Wild Splendor

by Cassie Edwards

  Above the staccato of the horse’s hooves, Sage heard his name being called. And then he recognized the voice.

  He whipped his head to the side and saw Leonida stumbling along in the path of the swirling dust.

  Swinging his bow back in place across his shoulder, he wheeled his horse around. He raised his fist in the air, stopping his warriors. There was no longer any need to follow the Kiowa. Now that he had found his woman safe and sound, he must make haste to hide in the folds of his mountain again.

  After his warriors had drawn their steeds to a halt, Sage rode on past them. When he reached Leonida he stopped and dismounted, quickly drawing her into his arms.

  “Sage, oh, Sage,” Leonida whispered, clinging to him and sobbing. “I feared I would never see you again. Thank the Lord you found me.”

  He held her close, yet he had seen the disarray of her clothes. He ran his fingers through her tangled hair. “They did not touch you wrongly, did they?” he asked, his voice breaking.

  “No,” she murmured, almost choking on another sob at the thought that he had arrived just in time. She did not tell him that, not wanting to kindle his rage any more. It was enough now that he was there and she was safe again in his arms.

  “I will take you home,” Sage said, whisking her up into his arms, carrying her toward his horse.

  She looked adoringly up at him, so grateful that he was hers—her husband.

  Chapter 20

  I break all slighter bonds, nor feel

  A shadow of regret.

  —ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER

  Having dozed comfortably snuggled in Sage’s arms on his stallion on the return home, Leonida did not even awaken when Sage drew his horse to a halt, then dismounted, lifting her into his arms again, and carried her into their hogan.

  The fire had gone out in the fire pit, and daylight had turned to night again. Sage felt his way through the hogan until he reached their bedroom. He then gently laid Leonida on their sleeping platform. He bent low over her and kissed her brow, then drew a blanket up over her.

  Sage reluctantly left her side to go to the outer room to build a fire. Bending on one knee, he began laying twigs on the cold ashes of the fire pit, and once he had them lit, he placed thicker logs across the flames. Settling back on a soft mat, he stared at the fire, broodingly. His jaw tightened at the thought of having allowed Four Fingers to escape.

  Stealing a man’s wife was a crime punishable by death. One day Sage would see that this punishment was carried out.

  “Sage? Darling?”

  Leonida’s voice behind him drew Sage from his troubled thoughts. Pushing himself up from the floor to go to her, Sage was suddenly startled when Leonida emitted an ear-splitting scream. His eyes were wild as he rushed toward Runner’s bedroom.

  He was moved deeply by what he found. Leonida was on her knees, her arms stretched across Runner’s bed, her fingers clawing at his blankets.

  “He’s gone,” she wailed. She turned woefully toward Sage. “Why didn’t you tell me that he also was abducted?”

  Sage went to her and knelt down beside her. Placing his hands on her waist, he drew her to her feet before him, then eased her into his arms, gently hugging her. “Darling, our son was not taken captive,” he said as he ran his fingers through her golden hair. “He is with Sally. She offered to watch over him while I was gone searching for you.”

  He could feel her muscles relax, yet she still clung to him. “Darling,” he murmured, “you have nothing to fear now. You are safe. Runner is safe. Put all fears from your heart. Do you not feel the protection of my arms? Never will I allow another man near you. You must trust this promise.”

  Leonida swallowed hard. She forced a smile, not wanting Sage to know that it would take some time for her to get over the trauma of the near rape. It was wonderful to be back in Sage’s arms, yet she knew that even his promises could not totally protect her. She had thought that she was safe from all harm earlier, and hadn’t the Kiowa warriors taken her so easily?

  “You know that I trust you,” she murmured, hoping to sound convincing enough. “And I know that your promises are spoken from the bottom of your heart, as are all of your words spoken to me. I love you, Sage, for loving me so much. I love you for coming after me when I thought that I might never see you again.”

  He placed a gentle finger to her lips, silencing further words. “A thank-you is not necessary for everything I do or say.”

  “It is that I am just so grateful,” Leonida murmured as his finger slipped from her mouth. Her heart thumped wildly as Sage lowered his lips toward hers. “I do love you so . . .”

  Her words faded as his mouth covered hers with a deep kiss. She twined her arms around his neck as he lifted her into his arms and began carrying her out of Runner’s bedroom. She trembled with ecstasy when one of his hands slipped around and cupped her breast. Then she tensed when she suddenly recalled other hands on her breasts, and how she had been forced to spread her legs, unwillingly submitting to Chief Four Fingers’ probing fingers and hands.

  Tears swelled in her eyes at these ugly remembrances and she drew her lips from Sage, turning her head away from him, one of her hands brushing his away from her breast. Somehow she could not help but feel contaminated. How could she ever feel the joyous bliss she had felt before with Sage?

  Sage’s eyes widened and his insides tightened as he gazed down at her. She was refusing his kiss. She had even brushed his hand from her breast, which she had never done before.

  It meant only one thing. The Kiowa had touched her. They had, in a sense, branded her. She might never be the same.

  Not wanting to allow these memories to continue, Sage carried Leonida to their sleeping platform and lay her gently on it. He knew the importance of making love to her now. If he waited, she might dwell too much on the ugliness of having been touched wrongly by the Kiowa, and forget the beauty she had shared with her husband.

  She had already told him that she had not been raped. In that respect, she was still pure. But it was the touching, the fondling, that he now was almost certain she had been forced to endure at the hands of the Kiowa.

  This he must erase from her mind, as though it had never happened.

  Sage stood over Leonida and removed his clothes and moccasins. And although she looked wildly up at him and stiffened when he began undressing her, nothing would stop him.

  He must make love to her now.

  Leonida shivered at the cold air of the hogan against her bare flesh. She hugged herself with her arms, covering her breasts, which seemed lifeless now that she allowed herself to remember that the enemy had touched them. She guardedly watched Sage as he came to the sleeping platform with her, finding it hard to understand why he would force lovemaking on her at such a time. He knew that she did not want to do it. Was he going to force her to scream at him, and tell him why?

  “Sage,” she murmured, brushing his hand aside as he placed it on the bare flesh of her hip. “Please don’t. I’m too tired. I . . . I need to rest.”

  “My woman, tomorrow might be too late for you,” Sage said, determinedly putting his hand back on her hip, his fingers softly stroking her tender flesh as they moved inch by inch around to where the center of her passion lay. “You must allow me to make love to you tonight so that you can forget that which makes you draw away from me. Tonight my loving you will make tomorrow come with pleasant memories, not those that are soiled by the Kiowa.”

  He moved over her, spreading her legs with a knee. His one hand was now stroking her throbbing center, his other gently kneading a breast. He smiled to himself when its nipple hardened and strained against the palm of his hand. She was awakened to her feelings for him again. He was succeeding at arousing her!

  Both of his hands cupped her breasts. He leaned lower against her, the touch of her breasts against his chest momentarily stealing his breath away.

  Leonida could not fight the euphoria that was claiming her, so glad that her breasts were responding
to the wonders of his touch. When his swollen shaft began probing at the juncture of her thighs, she willingly opened herself to him.

  She gasped with pleasure when he lunged his hardness inside her and he began his rhythmic thrusts. Her body responded, as her hips lifted and fell, meeting him stroke by stroke.

  She twined her fingers through his thick black hair and urged his lips to hers. When he kissed her, she returned the kiss in a frenzy. Tears of joy streamed from her eyes. She was so glad that the wild splendor was still there while she was being loved by her husband.

  Slowly the remembrances of those ugly moments with the Kiowa were fading away.

  Pleasure was spreading in warm splashes through Sage. He knew by her response that his plan had worked, and that she was lost in ecstasy now, instead of doubts and fears about being with a man again sexually.

  He moved his mouth from her lips and swept his tongue around one of her nipples, drawing a gurgling sound of delight from the depths of her throat.

  He suckled the nipple and tongued it again, then lay his cheek on her magnificent bosom, the fire raging higher and higher within his loins. He was near to experiencing the height of pleasure with his woman again, and he felt blessed. The gods were still favoring them as a couple.

  Leonida wrapped her legs around his waist, locking her ankles together in an effort to draw him even more deeply into her. She closed her eyes in rapture, feeling how he so wonderfully filled her. In and out he moved, each time reaching more deeply, each time stroking her with more ambition and heat.

  She placed her fingers on his buttocks, unknowingly digging her fingernails into his flesh as the pleasure spread . . . and spread . . . and spread.

  She tossed her head and moaned as the height of pleasure was finally reached. She clung to his rock hardness as his body shook and quivered into hers, accepting the spilling of his seed as it splashed into the depths of her womanhood.

  A child.

  She hoped that tonight they had made a child, a brother or sister to Runner.

  Afterwards, they lay snuggled together. Leonida was stroking his perspiration-laced back. “I know that you have told me not to thank you for anything,” she whispered. “But, darling, I can’t help but thank you for what you did tonight. I understand why you were determined that we make love.”

  He whisked her into his arms and gave her a kiss filled with heat, his body arching against hers as he drew her against him. Again he plunged himself into her. This time she responded without any hesitation, or with any thought of why she had ever shied away from him even for a moment.

  * * *

  Having succumbed to the need for sleep, Chief Four Fingers and his warriors had stopped and were now sleeping soundly in a canyon, unaware that they had been surrounded by soldiers. When the chief felt the nudge of a rifle barrel in his back, he awakened with a start, then slowly turned and looked up and saw Kit Carson standing over him. A soldier beside him held a rifle aimed at the Kiowa chief.

  A commotion drew his gaze away. He scowled when he discovered his sentries being herded into the camp at gunpoint, their hands raised high into the air.

  “Got a mite careless, didn’t you, Chief?” Kit said, chuckling low as Chief Four Fingers emitted a growl of anger. “I’ve had a hell of a time finding the Navaho. You’ve just handed yourself over to us on a silver platter, it seems. That’s not like you, Four Fingers. I’d have thought you’d be the last Indian this easy to find. But it’s about time. I’ve wanted the Kiowa no less than the Navaho. Once you’re all rounded up neat like, I expect the settlers will be able to sleep at night without their fingers wrapped around the barrel of a shotgun.”

  “Get to your feet, Injun,” Lieutenant Nelson ordered Four Fingers. “You’ve a long way to travel to get to the reservation. You might as well get started now while the sun is low in the morning sky. You’ll be wishin’ for the shade of a canyon again soon enough.”

  Chief Four Fingers moved slowly to his feet, looking guardedly around him, then glared down at Kit Carson. “Let us have council between us,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion. “There is information Four Fingers can trade with you in exchange for Four Fingers’ freedom. My band of Kiowa is less in number than Sage’s Navaho. Would you not rather capture them instead?”

  Carson looked up at Four Fingers. “It is my intention to place the Kiowa and the Navaho on reservations,” he said blandly. “It is not my intention to make a bargain with one for the other. So, no council this time.” He motioned with his head toward the other herded-up Kiowa. “Join the others. As of today, your rank is no greater than those others who will walk the many miles with you to the reservation in New Mexico.”

  Chief Four Fingers’ eyes narrowed. He leaned down closer to Kit Carson’s face. “The white woman who is now married to the Navaho Sage is not worth bargaining over?” he hissed. “Chief Four Fingers can direct you to Sage’s stronghold, where this woman and other white captives are being held. Is not that information worth the release of us few Kiowa? What harm can we wreak on the white pony soldiers in comparison to what Sage has already done? Give your word that I and my warriors can ride freely onward, then I give my word to you that I will give you accurate directions to Sage’s stronghold.”

  Carson’s eyes widened with interest. He kneaded his chin, his eyes locked with the Kiowa chief’s. “You say that Leonida is now Sage’s wife?” he asked, confused by this bit of news. “How do you know this?”

  “Chief Four Fingers trades with Sage,” he said. “I sought to trade for the beautiful white woman. Sage refused. He called her his wife. She spoke nothing against his declaration. So she is his wife.”

  “You say you saw her,” Carson said, inhaling a quivering sigh. “That means you do know where Sage’s stronghold is.”

  Chief Four Fingers nodded. “That is so,” he said, folding his arms across his chest. “I will give you directions. You will give me and my warriors freedom. Do you not think it is a fair enough exchange?”

  Carson’s eyes shifted, staring at the chief’s hand on which he displayed only four fingers. Then he looked slowly up at the chief again. “I vowed long ago that if I ever caught up with you, I would hang you,” he said. “Severing a finger from your hand was not enough vengeance for me for what you did so long ago against me. Although I have not written about it in my journals, and it is not something I have broadcasted for the world to know, my marriage to a lovely Indian maiden lasted only long enough for you to steal her away, rape her, and then leave her dying at my doorstep. I caught up with you after she told me who had done this to her, but it was a cursed day for me when you escaped after having only the one finger cut from your hand. I had meant for you to lose your fingers first, then suffer long and hard before I cut out your heart.”

  “That was long ago when we both were young and foolish,” Four Fingers said, again unemotionally. “I had not yet been assigned my adult name. Because of you, I was appointed the name Four Fingers because it defined so well my appearance to those who would come across me on outings. So you see, white man who disfigured this Indian, at the age of twelve winters this act I am guilty of came as a careless prank of a youth trying to look big in the eyes of the older warriors. This was a challenge I could not say no to. If so, I would have been viewed as a woman in the eyes of the older warriors. I was next in line to be chief. I could not be labeled a ‘woman’ and be a chief in the same lifetime.”

  “Yes, I know all of that,” Kit Carson said, his voice sounding exhausted.

  “And you also know the worth of my information today about Sage’s stronghold,” Chief Four Fingers urged. “Forget the past transgressions of this Kiowa chief. This is today. Sage could be yours today. Is he not worth many times over one Kiowa chief and his few warriors?”

  “Yes, it is true that you are worthless to me, except dead,” Kit grumbled. “But right now you are more valuable to me alive.” He leaned on his rifle, shaking his head at being forced into a decision that he did not lik
e. But he had to put the women and children first.

  “Tell me where Sage’s stronghold is, and by God, I give my word that you can ride free,” Kit said, inhaling a deep breath. “But you’d best ride hard and get hidden again, for once I am through with Sage, I’ll be looking for you. The next time nothing anyone says will keep me from finally avenging the death of my beautiful Indian bride. Now, damn it, Four Fingers, draw me a map in the sand, then get the hell out of my sight.”

  Four Fingers knelt down beside Kit. He accepted a stick from a soldier and started drawing the directions to Sage’s stronghold in the sand, then stopped, startled when Kit placed a firm hand on his wrist.

  “You’d better be leading me to the right place,” Kit drawled threateningly. “If not, Four Fingers, you’ll have hell to pay once my men and I catch up with you again.”

  “Sage means nothing to me,” Four Fingers reassured. He jerked his wrist free and began drawing again. “Except dead.”

  Once the map was completed and Kit Carson recognized the mountain, he was stunned. He had ridden past it many times. Not once had he seen the glint of a rifle barrel, or any sign of sentries on the cliffs, keeping watch. He looked suspiciously over at Four Fingers. “You are certain this is the mountain?” he questioned.

  Four Fingers rose to his full height. He turned and pointed toward the purple haze of Sage’s mountain in the distance. “Yonder, one half day’s ride away, you will come to Sage’s mountain,” he said sternly. “There you will find peach trees, many fields of crops, and grazing sheep in a canyon at the foot of Sage’s mountain.” He turned to Kit. “Once there, it is up to you to decide how to reach Sage’s stronghold. Chief Four Fingers can only do so much. Your pony soldiers must do the rest—if you wish badly enough to take Sage prisoner.”

  Kit Carson stepped back and allowed Four Fingers to walk away from him. He watched as the Kiowa chief mounted his horse, then rode away, his chin held high.