He left the sentence unfinished, but she finished it for him. "Like me," she snarled. "And I'll break his skull for him. Dad, if you have a way to hear from him, messages can go the other way. You let that bunch of overgrown adolescents know that there's a lot more going on here than he thinks-and that's not from Jennifer Talldeer, P.I., it's from Kestrel-Hunts-Alone, Mooncrow's designated apprentice. I think at least some of his friends will get the message and back off a little. I hope. If they don't-I am not going to place myself between them and a bunch of angry mi-ah-luschka. And that's my word on the subject." She sniffed disdainfully, as her father winced at the mention of the Little People. "That won't stop David, of course. He's probably gotten so damn sophisticated that he doesn't believe in anything anymore."
Her father was quiet for a long moment. "Well-that was the other-the real reason I was worried. I may not have the Medicine, but I've seen it at work. This is old and powerful stuff you're messing with. You weren't making any inferences, but I can read between the lines. Somehow, this looting and the explosion are related. Watches-Over-The-Land was an unusually gifted man. The medicine stirred up against someone who stole his bones is going to be pretty severe. I don't want you standing between the Little People and anybody."
"I knew the job was dangerous when I took it, Dad," she replied flippantly, but then sobered, and smiled at him reassuringly. "Remember, I have Mooncrow. He's a horny old coot, but when things get serious-well, he's as good as they get. If we can't handle this together, no one can."
Finally her father's expression of concern faded. "I guess you're right, and I really can't make any good assessment- it'd be like you trying to figure out a weld. You know what you're doing, honey. And you know what you need to do. So does the old man, as far as that goes, though sometimes I wonder how you put up with him living with you."
She shrugged, secretly pleased that her father had given her the ultimate accolade of an adult-"you know what you're doing."
"Maybe I'm more than a little contrary myself," she admitted. "After all, it's man's medicine that I'm learning-"
Her father sighed. "Now you know I wouldn't be a good parent and a good Osage if I didn't worry about that, too." She tilted her head to one side, giving her reply a lot of thought. This was the first time he had actually come out and said that, and it deserved a decent reply. "I can understand that. But please, remember that he is the Teacher; I was the one he chose, it wasn't the other way around. Not using this power-" she shook her head, "-no, I couldn't let it just lie there, it would be-it would be denying a responsibility. As if I had all the ability of a great artist and refused to draw. No, that's not right either." She considered for a moment more. "It's a demand on me, in my heart. It's more than that, because it's not just something for me, it's something for my family, my clan, my gente, my nation- it's more as if I got elected president and refused to serve. I kind of got elected to this, so it really would be the wrong thing not to do what's right with the power. ..."
She let her voice trail off; he looked into her eyes, and finally nodded. "I think I understand. You know, the old man told me once that the only time I really touch the Power is when I'm dancing-and I know what you mean about it being a demand on your heart. When I'm dancing, even in competitions, I feel like I'm doing something, something important, even if I don't understand what that is. I wouldn't give up dancing, even if they quit having competitions, even if only women danced, even if it were illegal the way it was in his father's day." She held his eyes and smiled, feeling a wonderful warmth - and relaxation come over her. Oh, he would still worry, because he was a parent, it came with the territory. But now he understood.
"Thank you," she said softly. "That means a lot." Then she cleared her throat, and took a more normal tone. "Look Dad, if you can, just pass on what I told you, all right? It might at least keep some of those poor construction workers out of the line of fire. And see if the law will move its fat ass about the vandalism." She sighed. "Not that I have much hope-but since there's a county election coming up in September, maybe the sheriffs department will feel some pressure, especially if it comes from the Principal Chief. Osage oil stipends are still a major source of county income up there."
He nodded. "I'll try," he replied. "You've got a good point about the stipends. I sure wish David Spotted Horse would be a little more-more-"
"Sensible?" she supplied, doing her best not to sound too snide or catty. "Reasonable? Thoughtful? I'm afraid those are pretty foreign concepts to Mister Spotted Horse. I learned that the hard way. His way is to overreact to everything, and his overreaction is one of the reasons we broke up."
She got a sudden suspicion from the way her father's eyes narrowed that he was about to bring in personal matters.
She wasn't mistaken.
"You know," he said carefully-and a little hopefully, "your mother and I always kind of hoped you'd get a little more serious about David."
She dashed his hopes by groaning. "Puh-lease! He was way too busy being the Big Man in the Movement." After a moment of consideration, she decided to let him in on a little personal secret that had finally stopped hurting. "I never told you what it was that finally precipitated my breaking up with him. He quoted Huey Long at me."
"Huey Long?" Dad replied, puzzled. "Wasn't he a Black Panther or something? What was the quote? How could that break you two up?"
"You'll know how when I tell you." She cleared her throat. "I was trying to point out why bailing out of college was a bad idea, especially for someone who claimed he wanted to do some good for our people. I even pointed out how much good I could do, being both in criminal investigation and in the Movement. He said, word for word, 'the only place for a woman in the Movement is on her back.' "
Her father stared at her for a moment, and his face spasmed. "I don't imagine you put up with that-" he choked, trying not to laugh.
She shrugged. "For his pains, I egged him into trying to shove me around, then I put him on his-to let him get an idea of how it felt."
That was too much for her father; he broke up laughing, and she grinned, feeling just a little smug now that the confrontation was old, old news. It had hurt at the time. What had hurt even more was that she had known, then and now, that it was meant to; David had an uncanny ability to pick the most hurtful words possible and use them.
"Well, he thought the reason I was taking tai chi was just to keep the fat off my hips and make me a good dancer. Boy, did he get a surprise!"
Her father chuckled. "I'll bet he did. And I'd be the last person to tell you he didn't have it coming, after a crack like that."
She shook her head. "Needless to say, when I told him as much, he called me a flint-hearted bitch-among other things-I called him a male chauvinist pig-among a lot of other things-and we called it quits."
Her father picked up a napkin and wiped his eyes. "That's my daughter. If you hadn't, and I'd found out about it, I'd have disowned you myself."
She picked up her sandwich again, and stared at it, before taking a pensive bite. "You know, Dad," she said after swallowing it, "it isn't easy being a flint-hearted bitch. It takes a lot of work."
To her surprise, he reached across the table and patted her free hand. "You mean," he said, quietly but firmly, "that it isn't easy being a warrior. That is what you are, and only a foolish young man with no experience and unable to get past his own ego would fail to see it."
She looked up at him in complete shock.
He nodded, and gave her a smile warm and bright with approval. "Just promise me this. Watch your back very closely. Not because you need to, but to please your old man, who probably worries too much about the girl he remembers as a baby in his arms."
She blinked, and agreed.
"Good," he said with satisfaction. "That is all I have any right to ask you. Now-can I force some strawberry cobbler on you?" He arched his eyebrows at the refrigerator. "There's fresh homemade ice cream to go with it," he continued temptingly.
All she could do was laugh, and agree.
She was thinking about the conversation as she made notes in her office after she got back. It had been a very enlightening and surprising little talk, on a lot of levels-
"Sometimes it would be easier not to be such a rebel," Grandfather said from behind her, making her jump. "Easier on you, as well as your parents. But sometimes it is something that you must be."
She swiveled her chair around. There he was, standing in the door to her office, looking inscrutable. "Are you eavesdropping on my brain again?" she asked, shaking a fist at his ear. "Dirty old men shouldn't eavesdrop on ladies' thoughts!"
He ducked, and chuckled at her, waggling an admonitory finger at her. "No respect," he chided. "You kids have no respect for the elderly and wise-"
It was hard to stay even annoyed with him for more than a minute when he was in this mood. "If you were either, I might," she retorted. "You're an oversexed sixteen-year-old contrary, an Osage heyoka and there isn't any such thing, and you're just disguised as a wise old medicine man! You've got my real Grandfather tied up in a closet somewhere. You're Coyote, that's what you are, and not Mooncrow at all!"
His eyes crinkled up as he grinned. "Could be, could be," he replied. "But I was just reading the thoughtful look on your face when you came in, and put it together with the pan of your mother's famous cobbler in the fridge. That meant you stopped to see my son, and since you brought the cobbler home, he must have let you know he's worried because you're so different, but since you aren't annoyed, he told you he knows you can take care of yourself. Hmm?"
She shook her head. "I am never going to be able to do that. You sound just like Sherlock Holmes, and I feel as stupid as Watson," she sighed, then hooked a chair with her toe and kicked it over to him. "Sit, Mooncrow, my Teacher. I am troubled, and in need of counsel. We have a lot of problems that should fit together and don't. I need your help, Little Old Man."
He took the chair, losing his smile. When she called him that-which was a title of high honor among their people- he knew the situation was more than simply serious. And he knew that she would not ask him for help unless she really was out of her depth.
She told him what she had told her father, but with more details, particularly the Medicine details. Although he was wearing his very best stoneface, as befit a Little Old Man, she thought that he became alarmed when she told him about Watches-Over-The-Land's looted grave.
He began to ask her some specific questions about what graves in particular had been looted where, and she had to confess that she had been so upset that she couldn't remember precise details.
"That's why I took these," she said, pulling out the Polaroids, and handing them to him. "Each set is from a specific grave; see, I put a number on a note right in the middle of each one, so you can tell which was which. I put everything back that I could, but with the bones gone, I got the feeling that my ceremonies were about as effective as blowing smoke into the wind. I did at least break the spiritual connection to the bones, but the mi-ah-luschka are looking for blood payment."
He leafed through them, carefully, his face gone stony and cold. Finally, when he came to the last set, he took a quick intake of breath. That was all, but it was enough to tell her that he was as upset as she had ever seen him.
He closed his eyes for a moment, simply holding the photographs in his hands. When he finally opened his eyes again, though, he did not look the way she had expected.
He was angry, but that wasn't all. He was disturbed, and perhaps a little frightened. Something had happened that he had not expected.
"You are correct in remembering that this was Watches-Over-The-Land's resting place," he said, after a long silence. "As I have told you, he was a Medicine Chief, and a very great one."
He paused, and she waited. He would tell her what he knew, but he was clearly thinking this through as he spoke.
"There is something wrong-besides this vandalism," he said after that long pause. "I am looking at these pictures, and there is more malice in the last looting than in the rest. There are no bits of pottery or beads left there; absolutely everything was taken. Further, no one but you, or I, or some other immediate ancestor, should have been able to find that grave. Not simply because it is-was-hard to find. Because they should not have been able to see it. Because it was protected."
She nodded, slowly, and then with vigor. Of course! That was what the back of my mind was trying to tell me! Of course the place would be protected-how could it not have been, with a son who was a Medicine Chief himself seeing to the cairn? And with every descendant since watching over the site?