And all because she was afraid to lose control, afraid to make those mistakes that had to be made if you were going to be a person and not a machine.
Eagle blinked, and she found herself looking into his eye again, seeing the laughter there.
Laughter that suddenly became too much to resist.
Well, little sister? Eagle said, mildly. Have you seen at last the lesson that held you back for so long? Are you ready to take a new path, and perhaps share it with the Young Male Deer?
Well, staying in control sure hasn't worked! she laughed. And how I could have been afraid to make mistakes-
Eagle grinned. Then you will return?
She laughed even harder at her own absurdity. Of course! she agreed-
And suddenly, she was freezingly cold, with stones biting into her back, ribs and head aching horribly, lungs afire. Coughing up water-
And laughing, even as her lungs burned and her heart pounded.
"Jennie!" David caught her up in his arms, babbling, crying, holding her and pounding her back to help her cough up the rest of Lake Keystone, all at the same time. She managed to get her arms around him, still alternately laughing and coughing. He stopped pounding just long enough to kiss her, and she tasted the salt of his tears mixed with the river water.
Mooncrow covered her with a blanket, wiped her face and hair with a towel, saying nothing, but grinning with tears on his face.
And David just held her, as if he wanted to keep her there forever, his shoulders shaking with fear and cold and grief-turned-joy.
And she-she let him.
She and Mooncrow kept glancing at each other all during the ride home, and giggling. /'// have to explain it to poor David, she thought, more than once; he obviously thought they were both still hysterical. He just drove; he had no intention of stopping until he got them both home, and he kept his eyes on the road and both hands on the wheel, even though he clearly would much have preferred to trade places with Mooncrow in the backseat.
But Jennie shared a joke with her grandfather that would be very hard to explain; it wasn't so much a joke as it was a state-of-mind. Relief, for one thing. A knowledge shared; the absurdity of how she had been blocking herself, and how easy it had been once she saw what Mooncrow had been trying to tell her.
"Heyoka," she would say to him, and they'd both break up. '"Heyoka yourself," he would reply, and it would start all over again. In fact, they really didn't stop laughing until they got home, which was just as well, since as long as she was laughing, her head didn't hurt quite so much.
David insisted on carrying her into the house, still wrapped in Mooncrow's prize blanket. Her grandfather followed, as David carried her to her room and laid her gently on the bed.
"Take these," he ordered, handing her pills and a bottle of orange juice. "
"What are these? Time-release contrary-capsules?" she asked, and set him snickering again.
"No," he replied, through the little snorts. "Vitamins, aspirin, and antibiotics."
She raised a rebellious eyebrow at that, but David took them from Mooncrow and sat down on the bed beside her, holding out the juice. "You either take them, or I give them to you," he said sternly. "Mooncrow is right; you don't need pneumonia on top of everything else. And when you get done taking the pills, you go to sleep-"
But Mooncrow waved that off, before Jennie could object. "No, first she must tell us what happened to her," he said. "All that she learned. You and I know only what my vision told us, that she had been attacked and taken to the dam. Not who, and what, and why."
There was something about the inflection of his voice that made even David sigh, but bow to his will. And Jennie took the pills.
She told them all that had happened, or all that she could, at any rate. Most of her experience with Eagle simply didn't translate well into words, especially the parts about the Evil One and his plans. So she left that part out, said simply that she had been there, watching, and stuck to what she knew about the hit men-
Especially that Toni Calligan was next on their list. David looked skeptical at first, but after a while he began nodding-
It helped that she was able to describe in detail everything that he had been doing.
"I won't pretend to understand half of this," he said finally, then glanced over at Mooncrow. "I guess it's enough that the Little Old Man does."
"It is enough, for now," Mooncrow murmured.
Jennie leaned back against the pillows they had heaped up behind her, and sighed. Now that it was all out-she felt absolutely spent. And very much as if someone had hit her on the head, drowned her, and left her for dead.
"You need rest," Mooncrow said, and got up to leave. "We will speak of this in the morning."
But his eyes said something else entirely.
We will meet in the Spirit Worlds, she read there. I see that there are things you cannot tell me here. Things that he would not understand.
She nodded; at least in that place her head and body would not be bruised and aching!
He smiled, winked once with another meaning entirely, and left the two of them alone.
David started to leave; her hand on his wrist prevented him. "Don't go," she said, softly. "I've had enough of being alone to last for the rest of my life."
"Good," he replied, and stayed.
_CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"I hope you know what you're doing," David murmured, two days later.
"I hope I do too," she replied, quite seriously. "I'm sorry, my love; it isn't much of a plan, but it's all we have. This time I have daylight on my side, and I know the countryside, the back roads."
He shook his head, but leaned down and kissed her through the newly repaired window of her Brat. "I'd like to keep you wrapped up safe-but you're Kestrel, and you have to fly and hunt. You wouldn't be Kestrel if you didn't do that. You wouldn't be Jennie if you didn't do your job. Break a leg," he said, and went back to Mooncrow's car.
The only obvious souvenirs of her death and revival were a few cuts on her face, already healing. The bruises under her clothing were more extensive, but they were healing too.
Now she was back on the job. It was not nearly over yet.
But she did not want David to know how dangerous what she planned to do was.
She pulled her truck out of the parking lot of the fast-food joint six blocks from the Calligans' place.
She glanced down at the remains of her meal; the wrapper from a sandwich, an empty fry carton, a soft-drink cup and a half-finished frozen yogurt cone.
The condemned ate a hearty meal. Not.
The hit men were watching the Calligans' house; David had spotted them when he went to check on Toni. He was afraid that if the goons knew that Toni was bailing out on Rod, they'd move in to pick her and the kids up. Once she got to a safe house, she would no longer work as a bargaining chip against her husband. In fact, once she got to a safe house, the thugs might not be able to locate her any more than Rod could!
Jennie didn't think those things, she knew them. If Toni was in their hands, she was dead. If the kids were in their hands, Rod would do anything their employer wanted.
Toni, Ryan and Jill were innocent, as innocent as any of the slaughtered women and children at Claremore Mound, Jennie had been born far too late to save those innocents, but these three, at least, she could, and would, rescue.
So they would somehow have to lure the goons away- and while they were gone, David and Mooncrow would pick up Toni and the kids as scheduled, and take them to the offices of Women's Shelter. Once Toni signed the divorce papers and request for a restraining order, Mooncrow would sever all ties to Rod in a special ceremony of purification. Then, thugs thrown off the track, mundane and spiritual connections to Rod Calligan parted, she and her kids should be safe from Rod, the hit men, the Evil One, and the mi-ah-luschka as well.