"Has anyone seen her father?" Hazard asked abruptly, a score of possibilities racing through his mind.
"No."
"Rose says he's out looking for the summer camp."
"Rumor has it he's dead."
It's over, was Hazard's first startled thought. If Colonel Braddock was dead, all the rules of the game were obsolete. "Whose rumor?" he quickly asked.
"The Lumpwood band. One Heart heard it from his wife's brother."
"How sure are you?"
"One Heart's brother-in-law saw the body."
"Could it have been some other white man?"
Rising Wolf shrugged. "Possibly. I'm not sure." He smiled. "They all look alike."
"Damn."
"Is it a problem?"
"Could be. The Colonel's more apt to be amenable than some third party."
"Why don't we just bring a guard down. Twenty or thirty wolves, say…"
"I don't want that. All the third-rate politicians running the territory would love to call in the army. And since the end of the War Between the States, every ambitious officer looking for a promotion is galloping over the Northern Plains hoping like hell to start an Indian war. I'd just as soon not be some glory boy's excuse for a colonel's bars."
"We could kill quite a few with your new artillery piece." As a tactician, Rising Wolf was superb, and his eyes gleamed with all the pregnant possibilities of the site Hazard had chosen at the top of the mountain.
"And lose the mine," Hazard reminded him.
"Are you so sure it's important? We've always been a prosperous clan. Why do we need more than we have now?"
"The yellow eyes aren't going to stop coming. Not with the gold. And the buffalo won't last forever." It wasn't the first time the two men had gone over this ground.
"There's people who'll disagree with you about that," Rising Wolf said pleasantly.
"They can disagree," Hazard said just as pleasantly. "In the meantime, I'll stockpile gold."
"Jon," Blaze said, softly interrupting, "do you want me to try to make some breakfast?"
"So she's learned how to cook?" Rising Wolf inquired in Absarokee. He understood English as well as Hazard. They'd been raised as brothers and shared the squaw man Alonzo Kent as a kindly uncle. Their English was upper-class, learned mainly from Alonzo Kent, Baronet, the younger son of a younger son who had been sent abroad for his health. He'd reached Montana Territory before it had been named in the train of a German prince collecting New World fauna and flora and was near death with consumption when he first saw the Yellowstone. Hazard's clan was camping nearby, and his aunt took Alonzo in and cured him. They fell in love and he never returned to England.
"Thank you, Miss Braddock," Rising Wolf politely said, offering Blaze a casual, elegant bow, "I'd like breakfast very much."
"You know English," she exclaimed. "How very nice. Hazard, why didn't you tell me?"
"You probably haven't had much time to talk," Rising Wolf murmured in their native tongue, innuendo flagrant in his husky tone.
"Cute," Hazard retorted brusquely, then turned back to answer Blaze. He thought of the hundreds of thousands of fragments and people and anecdotes of his life she knew nothing about and was nonplussed for a moment. "A white man married our aunt—he was a fur trader," Hazard diffidently said, "and we both learned English as children." She looked very desirable lying abed and it annoyed him momentarily that Rising Wolf was attentively surveying her in languorous semidress. "I'll bathe while you attend to breakfast," he abruptly remarked. "After you." He indicated the door with a gesture of his head, and Rising Wolf preceded him outside. "Put on your slacks this morning," Hazard ordered sotto voce as he prepared to follow Rising Wolf. He wasn't in the mood to share her, even visually, with Rising Wolf.
"They shrank when I washed them," Blaze whispered back.
"Put on a pair of mine."
"They're too big. I could wear one of the dresses you—"
"No. Put on the pants," he said, each word quietly emphasized.
"Yes sir," she murmured, recognizing his jealousy.
"And we're getting some clothes for you, immediately. Now no games, Blaze. I want you wearing pants when I get back."
"Yes, master," she sweetly purred.
Her meek compliance raised a trace of distrust in Hazard's mind. She was rarely submissive; he corrected himself—she was never submissive. He jabbed a peremptory finger at her. "And a shirt," he added for safety.
When they returned some time later, Blaze was monitoring the bacon sizzling in a pan on the stove, and a swift glance told Hazard it wasn't intolerably burned for a change, only pleasingly crisp. He was also grateful to see she had actually followed instructions for once. She wore one of his shirts tucked into a pair of his slacks, rolled up several times at the bottom and belted into gathers at her narrow waist. Relieved she was fully clothed, he overlooked the fact that she looked like a waif from an orphanage. "Are there eggs left?" he asked, the familiar routine of helping Blaze with the meals so commonplace he fell into it naturally.
"You used them yesterday," Blaze replied without turning from the stove. "I don't remember."
Seating himself at the table, Rising Wolf looked up at Hazard and said with a mocking grin, "Learning to cook too?"
"Hazard's a marvelous help," Blaze exclaimed before Hazard could reply. "If it wasn't for him, we'd starve."
"You'll have to show me your cooking skills sometime when you come back home," Rising Wolf declared, amusement in the rich timbre of his voice, although his face was blank as a statue.
"Not likely," Hazard muttered, knowing he'd hear endless jokes about cooking the next time he visited camp.
"And he washes dishes and cleaned up the floor and everything after the… well… the other evening," Blaze went on more delicately when she heard Hazard clear his throat in warning. She was proud of his gallantry. Turning, she saw he was mildly embarrassed. "I'm sorry," she quickly apologized, wiping her hands on the oversized pants. "I forgot about all your masculine prejudices."
"It's all right," Hazard acknowledged.
"Yes, he can astound everyone at the summer hunt," Rising Wolf asserted, a teasing light in his eyes.
Glimpsing the sharp look Hazard cast at Rising Wolf, Blaze inquired, "What's a summer hunt?" And to herself, she wondered why he did not want it mentioned.
"Tell her," Rising Wolf prompted, entertained by Hazard's awkward and precarious situation.
Reluctantly he complied. "The clans gather to hunt and socialize," he tersely said.
"How lovely! Like a grand picnic. Will you have many relatives there to visit?" Her voice had risen in excitement like a young child's.
"I won't be there to find out," Hazard said, quietly but emphatically, and, turning back to Rising Wolf, glared at him for bringing the subject up.
Lapsing into Absarokee, Rising Wolf suggested, "You could look for the father, if you came."
"If he's alive, he'll find me," Hazard replied in the same melodic tongue.
Rising Wolf shrugged and spoke in English once again. "Everyone will miss you this summer."
"It can't be helped," Hazard retorted in cool, clipped accents.
Blaze glanced cautiously from one man to the other; she realized she shouldn't interfere in Hazard's life any more than she already had, and there must be some private matter they were discussing in their own language. It was Hazard's decision, after all, she acknowledged, but… she hesitated for only a fraction of a second more before her impetuosity overcame her finer motives of sensitivity. "Could we go? Could we? Please, Hazard, it would be such fun."
"No."
"Why not?" she cheerfully charged, as immune to his refusal as any others in her life. "I've never seen an Indian village, or a summer hunt or even an Indian except you and Rising Wolf and our scouts."
Hazard's back stiffened. "It's not a sideshow arranged for your amusement."
"Don't be so touchy, dammit. I didn't mean it that way and you know it."
Rising Wolfs mouth dropped a bit before he caught himself. He'd never seen Hazard talked to like that before—not by anyone and certainly not by a woman. But then he'd never known Hazard to cook for a woman before, or clean up for a woman. In the half-second that elapsed before Hazard replied, given the Hazard he knew, Rising Wolf fully expected him to lash out in some way.
"I'm sorry," Hazard apologized, and Rising Wolfs mouth gaped open further. How often in Hazard's life had he apologized to a woman? "But we can't go," Hazard went on gently. "It's impossible."
"Because of the mine?" Blaze asked, her tone more understanding. Hazard looked mildly uncomfortable and she had misgivings suddenly about her insistence.
"Yes," Hazard affirmed, glad of a ready excuse Blaze would accept. He had no intention of exposing his need for this woman to every person in his clan. And if he took her to the summer hunt, she might see it as a charming adventure into an unknown culture, but he, personally, would find it harrowing.
They would both be under constant scrutiny and everyone would know his wanting Blaze transcended casual need. Wanting a white woman that much could diminish his power as chief. And the public flirting and courtship normal and prevalent at the summer camp could cause untold problems. He knew how Blaze responded to the mention of other women in his life, and while he understood, in theory, jealousy was beneath a man's dignity, in regard to Blaze, dignity be damned.
Furthermore, much of his time would be required for council meetings, and his friends would expect him to join them hunting, gaming, racing, all usual activities enjoyed at the summer encampment. All male activities. It wouldn't work.
"Perhaps some other time, then."
"Perhaps," he noncommittally replied.
Rising Wolf left very soon after breakfast, with a well-laden string of pack ponies.
Blaze only inquired about the summer hunt once more during supper that evening, inquired in very general conversational terms.
Hazard's reply was curt and negative.
She wouldn't bring it up again.
ONLY minutes after eating, Hazard began buckling on his gun belt.
"Town again?" Blaze asked softly, loath to see him go. Town at night meant Rose, and her jealousy boiled up despite his abstinence last time. And the danger would be constant and very real if Yancy was as worked up as he'd been the day she came up the mountain.
Hazard nodded.
"Rose?" She couldn't keep herself from asking.
His head came up, his fingers still tying on the leg strap. "Only for your clothes," he said, his dark glance level. "Jimmy should have been here by now." He finished securing the holster to his thigh and straightened. "I want you to have clothes to wear."
"Because of Rising Wolf?"
"Yes," he said simply.
"It's not worth a suicidal trip into town."
"It is to me," he quietly replied, then smiled a quick, easy grin. "And it's not suicidal. No one saw me last time and no one will this time either." He was dressed all in black except for his moccasins, expecting he might have to move faster than boots would permit. Despite his facile explanation to Blaze, he knew small-town rumor may have heard of his last visit, and the possibility of a reception committee was a consideration.