Читать книгу Her Cheyenne Warrior - Lauri Robinson - Страница 11

Chapter Two

Black Horse slowed his mount while signaling four warriors to pursue the white men. It would take no more than that. He then spun his horse around to return to the riverbank and the women. Moments ago the four of them had been frolicking in the water like a family of otters in the spring. The sight of it, how their white clothes had puffed up around them, had made his braves laugh. He did not laugh.

One of his hunting parties had reported the women—four of them in two wagons—traveling alongside the river two days ago. At one time, many wagon trains traveled this route, but since the white men started fighting each other, the trains had almost disappeared. He had liked that, had welcomed the idea of fewer white people on Cheyenne land. The peace his people had known while his grandfather had been leading their band was his greatest desire. Inside, though, he knew peace would only happen when the white man and the bands learned to settle disagreements without bloodshed. He had left the last tribal council knowing that would not happen any time soon. Although many had agreed with him, some had not.

If not for the white men reported to be trailing these women, he would have let the women pass through Cheyenne land without notice, but he could not allow Tsitsistas to be blamed for what could happen to them.

Stopping at the water’s edge, Black Horse drew in a breath of warm summer air and held it. Bringing white women into his village would upset the serenity, but so would the army soldiers if something happened to the women. This was Cheyenne land, and his band would be blamed.

The tallest woman, the one with long brown hair that curled in spirals like wood peeled thin with a sharp knife, was not crying like the others, or running for the bank. She stared at him with eyes the same blue as the living water that falls from the mountains when the snow leaves. There was bravery in her eyes. A rarity. All the white women he had met acted like the other three. Other than Ayashe—Little One—but she had been living with Tsitsistas for many seasons.

Keeping his eyes locked on the woman’s, he motioned for braves to gather the others and hitch the mules to the wagons, and then nudged his horse toward the water. The woman did not move. Or blink. She stood there like a mahpe he’e, a water woman, who had emerged from the waves during a great storm, daring to defy a leader of the people. He had to focus to keep his lips from curling into a smile. Only a white woman would believe such was possible.

She held up one hand. “We come in peace.”

No white person comes in peace. Not letting anything show, especially that he understood her language, Black Horse lifted his chin and nodded toward the wagons. “Tosa’e nehestahe?”

The frown tugging her brows together said she did not understand his question of where she came from. He had not expected her to know the language of his people, but had wanted to be sure. Others like her had come before. Dressed in their black robes that covered everything but their faces, they tried to teach people about a god written on the pages of a book. Each Indian Nation had their own god and no need to believe in others, or books.

Faint victory shouts indicated his warriors had caught up with the men that had disappeared over a small knoll, and Black Horse waved a hand toward the wagons, indicating the woman should join the others.

Her cold glare glanced at the other women putting their black dresses over their wet clothes. Only white people would do that. Their ways made little sense.

Turning back to him, her eyes narrowed as she asked, “What do you want with us?”

There were many advantages to knowing the white man’s language, and more advantages in not letting that knowledge be known. He waved toward the wagon again.

Her sneer increased. “What? You grunt and wave a hand, and expect me to know what you want and to obey? Let me assure you that will not happen.”

She was not like the other holy women he had encountered. They had all been quiet and timid. She was neither.

Earlier she had skimmed across the water with the ease of an otter, and catching the sense she was about to do so again, Black Horse urged Horse into the water.

The woman looked one way and then the other, and then, just as he expected, she shot under the water.

The water was not deep enough to conceal her or her white clothes, and he tapped his heels against Horse’s sides. He caught up with her just as she lifted her head out of the water, and the look of shock on her face made him hide a smile.

“Get away from me, you filthy beast,” she shouted. “Get away!”

As one would a snake, Black Horse shot out a hand and grabbed her behind the head. Grasping the material between her shoulders, he lifted her out of the water. She was as slippery as a fish and her fingernails scratched at his arm while she continued shouting and kicking her feet. Despite her fighting, he draped her across the front shoulders of Horse. Keeping her there took both hands, but Horse needed nothing more than a touch of heels to spin around and return to the bank. He and the animal had been together since Horse had been a colt. Shortly after acquiring Horse, others had started calling him He Who Rides a Black Horse, and though many events had occurred that offered to provide him with a different name, he did not take one. He liked being known as Black Horse.

Her kicking and squirming almost caused her to slip from his hold when Horse stopped on the bank to shake the water from his hide. In that one quiet moment, Black Horse could feel her heart racing against his thigh. It startled him briefly, the contact of another person. It had been a long time.

Once Horse started walking again, she started her kicking, squirming and screaming all over and Black Horse renewed the pressure on her back. When Horse stopped near the wagon, Black Horse balled the material across her back into his hand. Just as he started to lift her, a sharp sting shot across his leg.

Before her teeth could sink deeper, he wrenched her off his lap and dropped her to the ground. “Poeso,” he hissed. She had the claws and teeth of a poeso—a wild cat. There was no blood, because the hide leggings had protected his skin. They had protected him against far worse, but he still had to rub the sting from the area.

His braves as well as the other women were watching, waiting to see what would happen next. If he had been only a warrior, the braves would have laughed at what the white woman had done, but because he was the leader of their people they stood in silence, waiting to follow his next move, whatever he chose it to be.

The woman continued to hiss and snarl like a cat, having no idea she had just offended a leader of the Cheyenne Nation, and Black Horse accepted her ignorance. He prided himself on being a highly respected leader, one who did not make decisions based on spite, but on thoughtful deliberations. He ignored her screeching while gesturing for the men to finish hitching up the mules—until one word she said caught his attention.

Black Horse jumped off Horse and wrenched the bundle of clothes out of her hands, searching until he found what she was after. Holding up the little gun, he laughed. It was smaller than his fingers.

“Laugh all you want, you beast!” she shouted. “It can still kill you. It’s called a gun.”

Why did all white people think only they knew what guns were? The fur trade wars over a century ago had brought guns to all the people, back before Tsitsistas had started following the buffalo. But guns wore out and could not be repaired, and were much less accurate when it came to hunting than bows and arrows. Their thundering noise scared more buffalo than their bullets killed.

He tucked the gun in the pouch hanging on his side and tossed the clothes at the woman, along with the pair of stiff boots that were lying on the bank. Shrill calls from his returning warriors filled the air and he grinned. Just as he had known, each brave led a horse behind him.

“They killed them that fast?” the woman asked, eyes wide.

“Hova’ahane,” he answered, knowing she had no idea he had just told her no. Tsitsistas were not conquerors. Not the northern bands. His warriors rarely killed unless threatened. It was his goal to make sure it remained that way.

“Tahee’evonehnestse,” he said, once again waving toward the wagon, telling her to get on with the others, who had obeyed his braves while this poeso battled him. There was always one. Always a he’e—a woman—who refused to listen; for a moment he wondered if saving her, if being a fair and just leader, was worth the trouble.

* * *

Lorna knew the brown beast of a man, with black hair hanging way past his shoulders and wearing a scowl as fierce as the rest of him, wanted her to get on the wagon with the others, but she wasn’t about to. Men, no matter what nationality, thought that because of their strength they could order women about, make them grovel and beg and plea. She’d lived that way once, and never would again. Furthermore, this man was worse than all the others she’d known. Stronger. The strength of his hold could have easily broken her spine, and his thighs had been harder than logs. The fact he hadn’t killed her said one thing. He was saving her for worse. Much worse.

That wouldn’t happen again.

Turning toward Meg, Tillie and Betty, who were peeking out of the canvas opening in the back of Meg’s wagon, Lorna shouted, “Get out of there! We can’t go with them!”

“We don’t have a choice,” Meg answered. “We only have one gun, and if you haven’t noticed, there are twenty of them.”

“I don’t care how many there are!”

“You may want to be killed,” Meg said, “but I’d like to see tomorrow.”

“Which we won’t if we go with them,” Lorna insisted.

“These are Cheyenne Indians. They’re peaceful.”

Just then the beast grabbed her by the back of her camisole again, and the back her bloomers. “You call this peaceful?” she shouted at Meg between screaming at him to let her go.

Lorna kicked and continued to scream, but the black-haired heathen carried her to the wagon and tossed her inside as if she weighed no more than a feather pillow. Unable to catch hold of anything, she hit the other women and they all tumbled among the crates and chests. Before they managed to get up, a brave jumped in the back.

His presence had Tillie and Betty whimpering, and Meg pulling Lorna’s hair.

“Stay down,” Meg hissed. “The Cheyenne are peaceful Indians, but I’m sure they’ll only take so much from a white woman.”

“I’ll only take so much from them.” Lorna wrenched her hair away from Meg. The wagon lurched and she planted a hand on top of a trunk to spin around. Another brave was driving. “Did you hitch up the mules?”

“No,” Meg said. “The braves did while you were arguing with their chief in the middle of the river.”

“How do you know so much about Indians?” Lorna asked.

“I told you, I made the trip to California before.”

Meg had told her that, but Lorna hadn’t believed it. Whether she acted like it or not, Meg wasn’t old enough to have gone all the way to California and back to Missouri. At least that was what Lorna had believed up until now. Meg did seem to know a lot about a variety of things they’d needed to know along the way, including Indians, it appeared, but she had figured Meg had learned most of it from reading about it. Just as she had. She’d also hoped they wouldn’t encounter any Indians. None.

Flustered, Lorna said, “He’s not a chief. He doesn’t have a single feather in his hair.” Or clothes on his body, other than a pair of hide britches and moccasins. She chose not to mention that. The others had to have noticed.

“They don’t wear war bonnets all the time,” Meg said. “White people portray that in paintings and books because it makes the Indians look fiercer.”

Lorna glanced at the brave sitting on the back of the wagon. “No, it doesn’t.” If you asked her, a few white feathers among all that black hair might make them look more human. Not that humans had feathers, but wearing nothing other than hide breeches and moccasins, these men looked more like animals than humans. Especially the beast who’d plucked her out of the water. The one who’d stolen her gun. She would get that back. Soon.

She was where she was because of a man, and another, no matter what color his skin might happen to be, was not going to be the reason her life changed again. Was not! She’d fight to the death this time. To the very death.

“Give me those,” she snapped while snatching her clothes from beneath the feet of the brave who sat on the tailgate. It was difficult with the wagon rambling along at a speed it had never gone before, and with the others crowded around her, but Lorna managed to get dressed—minus the habit—and put on her boots.

She then scrambled past Meg and over the trunks until she stuck her head out of the front opening. The brave was too busy trying to control the mules to do much else. Lorna climbed over the back of the seat—despite how Meg tugged on her skirt—and sat down next to him. The other wagon was following them at the same speed. The braves surrounding them had their horses at a gallop, too. The mules would give out long before their horses would; even she could see that.

Whether he was a chief or not, the man on the black horse was a fool to force the animals to continue at this speed. She needed these mules to get her to California.

“What’s his name?” she asked, pointing toward the leader of the band. The one atop the finest horseflesh she’d seen since coming to America. If she had an animal like that, she could have ridden all the way to California, and been there long before now.

The brave hadn’t even glanced her way.

“What do you call him? That one on the black horse?”

The brave didn’t respond.

“Him,” she repeated, “on that black horse, what is his name?”

The brave grunted and slapped the reins across the backs of the mules again.

Lorna let out a grunt, too, before she cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hey, you on the black horse!” When he glanced over one shoulder, she added, “You better slow down! Mules can’t run like horses!”

He turned back, his long hair flying in the wind just like his horse’s mane. The two of them, man and horse, appeared to be one, their movements were so in tune.

“Did you hear me?” she asked.

“Everyone heard you,” Meg said from inside the wagon. “Hush up before you irritate him.”

“I don’t care if I irritate him,” Lorna answered. “He’s already irritated me.”

“He saved us from Lerber.” That was Betty. “They all did. Shouldn’t we be thankful for that? Show a little appreciation?”

Lorna spun around to let the other woman know her thoughts on that. Words weren’t needed. Betty cowered and scooted farther back in the wagon.

“My guess,” Meg said, “is that is Black Horse. He’s the leader of a band of Northern Cheyenne.”

Lorna shot her gaze to Meg. “How do you know that?” The name certainly fit the man.

“I’m just guessing,” Meg said. “They’ll slow down after we cross the river. They are putting distance between us and Lerber.”

“Distance? Why?” Lorna asked. “They killed Lerber.”

“No, they didn’t. I told you they are Cheyenne. They just stole their horses.”

“You can’t be sure of that.” Lorna certainly wasn’t.

“They are the reason I said we had to take the northern route,” Meg said. “The Indians are friendlier. Southern Indians, even bands of Cheyenne, are the ones that kill and kidnap people off wagon trains. They use them as slaves.”

Lorna had assumed Indians were all the same, no matter what band they were. “How can you possibly know that?”

Meg chewed on her bottom lip as if contemplating. After closing her eyes, she sighed. “My father was a wagon master. He led a total of eight trains to California. Two of them, I was with him.”

Lorna hadn’t pressed to know about a family Meg never mentioned. “Where is he now?”

“Dead.”

The word was said with such finality Lorna wouldn’t have pushed further, even if she hadn’t seen the tears Meg swiped at as she sat down and looked the other way.

Lorna swiveled and grabbed the edge of the wagon seat. The horses and riders ahead of them veered left and the wagons followed, slowing their speed as they grew nearer to the trees lining the river. A pathway she’d never have believed wide enough for the wagon, let alone even have noticed, widened and led them down to the river. The brave handled the mules with far more skill than she’d have imagined, or than she had herself. As long as she was being honest with herself she might as well admit it. With little more than a tug on the reins and a high-pitched yelp, he had the mules entering the river. The water was shallow. Even in the middle, the deepest point, it didn’t pass the wheel hubs.

In no time they’d crossed the river and traveled into the trees lining the bank on the other side. Just as Meg had suggested, their pace slowed and remained so as they made their way through a considerable expanse of trees and brush. The trail was only as wide as the wagon, and once again, Lorna sensed that you had to know this trail existed in order to find it. She did have to admit the shade was a substantial relief from the blazing sun they’d traveled under for the past several weeks. She’d take it back though, the heat of the sun that was, to regain her freedom from this heathen as big as the black horse he rode upon.

He hadn’t turned around, not once, to check to see if they’d made it across the river or not, but she’d rarely taken her eyes off him.

“Where are you taking us?” she asked the brave beside her.

A frown wrinkled his forehead, which didn’t surprise her. English was as foreign to him as their language was to her. Turning toward Meg, she asked, “Where are they taking us?”

“Their village would be my guess,” Meg said.

“Why?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet.”

“I have,” Lorna said. “To kill us, right after they rape us.”

“No, they won’t,” Meg insisted. “But that is what Lerber would have done.”

Lorna didn’t doubt Meg was right about Lerber, nor did she doubt that this band of heathens would do the same. Despite Meg’s claims. She’d read about the American Indians, in periodicals from both England and New York. Anger rose inside her. If only the railroad went all the way to the West Coast she would have been riding in a comfortable railcar, like the one she’d traveled in from New York to Missouri. There had been heavy velvet curtains to block out the sun and a real bed. Tension stiffened her neck. Getting to California was worth sleeping on the hard ground, and no one, not even a band of killer Indians was going to stop her from getting there.

“Look at that.”

Lorna turned at Tillie’s hushed exclamation. As the wagon rolled out of the trees, a valley of green grass spread out before them, with a winding stream running through the center of it. Teepees that looked exactly like ones in the books she’d read were set up on both sides of the stream, hundreds of them. The scent of wood smoke filled the air and a group was running out to meet them on the trail. It wasn’t until they grew closer that she realized the group was mainly children and dogs. Some of the dogs were as tall as the children they ran beside, others tiny enough to run through the children’s legs, and many of them were decorated with feathers and paint. She’d read about Indians doing such things to their horses, but not their dogs.

What strange creatures they were, these Indians, and for a brief moment, she wondered what her mother would think of this peculiar sight. Mother hated America, which was partially why Lorna had chosen to return here. Maybe these creatures were part of the reason her mother hated her father’s homeland so severely.

Lorna had told herself she’d love America, if for no other reason than to spite her mother, but painted dogs were hard to ignore. As hard to ignore as the man on the black horse.

Most of the children now ran a circle around him, yipping and clapping. The last trek of their journey he’d led them at a pace the mules were much more accustomed to—slow, miserably slow. As their train rumbled forward, the smaller children and their dogs headed back toward the camp, whooping and yelling in their language. It sounded ugly and harsh, especially when shouted at such a volume. A few of the group, older boys it appeared, ventured all the way to the wagons, where they chattered among themselves and pointed at her sitting on the seat as if she were a circus attraction.

Usually, children and their innocent tactics humored her, but these, as scantily dressed as the big man on the black horse, were alarming. She waved a hand to shoo them away, but they laughed and continued walking alongside the wagon. Shouting, telling them to be gone did little more than make them laugh harder, and mimic her.

“Aren’t they adorable,” Tillie whispered.

It hadn’t been a question, but Lorna answered as if it had been. “Hell, no!”

“Sister Lorna!” Tillie reprimanded. “You shouldn’t curse.”

Being scolded wasn’t necessary. She’d rarely said a curse word before in her life, but today, they were jumping out of her mouth like frogs. Justly so. “I’m no more of a sister than you are, and I doubt the disguise will do us any good here.”

“Nonetheless, you shouldn’t curse. Especially not in front of children.”

“These are Indians,” she answered. “Heathens. The children are just like their parents. Their leader,” she added with renewed scorn. “Besides, they can’t understand a word we say.” Then lifting a hand, she pointed to the others now rushing out to greet them. “None of them.”

“Oh, my,” Tillie whispered.

“Oh, yes,” Lorna mocked. “Oh, my.”

There was now a great amount of shouting, and barking dogs, and those whooping sounds that made the hair on the back of her neck stand straight. The entire village, or at least half of it, now approached the wagon. Old and young lined the trail, babbling strange words and pointing as if watching a parade. The men were shirtless, other than a few who actually had on shirts or vests—stolen from white men they’d killed most likely—and the women had on hide dresses covered with beads and other trinkets. Most of the men wore ankle-high moccasins on their feet, but some men and almost all of the women wore fringe-topped boots made of hide that came up to their knees.

Their little wagon train, still led by the beast Black Horse, traveled all the way to the center of the encampment before stopping. The men on horseback, all except their leader, road several fast circles around the wagons, yipping loudly. The ones leading the horses they’d stolen from Lerber were the loudest, and in turn, received the loudest cheers from the crowd that had gathered.

Their screeches and chants were enough to make a person’s blood run cold. Lorna’s did, and she turned to Meg. “Friendly, you say.”

The astonishment, which was a combination of fear and shock, on Meg’s face sent Lorna’s heart into her throat.