Savage Courage (20 page)

She had her future with Storm and her true mother to cherish.

They rode onward into the night. She leaned back against him, his arm holding her in place.

“I love you so much,” she murmured. “You make me feel whole . . . you make me feel Apache!”

She knew she had told him that before, but she could not resist telling him again, for she was so glad to have found him.

What is love? It is the morning and
the evening star.

—Sinclair Lewis

The deed done, his mother’s beautiful hair now buried among his Apache ancestors, Storm and Shoshana rode on awhile, then made camp for the rest of the night.

He awakened early in the morning before Shoshana and found sweet, fat berries for their breakfast, which would be eaten with the pemmican he always carried in the parfleche bag that hung at the side of his steed.

Although Shoshana had told him Mountain Jack was no longer a threat, Storm left her again only
long enough to gather dry wood to add to the glowing coals of their campfire.

Then he sat, watching her sleep. On her lovely face he saw peace and happiness, for she knew that soon they would become man and wife, never to part from one another again.

Also, she was looking forward to being with her mother. But Storm was concerned about that. He knew that Fawn had not been well for some time now and that her days on this earth were numbered.

He had prayed to
Maheo
that Shoshana would be given some more time with her before Fawn took her last breath.

He watched Shoshana stirring, her eyelashes fluttering as her eyes slowly opened. When she found him sitting there watching her, she reached a hand out to him.

“Good morning,” she murmured, stifling a lazy yawn behind her other hand.

He took her hand, turned it so that he could kiss its palm, then knelt down over her and gathered her into his arms. “It is good to awaken with you at my side,” he said huskily. “Never shall my blankets, or yours, be cold again. As soon as arrangements can be made, we will marry.”

He brushed soft kisses along her brow. “Does that make you happy?” he whispered against her lips.

“Oh, so very much,” Shoshana whispered back, her arms twining around his neck.

Although the night had been cool and windy, they had slept nude beneath their blankets. They had made love before falling into an exhausted sleep.

She hungered for the same this morning, more than she wished for anything else at this moment.

While he had still been asleep, she had awakened and crept from their blankets to wash herself so that she would be fresh for him when he awoke. Then, tired from her ordeal, she had fallen asleep again.

They had much to celebrate, although their happiness was tinged with some sadness. His sadness was for his mother, whose death had been recalled so vividly by the sight of her scalp. The pain of losing her had begun anew, as fresh as it had been those years ago when he was a boy, soon to walk in the moccasins of a man.

The prior evening his mother had filled his heart and soul as he held her golden hair before placing it in the ground.

Shoshana would never forget the gentleness with which Storm had laid the hair in the small grave he had dug for it.

She would never forget the words of love he spoke to his mother as he slowly filled the grave with dirt, saying that he regretted not being able to place her hair with her body in the ground, but that he knew her spirit dwelled there among the spirits of all the other Apache dead.

Tears sprang to Shoshana’s eyes when she recalled how he had said that his mother and father could now walk hand in hand amid the stars with smiles on their faces, for the man who’d taken his mother’s hair no longer had it in his possession.

Shoshana’s thoughts of these things were stilled when Storm swept aside the blanket that covered her. Then he blanketed her with his body as his hands moved over her soft flesh and his lips came down on hers in a passionately hot kiss.

When he filled her with his heat, she lifted her legs and brought them around his hips, giving him easier access to her.

As they kissed and he held her in a torrid embrace, their bodies moved rhythmically together.

His hands slipped between them. As one hand found a breast, cupping it, the other swept downward and began caressing her where her heart seemed to be centered. She was throbbing almost in unison with her heartbeat.

As their bodies strained and rocked together, strange new sensations were born inside Shoshana, so sweet and wonderful, she realized now that this man she loved would always find new ways to show his love for her.

Delicious shivers of desire raced across her flesh as his lips moved downward and his tongue swept around one of her rose-tipped nipples. His hands now moved to her buttocks, splaying his fingers
across her soft flesh and holding her more tightly against him as his manhood moved even more insistently within her.

Storm was in awe of this woman and what she could do to him. His passion for her was like a burning flame. He felt a tremor beginning deep within him and knew that the moment of rapture was near.

He wanted to be certain that she reached that same peak.

He paused and gazed deeply into her midnight-dark eyes. “I have never known such happiness as when I am with you,” he said softly. He reached one hand to her face and slowly traced her features with his fingers. “My woman, it is magic that you have brought into my life. I love you, Shoshana. Oh, how I love you.”

“Before you, I had no idea such love existed,” Shoshana murmured back to him. “It
is
so magical, Storm. Every moment I am with you is better than any fantasy someone could think up. Oh, Storm, just to think that I fled from you—”

He placed a gentle finger against her lips to still her words. They were together now, and what he or she had done to get them to this point was not important. That they were together, and would be forever, was all that mattered.

“Hush, my woman, and just enjoy these precious moments, for soon we will be facing reality again and I will have difficult decisions to make for my
people.” He gave her a lingering kiss, his arms around her, anchoring her fiercely against him as again he thrust into her.

Shoshana felt a blaze of urgency building within her. It stole her breath away. She clung to him as she felt the passion building.

Then they both gasped as the world began to spin around them in silver flames, their bodies coming together as one as they again found that secret place of rapture that only those truly in love could ever know.

Breathing hard, Storm rolled away from her. He closed his eyes and waited for his heartbeat to slow. He was keenly aware of her lips moving over his body, causing the passion to begin anew within him.

But, knowing what lay before them—the journey up the narrow passes, which would be especially difficult with only one horse for the two of them—Storm opened his eyes and smiled at Shoshana. He placed his hands at her shoulders and gently eased her away from him.

“If you continue, my energies will be spent, and I need much strength to get us through the next hours as we travel up the mountain to our stronghold,” Storm said huskily.

“‘
Our
stronghold,’ ” Shoshana said, sitting up, her eyes filled with contentment. “Ah, how I love the sound of that. It is so good to know that I am a part of your life now and will be for always.”

“Yes, for always,” Storm said, sitting up and reaching for her. “One last kiss and then we must bathe quickly, eat, and be on our way.”

“I wish we could stay here with the magic we have created beside this lovely stream,” Shoshana said. Then, sighing, she rose from the blankets and gazed wonderingly at the slowly meandering stream. “I bathed there before you awakened. It was so cold!”

“You were there while I slept?” Storm said, his eyes widening. “I normally do not sleep that soundly.”

“It is because so much has happened to tire you,” Shoshana said, taking his hand as he rose to his feet. “Soon everything will be as you wish it to be.”

“I would not say it will be as I wish it to be when it comes to moving my people to Canada, but I see it as the only way for my people to survive,” he said sorrowfully. “The United States Government has done a lot to trick all men with red skins. The Apache no less than the others.”

They waded into the stream, splashed water on each other’s bodies, then hurriedly left the water and wrapped themselves in warm blankets as they sat down before the fire.

“I’ve heard how the government has tricked so many tribes,” Shoshana said, drawing her blanket up to her chin. “How have the Apache been tricked, Storm?”

“In many ways, but I will tell you mainly of one incident,” Storm said tightly. “My father was chosen to go into council with many white-eyes from Washington. The Apache tribe, as a whole, unanimously sent him to ask for peace. My father told the white-eyes that the Apache chiefs had chosen to offer all their mountains, waters, woods, and plains in exchange for peace. Those Americans said they saw that the Apache truly wanted peace. They sent my father back to our Apache people with assurances that the Americans wanted none of their woods, waters, or mountains, but that they desired peace, as well.”

“And then they broke the promise,” Shoshana said sadly.

“
Ho
, the
pindah-lickoyee
broke their promise,” Storm said, nodding. “And so it is that most Apache are now on reservations. My band has been spared, but mainly because we live where no white man wants to live, and where no white man has ever found us. Were they to discover our stronghold, I believe it would be the end of our band of Apache. They would come and slaughter us.”

“And this is why Canada looks so good to you,” Shoshana said, nodding her thanks as he gave her a small wooden dish of berries and sliced pemmican.

“This is why we have no choice but to go there,” Storm said. “And soon.”

“I will be happy no matter where I am as long as I
am with you,” Shoshana said, enjoying the food and reveling in these special moments with the man she loved.

They ate their fill, then dressed and broke camp and headed once again for the stronghold. As they rode upward on the pass, Shoshana saw flowers that she had not seen before.

“Those lilies are so beautiful,” she murmured as she clung to Storm’s waist, this time riding behind him on his steed.

“After a long winter, glacier lilies bring the first color back to the high country,” Storm said, smiling at her over his shoulder. “Their bright yellow blossoms flourish in the bare earth and melting snow.”

He gazed at the lovely flowers. “The cheerful little lilies follow that elegant black and white boundary up there, drinking thirstily from the steady drip of the vanishing snow,” he said. “They chase the departing snow like a brilliant yellow fire, one wave after another, up and over the ridges. The Apache children of our stronghold, who gather flowers, are taught gratitude and respect for them. The girls are reminded that glacier lilies are the season’s first food for the grizzlies.”

“They look good enough to eat,” Shoshana said, laughing softly and trying not to think about grizzlies. She still could not forget her fear of the panther that still prowled this mountain; the idea of bears was even more frightening.

“They
can
be eaten,” Storm said, again smiling at her over his shoulder. “But more than a handful will give you a stomach ache. It is best to eat only a few, no matter how tempting their sweet crispness.”

They rode onward, Shoshana taking in everything with delight. She felt as though she had entered paradise.

“Look up and to your right,” Storm said, knowing how much she was enjoying the beauty of his mountain. “I call what you see ‘sun fields,’ because they are filled with the purple and gold fairy slipper. This wild orchid can also be found close to my stronghold. The girls are instructed to take only one of these flowers each year, though they can pick any other flower to their heart’s content.”

“I see so many varieties of flowers and plants; this place takes my breath away,” Shoshana said as they rode steadily upward.

“Yes. There is the sweet-scented royal-blue lupine, fire-red paintbrush plant, the cerise fireweed, and then there are the oxeye daisies,” he said.

Suddenly the lovely sweet mountain air was disturbed by a noise that brought Storm’s eyes around to meet the questioning look in Shoshana’s.

“You heard it too?” Shoshana asked, snuggling closer to Storm.

“Yes, it sounds like someone crying for help, but with a voice not much louder than a tiny bird’s cry,” Storm said, drawing rein.

“Then it wasn’t my imagination,” Shoshana said, her eyes searching around them for any signs of life.

“Let us sit here for a moment and listen,” Storm said, his eyes darting from bush to bush, then into the thick aspen forest at his right side.

Shoshana’s heart beat loudly within her breast as she listened. And then she heard it again, this time more clearly.

She and Storm exchanged quick glances. “Yes, I too heard it,” he said.

He dismounted, grabbed his rifle from the gunboot, and lifted her from the horse.

After tethering its reins to a low tree limb, they moved stealthily, hand in hand, toward the spot where they had heard the second cry for help.

“We must be wary of the panther,” Storm said, his rifle held tightly at his left side, while Shoshana was at his right.

“Yes, the panther,” Shoshana said. “Storm, I’m so afraid!”

“I am with you, so do not fear anything,” Storm reassured her. “I will protect you from all harm.”

“But the panther could be stalking us even now, above us, watching our every move,” Shoshana said.

She glanced up at the ledges of the mountain. She was relieved when she didn’t see anything but lovely flowers and green growth.

Suddenly they heard the cry again, and this time
so close, they knew that it was a man . . . a man in much pain.

“Please . . . help . . . me,” Mountain Jack pleaded as his eyes met Storm’s.

Shoshana’s knees almost buckled beneath her when she saw Mountain Jack. Not out of fear because he was alive after all, but out of horror at just how badly injured he was. His hair and whiskers were filled with dried blood.