Chapter 18
It was an extremely handsome tipi. The women had done an exceptional job with it.
It had been sewn from bleached-white buffalo hides, and someone with great artistic skills had painted his life upon it, his days as a child, his participation in the Sun Dance, his coups against the Crows.
Scenes depicted his departure with his father, his “white” war against his own people, his marriage and loss, his years at Mayfair—his arriving home to his grandfather with a new wife. It had all been very beautifully done.
Yet standing in the center of the tipi, having studied the pictographs, he felt a moment’s sharp dread and a simmer of defensive anger—he was alone. She wasn’t there. She had run somewhere.
But then his eyes adjusted to the hazy firelight, and he saw that against the wall of the lodge there appeared to a long bundle.
It was a sleeping robe, and someone slept within it.
His wife. The hour had grown very late, though he had not realized it.
He had spent a long time in the sweat bath, and a far longer time with Crazy Horse than he had realized.
He approached the sleeping robe—warning himself that he couldn’t just assume that the body was Skylar’s—she might have disappeared, and an old friend might have found her way in here.
But when he knelt down, he saw the stream of blonde hair flowing over the buffalo robe and he sat back on his calves with relief.
As he did so, she stirred, turning within the robe restlessly, trying to kick it aside.
It was warm within the lodge. A fire burned in the center—set there by someone who had known what he or she was doing—and she was dressed in doeskin as well, a beautiful dress, expertly embroidered and cut.
As he studied the garment, surely from the talented hands of Deer Woman, her eyes suddenly fluttered and opened.
She stared at him, her eyes widening. For a moment he thought that she was going to scream, and he belatedly realized how he was dressed himself, still in breechclout, leggings, moccasins, and no more.
“It’s me, Skylar,” he said quietly.
She nodded, staring at him, still struggling to awaken.
“You survived the day, so I see.”
She nodded again, still studying him.
“And my grandfather.”
“Your grandfather was very kind.”
“He is a great man. A wise one.” He waited, curious as to what she would tell him. “And his English is much better than he is ever willing to allow others to know, so I’m sure you had no difficulty understanding him.”
“I had no difficulty understanding him.”
“And no one scalped you.”
She shook her head. “But I have seen…”
“What?”
She shrugged. “I have seen a number of white scalps tied to poles in front of tipis.”
“It might surprise you to discover that certain men in the cavalry collect Indian scalps.”
“No,” she informed him. “Very little surprises me anymore.”
He offered her a dry smile. “You do have your own home in the West now, you know. The tipi is yours. If we were to divorce one another, it would remain yours.”
“Does one easily obtain a divorce?”
“Very easily.”
“And not so among the whites!”
He shook his head, staring into her eyes, and wondering what thoughts really played within her mind.
Tonight she seemed strangely vulnerable.
Perhaps it was the golden flow of her blonde hair over the doeskin of the dress.
Perhaps it was the shadowy light within the lodge.
Perhaps it was even the fact that he had caught her asleep, that she hadn’t had time to gather all her defenses against him.
He knew that he was going to touch her. Knew that he wanted her that night, that he would have her.
And in the same breath of hunger, of rising passion, he knew that he wanted to hold her as well, throughout the night. Cherish her.
Protect her. From whatever it was that she had needed to escape. From the fears she would not admit. The past that had driven her here.
“No. Divorce is extremely difficult among whites.”
“Yet you are among the Sioux.”
He laughed softly. “Yes. A Sioux would never conceive of obtaining a wife unseen, that words on paper could make a woman a man’s wife.”
“The Sioux would surely Have a point,” Skylar murmured.
“Perhaps,” he murmured, amused. “But then, a Sioux can acquire a wife just as strangely.”
“How so?”
“If a man’s brother dies in battle, he is obligated to take on his brother’s wife. Or wives.”
“And if he already has a tipi full of his own?”
“The tipi gets fuller. Of course, both parties must find it a satisfactory agreement, and a wife may thank her brother-in-law, applaud his sense of responsibility, and choose to go along on her own. As sometimes happens.”
She was watching him very gravely.
He leaned down on the ground next to her, stretched out on his side, and propped himself up on an elbow.
“Had you and your sister been Sioux, I’d be acquiring a second wife right now.
” He wondered if she might betray a sliver of jealousy.
Her silver-gray eyes continued to study him quite seriously without the least hint of inner turmoil.
“I did tell you that you might like Sabrina.”
“If you say so, I’m convinced that I will.”
“Are you considering more than one wife?” she asked politely.
“I didn’t want one, remember?”
“But now we are among the Sioux. Since you are burdened with one you don’t want, you might be considering taking on a second wife you do want.”
“And you would share the tipi?”
She smiled sweetly. “Never. I would be long gone, Lord Douglas.”
“What if I chose not to let you go?”
“We’re in Sioux country. You’d have to let me go.”
“I beg your pardon?”
She flashed him a quick smile. “I am learning Sioux ways. A very great warrior is too important a man to be bothered by a woman. A Sioux leader as respected as yourself would have to allow his wife to leave if she chose to do so. Your pride would surely dictate that you not be disturbed by the comings or goings of someone so inconsequential as a wife.”
He grinned, watching her, shaking his head.
“Perhaps that is the Sioux way. But don’t forget, my love, that men are men—red or white—and that passion and jealousy are human traits.
Dangerous, combustible traits. And on this you may rest assured.
In my mixed-blood way of thinking, white or Sioux, wives can be troublesome.
I cannot imagine more than one—at a time. ”
Her lashes swept her cheeks. She was still smiling. Then she suddenly stared at him with a pained curiosity.
“You had a Sioux wife and she died. What—happened?” she asked him.
He sighed, unwilling to dredge up the memories now. “Smallpox.”
“I’m so very sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Still, you seem to be in pain. I am truly sorry.”
“And I told you,” he said, wondering why he was growing so irritated, “it was a long time ago.” Yet the last time he had lain in a tipi with a woman, it had been with Sea-of-Stars.
She had been learning to speak English because she’d been aware that he was a different man with property in the white man’s world, and she had wanted to be all things to him.
She hadn’t wanted to visit Mayfair until her English was fluent, but she’d happily listened to him talk about his home, his father’s property in Scotland, anything that interested him.
“I could take a walk,” Skylar suggested. “Perhaps you’d like to be left alone.”
“What?” he demanded, startled.
Sea-of-Stars was gone. He had loved her for her gentleness.
Yet he suddenly realized that he’d never felt as passionate about any woman as he felt about Skylar.
The two women could not have been more different.
Sea-of-Stars had been as dark as Skylar was fair.
Sea-of-Stars had believed that whatever he said was right, whereas Skylar would fight tooth and nail for her right to have her own opinion.
He had indeed loved Sea-of-Stars. He had suffered her loss and the loss of their baby greatly.
For a long time, he had dwelled in bitterness and somewhat relieved the pain of his grief by casting himself into the current conflict between the Sioux and the US government.
Sea-of-Stars had been part of a different time.
Life itself had seemed shaded in pastels and comfortable earth tones, the colors of the grass and the trees, the hills and the sky.
Now life itself seemed much more vivid, the color of blood, and the crimson flow of the tide that was destined to run around them.
Likewise, it seemed, his emotions regarding Skylar were equally vivid.
From the moment he had first seen her, she had both angered and aroused him, and each of those strong emotions had only intensified since then.
Skylar stood, the white buckskin dress with its beautiful embroidery hanging in soft fringes to her calves.
Her feet were bare. Her hair was tousled.
The firelight played upon all the vivid colors that were here: gold, silver—even white.
Shades of crimson and sunset were cast upon her.
The night was cool, yet a certain warmth was captured within the tipi.
He rose to stand before her, a brow arched.
“The tipi is yours,” he told her.
She flushed with a half-smile. “Yes, but I can be generous, living among the Sioux.”
“There are some matters of generosity I haven’t quite learned myself.”
She arched a brow.
“If you were to walk from here, where would you go?”
“I…walking!” she said simply. “Perhaps to your grandfather’s, perhaps to see Willow or Sloan.”
“I think not. I could not dream of being generous with a wife.”
Her eyes narrowed sharply. “Generous in what way?”
“My friends and family must find their own women.”
“Don’t you dare be wretched,” she warned him. “I’m out here at the very ends of—”
“Civilization?” he queried.
“Amid hostiles, and you’re the worst of them!” she assured him.
“Want to lose a nose?” he taunted.