I'm dead, he thought, his mouth going dry with a terror so profound it couldn't even be called fear.
Then Jennie pulled something out of the inside of her jacket; a beaded feather-no, two feathers, eagle-tail and eagle-covert bound together with beadwork, like a peyote-fan, but different in a way that felt important. She held it before her like a shield-
He blinked to clear his eyes of the strange triple vision that suddenly came over him, but the vision remained. There was Jennie, legs braced slightly apart, the Jennie he knew, in blue jeans and a beat-up jacket decorated with Osage ribbon-work embroidery and ribbon-weaving-
And Jennie, in full Osage regalia, but with some additions; a kind of shell necklace he knew was only supposed to be worn by men, a beaded Tzi-sho eagle feather braided into the hair on one side of her head, and a beaded Hunkah feather on the other, a modified warrior's roach, and some other things that she didn't wear to the powwows-
And over all that, a bird. A kestrel. And the second and third images were a lot stronger than the 'real' one.
The Little People slowly raised their eyes, and stared instead at Jennie, and David began to hope that maybe he wasn't going to die after all.
One of the Little People straightened up from his crouch. He stood much taller than Jennie; he must have been at least six feet in height, and towered over her, but she didn't seem the least intimidated.
He said something in what David recognized as Osage; he didn't know much of the language, but it was Siouan in derivation, and he knew Lakotah. He understood just enough to get the basics.
You have interfered with our hunt. This is our rightful prey.
She shook her head, and replied in the same tongue.
David didn't understand any of what she said, and it was a fairly long speech. The rest of the Little People straightened and surrounded her, looking down at her, ignoring him.
Oh, please don't make them mad, Jennie. I don't think kung fu, or whatever it is you know, works on them.
Finally she finished with something he vaguely understood. Sorry about this, but he's with me. He's a little stupid, please forgive him.
He didn't know whether to kiss or kick her. Maybe he'd better not do either. They might not like it.
The leader looked down at her, taking her measure; looked down at David, and there was no mistaking the contempt in his eyes. Finally he raised his chin in agreement, though it was obvious that he did so grudgingly. The glitter in his eyes spoke volumes. Here was a man, saved by a woman who was more warrior than he was, at least in the estimation of the Little People. David felt his ears reddening.
The leader folded his arms across his chest, and slowly faded from view; the rest of the Little People followed him a heartbeat later. And the strange triple vision of Jennie faded as well, leaving only the Jennie he knew. David finally remembered to breathe. He thought that Jennie would say something, probably scathing, but she ignored him. Instead, she tucked her feathers back into her coat and returned to the place where he'd been crouching, and dropped down to sit on her heels and stare at the medicine-pouch he'd found. . . .
Which was no longer so desirable. In fact, he didn't want it at all anymore; his earlier lust for it made him a little nauseous.
She stayed there for an awfully long time as he slowly picked himself up out of the dirt and assessed the damages. Not bad, really. A couple of bruised ribs, some other bumps and bruises and scrapes. She didn't seem the least interested in him anymore, and he was torn between being fawningly grateful and really pissed off. If there was a death worse than fate-well, she'd just saved him from it.
If the Little People had gotten hold of me, they'd have killed me, and they'd have taken their time about it. Not only that, but I'd have had to join them. ...
He shuddered, and his nausea increased. An eternity of hunger and frustration, never being able to leave the earth, never doing anything constructive . . . and he could just imagine the reaction Calligan and the press would have had to finding him cold-dead on Calligan's property.
Calligan would have had a field day, and David probably would have inadvertently taken a lot of innocent people down with him.
Not an hour ago, he'd scoffed at the Little People as being no more than superstitious drivel. Oh, he was a believer now.
Jennie continued to ignore him. He decided not to say anything. In a strange way, he was actually afraid of her. Where had she gotten that kind of power?
Maybe the stuff she had done the night he'd come over wasn't all stage-magic crap after all.
Maybe? Get real, Spotted Horse. She's got it, whatever it is. You should be glad she just shoved you out of her house, instead of a million other things she could have done to you for talking to her like that.
In his mind, she took on a kind of mythic status; a kind of Great Mother, like Spider Woman or Changing Woman. He wondered if he should just try to slip away before she noticed him again.
Then she spoke, and the sarcastic tone and completely ordinary words shredded his building mental image of her to rags.
'You blow your own mouth off often enough,' she said quietly, 'you happen to know anything about bombs?'
Bombs? He blinked, suppressed an automatic and equally sarcastic reply, and walked over to join her.
She had his penlight in her hand; evidently he'd dropped it when she hit him. She had it focused on the medicine-pouch, and she had moved some of the dirt from around it. Now he saw the trip wires leading to it-and now he knew why the Little People had been waiting for him. They hadn't been planning on killing him themselves; they were going to let him blow himself to pieces.
'Happens I do,' he said, carefully. 'At least, I do know about things that are this primitive. We had to learn how to look for bombs in our cars, and booby traps people would set up in barricades.'
She glanced at him sideways, but didn't comment. She didn't have to; it was all there in her glance. He took a deep breath to calm himself; he'd earned that particular doubtful glance.
'Honest,' he said, with complete truthfulness. 'Jennie, I can swear to you that I have never set a bomb in my life, and I only took apart bombs that whites set on Native property. Okay?'
She nodded. 'Okay. So, how about if I hold the light and you deal with this one?'
He was still wearing his rubber gloves; she couldn't possibly have missed that, but she didn't say anything about it. The bomb was ridiculously simple to take apart, leaving them with a potentially dangerous device, and a 'device' that was probably equally dangerous, in another direction entirely.
'Now what?' he asked.
'Now we take this sucker back to my car to store as evidence,' she said. 'You carry it; you've got the gloves, and if there are any latent prints I don't want them messed up. I'd let you take it, but since you're a known activist, if anyone got probable cause to search you and your property-'
'Yeah.' She was right, dammit. 'Why not just leave it here for the cops to find?'
She tucked the medicine-pouch inside her jacket and dusted her hands off before answering him. 'Because I'm afraid it won't be here in the morning,' she finally said. 'I'm afraid it's going to mysteriously disappear. It was meant for me. You just happened to fall over it.'
He didn't quite snort at what he would have considered an outrageous statement a few hours ago. He simply amended it. 'You, or anyone else who might have recognized it for what it was. There are supposed to be some O.U. people here, sooner or later. It would really look bad to blow one of them up.'
She held one hand over the lump in her jacket where the medicine-pouch was, and nodded, slowly. 'That's true, and I can't explain it, but I know it was meant for me. And I would probably have done just what you started to do if you hadn't gotten there first and sprung the trap. I wasn't looking for a trap like that.'
He thought about the sudden avarice that had overcome him at the sight of the pouch, and his mouth went dry again. This was getting to be a lot more than he had bargained for.
She continued, gesturing for him to pick up the remains of the bomb. 'I didn't even see the bomb until after I spotted you, and I-ah-let's just say I used medicine to find out who and what you were.'
He let out his breath in a sigh, and shook his head. 'If I say I'm confused-it's been a strange night.' He gathered up the explosives and the rest of the component parts and followed her. Presumably she'd parked her truck somewhere nearby.
