Spirit's Song (5 page)

With a nod, Kaylynn huddled under the blanket again. A criminal and a bounty hunter. What would her father think if he could see her now?

Chapter Seven

They were on the move early the following morning. Kaylynn had rarely felt so dirty and disheveled in her whole life. Her hair fell over her shoulders in a scraggly mass. She needed a long soak in a tub of hot water. She needed a comb and a brush, though she was beginning to wonder if she would ever get all the tangles out of her hair. She needed new clothes, though she wondered if she would ever get used to wearing a chemise, pantalets and a mountain of petticoats again. She glanced at her hands, rough and dry, the nails broken. She needed a manicure, too. And a good night’s sleep in a real bed…

She stared at Ravenhawk’s back, and told herself she would not cry. But it was hard to keep her tears at bay. Living with the Indians had not been easy, but it had been better than this. At least she’d had a bed of soft furs to sleep in, clean water to bathe with, a change of clothing. She’d had to work hard, but she had been treated well enough.

She rubbed her eyes. They felt gritty from lack of sleep. She had been all too aware of Ravenhawk lying beside her the night before. She had been afraid to fall asleep for fear of what he might do, afraid she might roll over and touch him. Apparently he had not been bothered by her nearness. He had slept soundly through the night.

He had a broad back, Ravenhawk did. And long black hair, though it was not as long as Yellow Thunder’s. Wisps of his hair brushed her cheek from time to time. She sat as far away from him as possible, but there wasn’t a lot of room to spare on the back of a horse. She held lightly to his waist to keep from tumbling over the Appaloosa’s rump.

The bounty hunter rode ahead. He had roused them from bed just after dawn that morning. He had looked after the horses while she prepared breakfast, if beans and hardtack could be considered breakfast. And now they were riding across a seemingly endless prairie of gently waving grass beneath a brassy blue sky. The sun was warm on her back. The horse had an easy rolling gait. If she hadn’t been in such dire circumstances, she might have enjoyed the ride.

“You on the run, too?”

Kaylynn sat up, startled to realize she had been dozing, her forehead resting against Ravenhawk’s back. “What?”

“You sleeping back there?” There was a faint note of amusement in his voice.

It was, she thought, a very nice voice, for a criminal. Deep and rich.

He glanced over his shoulder. “You are still back there, aren’t you?”

“Yes, of course,” she snapped. “Where would I go?”

“No need to bite my head off, sweetheart.”

She glared at him. “I really don’t feel like making small talk, Mr. Hawk. And don’t call me sweetheart.”

“Ravenhawk. It’s all one word. No mister.”

She stared at him, not knowing what to say.

“So, do you wanna tell me your name? Sweetheart.”

“No.”

Ravenhawk laughed softly, then faced forward again. He had more important things to worry about than the woman riding behind him. He tugged on the cuff that shackled his right hand to the saddle horn. He’d be in a hell of a fix if the horse went down. He glared at Yellow Thunder’s back. Damn the man. The bounty hunter was as persistent as a wolf on the scent of blood.

Damn! He never should have robbed that bank. There had only been a couple hundred dollars in the vault, hardly worth the risk involved. But he’d needed a stake. He was tired of drifting, tired of wandering aimlessly from one place to another, looking for… He grunted softly. He didn’t know what the hell he was looking for. He’d been a restless wind ever since he could remember, always wanting to see what was beyond the next rise, always looking, searching, never finding whatever it was he was looking for.

He wasn’t content living with the whites; he wasn’t content living with the Lakota. He had ties to both worlds, and didn’t feel at home in either. Hell, he’d never felt at home anywhere.

The girl shifted behind him. He stared down at her hands, locked around his waist. Women had never been a problem for him. He’d had more than his share. He didn’t know why they liked him, but they did. All but this one. She looked at him like he was less than the dirt beneath her feet. He wondered what crime she had committed. At first, he had thought she was Yellow Thunder’s woman, but after last night it was obvious she wasn’t staying with the bounty hunter of her own free will, and he wondered how long she had been Yellow Thunder’s prisoner, and if he ever used her to keep warm on long cold nights. The thought of the bounty hunter pawing at the woman bothered him more than it should have.

They rode all that day, stopping only once to rest the horses.

Kaylynn groaned softly as she slid from the back of the Appaloosa. Her legs felt like rubber as she walked over and sat down in the shade of a thornberry bush. Sitting on the back of the horse, with nothing between her and sweating horseflesh, left her feeling sticky and dirty and itchy. She gnawed at the jerky the bounty hunter had given her and for a moment she closed her eyes, remembering Mrs. Moseley’s succulent roast beef and whipped potatoes swimming in rich brown gravy. If she ever made it back to her parents’ home again, she was never, ever going to leave.

She watched the two men. Ravenhawk squatted near the water hole, filling a canteen. Yellow Thunder stood near his horse, idly scratching the roan’s ears as he stared into the distance. She wondered what he was thinking. She had never met a man as hard and cold as the bounty hunter. Merciless was the word that came to mind. She wondered how he had gotten that way, how he had gotten the dreadful scars on his face and body, if there was any chance of escaping him.

Her gaze moved back to Ravenhawk. He had stripped off his shirt and was splashing water over his arms and chest. He was tall and broad, though not so tall or broad-shouldered as the bounty hunter. His skin was the color of fine old copper, smooth and unblemished as far as she could see, save for one puckered white scar on his forearm, and two faint scars on his chest. He looked up, catching her gaze, and smiled, a long, lazy smile that made her acutely aware that she was a woman. Lord, but he was a handsome man. For a criminal.

With a huff, she looked away. It was a sin, for a man of his ilk to have a smile like that.

“Let’s go.”

She watched Ravenhawk stand up at the bounty hunter’s words, but she didn’t want to move. It was pleasant, sitting in the shade. The grass was cool beneath her, a faint breeze kept the heat at bay. A small lizard sat on a rock, regarding her through beady black eyes, and then, in a flash, it was gone.

She sprang to her feet when she saw Yellow Thunder striding purposefully toward her.

He looked at her, his right brow raised in an expression she was beginning to recognize as mild amusement. She had the feeling he was laughing at her, that he knew exactly how afraid of him she was.

He jerked his chin toward the horses. “Let’s go.”

Afraid to defy him, she walked toward the Appaloosa.

Yellow Thunder rested one hand on the butt of his gun as he ordered Ravenhawk to mount up. The Lakota’s expression was mutinous as he pulled his buckskin shirt over his head, then climbed into the saddle and secured the handcuff to his wrist.

Yellow Thunder lifted her onto the horse behind Ravenhawk, then swung aboard his own mount.

Kaylynn frowned, wondering how long it would take to reach a town, wondering what the bounty hunter intended to do with her when that time came.

She stared across the prairie. It seemed her life had never been her own. As far back as she could remember, she’d had to answer to someone. First her mother and father. Then her schoolteachers. Then old Mo’e’ha. And now this crude, unwashed, heathen bounty hunter. Just once, she wished she could be her own boss, that she could come and go as she pleased, with no one to order her around and no one to answer to but herself. But it wasn’t likely to happen. If she ever made it to her parents’ home again, she would be right back where she started, under her father’s thumb. One thing was certain, divorce or no divorce, she was never going back to Alan.

Lost in thought, she was hardly aware of the passage of time. It wouldn’t be easy, going back home, admitting she had been wrong about Alan. No doubt her father would say “I told you so”. Her mother would be appalled at the idea of a divorce in the family. Decent people did not sue for a bill of divorcement. It simply wasn’t done. It wouldn’t be easy. As badly as she wanted her freedom, she wasn’t sure she could endure the shame, the stigma, of being a divorced woman.

It wasn’t until Ravenhawk reined the Appaloosa to a halt that she realized dusk had fallen.

They made camp as though they had been doing it for years. Ravenhawk had apparently decided food was more important than his pride and after Yellow Thunder unlocked the cuff shackling him to the pommel, Ravenhawk unsaddled the horses and rubbed them down. When that was done, Yellow Thunder shackled Ravenhawk’s feet, then led the horses down to the stream to drink.

Kaylynn fixed dinner, grimacing as she sliced bacon and fried a mess of beans. She was heartily sick of this rough fare.

The three of them ate in silence so thick she could have cut it with a knife. She had eaten first, acutely aware of the tension that simmered in the air between the two men. When she was finished, she filled the plate and offered it to Ravenhawk. The bounty hunter ate out of the frying pan. He sat a ways apart, a rifle across his knees.

When the meal was over, Yellow Thunder shackled her ankle to Ravenhawk’s. If she had been speaking to him, she would have told him there was no need. She wasn’t going to try running away again. She had learned her lesson the last time. Every time she tried running away, she ended up in a worse fix than the one she had left behind.

She shuddered when she heard a wolf howl. It was a sad, lonely sound. For some reason, it made her want to cry.

Later, lying on the hard ground, with Ravenhawk at her back, she did cry. It was a waste of time and tears, when there was no one there to comfort her, no one there to care, no one to make it better.

Yellow Thunder roused them at dawn. A quick breakfast, and they were riding again. To Kaylynn, it seemed they had been riding across the prairie for weeks instead of days. The insides of her thighs felt raw, her back ached, her shoulders ached, even her neck ached.

Ravenhawk glanced at her over his shoulder. “You’d be more comfortable if you’d just relax.”

“I’m fine.”

“Uh-huh. You’re stiff as a post. Scoot forward a little bit, and lean against me.”

“No, thank you.”

“Stubborn woman. What’s the matter, sweetheart?” he asked caustically. “You afraid of getting too close? Afraid you might catch something from the dirty half-breed?”

She stared at his back, surprised by the bitterness in his voice. She hadn’t known he was only half Indian, and wondered what difference it made.

Ravenhawk swore softly. Why the hell had he said that? He didn’t care what she thought of him. All he wanted was his freedom, and he aimed to get it, one way or another, before he found himself behind bars again. He wouldn’t go back to jail. Couldn’t go back to jail, couldn’t spend his days and nights surrounded by iron bars. Not again.

He looked at Yellow Thunder riding just ahead. The bounty hunter seemed to have let down his guard a little in the last couple of days. Ravenhawk had done his best to appear resigned to his fate. He hadn’t tried to escape, had done what he was told, even though it galled him to do so. Yellow Thunder hadn’t slept much the first few nights, but yesterday Ravenhawk had caught him dozing in the saddle. The bounty hunter couldn’t go without sleep indefinitely.

Tonight, he thought. Maybe tonight.

They made camp before sunset. Kaylynn looked around. It was a pretty place. There were a few trees, some berry bushes laden with fruit, and a deep, slow-running stream. She looked at the water with longing, wishing she could take a bath and wash her hair.

“Here.”

She whirled around, her hand at her throat, to find Yellow Thunder standing at her elbow. He held up a chunk of thick yellow soap.

“Go on,” he said. “Wash up.”

Kaylynn’s eyes widened. Take a bath? Here? Now?

The bounty hunter’s right brow rose slightly. “This is the only chance you’re gonna get.”

Kaylynn stared at him a moment, the thought of being clean a temptation she was hard-pressed to resist. But to bathe in broad daylight, with two men nearby?

Yellow Thunder pointed downstream. “There’s a secluded place around the bend. Don’t go any further than that,” he warned. “And don’t do anything dumb.”

Kaylynn stared at the soap. The prospect of being clean again was impossible to resist. The bounty hunter grinned, as if he was fully aware of her inner struggle, laughed softly as she snatched the soap from his hand and headed downstream.

When she rounded the bend in the river, she found a shallow pool screened by an overgrowth of brush. Glancing over her shoulder to make sure she was alone, she untied the sash at her waist, slipped off her tunic and moccasins, and stepped into the water. She had expected it to be cold, but it was surprisingly warm.

She sank below the surface for several moments, enjoying the sensation of the water swirling over her bare skin. She felt wicked somehow, bathing out in the open with the setting sun glinting on the water. A sparrow landed on a nearby branch, its head bobbing up and down as it watched her. She laughed out loud, and the bird took flight.