White Wolf. Lindsay McKenna

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      His mouth flattening, Dain studied the moon’s reflection on the surface of the pool, the water shivering now with ripples from the morning breeze. There was a wild, animal restlessness in his soul. This wasn’t the first time he’d felt it. No, when he’d been caged in that orphanage as a young boy no one wanted, he’d felt just like the white wolf that had pursued him in his nightmares. Yes, that was it. Maybe the white wolf that haunted his dreams nightly ever since he’d gotten the tumor was actually him.

      I’m going crazy, Dain decided as he studied the water. Well, he if he wasn’t crazy yet, he would be soon enough. Toward the end, the doctors said, he’d be drugged and put away—for his own good—as the runaway tumor began to make his behavior volatile—even dangerous to himself and others. That was a joke. He’d made nothing but enemies growing up and later, while creating his empire. And while he’d loved many, many women, taken the fruit of their bodies, he’d never married. He’d recognized the greed in women’s eyes when they saw his billion-dollar empire, and he knew each and every one of them was simply playing the game to get him, and more important, his money.

      Damn it, there had to be something he could do! He just couldn’t accept that he was going to die. His mind churned as it always did after awakening from the nightmare. Who could cure him? And where? Hadn’t he looked everywhere? His mind was facile and moved like a powerful Indy race car, swiftly closing in on the ever-elusive finish line. Associates had said he had a mind like a hummingbird, always in motion, never resting. To stop meant having time to remember things about himself and his past—memories too painful to contemplate. So he stayed busy. He guessed he was just a Type A personality. And why not? No grass grew under his feet. He had no friends, no wife, no children. Only a worldwide empire, new fields to conquer and money to burn. Yes, he was one of the most powerful corporate raiders of the past two decades—and he’d always gotten everything he’d gone after in the business world. He was a winner.

      Wasn’t he?

      Snorting softly, Dain slowly eased himself to his feet. He pulled the towel across his shoulders. Winners didn’t die of brain tumors. He’d overcome so much, so damned much. And now this! A stupid tumor was stalking him, just like that white wolf did every night.

      As Dain walked slowly around the pool, the coolness of the fall air making him shiver slightly, he had a sudden thought. It came out of nowhere and stopped him midstride. Yes. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He’d go see his favorite medical doctor tomorrow, Dr. Sarah Goodwin. He liked her. She’d always been honest with him—and surprisingly compassionate. And Dain had seen enough doctors to know that compassion didn’t come cheap. But then maybe it was a game, an act on her part. Maybe she just wanted his money, too.

      Well, whatever. Dr. Sarah was into a lot of things medical doctors weren’t supposed to be into. She’d hinted he should take vitamins and minerals, get a massage on a weekly basis to stimulate his immune system. Yes, she had some oddball ideas about healing, but for some reason, he hadn’t made time to sit and really ask her in depth about these alternative methods she seemed to know something about. A slight smile curved his mouth. Okay, so he’d go see Dr. Sarah and he’d peer into that fine surgeon’s mind of hers and see what else she knew. If he didn’t take the time now, he’d never have it. Besides, who knew? Maybe Dr. Sarah had a lead for him—something he might want to track down himself. Personally.

      Maybe that was the problem, too, Dain decided. He’d spent millions sending his representatives around the world looking for a cure for him, when he should have searched himself. With his body beginning to show the effects of the tumor, it was now or never. Gripping the towel more firmly in his fist, Dain entered his palatial home, closing the sliding glass door behind him. He padded across the thick carpeting to his office to make a note for his secretary, John Hastings, to get Dr. Sarah on the phone early that morning.

      Dain didn’t believe in hunches, but he chalked up the need to talk to Dr. Sarah as a logical progression, one born out of desperation and a vague memory of her attempts to get him to stay a few more minutes after his appointment to discuss some “alternative” healing methods with him. At the time, he’d pooh-poohed her. He wondered what she would say if he told her about the nightly dream of the white wolf.

      “Wolves are about our primal, survival self,” Sarah told Dain as she sat behind her huge, walnut desk.

      Dain moved restlessly, pacing back and forth as he always did across her spacious office in the city. Early afternoon sunlight slanted through the venetian blinds, filling the room with a sense of warmth. Of hope. “Do people who are going to die get nightmares like this?” he demanded brusquely.

      Sarah shrugged and folded her hands in her lap. “Sometimes. I had suggested a good therapist for you to—”

      He gave her an angry look. “Doctor, if I wanted a damn shrink, I’d have gotten one by now.”

      She frowned. “Then why are you here, Dain?”

      He halted and placed his hands on his hips, a gesture he’d picked up in his days as an air force fighter pilot. “You mentioned something about other forms of healing. Not traditional ones,” he muttered, beginning to pace again and closely watching her thoughtful expression. Sarah was in her mid-forties, with red hair and dark green eyes. She was pretty. And intelligent.

      “Oh.”

      “What do you mean, ‘oh’?”

      “I didn’t think you’d be the type to be interested, Dain.”

      Anger stirred in him. “Doctor, I’m going to die in six damn months. What the hell makes you think I’d shrug off a good idea that just might cure me?”

      With a sigh, Sarah stood and slid her hands in the pockets of her white lab coat. She moved slowly, with deliberation, around the desk. “Okay,” she murmured. “Last year I attended a conference in Arizona on Native American healing techniques. I talked to this one medicine man, a Navajo from Chinle, who had cured stomach cancer in some of his Navajo patients. I asked him if there were any women healers who could do what he did, and he said yes. I thought a woman healer might be best since I feel you have more trust in women than men, and part of the healing is trusting the healer.”

      Dain halted a few feet from her. He saw Sarah’s green eyes narrow. “And?”

      “He became very evasive. Nervous, almost. He muttered something about this woman whose name is Tashunka Mani Tu. She’s Eastern Cherokee, but she lives on the Navajo Reservation and the name she goes by is Lakota. It seemed an odd combination to me, but he said she lived the life of a hermit and only those who had the courage to find her would. Apparently,” Sarah continued, “those that could find her were healed.”

      “Did she heal tumors?”

      “This old man said she was heyoka.”

      “What the hell does that mean?”

      “Heyoka is a Lakota word for coyote. It means a person who is not what they seem to be. The coyote is considered a trickster. The medicine man said this woman could change shapes, become an animal, a bird or whatever she chose. He said that those people who overcome their fear of her would find her. He said that a woman who had breast cancer, and who had only weeks to live, sought out this medicine woman. When the old Navajo medicine man saw her two months later, the woman was cured, happy and was telling everyone she met of the miracle.”

      “Humph.”

      “I thought you’d say that.”

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