Sacred Ground

He could, by playing this whole situation right, set Indian rights back by fifty years or more. Or, at the very least, he could see that it all got tied up until it had to go in front of the Supreme Court. That would take years to settle, if it ever got settled at all.

And meanwhile, even if they won before the Court, they would still lose in terms of public opinion. It hadn't been that long ago that a kid had to hide the fact that he was an Indian if he didn't want trouble, if he wanted decent treatment and a decent job. If Calligan and the Evil One were really working together, pretty soon it wouldn't just be yellow journalists like Anger who were bad-mouthing Native Americans. . . .

She was so wrapped up in these unpleasant speculations that she didn't even realize she was being followed until she pulled onto Pine, and finally noticed that the car behind her had been there since she'd left the Women's Shelter parking lot.

A chill ran down her back, and she clenched the steering wheel.

It could just be a coincidence-But why not check?

She made a couple of really odd turns, and felt another thread of cold fear trickle down her spine when the car behind her did the same. Her gut tightened, and she looked at the darkened houses around her, knowing there was no help coming from them. Not in this neighborhood.

They were following her, whoever, whatever they were, and they didn't care if she knew it. Someone from Calligan, trying to scare her off by roughing her up? Possibly. Not car-jackers; her Brat wasn't worth taking. But for a woman alone, there were other possibilities, all of them nasty. Sure, she knew martial arts, but that wouldn't help her much against two men, bigger than she was.

Now she wished she'd had the three thousand for that evasive-driving course!

Shit. She would be on the side of town where there wasn't a police station! And in North Tulsa, sadly, the only time the cops came was if shots were fired. This wasn't the worst neighborhood in town, but it wasn't the kind where anybody paid any attention when someone yelled for help.

And I didn't bring my gun, because I thought we were. calling on a bereaved mother. I didn't plan on being out Ms late. I didn't plan on being alone!

Too late now. There was only one thing to do; try to lose them. Speed, and hope a cop stopped her! She'd gladly risk a ticket-

Then, just as her foot came down on the accelerator and she passed the limit by five miles per hour, a red light popped up from the dash of that sinister dark car behind her.

And all her adrenaline flowed away in a rush of mingled relief and disgust.

Oh hell. An unmarked car, cruising for easy fish and quick tickets for the monthly quota! And I fell right into it! I should have known better than to go through this area at the end of the month. She didn't know whether to laugh or curse. She pulled the Brat over to the side of the road, stopped as the car behind her followed her like a shark following the scent of blood, turned off the ignition, and rolled down her window just enough to pass her license through. The car behind her stopped just behind her rear bumper by a couple of feet; the light on the dash went out, although they left their headlights on, and a bulky figure in a uniform and hat got out of the driver's side. She squinted at him through the back window, trying to make out what he looked like against the light.

Odd. That was an awfully large car for a cruiser. That didn't look exactly like the Tulsa P.D. uniform-there was something wrong with the shape of the shoulder patch. And why weren't there extra lights behind the grill?

The driver paused, just short of her door, as she tried to identify the make of the car.

She handed out her license, but the cop did not take it. "Get out of the car, please, miss," the man said, in a calm and neutral voice.

Alarm threaded her nerves all over again. Wait a minute. They don't ask you to get out of the car on a routine traffic stop!

She glanced back again, and got a better look at the car; it was a Lincoln.

There wasn't a city in the country that could afford Lincoln Town Cars for unmarked units!

Too late. Her moment of hesitation gave her away.

The last thing she saw as she reached for the keys to start the car and get out of there was the club swinging at her window; the last thing she remembered was throwing up her hands to protect her face from the club and the shower of safety-glass fragments.

The last thing she felt was a blow to the side of her head, followed by an explosion of stars, and oblivion.

"Think this'll do?" "Jim" asked, as "Bob" slowed the car at the top of the dam at Lake Keystone.

"Bob" squinted down through the darkness at the little spit of park below Keystone Dam. "You sure they're planning on opening the gates around two?" he asked his partner.

"Absolutely," "Jim" said. "They're going to do a major water release; it was on all the news programs. It'll send all the garbage that's been collecting under the dam downriver. By the time they find her, she'll be under the Twenty-first Street bridge, if they find her at all. Fred's leaving the truck at Riverside Park. They'll never know where she went, unless she floats up."

"Tom" grunted in the backseat. "Let's get this over, with," he said, in a calm and dispassionate voice. "I don't like doing a job in the open like this. Too big a chance somebody'll come by."

"Bob" took the Lincoln down past the dam, then made the unmarked turnoff that led to the tiny park. After they made the turn, there was a small sign that advised that the park was closed after nine in the evening, but he ignored it. There was no gate, and with the economy as bad around here as it was, there was no money to spare for cops to patrol this area.

That made it a good place to do a job.

If he'd had more time, he would have gotten a four-wheel drive vehicle and taken the mark down a little further, to an access road and the sand and gravel works. It would have been just as easy to get rid of her there, with less chance of discovery. But beggars couldn't be choosers.

Besides, "Tom" still had on his uniform; they still had the dashlight. If anyone came by, they could claim to be police looking for pushers. That would get kids to clear out fast. And kids looking to neck or score would be all that would show up out here, this time of night.

The parking lot at the foot of the dam was completely in shadow. He pulled the Lincoln in under the shelter of some trees, just in case, and the three of them got out.

The mark moved a little when they opened the trunk, but "Tom" was good with that club. She was still pretty much out, and her facial cuts had all been superficial enough that paper towels they'd put over her face and under her head had blotted up all the blood. Those would go into the river with her. Calligan, the pervert, had wanted them to rape her before they got rid of her. Asshole. Didn't he know that semen samples were as good as fingerprints for catching somebody? And what if they got blood on themselves? They had to think of these things. You never knew what a body was going to do; sometimes things got screwed up, and some kid found a stiff while it was still fresh. You just didn't leave anything of yourself behind; that was the rule. That was why all three of them wore surgical gloves, crewcuts, common shoes a size bigger than they usually wore, and brand new clothing.

Besides, "Bob" didn't screw stiffs, and this one was the next thing to being a stiff.

Well, this was going to be quick, clean and professional, and screw Calligan. None of the three got any jollies out of pain or terror. With luck, she wouldn't even fight them.

"Toni" rolled up his sleeves and pants, picked her up, wrapped in the garbage bag they'd lined the trunk with. She whimpered a little; he ignored her, carrying her like a roll of carpet over one shoulder. There was a good place down at the end of the parking lot; all gravel, no sand to hold tracks. The other two didn't bother with saving their clothing; it came from K-Mart, and it would all be thrown in the Goodwill bin as soon as they got back to Tulsa. There was a gym bag with jeans, sneakers, and T-shirts in the backseat.

She started to come to just as they reached the water; she really woke up when they put her in. The water was a lot colder than he'd thought it would be, hardly much above freezing. Strange. It shouldn't have been that cold. The cold water woke her up, and that was when she put up as much of a fight as she could. Not much of one, really; she was tiny, and there were three of them to hold her down.

They held her under until she stopped struggling and stopped bubbling. Then "Tom" noticed the lights of a car on the other side of the dam.

"No point in taking chances," he observed. "Bob" agreed.

Quick, clean, professional. Get out before anyone sees you. Leave nothing that can be traced.

They got into the Lincoln and left; "Bob" noticed the lights of a car pulling into the access road in his rearview mirror, and congratulated himself on a clean getaway.

So, dying wasn't really that bad, after all. Curiously, after the lungs stopped straining for air, there was no pain. Only weariness, and complete detachment.

Kestrel perched in a tree high above Keystone Dam, and watched her murderers with a dispassionate eye, as if she were watching a movie that she knew she would not see the end of. No doubt about it, they were professional. She hadn't even guessed that they weren't cops until it was too late; they had the light, the uniform, even the regulation billy club. Not that it was particularly hard to buy any of that stuff through catalogs, but if you wanted to get rid of a mark without a fight, that was the way to do it.

Funny, though, that they brought her all the way here, just above the eagle nesting grounds, to finish the job. Ironic, in fact.

They probably would never even be implicated. She was certain that the car would undergo a complete cleaning and vacuuming as soon as they took it back to Tulsa. They had been careful not to let so much as a thread of theirs adhere to her, or anything of hers touch the car, wrapping her in a common industrial-sized garbage bag, which they left in the river. In a way, she could even admire them, as one admired any professional. They were good. Probably the best in the area. And the solution to a number of deaths which had always seemed rather odd to her suddenly presented itself, as the three men got into their car and drove away with the lights still off.

She flipped her wings a little to settle them, and continued to watch. There didn't seem to be any urgency in going anywhere, anymore. She might as well watch and see what happened next.

Mostly, she was tired, and rather numb. The flood of complete fear that had taken her over at the end seemed to have exhausted every other emotion.

But to her mild surprise, another car came screaming down the access road at a rather dangerous speed, not more than a minute after the Lincoln left. It was hard to tell cars in the dark, and from above, but this one looked rather familiar.

Then, as the doors flew open and David flung himself out of the driver's side, she recognized it as her grandfather's.

Poor David; just a little too late. . . .

She felt as if she should be angry that they hadn't come sooner, but-it just didn't seem important anymore. In fact, there wasn't much that was important anymore, when you came right down to it. Kestrel yawned a little, and blinked, feeling vaguely restless.

Shouldn't I be going somewhere?

David went right to the spot where she'd been left, as if she were iron and he was a magnet, with Mooncrow right behind him. He pulled her out, limp and dripping, and began frantic CPR. It would make a lovely dramatic scene in a movie.

She sighed. Too late, love. She knew. She'd been under too long; nothing, not even a miracle, would revive her now. If he'd had her in the light, she'd have been blue.

At first she thought that Mooncrow was simply frozen with shock, but then she realized as she saw his spirit-shape forming over his head that he had gone into a Medicine trance. He stood like a statue, while a misty shape wisped upward, becoming more and more solid, until at last there was a glistening bird hovering just above his head. He was wearing his white crow-self, and when he looked up and saw her in the treetops, he arrowed up toward her.

But something was holding him away; his wings pumped furiously, but he made no progress toward her. He changed to a raven, and the results were no better. His wingbeats slowed; his wings seemed to get heavier, and he dropped back toward the ground, back to his body. . . .

She shifted from foot to foot, restively, with growing unhappiness. Surely she should be going somewhere! She didn't want to stay here anymore, watching Mooncrow try to reach her, watching David crying and trying to force life back into a lifeless body-

Huge wings shadowed the moon for a moment. The tree shook as something landed just above her. She turned her head sharply, and Eagle peered down at her, his great beak gaping in greeting. Immediately her unrest settled. This must be what she had been waiting for, a guide to the Summer Country.

Well, little sister, he said.

She thrilled at the sound of his voice in her mind, the first real emotion she had felt since she' found herself perching here. She bobbed her head, modestly. Greeting to you, Great One. Do you come to guide me?

He turned his head, to peer at her from his other eye. Do you wish guidance? he replied, watching her closely. You have much still to do, here. Ta-hah-ka-he cannot deal with the tangle of the Evil One, nor can your grandfather, not alone.

At first she was confused by the Osage name, Deer-With-Branching-Horns, until she remembered David's spirit-quest, and what his spirit-animal had proved to be. Of course, Eagle would not use anything but David's Osage Spirit Name, and David would not know what it was in Osage. It was too bad she could not give it to him, now.

She felt a vague regret, and a dim sorrow, as she saw how David was weeping over her, even as he continued to blow futile air into lungs that would get no use from it, and tried to force life into a heart that had ceased to beat.

But Eagle's point needed to be addressed. Great One, I fear that the time for action is gone for this one. The spirit-house below is beyond repair; there will be brain damage after so much time without heart beating and lungs breathing.

Again, she felt a vague emotion, this time anger. If Wah-K'on-Tah wanted her to do something about Calligan and the Evil One, shouldn't he have brought help a little sooner?

But Eagle laughed, silently, his beak open and his thin tongue showing. Would I have come to remind you of your duty if the spirit-house were unusable? he asked. You know how chill the water is. I need not explain it to you. And whatever else is wrong, I will see it taken care of.

As he spoke, a warm golden glow haloed him, a hint of the sunlight in the midst of the night.

She bowed her head down to her toes at that, humbly, overcome with deep awe. There was no doubt in her mind that she was in the presence of one of the Great Spirits; a messenger of Wah-K'on-Tah, as she had named him. What he pledged would come to be, for he had the authority to make it so.

He turned his head to look down below, and sighed. There is the small matter of Ta-hah-ka-he, as well, he observed. David was clearly at the end of his rope; she had never imagined him losing control to anything but anger, and to see him in hysteria was something of a shock. Small, perhaps, in the larger view, but if you are gone from his life-he may lose his way, and he will surely lose his focus. He loves you; you love him. Together, you form a balanced whole. Should this not count for something? But there is a larger matter at hand, as well-

He spread his wings, and in their shadow she saw What-Might-Be.

She saw Toni Calligan, dead, and dumped into an oil pit by the same men who had murdered her. She saw Rod Calligan galvanizing opinion against the Native Americans, as she had already imagined. She saw Calligan and another man turning the abandoned mall site into a dumping ground for toxic waste; saw the entire ecosystem along 'the Arkansas River destroyed, poisoned, with the first to go being the bald eagles nesting here. She saw the toxins spreading all through the ground water, until even the local wells were poisoned, and wildlife vanished. But then she saw what was behind it all.

The Evil One, who had grown powerful enough that he had the ability to split small bits of himself into the independent forms of his choosing. And what he had chosen were three Black Birds, birds that even appeared in the waking world, to act as his eyes and ears there. He intended to infuse Rod, Ryan, and Jill Calligan with the spirits of his Black Birds. Using them, he would destroy the Native Americans he hated, the whites he despised. He had studied Rod Calligan, and he would gain power through the accumulation of money and influence, specializing in the destruction and poisoning of the Earth, of the lives of humans who had no idea he even existed. He would reduce'"life" to the misery all too often depicted in fiction; he had seen and read that fiction, and it had amused him. He planned to use it as his pattern, to make it into a reality.

It would be all too easy to do; people were accustomed to being miserable, and would not notice one more increment of misery. They were used to the mediocre. They were already doing what they were told.

He would gain control so gradually that no one would notice in the general population. And those who would take note, he would destroy, through Rod Calligan for as long as the man lasted, and then through his children.

Eagle folded his wings, and she came back to the present, but found herself looking deeply into his golden eye.

Where she saw herself, reflected, without distortion.

Kestrel, who had cut herself off from her emotions, living her life totally by reason and logic-until David came back and led her into the habit of feeling again. Who had concentrated all of her life on the job, as if simply living wasn't as important as the job. Who had, most of all, been unwilling to give up control, and let outside forces and purposes take it, even for the briefest of periods. As if, by always being in control, she would always be able to do exactly the right thing and would never, ever, make a mistake.

And all because she was afraid to lose control, afraid to make those mistakes that had to be made if you were going to be a person and not a machine.

Eagle blinked, and she found herself looking into his eye again, seeing the laughter there.

Laughter that suddenly became too much to resist.

Well, little sister? Eagle said, mildly. Have you seen at last the lesson that held you back for so long? Are you ready to take a new path, and perhaps share it with the Young Male Deer?

Well, staying in control sure hasn't worked! she laughed. And how I could have been afraid to make mistakes-

Eagle grinned. Then you will return?

She laughed even harder at her own absurdity. Of course! she agreed-

And suddenly, she was freezingly cold, with stones biting into her back, ribs and head aching horribly, lungs afire. Coughing up water-

And laughing, even as her lungs burned and her heart pounded.

"Jennie!" David caught her up in his arms, babbling, crying, holding her and pounding her back to help her cough up the rest of Lake Keystone, all at the same time. She managed to get her arms around him, still alternately laughing and coughing. He stopped pounding just long enough to kiss her, and she tasted the salt of his tears mixed with the river water.

Mooncrow covered her with a blanket, wiped her face and hair with a towel, saying nothing, but grinning with tears on his face.

And David just held her, as if he wanted to keep her there forever, his shoulders shaking with fear and cold and grief-turned-joy.

And she-she let him.

She and Mooncrow kept glancing at each other all during the ride home, and giggling. /'// have to explain it to poor David, she thought, more than once; he obviously thought they were both still hysterical. He just drove; he had no intention of stopping until he got them both home, and he kept his eyes on the road and both hands on the wheel, even though he clearly would much have preferred to trade places with Mooncrow in the backseat.

But Jennie shared a joke with her grandfather that would be very hard to explain; it wasn't so much a joke as it was a state-of-mind. Relief, for one thing. A knowledge shared; the absurdity of how she had been blocking herself, and how easy it had been once she saw what Mooncrow had been trying to tell her.

"Heyoka," she would say to him, and they'd both break up. '"Heyoka yourself," he would reply, and it would start all over again. In fact, they really didn't stop laughing until they got home, which was just as well, since as long as she was laughing, her head didn't hurt quite so much.

David insisted on carrying her into the house, still wrapped in Mooncrow's prize blanket. Her grandfather followed, as David carried her to her room and laid her gently on the bed.

"Take these," he ordered, handing her pills and a bottle of orange juice. "

"What are these? Time-release contrary-capsules?" she asked, and set him snickering again.

"No," he replied, through the little snorts. "Vitamins, aspirin, and antibiotics."

She raised a rebellious eyebrow at that, but David took them from Mooncrow and sat down on the bed beside her, holding out the juice. "You either take them, or I give them to you," he said sternly. "Mooncrow is right; you don't need pneumonia on top of everything else. And when you get done taking the pills, you go to sleep-"

But Mooncrow waved that off, before Jennie could object. "No, first she must tell us what happened to her," he said. "All that she learned. You and I know only what my vision told us, that she had been attacked and taken to the dam. Not who, and what, and why."

There was something about the inflection of his voice that made even David sigh, but bow to his will. And Jennie took the pills.

She told them all that had happened, or all that she could, at any rate. Most of her experience with Eagle simply didn't translate well into words, especially the parts about the Evil One and his plans. So she left that part out, said simply that she had been there, watching, and stuck to what she knew about the hit men-

Especially that Toni Calligan was next on their list. David looked skeptical at first, but after a while he began nodding-

It helped that she was able to describe in detail everything that he had been doing.

"I won't pretend to understand half of this," he said finally, then glanced over at Mooncrow. "I guess it's enough that the Little Old Man does."

"It is enough, for now," Mooncrow murmured.

Jennie leaned back against the pillows they had heaped up behind her, and sighed. Now that it was all out-she felt absolutely spent. And very much as if someone had hit her on the head, drowned her, and left her for dead.

"You need rest," Mooncrow said, and got up to leave. "We will speak of this in the morning."

But his eyes said something else entirely.

We will meet in the Spirit Worlds, she read there. I see that there are things you cannot tell me here. Things that he would not understand.

She nodded; at least in that place her head and body would not be bruised and aching!

He smiled, winked once with another meaning entirely, and left the two of them alone.

David started to leave; her hand on his wrist prevented him. "Don't go," she said, softly. "I've had enough of being alone to last for the rest of my life."

"Good," he replied, and stayed.

_CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"I hope you know what you're doing," David murmured, two days later.

"I hope I do too," she replied, quite seriously. "I'm sorry, my love; it isn't much of a plan, but it's all we have. This time I have daylight on my side, and I know the countryside, the back roads."

He shook his head, but leaned down and kissed her through the newly repaired window of her Brat. "I'd like to keep you wrapped up safe-but you're Kestrel, and you have to fly and hunt. You wouldn't be Kestrel if you didn't do that. You wouldn't be Jennie if you didn't do your job. Break a leg," he said, and went back to Mooncrow's car.

The only obvious souvenirs of her death and revival were a few cuts on her face, already healing. The bruises under her clothing were more extensive, but they were healing too.

Now she was back on the job. It was not nearly over yet.

But she did not want David to know how dangerous what she planned to do was.

She pulled her truck out of the parking lot of the fast-food joint six blocks from the Calligans' place.

She glanced down at the remains of her meal; the wrapper from a sandwich, an empty fry carton, a soft-drink cup and a half-finished frozen yogurt cone.

The condemned ate a hearty meal. Not.

The hit men were watching the Calligans' house; David had spotted them when he went to check on Toni. He was afraid that if the goons knew that Toni was bailing out on Rod, they'd move in to pick her and the kids up. Once she got to a safe house, she would no longer work as a bargaining chip against her husband. In fact, once she got to a safe house, the thugs might not be able to locate her any more than Rod could!

Jennie didn't think those things, she knew them. If Toni was in their hands, she was dead. If the kids were in their hands, Rod would do anything their employer wanted.

Toni, Ryan and Jill were innocent, as innocent as any of the slaughtered women and children at Claremore Mound, Jennie had been born far too late to save those innocents, but these three, at least, she could, and would, rescue.

So they would somehow have to lure the goons away- and while they were gone, David and Mooncrow would pick up Toni and the kids as scheduled, and take them to the offices of Women's Shelter. Once Toni signed the divorce papers and request for a restraining order, Mooncrow would sever all ties to Rod in a special ceremony of purification. Then, thugs thrown off the track, mundane and spiritual connections to Rod Calligan parted, she and her kids should be safe from Rod, the hit men, the Evil One, and the mi-ah-luschka as well.

Jennie still was not entirely certain how the hit men figured in all this-who had brought them in to take Toni and her kids, not why Rod had hired them to take care of her. There was some part of the picture still missing; some mundane connection she had not seen in her Eagle-guided vision. Somewhere there was someone who wanted a handle on Rod Calligan; she guessed it was some kind of silent business partner who was as deeply into this thing as Rod, if not more so. Well, fine. That was one thing she could try to track down later.

Meanwhile, it was time to play hare and hounds.

Or perhaps, Kestrel and Black Birds. ...

She drove slowly past the Calligan house, paused as if to stop, and then pretended to spot the Lincoln on the corner.

She was near enough to see the faces of two of the three men through the windshield of their car, and it was one of those moments when she wished she had a camera. The expressions on their faces were absolutely priceless. She had never seen anyone quite so stunned in her life-unless, perhaps, it had been a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.

A sudden impulse hit her to thumb her nose and cross her eyes at them. She fought it down, although it was terribly tempting. She had to make them think she was as startled to see them as they were to see her; had to make her "rabbit" attractive enough that they would leave the target they had staked out in order to finish the job on her.

So she pretended to gasp, threw the truck in reverse to spin it around, and took off.

And as she had hoped, they reacted to the bait she had thrown out; acting with atypical impulse, they came right after her!

And as she fled, the remains of her meal bumped her leg. She looked down, and the half-eaten cone caught her eye.

This, she could not resist.

She reached down and grabbed the cone; she slowed, just a little, swerved, just a little-

-and tossed it out the back window.

The white yogurt hit the middle of the windshield of the Lincoln with a hearty spack.

She couldn't help it; the gesture had been so heyoka that she burst out laughing. The yogurt looked like a huge bird-dropping in the middle of their windshield.

Surprise!

The men slowed abruptly, reacting to the sudden impact; slowed just enough to give her an edge as she sped off. Now she certainly had their attention! And given the care that they had taken so far that their vehicle take no damage, this would surely ensure that they followed her!

This time she had a route planned. This time they were not ready with their police gear.

This time it was broad daylight.

The first thing she had to do was to get onto country roads that she knew, and they (hopefully) didn't--get them out where there wouldn't be civilians in the line of fire. And onto roads where that big, heavy Lincoln town car would be at a disadvantage and her light Brat would have the upper hand. This was a fine line she had to follow; she had to keep them close enough that they would not give up. Yet she had to make certain they didn't catch her.

This time she was not unarmed; her .38 and five speed-loaders were on the dashboard just under the steering wheel, in a special tear-away Velcro holder she'd designed herself. If a gun battle started, she was ready for it. If they cornered her, she was ready for them. She hoped.

But the plan called for nothing so violent; in fact, the plan called for her to lead them straight into the speed trap at Catoosa. She was fairly certain they had a number of things in that car that the cops would find very interesting. And even if they didn't, well, she had filed assault charges while her bruises and injuries were still fresh, creating mug portraits of all three for the Tulsa P.D., and pointing out these three had committed assault and impersonated police officers. So-with any luck, they would at least spend some time cooling their heels in a holding tank.

And with no luck-she had enough connections in the department to find out where they, lived; even though a check on their license number had revealed a post office box, there were other ways to get their addresses. A professional hit man did not want himself exposed. Chances were that a discreet visit by, say, three of her large and muscled occasional employees would persuade them that Tulsa was no longer a good place to operate.

All that means I have to survive this though, she reminded herself, as she sped down a series of turns that would take her out into farm country and two-lane gravel roads. She took a quick look in the rearview mirror. They were right on her tail, and from the look of it, they were perfectly well aware that the safest way to get rid of someone in Oklahoma was to run him down, then refuse to take the sobriety test. So they're going to see if they can't crash me, then act drunk. Right. I just hope they didn't pony up the three grand for the evasive driving course! And I hope that they are still as worried about scratches on their pretty Town Car as they are about catching me. If they actually decide to ram me off the road-they outweigh this little Brat by about twice.

Rod Calligan stood in the shade of his office, a frown on his face, arms crossed over his chest, watching work progressing on the mall site. And it was progressing; that was why he was frowning.

All of the Indians had come back to work yesterday, with no explanations. All of them. By law, since they'd been out sick, he had to take them back. And the "accidents" had stopped, at least yesterday and today. So it was business as usual; better than usual, since they seemed to be determined to make up for the "sick time" off by working twice as hard. If they kept working like this, he was going to have a difficult time finding a rationale for shutting work down unless he blew up another dozer. . . .

He was so busy watching his industrious crew that he didn't notice the commotion in the air above the site until more than half of the workers stopped what they were doing and began pointing up at something in the sky. He squinted, shaded his eyes with one hand, the other hand going automatically to the fetish in his pocket, and looked in the direction they were pointing.

By the time he spotted what they were looking at, virtually everyone else on the crew was already intent on it-

"It" was an aerial battle, a kind of dogfight, with three scrawny black birds chasing something else, a swift little brown bird about the size of a blue jay or a robin.

What the hell? he thought, fuming, fingering the fetish in his pocket. Work had completely ground to a halt while the men watched, the Indians among them cheering the bird being chased as if it were their personal friend.

It swooped low enough to the ground, and near enough to him, that he saw it was a hawk or falcon, though smaller than he'd thought hawks were supposed to be, with brown and gray feathers, a speckled breast, and black markings around its eyes.

He should have been pleased; this was throwing delay into the work again, and that was what he wanted. But he wasn't; the very sight of that bird escaping the black ones over and over sent him into an unthinking rage.

If the Indians seemed to think that the hawk was their friend, he felt the same about the other birds. Hawks were vermin; they took game that rightfully belonged to human hunters. The black birds were probably protecting their own nests from a bird that would kill their young! And just when it looked as if the black birds finally had the little hawk cornered-

A raven flew up out of nowhere, croaking alarm and flapping wildly, distracting the black birds enough that they missed their strike! The Indians cheered wildly as the hawk arrowed right between a couple of pieces of equipment, did a wingover, and climbed past her pursuers.

Damn them! Calligan thought, his stomach sour with anger. Damn them, damn them!

Without any idea of who he was damning, or even why....

Jennie wiped sweat out of her eyes, and clutched the wheel until her knuckles ached. Her stomach was in knots; her shoulder and back muscles tighter than banjo strings. She was in trouble; trouble she hadn't anticipated.

A few moments ago she had narrowly missed getting forced over, and only got away by hitting the brakes, doing a bootlegger turn, and shooting off in the opposite direction she intended to go. Now she was going the wrong way to hit that speed trap in Catoosa. She needed another plan.

And another route! This was a bad road for the Brat and a good one for the Lincoln. Lots of straightaways-

Highway 20, she decided. It's all curves, all those little crossroads where traffic comes up out of nowhere-and there's that climb up from the Verdigris River that's all switchbacks! That's it!

If she could just get there-the bluff rose a good two hundred feet up, maybe three, offering one of the most spectacular views in this part of Oklahoma. No way that boat of a Lincoln was going to be able to keep up with the Brat on those switchbacks!

And then-then straight on 20 until she got to Lynn Lane-then Lynn Lane to Eleventh Street-

Did these guys know there was a major copshop on Eleventh? If they did, they might not realize how close to Lynn Lane it was, especially not if they never came at it going south. She might be able to lead them right up to the door- certainly she could trick them into something stupid, like speeding along there.

Right now, she didn't care if she got caught and they didn't! Right now, she was more concerned with escape.

The Lincoln loomed up in her mirror. She floored it. First, get to 20!

That damn bird kept getting away! Rod wished passionately he had a gun, he'd have shot the damn thing! And his crew was acting like the spectators at a horse race; in no way was he going to get them back to work while this was going on. His hand was clenched so tightly on the fetish that it ached; his eyes burned and watered from staring into the bright sky.

Larry Bushyhead watched the young female kestrel slipping just ahead of the talons of her pursuers with his hands clenched tight, and a knot in his stomach. When she twisted out of their clutches yet again, he cheered her wildly, as if by his cheering he could give her the strength and the spirit to keep going.

There was more to this than some strange birds chasing a little falcon; he knew it in his bones. This meant something, something important.

These weren't just birds. This was an omen-or a reflection of something else, some deadly hunt elsewhere. Those birds were like nothing he had ever seen before, and he knew his birdlife. There was a sinister, not quite natural air about them. If only he knew what it was-

But since he didn't, he did what he could; he stared at the little dot of a bird and willed her strength, speed, stamina. Willed her all the power he could. If only he knew enough about Medicine, so that he could help her with Medicine power!

And beside him, he sensed every other Indian on the site doing the same thing.

Fly! he told her, prayed for her. Fly, little girl! You can do it!

But he knew by her faltering wingbeats that she was in trouble.

Jennie was definitely in trouble. Her guts were filled with the ice of pure fear; she bit her lip and tasted blood.

She hadn't reckoned on the fact that she would be going uphill. All the advantages of her smaller car were outweighed by the fact that the engine was smaller too.

The bad guys were catching up to her, and there was still about a half mile of switchbacks yet to go.

Come on, she begged her laboring engine. Come on! Just a little farther-

The Lincoln loomed up in her rearview mirror again, filling it.

Fear closed a cold hand around her throat.

Come on, you can do it-

The man driving was smiling.

And he vanished from her mirror as he pulled into the left-hand lane.

He's gonna force me off the road-

And right here, "off the road" meant down. About a hundred and fifty feet worth of "down." No one could survive a drop like that.

They turned, together, and he was right at her rear bumper; he nudged the accelerator and came right alongside. A blind corner, a left-hand switchback, loomed right up ahead-the last turn before the top-if she could just keep him from forcing her off there-

Then, a flash of inspiration.

There's two pedals, stupid! she screamed at herself just as he pulled alongside, grinning at her across his partner in the front seat. Use the other one!

No more than a hundred feet from the corner, she jammed on the brakes.

He went sailing by, staring at her, mouth agape with shock-

Just as a bus rounded the corner up ahead. In his lane.

He had just enough time to react; he jerked the wheel wildly to the right-

At the same instant that the bus driver, in a panic, jerked his to the left to avoid the oncoming car…

Jennie could only watch, hand stuffed into her mouth, as the bus tried to swerve back into its own lane, and hit the Lincoln a glancing blow along the driver's side, just in front of the rear wheel.

Just enough to send it spinning right over the edge, tumbling over the side of the bluff.

The kestrel went into another dive, but this one had the feeling of desperation about it. The Black Birds were right on her tail, and she was either going to plow into the dirt of the Arkansas bluffs, or fly right up into their claws. Do something! Larry Bushyhead told the white eye of the sun, fiercely. Help her! Do something!

And at that precise moment, someone did do something.

The kestrel skimmed the surface of the river, the Black Birds following-so intent on her that they paid no attention to anything else.

Like the pair of Bald Eagles that suddenly dove down out of the sun, straight for them.

Larry watched in stunned joy. He remembered something a falconer friend had once told him. "If you want to really know what the fastest bird alive is, ask someone who just had their prize peregrine falcon taken by an eagle."

The Eagles were like twin thunderbolts-and evidently no one had ever told them that Bald Eagles were fish and carrion eaters, because they were obviously after those Black Birds, and the Black Birds didn't even know they were there!

A second later, they knew all right-but by then it was too late.

It happened so quickly that Larry could hardly believe it. Just the two plummeting Eagles, and three little explosions of black feathers as the Eagles fisted their prey, knocking the birds out of the sky and into the river.

They fanned their wings and tails to brake down, then made a graceful, leisurely circle to land on the sandbar beside the skinny black bodies. Larry found himself cheering like a madman as they made their fly-by, and it seemed to him that they bowed once, like star performers for an appreciative audience, before bending to dine.

The kestrel soared wearily up into the air, and was lost in the blue of the sky.

Larry cheered himself hoarse, then turned-

And found himself staring into the face of his boss, Rod Calligan.

A face that was transfixed with such rage and hate that for a moment, Larry didn't even recognize him.

The bus bounced off the wall of the bluff and skidded along it to a halt, the white-faced driver fighting the wheel and the momentum of multiple tons of steel and plastic and passengers. The passengers themselves screamed loudly enough to be heard over the shrieking of air brakes, the scrape of metal on rock; and the dull thud of an explosion as flame blossomed over the edge of the curve.

The bus slid to a stop mere inches away, just off her bumper. The driver stared down at her through his windshield, statuelike, whiter than marble.

Jennie just sat, frozen, her hands clutching her steering wheel, her heart trying to beat its way out of her rib cage.

It was the shrieking of the passengers that finally galvanized her into movement. She slammed the Brat's door open and sprinted for the bus, certain from all the noise that there were people sprawled in various states of broken all over the interior.

But miraculously, no one was hurt.

The driver was in a complete state of shock, as well he might be, but Jennie and a couple of the passengers who had their wits about them began helping the others out of the bus. Within a few moments, more cars appeared on both sides of the road, some of whose drivers had seen the plume of flame and smoke from the Lincoln. One driver had a cellular phone, and two had C.B. radios; all three called police and ambulances.

Jennie stayed there anyway, as the only witness to the entire "accident." She told the police, when they finally arrived, that the driver of the Lincoln had been trying to pass her on the blind curve, and that the bus driver had pulled off the best "save" she had ever seen in her life.

Since no one in the Lincoln survived to dispute her version of the story, and the driver honestly did not remember much besides seeing the Lincoln on the wrong side of the road and swerving to avoid it, the cops were perfectly willing to believe her.

It was only when she finally pulled her Brat away from the scene that she saw what was written on the side of the bus.

Eagle Tours.

David gritted his teeth and went on with his part of the "plan," even though he wanted to go chasing right after the three guys in the Lincoln as it sped off after Jennie's Brat. This whole thing depended on everyone doing his part, doing it right, and doing it without interfering with the rest of the plan. He wouldn't help either her or Toni Calligan by rushing off and doing something stupid.

Toni was not even aware of what else was going on. But the dual threat of her soon-to-be-ex husband and the mi-ah-luschka was probably more than enough for her. She was white as a sheet under her makeup and healing bruises, and the two kids, poor little mites, were clearly just as terrified when David came to the door. He wondered what had been going on in that house in the past forty-eight hours-

-then decided that maybe he really didn't want to know, after all. It would only make him madder. And he might lose his temper, go down to Calligan's construction site, and beat the bastard's face in. He was only heartbeats from doing that as it was; only his promise to Jennie had kept him from dashing out to kill the man when he realized Calligan had sent those goons to drown her.

But David had promised. She would not respect him for breaking a promise. She would neyer forgive him for messing up the case by breaking Calligan's head. Logically, he knew that. Emotionally, though, countless generations of warrior ancestry told him to go collect some blood.

He hustled all three of his charges into the backseat of Mooncrow's car and threw their luggage into the trunk; the sooner they got out of this neighborhood, the less chance there was of getting caught. Mrs. Nebles waved good-bye from her front window, and gave Toni the high-sign as they pulled away. Toni smiled weakly and returned it.

Everything was ready and waiting at the office; a small and private room, the Shelter lawyer, the papers, the ride to a safe-house. The lawyer coached Toni through the procedure with sublime disregard for Mooncrow, who smudged Toni, the kids, the lawyer, and the papers impartially, chanting and drumming with his other hand.

Then again, this probably wasn't the strangest ceremony these offices had ever seen. Hadn't Jennie said something about being part of the dedication ceremonies?

Yes, she had told him about it. She'd offered an Osage purification and blessing, along with a female rabbi, a female Episcopalian priest, a female minister, a voodoo priestess, and some kind of witch. ...

No wonder the lawyer wasn't fazed. On the other hand, given what they 're doing here, they probably figured they needed all the blessings they could get, he decided.

Mooncrow and the lawyer were equally efficient; they finished at about the same time, and both stood aside to let Maria herd up Toni and her kids like a faithful sheepdog and whisk them off to somewhere a lot safer.

"Wait," Toni said, just before Maria herded them out the door. Maria paused, and Toni looked back at David. "Before we go off-I didn't get a chance to tell you this. I want you to get hold of the cops that are investigating the bombing," she said, firmly. "Tell them that I have things they need to know, things I found out over the past couple of days. I want to testify against Rod. And I found a lot of papers and tapes in the safe in his office when I got in there this morning. He had them in a box marked 'Insurance.' I guess he thought that was clever; they're all in my suitcase."

David nodded, and looked at Maria, who grimaced. "Actually, Toni, if you have things you think might put you in danger, I'll take you downtown before I take you to the shelter. You might qualify for the witness protection program, and that would free up a little more space for another woman who doesn't."

"I thought about that," Toni replied, and licked her lips nervously. "With what I overheard on the phone-I think I would qualify, and I'd feel a lot safer with the cops watching us. No insult meant, Maria, but your people don't know Rod, and I do. I-think he might try something really drastic when he realizes we're gone."

"You're on." Maria waved her out the door, and David relaxed a little, then joined the lawyer in opening windows and fanning smoke out of the room.

"Sorry about this-" he began, apologetically. The lawyer laughed.

"Don't worry about it," she assured him. "I've seen weirder, believe me. The worst was the time we got some poor little Haitian girl in here who was so terrified of a curse that she wouldn't even pick up a pen until we brought in the woman that helped at the dedication. A little smoke is nothing-the obeah brought in chickens, a goat-I thought we were never going to get the goat smell out, and we're still finding feathers in odd corners!"

David laughed as they chased the last of the smoke out the windows and opened the door to the rest of the office. Then he borrowed the office phone long enough to call in a progress report to Sleighbow and Romulus Insurance. And Mr. Sleighbow was very interested in what Toni Calligan had said before she left. Very interested.

"Thank you, Mr. Horse," he said, gravely. "I'll get in touch with the Tulsa P.D. and have them call me as soon as they've taken Mrs. Calligan's statement. If she is that concerned-" he hesitated for a moment"-please remind Ms. Talldeer that she told me she was not Nancy Drew. Urge her to take extreme caution."

Well, it's a little too late for that, David thought, with heavy irony. But Sleighbow didn't know about the past three days; the attack was the one thing that Jennie had insisted on keeping from him. She had pointed out that she could not prove that her attackers had been sent by Calligan. If, however, she could get the thugs picked up, they would very probably sing some fascinating tunes.

At least Sleighbbw was concerned for Jennie's safety. David had to respect that and the man himself. Sleighbow didn't know Jennie personally; she was just a "hired hand."

So David made sure to thank the man, and promised him another update as soon as they had any information at all.

The rest of the Shelter volunteers were clustered around a television set as he came out of the little office, and it did not look as if they were watching soaps. Not with the expressions of shock on their faces. "My God!" said one.

"Isn't that Jennie Talldeer?"

"What?" he exclaimed, sudden images of Jennie lying hurt or worse flashing into his mind. He practically leapt the desk to try and get a look at the screen himself.

He got a brief glimpse of Jennie-Alive, all right, oh thank god!-before the station went to a commercial. The woman who had made the exclamation spotted him crowding in, and said, "Aren't you Jennie's boyfriend?" Then, before he could answer, she reached for the channel changer. "Hang on, I'll bet they'll have this on another channel!"

This time they apparently came in right at the beginning of the newsbreak; a different reporter was on the scene of some kind of accident. ...

He recognized the spot immediately; near the top of the bluff above the Verdigris River on Highway 20. The camera panned down the bluff to the smoking remains of some kind of vehicle far below, before turning to the road, and showing a bus and Jennie's Brat, practically nose-to-nose.

A different reporter was interviewing Jennie, who looked remarkably composed. Unless you knew her, and knew that it was nothing but a mask.

The woman turned up the sound.

"-acted like they'd been drinking, and tried to pass me just in front of the blind curve," Jennie was saying. "I slammed on the brakes just as the bus came around the other side. That poor bus driver didn't have a prayer of missing them, and the only reason I didn't end up in the wreck was because I had already stopped. The driver should get a medal for keeping that bus under control and on the road!"

The reporter thanked her, and went on to interview one of the passengers on the bus. The cameraman panned down on the wrecked car again.

Was it a Lincoln? It sure could have been.

David looked over at Mooncrow, who only nodded.

Nodded? Wait a minute-Mooncrow looked a lot more tired than he should be for the simple ceremony he'd just completed. Unless, of course, he had been doing Other Things at the same time!

David got the old man aside while the attention of the women was still on the television, and hissed, "You knew about this, didn't you? You knew she was in trouble!"

Mooncrow shrugged. "What good would it have done to tell you? I did what I could, and you could have done nothing."

David scowled and gritted his teeth. The old man might be right about that-but still!

When Jennie came in about an hour later, the entire volunteer staff had cycled through and no one knew of her involvement in the bus accident. David got to her first.

"I don't know whether to hold you or hit you," he said under his breath, as he caught her in a tight embrace.

"Hold me," she advised. "I have enough people trying to hit me."

She looked as gray as Mooncrow, and about as tired. The old man came up beside them, and David watched them trade significant looks with a sense of frustration.

I hope to hell they get around to telling me about what's been going on, he thought, grinding his teeth a little. But there was no point in taking out his frustration on her. Did those close to all Medicine People feel left out like this?

"Toni's in police custody," he told her, instead of snapping at her. "She found something out, something big enough that she wants to testify."

Jennie's head came up at that, alertly. "Damn!" she swore softly. "In that case-we'd better get those papers served on Rod Calligan, before he gets wind of that and goes into hiding. If we can't serve the protective order and the divorce papers on him, that's only going to complicate the state's case. Did you call Sleighbow for me?"

"Already taken care of; I figured he'd want to hear that," David said, pleased that he'd thought of it. "My only question is, are you up to this paper thing?"

"You need me along," she replied, staunchly. "Or actually, to be completely truthful, we need each other. If he's going to try anything, we'll be two against one. I don't think that he'll try anything with a witness around."

David grimaced, but she was right. And given Rod Calligan's recent history, he wasn't going to bet on the man reacting sanely to the papers being served.

"All right," he said. "Let's rock."

"I will come," Mooncrow said suddenly. They both turned to look at him. The old man had regained most of his color, but he still looked exhausted. Nevertheless, he was adamant, David could tell from his expression of stubborn will. "I will come," he repeated. "I will stay in the car, but I will come."

Jennie nodded, slowly. "I think he's right," she said. "I think he'd better."

David shrugged. "The more the merrier," he replied philosophically, and gathered up the papers he was going to serve on Calligan. "Shall we?"

Jennie remained very quiet all the way to the mall site, but her hand crept into David's and she settled her head on his shoulder with a sigh. He squeezed the hand, and turned his head just enough to kiss the top of her hair, but kept his attention on traffic. This was not the time to get into an accident.

Mooncrow did stay in the car when they reached the site; it was just past quitting time, but Calligan's Beemer was still there, and there was a light on in the office.

"Bingo," David said, softly. Jennie nodded, and let go of his hand; they climbed out of the car and headed for the portable building housing Calligan's remote office.

The door wasn't locked; David simply walked right in. The secretary's desk just inside was unoccupied, but David spotted Rod Calligan sitting at a second desk just inside a door on the left, at the back of a larger office. Calligan looked up as they both entered, frowning, but he either didn't see Jennie or simply dismissed her as unimportant.

"I'm not hiring," he began, but Jennie wasn't paying any attention to him. She was concentrating on the artifacts on Calligan's blotter.

They were all old, earth-stained, fragile-looking. A medicine bag of some kind, a pipe, a fetish-bundle wrapped in ancient, handwoven grass-cloth-

"I'm not here for a job, Mr. Calligan," David said, formally. "You are Rod Calligan, aren't you?"

Calligan nodded, looking annoyed.

"Good." David held out the papers, and Calligan took them, reflexively. "This is a protective order forbidding you to come within one hundred yards of Antonia Calligan, Ryan Calligan, and Jill Calligan, and a preliminary divorce decree. Thank you for accepting them."

He stepped back from the desk; Rod Calligan stared at him for a moment in stunned shock. Then his face began to turn purple-red with anger.

"By the way, Mr. Calligan," Jennie said, from behind David, "I'm Jennifer Talldeer, an investigator hired by Mark Sleighbow at Romulus Insurance. I've got a few questions I'd like to ask you. About your three friends who drove the black Lincoln-"

Jennie realized as soon as she entered the office that Calligan didn't recognize her. In fact, he probably had no idea who she was or what she looked like. So even though she was certain the hit men had told him she was dead, he showed no surprise as she followed David in through the door.

Until she told him who she was, that is.

It had been hard to concentrate on quick strategy-hard to concentrate on much of anything, once she saw what was spread out across his desk.

Calligan had an entire array of stolen artifacts from Watches-Over-The-Land's gravegoods, and others. Jennie could not imagine how he had managed to keep their presence hidden from her; she should have been able to sense them the moment they got near the site!

Unless whatever had been protecting Calligan was also hiding his stolen treasures. . . .

He had been about to launch into some kind of display of anger, verbally or possibly physically, against David, and men who were angry didn't think about what they were saying.

She knew he had hired those three thugs, but she didn't know if he had actually seen or met them. But he had to know that there were three of them, and he might assume whatever car they drove was dark.

The minute she spoke her own name, he went white.

But when she said the words "black Lincoln," he went berserk.

He leapt up out of his chair, his face suffused with rage-

And his hand clenched around something, something that pulsed with an evil dark power, power that oozed thick and blackly poisonous as crude oil. A power she had sensed before.

The Evil One!

Now it all made sense; the grave-robbing, the bomb, and her visions! Now the pieces all fell together and she saw the shape of what she had been facing!

She had only just enough time to recognize the fetish-bundle for what it was, and to make that sudden realization, when Calligan lunged at her.

She backpedaled, frantic to avoid the touch of that bundle; he came up over the desk at her, equally determined to touch her with it. There was no room to escape; he body-slammed her into the filing cabinets behind her, and as she flailed to avoid further contact, she did the very last thing she wanted to do-

She accidentally touched the hand holding the spirit-bundle.

This time, there was no gradual transition; something seized her, shook her like a dog shook a rag, and flung her away.

She was-not in the Waking World.

Not any longer.

_CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

kestrel stood in the heart of the Spirit World, but in a part of it she did not recognize, at least, not at first. This was a bleak and barren landscape, where nothing grew and nothing lived. The sky was the color of ashes, the ground under her feet cracked and lifeless. Nothing broke the arid horizon but the occasional dead stick of what had once been a tree, now withered and sere. A thin and bitter wind sighed mournfully across this land, full of acrid, burning stenches and the sick-sweet smell of decay.

She wore her human form, in her full regalia as Hunkah and Tzi-sho, as Warrior and Medicine Person.

Before her stood another human; someone she did not recognize at all. By his costume, he was Osage of long ago; his hair was cut in the Warrior's roach, and he wore the deerskin leggings of a hunter, but he had no eagle feathers in his hair, and no shell torque about his neck. Instead, he had the feathers of some sooty black bird braided into his hair; a soft down plume on the right side, and the hard tail-feather on the left. The very opposite positioning of the two eagle plumes she wore. Around his neck, he had a collar of hard black talons, of no bird or animal that she could recognize, centered with a disk of shiny black flint. And his face was painted, not with war-paint, nor with bluff-paint, but with jagged lightning bolts of ebony-black.

And he was one with this terrible landscape she found herself in. He stood here with the full confidence and comfort of one who belonged to this place, was familiar with it. The predator in the heart of his territory. . . .

That was when she recognized it as the place of her dream, before this all began. The terrible place where the eagles died.

The man before her was neither old nor young, and his expression was so completely blank that he might have been a department-store mannequin. But his eyes held an evil and a hatred so intense that she instinctively stepped back a pace or two from him.

He reached toward her, and she backed up again; she sensed that if she let him touch her-

He'll drain me, she thought with growing horror. He'll take everything worth having from me. I'll still be alive, but there -won't be anything left of what makes me what I am. No spirit, no heart, no energy, no laughter, no creativity, no hope. No love. That's what he did here. . . .

And that was what made him so horrifying. This was why Watches-Over-The-Land had to stop him! He devoured people, things, from within, and left nothing behind but the dregs.

He makes them into something worse than nothing, worse than killing them outright, because they know what he's done to them, and he's left them despair. Despair is all his victims have left.

And now, with no physical body to limit him, nothing to confine him, and all the protections that had been put around his spirit-bundle gone, he was more dangerous than he had ever been in her ancestor's time.

He reached toward her again; slowly, as if he was toying with her. She evaded him, but not easily. It felt as if she were moving through mud; was he mustering the resources of this place against her? She tried to summon up some sort of protection, and failed.

He laughed at her, his voice ringing with scorn.

"You may have conquered my Black Birds, Little Hawk," he told her, sneering, "but now you meet the Devourer. I am Hunger, and you cannot escape me."

She didn't reply; she could only wish, desperately and profoundly, that there was some way to invoke Watches-Over-The-Land, to bring him back from the Summerlands. He defeated this Evil One before; her ancestor Moh-shon-ah-ke-ta was the one who knew how to deal with him, what worked against him the first time-

But she was on her own.

She was more frightened now than when she had been struggling to keep from drowning; more frightened than a few hours ago, facing her murderers for a second time. That had only been a physical death that she risked. This was more-the death of all that made her whole.

She had never, ever, felt so helpless in all of her life.

What was worse, she watched the Evil One's eyes, and knew that he knew all of this by the sly smile creeping onto his thin lips; knew that he read her every thought, and could play on all her weaknesses and exploit them.

You have to deal with the enemy inside yourself before you can take on the enemy that faces you. . . .

Like I have the leisure for a psychological review right now! What should I do, ask him to wait for a minute while I bring in my analyst?

His smile widened, just a little more, while the bitter wind of his place, called by his power, whipped her hair around her face, stinging her eyes and calling up tears of pain and pure unadulterated fear. He licked his lips, as if he tasted and relished those tears.

David was not prepared for Calligan to come lunging over the desk; he stepped back, instinctively. That was a mistake; he cleared the way for the man to body-slam Jennie into the wall of filing cabinets opposite the desk.

Then he reacted, leaping to Jennie's defense, but it was too late; Jennie was out cold, and Calligan was backing away, toward the door. Quickly, he positioned himself between Jennie and Calligan, taking a defensive stance over her prone body. He glanced down briefly, desperate to determine how badly she was hurt, but afraid to take his eyes off Calligan for long.

But Calligan relaxed, and gifted David with the nastiest smile he'd ever seen. David tensed. If something made Calligan smile, he had a pretty good idea that he wasn't going to like it.

Then the contractor reached around behind his own back and locked the door of his office.

"I told Romulus, I told Sleighbow, over and over, that they couldn't trust you savages," he said, pulling a clasp knife from his pocket. "Now-let's see if I can come up with a good story." His eyes focused just past David's shoulder for a moment. "Got it. That primitive little tart must have decided to use you as her way to bring me down." Calligan eyed David as if he were some kind of lower form of life, a bug or a worm. "I can see why; you must make a lot of money as a gigolo. So. First you seduce and steal my wife, then persuade her to file against me; then you use serving those papers on me as an excuse to get in here to try and murder me." He shook his head and tsked. "Barbarians. There isn't a judge and jury in Oklahoma who'd blame me for killing you and your bimbo. Temporary insanity, that's what they'd say."

Strange, Calligan spoke as if he was reciting something; as if someone were coaching him with a hidden mike. But his eyes were alert enough, so he wasn't on drugs or anything.

David tensed, his eyes on Calligan's, regretting profoundly that he had left his gun at home and his knives in the car with Mooncrow. But Jennie had sworn that he couldn't risk going armed when he was serving legal papers. And he really hadn't thought that Calligan would try anything stupid in a place as public as his office.

Calligan handled that knife as if he knew how to use it. A very bad sign.

Calligan saw his eyes flick briefly to the knife, and his smile widened. "I was a Navy SEAL, did you know that?" he asked conversationally. "They train the SEALs right. Missed 'Nam, though. I always felt kind of cheated. I'd have enjoyed it."

He circled a little, and made a brief feint to the right. David saw immediately what he was up to; he wanted to get David away from Jennie.

So instead of moving, he simply pivoted, watching Calligan's eyes, and trying to think if there was anything within reach that he could use for a weapon.

Kestrel backed up another pace, but she didn't think a simple tactic like that was going to work for much longer. It might look as if she could back up forever across this wasteland, but this was his wasteland, and he could manipulate it in any way he chose. Sooner or later he was going to get tired of this.

Oh, Ancestor, if only I could call you back to me!

"Daughter-" said a deep voice just behind her, suddenly; so suddenly that it made her jump. Something materialized at her side, a bright presence in the darkness.

She glanced to her right, and almost sobbed with relief.

Another Osage stood beside her, his costume dating from the same ancient days as the Evil One. Like his, all the decorations on it were non-European; shells, quills, claws, teeth-but this man wore proper war-paint, a mussel-shell torque. And like Kestrel, he wore eagle feathers; both the under-tail covert of the Tzi-sho, on the left, and the hard tail-feather of the Hunkah, on the right.

There was no doubt whatsoever in her mind who this was, not when she sensed an immense power and strength in him, and an enormous confidence.

"Moh-shon-ah-Jce-ta," she said, with a little nod of respect, and a smile of relief. "Ancestor. You are very welcome here!"

As she spoke, she moved back and to the side, instinctively placing herself shoulder-to-shoulder with him. He smiled back at her, and some of that power and strength flowed into her, erasing some of her blind terror.

But when she looked back at their enemy, the Evil One did not seem to be any less confident. He looked Moh-shon-ah-ke-ta up and down, contemptuously. "One, old and brittle," he said with scorn, "and one, green and with no experience. Hardly a challenge at all."

"So?" Watches-Over-The-Land said mildly. "But you are hardly younger than I."

Kestrel felt a third presence join her and Moh-shon-ah-ke-ta; a moment later, Mooncrow stood at her left shoulder. He looked very much like Watches-Over-The-Land, except that the decorations on his ritual clothing, like hers, boasted the additions of ribbon- and beadwork.

The Evil One snorted. "Even three-to-one you cannot defeat me!" he laughed. "You, old fool-" he continued, pointing at Kestrel's Ancestor, "-should have warned them! You had the Little Old Men of all the gentes beside you when you bested me last! You have only these two at your side now! And I-"

He seemed to loom larger-no, he was growing larger, looming over all three of them!

"-I have no limits upon my power now!"

He spread his arms, gathering his power to him, and lightning flickered about his head as he prepared to strike them.

But Watches-Over-The-Land was not going to stand there and wait for him to act!

"Follow!" he ordered, and fled.

Kestrel followed him, as he somehow twisted the very fabric of this place, and escaped from the Evil One's land into another level of the Spirit World.

Her sight distorted, then cleared; she gasped for a moment, trying to breathe air that was suddenly heavy.

No, it was not air at all.

Kestrel found herself wearing the form of a fish, the swift and clever trout, arrowing through the sparkling water of a clear river. Ahead of her was a great salmon, which must be Moh-shon-ah-ke-ta; beside her, a black bass, which was surely Mooncrow.

The river darkened, as something passed overhead. Kestrel gathered herself and leapt, high-

The Evil One was there, waiting for her, fishing spear in hand. He had already stretched a net across the river ahead of them! They were trapped!

He struck at her leaping body; she writhed as she fell, and the head of the spear just skimmed past her sleek flank. This time it was her turn to cry "Follow!" as she fell back into the river and gulped life-giving water, then twisted the fabric of the river and-

Ran on four hooves across a grassy plain, in the shape of an Appaloosa mare. Her unshod hooves thudded dully beneath her, cushioned by grass that had never seen a blade. This grassland stretched from horizon to horizon, dotted only with a bush or two, with, a hint of thin darkness to the east where there might be trees following a watercourse. Overhead, the sky was a blue bowl, the sun a white-hot disk in the midst of it. Two stallions raced behind her, a Medicine Hat pony, and a tall palomino; and she pulled herself up, not wanting to run blindly into a new trap. She stood warily sniffing the wind that whipped her mane and tail, head up, looking for the Evil One. The stallions followed her lead, each facing in a different direction.

She wondered how the Evil One would counter this shape; there wasn't much that could take on three mustangs and win, not on the plains-

Then the palomino whinnied sharply, and she and Watches-Over-The-Land pivoted in his direction.

Fire!

Fire sprang up in a long line stretching from horizon to horizon, racing toward them, eating its way across the landscape. Kestrel fought her horse-instinct to run in a blind panic, as more fires cut across the horizon, until they were ringed with flame.

"Follow!" whinnied Mooncrow, and reared, and leapt-

She followed, and found herself-Fluttering through air that tasted thick and grainy. In bird shape. But not the familiar bird-shape of Kestrel, but black, speckled, stub-tailed.

A starling? She faltered for a moment, then picked up her wingbeats again, moving easily among the-

High-rise apartment buildings?

Fumes drifted up from the traffic below, but they didn't seem to bother her in this shape. Car horns blared, sirens screamed, construction equipment rattled and pounded, and the noise of uncounted engines battered her ears.

Beside her flapped an English sparrow and a pigeon.

The air behind them popped. And the Evil One, in his form of Black Bird, hovered there for a moment, confused by the terrific noise.

That moment was all that Kestrel needed. It was time to stop running and give him a taste of being the prey! Calling a starling alarm, she dove on the Black Bird, certain of what would follow.

Her alarm call swiftly summoned a cloud of starlings from all directions, which followed her lead and proceeded to mob the Black Bird mercilessly. Individually, the Evil One was more than a match for them-and in fact, he lashed out with beak and claws, and sent several of his tormentors tumbling dead out of the sky. But that only made the rest of the starlings angrier, and they pecked at his head and pulled at his feathers until he began to falter and lose height. And he could not tell which of the starlings was really Kestrel; he could only strike blindly and hope that luck would put her into his reach.

He could not win this one, and so he changed the setting, shattering the air with a terrible cry that wrenched the fabric of time and space, sending them all hurtling-

Into the white of a landscape of nothing but snow and ice. Wind ate at her; snow whipped around her, driving itself into her eyes and nose. The sky was white, the ground was an undulating white; everything was white.

Kestrel shivered, despite the thick coat of fur she wore, encased as she was in the body of an arctic fox; beside her were a white wolf and a snowy owl. She had barely time to take in what form she now had, when what she had thought was a snowdrift heaved upward on two hind legs, roaring, and came at them with monstrous paws spread wide to crush them all.

But they were not there when the polar bear's foreclaws hit the snow. Kestrel had gone to the right, the white wolf to the left, and the owl straight up. This time they attacked the bear; the fox nipping at its hind end, the wolf tearing at its flanks, and the owl battering its face and eyes with its wings.

The bear roared with frustration, and knocked the owl out of the air. Instantly, both Kestrel and Mooncrow leapt in, each snatching a wing, and pulling it away from the bear's claws.

This is nothing but stalemate, she thought to herself, as she panted, her sides heaving, her lungs aching. He can wear us down like this-we have to find some way to bottle him up!

"Put me down and follow!" commanded Moh-shon-ah-ke-ta, and she obeyed unthinkingly, opening her jaws, then followed as the owl plunged forward into-

The cool, green depths of the forest.

A very, very large forest-

No, she was simply very small.

She scampered instinctively into the shelter of a leaf-filled cranny beneath the trunk of a fallen forest giant. She was a deermouse; beside her was a chipmunk, and beside him, a vole. She peered out at the forest outside; it was as silent as the city had been noisy, with one lone bird calling off in the distance, and not even a faint breeze rustling the trees. Sunlight lanced down through the branches, making shafts of gold among the green.

"Kestrel, will you trust me?" asked her ancestor, twitching his whiskers with agitation. Nearby, a black wolverine snuffled through the dead leaves, and she knew that this was the Evil One, looking for them. But for the moment, they were safely hidden in the hollow beneath the fallen tree.

"Yes," she answered simply.

"Then when you find yourself as a swallow, fly into the first cave that you see. "

Fly into a cave? But even though swallows were clever flyers, and often nested in caves, how would that help?

She never got a chance to ask that question, for at that moment the black wolverine caught their scent, and began to dig at the entrance to their shelter.

"Follow!" cried Mooncrow.

And once again she darted through the air, this time above a landscape she recognized. It was the area around Carlsbad, New Mexico, and she was, indeed, in the shape of a swallow.

Unfortunately, she was entirely alone.

And behind her was a Cooper's hawk, talons outstretched to snatch her out of the sky.

The Cooper's was the deadliest predator of birds that flew; Kestrel had seen them take starlings and crows before their prey even knew there was a danger. With a squeak of panic, Kestrel twisted and dipped and turned, trying to outmaneuver her enemy.

But she was tired, and the Evil One wasn't even missing a wingbeat!

She looked down, hoping for some kind of brush to dive into to shake her pursuer. But there was nothing down there but rocks and cactus-

And the mouth of a small cave.

She folded her wings and dove. The hawk followed, but as she looked back, she heard him laugh, and saw him transform in midair from a hawk to a great black owl!

Too late for her to change direction-

She shot through the mouth of the cave into echoing semidarkness. "How kind of you to be so stupid as to go into a place where I have the advantage!" he mocked, as she banked frantically, just in time to avoid the back wall of the cave. Then she had to bank again, as her flight took her too near the entrance he was guarding, evading his talons by so little that she squeaked with pain as he grabbed one of her primaries and yanked it out.

He lunged at her-

And as soon as he passed into the cave itself, he flew directly into the web of an enormous spider!

It confused him, and he flapped in place, angrily shaking his head to try and rid himself of the clinging fibers. But before he could, a huge bat dropped down on his back from the ceiling above, knocking him into the floor of the cave so hard that he hit his head. And for the moment, he lay stunned.

Kestrel seized the opportunity and darted outside, followed by the bat.

The bat transformed into Moh-shon-ah-ke-ta as soon as both of them were outside; Mooncrow rose up from out of the rocks, and Kestrel dropped down beside him and took her human form again.

"Now!" cried her Ancestor.

They joined power, calling on the ancient rocks, calling on the Earth and Air, the Sky and Lightning-

And all the ancient spirits answered them.

The earth shook itself, knocking them off their feet; the Sky sent down Lightning all around them, blinding them, deafening them, hemming them in-

Rocks tumbled down the slope of the hill, blocking the entrance of the cave, and before the Evil One could find a shape to escape the trap, Lightning struck the hillside again and again until the sand smoked and fused, sealing him inside for all time.

David dodged a swipe of Calligan's knife, and stumbled into the side of the desk, sending everything that was not already on the floor flying. He grabbed an ashtray and flung it at the man, who dodged it, laughing wildly, and slashed at him again.

The window's too small to get out of, even if Jennie were conscious. The only chair is on the other side of the desk. The filing cabinets are too heavy to tip over-

He ducked another knife strike, frantically running through his limited options.

The phone is on the floor, and I don't think he's gonna give me a minute to call 9-1-1-

Was that smoke?

He glanced to the side and swore. The lamp that had been on the desk had gone into the wastepaper basket; smoke wisped up from the trash. Calligan followed his glance, and grinned even more as flames licked up from the paper and the bulb exploded with a pop.

Oh shit. Isn't the other side of this trailer where they keep the explosives' shed?

To put it out, he'd have to leave Jennie-which was exactly what Calligan wanted. The minute he left her unprotected, Calligan would kill her.

Calligan laughed, and David snarled as the flames licked up a little higher from the wastebasket.

This guy is effin' crazy! Where the hell is Mooncrow? Can't he see the fire from here? Mooncrow might not be able to get through the locked door, but if he called the fire department-

Calligan lunged, and David skidded out of reach, the blade actually ripping his shirt in passing. Calligan was as fast as a striking snake; he recovered and lunged again, as the flames caught the chair next to the desk and dense black smoke mingled with the flames-

If the fire didn't get them, the smoke surely would!

Where was Mooncrow?

Calligan's got him. Or he's had a stroke. He'd looked awfully gray back there at the office.

Calligan lunged again, trying to drive David away from Jennie, and cackled insanely. And this joker doesn't care if we all die so long as he gets me and Jennie!

Screw this. There's only one way to deal with this maniac.

He knew he was going to get hurt, but he didn't think that Calligan would anticipate his next move, and he remembered something one of his Lakotah buddies told him about going up against a knife-fighter.

You can always take the knife out of the picture if you're willing to get hurt doing it. Just force the target on him; don't let him pick where he's going to stick you.

And the flames were climbing the wall beside him, now.

They didn't have more than a minute or two if they were going to get out of there alive!

Calligan lunged-and David charged into the lunge.

He took the knife in his shoulder, but his adrenaline was up now, and he didn't even feel it. He body-slammed Calligan into the wall; grabbed both his shoulders and slammed his head up sideways into the filing cabinets. Calligan's eyes rolled up into his head, and David let him fall.

He pulled the knife out of his shoulder with one hand while he kicked the door open. The flimsy lock didn't hold past the second kick.

Now the flames covered the back wall entirely.

He took the two steps he needed to reach Jennie, thanking all the gods that she was tiny, then slung her fireman-style across his good shoulder, as blood poured from the wound in his other shoulder, soaking his shirt.

As he turned, he took a fraction of a second to look for the artifacts, knowing that Jennie would ask after them, remembering that she had said they were important. But there wasn't anything anywhere in sight, and he had no time, no time left at all-

He plunged through the door, stumbled down the stairs, and staggered across the bare, sandy ground-the office was going to go up at any moment, and they needed some cover, quick-

There. He spotted a pile of bags of sand for concrete and tumbled around in back of them, dropping Jennie as soon as they were behind them and falling to his knees-

He pulled her further into safety, then took a quick, nervous peek around the edge.

Just as that whole corner of the lot went up.

Jee-ZUS!

He fell back as the ground beneath him shook, momentarily blinded and deafened.

But by the time he could see again, the fire department, half the cops in Tulsa, and everyone in the neighborhood were converging on the site, sirens and people screaming.

"No, sir," Jennie said politely to the cop, while the paramedic bandaged David's shoulder. "We don't know what happened. David and I were delivering the divorce and protective orders from my client, Toni Calligan. You can check that with the Women's Shelter yourself. Mr. Calligan wasn't happy about it, but-" she shrugged. "He threw us out."

David had stalled the cops just long enough to think of a story they might believe. "She's being polite, officer," David put in, grimacing a little with pain. "Mr. Calligan told us to go to hell and went berserk, and threw us out of the office. Threw Jennie, literally, and she landed on the steps and got knocked out cold. Then for some reason he assaulted me with a letter opener. You get a look at Mrs; Calligan, you'll see what I mean; that bastard was a psycho. That poor lady's black and blue."

"It all checks, lieutenant," one of the other cops said, radio to his ear. "His wife's got a protective order on him and she's turning in evidence on him in the bomb case out here." The lieutenant gave David a sharp look; he returned one as bland and innocent as a baby calf.

"Honest to god, I don't know what the hell happened after he went after me," David said, still wide-eyed. "I got out after he stabbed me and he locked the door; I figured he might be going after a.gun or something, so I picked up Jennie off the steps, slung her over my shoulder, and got the hell out. I got just past that pile of sandbags, when the whole place went up."

Not too bad a story for one built as hastily as this one; it accounted for his stab wound and Jennie's goose egg.

Right now all he wanted was for the cops to let them loose. He had the feeling that by the time Toni Calligan finished making her statements and the cops finished searching Calligan's home office, they'd find more than enough to make them overlook a few minor discrepancies in his story.

He wanted to get to a hospital and get a pain-scrip for this shoulder. Then he wanted to go home.

He didn't want to think about what he'd seen, in the moment before the office went up like a demo from Industrial Light and Magic. . . .

A whole swarm of the Little People, grinning like fiends, dragging Calligan, kicking and screaming, behind them.

Jennie listened to David's improvised story with a feeling of awe. Damn! If he can make up things like that out of nowhere, he's going to be a hell of a partner! I never could do convincing fibs!

The police lieutenant gave them another one of those looks, after spending a good ten minutes trying to shake their story, but finally sighed. "All right," he said. "You and Ms. Talldeer can go. Just don't leave town."

David visibly summoned the rags of his dignity. "Officer," he said, earnestly, "Ms. Talldeer is making me her partner. The last thing I want to do is leave town!"

He dragged himself to his feet with the sympathetic help of the paramedic. Jennie stood up with care for her aching head, and they both headed for the car where Mooncrow waited for them. Thank god he's all right.

Apparently the fire hadn't actually been visible from outside; Mooncrow told David and the police that he hadn't known there was anything wrong until the explosion itself. David evidently believed him.

Good thing, too. He wasn't anywhere near ready to hear what had really happened.

"I don't suppose you saved the artifacts, did you?" Jennie asked, sotto voce, as they neared the car. She was wistful, but not at all hopeful.

" 'Fraid not, babe," he replied, apologetically. "I didn't see anything, and I didn't have time to look. Getting you out was a lot more important."

She sighed. "Well, it's better destroyed than in a museum, in Calligan's hands, or with some private collector." Then she brightened. "I just realized-we did this! We took care of everything! Calligan-he had the Evil One's spirit-bundle, and with that gone, we even took care of that part of the mess!"

No point in getting any more elaborate than that. Not yet, anyway.

She stopped, just at the car door, and turned toward him. She felt a glow of pride and happiness that not even the headache from her concussion could dim. "We did this, David! I could never have done this without you and Mooncrow!"

He flushed with pleasure, and flushed even more when she stood on tiptoe to kiss him, a kiss that lasted so long that Mooncrow finally called them back to their surroundings by clearing his throat ostentatiously.

"Much as I enjoy seeing you two enjoy yourselves. . . ."

They separated, reluctantly, and climbed into the car. "Your turn to drive, Little Old Man," David said, getting into the backseat with Jennie and putting his good arm around her shoulders. "We're walking wounded, remember?"

"Certainly, sah," Mooncrow drawled, in an excellent imitation of an impeccably English chauffeur. "And what are your directions?"

"We need a doc to look at us both-" Jennie began. "The paramedic said we needed to go to the emergency room-"

Mooncrow turned to glare at her. "I have enough friends at the Indian Hospital to get someone to do a house call," he said acidly. "What kind of a grandfather do you think I am?"

David laughed. "A contrary Little Old Man," he replied.

"All right, I know what you're waiting for. 'Home, James, and don't spare the horses!' "

"Veddy good, sah," Mooncrow replied with immense dignity and a twinkle in his eye, once more assuming his chauffeur persona. "Veddy, veddy good."

But he didn't immediately put the car in motion. Instead, he reached over the back of the seat and dropped a long bundle across Jennie's knees.

"A friend of ours wanted you to have this," he said, as the wrappings fell open.

David raised an eyebrow in surprise. It was a pipe, a very old pipe. It could have been the twin of the one lost in Calligan's office.

And Jennie, cool, unflappable Jennie, just stared at it, looking as stunned as if someone had just hit her in the back of the head with a two-by-four.

_author's note

I am not an expert on Native American religions. I hope that I have not offended any Native Americans with my depiction of Jennie Talldeer and her grandfather. This book was intended as entertainment; I have an extensive library and many trustworthy sources to ensure that it is as accurate as may be, but it is not to be taken seriously, not to be taken as reality. I am not portraying reality, or attempting to.

I have tried to be as accurate and honest as I can, within the realm of storytelling. My chief source for this story was The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters, by John Joseph Mathews, himself an Osage and a graduate of both the Universities of Oklahoma and Oxford, England. This book and many more in the "Civilization of the American Indian" series are available from the University of Oklahoma Press. I highly recommend them.

I am not a guru, shaman, Grand High Pooh-Bah, Guardian, Mistress of the Martian Arts, Avatar, Cosmic Earth Mother, or any incarnation of the same. I have no lock on Immortal Wisdom, and in my experience, anyone who claims to, has his eye on your money (granted, I do too, but only insofar as entertaining you enough to buy my next book). To confuse me with what I write is as fallacious as confusing a truck driver with his Peterbilt.