The older man, reading her like a book, puts a gentle hand on her shoulder and leads her to the side of the bed. “As you can see, she is doing well and resting comfortably.” He gestures to the large bowl and mug that sit on the bedside table. “She is warm, dry, and decently fed. All she needs now is rest. And you.”
Kirsten turns wide eyes to him, and he smiles. “My daughter loves you very much, Kirsten.”
“I love her, too. With all my heart.”
Wanblee Wapka’s smile broadens. “I can see that. It shines from you.” Dakota moans softly. “See how she seeks you out, even in her healing sleep?” Kirsten reaches out and strokes Dakota’s bangs. “And she calms at your slightest touch. She knows you are with her and it helps her to regain her strength.”
“Is that….normal?”
“Normal, yes. Common? No. In fact, it’s quite rare. The bond that is between you is a very strong, very sacred thing.”
“I’m…starting to learn that, I think.”
He laughs softly. “I know it is difficult, Kirsten. Not only are you from a different culture, but your mind, and your beliefs, are as different from ours as night is from day. And yet, Ina Maka has chosen to gift you both with this sacred union. I will help you both to adjust to it as best I can, if it is something you truly wish.”
“More than anything,” Kirsten replies, knowing her words for fundamental truth. “More than anything.”
“I believe you,” Wanblee Wapka replies, his own truth ringing strong in his tone.
Kirsten’s fingers drift down, stroking the cheek of her beloved. “She’s still so pale, so cold.”
“It is an unfortunate side effect of the Vision Trance. She will improve, with rest and time.”
“What can I do?”
“Nothing more than you are doing now. She knows you are here. Your presence will make all the difference.”
Dakota shivers as a great, bone deep chill wracks her body.
“Is it….” Kirsten blushes. “Is it ok if I get under there with her? Maybe it would help her feel warmer?”
“An excellent suggestion. But remember, she will be like this for some stretch of days. Do not feel obligated to stay with her the entire time. You have needs which must be met as well.”
“Right now,” Kirsten remarks, reaching for the bottom of her tank top, “this is what I need.”
With a final, proud smile, Wanblee Wapka inclines his head, then turns and leaves the two of them alone, closing the door softly behind him and plunging the room into twilight.
Kirsten strips down to her undergarments and slides beneath the covers. “It’s okay, my love,” she murmurs as she stretches out full on her back and guides Dakota to her, resting her lover’s sleek head on her shoulder and smiling when one long, strong arm immediately wraps itself around her waist. “That’s right. I’m here. You rest now. I’m here.”
A moment later, she closes her eyes and, like her partner, falls deeply asleep.
*
Tacoma half-rises to his feet as his father re-enters the room. “Ate? How is she?”
“Resting easily. Kirsten will stay with her.” He half turns toward the hall that leads to the kitchen. “Is that coffee I smell?”
“I’ll get you some, Leksi.” Before Wanblee Wapka has a chance to protest, Manny is on his feet and headed toward the back of the house. A smile crosses his father’s face, and Tacoma feels an answering pull at his own mouth. “You must be getting grey, Ate. Would you like a warm blanket for your knees? A cane?”
At that Wanblee Wapka laughs outright. “Not yet, boy. Not yet.” He folds down easily to sit on the chest that serves as a sofa table. In a curious reverse of his movements, Asi rises joint by joint from his place on the hearth, yawns hugely and comes around to lie at Wanblee Wapka’s feet. “Hey, fella,” he says, ruffling the big dog’s fur. Then, returning his attention to Tacoma, “I mean to see my youngest’s youngest before I begin to slow down. You’ll have some grey hairs of you own by the time we get there.”
The words are casually spoken, but Tacoma feels an undercurrent of wakan in them, truth rooted in power. Still he notes the weariness that shows in the creases about his father’s eyes, the cold prickles that rise along the skin of his forearm rested casually across his knee. He glances up to meet Maggie’s eyes, dark with concern and a depth of knowledge that he has seldom seen in anyone not of his own people. “Hey!” he shouts toward the kitchen. “Room service! Move your backside, bro! ”
A clatter in the kitchen announces Manny’s reappearance with a mug of steaming coffee in one hand, a bowl of soup in the other. The rich aroma of chicken broth and sage rises from it. “Here you go, Leksi.”
“Pilamayaye, Tonskaya,” Wanblee Wapka says and applies himself to the food. When the bowl is empty, the last drops soaked up with a piece of frybread, he says, “Maggie, I think you have a few questions.”
“More like a few dozen,” she answers wryly. “But let’s start with the big one. What did Koda say? Can you tell me if it’s not personal? I thought I heard something that sounded like your name.”
Wanblee Wapka nods. “You did, but it wasn’t a name.” He pauses a moment. “I can tell you her words. She said, ‘Red. Red earth. Red rivers. Red all over.’ And she said, ‘Death. Death everywhere.’”
Maggie sits back against the back of the sofa with a visible shiver, her arms crossed over her body like a woman caught in an icy wind. “That’s cheerful,” she says. “Is it a prophecy?”
Tacoma feels the chill course through his own blood, rushing like a stream at spring thaw. He knows the answer to Maggie’s question, knows that his father knows. He cannot explain his certainty, but he is no less certain for that. Wanblee Wapka, though, says carefully, “Until she wakes and speaks to us, we can’t say for sure. We don’t know where she was, or when she was. She could be describing what has happened back east, in Europe, in Asia. She could have been seeing the past in this very place.”
“But?” says Maggie, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, her hands clasped loosely before her , looking Wanblee Wapka directly in the eye.
After a moment, he says, “But yes, I think it was prophecy. I think she was talking about something yet to come.”
“Tomorrow?” she presses. “A year from now?”
A lift of his shoulders answers her. Wanblee Wapka says, “Time runs strangely along the spirit road. One does not always see things in the order they assume in our world. Duration is problematical, at best. We were in the Inipi ceremony for less than an hour. Yet Dakota may have spent half a year, or half a lifetime, on the other side, as time is measured there.”
For a moment, Maggie turns her head to stare out the window. Tacoma follows her gaze to the big oak tree that will shade the house in summer, where a squirrel sits placidly eating one of last season’s acorns, turning it over and over in dainty paws. The plain white curtains stir with the breeze, bringing the scent of new grass. Finally she says, “Can you tell us what you think it means?”
“What does red suggest to you?” Wanblee Wapka asks quietly.
“The obvious?”
”Nothing wrong with being obvious. The whole context—“ A wave of his hand encompasses the Base, the lands beyond, the continent stretching away to the circle of the horizon. “—is obvious.”
“Blood, then. Blood everywhere. Death everywhere. More fighting, more killing, more human casualties.”
“We always knew we weren’t done at the Cheyenne,” Manny says, his voice flat. “The droids won’t leave us alone. They can’t.”