Wolf Shadow (15 page)

He clenched his hands at his sides to keep from taking her
in his arms. “If my cousin is still alive, he’ll take the people south to our
winter camp. We’ll go there.”

Winter Rain nodded.

“No sense giving up hope until we know for sure.”

She looked up at him, mute. If he had the sense God gave a
goat, he’d take her to the Bryants now. But he couldn’t go, not until he knew
what had happened to Kills-Like-a-Hawk and his family.

“Rain, it’ll be all right.”

She took a step toward him and all his good intentions
evaporated. She needed comforting and there was no one else to offer it. He
held out his arms and she stepped into them. Her tears were warm where they
fell on his chest.

He held her for several moments, forcing himself to remember
she had come to him for solace and nothing more. But he couldn’t keep his body
from reacting to her nearness and he turned sideways to keep her from noticing
how her proximity affected him.

“Don’t cry, sweetheart. You still have people who love you.”

She jerked her head up, her gaze boring into his. “How can
you speak to me of
them
when my parents may be dead?”

“Dammit, Rain, the Bryants
are
your parents.”

“No!” She wrenched herself out of his arms. Head tilted to
one side, she regarded him for a long moment. “What difference does it make to
you whether I go back to them or not?”

Chance cleared his throat, somehow reluctant to tell her the
truth. “I met your father. I told him I would try to find you. You’re their
only child. They miss you. They’re worried about you.”

“Go back to them. Tell them I am well. Tell them I am happy
here.”

“We need to go,” he said, abruptly changing the subject. He
made a gesture that encompassed the village. “See if you can find anything we
can use. I’m going hunting.”

She glanced at the ruined lodges. He could tell she wasn’t
keen on the idea, but she didn’t argue. Squaring her shoulders, she began to
rummage through what was left of the lodge nearest them.

Taking up the reins of his horse, Chance swung into the
saddle and rode toward the river. With any luck, he might be able to find a
deer, or at least a rabbit.

It seemed unusually quiet as he approached the river. He
glanced at the place where he had killed the first Crow warrior. There was no
body, of course. The Crow would have carried their dead home.

With a shake of his head, Chance urged his horse upriver. He
hadn’t gone far when he spied a buck turning away from the water’s edge.
Lifting his rifle, Chance lined up his shot, curled his finger around the
trigger. Steadying Smoke with his knees, he took a deep breath, let out half of
it, and squeezed the trigger. The buck sprang forward, then dropped to the
ground.

Dismounting, Chance gutted the deer then draped the carcass
over Smoke’s withers. Swinging into the saddle, he rode back to where he had
left Winter Rain.

He found her a good distance from the carnage, sorting
through a small pile of goods she had retrieved. There wasn’t much. Among other
things, she’d found a waterskin, a trade blanket singed along one edge, a small
cooking pot, a skinning knife, as well as a bowl and a spoon made of buffalo
horn.

She looked up at his approach. “They left very little,” she
remarked, gesturing at what she had found.

Chance shrugged. “It’s more than we had.”

Dismounting, he lifted the buck from the back of his horse
and dropped it on the ground. “At least we’ll have fresh meat for dinner.”

He led the horses to a patch of grass. After stripping the
rigging from Smoke, he hobbled his horse and Winter Rain’s so they could graze.
The filly nuzzled his arm and he spent a few minutes scratching her ears before
going back to kneel beside Winter Rain. Butchering and skinning were women’s
work, but that didn’t seem to matter just now.

They worked side by side, skinning the deer, cutting the
meat into quarters and then into strips for drying. Winter Rain built a fire
and spitted a couple of thick steaks.

Chance’s mouth watered as the scent of roasting venison
filled the air. When they finished skinning the deer, he found some sturdy
branches and put together a drying rack. As tired as he was of jerked meat,
there was no way to keep the rest of the venison fresh while they traveled.

They took a break to eat when the steaks were done. Chance
stared into the distance. Unless he missed his guess, Kills-Like-a-Hawk would
head for the Black Hills to hole up while the people nursed their wounds. There
was food and shelter in the Hills. Game was plentiful. The people could hunt
enough food to see them through the coming winter.

Chance shook his head. Damn, this couldn’t have happened at
a worse time. He needed to haul Winter Rain back to the Bryants, collect the
rest of his reward, and hightail it to the bank. That was what he should do, he
thought glumly, but he couldn’t just ride off without knowing
Kills-Like-a-Hawk’s fate. Couldn’t carry Winter Rain kicking and screaming all
the way back to her parents. He didn’t stop to wonder why. He had taken other
women back home against their will.

He grunted softly. He had yet to find a kidnapped white
woman who wanted to go back to the white world after living with the Indians.
He didn’t know if it was because they were ashamed, or because they genuinely
liked living with the Indians, but after a year or two of captivity, none of
them were happy to be rescued. He had wondered, from time to time, how long it
took them to readjust to civilization. He had rescued one woman who had been
abducted from her home in New Mexico. She had borne a son to an Apache warrior.
The boy was three when Chance found her. She had put up a hell of a fight when
he took her back to her husband. She had made her way back to her Apache
warrior three times before her husband stopped trying to get her back.

He couldn’t fault the women for wanting to stay with the
Indians. In spite of the hard work and grueling winters, it was a good way to
live. Sometimes he wondered why he fought so hard to hang on to the ranch. It
would be easier to let the bank have it and take up tipi living again. But some
stubborn streak refused to let him just give up. The ranch had belonged to his
old man. Making a go of the place had been the old man’s dream and by damn, he
intended to hang on to it.

He looked up to find Winter Rain watching him. “Think you
could make me a shirt out of that hide?” he asked.

She nodded. “If you wish.”

“Thanks.”

They spent the next couple of days waiting for the meat to
dry. Chance killed a couple of rabbits. Winter Rain gathered some wild
vegetables and they had rabbit stew for dinner, along with some wild berries he
had found. Winter Rain began the process of tanning the hide.

They spoke little. Chance had the feeling she was waiting
for him to throw her on her horse and take her back to the Bryants. He had to
admit the thought crossed his mind at least once a day. But his mind was more
often occupied with thoughts of Rain herself. Every time he looked at her, he
was reminded of the way she felt in his arms, the sweet taste of her lips, the
way her body felt against his.

He dreamed of her at night, erotic dreams that had him
waking in the dark, hard and aching.

Tonight was no different. Roused from sleep, he glanced over
at the woman who occupied so much of his thoughts whether he was awake or
asleep. She was sleeping soundly, her lips slightly parted, one hand tucked
beneath her cheek. She looked young and vulnerable and so damned desirable it
was all he could do to keep from crawling under the blanket beside her and
taking her in his arms.

The worst of it was, he didn’t think she would put up much
of a fight.

Muttering an oath, he rose and followed the moonlit trail
down to the river. Dropping down on his belly, he buried his face in the cold
water, then took a long drink. It cooled his thirst but did little to cool his
ardor.

Tomorrow, he thought. They would leave for the Black Hills
tomorrow morning. The sooner they found out if Mountain Sage and Eagle Lance
were alive, the sooner he could return Winter Rain to the Bryants and get on
with his own life.

Sitting there, staring at the moonlight shimmering on the
face of the water, he wondered why the thought of getting back home seemed to
have lost its appeal.

Chapter Thirteen

Winter Rain felt a tremor of excitement when she saw the
Paha
Sapa
rising in the distance. They had ridden hard for the last three days. In
the evenings, she had worked on the shirt for Wolf Shadow. She had finished it
last night. He wore it now. It gave her pleasure to know he was wearing
something she had made with her own hands.

Winter Rain drank in the sight of the Black Hills. At last,
they had almost reached their destination. It was a place she had loved for as
long as she could remember. Rising high about the plains, the Black Hills were
the heart and soul of the Lakota people. Pines grew so thick on the hillsides
that the sacred mountains looked black from a distance. She loved the deep
green of the pines, the rust red shale, the varied colors of clay and sandstone
cliffs, loved to hear the songs of the pretty mountain bluebirds and the
western tanagers.

Mato Paha
, Bear Butte, was located here, as was
Mateo
Teepee
, the Devil’s Tower, which rose thousands of feet above the
surrounding prairie. It was here that Strong Elk had received his vision. A
lump rose in her throat as she thought of him. Had he been killed by the Crow? And
what of Dawn Song and Two Beavers and Pony Boy? What of all the other young men
and women she had grown up with, worked and laughed with? Were they all dead?

The excitement she had experienced only moments ago quickly
turned to dismay. What if they were all gone?

Unable to wait any longer, she urged her horse into a lope.
She had to know if all those she loved were gone, though she didn’t know what
she would do if her worst fears proved true. She couldn’t imagine her life
without Mountain Sage and Eagle Lance, couldn’t imagine living anywhere but
here, in the land of the Spotted Eagle.

Wolf Shadow called out to her to wait, but Winter Rain rode
on, driven by her need to know. The filly tagged along behind, darting first
one way and then the other.

Chance cursed softly as Winter Rain raced away. Didn’t she
realize they had to proceed with caution? The Lakota were not the only people
who sought shelter in the Black Hills. Too often of late, the Army had made its
presence known. Miners were crossing the plains in search of gold and silver,
settlers were looking for homesteads, missionaries were looking for converts,
con men and easy women were chasing elusive dreams of easy money and easy
living. He had met them all, saint and sinner alike.

He caught up with Winter Rain as she reached the base of the
hills. Leaning out of the saddle, he grabbed hold of her horse’s bridle and
eased the horse to a stop.

“Let me go!”

“Just slow down, dammit. You can’t go riding hell for
leather like that. You don’t know what you’ll run into.”

She glared at him, her anger slowly dissipating as she
realized the truth of his words.

When he was sure she wouldn’t take off like a jackrabbit
with a fire under its tail, he urged his horse forward.

As always, he was immediately caught up in the grandeur and
beauty of the Hills. Like all Lakota, he had a reverence for the land,
especially this land. To the Lakota, the Hills were the heart of everything
that is.

The terrain within the Hills was wild and rugged, a land of
lush grass and deep verdant valleys, gentle foothills and jagged rock formations,
sandstone canyons and gulches, deep blue lakes and winding streams. There were
scattered stands of aspen, birch and oak. White-tailed deer, elk, and mule deer
made their home in the Hills, as did mountain lions and bears. Coyotes could be
heard yipping late at night. Goshawks and ospreys nested in the forest; bald
eagles were often seen in the winter.

The Lakota moved with the seasons. April was the Moon of the
Birth of Calves. It was during the spring months that men and women tapped the
box elders for the sweet sap within. Women repaired their tipis or made new
ones from the hides collected the winter before. Leggings and moccasins were
made from the smoked tops of the old lodges. Young men went out to seek their
visions. Warriors began to break the young horses. Stallions not fit for
breeding were castrated. It was also foaling season. The Lakota paid little
attention to the mares, letting nature take its course.

In May, the Moon of Ripening Strawberries, the tribe moved
from its winter quarters to higher ground, sometimes out of necessity,
sometimes simply for the joy of moving to a new place.

Chance had always loved the summer. It was perhaps the
busiest time of the year. Families conducted hunts. Warriors went on raiding
parties. Women were busy gathering early fruits and vegetables. Robes were
painted while the weather was warm. Tribal hunts were organized whenever a herd
of buffalo was found, but only a few animals were killed as this was the time
of year when the buffalo grew fat.

Summer was also the time for ceremonial affairs, a time of
vision seeking and female virtue feasts. The Sun Dance, that most sacred
ceremony, was held during the Cherry Ripening Moon. One of Chance’s biggest
regrets was that he had never participated in the Sun Dance, never sought a
vision to guide him. At a time of life when he should have been pursuing a
vision quest, he had been pursuing his mother’s murderers.

In the autumn, women gathered nuts and vegetables and dried
meat in preparation for the coming winter. Men went hunting more often to make
sure there would be meat in their lodges for the cold months ahead.
Occasionally, the warriors burned the prairie grass to force the buffalo to
come closer to the hunting camps.