Cheyenne Captive (5 page)

He gestured toward the chiefs of each warrior group. “We declare
tuhkayats
, punishment will be inflicted for disobeying. The chiefs of the soldier bands will whip the guilty ones through the camp so that all may see the Cheyenne intends to stand by this treaty.”

He turned and took a long look at Iron Knife and then at Summer. “The white girl can never return to her people for reasons already given, but we will not kill her. It would be a shame to waste such bravery as she has when she could produce such fiery chiefs.”

He smiled ever so slightly at Iron Knife. “If my nephew yearns for this she-bobcat, the Council feels he has fought for and won her fairly. So, even though we think he will regret taking this woman to warm his bed, we give her to him to be his slave forever!”

Summer couldn’t understand the old man’s words, but she knew a decision was being announced. She looked about the Council tepee and saw the nodding heads, the murmur of discussion among the men. Then the gathering broke up, some of the crowd leaving, some gathering in small groups, talking.

Iron Knife came over and took her hand, pulling her roughly to her feet. “You little fool!” he hissed, “it is unheard of to create a scene in front of the Council! It’s a wonder they didn’t vote to kill you!”

Summer let him pull her along the dark path from the meeting. Her arm began to throb and her head hurt. They passed a pretty Indian girl by a campfire, and she gave Summer such a murderous look that Summer shivered, wondering what she had done to merit such hate.

“Who was that?” she queried, trying to catch up to his long steps. It was hard to keep up. She felt weak and very tired.

He shrugged. “Only Gray Dove, an Arapaho girl. The Arapahos have been friends of the Cheyenne for many years and often camp with us.”

He offered no further explanation. Summer’s thoughts blurred as she struggled to keep up and she paused.

He turned and looked down at her. She could see the concern on his face by the light of the campfires. “You are ill?”

“No,” she lied, not wanting anything to interfere with her goal. “When does the Council say I can go back to Fort Smith?”

Wordlessly, he put one big hand on her flushed forehead and frowned. Then he swiftly lifted her and carried her back to the tepee. He sat her gently on the buffalo robe bed and again put his hand on her forehead.

“When am I being sent back?” she persisted.

“Not right away,” he murmured, not looking into her eyes. “Anyway, you are ill and couldn’t travel all that distance now”.

She nodded and did not press for more details. It was true. She did not feel well at all. She felt dizzy and her head pounded angrily.

He took her small face in his big hands and stared into her eyes. “You skin feels like fire,” he muttered, “and your face is flushed! Let me see your arm!”

Dutifully, Summer held out her injured right arm and he unwrapped it and stared at the knife cut. She saw the look of concern cross his face, and understood why as she studied the arm herself. The wound looked raw and swollen and crooked red lines snaked from it across her white skin.

She looked up at him, suddenly frightened. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

“No, not so bad,” he answered soothingly. “I will go get the medicine man again and give him many presents. He will have spells and much magic to cure this.”

He left the tepee and Summer tried not to look at the wound. If only she were back in her own four-poster bed in the big mansion on her father’s estate. Dr. Morgan, the renowned surgeon, would be making a house call and solicitous maids would be scurrying about, bringing her tea, fluffing her down pillows.

She felt very, very warm now and the arm throbbed. Perspiration beaded on her upper lip and she lay down on the robe. It occurred to her that she might die here and no one back home would ever know what had happened to her.

No
, she shook her blond head stubbornly,
she wasn’t going to die, she was going to live
. When the Indians took her back to the fort she would be a dutiful daughter, and do as her father had ordered—at least until the scandal in Boston died down a little....

Iron Knife returned, interrupting her thoughts and bringing with him the venerable old man carrying charms and herbs in a bag made of skunk skin.

Summer wondered for a moment if she should allow the old man to treat her again as he had this morning, and then realized she didn’t have much choice. He seemed to be the only help available and she was feeling worse by the minute. The medicine man examined her arm, shook his head, and said something in his foreign tongue to Iron Knife. Iron Knife answered in Cheyenne, seemingly insistent. She watched the old man as he took little bunches of grasses and herbs and burned them in the fire pit, filling the air with a hazy, sweet smell. Then he began a singsong chant, shaking a gourd rattle all the while over Summer’s arm.

Summer looked at Iron Knife questioningly.

“It is all right.” He nodded. “Usually, the rites of purification and ceremony would take longer, and he would require a sweat lodge to be built near the river for you, but. . .”

His voice trailed off, and he looked away. Summer caught the implication. Her condition was too serious to delay for the usual ceremonies.

The medicine man spread white sage on the floor, and smoked the ceremonial pipe. He sang his chants and prayed, shaking his rattle over her. His lined old face seemed to blur in her vision.

“I’m—I’m very hot,” she gasped, “burning hot.” She hurt now, and the pain seemed to be spreading through her arm. She felt dizzy, too. Her thoughts seemed to jumble themselves. Dimly, she heard Iron Knife and the medicine man conferring in guttural Cheyenne. Then she was aware that the big savage took out his knife and laid it on a stone at the edge of the fire pit with the blade in the flame.

He knelt by her and whispered, “Little One, we have to do something about that wound. It must be purified, and fire is the only way!”

She only half-heard his words, not understanding anything in her fever. Her eyes flickered open and she saw the fat, old squaw enter the tepee, the one who had combed her hair and fed her this morning. The woman knelt to hold down Summer’s feet. Iron Knife held down her left arm with his right hand. Then he very gently turned her face away so that she could not see what the medicine man was doing. She struggled and realized she was powerless. The medicine man was holding down her right arm.

Uncomprehending, she saw the big savage take his knife from the fire pit, its blade glowing in the semidarkness. He laid it on a stone near the old man and then, gently, he again turned her face away, holding her so that she could not look.

“I’m sorry, Little One,” he murmured, “but this has to be done. I wish I could bear the pain for you.”

Dimly, she was aware of the feel of his hand on her face, the weight on all her limbs. Then the hot blade hissed as it cut into the wound. Never had she known such agony! She screamed and bit his hand hard, aware of the taste of his blood. As she teetered on the ragged edge of unconsciousness, she remembered the scene at the stagecoach when the savages had captured her ...

... tell her what we will do to her pale body with fire and blade ... fire and blade . . .

They were torturing her to death,
she thought in her pain, and looked up at Iron Knife as she drifted into complete oblivion.

“You—you promised you wouldn’t hurt me.” Her eyes accused him. She saw him wipe the blood from his bitten hand.

“It had to be done,” he muttered, “but you will never be hurt again, Little One! I promise it!”

“I don’t believe you!” she sobbed as she slipped into the blackness. Her last awareness was that he held her left hand and kissed the fingertips and her palm very, very gently.

She did not know how long the time was that she fainted, but when she awakened she was vaguely aware of him sitting dipping a cloth in water, wiping her face.

“Oh, that feels so good,” Summer gasped. “I’m so hot!” She closed her burning eyes and enjoyed the feel of the cold water on her fevered face. He wiped her face and throat, down into the neck of the buckskin dress. Her mouth felt dry and fuzzy. She managed to open her cracked lips. “Thirsty,” she managed to whisper, “water ...”

He held a horn cup to her mouth. She gulped greedily and watched him through half-opened eyes as his big hands caressed her face and arms.

“Your touch is gentle,” she whispered.

“With you, I shall always be gentle,” he answered, sponging her face again. “Do you feel any better?”

“No,” she gasped, “I am warmer than before. I—I feel worse!”

She could feel drops of perspiration running down her breasts, across her belly. She couldn’t seem to keep her thoughts straight. She closed her eyes again, and in her fevered mind, she was a child once more, running through the summer heat at the big estate next door with her twin brother David’s best friend, Austin. . . .

“It’s so hot, Austin,” she murmured aloud. “Say, why don’t we have your cook make us some lemonade? The butler can serve it in the conservatory where the flowers bloom . . .”

She felt herself being lifted, something pulling at her clothes. Vaguely, she opened her eyes, trying to remember where she was and who this big, bronzed man was who pulled her dress off. “No, please don’t!” Even in her delirium, she tried to cover herself modestly with her hands and struggled to push him away.

But he lifted her lightly as if handling a doll. “Don’t fight me, Summer,” he said tersely, “I’m not going to hurt you. I’ve got to bring that fever down.”

Weakly, she struggled while he stripped her naked and laid her back down on the soft fur. He was going to rape her, she knew, and she was too weak to do anything about it. She couldn’t remember who he was or why she was here. There was something about a family quarrel because she had embarrassed the family ... There had been a stagecoach ...

“Hot. So hot . . .” she whispered and felt the big hands moving over her, wiping her fevered skin with the cold cloth. It felt good and she relaxed, quit struggling, letting his hands move over every inch of her. He sponged her hot skin with the cool water. With her eyes closed, she felt the cold cloth come down her throat, wipe each breast, continuing down the hollow of her belly, across each fevered thigh. From there, the cool massage worked down her long legs, even to the soles of her feet.

He did it again and again, starting with her perspiring face and working his way down every inch of her. Occasionally, he turned her over, sponging from her neck, down her back, across her slim hips, and down the soles of her feet.

It occurred to her that even though it felt wonderful, she shouldn’t be allowing this to happen. She struggled again and tried to protest, but strong hands held her down.

“No, Summer, don’t fight me,” he ordered, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Once in the hours that passed, she looked up into his dark eyes as he sponged her face and saw the weariness and concern reflected there.

“Am—am I dying?” she asked.

He gathered her into his arms. “No! I won’t let you die! All these lonely years I have waited for you to come along, and I won’t let Heammawihio take you! I promise you will never walk the
Ekutsihimmiyo,
the Hanging Road to the sky, without me. The
seyan
, the place of death, will not receive you yet.”

She felt safe then. Another human was watching after her and cared what became of her. Time passed, and it was a blur of heat with the cool cloth wiping her body continuously. Once, she remembered a horn spoon between her lips and warm broth, and many times there was cold water poured between her cracked lips. Sometimes, she opened her eyes and saw the plump Indian woman in the tepee, and sometimes the old medicine man, but she knew, somehow, that Iron Knife never left her side.

Then, she was no longer hot, but cold. Her teeth chattered and she shivered uncontrollably. She dreamed of a sleigh ride behind one of her fine-blooded horses back home at Christmas time. She could almost feel the ermine-trimmed blue velvet bonnet and fox-fur muff....

But when she opened her eyes, she was once again in a strange place, and a handsome, dark man was wrapping a fur robe around her naked body. The soft fur felt good against her skin. She lay there, watching as he built the fire to a roaring blaze and turned back to her.

“I’m cold,” she whispered through trembling lips, “I’m so cold.”

He stood looking down at her shivering body and seemed to make a decision. Abruptly, he began peeling his clothes off. Summer had never seen a naked man before. She shivered and stared up at the magnificent, bronzed male. He was wide of shoulder, and narrow at the waist and hip. His hard muscles rippled in the firelight, showing the whip scars on his back, the sun dance scars on his great chest.

She felt her face flush crimson as she looked away from the beauty of his maleness. She only half realized for a moment that the naked savage was crawling under the robe with her. “No!” She tried to push him away. “No!”

“You little fool!” he hissed, reaching out to pull her shivering body close to his warm, hard chest. “I’m trying to warm you! Lie still!” he commanded.

She struggled a moment longer, shaking, thinking she had never been so cold before. As she felt the heat from his big body, she instinctively pressed herself against him. She was only dimly aware now of both their nakedness, and the rightness or wrongness of it, only drawn to him like a flower to the warm sun.

She felt his arms go about her, cradling her blond head in the hollow of his dark shoulder. He half-covered her shivering form with his body and pulled her against him so that she could feel the maleness of him. Summer remained rigid a moment and then; relaxed in his arms and gloried in the warmth that slowly spread through her slender frame.

His big hands felt like fire as they massaged her back, her hips, returning circulation. It felt good, and since she was powerless to stop him anyhow, she sighed and almost enjoyed the feel of his hands as she drifted in and out of delirium.

Once, she imagined that his lips kissed the soft hollow of her throat, and she thought he trembled as he held her. But she was warm now and her arm no longer throbbed. For the first time in many hours, she was not in pain. Somehow she felt protected and secure even though she lay naked in his embrace.

Gradually, she dropped off into a deep, healing sleep.

When she finally awakened, Summer lay puzzled, looking about the tepee, trying to remember where she was and what had happened. The memories flooded back and suddenly she realized she lay naked with her long blond hair spread out over the hollow of Iron Knife’s shoulder. One of his powerful arms lay possessively across her curved hip under the buffalo robe.

Horrified, she tried to scurry away from him and realized how weak and exhausted she was. He came out of his deep slumber with a start as she tried to crawl away. Putting his arm under his head, he watched her fumbling with the deerskin dress.