“Where is the rest of our tribe?”
“Dead. Lost. Running.” Little Bear stared broodingly into the fire. “The long swords have cut us down like deer. Those who are left are few and hide in the mountains. Still they come.”
“Crooked Arm? Straw Basket?”
“They live. North, where the winters are long and the game is scarce.” He turned his head again, and Jake saw a cold, depthless anger-one he understood. “The children do not laugh, Gray Eyes, nor do the women sing.”
They talked, as the fire blazed, of shared memories, of people both had loved. Their bond was as strong as it had been when Jake had lived and learned and felt like an Apache. But they both knew that time had passed.
When the meal was over, Jake rose from the fire. “You have taken my woman, Little Bear. I have come to take her back.”
Little Bear held up a hand before the scarred man beside him could speak. “She is not my prisoner, but Black Hawk’s. It is not for me to return her to you.” “Then the promise can be kept between us.” He turned to Black Hawk. “You have taken my woman.” “I have not finished with her.” He put a hand on the hilt of his knife. “I will keep her.”
He could have bargained with him. A rifle was worth more than a woman. But bargaining would have cost him face. He had claimed Sarah as his, and there was only one way to take her back.
“The one who lives will keep her.” He unstrapped his guns, handing them to Little Bear. There were few men he would have trusted with his weapons. “I will speak with her.” He moved to Sarah as Black Hawk began to chant in preparation for the fight.
“I hope you enjoyed your meal,” she said, sniffing. “I actually thought you might have come to rescue me.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Yes, I could see that. Sitting by the fire, eating, telling stories. My hero.”
His grin flashed as he hauled her against him for a long, hard kiss. “You’re a hell of a woman, Sarah. Just sit tight and let me see what I can do.”
“Take me home.” Pride abandoned, she gripped the front of his shirt. “Please, just take me home.” “I will.” He squeezed her hands as he removed them from his shirt. Then he rose, and he, too, began to chant. If there was magic, he wanted his share. They stood side by side in the glow of the fire as the youngest warrior bound their left wrists together. The glitter of knives had Sarah pushing herself to her feet. Little Bear closed a hand over her arm.
“You cannot stop it,” he said in calm, precise English.
“No!” She struggled as she watched the blades rise.
“Oh, God, no!” They came down, whistling.
“I will spill your white blood, Gray Eyes,” Black Hawk murmured as their blades scraped, edge to edge. Locked wrist to wrist, they hacked, dodged, advanced. Jake fought in grim silence. If he lost, even as his blood poured out, Black Hawk would celebrate his victory by raping Sarah. The thought of it, the fury of it, broke his concentration, and Black Hawk pushed past his guard and sliced down his shoulder. Blood ran warm down his arm. Concentrating on the scent of it, he blocked Sarah from his mind and fought to survive.
In the frigid night air, their faces gleamed with sweat. The birds had flown away at the sound of blades and the smell of blood. The only sound now was the harsh breathing of the two men locked in combat, intent on the kill. The other men formed a loose circle around them, watching, the inevitability of death accepted.
Sarah stood with her bound hands at her mouth, holding back the need to scream and scream until she had no air left. At the first sight of Jake’s blood she had closed her eyes tight. But fear had had them wide again in an instant.
Little Bear still held her arm, his grip light but inescapable. She already understood that she was to be a kind of prize for the survivor. As Jake narrowly deflected Black Hawk’s blade, she turned to the man beside her.
“Please, if you stop it, let him live, I’ll go with you willingly. I won’t fight or try to escape.”
For a moment, Little Bear took his eyes away from the combat. Gray Eyes had chosen his woman well. “Only death stops it now.”
As she watched, both men tumbled to the ground. She saw Black Hawk’s knife plunge into the dirt an inch from Jake’s face. Even as he drew it out, Jake’s knife was ripping into his flesh. They rolled toward the fire.
Jake didn’t feel the heat, only an ice-cold rage. The fire seared the skin on his arm before he yanked free. The hilt of his knife was slick with his own sweat but the blade dripped red with his opponent’s blood. The horses whinnied and shied when the men rolled too close. Then they were in the shadows. Sarah could see only a dark blur and the sporadic gleam of a knife.
But she could hear desperate grunts and the scrape of metal. Then she heard nothing but the sound of a man breathing hard. One man. With her heart in her throat, she waited to see who would come back into the light. Bruised, bloodied, Jake walked to her. Saying nothing, he cut through her bonds with the blade of the stained knife. Still silent, he pushed it into his boot and took his guns back from Little Bear.
“He was a brave warrior,” Little Bear said.
With pain and triumph singing through him, Jake strapped on his gunbelt. “He died a warrior’s death.” He offered his hand again. “May the spirits ride with you, brother.”
“And with you, Gray Eyes.”
Jake held out a hand for Sarah. When he saw that she was swaying on her feet, he picked her up and carried her to his horse. “Hold on,” he told her, swinging up into the saddle behind her. He rode out of camp without looking back, knowing he would never see Little Bear again.
She didn’t want to cry, but she couldn’t stop. Her only comfort was that her tears were silent and he couldn’t hear them. Or so she thought. They’d ridden no more than ten minutes at a slow walk when he turned her around in the saddle to cradle her against him.
“You’ve had a bad time, Duchess. Go on and cry for a while.”
So she wept shamelessly, her cheeks pressed against his chest, the movement of the horse lulling her. “I was so afraid.” Her voice hitching, she clung to him.
“He was going to-”
“I know. You don’t want to think about it.” He didn’t. If he did, he’d lose the already-slippery grip he had on his control. “It’s all over now.”
“Will they come after us?”
“No.”
“How can you be sure?” As the tears passed, the fear doubled back.
“It wouldn’t be honorable.”
“Honorable?” She lifted her head to look at him. In the moonlight his face looked hard as rock. “But they’re Indians.”
“That’s right. They’ll stand by their honor a lot longer than any white man.”
“But-” She had forgotten for a moment the Apache in him. “You seemed to know them.”
“I lived with them five years. Little Bear, the one with the eagle feather, is my cousin.” He stopped and dismounted. “You’re cold. I’ll build a fire and you can rest a while.” He pulled a blanket out of his saddlebag and tossed it over her shoulders. Too tired to argue, Sarah wrapped it tight around herself and sat on the ground.
He had a fire burning quickly and started making coffee. Without hesitation, Sarah bit into the jerky he gave her and warmed her hands over the flames.
“The one you…fought with. Did you know him?”
“Yeah.”
He’d killed for her, she thought, and had to struggle not to weep again. Perhaps it had been a member of his own family, an old friend. “I’m sorry,” she managed.
“For what?” He poured coffee into a cup, then pushed it into her trembling hands.
“For all of it They were just there, all at once. There was nothing I could do.” She drank, needing the warmth badly. “When I was in school, we would read the papers, hear stories. I never really believed it. I was certain that the army had everything under control.” “You read about massacres,” he said with a dull fury in his voice that had her looking up again. “About settlers slaughtered and wagon trains attacked. You read about savages scalping children. It’s true enough. But did you read any about soldiers riding into camps and butchering, raping women, putting bullets in babies long after treaties were signed and promises made? Did you hear stories about poisoned food and contaminated blankets sent to the reservations?” “But that can’t be.”