"Will they listen?" Skylar demanded.
"I hope so," Willow said.
Sloan was in the midst of the agitated Indians as well. Young-Man-Afraid shouted to them, crying out.
"I should get you out of here, back to where we camped," Willow said.
"But—"
"Skylar, don't make him worry about you in the midst of this!" Willow said.
She nodded to his wisdom. She turned her horse and started to ride. But then she heard a thudding sound. Willow gasped out. She turned back and saw him clutching his head. "Ride!" he commanded her, then toppled down to the ground. Just behind him, Skylar could see a mounted Indian—and on the ground the heavy rock he'd cast at Willow.
She didn't know what kind of Indian he was, but he was dressed in splendid regalia, with all manner of paint on his face. He let out a cry and started toward her.
She kneed Nutmeg, well aware that there was so much cacophony around her that no one would notice a single Indian chasing after a single rider. Yet she realized she would be best off racing toward the fray, rather than away from it. She circled Nutmeg, with the rider close behind her.
"Help me!" she cried out, but the din around her was too loud.
She remained on the outskirts of the crowd. The Indian suddenly leaped from his horse, bringing her down to the ground. She lashed out at him, shrieking. His fingers closed around her throat. She didn't know if he was trying to silence her...
Or kill her.
She heard the sudden whip through the air of a knife. The Indian stared at her, falling toward her. She pushed his body from her person, scrambling her feet in a desperate rush to avoid his blood. She looked behind her, from where the knife had come.
Sarah stood there. Blessed Sarah. Skylar had had no right to mock the woman—she'd seen the trouble and gone for Hawk regardless of the melee around them. Hawk stood at her side. Hawk had hurled the knife. And now he walked past her to kneel down and study the brave on the ground.
"Who is he?" Skylar demanded.
"Elk-Who-Runs. A Sioux from the Red Cloud agency."
"A Sioux?" she whispered.
He looked up at her, his green eyes veiled. When he spoke, his words were deep and brittle. "Yes, an agency Sioux. This will not sit well today."
"I've never, never seen anything like this!" Sarah exclaimed. "Never. In the midst of something so important as this council, a warrior trying to take down a woman!"
"Sarah, this isn't over," Hawk said. "Will you go with Skylar back to the camp? Some of the soldiers will escort you." They were ringed now by a number of men who saluted their agreement.
Sarah nodded. She came forward, taking Skylar's arm. The dead Indian remained on the ground. Hawk remained kneeling by his side.
Skylar was hurt and humiliated. She'd never seen Hawk so cold, and she didn't begin to understand him. But she went along with Sarah, awkwardly smiling a thank-you to their impromptu guard. "I think you just saved my life," Skylar told Sarah. "Thank you so much."
Sarah nodded in simple acknowledgment, not terribly impressed with herself. "I saw what happened—I was
amazed. I sent David to Willow and went for Hawk. Come on, let's get Willow ourselves now and go back to camp."
"Willow is—"
"Hurt with a terrible headache and a gash against his temple. His pride is wounded to the core. Let's go."
"Oh, God, I'm afraid to leave!" Skylar said, turning back. Hawk was gone—the dead man was gone. The Indians were still shouting, moving about on their horses in a menacing way.
A Sioux was dead. A man who had attacked her.
"The men are still in danger—"
"The men will do their jobs. Our job is to let them do theirs."
And to worry, Skylar thought. Worry sick ...
Yet as Sarah urged her away, it seemed ... seemed... that the situation was coming under control. Young-Man- Afraid was speaking again. He was surrounded by his police, Hawk, Sloan, and others who were desperately urging peace.
"Why would a Sioux have attacked me?" Skylar whispered.
Sarah sighed. "Dressing up in buckskin doesn't make you Sioux. Please, Skylar, please come on."
Skylar remounted Nutmeg and rode with Sarah.
She was in her own tent, curled up in the camp bed when Hawk finally came back. She'd waited and waited and half dozed. When he came in, she forgot how cold he had been to her before. She leaped up and threw herself into his arms.
"My God, you're back! I was so frightened—"
"What the hell is going on?"
He was shaking, she realized. His voice was harsh, furious.
She pulled back from him. "I was worried—"
"You were attacked again! Willow was struck, injured. And you were nearly throttled."
"Perhaps I shouldn't have been where I was."
"Skylar, what the hell is going on?" "I don't know what you mean!"
"What have you done? What were you running from when you met my father?"
She pulled away from him completely. "Not the Crows, I can assure you!"
"That man was Sioux!"
"I did nothing to any Indians. You attacked me, as a matter of fact. Add that to the number of attacks I've suffered in the Dakota Territory!"
He was suddenly on top of her, shaking her. "You could have been killed."
"You could have been killed!" she retorted. "We could all have been killed. It was an explosive situation!"
"And it's still a damned explosive situation!" he assured her.
"Hawk, shush! The entire camp can hear—"
He lifted her by her upper arms, throwing her back down upon the cot. "You could have been killed. And I was nearly helpless to do a damned thing about it. If Sarah hadn't come for me ... Tomorrow—tomorrow we head back to Mayfair, and so help me, Skylar, so help me! You're going to tell me what's going on!"
"I don't know what's going on!"
His fingers squeezed her arms painfully. His features were dark, constricted, his eyes gleaming with a furious green fire. He looked as if he longed to throttle her himself.
"Damn you, Skylar!" he hissed.
His hold upon her eased. Then he rose, swearing heatedly.
He walked out of the tent.
Skylar tossed. Turned. Lay awake. Tossed and turned again. Where was he? Why wasn't he coming back? Why did he think she could possibly have an explanation for the strange behavior of Indians?
At last, in exhaustion and misery, she dozed. Then she slept deeply.
No monsters troubled her dreams.
No monsters. Her dreams were sweet. She felt his touch. Featherlight. Erotic. Sensual.
His fingers ... along her thighs. Palms, cradling her breasts. His hps upon her bare nape. Lower. His hands again, smoothing around her hips. Pressing downward. Stroking. His lips, lower against her back. Lower. His touch, turning her. His lips. The fiery hot liquid stroke of his tongue . . .
She moaned. Writhed. Awoke ...
He was no dream.
She remembered to be angry. Too late. He had taken his time seducing her from sleep. He took his passion quickly. She couldn't deny her response.
But when it was done .. .
She turned her back on him.
She simply didn't have the answers he was demanding.
And he ...
He was refusing to believe.
"You can't do this!" she choked out to him.
He was quiet a moment. "I did do this."
"You can't do this to me!"
"Skylar, you do not know what you have done to me," he told her.
And he turned his back on her.
The next morning, the army doctor said that Willow could travel. He'd have a bump on his head for a few weeks from the rock that had knocked him senseless from his horse, but other than that, he seemed fine.
With very little conversation between them, Skylar and Hawk started home with Willow and Sloan.
The meeting had yielded what they had feared it would.
>
Nothing.
Twenty-three
Sloan knew that he would have been welcome at May- fair, but his mood was too volatile for him to feel comfortable in the company of friends.
He was due back in the next few days at Fort Abraham Lincoln, but he was glad as well that he wasn't due tonight—the Sioux half of him was warring away in his soul. There were too many army commanders he would like to scalp at the moment.
He rode into Gold Town alone, taking a room at the Miner's Well. Like most of the town, it offered whatever might be desired; the respectable wives, daughters, sisters, aunts, cousins, and lovers of army personnel and prospectors might take rooms here and find them clean and neat. There was a huge, warm dining room where home-cooked meals were served. Baths were available in room, there was a pleasant downstairs library, and the plump, matronly Mrs. Smith-Soames was available to direct nice young ladies around town.
For those of a more adventuresome nature, the Ten- Penny Saloon sat just out back, the work yards of each establishment being next door to one another, with side doors and servants' entrances facing one another. Though all the food served in Mrs. Smithe-Soames' dining room was excellent, food and liquor could be ordered from the Ten-Penny at off-hours and discreetly brought in by the side entrance to appease the hunger of late-arriving guests.
Other hungers could be appeased as well from the Ten- Penny. Even more discreetly so. An order merely needed to be placed at the saloon, and a soft tap would come upon a man's door. It was all quite smoothly arranged. As they were located in Gold Town, the saloon and the inn catered to whatever tastes their clientele might have nurtured, be they the most chaste—or the most decadent.
Sloan had never been much of a drinker—he was far too aware of the way whiskey had been used by the red man across the continent, and too often, how it had taken a great warrior, set him upon agency land, and eaten into both his soul and his guts, leaving him a sad creature to wallow in the mud of uselessness. Not that whites couldn't become pathetic drunks as well; they could, quite easily. But the Indians just seemed to have more strikes against them to begin with.
Returning from the travesty at the Red Cloud agency had left him feeling not just volatile but depressed as well, with a slow simmering anger within him that threatened to become explosive. It didn't help to remind himself that though it had actually been tradition that had sent him to West Point, it had been his choice to remain in the cavalry in the West. He'd spent four years going to war against his classmates, instructors, and friends, and now he was taking part in a crusade to annihilate his own people, and it didn't matter that he tried to stand against the tide, to bring some honor and justice to the Sioux. He was a candle against the wind, a flame burning bright, yet unable to illuminate any paths that could take his people out of the way of the onslaught of the storm.
After he bathed and changed his clothes, he decided a few drinks seemed to be in order before retiring. Once he got some rest, he hoped he'd regain the control that allowed him to slip between worlds and remain true to them both.
With the dust of the trail bathed away and himself decked in civilian attire, he took a walk across the yard to the Ten- I'enny.
Joe, the short, round barkeep, supplied him with a bottle of his best whiskey, just in from Tennessee. Sloan shuddered as he swallowed the first shot. The second one went down more slowly.
Dusk had come; darkness was settling over the town. In a few hours, he thought, the place would be crawling with miners and travelers and the' unattached menfolk in the area who were looking for a good time. For the moment, a few wizened old prospectors played a game of cards, cackling now and then at an exceptionally good hand.
He was on his third shot of the whiskey when Loralee, proprietess of the establishment along with Peg-Leg Jack Cleat, came to quietly stand beside him.
"You look plum tuckered, hon," she said softly. He glanced over at her, smiling wryly. She was a very attractive woman, probably nearing fifty, but capable of being every bit as sensual as the youngest of her girls. Her blond hair was turning gray, but she had a beautiful face, soft amber eyes, handsome bone structure. Her waist was min- iscule, her breasts, more than bountiful. She had a nice way about her as well. She was a shrewd businesswoman, charmingly pleasant, and strangely enough, incredibly sincere. "Plum tuckered, and mad as a hornet," she continued.
He offered her a half smile, lifting his shot glass to her, then pouring her a shot of whiskey as Joe set a glass down for his boss.
"Just tired out, Loralee," he told her.
A ripple of rueful amusement passed over her features as she returned his smile. "Wish I could make it better for you. But I can't. I make it a rule never to fall for the men I bed, and you're nearly lethal when you choose to smile."
He laughed. "Thanks. That sounds like a compliment."
"It is."
"Lots of women aren't fond of Indian blood."
"Lots of women are."
He raised his eyebrows in an off-hand acknowledgment. He should have just told Loralee that the world was a wicked, wearying place—and the hell with falling in love. He'd done it once, only once. She'd proclaimed undying devotion.
But then her father had spoken. Warned her that she might never know when Sloan's red blood might tell, when the savagery in him might break loose, despite his mother's impeccable family lines. The girl's father had offered an alternative and suggested she marry an all-white boy from Nebraska who was destined to follow his own father's footsteps into the United States Congress. No telling where that boy might go. Undying devotion had died upon the hearth of undying ambition.
The worst part was, he still saw her now and again. Life did play its tricks. Her congressman had become stout and bald—and lost a lot of teeth. She'd gotten what she wanted along the political trail, but not at home. On those rare occasions when their paths crossed now, she tried to rekindle the past. Maybe she had never realized how much she had hurt him. It didn't matter. He hadn't stopped enjoying women—he'd only ceased to trust them.
"Want to talk?" Loralee asked him.
His smile deepened; he shook his head. "Loralee, I'm feeling as restless as a caged tiger at the moment. I'm not good company for anyone."
"We've just taken in the prettiest little piece of baggage you ever did see, straight from the East. A beauty. She'd be just what you need tonight."
For a moment, he reflected on the offer. He thought of Hawk—and his new wife. The two of them had been at odds—naturally. He knew all about the way Hawk had acquired his wife, knew how she must feel about Hawk's tricks and how Hawk felt just because his deceased father had done all the arranging without telling him. Yet he suddenly felt a stab of envy. Sparks flew between Hawk and his wife, yet they made a blaze that burned with a curious warmth. Skylar was a most unusual woman.
He felt any desire he might have summoned for a whore—any whore, even the most beautiful and talented one in the world—wither away.
"Loralee," he said, and kissed the woman on the forehead. "I think not tonight. I'm going to take my whiskey, slink into my room, and drink myself into pleasant oblivion."
"Sloan, I just may surprise you now—"
"Loralee."
"It's on me, tonight. You're a good man, Sloan."
"And a weary, angry one this evening. Break the girl in in a gentler way, Loralee!"
He picked up the bottle, dropped coins on the bar, and left the saloon.
He walked across the small yard in between the saloon and Mrs. Smith-Soames's proper establishment, looking up at the velvety night sky. Damn, he did need some sleep.
He didn't see anyone as he entered the inn by the side door. He climbed the stairs to his room, closed the door behind him, and leaned against it. Nice enough place. A big hearth with a big fire. A handsome set of library chairs before it. A desk to one side, dressing table to the other. A huge bed. It must have cost a fortune to have the thing hauled out here from the East.
Sloan gazed at his bott
le of whiskey. Half gone, and the rough edges of his temper remained. When it was all gone, he just might sleep.
A few minutes later, and he sat before the fire, brood- ingly watching the swirl of dark amber liquid he had poured into one of the two snifters he had found in his room. He studied the color of the swirling whiskey before each swallow.
"To the wrong life!" he murmured aloud, lifting the glass snifter and watching the firelight play upon it. Glittering gold and amber. The rough edges were beginning to blur.
What in God's name had he ever thought that he could do? As a half-breed, he lived not so much in treacherous times as wretched ones. There would be no real truce now, and if so, what would it matter? The Indians would be pushed back again and again.
He rubbed his forehead. He was a madman, trying to make some kind of difference for the Sioux by serving in a white man's army where the general consensus was that it was all right to murder Indian children because "nits" made "lice" and Indians were "savages" while the white men were "civilized."
He was in this frame of mind when his door suddenly opened and closed. Frowning, his fingers instantly falling upon the Colt sidearm he had placed on the occasional table next to the chair, he stared at his unbidden visitor.
He hadn't lit any of the lamps within the room; the brocade drapes at the windows had been shut. There was only the light from the fire, which cast a warm orange glow and many shadows over the room. The flickering firelight only served to enhance the exquisite and stunning beauty of the woman who had entered.
All right, he thought, so he was, finally, fairly drunk. Maybe she wasn't so beautiful. She was blurred. As softened as the rough edges of fate that had been ripping at his soul.
She stood stiffly with her back pressed against the door, her eyes at first closed as if she were listening for something out in the hallway. Her hair was glorious: dark and waving with a touch of gold and crimson fire down her back, over her shoulders. Her face, framed by the thick tendrils, was an ivory oval, cheekbones high, mouth generous and defined. Her beautifully arched brows added to the regal perfection of her face. Her skin looked smooth and flawless.
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