Forever Angels Read online

  "It's temptin'," Stone said with a malicious smile. "Mighty temptin'."

  "You wouldn't dare!"

  "I used to get paid for not backing down from dares when I wore that gun, lady. And you're pushin' it. Now, are you going to leave, or should I help you on your way?"

  "That adoption is only legal under Indian law, for whatever good that will do you. You haven't petitioned the U.S. courts." Mrs. Peterson gave him back his malicious smile, which somehow fell short of matching the deadly twist of Stone's lips when it warred with her wobbling, triple chins.

  "When Oklahoma becomes a state, I'll be one of the first ones in court. Right now, Indian law's good enough for me." Stone narrowed his eyes until only a bare hint of brown showed through. "I'll bet that horse can run pretty good, even pulling a load like you. If it got spooked, that is."

  "You...I refuse to let you intimidate me, Stone Chisum!"

  Rain Shadow's brown eyes sparkled with amusement as he slipped away from the side of the cabin and headed toward the hill in back. He wasn't really afraid of that nosy old woman. His pa, Stone, would take care of her. After all, didn't his and Flower's Cherokee grandfather call Stone by the name Man Who Walks With Right?

  Rain Shadow winked at Mountain Flower as he passed, and his sister shook her head as she dunked a sheet into rinse water.

  "Are you done with your chores?" Flower asked.

  "You better believe it," Rain replied. "You don't think I'd be going hunting if I wasn't, do you? Pa would skin me alive."

  "No he wouldn't," Flower said with a laugh. "But he might take away that gun you're so proud of, so you couldn't hunt for a while. He's not going to be in a very good mood after Mrs. Peterson leaves."

  Rain's face puckered into a sudden scowl. "Flower, you don't think there's any chance the stupid white man's court will try to take us away from Pa, do you?"

  "I don't know, Rain," Flower said with a shrug. "I try not to worry about it. Pa always tells us that nothing is going to break up our family. But we're half white, as well as half Cherokee. I don't know if that makes us bound by white law, too."

  "Pa will handle it," Rain said in a positive voice. He shifted his rifle to his shoulder and headed toward the corral. "I'll be back in time for evening chores," he called to Flower over his shoulder.

  ~~

  Adirondack Mountains

  July 31, 1993

  "What's going to happen now?" Michael asked.

  "I've explained to you before that neither one of us is allowed to know what will happen," Angela said with a sigh. "Your job is to just stay near Tess and watch over her — make sure she doesn't slip up and let something foolish happen to her body before it's time for her spirit to leave it."

  Michael clamped down on the cigar stub and flapped his wings to follow Angela when she drifted toward another cloud. He shot straight through the fluffy mass and spread his wings wide to halt his plummeting descent. When he glanced up at the cloud, he saw Angela peering down at him, shaking her head.

  "You're going to need a lot more practice with your wings, Michael. How many times do I have to tell you that flying is more thinking than flapping? And I still don't understand why you're allowed to keep that cigar in your mouth!"

  "How many times do you have to tell me this!? How many times do you have to tell me that!?" Michael restrained his urge to shoot back up to the cloud and whisk right by that blond head, scaring Angela into tumbling backwards. Instead, he clamped down harder on the cigar butt and gently waved his wings, making a perfect landing beside Angela. "And I can't light my cigars, you know that. Dang it, it's hard to quit smoking after fifty years!"

  "It's a wonder you're not here because of lung cancer," Angela said with a smirk.

  "Well, I'm not! I'd still be going hale and hearty for another twenty or thirty years, if not for that dadblasted drunk driver. Guess my own guardian angel fell down on the job that day."

  "Michael, please watch your language."

  "Michael, don't flap your wings so hard. Michael, watch your language. Michael, quit tripping on your gown. Gosh darn it, Angela, you've been at this business lots longer than me. Give me a break."

  "I wouldn't have to keep repeating myself if you'd listen the first time. You're the one who decided you wanted to be a guardian angel. Would you rather go back and try something else?" Angela asked somewhat hopefully.

  "What? Lay around all day and think up creative ideas for the writers on earth to write about or pretty pictures for artists to paint? I ain't never been a good reader, and I don't know a Van Gogh from a Picasso. Help cook up meals that will tickle everyone's tongue? Grow pretty flowers? I was a truck driver, Angela, and I've always enjoyed meeting new people — being with people. And when I wasn't driving I liked to work on my house. I was always busy, and just because I'm dead doesn't mean I don't still want to keep busy."

  "Oh, Michael." Angela's laughter tinkled in the blue sky.

  ~~

  In the middle of carefully negotiating the rock strewn trail half-way down the back side of Saddleback Mountain, Tess glanced skyward. Funny how the breeze sometimes soughed through the tall pines, almost sounding like human laughter.

  Suddenly her left foot slid on a moss-covered rock and her ankle twisted cruelly in a rut beside the rock. Tess screamed in pain, while she windmilled her arms and desperately tried to maintain her equilibrium. Overbalanced by the backpack, she stumbled nearer the edge of the trail.

  Fear joined the pain in her mind. The injured ankle gave way and Tess fell, her lower body hanging over the precipice. Grabbing a nearby bush, she hung on for dear life and tried to swing her legs back to the trail.

  She didn't dare look down. That steep cliff face ran several hundred yards down the mountainside. The heavy pack dragged on her slender back, the pull of gravity making Tess sob in terror and cling to the bush until the rough bark cut into her palms.

  The roots of the bush slowly began giving way and Tess screamed again in panic.

  ~~

  "Hurry, Michael. Use your powers, like I've told you."

  "O.K. O.K. Don't rush me. I'm trying to remember...."

  "There's no time! Michael!"

  Michael grabbed the cigar stub from his mouth and glared at the bush, concentrating on making the roots hold. For a second it looked like he'd accomplished his task. Tess swung her right leg back up to the trail, the heel of her hiking boot making firm contact with the packed earth.

  Angela breathed a sigh of relief and glanced at Michael. "Michael! What's wrong?"

  "I...ah...gadda...sn...ah...ah...AAHCHOO!"

  They both heard the bush roots give way and Tess's renewed scream as she tumbled over the edge of the trail.

  No matter what the rules, Angela had to interfere! She peered over the cloud, her total concentration on saving Tess from death.

  But Tess wasn't there!

  Angela blinked in surprise. The ledge on the side of the mountain she had conjured up was there, close enough to the top of the trail for Tess not to have been too badly injured when she hit. And close enough to allow her to climb back onto the trail.

  But no Tess!

  "Oh, Michael, what have you done?"

  "Me? You jumped in and used your powers! This was supposed to be my assignment."

  "You were supposed to keep her from getting killed! You lost your concentration when you sneezed. No human body could have lived through that fall."

  "MICHAEL! ANGELA!" The voice boomed through the still air, loud but only audible to the angels.

  "Uh oh." Michael's wings cringed against his shoulders.

  Angela gave Michael's sandy-gray head a comforting pat. "Come on. Let's stand up and face the music."

  "Yeah," Michael grumbled. "What can Mr. G do? Kill us?"

  Angela giggled softly and stood, her bare toes clenching in the fluffiness beneath her the only sign of her timorousness. Michael sighed deeply and joined her.

  ***

  Chapter 2

  Oklahoma Ter
ritory

  July 31, 1893

  Rain squinted against the sun glare and propped his rifle against a convenient tree. Raising his arms, he rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes, then cautiously peeked through his lashes.

  She was still there. Now she was sitting up and rubbing the heels of her hands against her own eyes. She hadn't been there a second ago. Instead, he had been aiming at a wild turkey, visions of a toasty brown drumstick dancing in his mind. The turkey was long gone now, after emitting a confused gobble of surprise and disappearing over the hill.

  And look at those clothes she was wearing. One time Flower had dared to wear a pair of his old pants, insisting to Pa that her long skirts got in the way when she did her chores. Pa had squashed that idea right off. And Rain's old pants on Flower were baggy, not skin tight.

  Suddenly a cloud materialized over the woman's head, then disappeared in a blink. Rain's eyes widened. He could have sworn the other lady — the one he'd had a brief glimpse of on that cloud — had seen him, too.

  No, he hadn't imagined it. But there were still almost two years to go before he returned to his grandfather and prepared to seek his vision — the vision that would lead him into complete manhood at age twelve. He didn't dare try to speak to a spirit on his own before then.

  Rain studied the woman sitting on the trail again. That pack on her back looked awfully heavy. And what were those sticks the straps were wrapped around made of? Not wood, like the packs Indian women still used sometimes.

  The woman shrugged out of the pack, then bent to rub at her leg.

  Were those boots on her feet? None like Rain had ever seen. Bulky, they came to just above her ankles.

  The cloud appeared again, but the woman on the trail didn't seem to notice. She started unlacing her left boot, her head bent nearly to her knee.

  Rain looked at the cloud, and the blond-haired woman in the flowing white robe waved her wings and placed her index finger against her lips, winking at him. Rain nodded in return.

  Maybe these were white men's spirits, rather than Indian. But white or Indian, the spirits weren't to be discussed without the proper fasting beforehand and reverence for their spiritual state. His grandfather, Silver Eagle, had told Rain that more than once. Silver Eagle, a Shaman, should know.

  Angela wasn't surprised that the boy could see her. Lots of children could see angels. The boy looked still young enough — probably around ten. Usually by their teens, children had picked up enough stress to deal with in their lives to have lost their childish wonderment and closed their minds to things they couldn't explain.

  Angela waved her hand beneath her to solidify the cloud somewhat, then sat down to wait. No telling how long it would be until Michael joined her again. She hadn't begun his time travel lessons yet. Someone else would have to teach him that now, while she kept an eye on Tess.

  Tess stared at her hiking boot, biting her lower lip against the pain and debating whether to loosen the laces or try to pull them snugger. The ankle felt broken, but maybe it was just a bad sprain. Either way, it would probably be less painful if she wrapped it in the elastic bandage in her pack.

  Still, Freddy wouldn't look for her until tomorrow evening, and it would be easier to try to get back up to the trail with the support of her boot. At least someone else might come by there. They might miss her down on this ledge, if she happened to fall asleep, given the fact that she hadn't slept last night.

  "You should take your boot off before your foot swells. Otherwise, the boot will have to be cut off, and you won't be able to wear it again. Boots cost a lot of money."

  Tess's head had swung up at the first word. She blinked eyes misty with unshed tears of pain to try to clear her vision. The little boy crouched a few feet away, and her eyes swept over him, disbelieving.

  What in the world was a child doing hunting on a hiking trail? An Indian child, wearing a plaid shirt — not the T-shirts children usually wore. His hairstyle didn't look too out of the ordinary. A leather band held back the long, black locks from his face, but even young children these days set their own hairstyles.

  No wonder she hadn't heard him approach. He wore moccasins on his feet. Tess slid a sideways glance at the rifle held upright in the boy's right hand. That definitely had no place on a hiking trail.

  "Look," Tess began in a tentative voice. "I'm darned glad you're here, but there's no hunting on this mountain. Where are your parents?"

  "Mountain?" Rain repeated in a puzzled voice. He turned his head to study the area around him as though he weren't already familiar with every bush and pebble. "You must be from pretty flat land, if you think this is a mountain, instead of a hill."

  Tess followed his gaze and her jaw dropped. Where the hell was she? Rocks and brush littered the hillside, intermingled with jack pine and spruce, not huge white pines, white ash and red cedar. Suddenly she became aware of the stifling heat — not cool mountain air.

  She swiveled her head to the left and fearfully glanced upwards, hoping against hope to see the hiking trail snaking down Saddleback Mountain. Instead, she saw more brush and what could have been a tumbleweed, caught between two bushes.

  A faint sound down the hillside drew her attention, and Tess gazed over the little boy's shoulder. Snuggled in the valley below sat a log cabin. A small figure struggled to drape what looked like a large, white sheet over a clothesline in the back yard. An unpaved road led away from the front of the cabin, and Tess licked suddenly dry lips with a powdery tongue when she saw a horse trotting down the road, pulling a black buggy.

  "The dirt roads around here are all jeep trails," she said, a corner of her mind still trying to deny that she wasn't on the mountain, though her eyes refused to leave the incongruous vision of the horse and buggy. "Why is there a buggy on that road down there?"

  "A jeep?" Rain questioned. "I don't know what that is, but that's Mrs. Peterson's buggy. And if you ever saw her, you'd know she has to drive a buggy, 'cause she couldn't ever climb on a horse. Poor horse, if she did."

  Tess took a determined breath. "All right. I don't know how it happened, but somehow I've stumbled onto a movie set. If you'll just go get someone from the crew to help me, I'll get out of the way and go to a hospital, so they can x-ray my ankle. Still," she continued in a musing voice, "what the hell did they do with the mountain? How far down that mountainside did I fall?"

  "You didn't fall," Rain said. "You just...." He shrugged his shoulders. "You just appeared."

  "What!?" Tess jerked her head around and stared at the little boy in amazement. "What do you mean — I just appeared?"

  "You scared the turkey away, too, and I was almost ready to shoot it. Good thing you appeared before I squeezed the trigger, or I might have shot you. And what's a movie?"

  "Oh, good grief. You know darned well what movies are. Just like the one they're obviously shooting here. Where is everyone else?"

  "You sure use funny words. There's not even words in Cherokee like you use. And there's no one else around here. Just my sister and my pa, down at our cabin. You saw Mrs. Peterson leaving. What kind of animal is a movie? Is it good to eat, if I can shoot one?"

  Tess gritted her teeth, both against the pain in her ankle and her fast evaporating patience. "Let's start over again. My name is Tess. Tess Foster. And you are...?"

  "Rain Shadow. But after I seek my vision, my name will probably change."

  "Your vision?"

  "Uh huh. When I'm twelve. Grandfather said his name was Running Cub while he grew up, then Silver Eagle, like it is now."

  "Silver Eagle?"

  "My grandfather," Rain repeated patiently. "He's a Shaman."

  "O.K. Look, Rain...uh...Rain Shadow...."

  "It's just Rain, since you're a white woman. White's only use one word of their name when they talk to each other. My sister is Mountain Flower, but Pa just calls her Flower."

  "I see." She really didn't, but this conversation wasn't making a lick of sense. "And what's your father's name?"
/>
  "He doesn't ever use his Indian name, even though he's got one that my grandfather gave him. Pa's name is Stone Chisum. He used to be a gunfighter, but he gave that up when he adopted Flower and me. 'Course he really wasn't a gunfighter. He was a sheriff and then a marshal. People just called him a gunfighter sometimes, because he was faster than anyone else with his gun."

  Tess shook her head, auburn curls swirling around her face. She blew back a stray strand from her forehead, then bent to lay her forehead on her knee. Her ankle throbbed, and she tentatively rubbed her fingers above the pain.

  "Pa said it was time to give up guns, anyway," Rain continued, finding himself enjoying showing this pretty lady just how smart he was. "He said the country was gettin' civ...civilized now. Even Geronimo agreed to live on a reservation. Why, Pa says that one of these days a lot of men won't even know how to shoot a gun. Those that do will just use them to hunt animals."

  Tess's head snapped up. "What are you talking about?"

  "Guns?" Rain asked.

  "No. What did you say about G...Geronimo?"

  "He's Apache, not Cherokee, but I know about him. He was the last Indian to go onto a reservation with his people. Pa says there's talk of him getting permission to go around the country with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. He promised we'd go see that, if it ever came close enough."

  "Rain, Geronimo's been dead for years!"

  "Gee, you must be pretty dumb in history. Flower and me, we like history best when we study. Pa says that's good, because he doesn't want us to ever forget our Indian heri...history."

  Tess sat in stunned silence. The little boy sounded like he meant it — like he believed every word. His brown eyes met her gaze without a trace of evasiveness.

  Tess stared around her again. Where in the world had she landed after she fell? She darned sure wasn't on Saddleback Mountain. But she had to be. She couldn't have traveled through space.

  "Rain." No, she couldn't ask that. It was outlandish even to let such a crazy thought into her mind. Those books she like to read were fiction, damn it!