Savage Arrow (7 page)

“What are you going to do?” Jade asked, sensing Jessie’s tumultuous thoughts.

“I’m not sure yet,” Jessie said. She took Jade’s hands in hers. “But there must be a way for us to get away from this man. He might be my cousin, but I’m beginning to believe he is a madman!”

Jade flung herself into Jessie’s arms. “Then you’ll help us? Thank you, oh thank you,” she sobbed. “Still, I can’t help being afraid.”

“Yes, I know,” Jessie said, returning Jade’s hug. “I am afraid, too.”

They both stiffened when they heard Reginald rant and rave in the corridor as he walked back toward his own bedroom.

“I wonder what caused him to change,” Jessie said, her voice drawn. “There isn’t anything about him that is the same as he once was.”

“I hear the Indians put a curse on him,” Jade said, leaning away from Jessie to peer intently into her eyes.

“A curse?” Jessie gasped, paling. “Why?”

Jade shrugged. “He must have wronged them, too, somehow,” she said. She lifted the hairbrush. “Come, and I will finish brushing your hair so that you can go to bed. You look tired, Jessie. Very, very tired.”

Jessie took the robe off, laid it across the back of a chair, then sat back down before the mirror.

As Jade resumed brushing her hair, Jessie’s thoughts went over all that the lovely Chinese woman had told her.

That part about the Indians intrigued her. She wondered if it might be true. If so, might it have anything to do with Thunder Horse’s Sioux people?

Yes! She recalled now that Reginald had said the Sioux knew about where he had found the silver, but no one else did!

Had the Sioux put a curse on him? Did Thunder Horse have a role in this?

Thunder Horse.

Ah, just the thought of that handsome chief made everything bad leave Jessie’s mind.

She hoped that tomorrow, when she was out horseback riding, she might possibly see him, or even find his village.

Might she eventually seek help from the Sioux, and especially Thunder Horse?

He had already helped her once. Were she to ask, would he save her a second time?

The day was bright and filled with a soft wind as Thunder Horse rode on his sorrel horse beside his nephew Lone Wing. He was constantly impressed by the boy’s growth; he seemed to have the spirit and skills of someone twice his age.

There was no true purpose for their excursion today except for Lone Wing to develop his skills on his palomino pony. One day, when he was a warrior full grown, he would ride a horse as powerful as Thunder Horse’s muscled steed.

As they rode onward, and turned past a thick stand of tall ponderosa pines, Thunder Horse’s eyes were drawn ahead to someone kneeling beside a granite stone that his people worshiped with prayers and offerings.

It was a woman!

One of her gloved hands was clutching the reins of a brilliantly white horse, which stood behind her, lazily munching oat grass.

When Thunder Horse realized who this person was,
his heart skipped a beat. Her hair was flame-red beneath the rays of the early afternoon sun, and her tininess was even more pronounced in what appeared to be riding clothes—a white blouse, a leather skirt, and leather boots.

Ho
, it was the same woman who had unknowingly lured him to Reginald Vineyard’s ranch house last night, to observe her as she mingled with the crowd of white people.

While horseback riding today, she had discovered the stone that was sacred to Thunder Horse’s people.

Lone Wing saw Thunder Horse slow his steed to a trot and followed his uncle’s lead. Then he noticed the path his uncle’s eyes had taken and saw what . . . who . . . Thunder Horse was looking at so intently.

A
mitawin
, a white woman!

Lone Wing’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

“You are looking at this woman as though you know her,” Lone Wing said, edging his pony closer to Thunder’s Horse’s steed. “Who is she? Why is she kneeling beside the sacred stone of our people? Do whites worship it, too? Do some whites have the same beliefs as we Sioux have? And . . . why are you looking at this
mitawin
with such . . . such . . .”

Lone Wing didn’t finish his question, for he was not certain that he should.

Yet his curiosity remained. His uncle had chosen not to allow a woman into his life while he had so many troubles on his mind about his people and his ailing father.

Thunder Horse glanced quickly at Lone Wing. As they drew rein, Thunder Horse felt a little unnerved
that his nephew had caught him gazing with such fascination at this woman.

Since Thunder Horse wasn’t certain why he could not let go of Jessie in his mind, or his heart, he knew that it would be hard for him to explain this attraction to anyone else. So he chose to ignore part of his nephew’s question.

“No, Lone Wing, no whites have the same beliefs as we Sioux,” he said. “This woman has surely been drawn here out of curiosity.”

“What are you going to do about her?” Lone Wing asked. “Are you going to order her away, or let her remain here?”

Thunder Horse didn’t respond right away. He still gazed at Jessie, aware that she had not heard their approach.

She seemed caught up in studying what lay at the foot of the stone. He understood that to a white woman, the objects lying there would be curious.

He was glad that she had not reached out to touch anything that had been placed there by his people. He found her respect for his people’s beliefs commendable.

“What will you do about her being here, where she does not belong?” Lone Wing asked again, surprised when his uncle’s only response was to sink his heels into the flanks of his steed and ride onward toward the woman.

Lone Wing caught up with him. “Will you allow her to remain, or order her away?” he prodded.

“Neither,” Thunder Horse finally said, looking over
at Lone Wing. “We will go and speak with her, then allow her to do as she pleases. Stay or go. It is apparent that she means no harm.”

Jessie’s insides tightened when she became aware of approaching horses. She had been so caught up in studying what lay around the stone, and the stone itself, that she had not heard the horses earlier.

She knew they were very close now, and she could not help being suddenly afraid. She was alone and someplace she obviously shouldn’t be, especially if these were Sioux warriors riding toward her.

She rushed to her feet.

When she turned and saw who was approaching, her pulse raced. Thunder Horse was riding toward her on a lovely steed with a teenage boy on a pony close beside him.

She no longer felt threatened, but quite the opposite. She had hoped to see Chief Thunder Horse again, and here he was, his eyes looking squarely into hers. Her insides melted when he smiled at her.

But no words were exchanged.

He drew rein a few feet from her, and she knew that any other white woman would be afraid to be discovered by Indians so far from home.

But she wasn’t afraid.

She would never forget Thunder Horse’s kindness toward her, how he had saved her life!

Thunder Horse raised his left hand in greeting, palm out, in his people’s gesture of friendship . . . the left hand because it was nearer the heart and had shed no blood.

“I remember you,” he said in a deep, masculine tone as he lowered his hand and again took up his horse’s reins. “We became friends on that day when I stopped the runaway stagecoach. I remember your name, too. It is Jessie.”

Pleased that he had remembered not only her, but also her name, Jessie nodded. “Yes, I remember you, too,” she said, nervously twining and untwining the reins around her left hand. She occupied her hands in the hope of keeping him from noticing that they were trembling.

If he saw them trembling, he might think it was from fear, when actually it was because she was so taken by him.

“It . . . is . . . nice to see you again,” Jessie blurted out.

“I am pleased also,” Thunder Horse said. Then he motioned with a hand toward Lone Wing. “This is my nephew. He goes by the name Lone Wing. Lone Wing, this woman’s name is Jessie.”

“It is good to know you, Jessie,” Lone Wing said, beginning to understand why his uncle seemed so fascinated by this woman. Even Lone Wing could see how beautiful she was. And she seemed sweet, as his own mother was.

“It’s nice to know you, too, Lone Wing,” Jessie said, reaching a hand out toward the boy, which he didn’t take. It was obvious he did not understand that her way of greeting someone was with a handshake.

She again toyed with the reins.

“Why have you stopped at the sacred rock of my people?” Thunder Horse blurted out.

His abrupt question made Jessie’s smile fade. He wished now that he had not been so quick to demand an answer.

“I was horseback riding and was drawn to this huge stone,” Jessie explained. Only now did she realize that she might have done something wrong in examining the stone. Obviously, it was something sacred to Thunder Horse’s people. “First I noticed, from a distance, that the stone was painted red, then when I grew closer, I became even more curious when I saw the many things on the ground around it.”

“What you see are votive offerings,” Thunder Horse said, nodding toward small bags of tobacco, pieces of cloth, hatchets, knives, and a lone arrow. “There are certain stones such as this that are worshiped with prayers and offerings by my people.”

“I apologize for coming here,” Jessie murmured. “I didn’t know about the meaning behind the red stone, or the gifts, or I wouldn’t have come close. I will not do so again.”

“You can come often, if you so choose,” Thunder Horse said thickly. “The stone is there for everyone, not only us Sioux.” He reached his hands heavenward and motioned all around him. “In these things, the stone, the clouds, the trees, the buffalo, all things are one.”

He ended with the sign for “all,” moving his right hand, palm side down, in a horizontal circle at the height of his heart.

He had noticed that all the while he sat on his horse so close to Jessie, she kept placing her hand on her stomach.

He had seen this before, when a woman with child felt that the child inside her might be threatened by something or someone. The thought of this woman possibly carrying Reginald Vineyard’s child was repulsive to him, for it surely meant that she was his wife . . . and absolutely forbidden to Thunder Horse.

But besides that, he didn’t like to think that this woman felt threatened in his presence. He had told her more than once that he was a friend.

And hadn’t he proved it to her? Had he not saved her life?

The sound of an approaching horse and buggy, seen now in the distance, interrupted his thoughts. Thunder Horse recognized the deranged Reginald Vineyard by his tiny size. Could he truly be the husband of this woman who might haunt Thunder Horse with her sweet loveliness forever and ever?

Thunder Horse wheeled his horse quickly around.

“
Hiyu-wo
, come, nephew!” he said, giving Lone Wing a nod. “It is time to go. Quickly!”

As he rode into a stand of trees with Lone Wing beside him, Thunder Horse could not stop thinking about how Jessie had placed her hand on her stomach. Surely she
was
with child.

“Why did we flee so quickly?” Lone Wing asked. “I like the lady. You seemed to, also.”

“Why did I decide to leave?” Thunder Horse said, continuing farther and farther away from where he felt he had left his heart. “Because the man who is approaching in that buggy is our
toka
, our enemy, Reginald Vineyard. I do not wish today to see him face to face.”

“Is the woman then a
toka
, as well?” Lone Wing asked. “For surely she belongs to the man. He seems to be coming for her.”

“I am not quite certain yet what to make of her,” Thunder Horse said, his voice tight. “Or what her true relationship is with that man. But in time I will find out, and then I will know how to act.”

Lone Wing gazed silently at his uncle. He had seen in his eyes that he did care for this
mitawin
, whether or not she had skin the color of his enemies, and even if she belonged to the Fox band’s worst enemy of all: Reginald Vineyard!

He could not help wondering how his chieftain uncle was going to act on
that?

Jessie felt uneasy as Reginald rode up in his horse and buggy and drew rein close to her. His eyes seemed even more beady than ever as he glared down at her.

When he glanced at the beautiful horse he had been generous enough to give her, then looked hard at her again, she could guess what he must be thinking. She knew he had seen Thunder Horse with her only moments ago.

Reginald was probably thinking that she was taking advantage of his generosity to ride her horse to meet with another man. His next words confirmed her guess.

“When did you first meet him?”

That question, asked so suddenly and with such venom, made Jessie’s spine stiffen.

She didn’t want to tell Reginald the truth of how she and Thunder Horse had first met. That was something she wanted to keep inside her heart like a wonderful
secret . . . a secret that only she and Thunder Horse shared.

That might be the only thing they could ever have between them.

“Today,” Jessie said quickly, hating to lie.

“Today?” Reginald scoffed, now glowering at her. “And I am to believe that? You must know it is not a normal thing for a white woman and a powerful Indian chief to come together as friends. It is forbidden in all respects.”

“He just happened along and found me studying his people’s sacred stone,” Jessie said, refusing to back down. “I was horseback riding. I saw this strange stone painted red, and then when I got closer I saw all those things lying around it. I stopped and took a better look, and that was when Chief Thunder Horse and his nephew found me here.”

“You say that name—Chief Thunder Horse—so easily, as though you have no fear of that Sioux warrior,” Reginald said, his eyes holding a strange twinkle, as though he had guessed Jessie’s feelings for Thunder Horse.

“Why are you here?” Jessie blurted out, angrily placing her hands on her hips. “Are you going to watch everything I do . . . everyone I happen to speak with?”