“It’s at least another hour until dawn,” he informed her.
His long dark fingers fell upon her arm in the moonlight. He pulled her back down. Against him. His arm remained around her. Her back was tucked to his chest. She could feel his chin atop her head, his movement as he smoothed down her hair to keep it from tickling his nose. She could feel the smoothness of the flesh on his chest, the ripples of the muscles beneath. She could feel the hardness of his hips and the bulk of his relaxed sex against her buttocks. For a few seconds she dared not move or breathe. She felt the rhythmic pulse of his heart. Slowly, she felt more at ease. She closed her eyes. Drifted.
She was warm.
And she wasn’t alone.
When he awoke, she still slept. He found himself propped on an elbow, regarding her again with a brooding deliberation. How long had she been a part of his life now? Three days? How long since he had actually verified their legal relationship and taken possession of her as a wife? Not quite two days. So why was it that he felt she had seeped inside of him? Why was it he stillfelt such a keen fury to shake her, make her explain? Take the hostility she held against him like a steel shield and snap it and break it.
He rose quietly, washed, and dressed in the clothing he had shed the night before. Today they were going to bury his father. The father he’d trusted. The father who had saddled him with this impossible, exquisite woman. This woman who had influenced his father’s last will and testament, something that still shook him to the core. And hurt. And she’d been there when David had died.
He had not.
He stood over the bed for a moment, remembering the silver fire in her eyes and the flippant tone she’d used when mocking him last night. He smiled, then let fly with a firm whack against the tempting ivory curve of her buttocks. She instantly jumped up with an indignant cry, drawing tangled skeins of golden hair from her face as she looked up at him—ready for warfare.
“Sorry, my love, but it’s going to be a very busy day. I’m sure Megan will need help and direction from the mistress of the house. I have no idea how many people may arrive, but the Reverend Mathews is due at half past three.”
He turned and left before she could reply. Something struck the door behind him. He smiled, but his smile faded as he walked down the stairs. Willow and Lily had already arrived and were hanging black crepe over the front door and window frames.
He hurried down the steps, greeting Willow, kissing Lily. He was very fond of his cousin’s wife. Lily had come west because she’d been a sixteen-year-old girl left with nothing at the war’s end. She’d joined with a musical troupe and been part of a revue in Dodge City for many years. Heading farther out west, her company had been waylaid by a band of Cheyenne on the warpath soon after what had become known as the Sand CreekMassacre—the total devastation of a Cheyenne and Arapaho village by the army. Lily had been spared. She’d been taken as a second wife by a Cheyenne warrior who had later been killed. The Cheyenne and the Sioux had often formed alliances in those years. Lily had come to the Oglala, and Willow had become smitten with her. She’d lived an Indian life for many years, but there was little doubt that Willow’s decision to live in a lodge house had been influenced by his wife and his love for her.
“Hawk, Dark Mountain has just arrived,” Lily told him. “He is in with your father now.” She was a small, attractive woman with dark red hair and a smattering of freckles. He squeezed her hand, glancing at Willow. “I’ll talk with Dark Mountain.”
“I’ll see that you’re not disturbed,” Willow told him.
Hawk nodded and entered the parlor where his father lay. Dark Mountain, his best friend from his boyhood days in the Sioux camp, stood by the coffin. He had apparently opened the lid, and now he closed it again. He was a tall warrior, dressed completely in buckskin, two feathers worn in his hair, symbols of his triumphs in important battles.
“Thank you for coming,” Hawk said, speaking in Sioux, which had been his first language.
Dark Mountain nodded gravely and embraced him. “I am the only one who will come from the Crazy Horse people,” he told Hawk. “Your father was a great man who will be missed by all. Crazy Horse has said, though, that you will understand that he and his followers cannot come here now.”
“Yes, he’s right, I do understand,” Hawk said. The Crazy Horse people were not a natural family band. They were not Miniconjou, Two Kettles, Oglala, or other—they were defined simply by the fact that they had chosen to follow Crazy Horse and resist the white onslaught. Nor was Crazy Horse a hereditary chief. He was, however, a very brave warrior among the Sioux. When he was a boy, his vision quest had shownhim a warrior, facing a rain of bullets and arrows, riding a horse among them, never being hit. As the years passed and he saw the way the white government broke every promise it made to the Sioux, he became that warrior, a man determined to lead his people in battle. He would be a free Indian, not a reservation Indian. More and more young men, women, and even children flocked to him. The seven-foot warrior of the Miniconjou, Touch-the-Clouds, had tried reservation life. He left again to join Crazy Horse. Those bands now moved to the northwest to the final hunting grounds of the Sioux, far from the white settlements, where Sitting Bull had also amassed a large following. No matter how hard the government tried to get them to come in to negotiate the sale of the Black Hills, the Crazy Horse people determined to stay away.
“The army will ask you to visit Crazy Horse and plead with him to come to a meeting near one of the agencies and listen to their arguments. You will come?”
Hawk grinned. “Yes, the army has already asked me. Cougar-in-the-Night has asked me to talk with Crazy Horse. And I will come. I’m anxious to see my grandfather. And my friends.”
“Cougar brings the words of the army.”
“He brings them honestly.”
“He tries. The army has taken him away. Yet he doesn’t forget that he grew up among honest people.”
“He will not try to influence any man against what he thinks is right or wrong. He will try very hard to explain how the Sioux can best negotiate.”
“War may be the best negotiation.”
“Each man must decide.”
Dark Mountain nodded gravely, then let the matter rest. “You have a new wife, I am told.”
“Yes.”
“I have a new wife as well.”
Hawk smiled, teasing him. “You’ve not misplaced the old one.”
Dark Mountain grinned, shaking his head. “I have taken Little Doe, Blue Raven’s sister, for my wife as well. I’ve a son by her now.”
