The Medicine Man

by Dianne Drake

  Her head hurt, and the light coming in through the slatted blinds was killing her. Rolling over, Joanna glanced at the clock. It was almost noon. Noon? The last thing she remembered was pizza…

  She looked around for Chay, but he wasn’t there. She could hear the water running in the shower, though. “Chay?” she called, sitting up.

  Immediately, her head started spinning. “Whoa,” she said, flopping back down onto her pillows. The instant her head hit them her stomach kicked in with a giant roll of nausea, and she turned over on her side to vomit. Only she didn’t vomit as she’d expected. She merely fell out of bed on the side opposite the bathroom door and landed in a heap on the floor between the bed and the wall. Too tired to crawl back up into bed, Joanna curled up on the throw rug there and went back to sleep, thinking that the next time she opened her eyes she’d feel better.

  “Joanna?” Chay called as he stepped out of the bathroom. The bed was empty. He took a quick glance of the entire area, didn’t see her, and called again. “Joanna?”

  No answer. Had she gone downstairs? He ran down, took a look and didn’t find her. Not in the examining rooms, not in her office, not even in the supply room. She simply wasn’t there, so he headed outside to the RV, but she wasn’t there either. “Where the hell are you?” he asked, heading over to his mother’s diner to look through the window. Next he went to Macawi’s, and like every place else Joanna hadn’t been there.

  “I don’t have a clue,” he told his grandmother. “I was in the bathroom for five minutes. She was in bed, then she wasn’t.” Macawi followed him back to the clinic and upstairs. Somehow he expected to find Joanna sitting at the little kitchenette table next to the window, laughing at him for being so silly. But she wasn’t there. “She’s pregnant,” he told Macawi. “With my baby. Dad knew it and he told me I would also, if I wanted to.”

  “And you wanted to?” Macawi asked.

  Chay nodded. “My baby, Macawi. Our baby. And I don’t think she even knows it yet. She thinks she has flu.”

  “Are you going to marry her?”

  “Hell, I’ve got to find her first.”

  Joanna heard the muffled voices. Chay’s she recognized for sure. Macawi’s she wouldn’t have, except that Chay addressed her by name. Who were they talking about? Somebody pregnant.

  Joanna rolled over and looked up at the ceiling. Somebody was going to have a baby? Several women on the reservation were pregnant right now—at least nine of them. And Chay had said it was his baby. “Our baby,” she mouthed, reaching down to feel her belly.

  No! How could that be? She wasn’t pregnant. Surely she’d know the difference between flu and that. Wouldn’t she?

  Hands still on her belly, Joanna shut her eyes and tried to think. Sure, she’d missed her last menstrual period, but she was under so much stress she hadn’t thought anything of it. And she was on the Pill. Had she skipped any days? No, of course not.

  Rubbing her hands over her belly, she wondered if Chay was talking about someone else. First there had been Donna, so maybe there were others, too. Why not? She’d known all along that men like Chay had others. She might live in an isolated area, but she wasn’t dumb about these things. That had to be it. Probably somebody back in Chicago—the reason he didn’t want her coming there. And telling her he loved her had just been the line he used. It meant nothing.

  Stupid her. She’d told him she loved him, and it meant everything. How many other women had fallen into the same trap? she wondered. The same foolish trap.

  Joanna raised her head off the rug and looked down at her flat belly. For a moment, when she’d thought maybe she was carrying Chay’s child, the feelings shooting through her had been like nothing she’d ever known in her life. But it wasn’t so, and suddenly she felt sad and empty.

  “Joanna?” Chay bent down, picked her up and put her back in bed. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you were down there. I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Are you all right? Did you hurt yourself?”

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll be better in a little while after I’ve had more sleep.”

  “I think I need to take you to the hospital,” he said. “You’re dehydrated, weak…”

  “I’m fine. And I’m not going to the hospital.” She rolled over and turned her back to him. “Just go away and leave me alone. Lock up downstairs on your way out so nobody else comes in.”

  “I’m not leaving,” Chay said.

  “Yes, you are.”

  Chay ran his fingers through his hair, wondering if he should tell her now or wait until she was feeling better. He didn’t know how she would take the news, didn’t even know if she wanted children right now with the way she was devoted to her work…even though she’d considered taking Kimimela in. But Kimimela wasn’t a baby.

  Joanna would be a good mother, though. A great mother. He couldn’t think of anyone better to be the mother of his child. Maybe if she knew she’d eat a little, for the baby’s sake. Or take some fluids. She was weak, and so dangerously close to needing medical help that if she didn’t eat or drink something soon, he would have to take her to Billings, whether or not she wanted to go. He didn’t want to do anything against Joanna’s wishes, even if it was for her own good, but he might not have a choice.

  He kissed the back of her hand and held it, then shut his eyes. She suffers a deep brooding. His father’s words.

  Deep brooding and dark thoughts, taking up her good energy, energy she needed for their baby. The words were from his heart, deep within him, and he knew what he had to do. For her, and for their child—his and Joanna’s.

  Maybe he’d known it for hours, or for ever, but now he could put it off no longer. Scooping her up in his arms, he carried her down the stairs and out to her Jeep.

  “I don’t know if you can hear me, Joanna, or if you want to hear me, but I’m going to make this better for you. I promise, it’s going to get better. Everything will. Very soon.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE trip to Fishback Creek took much longer than Chay would have liked, but he forced himself to drive slowly for Joanna’s sake. Wrapped in a blanket and curled up in the seat, she barely stirred over the three hours, and he hardly thought about anything else except what he was about to do.

  A trip to the hospital might have been the wisest thing, and maybe that was where the journey would end anyway. But he was reacting to something much deeper surfacing in him, something that he’d tried to block out for most of his life. He was a shaman as well as a doctor. He possessed the gifts and training, as his father and the generations before him had. As his son might one day.

  Certainly he trusted his medical judgment much more than anything else, and his medical judgement leaned toward getting Joanna to Billings, starting an IV, convincing her to eat something. That would get her back on her feet and once there she would do the right thing by their child. He was sure of that.

  But every time he closed his eyes he saw the dark energy enveloping her. It was like a dense cloud hanging so low she couldn’t find her way out of it. What was worse, she wasn’t trying.

  Deep brooding. That wasn’t a medical problem, at least not yet.

  Nearing Fishback Creek, Chay cut off the road and headed toward the butte. Their butte. Against the backlight of the moon, he could see it ahead. Perfect and quiet. The place where Joanna needed to be.

  And the place where he needed to help her in the only way he knew how.

  “Evening moon, evening moon, come my way, come my way. Take her pain, take her pain. Down below, down below. To healing waters down below, down below.”

  Through her bleariness, Joanna heard the gentle night song. It repeated itself through her haze over and over, and each time she wanted to wake up to it. But she couldn’t, not yet. It was like awakening would stop it, and she didn’t want it to stop. Somehow it reassured her, comforted her. So she listened for a while as the quiet chant continued. When she finally did open her eyes it was morning, and as if by magic she fel
t better. Not tired. Flu all gone.

  Where was she? She looked around, expecting to find herself in bed, but she was out in the open. She knew this place—the butte. Their butte. But how had she got here?

  “Chay?” she called, suddenly alarmed.

  “Down here,” he called back from the creek.

  Shoving off her blanket, Joanna stood up, still not sure what was going on. She didn’t remember coming here. The last thing she remembered was refusing pizza from him. Then there had been some strange dreams…She’d thought she was pregnant, but it was flu. One thing she remembered for sure was that Greg Reynolds had given her Compazine to cure the nausea going along with her flu. But that had been when? She couldn’t remember.

  Chay wandered back up from the creek carrying a small stone bowl full of water. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Fine. Nausea’s gone. And I’m not tired. But I don’t have a clue what we’re doing up here.”

  Pouring the water on the ground, now that the extraction was complete, Chay set the bowl aside. “It’s a long story.”

  “Was I doing peyote or something? Is that why everything’s such a blur?”

  He laughed. “No. And I’m not really sure how to explain it.”

  “Try,” she said, grabbing up the blanket. “On the way back to Rising Sun. I’ve got patients to see, especially since I’ve had a little time off.” She turned and headed to the edge of the butte, then glanced back to see if Chay was following, only to find him sitting atop a rock, watching her. “Are you coming?” she snapped. She had no time for this. And not with Chay. Maybe she’d been delusional from the flu for the past day or so, but that hadn’t changed things. He had Kimimela…And, dear God, did she remember something about a baby, too?

  “We need to talk,” he said, without budging.

  “We’re past talking, Chay. I know your little secret, and while I may have told you I loved you I can’t have a relationship with someone who would turn his back on his own child.”

  “It’s not my intention to turn my back.”

  “Not your intention?” Joanna stormed back over to confront him face-to-face. “That’s all you’ve been doing for years, turning your back. She adores you, Chay. And she’s been miserable since you left. I don’t know how you could be so…so two-faced, being so wonderful with me and being such a good doctor, then abandoning your daughter like you did, especially now when she needs you so much.”

  “I don’t have a daughter,” he said, his voice so patient Joanna suddenly wondered if he didn’t know.

  “Donna Rousseau? Kimi?”

  He shook his head. “I never even met Donna until the night she died.”

  “But I thought…Your father told me…”

  “What, Joanna? What did my father tell you?”

  “He asked me if you would assume responsibility for your child, so naturally I thought…I mean, you and Kimi seem to have such a bond, and she’s the right age. What else was I supposed to think, Chay? Do you have a child?”

  He nodded, but didn’t speak.

  “A baby.” The baby she thought she’d dreamed about.

  He nodded again. “And I am its father, Joanna. All the way. From the beginning to the end.”

  “You never told me. Is that why you stay in Chicago, why you won’t come home?”

  “But I have come home. To marry the mother of my baby if she’ll have me, and to be its father.”

  Joanna sat down in the dirt in front of Chay. “OK, I’m a little lost here.” Unconsciously, she rubbed her hand over her belly. “I know I’ve just been a fling to you, someone waiting in the wings while you’ve been having a real relationship—”

  “Not a fling. It’s been a real relationship, Joanna, and only with you. When I told you I loved you I meant it, and I’d made my decision before I knew that you were…”

  “What, Chay? Before you knew that I was what?”

  “Pregnant.”

  It took several seconds for it to sink in before she could respond. “What do you mean, I’m pregnant? I haven’t had a pregnancy test.”

  “Maybe not, but you are.” He smiled. “I think it happened that night here on the butte, which is why I had to bring you back here. You were filled with a deep brooding…And, yeah, I know that’s not exactly a medical diagnosis. But that’s what it was, Joanna, I swear to you. A deep brooding about something, and it was taking away your energy. Shaman stuff, I suppose. And now I understand why. You thought that Kimimela was my daughter, and that I’d abandoned her—twice, actually. And that you’d fallen in love with someone who could do something like that.”

  “But your father said—”

  “He was talking about our child, Joanna. The baby you’re carrying inside you now.”

  “He couldn’t know. Your father couldn’t have known.” This just didn’t make sense. Leonard knew, and Chay knew. And there had been no test to confirm her pregnancy. But somehow, deep down, she believed Chay, and Leonard, because she remembered that moment, waking up on the floor, hearing Chay and Macawi talking about his baby and feeling for an instant it was her baby, too. Then she’d felt so sad and empty when she’d believed they’d been talking about someone else…someone else who was carrying Chay’s child. “Could he?”

  Chay slipped off the rock and sat cross-legged on the ground in front of Joanna, then laid his hand on her belly. And smiled. “He knew.”

  She glanced at the stone bowl—the same one Leonard had used in Michael Red Elk’s extraction. “You went against everything you believe in,” she said, laying her hand over his. “You performed a shaman rite for me.”

  “Everything I believe in is you, Joanna. You and our family. I knew what was bothering you was spiritual more than medical, more than what our kind of medicine could cure.” He chuckled. “And as much as I hate to admit it, this was the only thing I could think of.”

  “Apparently it worked, because I’m feeling great.” Better than great. “But what about Chicago, Chay? Your life there? Your new job?”

  “Believe me, I’ve had second and third and fourth thoughts about this, but what I’m telling you is the truth. I wanted that life, that job. I worked hard to get it, but none of it matters now. And I’m not saying that because you’re pregnant and I’m trying to do the right thing by you. That’s not it at all. Before my dad told me, I’d already realized that everything I wanted was here. You, this life. And it scares the hell out of me, but this is all there is, Joanna, and I wanted to tell you, but you’ve been in a pretty bad mood lately and it never seemed like the right time.”

  “Can you survive here, Chay? I know you have some awfully bad feelings. And this whole situation with your father…”

  “This situation with my father will work out. But you’re going to have to be patient with me because I can be—”

  “Stubborn,” she supplied. “Just like your father.” And like her child? She rubbed her hand over her belly again. “So, where do we begin?”

  “Well, I’ve been doing some thinking, and the first thing we need to do, after the White Eagles expand the clinic, is buy our own helicopter. The RV is nice when there’s not an emergency, but we need something faster. And with a baby on the way we can’t spend so much time on the road. So I’ve been investigating a place in Billings where I can take flying lessons, and I think that I’ll give them a call in the next day or so. After I’ve finalized the plans for the clinic’s expansion. Oh, and I was thinking about a wedding gift, assuming you are going to marry me. Are you?”

  Joanna nodded, too overwhelmed to speak. This was so much more than she’d ever expected, and everything she wanted. Chay, their baby…

  “Good. I was thinking our kid would like to have a big sister. And even though she’s not my daughter, I would like to change that and welcome Little Butterfly into our family. If that’s OK with you.”

  “That’s OK,” she said, squeezing his hand. At long last Joanna had her family. A perfect family. “Very OK.”


  June

  “He’s all red,” Kimimela squealed, holding on to Chay’s hand. “Can’t you fix that, Daddy?”

  “He’s supposed to be that way. I’ll bet you looked just like Leo when you were born.” Chayton Leonard Ducheneaux, to be called Leo.

  Kimi scrunched up her nose and darted into the hall to wait with her grandparents, Wenona and Leonard. And Macawi, who was busy knitting her fiftieth pair of blue bootees.

  “How’s Billy Begay?” Joanna asked, pulling back her hospital gown and preparing herself to feed Leo.

  “His last A1C was seven. I’d say he’s keeping it under control pretty well.”

  “And the Whirlwinds?”

  “Better, but not great. My dad is going up next week to have a talk with them, give them some nutritional instruction on their diet.” He smiled. “And he’s planning on doing the same at the ranch. Maybe starting a diabetic support group.” These days the talking was still sparse between them, but Chay and Leonard did talk, most often about the Hawk Reservation diabetes awareness program Leonard had taken on as his cause.

  “A true mixing of medical traditions.” Joanna placed Leo to her breast, then looked up at Chay. “It’s going to work,” she said, beaming. “You, me, our children, our medical practice. It’s all going to work.”

  Chay bent down and placed a kiss on Leo’s cheek, then one on Joanna’s. Some things never changed. The old road leading from nowhere, going to nowhere was still dusty and desolate. The weather-beaten sign reading WELCOME TO HAWK RESERVATION, POPULATION 3000 hadn’t seen a coat of paint on its gray, rotting boards since the first time he’d left here almost nineteen years ago. The rusty old hull of a 1972 Ford pickup truck that had been sitting off to the side of the road for the past nine years was still there.

  No, some things never changed, but some things did. And they changed in amazing ways, ways he’d never expected, ways he’d never thought he’d be so lucky to know. Kimimela, Leo, Joanna…his family. They were everything he’d ever wanted, and that was one of those things on Hawk Reservation, his only home, that would never, ever change.