[Montacroix Royal Family Series 03] - The Outlaw (12 page)

His voice deepened and grew louder. It trembled with a depth of emotion that came close to fury, making it sound as if he were defying Father Sun instead of asking for his help.

And when he finally stopped chanting and his words drifted away like cottonwood down on a stiff breeze, there was nothing but lonely silence to take their place.

7

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Awakened by the chirping of birds, Noel felt refreshed, quiet and relaxed, as if she'd awakened from a great fever.

The pale light revealed that she'd slept through the night. When a wide wet tongue swiped a good-morning against her cheek, she laughed and hugged the big dog.

"So, you followed us here," she murmured into its shaggy yellow fur. "I hope you didn't bring anyone with you."

Her first thought, when she realized she was alone, was that Wolfe had ridden off and left her to face the posse. The sight of his mare, tethered beside Black Jack's stolen horse, was a decided relief.

A morning chill had striped the forest with bands of pale fog. The wispy swatches picked up the crimson light as the sun rose above the rim. Reluctantly leaving the warmth of the bedroll, Noel stood up, flinching as muscles still suffering the effects of her accident and the long ride, protested painfully. Ignoring the aches and pains, she took off after Wolfe, following the dog who seemed to know the way.

She heard him first. Then saw him, standing there, illuminated in the crimson light, arms and face uplifted to the bloodred sun. As he chanted the sacred words, his singsong tone curled through her, vibrating deep inside her, echoing throughout her body, like the pulsing of blood in her veins.

It was then she realized exactly how different Wolfe Longwalker was from the other men she knew. Despite his mixed blood, Wolfe was definitely a nineteenth-century Indian. A warrior. If he'd been born fifty years earlier, he would have wielded tomahawk and bows and arrows against the white intruders. Instead, he had taken up the only weapon he knew, waging a war of words against his enemies.

By the time he ceased chanting, the sun had risen over the edge of the world and the warm orange light was giving way to a blue as bright and shimmering as the distant sea.

Wolfe had, of course, been aware of her the moment she'd approached. He'd considered stopping his morning prayer, then decided that it was better that she see him as he was. Better that she knew how different their worlds were.

"You are awake," he said.

"Yes." Her smile was hesitant. "Good morning. I didn't mean to disturb you."

"Then you should have stayed wherever you came from. Where you belong." Wolfe regretted his harsh words when they caused her to flinch. But he did not apologize.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. Biting her lip, she looked away, out over the vast valley.

"That is not necessary." He closed the distance between them and looked down at her. Her slide of blond hair, lit by the rising sun, gleamed like molten silver. When the morning breeze blew a strand against her cheek, he brushed it away, ignoring the faint warning growl of the dog.

"Is the wolf sorry it has to hunt the deer? Does the bear feel sad when it eats a fish? You should not apologize for having come here." He shrugged. "It is the way things are. Sorry changes nothing."

His touch was gentle. Almost tender. But his expression remained frustratingly unreadable. "I was surprised when I woke up this morning and discovered yesterday wasn't a dream. That I really was here. With you." She sighed softly. "Sometimes it's difficult to separate truth from dreams."

It was the mention of her dream that caused recognition to come crashing down on him and Wolfe realized that this was the woman he'd dreamed about in his cell. Not prepared to share that information, he turned his mind to more mundane matters.

"Are you hungry?"

"Famished," she admitted. "I think I could eat a horse."

"Hopefully, it will not come to that."

Remembering that these were different times, she said quickly, "I was speaking figuratively."

His lips quirked suspiciously. "I know. As was I."

"Oh." Her lips curved. "Don't look now, Wolfe, but I think you almost made a joke."

Enjoying the warmth of her dazzling smile too much for comfort, he merely grunted and turned away. Leaving her once again to follow him.

It was a beautiful day. The lingering drops of morning dew on the lush greenery along the riverbank captured the sunlight, breaking it into rainbows that swirled in the blades of the grass and the bright spring leaves of the trees.

He made a pot of coffee on the still-glowing embers of the previous night's fire. Noel drank a mug of the strong dark brew and watched him restore the sharp edge of a bone-handled knife with swift strokes of the whetstone he'd taken from his saddlebag. His hands were long and dark, his movements graceful and sure.

A not uncomfortable silence settled over them and for a time, there was only the rasp of stone on metal, and the flutter of birds in the tree branches overhead.

He tested the blade with his thumb. Satisfied, he cut a pair of twigs from a nearby willow and sharpened the ends to a point.

Then, using rocks as stepping-stones, he made his way to the center of the river, where he stood, watching the fish darting in and out among the rocks, breaking the surface with a silvery flare, then vanishing with a flip of their fins.

Every muscle in his body was taut with concentration, every atom of his attention was directed down into the flowing water. Noel watched him lift the handmade spear, watched it descend on a swift stroke, then emerge with a pan-size trout. The scales of the fish glistened like quicksilver in the morning sun.

"That was wonderful," she said, not as surprised as she might have been only yesterday. Although the biography in the
Rogues Across Time
book had stressed his life spent in the white world, she realized that, having witnessed his morning prayer, he was still very much a Navajo, attuned to the land, accustomed to living with it on its terms.

"It is not so difficult." He mentally thanked the fish for giving its life then returned to the riverbank.

"I couldn't do it."

"You are not Navajo."

From his tone, Noel got the distinct impression that Wolfe was reminding her, yet again, of the differences between them. "No," she agreed mildly. "I'm not."

After cleaning the fish, he laced the fillets onto the twigs and held the slabs of pink flesh over the glowing coals until they turned white and the edges charred black. They ate the fish right off the sticks, and Noel, accustomed to the finest of European cuisine, could not remember when she'd enjoyed a meal more.

"That was delicious," she said happily.

He watched her lick her fingers and once more felt an annoying tug deep in his groin. He wanted her, dammit. He wanted to lose himself in her soft feminine warmth, wanted to kiss her mouth, her breasts, that warm honeyed place between her legs. He wanted to push her down on his bedroll and take her hard and fast, and when the ride was over, he wanted to do it again.

Which was precisely the problem, Wolfe reminded himself. One time with this woman would not be enough. He'd want more. And the wanting would make him weak. And vulnerable. Although he'd never considered himself a remotely cautious man, neither was he a fool. Making love with the princess Noel was a risk he dared not take.

"Although the idea may be difficult to accept for those who embrace the reservation system, my people were capable of feeding themselves long before they ever saw a white man."

The sun was warm, her stomach was filled, and although she knew, on some distant level, that she should be worried about the posse that was bound to be following them, not to mention concerned about her uncertain future, at the moment, Noel felt too good to get into an argument.

"Of course you were." She leaned back against the rocks and enjoyed the sight of the sun-gilded river polishing its rocks. "Paradise must look a great deal like this," she murmured as much to herself as to Wolfe.

"It is good land," he agreed. "Too good, some would say, for a bunch of damn savages."

"You're not a savage."

"That's not what the papers say. Everyone knows I massacred those settlers. Which is why they want to hang me."

"You didn't do it."

"You're so sure of that?"

"Yes." Refusing to let him intimidate her with that cold stare, she glared back at him. "I'd bet my life on it."

"Did you ever think," he suggested grimly as he stood up and walked over to where he'd tethered the horses, "that's precisely what you're doing?"

Frustrated, Noel refused to dignify the vague threat with an answer.

Instead she concentrated on her surroundings. Accustomed to her tidy, landlocked home, the vast, seemingly endless landscape they were riding through took Noel's breath away. The dramatic, towering red-sandstone sculptures made her feel as if they were crossing a mystical land born from dreams rather than reality.

"It's so open," she breathed during a brief pause for a drink of water to cut the dust. She handed back the canteen he'd refilled from the river. "It's as if we're on another planet."

He glanced around the hauntingly lonely landscape. "Sometimes, if you listen intently enough, you can hear the spirits walking."

Wolfe knew that such a remark would only add to his image as a savage. How could she understand that no matter how far he roamed, this place between the four sacred mountains would always represent
Shu'kayah
, his home. He was irrevocably bound to it—physically and emotionally.

Although anywhere else she may have found his claim of spirits unbelievably fanciful, Noel understood what he was saying perfectly. Although this may be the loneliest place on the planet, she had the feeling they were not alone. Not wanting to try to explain what she couldn't understand, herself, she continued to drink in the moving view.

"That's an interesting shape," she murmured, pointing at one tall spire standing alone in the red earth.

"That's Spider Rock. Navajos believe that it was Spider Woman who lives atop the rock, who first taught the Dineh how to weave. In the beginning, the women weavers always left a hole in the center of the blanket—"

"Like a web."

He nodded. "Exactly. Unfortunately, the white traders refused to buy these blankets, which presented a problem, because if the tribute to her is denied, Spider Woman will weave webs in the head of the weaver."

"Cobwebs in the brain," Noel murmured. "I think I've had that a few times, myself."

Wolfe smiled. "So have I."

This time, the look they exchanged was one of shared pleasure, without any sensual overtones. It crossed Wolfe's mind that as foolhardy as it was to want this woman, to actually like her and enjoy her company could ultimately prove even more dangerous.

"So what did they do?" she asked. "To satisfy Spider Woman, and still be able to sell their blankets?"

"Oh." He shrugged off the discomforting feeling. "Most weavers still leave a spirit outlet in the design." His expression hardened as he thought of all the concessions that had been made to satisfy others who could not begin to understand the complexity of his people's belief system.

His people had never wanted to make the white men like them. So why, Wolfe had asked himself again and again, did the Americans seem so anxious to change the Dineh? To make them like them. It shouldn't have to be that way, he considered. There was plenty of room for all.

But the whites had wanted more and more land. They found metals and they wanted to mine them. They found coal and they wanted to mine it. If Indians happened to be living there, the white man's solution was merely to move them somewhere else, never minding that it was their land. Their copper. Their coal.

The damn whites were like maggots on a dead coyote. Every day there were more and more maggots and less and less coyote. Until finally the day came when there was nothing left for the maggots to eat and the coyote was just bones.

"We're wasting time," he said abruptly. Kicking his mare's flanks, he began riding again.

Something had happened. The brief, easygoing mood was gone, replaced by that edgy anger she'd come to expect. Looking at his grim expression and hard eyes, Noel found him almost the model of the cruel savage his detractors wanted others to believe him to be.

Knowing better, she held her tongue yet again and continued on.

The sun was setting as they reached Canyon de Chelly, making the red sandstone glow ruby and gold. Viewed from the rim of the gorge, the green cornfields, orchards, horses and hogans on the canyon floor below seemed like a child's toys.

"It's the most spectacular thing I've ever seen." Noel was awestruck by the bird's-eye view. "Do people actually live in those?" she asked, her gaze settling on the multistoried stone dwellings tucked into alcoves on the towering cliffs. The remarkable stone buildings were, in their own way, as breathtaking as any palaces built by her European ancestors.