Her captor slowed the pony to a trot, then to a walk, as they neared the encampment. The tepees stood in a wide circle, smoke curling thinly from their tops. Children darted out to meet the riders, their shrill laughter mixing with the sharp yelps of half-wild dogs. From the tepee openings, women stepped forward, some shading their eyes against the glare, their gazes fixed on the mounted men and on Violet—some faces breaking into smiles, others remaining watchful and still.
To Violet, the scene was at once bewildering and terrifying. The high-pitched laughter of the children rang strange in her ears, too bright against the pounding of her own heart. The dogs’ yelps only heightened her unease, snapping and circling beneath the ponies’ hooves. The smell of smoke and tanned hides clung to the air, foreign and heavy.
Grey Horse swung down from the pony with fluid ease, then reached for her. She thought to resist, but her legs were stiff and unsteady, and before she could gather herself he had lifted her to the ground. His hand lingered at her elbow for a moment—steadying, not restraining—before he guided her toward the shadowed interior of one of the tepees.
Inside, the air was cooler, heavy with the mingled scents of smoke, hide, and damp earth. Shadows shifted across the poles overhead, where a narrow vent released the thin plume from the fire pit in the center. The ground beneath her feet was softened with thick buffalo robes, their dark, musky scent rising as she stepped. Along the slanted walls hung small pouches of hide, a bow with its quiver of arrows, and a painted shield whose design she could not decipher. Voices drifted from outside—quick, low, indistinct.
Grey Horse ducked into the tepee after her, his presence seeming to fill the small space. He crouched by the fire pit, drawing something from a pouch at his belt. A small leather bag of water. Without a word, he held it out to her.
Violet’s heart still hammered as she stared at him, her hands trembling. She didn’t take it at once. His gaze held hers, steady and unreadable, until finally she reached out and drank. The water was warm, carrying the taste of hide and smoke, yet it steadied her enough to keep her breathing. Whatever else this man was, she realized with a strange, sinking certainty—her fate was now in his hands.
?
Twilight bled across the plains, the vast sky deepening from gold to indigo, streaked with the last light of day. The Kiowa camp glowed in pockets of firelight, the smoke rising in pale ribbons before dissolving into the warm summer night.
Violet sat near the entrance of the tepee, her knees drawn to her chest, and the hide walls behind her. Outside, the village hummed with life—men calling to one another in low, clipped tones and the laughter of children weaving between the steady thud of horses walking to and fro. Somewhere, a drum began, its slow heartbeat pulsing into the dark.
Grey Horse had left her for much of the evening, speaking with other warriors. She had seen him through the tepee’s opening now and then, his tall frame unmistakable among the rest. He moved with the ease of someone who belonged entirely to this place, his long, dark hair loose about his shoulders, catching glints of firelight. His face was stern, rarely softening, and the others treated him with a respect that went beyond rank.
More than once, she caught snippets of glances in her direction and subtle nods toward Grey Horse. She didn’t understand thewords, but the tone was clear—this man had claimed her, and that meant something here.
When he returned, the air seemed to shift. He ducked into the tipi, his height forcing him to stoop, and set down a small rawhide bowl of roasted corn and strips of meat beside her. He didn’t speak, only gestured for her to eat, his dark eyes steady.
She studied him in the flicker of firelight. Beneath the stern planes of his face, there was a shadow—something quieter, older than his years. It lingered in the moments when his gaze drifted, when his jaw tightened without reason. She didn’t yet know the cause, but she recognized it as the kind of grief that buries itself deep.
She moved deeper inside the tepee now where the air was still, broken only by the soft crackle of the small fire. Outside, the camp’s rhythm continued. The drumbeat quickened, shouts and laughter rising in time with it. Then Grey Horse approached her with a bundle of furs.
Violet’s mind still churned with the day’s horrors, but exhaustion pulled at her like a tide. She lay down on the bedding of furs he’d provided her, turning toward the tepee’s wall so he couldn’t see the tears she could no longer hold back.
Grey Horse sat across from her, cross-legged by the fire. She felt his eyes on her for a long time. Then the light shifted and she turned around to see him lie down as well, his silhouette stretched out on the other side of the fire pit.
The drumbeats faded into the night, replaced by the low murmur of the wind over the grass. Somewhere beyond the village, a coyote called.
Violet closed her eyes, not knowing if she would ever see Boston or anyone from her old life again.
Chapter Eight: Ghosts of the Fire
The fire in Grey Horse’s tepee burned low, casting faint orange light over the hides. Outside, the night had gone still save for the occasional stamp of a tethered pony and the mumble of distant voices. He sat cross-legged, running a whetstone slowly along the blade of his knife, the motion familiar, grounding.
Although he tried to sleep, slumber would not come to him—not tonight, not with the ghost so close.
He could still see her face as clearly as the day they met: Eliza. Skin pale as river stone, hair the color of wheat in the sun. She had not belonged to this land, yet somehow she had made it hers. He could still picture her barefoot in the grass, laughing when the wind tangled her hair. She had learned his language without complaint, stitched shirts from traded cloth, and sat with the women as if she had always been one of them. And one wonderful day, she had become his wife.
The day she died, the air had been heavy with the scent of rain that never came. A raid had struck without warning, soldiers and settlers from the north, rifles cracking like summer thunder. He had been away at the time with the other warriors, chasing buffalo along the flats. When he returned, the tepees were burning, billows of smoke curling into the sky like black ropes.
He found her near the edge of the camp, where the grass met the scrub. She was still warm when he lifted her, but her eyes werealready fixed on something far beyond him. There had been no wound he could mend, no words he could speak to call her back.
Since that day, the part of him that had been soft, quick to smile, had hardened into something else, something that could ride into the next raid without hesitation.
He set the knife aside, the blade gleaming. The woman in his tepee now was not Eliza. She carried herself differently, spoke with the careful rhythm of someone raised far from this country. But there was something in her eyes that stirred an old, unwelcome echo: the same wariness Eliza had worn in the first weeks, the same hesitancy in a world she did not yet trust.
The others thought he had taken the woman as spoil, a prize from the raid. They didn’t understand that he had felt something magical for her as he’d pulled her from the coach into a world of fear, the way her hands trembled as if holding back more than just terror. If he had not claimed her, someone else would have. Someone who would not treat her gently.
Grey Horse could have spoken to her in her own tongue. He had learned English long ago, in trading posts and river towns, before the wariness between his people and the settlers had hardened into blood. But words in that language came with memories he did not want to stir up yet. For now, he would keep silent. She would learn soon enough that he could speak her tongue.
He lay back on the furs again, one arm under his head, staring at the low flicker of the fire. The wind shifted, bringing the scent of sage from the hills.
Eliza’s face drifted through his mind again, as it did most nights. But for the first time in many seasons, it did not stay alone. The memory of this new woman’s dark eyes—wide and questioning—slipped into the space beside it.
