There was nowhere to run.

Dain’s heart pounded savagely in his chest, underscoring his terror. There, on a red hill above the desert wash where he and his truck were stranded, stood the white wolf from his nightmares!

Then Dain heard laughter. A woman’s laughter. Rich, husky and earthy. It flowed through him like sunshine in the shadow of death.

He forced his gaze from the wolf toward the sound. On the hill with the beast now stood an incredibly beautiful apparition of a woman. And as Dain absorbed the vision into himself, sunlight suddenly enveloped her in golden radiance.

He gasped. He remembered that same radiance around the white wolf in his dreams!

Yet this time Dain didn’t feel fear. Just the opposite. He felt a living, pulsing connection with this woman.

And he felt a powerful surge of hope….

LINDSAY McKENNA

A homeopathic educator, Lindsay McKenna teaches at the Desert Institute of Classical Homeopathy in Phoenix, Arizona. When she isn’t teaching alternative medicine, she is writing books about love. She feels love is the single greatest healer in the world and hopes that her books touch her readers on those levels. Coming from an Eastern Cherokee medicine family, Lindsay has taught ceremony and healing ways from the time she was nine years old. She creates flower and gem essences in accordance with nature and remains closely in touch with her Native American roots and upbringing.

White Wolf

Lindsay McKenna

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To all my friends at The Medicine Garden.

What a great group of people!

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter One

The white wolf was howling again. Hovering between sleep and wakefulness, Dain Phillips heard himself moan as the wolf’s lonely, serrating howl cut through him, opening up that gulf of dark fear within. Dying. He was dying. Only six months more to live…

He drifted back to his dream, a hazy, golden colored world where he could see the radiance of the wolf’s coat as the animal stood forlornly upon a red sandstone bluff, nose lifted toward the black sky. Again the baying voice stabbed through Dain, tearing at him, making him sweat—making him want to cry out like a frightened little boy.

Oh, God, no! Dain groaned, flailing around on the bed, tearing the sheets from their anchoring points and knocking a pillow onto the floor. Sweat covered him, tiny rivulets trickling down his temples. The urge to scream filled him—to cry out in absolute rage and terror. He didn’t want to die, damn it! He wanted to live! Live!

In his mind’s eye, he stood on the reddish sand and looked up at that smooth sandstone bluff above him. He watched as the wolf’s gold, glittering eyes turned a deep amber with compassion, then filled with an unbridled menace. As Dain groaned, the wolf pricked up his ears and leaped down the cliff—toward him.

Panic set in. If the white wolf got to him, the beast would tear him apart! He’d kill him! Oh, God, he didn’t want to die. He had too many things to experience yet, too many things to see. Dain started to run, feeling as if there were weights on his feet, the red sand sucking at his hiking boots.

Breathing heavily, his lungs burning, as Dain ran like a madman across that red desert. Jerking his head to look over his shoulder, he saw the white wolf steadily gaining on him, felt his feral amber eyes burning into his back. Faster! Pumping his arms, he stretched his legs until they screamed in pain and his calf muscles began to knot up. Sweat ran into his eyes, stinging them, burning them. His breathing became erratic and hoarse as he cried out over and over again, “No, no, no!”

The white wolf was still gaining on him, steadily, with intent. With savage grace and a primal hunter’s instinct, the animal closed the distance between them. No matter how fast Dain ran, no matter how much he pushed himself, the wolf still advanced. Dain couldn’t die this way! He just couldn’t!

Suddenly, he found himself in a box canyon, the red sandstone cliff in front of him impossible to scale. Whirling around and nearly losing his balance, he sobbed for breath. His knees were like jelly and he lumbered about drunkenly. With the back of his hand Dain tried to wipe away the sweat burning his eyes.

The wolf slowed to a lope, his amber eyes never leaving Dain’s blue ones. Standing there, Dain felt helpless. So damned helpless. Wasn’t anyone going to come to his aid? Hadn’t he prayed to God for deliverance? And then he remembered he’d never prayed to anyone or anything all his life after… So why should God answer his prayers now, when Dain knew He hadn’t saved him before?

The wolf slowed even more, stopping within ten feet of him. The animal was barely breathing in comparison to Dain, whose lungs burned. Leaning down, Dain rested his hands against his knees and bent over, trying to think clearly. Lately, his mind was nothing but a damn bowl of mush. Mush. The word brought a fresh wave of pain as Dain remembered the horrid stuff he’d eaten as a kid in that damned orphanage.

Suddenly an incredible rage filled him, as if someone were pouring a teakettle of scalding hot water through a hole in the center of his head. He felt the heat settle first in his toes and then move up, filling the cavity of his body. Burning up. He was burning up, and the wolf was standing there watching him. Dain’s heart beat wildly and he couldn’t steady his breathing. The intent in the wolf’s eyes was lethal as he slowly, one step at a time, began to stalk Dain, just waiting for the right moment to leap upon him, grab him by the throat and kill him.

The will to live tunneled up through Dain, thin and fragile, but unmistakable. Slowly he sank to his knees, unable to defend himself from the stalking white wolf. Sinking back on his heels, his arms trembling with weakness, his breathing erratic, he felt the last of his hope burn away as the flood of scalding heat flowed into his head. The wolf was only two feet away and Dain could see every hair on the animal’s muzzle, the way his lips lifted to expose large, deadly fangs gleaming with saliva. The wolf’s growl reverberated through him, and Dain felt as if he was standing in the middle of a wild, tumultuous thunderstorm.

Resigned to his fate, he tried to prepare himself to die out on that lonely red desert dotted with scraggly sagebrush. A white wolf had howled his name and drawn him into the nightmare in order to kill him. Dain watched, mesmerized, as he saw the pinkness of the wolf’s tongue and felt drawn into the animal’s gold, narrowed eyes. Oh, God, I can’t fight anymore. I’m too weak. I don’t want to die…I really don’t…please, let me live, let me—

The wolf leaped. Too weak to even throw up his arms to stop the huge animal’s charge, Dain felt the wolf’s powerful body hit him, stunning him. Dain rolled over and over in the sand before he came to a rest on his back, his arms thrown wide, the breath knocked out of him. When he heard the fierce, low growl of the wolf, he opened his eyes and saw the beast hunkered over him. He felt the animal’s hot, moist breath against his face, saw the droplets of saliva fall from his muzzle onto his shirt.

There was no time to think. In the next instant, he felt the wolf’s fangs sink deep into the center of his chest. In shock and terror, he realized the animal was viciously trying to get to his heart! He felt the invasion of the wolf’s massive, powerful jaws, the sound of his own shallow breathing. And then, as he struggled to take one last breath of air into his lungs, he felt the wolf bury his fangs in his heart.

“No…!”

The scream reverberated off the walls of Dain Phillips’s bedroom. Abruptly, he sat up, naked and gleaming with sweat, a tangle of sheets wrapped around his legs. Burying his sweaty face in his trembling hands, eyes shut tightly, he desperately tried to get rid of the white-wolf nightmare, of the warm blood flowing across his chest and torso as the wolf wrenched Dain’s beating heart out of his body.

“No,” Dain rasped, angrily jerking the sheets aside. “Damn him. No!” As he got to his feet, dizziness assailed him, forcing him to drop unceremoniously back onto the bed. Dain hated feeling so damn weak. But there was nothing he could do about it, he remembered with anger and resignation. He was dying. Yes, he was dying. A malignant tumor had grown in his brain, too deep to operate on. The doctors said he would die during the surgery, and without it he had less than six months to live. Six lousy months!

Breathing harshly, Dain battled his own weakness and dizziness and forced himself to stand. Anger had always given him power and control over his life. Now he used it as never before, to fight his failing body as he got to his feet. Water. He had to have water. His mouth was dry. He was burning up. The doctors had warned him of a fever coming and going as his body tried to fight off the swiftly growing tumor.

Sweaty, hot and shaky, Dain used the wall to steady himself as he stumbled from the large master bedroom to the bathroom. His mouth was so dry it felt like it was going to crack. That damn white wolf. He hated the animal! He hated the nightmare that plagued him every night!

Cursing, Dain fumbled for the light switch. The resulting glare hurt his eyes. The doctors said he’d be photophobic from now on—sunlight, or indeed, any bright light, would make him wince like he was being struck. Not that a little pain should bother Dain, who’d taken enough beatings as a young kid. One of the matrons at the orphanage had loved to slap the boys across the mouth. Smiling mirthlessly, Dain reached for a glass on the sink. He’d lost count of how many times that old crone had slapped him, but he remembered he’d always had red cheeks. Back then, it was a badge of honor.

Jerking the faucet handle, he felt the cold water spill across his hand. To hell with it. He set the glass aside, cupped his hands and filled them with the cold, delicious water. Leaning down, he splashed it across his face. Yes! The cold always revived him. Helped him. Steadied him. He remembered going to the boys’ bathroom to cry after getting a few good slaps from the matron. When his tears abated, he’d wash his face with cold water and make the redness disappear from his cheeks. What a lucky lad he was.

The cold water chased the last of the white wolf’s yellow eyes out of his haunted subconscious—at least, for now. Jerking a towel off the rack, Dain wiped his face. Filling the glass, he drank the water in huge gulps, some of it spilling out of the corners of his mouth, dripping down onto his chest and across his still-pounding heart.

Absently, he ran his fingers through the dark mat of hair across his chest, spreading the water over his heated skin. Water always soothed him. Turning, he put the glass aside. Why not take a swim in that Olympic-size pool of his? Indeed, why not? In six months, he wouldn’t be here to enjoy it, anyway.

Moving robotically and using his hands to steady himself, he walked through the fifteen-room mansion he’d bought for a mere ten million. It had every convenience, designer this and designer that, artwork from the Old Masters, Ming Dynasty porcelain from China and anything else a man could want with his money.

But money couldn’t make this cancerous tumor deep in his brain disappear. Opening the sliding glass door, he walked woodenly toward the pool as the predawn coolness wrapped around his hot, sweaty body. Dain halted and looked up. The lights of New York City glimmered in the distance. His mansion sat on some of the most expensive real estate a New Yorker could buy. But what did his magnificent house mean to him now?

He laughed harshly and glared heavenward. The night sky was light with a nearly full moon. Many of the stars were blotted out because of the moon’s pale, radiant light. Scowling, Dain was reminded of the white radiance of the wolf’s coat. Shrugging off the image, he turned his attention to the pool, long and rectangular and inviting. Without hesitation, Dain dove in.

Just the act of leaping into the cold depths, chilled by the early September weather, was enough to shock his senses and bring him back into the here and now. He swam with hard, swift strokes, trying to outrun the last of the nightmare, burying himself in the nurturing water, which surrounded him like a lover. He turned over and did a backstroke, moving like an arrow, his legs strong and powerful. Water raced and gurgled around him, healing him.

By the time he’d swum ten laps in the pool, the eastern sky was just beginning to lighten, not quite gray, but no longer inky black, either—a promise of something to come. As he dragged himself wearily out of the pool and wrapped himself in a thick, white terry-cloth towel, he studied the eastern horizon. The sun would edge it in gilt within a couple of hours. A tremor raced through him as he dried the short, black hair that clung to his skull and wiped the last of the rivulets from a harsh, rugged face that few would call handsome, he knew.

Well, he might not be a pretty boy, but he’d carved an empire that no one on the face of this earth could steal from him. After the orphanage had stolen his soul, crushed his heart and destroyed his hope, he’d sworn that once he got out of that hellhole of the damned, he’d insulate himself against the cruelty of the world and make a safe place for himself.

Laughing bitterly, Dain walked to a chair and sat down. His knees were feeling weak again. As he buried his face in the white towel, he closed his eyes and took a deep, shaky breath. He was dying. How damned unfair! He was only thirty-eight, one of the richest men in the world, and there wasn’t a cure on earth his money could buy to stop this brain tumor from growing, from taking his life.

Looking up, Dain gazed at the moon. Somewhere in this world there had to be something that could help him. But where? And what? His money had bought him advice from the world’s top specialists and they’d all told him to go home and die. There was nothing they could do for him. Oh, sure, they could operate and more than likely injure the other parts of his brain, leaving him a helpless dullard who couldn’t speak or walk.

Dain balled the damp towel in his hands as he studied the white orb in the sky, hanging so silently. It was so beautiful and free. In six months, he’d never see the moon shine again. And then he thought of the white wolf of his dream. Wolves howled at the moon. A sad, twisted smile pulled at his mouth. Well, maybe he was more wolf than he realized.

Laughing bitterly, Dain shook his head. What was he going to do? There had to be some kind of healing for his tumor somewhere in this forsaken world! For the last year, ever since the tumor had been discovered, he’d sent his best people abroad to find such a medicine and such a person—and they’d all come back empty-handed because no one in traditional medicine would tell him what he wanted to hear: that they could cure him of the tumor.

His mouth flattening, Dain studied the moon’s reflection on the surface of the pool, the water shivering now with ripples from the morning breeze. There was a wild, animal restlessness in his soul. This wasn’t the first time he’d felt it. No, when he’d been caged in that orphanage as a young boy no one wanted, he’d felt just like the white wolf that had pursued him in his nightmares. Yes, that was it. Maybe the white wolf that haunted his dreams nightly ever since he’d gotten the tumor was actually him.

I’m going crazy, Dain decided as he studied the water. Well, he if he wasn’t crazy yet, he would be soon enough. Toward the end, the doctors said, he’d be drugged and put away—for his own good—as the runaway tumor began to make his behavior volatile—even dangerous to himself and others. That was a joke. He’d made nothing but enemies growing up and later, while creating his empire. And while he’d loved many, many women, taken the fruit of their bodies, he’d never married. He’d recognized the greed in women’s eyes when they saw his billion-dollar empire, and he knew each and every one of them was simply playing the game to get him, and more important, his money.

Damn it, there had to be something he could do! He just couldn’t accept that he was going to die. His mind churned as it always did after awakening from the nightmare. Who could cure him? And where? Hadn’t he looked everywhere? His mind was facile and moved like a powerful Indy race car, swiftly closing in on the ever-elusive finish line. Associates had said he had a mind like a hummingbird, always in motion, never resting. To stop meant having time to remember things about himself and his past—memories too painful to contemplate. So he stayed busy. He guessed he was just a Type A personality. And why not? No grass grew under his feet. He had no friends, no wife, no children. Only a worldwide empire, new fields to conquer and money to burn. Yes, he was one of the most powerful corporate raiders of the past two decades—and he’d always gotten everything he’d gone after in the business world. He was a winner.

Wasn’t he?

Snorting softly, Dain slowly eased himself to his feet. He pulled the towel across his shoulders. Winners didn’t die of brain tumors. He’d overcome so much, so damned much. And now this! A stupid tumor was stalking him, just like that white wolf did every night.

As Dain walked slowly around the pool, the coolness of the fall air making him shiver slightly, he had a sudden thought. It came out of nowhere and stopped him midstride. Yes. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He’d go see his favorite medical doctor tomorrow, Dr. Sarah Goodwin. He liked her. She’d always been honest with him—and surprisingly compassionate. And Dain had seen enough doctors to know that compassion didn’t come cheap. But then maybe it was a game, an act on her part. Maybe she just wanted his money, too.

Well, whatever. Dr. Sarah was into a lot of things medical doctors weren’t supposed to be into. She’d hinted he should take vitamins and minerals, get a massage on a weekly basis to stimulate his immune system. Yes, she had some oddball ideas about healing, but for some reason, he hadn’t made time to sit and really ask her in depth about these alternative methods she seemed to know something about. A slight smile curved his mouth. Okay, so he’d go see Dr. Sarah and he’d peer into that fine surgeon’s mind of hers and see what else she knew. If he didn’t take the time now, he’d never have it. Besides, who knew? Maybe Dr. Sarah had a lead for him—something he might want to track down himself. Personally.

Maybe that was the problem, too, Dain decided. He’d spent millions sending his representatives around the world looking for a cure for him, when he should have searched himself. With his body beginning to show the effects of the tumor, it was now or never. Gripping the towel more firmly in his fist, Dain entered his palatial home, closing the sliding glass door behind him. He padded across the thick carpeting to his office to make a note for his secretary, John Hastings, to get Dr. Sarah on the phone early that morning.

Dain didn’t believe in hunches, but he chalked up the need to talk to Dr. Sarah as a logical progression, one born out of desperation and a vague memory of her attempts to get him to stay a few more minutes after his appointment to discuss some “alternative” healing methods with him. At the time, he’d pooh-poohed her. He wondered what she would say if he told her about the nightly dream of the white wolf.

“Wolves are about our primal, survival self,” Sarah told Dain as she sat behind her huge, walnut desk.

Dain moved restlessly, pacing back and forth as he always did across her spacious office in the city. Early afternoon sunlight slanted through the venetian blinds, filling the room with a sense of warmth. Of hope. “Do people who are going to die get nightmares like this?” he demanded brusquely.

Sarah shrugged and folded her hands in her lap. “Sometimes. I had suggested a good therapist for you to—”

He gave her an angry look. “Doctor, if I wanted a damn shrink, I’d have gotten one by now.”

She frowned. “Then why are you here, Dain?”

He halted and placed his hands on his hips, a gesture he’d picked up in his days as an air force fighter pilot. “You mentioned something about other forms of healing. Not traditional ones,” he muttered, beginning to pace again and closely watching her thoughtful expression. Sarah was in her mid-forties, with red hair and dark green eyes. She was pretty. And intelligent.

“Oh.”

“What do you mean, ‘oh’?”

“I didn’t think you’d be the type to be interested, Dain.”

Anger stirred in him. “Doctor, I’m going to die in six damn months. What the hell makes you think I’d shrug off a good idea that just might cure me?”

With a sigh, Sarah stood and slid her hands in the pockets of her white lab coat. She moved slowly, with deliberation, around the desk. “Okay,” she murmured. “Last year I attended a conference in Arizona on Native American healing techniques. I talked to this one medicine man, a Navajo from Chinle, who had cured stomach cancer in some of his Navajo patients. I asked him if there were any women healers who could do what he did, and he said yes. I thought a woman healer might be best since I feel you have more trust in women than men, and part of the healing is trusting the healer.”

Dain halted a few feet from her. He saw Sarah’s green eyes narrow. “And?”

“He became very evasive. Nervous, almost. He muttered something about this woman whose name is Tashunka Mani Tu. She’s Eastern Cherokee, but she lives on the Navajo Reservation and the name she goes by is Lakota. It seemed an odd combination to me, but he said she lived the life of a hermit and only those who had the courage to find her would. Apparently,” Sarah continued, “those that could find her were healed.”

“Did she heal tumors?”

“This old man said she was heyoka.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Heyoka is a Lakota word for coyote. It means a person who is not what they seem to be. The coyote is considered a trickster. The medicine man said this woman could change shapes, become an animal, a bird or whatever she chose. He said that those people who overcome their fear of her would find her. He said that a woman who had breast cancer, and who had only weeks to live, sought out this medicine woman. When the old Navajo medicine man saw her two months later, the woman was cured, happy and was telling everyone she met of the miracle.”

“Humph.”

“I thought you’d say that.”

Irritably, Dain said, “She’s cured breast cancer. That’s a tumor. Where can I get a hold of her?”

Shrugging, Sarah said, “I don’t know.”

“What about this old Navajo medicine man?”

“He died shortly after the conference.”

Angrily, Dain glared at her. “All right, I’ll go to Chinle, Arizona, and ask around about her. Someone has got to know about her.”

Smiling tentatively, Sarah ran her fingertips along the edge of her desk. “Yes, I’m sure someone has heard of Tashunka Mani Tu.” She paused, studying him intently. “One word of warning, Dain.”

His hand was already on the doorknob. “Yes?”

“Take your hard-edged, impatient, angry mannerisms and get rid of them once you step foot on the reservation, will you?”

His brows dropped.

“The Navajo are a very gentle people who believe in living in harmony with nature and with others. If you aggressively attack them, as if they’re a corporation to be raided, you aren’t going to get anywhere. You’ve got to cultivate some, er, diplomacy and patience.” She leaned down and picked up a piece of paper.

“You need to see this woman—her name is Luanne Yazzie. She’s a medicine woman in training. She lives out at Rough Rock, Arizona, about forty-five minutes from Chinle. Take some gifts with you—that might help.”

He jerked open the door. “What kind, good doctor?”

“Always bring groceries. Lots of them. Luanne is a councilwoman from Rough Rock and a lot of people from her community are very poor, almost starving. They come to her house and routinely ask for food or money. If you show up with food, it signals to Luanne that you’re a man of compassion.” The doctor’s smile broadened a little. “She’s got a master’s degree in education, and she’s smart as a whip. If you can make her your ally instead of an enemy, I’d bet she could tell you the whereabouts of this mysterious heyoka medicine woman.” With a shake of her head, Sarah added, “She certainly is a mystery. Tashunka Mani Tu could practice on her own reservation, in Cherokee, North Carolina, but she doesn’t. I hope you find her. I’d love to hear about your adventure, Dain. I wish you the best of luck on this. My hunch is if you can find her, she can help you.”

Dain saw the sincerity in the doctor’s eyes. In that moment all his mean-spirited and paranoid worry about her wanting him for his money dissolved. His mouth softened a bit. “Instinct and hunches. Doctor, you scare me to death. The only thing I believe in is what I can see with my eyes, hear with my ears, taste or touch.”

Sarah chortled. “So tell me, why are you chasing down this wild lead? It’s about as illogical and nonlinear as you can get.”

He shrugged and became pensive. “Did you tell me what her name means? Tashunka Mani Tu?”

Her grin broadened and she leaned her hips against the desk and folded her arms against her breasts. “The old medicine man said it means Walks With Wolves.”

Dain stood riveted to the spot, feeling a bolt of lightning strike him in the crown of his head, rip through his body and exit out his feet. A sudden wave of heat followed by icy cold washed through him like a tidal wave. His hand tightened on the brass doorknob until his knuckles whitened.

“What?” he rasped.

“You heard me,” Sarah said crisply. “Her name, when translated into English from Lakota Sioux, means Walks With Wolves.” Her eyes sparkled. “Who knows?” she whispered, emotion suddenly choking her voice, “maybe she’s been the one all along sending you a dream of the white wolf.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. Fear rippled through him, then disbelief. And finally hope. “What,” he rasped, “are you talking about?”

With a shrug, Sarah eased away from the desk. She dropped her arms to her sides. “I spent six months at the Chinle hospital working with Navajo medicine people. I saw a lot of things that traditional medicine can’t explain, Dain. One thing I heard about again and again was dreaming. Many patients had powerful dreams and the native healers would interpret them. It was commonly accepted that medicine people send dreams to those who are sick, to help them fight off whatever is attacking them. Maybe this medicine woman is already in touch with you, and has been from the start. Maybe she sent the white wolf to you.”

His nostrils flared and he gave a sharp, bitter laugh. “Oh, yeah? Then why the hell does that white devil rip my heart out of my chest every night?”

Gazing at him, Sarah whispered, “Go find her and ask her, Dain…”

Chapter Two

She felt his presence. Erin lifted her chin, surveyed her flock of forty sheep, which foraged restlessly across the red sand desert, then narrowed her eyes on the horizon. The megalith known by the Navajo people as Rainbow Butte stood like a magnificent tower rising up out of the surrounding landscape of the high plateau. He is coming. Her heart pounded briefly to underscore that knowing.

She smiled a little as she felt Maiisoh rub against her dark red cotton skirt, brushing the heavy material against her knee-high buffalo-skin boots. Looking down, she petted the white wolf’s massive head. He, too, was looking toward Rainbow Butte.

“So you sense his coming, my friend?”

Maiisoh whined and sat down, leaning his weight against her right leg.

Erin continued to pat his head. “Is this someone you have been visiting at night, Maiisoh?”

The wolf lifted his muzzle, his huge yellow eyes staring up at her thoughtfully.

Laughter rolling from her lips, Erin said, “You sly old wolf. If you didn’t enter people’s dreams they wouldn’t keep coming here.” Her smile turned slowly into a line of sadness as she continued to watch her flock. “The Great Spirit knows what is best,” she added with a sigh.

Maiisoh began to thump his big, brushy tail, dirty with red clay and tangled with sagebrush brambles. He had been chasing a jackrabbit, and the old, wise one had led him on a merry chase with no meal at the end of it. Instead, Maiisoh had found himself in huge clumps of sagebrush, muzzle buried in a hole where the old jackrabbit lived. It was an early morning ceremony performed every day by Maiisoh and that old rabbit.

“Oh,” Erin said wryly, “and of course, you know best, too. I can see by the pleased look on your face, Maiisoh.” Yet a stirring of great sadness overwhelmed her and her fingers tightened briefly on the herder’s staff that she always carried. Father Sun was just brimming the horizon and she silently offered prayers of welcome to him and to all her relations, thanking the Great Spirit for the beauty of yet another day being offered to her.

Maiisoh suddenly rose off his haunches and leaped away from her. Being a good guard, he didn’t run through the herd, but around it, loping easily toward the east and following a desert track that many vehicles had followed. The rain two days ago had turned the red clay of the desert into slick, slimy goo that no car or truck could traverse—at least, not out here to the middle of the Navajo Reservation. Until it dried, foot and horse traffic were the only kind that could make it to where she lived.

Bothered, but not knowing why, Erin continued to lead her sheep in the direction her white wolf had gone. She watched him work his way around a small hill that wore a crown of dark green Navajo tea brush and sage. Someone was coming. Who? Would he make it to where she lived? Only the Great Spirit knew those answers, and as Erin ambled down the damp red clay already beginning to dry beneath the rays of Father Sun, she hoped in one small compartment of her heart that whoever the visitor was, he would grow weary, give up and turn back.

The bleating of the sheep soothed her worry. Soon she would begin to weave her next rug from the wool she gathered from them in midsummer. Right now, their coats were heavy, growing thick in preparation for winter, which would start in mid-November on the res.

Winter… She loved winter because it meant she would be cut off from everyone—and everything. It was the time of year when she sat cross-legged at her frame and began to weave the strong, soft strands of wool into another magnificent rug. Each rug told the story of the year that had gone before. Erin didn’t try and weave as the Navajo women wove; her symbols were Eastern Cherokee, and she wove colorful picture stories across her rugs. They were never shown to anyone; she kept them carefully rolled up and tucked away in a huge old cedar trunk. But the rugs were a living, breathing testament of the last ten years of living in the hermitlike world she preferred. Each rug detailed what had happened to her that had been important to her growth.

As she slowly placed her booted feet upon the ground, she felt the energy of the land, the throbbing quiver reminding her that Mother Earth was very much alive beneath her. It was a soothing feeling, one that opened her heart like a flower, one that calmed her fractious state and made her feel loved and nurtured.

He is coming.

Halting, Erin looked toward the butte in the distance. The only way into her area was a road around the bottom of that spire. Since it had been raining heavily for the past two days, the track was still muddy. Whoever was coming had chosen a very poor time to try and find her. He was doomed to failure, she told herself, her fingers wrapping more strongly around the aged saguaro cactus staff.

Or was he?

He is coming.

A broken sigh tore from her lips. Why did she feel such consternation? Such anxiety? That had not happened before. Oh, she always knew when someone was coming. That was the easy part, for if Maiisoh did not alert her, then that secret part of herself that was connected to the living River of Life energy that glistened and gleamed through and around all things in the colors of the rainbow, would tell her of the approach of her next visitor.

It was a man.

How strange. With a few exceptions, her patients were usually women. Few men had the patience, the perseverance, the utter commitment to find her hogan, to find her. In fact most of her patients over the last ten years had been women. Only two men had made it to her home and asked for help. And they were Navajo, not white men, thank goodness.

She smiled a little as the flock moved energetically along the rutted track vehicles had followed to her hogan. The sheep seemed almost elated and moved quickly—which was unlike them. Sheep foraged slowly. They didn’t go trotting briskly down the road, ignoring sparse yellowed strands of grass here and there.

Mystified, Erin picked up her pace to follow the herd, which suddenly seemed to know exactly where it was going. Of course, Maiisoh had already run down this way, because she could see his huge, wide paw prints embedded in the thick, gooey clay. She hurried to keep up.

The tracks led around a small, round hill and then continued to wind around other hills of varying sizes and shapes. Erin knew that a good two miles away, the road dipped down into a wash where many a vehicle had become stuck—but good—after a rain. Keying her hearing, she thought she heard the faint sounds of a car engine in the distance.

He is coming.

The sheep were trotting now, heading straight for the wash. Erin had to trot herself to keep up with her flock. She never allowed them to range out here alone, for fear of coyotes grabbing one of them. There were wild dogs, too, which were more of a danger. The dogs often came from the reservation. Because the Navajo didn’t have money to feed them, the animals took off looking for food. Other disowned dogs would find them, and the animals would band together. Erin knew from sad experience that a pack of dogs starving to death would easily claim one of her vulnerable sheep and kill it without a thought. Wild, hungry dogs were a greater problem than the coyotes that owned this land.

He is coming.

Erin heard the grinding gears of a car now. Slightly winded, she saw her flock, as if guided by an invisible hand, continue to trot knowingly along the faint track, which had been washed out during the recent rainstorm. With a shake of her head, she acknowledged the invisible powers that surrounded her. Off in the distance, she saw Maiisoh standing on a hill that overlooked the wash far below. His tail was wagging expectantly and she knew Maiisoh saw the man who was trying to find her.

Well, she might as well surrender to the Great Spirit’s demand. Men were not her strong suit, never had been, but if that was what was decreed by the greatest, most loving force in her universe, then she would bow to it and move toward her destiny. That did not mean Erin wasn’t afraid. She was. The Great Spirit knew the fear that rested in her heart. Her deep, dark secret of the past still lay open and continued to ooze grief and loss. She had never tended that wound within herself, hoping to cover it, hoping to forget it with time.

He is coming.

“Great Spirit, guide me with this man who comes looking for help. Give me the words, the wisdom, the vision of my heart to see him clearly, so that a healing can take place within him.”

How many times had she spoken that reverent prayer with all her soul? Erin had lost count, but she meant each word with every cell in her body as she continued down the slight incline. Less than a mile away was the wash. She knew without even seeing it yet that the man who looked for her was stuck there with his vehicle.

He is coming.

“Damn it!” Dain shouted at the dawn sky as he stood in the wash, his clothes damp with perspiration because the fever was attacking him again, his lips curled away from his teeth. He was ankle deep in red mud, his expensive shoes ruined, his tan chino pants permanently stained. The four-wheel-drive truck he’d bought in Gallup was stuck up to its axles in clay. The owner of the car dealership had sworn this vehicle would make it through anything.

“Screw everything,” Dain muttered violently, wiping his stained hands against his pants. He’d tried to dig the slimy red mud from the tires of the vehicle, but with every shovelful he’d felt weakness eating at him. He no longer had that magnificent strength that weight training had given him. His legs trembled. His arms felt like so much jelly.

With disgust, Dain threw the shovel into the wash. Sweat beaded along his brow. Damp strands of hair were plastered against his skull. Damn this place. Damn Sarah. Damn the Yazzies. Oh, hell, damn his whole, rotten life! He breathed unsteadily through his mouth, falling back against the vehicle. The walls of the wash were made of sand and clay and rose ten feet on either side of him. The stupid wheel ruts led right through the wash. Why the hell didn’t the Navajo build bridges across things like this, as normal human beings would?

Disgust made him snort violently as his gaze ranged across the wash. Suddenly the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Lifting his hand, he ruefully rubbed the area. Tiny, cold shivers ran down his spine—a sensation he’d never experienced before. He wondered if it was another lousy symptom of his brain tumor growing and affecting some new nerve response in his body.

No, this was different. Scowling, Dain began to look around him. This sensation felt like some forewarning of danger. He laughed harshly, the sound muffled by the sand around him. He remembered now—he’d had this sensation as a kid in the orphanage, back when Mr. Gordon was stalking him, the old son of a bitch. Gordon did that to his “favorites.” And God knew, Dain had been on the top of the list when it came to Gordon’s badgering, beating and name-calling. Yeah, Dain knew this sensation, this feeling. It was one of pure, unadulterated danger. Something was stalking him.

Well, old Gordon was dead and gone now, so it couldn’t be him. Pushing away from the truck, Dain carefully lifted his foot out of the sucking red clay. He braced himself against the vehicle to keep from falling flat on his face as he moved around to the front of the truck and looked up.

His heart slammed violently into his ribs, his mouth dropped open and his eyes widened in terror. No! No, it couldn’t be! Dain was positive he was seeing things. He must be! Without thinking, he rubbed his eyes, smearing red clay across his face.

There, up on a red-colored hill above the wash, stood a white animal. From where Dain was standing, it looked like the white wolf from his nightmares. Dain’s heart pounded savagely in his chest, underscoring the terror he felt and tasted. The hill was a good half mile away, and he couldn’t see the animal clearly enough to say whether it might be a white German shepherd, or maybe a husky. Maybe he was just going slowly insane, and this was indeed the white wolf who haunted him nightly.

Dain’s mouth grew dry and his limbs froze. The same old terror, the same fear, washed through him. Somewhere within him, on some deep, unconscious level, he knew it was the white wolf—even if he wanted it to be anything but.

In the forbidding silence of the dawn, he could hear his heart beating. He could feel it thumping wildly in his chest, in response to the white wolf on the hill, watching him. Watching him.

Where did reality begin and nightmares end? As he stood there, he threw out his hand to regain his balance and it struck the hood of the vehicle. The feel of the cold metal beneath his muddy fingers grounded him momentarily. Blinking rapidly, he tried to make the white wolf go away. But it didn’t work. The beast stood like a statue on that bloody red hill, watching him, just watching him. Dain found himself gasping for breath. Was the wolf going to chase him, as he always chased him in the nightmare?

He realized that there was nowhere to run. The only way he could escape the wolf’s lethal jaws was by climbing back into the safety of the truck. And then what? How the hell was he going to get this thing unstuck and make his way back to Many Farms, the closest community and a good twenty miles south across this damnable desert?

A sound in the distance caught his attention. Dain wasn’t sure, but he could’ve sworn he heard a woman’s low, husky laughter wafting toward him in the silence that surrounded him. Where did it come from? Was it in his overactive imagination? He was barely able to tear his attention from the white wolf on the hill, but he did.

Just as the sun’s strong, golden rays flowed silently across the land, caressing the Navajo desert like a lover’s sleek arms, he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Was it magic? A ghost? Or was it real? Dain suddenly felt his knees tremble violently. He felt as if he was caught in a time warp between reality and a nightmare. He forced himself to move his eyes, very slowly, from the white wolf in the distance, toward the sound, which was much closer, almost on top of him.

It had been a woman’s laughter, rich, husky and earthy. The sound had moved through him like the golden sunlight that slowly crept across the desert. Because he was down in the wash, he still remained in the shadows. Dain laughed to himself. He was in the shadows, all right. The shadow of death. What an eloquent testimony! His vehicle was stuck in this dark, shadowed wash—a succinct statement of his life. Normally, he never thought in those symbolic parameters. Maybe because he was muddy, wet and cold, and shaking like a lost, shivering puppy, he was forced to look beyond his normal scope of life. Now that he was completely out of his element, he wasn’t sure of anything.

Dain turned toward the welcoming laughter, which seemed to have originated behind him. His eyes narrowed and his heart thumped violently in his chest. Was he seeing things? It was possible—the doctors had told him he’d hallucinate as the tumor grew larger in his brain. Weakly, he lifted his hand and rubbed his eyes. He had to be seeing things. Or was he? Dropping his hand, he looked again. No, she was still there.

This time he didn’t feel fear, but just the opposite: a powerful surge of hope. On the hill was the white wolf, watching him, making him feel raw fear. To his left stood an incredibly beautiful apparition of a woman. She wore a white deerskin jacket, a red skirt, which fell to her slender ankles, and dark leather boots. Her ebony hair hung to her waist in two thick braids. There was a dark choker around her neck and a dark green sweater beneath her fringed jacket.

In that moment, as Dain absorbed the sight of her standing with that staff in her hand, gazing down at him, the rays of the sun reached her. As the light enveloped her, he gasped. For an instant, he thought he saw a golden radiance flash around her form; scintillating crystals, millions of them surrounded her face and form before disappearing.

Blinking, Dain realized he must be going crazy. He had to be. He remembered that same radiance around the white wolf in his dream. Was this woman real or a figment of his tortured imagination? Suddenly he wished with all the strength left in him that she was real. Staggering along the side of the vehicle, his hand against the cold metal to steady himself, Dain never allowed his gaze to leave the woman. Whether she was real or not, he felt a pulsing, living connection with her.

The golden sunlight embraced her like a familiar lover. Her crimson skirt turned a bright, brilliant red and her fringed jacket glowed an unearthly white. Her once-black hair now danced with brownish-red highlights. And her face! Dain thought for a moment that if he believed in angels, she had the face of one. Her eyes, warm and compassionate, were a light cinnamon color. They were set far apart, almost at an angle, slightly slanted above her broad cheekbones. Her lips were full, promising him that she was a woman of passion.

Everything about her seemed mystical and ethereal in his whirling, dizzied mind and senses. He felt her compassion. Felt it! He’d never felt anything except rage, competition and triumph all his life, but at this moment he felt a soft, gentle sensation winding through him, touching his rapidly beating heart and soothing it, soothing him.

He stood there dumbstruck, watching her, absorbing her tall, aristocratic form through his narrowed eyes and gathered her essence into his wildly beating heart, into his withering soul. Was this Tashunka Mani Tu? She had to be, his brain screamed back at him. Luanne Yazzie had said she was a young woman, probably in her early thirties, though she appeared ageless. Luanne Somers-Yazzie had seen Tashunka on several occasions and was able to describe her. If her description was correct, then this was indeed Tashunka Mani Tu.

As Dain stood there, fighting the weakness that was overwhelming him from his labors during the last hour, he wanted this woman to be the mysterious, magical Tashunka Mani Tu. Turning his head, he looked back at the hill. His heart beat in startled fear. The white wolf had disappeared! Gasping, pain jerked his head back in her direction. Would she be gone, too? Were these things all figments of his overworked imagination? The last of his hope?

To his shattering relief, the woman still stood like a statue, embraced lovingly by the sunlight, watching him in the silence. Gulping, Dain looked around, afraid that the white wolf was coming to get him. He felt like a frightened eight-year-old again, hiding in that old, smelly closet down in the basement, trying to avoid Mr. Gordon, who was stalking him, waiting to prey on him, just like this damn white wolf was doing.

The weakness forced Dain to lean heavily against the vehicle. He swallowed hard, gulped for air and then looked back at the Indian woman, his eyes widening considerably. The white wolf was now sitting at her side! Both of them were watching him.

“I’ll be damned,” he rasped, angrily shoving away from the car. He utilized his rage to force his body to work for him. Taking staggering steps, he made a violent gesture with his arm.

“Hey!” he yelled. “Get down here and help me! I’m stuck!” He breathed hard, listening to his biting words as they echoed harshly through the wash. The woman stood a good quarter mile away from him and he wondered what effect his demand would have on her. If she was real and not an apparition, she would respond. Or would she? Dain wasn’t sure as he stood, legs spread in the clay to balance himself, his hands held stiffly at his sides, muddy fingers curling into fists.

She was too far away for him to see her expression, but as his echoing voice enfolded her, Dain saw her sway, as if struck physically by him. For no discernible reason, he felt bad in that moment. Hadn’t his voice been like a verbal fist? He tried to shake off his remorse. Too bad if he hurt her. Old Gordon had used his voice like a sledgehammer against him all the time when Dain was in that orphanage, that prison. Still, as he stood there expectedly, he felt sorry. It was the first time he’d realized his voice could hurt another person, for he saw her sway, catch herself and plant her feet apart just a little bit more. He also saw the white wolf leap from his sitting position beside her into a position of preparedness. Even at this distance, Dain could see the wolf’s hackles standing along his spine, raised upward like porcupine quills.

The sound that came back to him was a low, warning growl from the white wolf. It frightened Dain. His gaze savagely sought out the woman’s serene features. Didn’t she hear him? She must have! So why the hell was she still standing like a statue, staring at him?

Angry, Dain moved almost drunkenly back to the vehicle. He collapsed, his spine against the cold, hard metal that supported him now that his knees refused to. Gripping the door handle, he breathed raggedly, his gaze never leaving her tall, proud form. Did angels come dressed as Indians?

He laughed harshly at himself. He was hallucinating! His belief in angels died when he was eight years old and Old Gordon told him Santa Claus didn’t exist. It was then that Dain had stopped believing in angels, God and everything else—except himself. He’d known even as a child that the only thing that would help him survive was a strong, overpowering belief in himself. He learned that if he trusted in himself, he could do anything and win at it. And this powerful belief—instilled in him by Old Gordon’s attempt to destroy his childhood—had made him the billionaire he was today.

Fat lot of good it did him now, Dain thought, a reckless grin slashing across his mouth. He looked down at his muddy, wet pants, then at his truck half-buried in the wash. Suddenly, laughter tunneled up from deep within his chest. He rarely laughed, and now he wanted to at the ridiculousness of it all. He was stuck! The laughter rolled out, freeing the fear that filled his chest cavity, easing the constricted, suffocating feeling. The unfamiliar sound left his lips and echoed down the wash. Dain himself didn’t believe what he was hearing. He was laughing! Suddenly, he didn’t care any longer. The fury he’d felt a moment ago miraculously disappeared beneath the deep, rolling laughter that spilled out of him like golden sunlight. He hadn’t realized such joy lived within him. He’d never realized it—until now.

Once his laughter had subsided, a rare, careless smile continued to hover around his mouth. For a second, he felt free—and happy—almost joyous. When had he ever felt those emotions? Had this woman cast a spell on him? Was she magical, as Luanne Yazzie had proclaimed when he’d gone to her to ask about the elusive Tashunka Mani Tu?

Disgruntled, Dain gathered his waning energy and forced himself away from the vehicle. His knees felt stronger as he sloshed through the thick mud toward the woman. With each step, he felt strangely empowered, like a cold object that has been warmed by the sun.

Would the wolf charge him? Dain wasn’t at all sure, but something whispered to him that she had full control over that huge, white beast and wouldn’t allow it to attack him. As he drew closer, he could see her face more clearly. The sunlight touched her, making her coppery skin glow with a golden radiance and her expressive brown eyes look almost black. It was her eyes that drew him, mesmerized him. He could swear he saw laughter in them—but he somehow knew she was not laughing at him, but simply relishing some funny cosmic joke known only to herself.

As he approached more closely, he heard her speak firmly in a language unknown to him. Instantly, the white wolf sat down at her side, thumped his tail in a friendly way and looked up adoringly at her. When she placed her long, thin hand upon the wolf’s head, Dain almost felt as if she were reaching out and touching him! It was a ridiculous thought, but then, maybe this place was magical, as Luanne had warned him. She’d said Rainbow Butte had been a sacred place to the Hopi and Navajo people for thousands of years. Many ceremonies, powerful ceremonies honoring Mother Earth and the Navajo Yei and Hopi Kachinas, had taken place here.

Dain didn’t believe in magic, but he couldn’t ignore the powerful thrumming now beating through his chest. His racing heart felt light and an unexpected emotion deluged him as he drew within a hundred feet of the woman. That feeling was hope.

Chapter Three

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What do you want with her?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Just what the hell are you talking about?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“My name is Dain Phillips.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Wait!” Dain shouted, lifting his arm.

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

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

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

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

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

“What are you talking about?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What’s a yei?”

“Navajo for god.”

“I don’t believe in such things.”

She smiled.

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

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

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

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

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

Dain was shaken by her words. How the hell did she know that what he was feeling so sharply was abandonment? Flattening his lips, he yelled, “I’m here, damn it! I came in good faith! I bought the stupid groceries I’ll give to those two old women! Now, you owe me, damn it! You can’t send me away. I won’t go!”

Erin raised her brows as her heart wrenched in despair. “You won’t go?”

“No.”

Prejudice stared her fully in the face. The wounded part of herself screamed, No, go away! Clenching her hands at her sides, Erin realized the Great Spirit was testing her. She had been tested before and nearly died. This was a test of faith, a trial by fire of the worst sort. Taking in a deep, halting breath, she said, “Then I guess you had better go back to your car, get whatever luggage you have and come with me.”

Nonplussed, Dain just stared at her for a moment. “Where are we going?”

“To my hogan.” She pointed toward a set of low, rounded red hills in the distance. “We are about five miles from my home. If you are determined to stay, then you need to have enough clothes—and food.”

He was feeling weak again, and hot. The fever was beginning to boil up from his toes, calves, and into his thighs. Soon Dain would begin to feel light-headed and he’d have to lie down until the fever passed. He saw Erin watching him expectantly. There was no way he could carry anything five miles in his present condition. Anger boiled through him. He’d be damned before he’d tell her he couldn’t make the trek by himself, or that he needed help.

“Just tell me where you live. I’ll get there,” he snapped.

Erin whispered, “What does it cost you to ask for help?”

Her soft, compassion-filled words caught him off guard. Still, he snapped his mouth shut and glared. “I said I’d get there. Even if I have to crawl, I’ll get there.”

“You stopped asking for help when you were eight years old.”

Shock bolted through him and his eyes widened at her words. For a moment, he hated her for knowing the truth deep inside him. And then he realized there was no way she could have such intimate knowledge of him. His mind raced for answers, but logical solutions eluded him. Dropping his chin, he stared at his muddy, soaked hiking boots.

“Asking for help is natural,” Erin continued, her voice wary. “Even animals, when they are sick, will go to a healthy animal to be licked, protected and cared for. Humans are no different.” She forced a gentle smile for his benefit. “Perhaps that was beaten out of you long ago, but if you want to heal yourself, you must learn to ask for help.”

Pride wouldn’t allow him to speak. He drew himself up to his full height, his hands resting tensely on his hips. “I see your game. Your arrogance precedes you, Ms. Wolf—or whoever the hell you want me to think you are. I see through your games. You’re no different than a businessman or a board of directors at a corporation. You’re manipulating me. Trying to take my power away from me. Well, it’s not going to happen. It’ll be a cold day in hell when I ask you or anyone for help, believe me.”

Shrugging, Erin said, “Fine, believe what you want to believe, Dain.” She gestured to the road, mostly washed away by the recent rain. “Your life has been in your hands at all times. I do not wish to take anything from you, but rather, invest it back into you. But you don’t see that yet. Follow these tracks. You will go past a series of hills, and then, down below the mesa, is my hogan. I must continue to walk with my sheep so they may find enough to eat today. I will be back at the hogan near sunset.” She hoped he would never show up.

Dain watched in disbelief as she turned and spoke in a foreign language to the white wolf. Instantly, the wolf was up on his feet, herding the sheep along the wash, where there were new sprigs of grass to eat. At first Dain hated Erin Wolf. And then, as he felt the fever and weakness begin to eat away at his anger, he almost shouted out for help. But he didn’t. To hell with her!

He stood his ground on locked knees as he watched her disappear from sight down a draw that led into the huge gulch about half a mile away. So what should he do? Turning, he looked at the truck. Should he walk back to the highway and hitch a ride back to Many Farms and leave? Go back to the East Coast? And do what? Die?

Shoving his fingers through his short black hair, he glared in the direction Erin and her sheep had disappeared. What an enigma she was! She’d said she couldn’t heal him—that he could heal himself. Snorting violently, Dain turned around and began to clump back to his vehicle. Hell of a thing! Well, no doctor had ever told him that. Just the opposite. They all said they couldn’t help him with their drugs, radiation or fancy, million-dollar pieces of equipment. And though some may have inferred they could help eradicate his tumor, they all eventually found out they couldn’t.

As he slipped and slid down the wall of the wash, Dain cursed out loud. The words echoed off the walls.

As he trudged drunkenly back to the vehicle and jerked open the door, he felt the fever draining him, as it always did. Out of breath due to his weakness and the six-thousand-foot altitude, he climbed into the truck and laid his head back on the seat, closed his eyes and literally trembled. Exhaustion claimed him, all his anger destroyed in the wake of the fever. He hated the fact that the tumor was controlling him. All his life he’d worked to make sure nothing ever controlled him again, and yet this damn tumor was doing exactly that.

Erin’s oval face with its high cheekbones danced gently behind his closed eyes. Her light brown eyes danced with such life in their depths—life he wanted for himself. Sitting there, feeling like a rag doll that had had all the stuffing knocked out of it, Dain clung to her serene, beautiful features. Her image haunted him and for a moment, in his fevered state, he wondered if she were really an angel in disguise.

She’d admitted she couldn’t heal him. He had to heal himself. How? Intrigued by her challenge, his mind bounced over their conversation. During the last year all he’d heard was how doctors could heal many things—just not his illness. So why was she saying he could heal himself, that she couldn’t do it for him?

As he lay weakly against the seat with the warmth of the sun just beginning to strike the top of the truck, Dain tried to understand what Erin had said. If healers didn’t heal, just what the hell did they do? Medical doctors healed with their shots, their drugs and their expensive equipment. If she was who she said she was, he knew she’d healed others of terrible, encroaching diseases. Why would she lie to him then?

Barely opening his eyes as he felt trickles of sweat winding their way down his temples, Dain cursed. She was an arrogant bitch. Oh, he’d met her type back in the boardrooms and halls of power around the world. Erin didn’t fool him. What had thrown him off guard was the fact that she was Indian and a shepherd.

But a voice, barely heard, niggled at him. Was she really arrogant? Wouldn’t arrogance, true arrogance, preclude her saying something like, “Of course I can heal you of your brain tumor”? And had she said that? No.

“Dammit,” he snarled, forcing himself to sit up. Reaching for a thermos filled with water, he unscrewed the cap with trembling hands.

Okay, so maybe she wasn’t arrogant. At least, not in the true sense of the word. She’d promised him nothing. She’d thrown his disease back into his lap, into his hands, which no doctor anywhere in the world had ever done to him.

Something wasn’t right, Dain decided as he poured himself some water. He gulped it down and poured some more. Soon the dryness in his mouth abated and he stashed the thermos away. Lying back, he sighed raggedly. The fever was eating at him, making him feel weak as a baby.

He opened his eyes. How the hell had she known about him being abandoned as an eight-year-old? How? Stymied, he tried to explain it with the kind of logic that had made him billions. She lived out in the middle of a godforsaken desert where there weren’t any phone or electric lines. And besides, he made damn sure that his life story wasn’t privy to any news media, having had things about it sealed up permanently through court injunctions. No, Erin couldn’t have known about his young, miserable life—but she had. How?

“Damn her,” he muttered weakly, closing his eyes again. Because he didn’t have a logical answer for her intimate knowledge, he felt a little frightened of her. That was power over him, as far as he was concerned. And yet the look in her eyes when she’d shared that with him had touched him as nothing ever had. He’d seen such love and pity for him in her eyes. He hated pity in any form and he had wanted to hate her in that moment, but the feeling wouldn’t form within him. If anything—and Dain fought this feeling violently—he’d sensed he could trust her with his life.

It was a silly, crazy thought brought on by the fever, he rationalized. Or some stupid hallucination of hope that would dissolve when the fever left him in a couple of hours. Trust! Yes, she had a trustworthy face. He liked her voice, even if he didn’t like what she’d said to him. It was a low, husky voice laced with honeyed warmth that was undisguised, untainted by anything except…what? Truth.

Well, here he was again with that word and Erin Wolf. Truth and trust. His damnable heart, the heart of that eight-year-old boy, wanted to trust her and believe her truth. The man did not. Not now. Not ever.

So what was he going to do? Hitchhike back to the highway, stay here with the truck or go to her hogan? The prideful part of him said to leave and walk to the highway. The rational part said stay with the truck for the next three days, wait for the ground to dry out sufficiently and then drive back to Many Farms. He certainly had enough groceries in the back to live off of in the meantime.

But his heart whispered that he should go to her hogan and leave everything in the vehicle.

Dain didn’t know what to do, so he slept as the fever ate away more and more of his limited supply of energy. He couldn’t even think straight. He was crazy to think of going to her hogan. He wasn’t going to give the arrogant woman the pleasure of showing up on her doorstep. His pride wouldn’t let him.

As he spiraled into darkness, he heard what he thought was singing. It was a woman singing. It was Erin, he realized from the dark embrace of sleep. The song, soft and gentle, was in an Indian language. As he lay there, feeling very warm and safe, the song embraced him and he sighed. Yes, it was a lullaby. He had no idea what the words were, but the song was so beautiful that it brought tears to his tightly shut eyes.

In his sleep, he felt the warmth of tears oozing from the corners of his eyes, trickling down his face. The song was warm and husky, filled with love and hope. And though he had no idea what the lyrics meant, it didn’t matter. He felt their meaning, felt it vibrating through him, touching his walled-off heart and wrapping him in a sensation he’d never experienced before.

A part of him panicked because he never wanted the song to end, because it fed him, nurtured him like the arms of the mother he’d never known, and he felt as if Erin were invisibly with him, cradling him against her tall, strong and protective body. He swore he could feel his head resting against her full breasts, hear the beating of her passionate heart, which throbbed with such vital life. Feel her arms move protectively around him, drawing him in.

Yes, he was being held and rocked gently as she sang to him. Dain knew she was there even if he couldn’t see her in the inky blackness. He could smell the odor of wool, taste the sunlight that had touched her skin, and he heard the lulling bleat of sheep in the background.

A broken sigh slipped from him as he relaxed within her invisible arms. He felt her compassion and it soothed his fevered body and gave him a sense of peacefulness he’d never known. The song continued to flow through him, touching him with the lightness of a feather. For the first time in his life, he felt safe. Safe! The sensation was wonderful to Dain, and he surrendered to it—and to her.

The lullaby continued—haunting, melodic and healing. As he moved deeper and deeper into the darkness of sleep, Dain let go of all his anger, his fears and, finally, his anxieties. He slept the sleep of a baby who was protected by a mother who loved him, a mother who would protect him—always.

Chapter Four

One step in front of the other, one step in front of the other…

Dain kept repeating that litany as he forced his foot to lift, move forward and then land on the damp clay ground beneath him. It was dusk. An all-pervading silence flowed across the land as the sun’s rays withdrew from the desert. Looking up, he saw the remnants of the fiery red-and-orange sunset touch the long, wispy clouds high above him.

Those clouds had reminded him of Erin’s hair. Even though it had been plaited, he knew that her hair was long, thick and flowing just like those reddish clouds that moved slowly across the darkening vault of the sky.

Trying to take his focus off his own misery, which was considerable, he kept his gaze locked skyward as night descended. Never had he seen stars look so close, or glimmer so brightly, as they now did. He turned to see the bare outline of Rainbow Butte, behind him in the distance. Dain’s mouth thinned momentarily as he resumed his slow progress. This land had a raw, primeval beauty about it—just as Erin did.

Erin. Tashunka Mani Tu. Ai Gvhdi Waya. Asdzaan Maiisoh. Maybe Luanne Yazzie had been right: the medicine woman was more walking dream, a waking miracle…an angel, perhaps, in human form. Many names for a woman who was many things to those who needed her. He sighed. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore. When he’d awoken at sunset, he’d felt more rested than he could ever recall being. He’d slept all day! Twelve hours! At first, he’d thought that impossible, because he’d met her at sunrise. But the sun was edging toward the western horizon when he awoke, and that convinced him.

He must have needed the sleep. But the real miracle was the fact that he’d slept without being woken by that white wolf nightmare that always stalked him. Dain had never been able to take naps or sleep during daylight. His days were spent busily plotting new strategies to take over yet another corporation somewhere in the world. His waking hours were war-game hours, and he felt sleep was a waste of time.

All the anger he’d felt toward Erin had disappeared once he’d slowly come out of his protective cocoon of sleep. As he sat there in the truck, which was still warmed from the sun’s last rays, he felt two things. First, that he had no anger in him—at least, he couldn’t feel any—and second, that he was going to take her up on her offer and walk five miles to her hogan. Her words, softly spoken, still echoed in his head as he walked between two low, rounded hills. What does it cost you to ask for help?

With a snort, Dain shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket as he concentrated on staying upright. The ruts from vehicles were nearly nonexistent, and with darkness deepening quickly, the landscape was now becoming indecipherable—like that twilight zone he usually slept in.

He didn’t like dusk. It bothered him. Hell, night bothered him. He felt the calves of his legs beginning to knot and protest with fatigue. Five miles was a damned long way in his condition, but there was something goading, prodding him to move forward in the autumn chill of that high desert plateau.

Somewhere off in the distance of the embracing night, Dain heard a coyote howl—a lonely, forlorn sound. That was how he felt—alone. Abandoned. He compressed his lips, bowed his head and tried to ignore the burning pain in his feet and calves. At least the fever was gone, and for that he was grateful. All he had to contend with was a body that wasn’t any longer totally under his control. Because of the tumor, his left leg had a tendency to become tired. His left foot would drag, as it was doing now, and if he didn’t remember to deliberately lift it higher with each step, he would trip and fall.

Asking for help is natural. Even animals, when they are sick, will go to a healthy animal to be licked, protected and cared for. Humans are no different.

Drawing in a deep, painful breath of chilled air, Dain saw his breath crystalizing into a white wisp as it escaped his lips. He had to walk up a slight incline, which for a healthy person would have been easy. But for him it was pure, unadulterated torture. His legs were getting rubbery. Soon, if he didn’t rest, he would fall on his butt. A smile slashed across his deeply shadowed face. Wouldn’t his associates laugh at that? He’d been very careful not to let anyone know of his medical condition. When he convened daily strategy meetings, he appeared strong, incorrigible and indestructible to his people.

With a little laugh, Dain halted, threw back his head and gazed upward again. The stars were magnificent here. They shined and twinkled like expensive, multifaceted diamonds he’d seen at DeBeers’s operation in Africa, where the stones were mined. The darkness wasn’t threatening to him, for some reason. As he stood just below the crest of the hill, he smiled inwardly. His fingers felt warm inside the pockets of his leather jacket. The temperature had dipped drastically when the sun went down, yet he felt amazingly warm under the circumstances. Probably because he’d walked so far.

What does it cost you to ask for help?

His dark brows drew together and he looked down at his mud-encrusted boots. He’d been avoiding the answer every time his mind—or perhaps more accurately, his conscience—asked him that question.

Asking for help is natural. Even animals, when they are sick, will go to a healthy animal to be licked, protected and cared for. Humans are no different.

Grimly, Dain stood there, feeling the soft, black velvet of the night embrace him like a lover. He turned back toward the eastern horizon to see if he could still see Rainbow Butte, but couldn’t. Another coyote howled and the land seemed to vibrate, carrying the animal’s lonely cry straight to him, straight to his heart. Yes, all right, he was lonely in a way that ate at him like acid. And no amount of money, no number of corporate raids, no high-stakes international chess games played to increase his empire, had ever filled that gnawing emptiness deep inside his chest.

The coyote’s howl only emphasized how alone Dain felt. Looking around, he chuckled with wry amusement. Well, he sure as hell was alone. Wouldn’t his office staff howl with laughter if they could see him standing on a high, godforsaken desert plateau out in the middle of nowhere? And they’d roll on the floor with mirth if they ever found out that a woman had made him bend his own inflexible rules.

Well, he hadn’t exactly asked for help. She had said to come to her hogan. He would do that—provided he could find it. Perhaps she’d been wrong about the distance. Maybe five miles was really ten. Women were never any good with distance anyway, he’d found out long ago. Still, as he stood there in the darkness, Dain enjoyed looking at the coverlet of the sky filled with incredible diamondlike stars dancing, twinkling as if giving a private show of their beauty to the appreciative visitor who looked up at them from below.

Where he lived, he could barely see stars—just the brightest ones. Here he saw thousands more. The Milky Way wound across the sky like a silent, radiant river of tumbling stars, a magical path. Where did it lead? Dain laughed harshly at himself for his fanciful meanderings. Only a child would see that swath of stars as a path. Only a child would wonder where that path led. Well, his childhood was long gone and he was glad of it.

The burning, cramping pain in his legs had abated enough for him to continue his journey—his adventure, he corrected himself. The temperature had nose-dived, probably hovering in the low forties. As he walked, the song he’d heard Erin sing wound gently through him. Without realizing it, he began to hum the tune under his breath. Amazingly, as he crested the incline, it made his legs feel less cramped.

Halting, he looked around the endless, dark landscape that now seamlessly melded with the unseen horizon and the dark blanket of the night. The only way Dain knew where sky ended and land began was to look where the twinkling stars dropped off. He was pleased that he had enough of his own rational logic left to figure that much out. Frowning, he looked around. The vehicle tracks led down—nearly straight down. He was standing on a mesa. Vaguely, he recalled Erin saying she lived at the bottom of one.

Still, where was he? Where was her hogan? He’d seen hogans as he’d driven toward Chinle, one of the major towns on the Navajo Reservation. They were octagonal, made with long, rough pieces of timber, with mud packed between the logs. The roof of the hogan, from what he could observe, was nothing more than dried red clay. Who would live in such a primitive structure? And yet, he’d seen hogans everywhere. They melted into the surrounding soft pastels of the high desert, the reddish clay the same color as the mesas and bluffs so prominent in this part of the reservation.

Squinting, he swept his eyes from left to right. Was there a hogan down there somewhere? Dain thought he saw a glimmer of light as he viewed the darkness below him. Were his eyes playing tricks upon him? And then he remembered that he’d seen no electric poles out here. So if Erin’s hogan was nearby, how could he see it if she had no electricity? No light outside her home to guide him?

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