Chapter 15

The following new character appears in the next two chapters:

Janeen Two Wolves

Robert's older sister, a Healer, 5'-7'' tall, 130 pounds, 34C-22-32, 30 years old, long black hair in braids, brown eyes

We arose early the next morning following a quiet night with only a little hugging and kissing. Breakfast followed shortly, and we were ready to leave well before 9:00 AM.

"I should have asked, do you want to take some extra clothing along?" Robert asked as we prepared to depart.

"Do you expect to be there for an extended time?"

"I don't know, it will depend on a number of things," he answered.

"If I need more clothes, I'll call them to me," I told him as we joined hands. I had gone over the transfer spell with him last evening, and he had no trouble with it. He used it now, drawing on both of our Talents for the Magic required, and we disappeared from my house to instantly appear outside of a long low ranch house where it was two hours earlier time-wise than at my house.

"Welcome to the Two Wolves Ranch," Robert said with a large grin.

I looked around and took in the surrounding area. The large ranch house was surrounded by a lawn and numerous plantings of flowers and shrubs, plus I later saw an herb garden in the back of the house. Everything appeared to be well tended. There were numerous other buildings also. Several were obviously barns, and there was what appeared to be a bunk house with a large attached kitchen, in addition to several smaller buildings of unidentified use as well as several corrals. There were a number of vehicles parked around the area, mostly pickup trucks. I was surprised by the amount of grass and plantings in the area.

"I thought this area would be much dryer," I told Robert on completing my assessment.

"The Rosebud Reservation and Mellette County are both well watered. The Pine Ridge Reservation to the west of us is dryer and not as well watered." Robert told me, before changing the subject. "Are you ready to face my Relatives?" he asked with a grin.

"Surely they can't be any worse than my Relatives are, as I come from a large Clan," I answered.

"You should be right at home then," he answered as we moved but not toward the front door of the house. Instead we moved around the side of the house to a door in the rear where Robert knocked and then opened the door, and we entered.

"Anyone here?" he called out in the Lakota language, and I wondered how I knew that. Several people appeared from different directions in answer to his summons, and all of their faces lit up on seeing him. One large man in particular quickly crossed the distance between us and grasped Robert in a bear hug, actually lifting him off his feet before sitting him down again and releasing him.

"Welcome home, Brother," he said in a deep baritone voice filled with happiness, before his gaze fell on me and his demeanor changed.

"Who is this with you?" he demanded in that deep voice.

"Brother, this is Margie O'Connell," Robert answered before turning to me.

"Margie, this is my older Brother, Makhpia—Luta. In English that translates as Red Cloud, but he is most often addressed as Jason. You may call him either," he finished.

"How do you do?" I asked, "I'm pleased to meet you." Jason did not appear to be pleased at all to see me.

Jason was certainly as tall as his Brother, but heavier at somewhere around two hundred pounds, with short cropped black hair and gray eyes. Robert had told me that Jason was two years older than he was, so that would make him about twenty-eight years old. Where Robert was quite handsome, his brother was a more rugged looking individual.

"Come and have some coffee," a woman of about thirty invited. She was about 5'-7'' tall with long black hair held in two braids that extended well below her large breasts. She appeared to be a bit thin for one her size and age.

"Margie, this is my Sister, Janeen. Sit and have a cup of coffee with her while I speak with my Brother for a time," Robert told me and Janeen extended a hand to me, and I followed her to a table in the corner of the kitchen while the two men left for another area of the house. A couple of other people had disappeared on hearing the disapproval in Red Cloud's voice.

Robert's meeting with his Brother:

I had no more than closed the door to the den than Jason was in my face.

"Why have you brought that woman here?" he snarled at me.

"What's the problem?" I asked.

"She's a white woman, a very white woman and probably Irish from her name," he snapped back at me.

"I never knew that you had a problem with the wasichu, the whites. Would it have been better if I had brought a black or a Latino with me?" I demanded back in anger.

"NO!" he spat back at me, "It would not have been. It would only have been better if you had arrived with a woman of the people," he continued and exhaled heavily.

"Things have changed in the few months that you have been away, Brother. There are a number of those on the Reservation and in the surrounding area who are pressing to have those who are not pure blood Lakota or Sioux expelled from the Tribe and the Reservation. There are those who have refused to work for us because of this," he told me following a short pause.

"So they hold Great Grandmother against us?" I asked.

"Yes, that's a part of it, but I fear that the Ranch is also part of it. Many envy us our land and our herds. Some are pushing to have the land returned to the Council of Chiefs and to have them control it. We would have to leave the Ranch and give up all of the work that our family and clan have invested in it. Also who knows what would happen to it under the Council of Chiefs," he finished in a tired voice.

"What does Father think of this?" I asked.

"That is another thing that has happened. Father passed on to join the ancestors while you were away," he told me with a sigh.

I was surprised by this as Father had seemed in good health when I left.

"There was nothing that the doctors could do for him?" I asked.

"We are no longer permitted to see any but the Agency doctors on the Reservation," he told me in a grumpy voice.

"Government interference?"

"Yes, the government," he answered.

"You should know as Chief of the Clan then that I will not be here for long, as I am leaving for a place far away from here with Margie O'Connell. You won't be bothered by us again," I told him to a stricken look from him.

"Why would you leave us? Were you unhappy here?" he asked in a distressed voice.

"No, I have never been unhappy here, but I will follow her wherever she goes. She is a woman of very great power," I told him.

"Like our Great Grandmother?" he asked.

"She has even greater power. She is the Grand Senior Master of Clan O'Connell and the most powerful Sorceress in the world," I assured him with a smile.

"Is this how you seek your own Power, Brother. Are you jealous because I control the Thunder Bird Spirit?" Jason asked.

"I have my own Power, Brother, and always have. I never revealed it, as you are the rightful possessor of the Thunder Bird Spirit. No, mine is different and not related to Wakinyan at all," I assured him.

"What is this Power that you claim to control then?" he demanded.

"You know the legend of Unk Cekula?" I asked.

"Yes, Unk Cekula was supposed to have come from the cold waters of the northeast. It was said to be a great serpent with a long scaly armored body that was nearly impenetrable. His red eyes burned with hunger, his claws were like iron, and his voice raged like thunder in the clouds," he said repeating the tribal legend.

"That is the legend of Unk Cekula," I agreed. "I am similar but somewhat different. Do you know anything of the foreigners' legend of the Dragon?" I asked.

"Those are only fanciful stories," Jason answered.

"They are not all just stories or legends. I am a Dragon, a Great Dragon. I have flown and I have killed, and it was not in a dream caused by peyote," I told him.

"And this is why you follow this woman?"

"That is only one of the reasons."

"If you must have her, take her to a city and have your fun with her, but come back to us, Brother," Jason pleaded.

"How can I explain this or make you understand?" I started. "It's not merely that I must have her, it's that I starve without her. A short time away from her leaves me in need of even her touch. There is no sound sweeter than her voice and no sensation but her touch," I explained.

"As I said have your fill of her and return," Jason repeated.

"Fill?" How can one fill a container that has no bottom or that is infinitely large? There can be no 'fill'. There can only be a constant stream that flows on and on for all time. We are even linked in our minds. Even now I can tell you where she is and what she is doing," I told him.

"And what would that be?"

"She is still sitting in the kitchen but has moved to a different chair, and the house cats are staring at her in abject fear," I told him.

"Why would those independent cats fear a Wizard?"

"Because the cats realize that she is a Tiger, a Siberian Tiger, and they are afraid that she will eat them if they so much as move," I told him with a grin, much to his confusion.

"A Tiger?" he asked in an unsure voice.

"Yes, a large Siberian Tiger, but I am unable to follow her in my mind in her were-form," I told him just before receiving a call for help from Margie. "What could be wrong?" I wondered turning from Jason toward the door.

"She is calling me now, something is wrong," I told him, as I reached the door with Jason right behind me.

Margie K resumes the narrative:

We had been sitting drinking coffee for a time, and two cats had entered the room, but both were now hiding in the shadows and afraid to move, when Janeen looked up at me from her coffee cup and spoke again.

"Are you aware that you're pregnant?" she asked in a quiet voice. I stared at her in absolute shock.

"How could I be pregnant?" I wondered. I had used the pregnancy spell shortly after having my first period, and it had been in effect ever since, so I couldn't be pregnant.

"You must be mistaken," I told her in just as gentle a voice.

"No," she insisted, "I am a healer and know about these things. You are a week plus pregnant," she assured me.

Again I doubted her assertion but stopped to check on the pregnancy spell anyway. To my absolute shock and horror, it wasn't there, but how could it not be? How could it have been canceled? It's a spell that requires the one who cast it to cancel it.

As reason reasserted itself replacing shock after a number of seconds, I thought back to all of the Magic that I had been involved with over the last several weeks. There had been several of the Magic Canceling spells that I had encountered as well as the Magic Stealing Creatures. Still, I didn't believe that any of them could have canceled the spell. It was then that I remembered that the 'Book of Dreams' had gone directly to Robert when I called it to me. I had wondered at the time why it did that, but I was fairly certain now that I knew the reason why. It wouldn't have wanted me to detect what it had done, but why would it have done that? Of course it took its instructions from the Eternal Flame, and I had to believe that He / It was the ultimate reason that I was now pregnant.