So Wide the Sky

by Elizabeth Grayson

Standing Pine looked down at his hands. "And if the mother wanted this little girl back, how much might she be willing to pay for her?"

  Man to the Right stiffened. Hunter could see that the younger brave resented Standing Pine opening negotiations when he clearly preferred to keep the child.

  Hunter ignored Man on the Right and played the only card he had. "Perhaps," he said, leveling a long, speculative glance at Standing Pine, "you might better ask what price the girl's father might extract from those who took his daughter."

  "His daughter?" Standing Pine repeated in stunned surprise. "Whose girl is she?"

  Hunter smiled. "She belongs to Sweet Grass Woman's husband, Captain Drew Reynolds."

  Man on the Right sucked in his breath.

  Standing Pine swallowed hard before he spoke. "Reynolds hates all Indians."

  "Indeed he does," Hunter confirmed. "Imagine what will happen if he follows his daughter to this camp. Reynolds will not come to trade for her. He will come with fire in his eyes and a full company of cavalry at his back. He will want revenge on the men who stole his daughter."

  Hunter glanced across at Cass. Her face was pale as the winter moon, flat and impassive. But her eyes—oh God, her eyes—seethed with fear and impatience and hope. And with the faith that he could get Meggie back for her.

  Hunter tried his best not to disappoint her. "Reynolds will come riding down on this encampment like Chivington's volunteers did at Sand Creek. His men will find his daughter, and once they have, he won't care who they kill. If you do not want that to happen, give the child to us. No one need know who took her. We will make Reynolds believe that she wandered away from the fort and got lost. You and your village will be safe."

  Standing Pine turned to the young warrior beside him. The choice was his to make.

  Man on the Right sat silent.

  "Surely you have brought something to trade," Standing Pine said, attempting to open negotiations a second time.

  "There was no opportunity for me to gather trade goods," Hunter told him. "I have brought both of my extra horses, a sorrel gelding and a sweet gray mare. I trained them both. They are good ponies, deep-chested and strong."

  Standing Pine looked to the younger man. "He offers two horses for the child."

  "It is not enough," Man to the Right answered.

  "I will give you my pistol," Hunter offered.

  "It is not enough," the young brave insisted.

  "My rifle and all my ammunition."

  "And my beaded blanket," Cass added softly.

  "And her beaded blanket," Hunter repeated. That was all they had between them.

  "Reynolds will trade for his daughter," Man on the Right insisted. "He traded a wagonload of goods for her."

  Without so much as looking in her direction, Hunter knew how the brave's words had wounded Cass.

  "Reynolds will not trade," Hunter maintained. "The men in the forts have been waiting all summer for a reason to attack the Sioux and Cheyenne villages. Because there are treaty negotiations going on at Fort Laramie, the soldiers have not been allowed to campaign against the tribes. Stealing this child may be the spark that sets that tinder aflame."

  "People may die if you do not do this," Standing Pine entreated Man on the Right.

  The younger man shoved to his feet. "Then this is for the council to decide. It is a matter of war and peace. We must call a council, now, tonight. Only if they say I must trade for the army captain's child will I accept what this man has offered me."

  Hunter read the trepidation in Standing Pine's face. He had come here hoping to avoid taking this question to the council where he might lose not just this question, but his position of leadership.

  The older man sighed and heaved to his feet. "Very well then," he said. "Call the council together."

  Man on the Right nodded his thanks to Sharp Knife and Blue Flower for their hospitality and burst out of the tent to start gathering the men together.

  When Man on the Right was gone, Hunter turned to Standing Pine. "May I attend the council and explain how dangerous it is to keep the child?" he asked.

  Standing Pine shook his head. "It will be better if I tell them. I will do everything I can to convince them how important it is to make this trade."

  "I will speak on the child's behalf, as well," Sharp Knife offered.

  It wasn't all that Hunter had hoped for, but it was all they had.

  "How long will it take the council to make its decision?" Hunter asked.

  Standing Pine frowned. "Most of the night, I fear. I will send word to you when we are done."

  The two men left.

  Hunter thanked Blue Flower for the meal and steered Cass back toward their lodge. She was coiled tight, ready to act, though certainly she realized that for this night there was nothing she could do.

  Hunter wasn't sure how she would keep from coming apart while they waited for word. He wasn't sure how he could help her ease the strain. But once they had gone into the tent, once he was alone with her, Hunter sensed the only thing he could offer her.

  Without saying a word, he bent and caught the hem of the buckskin dress and skimmed the sleek soft fabric up her body. He dropped his own shirt and breechclout to the floor and pulled her against him.

  Cass hissed like water meeting flame as their bodies brushed. Color flared up her chest and into her cheeks. Sparks leaped between them as if they were flint and steel.

  He kissed her hard, demanding a response with the heat of his mouth, the thrust of his tongue. Cass surged against him and kissed him back. Desire swept through them like a firestorm.

  They fumbled toward the bed. Her skin was like pearl in the nest of furs. He rolled above her and fit his hips to hers. He brushed his manhood against her mound. Cass shivered and arched and opened her legs. In a single thrust he was inside her.

  They stared into each other's eyes. Hers were wide and reckless and hot, but no wilder than Hunter's eyes must be. They panted for a space, one encompassed, one fulfilled. But neither of them satisfied.

  They waited without moving, balanced, teetering, ready to fall. Tension danced through them. Excitement throbbed at the place where their bodies joined. The headlong flight to oblivion beckoned. Yet they held still, lost in each other's gaze, tempting and tempted, holding the world at bay.

  He lowered his head to kiss her. His mouth moved down against her cheek, grazed her temple, lingered at the corner of her eye. She was holding her breath, waiting. And he made her wait. Made himself wait.

  He did his best to make the waiting worthwhile. With the brush of his lips he teased away the frown between her brows. He kissed along the narrow bridge to the tip of her nose. He tasted the point of her chin with the swirl of his tongue.

  Cass braced up on her elbows and captured his mouth with hers. Slow, taunting kisses flowed between them, their mouths drifting together and retreating, the rhythm suggestive, promising. He slid his tongue into her mouth, a sinuous second invasion nearly as intense and inflaming as the first.

  She moved beneath the kiss, circling his tongue with hers, arching her back to brush her breasts against him, lifting her hips. Hunter answered her movement, pleasuring her and pleasuring himself.

  Cass moaned softly, the sound a prelude, an invitation.

  He moved again. She fell back against the bed, her mouth drawn in a gasp of wonder, of wanting.

  He buried his face in the curve of her throat, breathing in her sweetness and her spice. He nuzzled the lobe of her ear and felt her squirm beneath him. The sensation was delicious, enticing, arousing to a man already deep in his pleasures.

  He wanted her. But more important than that, he wanted her wanting him.

  And it seemed she did.

  "Please, Hunter," she whispered. "Will you take me now?"

  As she spoke, her hands moved over him, teasing the hair that lay long against his neck, clinging to the breadth of his shoulders, trailing along his ribs. Gooseflesh blossomed wherever she touched, shivers of awarenes
s and delight.

  "Oh, Cass," he whispered, his senses filled with her. "Oh, Cass..."

  Her fingers danced down his back. Her palms stroked slowly and rhythmically over his hips. He smiled to himself, pressed one more kiss against her skin, and gave her what they both wanted.

  The deeper merging of their bodies brought a rush of joy scalding through them. The pleasure spread, mounting waves of delight from the point where their bodies joined. Shimmers of heat radiated down their arms and legs as they clung closer.

  She arched against him, offering all of herself. He took her, moved within her, and gave back. In the splendor of endless kisses, the friction of skin on skin, white-hot need devoured them. They rose together, finding satisfaction and succor, fervor and forgetfulness in each other's arms.

  When it was over they lay spent and lax and silent for a very long time. As he held her, Cassie slept. But in the darkest hour of the night, when the moon was down, Hunter felt her stir beside him. He felt the worry and the tension creep into her. He was waiting for the question when it came.

  "What will we do," she whispered, "if the council decides we can't have Meggie back?"

  Hunter smiled into the dark. "Then I know where they are keeping her, and we'll take our chances."

  * * *

  She's down there somewhere. Drew Reynolds smiled as the knowledge whispered through him. The treacherous bitch who'd stolen Meggie was in that Indian village. And so was his daughter.

  Drew hunched his shoulders against the predawn chill and trained his field glasses on the encampment laid out in the bend of the stream. Thick, woolly fog all but hid it from his view, yet he could make out the sprawl of flimsy tents, the smoke of a few dying fires, and a horse picketed here and there. He could almost smell the stench of grease, dirty blankets and buckskins, and even dirtier bodies. This was where Cassie had chosen to bring his daughter, his precious Meggie. To this hellhole in the middle of the prairie. To this nest of vermin.

  The banked fire in Drew's chest flared hotter when he thought how his poor little girl had been taken against her will. When he thought about how she might be cowering in one of those tepees even now, hungry, lonely, and afraid—waiting for her papa to come for her.

  Perhaps he'd failed with Julia and Cassie, but he had every intention of rescuing his daughter from the savages. He was a man this time, not a frightened boy. He was an army officer with a company of men at his back, not a youth who would have been heading off into the wilderness alone. This time he wasn't trying to find two girls who were probably dead. This time he wasn't trying to do the impossible.

  Drew lowered the field glasses from his eyes as one of his young lieutenants pulled up beside him on his horse.

  "The men are in place, sir," Lieutenant Sparks informed him in an undertone, "set out all along the stream."

  Drew nodded in acknowledgment. They were poised to sweep through the sleeping village just at dawn. It was best to take the redskins by surprise, charge in when they weren't prepared to defend themselves. John Chivington had proved that at Sand Creek. Only Chivington's volunteers had been such raw, undisciplined bastards that something that might otherwise have been heralded as a success had become an unmitigated disaster.

  Drew's men, however, were meticulously trained. They all knew Meggie was in the Cheyenne camp. They all understood his objective was to get his daughter back. His men were instructed to shoot only the Indians who resisted.

  "On my signal, Lieutenant Sparks," Drew confirmed softly, and listened as Sparks rode down the line passing the word.

  Drew turned his eyes to the village one last time, his nerves on edge, his heart thudding. Cassie was asleep in one of those huts, too, and Drew couldn't wait to get his hands on her.

  The conniving bitch had come to Fort Carr as a spy, and every single one of them had been taken in. She'd played them all so well, pretending not to understand, eliciting their sympathies, worming her way into their confidences. Everyone from Ben McGarrity on down to Lila Wilcox had been deluded.

  But Cassie had made Drew the biggest fool of all, both as a military officer and as a man. He had taken her into his heart and home. He had let himself believe he could still love her, that they could somehow recapture what they'd felt for each other when they were young. He'd even married her and entrusted her with the care of his daughter. And Cassandra had betrayed him on every count.

  Now she'd had the audacity to steal his daughter.

  Well, Drew would bring her to justice. Every one of his men knew he wanted Cassie alive. Soon he would have her back, and when he did, he'd make Cassie pay dearly for wronging him, for wronging all of them.

  Drew looked to his right and left down the long line of troopers poised to fight. They were sharp and finely trained, eager and brave. He could see it in their faces.

  He nodded to the bugler and raised his hand.

  The men drew their pistols in perfect unison.

  Drew Reynolds smiled. "Charge!" he ordered, and the bugler began to bray the call to arms.

  Now that it was too late for her to escape, he wanted Cassie Morgan to know he was coming for her.

  * * *

  Hunter couldn't say why they needed to be dressed and packed and saddled up well before sunrise. It was that itch, that portent he'd learned to trust. And Cassandra hadn't questioned him.

  Once they were ready, he prowled around their campsite, his belly balled tight and his chest on fire. He tried to blame the uneasiness on waiting to hear Meggie's fate. He tried to tell himself that if they had a chance of getting Meggie back without a fight, he could wait this out.

  But everything about this dawn unsettled him, the cooler weather that sent the dense drift of fog rising up from the creek, indistinct sounds that somehow didn't fit this place or situation. They were noises he couldn't quite place, that teased the edges of his memories. The rustle of grass, the muffled jingle of harnesses.

  And then he knew.

  "Jesus, Cass," he whispered, gathering up their horses' reins. "The army's out there. They're getting ready to attack."

  He read the acknowledgment in Cassie's face. She felt it, too.

  "It's like Sand Creek," she whispered, and grabbed his arm. "We have to get to Meggie. We have to take her out of here."

  "She's with Runs Like a Doe," Hunter told her. "In her lodge."

  He saw Cass nod, and with the horses in tow, they set off across the compound. She raced after him as they dodged between tepees and barely smoldering cookfires.

  They were just crossing the center of the camp when the bugle sounded. Chills shot up Hunter's back at the disembodied trill.

  "Hurry!" Cass shouted. "Hurry!"

  Behind them, the earth rumbled with the sound of hoof-beats. The first fusillade of gunfire rattled down near the stream. It tore through the foggy silence, shattered the peace.

  People burst from their lodges, half-asleep and partly dressed, disoriented by the milky dawn.

  Hunter pulled his revolver and forged ahead, north toward the tepee where Meggie was being kept, the tepee painted with three buffalo.

  The sound of hooves beat nearer, and Hunter turned to look just as the first cavalrymen loomed out of the mist.

  The Cheyenne men grabbed up their guns and bows to defend their families. The women wailed and clutched their children. Some crouched in fear. Others scuttled away, hoping to escape.

  The mounted soldiers rode them down.

  Cass ran ahead of him, shouting Meggie's name.

  A trooper thundered down on her, his weapon drawn.

  Hunter blew him out of the saddle.

  Cass kept moving. She fought her way through crosscurrents of women and children, barking dogs and stray horses. Hunter followed, dragging their own two horses after him.

  By the time Cass and Hunter reached the tepee painted with three buffalo, troopers had engulfed the village. Hunter handed the horses' reins to Cass and ducked inside. A fire burned in the fire pit, and the beds were still warm to t
he touch. There was no sign of either Runs Like a Doe or the child she was guarding.

  "Meggie!" he bellowed as he spun back outside. "Meggie!"

  Cass clamped his arm, dragging furrows with her finger nails. "You mean she's gone?" she demanded. "You mean Meggie isn't here?"

  Hunter shook his head.

  "How are we going to find her now?"

  Chaos had erupted around them. Not five yards away a trooper trampled a woman beneath his horse's hooves. A tepee went up in flames off to their right. A brave and a cavalryman fought hand to hand, rolling through the remains of last night's fire.

  "Meggie!" Cassie screamed, her face contorted with fear. "Oh, please! Meggie!"

  A tiny girl came flying toward them from around the back of the tepee. She was sobbing and covered with blood.

  "Are you hurt?" Cassie dragged her palms over the little girl, searching for injuries. "Oh God, Meggie, are you hurt?"

  "Oh, Cassie," Meggie gasped. "They shot the Indian lady."

  "Where?"

  Hunter grabbed her arm. "We don't have time—"

  But Meggie had disappeared around the back of the tent. Cass jerked away and followed. Runs Like a Doe lay sprawled and broken in the grass.

  "Oh, my friend!" Cass cried, and dropped to her knees beside the older woman.

  "I kept her safe—for you," Runs Like a Doe whispered. "I covered your child with my body so the bluecoats would not see her..."

  "And I thank you," Cass whispered back. "Now, let me help—"

  "Too late—" she breathed, "—for me. You go." She nodded toward where Hunter stood. "He is a good man. Let him take you where it is safe."

  Hunter grabbed Cassie's arm. "Come on."

  Cass hesitated for one long moment to squeeze Runs Like a Doe's hand in a final farewell.

  In that moment a cavalry officer loomed out of the dust not ten yards away. Hunter instinctively raised his gun. But though the man stared hard at them, he made no move. Cass thrust to her feet and pushed Meggie behind her, standing straight, staring back at the man as if the rest of the world had fallen away.

  All at once, Hunter realized it was Drew Reynolds. Drew who had come for Meggie. Drew who had unleashed this carnage. Hunter reached for Cassie to pull her away.