carefully maneuvered. His team had to be able to function in perfect harmony, whether in action or in stopmotion, waiting as they were now without knowing the reasons why. If there was to be friction or a falling out, this was the time to reveal the problem and remove the fault at once.
'Most men who drink as much as you do,' observed Gale Parker, watching Cromwell with mixed distaste and admiration, 'would have passed out long ago.
Instead, you just seem to get as nervous as a cat trying to get out of a cage. How do you do it?'
Cromwell blinked at her. The fiery redhead, quite beautiful in a most rugged fashion, had caught him unawares.
Women usually expressed some emptyheaded prattling criticism. But not this one. They knew little of her. Even her accent defied identification, but Cromwell, adept at many languages, recognized Parker's linguistic flexibility with her first words. She was feminine, but imbued with a strength he recognized and respected: a physical strength as well as some inner force. He saw quickly that in many ways she paralleled Indy's own style. She had long been a loner; Cromwell knew the look in the eyes, and he respected any woman strong enough to maintain her presence of self in a world where she was surrounded by men who regarded women as intruders in 'their' world.
What Cromwell could not determine, but was so well known to Indy, was that her appearance as an American, or at least someone from eastern or northern Europe, had been carefully manufactured and nurtured. Gale Parker was the name she adopted when she decided that she wished neither her Mediterranean background nor her real name, Mirna Abi Khalil, to signal that much information about her. Her father was Muslim, but Gale, at the time still a youngster known to her friends as Mirna Abi, spent her formative years with her mother, Sybil Saunders, in England's New Forest. The elder Saunders was a bona fide witch of the Wicca religion, and was the senior of an unbroken line of witches and covens going back fourteen hundred years. Born in 1899, as was Indy, Gale had devoted her entire life to intense discipline in academics and skills in the field, living off the land and learning to 'read' the signs of wildlife, as well as recognizing the artifacts of her mother's native land stretching six thousand years into the past.
She tripled up on her academics, took strange herbs from her mother that let her rest fully on four hours of sleep every night, and earned her doctorate in ancient cultures by the time she was but twentyfour years old. Living in the New Forest, trained by masters of ancient traditions, she was intensely athletic, but in the real world rather than in field and track competitions. Mountain climbing, swimming, hunter tracking, acrobatics, even expertise in jujitsu learned from an elderly Japanese who had adopted his own lifestyle to that of the Britons, all these had created a brilliant versatility in one so young.
It was on one of her trips into deep forest that she met Indiana Jones as he moved through ancient ruins in the thick woods. The encounter was one of instant competition between wills. This strange American fascinated her, for he knew as much of the Celtic past as she herself. When she learned he was a professor her admiration lessened rather than increased and she took no steps to hide her feelings. To her professors were stodgy, closeted behind ivyfestooned walls, and experts at talking rather than doing. Yet here he was in the thickets and, like her, living off the land.
An unexpected fight for life changed them both. Walking together through thick woods, Gale stopped Indy with a sudden touch on his arm. She had frozen in place; he did the same. Immediately she had her powerful bow in her hands, arrow strung, ready to draw and shoot. At that moment a huge wild boar erupted from nearby bushes, charging directly at them. Gale had the bow back fully and in one swift motion fired. The arrow went straight and true, burying the notched head deep into the animal's shoulder. The boar went to a knee, but was up, enraged, still able to run at them with a limping gait. The wound would not protect them against the fierce tusks. Gale had already snatched another arrow from her quiver and was ready to shoot. Too late! The animal charged her directly. Suddenly she felt herself lifted through the air and hurled to the side.
'That tree!' Jones shouted. 'Shoot from there!' She saw the wisdom of his move. She would be out of range from the tusks and she could still release her arrows. But even as she clambered to the safety of a branch she was ready to come down again. Indy had no weapon she could see and now the enraged animal was turning on him. It was her turn to be amazed as she watched Indy pulling open his jacket; a moment later a huge bullwhip was in his hand and whistling through the air.
A crack like a pistol shot sounded as the whip end lashed across the eyes of the boar. It screamed in sudden pain, blood spurting as though a knife blade had sliced open its tough hide. It spun swiftly, charging again. Indy had time for one more slashing strike with the whip. He aimed at a foreleg. The whip whirled about the leg and Indy ran to the animal's side, jerking with all his strength on the handle.
'Shoot!' he yelled as the animal tripped and for a moment fell over onto its side, its vulnerable belly exposed. Gale sent an arrow deep into the animal, then another and another. The boar thrashed about madly. Gale found Indy seated calmly by her side on the tree branch.
'We'll just wait until it dies,' he told her.
She stared at him in amazement. She'd never seen anything like that whip or the incredible speed and power he wielded against the beast. 'Where . . . where did you ever learn . . . I mean, how did you do that?'
He held the whip handle easily. 'I've had this since I was a kid. I learned to use it against snakes, mainly. When it was serious, that is.' He hefted the handle again. 'It'll slice a rattler or a copperhead in two just like a bowie knife.' He offered a crooked grin. 'You're no slouch with that Robin Hood outfit of yours, either. You saved both of us a nasty time when you fired that first arrow.'
'There wasn't time to think,' she said quietly.
'That's the rule in moments like these. Don't think. Acta non verba.'
'Deeds, not words,' she replied in translation from the Latin. 'Whoever you are, you surprise me. An American, which is obvious, with a bullwhip and using an ancient tongue.'
Again that lopsided grin. 'We'll try languages later. In the meantime, I hope you're as good a cook as you are a bowman.'
'Woman,' she emphasized.
He scanned her from head to toe. 'What's obvious doesn't need explanation.'
She was amazed. She blushed. She slipped down from the tree, wary of the animal still twitching. In a moment he was beside her. 'Take your choice—whatever your name is.'
'Parker. Gale Parker.'
He extended his hand. 'Jones. Indiana Jones. You want to do the honors with dinner or gather firewood?'
