Running Wolf

by Jenna Kernan

  She started toward her kill and he followed her, but the mud was so deep they stuck up to their knees, just like the pronghorn. She stopped first beside the muddy water. He judged the distance and estimated the depth. Then he looked back to find her studying his body with the same apt curiosity as he had looked at hers.

  His skin tingled, and he thought the heat suddenly coming from his body might dry the mud into cakes of dirt. He cleared his throat and her gaze flicked back to his face even as his body made a full show of arousal. Her gaze dropped and then swept upward again.

  “You have seen a naked man?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  He smiled. “How do I compare?”

  She returned his smile, only hers was full of mischief. “You are much dirtier.”

  Yes, and his thoughts were just as murky as the mud. In a few more moments he feared he would not be able to think at all. He gripped his bow tighter to keep from reaching for her.

  “And you smell like a frog.” She laughed.

  Her mirth was contagious, and he found himself laughing, too. “Me?” he said, lifting one muddy strand of her hair from her shoulder. “I think that is you.”

  She used a single finger to sweep over his collarbone and then down the swell of muscle at his chest. She drew back a glob of mud and sniffed it.

  “You,” she said.

  “Can you swim?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Would you like to clean off?”

  Another nod, cautious now. “But a woman does not bathe before a man.”

  He knew this, of course, but seeing her wearing nothing but a coating of mud made her look wild and more desirable, if that was even possible. Most women tied downy feathers and beads and ermine in their hair. And Snow Raven had no adornment. Yet she was the most beautiful female he had ever seen.

  “I would bathe if you will give me the privacy to do so.”

  “You are my captive. If I say you must bathe, then you must.”

  She folded her arms beneath her breasts, effectively lifting the plump flesh upward.

  She considered him, measuring his intent. Then she shook her head. “No.”

  “Stubbornness in a captive is a dangerous thing.”

  “In my heart I am still free.”

  “Snow Raven. You are a captive of the Sioux. Were I another man...”

  “I have already been struck by another man and several women. I have seen what is done to the other captives here. So though you can kill me or beat me or set me free, you cannot force me to do this.”

  She left him with a hard choice. Submit to her will or force her to his. He imagined washing her body and felt his arousal twitch. Her eyes sank and then returned to meet his.

  He imagined breaking her and watching her slink around the village like the other captives here. Or worse, watching her sway her hips, enticing any man who would bring her a bit of food or cloth. No, he was wise enough not to kill what he loved in her.

  He bent his knees and sprang. She gave a little shout of surprise as he sailed past her into the water. When he surfaced he scrubbed himself clean and then exited the pond to retrieve his clothing. He slipped into his loincloth, leggings and moccasins. He did not look back as he shouldered the carcass of the pronghorn in one hand and his bow and quiver tin the other. Then he climbed the hill. Once on the crest he glanced toward her and then strode away. He walked the outer rim of grass until he laid down the pronghorn and studied the hole she had punched between two ribs. Had she really had such accuracy with an unfamiliar bow, lying on her side with only the quarter moon for illumination?

  Behind him he heard splashing and forced himself not to return to watch her.

  Instead, he sank to his knees before the antelope and stared up to the heavens, chanting a prayer of thanks, as any hunter should do, grateful to the doe for the gift of her life. Finally he prayed his thanks to the Creator for providing all creatures and then added a song for patience and strength.

  When the last note of his song disappeared, he retrieved his arrow and returned it to his quiver as he worked with the doe.

  He did not hear so much as sense her approach. Her tread was light and graceful. Snow Raven’s skin now shown silver in the moon’s light. The rabbit-skin dress was back in place, but the length still revealed much of her shapely legs. His body gave another tug and he sighed.

  “You will have a cape next,” he said.

  “I may keep the pronghorn hide?” she asked.

  “You killed it. Of course it is yours.”

  “Your mother will not like that.”

  That was true. He had had words with his mother over the rabbit hides, and he wondered if his mother was now realizing why he had been so generous with his first captive.

  “It is yours,” he said again.

  “Then, I will give it to Little Deer.”

  “Who?”

  “The youngest captive of your people. Her dress is in ruins.”

  Your people. Of course, she saw them all as other.

  Why was she providing for another captive? He wanted her to keep the hide, but he said nothing as he began skinning the doe and she gathered buffalo chips and dry sticks from the cottonwood grove.

  “Would you like the liver?” he asked her. “Or the heart?”

  “Both. I am so hungry I could eat the hide.”

  He remembered his grandmother speaking of a time when the people did just that, boiling hides and drinking the broth. Now there was plenty. He could not imagine a time when there would not be enough buffalo to feed them all.

  She gathered the fuel. He butchered the meat. This time there were no prying eyes. He did not have to be war chief and she did not have to be captive. For this evening they seemed alone in the world and he felt comfortable and content.

  He found himself wishing he could keep the sun from rising. Together they laid the tinder. From his pouch he drew his steel and flint. The days had been dry, so he was careful to clear the ground so a stray ember would not set the plain ablaze.

  As the coals grew hot, Snow Raven raked the embers aside and set the meat roasting. He watched her, finding pleasure in her graceful movements. He was happy just being near her. Here he did not have to be a wise leader or a brave war chief or court a woman he did not want. With her, he could be himself.

  She turned the roasting meat again, testing the firmness of the flesh with a finger and then offering him the stick. He accepted it and waited until she had her own.

  They ate in silence. She seemed to be trying to eat as much as she could hold. Afterward she drew close to the fire. Nights were cold, and she had only her thin dress to warm her.

  He settled in beside her, looping an arm about her shoulders. She glanced at him and then back to the fire. She did not move away. He thought it the most perfect moment of his life, sitting side by side, her body tucked against his. She looked toward the heavens.

  “Do you see the Way of Souls?” she asked, pointing at the band of white stars that littered the sky, marking the path to the Spirit World.

  He nodded. “One day, we will all walk that way. My people call it the Ghost Road.”

  He felt her head move as she silently agreed. “I have heard it called such, as well.”

  They sat there in silent contemplation for some time.

  “Your mother has walked this way,” he said, recalling that she had told him this. He worried for a moment that his tribe might be responsible for her death. He knew what it was to grow up with such hatred in one’s heart and did not want her broken in that way.

  “Yes. Spotted sickness took her and many others. It is why we moved into the tall grass.”

  So their chief was caught between the white man’s diseases and Sioux land. A difficult choice.

&nbs
p; “I am sorry,” he said.

  “I was sick, too. But she left me here on the Red Road and went on ahead of me. See?” She turned her head and pointed to a place beside one eyebrow. “There is the scar here from one of the spots, and here beside my mouth.”

  He had not noticed the tiny blemishes before, but now he could see the small marks she revealed. They seemed to add to her beauty, giving her the imperfections that told who she was.

  “Yes. They are small.”

  Snow Raven settled beside him again and gazed upward. “When she left I was angry for a long time. I would not do as my grandmother told me. I went into the woods and stayed there for many days. I did not come when they called. I did not follow when the tribe left.”

  Like a vision quest, alone, without food for many days. He thought of his own quest and the wolf that had given him his name.

  “That was dangerous.”

  “I wanted to follow her. I waited in the woods thinking that when the stars came down to touch the lake I would be able to follow.”

  Like the story, he thought.

  “I woke in a new snow to find a raven sitting on the stump beside me. It watched me with hungry eyes, so I thought I was already dead. When I did not rise to follow, it came back and called again. Finally, I followed. The raven led me to a pronghorn with a leg trapped in a hole, and then I knew two things. I was not supposed to follow my mother and that I would call myself Snow Raven.”

  “I have heard of ravens leading hunters to a kill. They are very smart and know that we will always leave some meat for them.”

  “That is what I did. When I got back to our camp, I found my father and brother waiting. Just their tepee all alone in the empty camp. I told my father I was a hunter and that I needed a horse.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing, but he gave me a horse.”

  “How did your mother call you?”

  “I do not speak that name. That girl is gone.”

  “I will call you Raven.”

  She nodded. “That is what my family calls me. My father, grandmother and my brother.”

  “Your brother?” He had a curious suspicion.

  “Yes. You fought him, knocked him from his horse.”

  “That was your brother?” His voice was louder than he had meant it to be. “Bright Arrow.”

  “Yes.”

  “So you are...the daughter of Six Elks.”

  “I am.”

  Chapter Eleven

  No wonder she was so brave, Running Wolf thought. Six Elks was a legend. Until Running Wolf’s raid, no one had ever defeated the old Crow leader. He was infamous for taking no captives and killing every enemy on sight.

  A second realization rocked him. He had come so close to turning back and killing the warrior who fought for Snow Raven. If he had killed Bright Arrow, such a thing would have driven them apart forever. He met her gaze, seeing that she had known this all along, how near he had been to losing all hope of ever having her willing and wanting in his arms.

  Did she also remember that he had spared her brother’s life?

  “Why tell me this?” he asked.

  “So you will know why I cannot be like the other captives. They know who I am and they look to me for...courage.”

  “How do you know I will not tell my chief, use you to lure your father into battle?”

  “He has not come because you have taken all they had. They will be lucky to survive the winter, and he is too wise to risk more men to recover me.”

  Her thinking was good.

  She lowered her head and spoke in a much softer tone, all the bravado gone from her voice. “Also, you have earned the truth.”

  “How?”

  “Sparing my brother. Allowing me to keep the hides I catch. Leaving me your stew bowl when your mother would not feed me. Allowing me to keep the pemmican I took from your food stores. Giving me a blanket. Letting me sleep inside your lodge.”

  He had done all those things.

  “Do you trust me?” he asked.

  “No. I am grateful to you. You are strong, but you do not need to destroy those who are weaker. I think you would make a good chief.”

  He reminded himself that it was a chance he would never have if he picked Snow Raven over his duty.

  “But I would not stay with your mother if you marry Spotted Fawn,” she said.

  Was she asking to come with him? He hoped so, but then he was struck with a vision of Spotted Fawn, the daughter of a chief, sharing his lodge with the daughter of another chief. He grimaced. The two women were so different, but he knew a young bride would not relish her husband’s attentions to a captive.

  “You might be safer with my mother.”

  “The morning your mother found me inside her lodge,” said Raven, “when you went to bathe, she chased me out with a knife.”

  “Why did you not tell me this?”

  “If you defend me, it will make matters worse.”

  Likely true, he realized, contemplating the problem.

  “She wants you to court Spotted Fawn. She thinks your interest toward me is unseemly, that I am encouraging you.”

  He found that all he wanted in the world was to hold her in his arms. All other ambitions and all his plans dissolved like the mud that had caked their bodies.

  What was happening to him?

  “My mother hates all Crow,” he said.

  “And I am both Raven and Crow,” she joked.

  But he had no laughter for her humor.

  “Raven, you have told me who you are. Now hear who I am. My father was killed by Crow. My mother says that she will mourn him forever and will not marry again. She has no other sons. My father’s brother was also killed by the enemy and so could not take my mother as a second wife. This adds fuel to her hatred of the Crow.”

  She drew her knees to her chest and hugged her legs, rocking slightly, like a child seeking comfort. “Again and again, we kill and are killed. Only the hate lives on.”

  Their gazes met and held.

  “Is that why you are war chief?” she asked. “So you can kill as many Crow as possible?”

  “He was my father.”

  “And my uncle and the fathers and brothers of my friends. How many will be enough?”

  He shook his head. “I do not know.” In truth he had never thought to ask such a question. But then again, he had never sat under the stars with the daughter of a Crow chief. “I think only of my duty and the next coup.”

  “We were pushed from the mountains, you know?”

  He was silent, staring at the coals as they collapsed upon themselves.

  “The whites build their forts in our land and the diseases came.”

  “One day we will have to fight them, too,” he said.

  “Yes. I think so.”

  Raven caught his gaze once again. “I know of your mother’s hatred. What of yours?”

  “I do not hate the Crow or the Blackfoot. I only defend what is ours and take what they cannot protect. This is all there is for me.” Or it had been all. He scrubbed his jaw with his knuckles, feeling the scratch of the growing beard and the prickle of her questions. “I want only to lead my people with honor, earn coups for brave deeds and have stories of my battles told when I am an old man.” Or that was what he had thought he wanted. Sitting so close to her, he wondered if life might offer more.

  “You are war chief.”

  He nodded. “I have the honor.”

  “And your mother says you will be chief one day. Is that so?”

  He lowered his head in modesty and to hide the confusion that tore at him. Why should he care what this woman thought of him? She should be nothing but a captive, a Crow.

  “You have ask
ed many questions. Now answer one of mine.” He liked the way she met his gaze directly. “Why are you not married?”

  She laughed, a musical sound of merriment that resonated inside him.

  “I have shared a blanket with some of the warriors in my tribe. But none have yet offered a bridal gift.”

  Did the Crow women do as the Sioux? Did they stand outside their parents’ tepee, wrapped with a blanket with their sweethearts, making plans for their future and... His smile dropped away. The image of her in the arms of another man raised only fury in him. He knew this was unreasonable and struggled to control his ire.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “But you have not chosen?”

  “No. None have made my heart soar.” She cast him a long look, and he felt a surging of hope that he was the man that made her feel like a hawk in flight.

  Is it me? he wanted to ask. Instead, he said, “For me, also.”

  “But what of Spotted Fawn?”

  “A difficult situation. Her father encourages me. His new wife has not. Now I find that my friend has secretly loved her but been too shy to speak to her.”

  “Big Thunder, Weasel or Crazy Riding?”

  She knew his closest friends. What else did she know?

  “Big Thunder,” he said.

  “I see him hanging about her. She speaks of you and of him.”

  “Does she?” he asked. When really he wanted to tell her not to talk about Spotted Fawn. To forget her and the tribe and the world beyond their fire.

  “I know she has no favorite, but is ambitious and thinks you would be a good choice. But she says you are too serious. She said she has never heard you laugh.”

  “I smile.” I smile with you because you make me happy.

  “Yes, but not often.”

  “When do you speak to Spotted Fawn?”

  “I have not. But I hear her talk to the women at the river, when I carry water. Usually, they take no notice of me. Usually.”

  He lifted his brows. “Usually?”

  “Red Hawk was there.”

  This got his attention. “At the women’s bathing area? What happened?”

  “He said that if I speak to his wife he will cut out my tongue. And if I touch her again, he will cut off my hands.”