Savage Spirit (5 page)

This caused a wave of renewed apprehension to spread through Alicia. In such a secluded place, Cloud Eagle could have his way with her.

Her heart pounded out her fear as Cloud Eagle drew tight rein, dismounted, and lifted her from the saddle. She hoped that she was wrong to be afraid of him. She fervently wished that his intentions toward her were pure, and that all he wanted was to truly help her.

Alicia clung around Cloud Eagle's neck as he carried her to a wall of rock. He set her down with the wall at her back. It still held the heat of the sun which had beaten there all day.

She leaned away from it and surveyed her surroundings. The stream widened into a basin ten yards across, where very large cottonwood trees spread their limbs overhead. All was still except for an occasional baying wolf that sent its eerie call into the night.

"It's so quiet here," Alicia said as Cloud Eagle spread a blanket beside her. "The distant wolves and the trickling water are the only sounds that I hear."

"It is the tribal doctrine to avoid noisy water, which keeps one from hearing other sounds," Cloud Eagle said, now bringing willows and   alders and quickly weaving a shelter. He nodded toward the blanket. "Take the blanket inside the shelter. I must see to my horse. Then I will return and see to your wound and share my food with you."

Alicia nodded. Feeling more certain as each moment passed that he meant her no harm, she did as he asked. She settled down on the blanket and held her throbbing head between her hands as she watched Cloud Eagle care for his roan. She noticed his gentleness toward the animal. He meticulously plucked burrs from the matted tail, one by one. When that was finished, he led his horse to the water, where he patiently gave it a long drink before hobbling the roan in a grassy draw.

Cloud Eagle wandered away and Alicia lost sight of him momentarily. She had a fleeting thought of seizing the moment to escape.

Then another pain rippled up and down her leg, reminding her of just how helpless she was. She moaned and rocked back and forth as she held her leg between her hands, then stiffened and scarcely breathed when the pet coyotes came and sniffed at her. She sighed heavily when they sauntered away and stretched out beside the stream.

Cloud Eagle soon returned. He came into the small shelter and sat down beside her.

Puzzled by what he was now doing, Alicia closely watched him crush some strange sort of roots between two rocks.

Cloud Eagle sensed Alicia's puzzlement. "I searched until I found the herb I need to doctor your wound," he explained, his eyes still on what he was doing. "I am making a powder from the   root of the
ocotillo
. It will help your wound heal quickly.''

Alicia moved farther away from him. "I don't want any powder from any root placed on my wound," she argued. "I prefer allowing it to heal on its own."

She paused when he cast her an angry stare, then continued. "A doctor lives not far from my stage station. Take me there. He will see to my wound, thank you."

"You are closer to my stronghold than any stage station that I am aware of," Cloud Eagle argued. He took a handful of the
ocotillo
powder to Alicia. He brushed it from the palm of his hand onto the blanket, then took Alicia by the wrist and urged her next to him. "Sit still. This will not take long."

"No, don't!" Alicia cried. She tried to slide away from him again, but the pain in her leg stopped her.

Panting, she fell onto her back. "It looks as though I don't have any choice, doesn't it?" she said exhaustedly. "You apparently aren't aware of my stage station. It has been in service for only a few days. It is much closer than you realize. But even if you knew that my stage station was not far away, you still would not take me there, would you?"

"You may behave and dress as a man, but you do not have the sense of distance or direction that a man has, especially an Apache," Cloud Eagle said. He ignored the way she flinched when he drew a knife from its sheath at his right side and placed it where her buckskin breeches had already been ripped open.

He could tell that she was holding her breath   as he ripped the breeches leg open more widely with the knife. "I do know of this newest stage station," he said dryly. "I know where it is located. It is a day's ride away." He paused and gave her a lingering stare. ''Were you going or coming from the stage station?"

"That is none of your business," Alicia said stubbornly. "But you made it your business, didn't you? You waited until I got far enough from the stage station to ambush me. You took my mail sack. Why? There wasn't anything of importance in it exceptexcept the letter to my brother. Now you may be the cause of his getting lost in this godforsaken land."

"Your brother?" Cloud Eagle said, raising an eyebrow. "What about your brother?"

Alicia grew pale, thinking that she might have said too much. If this Apache chief sent his warriors to look for her brother, there was no telling what would happen to her sweet Charlie.

"Nothing," she said, looking away from him.

"When one speaks of blood kin, it is usually not done without good reason," Cloud Eagle said, laying his knife aside. "Especially if there is concern about the relative." He briefly thought about the man with the portrait, but that thought was driven out of his mind when his fingers touched Alicia's wound, and she cried out with pain.

Quickly he placed a hand over her mouth. "Silence," he said angrily. "Do you wish to draw those responsible for the ambush to us? You would soon realize that I have told the truth."

Alicia's eyes were wide above his clasped hand. Her pulse raced at the very thought that he might be truly a friend, for she would die a slow death inside should he prove to be her arch enemy.   Although she was fighting her feelings for him with every fiber of her being, the more she was with him, the more she realized that she could care for this handsome Apache.

Perhaps she already did, she thought.

She grabbed his hand from her mouth. "You are a good actor," she scoffed. "You are going to have to do more than act as though you are wary of someone finding us here to convince me that you are not the very one you are warning me against."

Cloud Eagle gave her a frustrated look, then removed the headband from her leg. He took it to the stream and gave it a good dunking, washing the blood from it as well as he could. He went to his horse, took a large buckskin pouch from his saddle, and carried it to the river.

Taking a cloth from inside the pouch, he leaned it into the water and gave it a good soaking, then came back to Alicia.

"What I am going to do will hurt, but it is best so that the wound will have a better chance to heal," Cloud Eagle said.

He gently laid the damp cloth on Alicia's wound and bathed it as she held her breath and watched.

Too taken by his gentle ways and his attentiveness to her, Alicia ignored the pain. Again his handsomeness was unnerving her. In the light of the moon, she could see how his body rippled with power. She studied his square-jawed face that was framed by black hair. His eyes were black and burning.

She was indeed touched by his tender, caring ways, yet she still could not allow herself to trust him.   "You continue with your ploy that is meant to make me trust you," Alicia said, sighing heavily. "Yet you are surely the man responsible for my present dilemma. Heed my warning, Cloud Eagle. When I am missed, someone will come looking for me. Milton Powers works with me at the stage station, and although at times he acts as though he despises the very ground I walk on, he won't allow Indians to get away with stealing the mail sack and abducting me."

Instantly jealous to hear her speak another man's name, Cloud Eagle stared down at her. "Who is this man with the strange name?" he demanded. "This Milton. Is he your special man?"

Enjoying his piqued interest, and feeling as though she had a slight edge over him at least for the moment, Alicia smiled and offered him no more information. Although he was seeing to her wound, she would not be fooled that easily by him.

Realizing that he was not going to get any more answers from her about this white man, Cloud Eagle proceeded to doctor her wound. He would get answers from her later. She would give them to him willingly.

Alicia looked down at her wound. It was cleansed thoroughly. She winced when Cloud Eagle sprinkled the powdered
ocotillo
on it, then closed the torn buckskin back over it and secured the headband just above this, to hold the buckskin fabric in place.

"That will do until we reach my stronghold," Cloud Eagle said, slipping his knife back inside its sheath. "If it is not healed by then, a shaman will be called to make you well."   A tremor of apprehension swept through Alicia. "I want no shaman near me," she said, catching his angry look at the sarcastic sound of her voice. "Anyhow, I'm sure one won't be required. I heal quickly. I will be as good as new in a couple of days."

Cloud Eagle left long enough to get his sack of food. When he returned, Alicia watched hungrily as he removed some jerked meat from the buckskin pouch. He held out a piece of the jerky toward Alicia. "Cloud Eagle is always ready to share what he has with his fellows and deeming you as one of them, eat what I offer you."

Alicia did not have to be asked twice. She tore into the meat with her teeth, jerking a good portion free. She began chewing it revenously.

Cloud Eagle left again and returned a short while later to offer her fruit from the giant cactus, the yucca.

She accepted this and ate it, not only to quell her hunger, but to quench her thirst. She enjoyed the taste, which was something like the taste of the figs and bananas she had once sampled in Saint Louis.

The air was damp, crisp, and bone-cutting in the soft and moon-filled dark of night. Thickets of piñon scattered the starlight, making silvery slashes on the ground.

Alicia shivered and hugged herself. "Aren't you going to build a fire?" she asked, her stomach now pleasantly full. Sleep was the next best thing, perhaps only second to being held again by Cloud Eagle. She fought this want with all of her being, for she did not want to allow herself to feel anything for Cloud Eagle but loathing.

"The same as noise, fire must be avoided   tonight at all costs," Cloud Eagle explained. He left the shelter, went to his horse, and untied a Mexican serape which was lashed to the back of his saddle.

He brought it to Alicia. He doubled it and gently passed it over her shoulders and tied it under her chin by a stout buckskin thong.

"That should keep you comfortable enough until the sun comes into the sky with its warmth tomorrow," Cloud Eagle said.

Alicia clung to the serape, drawing it more tightly against her, yet still she shivered.

Cloud Eagle went to his horse again and removed a buckskin blanket from another leather pouch that hung from his horse's side, behind his saddle.

He took this back to Alicia. "Lie down," he said, giving her a soft look. "I shall spread this over you."

"I don't think anything can give me enough warmth," Alicia said, yet did as he instructed. "I've never been so cold."

She trembled beneath the buckskin blanket.

Cloud Eagle knelt over her, wishing there were more that he could do to ensure her warmth for the night. He knew that she would not accept his body warmth.

he glanced down at Gray as his coyote meandered into the shelter and stretched out at Cloud Eagle's feet. An idea came to Cloud Eagle's mind that made him smile.

"Go, Gray," he said, pointing to Alicia. "Down. Lie down with the woman. Share your body warmth with her."

Gray cocked his head and gave Cloud Eagle a puzzled look. When the command was repeated,   the coyote crawled on all fours to Alicia, then snuggled close beside her.

The coyote so close to Alicia made fear rise inside her, so much that an uncontrollable shudder of dread rushed through her.

"Send him away," she said in a weak voice as she pleaded up at Cloud Eagle with her eyes. "Please? I'll be warm enough without the coyote."

"Gray is gentler than most white men's pet dogs," Cloud Eagle said, settling down on a blanket a short distance from Alicia. He snapped his fingers and Snow came bounding toward him. "Snow will warm me for the night. Gray will warm you."

Alicia watched Snow settle in beside Cloud Eagle. When she saw the devotion between master and coyote, she looked down at Gray and saw that he was just as obedient toward her.

Slowly her fear subsided. She scooted closer to Gray and draped an arm over him. Smiling, she closed her eyes when she felt the warmth of his body enter hers. She felt as though she had found a friend.

Friends.

Oh, Lord, she despaired. She needed friends at this time in her life when everything was so foreign from anything she had ever known.

She flinched and her eyes opened widely when a night hawk whistled an alarm from somewhere close by. Far off, the scream of a cougar echoed, hollow and alone.

Alicia noticed that a coyote's sharp, sudden bark caused Snow's ears to lift and her eyes to become hauntingly anxious.

Alicia also noticed how Cloud Eagle ran a   calming hand over his pet. It was as though he understood the cries of the heart that disturbed someone when hunger for a mate needed to be fed.

Cloud Eagle stared over at Alicia. The moonlight was wafting through the open shelter, playing on the soft, beautiful features of her face. His insides grew warm at the sight and nearness of her. He recalled how she had looked in the portrait. She had been totally feminine in appearance in a lovely, low-swept dress, her hair lying in soft curls across her pale shoulders. He vowed to himself that he would soon discard her ugly clothes that were meant only for a man, and turn her into a womanin every respect.

Alicia stared back at him, her insides swimming with a lazy warmth. She could see something new in his eyes and realized that it was a look of hungry need.

Her heart skipped a beat.

Was he like his pet coyote?

If so, who would stroke his flesh and calm him into forgetting such needs?

Oh, dear Lord, she thought. She wished to be the one. Just the thought of touching his body intimately set small fires alight within her.