Sundancer (Cheyenne Series) (42 page)

      
“She is white. She cannot remain here.” It had not occurred to him that the old man might interfere between them. “The soldiers could come after her,” he said, switching to Cheyenne. “I spoke with the one called Dillon. Already he does not trust this band.”

      
“Because of Weasel Bear and the others.” Leather Shirt considered this, waiting to see what else Not Cheyenne would say, pleased that he now spoke in their language.

      
“I sent the Blue Coats riding west after Crow, but if Weasel Bear has joined the raiders attacking the Iron Horse he will only bring grief to his people.”

      
“He has been banished by the council. He is no longer our concern.”

      
“Just as I am no longer your concern either.”

      
“You both made your choice,” the old man said.

      
Perhaps a tinge of regret flavored the words. For Weasel Bear or Lone Bull? Cain wondered but did not ask.

      
“Your woman is with Willow Tree and Lark Song gathering roots.” He gestured to the brushy area beyond the creek on which they were camped, not indicating what he would do if Her Back Is Straight asked for sanctuary.

      
Cain mounted his chestnut and rode slowly across the creek, rehearsing in his mind what he might say to her. How could he make her understand his feelings when he did not understand them himself?

      
She sat with Willow Tree and Lark Song at the edge of the stream where it curved around a copse of chokecherry bushes. The sound of their laughing chatter drew him. He reined in his horse and sat silently watching her for a moment. The afternoon sun gleamed off the silken waterfall of her hair, turning it to molten silver. She wore a simple buckskin tunic and leggings, probably the ones she had worn back from her captivity here. He knew she had always treasured the garments. They fit her slim body as elegantly as her most expensive gown. A shaft of desire pricked him, just thinking about how smooth and soft and supple that body would be when he removed the clothes and touched it. She tilted her chin up and laughed at something Willow Tree said. He drank in the music of it like a man dying of thirst.

      
Roxanna felt the heat of his eyes and turned her head slowly. He sat the chestnut with the same rangy grace every Cheyenne male seemed born with, leaning on the saddle horn with one arm, his black eyes boring into her. The other women quickly gathered up their baskets and scurried away, understanding that this was between Her Back Is Straight and Not Cheyenne.

      
Her mouth was dry as she returned his stare. He looked hard and dangerous and dirty, carrying an arsenal of weapons, just as he had that first time he'd ridden into Leather Shirt's camp. Dismounting, he walked toward her with the same pantherish stride, arrogantly male, predatory. And hungry. Roxanna remembered that hunger from their first encounter. It had taken her in thrall and she had never been free of it since.

      
“I won't go back with you,” she said breathlessly.

      
“You're my wife.”

      
‘‘We're with the Cheyenne. A woman can divorce her husband with cause. You've given me cause, Cain.”

      
He smiled grimly. “I'm Not Cheyenne, remember. I'm a ‘cut hair.’ I live white and in white society divorce isn't so easy. You're still my wife.”

      
“Whom you vowed to love and cherish. You never spoke of love, though, did you, Cain? Because you didn't marry me for love—you married me to get promoted.” God, it hurt, sucking the breath from her just to get the words out!

      
He winced inwardly, knowing she had a right to the anger. “I didn't plan it that way when I first found you...naked in a creek... Then I only wanted you the way a man wants a beautiful woman.”

      
“Oh, when did you plan it, then? After the gossip ruined me—or when your father broke the engagement with Larry?”

      
She stood, slender and defiant, her turquoise eyes blazing with wounded fury. He fought the urge to crush her in his arms. “I thought about it when the gossip got out. I knew what Powell would do,” he admitted, watching those glorious turquoise eyes close against the pain, then open to stare back at him in silent agonized accusation. “I wanted the job Jubal could give me... I—”

      
“You used me. You went to Jubal MacKenzie and cut a deal.”

      
“That's the way I told it to Larry. Hell, Roxanna, I was tired and fed up after hours of meetings, sick and tired of Larry—all right...” He clenched his jaw until the tendons stood out in his neck, then swallowed painfully, looking away at the far horizon. “I was jealous of him. He always had it all—the Powell name, the money, the power...our father's only son and heir. But I had finally beaten him—I took something away from him that was worth more than all the money on the transcontinental.”

      
“You thought I was Jubal’s heir when you married me. That made it a better than even trade—the money, the power—and revenge against your father all at the same time.”

      
He could not deny what she said and felt an irrational swell of anger—or fear building up inside him. “I knew damn well who you were when I said those hurtful things to my brother. I was rubbing his nose in it because I had you—not just the job. The problem is that I didn't realize how much more important you were to me than the railroad until I lost you, Roxanna. When I read your note and realized what I'd done—”

      
“I bet it was almost as bad as when I confessed that I wasn't Alexa.” She knew that remark stung. In spite of his shuttered expression, he winced visibly. “No wonder you were so furious with me. I could’ve cost you your job if the truth came out.” She wanted him to hear the bitterness in her voice, needed him to hurt as she hurt. Why didn't he honestly admit that he wanted to return Jubal's great grandchild to the old man? She found it difficult to believe that Jubal had not told him about the baby when she vanished.

      
“Was Jubal angry with you for driving me away? Is that the reason for your sudden solicitude?”

      
She had a right to her anger, he reminded himself. But fear of losing her, combined with his nagging jealousy over Larry, goaded him to the cold fury that made tough men quake the length of the transcontinental. “What about Larry's sudden solicitude? He walked away from your engagement without a backward glance. The next thing I see is you in his arms the night of the party. Then you fly off to meet him instead of facing me so we could work this out. I married you, Roxanna—he didn't.”

      
“You don't own me! Neither does Larry, but he's been kind. He offered to help me escape from you.”

      
“He used you to get to me.”

      
“Well, it's not as if I haven't been used already.” She turned away from him, hugging herself. “I'm weary unto death of being caught in the middle of your vendetta against the Powells. Go away. Leave me in peace, Cain. Tell Jubal what you will.”

      
“I don't have to tell Jubal anything. He knows all about us—that I'm Powell's bastard, that you're Roxanna Fallon.”

Chapter Nineteen

      
Roxanna turned back to him, her expression numb with shock. ‘That...that's impossible. How could he?”

      
‘‘He's a devious old son of a bitch,” Cain said with obvious affection. “Always was. He's known who I was since he hired me, known you weren't Alexa for months.”

      
“And yet he didn't denounce me?” Her mind whirled with the possibilities. What was Jubal's game? What was Cain's? Was he telling her the truth? “How can I trust you?” she asked defensively, plaintively.

      
“I suppose it's a leap of faith we both have to make. I could accuse you of running off to Larry.”

      
“I didn't stay with Larry,” she said indignantly.

      
“That's the only reason I didn't kill him.”

      
She looked into his eyes...cold, black, pitiless...and she shuddered. “Who are you, Cain? Damon Powell?”

      
“I have no right to the Powell name,” he replied bitterly.

      
“Lone Bull, then.” She thought of Sees Much's dreams, and her own, and wondered.

      
“No. I'm Not Cheyenne. I killed my brother. The only name I have is the one I gave you. Cain. I'd take back those words I said to Larry if I could. I never meant to hurt you, Roxanna. I want you back.”

      
Me or the baby?
She almost asked it, yet something held her back. He did not know. Jubal, for whatever mysterious reason of his own, had not told her husband that he was to be a father. “Give me time, Cain. Let me talk to Sees Much. He's on your side, you know.” She could see the disbelieving expression on his face. “He has some idea—or dream or vision—that my capture was ordained by his Powers. That I was the means to bring you back to your people.”

      
He scoffed. “I have no people. You above everybody should know that.”

      
“You choose not to belong. You're so scarred by Andrew Powell's rejection that you can't see anything else.”

      
“You sound like Leather Shirt now.” He gave a shaky laugh. “He accused me of choosing to be white, rejecting my Cheyenne blood, but I'm really neither red nor white. Hell, if I had a choice, I sure wouldn't choose to be a breed.”

      
“You'll never be free to love anyone until you can learn to stop hating yourself,” she said with sudden insight. “I fell in love with a man of mixed blood, Cain.” And in loving him, she had learned to forgive herself—or thought she had until he had betrayed her.

      
“And now, Roxy? Are you telling me that love died? That I killed it?” He studied her intently, praying that she would do as she always had—come to him. Irresistibly he was drawn to step closer, to reach out for her, for that old physical intimacy that blotted out the rest of the world. But she drew back.

      
“No. Don't touch me...please. I need time to think.” She stumbled as she turned away, then broke into a headlong run when his warm, firm hands touched her.

      
Cain let her go. A feeling of bleak desolation swept over him. He felt suddenly more alone than he ever had in his life.

      
Why hadn't she told him about the baby? Roxanna still was not certain. But she was certain that Jubal had not done so for a reason. Was he trying to be some sort of matchmaker, however misguided? Whatever his motives, Jubal was the least of her concerns. Cain had come after her without knowledge of his child. She had to make a decision that would affect that child as much as it did her. No matter how much she still loved her husband—and there was no killing that love in spite of his fears—she had to think of their child first.

      
Without realizing it, her wandering reverie had taken her directly to the lodge of Sees Much. The old man sat outside the door, puffing on a pipe. He set it carefully aside, and motioned for her to sit across from him as if he had been expecting her.

      
“Her Back Is Straight is troubled. Your talk with the Lone Bull did not go well.”

      
She sat wearily, feeling for all the world like a child at her father's feet once more, seeking wisdom and council. “No, it did not. He expects me to return with him because I am his wife. He still has not said that he loves me.”

      
“It is difficult for a man to love another person when he has never learned to love himself,” he said gently, feeling the hurt in her confession.

      
Roxanna smiled sadly. “Strange, that is the very thing I said to him. There is such self-hate, such a feeling of rejection and unworthiness burned into his soul.”

      
“And into yours as well,” the old man replied. “But I think you are learning the truth of your own worth now...perhaps because of the child you have created together.”

      
“He doesn't know about the baby.”

      
“And you did not tell him.” The old man made no further comment, only waited patiently for her to continue.

      
“Something held me back. I don't know what...or why...unless...”

      
“A mother always wishes to protect her child.”

      
She looked at him in amazement, then nodded. “Yes, that is why I couldn't tell him. He hates his own Cheyenne blood. I will give him a child who shares that blood. What if he comes to see a mirror of himself in his son or daughter? Another mixed-blood whom he cannot love, just as Andrew Powell could not love him, just as he cannot love himself?”

      
Sees Much nodded, considering this. “He must first come to accept himself. To see that what is deep inside here”—he pounded his fist against his chest with surprising strength—“is good. Then he will be able to see good in his child.”

      
“But how can that ever happen?”

      
The old man smiled serenely now. “There is a sacred ceremony among our people for wholeness and rebirth, to strengthen the spirit of each man who pledges himself to it. This we call the Making of the Medicine Lodge, or Sun Dance. When the Lone Bull swings to the lodgepole all things will be made new before his eyes. He will see himself...he will again be one with the People...and he will be at peace.”

      
Roxanna knew Cain had always rejected Indian mysticism. He would scoff at the old man's idea. “How will you get him to agree?”