The conversation that had flowed as naturally as a river came to a sudden stop. She glanced at him, his face glowing with the warm colors of the fire.
“You have more questions?” he asked.
“Many.”
He drew up his knees and wrapped his strong arms about them. “All right then. Ask your questions.”
“When you smell the searing flesh or your vision shakes or your hand trembles, do you always fall down?”
“Yes.”
“Do you hear anything?”
“When the falling begins, I hear a hum.”
“Like bees?”
“No, more like the ring, when you strike metal to metal. But it does not fade. It grows louder and louder, until I cannot hear anything else, and then I fall.”
She thought on all he had said, trying to make some meaning out of it.
“You said that you never had unclean relations with a family member. Is that right?”
He sighed glumly. “Never.”
“That eliminates illness brought by breaking a taboo. But we need to eliminate spirits and ghosts. If we can do so, that will leave only curses and illness. I can help only if you are ill. You understand?”
“Yes. How do we eliminate spirits and ghosts?”
“Spirits act out of offense. Have you failed to offer prayers of thanks or ignored any other required prayers and offerings?”
“I have not.”
“Do you belong to a medicine society?”
“Black War Bonnet.”
She paused at this. The men of that society were the bravest of warriors because they put the mark of death upon their shields. She was familiar with the unique design of this medicine society. A circle of black symbols on robe or shield meant this man held back death.
She lifted her brows and he endured her scrutiny. The owls. The Black War Bonnet society. Who was this man?
“And you perform all rites?” she asked.
“I do.”
“That eliminates spirits. They do not attack the living without cause.”
“Ghosts?” he asked.
“Ghosts are either enemies you have killed or those you know who are not at peace. Sometimes if a life’s circle is not complete, a soul can feel cheated and try to finish their journey with the body of the living. Have all those of your family been properly set to rest in either the ground or the sky?”
“Always.”
“Possession of your body can cause ghost sickness. You would feel fevered, nauseous and sometimes have the sensation of suffocating. Usually those with ghost sickness see visions that are not there.”
“I have seen things that are not there. But not the fever or suffocating sensation.”
She nodded. They could not rule out ghosts then.
“Any recent deaths of someone near to you?”
“I lost a friend in the same battle when I was injured.”
She straightened at this revelation as possibilities danced in her mind. “Injured. When?”
Night Storm hesitated, rubbing the back of his head as he stared at the ground.
From the lake, bullfrogs began their deep belching call. The burning wood popped and crackled as the fire consumed it, but Night Storm seemed to notice none of it.
Skylark was just about to remind him that she could do little without knowing what troubles he had and everything she could learn about his injury. Her grandmother was very insistent that she discover all she could about a person seeking care. That included minute details regarding his habits and all his past wounds.
At last he met her gaze and she again felt the punch of physical attraction hit her low in the belly. He held her attention and the pull to move near to him became more insistent. She set aside the remains of her meal, knowing that she had no further appetite for food. A different hunger gnawed.
His shoulders lifted and then settled as he blew out a long breath. Then he gave a little nod, as if he had decided something.
“We battled against the Lakota who were pursuing the white men who dress in the colors of the wolf. We had seen the white men who dress in blue cross our territory with people of a tribe we do not know. These warriors dress like the whites, but their skin was like the people and their hair was long and black and braided in the proper way.
All the white soldiers travel in groups and carry large guns, like the ones in the forts, and so we let them pass. We might have let the gray men pass, as well, but they brought our enemy into our territory. So we attacked. I have had many coups in battle. This I would say first. But in this fight, I was unseated and one of my horse’s hind hooves struck me here.” He pointed to the back of his head.
She drew air through her teeth at the image of him being kicked by his horse. “May I feel this place?”
Instantly she realized the problem with this request. She had touched the wounds of countless men and women in her tribe from the very old to the very young. But never had she anticipated the contact with such a yawning need. Eagerness, yes, that was what she felt.
He nodded his consent and she fairly leaped to her feet to close the distance that separated them. She knelt beside him and began as she had been taught, with a gentle touch to his arm. It was not right to immediately grope a place that might cause pain. She worked from the strong column of his neck to the base of his skull, trying to ignore the tingling awareness her fingers relayed with the contact of her flesh to his flesh. Her physical enjoyment of the contact ended when she found the place where he had been kicked. There was no lump. Rather, she found a shallow depression.
“Were you kicked or stepped on?” she asked.
“I was struck here with a war club.” He pointed to the tiny red scar that sliced through one of his eyebrows. How had she not noticed that before?
“This was a glancing blow. But it caused me to lose my balance. Then our horses collided and I fell backward.”
She examined the scar, her awareness of him now mixed with the need to solve this puzzle.
“Do you remember the blow or the fall?” She released him and sat at his side, turning toward him as he spoke.
“Neither. My friend, Two Hawks, saw the blow and watched me become unseated. He said I killed the man with my lance, but he hit me before leaving his horse. Two Hawks said that I did not fall like a man who knows he is falling. He said the horse’s rear foot hit me here and that after they had chased away the intruders they came back for me, surprised to find me alive. I did not wake until late in the evening and I do not recall the battle or the blow or the fall or even the days that followed.”
“I am not surprised. The bone of your skull was crushed. The swelling from this break should have taken you from this world and into the next.”
“Perhaps it did,” he muttered.
“Yet here you are,” she countered. “How can that be?”
“I think I walked the ghost road and then came back.”
They stared at each other. Owls...a death, his death, and then his return to this world. She drew up her knees and hugged them tight. Her heart beat in her throat as she resisted the urge to draw away from him. Had he walked across the sky to the spirit world? Had he stopped on his own or had the one who guards the road set his feet back to the world of the living?
Was that why he heard the owl?
She