“But I’d fall off without—” Arianne let out a little scream when strong hands grasped her about the waist and hoisted her up. In an instant she was plunked on Lone Eagle’s back.
“Get your leg over and hold his mane,” Hawk ordered with a grin.
Red-faced, Arianne swung her right leg over the horse’s neck and straddled the animal, her stockinged calves showing beneath the hem of her dress. “Hawk, I’m not wearing riding britches.”
“So?” He kept hold of the reins. “Grab his mane and hang on. Father says white women are always too concerned about what is proper. They do not know how to be free and natural like Indian women.” He began walking Lone Eagle around in a circle, and now that she was atop the muscular, powerful mount, Arianne could not imagine how Hawk did the kind of trick riding he did. She’d always been a little bit afraid of horses, had only ridden sidesaddle a few times. Mostly she rode in buggies with someone else driving.
Hawk said something to the animal in the Cheyenne tongue, and Lone Eagle began trotting a little faster.
“Be careful!” Arianne warned. “I’ll fall!”
“No you won’t.” Quickly Hawk tossed the reins over the horse’s neck, as he ran alongside the animal, then he leapt onto its back behind Arianne, reaching around her to take the reins. Suddenly he felt the hidden man inside emerging, wanting to show off. He planted an arm around Arianne’s middle to hang on to her, keeping the reins in his right hand and kicking the horse’s sides to lead it through a gate.
Arianne screamed and laughed as they rode off at a gallop, and her heart pounded with glorious joy at the feel of his strong arm around her, at being pressed so close against him. She was terribly frightened by the wild ride, but too excited about the chance to be near Hawk to care.
They rode for nearly a mile before Hawk stopped the horse and turned him. “Now, that was not so bad, was it?” What was that smell to her beautiful, light hair? A sweet scent. Soap? Perfume? She turned to face him … so close that he could look deep into those blue eyes.
“It was wonderful,” she said, her cheeks rosy from the wind in her face, her breath coming in little pants from excitement.
“See what I mean about riding bareback?”
Arianne thought he was even better looking up close. Never before had any boy given her feelings like this. “Yes. Thank you, Hawk.”
Suddenly Hawk found himself doing the unthinkable, unable to stop it from happening. He leaned closer and pressed his lips against her full mouth, feeling a strange, new fire rip through his blood at the touch. The fire roared hotter when she returned the kiss with surprising fervor. He had thought she might object, be offended; but she threw her arms around his neck and let out a little whimper. He could not resist taking his arm from about her waist and moving his hand over her ribs, carefully inching up to touch, with great curiosity one of those breasts he’d noticed. Again she made no objection. She only whimpered again and kissed him even harder. He squeezed the breast, could feel her nipple through the material. He heard a whistle then and quickly let go of her, turning to see his father at a distance, riding toward them.
“We’d better go back,” he told Arianne, meeting her eyes again.
“I don’t want you to go away, Hawk.”
“This is a very important thing to my whole family. I have no choice. We will see each other again. We will write, and you will come back.”
“I think I love you, Hawk. Is that a silly thing to say? Does it make you angry?”
He grinned nervously, looking down at her breasts. He never dreamed it could feel so good to touch and kiss a girl. He wanted to do more, but wasn’t sure how to go about it. He’d been around a few older girls, white and Indian, who seemed willing enough to teach him things. But he’d never been interested, until now. Maybe he’d accept one of their offers and learn a few things. Then, when Arianne was a full woman …
“No, it doesn’t make me angry,” he answered. “I thought you’d be upset, for my … touching you.”
She reddened deeply, turning around. “I hope you don’t think less of me.”
He reached around her waist again, kissing her hair, smelling it again. “I would never think less of you for anything.” He turned the horse, and realized his father was coming closer. He must have seen him ride off with her, had come out to make sure his son didn’t do something foolish … which Hawk already had done. He turned Lone Eagle and headed back toward the ranch, and Arianne kept her eyes averted when Wolf’s Blood caught up with them.
“There are many chores to be done before we leave in the morning,” the man told his son.
“Yes, Father.”
“Arianne can go and visit with Iris. We will be gone at least two months.”
Hawk met his father’s dark eyes, wondering if he would ever be as strong and honorable as this man who had once ridden with Cheyenne Dog Soldiers. He could see a warning look in his father’s dark eyes, felt embarrassed that the man surely knew what he’d been up to, probably had seen him kiss Arianne. They said little as they rode back, and Hawk held on to Arianne when she slid off the horse, his hand trailing over her breasts as she did so. She turned and looked up at him, tears in her eyes.
“Good-bye, Hawk.” She turned and ran toward the house.
Hawk jumped down from his horse, and just as quickly his father was dismounted and facing him. Hawk looked up into the man’s dark eyes, still standing a few inches shorter than his father. “I know. I should not have ridden off with her.”
Wolf’s Blood grinned. “Believe it or not, I was your age once, my son. I remember the feeling. But it was only Indian girls I looked at.”
Hawk knew the story about his father’s first love, a Cheyenne girl. He’d been only seventeen, and she was sixteen. She was killed at Sand Creek back in ’64, when Colorado volunteers had massacred several hundred peaceful Indians there, including women and little children. That was what had turned his father toward making war and riding with the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne. His first wife, Hawk’s Apache mother, Sonora, had been a slave to a white trader. His father and grandfather had both fought in vicious wrestling contests to win her through money bet on them, because Wolf’s Blood had felt sorry for the poor young girl and had wanted to take her home with him. They had fallen in love, and from that love had come Hawk and Iris. Now Sonora, too, was dead.
“You’ve married a white woman yourself now,” Hawk reminded his father. “So did your uncle, Swift Arrow. If we are going to be forced to adapt to the white man’s world, then sometimes that will include marrying their women, just as for a hundred years their men have been marrying our women.”
Wolf’s Blood nodded, a glittering warning in his eyes. “Such things will not happen overnight without much trouble, my son. Jennifer has brought me no problems, because my father’s white brother, Dan, loved me like his own and did not mind that his daughter also loved me. She can have no more children, so it was not so wrong for us to marry. But some white women can bring much trouble, especially when they are the sister of the reservation agent and have been forbidden to get too friendly with any of the Indians.”
Hawk lifted his chin proudly “No man can order the heart,” he told his father.
Wolf’s Blood stiffened, pain in his dark eyes. “My father and mother suffered so much, son, as have I. I do not wish to see my children also suffer. It is time for new beginnings, as my mother would say. That is why we are all going to be together in Colorado. Be careful of your heart, my son. You are still very young.”
Hawk turned away. “It doesn’t matter. Agent Wilder is sending Arianne away to school in the East anyway. She might already be gone by the time we get back. We only promised to write.”
“Mmmm-hmmm.” Wolf’s Blood put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “I saw you kiss her.”
Hawk frowned and met his eyes again. “She was right there close to me, and she wanted the kiss. Would you not have kissed her if you were me?”
Wolf’s Blood grinne
d, and Hawk thought how handsome his father still was. Today he wore leather boots, denim pants and a red shirt, a red bandana tied around his forehead, his long, black hair hanging loose. But often he wore Indian regalia, buckskins and moccasins. Like his own father and uncle, Wolf’s Blood preferred to dress and live as an Indian. “I think I probably would have had to kiss her,” he answered, “… if I were you.” He squeezed his son’s shoulder. “I just want you to be careful, son. Very few whites have yet accepted us as being human, let alone equal to them. It is wrong, but it is a cold, hard fact. Come now. Let’s get things ready for our journey. I have friends who will tend the horses while we are gone.”
“Yes, Father.”
Wolf’s Blood left him, and Hawk turned away and licked his lips, still tasting that kiss, thinking he would probably never forget it, or how pleasurable it was to touch Arianne Wilder’s breast. Yes, he would answer her letters.
Two
“Do you think he’ll come?” Abbie nestled into her husband’s shoulder.
“You have asked me that at least a hundred times, woman.” Swift Arrow turned to kiss her hair. He knew she was referring to her wayward son, Jeremy, who had left the family nest seventeen years ago and never returned. Abbie had learned over the years that the man had found work with the railroad, and was quite wealthy and successful now, married and living in Denver. Other Monroe children had been through times of trial and doubt because of their Indian blood; and some had also denied that blood. But all who did had regretted it and had learned to be proud of their Indian heritage, even Zeke and Abbie’s daughter, LeeAnn, who did not look Indian at all with her blond hair and blue eyes.
Jeremy was the only child who had never returned and had stopped writing years ago. He seemed to have no regrets, or if he did, he had told no one.
“I think perhaps if he does not come to the reunion, it will be out of shame. I cannot believe my nephew is not full of sorrow over the fact that he never saw his father again before Zeke died.”
Abbie sighed with worry, so glad she had this man to turn to for comfort and strength. Being with Swift Arrow was so like being with Zeke, for they were one in spirit. “Wolf’s Blood told me he and Zeke did see Jeremy once, back when he and Zeke were working for the army rooting out whiskey traders. They were somewhere in Kansas, I think. They saw him unexpectedly, and it broke Zeke’s heart when Jeremy pretended he didn’t even know him. Wolf’s Blood has always been so angry with his brother for never coming home, and for denying his Indian blood. I worry a little about a confrontation between the two if Jeremy does come to the reunion, yet I am praying so hard to see him again. After Wolf’s Blood took me to the mountains to see Zeke’s burial place, we stopped in Denver to try to see Jeremy at the Union Pacific offices, but he was on vacation in Europe.” She ran her fingers along Swift Arrow’s arm, the muscles still hard in spite of his sixty-two years. “I have a son who has been to Europe, but he can’t travel a couple of hundred miles from Denver to the ranch to see his own mother.” She blinked back quiet tears. “He’s thirty-four years old now, Swift Arrow. It seems impossible. I’ve never even met his wife and don’t even know if he has any children … grandchildren I’ve never known. I so dearly treasure my grandchildren.”
Swift Arrow felt her tears against his bare skin, and he moved to wrap his arms around her. For many years he had secretly loved this white woman who all that time belonged to his half brother, Zeke. She had lived among his people in those early years, Zeke’s new bride, wanting to learn the way of the Cheyenne because they were Zeke’s family through the Cheyenne mother he and Zeke shared.
He hated to see this woman hurting. Abigail Monroe had garnered a great deal of respect from the Cheyenne when Zeke first brought her to their village, back in the days of freedom for his people. She had proven herself to be a woman of great courage and resourcefulness, a woman utterly devoted to her husband, willing to live an entirely different way just for Zeke. At fifteen, she had lost her entire family on a wagon train headed West, and on that same journey she had met Zeke Monroe, who scouted for the emigrants. It had been a fateful journey, their meeting had bound two people together in a love beyond measure, and it had taken Abbie many years to overcome her husband’s death back in ’79.
He smiled at the memory of how Abbie came into the mountains to find him years later, announcing he should come to the reservation and teach the young children the Cheyenne ways, help them carry on their customs and language. But he’d seen in her gentle brown eyes the real reason she’d come looking for him, after he’d lived alone all that time refusing reservation life. He’d taken her into his arms that day, admitted he had loved her since she first came to live among the Cheyenne, and they had made love right there in the grass, both knowing in their hearts it was right, neither caring how much the other had aged. She saw beyond the slightly softened muscles and the ageing skin; and he saw beyond a waist that was getting a little thicker, the lines about her eyes, the smattering of gray in her dark hair. What did those things matter when two people loved each other and needed to be held? Abigail had aged beautifully. She was one of those women who only seemed to get better, more elegant with age, a woman whose spirit remained forever young.
“I think he will come,” he assured her. “I have prayed for it to my gods, and you have prayed to your Jesus. There is another reason I am even more sure he will come.”
Abbie moved back slightly to meet his eyes in a shaft of moonlight cast through a window. “What is that?”
“Zeke will bring him.”
She frowned. “How do you mean?”
“He will be there. You know that his spirit will be with us all, and somehow that spirit will reach into Jeremy’s heart and make him come. Zeke knows how much it means to you. Jeremy will be there.”
She sighed, leaning up and kissing his cheek. “It’s a wonderful thought.”
“Ai, it is good.” He moved on top of her, a man who always slept naked. “Tomorrow we leave, and it will be a long journey by horseback and train, with little or no chance to make love. I think perhaps it would be wise to share our bodies now, before tomorrow comes.”
Abbie smiled. “Wise?” She laughed lightly. “I would hope you want to make love for more reasons than just because it is wise, my husband.” She watched his handsome face break into a smile.
He nuzzled her breasts, breasts that had nurtured seven children, one of whom had died at a young age, little Lillian, buried in Colorado many years ago. There was something about a woman’s breasts that comforted a man, and in his mind and heart Abbie was still the sixteen-year-old beauty Zeke Monroe had brought to his Cheyenne village and sometimes left in Swift Arrow’s care when he had to be gone. Now, at last, he could mate with her, be inside her, give her pleasure and take his own pleasure in return. She made it easy for him to feel as young as he was in those early days, when he was an honored Dog Soldier, a great warrior … in those early days when the Cheyenne roamed free, masters of a land that stretched from Canada to southern Colorado.
What glorious, wonderful days of freedom those times were! But they were gone now. All that was left was this small reservation in Montana, another for the Southern Cheyenne, clear down in Indian Territory, miserable country. It seemed incredible that the once-proud, strong Cheyenne Nation could be brought to this, but he had learned to accept his fate. It was Abbie who gave him the strength to carry on, Abbie who had made him understand he must help teach the young ones to keep the tradition alive.
Abbie welcomed him inside herself, and he gladly shared her body, eager to do what he could to ease her pain over Jeremy and to help her not worry over the son she had not seen for seventeen years.
LeeAnn finished packing another bag, happy at the prospect of the whole family being together at the old ranch. She turned to look in a mirror, using a hair pin to catch a stray piece of blond hair and put it back in place. She studied her face, her blue eyes, her light skin. Who would ever believe she carried any Indian blood?
She would never quite forgive herself for denying that blood for years when she went to school back East … nor for unwittingly marrying a man she later learned was a deadly enemy to her own family. Thank God she was out of that awful marriage, and her son Matthew, nine, who looked very Indian, was happy, loved by his new stepfather, Joshua Lewis.
What an ironic twist of fate it was that had brought her and Joshua together. Joshua was the product of a Cheyenne woman’s rape by a wealthy businessman named Winston Garvey, a man who later tried to find the boy to kill him just because he didn’t want a half-breed son. It was Zeke Monroe who had rescued the boy and his mother, who had taken Joshua to missionaries after Joshua’s mother died. He’d been born with a club foot and needed many operations, care Zeke knew the Cheyenne could not give him. He’d been raised by missionaries, Bonnie and Rodney Lewis, who’d adopted and loved him, and now he walked almost perfectly, but he still wore a brace on his right leg, from his knee down past his ankle. After Rodney Lewis died, Bonnie had married Dan Monroe, Zeke’s white brother. She was Dan’s second wife and she had died a few years ago.
Dan was remarried now, and Joshua was a successful journalist in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Were it not for the help he’d given her back in Washington, D.C., when she was married to Winston Garvey’s son, Charles, she could be dead now. She shivered at the memory of how he’d beaten her and threatened to kill her and their son. Matthew’s features were so Indian that she’d had to admit her Indian blood to Charles. Charles hated Indians, had been taught to hate them by his evil father. He had even tried to kill both her and Matthew, just like his own father had tried to kill Joshua.
That was many years ago, and better forgotten. Matthew would never know what had happened to his real father, how he had died. It was a family secret, and the boy had long ago accepted and learned to love Joshua as his father; truly the man was the only father he even remembered. Now she and Joshua had two more children, Lonnie, who was three, and little Abigail, one, named after her grandmother.
Eagle’s Song Page 2