Gray Hawk's Lady: Blackfoot Warriors, Book 1 (40 page)

“What savagery is this, that two men from the same tribe would declare open war upon each other?”

Gray Hawk could not believe what he heard. “This man is not Pikuni.”

“Yes.” Toddman glanced at his nails in clear disdain. “I realize that, my dear fellow. This man is a Blackfoot Blood Indian. He—”

“Is not.”

“I beg to differ, my good man. There are others who say that
you
are not Blackfoot.”

Gray Hawk actually laughed, while the other Indian frowned.

“You have been deceived,” Gray Hawk declared.

Toddman sneered. “I’m afraid not.”

The drums were still beating and the Delaware men were still singing, the accompaniment seeming to be a natural background to what was said between these men.

Viscount Rohan came forward. “William Toddman, what is the meaning of this?”

“I’ve come to expose you for the fool that you are, Viscount Rohan.” His loud voice bellowed through the hall.

The viscount squared back his shoulders and pulled himself up to his full height, which was still a foot short of the other man. “I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.”

“Not yet,” Toddman said. “Not until I reveal to everyone gathered here how completely you have been duped. That man, whom you are parading around as Blackfoot, is not.”

Gray Hawk actually laughed, though he didn’t lower his aim from the other warrior.

“It is not funny!”

“Is it not?”

“Well, you won’t be laughing when you see the sum of money I will be paid from the Duke of Starksboro for my—”

“The Duke of Starksboro?” This from the viscount. “What has that man to do with… He paid you to do this, didn’t he? He actually paid you to sabotage my work. He—”

“Does it matter? You’re through. You’re finished. You sent in a manuscript representing this man as Blackfoot. Well, he is not.”

Gray Hawk smiled, never letting down his guard of the other Indian. He said, in pure English, “The man Toddman has been deceived. This warrior whom he has brought here is not Blackfoot. He is not Pikuni, not Blood and not Blackfoot proper. This man is a Snake, a Shoshoni Indian, mine own enemy. Whoever brought this man to you, Toddman, plays a trick on you.”

“No! Tell him it’s not true.” Toddman was addressing the other warrior; then, as though realizing that the Indian could not understand him, he looked to his side. No one was there. His face grew red. “My interpreters seem to have gone. But I will get them back. You wait here.”

Gray Hawk ignored the man and suddenly dropped his bow and arrow. Using his hands in the universal language of the plains, he signed to the other Indian, “What game do you play here with this white man?”

The Shoshoni signed back, “The white man wanted an Indian. He got one.”

“Did you know he thinks you are Blackfoot?”

The Indian shrugged.

“Tell me the truth, lest the forces of the great mystery strike you dead.”

“I know only that this man wants to know everything about my culture and my language. I have been teaching him.”

“Did someone bring you to him?”

“Yes,” the other Indian signed back. “Two trappers brought me here and gave to my family many items to use if I would stay for a little while.”

“And these two trappers, did they tell you that this man thinks you are Blackfoot?”

“No,” the other man signed.

Gray Hawk laughed and, turning toward Toddman, said, in English, “This man that you are calling Blackfoot has just told me that two trappers brought him here in exchange for giving his family many items of use. They did not tell him that he was supposed to be Blackfoot. He has been teaching you, Toddman, the ways of his people, the Shoshoni. Not the Blackfeet.” Gray Hawk grinned. “The trappers lied to you.”

“No!” Toddman’s face contorted. “It is not possible. I wouldn’t believe a savage anyway. Nor will anyone else. You cannot speak the truth.”

“I do not lie.”

“No! No one here would believe you. Not against me. You, a dirty, wild man.”

Gray Hawk glanced down at his spotless white regalia. He grinned wider. He said, “Then I challenge you. Take this Indian to any man of knowledge in this part of the country and ask him. Not a trapper. Someone who knows Indians. Is there such a person living here?”

“There is Superintendent Clark,” someone from the crowd volunteered. “He knows all Indians. He and Lewis met a lot of ‘em thirty years ago.”

“Then take this Indian there. You will see.”

Toddman drew himself up and squinted his eyes. “I most certainly will. Wait here, you savage. I will, I tell you. Come.” He motioned to the Shoshoni Indian, and the warrior, sending Gray Hawk a puzzled glance, followed.

The drums and singing of the Delawares, which had been going all this time, suddenly stopped.

And Gray Hawk glanced to Viscount Rohan.

Gray Hawk said clearly, very distinctly, “You need not fear this other man’s work. He has the testimony of a Shoshoni Indian, not a Blackfoot. His are lies.” Gray Hawk jutted out his chin. “I have spoken.”

The viscount only stared back at Gray Hawk, seemingly at a loss for words, until at last he uttered, “Thank you, son.”

Gray Hawk nodded and started to turn away, but Genevieve had come up behind the viscount. Her eyes were red, her face pale.

He stared at her; she, back at him.

He knew what he had to do, for her sake, for his. He hesitated, unwilling to let it happen. But it had to be done.

He picked up his bow from the ground, putting it back around his shoulder. Then he lifted the arrow lying there, too, but instead of replacing it in his quiver, he kept it in his hand.

And then, gradually, so slowly that perhaps no one else, save Genevieve, would notice, he let the stick drop.

He didn’t move. Nor did she.

At length, he gave Genevieve one last look, and then, spinning about, he sprinted from the room.

Genevieve had watched Gray Hawk’s dance from afar.

She’d observed him as he’d jumped, as he’d gone through the motions of a brave out on the hunt.

She was awed by his grace, amazed at his prancing and impressed by his spins as he had hit his knees to the floor, then jumped up. She herself moved up and down to the beat, just as she had been taught in the Indian camp. She couldn’t help it.

In the Indian camp
.

She caught her breath and glanced around her. This was not the Indian camp.

Yes, there were people here she liked, people here she’d met before and would like to meet again, but they were all mere acquaintances. None of them had ever come as close to her as her three Indian sisters.

Her sisters. She loved them.

It was an odd thing to realize out here in the middle of a posh, European-style dance floor. She would miss the company of her Indian sisters.

Yet
this
was her world, not the prairie.

Or was it?

Was her heart here? Or out there?

She grimaced. She’d been fighting it ever since she’d arrived back home. Yes, there were amenities here that she’d begun to think were necessary, riches she couldn’t do without, and yet the happiest she had ever been was out there on the prairie—with Gray Hawk.

She’d been trying to deny it, hoping she wouldn’t have to confront it, but something had happened to her out there. It was as though, out among the open spaces, she’d found herself. Not the Lady Genevieve others knew her to be, not the devoted daughter, nor any other image she might have given of herself. She’d been able to just be herself.

She sighed. It was true. Her happiness did not lie here. It was with Gray Hawk, and perhaps it had been that way ever since the first time she had seen him. She didn’t know.

But it didn’t matter. At last, she knew what to do.

Perhaps it had taken the threat of loss to bring her to her senses.

Perhaps not.

Whatever it was, Genevieve knew her life would be a bleak, miserable existence if Gray Hawk weren’t in it.

She didn’t know why it had taken her so long to see it: that here, in front of her, was a man of honor, a man of integrity and a man of sensitivity. Here was someone a person would be proud to call friend…a man that a woman would be lucky to find in her lifetime.

She would tell him, somehow. She must. Before it was too late. Before he threw her away.

This decided, she slowly stepped toward him. She would join the dance with him. She would show him that nothing mattered, not her society, not his. They loved. Somehow they would solve their problems…together.

She had just started to advance toward him, into the sacred circle, when suddenly another Indian stepped forward, an Indian she did not recognize.

She saw Gray Hawk stop. She heard his war cry, listened to what he said.

She watched as he communicated with the other Indian in sign language. She read the signs herself, she and her father having learned that language long ago.

What was this? The other Indian openly admitting to not being Blackfoot?

Could this be true? If it were, it meant…

Her spirits soared, and she almost laughed.

Her father would have no further competition from Mr. Toddman, nor the Duke of Starksboro.

It was incredible.

She had to find her father. She had to tell him, if he didn’t already know. She peered through the crowd, looking for her father. Once finding him, she fought her way toward him, coming up behind him.

But her father didn’t notice her. He was staring straight ahead of him, staring at Gray Hawk. And Gray Hawk peered back.

Gray Hawk’s gaze, of a sudden, switched to her. She opened her lips to say something. But before she could do a thing, Gray Hawk frowned at her. She froze.

No, it couldn’t be. Not now, not when she had just discovered the truth of her feelings.

But she was too late.

Gray Hawk had already opened his hand, and as she watched, as though from afar, a stick—one of his arrows—hit the ground.

She jerked her gaze back up toward him.

Their glances met, hers tortured, his resigned. One second ticked by, and another, and then he was turning aside. Before she could let go of her lethargy and run to him, he was already sprinting away.

“Gray Hawk,” she said, too late, her voice barely audible. Then, more distinctly, “Gray Hawk!”

“Genny!” It was her father speaking.

“I love him, Father. I don’t know—”

“Go to him. Go on, before he gets away forever. We’ll work things out later. Go on, now. I’ve been a fool, Genny, to separate the two of you. I could see only what
I
felt, never considering you…or him. I was wrong to put prejudice before intelligence. You’ve a fine man there; don’t let him get away. Go on, now. Get him before he’s gone.”

She gave her father a tortured glance.

“There’s still time. I’m sorry I ever stood in your way. You belong with him. Go.”

“Oh, Father.” She flung her arms around him. “You’ve truly accepted this? You’ll still love me?”

“I’ll love you no matter what. Now get, Genny, before he’s forever gone. Just come and visit once in awhile.”

She didn’t wait another second. Lifting her skirts, she ran through the crowd of people as fast as she was able. She didn’t care what anyone said; she didn’t care what anyone thought. These people’s opinions were based on prejudice. Hers were founded on love.

“Gray Hawk!” she called out, running through the hall and straight out onto the porch. “Gray Hawk, wait!”

There was no sign of him.

“Gray Hawk! Please, don’t go!”

But there was no one there to hear.

How could he have disappeared so quickly?

She had to act, and fast. The man could run as swiftly as the wind.

She ceased thinking. She grabbed a horse, still saddled and tied to the hitching post just outside the house. And even though the animal was not her own, she didn’t think twice about what she did. She would return the animal.

Hopping up into the saddle, she straddled the horse. She didn’t even consider protocol and the correctness of riding sidesaddle. She didn’t have time for such things.

She urged the animal forward down the carriage lane, nudging it to a gallop, into a run.

Dear Lord, she didn’t see Gray Hawk anywhere. Where could he have gone? Wait! What was that up ahead of her?

A man sprinting through the street?

She urged the horse on even faster.

Yes, it was. It was a man dressed in white, a man tearing down the road as though he were a thief escaping a crime. A man dressed in white buckskin.

“Gray Hawk!”

He didn’t stop.

“Gray Hawk, wait!”

He slowed, looking back over his shoulder. All at once, he stopped and turned back to face her.

“Wait, Gray Hawk, please!”