She nodded, sorry to upset these two. Despite the roles they had played in the charade, she liked them. They were comforting old fellows, two peas in a pod. And she might find friends few and far between out here.
“Then I’d best be going,” she said, striding by them out to the wagon. The coffin and her trunk lay in back. Wolf was in the back bed of the wagon as well, his muzzle set mournfully on the coffin.
Willow held the wagon reins in his hand while Hawk waited impatiently by the single step to the open front seat. Before Skylar had quite reached him, he lifted her up, setting her down next to Willow. “I’ll be riding ahead,” he told her flatly. “It’s only a couple of hours to Mayfair. The weather should hold.” He looked at Willow. “All set?”
“Yep, all set.”
“See you at home then.”
He stepped back, slapping the backside of one of the two heavy draft horses pulling the wagon. Willow lifted the reins, and the wagon wheels began to turn. They headed out from the flat expanse of rocky lawn in front of the inn to the road. Skylar looked ahead as they jounced out onto it. Then she turned back.
Hawk had mounted, but he hadn’t yet left the inn. The Indian girl stood by his side, her hands on his foot where it rested in his stirrup. He looked down at her, speaking with her.
Skylar turned her eyes back to the road ahead. The man, Willow, at her side drove in silence, his eyes ahead as well.
“I don’t suppose you’re going to apologize for your part in that pathetic act the other day?” she inquired pleasantly.
A slight smile curved his mouth, but he didn’t glance her way. “Act? He says that you are Lady Douglas, so you are. But that was no act, ma’am. We are all Sioux warriors; we have all raided, seized wagons, stolen horses…women.” He shrugged. At last he turned to her, looking her up and down. “He needed to know who you were. It was the way he chose to find out. Apparently, he did. And you’re still here. You haven’t run. So we didn’t frighten you so badly after all.”
“You scared me half to death,” she told him. “But I don’t run easily.”
He smiled again, looking ahead at the horses. “Then maybe you’ll survive the Badlands,” he told her, adding softly, “and the times to come.”
“And your friends,” Skylar added beneath her breath. She wondered if he heard her. Perhaps he did because he laughed quietly.
The sun was just beginning to set. Burned into dark pastels, it sank into a mauve splendor that edged the hills in the distance.
From somewhere, a wolf howled.
And against the shadow-draped sky, the moon rose even as the sun sank. The air became chill and sharp. Flatlands stretched ahead until the abrupt rise of the hills. The night was suddenly silent.
But then she started as she heard the sound of horse’s hooves bearing down upon her.
She turned. Hawk rode at her side, looking down at her, his face as shadowed and dark and forbidding as the landscape.
“You’ve crossed onto Douglas property again,” he told her. “Mayfair lies ahead. As do the rivers, the hills—and true Sioux country.”
“So which is home?” she asked him.
“All of it,” he told her flatly. “But Mayfair is all you need to concern yourself with. I’ll be waiting there. Just what was your exact comment last night? What you want to know, you can just find out on your own? Ah, yes, that was it. There’s a damned lot I still want to know. I’ll be waiting to find out on my own.”
She spoke softly, very aware of Willow at her side. “If you’re expecting something from me, you’ll be waiting until hell freezes over.”
“We’ll see,” he warned her. “We’ll see.” He nudged Tor. The stallion suddenly took flight in the night. A dark, soaring shadow, horse and rider disappeared across the plains.
But she knew well that Hawk hadn’t gone that far.
And that as he had promised, he’d be waiting.
CHAPTER 8
Across the hills along the Powder River, Indian lodges stretched out along the horizon. There were perhaps a hundred lodges here, where close to three hundred warriors lived with their women and children.
When they reached the lodges, Blade and Ice Raven went to their sister’s tipi. Pretty Bird was a young widow who had recently lost her husband during a raid against the Crow. She now lived alone with her four young children and was glad that her brothers had come to stay with her. She lived with the Crazy Horse people, not because they were one band or family but because she and her husband had chosen to do so. Still, life for a woman with young children could be difficult, no matter how seriously the rest of the group might take its Sioux responsibility for generosity.
Yet they had barely greeted Pretty Bird and had a chance to eat and slake their thirst from the ride when a warrior arrived, asking them to come see Crazy Horse. Both men were glad to do so.
Crazy Horse was a warrior who commanded respect. He had never suggested to others that they must follow him or become hostile. He led by example and was respected because his deedsin battle had always been so extraordinary. Crazy Horse refused to leave his injured braves behind after a fight. He was quick to lead and equally as quick to risk himself. He was brave without being reckless of the lives of others, a brave man who could think as well.
