Capture the Sun (Cheyenne Series) (41 page)

      
“I knew you would come,” she rasped out. It hurt so to speak, but she must, while there was time.

      
“Shh...” he soothed her, “I am here now. I will never leave you, WindSong.”

      
She smiled sadly and said, ‘‘It is I who must leave you, Hunting Hawk, much as I do not wish it. Especially now.” One hand slipped down to hold her mounded belly, full of their child. Her face was filled with anguish for the loss of the child above all.

      
He shook his head in denial, willing the nearness of death away. “You will not leave me. I will not permit it,” he said fiercely.

      
Wind Song put one slim hand on his hard chest, gently rebuking him. “The Spirits do not always listen to our wishes, my husband. We cannot go against their will. I had hoped above all else to give you this child, a man-child. Then I might take her place in your heart. But it is not meant to be.”

      
“No!” The cry was torn from him. “No, there is no one but you in my heart. You are my wife. I will not let you die!”

      
She reached up, stretching her long, slim arms to wrap around his neck as he knelt over her, clasping her to him and holding her feverish body. Wind Song buried her face against his neck as the fiery, wracking pain suffocated her once more. Yet she was glad to be in his arms one last time.

      
Her voice was muffled when she spoke again, breathless and low. “You must not grieve too much, beloved. Things happen as they must. You will return to the world of white men someday, to her. I think I always knew that. Still, it was worth the pain to have loved you.” She coughed, gasping for air as her swollen throat closed.

      
He held her silently, shaken by grief and guilt, denying all she said, still unable to forget the white woman who came between them even in death. His heart felt crushed by the burden. “Please, do not leave me, beloved wife. Wind Song...?”

      
He held her for several moments more, then gently laid her still form back on the furs of their bed. The swollen mound of her belly seemed even larger now, so lifeless and yet accusing. He lay his head on it and wept. There would be no children, no joy, no belonging.

      
Slowly, fighting for breath and strength, he began the death chant, mourning for all that might have been, should have been in her young life, snuffed out so cruelly by a disease of the white man. It was not only one death but two, hers and the child she so desperately wanted to give him. How much better the
veho`s
pestilence killed than his bullets. It was not the first time Hawk cursed his white blood, but never before had he hated all white people and himself as much as he did at that moment.

* * * *

      
It was spring at last. The snow melted and clear water burbled its way down the rocky ravines, billowing into the rivers and lakes. Willows sported pale lime-colored fuzz on branches that whispered in the wind, promising lush, verdant greenery soon. The sky was azure and cloudless, the wind still gusting, but with a hint of sun-kissed warmth.
      
Soon.

      
At last free from snow's fetters, cattle, thin and sluggish after their winter struggle for sustenance, were gamboling in anticipation of fresh grass. New calves bawled for their mothers and walked on shaky legs across the rolling prairie.

      
Carrie sat on Taffy Girl, looking over a herd of prime beef that had survived the winter. Things were looking up at last. Despite a bitter winter, spring was early and most of the cattle had pulled through. The calf crop would be good, despite the smaller herd. The hands were out in work crews, beginning to get organized for a mammoth spring roundup.

      
When would Hawk come home? All through her lonely winter vigil, the thought had been with her incessantly. Ever since last fall, Kyle had been vague and evasive about receiving word of him. First he said it would take weeks to locate Iron Heart's band. Then he predicted it could not be done until the snow was clear. Now with even the high country opening up, Carrie could not understand why no one had found such a large encampment. Surely Hawk must be there.
 

      
The thought that he did not wish to return to her nagged at the back of her consciousness, but she refused to acknowledge it. Of course, if it were so, it would explain the little-Texan's nervous avoidance of her questions about Hawk. No. The Frenchman must not have found their band yet. Hawk was alive and well. She knew it, feeling sure if anything had happened to him she would know.

      
Clasping the silver medallion at her breast with her hand, she felt its warmth against her beating heart. He would come home.

      
Soon.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

      
“Peregrine. Ain't thet some kinda bird, er somethin'?” Kyle studied the wiggling boy seated on his mother's lap in the big kitchen.

      
Carrie flushed slightly. Strange that she should still feel shy about her relationship with Hawk around his best friend. “Yes, Kyle, it's a migratory falcon.”

      
“A Hawk, 'n other words?’

      
“Yes, a predatory hawk.”

      
“A huntin' hawk.” He nodded shrewdly, then reached over and tickled Perry's tummy.

      
The little boy giggled and grabbed Hunnicut's fingers. He would be a striking man one day. That much was already apparent from the thick, dark hair and glowing black eyes. Even the child's cheekbones and jawline, undefined as yet, gave promise of looking like his sire's.

      
Carrie shoved her coffee cup away and hefted the boy as she stood up, stretching from the cramped position she had been sitting in while holding the fidgety handful. “I think I need some exercise, Kyle. I'll take Perry with me and ride over toward the river.”

      
Grabbing several rolls off the heaping platter Feliz had placed before him, Kyle followed Carrie out of the kitchen, munching as he went. “Yew be careful,” he admonished her, knowing from long experience that it did no good to demand she take an armed escort along. Always an independent loner, Carrie had become even more restless with the arrival of spring. “They’d been hostiles seen over west always. Sioux, even some Cheyenne bucks with ‘me, stirring' up grief. Yew don't need ta cross th' river with thet young'un.”

      
Carrie turned, adjusting Perry on her hip, and replied with a sunny smile, “Don't fret, Kyle, I just need to do some thinking. I'll be back by late afternoon.”

      
He shook his head at her retreating form, waving at the bright-eyed boy who watched him over his mother's shoulder.

      
It was a hot day in early June, dry and still, with the sun moving in a blinding arc across the pale-blue heavens. Nearly a year had passed since Noah's death and Perry's birth. Carrie felt the bonds linking her to Hawk and his child drawing tighter. It had grown increasingly difficult for her to wait in this endless limbo, especially with the breaking of spring and then summer. Why didn't he come home?

      
Carrie needed this time alone to think through her ambivalent feelings about Hawk and his long-overdue reappearance in her life. Of late she had been troubled by dreams. One was the old familiar one about the hawk that had plagued her since childhood; others were about Hawk and Lola Jameson, Noah and herself, all blurred together in confusing, chaotic images. If truth were told, she was still uncertain about her feelings for Hawk Sinclair.

      
Looking down at the sleeping child in front of her, Carrie felt a tremendous rush of unconditional love. But did she love the father that way also? No, it was not that simple. The past year had left deep, bitter scars. A great deal of the pain she had lived with was because of Hawk. She had learned to withstand the bigotry and sneers of the town, but did she accept his desertion which had left her to face them alone? Why had he gone to Iron Heart's village, so near Circle S, without stopping to find out about her and learn he had a son?
Why doesn't he come home now?

      
Lonely, hurting and frightened by the enormity of her responsibility for Circle S, Carrie let her thoughts drift back over the past two years to when she had come west as a green girl, naively hoping to establish a loving relationship with Noah Sinclair. Now she scoffed at her immaturity and inability to read people. In his entire life Noah had never had a loving relationship with a living soul!

      
Just then, Perry awakened and began to babble in his melodic child's voice. He was hot and thirsty, letting her know his needs in no uncertain terms. When she reached for the canteen, Carrie noticed how far she had ridden, much farther than she intended or than Kyle would have approved. She had crossed the river several hours ago and was on the southwestern border of the farthest section of Circle S. She sighed in exasperation at her own absentmindedness, a defect that sorely plagued her lately.

      
As she turned Taffy and began to retrace her path home, her progress was watched with great interest. Spotted Horse and Little Otter, two Sioux warriors on a raiding party, had watched her aimless meandering for nearly an hour, uncertain of whether or not they should take her captive. When she abruptly wheeled her tan mare around, Little Otter spoke.

      
“See, the daughter of the sun returns from whence she came. Let her depart in peace with her child. We do not make war on women and children.”

      
His younger companion scoffed. “She is white and therefore our enemy. Her flame hair would make a scalp with very strong magic. The child would be given to one of our women who mourns the loss of her own, killed by white men.”

      
Just then the rest of the war party, mostly Sioux with a smattering of Cheyenne, came riding up. They had followed the tracks of Carrie's horse and those of her silent pursuers. In the lead and fast becoming one of the most vocal and belligerent of the young raiders was the Cheyenne Angry Wolf. He and a handful of other braves from Iron Heart's band had left their peaceful people to join the hostile Sioux of northern Montana. Retreating into Canada and the high country to the east, the Sioux had not yet bowed to the inevitable loss of their hunting lands or their freedom. They were still at war against the white man.

      
Their belligerence perfectly suited Angry Wolf's sentiments. Always a surly and embittered man, he had found his disappointments during the past several years more than he could endure. He, a leader of the prestigious Elk Warrior Society, had not been selected to sit on the tribal council of the People. That insult would not soon be lived down. He refused to admit that his arrogant and contentious disposition had anything to do with the elders' decision.
 

      
There was also the matter of the half-blood who had come to live among the People. Angry Wolf had hated Hunting Hawk since they were boys. Then Iron Heart's grandson took Wind Song in marriage. Angry Wolf could never forgive Hawk for stealing what he considered his property.

      
The sporadic raids against white settlers and Crow satisfied his desire for excitement and vengeance. Now he reined in his swift black mount and looked down to where Spotted Horse gestured. Below them, riding along the stream's edge, was a lone white woman, mounted on a good horse, carrying a small child. He listened absently to the exchange between the Sioux and Cheyenne braves while he watched the woman. Something about her and her horse stirred memories from the past. He had seen her before. The buckskin horse was decidedly familiar.

      
When Little Otter called her daughter of the sun, he caught sight of her fiery hair and remembered. It was her! The one who had come to his village two years ago with Hawk! Some in the band had gossiped, saying she was really Hawk's woman. He himself had tried to convince Wing Song of that.

      
And here she was with a child, riding right into his hands. Overhearing Spotted Horse's prattling about a magic scalp, Angry Wolf cut in abruptly, “She is too valuable to be killed! Look at her beauty and long, strong limbs. She will make some warrior a splendid slave! I, Angry Wolf, lay claim to her!”

      
With that, he kicked his big black in the flanks and began a rapid descent down the loose, rocky trail that led to the stream floor. Several of the other younger braves who were admirers of the seasoned veteran quickly followed after him.

      
Carrie heard the thunder of horses and clatter of loose rocks spewn forth by their slashing hooves. Quickly looking over her shoulder, she saw three Indians riding toward her from the top of the cliff. She did not know what tribe they were, but it was a foregone conclusion that they were not friendly! Leaning over Taffy's neck, she spurred the mare forward into a furious, ground-devouring gallop. Perry began to cry, held in a crushing position in front of Carrie on the racing horse.

      
“Oh, dear God! Why didn't I listen to Kyle? How could I have been so stupid!” Muttering under her breath as she raced helped to quell her panic so she could concentrate on guiding her horse. However, it was a losing proposition. The Indian horses were larger and fresher than hers, and the riders more skillful.

      
Carrie felt the force of an iron-hard arm curling around her, sweeping her and Perry clutched in her arms from Taffy Girl's back. She and her son were held tightly against the savage's side until he brought his rapidly galloping pony to a rough stop and then dumped them onto the ground. He slid after them, quickly reaching down to grasp her arm and drag her to a standing position.