"No. I would wait for you forever."
"Would you?"
"Longer than forever. You look very handsome today."
"Only today?" he teased, sitting down beside me.
"Every day, you conceited oaf." I smiled up at him. "You didn't let Hawk win this time," I remarked, recalling the day when Shadow had held Smoke back so Hawk could win the race.
"I wanted Hawk to look good in his woman's eyes that day," Shadow said, his hand reaching out to stroke my cheek. "Today I wanted to look good in the eyes of my own woman."
"Oh, Shadow," I sighed. "Sometimes you say the most wonderfully romantic things."
"And will you reward me for being wonderful?" he asked, laughing softly as he began to unfasten the bodice of my dress.
''Only name your prize," I murmured. "Prize!" I exclaimed, pulling away. "You forgot to pick up your trophy."
"Later," Shadow said, slipping my dress over my shoulders and unlacing my chemise. "Much later."
And so we made love deep in the heart of the pine forest where we had first met. It was here that Shadow had first made love to me so many years ago. Our love was stronger now, deeper, richer, forged into an unbreakable bond by the happiness we had shared, the sorrows we had known.
Shadow slipped my chemise down, his fingers trailing lightly over my skin. Bending, he kissed my eyes, my cheeks, my mouth, let his lips slide down to nibble my neck and shoulders. There was fire in his touch, and I reached out to stroke his arms, then tugged at his shirt until he yanked it over his head and removed his trousers, then pulled my dress down over my ankles and tossed it in a heap beside his own clothes. My fingers explored his hard-muscled body, loving his quick response to my touch, the way he whispered my name, his voice low and deep, husky with yearning. I knew every inch of Shadow's flesh, as he knew mine, yet our love was ever new. His breath was hot upon my face, his hands impatient as they aroused me. Sometimes Shadow made love to me tenderly, prolonging each kiss and caress, taking me to the very brink of fulfillment again and again before he satisfied the longing he had created. At other times he was quick, impatient, possessive, satisfying his own needs before meeting mine. Today he was a warrior and I was his woman. We were wild and uncivilized as we made love deep in the heart of the sun-dappled forest, a man and a woman with no other thought but to quench the fiery passion that blazed between us as flesh met flesh. For this moment, there was no one else in the world, only the two of us, hearts and souls and flesh melded together as we soared to the skies.
5
Hawk smiled at Victoria as he helped her from the wagon. She looked enchanting in a blue print dress and perky straw bonnet.
"I will not be long," he promised. "I have to stop at the blacksmith to get some harness repaired, and then I am going to the feed store to pick up some grain. I will meet you back here in one hour. Will you be done by then?"
"Yes." Victoria smiled as Hawk bestowed a quick kiss upon her cheek before vaulting onto the wagon seat and turning the team toward the other end of town where the blacksmith shop was located.
It was nice to look forward to a pleasant hour in town to shop and visit with friends, Vickie thought. Her mother was sitting with the twins at home, and there was nothing she enjoyed more. It had taken a little time, but Victoria had managed to bury all her old hurts in the past where they belonged, and if she did not feel as warm and loving toward her own mother as she did toward Hannah, at least she and Lydia were friends again.
Her first stop was the mercantile store where she left her shopping list to be filled. Moving on down the street, she stopped in at Myers Millinery Shoppe to try on a hat she saw in the window. It was a wondrous creation of white lace, pink ribbons, and blue and white flowers. She gasped at the price. Three dollars and fifty cents! It was probably too expensive, yet she could not help admiring herself in the looking glass for a moment or two before placing the hat back on the shelf.
Leaving the millinery shop, she paused to chat with Ruth Tippitt and Myrtle Brown, who were also doing their weekly shopping. When Ruth and Myrtle asked Victoria to join them for an ice cream at the soda shop, she readily agreed. She enjoyed Ruth's crisp wit and Myrtle's dry sense of humor.
Hawk took longer than he had planned at the blacksmith, and by the time he went to the feed store, he was a good half-hour late in meeting Victoria.
He was driving down Bear Valley's main street toward the mercantile store when he saw Vickie. She was standing on the boardwalk near Brewster's Pharmacy talking to a tall man with curly blond hair.
As he drew nearer, Hawk saw that the man was wearing a twin brace of pistols, and that Victoria's face was bright red.
Drawing the team to a halt, Hawk overheard the man say in a coaxing tone, "Come on, honey, let me buy you something cool to drink. You're much too pretty to be standing out here all by your lonesome waiting for a man that may not show up."
Relief washed across Victoria's face when she saw Hawk pull up next to the store. "I'm no longer alone," she said, clutching her packages to her breast. "My husband is here."
Lyman Carter swung around, his pale green eyes meeting Hawk's. "You don't mean that redskin?" he asked disdainfully.
"Yes, I do," Victoria answered proudly. "Please excuse me."
The stranger shook his head in dismay. "How'd a pretty little gal like you get tangled up with a breed?"
"That's none of your business," Victoria retorted. "Now, please excuse me." Lifting her skirts, she started to walk around Lyman Carter toward the stairs.
Hawk clenched his hands at his sides. He longed to smash his fists into the stranger's face, but he knew Vickie would be angry if he caused any trouble in town.
"Hold on now," the stranger said, and reaching out, he grabbed Victoria by the arm, his fingers digging into her soft flesh.
"Let her go," Hawk said, biting off each word.
"You gonna make me?" Carter challenged.
"If I have to."
Lyman Carter grinned wolfishly, his narrowed eyes sweeping over Hawk and taking note of the fact that the half-breed was not carrying a gun.
Victoria's heart was hammering wildly in her breast as she glanced from Hawk to the stranger. She had never seen the man before. She had been waiting for Hawk when the stranger walked up to her and began talking to her, asking about the town, repeatedly complimenting her on the color of her hair and the beauty of her azure eyes, trying to persuade her to let him buy her a drink. When she told him she was a married woman, he had just laughed and said it didn't matter. He wasn't proposing marriage, just a good time.
Now she tried to twist out of his grasp, but his hand gripped her arm like a vise. She looked helplessly at Hawk, knowing there was going to be a fight.
Hawk's black eyes were glinting savagely as he dropped the reins and stood up in the wagon. "Let her go."
Carter paid no attention. Instead, he jerked Victoria closer to him. She was a lovely young woman, and he had a hankering to kiss her just once.
The packages in Victoria's arm tumbled to the ground as she tried to push the stranger away.
"Just one little kiss," Carter said. "One kiss and I'll let you go."
Hawk's anger exploded as the man's hand stroked Victoria's cheek. With a wild cry of rage, he leaped from the wagon. Taking the stairs two at a time, he grabbed the man by the arm and swung him around, his knotted right fist driving into the stranger's face.
Lyman Carter dropped Victoria's arm and tumbled down the steps. Hawk was on the man before he hit the ground, his fists lashing out at the man's face and throat. Blood washed over Hawk's hands and he gloried in it. Blood, he thought exultantly. His enemy's blood!
Lyman Carter began to fight back and the two men thrashed back and forth in the dusty street, grappling and gouging.
Victoria stood on the top step, her face pale, as she watched Hawk strike the stranger again and again. Both men were bleeding from a dozen cuts. The sound of Hawk's fists striking the stranger's flesh made her sick to her stomach and she glanced
away. It was then she noticed that a crowd had gathered on the board-walk behind her. She felt her cheeks grow hot as she recognized several of her neighbors standing nearby, watching and cheering while her husband traded blows with that dreadful man. How would she ever hold her head up in town again?
There was a loud gasp from the crowd, and when Victoria glanced back into the street, the stranger lay sprawled in the dust. Hawk's knife was sticking out of his chest.
Victoria could not take her eyes from the knife, or from the blood that stained the man's shirt front. So much blood. A man was dead, she thought dully, killed by her husband's hand. She stared at the knife and she seemed to hear her father's voice pounding in her head. "He's nothing but a damned savage!" her father had yelled at her over the dinner table. "A damned savage, Victoria! And that's all he'll ever be!"
Victoria shook the voice from her mind. Murmuring Hawk's name, she started toward him, and then the world went dark and she felt herself falling, falling, into a deep black void. Her father's voice followed her into the pit. "A savage, Victoria, a savage"
Myrtle Brown's scream drew Hawk's attention from the body that lay crumpled at his feet. Looking up, he saw Victoria tumbling down the stairs in front of Brewster's.
"Vickie!" He gasped her name as he started toward her.
"Hold it," warned a voice from behind, and Hawk came to an abrupt halt as he felt the barrel of a gun jabbed against his spine. "Put your hands up real slow, and don't move."
"My wife" Hawk began, and Sheriff Bill Lancaster jabbed the gun barrel into his back again.
"Get those hands up! Mrs. Brown is looking after your woman."
Hawk stood motionless, his hands clenched at his sides. All the color drained from his face as Myrtle Brown called for a doctor.
"Let's go," Lancaster said.
"Go where?" Hawk asked dazedly, his gaze riveted on Victoria's inert form.
"To the jailhouse. I'm arresting you for killing that there stranger."
"You're arresting me?" Hawk exclaimed. "I killed him in self-defense. He was reaching for his gun."
"I saw the whole thing," Lancaster replied. "And you never gave him a chance to reach for anything."
"At least wait until the doctor comes," Hawk pleaded. "I can't leave my wife lying there in the street."
"Mrs. Brown will look after her until Doc Henderson arrives."
"Dammit, sheriff, I won't try to get away. I give you my word. Just let me make sure Victoria is all right."
The sheriff snorted derisively. "Trust you? I didn't trust you redskins back in '77, and I sure as hell don't trust you now. Move it!"
It was in Hawk's mind to argue, but the pressure of the sheriff's gun against his back changed his mind. With a last look at Victoria's still form, Hawk turned and walked down the street toward the jail. Minutes later, he was locked inside one of the tiny cells in the cellblock adjacent to the sheriff's office.
Rage boiled inside Hawk's brain as he began to pace the narrow cell. He had done nothing wrong, yet here he was, locked up like some wild animal because he had defended his woman. Locked up because he was a half-breed. He slammed his fist against the wall, his anger growing as he remembered all the derogatory remarks he had heard through the years.
He remembered when he was just a boy and the schoolteacher at the fort had insisted he take a white name. He could clearly remember the night, soon after they had moved into Bear Valley when he was seven years old, when the Spragues had come to call and Nelda had asked Mary why Hawk's skin was so dark. Mary had given the girl a withering look as she explained that Hawk was an Indian, and she was, too.
"I wouldn't brag about it if I were you," Nelda Sprague had replied scornfully. "Everybody knows Indians are no good."
He vividly recalled the night Horace Bannerman had caught him kissing Victoria, remembered how the man had struck him across the face. "Come on, you dirty half-breed," Horace Bannerman had challenged. "I'll teach you to lay hands on a decent white woman!" The word "half-breed" had sounded in his ears like thunder.
He thought of the way people in Bear Valley had looked at him when he married Vickie. Those who knew him had accepted their marriage pretty well, but others had looked at him with contempt, as if he weren't good enough to marry a white woman.
And maybe he wasn't good enough for her, he thought bleakly. But he loved her. Lord, how he loved herand now she was lying in the street, unconscious, because of him.
Time dragged as he paced the tiny cell, restless and impatient. He had never been confined in a small space before, and he felt as if the walls were closing in on him. Four long strides carried him from one end of the cell to the other. Four strides carried him back.
An hour passed. Two. And still he paced. His thoughts were erratic, jumping from worry over Vickie to concern for what his father would think when he learned his oldest son was in jail for murder. His father. How could he face him? Yet he knew his father would have done the same thing in the same situation.
Pausing, Hawk stared blankly at the wall. His father had once killed a white man who had defiled his mother. He had heard the story many times, listening with awe as his mother told of being captured by the soldiers, how a corporal named Stockton had forced himself on her even though she was heavy with child, how his father had stealthily entered the tent where his mother was being held prisoner and hacked the white man to pieces.
Hawk whirled around as the door to the cellblock swung open and Victoria's best friend, Jenny Lee McCall, walked toward him. She stopped at his cell, her face grave.
''What is it?" Hawk asked hoarsely. "She isn't?"
"No," Jenny Lee said quickly. "She's going to be fine, Hawk, just fine."
The tension drained out of Hawk's body.
Jenny Lee licked her lips. How was she going to tell Hawk the rest? She had always liked Hawk. He was a nice-looking young man. Before he married Vickie, she had daydreamed that he might some day call on her, but that was all in the past now. "Hawk?"
His eyes sought hers, the breath trapped in his lungs as he waited for her to speak.
"She lost the baby," Jenny Lee said sympathetically. "I'm sorry."
Hawk nodded slowly, a great sadness welling within him. He had regretted getting Vickie pregnant again so soon, but he had wanted the child. Their child. Vickie had been hoping for a girl . . .
"Hawk, is there anything I can do?"
"My father. Tell him what happened."
"I will. Anything else?"
"Vickie's mother is staying with my sons. Ask her if she can stay until Victoria gets better."
"I will. Hawk, try not to worry. I'll stay with Vickie and the twins if her mother can't."
Hawk nodded. "You are a good friend."
"I've got to go now."
Hawk nodded again. "Thank you for coming," he murmured.
Hawk stood in the middle of the cell for a long time after Jenny Lee had gone, staring into space. His child was dead before it had lived. Grief welled in his heart and he threw back his head and loosed a long, bitter cry.
And then he lifted his arms above his head and began to pray.
6
I could not believe my ears as Jenny Lee McCall poured out her story in a flood of words and tears. There had been a fight. Hawk had killed a man. Victoria had miscarried. Hawk was in jail.
I glanced at Shadow, too stunned to speak.
Shadow did not waste time asking questions. He thanked Jenny Lee for coming, escorted her to the door, and reached for his buckskin jacket.
"Let us go," he said. Handing me my bonnet, he took me by the arm and propelled me out of the house.
Moments later we were headed for town.
Sheriff Bill Lancaster was reluctant to let us see Hawk, but one look at Shadow's face stifled the lawman's objections and he let us into the cellblock after first making sure that Shadow was not concealing a weapon.
Hawk's face lit up when he first saw us, and then his expression turned to one of shame.
"I am all right," Hawk answered.
"What happened?" Shadow asked.
Hawk let out a long breath and then told his story, how the stranger had accosted Vickie and put his hands on her, refusing to let her go. A fight had ensued, the man had reached for his gun, and Hawk had stabbed him.
I went cold all over as Hawk finished his story. We had many friends in Bear Valley. The Indian wars had been over for years. And yet I knew there were many people who would believe that Hawk was guilty of killing the man in cold blood simply because he was part Indian.
"I killed him in self-defense," Hawk said, his eyes pleading with us to believe him. "But the sheriff does not believe me. He said he saw the whole fight and that I killed the stranger in cold blood."
"I believe you," Shadow said. "Do not worry."
"Have you seen Vickie?" Hawk asked anxiously. "Is she all right?"
"We haven't seen her yet," I replied. "We wanted to see you first. Don't worry about Victoria. We'll take her home and care for her if Lydia doesn't feel she can handle it."
Hawk nodded, and then he looked at Shadow. "I am going crazy in here, neyho," he said, quiet desperation in his voice.
Shadow nodded, his dark eyes filling with compassion and understanding.
Hawk gripped the bars in both hands, his knuckles going white. "I would rather be dead than have to stay in prison."
Shadow nodded again. "Do not worry, naha. I will not let that happen."
Hope flared in Hawk's eyes, and then he let out a long sigh. "Tell Vickie I am sorry for what happened. Tell her I love her."
"I will tell her," Shadow said. "We will stop by again before we go home."
Outside, we walked hand in hand toward the doctor's office. I glanced at Shadow, started to speak, and then changed my mind.
"What is it, Hannah?" Shadow asked.
"You told Hawk not to worry, that you wouldn't let him stay in jail."
Reckless Desire Page 5