White Wolf

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.