No Other Man (36 page)

He dared. Her doeskin dress had been dragged up her body. His
hand fell upon naked flesh.

She bit his knee.

To free himself of her teeth he shoved her down to the
ground, then pounced hard upon her. She was inhaling and exhaling in a rapid
fury, her eyes silver daggers, her fingers clawing at him. He caught her hands,
then found himself staring at her, realizing in dismay that he wasn't just furious,
he was aroused. More than aroused. He was in agony.

"Bastard!" she hissed. Yet her fingers unclenched.
She was reaching for him still, touching his shoulders, fingers digging into
them, but not to draw blood. Tears stung her eyes; she brushed them away. His
lips fell upon hers, and she responded wildly, her mouth crushing his in
return.

Their lips parted. "I'm going to kill you," she
promised him.

"Only when I finish with you," he responded.

"You'll be on your knees to apologize," she told
him. Her lips moved over his throat, his chest, hungrily. Her hands. Oh, God.
Fingers running up his thighs. Beneath the breechclout. Stroking, rubbing,
caressing ...

He caught her hands. Pressed her back hard into the earth.
The stars above them danced madly in the heavens. She thrashed, undulated,
strained against him. The stars erupted. He climaxed in a wave of passion,
need, fury, and confusion, crushing her against him and feeling the same
response within her as she jerked with each little after- climax that seized
her body, bringing them both back down to the dirt on the forest floor in the
cool night by the river.

She stared up at him, her eyes misted. He felt like an ass. A
fool. Still angry, and yet.. .

He heard a rustling behind him. Close.

Damn her! He should have heard it before!

With lightning-quick reflexes, he instinctively leaped to his
feet, drawing her dress down the length of her body as he did so. He felt her
halfway rising behind him as he swiftly scanned the brush and the night-shadows
surrounding them.

She inhaled sharply, looking past his shoulder. He turned to
her quickly, just as she began to scream out a warning. It was too late. Even
as she cried out, the back of a war club struck him at the back of his head,
and he knew no more.

Her scream was abruptly cut short as suffocating fingers
clamped over her nose and mouth. Skylar had seen that the brave coming out of
the darkness wasn't alone; the other came from behind her. She struggled
insanely, trying to free herself, trying to see Hawk. Darkness and shadows
seemed to be closing in around her. Her attackers didn't seem to care in the
least that they might suffocate her. The world was spinning, turning black,
stars were dotting the blackness ...

No! She couldn't lose her senses. Hawk!

She twisted. Saw her husband's body, fallen on the earth. She
bit into the fingers pressing so brutally against her mouth. The grip upon her
slipped. She let out a long, shrill scream.

Another hand clamped down upon her, more brutal, more
punishing. She was vaguely aware of the face atop hers. Dark-eyed,
dark-skinned, a scar running atop the forehead. "Another sound, I slit
your throat."

English. He was speaking English. He looked like a Crow. Or
did he? Something about him was subtly different. She hadn't been here long
enough to learn the different ways of dress and manner and adornment between
the tribes.

The fellow holding her so tightly dragged
her to her feet. She threw an elbow back into his ribs with all the force
within her. He gasped. For an instant, he released his hold. She flew forward,
trying to reach Hawk. She nearly touched him but was drawn back before she
could do so, drawn back by a hand around her throat. Yet even as she gasped and
choked, seeing stars again, she thought that she saw Hawk's chest move. She
thought that he breathed.

Someone snapped out an order in an Indian language. Not
Sioux! she thought. Not Sioux.

She was dragged back, unable to breathe. She saw stars. She
heard the man whisper in English again. "A sound, and I take my knife
where my arm wraps around your throat. I slice the vein where I see it pulsing
now. Watch the blood flow down your breast..."

She was certain they meant to kill her anyway—but they
weren't taking chances on her now. There were a number of men; how many, she
wasn't sure. Four ... five ... six.

The man's left hand slipped from her throat as they reached
his horse. He kept his right pinned firmly over her mouth. Another man was
there to help him get her quickly up on his horse; within seconds, they were
racing away from the camp.

They slowed after twenty minutes of nearly breakneck speed.
One of the other men came up by them as they rode. She didn't understand his
words, but she saw his movements and realized the fellow was saying that she
needed to be tied. The other disagreed, looking back.

They were in a hurry. A desperate hurry. As well they should
be. When someone within the camp realized that Hawk had been attacked, that she
...

Oh, God, would anyone come after her? Any of the men who
assumed that she had peppered their meals to humiliate her husband? And if Hawk
lay dead, did any of it matter? Would she ever be rid of the terrible pain in
her heart?

The Sioux warriors would come, she thought. They would come
because they were warriors, because they were proud, because they wouldn't let
such an insult go unavenged. They would come because ...

They had to!

Oh,
God, they had to. This could not happen. Not now. She was desperate to live if
Hawk lived. If they had killed Hawk, then . ..

She didn't dare think.

She
abhorred the smell of the man holding her so cruelly as they rode; she despised
the sound of his voice, the look in his eyes. He meant to kill her, she was
convinced. Somehow she knew these men were ... evil.

Monsters.

Twenty-one

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 half-breed. 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 Crows' scalps.

He nuzzled the top of her head. "Are you all
right?" he asked her very softly.

Her hair was as soft as silk against his chest as she nodded.

She wasn't all right. She was as strong as steel; she would
defend herself to the death, he knew, but even steel could be bent.

"Thank God!" he murmured, urging Tor in a steady
walk along the trail. He drew the backs of his fingers over her cheeks.
"You've got to be all right tonight. I don't want you to miss the sight of
me on my knees when I know you'll enjoy it so much."

She
jerked slightly away from him and turned around to look at him. Her face was
smudged. The beautiful doeskin dress was a mess. She had put up quite a fight.
He drew a line over one of the smudges on her face, smiling.

"Earth Woman admitted to the pepper."

Her
eyes widened. "Why, that—bitch!" she exclaimed.

He smiled. "I'm sorry."

"Not good enough."

"Really sorry."

"Still not good enough."

"Then
you'll just have to wait a bit," he said gruffly. "But then, you owe
me an apology as well."

"I owe you—"

"For
this morning. I was never with Earth Woman." When she said nothing he
prompted, "Well?"

"I'm sorry, too."

"You didn't believe in me."

"You
certainly didn't believe in me regarding the pepper!"

"I
already promised you a better apology, but I think life will go a little bit
more smoothly if we both start believing in each other. What do you say?"

She nodded.

He
nudged Tor to a quicker gait. The others rode behind them now. When they
returned to the camp by the river, though the hour was late, other warriors,
old men, young men, women, and children rushed out to greet them. Squaws took
the scalps.

The camp came alive with activity.

But
Hawk evaded it, leaving Sloan to make any apologies for him. He carried his
wife into their tipi and set her down, studying her from head to toe for injury
as he had done once before.

"I'm
all right," she insisted. "Well, my ankle is a bit sore because I
tripped and bit my lip when that Crow warrior clamped his hand down on my mouth,
but—''

"No one hurt you."

She
frowned suddenly. "Hawk, one man spoke English."

"Sloan
said he was a half-breed he'd seen around one of the army forts," Hawk
said.

"He
said he'd just as soon kill me sooner than later if I didn't shut up, but one
of the others shouted at him and he shut up. Are such attacks common?"

"Yes
and no. The Crow and the Sioux have been enemies forever. We have fought
forever, we take coup upon one another, steal horses ... but this ... this is
the strangest damned thing I've ever seen, even if you do have spectacular
hair."

"Do
I?" she inquired, almost smiling. Hawk breathed a sigh of relief. She was
going to be all right.

"I'm
waiting to see you on your knees," she told him.

She was
definitely going to be all right, he thought as he went down upon a knee.
"I'm sorry. I am really, truly, honestly sorry. I kneel humbly before you
in apology. Will that suffice?"

"With
a little more pure humility in your voice it won't be half bad."

"I'm humble."

"The hell you are."

"But
I really am sorry. You did work hard all day, and you did intend to appear to
be a perfect Sioux wife."

"I always pay my debts."

"Your debts? Ah. Your sister, right?"

"Yes."

"Well,
it seems you've found monsters here, but apparently you've known a few
monsters in the past. I wouldn't want her under attack by any monsters either.
But then, perhaps you'd like to tell me a little bit more about the monsters in
your past?''