Chapter 25 #2
Hawk and Sloan mounted their horses. Henry was left behind.
Dillman ordered his men to collect the bodies of the white men who’d dressed and painted themselves as Indians for the attack on the wagon.
They were thrown over the haunches of their mounts to follow along with the group heading for the cabin—to be disposed of at a better place and time, so it seemed.
Dillman would want to leave no evidence of white involvement in an Indian raid.
Hawk moved ahead on Tor. He met Skylar’s silver gaze once again. He had a chance to speak to her very softly, very briefly as he passed by her.
“I slay all monsters!” he promised.
“What?” Dillman snapped.
“I said you’re a damned monster!” he grated.
Dillman smiled. “A damned good monster!” he agreed. He laughed aloud then, enjoying his own joke.
They began to ride to the cabin.
Willow was just about to mount his own horse.
The senator had been joined at the house by two other men who spoke with him briefly before helping him from the house.
They had all been polite and courteous to Lord Douglas’s household.
They had made Willow damned suspicious. Now neither Hawk nor Skylar had returned, and Dillman had been gone nearly an hour, and he was growing worried.
Just as he mounted his horse, he heard his name. He looked to see a number of men coming toward him. He was stunned to see his brothers riding toward him, leading a horse-drawn wagon. He never mounted his horse. He hurried toward them.
“Henry Pierpont’s inside, shot through beneath the shoulder,” Ice Raven told him.
“He’s going to make it,” Blade said, “but he’ll need some care right away.”
“We’ll get him inside to Meggie—”
“Call the women to get him in,” Ice Raven said. “Willow, he came to, raving a little when we found him. Someone just staged an Indian attack on him. He was bringing Skylar’s sister out to Mayfair. They were having a nice ride when they were suddenly attacked by painted bucks.”
“An Indian raid—” Willow began incredulously.
“There might have been Indians involved, but it wasn’t an Indian attack. Henry said that they didn’t know he had come to after Hawk and Sloan came upon them and killed the supposed Indians. More men came. Threatening to kill Skylar. They took Hawk, Sloan, Skylar, and her sister.”
“Where?” Willow demanded.
“To Hawk’s cabin in the woods.”
“How many of them?”
“Henry didn’t know,” Blade supplied. “Several. And he thinks some of them are hired killers.”
“I’ll call the women to come for Henry,” Willow said. “Three full-blooded Sioux. I imagine we can stage an Indian attack of our own.”
Ice Raven nodded. “As long as we don’t have to go through the paint thing again,” he told his brother.
Willow smiled grimly. “No paint. No bows and arrows. Guns, and we shoot to kill. And if it’s that Dillman who staged this thing, I want his scalp.”
“Hawk just might want that one.”
“Hawk will want his heart on a platter,” Willow said. He started toward the house, then paused briefly. “What brought you two out here now?”
Ice Raven looked at Blade, then back to Willow. “Crazy Horse had a vision. He cannot come to the whites. He asked that we come see about Hawk.”
“Ah,” Willow said.
He was Sioux. He was not about to question the wisdom and truth of a vision.
Skylar felt as if she moved within a dream.
As if nothing were real. A numbness seemed to have settled over her; the mistakes she had made in the past seemed to play over and over again in her mind.
The years of living with Dillman. Of knowing he had killed her father.
Slept with her mother. Laughed because there was nothing she could do.
She had escaped him. She had hurt him and escaped him, but she hadn’t killed him. Because she didn’t want to be him. Now she was paying for her mercy not only with her own life but with the lives of her sister, her husband, and a man who was surely one of the best friends she would ever have.
Dillman wasn’t letting up his hold on her.
It didn’t matter. His knife was biting into the flesh at her side now and then, but at the moment, he was just scratching her.
Just enough to let her know how badly he could hurt her.
She was certain he wouldn’t enjoy the kill half so much as he did the anticipation of it.
Sabrina rode near her. Another mistake. She had never emphasized how important it was that Sabrina never use her own name.
But she was certain that nothing she could have done would have mattered.
Dillman was a man with connections. He could have discovered the contents of their telegrams no matter what. And now Sabrina was with her.
She couldn’t even touch her sister, hold her, hug her, one last time.
She gritted her teeth together, furious with herself, glad of the next prick Dillman gave her with the knife. She was going to feel, and she was going to fight. She had fought before and lost. She was still breathing. She was going to keep fighting him.
Ahead of her suddenly was the cabin in the woods.
Now, of course, memories flooded back to her in earnest. Fresh, sweet memories.
Ah, but she hadn’t found the events so sweet when they had occurred!
She had assumed herself under attack by the strangest of Indians.
She’d been afraid of so much, fighting so much, disbelieving so much—and she’d been so damned determined to stay out here, no matter what!
He’d held her here for the first time. Touched her here.
Made love to her here. Made her his wife here.
The cabin meant so much to her. Dillman couldn’t know that.
He meant to burn it down, she suspected.
“All right, gentlemen—and ladies,” Dillman drawled. Skylar could feel his breath on her neck. “Into the cabin, if you will.”
Hawk stared at Dillman, his features set in the chiseled-rock expression that gave nothing away. He dismounted from his horse but didn’t head for the cabin. He approached Dillman. “I want Skylar. Now.”
“Step into the cabin, let Macy tie your hands, and she is yours.”
“I’ll step into the cabin. No one ties me until she is mine.
Dillman, admit it—you want to make it look as if Sioux, angry about my and Sloan’s relationships with the whites, came in here and wiped us out.
Or perhaps we’re supposed to die as if the Crow were carrying out a vendetta against me.
Either way, if you have to shoot me in the heart, it won’t look good.
And no one is tying me until Skylar is with me.
Macy there may be one good gunfighter. But I’ll bet he can also take one good look at me and know he’s got trouble on his hands if I choose to make it happen. ”
Dillman shrugged. “Sabrina, it’s too bad. I hadn’t intended you to be a part of this, to have to die, but you’ve involved yourself. You, in the cabin along with the major there, Lord Redman, you right behind him. Then Skylar follows.”
Dillman’s men had already dismounted, Skylar saw. They carried large saddlebags, which two of men now started to open. She saw that they contained bows and arrows.
“Brad, are you having us killed by Crow or Sioux?” she asked him.
She felt the knife digging at her.
“Sioux,” he said flatly after a minute. “I thought it was a nice touch.”
“I’m not going in there,” Sabrina said stubbornly.
Skylar glanced at her sister, then at Hawk, still standing in front of her. His expression gave away so little, but he suddenly smiled slightly to her. He inclined his head just a little to the east.
“Remember when we first came here, Skylar?” he said.
She stared at him blankly. She’d certainly never thought of him as being a sentimental man. Wild, passionate, hot-tempered, occasionally startlingly tender…
But not sentimental.
“Yes…”
“Remember how we came to be here?”
She frowned.
“Lord Douglas, this is touching, really,” Brad Dillman said impatiently, “but unless you want to watch her blood flow quickly, it’s time to move.”
“Yes, move into the cabin,” Hawk said.
“I’m not going!” Sabrina repeated stubbornly.
Skylar kept looking at Hawk. How they had come to be here that day…
An Indian attack. He had dressed up. With Willow, Ice Raven, and Blade…
Willow!
Was he out there somewhere? Did Hawk know it? Had he heard the call of a dove in the air and known that it was not a dove?
Perhaps she didn’t understand him quickly enough. Sloan did. He strode for Sabrina and dragged her down from Macy’s mount. “We’re going in.”
“I’m not, I—”
“Keep quiet!” Sloan insisted, his arms about her waist, Sabrina hanging from his hip as he strode for the cabin door, throwing it open.
“Let me go, you oaf! Skylar!”
As if Skylar could help her in any way!
“The damned army is doing us in, Skylar!” Sabrina shrieked.
Hawk ignored the frantic cries Sabrina let out. He stared up at Dillman. “I’ll walk to the cabin door. Then I want Skylar released to me. Understood?”
“I can’t see any harm in you fools dying in one another’s arms,” Dillman said pleasantly.
Hawk started for the cabin. Skylar saw that Macy and George were keeping their guns trained on her and the others while Dillman’s “aides” were getting ready to light arrows on fire and shoot them into the cabin.
Hawk stepped through the cabin door. He turned to face them, standing in the doorway.
“Let Skylar go!”
Dillman shoved her. Prepared for his action, Skylar clung to the horse’s neck as she fell downward, keeping herself from plummeting to the ground.
She had a strange feeling that this was all or nothing now.
If she had a chance to live, she wouldn’t be able to make the most of it with a sprained ankle or a broken wrist.
She started walking toward the cabin. Macy remained right behind her, a gun trained on her back. Skylar kept her eyes on Hawk’s. He met hers in return, the green fire in them encouraging her all the way.