Sioux Slave (14 page)

He groaned aloud at what she was doing with her lips. “You little tramp! The paid whores could learn from you.”

She arched herself against his hand on her breast. “Then treat me like I want to be treated,” she cooed.

Shelby needed no further urging after what she'd been doing to him with her teasing little mouth. They slid off the wicker settee in a tumble of green fabric and snowy lace petticoats into the soft dirt. She liked her rutting hot and frenzied. Rand would have been so surprised to realize he didn't really know her at all. But then he'd been such a gallant gentleman.

 

 

In the shadows of late afternoon, Elizabeth watched the pair coupling and panting. How ironic Lenore should choose that place, she thought in disgust before she turned and moved quietly up the stairs to her room. Illicit love. The thought brought back images that she didn't want to remember.

Elizabeth's chest pained her and she took a deep breath, determined to ignore it. Maybe if she ignored it, the problem would go away in spite of what the doctors said. It was her secret. Pierce Hamilton was urging her to make some changes in her will, even though he didn't know about the trip to the doctor in Louisville.

What should she do with all the Carstairs wealth? It had been many years since she had written her will. She still clung to that small hope that they were alive, but of course, even if they were, they might be afraid to contact her.

She paused before the small, faded miniature of her beloved husband that she kept on her dressing table. He looked exactly like the son who carried his name, the child he had not lived to see, with his black hair and emerald eyes. How long had her husband been dead? Almost fifty years. Sometimes it seemed like fifty centuries. She knew she had a reputation as a strong woman, but she still sorrowed for the only man she had ever loved.

She took the small picture and sat down on her bed. “Oh, my darling, I still miss you so!” she whispered, and her chest pained her suddenly. Even Judge Hamilton, her faithful suitor, did not know how little time she had left. She had sworn the doctor to secrecy. She looked at the small picture again, smiled, remembering their brief, happy marriage. He had died saving his pregnant wife from a bad bull loose in the pasture. Pierce Hamilton arrived just in time to shoot the bull. Elizabeth had gathered her young husband's broken body into her arms, begging him not to leave her.

He had pressed his gold watch into her hands. There was blood on the fancy fob, bright red blood. “Give this to my son and tell him how much I loved his mother.”

“Don't leave me, dear one, I can't go on without you.”

“You're strong, Elizabeth, stronger than you think. You'll survive to raise our child.”

“No! I can't bear to lose you.” She held him close, wishing it had been her, not him dying on the pasture grass.

“I love you, Elizabeth, always remember that. No sacrifice is too great to make for love.”

She had wanted to die, too, and be buried next to him out in the family plot near the old church. Instead she had forced herself to live to give birth to his son, given young James the watch, saw him grow to a man and be swept into a whirlwind marriage by a faithless beauty.

Elizabeth suddenly felt very old and frail, remembering that spring night sixteen years ago. Had it been the right decision? She had done what she had to do to protect her beloved husband's name. The Carstairs had a proud, Scottish heritage that would never be sullied as long as Elizabeth Carstairs was alive to protect it.

It had grown almost dark outside. Elizabeth went to the window, watched Shelby Merson limp out of the conservatory, adjusting his pants as he mounted his horse, and ride away. Illicit love never changes, selfish lust with no thought of those who would be hurt. On the other hand, true love is willing to sacrifice everything.

For sixteen years Elizabeth had waited for a letter that never came. Were they dead or afraid of being found? The secret was still safe; Elizabeth had seen to that.

So what was she going to do about the will?
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree,
Elizabeth thought and brushed back a wisp of white hair with a blue-veined hand. She had tried to love the girl, but knowing what Elizabeth knew ... Lenore was a beautiful but shameless slut. The spitting image of her mother.

It was dark now as Kimi, Hinzi and the war party neared the camp. They were returning in triumph with Crow scalps and captured ponies. Having gone out after one escaped white slave, thanks to his help, they had averted tragedy for their people and killed many enemies.

Kimi glanced over at Hinzi riding beside her on Scout, the buckskin stallion. “We can't be sure what the old chiefs will decide. Why did you not escape when you had the chance?”

He shrugged and raised one sardonic eyebrow. “If I had escaped because you freed me, you would have had to answer to the old chiefs for doing so.”

“But that is why I cut the ropes,” she insisted, fingering her medicine charm.

“I couldn't let you make that sacrifice. And besides, I didn't want to leave you behind.”

Was he saying sweet things because he knew she wanted to hear them? Was this white man loco that he would stay when his life might hang in the balance?

She closed her eyes, remembering the intensity of their passion last night, the taste and the heat of his body as they meshed and strained together. Her nipples seemed to swell against her doeskin shift as if they felt again his wet, demanding mouth.

She dare not admit how much last night had stirred her. Suppose she had just been an available female and he had hesitated in escaping only because he knew it was impossible? Perhaps he had thought it better to take a chance on saving a grateful war chief's life.

“Kimi,” he said, “about last night . . .”

She waited, but his voice trailed off, leaving her wondering what he had started to say. Had last night meant anything to him? She remembered then that an elegant, civilized white girl waited for Hinzi in a far away place. Maybe he would run away next chance he got and return to that girl. Maybe he would laugh with other white men about the easy virtue of Indian girls. Indian girl? Hinzi said she was white. Perhaps her skin was, but her soul was Sioux.

She blurted without thinking, “If you had made good your escape, using me as a hostage, would you have given me to some of the soldiers for their pleasure?”

Even in the darkness, she saw the anger in his eyes, the grim set of his jaw. “You don't think much of me, do you?”

“I have no way of knowing what white men truly think,” Kimi said honestly, watching his yellow hair gleam in the moonlight as the war party rode across the prairie. How often had old Wagnuka warned her to avoid
wasicu;
that their tongues were as crooked as a dog's hind leg and they did not know the meaning of truth? Many times her mother had told her they would carry off Sioux maidens, use them for their pleasure, and trade them off to others.

She had thought she hated him, but last night had been pleasurable for her, too. Did it make her a whore that she had spread her thighs wide, wanting him to thrust deeper still and leave his seed within her?

Could she trust him? Now that she thought about it, it would have been clever of him not to try to escape at that point, knowing he had no chance. If he could get the warriors to trust him and let down their guard, he might have a better chance next time.

She urged her pony forward, riding up beside One Eye. “What do you intend to do with the soldier?”

He turned his head so he could see her with his one good eye. “He saved my life. I am bound to beg mercy for him from the council. I think it bad luck to kill a man who saved me.”

Gopher gave her a thoughtful look. “What the old chiefs might want to know is how this soldier happened to escape in the first place, seeing as how he was securely chained?”

“Are you accusing me of turning him loose?”

The plain, squat brave didn't say anything for a long moment. “Women can be foolish over a man, if he is a handsome man.”

Kimi didn't answer. She wasn't sure herself how Hinzi had come to be freed. There was no way he could have broken those chains. Then how did he get the key from her tipi to unlock them? Old Wagnuka was the only other person who knew where it was, as far as Kimi knew. However, her mother hated the soldier. She wouldn't try to help him ... or had she been plotting against him?

Kimi was still thinking about her mother as she answered. “If the Long Knives hear that our braves repaid good with evil, they will think our tongues are forked and that we cannot be trusted. Then we will never be able to live at peace with the whites.”

Gopher snorted. “There will never be peace with the whites as long as we have anything they want, which is everything. Already they lust after the land around us and drive their wagons deep into our country, searching for the yellow metal. They would deny us even the Mako Shika, the Badlands to the west, should they find yellow metal there.”

Kimi looked at One Eye. “As war leader, do you plan to speak for the soldier?”

“Perhaps his heart can change,” One Eye said grudgingly, glancing back over his shoulder at the Yellow Hair flexing his wide shoulders. “Perhaps we might welcome him as a brother and yet keep an eye on him.”

“You'll find him as full of tricks as a coyote,” Gopher grumbled.

One Eye gave Kimi a long, knowing look. “Yes, I will speak to the old chiefs in his favor. Sometimes a woman can make the difference. For the right woman, a man can throw it all away, turn his back on everything that is precious to him to go with her,”

“I think you see more than there is to see,” Kimi said modestly. “Perhaps he is tired of his civilization and just wants to live free as the wind for a while, as other white men have sometimes come among the tribes.”

“Only time will tell,” One Eye said. “Kimi, I will ask that Hinzi be given some of the captured ponies and a chance to be one of us. In the end, you will be the one who will know whether his heart is good and whether he is fit to be a Lakota warrior. If you want him for your man, Kimi, take him. May Wakan Tanka guide you.”

She hated the Hinzi–didn't she? Could she hate him and still find ecstasy in his arms? She didn't know how she felt. With Gopher still grumbling, Kimi turned her pony and rode back to Hinzi. “I think your life will be spared because of what you did for One Eye.”

He looked at her. “Is that the only reason?”

She was almost too embarrassed to look at him. “I asked for you. If the council agrees, you are to be my man.”

“Don't I get anything to say about this?” He raised one eyebrow at her.

“You don't want me?”

“In my civilization, the man does the choosing.”

“I thought that's what you were doing when you carried me off. Shall I tell the warriors that you didn't want me, that you only raped me as they would an enemy girl?”

He looked ashamed and regretful. She wondered if his mind was on the white girl waiting for him far away? Kimi felt her heart twist with jealousy. Perhaps he meant more to her than she would even admit to herself.

Or was it only that she wanted to feel again what she had felt in his arms last night? No, it couldn't be love, but she could save his life, make Hinzi happy. No woman would cook and work for him as she would. Every year, her belly would swell with a new son for him. She would make him forget that other girl, forget his own civilization, forget everything but meshing with Kimi's ripe body, pouring his seed into her, kissing her full breasts.

Her thoughts were troubled, wishing she could read his mind. Did he really care about her, or would he flee the first chance he got?

 

 

The war party stopped in a small grove of brush several miles from the camp to paint their faces and put on their best war robes as befitted victors. The others willingly shared their finery with the soldier, and Kimi helped him paint his face, combing his golden hair and putting a decorated band around his head.

She looked at his hair shining in the moonlight. “Hinzi: Yellow Hair, a good name for you. Do you have a spirit animal as mine is the butterfly?”

He nodded. “The wolf. My name, Randolph, is an old name. It means protected and guided by wolves.”

“It is a good spirit animal.” She remembered the lobo howling in the distance when she knelt below Mato's burial platform. Had it been trying to tell her she was to be the bride of the wolf? “Wolves mate for life,” she blurted without thinking.

He looked down into her eyes, standing so close, she felt the heat of his big body. “And how long do butterflies mate?”

“I don't know.” She felt the blood rise to her face, remembering what had happened in the cave.

“Can the butterfly bear the wolf a son?”

She looked him straight in the eye. “If it will bind the wolf to her, she will give him one every year. Her breasts will stay swollen with milk for the wolfs cubs.”

She saw his gaze sweep across her breasts and imagined his mouth there, sucking the rich sweetness from them.

He smiled then, almost grudgingly. “What more could a man ask for than that?”

Nothing more. He didn't say he loved her or that he needed her. In silence she finished applying his war paint, the red and the blue across his rippling muscles. Then she helped paint the buckskin horse, putting lightning symbols on its legs to give it speed, red hand prints on its shoulders to show its rider had killed an enemy in hand-to-hand combat.

The warriors mounted up and rode into camp at a gallop, shouting their victory cries. The women ran out, greeting them with trilling sounds. Old men shot off ancient guns, dogs barked, children shouted and danced about.

Hinzi looked as brave as any Sioux warrior on the spirited stallion, Kimi thought. He was all but naked, the war paint gleaming on his muscular white body. She saw other young women giving him admiring glances as the people gathered close to hear what had happened.

One Eye motioned with his lance for silence. “We have much to tell! This day we have won against a great Crow war party and brought back many scalps and ponies!”

A cheer and victory chants began among the people, but her mother crowded close, glaring first at Kimi, then at Hinzi. “What about this white soldier who escaped? He has no doubt shamed my daughter. I demand he pay with his life!”

Kimi's heart almost stopped beating and she saw the nodding of heads in agreement. A Lakota maiden's virtue was not to be taken lightly.

“I went with him of my own free will,” Kimi said.

Her mother glared at her. “Would you dare bite the knife and say that?”

She felt perspiration break out on her skin. If she swore by the knife and lied, something terrible would surely happen to her. Yet in her heart, she realized suddenly that to save Hinzi, she would do anything. “I–I–”

“Woman,” Hinzi boomed suddenly in his drawling voice to her mother, “If your people will accept me as one of them, I want your daughter for my own. As a marriage gift, I offer my share of the captured ponies.”

A murmur of approval went through the crowd. The white warrior was attempting to do what was right and just among their people. Moreover, it was obvious to all that his share of the milling herd of ponies would be many.

Kimi lowered her eyes modestly as befitted a proper woman, knowing other girls looked at the yellow-haired warrior with admiration and at her with envy.

Old Wagnuka seemed almost speechless. “I will talk with my daughter.”

One Eye dismounted, joined them. “Do not take too long, old woman, else he will choose another to warm his blankets.” He grinned. “Come, Hinzi, we will smoke and eat with the men. Time enough later for women.”

Kimi went to her mother's side as the men strode away. “We must get food ready for the braves.”

“No. We talk first.” Wagnuka looked troubled as she motioned Kimi to follow her.

Kimi dreaded what she knew must come, but she went into the tipi, sat down on a buffalo robe. “Before you ask: yes, he took me. Even now I may be making a child for him.”

The old woman scowled. “I feared as much. You are very young and innocent, my daughter. I have warned you how the wasicu use Indian girls and then throw them away when they return to their own kind.”

She wanted to ask about her own white blood, but hesitated. “I think he would not do that.”

“But you have no way of knowing!” Her mother pressed her advantage, and Kimi knew her own uncertainty must be reflected in her face.

Kimi ducked her head. “I have no way of knowing.”

“Men say anything they think a young girl wants to hear when the mating urge is upon them. And girls, giddy with love, believe them.”

Kimi looked the old woman in the eye, suddenly knowing the truth. “Mother,” she whispered, “were you a thrown-away girl?”

For a long moment, Wagnuka's shoulders shook, and when she tried, she could not speak. Her grief was terrible to see. “Yes,” she whispered. “No one but Otter, my husband ever knew. A French fur trapper from the Grandmother Land to the north. I loved him much, but when he tired of me, he swapped me for a new rifle from a trader's store. The trader let many
wasicu
use me before Otter traded for me.”

Kimi closed her eyes, wishing now she had not asked. So what Hinzi had said was true; Kimi did have white blood. Now she could understand her mother's bitterness and distrust, yet her heart overruled her reason despite everything. Minutes passed in silence.

Finally her mother threw up her hands in defeat. “Is the white soldier a good hunter?”

Kimi nodded. “There will always be meat in your tipi as the mother-in-law of Hinzi.”

“I worry that he will try to take you away to the white civilization.”

Kimi put a gentle hand on her arm. “Mother, I promise that as long as you draw breath, we will always be in this camp.”