Giving her auburn hair one last pat, the trembling, excited Regina descended the stairs, hurried across the foyer and out the front door.
And stopped in her tracks.
“Good afternoon, my dear,” said Senator Douglas Berton, coming up onto the veranda, his cane thumping on the marble steps. “Were you going out?”
“No. No, I was just … I had a heavy lunch and thought I’d take a short walk.”
“Mind if I join you?” he said pleasantly. “I also overindulged. Tabor laid out a buffet fit for a king. A bit of exercise is just what we need.”
20
S
he was so still. Deathly still. Her fair, beautiful face was chalky white against the dark buffalo robes. The once gleaming golden hair lay lank and lifeless around her slender shoulders. The lush cupid’s-bow lips were cracked and burned from the fever that had raged for days. And the eyes, those expressive emerald eyes that telegraphed her every turbulent emotion, remained closed most of the time. When they did intermittently flutter open, they held no fire; neither hatred nor fear nor puzzlement.
“What have I done,” murmured the dark tortured man seated cross-legged beside Martay’s bed of soft buffalo furs.
It had been three days since Night Sun had moved Martay from Windwalker’s lodge to his own tipi. In those three days he had not left her side, shaking his head no to offers of help from the women of the camp, even ignoring his beloved grandmother’s suggestion that it didn’t appear proper for a maiden to dwell in the tipi of an unmarried warrior.
Night Sun didn’t give a damn how it appeared. He alone was responsible for Martay’s being here, and for her fevered sickness as well; he would tend her. He did so tirelessly, catnapping for only minutes at a time, keeping a protective hand on her when he did doze, attuned to her every gentle breath, the slightest movement, each soft sigh.
He knew that had Martay been fully herself, she would never have allowed him to do all the things he did for her. The fact that she put up no struggle was a sure, frightening sign that she was gravely ill, still in danger of dying.
“Jesus God,” he swore, “does Windwalker really have the medicine?”
“Never question the power of the Mystic Warrior,” came a firm feminine voice, and Night Sun looked up to see Gentle Deer coming in out of the bright sunlight.
“Grandmother,” said the tired man, “where are your manners? You are never to enter another’s tipi when the flap is down.”
She gave her grandson an impish grin. “How am I to know if the flap is up or down? I am a blind woman.”
Night Sun rose. “You see everything.”
“I hear everything as well,” she reminded him. “You should not doubt the Great Spirit.” She took his arm. “Help me get down.”
Easing her to the mat beside Martay, he said, “I’m half white and that half is worried about this girl.” The old woman laid a wrinkled hand on Martay’s pale, dusky cheek. “Is she any better, Grandmother?” he asked, dropping down on one knee beside the old woman.
Gentle Deer’s hand went to the slowly beating pulse in Martay’s throat. The skin was cool and mottled. A bluish gray. She counted the beats. She pulled back the covers and placed a hand directly over Martay’s heart. Then she moved down to Martay’s bare, slender ankles, locating their pulses. And all the while Night Sun was leaning anxiously close, looking for any reassuring sign on the old woman’s face. There was none.
Gentle Deer spread the covers back up to Martay’s shoulders and sat back. She put out her hand for him to take. Swiftly he gripped it in his own and sat down beside her.
He said, “The truth, Grandmother. Is she better?”
Gentle Deer looked at her worried grandson. “She is no better,” she answered honestly. “Night Sun, go out into the sunshine for a time. Ride with the braves. Hunt elk for our meal. Get out of this dark tipi; I will stay with the child-woman.”
He shook his dark head. “She might wake and need me. I stay.”
The old woman smiled. “How like your grandfather, Walking Bear, you are. Head as hard as stone.” Her smile fled and she said, “When will you tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
Gentle Deer inclined her head toward the sleeping girl. “Who is she? Why is she here?”
“Not yet, Grandmother. Do not ask me now.”
The old woman nodded, and did not press him. She knew Night Sun. He would tell her when the time was right. Now he was troubled by the white girl’s sickness. She touched his taut brown cheek, wishing he were a boy again; that she might take him in her comforting arms and sing to him of the rivers and mountains and buffalo; that she could drive away his fears.
But her adored grandson was no longer a child. He was a man; a tall, proud Lakota chieftain, admired by the tribe for his intelligence, loyalty, and courage. He would have to suffer alone, and in silence.
“Help me up, Night Sun,” said Gentle Deer. “I go now, but I will return before the sun goes behind the earth.”
“I’ll be here,” said he, and turned his full attention back to the sleeping woman. He placed a gentle hand to the crown of Martay’s head. “I only hope she will still be here.”
Fur trappers and cowboys and gold prospectors looked up from their drinks when the powerfully built Indian walked into the saloon-brothel. Disgust shone clearly in their disapproving eyes, but the Indian, striding purposefully toward the back staircase, paid no attention. The stocky, badly-scarred redskin knew none would step forward to challenge his right to be there.
And he was correct.
A smattering of whispered insults followed him, but drinkers and gamblers stepped aside, allowing him plenty of room. Many of the patrons had seen the big Indian in saloons and brothels across the Plains. None wanted any trouble with the scarred, muscular man.
Scar’s fleshy lips stretched wide into a smile. His brown glittery eyes, lifting to the second-floor landing, gleamed with anticipation. He knew what awaited in one of the red-walled rooms. Laughing now, a deep, guttural sound that came from way down in his powerful chest, the Crow scout climbed the stairs.
He was three days and a hundred miles out of Denver. He’d ridden relentlessly toward this white man’s Cheyenne pleasure palace because the recollection of a pretty black-haired woman with pale, pale skin who did anything he wanted her to do—as long as he had enough money—was still quite vivid in his mind, though it had been more than a year since he had seen her.
Stalking down the wide hallway, Scar called her name and opened doors, startling couples, causing prostitutes to squeal and the men with them to curse. He found her in the last room at the end of the hall. He flung open the door, marched in, and looking directly at the voluptuous black-haired woman, issued a one-word order to the lanky, bewhiskered man standing there in his long underwear.
“Out!”
Scar was undressing before the nervous man could grab up his clothes and get out the door. Bare-chested, the Crow stood there in the middle of the red room, flexing his scarred, heavily-muscled arms. Tendons in his huge, bull-like neck stood out beneath the copper skin as he grinned at the black-haired woman and said, “Remember me?”
The woman remembered the scarred Indian well. She smiled at him and promptly began disrobing, her busy brain toting up the extra money she would make this night. She was glad he was back. It bothered her only a little that he was ugly and badly scarred. And that he had a belly as large as a barrel that shook and rolled and undulated each time he moved. And that he was dirty and smelled to high heaven. And that his desires in sex were just this side of the bizarre.
He would, she knew, pay her five times what she usually made in an evening, and that happy fact made the dirty, fat savage a prince charming in her avaricious eyes. So when, his filthy buckskins discarded on the red carpet, the naked Crow sat spread-legged on a chair and invited her to get down on her hands and knees and crawl over to him, the black-haired woman didn’t hesitate.
Much later, after the scarred Crow was sated, he lay atop the big bed while the tired, dutiful woman rubbed his bare, smelly feet. Scratching an itchy underarm, he said, “I hunt a woman.”
The jaded prostitute replied, “I could go next door, see if Kitty will join …”
“No, no,” he said, chuckling, setting his fat belly to shaking. “You all I want. You very good. I hunt missing woman for American general.”
“Mmmmmm,” she murmured.
“I must find her. I promise General Kidd.”
“Who?” she said, looking up, eyes suddenly wide with interest.
“General William J. Kidd of the U.S. Cavalry has lost his gold-haired daughter.”
The woman moved quickly up beside him. “I know that name! I know …”
“Know what?” said the Crow, grabbing her bare shoulders.
“The General’s name. I’ve heard it … I … no, I’ve seen it on a letter! That’s it. A letter addressed to General Kidd was in the pocket of one of my patrons.”
Scar quickly sat up. His strong, short fingers cutting into her soft flesh, he drew her face close to his and demanded, “What did it say? Tell me.”
“I … I … don’t remember … I didn’t read it all.”
He shook her violently. “Think! What did you read? Who was it from? Tell me, damn you!”
“I … it said that he … he had the general’s daughter. That’s all I know.”
“Who had her? Who?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
The Indian’s scarred face grew fierce. “You stupid white bitch. You cost me ten thousand dollars!”
“Sorry, Scar. I wish I could be of more help but …”
“The customer with the letter. Who was he? Where is he now?”
“Benjamin Gilbert. He’s a prospector, and when he left here he was heading for the Montana goldfields.”
“Benjamin Gilbert,” the Crow repeated. “Give me his description and anything else you remember of that night.” His thick fingers went to her throat. “Do not lie to Scar; I will kill you if you do.” He smiled then, a sinister smile, and his big hands slipped down her bare back, caressing, stroking. “And what a waste that would be. Who then would love me like my black-haired Wyoming whore?” He laughed heartily and drew her to him, crushing her to his chest.
In the high country of northern Colorado, on the grassy banks of the Poudre River, General William J. Kidd, weary after another long, fruitless day of searching, sat alone before a burned-down campfire while all around him tired troopers were sleeping.
His green eyes glassy, he stared into the flickering flames and saw, not the dying campfire but the huge marble fireplace of his Chicago mansion. Remembered the very first fire that was built there. The memory brought a smile to his wide lips.
He had moved the family—his beautiful wife, Julie, and their four-year-old daughter, Martay—from the East Grand Avenue house to the big white mansion on Columbus. It was summertime in Chicago and hot as the equator. But the golden-curled Martay had wanted a fire in the vast walk-in fireplace that graced the formal drawing room.
The General’s smile grew broader.
“You want a fire, sweetheart; you just give that bellpull a jerk and order Big Dexter to get in here and build you one.”
“Now, Bill,” chided the lovely Julie, “you shouldn’t be so indulgent. Besides, a fire in July? We shall die of heat.”
Martay didn’t waste a minute. She marched over, yanked on the bell-pull, and when Big Dexter appeared in the arched doorway, she put her tiny hands on her hips and ordered, “Build a great fire in our new fireplace and be quick about it.”
While the big black man blinked and nodded, General Kidd threw back his blond head and laughed loudly. Then he whisked the tiny girl up into his arms and said, “Sweetheart, you’d make one hell of a fine military officer.”
“Bill!” scolded Julie. “I’ve asked you not to use coarse language in front of the baby.”
“Why the hell not?” said Martay, squeezing her father’s neck and giggling. The general laughed all the louder. And soon even the refined, serene Julie was laughing as they all sat on the deep, soft rug before the first fire built in their new home, drinking iced tea, fanning themselves, and finally, following their precocious four-year-old’s wise lead, discarding unnecessary articles of clothing. Laughing as they did so and saying “Why the hell not?”
“Why the hell not?” General Kidd repeated aloud, and chuckled.
“Sir?” asked the approaching Colonel Thomas Darlington, snapping the general out of his reverie. He sat down before the low burning fire.
“Nothing. Nothing, Colonel. I was just thinking out loud.”
Darlington nodded and drew a cigar from his blouse pocket. “Can’t sleep, General?”
General Kidd said tiredly, “No, I can’t.” He smiled, wistfully, and said, “Did I ever tell you about the time when my daughter was six years old and her maid put her down for an afternoon nap?”
“No, sir, you didn’t.”
The general laughed and shook his silver head. “The little scamp climbed out the window, shinnied down the rose trellis, and was halfway to town before a neighbor, returning home, spotted her. God, she’s been a handful from the beginning. I remember the time …” And he talked and talked, regaling Colonel Darlington with his daughter’s childhood escapades, punctuating his sentences with bursts of deep laughter.
When finally he fell silent, the colonel, respectfully waiting a few minutes, finally gently suggested, “General, you really should get some rest.”
“I know,” admitted General Kidd. “But it’s mighty hard to sleep knowing Martay’s wondering why her daddy’s not there to take care of her just like always.”
21
I
t was the middle of the night. Windwalker’s Lakota camp was sleeping; had been sleeping for hours.
But Night Sun remained awake, keeping his vigil over the sick woman. His black eyes on her, he lay stretched out on his side, head resting in the crook of his bent arm. Studying her perfect profile in the firelight, he picked up one of her small, cool hands and put it softly to his cheek. And for a foolish, daydreaming moment he allowed himself to imagine that things were very different.
The beautiful young woman was not sick, she was only sleeping peacefully. And she was not his captive, kidnapped and brought here against her will. She was his life’s mate, content to sleep here beside him in this Dakota tipi for all the rest of her days.