“And am I your enemy?”
“You’re my wife.”
“But unwanted. So surely, there are times when you must forget that fact!”
He stopped walking so suddenly that she plowed into his back. The buckskin of his shirt smelled good. The feel of his strength, his warmth against her was still somehow reassuring in the wilderness despite the hostility of the words passing between them.
She stepped back, looking up at him, meeting his eyes, as he turned to her.
“Not for a second, my love. Not for a single second. And let me warn you. There’d best not be a single second you forget it either.”
“Is my nose at peril?” she demanded.
He arched a jet-black brow. “Your nose? How ridiculous.” He caught her hand, drawing her suddenly hard against him as hestared down at her. “Now, come along,” he told her again. Then he smiled, a menacing glitter in his green eyes.
“Squaw!”
CHAPTER 17
They reached the camp of the Crazy Horse people during the late afternoon of the following day.
For many hours before they had actually come upon the camp, Skylar had felt as if there were the slightest change in the breeze, as if the trees could see. Sloan assured her that they had been watched for a long while. Before they actually reached the camp, a warrior rode up to their party. He frightened Skylar because at first, to her, he looked just like the men in the Crow war party. Hawk seemed impatient that she could not see the differences in paint and manner of the Crow and Sioux, but Sloan assured her that men who had ridden with cavalry for years did not always learn the fine distinctions between many of the Plains tribes.
It seemed to Skylar that there were hundreds of tipis, lodges as Hawk called them, stretched out along the river. There would be hundreds of Sioux here. Indians. More than she had seen in all her life. She didn’t want Hawk to know that she was afraid of his people.
But she was.
The warrior who had ridden out to meet them was his cousin, Willow’s brother, Ice Raven. As they entered the camp,children gathered around them, scampering beside the horses, laughing all the while. Women, working by their tipis, cooking over fires, sewing hides, paused, looking up with the same avid curiosity. Men and women called out. Hawk, Sloan, and Willow responded. They stopped before a large tipi in the center of the camp. Hawk dismounted from Tor. Willow and Sloan followed suit, greeting the tall, straight man with long, iron-gray hair who stood there. He was old, Skylar thought. Very old, yet he appeared to be in good health. He was proud and dignified, captivating in his stance.
Hawk, Willow, and Sloan all greeted him the same way, taking his lower arms as he grasped theirs in return. Children, women, and some of the braves gathered around behind them. Hawk called out to some of the older boys, and they came over and took the cattle and ponies from their party. Skylar suddenly felt the old man’s eyes on her. She returned his gaze, at a loss for what to do.
But by then, Hawk was beside her, lifting her from Nutmeg, speaking to the elderly man as he did so. He nodded gravely, watching her, then indicating the flap opening to the tipi. For the moment, Hawk’s arm was around Skylar’s waist. She hoped he would stay with her for a while.
“I have to go. You must stay with my grandfather while I’m gone.”
“That’s your grandfather?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“He’s—fierce.”
“He won’t hurt you.”
“I didn’t say he would. I just…I don’t speak any Sioux. Do you have to go now?”
Hawk laughed. “Now you’re suddenly eager for my company?”
She flushed. “I?—”
“You don’t need to be afraid.”
“I’m not.”
“You’ll do fine.”
Hawk’s grandfather stepped aside, and Hawk ushered Skylar into the tipi. He wasn’t going to come in with her, she realized. He was determined to leave her to her own resources with his fierce-looking grandfather remaining at the entrance to the tipi. She straightened, still afraid despite herself. She was startled at first by the size of the tipi. Then she was further alarmed to realize that there were people inside it.
Indians.
