Cheyenne Caress Page 3

  Chapter Two

  Luci stopped struggling and looked back up at him. She suddenly realized from the heat of his gaze how her nakedness had affected him.

  “Star Eyes, you have the most beautiful breasts . . .” He seemed to be fighting for self-control, battling an impulse to lift her up so that his lips could taste her nipples.

  Now was her chance. In one abrupt move, she jerked away from him, ran to the door, flung it open, and looked out uncertainly as the cold gust blew in.

  He sighed loudly behind her. “Small One, close the door. You have my word I won’t lay a hand on you.”

  “The worthless word of a Pawnee!” she sneered, but she couldn’t stop her teeth from chattering.

  He got up, grabbed a blanket, and came over to where she stood. While she tried to decide whether to run out the door naked, he reached out, slammed the door, and wrapped the blanket around her.

  “It’s too cold to stand here fussing in the doorway,” he said gently. “Now come back to the fire and have some coffee. You hungry?”

  Tears ran unchecked down her face. Her mother’s death had caused a pain of grief deep inside that wouldn’t stop hurting. She was also starving. She’d had nothing but a little corn pone all afternoon. “No! I eat no Pawnee’s scraps!”

  He shrugged and went over to the fire. “Too bad. I’ve got a big hunk of beef I roasted this morning. I’m going to have some with my coffee and leftover biscuits.”

  She stood there uncertainly, watching him fix himself a tin plate, smelling the coffee and food. “I–I suppose you intend to humble and humiliate me-make me beg for it.”

  He looked at her a long moment in the firelight. Then he fixed a second tin plate and put it on the cot. “It’s there; eat it. Don’t expect me to beg you.”

  For a long moment she hesitated, watching him eat. Her grief was deep and hurting. But she was also hungry and cold. The food and the fire drew her closer.

  She wondered for a long moment if she looked as sad and forlorn as she felt. “Is there-is there sugar for the coffee?” Sugar was a delicacy that she and her mother could never afford.

  In answer he reached over, dumped two spoonfuls into a cup, poured the coffee in it, and set it next to the tin plate.

  She thought of Sunrise Woman. Her mother wouldn’t want her to accept food from a hated enemy. Even when her mother had been drinking, she would have nothing to do with a Pawnee. Her mother had pride, Luci thought sadly, perhaps more than her daughter had.

  The big scout turned away, sat down on a stool before the roaring fire, and went back to his plate of food.

  Perhaps he wouldn’t notice if she sneaked just a few bites behind his back.

  Quietly she tiptoed over, sat down on the cot, and pulled herself into a little ball inside the blanket. He didn’t look around. Was she being a traitor, taking his food? The only person in the world who had loved her lay dead over at the trading post and here she sat, wolfing down the enemy’s beef. Her grief was nothing compared to her guilty conscience, but she couldn’t stop herself from eating. The coffee was very hot and sweet. Luci warmed her cold, red fingers around the mug and sipped it.

  The scout finished eating and sat drinking his coffee, staring into the fire. Luci savored the taste, wondering what to do about her mother. She couldn’t go back over there, not with her mother lying dead in the storeroom. The Cheyenne always burned the lodge and personal belongings of the dead, but she knew she couldn’t set fire to the trading post without getting into trouble. Besides they had been so poor, there were no personal possessions to burn.

  He got up slowly and Luci cowered back against the wall behind the cot, clutching the coffee mug in both work-worn hands. But he only came over, poured more coffee for her, put sugar in it.

  “Hahoo,” she whispered, then said it in English. “Thank you.”

  “Well, it’s a start,” he muttered. “At least you aren’t spitting at me.” He seemed to see the fear in her eyes as he reached out with his free hand, hesitated, dropped his arm to his side. She had a distinct feeling that he had been about to touch her face.

  She stared at him while pretending not to. He was so big and muscular and naked except for that brief loincloth. Now that he had eaten, would he rape her? She was almost too exhausted and saddened to care. But she couldn’t keep the tears from overflowing as she looked up at him.

  “For God’s sake, stop that!” he snapped. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “What kind of Pawnee are you?” She didn’t try to hide the contempt she felt. “You act and talk more like a white man.”

  “And you are arrogant and rude as any white girl,” he retorted, “not soft-spoken and shy as is proper in an Indian maiden of any tribe.”

  The insult stung a little because her mother had often admonished her that she needed to learn better manners if a Cheyenne warrior were to ever want her for a wife. Thinking of her mother again, Luci began to weep softly, unsure if she wept for her mother or for herself.

  He hesitated as if uncertain what to do next. “Here, one of my shirts is big enough to cover you.” He tossed her a butter-soft deerskin shirt, and as she watched, he reached for his pants.

  She clutched the shirt against the blanket and watched him dress. “Where are you going?”

  “It’s not long ’til dawn,” he answered as he continued to dress. “There’ll be things to be taken care of–”

  “I don’t want to go back over there.” She was in a panic, not wanting to see her mother dead, wanting to remember her as Sunrise Woman had been the few good times they had had.

  “I’ll take care of things,” he said gently. “It looks as if it’s almost stopped snowing. Maybe we can have the burial at dawn. That would be fitting because of her name.” He put on his coat then paused with his hand on the doorknob.

  She couldn’t keep from weeping at the thought. “I don’t know what will become of me now.”

  “Get some sleep,” he whispered. “When I go over there, I’ll bring you a dress.”

  “I–I don’t own another,” she said, shame-faced.

  She felt the pity in his gaze. “Maybe one can be bought at the trading post.”

  “Mercy! I have no money for that. I–I don’t even have money for a burial.”

  His face betrayed nothing. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be back after awhile.”

  When he left, she slipped into the oversized deerskin shirt, marveling at how big it was. It came halfway down her thighs while the sleeves completely covered her fingertips. She wore an enemy’s clothes. Perhaps it was just as well her mother hadn’t lived to see Luci’s shame. But it was either that or run about naked, tempting him.

  With her belly full and the room growing warmer, she snuggled down under the blanket and put her head on his pillow. The slight masculine scent of him was on the pillow when she put her face against it. She would not sleep. She would only lie here until she got warm. Then before he returned, she would leave his quarters.

  Where would she go? There really wasn’t anyplace to run. She and Sunrise Woman had been at this fort only a few days and knew no one. Luci had not had much rest since her mother had become ill. Now exhaustion and grief descended on her although she struggled to keep her eyes open. The big Pawnee wanted to sleep with her; she knew that by the way he looked at her. She would not do that, of course. As she yawned and snuggled deeper into the pillow, she wondered suddenly how it would feel to sleep in his arms with her face on that wide chest. She would rather die first.

  She came awake in an instant at the creak of the door, but she did not move. If only she had her mother’s knife, but she had dropped that in the struggle on the parade ground.

  Who was in the room? She tensed but lay still, ready to fight to defend her virginity. She opened one eye and peeked. It was the big Pawnee. He looked down at her a long moment, then he picked up another blanket and spread it over her gently. His fingertips brushed along her hair almost as if he were reluctantly caressing
her.

  Luci sat up in bed suddenly. “Don’t touch me, scout! Did you think to take me unawares before I could do anything about fighting you off?”

  He smiled wryly. “I told you I wouldn’t hurt you. If I decided to force myself on you, you wouldn’t have much chance of fighting me off.”

  That was true. The fact of her vulnerability and helplessness made her angry, and she got up and went over to sit on the stool before the fire.

  He held out a bundle. “I got you a dress. I’ve also made burial arrangements. The snow’s let up but I figure it’ll start back up again heavy later today by the way the sky looks.”

  She would not take a gift from this killer of her people, and yet she could hardly go around in his shirt. The frustration of her situation brought tears to her eyes.

  He lay the bundle next to her. “Old Mr. Bane gave it to you.”

  He was lying, she thought, knowing she would not, could not, take a gift from a Pawnee. She picked it up, opened it, ran her work-worn hands in wonder over the blue-flowered cotton. “Mercy! It’s the most beautiful dress I ever saw!”

  “I thought of the color of your eyes,” he blurted, and then he cleared his throat and spoke matter-of-factly. “It was the only ready-made dress he had.”

  She knew that was a lie. When she was cleaning for Mr. Banes, she had seen that rack of women’s dresses. “I–I never had a new dress before.”

  “You’re too pretty to have to wear some white woman’s castoffs.”

  That reminded her then how she would be expected to repay the scout for the dress. Well, she’d fool him. She’d take in extra washing and pay him back so she wouldn’t obligated in any way.

  “I’ll go outside so you can change,” the scout said. “Later the army has found a small quarters for you.”

  “In exchange for what?” she asked sharply. “If some young officer thinks I’m going to warm his bed and take care of his needs as my mother did until he goes back East–”

  “You know I wouldn’t let that happen.” His voice sounded sharp and threatening, as if the idea annoyed him.

  “I’m not a whore to be bought and paid for.” She swallowed hard. “Especially not by a Pawnee. I’d rather sleep out in the cold and freeze to death.”

  “We’ll talk about that later.” He paused in the doorway, “I’ll wait outside for you to dress.”

  She had no underwear, but she put on the dress and took his comb from the bureau, rebraided her hair, and washed the tearstains from her face. Her moccasins were worn ragged, but she had nothing else.

  When he came back in, he stood looking at her a moment. “Small One, you are even more beautiful than I imagined in that dress. I’ll take care of final details. When I come back, we’ll have the burial.”

  She was too sad to do anything but slump on the stool and stare into the fire until he returned.

  “Luci, do you have a coat?”

  She was too embarrassed even to look at him as she shook her head. “We were so poor and Sunrise Woman drank . . .”

  “You don’t owe me any explanation.” He draped his own coat over her shoulders and took her arm. “They are ready for the burial.”

  “You’re going with me?” Somehow she had not expected this.

  “If you don’t want me to–”

  Luci shrugged. “What does it matter? Sunrise Woman won’t know.”

  He took one of her small, work-worn hands, looked at it a long moment, and frowned before draping it through his arm. “No girl should have to work so hard.”

  “We had to eat.” And there had been her mother’s drinking. Luci had tried to save for a dress, thinking that if she ever did find her father, she wanted to look pretty. But that dream had died a long time ago. What a twist of fate. When she finally did get a nice dress, it had been paid for by an enemy and bought to wear to a funeral.

  They went out and Johnny Ace led her to his big, black stallion, held out his hands to her. She hesitated a long moment.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Katis is gentle with women.”

  She wondered suddenly if his master was. “Katis? That’s a strange name for a horse.”

  “It’s Pawnee; means ‘black.’ ”

  Luci decided she didn’t want his hands on her waist, so she struggled up into the saddle alone.

  He didn’t say anything, just led the horse across the parade ground, out through the fort gates where two soldiers waited with a horse-drawn wagon. On the wagon was a newly made wood coffin. She had been so afraid they were only going to wrap her mother in burlap bags and throw her in a hastily dug hole. She wouldn’t ask who had paid for the coffin. She was certain she already knew.

  The sunrise was starkly scarlet on the white snow of the eastern skyline. The soldiers drove the cart out to a windswept rise with a few scattered headstones sticking darkly through the white snow. A grave had been dug already. There was even a wooden marker with her mother’s name and a carving of a sun coming up.

  Johnny reached up his hands to her, but she brushed him aside and dismounted awkwardly in the long skirt. The snow came into her moccasins and she gasped at the cold on her feet as she trudged to where the soldiers were already lowering the wooden box into the freshly dug grave. A tear ran down her face though she struggled to hold it back.

  The scout came over next to her, standing awkwardly with feet wide apart, his hand on the hilt of the knife in his belt. “I–I tried to get the chaplain, but he . . . was off the post.”

  She knew better than that. Probably the man didn’t want to get out in this early cold over a drunken squaw. “It doesn’t matter. Sunrise Woman would have rather done it the way of her people.”

  But of course there was no fine horse to kill on the grave even if the army would have allowed it and she was sure they wouldn’t. Luci would have hated to kill a horse. Still the Cheyenne liked to send possessions and food with the dead.

  The Pawnee walked to the wagon and came back with a small bundle. She recognized her mother’s few pitiful possessions. “Luci, you can do what you want with these.”

  Some of the items Luci really could have used, but she would not have Sunrise Woman start up the Ekutsihimmiyo, the Hanging Road to the Sky, with nothing at all. Luci stepped forward, dropped the pitiful bundle in on top of the box and watched stoically as the bored men began to fill the grave.

  The sun came up slowly as the soldiers heaped the black dirt on the mound. The Pawnee stood with his arms folded. “Do you want to say anything, Luci?”

  “She–she was born at sunrise. That’s how she got her name. Funny, isn’t it?” Luci choked on the knot of grief in her throat and shook her head. If she began to weep, she might not be able to stop and she would not lose her pride before an enemy.

  They stood there in the silent red dawn, the only sound the jingle of the harness and the stamping of the horses. The wind blew about them, and the soldiers, who had gone back to sit on the wagon, muttered under their breath.

  Finally the Pawnee cleared his throat. “Great Father, we return Sunrise Woman to you. She came into this world at sunrise and now she returns to you at that exact same time. It is fitting, maybe, that this should be in completing the cycle of life.”

  He paused awkwardly, looking toward the first rays sparkling briefly on the new snow. “Receive her now as she runs up a sun ray to you and give her the happiness and peace she never found in this life . . .”

  Luci fought the grief that threatened to choke her at his simple, sincere words, but she said nothing.

  Johnny Ace had let his voice trail off awkwardly as if he didn’t know what else to say.

  There was a long period of silence while Luci fought against showing her agony. She did not want an enemy to see her break down. “I wish you would go away and leave me with my dead.”

  She thought he would object, but he only said, “Luci, I’ll leave my horse for you. Don’t stay long–the cold . . .”

  She waved him away, her eyes stinging with t
ears. The soldiers were already mounting their wagon, returning to the fort. The Pawnee stayed a moment longer, then turned and followed the wagon back.

  Luci stood alone on the dreary, windswept prairie, the heaped-up black gumbo dirt at her feet, so stark against the new snow. She was all alone in the world. Now she knew why lobo wolves cried to the dark sky at night. Luci fell to her knees in the snow and raised her voice in a centuries old dirge that Indian women had always wept and wailed when they put a loved one on a burial scaffold and consigned them to Heammawihio, the God who watches over all.

  What she wanted to do was throw herself down on the grave and die with her mother. They had always looked out for each other. She couldn’t leave Sunrise Woman out here all alone. Luci cursed the white soldier who had betrayed the innocent, trusting girl and deserted her. That would never happen to the daughter, she vowed. No, Luci was too smart for that.

  The cold bit into her and she roused herself, mounted up, and started back to the fort at a slow pace. Only when she rode to the gate did she realize the Pawnee had been watching her from a distance.

  She swung down and handed him the reins. “Were you afraid I’d steal your horse?” She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice.

  He looked at her a long moment. “I wasn’t worried about the horse.”

  “Mercy! I can look out for myself. I don’t need a killer of my people to do that!” She was furious with him because she was beholden to him and he was an enemy. “I’ll pay you back for every cent you’ve spent on me.”

  “No need for that.” He fell in walking beside her, his long legs keeping up with her easily as he led the horse across the parade ground.

  “If you think I’ll let you take it out in trade–”

  “Did it ever occur to you that a Pawnee warrior might have too much pride to accept the favors of a Cheyenne girl?”

  She stopped and confronted him. “They’ve certainly raped enough of them!”

  “As Cheyenne warriors have raped our women.”

  “Our women!” she raged then turned away and started walking toward the trading post again. ”You’re not even a real Pawnee, Johnny Ace. Everyone knows about the white boarding school. I hear the other Pawnee scouts don’t have much to do with you.”