Dog growled low in his throat as if agreeing.
“Well, we’ll outdistance ’em tomorrow. Don’t suppose you saw anything of a Blackfoot war party, did you?”
Dog just cocked his head to one side.
“Don’t worry about it. If they’re back there, they’ll turn up sooner or later. I don’t expect Angry Sky to give up as easy as those fur thieves are likely to.”
It bothered Preacher, in fact, that the rest of the gang might get away. Right now, finding a safe haven for Butterfly was more important. Anyway, even if he missed them now, if the thieves continued to operate in this region there was a mighty good chance Preacher would run into them again later on.
And if he did . . . there would be a reckoning.
CHAPTER 13
Hawk found the most comfortable spot in the grass around the pool and spread a blanket there for Butterfly.
When he showed it to her, she said, “Stay here with me tonight, Hawk That Soars.”
“I cannot,” he said.
“We are not of the same clan. There would be nothing wrong with us being together.” She put a hand on his arm. “But I speak not of that. Just . . . lie beside me. Your closeness will keep me from being frightened.”
“I cannot,” Hawk said again. “I must stay awake and stand guard.”
“For the entire night? Will you not sleep at all?”
“I will wake White Buffalo later and then sleep for a short time.”
“Come to me then,” Butterfly implored. “I will not be able to sleep until you are beside me.”
Hawk doubted if that was true. He knew Butterfly was exhausted, and he was confident that exhaustion would claim her almost as soon as she lay down, whether he was beside her or not. He just needed to convince her of that.
“I will not be far away,” he promised her. “If you wake up and are frightened, or if anything bothers you, you need only call and I will be there in a heartbeat. This I swear.”
She stepped closer and put her arms around him again, hugging him tightly to her. “You have delivered me from a terrible fate,” she whispered. “Everything I have, everything I am, is yours, Hawk That Soars.”
Discomfort and embarrassment stirred inside him. Never had he had a girl declare such devotion to him. It made him uneasy. At the same time, he couldn’t deny the alluring nature of her face and figure. Crow or white, it didn’t matter. She was a beautiful young woman, and he wanted her.
But with evil men on their trail, he didn’t have time for such things. He put his hands on her shoulders and gently moved her back away from him. “Try to sleep,” he told her. “In the morning we will talk again.”
He felt a certain stiffness in her muscles under his hands as he touched her, as if she felt that he was rejecting her, but she nodded and turned to the blanket he had spread for her and stretched out on it. He moved part of the way around the pool, not wanting to be too close to her and hunkered on his heels next to the water. A few yards away, White Buffalo was already snoring, and Aaron and Charlie were rolling up in their blankets, getting ready to sleep, as well.
Even from where he was, he could hear Butterfly’s breathing. It was a little rapid and uneven at first, but it soon settled down into a deep, regular rhythm, and he knew she was asleep despite her protests that she wouldn’t be able to doze off without having him beside her.
Hawk looked up toward the pass where Preacher was standing guard. Knowing that the mountain man was up there made Hawk feel better. Did all sons feel that way about their fathers, he wondered? He doubted it. From what he had seen of the white man’s world, some men were terrible despite having fathered children. Perhaps sometimes that experience changed what was in a man’s heart . . . but not always.
Because he had never known Preacher while he was growing up, he didn’t really think of the mountain man as a father, even though he knew that was true. Knowing Preacher was the best trail partner any warrior could have, Hawk was satisfied with that.
When the rest of the camp was asleep, Hawk moved over to a log and sat down. He rested his rifle against the log beside him, leaned forward, clasped his hands between his knees, and settled down to sit and listen to the night. His senses, not to mention those of the horses, would alert him if any threats came near.
The dark hours passed in peace and quiet. Butterfly shifted restlessly in her sleep a few times but never woke as far as he could tell. He kept track of time by checking the stars as they wheeled through their courses in the heavens. When he judged that it was a couple of hours until dawn, he roused White Buffalo to take his place. That would give Hawk enough sleep to stay alert and on a good fighting edge once they set out again in the morning.
“Did anything happen while I slumbered?” White Buffalo asked in a whisper.
“We fought a great battle against Angry Sky and the other Blackfeet, as well as the evil white men who pursue us. The slaughter was massive. Unfortunately, you slept through it.”
White Buffalo sniffed. “There is no smile in your voice, but I know you are having sport with me, young warrior. You should respect your elders and not go . . . what is the white man’s word? . . . you should not go japing with them.”
“Good night, White Buffalo. Stay alert.”
“The senses of White Buffalo are as keen as those of any creature on the earth! White Buffalo’s eyes are as sharp as those of an eagle!”
Hawk left the old-timer muttering boasts to himself and walked around the spring-fed pool to the area where Butterfly was sleeping. He didn’t stretch out on the blanket beside her, although he felt confident she wouldn’t mind if he did, but rather lay down beside her, within arm’s reach. If she woke from a bad dream in the part of the night that remained, he would be right there for her.
* * *
Hawk didn’t need anyone to wake him. Like many of those who lived on the frontier, he possessed the ability to awaken whenever he wanted to. He opened his eyes when the first faint streaks of gray were beginning to appear in the eastern sky. The stars were still bright over most of heaven’s reach, and the moon still hung in the west, casting silvery illumination over the landscape.
That was enough for him to see that Butterfly no longer lay on the blanket close beside him.
He pushed up on an elbow and turned his head as he heard a slight noise that he recognized as water splashing quietly in the pool. When he looked in that direction, he saw Butterfly kneeling beside the water. The smooth sweep of her back told him that she had removed her dress, and as she leaned forward, he realized that she was washing.
Hawk looked at the other side of the pool, some twenty feet away. Aaron and Charlie were motionless in their bedrolls, still asleep if their regular breathing was any indication. White Buffalo had moved down to the ground and leaned his back against the log. His head drooped far forward. Despite his boasting, he had dozed off, too. His advanced years had betrayed his good intentions.
Thinking about those things served as a distraction for Hawk, so he wouldn’t dwell on the fact that Butterfly was only a few feet away from him, as unclad as the day she was born. He knew he ought to close his eyes and pretend to still be asleep, but he found that impossible to do as she rose to her feet and stretched. The pre-dawn gloom made it impossible to see any details, but the slender, enticing shape of her figure was unmistakable even in the poor light.
She turned toward him, then lifted the buckskin dress over her head and pulled it on, smoothing the soft material down over her hips. Hawk’s heart pounded so hard he was sure she was bound to hear it. She didn’t seem to realize he was awake, though, and the only courteous thing to do was to allow her to continue with that mistaken assumption.
Or did she realize it? He thought he spotted a hint of a smile on her face. But again, with the bad light it was difficult to be sure.
Hawk sat up and pushed himself to his feet, unwilling to continue pretending. He said to her, “How did you sleep?”
“Better than I expected to,” she
replied. “I knew you were close by, even though you were not right beside me until late in the night. You should have shared my blanket for that time, Hawk That Soars.”
“Perhaps another night.”
“Tonight.” Her tone told him she did not want him to argue.
He stiffened a little, not liking to be told what to do. “We will see.” He turned and walked around the pool to White Buffalo and prodded the old man’s foot with his toe. “Arise, one whose senses are as sharp as those of the animals.”
White Buffalo didn’t budge. Hawk caught his breath. Was it possible that White Buffalo had passed over to the spirit world during the night? He had seen many summers in his life, more than most of the Absaroka.
But then, with a sputter, White Buffalo came awake. He sat bolt upright, looked around wildly, then tipped his head back to gaze up at Hawk. “I fell asleep,” he said in a tone of wonderment.
“I will tell no one,” Hawk promised, knowing that White Buffalo was ashamed of his lapse.
“But I gave you my word that I would not. I boasted—”
“Say no more about it. Dawn will be here soon. It is time for all of us to rise and get ready to break camp.” Movement in the trees caught his eye. “Here come Preacher and Dog now.”
* * *
During the night, Preacher’s eyes had searched the landscape that fell away dramatically to the east, looking for the orange dot of a campfire or any other sign of their pursuers. He never saw one, so he had to give the varmints credit for being smart enough not to announce their position that easily. He remained convinced they were still back there, however.
With the approach of dawn, he returned to the camp and found Hawk, White Buffalo, and Butterfly already up. Hawk woke Charlie and Aaron. They made a hurried breakfast of jerky and pemmican, like their supper had been, then got the horses ready to ride.
Hawk swung up onto his pony’s blanket-covered back and extended a hand down to Butterfly, who clasped it eagerly. He lifted her to a position behind him. If it had been up to Preacher, he would have told her to ride with Aaron for the day, but he didn’t figure it was worth arguing about.
He had sensed a subtle change in the way Hawk and Butterfly spoke to each other and looked at each other, as if they were even closer than they had been before. Preacher wondered briefly what had happened during the night, but he figured it was none of his business and put that out of his mind.
They set out, heading west again, before the sun topped the peaks behind them. A brilliant wash of orange-gold light filled the sky in that direction.
Preacher had been right about the terrain on that side of the pass. It was still rugged in places, but they were able to ride more often than they had to walk, and it had been the other way around the day before. The next mountain range rose about fifty miles ahead of them. Plenty of country in which they could lose their pursuers, Preacher thought.
He kept them moving at a good pace, stopping now and then to let the horses rest. During those brief halts, Preacher turned to study the pass behind them. At that distance, he didn’t think he would be able to see anyone moving through the gap, but it wouldn’t hurt to look. He didn’t spot any of their pursuers.
At midday they stopped for a longer respite, and Preacher decided to go ahead and satisfy his curiosity. He walked over to Butterfly, who was close by Hawk, as usual. “Butterfly, let me take a look at you,” he said in Crow.
“What is wrong, Preacher?” Hawk asked quickly.
Protectively, Preacher thought. “Nothin’s wrong. I just want to take a good look at this gal. Haven’t really had a chance to since she started travelin’ with us.”
Butterfly seemed nervous, but she stood quietly while Preacher peered into her face. After a moment, he cupped her chin with his hand and gently moved her head from side to side. Hawk bristled slightly when Preacher did that, but he didn’t say anything.
Preacher let go of Butterfly’s chin, smiled at her, and patted her on the shoulder reassuringly. “You’re a very pretty girl,” he told her. “But I reckon you knew that. I never ran into a pretty gal who didn’t know.”
He walked away, aware that Charlie, Aaron, and White Buffalo were watching him curiously. Hawk knew what Preacher had been doing, of course, but the others had no idea.
It was time they did, Preacher decided. He didn’t want to ask them to keep on risking their lives when they weren’t aware of everything that was going on. He motioned for Hawk to join him, then walked over to the other three.
Butterfly stayed where she was, watching them with a worried expression on her face. Dog was sitting beside her. Her hand strayed to the big cur’s head. She rubbed his ears distractedly while keeping her attention on the five men.
“Figured it’s time we had a talk,” Preacher said quietly in English.
“What’s this all about?” Aaron asked. “Is something wrong, Preacher? You and Hawk both seem . . . I don’t know. Tense.”
“We saw you looking at Butterfly,” Charlie said. “Is there something about her we need to know?”
“I don’t reckon Butterfly was the name she was given when she was born,” Preacher said. “I don’t know how she came to live with the Crow, but after lookin’ at the shape of her face and seein’ that her eyes are blue as they can be, there ain’t no doubt in my mind that girl’s white.”
CHAPTER 14
Jefferson Scarrow had wanted to push on the night before, but as darkness fell, Hogarth Plumlee had talked sense to him.
“None of us have ever been in these parts before, Jeff, not even Paulson. Yeah, it’s true the moon’ll be up after a while, but moonlight ain’t all that dependable. There’s too big a chance somebody might fall off a cliff without ever seein’ it, or somethin’ like that.” Plumlee had shaken his head dolefully. “We can’t afford to lose too many more men.”
He was right about that, of course, and Scarrow knew it. So he had called a halt and told the men to make camp, although with some reluctance.
It had been a cold camp, too. He didn’t want the men they were chasing to know they were behind them.
“Paulson says it looks like they’re headin’ for a pass he spotted up above,” Plumlee had said to Scarrow as they gnawed on two-day-old biscuits. “We’ll get through there ourselves tomorrow, and then see what’s what.”
His second in command didn’t sound very optimistic, Scarrow had thought, but that didn’t matter. He had enough determination for all of them. Some of the men might believe that his resolve bordered on madness, but he didn’t care about that. Let them think whatever they wanted as long as they followed his orders.
In the morning, he was anxious to break camp and get back on the trail even before the sun rose, and his impatience grew as the men seemed to take forever to get ready. They were finally just about prepared to set out when ghostly figures suddenly appeared from the shadows under the trees around the camp.
Paulson saw them first and let out an alarmed shout. Scarrow whirled around at the sound and spotted a buckskin-clad shape no more than ten feet away, holding a bow with an arrow nocked and drawn back. More Indians drifted out of the early morning gloom to menace Scarrow and his men.
“Hold your fire!” Scarrow called instantly, seeing that they were surrounded and the Indians could send a storm of arrows flying in at them before the white men could get off more than one or two shots. It would be futile to put up a fight. All of them would be pincushioned with arrows in a matter of heartbeats.
As he looked around, Scarrow estimated the war party, if that’s what it was, numbered at least twice as many men as he had. Their fate was in the hands of the Indians, and he was certain they would die within minutes no matter what they did.
But they were still alive, so Scarrow was going to cling to the scant hope they would stay that way.
An Indian who didn’t have a bow but carried a flintlock rifle strode forward and surprised Scarrow by asking in English, “Who is chief here?”
“I’m
the leader.” Scarrow forced his voice to remain calm and level. If he was about to die, he wouldn’t do it with hysterical pleas babbling from his mouth. “My name is Jefferson Scarrow.”
“I am Angry Sky, war chief of the Blackfeet.” The man was almost as tall as Scarrow, broad-shouldered and powerful-looking. His cheeks had alternating red and black stripes painted on them. “You are the men who made the girl Butterfly your prisoner.”
Scarrow and Plumlee exchanged a glance. If this savage who called himself Angry Sky already knew that, what point would there be in denying it? But what was Angry Sky’s interest in the girl? Scarrow wondered.
“We never knew her name because she wouldn’t speak to us. But if she is a member of your tribe, we apologize, Angry Sky,” Scarrow declared firmly. “We had no wish to harm her. True, we kept her tied, but that was so she wouldn’t run off and hurt herself. She seemed out of her head when she wandered into our camp. We were simply trying to protect her.”
It was an audacious lie, but there was a shred of truth to it, Scarrow thought. Butterfly, if that was her name, had spent a few uncomfortable days and nights, to be sure, but she hadn’t been harmed in any real, meaningful way. Scarrow had gone to great lengths to make sure she wasn’t molested.
That consideration might save his life and the lives of his men. It was probably the only thing that could.
“The girl is not Blackfoot,” Angry Sky said. “She is a Crow slave. But she belongs to me, and I will not be stolen from.”
That declaration struck a resonant chord within Scarrow. He felt the same way. “She was stolen from us, too, and we’re pursuing the evil men who took her. If we had known who she belonged to, we would have returned her to you before now, Angry Sky. Let us help you get her back.”
That was a bold suggestion, but when someone was backed into a deadly corner, often boldness was the only way out.
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