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eyes.
“You’re him, aren’t you?” Kelly asked. “The Indian from the cave?”
    He nodded and then took a step forward.
    Kelly’s eyes widened as the Indian closed the distance
between them. He looked even more impressive now than he had in the cave. There
was no illumination in the room, yet he seemed to be surrounded by an aura of
soft blue light. His skin was the color of dark copper, smooth and unblemished
save for two faint scars on his chest. There were three white-tipped eagle
feathers tied in his hair. A distant part of her mind wondered why he had
removed his shirt and why she hadn’t noticed the feathers before. His brows
were thick and black and straight. Standing so near, he seemed taller, broader.
Alive…
    He’s a ghost. Just a ghost. He can’t hurt you.
    She repeated the words in her mind as the specter reached
the foot of the bed. Arms crossed over his chest, the phantom stared down at
her.
    Go away from here. He didn’t speak, but she heard the
words in her mind, as deep and dark as the night.
    Kelly shook her head. “No. This is my home.”
    The Indian continued to stare at her, his expression blank. This
is my home.
    “Who are you?” Kelly demanded, though her voice quivered
with trepidation.
    The Indian smiled at her, silently applauding her courage.
White people were always frightened by his appearance, probably because they
had no ties to the world of spirits. They were a peculiar people. They had no
bond with Mother Earth, or with their four-footed brothers. They sought no
vision to guide them through life. Not that he had known that many white
people, he thought, amused. In the last hundred years, only a handful of washicu had found their way into the cave.
    All had come to steal the gold.
    All had left empty-handed.
    All except this girl.
    “I am Blue Crow of the Lakota.”
    Kelly blinked at him several times. “So you can talk,” she
muttered under her breath. “What do you want?”
    “I want you to leave here. Like all washicu, you take
what is not yours.”
    “This is my house,” Kelly retorted indignantly. “It belonged
to my grandfather and his father before him and now it belongs to me.”
    The Indian made a sound of derision low in his throat. “You
have taken gold that is not yours.”
    The eagle , Kelly thought.
    “Give it to me.”
    She hesitated a moment and then reached under her pillow,
withdrawing the golden eagle. She couldn’t keep her hand from shaking as she
offered it to the Indian. His fingertips brushed hers as he took it from her
hand. She felt the heat of his touch, the shock of it, sizzle through her like
lightning.
    Stunned, she stared up at him. Ghosts weren’t supposed to
have substance. She watched, unblinking, as he opened the small buckskin bag
that hung around his neck and slid the eagle inside.
    “How…? Why…?” Kelly shook her head. He wasn’t real. He
couldn’t be real.
    “You want to know why my body was in the cave.”
    “Yes.”
    “I was killed by a washicu who wanted the gold. His
companion buried me in the cave and I have slept there ever since.”
    “But how…? Why? I mean, you’re not alive and yet…” Her words
trailed off as he came around the bed to stand beside her.
    “My spirit awakens whenever a washicu enters the cave.”
    “You’ve been there all this time to guard the gold?”
    Blue Crow nodded.
    “But why?”
    “He mitawa,” he said. “It is mine.”
    “But you don’t need it!” Kelly exclaimed.
    “Do you?”
    Kelly opened her mouth, intending to say yes, of course she
needed it. Who wouldn’t need a fortune in gold? But the words died in her
throat.
    “You have taken enough for your needs,” Blue Crow said. “You
have paid your grandfather’s debts, you have enough to live on, you have this
house for shelter.”
    “But it’s no good to you. You’re…” She couldn’t bring
herself to say the word.
    “Dead,” Blue Crow said, supplying the word for her.
    “Right. So why do you need a