“I don’t think he gets a salary from the organization,” Ella said, “but he doesn’t seem to be hurting for money.”
Tiernan had noticed the gold buffalo hanging from Nathan’s neck. That had been worth a pretty penny.
“What about the third man?”
“Grandmother told me Leonard Hawkins runs the casino and has the fanciest spread on the rez.”
“So, he has influence, as well,” Tiernan mused. “Three men, three kinds of influence—military, political, financial. But what kinds of powers may they have learned from your da and how have they used them to get where they are?”
She cast her eyes down on the now-empty glass. “I—I’m not sure. Perhaps none of them was responsible.”
Was Ella not sure or did she not want to implicate one of them? Tiernan wondered. Or was her hesitancy due to some other reason altogether?
Knowing it was likely one of the apprentices had manipulated the situation, wanting Ella to be comfortable with their approach, Tiernan asked, “So how do you suggest we start our investigation?”
“Talk to people, I guess.”
“The men themselves?”
The suggestion made her pull away slightly. She took a breath and nodded. “I’ve been planning to talk to Nathan… but I suppose we need to talk to them all.”
“Nathan first because he’s your cousin?”
“He cared about Father,” she said quickly. “Nathan tried to save him.”
For Ella’s sake, Tiernan hoped that was true and that Nathan hadn’t simply been making a big show to take suspicion off himself. “What about the others? The casino manager?”
“Leonard. We could talk to him tonight, I suppose.”
“Too late,” Tiernan said. “I need to be up and on the set before dawn. Tomorrow, perhaps. We could head there right from the set.”
“Okay.”
“Ella, was one of the three more adept at shamanistic abilities than the others?”
“I’m not really sure, but Father always said Nathan worked the hardest.”
Her growing discomfort was clear to Tiernan. He could not only feel it, he could see it in her expression, in her body language. Guilt at thinking it could be Nathan Lantero.
“You have a bond with him.”
“He is my cousin.”
“Is that the only reason?”
Her eyes told him she was fighting with an old emotional wound. “Nathan saved my life.”
Ella absently rubbed at her left arm through the sleeve of her blouse. Tiernan wanted to ask her why, but something kept him from it, made him leave it to her to tell in her own time. He’d gotten enough from her for one night. He was, after all, still a stranger to her.
Not for long, though, Tiernan thought, feeling his gut clench and his throat tighten. It was clear to him that soon enough they would know each other in a way that most people couldn’t even imagine, and while he knew he should avoid the situation—avoid her—he wasn’t going to.
A slippery slope this, but Tiernan told himself he could handle it, he could be around the woman without invoking the family curse.
All he had to do was make sure he kept his distance and didn’t fall in love with Ella Thunder.
Chapter Five
Tiernan had given her a lot to think about, and Ella was half distracted throughout the next morning as she worked with Jane Grant on set. Together, they watched the crew prepare for the Ghost Dance. “After the opening prayers,” Ella said, thinking of the real Ghost Dance, now more than a century old, “the participants joined hands and danced in a circle. The sick danced in hopes of being cured, and as the dance went on for hours, many of them fell unconscious or went into a trance.”
Jane was taking notes. “We’re planning on following Little Fawn, but other dancers could fall around her. I’ll talk to Max about it,” she said of the film’s director Max Borland, who was working with his camera crew at the other end of the pasture. “It’ll be up to him, of course.”
Hoping the director was as concerned with the authentic details as Jane seemed to be, Ella continued, “Afterward, the dancers would sit in a circle and relate their experiences and visions.”
They talked some more about the little details that could be added to the scene to make it more realistic. Then Jane said, “I’m going to go over the dance sequence with Max, see what he thinks. Why don’t you take a break?”
A little hungry since she’d left too early to get breakfast, Ella retreated to the large canopied area that served as the mess tent. There were a bunch of tables and food carts. She fetched herself a mug of coffee, a hard-boiled egg and a banana. A few crew members and more actors sat and studied scripts as they ate.
Ella spotted Bear Heart, a friend of Grandfather’s who’d defied Lakota statistics to live into his mid-eighties. She didn’t remember seeing him in the crowd that had demanded her father’s death, so when he stood and waved her over to his table away from the others, she acquiesced.
“Ella Thunder, I would recognize you anywhere. You look like Joseph.”
“Thank you. I am honored.”
“Joseph would be proud of such a daughter, one who is educated and sees that The People are represented fairly and accurately in this movie.”
“I’ll do what I can,” she promised. “What are you doing here?”
His grin split his leathered face. “Making my movie debut and becoming a matinee idol. Women will swoon when I dress in my feathers.”
Ella laughed. “I’m sure they will.”
Bear Heart picked up his tray. “Welcome home. You are needed.”
Ella’s laughter faded and she waited for him to say something about her following in her father’s footsteps, but he simply stared at her a moment longer and nodded his satisfaction, then took his tray to the clearing station.
Ella claimed the table for herself. Peeling the shell from her egg, she couldn’t help but wonder what Tiernan was doing right now.
With their agreement to investigate the deaths of her father and Harold Walks Tall, a delicate bond had been woven between them. Her only worry was Tiernan’s belief that she had inherited her father’s powers.
How had he even known about that? After Father’s death, she’d buried anything she’d known about shamanistic abilities, so who would even guess what was possible? Surely Tiernan hadn’t spoken to anyone about her.
“Ella, can I talk to you for a moment?”
Startled out of her thoughts about the man, Ella looked up to see Marisala Saldana, the young Lakota woman who was playing Little Fawn. In the film, her character would fall in love with one of the young soldiers and run away with him only to die for love.
Marisala slid into the seat opposite Ella. “I need a love potion.”
Ella raised her eyebrows at this statement. The woman was breathtaking with naturally bronzed high cheekbones and full lips that would be the envy of any model. Marisala could no doubt get any man she chose just by blinking those brown eyes at him.
Why in the world did someone so beautiful think she needed the aid of magic?
“I don’t do love potions,” Ella said. “I don’t do any potions at all.”