The Spirit Path (12 page)

Hawk avoided being alone with Maggie for the next couple of days. He spent long hours outside, exercising the horses, brushing the animals until their coats were smooth as glass and their manes and tails flowed like silk.

Needing more to do, he moved to the woodpile and began chopping firewood, finishing the pile Bobby had started. He watered the front lawn, raked the leaves, mucked out the stalls in the barn.

“If you don’t watch out you’ll soon be swilling beer in front of the TV every weekend just like the
wasichu
ranchers,” Veronica warned, but Hawk just scowled at her and asked her what else he could do.

Maggie understood why Hawk stayed outside, why he was reluctant to be near her, especially on Sunday when they were alone in the house, but it hurt just the same. She supposed she should be grateful that he regarded her virtue so highly, that he was a man who believed in honor and chastity, but that was cold comfort in bed at night.

Holding on to her virginity had always been easy. She hadn’t cared that saving herself for marriage was as old-fashioned as bustles and hoop skirts. But then, she’d never met a man like Hawk. Somehow, all her mother’s teachings and her own sense of right and wrong evaporated when he was around. It was almost funny, she thought. She’d saved her virginity for so long and now she couldn’t even give it away.

She turned her attention to her novel, submerging herself in a love story where she was in complete control, where the hero behaved the way she thought he should, where nothing was impossible, not if two people loved each other enough.

She stayed at her computer until late at night, and in the space of three days she’d written one hundred and twenty pages. And it was good, all of it. There was a new depth of feeling in her writing, a deeper understanding of the relationship between a man and a woman, a vulnerability that she’d never explored before. And she owed it all to Hawk, to the feelings and emotions he had aroused in her.

The evening of the fourth day, Maggie was sitting at her computer, frowning at the blank blue screen, when Hawk entered the room.

“Veronica wants to know if you would like a piece of cake and a glass of milk before she leaves.”

“What? Oh, not now. Tell her thanks.”

Hawk crossed the room to stand beside her. He gestured at the blank computer screen. “You are having trouble?”

“Yes. I’m trying to write a scene that takes place in the Lakota village. I want my hero to do a scalp dance, but I’ve never seen one except in the movies and I doubt they’re very accurate.” Maggie glanced up at Hawk thoughtfully. “Maybe you could…would you?”

“Dance for you?”

“Yes. Would you mind?”

Hawk shrugged.

“Can you do it here? Now?”

“Outside is better.”

Minutes later Maggie and Veronica followed Hawk outside.

“A scalp dance usually takes place in the center of the village,” Hawk explained. “It is a way of celebrating a warrior’s victories. The men are joined by their mothers and sisters who carry the trophies on poles while the men dance. Black face paint is worn by everyone as a symbol of victory.”

Hawk stared at Maggie for a long moment, and then he began to dance, his steps now slow and deliberate, now fast and frenzied, moving to music only he could hear.

Maggie thought she had never seen anything more seductive, more provocative, than Hawk dancing in the light of the setting sun. He moved with masculine grace, the powerful muscles in his arms and legs rippling beneath his smooth bronze skin, his hair whipping over his shoulders, long and thick and black.

She stared at him in open admiration, at the broad shoulders and back that narrowed to a trim waist, and felt her heart skip a beat. He was wonderful to watch, untamed, primal, beautiful.

She slid a glance at Veronica, blushed when she saw the older woman watching her speculatively.

“He’s something, isn’t he?” Veronica murmured.

Maggie nodded. “I’ll bet every young woman in the village had her cap set for him.”

“And some of the older ones, too,” Veronica remarked with a knowing grin.

Maggie applauded when Hawk finished his dance. “That was wonderful,” she said, smiling. “Just wonderful.” And then her smile faded as she realized the significance of the dance.

“Yes, wonderful,” Veronica agreed, thinking the tension between Hawk and Maggie was thick enough to cut with a knife. “Well,” she went on tactfully, “if you two don’t need anything else, I think I’ll head on home.”

“Good night, Veronica. Give my love to Ed and the boys.”

“Will do,” Veronica called over her shoulder. “See you tomorrow.”

An awkward silence fell between Maggie and Hawk as they watched Veronica drive away.

“Would you like some coffee?” Maggie asked.

“Yes.”

He followed her into the house, sat across from her at the table, the coffee pot between them. It was the first time in almost a week that they’d been alone together.

“Would you tell me something?” Maggie asked.

“Yes.”

“Have you ever…” She bit down on her lower lip, wondering if she really wanted the answer to the question on the tip of her tongue. “Have you ever taken a scalp?”

“I am a warrior.”

It was, she supposed, all the answer she needed. “Very many?” she asked, surprised to find she had a rather morbid streak of curiosity.

“How many is many? Ten? Fifteen? A hundred?”

“A hundred!” She almost choked on the words, and then she saw he was teasing her.

“Does it make a difference, Mag-gie?”

“
I
don’t know.” She stared into her coffee cup. He had killed men. White men. Killed them and taken their scalps. It was a sobering thought. It was one thing to write about such atrocities, to know there had been horrors committed by both sides, and something else entirely to be sitting across from a man who had actually done such things.

A muscle flexed in Hawk’s jaw as he watched the play of emotions on Maggie’s face. She had found the scalp dance exciting, but she was sickened to think he had actually taken a scalp. Did she think less of him now, see him as a savage?

He stood up, his hands clenched at his sides. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No,” she said quickly.

“It sickens you to think of it.”

“Yes, a little. I know it was common practice. I even understand why it was done. I just never thought I’d know anyone who had actually done it.” She tilted her head to one side. “Did you really take a hundred scalps?”

He shook his head, and then he smiled, and Maggie felt the warmth of it flood her being like sunshine.

Slowly, the smile faded from his face. His eyes, as black as ink, seemed to burn into her, searing her skin, firing her blood. The tension hummed between them like chain lightning.

Maggie opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. She could only stare at him, her longing clearly mirrored in her eyes, in the quickening of her breath. She folded her hands in her lap to keep from reaching for him, wishing that, for just this night, he would forget he was a warrior, forget his honor, and make love to her.

He took a step toward her and she felt her heart begin to sing.

And then the phone rang. They stared at each other for several moments, unmoving. Maggie willed the infernal contraption to be still, but it continued to ring until, finally, Hawk answered it. He listened for a moment, then handed the receiver to Maggie and left the room.

Maggie watched him go, then put the phone to her ear. It was Veronica. Her husband had been in an accident at work. He was in the hospital at Rapid City in critical condition. Maggie listened to Veronica for several minutes, letting the older woman pour out her fears for her husband, wishing she had some words of comfort to offer Veronica, but in the end there was really nothing to say. And then Veronica began to worry about how Maggie would get along without her.

“I’ll be fine, Veronica. Don’t worry about me.”

“What will you do? How will you manage?”

“For heaven’s sake, Veronica, how can you worry about me at a time like this?”

“I hate to leave you in the lurch like this. I don’t know how long Ed will be laid up. The doctor said it might be weeks.” There was a long pause. “Perhaps months.”

“I’ll be fine, and your job will be waiting for you when you’re ready to come back. Do you need anything? Money? Anything?”

“Maggie…”

“Veronica, promise you’ll let me know if you need help.”

“I will, Maggie. Thank you. I’d better go now.”

“Keep in touch, Veronica.”

“I will.”

Frowning, Maggie dropped the receiver in place, then sat staring at the phone, wishing there was something she could do to help Veronica.

Going to the window, Maggie stared into the distance. Poor Veronica. If Ed passed away she’d be left to raise her two sons alone.

Alone. Maggie swallowed the lump of self-pity rising in her throat. Veronica would never really be alone. Even if Ed passed away Veronica would have her sons to comfort her and years of memories to keep her company while she, Maggie, had nothing and no one…

Disgusted with her maudlin thoughts, Maggie poured herself another cup of coffee. Tomorrow she’d put an ad in the paper. As much as she disliked the idea of hiring someone to take Veronica’s place, it just wasn’t practical for her to live alone. She needed help in and out of the tub, she needed someone to do the shopping, to pick up her mail from town. Even though there were a lot of things she could do for herself, she’d become accustomed to having Veronica do the dusting and the vacuuming, the laundry, the ironing and mending. And she hated to cook. Besides, having someone to look after the house gave her more time to write.

She emptied her cup, then went down the hall to her bedroom, but she was too worried about Veronica to go to bed. Instead, she went to the window and gazed out into the yard.

Somehow, she’d known Hawk would be out there. She stared at him for a long while. She never tired of looking at him, never saw him without a quickening in the pit of her stomach, a fullness in her heart.

She wondered what he was thinking, what he was feeling, what
she
would be feeling if she suddenly found herself in a world turned upside down.

She stared at the moon. It was yellow and bright, almost full.
Magic is always done best in the light of a full moon
… That was what he was thinking. She knew it as clearly as if she’d heard him speak the words. Tomorrow night the moon would be full, and the cave was calling to him, bidding him to return to his own time, his own people.

The day she had dreaded was almost here.

Hawk stared at the
Paha Sapa
,
clothed from top to bottom in evergreens. Near at hand, the Hills appeared to be an unchanging dark green. At greater distances they were black and then blue. He had lived within the shadow of the Black Hills his whole life, camped in the verdant meadows, swam in clear blue lakes and streams shaded by spruce and birch and aspen. He had hunted the buffalo and the elk and the whitetail deer, fought the Crow and the Pawnee, raced his pony across a sea of prairie grass.

He lifted his gaze to the sky, to the bright yellow moon shining down upon him, felt his heart constrict with pain as he realized that his time with Maggie was coming to an end.

Tomorrow night the moon would be full. If the gods were with him, he would enter the Sacred Cave and follow the Spirit Path back to his own time, his own people.

But he didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to leave Maggie, could not bear the thought of never seeing her again. She was a part of him, more precious than the breath that gave him life.

She was watching him even now. He knew it as surely as he knew he must leave her. He could feel the warmth of her gaze resting on his back, could feel her spirit, lonely and unhappy, crying out to him, begging him to stay.

Spirit Woman, you must let me go.

Did he speak the words aloud, or were they only an anguished cry ripped from the depths of his heart? He felt torn, as if his heart and his soul were splitting apart. His soul demanded he return to his own people, that he take his place as the next holy man, that he go back and look after his mother. But his heart yearned to stay here, in Maggie’s world. She needed him, wanted him. And he wanted her as he had never wanted anything, or anyone, else.

Ah, Mag-gie, what am I to do?

Slowly, he turned to face her. And then, as he had once before, he went to her window and climbed over the sill.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Maggie asked tremulously. “Tomorrow night, when the moon is full. And I’ll never see you again.”

Only moments before, he had come to the same painful realization. But now, faced with the task of telling Maggie he had decided to leave, the words died in his throat. He did not want to go, and he could not stay. What was he to do?

A single tear glistened on her cheek and he knew he could not go. He could not leave her now, when she was alone. He would stay and look after her until Veronica returned. And then he would go to the Sacred Cave and hope he had not waited too long.