Most of all, it’s that good because Perry abandons all formulas and offers the reader a completely original plot.'
'Mystery/suspense novels have had American Indian heroes and they’ve had female heroines—but few of them have displayed the combination of raw courage and compassion as does Jane Whitefield, a Seneca Indian who helps hunted people ’disappear.’... Although many male authors have attempted to write from the female point of view, few actually succeed with the easy grace as does author Perry.... In Whitefield, he has crafted a sensitive, loving woman who also happens to have the courage of a Roman gladiator.'
'[Thomas Perry] has demonstrated an ability to be fast-paced and clever, amusing and erudite.... Perry has done a lot of homework for this book, and the historical fabric is rich with tidbits of our shared past.... [He is] a spellbinding storyteller.'
'A taut thriller ... [An] unusually intriguing heroine.'
There is nothing in which these barbarians carry their superstition to a more extravagant length, than in what regards dreams; ... in whatever manner the dream is conceived, it is always looked upon as a thing sacred, and as the most ordinary way in which the gods make known their will to men.
For the most part, they look upon them either as a desire of the soul inspired by some genius, or an order from him; and in consequence of this principle, they hold it a religious duty to obey them; and an Indian having dreamed of having a finger cut off, had it really cut off as soon as he awoke, after having prepared himself for this important action by a feast...
The affair becomes still more serious, should any one take it into his head to dream that he cuts the throat of another, for he will certainly accomplish it if he can; but woe to him, in his turn, should a third person dream that he revenges the dead.
1
Jack Killigan used the reflections in the dark windows to watch the woman walk quickly up the long concourse, look at her high heels so she could take a few extra steps while the escalator was carrying her down, and then hurry around the curve so she could step onto the conveyor. She didn’t even know he was shadowing her. They always looked behind them every few seconds, but they never looked in front—didn’t really look.
Here she was getting off an airplane, so how could anybody not know where she was heading now? He could have just strolled straight to the baggage-claim area and waited for her there, but this one was worth serious money, so he had decided not to be lazy about it. He was a hundred feet ahead of her on the moving walkway, so he felt confident enough to look back.
She looked like a French model—or maybe Italian— chestnut hair, tall and slender, with legs that seemed longer than they really were because the leather skirt was shorter than it should have been. A lot of times they were like this. They didn’t have any idea of how to be inconspicuous. He only did rich women. Their husbands or whatever they called themselves were the only ones who had Killigan’s fee. The average guy who had this kind of problem would try to take care of it himself, but not just because of the number of dollars. He would do it because he couldn’t conceive of hiring somebody else to bring his woman back for him. He wouldn’t want anybody to know about it. But these rich guys were brought up with it. People washed their underwear for them and emptied the wastebasket where they threw their used rubbers. A lot of times the men were older—too old to do what had to be done.
Killigan’s peripheral vision caught the woman turning away from him again to look back for her imaginary pursuers. He turned his head to watch. She had to bend a little at the hips to lean over the railing and stretch her neck to see around the bunch of Wichita Chamber of Commerce types who had stopped behind her. He couldn’t help noticing the skirt again. That was typical. They would run away from home dressed like they wanted to be noticed, either because they didn’t own a dress that cost less than a used car or because they didn’t know there was such a thing. His eyes lingered on the shiny leather stretched across her buttocks. It was a long time on the road from Los Angeles to Indiana. Once he had her in the van, anything might happen. Women sometimes considered all kinds of options if they wanted out bad enough.
As though she had somehow heard what he was thinking, her back seemed to give a shiver, and he barely managed to turn his head away from her in time.
Killigan stepped off the conveyor and headed for the row of public telephones along the wall, to give her time to get past him. She came within four or five feet of him as she passed the telephones, and he caught a scent of her perfume, a slight change that made the air taste like a spice. He was busy wondering what that stuff cost when she turned the wrong way. 'Oh shit,' he said into the telephone. 'Coitus interruptus.' He was getting all geared up for it, and she was... of course. He caught sight of her walking into the ladies’ room.
Killigan hung the telephone on its hook and walked to the other side of the terminal so he would be behind her when she got around to coming out.
The woman emerged after a few minutes, and he almost felt sorry for her. She had put on sunglasses and a short jacket and a long blond wig to cover the dark hair, but she was carrying the same handmade leather flight bag that matched the leather skirt. He could even detect a fresh drop or two of perfume. The only person who wouldn’t recognize her was somebody who wasn’t looking for her at all. Those long legs in those dark stockings: If she’d had any sense at all, that was what she would have covered.
Killigan waited while she put a good two hundred feet between them before he started toward the baggage area. He could feel the universe rolling along smoothly now, the way it was supposed to. That had just been a little bump in the pavement. She was watching for her luggage, staring down at the metal track that wound around the waiting area. It was all a question of timing now.
He saw her spot her suitcase. She watched it all the way from the moment it brushed in through the weather flaps and went around the track; then he saw her lean forward and strain to drag and bump it over the rim onto the floor. It made her seem more vulnerable and ripe to watch her balance on the toes of those high-heeled shoes and do that. There wasn’t a lot of strength in those arms.
Killigan waited until she had hauled it to the door and shown the security woman her ticket with the stub stapled to it that matched the one on the suitcase. Then the door opened and she stepped out onto the sidewalk with Killigan at her elbow. At the curb she stopped and looked to the left to find a taxi, and Killigan moved in.
He flashed his identification wallet in her face as he said, 'Come with me, please, Mrs. Eckerly,' clutched her arm, and pulled her along with him, so there was never a second for her to think.
She tried to dig in her heels, but he knew exactly the way they reacted, so he gave her a first taste of it. He bent her wrist down enough so she knew it would break if she didn’t come, and jerked her along more quickly. It wasn’t just the pain that worked on them, it was the fact that he knew how to inflict it so easily. It proved to something deep inside them that he represented genuine authority—cops and law and government and, even more, all the massed force that made people do what they were supposed to do.
He hustled her across the street in the crosswalk, not even waiting for the light to change, just holding up a hand and counting on the drivers’ reflexes. He knew that, too, would help. And then he had her inside the big concrete parking structure and he was already feeling relief, because he was through the hard part, where real airport cops might be loitering and where, if she screamed and ran, it might be hard to subdue her without attracting some man he couldn’t scare off by flashing an imitation-leather wallet with his license on one side and a
