Renee Simons Special Edition (58 page)

"Too nice a day for that. We're going to a rodeo."

"That isn't very smart. You've been told . . . rather forcefully . . . to stay away."

"I don't think that was unanimous, but in case it was," he put on a pair of dark glasses and grinned boyishly, "they'll never know it's me."

She examined his six-foot-five length from boots to Stetson. "And how do you propose to disguise the rest of you, Treetop?"

"What's the point of being out if I can't enjoy my freedom?" He reached out to her. "Come with me."

She put her hand in his, watching as he wrapped strong brown fingers around hers and cradled them in warmth. Every nerve ending hummed. Unable to speak, she just nodded.

They made their way out of the village over a road winding through the prairie grassland to the campground. Ahead of them a small figure trudged along beneath the summer sun, taking the longest stride his child's legs would allow. When they caught up with the boy, he took no notice of them, but simply looked down at the ground and kept moving.

"Where are your friends?" Stormwalker asked.

"There." He pointed down the road.

"Why did they leave you alone, little brother?"

"They were in a hurry to see the cowboys."

Stormwalker glanced at Zan, then put a hand on the child's shoulder. The boy stopped and Stormwalker hunkered down beside him. "A ride would get you there faster."

"Little Bear walks.

"Well, Little Bear, I need your help. Some bad guys promised to wait for me on this road. Would you climb on my shoulders and use your sharp eyes to watch for them?"

"Are you scared of them?"

"No, but it helps to know what's ahead."

"I ain't scared."

"I know that."

"An' I ain't tired, neither," he insisted. "But I'll help you." He allowed Stormwalker to hoist him onto his shoulders. He swiveled to look behind them, then faced front. "Nobody back there," he announced solemnly.

"Be attentive, Mahto Cicala. You are scout for this little band of travelers." Stormwalker looked at Zan to see if she'd caught on to his little game. She smiled and held Little Bear's leg.

"You scared, lady?"

"Not with two brave men to protect me."

As they walked along, Stormwalker kept up a running conversation to distract his passenger. Finally, they saw a group of youngsters ahead of them. "Your friends?" Stormwalker asked. The boy's head bobbed up and down.

"Well, I don't see those fellas you've been watching for, so if you want to catch up with the others, I'll take over."

"You can be scout now," the boy said, "but I'll stay with you a while in case you need help." He walked in front of Stormwalker and Zan until they were abreast of the other boys.

"Your friend Little Bear is very courageous." Stormwalker looked from one young face to another. "And it's a good thing, too, since there was no one among all you bravehearts to look out for him. You should follow his example. He knows how to be a friend."

A boy of about eleven stepped forward and put an arm around Little Bear's shoulder. "You can walk with me. We'll watch the rodeo together."

Little Bear looked at the adults, who waved him on. He turned and marched proudly away beside his friend.

"Great kid," Stormwalker said. "I'd like to have a son like him some day. But the others are irresponsible. They shouldn't have left him behind. In my day, it never would have happened."

She smiled at his serious expression. "I suppose kids were perfect back in the good old days."

"Not perfect but there were rules. The older guys always looked out for the younger ones who learned from their example. But like today's kids, they could be pretty cruel at times."

"You speak from personal experience."

"When someone's a little different, they'll use that difference against you if they can."

"Like the color of your eyes."

He nodded.

"I have to admit I've wondered about them."

"And you're so well-bred, you didn't ask." He laughed.  "Logic and all those X/Y chromosome rules say I should have found an ancestor who passed them down to me . . . in birth records, or the tribe's oral history. Well, I never did, no matter how far back I went or how deep I dug.

"When I was in college, I spoke to some biologists. They called my eye color an anomaly, something that shouldn't have happened, but did. And since the guys who'd called me a freak had been right, I stopped being angry. To tell the truth, they weren't any worse than the men I served with who called me 'Chief' or 'Geronimo' because they thought it was a compliment."

"Or not," Zan said.

"Or not," he agreed with a grin.

The rodeo was already under way by the time they reached the campground. They stood near the front and a little to the side of a crowded section of the grandstand. Stormwalker explained the events and the scoring as the competition proceeded through saddle bronc riding, calf roping and steer wrestling.

"How did you learn so much about these events," she asked.

"I competed for a couple of years while I was in college."

"Did you win any prize money?"

"Enough to help pay my way through school."

The bull riding competition came last. Stormwalker pointed out the requirements of riding form, the way the bulls spun and ducked their heads and how these contributed to the riders' final scores.

Something about the way the last bull spun out of the chute and into the corral bothered him. "What's wrong?" Zan whispered.

He silenced her with a hand on her arm as he watched the rider, who bounced high off the animal's back. "He's out of control. He's gonna come down over that bull's head."

Stormwalker looked around the ring. The rodeo clown was at the far corner, chasing down two kids who'd scaled the railing and now ran along the inside of the corral. Two cowboys stood by the rider to help in an emergency. At the moment, they were positioned to catch him if he came off the bull sideways, in a proper dismount.

Stormwalker had a hunch he would come off in front of the animal, where the bull could see him and be in perfect position to strike with his horns. The clown, whose job it was to distract the bull, was too far away to help.

The voice inside his head cautioned him to stay out of the way, but he had ignored that voice before. Glad he'd taped his aching ribs before leaving the house, he tore off his glasses, shoved them at Zan, and dashed down the aisle.

From her place at the foot of the grandstand, Zan watched the cowboys madly waving their arms and yelling at the animal.  As Stormwalker vaulted the corral fence, the rider bounced over the bull's head, landing so close to the animal no one could get between them. The bull lowered his head and hooked him, tossing him like an empty feed sack. The cowboy landed hard and tried to roll out of the way, but the animal butted him, flattening him in the dust and raising a collective groan from the spectators.

Stormwalker turned and seemed to recognize the clown. They exchanged words she couldn't make out. The clown tossed a lariat at Stormwalker as the beast pawed the ground uncomfortably close to the fallen rider's head.

With another lariat in his hand, the clown pointed to the bull's horns. Spectators rushed to the railing, blocking Zan's view. She heard the bull bellow and from the sound of pounding hooves, thought he had charged. A loud thud was followed by a cheer from the viewers. By the time she'd pushed her way to the front, the two men had managed to rope and hobble the bull. They sat on the ground with their heels dug into the hard-packed clay. Stormwalker held the end of a rope tied around the bull's ankles. The clown's rope gripped the animal's head by the horns.

I'll need an explanation of how that was done, Zan thought in amazement. She tried not to think about how close to Stormwalker's own head the bull's hind legs now waited. As if afraid to miss anything, the audience quieted.

The clown looked over his shoulder and called out to the other men, "Would you get that man the hell out of here? This critter ain't gonna stay confused forever."

His bulbous clown nose dipped in Stormwalker's direction. "You thought about how we're gonna get out of this predicament?"

"Shoot, Ollie," Stormwalker said softly, "I thought you had a plan."

"Onliest one I know is to let loose and run like hell."

A scant moment or two had elapsed, but the animal had obviously had enough. He swayed restlessly, straining at his bonds and making threatening sounds deep in his throat. Zan's heartbeat pounded in her ears as she watched the two men stand.

  "You go first," Ollie said. "You ain't gettin' paid for this."

"We'll go together."

They lowered the ropes to the ground and backed up against the fence. The bull turned his head. He spotted them and attempted a charge but his hobbled legs brought him down. They scrambled to the safety of the top rail while spectators jostled each other to clap them on their shoulders and shake their hands. The bull broke free as two mounted cowboys entered the corral. Once they'd herded the animal into a waiting truck, Stormwalker and the rodeo clown gave each other a "high five."

Stormwalker spotted Zan at the rail and rejoined her.

"Did you have to go in there?" she asked. Now that the crisis had passed, her concern for his safety gave way to anger. Her voice shook with it. "You could have been trampled."

"Your concern is appreciated."

"You took a foolish risk."

"It needed doing," he said.

"By you?"

"By me." 

Her tangled emotions subsided as he rubbed the back of his neck and rotated his shoulders, re-stretching muscles she suspected had already begun to tighten.

"Yesterday's bruises will hurt even worse tomorrow," she said. "How are your ribs?"

"Irritable."

He touched her cheek. "That protective look is back."

"Is it?" Her heart pounded at his closeness from his touch. She could only thank some unseen guardian angel that his hypnotic eyes were shadowed by the brim of his Stetson.

"It's getting mighty hard to resist."

"I can understand the problem," she said.

"Can you?"

"Uh huh." She handed him his glasses. "Put these on."

The grin flashed. "Don't you think I've been recognized by now?"

"Put them on anyhow," she ordered softly.

"Yes, ma'am."

His hand reached out to her again in a silent request for her trust. With her hand in his, they trailed behind the crowd and crossed the field to where food had been set out for a community feast.

He wore the glasses through supper. They ate in silence as both struggled with unwanted, undeniable feelings. He even kept them on after dark, when the tables and benches were cleared away to make room for dancing. They stood on the fringe of the crowd, listening from the shadows to a country and western group and watching couples sway to slow numbers or two-step to more up-tempo music.

Finally, he swung her around to face him and moved slowly to a song whose sad melody spoke of unrequited love. They drifted further into the darkness where she reached up and removed the glasses, dangling them from her fingers.

"Why'd you do that?" he asked.

"I want to see your eyes," she whispered, "so I'll know what you're thinking."

He eased her closer, close enough so she could feel his heart beat in time to hers and his breath warm on her mouth. The lips that touched hers, with gentleness, in a hint of a kiss, told her what she needed to know. He tested her response with the lightest touch he could manage. When she responded he deepened the kiss. Her lips parted beneath his, her breath moist on the tongue he let slip inside to find and join with hers.

Her arms slipped around his neck. The movement thrust every heart-stopping feminine curve against him. His senses reeled and the blood pounded through his veins. His arms tightened around her as he lifted her off her feet.

"Your ribs," she protested. "You'll make them worse."

"To hell with them," he murmured against her mouth. "The rest of me feels too good to stop."

She clung to him, her breasts pressed against the hardness of his chest, her belly and hips trembling against the passion his body could not deny. He backed into the shadowy parking lot and leaned against the hood of a van, never releasing her as he kissed her mouth, her eyes, her cheeks and the hollow pulsing at the base of her throat. As his arms pinned her to him, the fingers of her free hand tangled in his hair, held tightly as her mouth tore from his and wandered over his face, then traveled down the side of his neck to where it joined his shoulder.

Finally, he let her slide slowly to the ground. His hands swept the long waves of hair from her face and lifted her chin so he could look into eyes deep and black and studded with reflected light from the moon above them. She pushed lightly against his chest. He let her go, watching as she struggled to calm the trembling that wracked her, to tame the needs aroused by their encounter.