Heart of the Storm. Lindsay McKenna
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wore the black buffalo horn choker around his thick neck, an abalone disk attached to it. She had given it to him as a departing gift when he was a young man about to go to West Point Military Academy.
Chase’s military short black hair, still damp from the sweat, gleamed with blue highlights. He had obvious Indian features, a square face and high cheekbones, and a restless gaze constantly moving around to check out his territory. Golden cougar eyes. Agnes was pleased with Chase’s alertness. It was what had kept him alive during his years in Delta Force.
Turning to prop the door open to welcome in the morning air, Chase smelled the wonderful fragrance of sage. He knew that each morning, as the sun rose, Grandmother lit the sage in a rainbow-colored abalone shell, stood in her doorway and sang the sun up. The white smoke was healing and uplifting in a spiritual sense. It got one clean and in harmony for the coming day.
“Come sit.” Agnes gestured for her tall, well-built young man to sit on a red-black-and-white wool rug she had woven fifty years earlier. She watched as Chase moved with the boneless grace of a cougar to settle opposite her, legs crossed. She accepted the dried, wrapped bundle of sage that he handed her. That was a sacred calling card, regardless of nation—a gift of sacred sage from one party to another. It was a sign of respect.
Searching Chase’s eyes, Agnes saw that the four days of the vision quest had exhausted him. But that was the point of a quest: to wear down the physical body and mind enough so that the Great Spirit could talk to the supplicant’s heart in dream language.
When Agnes handed him a cup of steaming sage tea in a chipped blue pottery mug, he took it with a slight nod of his head. Chase had not eaten nor drunk anything in four days. Agnes watched as pleasure wreathed his coppery face, his eyes closing slightly as he sipped the fragrant, life-infusing tea. Sage cleansed a person physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. It was one of the most powerful members of the plant kingdom.
“This hits the spot, Grandmother,” Chase growled. “Thank you.” He savored the medicinal taste as the tea trickled down his gullet into his shrunken stomach and brought him back to life.
Pleased, Agnes lifted a beat-up copper teakettle and placed it nearby so that Chase could drink all he wanted. A person coming off a vision quest was dehydrated, no question. And sage tea was the perfect way to replace lost fluids. “I’m glad.”
Without hesitation, Chase drank two more cups of the tepid tea. After pouring a fourth cup, he looked over at the aged woman, whose shoulders were drawn back with unconscious pride. “I’ve missed sage tea,” he admitted, his voice raspy. “I’ve missed a lot, I think.”
Even in her nineties, Agnes Spider Woman was beautiful. Elegant. Chase wondered if he’d ever find a woman who had these inner qualities that shone through like sunlight, as they did in Agnes. At thirty years of age, he had given up hope of finding such a woman, convinced he had only bad luck with the opposite sex.
“You needed to leave the reservation to find yourself, Chase. There is nothing wrong with that.” Agnes spoke gently, seeing pain cloud his golden eyes momentarily. “We each have a journey we must take. And there are many tributaries to the Red Road, paths that we are called to take from time to time. Joining the army to feel your way through the white man’s world was one you had to take. I understand this.” Agnes watched Chase nod, his mouth twisting in a grimace. His face was deeply weathered by time he’d spent in harsh outdoor elements. Agnes knew that Delta Force was a very specialized unit whose members trained hard physically. That showed in Chase’s forearms, where the muscles jumped each time he lifted the cup of sage tea in his large, callused hands.
“Tell me of your vision,” Agnes entreated, folding her hands on the dark-blue velvet skirt she wore, her legs crossed beneath the fabric.
Chase wrapped his hands around the warm mug as it sat on his left knee. Closing his eyes, he allowed the vision to congeal before him once more. “I saw a great blue heron come flying out of this thunderstorm that was stalking me, Grandmother. And at her side flew a nighthawk. Lightning danced around the three of us, and I was sure I was going to be struck by it. The heron landed in front of me, a lightning bolt in her beak. The nighthawk landed next to the heron. Before my eyes, the nighthawk turned into a beautiful young woman.” Chase opened his eyes and grinned boyishly at his composed teacher. “She was a looker, Grandmother. Black hair and the most startling cinnamon-colored eyes I’d ever seen. They were the color of fresh, reddish-brown earth plowed up after a hard winter.”
Agnes nodded. “And did this young woman speak to you?”
“Yes,” Chase murmured, sipping the tea. “She asked for my help. I said how can I help you? She told me to go to the red rock country where you live, and meet me here on the next full moon.” Chase frowned. “And then the woman turned into you, Grandmother.” Shrugging, he said, “That was the end of my vision.”
“A good vision,” Agnes said, pleased.
Chase waited. It would do him no good to press her for an explanation of his vision. Patience was one of his strengths, so he waited. Outside, he could hear the merry chirp of a robin, and farther away, the trilling of a cardinal. He had hearing like a cougar, which was his spirit guide.
“I must tell you a story.” Agnes filled Chase in on the Storm Pipe being stolen from the Blue Heron Society two years earlier. When she mentioned Rogan Fast Horse, she saw Chase’s eyes instantly narrow with rage. His mouth thinned, as if he were struggling to hold back a barrage of toxic comments. Oh, she could feel Chase’s reaction, and because she was clairvoyant, she saw the angry red colors swirling in his aura, confirming his reaction.
Flexing his scarred fist, Chase waited until Agnes finished telling him the full story. Then silence fell in the hogan.
Taking in a deep, ragged breath at last, Chase expelled it. Agnes tilted her head to one side, like a bird listening for a worm.
“Just before I went to West Point, I met Rogan at a powwow,” Chase told her. “He cheated in the bow and arrow competition to win. I saw him do it. And so did the elders who were the judges. When they announced him as winner and not me, I challenged Fast Horse, because I wasn’t going to let him get away with it. The elders were wary of his sorcerer’s powers. Afraid that he would harm them or their families if they didn’t let him win.”
“But you weren’t afraid.”
“I was, Grandmother, but I also knew what was right. In that instant, I felt as if the Great Spirit had chosen to work through me because the elders were too afraid to confront Rogan about his cheating.” Looking down at his hands, his blunt nails and the thick calluses that covered his palms, Chase said softly, “There was a knife fight.” He touched his brow with his index finger. “I cut Rogan across his forehead. He bears the scar to this day. I won the knife match and he swore to curse me, to be my mortal enemy until the day I died.”
“Powerful words to invoke.”
Shrugging, Chase looked around the shadowy confines of the hogan. The woodstove was in the center, the metal pipe leading up through the top of the mud-and-timber roof. “Rogan doesn’t know humility. I taught it to him that day. I won the match and the rewards. I knew he was a sorcerer, but I also had faith that the Great Spirit would protect me from Rogan’s rage.”
“Did he?”
“Yes,” Chase said, a note of sarcasm in his deep voice, “after four years at West Point, I volunteered and was allowed into Delta Force for eight years.” He looked at his right arm, which bore many small, puckered scars. “Other than getting caught down in South America by rebels, held prisoner and tortured for six months before I managed to escape, I don’t think Rogan got to me.”
“He did not,” Agnes confirmed with knowledge and conviction. “And I am sorry you had to suffer so much in the army, Chase.” She gestured to his arm.
“It wasn’t fun,” he agreed grimly. Meeting her watery eyes, he asked, “So Dana Thunder Eagle must go after Rogan herself? I’ve fought him, Grandmother, and there isn’t a woman alive who could do what you’re asking of