Sloan shook his head. He shrugged. “She was a little upset, asking me if Sioux women had some recourse against their husbands.”
“Really?”
“Well, did you threaten to beat her at a lodge pole?”
Hawk shrugged. “She wasn’t really threatened.”
“Maybe she’s not quite so sure of you—or herself—as you might think.”
“What are you talking about?”
Sloan shook his head. “I don’t know exactly—she’s not my wife. I can’t threaten to beat things out of her.”
Hawk exhaled with impatience. Sloan put up a hand to stop him before he could talk.
“She told me that you had never really hurt her?—”
“Damn it, Sloan, that you would need to ask?—”
“But someone did hurt her, Hawk. Someone who still scares her now. Someone in her past. Maybe she ran from a husband?—”
“I’m her husband.”
“Hawk, I’m just telling you?—”
“She was never married before.”
“How can you?—”
“Unless she was married to a damned eunuch.”
“Oh. Well, there’s someone out there she’s running from. Maybe an abusive father, brother, uncle—who knows? She said that she knew white men could be monsters.”
“Monsters?” Hawk said.
“Yes.”
“Monsters?”
“Yes! Monsters.”
Hawk frowned, remembering the way she had awakened, screaming, from her dream. She’d refused to describe the nightmare that had plagued her.
Except that it had contained…
Monsters.
“What? Is that some kind of a clue?” Sloan demanded.
Hawk shrugged. “I don’t know. I will know soon enough. I’ve asked Henry to find out about her past for me. And she’s going to have a real monster in her life tonight if she’s rude to Crazy Horse. Me. I damn well guarantee you a monster!”
Sloan shrugged, then pointed ahead of them. “I think that our hunting party ahead may be on to something!”
“A party of Crow?”
“No, I think we’d have heard a war cry by now, were that the case. Though I just don’t get it. I didn’t understand the other night at all, and I can’t believe there are more Crows in the area. They’d have to be half insane. What in hell would they be up to, riding in this region?”
“I don’t know,” Hawk said. It bothered Sloan, it bothered him, but why, he couldn’t quite say. “It seems like a strange time. A damned strange time,” Hawk muttered.
