Capture the Sun (Cheyenne Series) (43 page)

      
All through the next day Carrie waited, confined to another lodge where she and her son had been taken. She shared it with Calf Woman. The old woman was not unkind. In fact, she brought Perry a rawhide ball and a string of brightly colored beads to play with and watched his bright, alert movements with obvious delight. Toward the boy's mother, however, she showed no emotion at all, neither hostility nor friendliness. They waited.

      
Early the following morning Carrie was disturbed from her toilette by a great commotion outside. She had just finished washing her face and combing her hair with a bone comb given to her by Calf Woman when the furor erupted. Male voices speaking stridently in Cheyenne were calling across the clearing in front of the lodge. Then Calf Woman entered and motioned for her to bring Perry and follow her. Forcing herself to remain calm, she took a deep breath and scooped up the boy.

      
The brilliant morning sunlight blinded her for a moment. Then she saw him, standing directly in her line of vision, almost twenty feet away.
Hawk.
At least, he had once been Hawk Sinclair. Now he was Hunting Hawk, grandson of Iron Heart, a Cheyenne warrior. He was almost naked in the heat of the morning, dressed only in breechclout and moccasins with that same evil-looking knife strapped to his waistband. His sinuously muscled body glistened with perspiration, running in rivulets through the thick black hair of his chest, for he had ridden hard to get to the encampment. His hair was quite long now, plaited into two gleaming braids, woven through with rawhide thongs and feathers. Copper armbands gleamed on his hard biceps and a matching necklace lay suspended against his chest. Large copper earrings completed the barbaric adornment. He needed a shave, a task he rarely neglected.
 

      
His face was shuttered and expressionless, very Indianlike to Carrie. What was he thinking?

      
Hawk slowly walked over to her, his eyes shifting from her face to consider the boy. If he was surprised, he concealed it, or perhaps he just did not care that he had a son, she thought bleakly. Her heart lodged in her throat and she found herself unable to speak, desperately wanting him to say something in English, to prove to her that he was still Hawk, not some alien, savage stranger.

      
“What is his name?” He finally broke the silence between them as they stood face to face. He put out his hand and gently touched the boy's black shiny hair.

      
“Peregrine...Perry,” she managed to choke out.

      
He smiled enigmatically. “A name that means something. Good.” Then he turned and walked over to where Iron Heart and Angry Wolf stood. The old man motioned them inside his lodge, and they vanished behind the tent flap.

      
“She is mine. I claim the right of her capture. She is my slave.” Angry Wolf's voice was loud and carried far as he intended it should.

      
“You cannot have her. She is the mother of my son, Angry Wolf.” Hawk's voice was quiet. Dreading what might come, fearing what he might have to do, he looked at Iron Heart.

      
“The council has debated long and thoroughly, Angry Wolf,” Iron Heart began. “The woman is well known among the whites. Her firehair would be too difficult to conceal if she were your slave. It would bring soldiers to our camp, death to everyone here. We must send her back unharmed, her and her son.”

      
Angry Wolf's face grew rigid and darkened as his fury rose. When Iron Heart had finished speaking, he lashed out, gesturing to Hawk. “It is because of him! He is your grandson and she lay with him, giving him that child when they had no right! He has no claim on her under our law. She has a white husband!”

      
“He Who Walks in Sun is dead.” The old man said the words with finality, ignoring Angry Wolf's tirade and looking at Hawk as he spoke. Hawk's face still showed no emotion, but the old man heard him release a tightly held hiss of breath at the startling news. “The council has spoken, Angry Wolf. You cannot have the woman.” The chief watched his grandson stand poised. Hawk waited to see what the infuriated warrior would do next.

      
Angry Wolf whirled and vanished through the opening of the tepee. As he strode toward Carrie, he said loudly, for all to hear, “I will not give my captive to a half-blooded adulterer!” He challenged Hawk openly as a gasp of horrified indignation went up around the large circle of people gathered to witness the spectacle.

      
Carrie almost dropped Perry as Angry Wolf yanked her to him. She began to fight him then, kicking at his bare shins with her booted feet, but before she could do any damage, he struck her a savage blow across the face. As he raised his hand to hit her again, Hawk's body smashed into his, forcing him to release his vicious hold on Carrie.

      
They tumbled to the ground at her feet, rolling and thrashing in the dust as she clutched Perry and jumped out of their way. With a snarled oath, Angry Wolf rolled to his feet and drew his knife. Hawk did the same. The circle of men around them widened. No one moved to stop them, for indeed everyone, even Iron Heart, knew it could not be done.

      
The two men circled one another, right, then left, then right again, like two mountain lions, each poised and ready to spring. Angry Wolf feinted high with his blade, then lunged low, but Hawk parried his thrusts with uncanny accuracy. For several minutes the stalemate continued as they alternately attacked and retreated. Carrie let out a muffled gasp when Angry Wolf's knife slashed a bloody furrow across Hawk's forearm. Just as quickly Hawk opened up Angry Wolf's chest with a long gash, narrowly missing his throat and knocking him to the hard-packed earth. Soon they were both covered with a murky film of sweat, dust, and blood as they rolled on the ground until Angry Wolf came up on top. Hawk held his foe's knife hand in a deathlock, struggling desperately to keep it from his throat.

      
Angry Wolfs face grimaced in an ugly caricature of a smile. “Now you die and I get your flame-haired woman to replace Wind Song, white man!”

      
Just then Hawk gave a twisting roll and caught his leg around Angry Wolf's. The leverage pulled him over and they rolled again in a blur of flashing steel and dust. This time Hawk came up on top when they stopped, halfway across the clearing.”

      
“You have always coveted what was not yours, Angry Wolf. Now you pay for your greed!” Hawk's knife inched its way closer to his enemy's bare throat.

      
With a desperate surge, Angry Wolf broke free at the last moment as Hawk's knife plunged down to slash his shoulder. He twisted free of Hawk's grasp and they separated once more.

      
Carrie stood isolated at one end of the circular clearing. The majority of the Cheyenne onlookers gave her a wide berth. She shielded Perry's eyes from the bloody carnage taking place, fearful he would be scarred for life if he witnessed this butchery.

      
Hawk bided his time, circling like his namesake in predatory arcs, back and forth, taunting and infuriating Angry Wolf into making a move. Angry Wolf lunged and missed, but as he was propelled forward into the open space where Hawk had stood a split second earlier, he felt Hawk grasp his right forearm, yanking him around while raising his knife hand harmlessly into midair. In a blur Hawk's own blade came up, slashing Angry Wolfs throat deeply.
 

      
After a few thrashing movements Angry Wolf lay still. Hawk stood staring at his dead foe for several minutes, then sheathed his knife and looked up at Carrie. Her ashen face spoke volumes as she stood clutching the boy to her. Hawk turned wordlessly and strode over to Iron Heart.

      
The old man's face was gray with anguish. Looking into his eyes, Hawk felt as if Angry Wolfs knife had twisted in his own heart. God, anything but this! Yet he knew the law and knew what his grandfather must do.

      
“You have shed Cheyenne blood,” the chief intoned. As if lending moral support to the old man, several other of the tribal elders gathered around him.

      
“I understand,” Hawk said simply, facing them. “The penalty for killing another Cheyenne is banishment for four years. I will take the white woman and child and go.” With a parting look at his grandfather, he walked dejectedly toward his lodge to retrieve the relics of his white life, a life to which he did not wish to return, not this way. Perhaps not at all.

      
Carrie did not know what to expect when Hawk stalked off and Iron Heart came toward her. His face was drawn and his words flat. “Hawk Sinclair has made his choice. He will take you and the boy to your home. Wait in the lodge until he comes for you.”

      
With that he turned and walked away. She did not understand what had just transpired, but she did know that it was unnatural for Iron Heart to refer to his grandson by his white name. Uncertainly she went inside and sat down. The keening death chant over Angry Wolf’s body had already begun. She gritted her teeth and waited.

      
It did not take Hawk long to change into a pair of denim pants and a white shirt. He strapped on the Colt .44 and resheathed his knife in the heavy leather belt. Gathering up his few possessions, he let out a bitter laugh. When he had left Circle S it had been the same. He owned nothing that could not fit in a pair of saddlebags. He probably never would.

      
When he pulled back the buffalo-hide flap and stepped into the lodge where Carrie sat with his son, Hawk moved noiselessly and reached for the boy. His silent entrance on moccasined feet took her by surprise, and she gasped in shock as one of his braids brushed her cheek. Flinching back, she clutched the fussing child to her.

      
“No! I'll carry him.” Her voice came out sharper than she intended. The gruesome fight and then the horrible wailing death chant had finally succeeded in breaking her iron reserve of calm. She had eaten and slept little in three days and was teetering on the edge of hysteria.

      
“Don't be foolish. You're exhausted and shaky.” With no more debate, he scooped the boy from her arms and turned to carry him outside.

      
Furiously she whirled on him, lunging at his back with a fierce maternal cry dredged up from the depths of her soul. “You can't take him! Let me have my son! He's mine. Damn you, you filthy savage! Let me—” She was sobbing and flailing by this time, and Perry responded with his own cry of fright.

      
Hawk stood very still, with his son on one arm, holding her away from him with the other. He released her shoulder when she stopped short.

      
My God, what have I done?
One look at the set lines of his face made her realize the enormity of what she had said. “Hawk, I'm sorry. I didn't mean—”

      
He cut her off by turning sharply on his heel to leave with Perry, saying, “Get your gear. I have Taffy saddled outside. Mount up, or I'll leave you behind!”

      
Grabbing her hat and gloves, she quickly followed him out. By now Perry had stopped fussing and seemed well content to sit in front of his father on the big red horse. With the bright eyes of childhood he eagerly looked around the village as they rode away. Hawk never looked back.

CHAPTER TWENTY

      
Hawk stared straight ahead and held Redskin at a steady, ground-eating pace. Carrie was afraid to speak, alternately ashamed of her hysterical outburst, then angry with him for his brutal actions and bloodthirsty appearance. Even in a white man's shirt and pants, he looked savage with his long braids, barbaric jewelry, and arsenal of weapons.

      
Hawk's emotions were in turmoil as well. When he had arrived in response to the cryptic message from Iron Heart, he did not expect to see Carrie there, much less with a child. One look at Perry's face was all it took to know the boy was his son. Against all odds, the one thing that he had never considered had happened. The child was his, not Noah's. He had cursed himself for a fool, feeling overjoyed, guilty, and angry with her for endangering herself and the boy at Angry Wolf's hands.
 

      
Then he had realized how she had looked at him, the uncertainty, fright, even revulsion in her eyes as she had taken in his Cheyenne appearance. All he had really seemed to her in white man's garb was an exotic version of a
veho
. Now she had seen him as he was, as a Cheyenne, and she did not like it.
A filthy savage
.

      
The hurt festered along with the guilt. He had just killed a man, one of the People. He should have let the elders stop Angry Wolf. They had already decided he could not have Carrie. But Hawk could not bear to see him put his hands on her and flew at him in a rage of possessive jealousy. Perversely, he blamed her for being there, for wandering off so far alone and getting captured. Then he looked across at her and saw his medallion. She wore it proudly, and he cursed himself for the sudden surge of desire that seized him. He had many things to ponder.

      
As they rode silently through the hot morning air, they were both wrapped in misery and did not hear the approaching horse until the rider was almost upon them. Then Hawk recognized the wiry little frame of Kyle Hunnicut.

      
“Longlegs, yew son of a bitch!” Kyle was relieved and overjoyed, pulling up to reach over and thump his old friend heartily on the back. “I tracked her 'n' th' boy there, but couldn't git near 'nough ta git 'em out. Been watching’ nigh onta three days on th' other side o' th' camp. Shore glad ya come along when ya did. Yew all right, Carrie?” He shifted his gaze from Hawk to Carrie, confused as to what had been said between them. He noted the careful and possessive way Hawk held his son. One thing had been settled, at least.