Warrior's Embrace (20 page)

His people had held the barricade for two
months, deadlocked with the city fathers. Tempers were high, and
patience was running thin. Isolated incidents of violence destroyed
a chance of a peaceful settlement. Blood had already been shed...
and there would be more.

Black Hawk left the ridge. His watch was
over. It was time to go back through the forest and beyond the vast
reaches of the Chickasaw tribal lands to his ranch. His stallion
waited for him at the foot of the ridge.

He vaulted onto the horse’s back and set a
swift course toward home. When he reached the clearing that
bordered his ranch he drew his horse to a stop. Black Hawk inhaled
the subtle fragrances of the land, the rich, black earth, the scent
of pine, the sweetness of honeysuckle. Suddenly he stiffened. There
was another smell in the air, a smell that didn’t belong
there—smoke.

Digging his heels into the stallion’s sides,
he galloped toward his house. Sirens wailed in the distance.

Racing now, he rounded a copse of trees and
saw his house blanketed in flames. Emergency vehicles ringed his
yard, red lights blinking.

Black Hawk drew his stallion to a standstill
and studied the scene. Last week his car had been firebombed, and
this week his house. The enemy wanted Black Hawk dead.

Flames leaped toward the sky, crackling with
a voice of evil intent. He urged his horse forward, stopping only
when he was even with Sheriff Wayne Blodgett’s car. The sheriff got
out and came slowly toward Black Hawk, huffing under an excess of
fifty pounds and wiping sweat from his face.

“It’s hotter than a witch’s caldron out here
tonight,” he said, moving the handkerchief around his beefy neck
and into the collar of his chambray shirt. When he reached Black
Hawk, he caught the stallion’s bridle. “Good evenin’, Blackie.”

“Is it?” Black Hawk stared at his house.
Nothing would be saved: It was too late.

“I’m sorry. You know that.” Wayne wiped at
his face once more. “It’s that thing with the mall developers.
They’re after your blood.”

“Why?”

“You know why. You’re the leader of the
resistance. If it hadn’t been for you, this whole thing would have
been over six weeks ago.”

“And a vast section of trees would be
destroyed to make way for another ugly concrete mall—the white
man’s monument to civilization.” Black Hawk dismounted, then bent
down and picked up a piece of charred debris that had separated
from the burning mass of his house. Clutching the board in his
hand, he stood up, facing his friend.

“I’ll die before I’ll give up one tree on my
ancestral lands.”

Sheriff Blodgett swore until his face was
only a shade lighter than the fire that roared in the background.
Then he put his hand on Black Hawk’s shoulder.

“That’s exactly what they want, Blackie: They
want you dead.” Black Hawk was silent, watching his friend with
eyes as dark as the night sky. Wayne pulled a piece of paper from
his pocket. It was torn and dingy. “Read this.”

Black Hawk held the paper up to catch the
light from the flames. “You’re next, Indian. Pull that renegade
band of yours back from the forest or you die.”

“Where did you get this?”

Wayne spat onto the ground. “Found it stuck
with an arrow in that oak tree over yonder.”

“I won’t be intimidated.” Black Hawk handed
the paper back to the sheriff. “Check that out. Work with the
Tombigbee Bluff police—if they aren’t already in the pockets of the
developers.”

“I want you to get out of town, Blackie. Lay
low for a while.”

“No. I stay.”

“There’s been enough violence.

“Nobody has been killed. It won’t come to
that. The developers won’t go that far.”

“I don’t know that and neither do you.” Wayne
stuffed the paper into his back pocket. “I can’t protect you. Black
Hawk. I don’t have the resources.”

“I’ll protect myself.” He clapped his hand on
his friend’s shoulder. “We’ve offered to negotiate with the city
and the developers for a peaceful settlement. This will all be over
soon.”

“I hope you’re right, Blackie... or else
somebody is liable to get killed.”

“You worry too much, old friend.”

Black Hawk’s foreman and all the ranch hands,
drawn out of bed by the commotion, joined the vigil beside the
blaze. The fire fight continued into the night, and at last only
Black Hawk and Wayne were left beside the rubble that had once been
a home.

“Come home with me tonight, Blackie. Jane
will be glad to have you, and you know how the kids feel about you.
They think you’re a hero.”

“Thanks, friend, but I’ll stay here. Somebody
might come back to see how well they did their job.”

“Be careful.”

Wayne’s parting warning was still echoing in
Black Hawk’s mind when he got a saddle blanket from the barn and
spread his bed under the stars. Being careful was not his style.
Boldness and passion ruled Black Hawk, ruled him to the extent that
his family and all his friends declared he was a ticking time bomb
waiting to explode.

Let the enemy come. He was ready.

The enemy came out of the night. Black Hawk
lay flat on the ground, hidden by a scrub of pines, waiting and
smiling. He had heard their approach fifteen minutes earlier. They
were about as stealthy as a herd of runaway buffalo.

The men filed into the clearing. There were
ten of them, all milling around his burned-out house, looking for
signs of him. Black Hawk recognized four of them; they were the
most belligerent of the mall supporters, the troublemakers, the
ones always ready to fight rather than to talk.

He was more than ready to talk; he was eager.
He wanted answers. He rose from his spying place with the intention
of joining the enemy, when he spotted the glint of a gun barrel. He
froze, studying the situation. Walter Martin, standing on the
fringe of the crowd, was holding a Winchester rifle. One man with a
gun could incite an unarmed mob to riot. It would be ten against
one. Though walking away was not his style, Black Hawk had no
intention of starting a war—or of being an easy target.

He raced toward the wood, going away from his
men and his property, his moccasins silent on the spongy forest
floor. He’d been running only a few minutes when he heard the mob
thrashing along behind him.

“We’ll never catch him if we don’t spread
out,” one of them yelled.

Black Hawk stripped his shirt off and left it
on a bush to confuse them.

Behind him, he heard the commotion as the mob
tried to figure out which way he had gone. Black Hawk followed a
small stream north until it forked, racing into the night.

Suddenly there was a yell from the thicket on
Black Hawk’s right.

“I got him.”

He felt the sting as a bullet pierced his
right arm. Black Hawk hunched low, clutching his arm. He could
shoot well enough to part a man’s hair without harming his scalp,
even with the blood warm on his own skin. But he didn’t want to
resort to their brand of negotiation. If he couldn’t scare his
enemies out of the woods, he would wait them out.

Taking his knife, he cut through the thicket
of vines and brambles. All at once, the earth opened up and
swallowed him. He rolled himself into a ball, tumbling downward for
a small eternity. Jutting stones and sharp roots pierced him.

He was still conscious when he landed. The
yelling of the mob seemed to come from a long way off.

There was blood on her kitchen floor.

Elizabeth McCade knelt in her business suit
and high-heel shoes to investigate. In the light from the
fluorescent bulbs, the spot glowed darkly against the tiles.

“It can’t possibly be blood,” she told
herself. “I’m so tired from working such late hours, my mind is
playing tricks.”

Nevertheless she dipped one finger into the
spot and inspected it carefully. A shiver ran through her. The red
substance was definitely blood.

Elizabeth stood up quietly and carefully,
drawing her suit jacket around her as if the ancient air
conditioner in her kitchen window was suddenly blasting arctic air.
She pulled off her shoes and walked in stocking feet to the pantry
where she kept a flashlight. The most logical place for an intruder
to hide was the cellar, and the lights had long since burned out
down there. Arming herself, she started toward the cellar, then
changed her mind and searched the rest of her house first.

Outside her windows the wind picked up,
moaning around the gables and whistling through the lattices.
Elizabeth wasn’t easily spooked, but then she wasn’t accustomed to
coming home at two o’clock in the morning and finding blood on her
kitchen floor.

After a search of her first and second
floors, she pushed open the door that led into the wine cellar,
training her flashlight into the darkness.

o0o

Deep in the shadows, Black Hawk heard the
door open, heard the footsteps on the stairs. He surveyed his
surroundings, looking for hiding places. There were none... except
the wine racks. Fortunately they were the massive kind favored by
the wealthy in the early nineteenth century, built solidly of red
oak. Swiftly and silently he climbed a wine rack and flattened
himself along the top. One bottle threatened to topple. He caught
it with his right hand and eased it back into place, gritting his
teeth against the pain.

The searcher, with steps as quiet as cat
feet, traversed the basement, and played the light along the floor
and the walls. Black Hawk held his breath, praying whoever it was
didn’t point the beam upward.

“Is anybody here?”

The searcher was a woman.

“Come out with your hands raised. I have a
gun, and I know how to use it.”

In spite of his situation, Black Hawk was
amused. The woman had spunk. He eased his head over the side of the
wine rack and looked down. In the glow of the flashlight he saw
her. She had gleaming black hair, and her face radiated
intelligence and passion—and she was holding a nickel-plated .44
Magnum pistol with an eight-inch barrel.

Black Hawk added
tough
to his list
of her assets.

The woman stood for a while, holding the gun
steady, searching the cellar once more with her beam of light. “It
must have been that stray cat,” she said, then turned and went back
up the stairs.

Black Hawk waited atop the wine rack until he
considered it safe to come down. His body was bloody and battered,
and he ached with every movement.

What had tipped the woman off? He’d been
careful on his foraging expedition upstairs. He’d found bandages
and antiseptic salve and had taken them without guilt, guessing
they would never be missed. He had drunk his fill of water, then
washed the glass and put it back in its place. Food was not a
problem yet. He intended to wait until the next day to decide how
much he could take without arousing her suspicions.

Moving slowly because of his injuries, Black
Hawk made himself as comfortable as possible on a couple of burlap
bags he’d found, and took stock of his situation. He still had his
gun and his knife. He’d sacrificed his shirt to throw the enemy off
his trail, but he had his pants and his moccasins. The gunshot
wound in his right arm was painful but not serious. The bullet had
passed through, grazing the skin. Most of the cuts and bruises he’d
suffered during the plunge into the passageway were on his chest
and arms.

Black Hawk would be recovered enough to leave
in a few days. In the meantime, he needed to check out his
unsuspecting hostess. If she was as lethal as her gun, then he had
stumbled onto a dangerous hiding place. Were the gods watching over
him when he had plunged into the hole and discovered a decaying
passageway that led to this wine cellar, or were they mocking
him?

With a patience as ancient as time itself,
Black Hawk waited until the house was still. The gurgling water
pipes and creaking floorboards had long since grown quiet.

Armed with his knife, Black Hawk stole up the
stairs and into the kitchen. He stood long enough to let his eyes
adjust, then he followed the trail of the woman. She was not hard
to follow; her scent lingered in the air, a faint, musky fragrance
that made him think of exotic dancers wearing nothing but
veils.

He found her upstairs. She lay stretched
across her bed, asleep on her stomach. The black hair he had
glimpsed in the cellar was unpinned and hung down her back like a
bolt of silk. A red satin gown outlined shapely legs, trim hips,
and a slim waist. Black Hawk approached the bed, standing so close,
he could have touched her silk-clad thighs.

He stood over the bed, watching her,
assessing her, then turned away and quietly began to search her
belongings. On his first trip upstairs he had been after the bare
necessities: medicine and water. Now he wanted answers.

He found them in her closet and in her desk.
She was a paradox: a woman with the soul of a wanton, posing as an
archconservative. Her business suits were plain, even severe; but
her lingerie ran the gamut from seductive to outrageously
naughty.

She was Elizabeth McCade, a loan officer at
the local bank, daughter of Lonnie and Regina McCade, killed in a
car accident shortly after her birth, born in Tombigbee Bluff,
raised by her maiden aunt Kathleen McCade, and educated at Yale.
She had a degree in English, a teaching certificate, and a locked
diary.

Black Hawk put her personal papers back into
her desk and returned to the bed. Elizabeth McCade had not
stirred.

He bent over and traced the curve of her hip
with one finger. “Who are you, Elizabeth McCade?” he whispered.
“Woman of ice or woman of fire?”

Her fragrance wafted over him, and he inhaled
deeply. Another time, another place he would have enjoyed getting
to know her. But now his passion was for destroying his
enemies.