by Paty Jager
“I arrived right after the warriors rode off. I feared they would return, or worse the soldiers would return and think I shot you. That is why I hid you.” His hand on her bare arm singed like a red hot rock. Sa-qan jerked from his grasp.
He rose up again and peered over the edge of the ledge. His gaze connected with hers. “How did you get me up here all by yourself?”
“It was not easy. You are a big man.” She retrieved the hard bread and held it out to him.
The lieutenant took the offered food and waved his hand. “And all this stuff?”
“Many trips.” His constant questions irritated. She should have left him to his own people. He would have died. Her healing qualities saved him. His wounds were beyond what his own people could have healed. Her belief he was a person who could help the Nimiipuu displaced any other objections to help him. The respect she had witnessed in his eyes led her to believe he did not see her people as animals to be slaughtered for fun.
“Could I have some more water? This bread is dry.” His voice grew in strength as did his body.
She handed him the canteen.
“What’s your name?” he asked after taking a drink.
“Sa-qan.”
“Saw what?”
“It means bald eagle.”
“Your light colored hair is about as white as a bald eagle’s head. But who would name a girl bald eagle?” He shook his head and chewed some more, watching her.
His attitude toward a name The Creator bestowed upon her prickled annoyance across her shoulders.
“You look more like a Sadie, Susie, or—” Wade let the images of past women by these names fade. This woman was different in so many ways he couldn’t compare her to others.
Wincing, he drew his body up, sitting with his back against the side of the cliff.
“Is your name Lieutenant?” she asked, once again changing the subject.
“Sort of. My military name is Lieutenant Wade Watts. My civilian name is Wade Andrew Watts.”
“You have many names. You must be a good soldier. Only the bravest warriors have many names for all their brave actions.”
She turned from him but not before he noticed her cheeks tinge a deeper red.
“I’d prefer it if you called me Wade. And I’ll call you… Angel. I have a feeling you saved my life and with that white hair you look like an angel.”
“I am Sa-qan. I do not want a so·yá·po name.”
She folded her arms across her chest, pushing her breasts up, displaying a portion of their soft mounds through the neck opening in her buckskin dress.
“What is so·yá·po?” He did his best to try and pronounce the word the same as Angel.
“It is how we call the Whiteman.”
“Angel has been used as a name for women, but it means a spirit who floats in the clouds and delivers messages from our God to the mortals on earth.”
Her body straightened, and her eyes narrowed, peering at him intently. “This is a name for a woman, a spirit, who flies?”
“Yes. Why does that make a difference?”
She smiled and his heart leapt into his throat. He thought her beautiful from the first moment he saw her standing in the river fiercely protecting the child, but watching her tense face relax and smile, he was smitten. A light and pleasing calm washed over him for the first time in a very long time. He could only bask in the moment briefly. They were enemies.
“I am from the sky, and I watch over the Nimiipuu.” She nodded her head and flashed him with yet another smile. “You may call me Angel.”
“Only if you call me Wade.”
She nodded. “Let me check your wounds. You have moved around.”
“Why are you taking such good care of me when your warriors left me for dead?”
Her sunshine gaze peered straight into his eyes. “You saved my niece at the village and the wounded from the Bannock scout. You do not have the thirst to kill like the other soldiers.” She bowed her head and removed the blood encrusted bandage from his shoulder. “The Nimiipuu need you.”
Her touch warmed his body, tingling the areas around his wounds. He glanced at her small, delicate hands hovering over his injuries. He shut his eyes, and then opened them. Her hands shimmered as if in a fog. His pain subsided, in fact, his body felt well rested.
A soft lyrical chant rose from her lips as she continued to hover her hands over his wounds. Her eyes remained closed, her light lashes resting on her sun-kissed cheeks. He’d never seen a woman as beautiful as this. He had to learn her true origins and return her to her family.
“Tell me about your childhood,” he said.
Angel’s chant faltered when he spoke, then faded. Her eyes opened, and her lips turned down in disapproval.
“You will be well enough tomorrow to climb down and wait for your soldiers.” She leaned away from him, sitting on her heels.
Wade studied his wounds, from the angry red scar of the knife gash to the dark red indention of the bullet hole.
“How? How long have I been on this ledge?” Confident he hadn’t been unconscious for several weeks he glared at the substantial healing of his wounds.
“Two suns.” She stood and walked to the edge of the ledge.
“Two days?” He ran a hand over his arm and shoulder. Still a bit tender but otherwise healed. “How did I heal so quickly?”
“I know healing secrets.” She kept her back to him as she stared out across the canyon.
“Were they taught to you by the Nez Perce?”
She gazed at him over her shoulder. Her eyes narrowed slightly resembling a cornered mountain lion. “Yes, my people have many healing ways the so·yá·po do not know.”
“Are you sure they are your people? Could you have been abducted as a baby? Your coloring—”
“Is as it should be. My brothers both have the same color hair. We are of the Nimiipuu to the north. I am Nimiipuu. Why do you insist I am not?”
Wade ran a hand over his face. The prickling of his beard growth irritated as much as her insistence she was an Indian. “Couldn’t your brothers have been abducted as well?”
She spun and stalked toward him. “I am Nimiipuu. I love my people and will do everything I can to save them from your people. Do not make me one of your people. My heart is with the Nimiipuu and will never be with the so·yá·po.”
Sa-qan stared down at the man. The so·yá·po name he gave her earlier, expressing her true essence, gave her reason to think they could be friends. She wanted him to help her people. But his insistence she was not Nimiipuu raised her anger. He acted like all the rest, trying to change the Nimiipuu into a people they were not.
He held up his hands in surrender. “I see you won’t be swayed. I just…nothing.” He pushed up against the wall using it to lever his body to stand. When he stood, a good head taller than her, and his broad shoulders leaning against the cliff, her body sagged, remembering his weight as she carried him up to the ledge.
“Do not move around so much.” She grasped his arm to keep him away from the edge of the rock outcropping She did not need him toppling off after she had healed him. Clinging to his strong arm, her stomach swirled like being tossed around in a storm. Her feet tangled, and his arm wrapped around her middle, keeping her from tumbling over the edge.
“Whoa, watch your footing.”
His long, hard body pressed against her as he held her tight. Her heart beat like the cadence of a summer thunderstorm. She had never been held in the arms of a man. Tranquility and safety flowed within her, calming her heart, and sending sensations of heat and desire coursing through her body.
Something stroked her arm. She glanced down. His other hand moved up and down her arm, caressing. She tried to step away, but he continued to hold her, his chin resting on her head. His chest pressed against her with each intake of his breath, causing her body to yearn for something. Something she had a feeling only he could help her find.
“Angel, I haven’t held a woman other than a soil
ed dove in so long I forgot what one felt like.” The sadness in his voice stalled her thoughts. “I was still a boy when I joined the army. I thought by going off and joining the North I was fighting for a good cause.”
She detected his need to unburden his journey and remained locked in his safe embrace.
He snorted. “When I think of all the good men killed…what a waste.” He sighed. “I’d never been keen on taking over my father’s plantation, but when I rode back after the war…”
He swallowed loudly. “There was nothing left but the graves of my parents, sister, and two brothers. The slaves were all free and gone, the house and buildings burned.”
His raspy voice laced with hurt tugged at her heart. He’d lost so much in one moment. Just like Summer Cloud had lost her daughter and grandson.
“There was nothing left for me so I joined the cavalry. They needed officers out here and I was looking for a place to belong.” His hold slowly released, and he stepped back. “Sorry, you didn’t need to know all that. I don’t know why…I just needed to get it off my chest.”
“It is good to cleanse the mind and body. We do it in the sweat lodge. The old man or woman of the sweat lodge chants and talks of things that ease our mind.” Sa-qan stared into his sad eyes. His hard and lonely life dulled the dark pools. She knew the hardships that plagued him. Surrounded by and serving people you cannot get close to. She for fear of being discovered as a spirit, and he for fear he would lose them.
He raised an arm and sniffed. “I could use a bath.”
“Tomorrow when you leave the ledge you can wash in the river.”
His gaze flowed over her. “What about you?”
“I will rejoin my people.”
“The wounded up the canyon?” He waved his good arm in the direction they had both traveled.
“No. The others need me now.”
Sister, what are you doing with a so·yá·po? Wewukiye’s question broke into her thoughts.
I will tell you tonight when he sleeps.
I will go nowhere until then.
Sa-qan stared at Wade. He watched her intently. She shook her head.
“You’re not going to answer me?” he asked, taking a step toward her.
“Answer what?” She stepped away from him. Had Wewukiye seen them holding one another? If not, she dare not give him anything to lecture her about.
“How do you plan to catch up to the Nez Perce? You don’t have a horse…do you?” He reached out, and she stepped away, his fingers grazed her arm sending her skin skittering.
“No, no horse.”
“You’ll never catch up with them. You should wait with me for General Howard.”
“No! He speaks untruths and breaks promises.” Did he believe in Cut Arm?
“He’s doing what he’s been ordered to do.” Wade took another step toward her. His steps no longer wobbled. His body healed.
“How can he follow orders to kill the Nimiipuu? We are people, flesh and blood just as you. We are not so different if you took the time to learn instead of trying to change us. When we do not change your leaders say kill them.” Her heart beat with contempt for a people who could care so little for others.
“We tried to live with the Indians, but they stole horses, took cattle, and stole food, not to mention killing.” Wade stood toe to toe with her. His dark eyes blazed with indignation, his fists while clenched at his sides, showed his anger. She did not fear him. Instinct told her he would not harm her.
“The Nimiipuu have only killed those that provoke. They steal to eat and live when your people do not keep their promises. That is why they do not wish to live on a reservation. Your people promise a good life, then we see what those you promised get. None of the promises—only poor meat and disease. We are better to live where we were born.” She nodded. “I have seen how those on reservations live.”
He ran a hand through his hair and stared over her head. “I’ve seen some atrocious things at some reservations I’ve come across, but that isn’t the government’s fault, it’s the crooked men in charge of the reservations.”
“Can you promise a good man will be at the Nimiipuu reservation?” If there was hope the people could be spared, she would work to bring this slaughter to a halt.
He gazed in her eyes. The sorrow in the depths of his stirred her heart. He cared what happened to the Nimiipuu.
“I can’t promise a good man would be in charge of the reservation. I can’t even promise you there won’t be more blood shed even if you’re people were to surrender. They’ve got Major Howard in a fit.” He raised a hand and cupped her cheek.
The warmth of his palm and softness in his eyes required extra effort to remember he was the enemy.
“Stay with me until my men return. I’ll take you to the nearest town, and you can survive this chaos. No one will condemn you for being kidnapped.”
She knocked his hand away. “I was not kidnapped. I am Nimiipuu!” His concern for her people compelled her to melt into his arms one moment, and then he insulted her and her people the next. She could not remain around him. Her senses became muddled.
Sa-qan scrambled down the side of the cliff. She needed distance. She needed to think and speak with Wewukiye.
“Angel! Come back. You’ll get hurt.”
Rocks clattered and rumbled. She glanced over her shoulder. Wade tumbled down the cliff behind her.
`Oylá-qc
(6)
Sa-qan’s heart jumped into her throat. Rocks tumbled toward her. She shoved them away, clearing a path to Wade’s still body. Blood covered his head and shirtless chest. She picked him up in her arms and carried him back to the ledge.
“Crazy man,” she said, placing him back on the blanket and assessing his new injuries. A large gash on his head gushed blood down his face. She stopped the bleeding and placed her hands on his ribs to heal anything he might have hurt inside. Her fingers dipped into the contours of his muscles. He was such a fine figure of a man; why did he have to be a so·yá·po and not a Nimiipuu?
Is the soldier dead? Wewukiye’s words in Sa-qan’s head startled her from her thoughts.
No. I will make him sleep, and we can talk.
I will meet you by the river.
Sa-qan wet a section of Wade’s undershirt and cleaned his head and face, removing the blood and dirt. Her fingers lingered, skimming over his nose and full lips. His face pleased her. Touching the soft skin of his lips sent shivers up her arms and bees abuzz in her chest.
The bugle of a bull elk reminded her Wewukiye waited by the river.
She sighed, stood, and shifted into a bald eagle. Sa-qan dropped off the ledge, opened her wings, and sailed down toward the river. What should she tell her brother about the man on the ledge?
Wewukiye stood as regal as ever beside the river. His large antlers and thick brown coat shimmered in the sunlight. Sa-qan landed in a tree not far from the riverbank. Her brother walked with grace and elegance as he joined her.
“Why have you wasted time with a soldier?” He did not give her a chance to ask about his wife and her daughter, Dove and Girl of Many Hearts.
“I do not feel I am wasting time saving a man who does not view the Nimiipuu as animals. By helping him I am giving our people a voice in the soldiers.” She peered down her beak at her brother. He would not make more of this than it was. By saving the man she could save the Nimiipuu.
Wewukiye stared back. “I saw you in mortal form embracing the man.” He tipped his head and peered closer. “You have always said to stay away from mortals, especially while in mortal form. You lectured both Himiin and I when we showed ourselves. How is it different for you?”
“This is the only way I know to help. To stop the soldiers from killing.” She hopped to the ground and paced, avoiding his eyes. “This soldier stopped another from killing Girl of Many Hearts. Later, when I healed two warriors and children, he stopped a Bannock scout from hurting us.” She spun, peering into her brother’s eyes. “He does not want t
o kill us all. He is following his duty.”
Wewukiye walked close and lowered his head, gazing into her eyes. “You cannot feel anything for this man. He is the enemy. He is not Nimiipuu.”
“I—I do not feel anything.”
Wewukiye snorted. “It is in your denial. Come with me now. Get away from him before you cannot think like a Nimiipuu or a spirit.”
“I plan to return to the band tomorrow. Last night I saw the soldiers with Cut Arm coming this way. I will help the soldier down here by the river and then I will leave.”
“If he is well enough to travel he no longer needs you.”
Wewukiye’s insinuating tone dug into her like a stick in her ribs.
“He was healed until he fell down the cliff just now.” She stood tall and glared at her brother. “I will remain with him until tomorrow.” She spread her wings to return to the ledge. “Dove and Girl of Many Hearts are well?”
“Yes,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Good. I will see them tomorrow.” Sa-qan jumped in the air and flapped her wings, ignoring the niggling that her brother was right. She should leave now and not allow the soldier’s words and actions to sway her judgment of him or those chasing the Nimiipuu.
****
Wade opened his eyes. The bright sunlight blinded him. He blinked and focused on a bald eagle flapping its wings to land on the ledge. The color of its head reminded him of Angel’s hair. His mind cleared, and he stared into the bird’s eyes. They held a familiar gentleness.
I must have hit my head hard. He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them. How did he get back on the ledge? The eagle flapped its wings and jumped into the air, disappearing over the edge.
Angel had stormed down the side of the cliff, he’d gone after her, and slipped…He remembered knocking rocks loose and…Oh God, could Angel be lying below hurt? Wade scrambled to his knees and bracing against the cliff, stood.
“Angel!” He wobbled toward the edge. “Angel!” If something happened to her…he couldn’t bare the thought of another person’s death on his hands. Especially not her. The more time he spent with her, the more he didn’t want anything to happen to the feisty woman. “Angel!”