Chapter 22
They stayed among the Crazy Horse people for three more days, then they prepared to depart.
They would head south to the site where the meeting between the representatives of the American government and the Sioux was scheduled to take place.
It would take them two days to ride there.
They would be traveling southeast, from Montana back to Dakota territory.
When they were ready to leave, Skylar bid a fond farewell to Hawk’s family and to the other people she had come to know during her visit. When they mounted their horses, she was surprised to see that Blade and Ice Raven would be accompanying them.
It was ironic, she thought, that she would be riding with all four of the warriors who had attacked her stagecoach and convinced her that she was about to be slaughtered and scalped just a matter of a few weeks earlier.
Sloan made their number five. He and Hawk still wore the clothing they had donned each day during their visit to the camp: breechclouts, leggings, moccasins, little else.
If it weren’t for her hair, Skylar thought, she would fit right in with them.
She had become so involved in Sioux generosity that she had given away all the clothing she had brought with her and now wore nothing more than doeskin herself.
Crazy Horse came out to bid them all farewell.
What the men said, Skylar had no idea. They seemed to be parting in complete friendship, but for some reason, the words spoken between them made her uneasy.
She smiled at Crazy Horse and waved goodbye to him.
He smiled in return and raised his hand in farewell as well.
She was glad that he seemed to like her, for she had to admit that she liked him, even though he was extremely warlike and might go to battle against the whites at any given time.
He was still a man of integrity, one who had been backed against a rock time and time again.
He didn’t intend to be an agency Indian, a drunkard, or a layabout.
His way was free and steeped in tradition.
She couldn’t blame him for being ready to fight for his own existence.
Earth Woman, who had apologized about the pepper and decided to become Skylar’s friend after the attack, bade her a warm farewell—one that seemed sincere.
But then Hawk had told Skylar that both Crazy Horse and Sloan had severely chastised her—the incident had made them all vulnerable to the attack.
The children ran alongside them as they rode from the camp by the river. The men tossed down keepsakes to the children, Sloan providing whistles he had carved and cavalry buttons, Hawk, Ice Raven, and Blade dropping some of their arrows.
When they reached the more heavily wooded countryside, Skylar urged Nutmeg up closer to Tor. “Why are your cousins coming with us? I thought they had decided they wanted to stay away from the white community, with the Crazy Horse people.”
Hawk shrugged without saying anything for a moment, then he told her, “No one understands why parties of Crow Indians and others keep appearing to wrest you away.”
Skylar frowned. “I don’t mean to tread upon your feelings, but it is natural for many of the Indian bands in the West to attack whites.”
Hawk smiled wryly, shaking his head. “The attacks were just a bit too strange. You thought so yourself. Remember? You told me one of the men spoke English. Sloan had seen one of them before.”
“Is that so unusual?”
“Maybe not. It’s just that…”
“What?”
“Something seems not quite right.”
Skylar sighed softly. “Hawk, lots of things just aren’t right at all.”
“Beyond the obvious,” Hawk told her. He cocked his head toward her, a wry half-smile curved into his features.
“Skylar, I don’t tend to be a superstitious man—perhaps I’m too grounded in my father’s white world—but having you abducted twice in less than a week seems a bit on the strange side.
Even among warring Indians. To be less than careful would be entirely foolish.
Between us, Sloan, Willow, Ice Raven, Blade, and myself, of course, we’re quite a powerful group. ”
“I do believe you.” Skylar smiled. “So Ice Raven and Blade came along to protect me?”
“They won’t come to the conference on the Black Hills. They’ll turn back when we near the site.”
“That makes it all the nicer that they are willing to come so far.”
“We do our best to protect our women.”
“Wives,” Skylar murmured.
“What?”
She looked at him innocently. “Wives. In the plural.”
He grinned. “Such jealousy warms my heart, Lady Douglas.”
“I’m not jealous in the least.”
He reined in suddenly, catching hold of Nutmeg’s reins to pull her back as well. “I can be a very jealous soul myself, my lady. Thank God you hadn’t had much of a past when you came to me. But then, there’s so much about your past that I don’t know! Should I be jealous, worried?”
“I can’t imagine you worried,” she told him.
“Ah, jealous, then.”
“That from the man who might not have chosen a multitude of wives at one time, but most certainly entertained a score of lovers!”
“But my past is an open book.”
“Umm. I get to read it every time I stumble upon it.”
He laughed softly. “Well, there is nothing anyone can do to change the past.”
“Only the present—and the future,” Skylar added.
“Umm,” he murmured. He was looking at her intently, and she was tempted to start blurting out explanations. But the bonds that held them together still seemed too fragile and tenuous. How could she explain that she would have done anything in the world—to escape the man who had killed her father?
The respected man who had killed her father.
She saw that he was still looking at her probingly. She pointed to her right, where the sun was just falling behind a mound of emerald-green grass, dotted with purple wildflowers. “My God, have you ever seen such a sunset!” she exclaimed.
His gaze moved in the direction in which she pointed. She kneed her roan and glanced back at him. “Race you to it!” she challenged, and took off, flying across the field.
She knew she was not nearly as good a rider as Hawk. The Indians of the Western Plains tribes seemed to be the most spectacular horsemen she had ever witnessed in action. But she was a good rider, and she could certainly try to outrace him.
The only problem was that he raced on Tor.
Nutmeg tired as she dipped down into the valley.
She slowed her gait. He came behind her on Tor.
Before she could catch her own breath, he had leaped from Tor and caught her about the waist, bringing them both down into the rich green grass.
They rolled in it, laughing. Then Hawk rose, drawing her to her feet.
“The others will be right behind us. Seems like a good place to camp for the night, though. What do you think?”
She looked around, then shook her head. “No water.”
He smiled. “Smell the air.”
“The air?”
“The water is down at the bottom of that hill.”
She stared at him doubtfully, then started to run down the hill to the next rise.
A brook gently trickled by beneath her.
Sloan, Willow, Ice Raven, and Blade came riding up and dismounted from their horses.
Hawk started to unpack with Willow.
Sloan rode over to Skylar. “Did he really smell water?” Skylar demanded.
“Of course,” Sloan told her.
He lifted his horse’s saddle from the animal. “Then, of course, we camped here a few times before, so he probably knew the creek was right down there anyway.”
He winked at her and walked away.
That night, they slept in a circle in a copse of trees. Two men remained on guard throughout the hours of darkness.
It was a peaceful night. Skylar slept beside Hawk. Slept with her head upon his chest.
He rested his hands upon her shoulders, her hair.
But even when his watch was over, he stayed awake through most of the night.
Watching.
He sensed a strange danger. Sensed a warning in the call of the night birds. Felt it burn within his blood.
But he couldn’t see it.
The hours passed. The night was uneventful. Morning came, and they prepared to ride again.
Though they traveled light, it took them two days of riding in a southeasterly direction to reach the agreed-upon site for the conference.
The morning before the meeting was to take place, they came upon a temporary camp for some of the white commissioners, army personnel, journalists, and the sutlers who were bound to follow such a group.
Before they neared the white camp, Ice Raven and Blade departed.
Skylar wanted to thank them, perhaps hug them goodbye.
But the Sioux were not demonstrative, and she had learned that wives were seldom direct with the male relatives of their husbands, and so she simply said goodbye and thank you, and waved when the two of them left.
“Hawk! Major! Willow!” A soldier called as they neared the camp. He hurried out to meet them, a young man with red hair, freckles, and a lieutenant’s insignia upon his uniform. He wore a broad grin. “Why, you two look more like redskins than redskins!” he exclaimed. “And Willow, well…”
“Well, I’m Willow, eh?” Willow said.
Skylar was surprised that neither her husband, Willow, nor Sloan seemed to take offense. Sloan looked at Hawk. Hawk shrugged.
“It’s the boy’s red hair,” Hawk said. “He wishes he had the skin to match it.”
“Irish,” Sloan said sadly with a shake of his head.
“Irish is just fine,” Hawk said, “if you can mix it with Sioux.”
“An Irish Sioux!”
“It’s happened upon occasion,” Sloan warned.
The young man grinned, but then his grin froze as he gazed at Skylar. “Oh, my God! Is this gorgeous creature such a mixed blood? I’d have never imagined—”
“Danby, this is my wife, Lady Douglas, recently come west from Baltimore,” Hawk said.
His jaw dropped. “Oh, God! Now I’ve sworn—I’m sorry, Hawk, I—”
“Skylar, meet Lieutenant Danby Dixon. Danby, Lady Douglas,” Sloan interrupted.