Chapter 21
Hawk awoke with a groan. Crazy Horse was hunkered down at his side, his long fingers moving over Hawk’s skull. His head throbbed with pain, but he sat up to discover that he remained in the little forest alcove, and he was now surrounded by his friends.
“Where is she?”
“Gone. Sloan and the others went for the horses. We’ll start after them.”
“Who?”
“Crow.”
“Crow. Here in your camp?”
“Dead Crow. They will be dead Crow, very soon, I vow it,” Crazy Horse said. “Can you ride? We will go for your woman. There is no shame in your not coming when your head is battered. Strange, they didn’t make sure you were dead. They didn’t take your scalp.”
“They didn’t take the time,” Hawk commented, coming carefully to his feet.
Crazy Horse steadied him when he would have staggered.
He was completely perplexed and worried sick.
It was his fear, far more than the pounding in his head, that was making him feel nauseated.
“Damn, what the bloody hell is going on here?” he swore.
“The horses,” Crazy Horse said.
Sloan, He Dog, Willow, Blade, and Ice Raven were mounted, along with a dozen warriors who had joined them as they bridled their horses. Sloan led Tor for Hawk while He Dog led Crazy Horse’s mount.
“You’re sure you can ride?” Crazy Horse began, but Hawk had already swung himself atop Tor’s back, a fistful of mane in his hand.
Crazy Horse leaped atop his own mount, and they started out, Blade leading.
He had already tracked the enemy across the river, a futile attempt to lose trackers who knew the Black Hills as well as the Sioux.
They rode fast across the river, picked up the trail again, and galloped hard across the terrain toward an outcropping of hills and brush. Willow raised a hand. Blade leaped down from his horse when the trail seemed to split. Hawk started to follow. Sloan caught his arm.
“What the hell happened?”
“Damned if I know. This is insane behavior—”
“On your part, too,” Sloan said gruffly. “You can usually hear a twig snap in the next territory. If you hadn’t been so damned busy manhandling your wife—”
“I wasn’t manhandling my wife!” Hawk exploded, amazed to realize that he was in such a blind fury he was ready to tear into the one man who was not only a solid friend but an associate who knew the world of red-and-white he lived in as he knew it himself.
Sloan arched a brow. “I wasn’t manhandling my wife,” Hawk repeated more quietly.
“I was simply—completely involved with her.” He groaned.
“Damn it, Sloan—” he began, then he shook his head, squared his shoulders, and hurried toward Willow, hunkering down close to the ground to study the tracks with him in the pale glow of moonlight. “To the left,” he said.
Willow nodded. The trail of hoofprints had split, but they were deeper to the left. They’d gamble that meant there was a horse in that party bearing the weight of two riders.
They leaped back on their horses. “We’ll get her,” Sloan assured him. “We’re breathing down their necks now.”
“I don’t know how long I was out—” Hawk began.
“Not long,” Sloan assured him.
“How do you know?” Hawk demanded.
Sloan glanced at Crazy Horse. Crazy Horse shrugged.
“I went to find you. Cougar-in-the-Night suspected your wife knows how to cook better than she did. He left when you did and came back with Earth Woman. Earth Woman dumped the spices into the food. I was looking for you when I heard a woman screaming.”
Hawk thought that he would die if something happened to Skylar.
Go mad, bury himself in ashes, tear his hair out.
It was his fault. He never should have let down his guard.
He had survived the war and every danger on the plains by never letting down his guard.
She’d seeped into his blood. And it was dangerous.
Because in discovering that he needed her, he was going to lose her. He couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
Damn, by every concept of heaven and hell, he wouldn’t lose her now. He’d kill every Crow in the West if that was what it took to get back.
“Ahead!” Crazy Horse cried suddenly. “Just ahead! Listen!”
They kept up a brisk pace. The Indian riding with Skylar had held her tightly at the beginning of the ride, but then his hold had begun to ease somewhat. She tried to wriggle from it. If she could test his hold, she could perhaps break free when the right time came.
The right time…
What would that be? she asked herself hysterically.
When they rode through a wooded area. When she could run into brush. When she could escape…
She couldn’t escape.
The Indians had split their party. Two of them had gone down one trail, while three remained with her and the man who held her now. Still, four altogether against her. If she leaped down, they’d come after her. They were far from the Sioux camp now…
One of the other Indians rode up close to the man riding with her. He indicated the path behind him. He spoke in his own language.
Skylar realized that someone was following them. “Help! Help me!” she shrieked.
A dirty hand fell upon her mouth. “Damn it, I’d just as well kill you sooner than later, bitch!” he hissed to her.
His vise upon her mouth was so tight that she had to lean back against him to keep her neck from breaking. The pain was unbearable. She grasped his leg to steady herself and felt the sheath at his calf.
Then the steel within it.
She drew the knife from the sheath and slammed it into his leg with all her strength.
He let out a bone-chilling scream, cursing her. Promising her a slow, agonizing death.
But he instinctively let go of her to grasp his thigh.
And she was free.
She leaped down from the horse, shrieking again as her ankle twisted. She didn’t care, couldn’t care. The others in the war party were staring at her with murderous fury.
Shouting to one another.
Racing toward her.
She turned and ran into the brush, hobbling with amazing speed, the bloody knife still clutched desperately in her hand.
They heard a cry for help, then a shriek from a very feminine, well-recognized voice.
Then a masculine voice crying out in pain, cursing.
“Come!” Hawk shouted, kneeing Tor so that he and his horse leaped forward as one. He burst onto the narrow trail through the trees to discover Skylar racing down a path that ran parallel with his own. Three warriors on horseback were trying to corner her and trap her.
One of the nearly naked Crow, still cursing, was bearing down on her quickly. Hawk didn’t think. He drew his knife from the sheath at his calf and hurled it swiftly through the air. He must have hit the Crow’s heart dead on, for the man fell from his horse without a whimper.
He thundered through the trees, weaving perfectly on Tor.
He didn’t fear his other enemies. His own people would be protecting his back as he retrieved his wife.
He rode up behind Skylar, who still ran.
She heard Tor and turned back, her golden hair flying in the night, her flawless features wild as she looked up at him, silver eyes still defiant, nonetheless.
She gasped his name, her hand flying to her throat as she ceased running, stumbled, stood still. He swept her up, cradling her against his body, running his hands over and over her, touching her face, her lips, trembling as he did so.
“Oh, God, oh, God, you came, I was so afraid you were dead, I was so afraid—” she sobbed.
“Shhh…shhh…”
He held her more tightly against him. A knife was clasped tightly in her fingers. He had to pry her fingers free from it.
She surely felt the terrible thunder of his heart, the rampant shaking within him. He gave a slight twist to the reins, urging Tor to take them back to the trail, assuring Skylar softly all the while that she was all right.
Their Crow enemies lay dead on the ground, stretched out next to one another. The man Hawk had killed with the knife to the heart also sported a bloody leg—Skylar’s attack, Hawk was certain.
Sloan and Willow stood by the bodies, shaking their heads and speaking softly to one another.
“What is it?” Hawk demanded.
“I don’t know. It’s just so strange. This one…” Sloan said, striking a match against his boot to better illuminate the body and indicating the man Hawk had killed himself, “He’s dressed like a Crow, painted like a Crow. But I don’t think he is a Crow.”
“What do you think he is?” Hawk demanded. He was going to jump down to study the dead brave himself, but Skylar clung to him so tightly he didn’t want to rip himself away from her. Besides which, he knew and trusted Sloan’s opinion.
“He’s a mixed race. And I think he’s half Arikara.”
Crazy Horse spoke up. “The Arikara have been known to be our enemies as well. This man, though…he pretends to be what he is not. It is very strange.”
Sloan spoke again, slowly. “I agree. I think I’ve seen him before.”
“Where?” Hawk asked.
“Hanging around Fort Abraham Lincoln. Trying to get a job as an Indian scout.”
“So he didn’t get work with the white army, and he started to run with the Crows,” Crazy Horse said. “What does that mean?” He spat down on the body.
“I don’t know,” Sloan said. “Any ideas?” he asked Hawk.
Two of the Sioux warriors with them had leaped down from their horses.
They were going to take the scalps, Hawk realized.
A woman had been abducted from their very camp, and they had taken a war party out in the night to bring her back.
The scalps were theirs. And these were no-good warriors, sneaking into a camp, attacking a brave from the back, abducting a lone female.
They would be maimed so that they would not play so foolishly in the afterlife.
He needed to move on with Skylar and ponder the problem of these strange “Crow” attacks later.
She was silent as they rode and still. She didn’t even wince as she heard the tremolos and cries go out as the Sioux took the Crow’s scalps.
He nuzzled the top of her head. “Are you alright?” he asked her very softly.