant position with her, she just put him right back down again-and he had no doubt that if she had learned about the humiliating episode, she was saving it for later use.

"One of the guys called me this morning," he said, after a moment. "He got his buddy Paul Fry to keep him posted on what's going down out at the site. Calligan is trying to replace all the guys calling in 'sick,' but it seems like everybody who shows up for an interview is either an alkie or a fake."

"A fake?" Jennie looked up from frantically scribbling something on a pad by the phone. "What do you mean by 'a fake'?"

He straightened a little, pleased to have some knowledge she didn't have. "According to Fry, all the ones that have gotten callbacks turn out to have given bad phone numbers. Either the numbers have been disconnected, don't exist, or no one on the other end ever heard of the guy who interviewed."

Jennie tapped her eraser on the desktop in a curious and rhythmic pattern for a moment. "Doesn't that strike you as odd?" she finally asked.

He made a noncommittal sound. "I don't know. I know Billy said it was another sign of the curse on Calligan."

Jennie tossed her head, so that her hair whipped over her shoulder, and snorted. "Right. I don't think so. Not unless that particular lot of mi-ah-luschka has learned how to work the phone system. It takes a lot of power to fake out the phone lines, and a lot more knowledge that I don't think they have."

She didn't add and I should know, but she might just as well have. Both the authoritative tone of her voice and the fact that she mentioned it could be done at all confirmed his hunch that she had somehow messed with the phone system when he had tried to call her to chew her out.

And a little cold chill ran up his spine for a, moment or two. A Medicine Woman powerful enough to mess with the phone system-what did that take, anyway? Was there anything she couldn't do? Or-

He caught himself up sharply. Dammit! She did it to me again!

"So what do you think is happening?" he asked.

"My best guess is that someone might just be sending ringers over to Calligan to keep him from filling those slots." She gave him a sharp look. "That 'someone' wouldn't be you, would it?"

He brought his head up indignantly. "Me? Why the hell would I do something like that?"

"To keep Calligan from filling those slots," she said, logically. "Those are jobs theoretically being taken away from Indians. It would be a good way to preserve them until our guys came off the sick list."

"Oh." Damn, he wished he had thought of that one! "No, it isn't me."

"Then maybe I ought to find out if there really is a plot, because I don't think the Little People are behind this one."

"Neither do I," he told her-and actually, that did agree with the feeling he'd gotten when Billy told him this morning. He was beginning to get a feel for which incidents were caused by the mi-ah-luschka and which by purely human hands.

Not that the "feeling" made him any more comfortable. He would really rather not have anything to do with Medicine at all, except admire the showmanship from afar...

Are you a shaman, or are you a showman? one of his friends used to ask the people he suspected of fakery, or of catering to the supermarket psychic crowd. Up until last night he would have said that anyone who claimed to be the former was really the latter.

Until now. . . .

"How sure are you about this 'false trail' stuff?" he asked, unwilling to make the concession, but also unwilling to let her get away with putting on a show rather than giving him real facts.

She snorted, delicately. "Sure enough to bet my life on not following it," she said. "But if you want more-"

Before he had a chance to protest that no, he really didn't want any more, thank you, she had reached into a drawer in her desk, and had taken out a little bag of something. As she dusted it over her desk-blotter and the cassette that lay there, chanting under her breath, he recognized it as corn pollen.

The pollen just lay there for a moment, a frosting of yellow specks over the dark brown blotter-but then, as the hair on the back of his neck began to crawl, he saw very clearly that it was moving. It crept across the blotter as if each bit of pollen was a tiny insect, but an insect moving in a purposeful way.

It formed into symbols even he could read. And last time he had looked, there was no scientific power on earth that would make corn pollen crawl into readable patterns.

A ragged circle around the tape cassette, with an uneven slash across it. A rough arrow pointing away, to the west.

Nothing vague or requiring interpretation. If she was calling on Medicine Spirits for advice, she had made certain it was advice he could read as well as she. Once again, his skepticism had been shattered. He looked up from his frozen contemplation of the pollen on the blotter, to see her watching him sardonically.

"I hope that's enough for you," she said, without inflection. "I asked for something you could understand and see for yourself. Anything more than this, you'd better ask from Grandfather."

He swallowed, with a little difficulty.

"I-ah-think that will do," he replied. Suddenly the idea of legwork had a lot more appeal.

Over the next several days, he had a few more occasions to have his skepticism shattered. Mostly, though, she didn't do it on purpose-but there were plenty of times he saw things-half-seen people and animals-around the house, appearing and disappearing without warning. Once, he heard her talking and heard something else answering, but when he opened the door to her office, there was no one else there. It was unnerving, to say the least, and he kept feeling as if he were off-balance and that everything he had always thought was true had suddenly come into question.

Finally it all became unnerving enough that he couldn't take it anymore. Something was going to have to break, one way or another. Either he was going to have to leave Tulsa, give up on this problem, and go back to his friends in North Dakota, or-

Or else he was going to have to take a good look at himself and his world and rethink everything he had accepted as true.

He didn't make a conscious decision; the morning was clear and cool, the sky cloudless-and instead of driving to Jennie's office, he found himself taking the opposite direction. Before long, he found himself on a dirt road, halfway between Catoosa and Claremore, out in the middle of nowhere.

Without thinking about it, he slowed as he came to an area without planted fields or fences. It seemed the right place to stop, and he pulled over onto the narrow shoulder, then left the car where he parked it. A narrow drainage ditch lined with young cottonwood trees separated the open field from the road; he jumped across it, hiked into a quiet spot, and sat down on a rock in the sun, to think. There was a slight breeze, and birds called off in the distance, but otherwise he might have been completely alone, ringed in with tall, nodding grasses that towered above his head as he sat there, cutting off his sight of anything but their tips and the cloudless blue sky. This might be the tallgrass prairie of the days of the buffalo herds.

No distractions. It was a good place to do some thinking.

Hard thinking, in fact.

He lost all track of time, as he stared at the sky and the grass tips, and thought over everything that had brought him here. Everything, right back to the very day he had left this area in the first place. And he came to some hard conclusions.

He didn't usually act like such an idiot. Oh, maybe he had back when he was still in school, but he'd had some sense knocked into him since then. There just seemed to be something about this entire situation that had been bringing out the worst in him. Maybe it was being back home. Maybe it was being around Jennie, bringing up old baggage and old habits of behavior. Maybe it was just Jennie herself that both irritated him and made him want to strut and bugle like a young buck in rut. A bad combination, for sure . . . especially given Jennie's opinions of young bucks strutting and acting like fools.

There was very little doubt in his mind that Jennie was getting a certain amount of enjoyment out of putting him down-but on the other hand, every time she did so, it was because he was trying to pretend he knew more than she did about either P.I. work or Medicine. When he had an opinion on law, politics, or the Movement, he honestly had to admit that she listened and acted on his advice. When he told her what Calligan's ex-employees had told him, she listened and paid attention to what he told her. In fact, any time he voiced a fact or an opinion in an arena where he did have some real knowledge, she listened and used it.

He didn't deserve the snide way she enjoyed putting him in his place-

-well, maybe he did, a little-

-but she only did it when he was making a fool of himself, when it came right down to it.

She'd changed, like he'd thought, but not in the way that he'd thought; she'd grown up a lot since college, and she had sure learned a lot that you couldn't find in classrooms. And man, it was sure hard to tell that he'd done the same, with the way he'd been acting around her.

He sat in the sun for a long time, just letting it soak into him, trying to rearrange his thoughts when it came to Jennie, to put everything he thought he knew about her on the back burner and try to look at the past few days and weeks as if she were a total stranger.

Several observations immediately sprang to mind. She knew her job; really knew it. The cops respected her enough that they often cut her a fair amount of slack. She was making a living at a man's job, and at a job that a lot of men couldn't make a living doing.

Back when they'd broken up in college, he'd said some pretty unforgivable things. So maybe some of that enjoyment she was getting at putting him in his place was only payback.

And when it came to Medicine-she was the best he'd ever seen except for her Grandfather, and old man Talldeer was better than anyone he'd ever heard of, outside of stories he'd never believed. He'd watched both of them as they tried to find answers to the questions that baffled them; they went at their medicine-ceremonies with a competence and a calm that reminded him of an expert silversmith that he knew. Twice he'd actually been allowed to participate, in a small way. It had stopped making him shiver and had started fascinating him, even if it wasn't "his" tribal Medicine.

Maybe it was time to make a fresh start with her. He'd sure taken enough hits to his ego to soften it up for the job. . . .

Funny thing was, when he opened his eyes on the field of tallgrass, he felt kind of light. And more relaxed. Maybe that ego of his had been heavier than he had thought.

The feeling of lightness persisted all the way back to town, to the point that even though the rush-hour traffic was horrible, he wasn't upset by it. He simply sat calmly behind the wheel, and let the traffic move when it wanted to; he even let people cut him off without snarling at them.

He pulled up into the Talldeer driveway and saw that Jennie's little Brat was pulled up under the carport. He felt a momentary twinge, then-

Come on, you said you were going to do this, now don't back out on it. Go in, apologize, tell her you were being an idiot and why, apologize for being an idiot when you broke up, and ask her to start all over as friends.

He took a deep breath, took the keys out of the ignition, and went in.

From that moment on, life became-if not easier, certainly easier to take. Jennie had been surprised by his apology, but he had sensed an air of skepticism, as if she had been certain his change of attitude wouldn't last.

But these days he wasn't in the habit of treating other women the way he'd treated her since they'd first collided on that doorstep. It wasn't so much a change of attitude as it was reestablishing the appropriate attitude.

He understood her skepticism, and he was determined to break it down by proving himself. After two days, her skepticism had softened into something like a pleased surprise. After three days, he decided to try dropping the bomb on her.

He was sitting in her office while she phoned in the results of another one of her investigations to her client/Personnel checks, apparently-these days a lot of people wanted to know if a prospective employee was in the habit of suing his bosses or had an inordinate number of workman's comp claims. The news was good, the client was happy, and Jennie was in a good mood when she hung up and turned to him.

"Think you can spare me a couple hours?" he asked, before she could say anything.

She looked surprised, but nodded. Not warily this time, which was a nice change. "Sure-you've been putting in an awful lot of time on our mutual case for me. So, what do you need?"

He sat back in his chair. "I need-hell, this is really hard for me-" He felt himself actually blushing. "I sound like some retro hippie or something. But-I've been watching you and Grandfather, and I need-I'd like-I-"

He had planned the whole speech out, and now it deserted him along with his confidence. "Jennie-I mean, maybe I ought to call you by your Osage name for this, but you never told it to me-I want-can you-help me?" He looked up at her hopefully. "I'm Cherokee and you're not, and I know what some of my people did to yours, but you and Grandfather are the only Medicine People I know well enough to ask."

She blinked at him, and for a long moment, said nothing. Then she took a deep breath, and said, very carefully, "Are you asking me to help you find your spiritual identity?"

He nodded, grateful beyond words that she had articulated what he had not been able to.

"Oh my." She blinked again, then suddenly grinned. "You know, your ancestors must be rotating in their graves like high-speed lathes. Have I ever told you what my people called yours?"

He shook his head.

Her mouth twitched. "It translates as Thing-On-Its-Head-People,' because you weren't particularly valiant by the arrogant standards of my people, nor were you particularly outstanding in any other way, and the only way they could think to distinguish you from other nations was by the bandana the Cherokees wrapped around their heads."

She started giggling then, and after a moment, he saw the joke.

"Well, if my ancestors are twirling, yours are probably trying to beat a path back from the Summerlands to whup some sense into your head," he replied, with a weak laugh. "That is, if you're even considering it."

"Considering it?" She giggled again. "Good god, David, Grandfather actually predicted this two days ago, and I didn't believe him! How can I not do my best to help you when he said that he was going to oversee the whole shebang?"

"The whole shebang" began with a three-day fast, punctuated with sweatlodge ceremonies, which honestly was something he had expected. He wasn't completely ignorant of Medicine Ways after all.

Grandfather Talldeer-who he was now supposed to refer to as either "Mooncrow" or "Little Old Man"- insisted that he move into Jennie's spare room for the duration of the ceremony. But he was to bring nothing, not even clothing, other than what he had on his back.

The first day of his fast he didn't see Jennie at all; Mooncrow led him through a special bath, followed by a long stint in the sauna-cum-sweatlodge. The old man was a lot more pragmatic than David had expected, handling things very calmly, as if he did this sort of thing every day.

"In the old days," Mooncrow said, as he took a seat on the floor of the sauna, and poured a dipperful of water over the heated rocks, "we'd have a drummer and a singer in here, chanting to put your mind on the right path. But these days-well, my drummer's in Talequah running his gas station, and my singer's splitting his time between classes and asking 'do you want fries with that?' So we'll have to make do."

"Make do?" David asked, wondering what the old man had in mind.

Mooncrow grinned, and took a towel off a bright yellow sports-model cassette player. "Got to deal with modern ways, sometimes. This thing doesn't mind the heat, and doesn't have a job and a mortgage and kids to feed. Doesn't get tired, either."

David raised a skeptical eyebrow. If it had been his call, he would have thought this was way too much like buying a videotape of enlightenment . . . but if Mooncrow approved it. ...

But the tape Mooncrow started was not some synthesizer and Pan-flute, white-bread version of a drum chant. This was the real thing, recorded in a drum-circle, not a studio; it went straight into his chest and vibrated his entire body. His heart throbbed in time with it; his whole body swayed in time to it, and as Mooncrow lit a bundle of sweetgrass for smoke, David did not find it at all difficult to fall into the meditative state the old man demanded of him.

Three days of sweats and ritual baths, of tales and instruction, and in the end, it came down to this; standing barefoot in the middle of a clearing on some friend of Mooncrow's private land, wearing nothing but a loincloth of the old style and a medicine-bag Jennie had made for him. Mooncrow had awakened him this morning long before dawn, put him in his old pickup truck, and had left him here before the sun rose. David was light-headed from fasting, but his mind was clear, as clear as the sky overhead, and the breeze that brushed his body.

He felt like an entirely new and different person-one with more patience, fewer prejudices, and the wisdom to know he wasn't perfect. If this was a religious revelation- well-he figured he could get to like his "new self" in a hurry.

This part of the vision-quest was another change from the old days, Mooncrow told him, with some regret. In the old days he would have gone straight out into the wilderness from his own village and would have stayed out where he would never see another human, traveling in whatever direction the omens sent him, until he met his spirit-animal.

"Of course," Mooncrow had added with a chuckle, both strong hands holding the steering wheel, "in the old days you would have done this long ago, when you were a boy, and you would not have been permitted in the company of men until you had."

But there was no wilderness near enough to Tulsa to permit such a vision-quest; no place at all in the continental United States where he would not, sooner or later, encounter some other human if he began wandering,

So he would remain where he had been left, and his spirit-totem must come to him.

Along with the light-headedness of fasting, there was the light-headedness of excitement. He had been three days in preparation for this, and he had imagined many times what his spirit-animal might be. The Horse of his family name- the Puma-the Bear-the Wolf-best of all, the Eagle-

Don't focus on what you want, that's what Mooncrow said, he reminded himself. Don't focus on anything. Just wait, without expectations. Open yourself to the Earth. . . .

He did not even notice that he had settled, cross-legged, as easy as a leaf drifting down from the trees. He simply found himself sitting instead of standing, dismissed that, and as Mooncrow and Jennie had taught him, became a part of this little corner of the Earth, as still and as accepting as the grass.

He was not even aware of the passing of time, except as a change in the shadows and the patterns of shade and sunlight.

So when the white-tail buck stepped into the clearing and walked straight to him, he was not even excited. It was a beautiful animal, and he was lost in admiration of it. Sun gleamed on the buck's rust-brown sides, making him shine like a living statue of molten copper. He was a ten-pointer, and his rack shone black and bronze, gleaming as if it had been polished. His huge, liquid brown eyes stared directly at David; his black patent-leather nose twitched as he took in David's scent. He picked his way slowly and deliberately across the clearing, his ears pointed toward David, each hoof placed with such care that the dry leaves barely whispered as he passed.

At least, David was not excited, until the Deer dipped his nose to look into David's eyes, and said, "Well. And it certainly took you long enough to see me!"

Mooncrow sat on a rock beside him, sunlight shining on his crown of gray hair, and chuckled. "The Deer, hmm?"

David was a little chagrined at the identity of his spirit-animal; not disappointed, but chagrined. After all of Mooncrow's admonitions not to expect any particular animal, he still had fallen into the trap of hoping for something, well, a little more macho. If his spirit animal had to be one of the deer family-it would have been nice to have something like the wapiti, the great Elk, and not the white-tail buck. A little more like a power symbol and less like Bambi. . . .

"You don't sound surprised," David remarked, after a moment. He had to be gratified by one thing, at least. It couldn't be more than noon, by the sun. His spirit-totem had revealed itself to him in a very short time. He had heard stories of it taking anywhere from one day to a whole week, sometimes more.

The old man smiled, giving him a sideways look out of the corner of his eye. "I'm not surprised," he replied. "I already knew. Kestrel saw him."

The first thing, the very first thing, that came into his mind, was why didn't they tell me! It was inevitable; if they knew, it followed by logic that this whole spirit-quest could have been bypassed.

But he knew why. What was the point in telling him? This was not some kind of Monte Hall giveaway; this was a quest, his quest, of self-discovery. What would the point have been of telling him? If they had, it would have meant nothing.

But the second question that occurred to him was to wonder when Kestrel-Jennie-had seen his spirit-animal.

"She saw Deer trying to warn you the other night," the old man went on, blandly, as David started again. Was Mooncrow some kind of mind reader? "It was when you almost tripped that bomb, and he was trying to get you to leave it alone."

"Oh," was all he could say. Mooncrow favored him with another enigmatic smile.

"Deer is a very proud creature," the old man continued. "Sometimes-too proud. He lifts his antlers high and displays for the ladies at times when he should be watching for hunters. The scent of a female can make him forget all caution. And when he scents another male-that makes him forget everything else but locking horns!"

David flushed and hoped Mooncrow wouldn't notice, because much as he hated to admit it, Mooncrow's description of Deer certainly fit David. . . .

"But those are his vices," Mooncrow said with a shrug. "I am certain that you can think of his virtues for yourself. But among the Children of the Middle Waters, his chief virtues are cleverness, speed, strength, and agility. Perhaps among your people he has virtues beyond those."

David shrugged slightly; he really didn't know. But once again, he had to admit that Deer certainly fit him. He liked to think of himself as being clever and a quick thinker; and in school, he'd been in track and field.

"This does not mean that you are to stop learning, Spotted Horse," Mooncrow went on, serenely. "Your spirit-animal only shows you what you are, and will be your guide to the other spirit-creatures from which you must learn. Every creature has virtues and vices, and you must learn to acquire the virtues and conquer the weaknesses. Reject no spirit as being unable to teach. Even Spider can teach a powerful lesson, All things come lo my web and break their necks therein. That is why one of our gentes is the gente of the Spider, and why our women in the old days had the Spider tattooed upon their hands. Or Crayfish! Crayfish gave us the four sacred colors of clay! There is nothing so weak and small that it cannot have power-and nothing so powerful that something weak and small cannot overcome it."

David nodded, earnestly, and suddenly felt as if he were being watched by hundreds of eyes. . . .

He looked around, covertly. He was being watched by hundreds of eyes! The clearing was full of animals, all listening to Mooncrow and nodding their heads in agreement- and watching David to see if he was paying attention. 'Is this a hallucination, or-'

"A hallucination is only an uncontrolled glimpse elsewhere, Spotted Horse," Mooncrow interrupted the thought. "Sometimes the 'elsewhere' is the spirit world, sometimes it is only the inside of your own head. You should be able to tell the difference, soon. Both can teach you something."

David's temper flared a little. "Are you a showman, or a shaman?" he snapped, without thinking.

But Mooncrow only laughed, throwing his head back and crinkling up his eyes. Then he turned a face full of innocence toward David, and said, "Yes." Just that.

Now, so far, every person David had met who had ever claimed to be a Medicine Person would react to that question with varying degrees of anger. Either shamed anger that he had caught them out, or anger that he would even consider that they were not what they claimed to be. No one had ever answered him "yes" to both!

He couldn't help it; he sat and stared incredulously, as the animals rustled and stirred, and seemed to be laughing too.

"David, that is a silly question," Jennie chided, from behind him. He turned his head, and there she was, although he had not seen or heard her approaching. Like her grandfather, she was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, although both of them wore eagle feathers in their hair, just as he had seen in the triple vision. The hard tail-feather on the right side, the soft under-tail covert, dyed red, on the left. Now he knew what that meant; that they knew the medicines of both the Hunkahand the Tzi-Sho, and of all of the gentes of both divisions. They were Medicine People the like of which could not have existed in the old days. Small wonder the Osage on Calligan's crews respected them so much.

"Why's it silly?" he asked, a little belligerently.

She chuckled. "Because it's either or, very simplistic. But the real situation isn't at all simple, for every good shaman has to be a showman as well; sometimes people simply won't believe a thing until you've wrapped it up in fancy paper and ribbon, and bestowed it with a fireworks display. And because in order to counterfeit something that is genuine, you have to at least understand the appearance of the genuine, every showman has at least a little shaman in him. For that matter, there is no reason why a showman can't teach you something valuable. It's perfectly possible to learn all the right lessons from the wrong source, if your heart is right."

"Or as I tell the kids who come to play Nintendo with me," Mooncrow said, his voice still full of warmth and amusement, "Luke Skywalker learned as much from Darth Vader as he did from Ben Kenobi and Yoda. He even learned a thing or two from that ne'er-do-well, Han Solo!"

David looked from Jennie to her grandfather and back again. Finally he shook his head. "You two have been reading too much Joseph Campbell."

"Or you have been reading too little," Mooncrow countered, standing and beckoning to him. "Come. Jennie has your clothing, and the car is ready. It is time to go."

And that, so it seemed, was that.

Except for the thoughts that ran through his head while they drove him home, fed him, and put him to bed. Thoughts that kept him silent, danced behind his closed eyes, and percolated through his dreams, a welter of Deer and Bear, space fighters and ancient warriors-

His dreams took a turn they never had before. He found himself wandering in a virgin wilderness, watching, listening, and then-

Then hiding, from a strange black beast that was neither human, bird nor animal, that walked upon two legs and left the land waste behind it. ...

This time Smith had called Rod Calligan, rather than the other way around, calling him at home. Rod took the call in his home office, after making certain that Toni couldn't pick up one of the other phones without him knowing. And the question the man asked him rather surprised Rod.

Brusque, blunt. "Are you getting anywhere with the Talldeer chick? How close are you to getting rid of her?"

"I haven't actually seen her once," Rod said, carefully, not mentioning the trap the girl had sprung and then taken. "She hasn't been out to the site that I know of, and she hasn't personally questioned anyone who's still on the project. I think I've thrown her a couple of fastballs, and at least she hasn't been actively interfering. No one's called me from your company. Why?"

"Because I have an idea," Smith replied, 'cautiously. "I want to be certain she's out of the picture before we do anything about it. It's a way to capitalize a little further on that land of yours."

As Smith outlined his "idea," Calligan began to smile.

Once the mall project was dead, Smith would come in with a phony holding company, and some cash; Rod would supply the rest. Smith's company would buy the land for next to nothing-land already cleared and waiting, ready for any purpose they cared to put it to. Rod would use his leverage with the county commissioners to get the area opened for a landfill. He would look like a good guy, making sure that the land was used for something that would produce some county tax revenue. And there would be plenty of clean dirt and rock going in there--with all the flood-control work going on, the dirt dredged up had to go somewhere, after all. Even the tree-huggers would be happy, if Smith's company promised to build a park on it once the landfill was full.

"That's what'll go on during the day," Smith said. "And I know, there's not much profit there. But after hours, we'll be doing something else-"

Because John Smith had a contact at a drilling company, and his contact had a lot of friends just like them. Wildcatters and independent oil drilling firms were having a hard time keeping their heads above water as it was-and all the piddly-shit regulations about disposing of the chemicals that came out of wells were driving a lot of them under. "You know anything about drilling?" Smith asked. "Not much," Calligan admitted. The fetish-bundle in his pocket seemed to draw his fingers to it. The soft leather felt comforting.

"Well, they have to force water, sometimes steam, down into slow wells to force the oil up," Smith told him, while he listened intently. "The water that comes up out of wells along with the oil is full of chemicals, from cyanide to polycarbonates, many of them very dangerous. The old way was to bury or dump the chemically-loaded water, but new regulations say the water has to be cleaned, the chemicals removed. The marginal drilling firms just can't afford the cost of running an 'environmentally correct' drilling operation. That's where we come in."

So by day the big trucks full of river sand and construction rock would come in, and leave piles of sand that would be bulldozed to cover up the barrels of chemicals John's "buddies" had left there at night. There'd be big money all around for everyone, and by the time anyone found out what was being dumped there, he and John Smith would be long gone. And no one would even be able to prove that they had even known about the illegal dumping in the first place. The chemical barrels would be unmarked. Everything would be in cash; no way to trace the payoffs, no way even to prove where the chemicals came from.

It was a beautiful scheme. It was no less beautiful, in that John had tentatively picked out another site, although he had done nothing about acquiring it yet.

"That one would have cost a lot more," Smith said. "It would have been a legal hazardous waste site, although it wouldn't have been rated for the welded barrels my people were going to bring in. The EPA would assume those fancy leakproof barrels, not welded steel."

When Rod asked him about the second site, he discovered he had another reason to buy into Smith's plan. The other site was very near Rod's subdivision-

That would not have been possible to keep under wraps for very long. Smith said candidly that the operation would be a short-lived one; six to eight months at the most, before someone found out and pulled the plug. It meant high profit, but high risk; people watchdogged those sites all the time, and sooner or later, someone would have started asking questions about the trucks coming in after normal operating hours.

Certainly word would have leaked out long before Rod was ready to sell his house and pull up stakes.

Word would leak out about the same time the cyanide did, he thought, amused at his own cleverness.

"It sounds good to me," he told Smith. "Tell you what, if the bitch gets out of hand, you think you can give me some help with her?"

"I didn't intend to, when it was just you and this bankruptcy scheme, but if we add in the dumping, that makes it worth my time," Smith replied, as Rod smiled. "Just say the word. I have-contacts."

The next day, it was business-as-usual, although Jennie didn't seem to be lobbying for him to move out of the spare room and back to his motel. In fact, Mooncrow suggested he go check out of the motel-"for a while, at least"-and stay with them, to further his education in Medicine. He didn't need a second invitation; it took him less than an hour to get everything moved into the guest room; Jennie didn't say anything, and she had to have noticed. '

It was business-as-usual, except for an incredible lightness of spirit, despite the strange dreams of last night. He just couldn't get angry at anyone for anything. He ran a few more checks for Jennie after he'd stashed his stuff in the room, while she took care of some smaller cases, tracking down spouses who'd split and were not paying alimony.

And he watched, and listened, to her and Mooncrow. Maybe he was seeing things more clearly now, but-

-but under all the teasing, the things that seemed like sniping, there was a very deep and abiding love between Jennie and Mooncrow. It kind of surprised him, in a way; he hadn't known they could have a teacher/student relationship and still have that kind of emotional bond.

He noticed something else, as well. Mooncrow was worried about something-about Jennie-but was keeping very quiet about it. Was it because he respected Jennie's ability to take care of herself? Or was it simply to keep from appearing to be an interfering old man?

If it had been anyone else, David would have said it was the latter. But not with these two.

And Jennie was beating herself over the head about something, something that had nothing to do with any of her current investigations. What it was, he had no idea, but as he watched her all through that day and the next, there was at least one thing she was doing that he figured he might be able to cure.

It was a trap he'd fallen into himself often enough to be able to see the same fault in her.

She was being way too serious, all the time; it was one thing to make sure the work got done, but it was another to let the work take over your life. She probably hadn't taken any time out just to have fun in years! There was a little tension-crease between her eyebrows that he wanted badly to smooth away, and he wanted to do it because he was her friend, and not for any other reason.

Well, mostly not, anyway.

Finally, he just couldn't take it any more. He had to try something. Otherwise he could see her turning herself into a knot in no time flat.

It was about nine; she typed a few things into her computer with the decisive clicks he'd come to associate with her finishing for the night.

"There," she said, shoving the keyboard drawer back under the desktop. "That's as far as I'm going to get with this Calligan thing tonight-"

"Then let's go," he said, quickly, before she could say anything about a sauna, or early bed, or catching the news.

She blinked at him, as if she had forgotten completely that he was there. "Go?" she said, puzzled. "Go where? Why? What's open at this time of night?"

He grinned. "You like techno," he stated. He knew he was right; he'd seen the CDs on her shelf, and he'd heard her listening to the techno-industrial alternative-rock radio program from Rogers College-or at least she had, before the college administration in their infinite wisdom shut it down.

"So?" One eyebrow lifted.

"So trust me." Before she could object, he came around to the side of her desk and held out his hand. She took it, dubiously. He pulled her to her feet, and led her out the door. She got into the passenger's side of his car with an expression of puzzled patience. It changed to an expression of disbelief when he headed downtown, since most of the downtown area locked up by 5:30 at night.

Most of it.

He took her to a rave, at a "club" that hadn't been there a month ago, and might not be next month, in a building that had been everything from a factory to an art gallery.

They were probably the oldest people there; it was hard to tell. The lighting was not particularly conducive to taking a good look at peoples' faces. Interesting thing about techno; the heavy beat was not all that dissimilar to drum-song. He hadn't done any fancy-dancing in a long time, but when the beat caught him up and he found himself gyrating as if he were wearing his old costume, he simply let his body do what it wanted to. Jennie clapped her hands and grinned like a maniac; she recognized the moves, even if the kids there didn't. He wasn't dancing for them, anyway; he was dancing for her, parading like the buck deer before the doe, and they both knew it, and both were delighted by the sheer silliness of it.

He drew a crowd anyway, a little circle of admirers, and when that piece ended and another began, Jennie got into the act, leaping into the circle and matching him beat for beat. He'd forgotten she used to compete in the shawl-dancing; maybe she had forgotten too, until that moment. Now it was a kind of competition between the two of them, but a competition of display, where it didn't matter who won, or even if there was a winner at all.

The band gave up before they did. But the moment the music ended, they tossed sweat-soaked hair out of their eyes, and traded a look of agreement.

This was enough for one night.

It took a little time to work through the crowd to get to the door and the parking lot. David was a little surprised when he stopped under a lot-light and looked at his watch to see that it was already midnight.

Beside him, Jennie paused to glance at her own watch. "Wow!" she said in a tone of awe. "I have more stamina than I thought!"

"Same here," he confessed, laughing. "Think we showed those cubs a thing or two?"

"Well, either they decided that we were too crazy to mess with, or we'll have started a new dance craze by morning," she replied. She stood under the light long enough to pull her hair back and braid it. That little frownline was gone, at least for the moment, and he felt a definite glow of satisfaction at how relaxed and happy she looked.

"Can I show you a good time, or what?" he asked, smugly.

"A lot better than what you used to think was a good time," she retorted. "A mug of beer, a loaf of rhetoric, and thou-"

He started to get angry, and stopped himself just in time. Things were going well. He wouldn't gain a thing by starting an argument. Besides, she had a point.

"I guess I've loosened up some, since then," he said mildly, and grinned when he saw the blank look on her face, the surprise that he hadn't plowed right into a fight. "You could stand to loosen up some, yourself, Jen."

She flushed, but he realized how she could take that last comment, and went on.

"What I mean is, you don't have fun enough. Take some time out, for godsake. See a movie! What was the last movie you saw?" He knew he had her then, when she had to think about it.

"Uh. Beauty and the Beast?" she said. I "See what I mean!" he responded triumphantly. "You haven't even gone out for a walk, or rented a horse, or anything unless it had something to do with your work! Right?"

She shuffled her feet a little in the gravel of the parking lot. "I guess so. . . ."

"You need more fun in your life," he said, decisively. "If you get bleeding ulcers and wind up in the hospital, who's gonna put Calligan away? Who's gonna make sure he doesn't sell our people up the river? Who's gonna keep Mooncrow from living on pizza and ice cream?"

"All right, all right!" she conceded, throwing up her hands. "I surrender! If you want to be the designated maker-of-fun, go right ahead! Just remember, the work has to be done first, before we have fun."

He executed a fancy-dance step, right there in the lot, and amazingly, didn't fall on his face or turn an ankle in all that gravel. She chuckled.

He took that as a good omen.

Toni Calligan put her forehead down on the kitchen table, and fought tears. She was beginning to think she ought to pack the kids up for the summer and take them someplace safe.

Like maybe a maximum-security prison! There certainly didn't seem to be any safety around here!

No one, not any of the repairmen she'd called, had been able to figure just what had gone wrong with the dryer. One of them had even accused her of sabotaging it herself! He'd said it looked as if someone had just gotten in there and cut the insulation off of everything in sight. . . .

She succeeded in persuading Rod to buy a new dryer-after making certain he didn't hear that particular story. But that had only been the start of her problems.

A few days later, a fire started in the garage; fortunately, a neighbor saw it and put it out before it did any damage, He really saw it start, too; he'd been taking a break from mowing and told Toni he thought he'd seen a dog or something run into their garage. He described it perfectly; a grayish-yellow dog with pointed ears and a bushy tail, about the size of a spitz. Since he knew they didn't have a dog, and since there was a rabies scare going on, he'd gone in after it, armed with a stick, only to see the back corner of the garage go up-"like a torch," he'd said. "I couldn't believe it. One minute, everything's fine; the next, the wall's on fire!"

Funny thing, there was no dog, either, and it couldn't have gotten past him.

Rod had been livid about that. He'd been certain she'd let the kids play with matches, or that she'd stored greasy rags there, or something. And it didn't matter that the only things in that corner were the garden tools; it had to be her fault.

Then she'd come out into the backyard yesterday just in time to see Jill in her sandbox, about to pick up a scorpion! Thank God she'd come out when she did! No one could believe it, not even when they saw the crushed insect for themselves; there hadn't been scorpions around ever, for as long as this subdivision had been here.

She certainly set off a round of exterminators, though. Every house in the neighborhood had exterminators poking under it; theirs included.

And now, today-

Oh God.

Ryan came in crying not a half hour ago, bruised and scraped, claiming something had pushed him into the street, in front of a car-

And right behind him came a strange woman with a face as white as Toni's had turned, corroborating the child.

"He was just standing there, like a good boy, waiting for me to go by," she babbled, "just standing there, all alone. I thought, just as I got to the corner, that it was a good thing he was such a good little boy. Then, suddenly there was a man standing next to him, then the poor tyke went flying into the street, right in front of me, exactly like that man had shoved him from behind! Then the man was gone, and I hit the brakes-"

Ryan had only saved himself by rolling, then going flat, so that the car actually passed over him without hitting him, The driver had nearly had a heart attack before he crawled out from under her car. She had brought him home herself, quickly, at that point.

Toni was so close to hysteria herself by then that she actually felt calm.

She assured the poor woman that everything was all right, that no, there was no need to leave her name and address, that things would be fine. She was dead certain that Rod would have been on the phone to his lawyer-but she wasn't Rod, and Rod wasn't going to hear about this, not if she could help it.

He'd probably find a way to blame her as well as that poor woman, anyway.

After she'd somehow said the right things to the stranger, and had sent her off to her car babbling gratitude, she bathed and bandaged Ryan's scrapes and put him to bed with cartoons and a bowl of ice cream. Then she sat herself down at the kitchen table and shook.

If this kind of thing kept up, she was going to need a prescription for Valium. . . .

As soon as she stopped shaking, she was suddenly seized with the need to see that the kids were all right. She checked on Jill-she was still playing safely in the sandbox (checked, double-checked, and refilled with clean sand, and the exterminator had been all over the house and yard this morning), Rod Junior was at a Little League practice, and those were supervised. Ryan was asleep.

She went back to the kitchen, slumped in her favorite chair, and stared at the wall for a while.

That was when some of what the stranger had said-and she had dismissed-came back to her.

Ryan had been standing alone at the corner, and in this neighborhood, there was nothing to hide behind at the corners, nothing to make it hard for a driver to see the kids. Yet-Ryan and the stranger agreed, that one moment he had been alone, but the next second, someone had jumped up behind him and pushed him out into the street.

Then, inexplicably, the attacker had vanished.

Now, the woman was hysterical, and Ryan was too. And in the few seconds it took for the woman to slam on her brakes and run to the front of her car, it was perfectly possible for a child, a bully who had gone too far, to run for the cover of one of the backyards.

Except that both Ryan and the woman agreed that it hadn't been a child. And this adult would have found it very difficult to hide in a normal suburban neighborhood like theirs.

For according to both the stranger-who had no reason to make up such a wild story, and Ryan-who had never lied, this adult had not been the kind of person you saw on the street.

In fact, he had been an Indian. In beads, mohawk, blanket, and leather pants. Everything but war-paint.

The next day, David talked Jennie into giving him some of the paperwork to do so that they could take in a movie. The day after, he dragged her off to Bell's Amusement Park. The day after that, he varied the routine by kidnapping her for a picnic at lunch.

It all paid off handsomely. That worry-line was becoming fainter, and she had less of a pinched look about her. And there still was no talk of him moving out of the spare room.

In the meantime, he split his time between doing that "legwork" ,for her-which included, to his surprise and pleasure, being granted some of the surveillance she had been doing-and reading the books and private notebooks that "mysteriously" turned up in his room. Some of them surprised him; stuff he would have thought was far too much along the lines of what you'd find in a so-called "occult bookstore" for Mooncrow to have any respect for. But then he remembered that business about learning things from unlikely sources, and read what had been left him without comment.

When he wasn't away from the house on one errand or another, he watched Mooncrow teaching the neighborhood kids without them ever realizing that they were learning anything. They just thought he told neat stories, and knew how to do excellent things. He'd even weaned them from Nintendo to real archery practice, and they liked it. Sometimes, David even helped the old man, when he could.

This morning, since Jennie didn't have anything for him to do, Mooncrow had asked him to help with the lessons, and he'd been pleased to discover that he hadn't lost his knack for the sport. He and Mooncrow were watching the kids practice their archery with a critical eye when the old man suddenly cleared his throat in a way that usually preceded a lesson. David gave him a glance out of the corner of his eye. Surely he couldn't intend to say anything about Medicine in front of these kids!

But when the words finally came, they were not exactly what he'd expected.

"You and Kestrel have been getting along a lot better," Mooncrow remarked, with such an expression of absolute innocence that David immediately suspected some deeper purpose in the comment.

"It didn't hurt to apologize for some things I said when we broke up-and some more I said later," he replied, very carefully. "I was out of line, both times, assuming things I had no business assuming. She overreacted, but-I can't blame her, and I'd have done the same if our positions had been reversed."

"Hmm. Kestrel has a hasty temper, like her spirit-animal. If you touch her nesting pole, she will scold you even before she sees whether or not you intended to climb it." Mooncrow's full attention seemed to be on the kids lined up across the yard with their handmade bows, but David knew better.

However, that was the best way he'd ever heard of describing Jennie's tendency to shoot first and sort things out later.

"She's got a lot on her mind," David replied, feeling as if he ought to defend her. "People who have bad tempers and know it can usually keep their temper under control, unless they're already handling too much. ... I guess we both know she's a workaholic, and this Calligan thing is really getting to her. There's something going on there, a lot more than shows on the surface, but we can't seem to get past the surface. Yet. But I can't blame her for being a little short on temper, you know?"

"True." Mooncrow sighed. "I wanted to thank you. For getting her to enjoy herself a little more, and work a little less. It makes her less difficult to live with."

David had to chuckle at that. "I'm not saying a word," he replied. "Anything I say is only too likely to get me in trouble!"

He brushed some imaginary dirt off the legs of his jeans, and waited for Mooncrow's reply. There would be one. The old man wasn't finished yet; he sensed it in the way Mooncrow kept watching him without seeming to watch him.

"I don't think it would hurt if you two were more than friends," Mooncrow said at last. "I don't think it would hurt if you backtracked in some ways to when you were younger." He looked slyly at David out of the corner of his eye. "I can't say I'd mind if you didn't need that spare room for anything but storing your things."

David blinked, and licked his lips. Well, that was certainly an unexpected development! He felt rather stunned. "I can't say that I'd be unhappy about things coming around that way." He paused for a moment. "Just how would you suggest I go about doing that?"

But Mooncrow only shrugged. "I'm an old man," he replied. "Things are not the same as they were when I courted her grandmother. Jennie is a warrior in her own right; her grandmother was a simpler woman with simpler needs. I have no suggestions. If I say anything to her, she is likely to throw you out; she is just as contrary at times as she accuses me of being. So it is all in your hands, young Spotted Horse."

Thanks a lot, he thought wryly, but not with a feeling of being offended. He liked Mooncrow; more than that, he trusted the old man, far more than he had trusted Mooncrow when he had been a child. Then, the old man had just been Jennie's grandfather who told good stories. Now he was a Teacher, a Medicine Person. ...

Hmm. I wonder if he was suggesting that as Jennie's grandfather, or as Mooncrow, Kestrel's Teacher? It would make a difference. . . .

He could even be suggesting it as both.

He would have been a lot more surprised at the oblique suggestion that he heat the situation up, if he hadn't already gotten the same "hints" from another of Jennie's relatives. Although he had never thought he'd hear Mooncrow suggesting he should share Jennie's bed! The other "hints" had been a lot more pedestrian. . . .

"If I didn't know better, Little Old Man," he said lightly, "I'd suspect you of being a shoka from Jennie's father."

"Oh?" Mooncrow replied, far too casually. "Why is that?"

David made a face. "Because I happened to 'run into him' three times in the last week-probably because he heard on the grapevine that I'm in your spare room. He dropped a few bricks-I'm sure he thinks they were hints."

Mooncrow chuckled at that. "My son was never known for subtlety," he told David. "Some day I must tell you how he proposed to Jennie's mother. But what were these unsubtle hints about?"

"Nothing much-just that it seems that the entire family would really approve if Jennie and I patched things back up again." He shook his head, ruefully. "If these were the old days, I have the horrible feeling that instead of me riding out to capture a bride, I'd be the one hog-tied and bent over Jennie's saddlebow, gift-wrapped by her loving family!"

And at that, Mooncrow broke into loud and hearty laughter, much to David's embarrassment, and the surprise of all the kids, who turned to see what on earth could be so funny.

David blushed a little, but felt impelled to tell Mooncrow all of it, however embarrassing it had been.

"He said that Jennie's mom and brothers always did like me, and that everybody wishes things would go back the way they were between us when we first started college." He sighed. "Back before we had that big fight, and I threw that stupid Huey Long quote at her, anyway. I guess she told her father about that. ..."

"Only recently," Mooncrow said serenely. "She told me about it later, after she had brought home the Hell's Angel-"

"What?" David yelped, taken completely by surprise.

The kids turned to look at them again.

"Well, perhaps he was not a Hell's Angel," Mooncrow amended. "But he did have a Harley Hog, and he did belong to a bike club. At any rate, when I did not approve of the young man, she told me what you had said; to show me how much better this man treated her, I think." Mooncrow nodded thoughtfully for a moment. "He did treat her well," he admitted, "but he was too interested in the 'instant enlightenment' and not in real achievement. He did not last long."

"Oh," David said, weakly. "Well ... ah ... I suppose I wasn't much better. I have to admit, I even knew at the time that it was a stupid thing to say, but-"

"But you were strutting and flashing your antlers, and she was not sufficiently impressed, so you decided to turn the antlers on her." Mooncrow nodded. "Well, you were young."

"Young men do stupid things," he agreed, and sighed.

Mooncrow grinned at him. "Even not-so-young men do stupid things, David," he replied, and left him on the back steps to go and correct his young archers.

_CHAPTER THIRTEEN

jennie locked the door of her office, turned up the radio, and buried her face in her hands. A headache had just begun in one temple. The name of her headache was-her family.

Right now, she was beginning to envy a client of hers who was an orphan.

Just once, she would like it very much if no one cared about who she was seeing or not seeing. Certainly having a family, an intelligent and curious family to boot, brought with it liabilities.

Like having a yentafor a father, she thought sourly, head in hands. My father, the matchmaker. He could have sent a shoka in full regalia, and been less obvious. He could have trotted out the whole family with courting gifts. I feel like I'm in a damn sitcom.

David. They all liked David. They were all making it perfectly clear to her how much they liked David, and how happy they would be if she and David would just go back to being the happy couple they'd been in college. Never mind that they really hadn't been all that happy a couple.

The worst part was, it would have been funny, if it had been happening to someone else. It would even be funny if she didn't like David so much.

She was getting at least three calls a day from one member of the family or another, and before the call was over, the topic of David Spotted Horse would somehow have worked its way into the conversation. How was he doing, had they gone anywhere together, did she think they might come over to Claremore for dinner some time in the next couple of days. . . . Even from her brothers; they were going fishing, would she and David like to join them-they were going to a powwow, would she and David like to come along.

Mother's bad enough, but Dad is worse. Her father thought he was being subtle; he was about as subtle as a billboard.

I don't know why he doesn't just rent a billboard. She could just see it now, out on I-44. Forty-eight feet wide, sixteen feet tall. Jennie, when are you and David going to-?

At least Mooncrow was keeping his mouth shut. He kept giving her looks, but at least he kept his mouth shut. It seemed as if everyone in the Talldeer family was trying to throw Jennie into David's bed-or vice versa-and no one was going to take "no" for an answer.

She expected that kind of thing out of David; after all, it wasn't as if he hadn't been hinting. But her own family?

/ thought they were supposed to want me to preserve my so-called honor! Not go jumping into some guy's bed!

Well, she wasn't having any. She could be just as stubborn as any of them, and she was not, by god, going to get herded into this as if she were the prize mare and David the champion stud!

I suppose by now Dad has waylaid David at least once, telling him how nice it would be if we got back together again, she thought forlornly. That's probably why he's been looking like a hopeful puppy these past few days.

The worst part of it was, if she'd wanted him before, now she really had it bad for him. This business with finding his spiritual direction was not just for show; he'd made an enormous amount of progress, and it made him all the more attractive to her. He'd been treating her the way she suspected he normally treated other women; as competent equals. He, at least, had managed to unload all that old baggage and start fresh, even if she had not.

She'd forgotten, deliberately, all the things about his personality that had attracted her to him in the first place. Now all those things were coming back with a vengeance, and if he was frustrated as hell, sleeping all alone just down the hall from her, she was twice as frustrated.

"We're just working colleagues," she kept telling him. She kept trying to convince herself of that. "We need to keep a certain distance to keep this professional."

She kept repeating that to herself, like a mantra. It wasn't working.

But dammit, I will not be herded into something, no matter who thinks it would be good for me! She buried her face in her hands and massaged her temples. You know, if the folks would just back off, it would be so much easier. He's a nice guy. He's more than a nice guy. I've got the hots for him like I've never had the hots for anyone else. I never lost the hots for him. If they 'd leave me alone, I could make up my mind about him, one way or another. If I could just think about this without the pressure. ...

And if pigs could fly.

David finished entering the last of his data into Jennie's computer, and did a backup before turning it off. Things had been markedly less strained between them since he'd been acting more like a big brother than anything else, but they'd really improved over the past couple of days. She had stopped wincing every time the phone rang.

It looked as if her folks had gotten the message. Finally.

Mooncrow promised he'd talk to Jennie's father and get him to back off, he thought, taking a quick glance at her. / guess he got through to them.

He'd basically given up on getting back together with her when he'd had that little talk with Mooncrow, asking if the old man would get Jennie's family to leave her alone. He'd already cooled his own jets. Things had been getting so strained that he was afraid she was going to tell him to get lost just to get her family off her back. And when it all came down to it-this Calligan thing was bigger than either of them. She was the only one who had all the right connections to put it all together. He was afraid that she needed help she wouldn't get if he had to make tracks.

So in order to make sure the job got done, his own desires needed to go on the back burner. Forever, if that was what it took.

The last thing I want is to screw things up for her all over again, he had decided. We make a good working team on this, and maybe I'm assuming too much, but I think she needs me if she's going to crack this case without breaking, herself. She needs two pairs of legs, two sets of eyes, and indirect contacts to Calligan's crew. I think she can do it alone, but it 'II put her in the hospital. She needs somebody she can delegate work to, and somebody she can bounce ideas off of.

And if he couldn't have anything else, he still wanted her as a friend and a Medicine mentor. He didn't have so many people he called "friend" that he could afford to lose any of them, much less lose one over something as stupid as her family trying to play matchmaker.

"That's it," he said, as she looked up from a pile of papers. "I've got it all in there, but I haven't spotted a pattern of artifact sales that correspond to anything that might have been taken from that gravesite. The only things positively identified as Osage are a couple of ribbon-work pieces that date to about 1890. There were some pots that could have been from the site, but they didn't seem old enough."

She sighed and rubbed her eyes. "You're getting pretty good at spotting patterns," she admitted. "If you don't see it, I don't think I would, either." She stood up and stretched. "I need the sauna. As the sauna. Grandfather is doing the Medicine work on this; he's so much better than I that it isn't funny."

"I'm going to call it a night," he replied. He flexed his shoulders. "I don't know how you can sit here and type for as long as you do. My eyes are tired, and I've got to meet some of Calligan's men tomorrow, the ones that are still working."

"More accidents already?" she said in surprise.

"Yeah-little ones, but a lot of them." He stood up and shoved the chair back under the desk. "Oh, Mooncrow wants us to take him somewhere tomorrow, after I talk to the guys."

Her eyes widened, and she nodded. As she had mentioned, Mooncrow had been doing some kind of Medicine for the past couple of days, "looking for something," she'd said. Apparently he'd found it.

"Well, go enjoy your steam, kiddo," he told her, and gave her a brotherly (he hoped) wink, and a peck on the cheek. "You've earned it. How about if tomorrow I buy you and Mooncrow some lunch?"

She laughed. "No you don't. I know damn good and well that you're on the end of your cash. I can't pay you much, but at least I can feed you."

He flushed, and shrugged. A few weeks ago he would have flatly denied he was in any financial trouble at all. A few months ago, he would have been angry at her for even suggesting he didn't have everything under control.

That was then. This is now. And-hey, this gives me exactly the opening I need.

"Okay. I can live with that." He leaned back against the wall, and tilted his head to one side. "You said a while back that you needed a secretary, or at least someone to help with the routine stuff. No reason why I can't hold that particular job down for room and board. If you want."

His reply, and the suggestion, evidently caught her flat-footed. "Do you really mean that?" she asked, after a moment. "Or are you just putting me on?"

Not for a chance to stay here, I'm not.

"Call it 'assistant' instead of 'secretary' and I'd feel better, but sure, I mean it," he told her, surprised he hadn't thought of this sooner. "It's no worse than any of the other jobs I've had. Shoot, Jennie, I've worked at Mickie D's, I've pumped gas in truck stops, I've even washed cars. This is cushy, compared to those jobs, and it's sure as hell more of an intellectual stimulus. I know some about computers, and I've been a paralegal in about five states. And where else am I going to get a package that includes room, board, and Medicine training?"

She bit her lip and looked at him as if she were seeing him for the first time. "You know," she replied, slowly, "if I had an assistant, I could take on a lot more cases than I do. I could train you, help you get your P.I. license. We don't make a bad team."

He snorted. "Hell, I think we make a great team. If you're willing to make it a little more formal."

She nodded, slowly. "Tell you what; let's work out this Calligan thing and see if we can keep from killing each other, and after we get it wrapped up, whatever additional cases I can take in with you as an assistant, I'll pay you for. Deal?"

"Deal," he replied instantly. And with relief. This was something solid and settled. He'd needed "solid" for a while; he just hadn't figured it out till now.

She grinned. "You know, you're the one who's going to have to do all the paperwork on yourself. Quarterlies, 1099s, the whole bit!"

"Not a problem. Now go bake yourself," he told her. "We've both got early starts to make tomorrow."

She wandered off down the hall; he closed up .the office and headed in the opposite direction, toward the kitchen. He got himself a quick snack; glanced into the darkened living room, and saw that Mooncrow had already retired to his room. The old man had been "working" a lot; he probably needed a good night's rest more than Jennie did at this point. Medicine sure can take it out of you, he thought soberly, heading back toward his own room, after making certain of all the physical locks on doors and windows and turning off the lights. I never knew that, either. It's work, as hard as manual labor. Hell, no wonder the old man is in good shape. He has to be. Maybe that's why Jennie took Tai Chi way back when. Maybe I ought to think about some kind of martial arts class, or aerobics, or something. ...

As he turned off the hall lights, he saw that there was no light coming from either the sauna or from under Jennie's door. Good, he thought with satisfaction. She needs the rest. I'll just do a couple of chapters in that book about the Osage and-

But as he opened his own door and closed it again, he froze. Because he was not alone. His hand stuck to the light switch as he heard soft breathing; after a moment, he lowered it, carefully.

My .45 is tucked right on top of the Webster's. Whoever this is-

"Don't bother looking for your gun," came a whisper from behind him, as he stealthily reached toward the top of the bookcase by the door, where he kept his automatic. "I moved it."

A pair of hands rested on his shoulders for a moment, and turned him carefully around. "I figured your reflexes were as automatic as mine," Jennie continued, with a chuckle, "and I didn't want to get shot."

She laughed softly, deep in her throat. It was the most incredibly sexy laugh he'd ever heard. He brought his hands up, slowly, and she fitted herself into his arms.

"Jennie, what are you doing here?" he said, finally. A stupid thing to say, but it was the only thing his stupefied brain could come up with.

"Sexual harassment," she said. "Trying to see if I can get my new secretary to go to bed with me."

"Assistant," he replied, firmly. "I'm holding out for assistant. I may be easy, but I'm not cheap."

Jennie chuckled again, and pulled him over to the bed, "All right," she agreed. "Assistant it is." She began unbuttoning his shirt, slowly, taking the initiative. "So long as it's understood that I am the one seducing you."

"Yes, boss-ma'am," he replied obediently. His fingers touched the top button of her jeans, and stopped there. "By the way, if you don't mind my asking-why now?"

"Because I don't like to be herded," she said, fiercely, then pulled his face down to hers and kissed him, licking the corners of his mouth, nibbling his lower lip. "I don't like conspiracies-especially when my own family is doing the conspiring."

"I prefer cooperative efforts, myself, boss-ma'am," he agreed, then returned the kiss with interest. Her skin tingled at the touch of his tongue; his technique had definitely improved. He pulled away just long enough to ask, "Your safe-sex, or mine?"

"Mine," she replied, rattling the little plastic packet she pulled out of the pocket of her jeans. "I'm the boss, remember?" She took the upper hand again, pulling him down onto the bed and tumbling after, pulling his shirt off and starting on his jeans. He returned the favor, slipping his hands up under her T-shirt.

After that, things only got better.

She couldn't help making then-and-now comparisons-but they all came out in favor of "now." This was a double bed, not a bunk. They didn't have to worry about being caught by the R.A., or by his or her roommate. He was a better, more considerate lover. So, she hoped, was she ... at least she'd learned how to make putting on a condom a sensual experience.

And there was something more, now, that hadn't been there when they were in college. Something between them, a kind of energy. It wasn't passion-they'd had plenty of that, before. Probably too much. This was something that carried over into everything; made every touch of a fingertip seem doubly intense.

Whatever it was, it was wonderful.

Arid even when it was over, when they both collapsed in exhaustion, "it" wasn't gone.

She listened to his heartbeat slow, with her ear against his chest, and fitted herself into the curve of his arm, trying to sort it all out.

"I suppose this means asking for a Christmas bonus is out of the question," he said, conversationally.

She started to giggle; she couldn't help it. "Where the hell did you get this sense of humor?" she demanded. "All of a sudden, you can laugh at yourself-you never did that before!"

He took a deep breath, and let it out, slowly. "I had it all along, I just didn't think that-hell, I just didn't think, period." He ran a finger along the side of her face. "I don't exactly know, Jennie. Kestrel. Maybe that's it. I stopped posing with you-or when I do pose, we both know it. Does that seem logical?"

"As logical as anything," she replied, thoughtfully. "Funny; all of a sudden I feel like I'm living with my skin off."

He sighed. "So do I," he replied, slowly, sleepily. "So do 'I. I-have to confess something though."

"What, that your good behavior is temporary?"

He started to laugh, after a moment of silence. Quietly, but it was real laughter.

"How did you guess?" he asked. She snuggled a little closer.

"Because it happens to me, every time I have a profound Medicine experience," she confessed in turn. "I go on really good behavior for a while, then, well, I start to slip back to being a bitch. Not as big a bitch as I was before, but-still, there it is. I'm human; so are you. I guess humans can only be perfect for so long."

Her confession left him quiet for a moment.

"I'll make a deal with you," he said, finally, as she hoped he would. "If you give me a little slack when I'm being a bastard, I'll cut you some when you're being a bitch."

She smiled, into the darkness. "It's a deal," she replied softly.

Mooncrow seemed neither surprised nor displeased when they both came out of the same room in the morning. He simply greeted them both in a very preoccupied way; Jennie sobered completely, forgetting her own faint embarrassment, when she caught his mood. Whatever he expected to learn today, it was far more important than who had slept in whose bed last night, or any other night for that matter.

They all three piled into Mooncrow's car, although David was the one who drove, following the old man's brief instructions. Jennie perched in the back seat, leaning forward so she could listen to both of them. Mooncrow guided them out past the airport, following I-169 toward Catoosa, but on the local roads and not the highway. They seemed to be tracing the course of Mingo Creek. . . .

"Here-" Mooncrow said, suddenly. "Take the next turnoff."

That proved to be a graveled county road; in pretty good shape, actually, better than she had feared it might be when she saw the gravel. It looked as if the county had managed to get most of the roads graveled after the washouts of spring. Mooncrow sat tensely on the front seat beside David and peered ahead through the windshield. It was obvious now why he had wanted David to drive; he was looking for something. Or perhaps, he was watching for "landmarks" not visible to the ordinary eye.

A crude, one-lane, timbered bridge crossed the creek ahead of them. Jennie's guess about the creek was borne out when the old man told David to stop at the bridge.

"We'll have to leave the car here, off to the side where it won't obstruct anyone," Mooncrow said, finally. "No one will be along to bother it."

David simply nodded. Intuition had told both of them to dress for hiking, and now she was glad that they had, for Mooncrow led them right down to the creek bed, where they followed its path for at least a half mile. It was pretty rough hiking. None of the flood-control projects had gotten this far up the creek. It was full of downed trees, old tires, even a dead car. Rocks ranging from the size of a bowling ball to the size of that old car studded the bottom of the ravine, but above their heads Jennie winced at the thickets of wild plum and plenitude of blackberry vines; the going would be no easier up there.

Finally, Mooncrow held up his hand, as they reached a grove of ancient willows, cottonwoods, and redbuds. He looked around, as if he was taking his bearings, and then scrambled up the bank using the exposed roots of a willow with a trunk that must have been two feet in diameter.

David and Jennie followed, to find him holding to the trunk with one hand as he examined every inch of the ground around the willow, frowning. She couldn't see anything here, and she wasn't prepared to use that inner vision just at the moment. The willow that Mooncrow stood beneath would probably wash into the creek after a few more big storms; fully a third of its roots were exposed. Across from them was the silted area that had been the old creek bed; now it supported a flourishing community of saplings, weeds, and brush. Up and down the creek bed was more of the same.

But Mooncrow kept peering around, and finally looked down through the mat of willow roots. And then he blanched.

"What's wrong, Little Old Man?" Jennie asked quickly. "What have you found?"

"It is what I have not found, Kestrel," he replied, as David reached out to steady him. His voice was strong, but his hands were shaking. "It is what I have not found."

He sat down then, on the roots of the willow; Jennie joined him, with David on the other side. "You know that I told you how Watches-Over-The-Land had defeated an evil man," he said. Jennie nodded; this was for David's benefit, for he had not heard the story. "It was needful for him to drown that evil man, and then bury him. Needful to drown him so that his blood could not touch the earth, escape, and take his spirit with it; needful to bury him, so that his spirit could not wander, so that it would be held in place by the earth. If that man had become like the mi-ah-luschka, he could have found others to work through. It was here that our ancestor buried that man, with a willow planted over his body to hold him there." Mooncrow's face grew bleak. "But nothing lasts forever, and the willow did not hold him. Look-"

He pointed down below, where the creek had obviously changed its course and undercut the willow. "See, how the water came and washed everything from under the roots? The willow, I think, ate most of the bones, as Watches-Over-The-Land intended, but the evil one's spirit-bundle was buried there with him, and it-it is gone. I can feel it."

David shook his head, but Jennie felt the blood draining out of her face as well.

"These things, these spirit-bundles, can be doorways," Mooncrow explained for David's sake. "They can allow things through them. So now the bundle is loose in the world, and so is the spirit of that evil man. He can work through whoever takes up the bundle; and the longer he works through that person, the more likely it is that he will be able to take the place of anyone who touches it. This is something that he was working toward, to be able to live on this earth forever, by sending others through his spirit-door and taking their place."

David's forehead wrinkled. "But-I don't see the point-"

Mooncrow stared down at the water, as if he was demanding that it give up its secret and tell him where the bundle was now. "The point is that this evil one wanted life forever, and power, and he got his power through hate. He will make that hate grow, here and now. He will poison the earth to give him power over it. So wicked was he that he had no spirit-animal; he created his own, neither bird nor insect, neither animal nor serpent. He made it out of all of these things, so that it would serve him rather than guide him. And he made it corrupt, so that it would poison all that it touched. That is what made him so evil. That he would corrupt anything, so long as he had dominion over it."

David stared at the old man, his own face going pale, and Jennie wondered if he, too, had a dream like hers, of a poisoned earth, and dead eagles lying in the ashes.

"I had a dream, the night of my vision-quest," he said slowly. "I was in a place like Tulsa, but with absolutely no people, completely virgin wilderness. Everything was great-and then this-this monster came, and it was like you just described, it wasn't animal or bird, but it had pieces of all kinds of things, only twisted and distorted. Wherever it went, things just died as it passed. I was really afraid, and I hid from it."

Mooncrow nodded, listening closely, and clenched his jaw. "You are new in your Medicine, and should not have seen this spirit-thing, unless it had gotten a great deal of power. And it should not have been able to kill things in the spirit-world unless it was as powerful now as it was in our ancestor's time." Jennie felt her heart sink at his words; he saw her expression, and nodded, confirming that her feelings of danger and dread were not misplaced. The warm sunlight seemed to thin, and a chill crept over her.

"This is a bad thing, David," Mooncrow said then. "This is a very terrible thing. Somehow, we must find whoever has this spirit-bundle; we must take it away from him, and we must do what our ancestor did, so long ago."

He looked out over the creek, and his face was a mask that hid every emotion but determination. "We must catch the beast, David. Then we must take its power, and cage it. Somehow."

Rod Calligan doodled idly on the pad on his desk, and weighed out his options.

He had hoped that he'd seen the last of the Talldeer girl, when he hadn't heard or seen anything at all from her. The cops had gone off to pretend they were investigating, but there were no real leads, and he and they both knew it. The P.I. herself hadn't even set foot on the property once that he could prove. Maybe, he thought, she had taken the presence of the trap he'd,left as evidence that her people were involved, after all, and had told the insurance company so. Or at least, she had told them she could not disprove the allegation. But it seemed that she was not going to give up, after all; Smith had just called with the bad news that she'd been put on indefinite retainer by his company. Sleighbow was higher up than Smith; there was nothing Smith could do to get her dropped.

If she'd been put on retainer, it meant that she had found something suspicious, and she'd convinced Sleighbow that more work needed to be done. Probably by telling him her suspicions, possibly by giving him her evidence. Very bad news.

So she was playing her cards very close to her chest, so close he'd had no inkling she'd found anything, and she evidently had sources he hadn't traced. Sooner or later, she was going to find something out. She had the bomb, after all, or at least he had to presume she had it; so she had at least one piece of real, hard evidence that might be traced back to him. If she could do that, she could argue convincingly that if he had planted one bomb on his own property, he could have planted more than one.

That would be more than enough to start a real investigation with him as the suspect, instead of the half-hearted investigation the cops had going now.

Then, if anyone started to look closely at the Riverside Mall project, all his layers of concealment would peel away, and it would become fairly obvious that the project was marginal at best.

Then if the insurance company-or worse, the Feds!- ordered an investigation of their own, everything would come tumbling down.

He reached into his pocket for the fetish-bundle; it had become something like a worry stone for him, and just simply handling it always calmed him. This time was no exception; as his hand closed around the leather, confidence quelled the rising panic. There was no real need to worry. After all, he had run deals along the edge of the shadow before. He hadn't ever needed to use final solutions, but he'd always had them in reserve. There was no real difference between planting a trap to get rid of the girl, and ordering her hit-other than the fact that it took control out of his own hands.

If the Talldeer girl actually had anything on him, there would be Feds crawling all over here even now. So she didn't have anything solid, only suspicions. You couldn't convict anyone on suspicions; hell, you couldn't even get an indictment on suspicion.

So, since she wouldn't fall into his traps, he was going to have to take the direct approach to getting rid of her, even though it would be a bigger risk to delegate that task to someone else. Tulsa was a bigger city than people realized; it had its share of scum and lowlifes. If you were truly desperate, there were even punks who would fill your contract for as little as fifty bucks. But those were generally burned-out druggies, and dangerous to use; the going rate was about five thousand for a pro.

But with a pro there would be nothing leaving a trail. Not with the people Rod intended to use. Those fifty-buck punks were extremely unreliable, the five-hundred-dollar hit men would sometimes come back looking for blackmail. Rod had used the latter, now and again, but never for anything that he could be blackmailed over; most smart contractors knew muscle. Not Mafia-related, of course; that was out of his league. Just guys who, a hundred years ago, would have been rustlers and horse thieves. Rod used guys like that to strong-arm reluctant farmers or homeowners into selling at a reasonable price, or to scare tenants into moving without riling complaints with the authorities about substandard construction. He knew the right jargon, things that sounded perfectly normal on the phone.

But this time, Rod would take out his contract with a real workman; someone you saw once if at all, paid in advance, and never heard from again.

Except that the target came down with a bad case of death. And it always looked like suicide, a hit-and-run, or another tragic case of random violence. Pretty girls were raped and killed all the time. And if the pretty girl was also a P.I., well, she just had been in the wrong place, and hadn't been careful enough. It'd be good for about two nights on the local news, and wouldn't even make the nationals.

Pros didn't leave tracks. And they didn't come back after blackmail money. It was bad for repeat business.

Smith ought to know some pros in this area . . . he'd certainly hinted that he did.

Should he call Smith in on this? That was the question. He rubbed his thumb over the leather of the fetish and looked out the window, noting absently the small flock of scrawny black birds in the tree outside. Funny; they were absolutely silent, so they weren't blackbirds, starlings, or grackles. They were too thin to be ravens, and too big to be crows.

Still, weren't black birds some kind of omen of death? Maybe that was the sign he ought to move on this. Let them 'pick the Talldeer girl's bones, not his.

He called Smith back.

"I need someone," he said. "A reliable Tulsa mechanic. I think our equipment needs about five grand worth of work."

"I have just the right men," Smith said.

"John Smith" hung up the phone, jaw clenched, and a vein in his temple starting to throb. Not that he cared if Calligan had the chick rubbed out; in his opinion, it should have been done before this. No, the real problem was that Calligan was stupid and small-time; if things went wrong, he could implicate Smith.

No-if anything went wrong, Calligan would implicate Smith. He would sing so fast and so well, they'd put him in the opera.

Even if things didn't go wrong, there was no guarantee that Calligan would stay quiet. He was getting nervous; sounded a little hysterical whenever Smith said anything about Talldeer. In fact, if he'd tried something of his own to get rid of the girl, he probably left a pretty messy trail behind him.

Damned amateurs.

It might not be a bad idea to collect a little insurance of his own.

He left his desk and took a quick walk outside, to a public telephone kiosk. Not one right outside his building, but one further down in the office park. He always had a roll of quarters with him, just in case.

He waited ten minutes, then called the same number he'd given Calligan.

"Fixers," said the voice on the other end.

"I need some custom work done on my car," he replied. "Something really special." That was the code that he needed a safe line to talk openly.

"Give me your number; I've got a customer. I'll call you back." Brusque, businesslike, calm. These were real professionals, probably the best in Tulsa. They should be; they'd taken care of a number of embarrassing little problems for prominent people. For instance, that evangelist with the awkward and talkative relative. . . .

Smith gave the man the number of the pay phone and hung up. A few minutes later, it rang.

"About that custom job. Yeah?" It was not the same voice. He had expected that.

"Your people just got a call from a man who wanted an Indian girl shut up," he said, quietly and calmly. "I sent him to you. We've got a deal, but he's making me nervous. His name's Rod Calligan."

"Construction." Smith's estimation of the men went up a notch. "He insisted on payment-in-person. You want some insurance on him, or do you want him shut down?"

Smith had thought about that while he made his walk and waited for the phone to ring. Calligan was still useful. "Insurance," he said. "He's got a wife and kids. Get rid of his target first, then pick up the family. Maybe get rid of the wife to prove we're serious. Make sure the Indians get the blame for all of it, so far as the cops are concerned."

"Easy, but it'll take some time to fill Calligan's contract, so it won't happen right away," the man replied. "Make your deposit, send us the spec sheet on him. That'll be fifteen. As soon as we get it, we'll open the policy for you, and fill your order as soon as we take care of Calligan's." Send them all the details on Calligan with their fee, in cash, that meant, to their mail drop. Untraceable cash. It would take him a little work to collect the money-he had it, but he would want to get it in thousand-dollar lots, from several places, to make sure he didn't get sequential bills. "That'll do fine. Expect it in a few days," he told the man, and hung up.

So much for Rod Calligan and his little problem. You just had to know who to call.

Toni Calligan held back tears with the last of her strength; she was just about ready to sign herself into the asylum. She was afraid to let the kids out of her sight, after the attack on Ryan. Things kept happening, inexplicable things, but worst of all, so far as her sanity was concerned, they never happened when Rod was home.

Rod Junior had tattled; he'd told Rod how he'd come home to find Toni crying at the kitchen table after Ryan's near accident. She had been able to keep Rod from finding out about that for maybe five minutes; after a brief session of bullying, he had the story of the near miss out of her.

Unfortunately, she had,not gotten the stranger's name and phone number, so there was no one to corroborate her story but Ryan.

Now Rod was accusing her of making things up, and getting Ryan and Jill to tell the same stories. The few incidents that she had evidence of he somehow twisted around to being her fault, saying she was careless, a bad mother.

And somehow he'd found out what that one repairman had said about the dryer.

That was when he really lost his temper with her, which lately hadn't been very good, anyway. He'd taken it out on her ... he hit her, telling her she deserved it, deserved to be punished, because she was not only unfit to be the mother of his good son, Rod, but was crazy and was making the other two crazy, and he was just going to have to beat the craziness out of her.

Her life had become a nightmare.

But the real nightmare was not the attacks on her children, or even the bruises that Rod's beating had left.

The real nightmare was that she was beginning to think he was right. She was going crazy.

She didn't know what else to think, after what had happened this afternoon when she'd been making spaghetti sauce in the pressure cooker.

She had just put the pot on the burner. She had turned around to pick up a pot holder, and had looked up at a sudden movement, thinking one of the kids had come in.

There was an Indian in her kitchen.

An Indian with a mohawk, some kind of shell necklace around his neck, a blanket tied around his waist, fringed leather pants-carrying a hatchet with a shiny metal blade in one hand, some kind of wooden club in the other. And his face-it had such an expression of hate that she shrank back with a little squeak of panic, so terrified her voice wouldn't work.

Then he was gone. Just gone. He didn't leave, he vanished, completely.

Just as Ryan appeared in the doorway.

It couldn't have been more than thirty seconds from the time she'd lit the flame to when the Indian vanished into" thin air. She wasn't sure what warned her, then; some instinct, God only knew. But the moment Ryan appeared, she knew, something horrible was going to happen, and she just leapt on him, tackled him, and pulled him to the floor right outside the kitchen.

Just as the pressure cooker exploded.

She got both of them just out of the way of the shrapnel- for the pot had literally exploded, rather than having the lid blow off.

She sat there on the floor with Ryan and they both cried for a while. Then she got him calmed down, extracted a promise from him not to tell his daddy, and ventured into the kitchen. There was only one thing to do, if she didn't want another lecture-or worse-from Rod. She had to get the mess cleaned up, hide the damage from a cursory examination, and get some other kind of dinner going before he got home. And how she was going to explain this if he did find out, she had no idea.

Maybe she wouldn't have to. Rod never came into the kitchen if he could help it. A few hours with some plaster would take care of the holes in the walls and ceiling, and he probably wouldn't notice the dents in the fridge even if he did come in.

She set to work, frantically pulling bits of metal out of the walls, scrubbing red sauce-like blood-off the walls, the ceiling, the floor-trying to remember if she had told Rod what supper would be-

She had. Hell. Well, he would just have to put up with a different kind of sauce. She could say it was an experiment. She snatched tomato sauce and spices out of the cabinet, threw them at random into a pot. If it came out tasting funny, she could bury it in cheese.

But the Indian-she had to be going crazy. No amount of scrubbing would wipe him out of her mind. Standing there, between the table and the fridge, long hair trailing down his back, staring at her. Hating her. Telling her so, with his eyes.

And then vanishing, just like a soap bubble.

She was going crazy. She had to be.

She stopped dead at that thought, hands frozen on her scrubbing pads, hair trailing into her face.

If she was crazy, could Rod be right? Could she be doing these things herself! Could she have put the scorpion in the sandbox, stripped the insulation from the wires in the dryer, turned the heat up under the pressure cooker?

Was she trying to kill her own children?

She started crying at that, silently so as not to alert the children. Mechanically, she went back to scrubbing, tears falling to mingle with the soapy water. If she was doing all this…

She didn't remember doing anything!

But-people with multiple personalities didn't remember what then- other "selves" did, either. Sybil, Trudi Chase, Eve . . . they had no idea what their other selves did. And they never noticed missing time, either, the places in their lives where the other personalities took over.

But then a single ray of hope came to her. The woman who had almost hit Ryan-she had seen the Indian too! What was more, even if this "Indian" was a personality of her own, she couldn't possibly have gotten into a costume, down the street, pushed Ryan in front of the car, then sprinted back to her kitchen and shed the costume before Ryan and the stranger arrived there.

She sniffed, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She had to keep cleaning. No matter what, she had to keep cleaning. Cleaning up this mess, that was real reality. She could cope with this, even if the rest of her life was falling apart.

Even if it was the only thing left in her life that she could cope with.

_CHAPTER FOURTEEN

jennie wrapped her long hair into a French braid, and examined herself carefully in the mirror. Hmm. A little too harsh, I think. She added a touch of eye shadow. Better.

Somehow, she felt as if she were donning-well, not warpaint, but possibly bluff-paint, the colors the Osage put on when they were not taking the path of war but wanted their enemies to think that Wah-K'on-Tah had directed them to do just that. On the other hand, that was indirectly what she was doing. She was about to try to pull off a bluff.

She was still not certain of all the points in the connection between Calligan and the looted gravesite, but the little medicine-pouch proved he was involved. The presence of the mi-ah-luschka at the site only confirmed that. She and Mooncrow had done everything they could; she needed some kind of real-world proof that he had at least looted the gravesite. Based on that, and on the bomb she and David had taken, she might be able to convince the police and the insurance company that Calligan was running some kind of looted artifact scam, that he routinely booby-trapped his caches, and that his men had accidentally set off one of his bombs. It was thin, but it was better than watching him get off scot-free.

Something protected Calligan, Mooncrow said, so the Little People were going after everything "near" him. It stood to reason that they just might be attacking his family at this point. If that was the case, Calligan's wife might be willing to talk. She might know something.

So Jennie was going on the offensive. Time to talk to Antonia Calligan. There were any number of explanations for the artifacts and the Little People, including the possibility that it could be the wife who had looted the site and cached the artifacts. This was remote, and certainly did not fit the little Jenny knew about the woman, but still a possibility that should not be dismissed without checking.

Hence the suit and the makeup. She wanted to look like someone that Antonia would find familiar enough to talk to, possibly even confide in.

Meanwhile, Mooncrow and David had jobs of their own. Mooncrow was searching the spirit-worlds for signs of the evil spirit's work. It seemed far too coincidental for that spirit to have suddenly been freed at about the same time that Calligan looted the sacred ground, but whether Calligan was under the direct influence of the evil one was still in question. David was searching the papers for the same thing, going back for six months, which is about when Mooncrow thought the flood had uncovered the spirit-bundle that was missing. If they were very lucky, it was in the hands of someone who was resistant to it. If not, well, they would play that as it came.

She gave her hair another pat, and headed out.

"Would you like another cup of coffee?" Antonia-("Oh, call me Toni, please") Calligan asked. Her dark eyes pleaded with Jennie to accept, so of course, she did.

Toni's kitchen was a warm and homey place, eggshell-white and tan, but was curiously marred. The immaculate white walls showed slightly discolored patches of very fresh plaster and paint; there were odd dents in the metal cabinets and the appliances. Strange. Nothing else in the house showed that kind of abuse.

But it was fairly obvious that the kitchen was the only place where Toni felt comfortable. Jennie wasn't too surprised; you could eat off the floors in the living and dining areas, but the rooms looked like pictures in a magazine, not places where children played and people ate. Clearly the kitchen was Toni's personal domain; the only place in the house that was permitted to be less than perfect.

Rod Calligan's wife wore her dark hair in a pert Hamill-cut; despite three children, she was slender under that perky pink sweatsuit. But "pert" and "perky" were the very last adjectives that Jennie would ever apply to her, despite a petite figure and a sweet, square face.

"Hagridden," maybe. The faint circles under her eyes came from anxiety, and Jennie would have bet a year's income that the reason that the hollows under her cheekbones were there had less to do with Weight Watchers and far more to do with worry. She looked afraid, but afraid of what? She didn't exactly babble, but she spoke nervously, running on at length whenever a silence threatened, playing with her rings or combing her fingers through her hair.

What was more, Jennie had never met anyone so starved for company in her life. No, that wasn't right; not "company," but a friend. Toni Calligan acted as if she didn't have a single friend of her own, female or male, anywhere in Tulsa.

Maybe she didn't. Maybe Rod Calligan didn't permit her to have friends. After all, friends would take time away from cleaning and housekeeping. Friends might give her something to think about besides her husband.

"I just don't know that much about Rod's company, Jennie," Toni said, somewhat wistfully, as she passed over the newly filled cup. When "Antonia" became "Toni," Jennifer had, of course, become "Jennie." "I wish I did, I really don't feel as if I'm being much help to you."

Jennie had the uncanny feeling of being a mind reader, even though her Medicine talents did not lie at all in that direction; she knew exactly what had put that wistful tone in Toni Calligan's voice. It was simple; Toni wanted her company, wanted her to stay around. The less Toni knew, the sooner Jennie would leave, because Jennie obviously wouldn't stay just to keep Toni company.

"Actually, I'm not so much looking for hard information as you might think, Toni," Jennie assured her, feeling obscurely sorry for the woman. "Your husband told the company I'm working for that there were people making threats before and after the bombing. You've probably heard who those people were supposed to be-mostly Native American groups. What I'm looking for is a feeling of something a little off-if you remember noticing things being strange around that time period. For instance, one thing I'd like to know is if you remember any odd phone calls coming to the house this spring and summer?"

"Oh, no threats!" Toni exclaimed, immediately, brightening a little because she at least had some information, even if it was negative. "No one called here with any threats-or at least they didn't call the house line. Rod has a private line for business in his office, of course. I wouldn't know if he got any threatening calls on that line, although he didn't act as if there was anything different going on. He was tense, but not the way he'd be if there was anyone threatening him."

And how I'd love to get into that office, Jennie thought, greedily. If there are any deep, black secrets about Rod Calligan, that's where they II be, I'll bet.

Grandfather was right about one thing, at least; something was protecting Rod Calligan. Here she was, mere feet away from that office, yet she might just as well have been thousands of miles away. She was unable to sense anything there; it was a complete blank in the middle of the otherwise ordinary house.

She would have given her hopes of ever being a pipebearer for the key to that office or the chance to get inside.

But the possibility of that, at least at the moment, was pretty remote.

"I wasn't thinking of threatening calls, actually," she said, slowly. "The kind of people who have been implicated in the bombing have-I suppose you'd call it a sense of honor. They would never threaten a woman or a child, so you would never hear any threats. No, what I was thinking was simply strange calls. An inordinate number of people, who hang up when you answered the phone, people who wouldn't identify themselves or give a number for a return call. People you didn't recognize. That kind of thing."

Toni's brows creased as she thought. "Not-that I noticed," she said, hesitantly. "But-are you certain these people wouldn't consider hurting a child?"

The strange tone in her voice made Jennie's senses move to full alertness. She picked her words very carefully. "I said that the people who had been implicated would never consider doing such a thing, but I don't suppose it will come as any shock to you that there are some people who would consider a child a very good target; children are very innocent, very vulnerable." Carefully, Kestrel. Don't say anything that could be taken as disapproval of her husband. And don't blurt out anything about the Little People. "I'm sure you realize that your husband is in a business where people collect enemies, and it is possible that one of those people has become angry enough with him to decide to attack him personally, rather than through business channels."

Toni paled, just a little. "He's been-very tense, lately," she said. "Very on edge, and his temper has been awfully short." She laughed nervously. "Sometimes he kind of takes it out on me and the kids. Not Little Rod, but Ryan and Jill. Little Rod is a lot like his dad, but Ryan and Jill are like me."

Suddenly there was an explanation for Toni's long-sleeved sweatsuit, on a hot June day. Bruises. Welts. In other words, Rod was indulging his temper by beating his wife.

Taking it out on you, hmm? Jennie kept her anger tightly under control. She'd handled enough abuse cases to know that the women involved in an abusive relationship did not want anyone noticing it, much less saying something about it. They would not admit that it was abuse to themselves. They would not listen to anyone who told them it was abuse.

"This must be something new, or you wouldn't have mentioned it," she replied, after taking a sip of coffee. "Right?"

"He's always had a temper, but it's been a little worse lately," Toni said, with another nervous laugh. "Of course, we all provoke him; it's summer, so the kids are rowdy, and I can't always keep up with their messes, but it's also his busiest time of year and he doesn't have time to be patient. . . ."

She'd heard all that before. They always had excuses. Most of the excuses had been hand-fed to them by the very spouses who were abusing them. Great. So now I have a classic case of spouse abuse on my hands along with everything else.

"Everything else" was the miasma of hatred so thick in the kitchen that it was difficult for Jennie to sit there calmly sipping coffee. Only the fact that it was not directed at her made it possible for her to chat pleasantly away, and not take to her heels.

The hatred of the mi-ah-luschka hung heavily over this house. If they could not have Rod Calligan directly, then they would make him suffer through his family; that was the feeling Jennie got. Not a feeling that Toni was involved at all, but that she was as good a target as a bulldozer.

One thing Jennie was certain of; Toni Calligan was innocent of any wrongdoing. Which added yet another complication to an already complicated situation.

First, Jennie would have to get them out of the line of fire; take them away as targets for the Little People. Right now they might simply be causing the same kind of accidents that were happening at the mall site, but it was not very likely things would remain that way for much longer. Not with the blood-hunger she sensed here. The Little People wanted someone hurt.

Purely and simply, getting Toni and her kids into safety meant removing them from Rod Calligan's life.

"Kids sure are a handful once school closes, aren't they?" she said, changing the subject to one Toni would immediately feel more comfortable with.

This was going to take time and patience. To be certain of protection, all ties to Calligan would have to be destroyed. That could mean a mundane divorce as well as a purification ceremony. Could she talk Toni Calligan into so drastic a step?

Maybe. She did not speak as a woman who loved her husband, but rather as a woman who thought she should love her husband. There was a real and distinct difference. And if Calligan was abusing her-there was a chance.

Time, and patience, dammit. Both of which, she thought wryly, as Toni brightened and began talking about her kids, I have always been in short supply of! It just figures...

Jennie was seeing more of Toni Calligan now than of David and Mooncrow. She began coming over after Rod Calligan had left for the day, and stayed at the house for as long as she dared. For one thing, while she was there, the mi-ah-luschka weren't playing their tricks, so at least she was keeping them from hurting anyone for several hours at a time. For another, Toni wasn't just hungry for adult companionship, she was starving for it. It made Jennie angry with Calligan all over again. How he could reduce an intelligent woman to this state. . . .

To avoid any trouble for Toni, she pitched in on the daily "decontamination" chores. She couldn't call it "cleaning"; the space shuttle went through less thorough scrubdowns! It soon became clear that all this ultracleanliness was at Rod's insistence. Only the childrens' rooms and the kitchen and laundry were allowed to look "lived-in." Everything else must look as if it was ready for a "House Beautiful" tour. At all times, regardless of anything else.

Toni's explanation was that Rod might have to bring a client in at any moment, and that client had to be impressed from the moment he walked in the door. But Jennie figured that even Toni knew better than that, just from the hesitant way in which she offered the rather lame explanation. This was just one more way that Rod controlled his wife and proved his control to others.

Only one room was off-limits; the locked office. Toni didn't even have a key to it. Every time she came, Jennie surreptitiously checked the door, but it always remained locked, and behind that door there was nothing to Medicine Senses but a black hole. Frustrating. Very frustrating.

Still, if she could not get into the office, she nevertheless had the mission of getting Toni and her kids out of Rod's influence so that the mi-ah-luschka would leave them alone. She had a foreboding feeling that the Little People were losing what little patience they possessed, and would start something soon. Toni started at every odd sound, and kept looking for something out of the corner of her eye. She might just have started to see them . . . which would mean they were preparing to work some revenge.

Slowly, she began planting hints. How "normal" husbands might lose their tempers once in a while, but they didn't blame their wives for everything that went wrong. And that adult human beings did not take out their frustrations on other humans beings. When Toni seemed, tentatively, to be receptive, she planted a few more hints, describing the Women's Shelter and some of the women she had taken there for help.

She began planting other hints as well; especially after she learned that Toni had some remote Cherokee blood in her. She told stories over coffee, about spiritual or supernatural experiences of any number of people she'd known. Harmless stories, mostly, involving brief glimpses into the Spirit Worlds and the like, and stressing how people who might think they were hallucinating could very well actually be seeing things that those with less open minds could not.

Jennie was reminded irresistibly of the winter that Mooncrow taught her how to make wild birds eat out of her hand. She had spent hours at a time, sitting in the snow, with a handful of sunflower seeds. Not daring to move, hardly daring to breathe, while the cardinals, titmice, and chickadees ventured nearer and nearer.

Eventually, her patience had paid off to the point where the birds would swoop down and perch on her hat as soon as they saw her coming.

Could she get this bird to come to her, too?

It might mean more than this case; it might mean the saving of a woman's sanity and the salvation of her childrens' lives. Jennie did not like the increasingly frightened look in Toni Calligan's eyes whenever she thought she heard her husband's car in the driveway.

It reminded her more and more of the look she had seen in the eyes of a trapped and helpless deer.

If the rest of her life had not been so hellish, the entrance of Jennie Talldeer into it would have been cause for celebration. For the first time since her marriage to Rod, Toni Calligan had a friend.

She used to have friends; she used to have a lot of them. But Rod had driven them away, one by one, with his sarcastic remarks and his constant badgering questions. Other women got tired of being interrogated about where they had been, where they were going, what they were going to do, and did their own husbands and fathers know about it. They didn't like the way that Rod watched them when he was home-"As if he thinks I'm going to steal the silverware or turn you into a Moonie," Frieda Miller had complained. They didn't like the remarks that one of her former girlfriends had called "sexist."

But Jennie Talldeer somehow had a sixth sense for when Rod was going to return, and she never visited when he was around, or left any signs that "she had ever been there at all. Jennie was bright, fun to talk to, and didn't seem much like a private investigator at all, just like "one of the girls."

Best of all, Jennie understood. Even if some of the things she had to say-about husbands in general," admittedly, and never directly accusing Rod-made Toni acutely uncomfortable. Then again, maybe Jennie was simply telling Toni in a roundabout way why she was avoiding Rod. When Jennie was gone, and Toni sat alone over the coffee, she had to admit that what Jennie said made sense.

The things Rod did, to her and to Ryan and Jill-they just weren't right. All those cruel taunts, and the way he kept trying to frighten Ryan under the guise of "making the boy tough."

And the scolding sessions that had gone from words to blows. . . .

True, Toni's father had never been a very warm or loving man, but he had never hit her mother. Although he had been just as sarcastic and cutting as Rod. He'd always known what to say to just devastate a person.

So did Rod.

Well, that made sense too, from what Jennie said. Funny, she had never thought what a weapon words could be, until Jennie pointed it out. Words could hurt worse than knives, because they cut you where it didn't show.

On the outside. On the outside.

She had begun thinking over things, in the leisure granted her by Jennie's willingness to pitch in and help. She often had as much as an hour or two, now, when she could just sit and think, and a lot of her thoughts were very uncomfortable.

She had to admit, if only to herself, that Rod never had been the Prince Charming she'd thought. In fact, in a lot of ways, he was more like Ivan the Terrible. But she'd been so busy, what with one thing and another, that she'd never really thought about how she was less his wife and more like his housekeeper, errand-runner, and-

Admit it, Toni. Punching bag.

That was how Jennie, detached, but compassionate, had described some of her clients, women she had met at the Women's Shelter or women she had taken there. They were punching bags for their husbands, she'd said, sighing. Whenever something went wrong for the man, he came home and took it out on her or the kids, or both. I mean, in a way I can almost understand it. These guys all had nowhere to go, no way to express their anger and frustration, and their wives were the only creatures they knew weaker and less powerful than they were. It's like chickens in a chicken house; the big chickens pick on the littler ones, and so on down the line, until it comes to the last chicken in the chicken house, who gets abuse from everybody. But that doesn't make it right. People aren't chickens. People know better. Uncomfortable thinking.

She'd asked Toni about what she'd done before she married Rod; pointed out that she could still make a living for herself, even if Rod wasn't there. That was something that hadn't occurred to her in ages, and Toni had started to wonder just what life would be like without Rod around.

Jennie was a pretty smart cookie, when it came down to it. Everything she said made sense.

She'd said other things too; things that were beginning to make Toni wonder about being crazy or not. She had a lot of funny, and sometimes not-so-funny, stories about people who'd seen what she called Spirits, things that weren't necessarily ghosts, but certainly weren't physical. And what Jennie said about the Spirits sure matched those Indians Toni kept seeing. ...

She was seeing them, out of the corner of her eye, all the time now, half-seen shadows, or transparent ghost-images. Sometimes they even showed up when Rod was home, though never in the same area of the house as he was; they seemed to wait to try and catch her alone. The only time they weren't there was when Jennie was visiting. Toni really wished they would show up then, so she could find out if Jennie saw them too, but they never obliged. Like a kid, they were never there when you wanted them. They lurked around the house to the point where she saw them at least twice or three times a night, peering in the windows, grimacing at her, and disappearing when she turned to look straight at them.

They tended to show up after dark, too, which made them pretty unnerving. She hadn't told Jennie about them, but it was almost as if Jennie knew about them, just like she knew about Rod without being told anything.

Almost as if she knew-and understood.

Thunder growled, making them both look up.

"Gripes, where did that come from?" Jennie Talldeer said, glancing at her watch and then up at the growing storm outside. "I really have got to go, before this breaks.

It looks like it's going to be hell to drive in."

Toni nodded, surreptitiously rubbing her sore wrist, hoping Jennie wouldn't notice. But Jennie spotted the movement anyway, and raised an eyebrow at her.

"Arthritis?" she asked. Grateful for the "out," Toni nodded. Rod had grabbed her wrist and yanked her around last night, shaking her; the wrist had been swollen this morning. It had gone down some, but this coming storm made it twinge.

"I guess so," Toni replied, hoping her flush of guilt at lying didn't show. "It was real sore this morning. I hate to think of having arthritis already, though; it makes me feel so old,"

Jennie shrugged. "My brother broke his ankle fancy-dancing on uneven ground, and it gives him all kinds of hell whenever it's about to rain. And my fingers hurt, sometimes. Trust me, arthritis doesn't care how old you are! But I really need to go, Toni, much as I hate to."

Because the minute the rain breaks, Rod will be coming back home, Toni thought with a sigh. Jennie knows. But she's too nice to say that. She doesn't want to run into him, I'm sure. If he knows that she's supposed to be checking him out, he 'II be nice to her but take it out on me. And if he doesn't, he'll be rotten to her just to get rid of her.

"Well thanks for coming over and giving me a hand with everything," she said, instead, and smiled. "Come on, I'll see you off."

Jennie grimaced as they got outside and saw the true magnitude of the storm on the western horizon. The window in the kitchen looked north, while this "boomer" was coming straight out of the west. Huge black thunderheads loomed thousands of feet up in the air, their tops forming the "anvil" formations that meant dangerous weather to come. The roofs of the houses hid the bottoms of the clouds, but they wouldn't for long, and the angry growl of thunder was testament enough to the amount of lightning hitting the ground at the leading edge of the storm.

"You'd better go turn on a radio," Jennie advised, as she got into her little truck. "Keep the TV off though, and stay away from the windows. This looks like it could brew up a tornado, and there's going to be a lot of lightning, for sure. You might want to get the kids ready to duck into the bathroom if we get a tornado alert."

"I'll do that," Toni said, just as the wind picked up, with three chilly gusts that sent garbage cans flying into the street and flattened her clothing against her. The air was full of rain-and ozone-smell. "You'd better get going!" she added, over the distant growl of thunder. "This may flood the underpasses!"

Jennie pulled out, with a backward wave.

She hurried into the backyard to gather up the kids; Ryan and Jill were only too happy to come inside, but Rod sassed her. "I want to watch!" he said. "It's not here yet! You think I'm gonna melt if I get a little wet?"

Toni gave his rump a little smack for the sass. "You get in that house when I tell you to, mister," she scolded, shagging him inside after the other two. "You're not too big for me to spank; you better remember that!"

Ryan and Jill went to their rooms, and she assumed that Rod followed. She went straight to the kitchen to turn on a radio; they didn't have cable anymore, and she didn't trust the television in a thunderstorm. Jennie was right to warn her. The antenna that Rod had put up before they got cable was too high and he had never taken it down; it was on a tower that made it the tallest thing in the neighborhood, and whenever there was lightning, she was always afraid it would get hit. Rod laughed at her for her fears, but she would never allow the set on during a storm if he wasn't there to insist on it.

Outside, the sky turned black, and the kitchen went as dark as if the sun were setting. She tuned in right in the middle of a National Weather Service bulletin; they were always so scratchy and full of static she had to concentrate to make out what the man was saying. Strong winds, damaging hail, severe thunderstorm. . . . Not even a "watch"; this one, as any fool could see, was already here. No talk of tornadoes, though-

She caught the sound of the television from the living room, and hurried in to find young Rod messing with it in the gloom of the living room. The only light came from the screen.

"You get away from that!" she snapped. "I have told you and told you, don't use the TV in a thunderstorm!"

"I wanta see Doppler Six radar," Rod whined, defiantly. "Chill out, Ma! Nothing's gonna happen! You talk like some kind of hystric! And you act like you want me t' grow up t' be a fag!"

Now that-except that the word was "hysteric," not "hystric"-was straight from his father's mouth. Bad enough to hear it from Rod-but this was too much.

She saw red and was about to give him that spanking she had promised-but before she could move to give his fanny a real tanning, she saw something else instead.

The Indian.

It rose up from the shadows behind the television set, where it had either been lurking, or been doing something to the television set. Ryan came up behind her, and grabbed for her hand with a gasp.

This time the Indian did not disappear when she turned her full attention on it; she was looking straight at it, and although Rod didn't seem to see it, Ryan beside her did, and shrank against her, whimpering.

It grinned at her, a nasty, snide grin. Like a wolverine, she thought, crazily. Like a bear trap. Like-like the Devil, just before he takes a soul!

And it vanished.

Rod was still messing with the television. "There!" he said in triumph, as the picture came in, the Channel Six weatherman standing in front of an image of a Doppler Radar scan. "I need to tune-"

His hand was on the dial, just as lightning hit the antenna above them.

The next half hour was hell on earth.

Toni found herself on the dining room floor, Ryan beside her, with no memory of how they had gotten there. She scrambled to her feet and dashed into the living room, vaguely aware that every hair on her head was standing on end, and feeling a kind of tingle in her hands and feet, as if they'd been asleep.

Young Rod was collapsed in a heap beside the television. The back of the set had blown out, and glass shards were embedded in the wall behind the set.

Rod's outstretched hand was black and crisped. He wasn't moving.

She didn't scream; she didn't panic. "Ryan," she said, very clearly and out of some kind of unholy calm, "call 9-1-1. Tell them your brother's been hit by lightning. If our phone doesn't work, go next door and use theirs, and give them our address. If the phone does work, make the call, then go next door to Mrs. Nebles. Take Jill. Stay there."

"But Ma-" Ryan burbled, clearly terrified.

"Go now," she yelled, fiercely, and then all her concentration was on the child who needed her. She ran across the living room and fell to her knees beside Rod. She put him over on his back, carefully, in case there was a spinal injury, feeling under his chin for a pulse.

No pulse. No breathing.

She had never done CPR except on a dummy, but it all came back to her now. She tilted his head back, made sure his airway was clear, covered his mouth and nose with her mouth, and breathed.

Once. Twice. Then pump his chest. She didn't need to be too careful; he wasn't so small that she'd crack his ribs.

Breathe. Pump. Breathe. Pump. Don't forget to breathe for yourself, or you 'II pass out.

At some point, she heard sirens over the sound of the pouring rain and the thunder outside. She ignored them as she ignored everything else.

Breathe. Pump. Breathe-

Hands pulled her away; she fought them for a moment, until she saw it was the paramedics in their bright yellow slickers, then she let them take over, surrounding Rod with their machines and their expertise.

Other people came crowding in; firemen, Mrs. Nebles, the neighbor with Ryan and Jill. She couldn't see Rod for all the bodies around him, but she heard the pure tone of a flat-lined EKG, then heard someone say "Clear!", and then everyone pulled away.

She heard the snap of the fibrillator, heard someone curse. The flat tone continued.

She collapsed into the chest of whoever was holding her, sobbing as hysterically as her two remaining children. She would never forget that horrible, unwavering tone for as long as she lived.

They tried, over and over again, to get Rod's heart started. But the tame lightning of their machines could not restart what the wild lightning had stopped.

Finally, they pronounced Rod dead on the scene, covered him up with a rubber sheet, and took him away, into the rain, in an ambulance, but one with the lights and siren dead. She rode in the back, with the paramedic holding her hand, awkwardly.

She was no longer crying, no longer screaming with the pain of her loss. She was numb, now; after the ambulance ride, after the session at the hospital with the doctors and the paperwork--how could they bother with paperwork at a time like that?-after the call to Rod, missing him by minutes. They'd left a policeman at her home, the nurses told her, patting her hand. The policeman would tell him. He would come soon, to help her with all this.

But he never came, and she stumbled through it all alone. Thank God Mrs. Nebles had said she would take care of Ryan and Jill. Thank God the paramedics had reminded her to bring her purse. What she couldn't remember was in the papers she kept in her purse.

Insurance. Why? she had wanted to scream. People to notify. Recounting it all to the police.

Still Rod did not come.

Surely he would come and take her home.

But he didn't come, and finally the nurses took pity on her and called the neighbor who had Ryan and Jill, asked Mrs. Nebles to keep the kids overnight, then sent her home with another policeman rather than a taxi. They probably didn't trust her to remember what her own address was. . . .

Rod's car was in the driveway; she walked up to the silent, darkened house, still numb, not knowing what she was going to say to him. Suddenly, she was afraid for him-how could he be expected to bear up under this? Rod was his image, his golden child! He must be half insane; no wonder he hadn't come to the hospital!

She pulled open the door-and there he was, staring at her. She opened her mouth, the tears starting again.

But as it happened, he didn't give her a chance to say anything.

He simply dragged her inside, face full of-not the grief she had expected, but silent fury. He dragged her into the living room, to the spot in front of the TV, where Rod had died. He shoved her down on her knees on the spot where he had lain.

He screamed at her, as she knelt there, unable to move or think. Screamed at her that this was all her fault-she was a slut, a whore, an unfit mother-she had caused Rod's death, to make way for her own favored brats, who were probably bastards by some fancy gigolo, conceived while he was hard at work, trying to make a decent life for them all-

Then, when she didn't respond except for silent tears, he hit her.

He knocked her into the wall, and she put up her hands, ineffectually, to defend herself. That seemed to infuriate him even further and he pulled her to her feet, then balled up both his fists, punching her in the face and stomach alternately, while she wept and retched, and finally dropped into merciful unconsciousness.

She woke up again, lying where she had fallen, in the dark and silent house, and crawled as far as the bathroom, using the sink to haul herself to her feet. Somehow, she got herself cleaned up, studiously avoiding looking at herself in the mirror. But she could not bear to go to the bedroom. Not to lie beside the man who had done this to her, and blamed her for her own son's death.

Instead, clutching her sore stomach, she got as far as the little bed in Ryan's room before she collapsed again, face and body throbbing with pain, onto the neatly made cotton comforter.

Eventually, she slept.

When she woke the next morning, an aching mass of misery inside and but, Rod was already gone.

The doorbell rang just as she was putting the finishing touches on a makeup job that she hoped, vaguely, would disguise the bruises, the black eye, and the swollen lip and jaw. It rang again, and she moved carefully to answer it, assuming that it must be the neighbor, Mrs. Nebles, who had taken Ryan and Jill-poor things, they must be hysterical; Rod hadn't come to get them and only God knew what they'd been told last night- But when she opened the door, it wasn't the neighbor, it was Jennie Talldeer, her expression one of sympathy and haunted guilt, a guilt that Toni recognized, but could not imagine the meaning of. There was a handsome, long-haired young man standing politely behind her, and Toni gulped down a surge of nausea and revulsion. Right now, she did not want to see any men-he would think she was to blame; he would say that Rod had been right to beat her-

"Toni, we heard on the news this morning and-my god!" Jennie exclaimed, her expression transforming from sympathy to shock and outrage. "What the hell did Rod do to you?"

Not "what happened," but "what did Rod do to you."

Jennie knew. It was out in the open between them. And Toni was too tired to try to hide it anymore.

"He said-" she began, then burst into tears, momentarily forgetting the presence of the young man. "He said it was my fault!" she sobbed, as Jennie took her arms and gently led her inside to the kitchen. "He said it was all my fault, and he hit me and-"

"God-how badly are you hurt? Did he touch the kids?" the young man asked, quietly, but urgently. Toni cast a quick glance at him through her tears, and to her amazement, saw that his expression was identical to Jennie's. Shock, and outrage-and concern.

"N-n-no," she replied, with surprise. Was Jennie right? Toni had thought all men must be like Rod, but- "I d-d-don't think so, I th-think they're still next door. I'll be all right, I th-th-think-"

They traded a look, and Jennie nodded. "I'll call the Women's Shelter," he said. "You take care of her." Then he turned to Toni. "Mrs. Calligan," he said, very gently, touching her hand as if it was something fragile and precious, "you stay here with Jennie. We're going to get you some help, and we're going to get you out of this place. And we won't let anyone hurt you again."

She stared after him, tears forgotten in pure shock, as Jennie led her to the kitchen table and sat her down, and began to talk to her in a voice of compassion and absolute authority.

By the time the caseworker from the Women's Shelter arrived, Jennie had buried her own feelings of guilt under a powerful load of pure and unadulterated rage. Toni Calligan's face was a mass of bruises and welts that no amount of pancake makeup could disguise. She had seen women beaten up worse than this-but they had not been friends.

David was just as outraged, and he was having as hard a time controlling it. "I want to go track that bastard down and beat him senseless," he fumed under his breath as the caseworker spoke to Toni Calligan. "That-god, he's not an animal; no animal would do something like that-"

"Stay cool," Jennie advised him, although she was feeling anything but cool herself. "If you go after him, you'll not only blow it for Toni, but you'll blow our other case for us. Remember, this is Oklahoma; everything in a wife-beating case has to be perfect for it to go through."

He nodded, jaw clenched. "I know that," he admitted, "but I don't like it."

"Neither do I." She listened with half an ear to what the caseworker was telling Toni; outlining her options, but warning her that they needed around forty-eight hours to get a space cleared for her and the kids at a safe house.

"I need to take you into the bathroom and take pictures," the caseworker said, compassionately, but firmly. "I need pictures of the bruises on your face and body, in good light, without makeup. We'll want to get a restraining order filed against your husband, and if you decide you want a divorce, we'll need evidence of this beating for both of the judges, the one for the restraining order and the one who we'll be filing the divorce papers with-"

That last had a tentative sound to it; Jennie knew why. This was the moment when fifty percent of the women who had been abused backed out. "It was just once," they'd say. "He was drunk; he's fine when he's sober." "He'll change, I know he will-"

But it wasn't just once, he never got sober, and he never changed. Not without years of therapy, anyway. And all too often, the ones who walked back into those marriages came out again on a stretcher or a slab-Jennie more than half expected that, faced with the word divorce, Toni would be one of those fifty percent.

But instead, Toni's head came up a little. "I want a divorce," she said, thickly. "He doesn't like Ryan and Jill, If he can blame me for-for-" Her voice broke, for just a moment. "If he can blame me, how much longer will it be before he blames them?"

"You want the facts?" the caseworker said, with a weary sigh. "You sound like you've thought this through. My guess is maybe a couple of weeks; then he'll not only beat you, he'll start pounding them in the name of 'discipline.' The man is sick. You are not a doctor, and it's not your job to make him well."

"I want a divorce," Toni replied. "I want my babies taken where he can't hurt them, and I want a divorce."

The caseworker met Jennie's eyes for a moment, and gave her a furtive thumbs-up, before turning back to Toni Calligan. "Is your life in any immediate danger?" she asked. "Are the kids? Can you stick this out for the forty-eight hours we need?"

Toni considered this for a moment. "I think we'll be all right for that long," she replied after a moment. "I won't change my mind, but I think we can keep out of his way."

"Good." The caseworker took Toni into the bathroom for a brief photo session, then packed up her forms and her notes. "I'm going to go next door and talk to your neighbor, and send the kids back here to you. If she's willing, she can be the one you run to if he does get violent. If that happens, don't argue with him, don't stand there, just run; tell your kids that if they hear a fight starting, they need to run. If your neighbor agrees, she'll lock the door after you and call 9-1-1 and one of our rescue people before he has a chance to get any worse."

"I'll come get her from next door as soon as the neighbor calls me," Jennie put in hastily. "I think that will make the neighbor a little more willing."

Toni cast her a look of pure gratitude, and the caseworker stuffed all of her things into her bag and left, letting herself out the front door. Jennie reached over and patted her shoulder. "I've done this before, you know," she said, conversationally. "Toni, you're handling this as well as anyone could expect, and better than I would. I think you're going to be all right."

Toni dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. "I-I don't know if I am or not," she replied, an edge of desperation in her voice. "I just know that-that this can't go on anymore."

Jennie slid into the place that the caseworker had left vacant, and David came to stand beside her, one hand on her shoulder. She wasn't certain what to say next; guilt was replacing her outrage again, and she looked up to see that David was studying Toni's face, her frightened, haunted eyes.

"Tell her, Jen," he said, suddenly. "Tell her about the spirits, the mi-ah-luschka."

"Now?" she replied, taken by surprise.

Toni Calligan stopped dabbing her eyes for a moment, to fix both of them with a troubled and puzzled look. "Spirits?" she said, falteringly, then blurted out, "You mean- like the Indian ghosts you told me about?"

David and Jennie traded another glance; then Jennie took a deep breath, and began.

"What David wants me to tell you about-involves something that your husband might have done-"

_CHAPTER FIFTEEN

To jennie's intense relief, Toni Calligan listened quietly to her halting explanation of the looted gravesite, the Little People, their burning desire for revenge, and how she and her children might have become targets for that revenge. She had been afraid that, even if Toni was in a receptive frame of mind, she still would not believe. But her words fell on ears that were ready to hear them, and the explanations met with nods and worried frowns.

"That was really what I meant, when I was talking about the people Rod Calligan"-she avoided calling Calligan Toni's "husband"-"might have gotten angry at him. The mi-ah-luschka have no sense of honor, since many of them died without honor. Anything and anyone is a lawful target, to them. In fact, they are sadistic enough that they might well choose to prolong the punishment they intend for him by-by hurting the things around Rod Calligan before they

touch him." Toni fingered her swollen lip. "What-what if Rod hurt those things himself?" she asked, finally. "Wouldn't they think he didn't care about them?"

Jennie shrugged. "I don't know, honestly. Toni, I have to tell you, many men beat women because they look on their spouses as possessions, theirs to do with as,they please. As long as Rod Calligan thinks of you as his possession, you are still a good target, so far as the mi-ah-luschka are concerned."

She had avoided as many of the complications as she could; eliminated the suspicion that Rod himself was to blame for many, if not all, of the "accidents" at his site. And she eliminated mentioning that Rod seemed to be protected from the direct revenge of the spirits. She concentrated instead on what she knew but could not prove; that he had looted the sacred ground, that the Little People were angry and out for blood. His, and that of anyone connected with him. "These things that have been happening are exactly the kind of things the mi-ah-luschka are good at. And if you've had other kinds of accidents, well-they're experts at arranging that kind of thing."

She did not mention the dead child, although the place around the television set was so full of the influence of the Little People that she was catching after-images out of the corner of her eye every time she looked through the doorway.

Toni nodded all through the narrative; hesitantly at first, then more and more eagerly. Finally, as Jennie finished, she asked another question.

"These spirits-" she said. "If you can see them, do they look like people? Real people, I mean? Solid?"

"Sometimes," David said slowly, trading a look with Jennie.

"Do they look like Indians, or like you?" Toni persisted, with an edge of desperation in her voice. "I mean, do they have ordinary clothing, or like, a mohawk haircut, leather pants, a blanket? Like modern Indians, or like ones in a movie or a book?"

"They can look like the Osage of long ago," Jennie replied. "I can't recall ever hearing of one that looked modern. Or they can look like owls, but I don't think you'd recognize them in an owl-form. Why do you ask?"

Toni Calligan shivered. "Because I've been seeing them, that's why!" she told them, the words tumbling out, one after the other, as if she could not stop them. "Tall men, with mohawk haircuts and wearing leather pants. Ryan has, too! Lurking around the house-and sometimes just before something horrible is going to happen-"

Explanations spilled out of her, then, a litany of accidents that were nothing of the kind, of the dryer fire, the Indian man who had pushed Ryan into the path of the car, the exploding pressure cooker-the Indians who had appeared and disappeared, the mi-ah-luschka who had been haunting the house at night, watching from around corners, making their presence felt.

And, finally, the Indian who had risen up out of the corner of the living room as the storm struck, young Rod playing with the TV in defiance of her orders, and the lightning strike on the television antenna, just as Rod's hand was on the dial.

Before she was finished, Toni was in tears again, recalling the horror of that moment and the fruitless attempt to revive her son. This time Jennie moved over to her side of the table to put her arm around the woman, hoping to offer some small measure of support and comfort. But this time the tears were for herself as much as for the lost child.

"I thought I was going crazy," Toni sobbed. "I thought I was seeing things, that maybe I was really the one doing all this, and I was so crazy I didn't remember any of it! I thought this morning when I woke up that maybe I had electrocuted Rod and I'd hallucinated the whole thing!" "You weren't going crazy," David said, quietly. "You saw them. They've been after you, and after your kids, and they finally hit Rod Calligan right where it hurts most by taking his eldest boy. Toni. I've seen them, and a meaner bunch you've never laid eyes on. And it's all Rod Calligan's fault. If anyone killed that child, he did."

"But why?" she asked, wiping her eyes. "Why would he be-robbing graves? He doesn't even like Indians; the whole time we've lived here, we haven't been to the Gilcrease once!"

David pursed his lips. "Our guess is that Rod Calligan has been looting gravesites and stealing artifacts, then caching them at this mall site, planning on digging them up later. Maybe he figured that if they were "found" on land he owned, he had treasure rights to them and could sell them legitimately. There are some people who are willing to pay a lot for Indian artifacts, but you can sell them for a lot more money if you can sell them legitimately."

Jennie found herself nodding with surprise and approval. Now that was something she had not thought of, but it made sense, it made perfect sense! In fact, it was the first time that all of the pieces had fallen together in this case! She gave David a brief but dazzling smile; he shrugged, but looked rather pleased with himself. As well he should be.

"Anyway, the way we have it figured, something went wrong when his own bulldozer uncovered one of the caches," David continued. "Maybe he never intended for one to get uncovered; maybe it was the fault of the mi-ah-luschka. Maybe they arranged things so that some of his prize loot was pulverized." His brow furrowed for a moment. "I don't exactly know how the bomb fits in there, unless Calligan booby-trapped the caches like he did the- like some of the treasure-hunters in South America do."

Jennie hadn't missed the quick rephrasing; he had almost mentioned the booby trap they had nearly sprung. Toni Calligan didn't notice anything; she was concentrating too hard on the rest of what David had said. She seemed particularly interested when David mentioned the mall site as a place where her husband had been burying looted artifacts.

"I always thought there was something funny about that place," she replied, wiping her swollen eyes. "That mall, I mean. Rod was so obsessed with it, when half the people in town told him it was going to be a disaster, because it was on a floodplain." She looked up at Jennie, her expression hardening. "What you've been basically saying, over and over, is that you really do think he brought all this on us. That you're completely certain that it's his fault all this has been happening."

"That's it," Jennie replied, then shrugged. "You have to take my word for it, if you're going to believe in the mi-ah-luschka and Medicine. It's very subjective stuff. I can't prove most of it. I can't even prove the looting. None of this would even be enough to bring charges, much less to convict him in a court. But the mi-ah-luschka know, they've tried and convicted him, and they're carrying out the sentence. The only problem, so far as I am concerned, is that they are also carrying it out on you and your children."

"I have one dead child, and two who had escapes so narrow it was miraculous," Toni Calligan said, the heat of anger creeping into her voice. "I know what's been happening. There is no natural explanation. I can believe it. I saw that Indian myself, twice. And I can believe Rod would rob graves; he'd rob his own parents' graves if he thought there was something good in them. He fooled me for a long time, and for a lot longer, I fooled myself. But I'm not going to delude myself anymore."

That might just be anger and outrage in the wake of the beating speaking, but Jennie didn't think so. This woman knew Rod Calligan as well as anyone could. This was probably experience talking, not anger. The bruised face looked determined; the hands clenched on her tissue spoke volumes about her feelings.

"It's going to take two days before I can get the kids out of here," Toni continued. "Maria says that I should be very cool and very meek, try and stay out of his way as much as possible, and act as if I thought I deserved all this, so he doesn't suspect that we're about to run." Her jaw tightened, and tears started up again. "Anyway, I'm going to be so busy with the-taking care of-I think I can keep myself and the kids out of his way."

"Good," Jennie said, but Toni wasn't through.

"You've done so much to help," she continued. "I don't know much about what Rod's been doing, but maybe I can find out something for you in the next two days."

"Don't do anything that puts you at risk," Jennie warned, a little alarmed. She did not want Toni hurt worse than she already was! "You're going to be at risk enough from Rod, and then there's the mi-ah-luschka. I have no idea what they'll try next, or when!"

"Can't you do something for her?" David asked, his own eyes dark with concern. "You got them to leave me alone."

But she had to shake her head. "You came into their territory, and I was able to bluff them into thinking you were with me."

She turned to Toni. "I wish I could do something. If I could protect you from them, I would, but while you live in this house, under this roof, they will not believe me if I try to tell them that you are not a lawful target. It will have to wait until you have filed divorce papers; that act will resonate into the spirit world, divorcing your spirits as well as your marriage. Then I-or better still, my grandfather- can perform a purification ceremony for you that will take you completely out of Rod Calligan's sphere, so far as the spirits are concerned."

"They've already done so much-maybe they'll be satisfied for a while," Toni replied, voice tight with unshed tears. Jennie's stomach twisted; bad enough that the poor woman had gone through losing her child-the rest of this was torture of the innocent. But the mi-ah-luschka had no hearts. "And maybe they've seen how much Rod thinks of me and the other two kids. Anyway, if I can, I'd like to do something." She frowned for a moment, as if she had suddenly recalled something. "You know, there used to be a couple of cardboard boxes full of some strange things in his office; they used to give me the creeps. ... That was just before all this stuff, the strange accidents, started happening."

"Is the stuff there now?" Jennie asked quickly, hope rising. For that, and the chance that the "strange things" might come from Watches-Over-The-Land's grave, she'd break down the damn office door and to hell with legalities.

But Toni shook her head. "No," she replied, dashing Jennie's hopes again. "No, he took it out right about the time he started locking the door, and I haven't seen it since. I still don't know what was in those boxes. All I know is, they were really dirty, and they weren't the kind of thing I ever thought he'd have around."

"If it was artifacts, he's probably sold them by now," David said, sotto voce. Jennie grimaced, but he was probably right.

"Don't risk your own safety, but when it comes to information on Rod Calligan, we could use the inside help," Jennie told her, after a moment. "Every leg up we can get on this case is something we didn't have before. I'd be interested, and so would the cops. It would be nice to be able to prove he booby-trapped his own land. I'm not sure that he could be charged with manslaughter, but at the least, he could get reckless endangerment, and it would leave things wide open for civil suits by the survivors."

"I'll do what I can," Toni Calligan replied, her chin up, with a look of determination in her eyes that belied the black eye, the bruises, the swollen lip. "I promise."

David took the city bus back to the house to tell Mooncrow what had been happening; at least now they had a good theory that made all the pieces fit. If Rod Calligan were systematically robbing gravesites and caching the artifacts at the mall to be dug up in the course of excavation, it explained just about everything anomalous.

And it explained the anger of the Little People.

She asked David to write everything down and fax it to Sleighbow-with the preface that this was all very speculative, and they had no way of proving any of it. But she wanted Sleighbow to have all the information she did. Minus the Little People, of course.

She was positive that, at the least, Mr. Sleighbow would find it all very interesting. She was rather certain that using insured property for the "storage" of dubiously acquired artifacts was not covered by Calligan's policy.

Jennie thought it all the way through on her way to the offices of the Women's Shelter, following behind Maria, Toni's caseworker. The little Chevette was easy enough to follow, even though the streets were crowded as people got out for lunch. Traffic in Tulsa still was never as bad at its worst as it was in Dallas at its best.

The mall site was a bad one, although on the surface it might seem to be a good place to put a shopping area. Granted, there was no mall or even a decent shopping center that close to the river. This was a high-income area, heavily residential. A high-end shopping mall should have good potential.

But when you looked close, at least according to Jennie's mother, the picture changed. Existing malls still had plenty of vacancies, what with the recession and all. A smaller, high-end shopping complex associated with a hotel was not doing well, and it was very near Calligan's site. Worse yet, there wasn't nearly enough access; the streets were predominantly residential, and a plan to increase Riverside Drive to six lanes was controversial and being fought by the local residents. This site was, after all, on a floodplain, and her mother's tips from the local real estate grapevine said that reason alone had kept people away. He didn't even have a quarter of the shops booked. But he owned the land, free and clear, and David said just before he left that he thought Oklahoma property rights included "treasure-hunter" rights to whatever was found there.

Maria was a cautious driver; that made her easier to follow. She never ran yellow lights, much to the annoyance of those behind her. And although Jennie already knew the way, she was glad to have the excuse to go slowly; it gave her the opportunity to think this through.

David had explained the law as he understood it, cautioning that he had not looked up Oklahoma law yet. If Calligan had "treasure rights," that meant that valuable artifacts that seemed to have been cached there, under Oklahoma law, belonged to Calligan, unless someone could come along with proof of ownership or proof that the objects had been stolen, or both. And if that was the case, it also accounted for the fact that he'd just buried them there rather than making it look like a legitimate burial site; under Oklahoma law, remains had to be reburied in an appropriate place if they were dug up in the course of construction. But something that was obviously a cache site came under the heading of "treasure," even if there were bones cached with it. The bones alone would be reinterred; what was with them became simple property.

Since sacred pipes and fetish-bundles didn't exactly come with I.D. numbers or registration cards, there was no way on earth or heaven that Jennie could prove the artifacts Calligan had came from the looted graves.

So assume that this was what he had done; Calligan would have the right to sell them. Probably for a lot of money; if there had been a Wah-hopeh bundle, for instance . . . well, there weren't many of those in white hands, and none in the hands of private collectors. Selling them on the black market would get him a lot of money, but being able to claim them with the force of the law on his side would allow him to put objects up for bid openly, which would mean a lot more money than if he'd had to sell them privately.

So, he gets his loot and makes obvious caches on his land; now how does that fit in with the bomb? And just as importantly, how does that fit in with the stuff that was bulldozed?

That was the part that puzzled her. Wait a minute. The more public his "discovery," the less likely it will be for someone to think he looted the stuff. So say he makes one cache of relatively worthless pieces of broken pottery and bones, and has his men dig it up. Then he fights the work stoppage so it looks as if he didn't know the stuff was there. When the archeologists say it was a cache rather than a burial site, he orders work shut down, does his own excavations, and "uncovers" more caches, these a lot more valuable than the stuff his crew ruined. He sells it all in legitimate circles, and makes back ten times what he spent on the canceled mall.

It was a beautiful scheme, and the only thing that had ruined it was the bomb. Which still didn't fit in. It was a bright red piece in the middle of the green puzzle, and it stuck out in all directions.

So why the explosion-Well, he probably booby-trapped his caches, like David said, only the mi-ah-luschka moved one of the bombs. Or else the explosion was something not even he knew was going to happen. Maybe a business rival. Whatever, he decided to capitalize on it, and blame it on us.

That way the cops wouldn't be looking for more booby traps.

The explanation for the one that nearly got David was easy enough.

He probably set that one right out in the open to get me as soon as he found out I was working on the case. He'd kill a lot of birds with one stone. He'd get me out of his hair, get another bombing he could blame on the Movement, put up more smoke and mirrors to hide what was really going on.

She nodded to herself as she pulled into the Shelter parking lot. It all made perfect sense, and it certainly explained Calligan's insistence on continuing with a project that was doomed to failure. Calligan was a lot of things, but "stupid" wasn't one of them.

But he didn't plan on the mi-ah-luschka, and he didn't plan on me, she thought grimly, as she got out of her car to join the Shelter caseworker who was waiting for her. Let's just see if between us, we can bring him down.

The office of the Women's Shelter was a madhouse; there were always a hundred kinds of crisis going on, each one worse than the last. Yet somehow, amid all the chaos, things did get done.

It took a long time to get, as Maria (Toni Calligan's caseworker) put it, "all the ducks in a row." Oklahoma was a state riddled with antique laws and outmoded assumptions. It was, for instance, a common-law state; live together with someone for seven months in such a way that everyone knew you were sharing a bed, and you were common-law spouses and liable for each other's debts under the law. For that matter, check into the same motel room and you were automatically common-law spouses, if one of you wasn't already married!

This was not such a good thing, so far as spousal abuse was concerned. In Maria's words, "In Oklahoma, unless you can get witnesses and documentation that the abuse went past simply 'slappin' her around to larn her,' you don't get protection or a divorce." Judges, especially older male judges, were not inclined to take abuse seriously if there was nothing but one woman's word against a man. They were too inclined to believe that "the little woman" was just angry with her hubbie and trying to get a little attention for herself.

So the neighbor's testimony had to be taken, then Jennie's, as well as Maria's and Toni's; Jennie had to swear that the pictures Maria had taken were undoctored and had been taken exactly the way Maria said they were.

David had to come in long enough to make a statement, which was good news as far as Jennie was concerned. She got a chance to tell him her speculations, and to warn him she thought that she was going to be here for a while. He got a chance to tell her that the assumptions he had made about Oklahoma "treasure" law were correct.

Once all the documentation was in order, they still weren't done. A lawyer had to draw up the preliminary papers. A judge had to review them, and the evidence-

And besides all that, the safe house had to be located and room made for Toni and the kids. Maria's guess of forty-eight hours was based not on the fact that she knew they had a place but that it would take that long to locate one for her.

All that took time, and it was well after ten when the last of the "ducks" were properly lined up, and Jennie could go home. She was exhausted, but it didn't stop her mind from working.

Another rather nasty thought had occurred to her, after David had gone back to Mooncrow to make sure he didn't gorge himself on pizza.

All this time they had been assuming that the appearance of the Evil One had nothing to do with Rod Calligan. But what if they were wrong?

What if Rod Calligan had taken the Evil One's spirit-bundle? What if it had been the Evil One who had been behind the looting of Watches-Over-The-Land's grave-goods?

She had put the thought out of her mind while she and Maria worked on the more mundane matter of getting Toni Calligan out of her husband's hands, but it came back to her as she walked out to her truck.

The lighting was very good here, in a place where mostly women worked, and where angry men might want to come after them. Still, although the shadows were small, they seemed all the darker for that. She thought she saw vague, bird-shaped things watching her from the trees. Not owls-something more like starved crows, except their legs and necks were all wrong. And not mi-ah-luschka, either; she would have seen them, while if there really was something there, it was doing its best to make sure she couldn't see it.

The back of her neck crawled, and she was very happy to get to the Brat. She got in and locked the doors, quickly, and started the engine. The familiar surroundings made her jitters seem silly, and she shook her head at herself, frowning as she worked through all the implications of that last speculation.

What if Calligan had gotten the spirit-bundle with some other loot? Or-what if he had even picked it up, all by itself, after it washed down Mingo Creek? The Evil One would certainly have known where Jennie's ancestor was, just as Mooncrow had pointed out. He would have been delighted to assist in the desecration! What if Calligan was the instrument through which the Evil One was working?

What if all this was because of the Evil One, and not just Calligan's own greed?

A nasty thought; a very nasty thought. But it would explain the bomb, because the Evil One wouldn't care if Calligan's own people died. He thrived on creating the maximum harm to everyone, no matter whose side they were on. He had no allies, not really, and anyone who thought he was an ally was deluding himself.

She pulled out of the lot and he.aded down the relatively deserted street, her frown deepening. The Evil One would find a ready enough instrument in Rod Calligan, that was for sure. The man purely didn't give a shit about anyone but himself. He was positioned very well to do an incredible amount of damage to the Native American population of the area right now. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel, and she drove paying only scant attention to the road, taking backstreets to avoid the lights. Calligan already had some people convinced it was the Indians who'd blown up his dozer. It wouldn't take much to get another good chunk of the previously uncommitted population on his side. Convincing one decent journalist would do that.

He could undo everything any of the tribal leaders had done in this state. He could get at the Oklahoma legislature easily enough and get them to try to restrict Native sovereignty. That would mean that Indian-run gaming could be shut down, for instance, something that the fundamentalist groups were already agitating for. Any forms of tribal income other than arts and crafts could and would be shut down. That would cut off a lot of funding for all kinds of education and health-care projects, and plenty more. Say good-bye to tribal police, for instance. . . .