The Spirit Path (31 page)

Shadow Hawk heard the soft snuffle of a horse, the sound of hoofbeats. Too late, he reached for the rifle that was now in the hands of an enemy.

There were three men, all heavily armed. Two were riding double on a big blood bay mare. The man who held Hawk’s rifle was on foot.

Shadow Hawk stood up, his expression impassive as he placed himself between Maggie and the three men. “What do you want?”

“You speak English? Well, that makes it easier.” He gestured at the man on foot. “My partner here lost his horse, so we’ll be taking yours.”

“No.”

The man looked at Shadow Hawk in amazement. “What did you say?”

“I said no.”

The man jacked a round into the breech of his rifle. “I don’t think you’re in any position to argue.”

“My woman is with child. She is not well enough to walk.”

“Yeah, well, that’s too bad, but we’re in a kind of a hurry ourselves.”

“Wait, La Jeunesse. He said something about a woman.”

“Forget it, Conner. We ain’t got time to dally with no squaw.”

“She is not a squaw,” Shadow Hawk said, his voice cold.

Conner stepped past Shadow Hawk and stared at Maggie, who was sitting up, the blanket pulled up to her chin. “Well, now, she ain’t no squaw, that’s a fact. She’s a white woman.”

“Dammit, Conner, I don’t care if she’s the Queen of Sheba, we got no time for this now.”

“There’s always time for a woman.”

The man riding pillion on the bay slid to the ground. “Come on, Conner, La Jeunesse is right. We need to be makin’ tracks.”

“All in good time, you two,” Conner said affably. He smiled at Maggie, then reached out to touch her cheek with a hand that was dirty and stained with tobacco.

A moment later, he was flat on his back, staring death in the face as he tried to pry Hawk’s fingers from his throat.

La Jeunesse and the other man watched a moment, and then La Jeunesse drew his revolver and brought the butt down on Shadow Hawk’s head, just behind his ear. Hawk fell sideways, his body limp. With a grunt of satisfaction, La Jeunesse reached down and pulled the knife from Hawk’s belt and stuck it in his own.

With a cry of despair, Maggie rose to her feet and started toward Hawk. He lay so still she was certain he was dead. But the man called Conner dropped a heavy hand on her shoulder and held her back.

“Conner, I don’t want any more trouble,” La Jeunesse said. “Get the Injun’s horse and let’s get out of here.”

Conner shook his head, one hand rubbing his throat, his gaze on the woman. “Let’s take her with us.”

“She’s breedin’,” Irv said irritably. “La Jeunesse is right. Let’s get movin’ before that Injun comes to.”

“One kiss then,” Conner insisted. “Just one. I ain’t seen a white woman in months.”

“Hurry on with it then,” La Jeunesse muttered, regretting the day he’d met Conner. The man had been nothing but trouble. It was Conner’s fault they were hightailing it out of the territory. He’d raped a woman and killed her husband, then, to top it off, his horse had stepped in a prairie dog hole and broken its leg. And now this.

Le Jeunesse shook his head, thinking it might be easier to ride on and leave Conner behind. Hell, they didn’t need a woman. All they needed was a horse.

Maggie backed away, repulsed by the lust in the man’s eyes, by the filthy hands that reached out for her. She screamed as Conner’s hand clamped down on her arm.

The sound of Maggie’s cry pierced the darkness and the pain. Feeling groggy, Shadow Hawk stared at the scene before him through narrowed eyes, anger building within him as he saw one of the white men holding Maggie. She struggled in his grasp as he tried to kiss her.

The other two men stood nearby and Shadow Hawk assumed they were waiting their turn. Through half-closed eyes he saw his rifle propped against a rock. He heard Maggie cry out as the man called Conner pressed his mouth to hers.

Rage overcame caution. Rolling to his knees, Shadow Hawk grabbed his rifle and fired three times in rapid succession.

The sound of gunfire echoed and reechoed in the stillness that followed.

Shadow Hawk stared at the three men. He felt no regret at killing them. They had frightened Maggie. They would have stolen his horse. They had laid hands on his woman.

Throwing the Winchester aside, Shadow Hawk hurried to Maggie’s side. She was shaking violently, her face as pale as death as he pulled her into his arms, turning away so she couldn’t see the dead men or the blood staining the ground.

He rocked her back and forth, the hot blood of vengeance roaring in his ears. Killing the
wasichu
with a rifle had been too quick, too easy. The man who dared touch Maggie should have died slowly, inch by painful inch. He longed to hack the man to pieces, to cut off his filthy hands. Instead, he murmured words of comfort to Maggie and slowly, gradually, the lust for blood lessened.

“Are you all right?” he asked after a while.

She nodded, wishing Hawk had not killed those men, understanding why he had and feeling guilty anyway.

“Mag-gie?”

“I want to go home,” she whispered. Home, where the only real violence she saw was on the ten o’clock news. Home, to the serenity of her ranch in the shadow of the Black Hills, where the only men who carried guns were lawmen or deer hunters.

“I will take you home, Mag-gie,” he promised. He felt her tremble in his arms, and then she was clinging to him, her face buried in his neck as she cried.

Later, when the horror of the moment had passed, she insisted on examining the gash in his head. He flinched as she probed the wound. It wasn’t deep and had stopped bleeding, but his hair was matted with blood. She washed it as best she could, thanking God that it wasn’t worse, that Hawk was the kind of man he was. Without his courage and quick thinking, they might both have been killed.

When she’d finished looking after Hawk, he turned the tables on her. The look on his face told her that she was bleeding again. Fear, colder than winter ice, stabbed at her heart as she wrapped her arms over her belly, wishing she could protect her unborn child as ably as Hawk had protected her.

After retrieving his rifle and hunting knife, he carried Maggie away from their camp and made her comfortable in the shade of a squat yellow bluff while he went back to dispose of the bodies and turn the extra horses loose.

Lying there, Maggie tried to clear her mind of the grotesque images, but every time she closed her eyes, she saw blood spurting from the back of La Jeunesse’s head. And though she tried to think of something else, she could not help but wonder if Hawk would take their scalps.

But this time, she didn’t ask.

They reached the plateau of the Sacred Cave late in the afternoon.

Dismounting, Hawk spread the buffalo robe beneath a leafy pine so Maggie would have shade. When she was comfortable, he turned the horse loose and then left his rifle behind a clump of brush.

When that was done, he walked a short distance from the cave entrance. Removing his shirt and leggings, he lifted his head and began to pray, beseeching
Wakán Tanka
to grant Maggie safe passage through the Spirit Path, to spare their son’s life, to give Maggie strength to endure the rest of their journey, to bear their child in safety. He asked nothing for himself.

Drawing his knife, he made several shallow cuts in his chest, offering his blood and his pain to
Wakán Tanka
as a token of his willingness to sacrifice his own life in exchange for Maggie’s safety and the life of their child.

It was near dark when he returned to the Cave.

“Hawk, what happened?” Maggie asked, gesturing at the blood that streaked his chest.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing!”

“I was praying, Mag-gie. The blood was an offering to
Wakán Tanka
.”

“I
see.”

“Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

Hawk nodded. Removing the knife from his belt, he tossed it away, and then removed the coup feather he wore in his hair. That done, he lifted Maggie into his arms and took his first step into the Cave of the Spirit Path.

The dark of the cavern swallowed them up as Shadow Hawk made his way deeper into the Cave.

It was as he remembered it, the air cool, the floor covered with sand. When they reached the heart of the Cave he laid Maggie on the ground, then withdrew a small sack of pollen from his belt. He held it in his hand a moment, recalling that it had been a gift from Sitting Bull, a token of friendship from one medicine man to another.

Standing beside Maggie, Shadow Hawk offered a pinch of sacred pollen to the Powers Above, to the Four Winds, to Mother Earth, praying softly as he did so, and then he knelt beside Maggie. Taking her hand in his, he faced the east wall of the Sacred Cave and concentrated on the future, specifically Maggie’s ranch house nestled in the little meadow in the Black Hills.

For a time, nothing happened. Silently, he called out to the Spirit of the Cave, pleading for its help, praying that Maggie would be sent back to her own time even if he could not go with her.

Please, Wakán Tanka, be merciful to my wife and child. Please Father, send her home that my child may live. Do as you will with me, but grant Maggie and my son a long and healthy life.

Slowly, the darkness within the Cave grew thicker, heavier. Shadow Hawk could feel the Spirit of the Cave closing in around him, could feel the Spirit’s breath upon his face. He held tight to Maggie’s hand, felt her tremble in his grasp as the darkness came to life, surrounding them with its power.

He sensed her fear and he placed one arm around her shoulders, hoping his closeness would comfort her, even as he pressed a finger to her lips, reminding her to be silent.

Maggie nodded that she understood, but she couldn’t still the trembling of her limbs as the blackness closed in around her, enveloping her, wrapping her in a cocoon of darkness and warmth.

Shadow Hawk continued to stare at the east wall of the Cave, all his energy, all his thoughts, now focused on Maggie’s home in the meadow. He pictured it in his mind’s eye, the house, the red brick chimney, the corrals, the barn, and as the wall of the cave grew light, the images in his mind grew stronger, sharper, the details becoming clearer, until he could almost touch the house, feel the wood beneath his hand.

He felt Maggie clutching his arm, felt her shivering uncontrollably. He knew a moment of panic as he felt her slipping away from him, and then he felt himself being pulled down, down, into darkness blacker than night, deeper than eternity, a darkness so consuming it felt like death.

Awareness returned slowly. When he opened his eyes, he saw only darkness and for a moment he thought he was traveling the Dark Road to
Wanagi Yatu
,
the Place of Souls.

And then, as from a great distance, he heard Maggie’s voice calling his name, felt her hand clinging to his as if she would never let go.

“Hawk?” Her voice was louder this time, closer.

“I am here.” He stood up slowly, feeling as if he were climbing through layers of quicksand, and then he reached for Maggie, lifting her carefully into his arms.

He could feel her shivering against him as he walked toward the mouth of the Sacred Cave, and he sent a silent plea to
Wakán Tanka
,
praying that they had returned to Maggie’s time, that it wasn’t too late to save their child.

He was holding his breath as he crossed the threshold of the Cave into the pale dawn. Turning, he glanced down the mountain, felt a warm rush of relief as he saw Maggie’s house in the distance.

“We made it!” Maggie exclaimed, and then sighed in defeat. Her house looked a million miles away. Strong as Hawk was, he couldn’t carry her all the way down the hill and across the meadow to the ranch.

Hawk was thinking the same thing. “I must leave you here, Mag-gie,” he said. Squatting on his heels, he made her comfortable in the shade of a pine. “I will return as soon as I can. Do not move.”

“I won’t.”

Hawk nodded. Leaning forward, he kissed her cheek and then he was gone.

She watched him run effortlessly down the hill until his long legs carried him out of sight.

Hawk ran as if his life depended on it. And it did, he thought somberly. If anything happened to Maggie, he knew all the joy would be gone from his life.

He ran steadily onward, ignoring the thorny brush that scratched his arms and legs, concentrating on keeping his balance as he plunged down the hill.

Running was something every Lakota boy excelled at. As a young warrior, he had run for miles at a time to build the muscles in his legs, to increase his breathing. Sometimes they had run with a mouthful of water and any boy who had swallowed the water before he reached the end of the course went away in shame. He was glad now for the many miles he had run.

At length, he reached the foot of the hill. He paused only a moment, and then he began to run again, his gaze focused on the house. There was smoke rising from the chimney, and for a moment he thought how surprised Jared and Joshua were going to be to see him, and then he put everything from his mind but the need to hurry.