Heart of the Hunter

Heart of the Hunter

Madeline Baker

Trademarks Acknowledgement

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark
owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

Colt: Colt Industries, Inc.

Hudson’s Bay: The Governor and Company of Adventurers of
England trading into Hudson’s Bay AKA Hudson’s Bay Company

Jimmy Dean: Sara Lee Foods, LLC

Levi’s: Levi Strauss & Co.

Chapter One

Montana, 1994

She felt it again, a warm breath whispering against the side
of her neck and then a chill, as if a cold winter wind had found its way into
the cavern.

For a moment, Kelly didn’t move, only stood there, her
lantern held high, unable to shake the feeling that she was being watched, that
unseen eyes were contemplating her with equal parts of curiosity and malice.

But that was ridiculous. There was nothing to be afraid of,
she told herself. Nothing at all. If her grandfather was right, no one but
members of the family had been in this cave for more than a hundred years.

Taking a deep calming breath, she placed the lantern on the
ground and returned to her study of the body that occupied a narrow shelf along
the side of the cave wall. The body, wrapped in a faded Hudson’s Bay blanket,
was located exactly where her grandfather had said it would be.

In her mind’s eye, Kelly could see the ancient remains on
display in the local historical museum, along with a small white placard that
named her as the contributor.

Kelly shook her head. She had never truly believed her
grandfather McBride’s ramblings about the riches supposedly hidden in a cave in
the mountain behind the ranch. She had thought all his talk about a wealth of
Indian gold guarded by the ghost of a savage Lakota warrior to be nothing more
than the confused yearnings of an old man’s mind, a jumbled mix of old legends
and fables handed down from one generation of McBrides to the next.

A long sigh escaped Kelly’s lips as she stared down at the
blanket-wrapped corpse.

She believed her grandfather now.

Answering some call she didn’t understand, Kelly drew a
corner of the blanket back, then blinked in surprise. She had expected to find
no more than an emaciated corpse, a skeleton clothed in tattered shreds of deer
hide. Instead, she saw the well-muscled body of a man dressed in a buckskin
clout and fringed leggings. His moccasins were unadorned. He’d been tall,
long-legged and narrow-hipped. His hair was black and straight and fell well
past his broad shoulders. His jaw was strong and square, his cheekbones
prominent, his forehead wide. His nose was long and blade-straight.

Kelly stared thoughtfully at the dark stain on his shirt
front and then frowned in bewilderment. Why hadn’t the body decayed? She had
the strangest feeling that the Indian wasn’t dead at all, that like Sleeping
Beauty he was merely sleeping away the centuries, waiting to be awakened by
love’s first kiss.

With a shake of her head, she put away such fanciful
thoughts and then, impulsively, she touched his cheek with her forefinger. His
skin was supple and…warm.

Warm when it should have been hard and cold. When it shouldn’t
have been skin at all. After all these years, the body should have returned to
the dust from which it had been made.

A shiver of unease skated down Kelly’s spine and she glanced
around the cave, every instinct warning her to run. Abruptly, she jerked her
hand away from his cheek. It was then she saw it, a small buckskin bag resting
against his chest.

Curious, she opened the small sack and emptied the contents
into her hand. For a moment, she could only stare at the large medallion
resting in her palm.

Fashioned in the shape of an eagle with its wings spread
wide, the amulet was about two inches in diameter. And it appeared to be made
of solid gold. Even in the flickering light of the lantern, the fetish seemed
to glow with a life all its own. It felt warm as it nestled in the palm of her
hand.

Kelly stared at the eagle for a long moment and then, almost
of their own volition, her fingers folded over it and her gaze was drawn to the
numerous bags of gold dust and nuggets stacked one on top of the other against
the far wall. There was enough money there to pay off the mortgage on the
ranch, enough to settle her grandfather’s hospital bill. Enough to keep her in
comfort for the rest of her life.

Her hands were trembling as she pulled the blanket over the
face of the dead man. She couldn’t put his remains on display. She knew somehow
that he wouldn’t want that. Tomorrow, she’d bring a shovel and bury the Indian
in the furthest corner of the cave where he could rest undisturbed.

Kelly sighed. The body had rested here, undisturbed, for
over a hundred years. She wasn’t going to bury it so
it
could rest in
peace, she was going to bury it for her own peace of mind.

As she stepped away from the narrow shelf, she felt the warm
breath against her neck again.

Put it back.

Kelly whirled around, her gaze searching the cavern’s dim
interior for the source of the deep, masculine voice. But there was no one
there.

Suddenly anxious to be gone from this place of death, she
slipped the medallion into the pocket of her jeans. Folding her grandfather’s
map, she stuck it inside her shirt.

For now, she would leave the treasure as she had found it.

For now, she wanted only to go home.

Her boot heels made soft crunching sounds as she hurried
toward the entrance of the cavern. The cave was long and narrow, with a high
rounded ceiling and a sandy floor.

Extinguishing the lantern, Kelly left it on the ground
inside the mouth of the cave. The opening was only a few feet high and barely
wide enough for her to fit through. It had taken her over two hours of intense
searching to find the cave at all and then it had been by sheer luck.

Kelly squinted against the sunlight as she crawled out of
the cave. For some reason, she had expected it to be dark outside.

Her grandfather’s old gelding Dusty whickered softly as she
stood up. She patted the horse’s neck, suddenly glad for the presence of
another living creature, and then she swung effortlessly into the saddle and
reined the horse toward the Triple M.

Riding away from the cave, Kelly slipped her hand into the
pocket of her Levi’s, her fingertips moving over the golden eagle.

From behind her, she heard a low rumble, like thunder
echoing off the mountains, and then she felt it again, that chill that was
colder than the north wind.