Native Wolf (11 page)

They drank from the springs and tiny streams threading through the rocks. Once he saw her catch her reflection in a small pool, and she fingered her snarled and ragged locks in useless vanity. By afternoon, she dragged along at a snail’s crawl, every step looking like her last. At this pace, they would never outdistance their pursuers.

Finally she sank down onto the ground, unable to go any farther. He hunkered down beside her and rubbed the back of his neck, considering his options.

Long ago, Chase's mother had told him the story of how she'd met his father. Mattie had injured herself in a fall, and Sakote had carried her for miles on his back, seeing her safely home. Under the current circumstances, Chase thought it seemed like a practical way to travel.

He reached out toward Claire, seized the front of the shirt he’d loaned her only a few hours ago and began unbuttoning it.

She instinctively grabbed his hands to stop him. “What are you doing?”

“I need the shirt back.”

She cast him a puzzled glance.

Then her face fell, and she blanched. “I’m slowing you down. You’re leaving me here, aren’t you?”

Before he could reply, she slapped his hands away and began unfastening the shirt herself.

Fine,” she said, her voice crackling with anger. “Go. But Yoema would be very disappointed in you. Very,” she said, tearing the shirt from her body, “disappointed.” She hurled the shirt at his chest.

He scowled. He supposed it was natural enough for her to assume he’d abandon her in the wilderness. But she was wrong.

“I’m not leaving you.”

He whipped out the shirt by its sleeves, swirling it over her head and enveloping her in the flannel. Ignoring her stammers of confusion, he pulled the sleeves forward beneath her arms. Then, before he could change his mind, he turned around and hefted her quickly onto his back, tying the sleeves of the shirt around his neck.

The woman sputtered in surprised outrage as he caught her hindquarters in the bottom half of the shirt, securing the sling around his waist in a knot. He boosted her up once to settle her into place with her arms clinging to his shoulders and her knees resting on the bones of his hips. Then, hooking his thumbs under the makeshift straps to keep the sling from choking him, he stood up and started down the path again.

She was lighter than his first
xonsat
, the young buck he’d shot with bow and arrow and packed home on his back when he was eleven winters old. But she was a hell of a lot more trouble than the deer he'd killed. She struggled against him, making noises of indignation, and her body—warm and soft next to his—stirred and distracted him.

He trained his eyes on the path ahead and tried not to think about that part of him that liked this new position all too well. He focused instead on how much deeper into danger he traveled with each step.

Claire was so mortified she could scarcely draw breath, clinging to the savage's back like some overgrown papoose. When she finally managed to gasp in a lungful of air, she could find no words equal to her humiliation. So she simply spluttered like an over-boiling teakettle.

The way she was bound, she had no choice but to embrace him for fear of falling. Her legs were draped around his hips as brazenly as a saloon girl's. And she was pressed so tightly against his bare flesh that they shared sweat.

The half-breed didn’t seem bothered by any of it. He proceeded down the trail, smoothly and effortlessly, as if carrying a woman splayed across his naked back was something he did every day of his life.

Of course, she mustn’t let him continue, no matter what a relief it was to her stinging feet. It was completely indecent, and she couldn’t let him compromise her in such a fashion. She’d never allowed any man such liberties, not even Frank.

Heavens, she hadn’t let her fiancé so much as kiss her on the cheek. Frank was always the perfect gentleman, politely distant, never overstepping his bounds despite his status as her husband-to-be. He never threatened her or offended her in any way. In Frank’s company, she always felt absolutely safe.

This savage, on the other hand, was rash, rude, and completely uncivilized.

Finally she gathered enough wits about her to speak. “Put me down, sir.” Her voice cracked as she felt the sleek skin of his back slide across her inner thighs.

He plodded on, ignoring her.

"I said, put me down.”

He only jounced her again into a more comfortable angle, bringing new heat to her face, and continued on.

Her jaw dropped. "I insist you put me down this insta-"

"Insist?" he said with a bark of laughter.

Her ruffled feathers made her brave. "I can and I do insist," she proclaimed. "This is improper and untoward, and I won’t endure it. When Frank hears what you’ve—“

He stopped abruptly. "Frank?"

"My fiancé," she announced smugly, even though that was technically no longer true, now that she’d broken things off. In case he didn’t recognize the French word, she added, "My intended husband."

He didn’t respond with the shocked gasp she expected, nor did he apologize and set her down. Instead, he shook his head, made a rueful sound reminiscent of a chuckle, and pressed onward.

"Stop!” she cried, incensed. “Stop it this instant! I have my reputation to consider."

“Your reputation,” he growled, “is the least of my troubles.”

“Oh!” she groaned in frustration. But she supposed he was right. A half-breed stealing a white woman would be hanged before he could utter a syllable in his defense. His neck was of far more concern to him than her propriety.

Still, his familiarity chafed at her, figuratively and literally. His lean hips rubbed at the insides of her knees with every stride, and her petticoat bunched higher and higher, threatening to expose her unmentionable parts to the curve of his spine.

It stretched the limits of her endurance. Her body began to respond to the ill treatment, stiffening and flushing in places it should not. It took all her will to draw her mind away from the sensation of his damp flesh upon her. She must think of something, anything, to keep her sanity about her.

Perhaps she could force him to reason. For the moment at least, she was alive and relatively unharmed. Perhaps he’d listen to her if she spoke calmly and rationally. Maybe she could make a fresh start with Yoema’s grandson and convince him he was making a huge mistake.

She cleared her throat, steeled her nerve, and, despite the ludicrousness of her present position, donned her best sitting room manners.

"If we’re going to be…traveling companions,” she said evenly, “I think we should at least be properly introduced. My name is Claire Parker."

“I know.”

She waited for an appropriate response. None was forthcoming.

"And you?" she prompted. "What’s
your
name?"

He didn’t answer.

"You know," she informed him patiently, stifling her temper, “it’s considered common courtesy to exchange names."

“To
your
people,” he told her. “
My
people consider it bad manners.”

She forced a polite chuckle, as if he’d made a clever joke. "Don’t be silly. Your people. My people. If you’re one of the Two-Sons, you’re half white, for heaven’s sake."

The man released an irritated sigh and tromped along even more heavily than before.

She tried again. “If you don’t tell me your name, how will I know how to address you?”

“Who
else
would you be talking to?”

She compressed her lips, striving to be civil. “I suppose I could call you Mr. Half-Breed,” she murmured. “Or One-Son. Or Yoema’s Grand-“

“Kisan-yiman-dilwawh," he grumbled over his shoulder.

"Is that...your name?"

He grunted.

"Ah." Now she was getting somewhere. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr....Kisan...yiman..."

"Dilwawh."

"Dilwawh." What a long and difficult name. She wondered what it meant. She’d learned from Yoema, whose name meant Little Flower, that most Indian names came from nature. "How do you do?"

He didn’t reply. She couldn’t blame him. After all, "how do you do"
was
a rather inane expression, difficult to translate and hard to answer.

"Claire is a French name. It means bright," she offered. "What does your name mean?"

"Kisan-yiman-dilwawh?" He sniffed. "He Who Beats Chattering White Woman."

The hopeful smile she’d pasted on her face fell flat, and on impulse, she smacked the back of his head with the flat of her hand.

“Ow!”

“I am
not
chattering. That is an ungentlemanly thing to say. Yoema would be very disappointed—“

He stopped in his tracks. “Will you stop saying her name?”

Claire would be damned if she’d let the savage dictate to her what she could and could not say. The words tumbled from her lips in a rush of childish passion. "Yoema! Yoema! Yoema!"

She regretted her impetuousness almost at once, for he spat out a long string of words she was sure were epithets.

"Stop it!" he threatened, "Or maybe I
will
beat you."

Claire acquiesced, not because she believed him—he was proving to be all bark and no bite—but because she could see he was as stubborn and strong-willed as his grandmother when it came to getting his way.

Still, his insistence on silencing Yoema’s memory disturbed her. How could he forbid Claire to speak the name of her Konkow mother? How could he deny his own kin’s existence? How could he allow Yoema to fade from the world unnamed and unremembered?

Chase wondered if Xontehltaw, Coyote, was laughing at his empty promise. He might make Claire ride on his back. He might compel her to eat food not to her liking. He might make her wear his shirt and force her to sleep on the hard ground. But he’d never raise his hand against a woman.

Turning back to the path, he grimaced in self-scorn. Some avenging savage he was. The woman was right. He
was
half white. And at the moment, he felt every civilized drop of that white blood.

Hearing his grandmother’s name sent a superstitious shiver along his spine. But that wasn’t the only reason he’d scared the woman into silence.

Each soft word she uttered chipped away at his honor and made him regret his mistake in kidnapping her even more. Her beautiful wide eyes reminded him that she was a virtuous young woman and made him feel like a poor excuse for a man.

Honestly, he didn’t want her to know his name. He didn’t want her to acknowledge him at all. He’d just as soon she forgot all about him. A proper young lady like Claire had no business carrying on with a savage like him. He wished he’d never made the mistake of stealing her. He wanted things to go back to the way they were before he’d met Claire Parker.

Which made him all the more angry when his body, responding to the seductive sensation of warm feminine flesh on his back, started behaving as if it would like to get to know her better.

By the time the sun had crossed the sky and hovered on the crest of the western hills, Chase was dead tired. It wasn’t his burden that made him that way. A blacksmith’s back was as solid as a tree trunk, and the woman was no heavier than a down quilt. No, it was his mind that was exhausted. His thoughts had run in circles all day.

For the sake of his grandmother, he should loathe Claire Parker. In deference to his tribe, he should despise the whites, who had stolen everything from the Konkows. But feeling the woman’s smooth, long limbs wrapped around his hips filled him with emotions completely unlike loathing.

Here he was, in the midst of mortal peril, hunted like an animal, walking a thin path between life and death. Yet his body still responded to its natural cravings, undaunted by the danger. And at the moment, more than food, more than water, more than shelter, he craved the woman.

He let out a ragged sigh, hoping and yet dreading that her heel would slip a little lower.

Such thoughts were wrong. He knew they were wrong. Still...

He clenched his jaw and trained his eyes on the trail ahead. It was far too pleasurable, all her silky warmth upon his skin. And it wasn’t hard to imagine tossing up her skirts and seeking relief in her lovely body. He nearly groaned aloud at the idea.

But Chase was no savage, no matter what she believed. So he decided he’d better stop for the day while he could still heed the voice of reason.

A posse was unlikely to travel in the dark through the mountains. Chase figured he could risk building a fire to cook the rabbit, now that the sun was going down. A crevice in the rock wall ahead formed a hidden half-cave, a good spot to lodge for the night.

Eager to unburden his soul as well as his back, as soon as they reached the recess, he loosened the shirt sleeves and let the woman slip to the ground. She gasped in pain as her tender feet contacted sharp stones, and he winced at his own carelessness.

“Sit,” he ordered, then amended, “if you want.”

She lowered herself onto a flat rock.

He slipped the shirt on, leaving it unbuttoned. The flannel was warm from her body. It smelled like her—soft and sweet and womanly—and he had to fight to keep his mind on the most important task at hand, starting a fire and getting them fed.