Gazing up into the blackness, he saw fast moving clouds swallowing the great bowl of sky. There would be no moon rise tonight, nor would the white man’s drinking dipper show the way to travel in the dark. He thought of Little Wolf and his band, hoped they had made it over the bluffs and beyond. Headed home. They would at least die free.
But what of the others? The wounded and dead dragged back to the fort. The white man would have final say because he always did. But suppose Dull Knife and Bull Hump, Roman Nose and Little Finger Nail, Hog, and some of the others lived? He had to help them escape the prison that was Fort Robinson one last time. He could not leave without doing at least that much.
The white woman inside could not be allowed to deter him. She would have to be left behind. He could not help her and his people at the same time. It was not possible. All the same, he felt a great sorrow well up inside. Had he met her in that other world, the white man’s world, they might have come together in joy, desire making them one. At least for the space of time it took to embrace the exquisite near-death of the mating dance.
Thinking of holding her, taking her in the wildness of passion, he shivered and hugged himself, sniffed the air that held the faint scent of snow to come; tonight, perhaps tomorrow. Very soon he would be fit to travel and fight, and he would leave her here because it was what he must do.
A gust of cold air and a slight rustling jarred her awake, and she listened to him moving about in the stillness. She had been afraid, but wasn’t sure if it was because she feared he wouldn’t return or that he would. Trembling, she waited, but he did not approach. Instead he made a small sound, and with great stealth, she turned to search him out. He sat beside the fire, leg propped awkwardly while he washed the wound, using water from the pan she had put on the coals earlier. What a man this was. Strong and filled with such purpose as she had never before seen. And despite what it might mean to her own survival, she admired him greatly for what he would soon attempt to do.
She let him finish, then sat up. “I’ll do your back, if you want.”
Though he appeared to hold fast to his anger, he nodded and grunted an assent, glaring at her defensively.
When she took the cloth away, he said, “Only because I cannot reach it.”
“Yes,” she replied softly, “Only because of that.” But he could bathe the entry wound, and they both knew it. Yet he allowed her to clean it with the small square of cloth they had saved for the purpose.
“Does it need another poultice?” she asked, the tips of her fingers gently palpating the flesh around the hole in his belly.
The muscles under her fingers tightened. “I do not know. Does it?”
“I never before even saw a bullet hole in anyone’s flesh. It’s not swollen anymore, and it’s not red.”
“Look at the back.” He hunched up one shoulder and twisted so firelight played over the bunched muscles.
Dipping the cloth in hot water, she bent to examine the place where she had dug out the chunk of lead. Tenderly, she cleaned the flesh, felt goose bumps pop to the surface, experienced a violent desire she couldn’t quite identify.
When finished, she dropped the cloth into the hot water and glanced up at him. His eyes, like twin mirrored lakes, studied her intently. Unable to look away from her double reflection captured there, she caught her breath. A fine bead of sweat lay across his upper lip, the only sign he was uncomfortable. But was it from pain or their nearness to each other? She wasn’t sure.
At last she was able to speak. “I think they are healing.” Never in her life had she been of such distinctly different minds. One feared what this savage might do to her, the other wished for his attention, his touch, his caring. She had been so foolish with a man once and ought to know better. But somehow she didn’t.
“Good. I must go very soon. It will snow tonight, perhaps tomorrow. Too bad I don’t have a horse. When we broke out we intended to make it to Bronson’s ranch to steal some, but the soldiers prevented it. Attacked us before we could do so. Captain Wessells is a butcher with little sympathy. I will have none when I face him.”
She thought of the slain women and children, remembered he’d said some of the Cheyenne killed their own families. What kind of courage did it take to do such a thing?
“I don’t understand why they wouldn’t just let you go home, if that’s all you wanted.”
“Because it was too late. The white man had dictated his terms, and to back down, even when he saw the Cheyenne would rather die than go, would not be possible. To let us return to our homeland would have made good sense, but the general called Crook would lose his honor. He and Long Hair were cut of the same cloth.”
Sadly, she nodded. Men could be such fools. “Why do you hate Custer so?”
“He’s a butcher of our people.”
“And they killed him. Isn’t that enough?” Tilting her head, she looked up into his eyes. “There’s more, I’m thinking.”
“No, nothing will ever be enough. While he murdered our people at every turn, he slept with our women.”
Ah, so that was it. She nodded in understanding. Yes, that could explain such furious hate. “Others must have done the same.”
“You will never understand. He sired me, turned me into a white man with no place to call his own.”
“He’s your father?” She could hardly believe it, but it would explain a lot.
“I will never call him that. Never.”
“But...you’re Cheyenne, you said—”
“And that is enough. None of the rest matters any longer. Now leave me be. You understand nothing.”
“I understand being torn from those you love. I understand wanting to go home. It digs into your heart and the pain is almost too great to bear. I may not know the agony your people have endured, but I do know loneliness and despair and a desire to be with loved ones.”
“It is time we slept,” he said. Without acknowledging her pain, he moved a little away from her and made his bed. She watched in silence, then crept to her own blanket.
That night she dreamed of her mother and father, her brothers, Sean, Cormac, Blaine, Mulcahy, and the youngest, Ryan, born after her father was killed. She awoke with tears streaking her face. She would likely never see them again.
Fully awake, she cautiously dragged herself to her feet and started outside to tend to her toilet. The door had frozen shut and she yanked until it opened to face a solid wall of white. How could this happen overnight? They were trapped in a tomb and now would die here.
Yet she could hear nothing but her own breathing and the loud thumping of her frightened heart. Could it be he had gone, leaving her alone?
His voice came out of the darkness, filling her with relief. “I should have killed another rabbit.”
“But, what...?”
“A blizzard.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Dig our way out.”
“I see.” She gazed at her hands for a moment, turned on him in an explosion of despair. “I hate it here. How can you stand to live like this? How can any man expect a woman to live like this?”
He shrugged. “There are worse ways...there are better. You appear to be without a man. Yet you are here.”
The intent of his statement wasn’t lost on her. “Oh, I didn’t come out here on my own. A man brought me. Lured me with sweet talk and promises he couldn’t even keep long enough to marry me. And I still don’t know why.”
“You came. You must have wanted something from him...or this place.”
“You think it’s that easy? Stay or go? Women sometimes have to settle.”
“Or they choose to?”
“You don’t know anything about it.”
He turned from her. “No, I do not, and I would rather not.”
“I have to...have to...go.”
He nodded in understanding. “I will fix you a place, just until we get out of here.”
Later, they began to dig, using the battered pans and taking tu
rns so they didn’t get in one another’s way. Close to the surface, the snow was frozen solid, and so they kept their digging low to the ground.
After a while, he tried to encourage her. “It is probably a drift and once we get out a ways, we should be able to break into the open.”
“Should? What if we don’t?”
He turned from his chore. “Then we will die. Either way the snow will one day melt.”
“Is that your way of telling me what we do doesn’t matter?”
“It matters very much, but it will not change what goes on out there. Just inside here.” He pounded his chest with a clenched fist. “And what is in here remains with our spirit...forever.” Eyes shooting sparks, he glanced at her. “Now, dig. It is your turn to make a difference.”
He dropped his makeshift digger and spread a warm palm over her chest. “In here.”
At his touch, heat soared through her, shot into the depths of her being. Immediately he drew back, but their eyes locked for a long moment before both broke away. Flustered, she scooped fiercely at the snow.
The tunnel opening advanced slowly, yet the pile of snow inside the small dugout grew to great proportions. The heat of the fire began to melt it, turning the floor to mud.
At last he moved completely out of sight in the cave-like opening, and soon shouted, “We are out.”
On hands and knees she squeezed through and emerged into a world of white. Sometime during the day the winds had calmed, the blizzard settled into a thick, wet snowfall. He gazed down at her through a thick curtain of huge flakes that clung to his eyelashes and covered his hair. Laughing with delight, she stumbled up against him. He was veiled in the white stuff, like a gigantic cake ornament covered with frosting.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Under her hands his heart thudded, and the heat from his body crept into her. A knot of incredible desire tightened deep inside her being. Without thinking, she reached up and brushed snow off his cheeks. “I wish...I wish we...”
Going deathly still, like he did so easily, he pushed a strand of hair away from her face, and cupped a hand over her ear. His gray eyes smoldered like embers coming to life. She licked away the melting flakes and waited for him to lower his mouth to hers.
His tongue traced his own lips, as if in anticipation, and she closed her eyes, inched closer. Leaned into the hardness of him and wished they wore less clothing. He did not make another move, so she snaked an arm around his neck, stood on the tips of her toes and pulled him downward. She could do no more, it was up to him. His warm breath caressed her tingling skin. Tiny rivulets of melted snow dripped onto her cheeks. All fear left her and she waited with anticipation.
But he pulled brusquely away, leaving her with arms outstretched into the falling snow.
“This is not the time.” The harsh tone spoke much more than the few words.
Arms empty, body yearning, she stood deathly still, realized there never would be a time for them. He had but one purpose, and she was not a part of it. She must go back to her world, leave him to his, and forget the way he made her feel by just glancing at her with those smoldering eyes, touching her with those fingers at once strong and gentle. They were strangers, and they would pass beyond each other all too soon. Forget each other even sooner. This storm would not last forever, and when it ended, he would be gone. She could only hope he would take her as far as Fort Robinson where she might get transportation back east where she belonged.
He could go on to his destiny. Which she feared was death at the hands of the white man.
She gazed at his stoic figure and knew he had already passed beyond that brief moment with her. All but forgotten her touch.
“I’m sorry, Stone Heart. Don’t be angry with me.”
“No, I am only angry with myself. I know of the attraction of women like you. For a long time I have not had a woman. I have been more concerned with staying alive and less with enjoying life. I am the one who is sorry.”
Women like you.
How dare he say such a thing? He was still calling her a whore, and saying his attraction to her was only that brought about by an animal lust for her body.
“Don’t you dare call me that. I am not a whore. You know nothing. You are as dense as this.” She swung a hand around, cutting through the tumbling flakes, then ran mindlessly away from him, his voice echoing at her back.
“Come back. You will get lost. Do not be a fool. Come back.”
The words faded, and she stopped, turned to throw his warning back at him. Fear twisted her insides. He had disappeared and in his place nothing but the solid white curtain. Whirling, she saw nothing in any direction but thick flakes. And in its center, herself, alone, lost. A husky dryness crept into her throat.
He was there, right there. She took a step, reached out. “Stone Heart?” Her voice sounded wispy as the falling flakes. Which way had she come? Where was the dugout? The tunnel they’d made? Only a little ways, she hadn’t come far.
Behind her, the footprints she’d made filled. Soon they would be erased and she would be left here, in the middle of nothing, with more nothing all around her. She would die.
“Help. Help me,” she cried as loud as she could, trying to retrace her way. “Please.”
He would hear. Surely.
But no reply came. Over and over she called, flailing at the endless thick curtain, finally going to her knees. She could crawl, follow her prints back to where she had come from. And she did, for a few steps, then they were obliterated, filled as if they never existed. So she collapsed, sat where she was, afraid to move, afraid not to. Afraid mostly that she would die alone, so far from home.
When the heavy snowfall swallowed her up he yelled and kept yelling. She must stop, come back. Stupid, foolish girl. Now, he would have to go after her, take the chance they would both freeze to death, hopelessly lost within sight of the shelter. Even as he watched, her footprints disappeared. He ought to leave her be. After all, why should they both die for her stupidity? Men caught in such storms often died within shouting distance of camp.
The vague possibility that he could go back inside and forget about her crossed his mind, disappeared as quickly as a June frost. He was as much to blame as she, letting her taunt him with her body when he should never have touched her or allowed her to touch him. So he must find her somehow, someway and get them both back to safety. He only knew he could not be responsible for her death, even if he didn’t understand why.
In the hope that she would see the folly of her ways and remain in one place, rather than running wildly over the trackless prairie, he took the time to go inside to find something with which to mark the trail back.
Pawing through his own supplies, the things taken from the dead in the battlefield, he came up with nothing. If he had a lariat, strands of rawhide, anything to secure at the tunnel’s entrance, he could play it out behind as he moved in ever widening circles. If he didn’t find her when he reached its end, then he would have done all he could. Sweeping a hand over the crude shelving along one wall, he found crammed back in the far corner a musty fat ball of wool yarn, the kind women made socks and sweaters from. It was damp to the touch and as ugly a color as the life these settlers had lived in this place. He feared the strands might be rotted, or perhaps chewed into pieces by rats, but it would have to do. Frantic to get back outside and begin his search, he only stopped long enough to feed the fire so he could bring her back to a warm shelter.
Aiden heard what sounded like a distant echo, and raised her head. Only silence. Crouched back down in the snow, she gathered her body into a ball to conserve what little warmth was left. Heard once more a faint sound. Someone shouting from very far away.
Cupping both hands around her mouth, she yelled as loud as she could, then waited for a reply. The monotonous distant cries continued, faded. He couldn’t hear her above his own shouts. Still she kept calling for help.
She must have screamed a dozen times. Two dozen. Three. Her throat grew scratchy and she
paused to wet her tongue with snow.
His reply came again. It seemed closer, but was it truly? Or was she imagining it?
“Hallow. Hallow. Hallow.” Muffled, wavering, but surely nearer than before.
“Here. Here. Here,” she cried into the silence that followed.
Then there was nothing, and when she tried again, her voice broke and she began to sob. Cold embraced her, her belly quivered and her teeth clacked. She lost the feel of feet and hands; felt sleepy and decided she didn’t care if he found her or not, she had to have some sleep.Coiling into a tight ball, she buried her face into the curl of her body, took a deep breath and welcomed the darkness. Tingling in her toes and fingers faded, the quivering stopped and she felt at peace. Within the serenity of the dream she saw her mother’s lovely, careworn face, heard the laughter of her rowdy brothers, felt her father’s arms wrapped tightly around her. Rocking her, singing to the child that was her. She missed him so very, very much. How wonderful that he was here with her.
She’d inherited her Irish voice from him. His tenor sang the familiar words she knew so well.
Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling. From glen to glen and o’er the mountainside...
In the depths of her mind she joined him, their voices blending like the singing of angels.
The summer’s gone and all the...
Her father’s arms enclosed her, taking her home.
Chapter Five
Caught in a frigid silence, Stone Heart stood very still and listened for any sound. A cry for help, moaning, shouting, a breath or heartbeat. From out of the thick curtain of falling snow floated a pure voice. A calling of the spirits. A song to break the heart. At first he thought he had imagined it, the sound was so ethereal. He swallowed, held his breath and listened. The delicate melody hovered all around him.
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