Running Wolf
Running Wolf
Jenna Kernan
RIVAL TRIBES…Running Wolf is a valiant Sioux warrior. During his first raid as war chief he captures a surprising Crow enemy – a woman! This spirited fighter is unlike any he’s ever met. Her beauty and audacity are entrancing, but they threaten his iron resolve…… RIVAL PASSIONSSnow Raven must focus on freeing herself – not on the man who keeps her captive. But as she falls deeper under Running Wolf’s spell she realises he is her warrior… and she’ll risk everything for him!
“How are you called?” Running Wolf asked.
His voice resonated inside her, rumbling through her like the roll of thunder. She pressed her clasped hands to her chest, squeezing tight to hold on to her courage.
“Snow Raven.”
“That is not a name for a woman.” He frowned as he swept her with his gaze. “But it suits you, for you are not like any woman I have ever met. You are causing trouble, you know. No one knows what to do with you. Some say you will steal a horse and run, but then we would catch you and you would die.”
She squeezed her eyes shut at the images now assaulting her mind.
“Ah,” he said. “So you do feel fear. For a time I thought you were immune to such emotions.”
She looked at him now. “A warrior does not admit to fear.”
“But a woman does. She cries and uses her tears to gather sympathy. Yet you do not.”
“Would that work?”
“It would make you less interesting. And you are very interesting.”
“I do not want your interest.”
He laughed. “Then you should not have unseated one of my warriors.”
AUTHOR NOTE (#u788af762-822e-5658-9c79-628a81d66882)
From the moment Snow Raven came charging into my first scene on her white horse I have been in love with this character. My heroine is the daughter of a Crow chief and is bright, stoic and brave—even after being captured by her enemies. At first she wants only to survive until she is rescued. But when faced with the needs of her fellow captives she grows into a warrior, forgoing her own happiness to win their freedom.
My hero, Running Wolf, is the war chief of his Sioux tribe and an enemy to the Crow people. Running Wolf is at first intrigued, then confounded, and later fascinated by the captive Snow Raven. They both resist a love that will cost them all. He must lead his people and protect them from their enemies, while she must try to bring her people home. What chance does love have when pitted against duty?
I had a wonderful time writing about two Native characters who lived on the North American Plains in a time after the Spanish and before the Americans came to challenge their dominance. The research for this story was a joy—especially learning all I could on earning coup feathers. When I discovered that a woman could become a warrior I was thrilled.
If you would like more details on this story be sure to visit my website for Behind the Story.
And if you enjoy my story please let me know with a review. You can sign up for my newsletter at jennakernan.com (http://www.jennakernan.com). For extra insider information visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter: @jennakernan (http://twitter.com/jennakernan)
Running Wolf
Jenna Kernan
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Award-winning author JENNA KERNAN writes fast-paced Western and paranormal romantic adventures. She has penned over two dozen novels, has received two RITA nominations, and in 2010 won the Book Buyers Best Award for her debut paranormal romance. Jenna loves an adventure. Her hobbies include recreational gold-prospecting, scuba diving and gem-hunting.
Follow Jenna on Twitter @jennakernan (http://twitter.com/jennakernan), on Facebook or at www.jennakernan.com (http://www.jennakernan.com)
For Jim, always.
Contents
Cover (#ud90cd29a-059e-52b8-afad-c36514144e6f)
Excerpt (#u7622ac44-c07e-5a29-a757-e4b2e174f1aa)
AUTHOR NOTE
Title Page (#uf5d1eb5a-254e-5193-96a6-2aa3ee41f471)
About the Author (#u6f92753f-7be1-5ed8-9978-559736194c4b)
Dedication (#u0c65b7e4-f83d-5de9-92de-c31077c563f0)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u788af762-822e-5658-9c79-628a81d66882)
Snow Raven raced her gray dappled mustang, Song, along the lakeshore, her horse’s powerful muscles rippling with each long stride. She loved how she and Song moved together, how the air rushed against her face and lifted her hair. Her father said that riding was the closest that a person ever came to flying.
This was the very reason Raven did not wear her hair in twin braids like the women of her tribe, but neither did she quite dare to wear it as her father and brother did. The warriors cut their forelock short and used grease and pitch to make the hairs stand up as stiff as a porcupine’s quills. Instead, Raven made her own style and had wound narrow braids at her temples and wrapped them in ermine that was decorated with shell beads and quillwork like the men. The rest of her hair she left loose and as wild as the mane of her mustang. Her dress was also a mixture, shorter than a woman’s, made from a single buckskin like a man’s, but for modesty and comfort she wore both loincloth and leggings beneath.
Raven wore a skinning knife about her neck, as most females in her tribe did, but she also carried a deerskin quiver from the six-point buck she had felled when she was eight. Within, metal-tipped arrows waited, ready. She carried her strung bow looped over her back. The taut string, fitted between her breasts, revealed her curves.
Raven knew that more than one woman objected to her hunting, but they never said so to her face and they did not turn down the meat. As for the men, her position as the chief’s daughter insured that she had no shortage of suitors, just a shortage of suitors who interested her. Hunting and riding were more appealing.
Now she sought to catch her older brother, Bright Arrow, who had somehow managed to leave camp without her knowing. His stealth was only one of the qualities that she admired. Up ahead the party of warriors turned at the sound of her approach. There was Little Badger, Turns Too Slowly and her brother. Little Badger grinned with pleasure at her appearance, but her brother did not. In fact, he did not even slow his big blue roan stallion, Hail. It was only now, when she drew close, that she saw her brother did not carry his bow, but his lance. Were they raiding already?
“I could have shot you,” said Turns Too Slowly, realizing belatedly that he had not even reached for his bow.
“What are you doing, Raven?” Bright Arrow asked, his voice so stern he reminded her of their father, Six Elks.
“I thought you were hunting elk,” she said, already aware of her mistake.
Her offer was met with silence. Finally Turns Too Slowly spoke.
“This is no hunt.”
“We are scouting for Sioux,” said Little Badger.
Her eyes widened and excitement and fear rolled in her belly until they were blended like berry juice in water. She had not seen a Sioux snake since the attack when she was only seven.
“Have you seen any?”
Her brother raised his hand, halting Little Badger, who was about to answer.
Her brother’s scowl deepened. “This is their territory. It is wise to be certain we are alone. If they are here we must prepare to fight.”
Was that a yes or a no?
“Did Father send you?”
“Go home, Little Warrior.” Her brother now made her childhood name sound like an insult.
She stayed where she was, toying with the leather fringe on the pommel she had made with the help of her grandmother, Truthful Woman. “I will help you scout.”
“You will not.”
Since word had come of the raids against their people by the Sioux, he was not so forgiving of her insistence to leave the camp.
“I can track game better than Little Badger and hear better than Turns Too Slowly,” she said, unable to keep the belligerence from her voice.
“And ride better than all three of us, I suppose,” said Turns Too Slowly.
“Yes.”
Turns Too Slowly gestured toward camp. “So prove it by riding that way.”
Her brother was more to the point. “Do you know what they do to female captives?” he asked. His voice held a note of irritation. She knew. The enemy would disgrace her, take her freedom, give her all the hardest work and worst food. Still, she lifted her chin. “I am not afraid of the snake people. I would kill them first.”
“Brave words, but better still, ride home where you are safe,” he said. His tone changed, now quiet, respectful with just a note of desperation. “If you are here, I have to worry over your safety.”
She wished they could stay in their mountains instead of moving east into the territory of the Sioux with the endless grass. But the whites had built a fort and then sickness had taken so many. Her father, their chief, had moved them here, thinking it better to face an enemy they could see.
She looked over her shoulder at the way she had come. Back there she knew the women were tending cooking fires, gathering wood and gutting fish caught on the trawl lines. She looked forward at the blue lake glimmering through the trees and the forest thick with brush.
Her heart tugged, whispering for her to ride.
“We will take you back,” he said, turning his horse.
She did not want to be escorted to camp like some wandering child. She could take care of herself. Hadn’t she killed a deer, elk and pronghorn? Hadn’t she skinned them and dressed them and carried them home over her horse’s withers?
Bright Arrow did not wait for her to reply but pressed his horse forward.
As he passed her, he said, “You’ll be safe there.”
She did not want to be safe. She wanted to be a warrior like her brother. His hands were tough and smelled of leather, instead of stinking of fish.
“I’ll take her,” said Little Badger.
Bright Arrow eyed his fellow. “And leave us one weaker?”
She suspected that this was not the only reason her brother said no. Ever since Bright Arrow had caught Little Badger trying to put his hand up her dress, he had not left any of his friends alone with her. It was just as well. She liked the sensation of a warrior’s touch, but would not let anyone lift her dress. She was a woman of virtue, not some Sioux captive to be used by anyone.
Still, her stubbornness had limits. She would not leave her brother with one less warrior on her account, especially if the Sioux were near. But with the sun streaming through the yellow leaves and the wind still blowing warm as summer, it was hard to think of danger.
“Have you seen any Sioux?” she asked.
Her brother shook his head.
“Then, I will find my own way home.”
Before he could object, she wheeled about, urging her horse to rear before bounding off the way she had come.
She heard the sound of hooves beating the ground behind her. A glance back showed Bright Arrow in fast pursuit with his comrades close behind. He was an impressive sight at full gallop, with his long hair streaming out behind him and the fringe of his saddle, sleeves and leggings all fluttering in the wind. His breastplate, made of a series of cylindrical white beads, beat against his chest with the rhythm of his horse’s hooves.
In his hair were tied the two notched eagle feathers he had earned stealing horses and facing the Sioux in battle. She wished women could earn such honors, but although she could ride and shoot and throw a lance, she would never have the chance to earn a feather with an act of courage—kill an enemy, sustain a wound, steal a horse. Women did not do such things.
A woman’s courage was quiet and went unsung. There were no feathers for bearing a child or making a lodge. Yet she still dreamed of the ceremony where her father, the chief, presented her with a coup feather.
Behind her, Bright Arrow leaned low over his horse’s neck trying to catch up. They never would. Song was too fast. There were no two better riders in the entire Low River tribe than her and her brother.
It seemed that all the warriors would accompany her home, which was very bad, because it meant that Bright Arrow planned to speak to their father. She needed to get there first. She needed to explain that she loved the scent of the wind and hated the stench of fish. He would listen. Since her mother’s passing, he always listened.
Raven lowered herself flat to her horse’s neck and gave Song her head. They fairly flew over the ground.
As she tore over the animal trail, she noticed a tan-colored lump lying in the path. A fawn, she thought as Song snorted and jumped the tiny obstacle. Raven gaped when she saw that the carcass was a village dog with one arrow sticking from its ribs. At a glance she recognized that the fletching on the shaft was not like the ones of her people.
The hairs on her neck rose.
Raven opened her mouth to scream a warning to her brother, but another scream filled the air, farther away, one coming from their fishing camp. Her brother straightened in his saddle and then did something she had never seen him do. He slapped his open hand on his horse’s broad muscular shoulder. The horse lunged forward as Raven slowed.
“The camp!” she yelled.
“Run,” shouted her brother as he surged past her with Little Badger and Turns Too Slowly on his horse’s flank. Raven wheeled her horse to flee but then thought of the women, caught between the lake and attack. Song seemed to know her mind before Snow Raven did, for her mare raced after the other horses. They broke from the trees into chaos. The men in the village were fighting from the ground as mounted warriors ran at a gallop through the camp, upsetting cooking kettles and trampling lodges. She saw that they were Sioux by the cut of the enemy’s war shirts and because they wore their hair in twin braids, like a Crow woman.
Her brother gave a whoop and charged, drawing the fight to them while giving the women and children time to flee in the opposite direction. The Sioux were outnumbered, but they were mounted and had the advantage of surprise.
Snow Raven drew up at the woods, calling to the women, telling them to flee in this direction where there was good cover. Raven watched in horror as she saw two of the Sioux break away from the fight to follow the retreating women.
She saw her old grandmother hobbling along at an ungainly trot. Truthful Woman had raised Snow Raven since the time of her mother’s death, but could no longer run because she was bent and her joints were puffy and stiff. With each moment her grandmother fell farther behind, the Sioux in pursuit.
Was that their aim, then, to take captives? Or was this a fight over territory, as her brother had said? Either way they could easily kill her grandmother on their way to the younger, more useful captives.
Raven pressed her heels into her horse’s flanks and gave her first war cry. She swung her bow over her head and reached back for an arrow. The lead warrior dressed in a red war shirt trimmed with long strands of trophy hair grabbed Truthful Woman by the multistrand shell and bead necklaces that circled her throat. Raven vowed the red-shirt would not harm her grandmother, though he was upon her already. Truthful Woman was dragged backward against her enemy’s horse. Her hands went to her windpipe and her face turned scarlet. The warrior shook his hand, further strangling Raven’s grandmother.
Snow Raven screamed again and notched her arrow, but was too close to shoot.
She dropped her bow and rammed his horse with hers. Song’s muscular chest collided with the other horse’s flank, causing the beast to skitter sideways. The necklaces broke away in the Sioux’s hand and Truthful Woman dropped to her knees choking and gagging.
Snow Raven launched herself from her saddle onto the warrior’s chest. The thud jarred her teeth as they toppled together from his horse.
Raven landed on top of the warrior. The jolt robbed the wind from the man’s body and gave Raven the moment she needed to draw her skinning knife and lift it above her head. Today she would send this snake to his ancestors and take her first war trophy. The warrior’s wide eyes stared up at her as she thrust, preparing to lodge the knife into the center of her enemy’s throat.
* * *
Running Wolf met the charge of the three mounted Crow warriors. The fourth had halted at the tree line, the dapple-gray horse dancing with power and nervous energy. His gaze lingered a second. There was something amiss about the rider. He forced his attention back to the large Crow leading the charge on a big blue roan stallion. The feathers in his hair spoke of his opponent’s bravery.
Running Wolf lifted his lance to strike. Today they did not carry the coup stick used to mark bravery, but weapons to kill, for the Crow had invaded their territory. His opponent lifted his shield. Running Wolf saw the symbol of a red arrow emblazoned on the hard rawhide. It was good medicine, he thought as his opponent deflected his thrusting lance and he made his own thrust. Running Wolf twisted in his saddle to avoid the iron spear tip and lost some of his momentum. His spear did not pierce the shield or his enemy, but slid harmlessly away.
His men engaged the other three warriors with cries and blows. Running Wolf wheeled to have another chance at the leader, but as he turned he saw the warrior on the roan horse leap forward. The Crow gave a high thready cry.
Running Wolf engaged the first man again. This was the obvious leader. It was not difficult for one war chief to recognize another. His opponent shouted directions to the men on the ground, who quickly fell back behind the horses.
Running Wolf lifted his lance and thrust again, and his enemy deflected, but not quite enough, for the spear tip sliced deep into his opponent’s shoulder muscle, cutting a gash in the Crow’s shield arm as the horses moved past each other again. The warrior threw his lance to the ground. It stuck upright and quivering as he yanked his tomahawk from his breechclout and swung at Running Wolf’s head.
Running Wolf flattened to his horse’s back as the metal ax head flew past him. He straightened and swung the pole of his lance like a club, striking his foe across the back with enough force to unseat him.
The Crow warrior did not stay down long but kept hold of his horse’s mane as he fell, then used the ground to vault back onto his moving horse. He and his men dropped back to stand between their women still fleeing for cover and Running Wolf’s men. They took a defensive stance. Retreating, delaying, giving the women time to escape. Nearly all had disappeared into the woods. Even those carrying small children now darted like shadows beneath the mighty pines.
Only one old woman remained, limping along like a wounded elk before a pack of hungry wolves. Red Hawk pursued the old Crow, but for what possible reason Running Wolf could not imagine.
Running Wolf had made his orders clear. Destroy this camp. Steal the horses and go. He recalled now Red Hawk asking about captives and his reply—only if the taking would not slow their escape. But despite his orders, Red Hawk had left the fight to pursue captives and now lifted an old woman by the throat, dragging her beside his spotted horse.
A blur of movement drew Running Wolf’s eye. The small warrior on the gray mare leaped from the galloping horse right at Red Hawk. The force of the collision carried Red Hawk sideways to the ground. Running Wolf wheeled toward the downed warrior and saw the flash of a small iron skinning knife. He frowned at the strange choice of weapon as the pieces fell into place.
The small figure pinning Red Hawk was not an undersized warrior, but a woman.
A strangely dressed woman warrior.
She straddled her opponent as masterfully as she had straddled her mount just moments before, only now she lifted her blade. Beneath her, Red Hawk had lost his wind and writhed ineffectively, still clutching the old woman’s white beaded necklaces.
Running Wolf let out a war cry. The woman hesitated, giving him time to reach them. He raised his lance as the warrior he had challenged gave a second war cry. Running Wolf was not distracted as he used the flat side of his lance to knock the knife from the woman’s hands. He reached down and hoisted her up onto his horse’s withers, capturing his first prisoner. He whooped and pulled his horse up until it balanced on its hind legs.
Red Hawk rolled onto his hands and knees and vomited. The others reached them as the Crow warriors followed the women into the woods where the fighting would be difficult. All except the one who had fought Running Wolf.
He remained, blood running from his arm down his mount’s shoulder. Still he charged again, but this time he met eight of Running Wolf’s men and was forced back. Was this the woman’s husband? Was that why he made such a suicidal charge?
Yellow Blanket struck the man with his club and the warrior toppled from his horse, sprawling on the ground, as limp as a tanned buckskin. Yellow Blanket captured the warrior’s horse, giving a yell as he turned to go. It was a wonderful prize.
Running Wolf held the struggling woman down across his horse’s withers as he glanced about the ruined camp. They had toppled the tepees, trampled the racks of drying fish and stolen their horses. Their work was done.
Pursuing the fleeing tribe would only increase the chances of fatalities as his men no longer had the element of surprise and there were many places in the forest for the sneaking Crow to ambush them. He called a retreat.
Red Hawk stood and pointed to Running Wolf’s prisoner.
“That one is mine. I took her.”
“You took a handful of beads. This one is mine.”
So he pointed at the blue roan.
“The horse is mine, then.”
Yellow Blanket looked at the reins of his captured horse that now rested in his hand. Older and more experienced, he had only to lift a brow at Red Hawk before the man fell silent.
Yellow Blanket looked at the beads in Red Hawk’s hand.
“Those are yours.”
Red Hawk’s face went scarlet but he held his tongue. Yellow Blanket had been war chief and his bravery was without question.
“Were you unclear on your war chief’s instructions?” asked Yellow Blanket. Running Wolf appreciated the man’s assistance. It was difficult to lead a man older than you, especially when he felt he should have been Yellow Blanket’s successor. But he was not. The council had chosen Running Wolf.
Red Hawk shook his head.
“Then, why were you chasing old women instead of driving away their horses as you were told?”
Red Hawk looked at the strings of broken beads in his hand. He stuffed them into a pouch at his waist. The warrior woman’s gray horse pawed the earth beside Red Hawk and then lifted its head to sniff its mistress.
Weasel brought Red Hawk his horse.
“Let’s go,” said Running Wolf. His prisoner wriggled and tried to lift her head, but he pushed her back down with one hand planted on her neck.
What kind of woman was this who fought like a man?
The raiding party rode toward home, with great commotion. The woman spread across his thighs tried to throw herself headfirst off his lap, but he held her easily. She was small, even for a woman, making her act of unseating Red Hawk even more impressive.
He had never taken a captive but now wondered if he could keep this one. He liked the feel of her warm, firm body against his thighs, and her clothing and behavior had him both troubled and intrigued. He did not understand why she acted as she had, but he did know that she had the heart of a warrior.
Still, keeping her was not entirely his decision. True, their chief, Iron Bear, was generous, often leaving the spoils of their efforts to each warrior to keep or distribute as they saw fit. Running Wolf found himself holding the wiggling woman more tightly and recognized with some shock that the thought of giving her up filled him with a selfish, grasping need. It was perhaps the best reason of all to give her away.
He straightened in his saddle, lifting to a stand in his stirrups. He heard her gasp as she slid from his lap to wedge into the gap between his legs and the saddle’s high horn. She pressed her hands against his horse’s side to keep from tumbling headlong to the ground. Still fighting, he realized. Fighting for the old woman. Battling Red Hawk. Resisting capture and now struggling to survive. She was brave, this enemy warrior woman.
Did that mean she had earned her life or a swift death?
He pulled her upright and settled back in his seat. She curled against him for just a moment and sagged as if in relief. He stared down at the curve of her bottom and the short dress that had hiked up.
Was she wearing a loincloth?
He had seen a woman wear leggings in winter, but never a loincloth.
He rested a hand across her lower back and felt her muscles stiffen in protest. But she did not struggle. Perhaps she waited for her chance to plunge his knife into his heart. He added patient to her list of attributes.
Running Wolf stifled his rising need, fighting that deep empty place in his heart. He struggled to resist the whisper of desire for this woman. No. His father had died at the hand of a Crow. They were his enemy, and that included this small temptation. His duty was to his ancestors, his chief and his tribe.
He told himself that he would not covet this woman even as his hand tightened possessively about her.
Chapter Two (#u788af762-822e-5658-9c79-628a81d66882)
Snow Raven bounced with the steady lope of the black-and-white stallion. Each landing of the horse’s front hooves jarred the warrior’s muscular thighs against her stomach and breasts. She saw at close range the blue war paint along the horse’s long elegant leg. Handprints for kills, bars for coups and hoofprints for horses stolen in raids and, the last, a square. He was the war party leader. This man was impressive by any measure. She stared at the heavily beaded moccasin. The cut and decoration were more reminders that he was Sioux.
If only she had followed her brother’s instructions, she would be safe in the woods right now.
And her grandmother would be dead.
Her grandmother would have preferred that, Raven knew, rather than see her only granddaughter taken and debased by the enemy.
Raven had enough of lying across the warrior’s lap as if she were some buffalo blanket. But when she tried to push herself up, he shoved her back down.
How long they traveled like this, she did not know. But when his horse finally slowed from lope to trot to walk, she was sweating and nauseous.
Her captor ordered a halt to check on the injured and called for his men to report to him. His accent was strange. Their languages were very similar, but his speech was faster and more lyrical than that of her people. His voice seemed almost a chant.
He captured one of her wrists. She tried and failed to keep him from securing the other. Before she could stop him, he had dragged her up before him and plopped her between his lap and the tall saddle horn made of wood covered in tanned buckskin. He used his other hand to loop a bit of rope about her joined hands and wound the rope around and through her wrists, binding her.
She had lost her skinning knife, her bow and her dignity. But she had not yet lost her pride or her virtue. That would come later, at her arrival to camp. She knew how Sioux captives were treated by her people.
Her band currently had no captives because her father killed all the Sioux he could, including women. But she had seen the female captives at the larger gatherings and winter camps when all the tribes of the Center Camp Crow came together. The women wore buckskin dresses soiled and torn, their hair a dusty tangle and their eyes hollow. She had even tossed an insult or two in their direction. Now she would be on the receiving end of such derision. The hatred between their people was old and strong. Everyone she knew had lost someone to the constant fighting and raids.
Once with the Sioux, she would get little food and might die of starvation or exposure. But that was not the worst. Dying was preferable to being soiled by a Sioux snake. Unless she had a protector or was lucky enough to be adopted, any might take her. This warrior who captured her or one of his tribe.
Raven shivered, vowing to take her life before submitting to such indignities. But what if she was not able to kill herself? There were ways to prevent her, deny her even the freedom to die. Her head hung. Should she try to stay alive and wait for her father and brother to come? Or should she try to end her life at the first opportunity?
Where was the warrior she pretended to be? She would know how to face her fate. But if she were a warrior, her destiny would be far worse. Male captives had to endure a slow death by torture designed to test their bravery. She might be roasted over a low fire or have bits of flesh cut from her body.
Some small part of her wondered if that end might be preferable to hers. She had always prided herself on her virtue. Now she realized it was already gone.
She did not wish to die. But she did not wish to live like this. She had saved her grandmother’s life and, in the process, she had lost her own.
* * *
Running Wolf halted the raiding party after a long run. The open plains hid a spring of sweet water for the horses and riders. Here they could rest and the Crow could not sneak up upon them.
Their raid would remind the Crow that they had ventured too far from their place and into the Sioux territory.
The woman before him made no sound. She did not weep or beg. Instead, she sat still as a raptor, watching his men dismount and stretch their tight muscles. If he did not know better he would swear she was counting their number and measuring their strength.
Running Wolf looked back and wondered if their enemy would follow. His party had taken only one captive. Then he thought of the look in the eyes of the warrior when this woman was taken. He would follow. Running Wolf knew this in his bones.
He called to Weasel, asking how many horses they had taken.
“All” came the answer.
Running Wolf smiled. Weasel was a very good thief. He must be to sneak past village dogs and the boys watching the horses and to do that in full light. Running Wolf’s first raid as war chief and they had not lost a single man. He complimented Weasel’s skill and then dismounted.
His captive threaded her hands in his horse’s mane and he had the flash of precognition. He grabbed her with both hands as she kicked his horse’s sides. His horse bolted forward as he swung his captive up and around until she landed before him.
Their eyes met.
He felt the electric tingle of awareness. She was beautiful, no question, with wild hair that streamed about her lovely face in long waves. She had tied a medicine wheel in one narrow braid at her temple. The opposite braid was wrapped in the pelt of a mink, tied with strands of tanned leather and bits of shell. The adornments framed her face.
Her nose was straight and broad, brows high and arching like the wings of a raven. She had dark eyes glittering with emotion, showing her passion even as she stood perfectly still. He dropped his gaze to her mouth. Just looking at those generous pink lips made his stomach jump and his muscles twitch.
He caught a motion to his left and turned to see Red Hawk approach, his expression stormy. Running Wolf was about to speak but Red Hawk lifted a hand to strike the captive. Running Wolf had time only to grip Red Hawk’s wrist. The men locked eyes. Running Wolf saw his mistake immediately. He had rescued Red Hawk from this woman and now he had easily stopped his blow. Both acts highlighted that he was the stronger man. A war chief did not intentionally embarrass his warriors. Running Wolf released Red Hawk and the older man fumed.
“What are you doing?” Red Hawk asked, his voice hot with anger.
“I thought you were going to strike my horse,” said Running Wolf, and cringed at the stupidity of that. He was not always quick-witted and preferred time to consider his responses. Meanwhile, his captive tugged in an effort to gain release from his grip. He gave a little yank and pulled her back beside him while keeping his focus on Red Hawk.
“Your horse is gone,” Red Hawk said. “This one kicked it. Now I will kick her.”
“I would prefer you did not. If she is injured, it will be harder to bring her to camp.” That response was a little better. But his reaction was worse because just the threat of kicking this captive made Running Wolf’s flesh prickle. What was happening here?
Weasel, still mounted, went after Running Wolf’s spotted mustang, Eclipse, and captured him easily. Running Wolf recognized that he and Red Hawk had become the focus of the eight other warriors, including Weasel, who returned now holding the reins of Eclipse.
Yellow Blanket intervened. “Water your horses first, then the Crows’ horses.”
The men moved to do as they were told.
“You should kill that one,” said Red Hawk, and then stormed after the others.
Running Wolf felt deflated. It was the order he should have given instead of staring like an owl. His raid had been a great success. The Crow did not even have horses to pursue them. Everyone lived and collected coups, and still he felt lacking as a leader. He knew the reason, the one change since he had ridden out this morning. He looked at the woman.
They made eye contact and she immediately looked away, lifting her chin as if she were above him. It made him smile. She had not lost her pride. That much was certain.
Yellow Blanket remained with Running Wolf, but he let Weasel take his horse. Yellow Blanket wore his eagle feathers today, marking him as a warrior with many coups. Iron Bear, their chief, often turned to him for advice. It had been on Yellow Blanket’s suggestion that Iron Bear had made Running Wolf the new war chief.
Yellow Blanket glanced at the captive and then to the place where Running Wolf gripped her bound wrists.
“You hold that one as if you did not wish to let her go,” said the older warrior.
Running Wolf felt the truth in the warrior’s words but he replied, “She is just a captive.”
“Is it wise to tell the men to take no captives and take one yourself?”
“Did you see the circumstances?”
“I did. You could have left her behind. Then she would not be here like an oozing wound in front of Red Hawk. Each time he looks at her, he sees his shame in flesh. She unseated him. Unmanned him.” Yellow Blanket looked at the woman. “Who are you?”
She lifted her chin still higher. “I am one of the Center Camp Apsáalooke of the Low River tribe.”
“A Crow. Just like any other,” he said, and she nodded. “Yet the son of the chief risked his life to save you.”
Pain broke across her expression but she mastered it swiftly. Running Wolf narrowed his eyes as suspicions clouded his thoughts. Who was she to this man, the one Running Wolf had fought and bested to claim her?
Yellow Blanket glanced to Running Wolf. “Did you not recognized their war chief?”
Running Wolf gave a shake of his head. He had only seen their new war chief at a distance. But Yellow Blanket had scouted their village prior to this raid.
Yellow Blanket posed the woman another question. “How did you learn to fight like a warrior?”
This she did not answer. “I am an Apsáalooke woman, like any other.”
“You do not dress like any other. You do not ride like any other. You do not speak like any other. I have taken many captives. They wail. They cut their hair. They rub ash upon their face and then they live or die in our tribe. They never meet a warrior’s eye and would not think to speak to one as an equal. Yet this you do. I do not know what you are, but you are not a woman like any other.”
This took the stiffness from her spine. She glanced across the waving grasses, toward her camp, now in ruin. Was she thinking of the warrior sprawled facedown in the dirt?
Yellow Blanket turned to Running Wolf. “She can ride as well as any man here. She carried a bow, so assume she knows how to use one. How will you keep her from stealing a horse and riding home?”
“She will not know the way to go.”
Yellow Blanket’s look said he thought differently, but he said nothing.
“What would you do with her?” asked Running Wolf, already regretting his question. If one did not wish an answer it was better not to ask.
“I would let her go. And I would bet my first coup feather that she makes it to her camp before we reach ours.”
Running Wolf felt his fingers tighten on the woman’s wrists. A wellspring of defiance gurgled inside him. Yellow Blanket’s words were wise, but he knew he would not take his advice.
“It is a war chief’s duty to earn the respect of his men. You have lost one warrior today. I do not know how you will fix what has passed between you and Red Hawk. But I do know that keeping this woman will make that harder. Red Hawk’s wife is the sister of our chief. He has influence.”
“I will think of something.”
“You know that her life will be worse at our camp. If you care for her, do not bring her there.”
Running Wolf pulled the woman closer to his side.
Yellow Blanket sighed, recognizing, Running Wolf suspected, that his words were wasted. “You have taken her. But our chief will decide her place. Will he choose to give her to the one who took her, a young single warrior? He is ill but still wise. He has spoken of you in high regard and believes you will be a great leader one day. All leaders must choose what is best for their people over what is best for them.” Yellow Blanket pointed at the woman beside him. “She is beautiful, but she is the enemy. Remember who you are and what she is.”
“She is just one woman.”
“White Buffalo Woman was just one woman, too,” said Yellow Blanket, referring to the supernatural prophet who gave them their most sacred rituals and had turned the first man who approached her into a pile of bones.
“Perhaps I will give her to my mother.”
“Throw a wildcat in with a dove and you will have a dead dove.”
With that, he turned and joined the others at the spring.
Running Wolf watched him go, feeling a cold uncertainty in his belly. He stared down at this woman, wanting to know her secrets, wanting to see her body. The need to possess her was strong, and that was proof that Yellow Blanket’s words were true.
It was unmanly to want to possess anything.
A warrior had a generous heart. He shared what he had with his family and his people. And up until this moment, Running Wolf had never wanted anything badly enough to do other than what was wise and what was expected.
“Will you let me have a horse?” she asked.
He scowled at her now.
“You could just cut my bonds.”
“No.”
Her shoulders sank. Then she gathered up her courage from a well that he feared had no bottom.
“I will be trouble.” It was a promise, an echo of Yellow Blanket’s words. But he would not be threatened by a captive.
Weasel returned, leading two horses, his and Running Wolf’s warhorse, Eclipse. On his face was that sly grin he wore when he was up to no good. He led Running Wolf’s horse behind him and extended the reins between him and his captive.
“Who is riding?” he asked, and his grin widened.
Running Wolf did not rise to the bait but accepted the reins. “I thank you for watering Eclipse.”
“Do you think she is as good at wrestling as she is at flying from a galloping horse? Because I am a very good wrestler.” Weasel lifted his eyebrows suggestively.
Running Wolf felt the sharp squeezing grip of ownership across his middle. This was bad. He managed a half smile and again made a sloppy comeback.
“You might end up on your back like Red Hawk.” Running Wolf cringed at his words. First, they had insulted a fellow warrior. Second, they had reminded Weasel of Red Hawk’s embarrassment.
“I would not mind being on my back beneath that one.” Weasel grinned.
Running Wolf reached out to cuff him and Weasel dodged the blow easily.
Running Wolf leaned down and yanked a hank of grass from the prairie and offered it to his captive.
“Rub down my horse,” he ordered.
She held the grass in her joined hands for a moment. Then she lifted her bound hands and let the grass fall from her fingers like rain.
“You may take my freedom. But you will not take my spirit.”
Weasel’s twinkling eyes widened as he stifled a laugh and looked to Running Wolf for his response. They faced off for a long moment. She lifted her chin and angled her jaw as if offering that long vulnerable column to him. He could kill her; her eyes told him that she knew this. Was that what she wanted?
“You know, that one is crazier than I am,” said Weasel.
“Would you die rather than obey?” Running Wolf asked her.
“Yes.”
“Do you wish to die?” Now he found himself holding his breath.
“I do not. But neither do I wish to be your captive.”
“Things are getting more interesting,” said Weasel.
Running Wolf scowled and Weasel laughed and returned to the warriors, likely to tell what he had witnessed. Having a captive who would not obey was bad. Dangerous, even. He should punish her right now, but he found the prospect distasteful and thought on Yellow Blanket’s words again. If he did not punish her, she would not work. If she did not work, the others in the tribe would see she suffered. But they would see she suffered in any case. The best thing for her was for him to follow the advice of Yellow Blanket.
But he did not. Instead, he pushed her to the ground and bound her feet. Then he left her in the tall grass, leading his horse away so he could join the others.
As he chewed on hunks of dried buffalo and drank his fill, he watched the waving grass around his captive. When the grasses fell still he went to check on her and found that she seemed to be asleep. He returned to the group to find Weasel asking to see the trophy that Red Hawk had captured. Red Hawk’s face colored. Running Wolf sensed an impending fight. Weasel loved to wrestle nearly as much as he loved to steal from the Crow. It seemed he had directed his energy from the captive to Red Hawk.
Yellow Blanket told Weasel to watch the horses, diffusing the impending quarrel. Red Hawk showed the strands of long tubular beads that came from the French traders. The multiple strands were separated with circular shells that had come from the clay river people far to the south. The necklace was beautiful, but why Red Hawk had wanted it was beyond him. It was a woman’s adornment and of no use to a warrior. Perhaps it was for Buffalo Calf, his wife. He didn’t know and didn’t ask.
Instead, the men counted the horses and argued over which was the best. Running Wolf was the only one to like the mare that his captive rode. She was sound and strong and seemed to have good confirmation. Of course, no warrior would ride a mare into battle. But for hunting and traveling, the dapple gray would be useful, especially in the snow, when she would all but disappear. Of course, it was up to the chief to divide the horses among those who won them and those that needed them. He wondered who would get the big blue roan ridden by the son of the chief of the Crow. Yellow Blanket, he decided.
The men now set about haltering the horses and tying them in strings for the longer trip home. They broke into teams and he paired with Big Thunder, his best friend. Big Thunder had an overlarge mouth and intent eyes. Big Thunder wore a series of four bear teeth about his neck in a necklace nearly identical to the one Running Wolf wore, for they had come from the same hunt and the same bear.
Big Thunder threw a rope over a large buckskin and Running Wolf quickly fashioned a halter from another rope woven of buffalo sinew.
“Do you remember how we trapped that bear?”
Running Wolf nodded, focusing on tying the halter to the string of ponies already assembled. “It was hungry.”
“There is more than one kind of hunger, my friend.”
Running Wolf’s finger’s stilled and he glanced up at his friend.
“Be careful with that one or she may end up wearing your claws about her neck.”
Chapter Three (#u788af762-822e-5658-9c79-628a81d66882)
For a time, Snow Raven wiggled in the grass like a snake. Then she stopped, saving her energy. The bonds were tight and well tied. Chewing on the rawhide at her wrist had only made her teeth sore. The sunlight warmed her face. Insects buzzed about her and grasshoppers leaped from one grass stalk to another.
She pictured the village as she had last seen it, from the withers of the warrior’s horse. Her brother sprawled bleeding on the ground. She squeezed her eyes shut against the terrible image. Was he alive? Had they killed him because of her?
He had asked her to run. She had disobeyed. Had she traded her grandmother’s life for her brother’s? Snow Raven began to weep. She wept for the lodges toppled like trees before the whirlwinds and for the family she had lost and the brother she had endangered. Shame devoured her. She could live with her capture if she knew he was alive. But to be responsible for the death of her brother was a stone in her heart. She did not think she could bear it.
Her tears washed her cheeks and dried in the sunlight. Snow Raven curled into a ball, encircling her pain as she waited. After a time she realized she was alone, and so she relieved herself in the grass. Then she stood to see where the men had gone. She could hear them, of course, but it was not until she stood that she saw they had taken the forty horses and roped them into five strings of eight. Song, her mount, was there with the others, second in the line behind the black-and-white stallion belonging to the one who had taken her. Running Wolf, that was what the older warrior had called him. He had a wolf on his shield, as well. Wolves had strong medicine.
She found him easily. He stood with the others, but seemed unlike them. Was it his carriage or his size? This was her first real opportunity to look upon him. He stood twenty paces away with the others, and she noted first that he was broad across the shoulders and narrow at the hip. He moved with an easy grace and confidence of one gifted in movement. It explained how he had plucked her from the ground while on horseback and done so as easily as she might pluck a flower from a field.
She did not make any sound, but he turned to her and they stared across the distance. Her skin prickled. Perhaps he had been checking her location at regular intervals. He pointed to her horse as if telling her that he had taken that, as well. She nodded. Not knowing if she should thank him or hurl insults at him.
None of the Sioux cut their forelocks, and that was one of many reasons the warriors of her tribe called them women. But this hairstyle of the Sioux was not feminine in the least. In fact, she found the look of all the warriors elegant and masculine.
Running Wolf wore his long black hair in twin ropes wrapped in the pelts of beaver and tied with long strips of red cloth. His war shirt was decorated in elaborate bands of quillwork in red, green and white. The shirt was not stained with colored clay like the other men wore, but remained a natural tan color with long fringe at the arms and the side seam. Grandmother said the fringe took the rainwater away from the seams, but it was also for show. Over this shirt he wore a breastplate made of a series of long cylindrical white trade beads punctuated with red glass beads and round brass beads. The breastplate could deflect an arrow, if it was not shot at close range.
About his strong neck was a cord of tanned leather threaded through five bear claws. Each claw was separated by a red bead. She could not see his leggings or moccasins but had seen both while hanging over his saddle like a dead buck. Beneath his war shirt, she knew he wore his medicine bundle. All warriors did. Inside were the sacred objects that helped protect him. Each warrior was different, so each bundle was different and private. Her own brother would not even tell her what lay inside his, but he was never without it.
The warrior started toward her, his stride long and sure. He had the confidence of leadership. Were he not the war chief, she was certain that he would have held some other position of authority. It was clear that all respected him, even the older warrior, Yellow Blanket, who had advised him to let her go.
Running Wolf continued forward with such intent aim that she thought he might better be called Stalking Wolf.
He stared at her with fixed attention so that for a moment it seemed as if the rest of the prairie did not exist. She met his gaze, noticing the fine strong angle of his jaw and the broad chin. His elegant nose bisected his symmetrical features showing flaring nostrils that reminded her of a horse at full gallop. His brows peaked in the center as if she was some puzzle he must solve. She liked the shape of his eyes and the way that they were bright and dark all at once.
He drew closer and she noticed something else—the buzz of energy that seemed to shimmer between them, like the waves of heat off rocky places in the summer. The tension began in her belly and pulled outward until she had to clench her fists against the need to lift her arms in welcome. He would not let her go free, and for one ridiculous moment she was glad.
This made no sense. He had captured her. She should spit at him or hurl insults or weep and tear her hair. Instead, she stood and stared like a lovesick calf. He had captured her. Was that what made him different than other men, or was there some other reason for the tingling sensation of her skin?
Would he really keep her or would he turn her over to someone else? In her tribe, her father let the warriors keep what they captured and distribute possessions as they saw fit.
He stopped very close. She had to tilt her head to look at him. He frightened her, this wolf of a man. But she also wondered if her fate would be better with this man than with any other among his warriors. Certainly it would be better than with the one who tried to strike her. The one she had knocked to the ground.
She smiled in satisfaction at the memory and heard his intake of breath.
She knew the possible fates that awaited her at his village. She knew that her test of endurance had only just begun. She lifted her bound hands between them, but kept herself from laying them on his chest.
“How are you called?” he asked.
His voice resonated in her, rumbling through her chest like a roll of thunder. She pressed her clasped hands to her chest, squeezing tight to hold on to her courage.
“Snow Raven.”
“That is not a name for a woman.” He frowned as he swept her with his gaze. “But it suits you, for you are not like any woman that I have ever met. You are causing trouble, you know. No one knows what to do with you. Some say you will steal a horse and run, but then we would catch you and you would die. Some say they would like to ride you as you rode that gray mare.”
That prospect frightened her more than death. She did not want to be debased and used in such a manner. She squeezed her eyes shut at the images now assaulting her mind.
“Ah,” he said. “So you do feel fear. For a time I thought you were immune to such emotions.”
She looked at him now. “A warrior does not admit to fear.”
“But a woman does. She cries and uses her tears to gather sympathy. Yet you do not.”
“Would that work?”
“It would make you less interesting. And you are very interesting.”
“I do not want your interest.”
He laughed. “Then, you should not have unseated one of my warriors. Who was the old woman?”
“My grandmother, Truthful Woman.”
“She will not be happy at your sacrifice.”
“She raised me and I love her. I could do no less.”
“Apparently you are alone in that, because none of the other women even slowed down. They ran like rabbits.”
“That is what they are expected to do. To flee, so the men can fight.”
“Yet you did not do so. So you are brave but not wise.”
Raven made no reply.
“You can ride and you carry a bow. Can you shoot?”
“I do not think I should tell you what I can do.”
“Hunt?”
She found herself nodding.
He smiled and her stomach twisted. His smile was dazzling, bright and beautiful, making him suddenly seem approachable and even more handsome. She gritted her teeth against the attraction. He was a Sioux snake, enemy to the Large-Beaked Bird people.
“I like to hunt,” he said. “I once brought down an elk with seven points.”
“Nine,” she said, and then pressed her joined hands before her mouth. Why had she told him that?
“Nine? I have never even seen an elk with nine points.”
“Because you stay in the grasses instead of venturing into the mountains.”
He nodded. “That is true, because this is Sioux land.” His smile was gone. “You left your mountains and ventured into our territory. We cannot allow that, Snow Raven. Your chief knew this and still he put your people in harm’s way.”
“My...chief is wise and brave.” Had she almost said her father? She must stop and think before she spoke. It was a skill all warriors cultivated. Yet she went blathering about with the first thing that popped into her head.
“Brave, yes. Just as you are. And you must continue to be brave when the women in my village welcome you.”
She looked at her bound hands. “Will you cut my bonds so I can defend myself?”
“No.”
Why had she thought he would?
“Because if you harm any of them, they will kill you.”
“So I am to let them beat me?”
“What choice do you have?”
She was about to say that he could prevent it. But she could not bring herself to ask his help.
“When?”
“Tomorrow by sunrise. I will put you on your horse but I will have to tie you to the saddle. Do not fall asleep.”
“I will not.”
He smiled again. “Very good, Snow Raven. Eat this.” He passed her a long piece of jerked meat. “Then go to the spring and drink all you can. We ride all night.”
He leaned down and untied the binding that held her feet together. She considered kicking him and running, but a glance told her that the other warriors watched the proceedings. They could not see their war chief now as he disappeared from their view into the tall grasses. But she had no chance of escape. The men had all the horses and running about like a prairie chicken was a waste of energy.
She did as he bid her, eating and then drinking. She even walked past the men on her return. Her horse nickered a greeting. She mounted unassisted and waited as Running Wolf tied her bound hands to the pommel of her saddle. She would not be able to drop to the ground and vanish in the darkness. At least the saddle was comfortable.
Her brother had made the wooden shell specifically to fit this horse and Snow Raven’s smaller frame. It had a high pommel and high cantle so she could hook her leg over the back of the saddle and hold the front while hanging on the side of her mount. This position was ideal for creeping up on deer. Her brother had taught her and said he used the same position to make it harder for the Sioux to shoot him from his horse. She and her grandmother had made the buckskin covering. She was especially proud of the series of brass tacks decorating the front pommel. Raven realized with some sorrow that this saddle, the buffalo-skin saddle blanket and the horse were no longer hers. She, herself, was no longer hers. From this day forward until the day she died or was rescued, she belonged to the enemy.
Running Wolf finished tying her, giving her enough lead that she could move her hands midway to her face. It was a boon that she did not deserve. She recalled her brother speaking of the capture of Sioux women. They ran behind the horses or were tied like meat behind the saddle. They were given no food and water. Until this moment she had seen nothing wrong with such treatment of enemies.
The party set out through the long grass. Raven already missed the forest they had left behind. She paid close attention to the path of the sun. She did not know how the warriors knew the way to their tribe, for the grass looked much the same in every direction. All about them was high buffalo grass and scrub brush and more grass. Rolling hills that stretched out to the setting sun.
They passed a large mound covered with prairie dogs that chirped and clucked and vanished at their passing. They flushed grouse but none of the men shot at the retreating birds. She saw pronghorn in the distance moving away from them. She glanced forward to see Running Wolf glancing back at her.
“Do you wish you had your bow?” he asked.
“Yes.” Oh, yes. But she would not use it on the pronghorn.
He lifted a brow as if trying to gauge her intent from her reply.
The Sioux continued until the receding light made riding too dangerous. It was easy for a horse to step in a hole and break a leg. The men dismounted, ate and drank. They walked and stretched and relieved themselves. Running Wolf allowed her down to relieve herself, as well. She was glad for the darkness but still embarrassed. He said nothing to her as she remounted and he tied her back to the saddle. But his hands lingered longer than necessary over hers and his thumb brushed the back of her hand in a secret caress. His touch did strange things to her skin and the speed of her heart. How could so small a gesture make her feel so much?
Her reaction shamed her. This was the enemy of her people. The man who had unseated her brother and destroyed their fishing camp. She straightened in the saddle and looked down her nose at him.
The corner of his mouth quirked and he walked away.
The men gathered in a circle to talk and wait for the moon to rise enough to make travel possible. She listened to them repeat tales of their exploits. The men seemed to have forgotten about her and she again considered trying to turn the entire line of eight horses. She knew Song would respond to the pressure of her legs, moving in any direction she chose. But what would the stallion do? Would he turn and walk beside her mare? She weighed her chances.
She had the darkness in her favor, but the line of horses would make travel very difficult. She did not know the way to go in the dark and there was no cover on this open prairie. She recalled Running Wolf’s promise—that if she ran, she would die. But the darkness was tempting, so tempting.
Soon Hanwi, mother moon, rose in a perfect orange ball of light. Running Wolf rose from the circle of men and the others followed suit. He came to her with that slow, confident step, sweeping through the tall grass. He stopped before her and rested a hand on her right foot, which was still sheathed in her beaded moccasin and stirrup. His grip was strong and possessive.
“Perhaps brave and wise,” he whispered.
Chapter Four (#ulink_51e9a955-3f74-54cc-9377-d3bdffbebcf0)
Running Wolf looked back frequently throughout the night. He did not know if he expected his raven to fall or fly away. But she did neither. He once caught her looking back over her shoulder at the way they had come. But most often she sat straight and relaxed in the saddle as if she was more comfortable astride than with her feet on the ground.
Seeing her straddling that horse filled his mind with a series of sensual images that made riding exceedingly uncomfortable. Even the chilly night air did not lessen his insistent erection.
Running Wolf did not have a wife, though he needed to see to that soon. He had several women who had made their interest known. He did not favor any especially.
As the light of morning streaked across the sky, they reached the river above camp and made the ford.
By the time they arrived at camp and the women began to call, he was irritable beyond his recollection. Boys, roused from their sleeping skins, hurried out, some without their breechclouts because they were in such a rush to see the warriors returning triumphant.
Soon the stolen horses were being paraded about the center of the village, and those warriors who had families were greeted by their relieved wives and excited children. He saw Red Hawk give his wife the string of beads and shells that had caused Snow Raven to return to protect her grandmother and resulted in her capture. As the horses circled, Snow Raven stood tall and proud despite the insults hurled at her.
Running Wolf’s mother, Ebbing Water, made her way to her son to congratulate him on leading his first raid. She was a solid woman and still very useful. He did not know why she chose not to marry again after his father’s death ten winters past, for she was attractive for an older woman and more than one man had made his interest known. His father had died in battle and his mother held a simmering hatred for all things Crow.
“I see you bring a captive,” said Ebbing Water. “Who took her?”
“I did.”
She did not hide her shock. “You?”
“She is in your care until Iron Bear decides what to do with her.”
She smiled. “I know what to do with her.” Ebbing Water drew out her skinning knife. Running Wolf was out of the saddle and standing in front of his mother before she had time to turn.
“I do not want her scarred.”
She lifted her brows. “She is an enemy.”
“No.”
Ebbing Water studied her son for a long moment. He tried not to shift or fidget under her scrutiny. Did she recognize that he found this captive beautiful...fascinating? Mothers could tell such things with just a look. His mother made a noise in her throat and then turned toward Snow Raven.
Running Wolf had to force himself not to follow. What came next was for the women. The men would only bear witness.
Ebbing Water shouted louder than the other women and called the men to halt the horses. She walked to Snow Raven and quickly sliced the cord that tied her to the saddle. Running Wolf knew how stiff and sore his captive must be. Unlike his men, she had not been allowed off her horse since he’d tied her there late last night.
So when Ebbing Water dragged Snow Raven to the ground, his captive lost her balance and went down. That was all it took for the wolves to close in. The women circled her as the men led the string of horses away.
He heard the curses and saw them spitting on his captive. He watched the vicious kicks and hoped Snow Raven was wise enough to roll into a ball and protect her head. Some women brought sticks to beat this Crow woman while others used their fists.
They tore at her war shirt and ripped the medicine wheel from her hair. They peeled her from her leggings and dragged off her shirt and tore off her moccasins. He could see her seated, knees to chest, as the insults continued and the blows grew wilder.
He did not mean to act.
Even as he called out he told himself to be silent. But still he shouted his mother’s name. She looked to him and he shook his head.
His mother stepped between the captive and the hive of women buzzing and striking like hornets. She called a halt and shooed them off. Gradually they left Snow Raven, dressed only in her loincloth, sitting in the dirt. The fur that wrapped her hair had been ripped away with the strands of shells and her face was bloody and bruised. They had taken everything of value. But she was alive.
He watched as she rose, coming to stand with her bare feet planted and her chin up. Her lip was bleeding. So was her nose. Her hair, once so beautiful and wild, was now a mass of snarls and tangles. Her body, which he had so longed to see, gave him physical pain to witness. Her breasts showed scratches and welts. Purple bruises began to show on her shoulder and thighs.
Yet still she stood as if she was war chief.
It made him feel small and angry. Why had she returned for her grandmother? Why couldn’t she have run? Then, he would not have this trouble or these confusing feelings.
Ebbing Water grasped Snow Raven’s bound hands and tugged her toward their lodge. His captive walked on slim feet, now covered with dust and mud. Her legs were long and smooth and muscular. Running Wolf watched until they were out of sight. Only then did his thoughts return to some semblance of normalcy.
He saw that the horses were watered and then oversaw their hobbling so the new arrivals could graze. They staked the stallions, for they did not want the newcomers fighting with the established leader. That would come in time, for each herd could have only one leader, the strongest. So was the way of the world. Running Wolf must be the strongest if he were to serve his people.
The women had killed a village dog in preparation for the feast to celebrate their return, and he and the other warriors went to the river to bathe away the taint of the enemy. Afterward they went to the council lodge.
The open door of the chief’s lodge was an indication that they were expected. Red Hawk called a greeting and their chief, Iron Bear, replied, welcoming them. The illness that wasted Iron Bear’s flesh now resonated in his voice, which was so changed, Running Wolf nearly did not recognize it.
When Running Wolf entered, Red Hawk had already taken the place beside Black Cloud, the last in the semicircle of the council of elders and the closest place available to their chief. The elders were all great warriors who now served to help lead their people and no longer went on raids. Still, Running Wolf would not care to fight any of them, for despite their age, they were strong. They formed a half circle, and the returning warriors completed the circle.
Iron Bear greeted each man by name. Their chief was seated by a low fire, though the month of the ripening moon was mild and the days warm and bright. This was the first time that their leader had not come to greet them, and now he huddled beneath a buffalo robe like the old man he had rapidly become.
Iron Bear had once been fierce and feared by all his enemies. Now he was unsteady on his feet and his color was bad. Even his eyes were turning an unnatural yellow. Still, he led their tribe with wisdom. But all knew he would not lead for long. A new leader must soon be chosen.
Across from the old chief sat Turtle Rattler, the shaman of their people. Turtle Rattler was much older than Iron Bear but looked youthful by comparison. True, his face was deeply lined and his hair streaked with gray, but his color was a good natural russet. He had ceased his chanting upon their arrival. He wore a medicine shirt that sported two vertical bands of porcupine quills. The adornments had been carefully dyed in green, brown and white before being flattened, soaked and meticulously sewn by his long-time captive into a skillful pattern.
Turtle Rattler had worked very hard to restore the chief to health but confided to Running Wolf that at night the chief’s spirit already ventured onto the Ghost Road. It would not be long, he said, for the chief’s water smelled sweet and he had no appetite. He seemed to be shriveling up before them like a bit of drying buffalo meat in the sun.
All were seated—the elders across from the entrance and the youngest warriors closest to the opening as was proper. The buffalo skin held the heat and the air was stifling. Many of the warriors began to sweat in their war shirts, yet their chief continued to shiver in the warm air.
The coyote staff was passed to Running Wolf. As war chief it was his honor to speak first, and only he would speak until he passed the elaborately beaded staff that held the skull of the clever trickster, coyote. Running Wolf briefly relayed their victory and the number of horses they had taken. He spoke of the brave deeds of his men and the clever theft of livestock, giving credit to Weasel. He considered mentioning Red Hawk’s defiance of his orders to take no captives, but he decided this would only bring more animosity between them.
He passed the coyote staff to Big Thunder, who had no such qualms. He relayed what he had seen.
Red Hawk shifted in his place and his expression became stormier. It was obvious that he could not wait for his turn with the talking stick. But as the stick had begun with Running Wolf, he had to wait and wait. He would, however, get the last word. Since it was so hot, many of the men chose to simply pass the staff along. At last Red Hawk gripped the talking stick.
“This woman dresses like a man. She rides like a man and carries weapons like a man. She is unnatural—a witch. She should be killed as quickly as possible.”
“Who captured this Crow woman who fights like a man?” asked Iron Bear.
All eyes turned to Running Wolf.
“Ah, our new war chief. That is well.”
The chief turned to Running Wolf. “Do you think this woman is a witch?”
Running Wolf did not need the stick, for when asked a question it was only polite to answer. “She could not escape her bonds. She could not fly from her horse like a bird or shift into a coyote and dart into the grass. She is just a woman.”
Red Hawk extended his hand. The stick made its journey to him.
“This captive is young. She should be made a common woman. There are many men in need of relief who are yet too young to provide for a wife.”
His chief frowned. “The captive belongs to the captor. If Turtle Rattler determines that she is not a witch, then let Running Wolf do as he likes with her.”
Running Wolf squeezed his eyes shut for a moment as the relief struck him like a kick in the gut. When he opened them it was to find all staring at him; some looked expectant, hopeful. Did they all want to have their turn with her? The notion filled him with a surging of white-hot rage, and he set his jaw to keep from revealing the strange, unwelcome emotions. Why was it so hard to consider sharing her? She was only a woman, an enemy.
Yet she was more. His heart knew it; his body knew it. Only his mind rebelled.
What was he to do with his captive? How to keep her safe, exclusively his and still appear the war chief?
Running Wolf opened his mouth to say that he would leave the decision up to Iron Bear. But instead he found himself saying, “I would give her to my mother.”
The chief’s brow wrinkled. “Your mother has never needed help caring for her lodge, and you have kept her cooking pot full. Why do you think she needs a woman to help her?”
“I will keep her cooking pot full for as long as the Great Spirit allows. But I am considering a wife and so will be leaving my mother’s tepee. I am afraid she will be lonely.”
“She could take a husband,” said Iron Bear. “It is past time.”
He thought so, too, but when he’d said as much to his mother, her fury had been like the whirlwinds.
Running Wolf nodded. “If she wishes.”
“Now it is time to smoke,” said their shaman.
The pipe was lit and passed. The men talked and joked. Everyone wanted Weasel to again wear the headpiece made from the mane of a black horse. Once the roached hair was tied to his head he looked so much like the Crow warriors that Running Wolf was not surprised he had fooled the young boys watching the herd. With meat for the dogs and a costume designed to deceive, Weasel had walked right among the horses of the Crow.
Running Wolf would normally have found pleasure in the ritual of smoking the sacred tobacco and having an opportunity to hear stories of their success retold for the members of the council of elders. But now he saw the stories as an endless delay that kept him from where he truly wanted to be.
Where was Snow Raven and what was happening to her?
Turtle Rattler had kept the men from her, for now, but what about the women?
Finally the men dispersed, but just before he took his leave, the chief called out to him. Running Wolf gritted his teeth at the delay as Red Hawk swept out the circular door. He caught the eye of Big Thunder and motioned his chin toward Red Hawk. His friend nodded and followed after Red Hawk as Running Wolf sat close to the chief, who now extended his hands to the fire.
He motioned to the upright feathers on Running Wolf’s head. The eagle feathers each carried a red bar, marking his success at killing six warriors in battle. Had he stopped to kill Bright Arrow by slitting his throat or taking his scalp, he would have earned an additional feather, notched for this new coup. But he had chosen to take the woman rather than kill the man.
“I think Weasel has earned a feather for his stealth.”
Running Wolf smiled and nodded.
“And you have led your first successful raid. It is my wish to mark your success with this.” He withdrew an eagle feather topped with tufted white downy feathers and the hair from the tail of a white horse that once belonged to Iron Bear. “I will present it formally at the feast, but I wanted to tell you that it was given to me by Kicking Buffalo after my first successful raid.”
“I am honored,” said Running Wolf, feeling the glow of pride. This was what he wanted, to lead his people. To earn coups with brave deeds. To walk the Red Road as the Creator intended and to bring honor to his people. One day soon he would earn enough feathers to have his own war bonnet, and later, perhaps a coup stick fluttering with a hundred feathers.
“Before you go, I would like to ask you a question.”
Running Wolf leaned forward, anxious for some new quest, another opportunity to prove his worth. He was war chief of his tribe, a great honor. But soon the council of elders would be faced with a dilemma. They must choose the chief’s successor. He knew he was young, but both Black Cloud and Yellow Blanket had told him he was being considered. Red Hawk and Walking Buffalo were, as well.
“Yes, my chief?”
“You say you wish to take a wife. Have you chosen a woman?”
“I have not.” Even as he said this, he realized he should have reflected on why Iron Bear was asking this before he answered. A leader needed to consider his words more carefully.
“The choice of wife is an important one. She must not only warm your blankets and keep your fires. She must make your home from the best buffalo robes you can provide her and she must be strong to bear your children. Most important, she must act as adviser. For though many pretend that decisions are made by the council of elders, we all know that they do not act without considering the opinions of all and, most especially, their wives.”
This was true, so why did Running Wolf feel a rising uncertainty at the direction this conversation had taken?
“My daughter, Spotted Fawn, is young, but she is a good woman, modest and hardworking. And although her mother is gone, she has learned much from my second wife, Laughing Moon. She knows what it means to be the daughter of a chief. Her mother bore me five children, three of them sons. I believe that Spotted Fawn will also bear her husband strong children.”
Running Wolf glanced toward the door. Two days ago he would have gladly taken the chief’s daughter. Before the raid he firmly believed that one woman was much like another. One might be comely and another a better cook. But all and all, they were just women.
Now he felt differently.
An ache gnawed at the pit of his stomach. Why had he ever pulled that woman onto his saddle?
The chief continued on, failing to notice Running Wolf’s distraction. “I would ask that you consider her for your wife, for I would like to see her wed to a good man before I walk the Ghost Road.”
“Your daughter is a virtuous woman. Any man among us would be lucky to call her wife.”
Iron Bear smiled, his withered face now as wrinkled as a dried buffalo berry. “Make it soon, son.”
Running Wolf nodded and took his leave. What had he just done?
Chapter Five (#ulink_44bcecad-9ff4-5d08-bdce-e2450bde2714)
Snow Raven followed the mother of Running Wolf toward her tepee. The warriors had succeeded in their raid, and that meant a feast of celebration and dancing. If the Sioux custom was similar to the Crow, their deeds would be told by one who witnessed and not the one who performed the coup, for to do otherwise was boastful.
She wiped the blood from her lip and pinched her nose to stem the flow. By the time they had reached the large conical tepee, she had stanched the worst of the bleeding.
She ignored the cuts and the dull ache of the bruised tissue that seemed to cover her body. Even with her focus on her injuries she could not help but still at the sight of the lodge before her. The bottom of the tanned buffalo hide was ringed in a red band. Above this band were drawings of battles. She recognized Running Wolf immediately from his spotted horse. She circled the conical base with slow, measured steps. Ebbing Water smiled with pride as Snow Raven leaned forward to peer at the unfolding story of many battles.
Running Wolf had killed two Crow in this battle using his lance. Suddenly she thought of her brother again and wondered if he had survived.
She moved along, the ache in her muscles now reaching her heart. He had killed four in the next battle and stolen three horses. According to the next drawing he had captured seven eagles in a single hunt and also trapped and killed a wolf. Had that been that his vision quest?
Near the top by the smoke flaps appeared a wolf again. She knew how difficult a wolf was to fool, and this feat truly impressed. But all served to remind her that he was a formidable enemy, one she could not trust and in whom she would find no pity. If she where to survive until she was rescued she must be wise and cautious.
Her father would come for her. He would find her. But for the Crow to come out onto this prairie, so far from the protection of the other tribes, was dangerous.
What would her father do?
He must find help among the other Center Camp tribes, she realized.
She might be here a long while. So she must be careful that none here discovered that she was the daughter of Six Elks. If she could only survive until her father came, she would be rescued. Then she could return again to her life as it had always been and would be again.
“You see that my son is the most skilled of hunters. He brings me more furs than I know what to do with. And he has killed many of the evil Crow who try to invade our hunting grounds.” She studied the paintings for a moment longer, and her voice grew sharp. “Enough dawdling. We have a feast to prepare and you have fuel to carry.”
On the plains, there were no trees, so the people used the dried buffalo droppings for fuel. Raven wondered if the women expected her to carry buffalo chips in the nude without moccasins. The answer, she discovered, was yes. When Raven asked if she might have a bit of buckskin to cover herself, the woman laughed.
“You must earn your keep here. If you do as you are told, I will feed you. If you wish a buckskin, perhaps you should kill a buck.”
Raven did not ask for a bow and arrow to do just that.
Ebbing Water gave her a basket and told her not to come back until it was full. On her first journey past the ring of tepees, Snow Raven paused to see if anyone was watching her and found she was alone. Was this some test? A trial to see if she was stupid enough to run with no weapons and no garments to protect her? She knew she would freeze in the cold rains and starve on the long journey.
That was, unless the wolves found her on foot.
She hoisted the basket higher on her bare hip and turned to search for buffalo chips. It was more difficult to walk barefooted through the grass than she had imagined, and it took some time to fill the basket.
As she walked, she braided the tall grasses into a fine rope. When it was long enough, she looked for animal trails through the grass and set her first snare. Before she returned to the camp she set six more. It seemed from the trails she saw that the jackrabbits were plentiful here.
When she stood from laying the final snare it was to find Running Wolf standing within ten paces of her. She gasped with surprise. No one ever crept up on her before. Had she damaged her hearing in the beating?
Her arms went up to cover her breasts and then she stopped herself. Captives had no shame, and she was not embarrassed of her body. Let him see the bruises and cuts.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Your mother would not give me a buckskin. She said if I wanted a hide, I must get my own. So I am.” She motioned to the snare, carefully staked and set to encircle the neck of any rodent foolish enough to use this path.
He stepped nearer and stooped to examine her work. “Well laid.”
He stood close now and her skin began to prickle, as it sometimes did when the thunderbirds charged the air.
Raven reclaimed her basket and held it between them. He turned to go and she headed after him, walking slowly enough so as not to appear to be following. She did not know if another beating awaited her upon her return. And she didn’t know if Running Wolf would prevent one. He had not intervened in the first, so she was doubtful his proximity would help her.
Still, she felt safer with him than alone.
She considered her options. To stay unnoticed she must be submissive and not draw attention. That meant taking any beating.
It went against her very nature.
She was a fighter, and a good one, too. Could she even manage to restrain herself if they came at her again? It had been hard to let them drag her from her horse. It had been hard to curl up like an infant and allow the feet to kick and the hands to claw. But she had done it.
He turned to her before they entered the circle of lodges.
“Stay well behind me. But call out if you need me.”
She waited while he moved well ahead of her, anxious to let him go but relieved he would be close enough to come if she needed him.
It was near sunset, and when he reached the first lodge his skin glowed golden in the failing light. Running Wolf disappeared as he crossed into the circle of tepees. She paused to get her bearings and recall where to find his home. She met two women who laughed and called her Buffalo Chips. She ignored them and continued toward Running Wolf’s tepee.
Before she reached the lodge, Raven felt someone watching her. She looked about and found who spied on her, thinking it would be Running Wolf again, but instead she found a woman and instantly recognized her as another captive.
She wore a dress that was too short to be proper, a dress that held no elk teeth or quillwork or beading with not even the simplest of fringes across the seam. Beyond this, the dress was patched and ill fitting. Her legs were as dirty as Snow Raven’s and her feet were also bare.
She stared at Raven with a hollow expression of one pushed past her limit. Yet still there was a flicker of life behind the dead expression. The woman’s mouth turned down at the corners as she looked at Raven. Bringing a new captive to a tribe could upset the order among the other captives. Raven wanted no trouble. She desired only to remain anonymous and to survive long enough to be rescued.
The woman strode forward and spoke to her in perfect Crow without the accent of the Sioux.
“So they have taken everything from you, too.”
“Not everything,” said Raven.
The woman’s brow quirked in a silent question.
“I still have my life.”
That made the woman smile and nod her approval, as if Raven had passed some sort of test.
“Yes, if you can keep it. You are too pretty and the men will be after you.”
The loss of her virtue was what Raven most feared. Morality was highly prized by her people, except among captives. Their feelings were not considered. That was how it had always been.
Now she was experiencing the opposite side.
She remembered that some of the captives had earned a place. Some had even married into her tribe. She thought of Running Wolf and was horrified at the line of her reasoning. She was the daughter of a chief, the sister of a brave warrior. They would rescue her.
Her head dipped as she realized that even if they did bring her home, all among her people would assume she had been soiled by the Sioux.
The woman spoke again. “You will not last long if you don’t gain one or more protectors.”
“I can protect myself.”
The woman laughed.
“Well, Little Warrior, what about your clothes? How do you plan to earn them?”
“Earn them?”
“Frog went naked for over a moon. They give all of us names. I was called Mourning Dove by my people, but here am called Mouse. They named her Frog for her croaking. There were two of them then, Frog and Fish. Nothing Frog did earned her a scrap. She was old and no one wanted her. Still, she begged to come into each tepee until she found one man who let her in—Turtle Rattler, the shaman. She keeps his fire and says he does not touch her. Fish walked into the snow and died. I did not beg, but neither did I walk into the snow. I took another road and decided that I would have meat and I would have clothing and I would have a tepee of my own. I did what I had to do to earn these things.”
Mouse glared at Raven, daring her to say something. Raven knew what Mouse meant. She was a common woman, used by any who wished to spend time with her. The young men in her tribe had such a female, but some widowers and married men also went to her lodge. Raven did not judge Mouse, for she knew she might suffer the same fate. When one was starving and freezing it was hard to say what one would do. Would she choose to stay alive, like Mouse, or die, like Fish?
“I have set snares to catch rabbits.” Raven motioned toward the prairie.
This earned another smile from the woman. “They will take the meat and the pelts. But there is no harm in trying. How is it that you know how to do such things?”
“My father...” Again Raven nearly said her father’s name. “My father and my brother taught me to hunt and ride.”
“Really? You can hunt?”
Raven nodded, not wishing to appear boastful.
“Can you track game?”
“Of course.”
“Shoot a bow, use a lance?”
Raven did not like the way this conversation had turned.
“Can you read the land and find water?”
“I have done these things,” she offered, “but not on the prairie.”
The woman was now glowing.
“There are others, six now that you have come.” Mouse paused and her gaze dropped with her expression. “Some have been here two winters. Some four. I have been here four. Little Deer nearly froze to death last winter because she was too young to be a common woman. Little Deer has not yet broken her link with the moon. When she does, they will take her to our lodge.”
Four years? Had Raven heard that right? In all that time had no one come for her? Raven felt a little piece of herself die. What if her brother and father could not find her? There were so many tribes of Sioux. Was she like a rock on the prairie, impossible to see unless you stumbled over it?
“I am of the Center Camp Crow, the Shallow Water tribe,” said Mouse.
“I am Snow Raven. I am of the...” But before she could speak, Mouse cut her off.
“Also Center Camp Crow, but from the Low River tribe. Your father is Six Elks.”
Raven’s stomach dropped. Somehow this woman knew her. She could tell the Sioux. Perhaps such information could be valuable. Mouse could trade it for a blanket or food.
“No. I am not.”
“I met your mother at one of the gatherings. I danced with her. I ate with your grandmother, Tender Rain, and listened to your grandfather, Winter Goose, tell stories of the Spirit World. He is your shaman.”
That had been before he and her mother’s mother died of the spotting sickness with so many others. The trappers had come and then the traders and then the many sicknesses. But the spotting sickness was the worst. It was why her father had said they must go. Leave the home they’d had since the beginning of all things.
Raven shook her head. “No, you’ve made a mistake.”
Mouse lifted a fist to her hip. “Why do you say this? You know who you are. I know who you are.”
In desperation, Raven told the truth. “But no one must know. Don’t you see? My only hope is to remain like any Crow captive. If they know, they could kill me or use me to hurt my family.”
“Or trade you and the other captives for some of their own.”
“No. I can’t take that chance.”
The corners of Mouse’s mouth continued to sink. “You cannot take that chance? Are you the daughter of the chief of the Low River tribe or are you not? Are you the granddaughter of the greatest far-looking man our people have ever seen or are you not?”
Her grandfather had been a far-looking man, one with the gift of seeing things before they happened. Snow Raven would give anything for that gift right now. Would she live to taste freedom again? Would this woman use her knowledge to dash any chance she had of survival?
“I used to be those things. But now I am just a captive. My life is no longer my own.”
“But you still long for freedom. We all do. You could lead us. It is in your blood to lead.”
Raven lowered her head, knowing what would happen if she tried. The risk was too great. “If we go, I will lead you to your deaths.”
“Winter is coming,” said Mouse. “Little Deer will not have enough to eat.”
Raven stared at Mouse. “What did she eat the past two winters?”
“Last winter was mild. The one before she stayed with me when I had no men. But this one will be hard and the men will want a woman on cold nights. If she is in my lodge they will take her, too. Snake has a baby. When her milk stops, he will die like the last one.”
Raven pressed her lips tight together against the urge to act. None of this was her fault. It was not her place to intervene. But was it her duty?
Mouse’s face went hard as she stared at Raven. “You ride. I saw you arrive seated on a horse. We can steal horses and you can lead us home.”
“They will catch us and kill us. We must wait for rescue from my father.”
“Wait? I hear the warriors boasting. They come to me with tales of great deeds. Weasel tells of stealing all the horses of your village. Is that true?”
Raven lowered her head. “Yes.”
“So I ask you, without horses, how will they hunt buffalo? And how will they come for you?”
Without horses, they would be wiped out. Suddenly Raven did not want her father to come for her. The cold dread of certainty took hold of her like an icy wind. Her father must look to his people’s survival. He could not waste precious time searching for her.
Mouse waited for an answer. “If he comes on foot, they will kill him.”
For the first time she understood, truly understood what she faced.
“He would be a fool to come, and Six Elks is no fool,” said Mouse.
Even as she recognized the depth of this cold reality, Raven could not relinquish hope. “He will come.”
Mouse snorted. “Do you know that I have a husband and a son? My husband is handsome and kind and loved me very well. Four times seasons have turned, but he has not come for me. Now I still tell myself that he will come, but I fear he has found another. We had a son, Otter. He was four when they took me. If I do not return home to my boy soon, will he even know his mother? I dream of them in my sleep. I think of them when I wake. They are what has kept me alive.”
Raven understood now what she had not before. If she was to find rescue, she must find it herself. Something else crept into her thoughts and she straightened.
“How is your husband called?” asked Raven.
“Three Blankets.”
Raven stilled at the name.
Mouse continued on, not noticing Raven’s shock. “Oh, he is very brave. He had his first eagle feather for slitting an enemy’s throat when he was only sixteen winters old.”
Raven’s hands had gone still, for she knew that Mouse’s son had fallen through ice in the river. Raven had been there in the winter camp when his body was brought back to the village.
The following spring, Mouse’s husband had been killed on a raid led by Far Thunder, the chief of the Shallow Water tribe. She knew because many of her tribe had gone with them, including her brother. They had told of Three Blankets’s brave death and sang at his funeral platform.
Raven opened her mouth to speak but Mouse was talking again.
“Without them, I would have died so many times. They have kept me alive, my husband and my son.”
Raven closed her mouth tight.
“I worry that if he learns what I have done to stay alive, he might not want me. But then I worry about hiding the truth from him. What would you do?”
Mouse looked up at Raven, waiting for her reply. Raven held her tongue as dread made her skin prickle.
“What?” asked Mouse.
“I...I am...” She pressed a hand over her mouth and tried to think what to say.
Mouse’s eyes narrowed and she closed in. “What do you know of my husband? Has he taken another wife?”
“No.”
“Then, why do you look so guilty?” Mouse grasped Raven’s shoulders and gave a little shake. Raven met her gaze. The scowl disappeared. She released Raven and stepped back, now protecting herself from the news by folding her arms before her.
Mouse’s eyes went wide and her face went chalky white as if she already knew. Her next words confirmed Raven’s fears. “What has happened to him?” Her fingers clawed into her hair, holding a fist at each temple. “To my husband. To my son.”
Mouse swayed as if the energy to shout had stolen the last of her strength. She placed a hand on the riverbank.
Raven sank down beside her and spoke in a rush, racing to finish as Mouse blinked up at her. She spoke of the raid and the victory and the losses. How her husband was killed in the raid of the Shallow Water tribe and her son in the icy water.
“I am sorry. They are both gone,” said Raven.
Tears streamed down Mouse’s face and then she threw herself to the ground, curling into a ball. Her cry of agony was terrible to hear.
Raven stayed with her, but she worried that they would be missed and that would make it harder to leave the camp. When Mouse had no more voice to cry she folded into Raven’s arms.
“I have no one now. My sister and mother walked the Way of Souls before me. They died in the spotted sickness winter, the same winter that took your mother from you. My mother-in-law hates me.”
“She’s still alive.”
“Moon Rise is a good swimmer. Why did she not save my son?”
“I do not know. I only remember hearing of your husband and son because I spoke to Moon Rise. She now has no son to hunt for her and must rely on the gifts of others.”
Mouse stood woodenly and began to walk up the bank.
“Where are you going?” asked Raven.
“To the woman’s lodge. Perhaps I will never come out.”
Raven stopped her with a hand. “I am still bringing you home.”
Mouse snorted. “I have no home.”
Raven watched her go and wondered if she had made a mistake. Should she have kept the deaths of Mouse’s family secret until they were safely back with the Crow?
But what if they never reached them? Didn’t Mouse have the right to mourn and pray for her husband and son? Was it her decision to keep the truth from a wife and mother?
Raven hurried back to Running Wolf’s tepee, hopeful that she might sit near the fire.
When Raven reached the lodge, she was received with sharp words from Ebbing Water, who snatched the basket back and sent her to the river to wash the blood from her body. The water stung but she managed. As she was leaving the river, she ran into a group of women who’d come at their customary time to wash. They shouted at her that she could not use this place and must bathe downriver so they did not get the stink of the Crow on them.
Raven hurried back to the tepee and found Running Wolf seated inside. His eyes followed her every movement as she returned to Ebbing Water.
“Can you not cover her?” he asked his mother.
“She must earn her clothing.”
“Cover her while she is inside, then.”
Ebbing Water gave Raven a blanket. The warm rough wool scratched her skin and made her cuts burn. But it took away the chill and soon she was not shivering. She smiled at Running Wolf, but before she could offer her thanks he rose and stalked out, leaving a half-finished bowl of stew beside him. She eyed his leavings eagerly as her stomach gave a loud gurgle. She’d had nothing to eat since Running Wolf gave her a strip of dried buffalo last night.
“He does not want you here,” said Ebbing Water. “So you will sleep outside.”
Ebbing Water turned back to the fire and Raven snatched up the bowl and left the tepee. Had Running Wolf left it intentionally for her?
She sat behind the tepee to gobble down her prize. She knew Ebbing Water would miss her bowl eventually, and placed it just under the base of the tepee, hidden between the outer wall and the inner hanging lining that served to keep out the cold.
In a short time, Ebbing Water left the lodge, closing the flap of hide that covered the circular entrance. Raven knew this was a sign that she didn’t welcome visitors or had gone away. Once she made sure she’d gone, Raven retrieved the bowl, wiped it clean and then placed it with Ebbing Water’s other cooking things.
Raven was going to leave again, but she spotted the rawhide parfleche box covered with brightly colored geometric patterns. Her grandmother kept pemmican in just such a box. Pemmican was portable and could keep her alive. The mixture of fat and pounded dried meat might even contain some dried Saskatoon berries or wax currents.
Such food was meant for traveling and for the long dark nights of the Deep Snow Moon when hunting was hard and game scarce. It might keep indefinitely, as long as it was kept dry and did not mold. But stealing would get her a beating or worse.
She weighed her options.
A weak, starving woman could not fight and she could not survive the winter. She crept forward, untied the soft leather bindings and then lifted the stiff rawhide lid.
Inside sat the pemmican, but they were unlike the long rolls that her grandmother fashioned. Ebbing Water’s food stores looked like flat skipping stones, the size of her fist. They lay one upon the other in no order. Raven wondered if she would know if there was some missing.
She quickly took five and rearranged the top layer to cover their absence. Then she continued out the opening only to find Running Wolf waiting for her. She was caught with the stolen food.
He grasped her arm and several of the pemmican rounds fell at her bare feet.
“So you ride and shoot and fight, and now I find you steal as smoothly as Weasel.”
Would he kill her? He could. Captives had died for less. Raven found it difficult to stand—her legs began to shake and sweat popped out upon her forehead.
She pressed her lips together to keep herself from begging for her life, although that was what she wanted to do.
“Would you slit a man’s throat with the same ease?” he asked.
When she did not answer he tugged her forward so that she fell against his broad chest and felt again the power of his body.
“Why did I ever take you?”
“I do not know.”
He gave her wrist a little shake. “I wish I had killed him.”
“Who?”
“Your war chief.”
Raven shuttered at the thought of her brother’s death earning this man one more eagle feather.
“I would rather have you earn the feather of a gull.”
His eyes widened at this and then went hard. He knew what she was saying. The killing of an enemy woman might earn a gull feather, dipped in red paint. She was saying she would rather die than have him kill her war chief. She met his glare, realizing she had never seen him look so angry.
“Why didn’t you kill me?” she asked, wondering how she even found enough wind to speak. His proximity continued to make her body quake and her stomach quiver. It must be because he was an enemy and because he had the power of life or death over her. It must be that, for the alternative was too terrible to consider.
“Why?” he asked. “I have been asking myself just that same question since I first saw you. The easy answer is because of the way you dressed. But now you have no clothes and still you intrigue me. It cannot be good for you or for me. Perhaps you are a witch, as Red Hawk says.”
That charge was worse than being a common woman. Witches were dangerous. Witches were killed.
“I am no witch,” she whispered.
“I believe you. But my opinion does not matter. You must convince Turtle Rattler.”
“How?”
“I do not know. But you must or you will die.”
He released her and gathered up the food she had stolen. Then he handed it to her. “Are you going to eat it?”
“No. Hide it.”
“Then, do it. And come with me.”
Chapter Six (#ulink_a23aba78-6eaf-51a7-a5c1-dad7b1dece8c)
The evening breeze brushed Running Wolf’s face. How much colder was it on her bare skin? he wondered as he watched her dress with the loincloth and draped buckskin he’d handed her across her shoulders.
“Come,” he commanded, and turned and walked before her because it was unseemly for her to walk beside him as an equal. As he went, he listened for her tread and could hear only the whisper of her feet upon the grass. It was better to have her behind him, for then he did not have to look at her perfect form or the angry bruises that covered her skin like the spots on his horse.
When he was away from her he knew what to do. Everything was clear. He would be generous and offer his captive to the one in the village who needed her help the most. Perhaps an old woman whose hands were knotted like the trunks of old cottonwood trees. Or to a young mother who had several children to look after. That would be charitable.
What he would not do was make her a common woman.
The thought of her lying beneath man after man made him sick. With Snow Raven, he felt possessive, and that was not the way of his people.
But when he was with this enemy captive he began to notice the fine curve of her shoulder and how her breasts were high, firm and round. He noticed the way she walked and the subtle sway of her hips that was not meant to be seductive, but still was more enticing than any female he had ever seen.
He led Raven to the tepee of Turtle Rattler and called a greeting. The shaman bid him enter and Running Wolf ducked inside, then motioned to Snow Raven to enter. As he took his place beside the shaman, he glanced at the small frail woman with hair streaked with gray. He had never noticed her before, though he knew she had been here on each of his visits. Now he watched her intently, a captive that he recalled Turtle Rattler had admitted to his lodge on her first winter.
It occurred to Running Wolf that she and Snow Raven might know each other or even be from the same tribe. He had been there at the taking of this woman. There were two, but they had not been taken in a raid, so Running Wolf did not recall the tribe.
After the formal greetings were exchanged, Running Wolf turned to the reason for his visit.
“I have brought my captive,” said Running Wolf. My captive, he had said. Not the
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Jenna Kernan
RIVAL TRIBES…Running Wolf is a valiant Sioux warrior. During his first raid as war chief he captures a surprising Crow enemy – a woman! This spirited fighter is unlike any he’s ever met. Her beauty and audacity are entrancing, but they threaten his iron resolve…… RIVAL PASSIONSSnow Raven must focus on freeing herself – not on the man who keeps her captive. But as she falls deeper under Running Wolf’s spell she realises he is her warrior… and she’ll risk everything for him!
“How are you called?” Running Wolf asked.
His voice resonated inside her, rumbling through her like the roll of thunder. She pressed her clasped hands to her chest, squeezing tight to hold on to her courage.
“Snow Raven.”
“That is not a name for a woman.” He frowned as he swept her with his gaze. “But it suits you, for you are not like any woman I have ever met. You are causing trouble, you know. No one knows what to do with you. Some say you will steal a horse and run, but then we would catch you and you would die.”
She squeezed her eyes shut at the images now assaulting her mind.
“Ah,” he said. “So you do feel fear. For a time I thought you were immune to such emotions.”
She looked at him now. “A warrior does not admit to fear.”
“But a woman does. She cries and uses her tears to gather sympathy. Yet you do not.”
“Would that work?”
“It would make you less interesting. And you are very interesting.”
“I do not want your interest.”
He laughed. “Then you should not have unseated one of my warriors.”
AUTHOR NOTE (#u788af762-822e-5658-9c79-628a81d66882)
From the moment Snow Raven came charging into my first scene on her white horse I have been in love with this character. My heroine is the daughter of a Crow chief and is bright, stoic and brave—even after being captured by her enemies. At first she wants only to survive until she is rescued. But when faced with the needs of her fellow captives she grows into a warrior, forgoing her own happiness to win their freedom.
My hero, Running Wolf, is the war chief of his Sioux tribe and an enemy to the Crow people. Running Wolf is at first intrigued, then confounded, and later fascinated by the captive Snow Raven. They both resist a love that will cost them all. He must lead his people and protect them from their enemies, while she must try to bring her people home. What chance does love have when pitted against duty?
I had a wonderful time writing about two Native characters who lived on the North American Plains in a time after the Spanish and before the Americans came to challenge their dominance. The research for this story was a joy—especially learning all I could on earning coup feathers. When I discovered that a woman could become a warrior I was thrilled.
If you would like more details on this story be sure to visit my website for Behind the Story.
And if you enjoy my story please let me know with a review. You can sign up for my newsletter at jennakernan.com (http://www.jennakernan.com). For extra insider information visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter: @jennakernan (http://twitter.com/jennakernan)
Running Wolf
Jenna Kernan
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Award-winning author JENNA KERNAN writes fast-paced Western and paranormal romantic adventures. She has penned over two dozen novels, has received two RITA nominations, and in 2010 won the Book Buyers Best Award for her debut paranormal romance. Jenna loves an adventure. Her hobbies include recreational gold-prospecting, scuba diving and gem-hunting.
Follow Jenna on Twitter @jennakernan (http://twitter.com/jennakernan), on Facebook or at www.jennakernan.com (http://www.jennakernan.com)
For Jim, always.
Contents
Cover (#ud90cd29a-059e-52b8-afad-c36514144e6f)
Excerpt (#u7622ac44-c07e-5a29-a757-e4b2e174f1aa)
AUTHOR NOTE
Title Page (#uf5d1eb5a-254e-5193-96a6-2aa3ee41f471)
About the Author (#u6f92753f-7be1-5ed8-9978-559736194c4b)
Dedication (#u0c65b7e4-f83d-5de9-92de-c31077c563f0)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u788af762-822e-5658-9c79-628a81d66882)
Snow Raven raced her gray dappled mustang, Song, along the lakeshore, her horse’s powerful muscles rippling with each long stride. She loved how she and Song moved together, how the air rushed against her face and lifted her hair. Her father said that riding was the closest that a person ever came to flying.
This was the very reason Raven did not wear her hair in twin braids like the women of her tribe, but neither did she quite dare to wear it as her father and brother did. The warriors cut their forelock short and used grease and pitch to make the hairs stand up as stiff as a porcupine’s quills. Instead, Raven made her own style and had wound narrow braids at her temples and wrapped them in ermine that was decorated with shell beads and quillwork like the men. The rest of her hair she left loose and as wild as the mane of her mustang. Her dress was also a mixture, shorter than a woman’s, made from a single buckskin like a man’s, but for modesty and comfort she wore both loincloth and leggings beneath.
Raven wore a skinning knife about her neck, as most females in her tribe did, but she also carried a deerskin quiver from the six-point buck she had felled when she was eight. Within, metal-tipped arrows waited, ready. She carried her strung bow looped over her back. The taut string, fitted between her breasts, revealed her curves.
Raven knew that more than one woman objected to her hunting, but they never said so to her face and they did not turn down the meat. As for the men, her position as the chief’s daughter insured that she had no shortage of suitors, just a shortage of suitors who interested her. Hunting and riding were more appealing.
Now she sought to catch her older brother, Bright Arrow, who had somehow managed to leave camp without her knowing. His stealth was only one of the qualities that she admired. Up ahead the party of warriors turned at the sound of her approach. There was Little Badger, Turns Too Slowly and her brother. Little Badger grinned with pleasure at her appearance, but her brother did not. In fact, he did not even slow his big blue roan stallion, Hail. It was only now, when she drew close, that she saw her brother did not carry his bow, but his lance. Were they raiding already?
“I could have shot you,” said Turns Too Slowly, realizing belatedly that he had not even reached for his bow.
“What are you doing, Raven?” Bright Arrow asked, his voice so stern he reminded her of their father, Six Elks.
“I thought you were hunting elk,” she said, already aware of her mistake.
Her offer was met with silence. Finally Turns Too Slowly spoke.
“This is no hunt.”
“We are scouting for Sioux,” said Little Badger.
Her eyes widened and excitement and fear rolled in her belly until they were blended like berry juice in water. She had not seen a Sioux snake since the attack when she was only seven.
“Have you seen any?”
Her brother raised his hand, halting Little Badger, who was about to answer.
Her brother’s scowl deepened. “This is their territory. It is wise to be certain we are alone. If they are here we must prepare to fight.”
Was that a yes or a no?
“Did Father send you?”
“Go home, Little Warrior.” Her brother now made her childhood name sound like an insult.
She stayed where she was, toying with the leather fringe on the pommel she had made with the help of her grandmother, Truthful Woman. “I will help you scout.”
“You will not.”
Since word had come of the raids against their people by the Sioux, he was not so forgiving of her insistence to leave the camp.
“I can track game better than Little Badger and hear better than Turns Too Slowly,” she said, unable to keep the belligerence from her voice.
“And ride better than all three of us, I suppose,” said Turns Too Slowly.
“Yes.”
Turns Too Slowly gestured toward camp. “So prove it by riding that way.”
Her brother was more to the point. “Do you know what they do to female captives?” he asked. His voice held a note of irritation. She knew. The enemy would disgrace her, take her freedom, give her all the hardest work and worst food. Still, she lifted her chin. “I am not afraid of the snake people. I would kill them first.”
“Brave words, but better still, ride home where you are safe,” he said. His tone changed, now quiet, respectful with just a note of desperation. “If you are here, I have to worry over your safety.”
She wished they could stay in their mountains instead of moving east into the territory of the Sioux with the endless grass. But the whites had built a fort and then sickness had taken so many. Her father, their chief, had moved them here, thinking it better to face an enemy they could see.
She looked over her shoulder at the way she had come. Back there she knew the women were tending cooking fires, gathering wood and gutting fish caught on the trawl lines. She looked forward at the blue lake glimmering through the trees and the forest thick with brush.
Her heart tugged, whispering for her to ride.
“We will take you back,” he said, turning his horse.
She did not want to be escorted to camp like some wandering child. She could take care of herself. Hadn’t she killed a deer, elk and pronghorn? Hadn’t she skinned them and dressed them and carried them home over her horse’s withers?
Bright Arrow did not wait for her to reply but pressed his horse forward.
As he passed her, he said, “You’ll be safe there.”
She did not want to be safe. She wanted to be a warrior like her brother. His hands were tough and smelled of leather, instead of stinking of fish.
“I’ll take her,” said Little Badger.
Bright Arrow eyed his fellow. “And leave us one weaker?”
She suspected that this was not the only reason her brother said no. Ever since Bright Arrow had caught Little Badger trying to put his hand up her dress, he had not left any of his friends alone with her. It was just as well. She liked the sensation of a warrior’s touch, but would not let anyone lift her dress. She was a woman of virtue, not some Sioux captive to be used by anyone.
Still, her stubbornness had limits. She would not leave her brother with one less warrior on her account, especially if the Sioux were near. But with the sun streaming through the yellow leaves and the wind still blowing warm as summer, it was hard to think of danger.
“Have you seen any Sioux?” she asked.
Her brother shook his head.
“Then, I will find my own way home.”
Before he could object, she wheeled about, urging her horse to rear before bounding off the way she had come.
She heard the sound of hooves beating the ground behind her. A glance back showed Bright Arrow in fast pursuit with his comrades close behind. He was an impressive sight at full gallop, with his long hair streaming out behind him and the fringe of his saddle, sleeves and leggings all fluttering in the wind. His breastplate, made of a series of cylindrical white beads, beat against his chest with the rhythm of his horse’s hooves.
In his hair were tied the two notched eagle feathers he had earned stealing horses and facing the Sioux in battle. She wished women could earn such honors, but although she could ride and shoot and throw a lance, she would never have the chance to earn a feather with an act of courage—kill an enemy, sustain a wound, steal a horse. Women did not do such things.
A woman’s courage was quiet and went unsung. There were no feathers for bearing a child or making a lodge. Yet she still dreamed of the ceremony where her father, the chief, presented her with a coup feather.
Behind her, Bright Arrow leaned low over his horse’s neck trying to catch up. They never would. Song was too fast. There were no two better riders in the entire Low River tribe than her and her brother.
It seemed that all the warriors would accompany her home, which was very bad, because it meant that Bright Arrow planned to speak to their father. She needed to get there first. She needed to explain that she loved the scent of the wind and hated the stench of fish. He would listen. Since her mother’s passing, he always listened.
Raven lowered herself flat to her horse’s neck and gave Song her head. They fairly flew over the ground.
As she tore over the animal trail, she noticed a tan-colored lump lying in the path. A fawn, she thought as Song snorted and jumped the tiny obstacle. Raven gaped when she saw that the carcass was a village dog with one arrow sticking from its ribs. At a glance she recognized that the fletching on the shaft was not like the ones of her people.
The hairs on her neck rose.
Raven opened her mouth to scream a warning to her brother, but another scream filled the air, farther away, one coming from their fishing camp. Her brother straightened in his saddle and then did something she had never seen him do. He slapped his open hand on his horse’s broad muscular shoulder. The horse lunged forward as Raven slowed.
“The camp!” she yelled.
“Run,” shouted her brother as he surged past her with Little Badger and Turns Too Slowly on his horse’s flank. Raven wheeled her horse to flee but then thought of the women, caught between the lake and attack. Song seemed to know her mind before Snow Raven did, for her mare raced after the other horses. They broke from the trees into chaos. The men in the village were fighting from the ground as mounted warriors ran at a gallop through the camp, upsetting cooking kettles and trampling lodges. She saw that they were Sioux by the cut of the enemy’s war shirts and because they wore their hair in twin braids, like a Crow woman.
Her brother gave a whoop and charged, drawing the fight to them while giving the women and children time to flee in the opposite direction. The Sioux were outnumbered, but they were mounted and had the advantage of surprise.
Snow Raven drew up at the woods, calling to the women, telling them to flee in this direction where there was good cover. Raven watched in horror as she saw two of the Sioux break away from the fight to follow the retreating women.
She saw her old grandmother hobbling along at an ungainly trot. Truthful Woman had raised Snow Raven since the time of her mother’s death, but could no longer run because she was bent and her joints were puffy and stiff. With each moment her grandmother fell farther behind, the Sioux in pursuit.
Was that their aim, then, to take captives? Or was this a fight over territory, as her brother had said? Either way they could easily kill her grandmother on their way to the younger, more useful captives.
Raven pressed her heels into her horse’s flanks and gave her first war cry. She swung her bow over her head and reached back for an arrow. The lead warrior dressed in a red war shirt trimmed with long strands of trophy hair grabbed Truthful Woman by the multistrand shell and bead necklaces that circled her throat. Raven vowed the red-shirt would not harm her grandmother, though he was upon her already. Truthful Woman was dragged backward against her enemy’s horse. Her hands went to her windpipe and her face turned scarlet. The warrior shook his hand, further strangling Raven’s grandmother.
Snow Raven screamed again and notched her arrow, but was too close to shoot.
She dropped her bow and rammed his horse with hers. Song’s muscular chest collided with the other horse’s flank, causing the beast to skitter sideways. The necklaces broke away in the Sioux’s hand and Truthful Woman dropped to her knees choking and gagging.
Snow Raven launched herself from her saddle onto the warrior’s chest. The thud jarred her teeth as they toppled together from his horse.
Raven landed on top of the warrior. The jolt robbed the wind from the man’s body and gave Raven the moment she needed to draw her skinning knife and lift it above her head. Today she would send this snake to his ancestors and take her first war trophy. The warrior’s wide eyes stared up at her as she thrust, preparing to lodge the knife into the center of her enemy’s throat.
* * *
Running Wolf met the charge of the three mounted Crow warriors. The fourth had halted at the tree line, the dapple-gray horse dancing with power and nervous energy. His gaze lingered a second. There was something amiss about the rider. He forced his attention back to the large Crow leading the charge on a big blue roan stallion. The feathers in his hair spoke of his opponent’s bravery.
Running Wolf lifted his lance to strike. Today they did not carry the coup stick used to mark bravery, but weapons to kill, for the Crow had invaded their territory. His opponent lifted his shield. Running Wolf saw the symbol of a red arrow emblazoned on the hard rawhide. It was good medicine, he thought as his opponent deflected his thrusting lance and he made his own thrust. Running Wolf twisted in his saddle to avoid the iron spear tip and lost some of his momentum. His spear did not pierce the shield or his enemy, but slid harmlessly away.
His men engaged the other three warriors with cries and blows. Running Wolf wheeled to have another chance at the leader, but as he turned he saw the warrior on the roan horse leap forward. The Crow gave a high thready cry.
Running Wolf engaged the first man again. This was the obvious leader. It was not difficult for one war chief to recognize another. His opponent shouted directions to the men on the ground, who quickly fell back behind the horses.
Running Wolf lifted his lance and thrust again, and his enemy deflected, but not quite enough, for the spear tip sliced deep into his opponent’s shoulder muscle, cutting a gash in the Crow’s shield arm as the horses moved past each other again. The warrior threw his lance to the ground. It stuck upright and quivering as he yanked his tomahawk from his breechclout and swung at Running Wolf’s head.
Running Wolf flattened to his horse’s back as the metal ax head flew past him. He straightened and swung the pole of his lance like a club, striking his foe across the back with enough force to unseat him.
The Crow warrior did not stay down long but kept hold of his horse’s mane as he fell, then used the ground to vault back onto his moving horse. He and his men dropped back to stand between their women still fleeing for cover and Running Wolf’s men. They took a defensive stance. Retreating, delaying, giving the women time to escape. Nearly all had disappeared into the woods. Even those carrying small children now darted like shadows beneath the mighty pines.
Only one old woman remained, limping along like a wounded elk before a pack of hungry wolves. Red Hawk pursued the old Crow, but for what possible reason Running Wolf could not imagine.
Running Wolf had made his orders clear. Destroy this camp. Steal the horses and go. He recalled now Red Hawk asking about captives and his reply—only if the taking would not slow their escape. But despite his orders, Red Hawk had left the fight to pursue captives and now lifted an old woman by the throat, dragging her beside his spotted horse.
A blur of movement drew Running Wolf’s eye. The small warrior on the gray mare leaped from the galloping horse right at Red Hawk. The force of the collision carried Red Hawk sideways to the ground. Running Wolf wheeled toward the downed warrior and saw the flash of a small iron skinning knife. He frowned at the strange choice of weapon as the pieces fell into place.
The small figure pinning Red Hawk was not an undersized warrior, but a woman.
A strangely dressed woman warrior.
She straddled her opponent as masterfully as she had straddled her mount just moments before, only now she lifted her blade. Beneath her, Red Hawk had lost his wind and writhed ineffectively, still clutching the old woman’s white beaded necklaces.
Running Wolf let out a war cry. The woman hesitated, giving him time to reach them. He raised his lance as the warrior he had challenged gave a second war cry. Running Wolf was not distracted as he used the flat side of his lance to knock the knife from the woman’s hands. He reached down and hoisted her up onto his horse’s withers, capturing his first prisoner. He whooped and pulled his horse up until it balanced on its hind legs.
Red Hawk rolled onto his hands and knees and vomited. The others reached them as the Crow warriors followed the women into the woods where the fighting would be difficult. All except the one who had fought Running Wolf.
He remained, blood running from his arm down his mount’s shoulder. Still he charged again, but this time he met eight of Running Wolf’s men and was forced back. Was this the woman’s husband? Was that why he made such a suicidal charge?
Yellow Blanket struck the man with his club and the warrior toppled from his horse, sprawling on the ground, as limp as a tanned buckskin. Yellow Blanket captured the warrior’s horse, giving a yell as he turned to go. It was a wonderful prize.
Running Wolf held the struggling woman down across his horse’s withers as he glanced about the ruined camp. They had toppled the tepees, trampled the racks of drying fish and stolen their horses. Their work was done.
Pursuing the fleeing tribe would only increase the chances of fatalities as his men no longer had the element of surprise and there were many places in the forest for the sneaking Crow to ambush them. He called a retreat.
Red Hawk stood and pointed to Running Wolf’s prisoner.
“That one is mine. I took her.”
“You took a handful of beads. This one is mine.”
So he pointed at the blue roan.
“The horse is mine, then.”
Yellow Blanket looked at the reins of his captured horse that now rested in his hand. Older and more experienced, he had only to lift a brow at Red Hawk before the man fell silent.
Yellow Blanket looked at the beads in Red Hawk’s hand.
“Those are yours.”
Red Hawk’s face went scarlet but he held his tongue. Yellow Blanket had been war chief and his bravery was without question.
“Were you unclear on your war chief’s instructions?” asked Yellow Blanket. Running Wolf appreciated the man’s assistance. It was difficult to lead a man older than you, especially when he felt he should have been Yellow Blanket’s successor. But he was not. The council had chosen Running Wolf.
Red Hawk shook his head.
“Then, why were you chasing old women instead of driving away their horses as you were told?”
Red Hawk looked at the strings of broken beads in his hand. He stuffed them into a pouch at his waist. The warrior woman’s gray horse pawed the earth beside Red Hawk and then lifted its head to sniff its mistress.
Weasel brought Red Hawk his horse.
“Let’s go,” said Running Wolf. His prisoner wriggled and tried to lift her head, but he pushed her back down with one hand planted on her neck.
What kind of woman was this who fought like a man?
The raiding party rode toward home, with great commotion. The woman spread across his thighs tried to throw herself headfirst off his lap, but he held her easily. She was small, even for a woman, making her act of unseating Red Hawk even more impressive.
He had never taken a captive but now wondered if he could keep this one. He liked the feel of her warm, firm body against his thighs, and her clothing and behavior had him both troubled and intrigued. He did not understand why she acted as she had, but he did know that she had the heart of a warrior.
Still, keeping her was not entirely his decision. True, their chief, Iron Bear, was generous, often leaving the spoils of their efforts to each warrior to keep or distribute as they saw fit. Running Wolf found himself holding the wiggling woman more tightly and recognized with some shock that the thought of giving her up filled him with a selfish, grasping need. It was perhaps the best reason of all to give her away.
He straightened in his saddle, lifting to a stand in his stirrups. He heard her gasp as she slid from his lap to wedge into the gap between his legs and the saddle’s high horn. She pressed her hands against his horse’s side to keep from tumbling headlong to the ground. Still fighting, he realized. Fighting for the old woman. Battling Red Hawk. Resisting capture and now struggling to survive. She was brave, this enemy warrior woman.
Did that mean she had earned her life or a swift death?
He pulled her upright and settled back in his seat. She curled against him for just a moment and sagged as if in relief. He stared down at the curve of her bottom and the short dress that had hiked up.
Was she wearing a loincloth?
He had seen a woman wear leggings in winter, but never a loincloth.
He rested a hand across her lower back and felt her muscles stiffen in protest. But she did not struggle. Perhaps she waited for her chance to plunge his knife into his heart. He added patient to her list of attributes.
Running Wolf stifled his rising need, fighting that deep empty place in his heart. He struggled to resist the whisper of desire for this woman. No. His father had died at the hand of a Crow. They were his enemy, and that included this small temptation. His duty was to his ancestors, his chief and his tribe.
He told himself that he would not covet this woman even as his hand tightened possessively about her.
Chapter Two (#u788af762-822e-5658-9c79-628a81d66882)
Snow Raven bounced with the steady lope of the black-and-white stallion. Each landing of the horse’s front hooves jarred the warrior’s muscular thighs against her stomach and breasts. She saw at close range the blue war paint along the horse’s long elegant leg. Handprints for kills, bars for coups and hoofprints for horses stolen in raids and, the last, a square. He was the war party leader. This man was impressive by any measure. She stared at the heavily beaded moccasin. The cut and decoration were more reminders that he was Sioux.
If only she had followed her brother’s instructions, she would be safe in the woods right now.
And her grandmother would be dead.
Her grandmother would have preferred that, Raven knew, rather than see her only granddaughter taken and debased by the enemy.
Raven had enough of lying across the warrior’s lap as if she were some buffalo blanket. But when she tried to push herself up, he shoved her back down.
How long they traveled like this, she did not know. But when his horse finally slowed from lope to trot to walk, she was sweating and nauseous.
Her captor ordered a halt to check on the injured and called for his men to report to him. His accent was strange. Their languages were very similar, but his speech was faster and more lyrical than that of her people. His voice seemed almost a chant.
He captured one of her wrists. She tried and failed to keep him from securing the other. Before she could stop him, he had dragged her up before him and plopped her between his lap and the tall saddle horn made of wood covered in tanned buckskin. He used his other hand to loop a bit of rope about her joined hands and wound the rope around and through her wrists, binding her.
She had lost her skinning knife, her bow and her dignity. But she had not yet lost her pride or her virtue. That would come later, at her arrival to camp. She knew how Sioux captives were treated by her people.
Her band currently had no captives because her father killed all the Sioux he could, including women. But she had seen the female captives at the larger gatherings and winter camps when all the tribes of the Center Camp Crow came together. The women wore buckskin dresses soiled and torn, their hair a dusty tangle and their eyes hollow. She had even tossed an insult or two in their direction. Now she would be on the receiving end of such derision. The hatred between their people was old and strong. Everyone she knew had lost someone to the constant fighting and raids.
Once with the Sioux, she would get little food and might die of starvation or exposure. But that was not the worst. Dying was preferable to being soiled by a Sioux snake. Unless she had a protector or was lucky enough to be adopted, any might take her. This warrior who captured her or one of his tribe.
Raven shivered, vowing to take her life before submitting to such indignities. But what if she was not able to kill herself? There were ways to prevent her, deny her even the freedom to die. Her head hung. Should she try to stay alive and wait for her father and brother to come? Or should she try to end her life at the first opportunity?
Where was the warrior she pretended to be? She would know how to face her fate. But if she were a warrior, her destiny would be far worse. Male captives had to endure a slow death by torture designed to test their bravery. She might be roasted over a low fire or have bits of flesh cut from her body.
Some small part of her wondered if that end might be preferable to hers. She had always prided herself on her virtue. Now she realized it was already gone.
She did not wish to die. But she did not wish to live like this. She had saved her grandmother’s life and, in the process, she had lost her own.
* * *
Running Wolf halted the raiding party after a long run. The open plains hid a spring of sweet water for the horses and riders. Here they could rest and the Crow could not sneak up upon them.
Their raid would remind the Crow that they had ventured too far from their place and into the Sioux territory.
The woman before him made no sound. She did not weep or beg. Instead, she sat still as a raptor, watching his men dismount and stretch their tight muscles. If he did not know better he would swear she was counting their number and measuring their strength.
Running Wolf looked back and wondered if their enemy would follow. His party had taken only one captive. Then he thought of the look in the eyes of the warrior when this woman was taken. He would follow. Running Wolf knew this in his bones.
He called to Weasel, asking how many horses they had taken.
“All” came the answer.
Running Wolf smiled. Weasel was a very good thief. He must be to sneak past village dogs and the boys watching the horses and to do that in full light. Running Wolf’s first raid as war chief and they had not lost a single man. He complimented Weasel’s skill and then dismounted.
His captive threaded her hands in his horse’s mane and he had the flash of precognition. He grabbed her with both hands as she kicked his horse’s sides. His horse bolted forward as he swung his captive up and around until she landed before him.
Their eyes met.
He felt the electric tingle of awareness. She was beautiful, no question, with wild hair that streamed about her lovely face in long waves. She had tied a medicine wheel in one narrow braid at her temple. The opposite braid was wrapped in the pelt of a mink, tied with strands of tanned leather and bits of shell. The adornments framed her face.
Her nose was straight and broad, brows high and arching like the wings of a raven. She had dark eyes glittering with emotion, showing her passion even as she stood perfectly still. He dropped his gaze to her mouth. Just looking at those generous pink lips made his stomach jump and his muscles twitch.
He caught a motion to his left and turned to see Red Hawk approach, his expression stormy. Running Wolf was about to speak but Red Hawk lifted a hand to strike the captive. Running Wolf had time only to grip Red Hawk’s wrist. The men locked eyes. Running Wolf saw his mistake immediately. He had rescued Red Hawk from this woman and now he had easily stopped his blow. Both acts highlighted that he was the stronger man. A war chief did not intentionally embarrass his warriors. Running Wolf released Red Hawk and the older man fumed.
“What are you doing?” Red Hawk asked, his voice hot with anger.
“I thought you were going to strike my horse,” said Running Wolf, and cringed at the stupidity of that. He was not always quick-witted and preferred time to consider his responses. Meanwhile, his captive tugged in an effort to gain release from his grip. He gave a little yank and pulled her back beside him while keeping his focus on Red Hawk.
“Your horse is gone,” Red Hawk said. “This one kicked it. Now I will kick her.”
“I would prefer you did not. If she is injured, it will be harder to bring her to camp.” That response was a little better. But his reaction was worse because just the threat of kicking this captive made Running Wolf’s flesh prickle. What was happening here?
Weasel, still mounted, went after Running Wolf’s spotted mustang, Eclipse, and captured him easily. Running Wolf recognized that he and Red Hawk had become the focus of the eight other warriors, including Weasel, who returned now holding the reins of Eclipse.
Yellow Blanket intervened. “Water your horses first, then the Crows’ horses.”
The men moved to do as they were told.
“You should kill that one,” said Red Hawk, and then stormed after the others.
Running Wolf felt deflated. It was the order he should have given instead of staring like an owl. His raid had been a great success. The Crow did not even have horses to pursue them. Everyone lived and collected coups, and still he felt lacking as a leader. He knew the reason, the one change since he had ridden out this morning. He looked at the woman.
They made eye contact and she immediately looked away, lifting her chin as if she were above him. It made him smile. She had not lost her pride. That much was certain.
Yellow Blanket remained with Running Wolf, but he let Weasel take his horse. Yellow Blanket wore his eagle feathers today, marking him as a warrior with many coups. Iron Bear, their chief, often turned to him for advice. It had been on Yellow Blanket’s suggestion that Iron Bear had made Running Wolf the new war chief.
Yellow Blanket glanced at the captive and then to the place where Running Wolf gripped her bound wrists.
“You hold that one as if you did not wish to let her go,” said the older warrior.
Running Wolf felt the truth in the warrior’s words but he replied, “She is just a captive.”
“Is it wise to tell the men to take no captives and take one yourself?”
“Did you see the circumstances?”
“I did. You could have left her behind. Then she would not be here like an oozing wound in front of Red Hawk. Each time he looks at her, he sees his shame in flesh. She unseated him. Unmanned him.” Yellow Blanket looked at the woman. “Who are you?”
She lifted her chin still higher. “I am one of the Center Camp Apsáalooke of the Low River tribe.”
“A Crow. Just like any other,” he said, and she nodded. “Yet the son of the chief risked his life to save you.”
Pain broke across her expression but she mastered it swiftly. Running Wolf narrowed his eyes as suspicions clouded his thoughts. Who was she to this man, the one Running Wolf had fought and bested to claim her?
Yellow Blanket glanced to Running Wolf. “Did you not recognized their war chief?”
Running Wolf gave a shake of his head. He had only seen their new war chief at a distance. But Yellow Blanket had scouted their village prior to this raid.
Yellow Blanket posed the woman another question. “How did you learn to fight like a warrior?”
This she did not answer. “I am an Apsáalooke woman, like any other.”
“You do not dress like any other. You do not ride like any other. You do not speak like any other. I have taken many captives. They wail. They cut their hair. They rub ash upon their face and then they live or die in our tribe. They never meet a warrior’s eye and would not think to speak to one as an equal. Yet this you do. I do not know what you are, but you are not a woman like any other.”
This took the stiffness from her spine. She glanced across the waving grasses, toward her camp, now in ruin. Was she thinking of the warrior sprawled facedown in the dirt?
Yellow Blanket turned to Running Wolf. “She can ride as well as any man here. She carried a bow, so assume she knows how to use one. How will you keep her from stealing a horse and riding home?”
“She will not know the way to go.”
Yellow Blanket’s look said he thought differently, but he said nothing.
“What would you do with her?” asked Running Wolf, already regretting his question. If one did not wish an answer it was better not to ask.
“I would let her go. And I would bet my first coup feather that she makes it to her camp before we reach ours.”
Running Wolf felt his fingers tighten on the woman’s wrists. A wellspring of defiance gurgled inside him. Yellow Blanket’s words were wise, but he knew he would not take his advice.
“It is a war chief’s duty to earn the respect of his men. You have lost one warrior today. I do not know how you will fix what has passed between you and Red Hawk. But I do know that keeping this woman will make that harder. Red Hawk’s wife is the sister of our chief. He has influence.”
“I will think of something.”
“You know that her life will be worse at our camp. If you care for her, do not bring her there.”
Running Wolf pulled the woman closer to his side.
Yellow Blanket sighed, recognizing, Running Wolf suspected, that his words were wasted. “You have taken her. But our chief will decide her place. Will he choose to give her to the one who took her, a young single warrior? He is ill but still wise. He has spoken of you in high regard and believes you will be a great leader one day. All leaders must choose what is best for their people over what is best for them.” Yellow Blanket pointed at the woman beside him. “She is beautiful, but she is the enemy. Remember who you are and what she is.”
“She is just one woman.”
“White Buffalo Woman was just one woman, too,” said Yellow Blanket, referring to the supernatural prophet who gave them their most sacred rituals and had turned the first man who approached her into a pile of bones.
“Perhaps I will give her to my mother.”
“Throw a wildcat in with a dove and you will have a dead dove.”
With that, he turned and joined the others at the spring.
Running Wolf watched him go, feeling a cold uncertainty in his belly. He stared down at this woman, wanting to know her secrets, wanting to see her body. The need to possess her was strong, and that was proof that Yellow Blanket’s words were true.
It was unmanly to want to possess anything.
A warrior had a generous heart. He shared what he had with his family and his people. And up until this moment, Running Wolf had never wanted anything badly enough to do other than what was wise and what was expected.
“Will you let me have a horse?” she asked.
He scowled at her now.
“You could just cut my bonds.”
“No.”
Her shoulders sank. Then she gathered up her courage from a well that he feared had no bottom.
“I will be trouble.” It was a promise, an echo of Yellow Blanket’s words. But he would not be threatened by a captive.
Weasel returned, leading two horses, his and Running Wolf’s warhorse, Eclipse. On his face was that sly grin he wore when he was up to no good. He led Running Wolf’s horse behind him and extended the reins between him and his captive.
“Who is riding?” he asked, and his grin widened.
Running Wolf did not rise to the bait but accepted the reins. “I thank you for watering Eclipse.”
“Do you think she is as good at wrestling as she is at flying from a galloping horse? Because I am a very good wrestler.” Weasel lifted his eyebrows suggestively.
Running Wolf felt the sharp squeezing grip of ownership across his middle. This was bad. He managed a half smile and again made a sloppy comeback.
“You might end up on your back like Red Hawk.” Running Wolf cringed at his words. First, they had insulted a fellow warrior. Second, they had reminded Weasel of Red Hawk’s embarrassment.
“I would not mind being on my back beneath that one.” Weasel grinned.
Running Wolf reached out to cuff him and Weasel dodged the blow easily.
Running Wolf leaned down and yanked a hank of grass from the prairie and offered it to his captive.
“Rub down my horse,” he ordered.
She held the grass in her joined hands for a moment. Then she lifted her bound hands and let the grass fall from her fingers like rain.
“You may take my freedom. But you will not take my spirit.”
Weasel’s twinkling eyes widened as he stifled a laugh and looked to Running Wolf for his response. They faced off for a long moment. She lifted her chin and angled her jaw as if offering that long vulnerable column to him. He could kill her; her eyes told him that she knew this. Was that what she wanted?
“You know, that one is crazier than I am,” said Weasel.
“Would you die rather than obey?” Running Wolf asked her.
“Yes.”
“Do you wish to die?” Now he found himself holding his breath.
“I do not. But neither do I wish to be your captive.”
“Things are getting more interesting,” said Weasel.
Running Wolf scowled and Weasel laughed and returned to the warriors, likely to tell what he had witnessed. Having a captive who would not obey was bad. Dangerous, even. He should punish her right now, but he found the prospect distasteful and thought on Yellow Blanket’s words again. If he did not punish her, she would not work. If she did not work, the others in the tribe would see she suffered. But they would see she suffered in any case. The best thing for her was for him to follow the advice of Yellow Blanket.
But he did not. Instead, he pushed her to the ground and bound her feet. Then he left her in the tall grass, leading his horse away so he could join the others.
As he chewed on hunks of dried buffalo and drank his fill, he watched the waving grass around his captive. When the grasses fell still he went to check on her and found that she seemed to be asleep. He returned to the group to find Weasel asking to see the trophy that Red Hawk had captured. Red Hawk’s face colored. Running Wolf sensed an impending fight. Weasel loved to wrestle nearly as much as he loved to steal from the Crow. It seemed he had directed his energy from the captive to Red Hawk.
Yellow Blanket told Weasel to watch the horses, diffusing the impending quarrel. Red Hawk showed the strands of long tubular beads that came from the French traders. The multiple strands were separated with circular shells that had come from the clay river people far to the south. The necklace was beautiful, but why Red Hawk had wanted it was beyond him. It was a woman’s adornment and of no use to a warrior. Perhaps it was for Buffalo Calf, his wife. He didn’t know and didn’t ask.
Instead, the men counted the horses and argued over which was the best. Running Wolf was the only one to like the mare that his captive rode. She was sound and strong and seemed to have good confirmation. Of course, no warrior would ride a mare into battle. But for hunting and traveling, the dapple gray would be useful, especially in the snow, when she would all but disappear. Of course, it was up to the chief to divide the horses among those who won them and those that needed them. He wondered who would get the big blue roan ridden by the son of the chief of the Crow. Yellow Blanket, he decided.
The men now set about haltering the horses and tying them in strings for the longer trip home. They broke into teams and he paired with Big Thunder, his best friend. Big Thunder had an overlarge mouth and intent eyes. Big Thunder wore a series of four bear teeth about his neck in a necklace nearly identical to the one Running Wolf wore, for they had come from the same hunt and the same bear.
Big Thunder threw a rope over a large buckskin and Running Wolf quickly fashioned a halter from another rope woven of buffalo sinew.
“Do you remember how we trapped that bear?”
Running Wolf nodded, focusing on tying the halter to the string of ponies already assembled. “It was hungry.”
“There is more than one kind of hunger, my friend.”
Running Wolf’s finger’s stilled and he glanced up at his friend.
“Be careful with that one or she may end up wearing your claws about her neck.”
Chapter Three (#u788af762-822e-5658-9c79-628a81d66882)
For a time, Snow Raven wiggled in the grass like a snake. Then she stopped, saving her energy. The bonds were tight and well tied. Chewing on the rawhide at her wrist had only made her teeth sore. The sunlight warmed her face. Insects buzzed about her and grasshoppers leaped from one grass stalk to another.
She pictured the village as she had last seen it, from the withers of the warrior’s horse. Her brother sprawled bleeding on the ground. She squeezed her eyes shut against the terrible image. Was he alive? Had they killed him because of her?
He had asked her to run. She had disobeyed. Had she traded her grandmother’s life for her brother’s? Snow Raven began to weep. She wept for the lodges toppled like trees before the whirlwinds and for the family she had lost and the brother she had endangered. Shame devoured her. She could live with her capture if she knew he was alive. But to be responsible for the death of her brother was a stone in her heart. She did not think she could bear it.
Her tears washed her cheeks and dried in the sunlight. Snow Raven curled into a ball, encircling her pain as she waited. After a time she realized she was alone, and so she relieved herself in the grass. Then she stood to see where the men had gone. She could hear them, of course, but it was not until she stood that she saw they had taken the forty horses and roped them into five strings of eight. Song, her mount, was there with the others, second in the line behind the black-and-white stallion belonging to the one who had taken her. Running Wolf, that was what the older warrior had called him. He had a wolf on his shield, as well. Wolves had strong medicine.
She found him easily. He stood with the others, but seemed unlike them. Was it his carriage or his size? This was her first real opportunity to look upon him. He stood twenty paces away with the others, and she noted first that he was broad across the shoulders and narrow at the hip. He moved with an easy grace and confidence of one gifted in movement. It explained how he had plucked her from the ground while on horseback and done so as easily as she might pluck a flower from a field.
She did not make any sound, but he turned to her and they stared across the distance. Her skin prickled. Perhaps he had been checking her location at regular intervals. He pointed to her horse as if telling her that he had taken that, as well. She nodded. Not knowing if she should thank him or hurl insults at him.
None of the Sioux cut their forelocks, and that was one of many reasons the warriors of her tribe called them women. But this hairstyle of the Sioux was not feminine in the least. In fact, she found the look of all the warriors elegant and masculine.
Running Wolf wore his long black hair in twin ropes wrapped in the pelts of beaver and tied with long strips of red cloth. His war shirt was decorated in elaborate bands of quillwork in red, green and white. The shirt was not stained with colored clay like the other men wore, but remained a natural tan color with long fringe at the arms and the side seam. Grandmother said the fringe took the rainwater away from the seams, but it was also for show. Over this shirt he wore a breastplate made of a series of long cylindrical white trade beads punctuated with red glass beads and round brass beads. The breastplate could deflect an arrow, if it was not shot at close range.
About his strong neck was a cord of tanned leather threaded through five bear claws. Each claw was separated by a red bead. She could not see his leggings or moccasins but had seen both while hanging over his saddle like a dead buck. Beneath his war shirt, she knew he wore his medicine bundle. All warriors did. Inside were the sacred objects that helped protect him. Each warrior was different, so each bundle was different and private. Her own brother would not even tell her what lay inside his, but he was never without it.
The warrior started toward her, his stride long and sure. He had the confidence of leadership. Were he not the war chief, she was certain that he would have held some other position of authority. It was clear that all respected him, even the older warrior, Yellow Blanket, who had advised him to let her go.
Running Wolf continued forward with such intent aim that she thought he might better be called Stalking Wolf.
He stared at her with fixed attention so that for a moment it seemed as if the rest of the prairie did not exist. She met his gaze, noticing the fine strong angle of his jaw and the broad chin. His elegant nose bisected his symmetrical features showing flaring nostrils that reminded her of a horse at full gallop. His brows peaked in the center as if she was some puzzle he must solve. She liked the shape of his eyes and the way that they were bright and dark all at once.
He drew closer and she noticed something else—the buzz of energy that seemed to shimmer between them, like the waves of heat off rocky places in the summer. The tension began in her belly and pulled outward until she had to clench her fists against the need to lift her arms in welcome. He would not let her go free, and for one ridiculous moment she was glad.
This made no sense. He had captured her. She should spit at him or hurl insults or weep and tear her hair. Instead, she stood and stared like a lovesick calf. He had captured her. Was that what made him different than other men, or was there some other reason for the tingling sensation of her skin?
Would he really keep her or would he turn her over to someone else? In her tribe, her father let the warriors keep what they captured and distribute possessions as they saw fit.
He stopped very close. She had to tilt her head to look at him. He frightened her, this wolf of a man. But she also wondered if her fate would be better with this man than with any other among his warriors. Certainly it would be better than with the one who tried to strike her. The one she had knocked to the ground.
She smiled in satisfaction at the memory and heard his intake of breath.
She knew the possible fates that awaited her at his village. She knew that her test of endurance had only just begun. She lifted her bound hands between them, but kept herself from laying them on his chest.
“How are you called?” he asked.
His voice resonated in her, rumbling through her chest like a roll of thunder. She pressed her clasped hands to her chest, squeezing tight to hold on to her courage.
“Snow Raven.”
“That is not a name for a woman.” He frowned as he swept her with his gaze. “But it suits you, for you are not like any woman that I have ever met. You are causing trouble, you know. No one knows what to do with you. Some say you will steal a horse and run, but then we would catch you and you would die. Some say they would like to ride you as you rode that gray mare.”
That prospect frightened her more than death. She did not want to be debased and used in such a manner. She squeezed her eyes shut at the images now assaulting her mind.
“Ah,” he said. “So you do feel fear. For a time I thought you were immune to such emotions.”
She looked at him now. “A warrior does not admit to fear.”
“But a woman does. She cries and uses her tears to gather sympathy. Yet you do not.”
“Would that work?”
“It would make you less interesting. And you are very interesting.”
“I do not want your interest.”
He laughed. “Then, you should not have unseated one of my warriors. Who was the old woman?”
“My grandmother, Truthful Woman.”
“She will not be happy at your sacrifice.”
“She raised me and I love her. I could do no less.”
“Apparently you are alone in that, because none of the other women even slowed down. They ran like rabbits.”
“That is what they are expected to do. To flee, so the men can fight.”
“Yet you did not do so. So you are brave but not wise.”
Raven made no reply.
“You can ride and you carry a bow. Can you shoot?”
“I do not think I should tell you what I can do.”
“Hunt?”
She found herself nodding.
He smiled and her stomach twisted. His smile was dazzling, bright and beautiful, making him suddenly seem approachable and even more handsome. She gritted her teeth against the attraction. He was a Sioux snake, enemy to the Large-Beaked Bird people.
“I like to hunt,” he said. “I once brought down an elk with seven points.”
“Nine,” she said, and then pressed her joined hands before her mouth. Why had she told him that?
“Nine? I have never even seen an elk with nine points.”
“Because you stay in the grasses instead of venturing into the mountains.”
He nodded. “That is true, because this is Sioux land.” His smile was gone. “You left your mountains and ventured into our territory. We cannot allow that, Snow Raven. Your chief knew this and still he put your people in harm’s way.”
“My...chief is wise and brave.” Had she almost said her father? She must stop and think before she spoke. It was a skill all warriors cultivated. Yet she went blathering about with the first thing that popped into her head.
“Brave, yes. Just as you are. And you must continue to be brave when the women in my village welcome you.”
She looked at her bound hands. “Will you cut my bonds so I can defend myself?”
“No.”
Why had she thought he would?
“Because if you harm any of them, they will kill you.”
“So I am to let them beat me?”
“What choice do you have?”
She was about to say that he could prevent it. But she could not bring herself to ask his help.
“When?”
“Tomorrow by sunrise. I will put you on your horse but I will have to tie you to the saddle. Do not fall asleep.”
“I will not.”
He smiled again. “Very good, Snow Raven. Eat this.” He passed her a long piece of jerked meat. “Then go to the spring and drink all you can. We ride all night.”
He leaned down and untied the binding that held her feet together. She considered kicking him and running, but a glance told her that the other warriors watched the proceedings. They could not see their war chief now as he disappeared from their view into the tall grasses. But she had no chance of escape. The men had all the horses and running about like a prairie chicken was a waste of energy.
She did as he bid her, eating and then drinking. She even walked past the men on her return. Her horse nickered a greeting. She mounted unassisted and waited as Running Wolf tied her bound hands to the pommel of her saddle. She would not be able to drop to the ground and vanish in the darkness. At least the saddle was comfortable.
Her brother had made the wooden shell specifically to fit this horse and Snow Raven’s smaller frame. It had a high pommel and high cantle so she could hook her leg over the back of the saddle and hold the front while hanging on the side of her mount. This position was ideal for creeping up on deer. Her brother had taught her and said he used the same position to make it harder for the Sioux to shoot him from his horse. She and her grandmother had made the buckskin covering. She was especially proud of the series of brass tacks decorating the front pommel. Raven realized with some sorrow that this saddle, the buffalo-skin saddle blanket and the horse were no longer hers. She, herself, was no longer hers. From this day forward until the day she died or was rescued, she belonged to the enemy.
Running Wolf finished tying her, giving her enough lead that she could move her hands midway to her face. It was a boon that she did not deserve. She recalled her brother speaking of the capture of Sioux women. They ran behind the horses or were tied like meat behind the saddle. They were given no food and water. Until this moment she had seen nothing wrong with such treatment of enemies.
The party set out through the long grass. Raven already missed the forest they had left behind. She paid close attention to the path of the sun. She did not know how the warriors knew the way to their tribe, for the grass looked much the same in every direction. All about them was high buffalo grass and scrub brush and more grass. Rolling hills that stretched out to the setting sun.
They passed a large mound covered with prairie dogs that chirped and clucked and vanished at their passing. They flushed grouse but none of the men shot at the retreating birds. She saw pronghorn in the distance moving away from them. She glanced forward to see Running Wolf glancing back at her.
“Do you wish you had your bow?” he asked.
“Yes.” Oh, yes. But she would not use it on the pronghorn.
He lifted a brow as if trying to gauge her intent from her reply.
The Sioux continued until the receding light made riding too dangerous. It was easy for a horse to step in a hole and break a leg. The men dismounted, ate and drank. They walked and stretched and relieved themselves. Running Wolf allowed her down to relieve herself, as well. She was glad for the darkness but still embarrassed. He said nothing to her as she remounted and he tied her back to the saddle. But his hands lingered longer than necessary over hers and his thumb brushed the back of her hand in a secret caress. His touch did strange things to her skin and the speed of her heart. How could so small a gesture make her feel so much?
Her reaction shamed her. This was the enemy of her people. The man who had unseated her brother and destroyed their fishing camp. She straightened in the saddle and looked down her nose at him.
The corner of his mouth quirked and he walked away.
The men gathered in a circle to talk and wait for the moon to rise enough to make travel possible. She listened to them repeat tales of their exploits. The men seemed to have forgotten about her and she again considered trying to turn the entire line of eight horses. She knew Song would respond to the pressure of her legs, moving in any direction she chose. But what would the stallion do? Would he turn and walk beside her mare? She weighed her chances.
She had the darkness in her favor, but the line of horses would make travel very difficult. She did not know the way to go in the dark and there was no cover on this open prairie. She recalled Running Wolf’s promise—that if she ran, she would die. But the darkness was tempting, so tempting.
Soon Hanwi, mother moon, rose in a perfect orange ball of light. Running Wolf rose from the circle of men and the others followed suit. He came to her with that slow, confident step, sweeping through the tall grass. He stopped before her and rested a hand on her right foot, which was still sheathed in her beaded moccasin and stirrup. His grip was strong and possessive.
“Perhaps brave and wise,” he whispered.
Chapter Four (#ulink_51e9a955-3f74-54cc-9377-d3bdffbebcf0)
Running Wolf looked back frequently throughout the night. He did not know if he expected his raven to fall or fly away. But she did neither. He once caught her looking back over her shoulder at the way they had come. But most often she sat straight and relaxed in the saddle as if she was more comfortable astride than with her feet on the ground.
Seeing her straddling that horse filled his mind with a series of sensual images that made riding exceedingly uncomfortable. Even the chilly night air did not lessen his insistent erection.
Running Wolf did not have a wife, though he needed to see to that soon. He had several women who had made their interest known. He did not favor any especially.
As the light of morning streaked across the sky, they reached the river above camp and made the ford.
By the time they arrived at camp and the women began to call, he was irritable beyond his recollection. Boys, roused from their sleeping skins, hurried out, some without their breechclouts because they were in such a rush to see the warriors returning triumphant.
Soon the stolen horses were being paraded about the center of the village, and those warriors who had families were greeted by their relieved wives and excited children. He saw Red Hawk give his wife the string of beads and shells that had caused Snow Raven to return to protect her grandmother and resulted in her capture. As the horses circled, Snow Raven stood tall and proud despite the insults hurled at her.
Running Wolf’s mother, Ebbing Water, made her way to her son to congratulate him on leading his first raid. She was a solid woman and still very useful. He did not know why she chose not to marry again after his father’s death ten winters past, for she was attractive for an older woman and more than one man had made his interest known. His father had died in battle and his mother held a simmering hatred for all things Crow.
“I see you bring a captive,” said Ebbing Water. “Who took her?”
“I did.”
She did not hide her shock. “You?”
“She is in your care until Iron Bear decides what to do with her.”
She smiled. “I know what to do with her.” Ebbing Water drew out her skinning knife. Running Wolf was out of the saddle and standing in front of his mother before she had time to turn.
“I do not want her scarred.”
She lifted her brows. “She is an enemy.”
“No.”
Ebbing Water studied her son for a long moment. He tried not to shift or fidget under her scrutiny. Did she recognize that he found this captive beautiful...fascinating? Mothers could tell such things with just a look. His mother made a noise in her throat and then turned toward Snow Raven.
Running Wolf had to force himself not to follow. What came next was for the women. The men would only bear witness.
Ebbing Water shouted louder than the other women and called the men to halt the horses. She walked to Snow Raven and quickly sliced the cord that tied her to the saddle. Running Wolf knew how stiff and sore his captive must be. Unlike his men, she had not been allowed off her horse since he’d tied her there late last night.
So when Ebbing Water dragged Snow Raven to the ground, his captive lost her balance and went down. That was all it took for the wolves to close in. The women circled her as the men led the string of horses away.
He heard the curses and saw them spitting on his captive. He watched the vicious kicks and hoped Snow Raven was wise enough to roll into a ball and protect her head. Some women brought sticks to beat this Crow woman while others used their fists.
They tore at her war shirt and ripped the medicine wheel from her hair. They peeled her from her leggings and dragged off her shirt and tore off her moccasins. He could see her seated, knees to chest, as the insults continued and the blows grew wilder.
He did not mean to act.
Even as he called out he told himself to be silent. But still he shouted his mother’s name. She looked to him and he shook his head.
His mother stepped between the captive and the hive of women buzzing and striking like hornets. She called a halt and shooed them off. Gradually they left Snow Raven, dressed only in her loincloth, sitting in the dirt. The fur that wrapped her hair had been ripped away with the strands of shells and her face was bloody and bruised. They had taken everything of value. But she was alive.
He watched as she rose, coming to stand with her bare feet planted and her chin up. Her lip was bleeding. So was her nose. Her hair, once so beautiful and wild, was now a mass of snarls and tangles. Her body, which he had so longed to see, gave him physical pain to witness. Her breasts showed scratches and welts. Purple bruises began to show on her shoulder and thighs.
Yet still she stood as if she was war chief.
It made him feel small and angry. Why had she returned for her grandmother? Why couldn’t she have run? Then, he would not have this trouble or these confusing feelings.
Ebbing Water grasped Snow Raven’s bound hands and tugged her toward their lodge. His captive walked on slim feet, now covered with dust and mud. Her legs were long and smooth and muscular. Running Wolf watched until they were out of sight. Only then did his thoughts return to some semblance of normalcy.
He saw that the horses were watered and then oversaw their hobbling so the new arrivals could graze. They staked the stallions, for they did not want the newcomers fighting with the established leader. That would come in time, for each herd could have only one leader, the strongest. So was the way of the world. Running Wolf must be the strongest if he were to serve his people.
The women had killed a village dog in preparation for the feast to celebrate their return, and he and the other warriors went to the river to bathe away the taint of the enemy. Afterward they went to the council lodge.
The open door of the chief’s lodge was an indication that they were expected. Red Hawk called a greeting and their chief, Iron Bear, replied, welcoming them. The illness that wasted Iron Bear’s flesh now resonated in his voice, which was so changed, Running Wolf nearly did not recognize it.
When Running Wolf entered, Red Hawk had already taken the place beside Black Cloud, the last in the semicircle of the council of elders and the closest place available to their chief. The elders were all great warriors who now served to help lead their people and no longer went on raids. Still, Running Wolf would not care to fight any of them, for despite their age, they were strong. They formed a half circle, and the returning warriors completed the circle.
Iron Bear greeted each man by name. Their chief was seated by a low fire, though the month of the ripening moon was mild and the days warm and bright. This was the first time that their leader had not come to greet them, and now he huddled beneath a buffalo robe like the old man he had rapidly become.
Iron Bear had once been fierce and feared by all his enemies. Now he was unsteady on his feet and his color was bad. Even his eyes were turning an unnatural yellow. Still, he led their tribe with wisdom. But all knew he would not lead for long. A new leader must soon be chosen.
Across from the old chief sat Turtle Rattler, the shaman of their people. Turtle Rattler was much older than Iron Bear but looked youthful by comparison. True, his face was deeply lined and his hair streaked with gray, but his color was a good natural russet. He had ceased his chanting upon their arrival. He wore a medicine shirt that sported two vertical bands of porcupine quills. The adornments had been carefully dyed in green, brown and white before being flattened, soaked and meticulously sewn by his long-time captive into a skillful pattern.
Turtle Rattler had worked very hard to restore the chief to health but confided to Running Wolf that at night the chief’s spirit already ventured onto the Ghost Road. It would not be long, he said, for the chief’s water smelled sweet and he had no appetite. He seemed to be shriveling up before them like a bit of drying buffalo meat in the sun.
All were seated—the elders across from the entrance and the youngest warriors closest to the opening as was proper. The buffalo skin held the heat and the air was stifling. Many of the warriors began to sweat in their war shirts, yet their chief continued to shiver in the warm air.
The coyote staff was passed to Running Wolf. As war chief it was his honor to speak first, and only he would speak until he passed the elaborately beaded staff that held the skull of the clever trickster, coyote. Running Wolf briefly relayed their victory and the number of horses they had taken. He spoke of the brave deeds of his men and the clever theft of livestock, giving credit to Weasel. He considered mentioning Red Hawk’s defiance of his orders to take no captives, but he decided this would only bring more animosity between them.
He passed the coyote staff to Big Thunder, who had no such qualms. He relayed what he had seen.
Red Hawk shifted in his place and his expression became stormier. It was obvious that he could not wait for his turn with the talking stick. But as the stick had begun with Running Wolf, he had to wait and wait. He would, however, get the last word. Since it was so hot, many of the men chose to simply pass the staff along. At last Red Hawk gripped the talking stick.
“This woman dresses like a man. She rides like a man and carries weapons like a man. She is unnatural—a witch. She should be killed as quickly as possible.”
“Who captured this Crow woman who fights like a man?” asked Iron Bear.
All eyes turned to Running Wolf.
“Ah, our new war chief. That is well.”
The chief turned to Running Wolf. “Do you think this woman is a witch?”
Running Wolf did not need the stick, for when asked a question it was only polite to answer. “She could not escape her bonds. She could not fly from her horse like a bird or shift into a coyote and dart into the grass. She is just a woman.”
Red Hawk extended his hand. The stick made its journey to him.
“This captive is young. She should be made a common woman. There are many men in need of relief who are yet too young to provide for a wife.”
His chief frowned. “The captive belongs to the captor. If Turtle Rattler determines that she is not a witch, then let Running Wolf do as he likes with her.”
Running Wolf squeezed his eyes shut for a moment as the relief struck him like a kick in the gut. When he opened them it was to find all staring at him; some looked expectant, hopeful. Did they all want to have their turn with her? The notion filled him with a surging of white-hot rage, and he set his jaw to keep from revealing the strange, unwelcome emotions. Why was it so hard to consider sharing her? She was only a woman, an enemy.
Yet she was more. His heart knew it; his body knew it. Only his mind rebelled.
What was he to do with his captive? How to keep her safe, exclusively his and still appear the war chief?
Running Wolf opened his mouth to say that he would leave the decision up to Iron Bear. But instead he found himself saying, “I would give her to my mother.”
The chief’s brow wrinkled. “Your mother has never needed help caring for her lodge, and you have kept her cooking pot full. Why do you think she needs a woman to help her?”
“I will keep her cooking pot full for as long as the Great Spirit allows. But I am considering a wife and so will be leaving my mother’s tepee. I am afraid she will be lonely.”
“She could take a husband,” said Iron Bear. “It is past time.”
He thought so, too, but when he’d said as much to his mother, her fury had been like the whirlwinds.
Running Wolf nodded. “If she wishes.”
“Now it is time to smoke,” said their shaman.
The pipe was lit and passed. The men talked and joked. Everyone wanted Weasel to again wear the headpiece made from the mane of a black horse. Once the roached hair was tied to his head he looked so much like the Crow warriors that Running Wolf was not surprised he had fooled the young boys watching the herd. With meat for the dogs and a costume designed to deceive, Weasel had walked right among the horses of the Crow.
Running Wolf would normally have found pleasure in the ritual of smoking the sacred tobacco and having an opportunity to hear stories of their success retold for the members of the council of elders. But now he saw the stories as an endless delay that kept him from where he truly wanted to be.
Where was Snow Raven and what was happening to her?
Turtle Rattler had kept the men from her, for now, but what about the women?
Finally the men dispersed, but just before he took his leave, the chief called out to him. Running Wolf gritted his teeth at the delay as Red Hawk swept out the circular door. He caught the eye of Big Thunder and motioned his chin toward Red Hawk. His friend nodded and followed after Red Hawk as Running Wolf sat close to the chief, who now extended his hands to the fire.
He motioned to the upright feathers on Running Wolf’s head. The eagle feathers each carried a red bar, marking his success at killing six warriors in battle. Had he stopped to kill Bright Arrow by slitting his throat or taking his scalp, he would have earned an additional feather, notched for this new coup. But he had chosen to take the woman rather than kill the man.
“I think Weasel has earned a feather for his stealth.”
Running Wolf smiled and nodded.
“And you have led your first successful raid. It is my wish to mark your success with this.” He withdrew an eagle feather topped with tufted white downy feathers and the hair from the tail of a white horse that once belonged to Iron Bear. “I will present it formally at the feast, but I wanted to tell you that it was given to me by Kicking Buffalo after my first successful raid.”
“I am honored,” said Running Wolf, feeling the glow of pride. This was what he wanted, to lead his people. To earn coups with brave deeds. To walk the Red Road as the Creator intended and to bring honor to his people. One day soon he would earn enough feathers to have his own war bonnet, and later, perhaps a coup stick fluttering with a hundred feathers.
“Before you go, I would like to ask you a question.”
Running Wolf leaned forward, anxious for some new quest, another opportunity to prove his worth. He was war chief of his tribe, a great honor. But soon the council of elders would be faced with a dilemma. They must choose the chief’s successor. He knew he was young, but both Black Cloud and Yellow Blanket had told him he was being considered. Red Hawk and Walking Buffalo were, as well.
“Yes, my chief?”
“You say you wish to take a wife. Have you chosen a woman?”
“I have not.” Even as he said this, he realized he should have reflected on why Iron Bear was asking this before he answered. A leader needed to consider his words more carefully.
“The choice of wife is an important one. She must not only warm your blankets and keep your fires. She must make your home from the best buffalo robes you can provide her and she must be strong to bear your children. Most important, she must act as adviser. For though many pretend that decisions are made by the council of elders, we all know that they do not act without considering the opinions of all and, most especially, their wives.”
This was true, so why did Running Wolf feel a rising uncertainty at the direction this conversation had taken?
“My daughter, Spotted Fawn, is young, but she is a good woman, modest and hardworking. And although her mother is gone, she has learned much from my second wife, Laughing Moon. She knows what it means to be the daughter of a chief. Her mother bore me five children, three of them sons. I believe that Spotted Fawn will also bear her husband strong children.”
Running Wolf glanced toward the door. Two days ago he would have gladly taken the chief’s daughter. Before the raid he firmly believed that one woman was much like another. One might be comely and another a better cook. But all and all, they were just women.
Now he felt differently.
An ache gnawed at the pit of his stomach. Why had he ever pulled that woman onto his saddle?
The chief continued on, failing to notice Running Wolf’s distraction. “I would ask that you consider her for your wife, for I would like to see her wed to a good man before I walk the Ghost Road.”
“Your daughter is a virtuous woman. Any man among us would be lucky to call her wife.”
Iron Bear smiled, his withered face now as wrinkled as a dried buffalo berry. “Make it soon, son.”
Running Wolf nodded and took his leave. What had he just done?
Chapter Five (#ulink_44bcecad-9ff4-5d08-bdce-e2450bde2714)
Snow Raven followed the mother of Running Wolf toward her tepee. The warriors had succeeded in their raid, and that meant a feast of celebration and dancing. If the Sioux custom was similar to the Crow, their deeds would be told by one who witnessed and not the one who performed the coup, for to do otherwise was boastful.
She wiped the blood from her lip and pinched her nose to stem the flow. By the time they had reached the large conical tepee, she had stanched the worst of the bleeding.
She ignored the cuts and the dull ache of the bruised tissue that seemed to cover her body. Even with her focus on her injuries she could not help but still at the sight of the lodge before her. The bottom of the tanned buffalo hide was ringed in a red band. Above this band were drawings of battles. She recognized Running Wolf immediately from his spotted horse. She circled the conical base with slow, measured steps. Ebbing Water smiled with pride as Snow Raven leaned forward to peer at the unfolding story of many battles.
Running Wolf had killed two Crow in this battle using his lance. Suddenly she thought of her brother again and wondered if he had survived.
She moved along, the ache in her muscles now reaching her heart. He had killed four in the next battle and stolen three horses. According to the next drawing he had captured seven eagles in a single hunt and also trapped and killed a wolf. Had that been that his vision quest?
Near the top by the smoke flaps appeared a wolf again. She knew how difficult a wolf was to fool, and this feat truly impressed. But all served to remind her that he was a formidable enemy, one she could not trust and in whom she would find no pity. If she where to survive until she was rescued she must be wise and cautious.
Her father would come for her. He would find her. But for the Crow to come out onto this prairie, so far from the protection of the other tribes, was dangerous.
What would her father do?
He must find help among the other Center Camp tribes, she realized.
She might be here a long while. So she must be careful that none here discovered that she was the daughter of Six Elks. If she could only survive until her father came, she would be rescued. Then she could return again to her life as it had always been and would be again.
“You see that my son is the most skilled of hunters. He brings me more furs than I know what to do with. And he has killed many of the evil Crow who try to invade our hunting grounds.” She studied the paintings for a moment longer, and her voice grew sharp. “Enough dawdling. We have a feast to prepare and you have fuel to carry.”
On the plains, there were no trees, so the people used the dried buffalo droppings for fuel. Raven wondered if the women expected her to carry buffalo chips in the nude without moccasins. The answer, she discovered, was yes. When Raven asked if she might have a bit of buckskin to cover herself, the woman laughed.
“You must earn your keep here. If you do as you are told, I will feed you. If you wish a buckskin, perhaps you should kill a buck.”
Raven did not ask for a bow and arrow to do just that.
Ebbing Water gave her a basket and told her not to come back until it was full. On her first journey past the ring of tepees, Snow Raven paused to see if anyone was watching her and found she was alone. Was this some test? A trial to see if she was stupid enough to run with no weapons and no garments to protect her? She knew she would freeze in the cold rains and starve on the long journey.
That was, unless the wolves found her on foot.
She hoisted the basket higher on her bare hip and turned to search for buffalo chips. It was more difficult to walk barefooted through the grass than she had imagined, and it took some time to fill the basket.
As she walked, she braided the tall grasses into a fine rope. When it was long enough, she looked for animal trails through the grass and set her first snare. Before she returned to the camp she set six more. It seemed from the trails she saw that the jackrabbits were plentiful here.
When she stood from laying the final snare it was to find Running Wolf standing within ten paces of her. She gasped with surprise. No one ever crept up on her before. Had she damaged her hearing in the beating?
Her arms went up to cover her breasts and then she stopped herself. Captives had no shame, and she was not embarrassed of her body. Let him see the bruises and cuts.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Your mother would not give me a buckskin. She said if I wanted a hide, I must get my own. So I am.” She motioned to the snare, carefully staked and set to encircle the neck of any rodent foolish enough to use this path.
He stepped nearer and stooped to examine her work. “Well laid.”
He stood close now and her skin began to prickle, as it sometimes did when the thunderbirds charged the air.
Raven reclaimed her basket and held it between them. He turned to go and she headed after him, walking slowly enough so as not to appear to be following. She did not know if another beating awaited her upon her return. And she didn’t know if Running Wolf would prevent one. He had not intervened in the first, so she was doubtful his proximity would help her.
Still, she felt safer with him than alone.
She considered her options. To stay unnoticed she must be submissive and not draw attention. That meant taking any beating.
It went against her very nature.
She was a fighter, and a good one, too. Could she even manage to restrain herself if they came at her again? It had been hard to let them drag her from her horse. It had been hard to curl up like an infant and allow the feet to kick and the hands to claw. But she had done it.
He turned to her before they entered the circle of lodges.
“Stay well behind me. But call out if you need me.”
She waited while he moved well ahead of her, anxious to let him go but relieved he would be close enough to come if she needed him.
It was near sunset, and when he reached the first lodge his skin glowed golden in the failing light. Running Wolf disappeared as he crossed into the circle of tepees. She paused to get her bearings and recall where to find his home. She met two women who laughed and called her Buffalo Chips. She ignored them and continued toward Running Wolf’s tepee.
Before she reached the lodge, Raven felt someone watching her. She looked about and found who spied on her, thinking it would be Running Wolf again, but instead she found a woman and instantly recognized her as another captive.
She wore a dress that was too short to be proper, a dress that held no elk teeth or quillwork or beading with not even the simplest of fringes across the seam. Beyond this, the dress was patched and ill fitting. Her legs were as dirty as Snow Raven’s and her feet were also bare.
She stared at Raven with a hollow expression of one pushed past her limit. Yet still there was a flicker of life behind the dead expression. The woman’s mouth turned down at the corners as she looked at Raven. Bringing a new captive to a tribe could upset the order among the other captives. Raven wanted no trouble. She desired only to remain anonymous and to survive long enough to be rescued.
The woman strode forward and spoke to her in perfect Crow without the accent of the Sioux.
“So they have taken everything from you, too.”
“Not everything,” said Raven.
The woman’s brow quirked in a silent question.
“I still have my life.”
That made the woman smile and nod her approval, as if Raven had passed some sort of test.
“Yes, if you can keep it. You are too pretty and the men will be after you.”
The loss of her virtue was what Raven most feared. Morality was highly prized by her people, except among captives. Their feelings were not considered. That was how it had always been.
Now she was experiencing the opposite side.
She remembered that some of the captives had earned a place. Some had even married into her tribe. She thought of Running Wolf and was horrified at the line of her reasoning. She was the daughter of a chief, the sister of a brave warrior. They would rescue her.
Her head dipped as she realized that even if they did bring her home, all among her people would assume she had been soiled by the Sioux.
The woman spoke again. “You will not last long if you don’t gain one or more protectors.”
“I can protect myself.”
The woman laughed.
“Well, Little Warrior, what about your clothes? How do you plan to earn them?”
“Earn them?”
“Frog went naked for over a moon. They give all of us names. I was called Mourning Dove by my people, but here am called Mouse. They named her Frog for her croaking. There were two of them then, Frog and Fish. Nothing Frog did earned her a scrap. She was old and no one wanted her. Still, she begged to come into each tepee until she found one man who let her in—Turtle Rattler, the shaman. She keeps his fire and says he does not touch her. Fish walked into the snow and died. I did not beg, but neither did I walk into the snow. I took another road and decided that I would have meat and I would have clothing and I would have a tepee of my own. I did what I had to do to earn these things.”
Mouse glared at Raven, daring her to say something. Raven knew what Mouse meant. She was a common woman, used by any who wished to spend time with her. The young men in her tribe had such a female, but some widowers and married men also went to her lodge. Raven did not judge Mouse, for she knew she might suffer the same fate. When one was starving and freezing it was hard to say what one would do. Would she choose to stay alive, like Mouse, or die, like Fish?
“I have set snares to catch rabbits.” Raven motioned toward the prairie.
This earned another smile from the woman. “They will take the meat and the pelts. But there is no harm in trying. How is it that you know how to do such things?”
“My father...” Again Raven nearly said her father’s name. “My father and my brother taught me to hunt and ride.”
“Really? You can hunt?”
Raven nodded, not wishing to appear boastful.
“Can you track game?”
“Of course.”
“Shoot a bow, use a lance?”
Raven did not like the way this conversation had turned.
“Can you read the land and find water?”
“I have done these things,” she offered, “but not on the prairie.”
The woman was now glowing.
“There are others, six now that you have come.” Mouse paused and her gaze dropped with her expression. “Some have been here two winters. Some four. I have been here four. Little Deer nearly froze to death last winter because she was too young to be a common woman. Little Deer has not yet broken her link with the moon. When she does, they will take her to our lodge.”
Four years? Had Raven heard that right? In all that time had no one come for her? Raven felt a little piece of herself die. What if her brother and father could not find her? There were so many tribes of Sioux. Was she like a rock on the prairie, impossible to see unless you stumbled over it?
“I am of the Center Camp Crow, the Shallow Water tribe,” said Mouse.
“I am Snow Raven. I am of the...” But before she could speak, Mouse cut her off.
“Also Center Camp Crow, but from the Low River tribe. Your father is Six Elks.”
Raven’s stomach dropped. Somehow this woman knew her. She could tell the Sioux. Perhaps such information could be valuable. Mouse could trade it for a blanket or food.
“No. I am not.”
“I met your mother at one of the gatherings. I danced with her. I ate with your grandmother, Tender Rain, and listened to your grandfather, Winter Goose, tell stories of the Spirit World. He is your shaman.”
That had been before he and her mother’s mother died of the spotting sickness with so many others. The trappers had come and then the traders and then the many sicknesses. But the spotting sickness was the worst. It was why her father had said they must go. Leave the home they’d had since the beginning of all things.
Raven shook her head. “No, you’ve made a mistake.”
Mouse lifted a fist to her hip. “Why do you say this? You know who you are. I know who you are.”
In desperation, Raven told the truth. “But no one must know. Don’t you see? My only hope is to remain like any Crow captive. If they know, they could kill me or use me to hurt my family.”
“Or trade you and the other captives for some of their own.”
“No. I can’t take that chance.”
The corners of Mouse’s mouth continued to sink. “You cannot take that chance? Are you the daughter of the chief of the Low River tribe or are you not? Are you the granddaughter of the greatest far-looking man our people have ever seen or are you not?”
Her grandfather had been a far-looking man, one with the gift of seeing things before they happened. Snow Raven would give anything for that gift right now. Would she live to taste freedom again? Would this woman use her knowledge to dash any chance she had of survival?
“I used to be those things. But now I am just a captive. My life is no longer my own.”
“But you still long for freedom. We all do. You could lead us. It is in your blood to lead.”
Raven lowered her head, knowing what would happen if she tried. The risk was too great. “If we go, I will lead you to your deaths.”
“Winter is coming,” said Mouse. “Little Deer will not have enough to eat.”
Raven stared at Mouse. “What did she eat the past two winters?”
“Last winter was mild. The one before she stayed with me when I had no men. But this one will be hard and the men will want a woman on cold nights. If she is in my lodge they will take her, too. Snake has a baby. When her milk stops, he will die like the last one.”
Raven pressed her lips tight together against the urge to act. None of this was her fault. It was not her place to intervene. But was it her duty?
Mouse’s face went hard as she stared at Raven. “You ride. I saw you arrive seated on a horse. We can steal horses and you can lead us home.”
“They will catch us and kill us. We must wait for rescue from my father.”
“Wait? I hear the warriors boasting. They come to me with tales of great deeds. Weasel tells of stealing all the horses of your village. Is that true?”
Raven lowered her head. “Yes.”
“So I ask you, without horses, how will they hunt buffalo? And how will they come for you?”
Without horses, they would be wiped out. Suddenly Raven did not want her father to come for her. The cold dread of certainty took hold of her like an icy wind. Her father must look to his people’s survival. He could not waste precious time searching for her.
Mouse waited for an answer. “If he comes on foot, they will kill him.”
For the first time she understood, truly understood what she faced.
“He would be a fool to come, and Six Elks is no fool,” said Mouse.
Even as she recognized the depth of this cold reality, Raven could not relinquish hope. “He will come.”
Mouse snorted. “Do you know that I have a husband and a son? My husband is handsome and kind and loved me very well. Four times seasons have turned, but he has not come for me. Now I still tell myself that he will come, but I fear he has found another. We had a son, Otter. He was four when they took me. If I do not return home to my boy soon, will he even know his mother? I dream of them in my sleep. I think of them when I wake. They are what has kept me alive.”
Raven understood now what she had not before. If she was to find rescue, she must find it herself. Something else crept into her thoughts and she straightened.
“How is your husband called?” asked Raven.
“Three Blankets.”
Raven stilled at the name.
Mouse continued on, not noticing Raven’s shock. “Oh, he is very brave. He had his first eagle feather for slitting an enemy’s throat when he was only sixteen winters old.”
Raven’s hands had gone still, for she knew that Mouse’s son had fallen through ice in the river. Raven had been there in the winter camp when his body was brought back to the village.
The following spring, Mouse’s husband had been killed on a raid led by Far Thunder, the chief of the Shallow Water tribe. She knew because many of her tribe had gone with them, including her brother. They had told of Three Blankets’s brave death and sang at his funeral platform.
Raven opened her mouth to speak but Mouse was talking again.
“Without them, I would have died so many times. They have kept me alive, my husband and my son.”
Raven closed her mouth tight.
“I worry that if he learns what I have done to stay alive, he might not want me. But then I worry about hiding the truth from him. What would you do?”
Mouse looked up at Raven, waiting for her reply. Raven held her tongue as dread made her skin prickle.
“What?” asked Mouse.
“I...I am...” She pressed a hand over her mouth and tried to think what to say.
Mouse’s eyes narrowed and she closed in. “What do you know of my husband? Has he taken another wife?”
“No.”
“Then, why do you look so guilty?” Mouse grasped Raven’s shoulders and gave a little shake. Raven met her gaze. The scowl disappeared. She released Raven and stepped back, now protecting herself from the news by folding her arms before her.
Mouse’s eyes went wide and her face went chalky white as if she already knew. Her next words confirmed Raven’s fears. “What has happened to him?” Her fingers clawed into her hair, holding a fist at each temple. “To my husband. To my son.”
Mouse swayed as if the energy to shout had stolen the last of her strength. She placed a hand on the riverbank.
Raven sank down beside her and spoke in a rush, racing to finish as Mouse blinked up at her. She spoke of the raid and the victory and the losses. How her husband was killed in the raid of the Shallow Water tribe and her son in the icy water.
“I am sorry. They are both gone,” said Raven.
Tears streamed down Mouse’s face and then she threw herself to the ground, curling into a ball. Her cry of agony was terrible to hear.
Raven stayed with her, but she worried that they would be missed and that would make it harder to leave the camp. When Mouse had no more voice to cry she folded into Raven’s arms.
“I have no one now. My sister and mother walked the Way of Souls before me. They died in the spotted sickness winter, the same winter that took your mother from you. My mother-in-law hates me.”
“She’s still alive.”
“Moon Rise is a good swimmer. Why did she not save my son?”
“I do not know. I only remember hearing of your husband and son because I spoke to Moon Rise. She now has no son to hunt for her and must rely on the gifts of others.”
Mouse stood woodenly and began to walk up the bank.
“Where are you going?” asked Raven.
“To the woman’s lodge. Perhaps I will never come out.”
Raven stopped her with a hand. “I am still bringing you home.”
Mouse snorted. “I have no home.”
Raven watched her go and wondered if she had made a mistake. Should she have kept the deaths of Mouse’s family secret until they were safely back with the Crow?
But what if they never reached them? Didn’t Mouse have the right to mourn and pray for her husband and son? Was it her decision to keep the truth from a wife and mother?
Raven hurried back to Running Wolf’s tepee, hopeful that she might sit near the fire.
When Raven reached the lodge, she was received with sharp words from Ebbing Water, who snatched the basket back and sent her to the river to wash the blood from her body. The water stung but she managed. As she was leaving the river, she ran into a group of women who’d come at their customary time to wash. They shouted at her that she could not use this place and must bathe downriver so they did not get the stink of the Crow on them.
Raven hurried back to the tepee and found Running Wolf seated inside. His eyes followed her every movement as she returned to Ebbing Water.
“Can you not cover her?” he asked his mother.
“She must earn her clothing.”
“Cover her while she is inside, then.”
Ebbing Water gave Raven a blanket. The warm rough wool scratched her skin and made her cuts burn. But it took away the chill and soon she was not shivering. She smiled at Running Wolf, but before she could offer her thanks he rose and stalked out, leaving a half-finished bowl of stew beside him. She eyed his leavings eagerly as her stomach gave a loud gurgle. She’d had nothing to eat since Running Wolf gave her a strip of dried buffalo last night.
“He does not want you here,” said Ebbing Water. “So you will sleep outside.”
Ebbing Water turned back to the fire and Raven snatched up the bowl and left the tepee. Had Running Wolf left it intentionally for her?
She sat behind the tepee to gobble down her prize. She knew Ebbing Water would miss her bowl eventually, and placed it just under the base of the tepee, hidden between the outer wall and the inner hanging lining that served to keep out the cold.
In a short time, Ebbing Water left the lodge, closing the flap of hide that covered the circular entrance. Raven knew this was a sign that she didn’t welcome visitors or had gone away. Once she made sure she’d gone, Raven retrieved the bowl, wiped it clean and then placed it with Ebbing Water’s other cooking things.
Raven was going to leave again, but she spotted the rawhide parfleche box covered with brightly colored geometric patterns. Her grandmother kept pemmican in just such a box. Pemmican was portable and could keep her alive. The mixture of fat and pounded dried meat might even contain some dried Saskatoon berries or wax currents.
Such food was meant for traveling and for the long dark nights of the Deep Snow Moon when hunting was hard and game scarce. It might keep indefinitely, as long as it was kept dry and did not mold. But stealing would get her a beating or worse.
She weighed her options.
A weak, starving woman could not fight and she could not survive the winter. She crept forward, untied the soft leather bindings and then lifted the stiff rawhide lid.
Inside sat the pemmican, but they were unlike the long rolls that her grandmother fashioned. Ebbing Water’s food stores looked like flat skipping stones, the size of her fist. They lay one upon the other in no order. Raven wondered if she would know if there was some missing.
She quickly took five and rearranged the top layer to cover their absence. Then she continued out the opening only to find Running Wolf waiting for her. She was caught with the stolen food.
He grasped her arm and several of the pemmican rounds fell at her bare feet.
“So you ride and shoot and fight, and now I find you steal as smoothly as Weasel.”
Would he kill her? He could. Captives had died for less. Raven found it difficult to stand—her legs began to shake and sweat popped out upon her forehead.
She pressed her lips together to keep herself from begging for her life, although that was what she wanted to do.
“Would you slit a man’s throat with the same ease?” he asked.
When she did not answer he tugged her forward so that she fell against his broad chest and felt again the power of his body.
“Why did I ever take you?”
“I do not know.”
He gave her wrist a little shake. “I wish I had killed him.”
“Who?”
“Your war chief.”
Raven shuttered at the thought of her brother’s death earning this man one more eagle feather.
“I would rather have you earn the feather of a gull.”
His eyes widened at this and then went hard. He knew what she was saying. The killing of an enemy woman might earn a gull feather, dipped in red paint. She was saying she would rather die than have him kill her war chief. She met his glare, realizing she had never seen him look so angry.
“Why didn’t you kill me?” she asked, wondering how she even found enough wind to speak. His proximity continued to make her body quake and her stomach quiver. It must be because he was an enemy and because he had the power of life or death over her. It must be that, for the alternative was too terrible to consider.
“Why?” he asked. “I have been asking myself just that same question since I first saw you. The easy answer is because of the way you dressed. But now you have no clothes and still you intrigue me. It cannot be good for you or for me. Perhaps you are a witch, as Red Hawk says.”
That charge was worse than being a common woman. Witches were dangerous. Witches were killed.
“I am no witch,” she whispered.
“I believe you. But my opinion does not matter. You must convince Turtle Rattler.”
“How?”
“I do not know. But you must or you will die.”
He released her and gathered up the food she had stolen. Then he handed it to her. “Are you going to eat it?”
“No. Hide it.”
“Then, do it. And come with me.”
Chapter Six (#ulink_a23aba78-6eaf-51a7-a5c1-dad7b1dece8c)
The evening breeze brushed Running Wolf’s face. How much colder was it on her bare skin? he wondered as he watched her dress with the loincloth and draped buckskin he’d handed her across her shoulders.
“Come,” he commanded, and turned and walked before her because it was unseemly for her to walk beside him as an equal. As he went, he listened for her tread and could hear only the whisper of her feet upon the grass. It was better to have her behind him, for then he did not have to look at her perfect form or the angry bruises that covered her skin like the spots on his horse.
When he was away from her he knew what to do. Everything was clear. He would be generous and offer his captive to the one in the village who needed her help the most. Perhaps an old woman whose hands were knotted like the trunks of old cottonwood trees. Or to a young mother who had several children to look after. That would be charitable.
What he would not do was make her a common woman.
The thought of her lying beneath man after man made him sick. With Snow Raven, he felt possessive, and that was not the way of his people.
But when he was with this enemy captive he began to notice the fine curve of her shoulder and how her breasts were high, firm and round. He noticed the way she walked and the subtle sway of her hips that was not meant to be seductive, but still was more enticing than any female he had ever seen.
He led Raven to the tepee of Turtle Rattler and called a greeting. The shaman bid him enter and Running Wolf ducked inside, then motioned to Snow Raven to enter. As he took his place beside the shaman, he glanced at the small frail woman with hair streaked with gray. He had never noticed her before, though he knew she had been here on each of his visits. Now he watched her intently, a captive that he recalled Turtle Rattler had admitted to his lodge on her first winter.
It occurred to Running Wolf that she and Snow Raven might know each other or even be from the same tribe. He had been there at the taking of this woman. There were two, but they had not been taken in a raid, so Running Wolf did not recall the tribe.
After the formal greetings were exchanged, Running Wolf turned to the reason for his visit.
“I have brought my captive,” said Running Wolf. My captive, he had said. Not the
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Jenna Kernan
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: RIVAL TRIBES…Running Wolf is a valiant Sioux warrior. During his first raid as war chief he captures a surprising Crow enemy – a woman! This spirited fighter is unlike any he’s ever met. Her beauty and audacity are entrancing, but they threaten his iron resolve…… RIVAL PASSIONSSnow Raven must focus on freeing herself – not on the man who keeps her captive. But as she falls deeper under Running Wolf’s spell she realises he is her warrior… and she’ll risk everything for him!