Savage Heat (36 page)

Disciplining herself to conceal her thoughts on her upcoming escape, she was able, for the most part, to ignore his presence in the village. Night Sun helped. He stayed as far away from her as possible. Still, there were times when their being in the same place at the same time was unavoidable.

Like the day of the horse race.

For weeks there had been excited talk of the friendly rivalry between Night Sun and a strong, muscular brave known as Swift Eagle. Gentle Deer told Martay that when the two men were boys, they were the best horsemen in the village and that each year a horse race was staged to prove which rider’s prowess was superior, which mount the faster.

What was the prize, Martay wanted to know? And felt a burning sensation in her throat when Gentle Deer answered.

“Then, the winner could choose any horse in the village.” She fell silent, looked at Martay with those all-seeing sightless eyes, and added, “It is different now. Now they are no longer boys. They are men.”

“The winner doesn’t choose the horse he wants?”

Gentle Deer shook her gray head. “He chooses the woman he wants.”

Martay felt she might be sick. Night Sun would win the race; she knew it. And then he would pick one of the pretty maidens and … and … do to the Indian girl all the things he’d done to her? Take one of the copper-skinned maidens to their tipi and make love to her for the rest of the day? Marry one of the pretty Lakota girls?

She didn’t ask. She couldn’t bear to hear the answer.

It would be like the old, happy times, Gentle Deer said. Night Sun on his black stallion and Swift Eagle on his chestnut gelding. Everyone would be there.

And everyone was. Including Martay.

Shading her eyes against the bright autumn sun, she stood with Gentle Deer and several chattering maidens, and watched as Night Sun and Swift Eagle, laughing and kidding each other, stood shaking hands prior to the race’s start.

The two warriors wore only breechclouts. Their bare bodies had been oiled from throat to toes. Their thick black hair had been tied back with otter skins. Their feet were bare.

Martay had eyes only for the taller of the two. Night Sun, his bronzed chest and wide shoulders and long legs gleaming, looked as carefree and relaxed as if he were still a young boy racing for prized horseflesh. Her narrowed eyes slipped down to his groin, straining against the stingy covering apron of leather. He was no boy. He was all man and the race was for a woman.

In a daze she watched as the two warriors climbed on the bare backs of their mounts. The horses, as eager for the sport as their masters, shook their heads about and neighed and whinnied and acted as if they knew they were about to take part in a very important event.

Martay’s gaze drifted from the leanly muscled thighs hugging shimmering black horseflesh up to the stallion’s proud head. His eyes were big and excited, his ears pricked, and Martay knew he was receiving last-minute instructions from the man on his back. Silently, foolishly, Martay issued some instructions of her own.

“Please,” she entreated inwardly, “let the chestnut win this one. I know you’re the fastest, so does Night Sun, but must you prove it today? Can’t you wait until next year’s race? You see, I won’t be here then. I won’t have to watch Night Sun pick the girl he wants to … to …

Shouts rose from the crowd. The race was on. Holding her breath, Martay watched with the others as the black and the gelding galloped past in a cloud of dust, the warriors on their backs leaning low over their necks.

The distance was a mile. One complete circle around the village and back to the starting point. The horses’ hooves striking hard dirt, the excited cries of the spectators, the pounding of her own heart, were the sounds Martay heard.

She could no longer see the riders; didn’t know who was winning. It seemed an eternity before the speeding horses broke into view once more, heading for the finish line. Through the trees and scattered tipis she saw them and murmured soundlessly “No, no.”

The big black was in the lead.

She couldn’t bear to look. She couldn’t bear not to. She saw the chestnut closing on the black. But only for a second. The black pulled away again, opening up the gap between them. The gelding did not give up. He found a new burst of energy and again pulled alongside the black. The two horses were shoulder to shoulder, galloping toward the finish line.

It was impossible to tell which one would win. The black’s head would lunge ahead, then the chestnut would stick his nose past as, stride for stride, they flew for home. With only ten yards to go they were still running head to head when Martay saw it. A movement so slight no one would notice, and if they did, they wouldn’t realize what had happened.

But she did.

She saw Night Sun’s spread hand lightly slap the black’s grinding, moving withers. The big stallion altered his stride minutely just as they drove for the finish line. The chestnut gelding won the race.

While all the others applauded and laughed and hurried to congratulate the winner, Martay remained where she was, knowing, as Night Sun knew, that he had thrown the race. He had handed Swift Eagle the race so that he wouldn’t have to choose a maiden. Why that knowledge made her want to cry, she didn’t know. But it did.

Late that evening when Night Sun returned to their lodge, she pretended sleep, just as always. But she couldn’t sleep, and she knew that Night Sun couldn’t sleep either. He tossed and turned and smoked in the darkness.

That he hated her was apparent, and while she lay there watching him lift and lower the orange-tipped cigar to his harsh mouth, its glow illuminating his face and chest, the awful truth, which she had been pushing to the back of her mind, became suddenly clear.

The trooper who had given Night Sun the mean, ugly scar down his chest was her father. That’s what this was all about. Why Night Sun had brought her here. To get at her father. She was nothing more than a pawn in the game of old, enduring hatreds. Was it the reason he’d made love to her as well?

Feeling the hot tears spill down onto her folded arm, Martay continued to study his dark, handsome face through tear-blurred vision. It would be, she decided, the last night she would lie and look at him.

Tomorrow she would escape.

33

T
he next morning Martay waited until Night Sun was dressed. When his tall frame headed for the tipi opening, she rose up, clutching the fur covers to her, yawning, pretending she had just awakened.

“Night Sun.” She spoke his name softly and saw the immediate tensing of muscles beneath the soft elkskin shirt that stretched across his wide shoulders.

“Yes?” he answered without turning.

“My mare so needs exercising. May I please ride her up on the eastern bluffs for a while this morning?”

She watched, not daring to breathe, while he stood there with his back to her, his hands flexing into fists at his sides. He was going to refuse. She knew it. He didn’t trust her.

“I’ll have Speaks-Not-At-All come for you in half an hour,” he said, ducking his dark head under the flap, and was gone before she could offer thanks.

Martay’s heart began to beat wildly. Throwing back the buffalo robes, she jumped up and hurried to dress. Knowing better than to do anything that might alert Night Sun, she didn’t even consider taking anything but the clothes on her back. In a plain buckskin skirt and shirt and her knee-high moccasins, her hair pulled back and bound at the back of her head with a leather strip, she nervously paced, waiting for the old mute warrior.

And as she paced, her restless eyes touched the things that had grown familiar in the past few weeks—Night Sun’s long fur bed, his eagle-feather war bonnet, his decorated lance. Feeling that unwanted lump rising to her throat, Martay paused, looked at his pine chest for a long moment, then moved slowly toward it. Quietly, carefully, opening the top drawer, she reached in and touched the supple black velvet enclosing her dried white gardenia.

Thinking that the wilted flower would be all that was left of her in Night Sun’s life, she realized, sadly, she was taking nothing of him with her.

The near, distinctive sound of her sorrel mare whinnying a cheerful good-morning caused Martay to close the pine chest and rush toward the tipi opening. She stuck her head out, smiled warmly at Speaks-Not-At-All, and motioned to him that she would be right with him. Then, turning, she took one last, slow look around.

Martay swallowed, then swallowed again.

For the rest of her days she would remember exactly how this small, cozy lodge looked. Would recall the scent of sweet sage freshening the air, the feel of soft fur against her bare skin, the sight of Night Sun’s dark head ducking through the flap.

She whirled about and rushed outside, took a long, deep breath of fresh air, and climbed atop her prancing sorrel. Slapping the long reins from side to side across the mare’s sleek neck, she cantered the mount straight from the village, never looking back.

But a pair of intense black eyes were on her.

A shoulder braced against a tree, Night Sun stood, arms crossed over his chest, watching Martay and the old warrior ride out. The casual attitude of his long, lean body, the lack of expression on his face, belied the inexplicable unease he was feeling. Unemotionally observing her departure, he experienced an overwhelming urge to go after her.

Quietly grinding his even, white teeth, he pushed away from the tree and walked unhurriedly back toward the village.

Martay was uncharacteristically quiet as she and Speaks-Not-At-All rode across the countryside. Usually she kept up a steady stream of chatter as though Speaks understood every word. Not this morning. She knew the old warrior was puzzled by her silence; he kept looking at her with those sad, questioning eyes, and it made her feel worse than she already felt. But she hardened her heart, kicked her mare’s flanks, and shot ahead, knowing what she had to do.

Speaks-Not-At-All, entrusted with her care, raced after Martay, just as she knew he would. She turned and smiled when he drew alongside her, and for a time the pair rode knee to knee across the great stretches of prairie grass and sagebrush. When they reached the beginning of the grotesquely carved buttes and rugged canyons, Speaks-Not-At-All motioned that it was time they turned back. He pointed up at the high white clouds building over the eastern hills.

Martay laughed gaily and indicated she wanted to ride just a bit further, just a bit faster. And all the while she was planning to elude him when they reached the rough, unbroken country that lay ahead. But when, half an hour later, they thundered into a shallow, curving sandstone canyon, Speaks-Not-At-All was still right at her side and she realized it was impossible to outride him.

Hating the thought of what she had to do, Martay slowed her horse so that the fall she must take wouldn’t break her neck, then wasted no more time. Before Speaks could pull up on his mount, she tumbled from her mare’s back and lay, unmoving, on the ground.

He was back to her in seconds, and Martay, lying in wait, her fingers clutching a large rock, waited until the sun was blocked from her view. Knowing then that Speaks-Not-At-All was between her and the sun, she opened her eyes just as the old warrior, on his knees, reached out to pat her cheek.

“Sorry, Speaks,” she said, raised the rock, and struck him on the head. “Speaks!” she screamed when the old Indian crumpled to the ground beside her. Horrified, she shook him by the shoulder, immediately sorry for what she had done, begging him to open his eyes. But Speaks-Not-At-All was out cold.

For a long, miserable moment Martay sat there on her heels beside the unconscious warrior, debating what she should do. She could ride back to the village for help and … and … She envisioned a furious Night Sun, shook her head, and got to her feet. She hadn’t hit Speaks that hard. Surely in few moments he would come to, find her gone, and go back to camp for help.

Still murmuring “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Martay hurried to jerk up her mare’s reins and remount. She galloped away, Speaks’s horse running alongside her. For several miles she continued to ride fast, zigging around curves in a shallow canyon, plunging up and down up dry washes and dodging low-hanging tree limbs.

Nervously looking over her shoulder, half expecting to see Speaks running after her on foot, Martay finally slowed her mare to a canter. She had to get her bearings and decide where she would go. Frowning, she looked up at the changing sky. What had been a few high clouds an hour ago were now massive, white thunderheads boiling up, rapidly drifting west.

Martay pulled up on her mare. She had no idea in which direction she should ride. Where was the nearest town? The closest fort? She didn’t know. She knew only that Denver was to the south and that Night Sun had taken her to a doctor in some small town on their way north to his camp. Maybe that town was close. Maybe she could get there in a few hours. So she turned south and hoped that she would reach civilization before nightfall.

Night Sun was restless.

He prowled the village impatiently, unable to fully focus his attention on anything. He kept looking at the sky, judging the length of time Martay and Speaks had been gone. When a couple of hours had passed, he went for his horse.

Alone, he rode out of the village, his Colt .45 stuck down inside the waistband of his tight buckskins. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find, but an uncanny premonition of trouble had been nudging him all morning.

As soon as he left the village behind, Night Sun spoke commandingly to the black, and the big stallion went into an easy lope. Night Sun spoke again and the horse galloped rapidly toward the east. Soon horse and rider reached the place where Speaks-Not-At-All, having regained consciousness, sat on the ground, groggily rubbing his head.

Knowing immediately what had happened, Night Sun hurried to the old warrior and shook his dark head reassuringly when Speaks furiously signed that he had let Night Sun down, that the white captive girl had escaped. Wiping his eyes often as old men do, Speaks’s hands trembled as he spoke with them, telling Night Sun all he knew.