Jeremy felt his heart careen against his chest. He tried to still the panic rising in his breast and followed Tall Feather into his tepee. A good guest, he entered carefully to the left and sat with his legs crossed.
Tall Feather spoke to one of his wives in his Comanche tongue. Jeremy couldn’t follow all of the words, but he knew that he sent the woman for Buffalo Run—and for Eagle Who Flies High.
Tall Feather produced one of his pipes. It was an exceptionally fine pipe, made with a stone bowl polished with buffalo grease. The stem was decorated with beads and horsehair, and Jeremy knew it was the old chief’s best pipe, which was an encouraging sign. The Comanche respected him and wanted to remain his friend. Also, no serious business could possibly be done without the smoking of a pipe between men.
Jeremy tried to conceal his fear and impatience, inhaling deeply on the pipe before returning it to Tall Feather. “What is this trouble with my wife?” he asked, his heart pounding. All manner of horrors raced through his mind. They had punished her for freeing the other captives. They had slashed her legs or her face. They had clipped her nose or ears. “As Buffalo Run is my brother—”
“Buffalo Run does not refuse you your wife. He has been waiting for you to come.”
“Then—”
“Buffalo Run said that we must leave the problem of the outlaws to you. They were white men trying to commit crimes as Comanche. He knew that you would believe us. But Eagle Who Flies High gathered the force to ride to your encampment to see that the white
men had been taken. They found that the white man was escaping, and they passed their own judgment.”
“I know that,” Jeremy said. “I found the man.”
Tall Feather nodded sagely. “We hear many things, so we know that your wife was with the army of the men in the gray coats.” He leveled his finger at Jeremy. “A man should have control of his own home.”
At that particular moment, Jeremy’s fingers itched to slide around Christa’s neck. “I bow to your wisdom, Tall Feather,” he said to the Indian.
The tepee flap moved. Buffalo Run and Eagle Who Flies High entered, came around the left, and accepted the pipe so that they could be involved in the business at hand. Buffalo Run stared levelly at Jeremy. Eagle Who Flies High seemed to be staring above him. Jeremy realized that the man who had come to him before as Buffalo Run’s emissary was gaining an equal footing with Buffalo Run as a war chief.
“She is well,” Buffalo Run assured him, and Jeremy wondered just what of his fear he had given away. “For my part, my brother, I give up my rights to her, as you have returned Morning Star to me.”
“Then I may take my wife and leave—” Jeremy began.
“No,” Eagle Who Flies High said.
“There is the matter of which man here has the right to the captive,” Tall Feather told Jeremy. “Eagle Who Flies High was the warrior to lead the raid. Before we knew of your coming today, they had disagreed about her. Eagle Who Flies High challenged Buffalo Run, and they agreed to meet with knives to settle the dispute.”
“I will not give her up,” Eagle Who Flies High said flatly. His eyes met Jeremy’s at last. “It was not my woman you returned. I owe you nothing.”
“I will not leave without my wife!” Jeremy insisted softly.
“Then Buffalo Run must be taken from this dispute,” Tall Feather said. “And you, McCauley, must be ready to meet Eagle Who Flies High in his stead. Is your wife worth this?”
She is worth everything, he might have said.
But he had to take care. “She is mine. And I will leave with her.”
“Or die in the trying,” Eagle Who Flies High said with quiet menace.
It was more than just keeping Christa from this brave, Jeremy realized. It was a power struggle within the tribe.
“Or die in the trying,” Jeremy said.
“It is settled,” Tall Feather said. “You will meet in the morning with knives. The fight will be fair, between two warriors, in our fashion. The tribe will be witness.”
“If I win,” Jeremy said, “it is agreed, on your honor, that I leave here in peace with my wife?”
“It is agreed. You leave with our gratitude, for Morning Star is returned.”
Tall Feather started to knock the burned tobacco from his pipe—a clear sign that the meeting was ended. It was time for them all to rise and leave the tepee. Jeremy, though he knew the etiquette, sat still.
“I will fight in the morning. I want to be with her tonight,” he said.
“That I will not agree to—” Eagle Who Flies High began.
But Buffalo Run protested before Jeremy could. “The woman is McCauley’s wife. And has been. And carries his child. He may well die. There are matters to solve between them. I say that he should have the night.” He looked to Tall Feather.
Tall Feather nodded. “This is only just. We have kept our two good war chiefs from meeting one another and injuring one another when all braves are needed, when we can trust so few of the white soldiers
and settlers. Neither will Buffalo Run and McCauley, who are brothers with mingled blood, meet one another. The fight will be good and fair, the outcome just. Buffalo Run, you will see that your white brother reaches the woman. And you will tend to his needs for the fight to come in the morning. Eagle Who Flies High—you will wait until then.”
They all rose. Jeremy could feel the heat and fury emitting from Eagle Who Flies High. He knew the Indian longed to slit his throat then and there, but his tribesmen had spoken against him, and to retain face he must wait for the fight.
And win it.
That gave Jeremy the night. The night, if nothing more.
They walked through the camp. Here and there, Jeremy was greeted with a call by those who knew him. But mostly the Indians paused and stared at him. They all knew that Christa was in the camp.
They knew about the trouble over her, and now knew that he had come.
A white man walking alone amongst them.
Buffalo Run came to a halt in front of a tepee not far from his own. “You must leave her at dawn,” he said. “You will come to my home. I’ll see you are dressed properly, and Dancing Maid will cover you in bear grease, so that your opponent will not have an advantage.”
“Thank you.”
“You are a rare white man, McCauley. You have always kept your word with me. I hope that you live to do so again.”
Jeremy smiled. “So do I!” he said. Buffalo Run nodded and left him.
The battle-ax of a woman keeping guard in front of the tepee moved aside for him. He unpinned the flap, leaving it open, and stood there for a moment trying to
see in the darkness. His heart started to pound suddenly, his loins to quicken. Christa. Buffalo Run had said that she was unharmed.
A fire was burning low in the center of the tepee. He could just make out a shape beyond it. He strode into the tepee anxious, fury and fear suddenly mingling within him along with the simple desperation to hold her. She wasn’t moving, he realized. She was frozen as still as ice. He heard her shifting her position, inhaling sharply.
“You!” she cried.
He heard her startled gasp and realized that she hadn’t known until that moment that it was he who had come upon her.
She was against the hide wall of the tepee, curled as close as she could come to the skin. The fire played over her, and he saw that she was dressed in soft skins, that her hair was free and long, flowing down her back. Her eyes were huge in the firelight, her face pale. She was terrified, he thought, and trying very hard not to show it. He was suddenly afraid himself. Not afraid of meeting Eagle Who Flies High in combat; he had fought too many times in hand-to-hand combat against white men in the midst of screaming cavalry horses to feel himself incapable of fighting Eagle Who Flies High.
He was only afraid that he had found her at last, only to lose her still to death—his own.
Christa, damn you, he thought. Why couldn’t you believe in me? Weland was a traitor to us all, but you let him use you to thwart me!
He felt his hands shaking. He was so glad to see her safe and unharmed. Suddenly, if he was going to die, he wanted to do so with the memory of the sweetness of her kiss on his lips, not with the bitter taste of betrayal in his heart.
He reached down his hands to her, catching her
wrists when she continued to stare incredulously at him.
He wrenched her to her feet and brought her crashing hard against him.
“Tomorrow, madam, I may die for you,” he told her. He didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but the depths of his emotion and hunger combined to give his words a rough-edged quality. His fingers were tense upon her, making his hold a rough one. He brought her closer against him. He wanted to touch her, all of her. From the soft planes of her face to her fingers and toes. To see that she was really unharmed.
He stroked and cupped her chin, tilting her face, forcing her eyes to his. His fingers threaded into the wild tangle of her hair. His eyes traveled the length of her. He held her head steady as his lips lowered until they hovered just above hers. His grip was forceful. The length of him seemed to shake with electric energy, be it passion or fury. And hovered there, continuing to whisper, the warmth of his breath bathing her lips, her face.
“Tomorrow I may die. Tonight …” He paused briefly, seeking out the shimmering blue beauty of her eyes. Yes, her arms were around him. Yes, dear God, she was glad of him tonight. The last time he had seen her she had seduced him to trick him. Sometimes she had been his because she had felt her debts deeply, and sometimes because he had learned to fire her passions. Yet, he realized, none of that mattered. Tonight, she would love him because the drums were beating, because he would live or die for the glory of her touch.
Tension seemed to burn in his body, hotter than the bluest streaks of flame within the fire. “Tonight,” he told her. “Tonight, my love, you will make it worth my while!”
His lips descended down upon hers, hard, questing, demanding.
And bringing up all that fire within her.
“Jesu!” she whispered when the bruising force of his lips left her mouth at last. Again her gaze met his. Bluer than the sky, than the sea, deeper than the earth. The fire within him had touched her. The sound of the drums had entered her blood.
She threw her arms around him and clung to him. His fingers moved over her hair, reveling in the length of it. He drew her away from him, the fury, the passion, still alive within him.
“Life—and death. Make them both worthwhile,” he told her harshly.
She stared at him. He swept her up into his arms and bore her down to the furs upon the ground.
“Love me!” he commanded her fiercely.
She was silent as he stripped, her eyes on his, waiting. Then he was down beside her, his hands upon her, stripping her of the fine doeskin tunic the Comanche had given her to wear.
She lay against his burning, naked flesh. He could feel the length of her, and he began to shake, certain at last in his heart that she was all right. They had not touched her, had not maimed her. He had come in time.
She would keep nothing from him, he decided. She wouldn’t fight the sensations, she would do nothing but surrender. He whispered harshly to her. “Give in to me! Everything, Christa, everything.”
He straddled her. Her flesh was beautiful, ivory and gold in the firelight. Her breasts were so large now, full, evocative, the nipples nearly crimson, hardened. He could just feel the slight rise of their child in her abdomen, and he prayed suddenly, fiercely, that they all might live. Beneath him she began to tremble, and he didn’t know if it was with fear or with desire, or if the endless incantation of the drums had entered them both.
She reached out her arms to him, eyes wide, luminous. She moistened her lips to speak, and her words were soft, quavering, yet filled with a passion that touched his heart, soul, loins.
“I will give you everything!” she vowed, and added in a vehement whisper, “And make the night well—well worth your while!”
Tonight was different from all others. Tonight the words, the accusations, the anguish, the whispers, all hovered within his body, locked within his soul. He loved her. He didn’t know how long he had loved her so fiercely, maybe it had been forever. For all else paled beside this. No love he had known could be so deep, no hunger could be so shattering.
He found her lips. They trembled beneath his and parted. Heat rippled and burst between them, spreading rampantly. His hands moved swiftly, circling the heavy fullness of her breasts, rounding over the rise of her belly, touching her.
The softness of her body seemed to meld to his. She twisted and turned, accepting his touch, wanting his touch. Soft sounds escaped her, sounds that sent desire rocketing more deeply into his mind and body.
“Death holds no threat, my love. Indeed, you have made it all worth my while!” he promised her.
He felt the urgency of her touch, pressing against him. Holding his breath, he let her have her way. Upon her knees she kissed his shoulders, her fingers biting into the flesh and muscle. She kissed his lips, his chest. Swept into a newer, even sweeter fire, he caught her hand and guided it to the fullness of his sex.
A ragged cry escaped him. He swept her up into his arms, then laid her flat against the hides and fur of the bedding again. He caught her ankles, spreading her legs. He hovered over her, lips ravaging hers again, eyes seeking her own.
His body screamed that he must have her then.
But something within him knew that he could not for he had to touch her more, had to feel her, see her, kiss her, touch her, taste her.
Again, his lips covered hers. They covered her breasts. They bathed her belly, and even as she cried out, his kiss, his lips, his tongue stroked and teased her inner thighs, the throbbing sweet cleft between them. A cry escaped her, then whispers and gasps. She urged him to her, near sobbing as she brought him into her arms.
“Jesu!” he cried out.
He felt so alive, so volatile. So damned, desperately hungry. He scooped her into his arms. Sensations sheathed and sheltered him as he thrust himself into her. Her limbs wrapped around him tightly, the liquid fire of her body accepted and encompassed him. He moved and let the thunder of the drumbeats call his rhythm, for he was far beyond reason, feeling the incredible rise of his climax. He fought the explosion, savoring the feel of his wife beneath him, the sleekness of her flesh, the undulation of her body, rising against his and meeting him. He felt the ragged rise and fall of her breath, the pure thunder of her heart.