Wild Splendor (16 page)

Chapter 19

Singing and loving—all come back together.

—C
OLERIDGE

 

 

With his bow slung over his left shoulder, his wildcat quiver of arrows poisoned with rattlesnake blood secured at his right, and his rifle sheathed at the side of his horse, Sage was ready to travel. He was not taking the time to share war songs with his warriors, or even to dress in his thick buckskin war shirt. He had stopped only to eat dried yucca for energy. Haste was of the essence, for the longer he tarried, the farther his wife was being carried away from him.

He was already riding through his village when a thought struck him. He brought his horse to a stop, his warriors following his lead, when he remembered Runner all alone in his hogan. If he awakened and found no one there, he would become alarmed and feel as though he were orphaned all over again.

Sage quickly explained to his warriors, then urged his horse into a hard gallop until he reached his hogan. Dismounting in a bound, he gazed over at Pure Blossom's dwelling. Most people of the village had been awakened by the noise of the departing warriors. All but Pure Blossom. He looked at her hogan but still saw no signs of her at the door, and he did not think it wise to awaken her. She needed the rest. And she was not well enough now to look after a young boy full of spirit and spunk.

“Then who?” Sage mumbled to himself, staring at the door of his hogan.

“You've returned because you are worried about Trevor?”

The gentle, friendly voice behind Sage made him turn around with a start. He was stunned when he found who it was. His jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed. Because of prejudice, this woman had turned her back a second time to his wife. She had also refused Runner a friendship with Adam—Runner, who was innocent in every way.

And now she was showing concern? Somehow he did not trust her.

“Yes, I have returned because of my son, and I do not have time to talk with you,” Sage grumbled.

Sally lowered her eyes, then lifted them stubbornly up again. “I know you have no time to waste,” she said hurriedly. “That's why I came to you. I am offering to watch Trevor for you while you go and search for Leonida.” She swallowed hard. “I feel terrible about what has happened. Terrible.”

“And so you should,” Sage scolded. He looked past her at his waiting warriors, then put a hand to her shoulder. “I accept your offer. Watch over this boy I now call my son.” He lowered his hand from her shoulder and leaned down into Sally's face. “But never call him Trevor again. He carries with him a Navaho name because he is the son
of
a Navaho.”

He straightened his back slowly, his eyes watching her expression for signs that meant that he still could not trust her.

But she showed no visible signs of resistance. She seemed accepting now of Runner's new lot in life, and perhaps even of this man who now called himself the boy's father.

“Please go on,” Sally said, smoothing her hands down the front of her dress. “I promise to look closely after Runner and call him by the name you've chosen for him.”

Sage nodded, placed a hand of friendship on her shoulder again, then left in a run toward his stallion. He mounted his horse in one leap and rode away, his men soon following after him.

When they reached narrow mountain passages, Sage risked everything by not stopping to walk the horse to safer footings. His stallion knew the way. His steed's hooves stayed firm on the narrow, slippery path until once again they reached a stretch of stone that was wider and safer.

Determined to catch up with Four Fingers, Sage gave his horse no rest. He pushed him farther and farther, and his stallion seemed to understand the desperation of its master in the way it galloped steadfastly onward, snorting white clouds of air from its flaring nostrils.

Crouching low on his horse, Sage raced through the twilight of morning as it became evident in the lightening skies overhead. He knew that they should be reaching the base of the mountain now, and he feared finding Kit Carson somewhere close by.

Yet Sage could not let this worry stop him. The life of his woman was at stake. If he allowed anything to happen to her, his future would be gray and lifeless. So would it be the same for his people. Without his woman at his side, he would no longer be the leader they needed to keep their lives meaningful.

When flat land stretched out before him, shadowed by the hazy morning light, Sage rode onward. He knew of a place where Chief Four Fingers might have stopped to rest and eat, a place that Sage had so often used himself before tackling the steep sides of the mountain to get to his stronghold. It was another canyon, only a short ride away, where a waterfall splashed and fish were in abundance in a mountain stream. If Four Fingers had been at all careless or had misjudged the amount of time it would take Sage and his warriors to follow, then Sage was in luck.

His pulse raced, hoping that Four Fingers had not yet had the chance to touch Leonida.

If so, Sage would make Four Fingers' death agonizingly slow.

Four Fingers would beg for the poison arrow to be shot into his heart.

* * *

Leonida was only slightly aware that her horse stopped. She was still drifting in and out of consciousness, her head pounding from having been forced to hang low for so many hours. She looked dazedly over at a Kiowa warrior as he came and untied the ropes that held her on the horse's back. She sighed with relief when he laid her on the ground, even though she was fearful of what might happen to her next.

She was fully awake now.

She glared up at Four Fingers as he came and stood over her, his legs outstretched, his fists on his hips. The gag was removed from her lips, and another warrior untied the rope that held the hot, clinging rabbit fur against her body. When that also fell away from her, and her pores were allowed to breathe again, and she had inhaled enough breath to give a reprieve to her throat, Leonida tried to scamper to her feet, then fell clumsily back to the ground, weak from having been tied so awkwardly on the horse for so long.

“Your legs will become strong again,” Chief Four Fingers said, sinking to his haunches before Leonida. He reached a hand toward her, chuckling when she raised a hand and knocked his away. “The white woman is not only beautiful, but she also has spirit. This is perhaps why Sage chose you over women of his own coloring to be his wife? Does your spirit exceed that of women of Sage's village? Has it been put to a true test?”

“I will tell you nothing,” Leonida said, her throat parched from the need of water.

“That matters not to me,” Four Fingers said, shrugging. “Words from a white woman are foolish and unimportant. And as for testing, once you are among the Kiowa women, they will test you plenty.”

He grabbed her wrists and held them immobile as he lowered his lips toward hers. “Now? Let Chief Four Fingers test your ability to kiss,” he said huskily. “After your strength has returned, your skills at lovemaking will be thoroughly tested by Four Fingers, and then by those of my warriors who desire to see how a white woman might compare with a Kiowa squaw, in all ways sexual.”

His threats made Leonida shiver. She was going to be used by many men? If Sage ever found her, she would not be fit ever again to be his wife. She would be too defiled, perhaps even ripped apart.

As Four Fingers' lips covered hers, she struggled to get free but found him too strong. She could not budge him.

As his kiss deepened, she tried to blank out the moment, pretending it was not happening. Tears streamed from her eyes as he lowered her to the ground. One of his hands now held her wrists together over her head, and his other hand moved up her velveteen skirt. When his hand covered her womanhood and pressed down against it, his middle finger seeking entrance inside her, she wanted to die. She tried to kick her feet but realized now that they were being held down by warriors on each side of her. They were forcing her legs farther apart, making her more accessible to Four Fingers' probings.

When two other warriors came to kneel on the ground on each side of her head, each one taking one of her hands and holding it on the ground, she stiffened and readied herself for the assault that was near. She wrenched her lips from Four Fingers' mouth and turned away, trembling with fear when his free hand swept up her blouse and cupped one of her breasts, his thumb circling the nipple.

After this was all finished, she vowed, she would find a way to steal a knife.

She would kill Four Fingers first, and then herself.

For now she would concentrate on the peaceful sound of the water splashing down from the waterfall.

She would concentrate on the smell of the wildflowers that dotted the banks of the stream.

She would imagine herself somewhere else, floating, free and pure again, and held in the protective embrace of Sage's powerful arms.

Suddenly her eyes opened wide. Four Fingers jumped away from her. The warriors who had been holding her immobile were all running toward their horses, left watering at the stream.

“Sage!” the sentries shouted as they came running into the camp. “Sage has been spotted. He brings more warriors than we have to fight him off! We must flee! Now!”

Hope filled Leonida in warm splashes, and tears streamed from her eyes.

Sage.

Wonderful Sage.

He was going to rescue her.

But she had to help him. She had to get away from the Kiowa before they had a chance to grab her and put her on one of their horses.

No matter how hard she tried to get up, though, her knees buckled from weakness and she fell back to the ground, breathless. Desperate to get away from the Kiowa, she began crawling toward a nearby boulder.

As she did, she kept looking guardedly behind her, waiting to be discovered. But the Kiowa seemed to have forgotten her. They hurriedly mounted their horses and rode away.

As Sage came into the camp, he got a last glimpse of the fleeing Kiowa. Anger grabbing at his pounding heart, he urged his horse into a faster gallop.

His hands strung his bow without conscious willing. The arrow leaped to the string almost by itself. His hands and arms worked methodically together.

He drew the arrow to the head and released. The twang of the bow echoed and the arrow soared through the air. Pride seized Sage when he saw the arrow pierce the back of a Kiowa warrior, and he strung his bow again as he raced onward, another Kiowa warrior in sight.

Leonida pulled herself up against the rock, steadying her back against it, panic racing through her as she saw Sage and his warriors rush on past her without having seen her.

“Sage!” she screamed, stumbling after the rush of the mounted warriors.

To her, the world seemed a roar of hooves, the Navaho leaning forward over their horse's necks, their mouths wide, shouting. “E-e-e-e.”

Again Leonida screamed Sage's name, her arms outstretched before her. “Please, Sage,” she cried. “Oh, darling, it is I, Leonida. Please hear me.”

Above the staccato of the horse's hooves, Sage heard his name being called. And then he recognized the voice.

He whipped his head to the side and saw Leonida stumbling along in the path of the swirling dust.

Swinging his bow back in place across his shoulder, he wheeled his horse around. He raised his fist in the air, stopping his warriors. There was no longer any need to follow the Kiowa. Now that he had found his woman safe and sound, he must make haste to hide in the folds of his mountain again.

After his warriors had drawn their steeds to a halt, Sage rode on past them. When he reached Leonida he stopped and dismounted, quickly drawing her into his arms.

“Sage, oh, Sage,” Leonida whispered, clinging to him and sobbing. “I feared I would never see you again. Thank the Lord you found me.”

He held her close, yet he had seen the disarray of her clothes. He ran his fingers through her tangled hair. “They did not touch you wrongly, did they?” he asked, his voice breaking.

“No,” she murmured, almost choking on another sob at the thought that he had arrived just in time. She did not tell him that, not wanting to kindle his rage any more. It was enough now that he was there and she was safe again in his arms.

“I will take you home,” Sage said, whisking her up into his arms, carrying her toward his horse.

She looked adoringly up at him, so grateful that he was hers—her husband.

Chapter 20

I break all slighter bonds, nor feel
A shadow of regret.

—A
DELAIDE
A
NNE
P
ROCTER

 

 

Having dozed comfortably snuggled in Sage's arms on his stallion on the return home, Leonida did not even awaken when Sage drew his horse to a halt, then dismounted, lifting her into his arms again, and carried her into their hogan.

The fire had gone out in the fire pit, and daylight had turned to night again. Sage felt his way through the hogan until he reached their bedroom. He then gently laid Leonida on their sleeping platform. He bent low over her and kissed her brow, then drew a blanket up over her.

Sage reluctantly left her side to go to the outer room to build a fire. Bending on one knee, he began laying twigs on the cold ashes of the fire pit, and once he had them lit, he placed thicker logs across the flames. Settling back on a soft mat, he stared at the fire, broodingly. His jaw tightened at the thought of having allowed Four Fingers to escape.

Stealing a man's wife was a crime punishable by death. One day Sage would see that this punishment was carried out.

“Sage? Darling?”

Leonida's voice behind him drew Sage from his troubled thoughts. Pushing himself up from the floor to go to her, Sage was suddenly startled when Leonida emitted an ear-splitting scream. His eyes were wild as he rushed toward Runner's bedroom.

He was moved deeply by what he found. Leonida was on her knees, her arms stretched across Runner's bed, her fingers clawing at his blankets.

“He's gone,” she wailed. She turned woefully toward Sage. “Why didn't you tell me that he also was abducted?”

Sage went to her and knelt down beside her. Placing his hands on her waist, he drew her to her feet before him, then eased her into his arms, gently hugging her. “Darling, our son was not taken captive,” he said as he ran his fingers through her golden hair. “He is with Sally. She offered to watch over him while I was gone searching for you.”

He could feel her muscles relax, yet she still clung to him. “Darling,” he murmured, “you have nothing to fear now. You are safe. Runner is safe. Put all fears from your heart. Do you not feel the protection of my arms? Never will I allow another man near you. You must trust this promise.”

Leonida swallowed hard. She forced a smile, not wanting Sage to know that it would take some time for her to get over the trauma of the near rape. It
was
wonderful to be back in Sage's arms, yet she knew that even his promises could not totally protect her. She had thought that she was safe from all harm earlier, and hadn't the Kiowa warriors taken her so easily?

“You know that I trust you,” she murmured, hoping to sound convincing enough. “And I know that your promises are spoken from the bottom of your heart, as are all of your words spoken to me. I love you, Sage, for loving me so much. I love you for coming after me when I thought that I might never see you again.”

He placed a gentle finger to her lips, silencing further words. “A thank-you is not necessary for everything I do or say.”

“It is that I am just so grateful,” Leonida murmured as his finger slipped from her mouth. Her heart thumped wildly as Sage lowered his lips toward hers. “I do love you so . . .”

Her words faded as his mouth covered hers with a deep kiss. She twined her arms around his neck as he lifted her into his arms and began carrying her out of Runner's bedroom. She trembled with ecstasy when one of his hands slipped around and cupped her breast. Then she tensed when she suddenly recalled other hands on her breasts, and how she had been forced to spread her legs, unwillingly submitting to Chief Four Fingers' probing fingers and hands.

Tears swelled in her eyes at these ugly remembrances and she drew her lips from Sage, turning her head away from him, one of her hands brushing his away from her breast. Somehow she could not help but feel contaminated. How could she ever feel the joyous bliss she had felt before with Sage?

Sage's eyes widened and his insides tightened as he gazed down at her. She was refusing his kiss. She had even brushed his hand from her breast, which she had never done before.

It meant only one thing. The Kiowa had touched her. They had, in a sense, branded her. She might never be the same.

Not wanting to allow these memories to continue, Sage carried Leonida to their sleeping platform and lay her gently on it. He knew the importance of making love to her now. If he waited, she might dwell too much on the ugliness of having been touched wrongly by the Kiowa, and forget the beauty she had shared with her husband.

She had already told him that she had not been raped. In that respect, she was still pure. But it was the touching, the fondling, that he now was almost certain she had been forced to endure at the hands of the Kiowa.

This he must erase from her mind, as though it had never happened.

Sage stood over Leonida and removed his clothes and moccasins. And although she looked wildly up at him and stiffened when he began undressing her, nothing would stop him.

He must make love to her now.

Leonida shivered at the cold air of the hogan against her bare flesh. She hugged herself with her arms, covering her breasts, which seemed lifeless now that she allowed herself to remember that the enemy had touched them. She guardedly watched Sage as he came to the sleeping platform with her, finding it hard to understand why he would force lovemaking on her at such a time. He knew that she did not want to do it. Was he going to force her to scream at him, and tell him why?

“Sage,” she murmured, brushing his hand aside as he placed it on the bare flesh of her hip. “Please don't. I'm too tired. I . . . I need to rest.”

“My woman, tomorrow might be too late for you,” Sage said, determinedly putting his hand back on her hip, his fingers softly stroking her tender flesh as they moved inch by inch around to where the center of her passion lay. “You must allow me to make love to you tonight so that you can forget that which makes you draw away from me. Tonight my loving you will make tomorrow come with pleasant memories, not those that are soiled by the Kiowa.”

He moved over her, spreading her legs with a knee. His one hand was now stroking her throbbing center, his other gently kneading a breast. He smiled to himself when its nipple hardened and strained against the palm of his hand. She was awakened to her feelings for him again. He was succeeding at arousing her!

Both of his hands cupped her breasts. He leaned lower against her, the touch of her breasts against his chest momentarily stealing his breath away.

Leonida could not fight the euphoria that was claiming her, so glad that her breasts were responding to the wonders of his touch. When his swollen shaft began probing at the juncture of her thighs, she willingly opened herself to him.

She gasped with pleasure when he lunged his hardness inside her and he began his rhythmic thrusts. Her body responded, as her hips lifted and fell, meeting him stroke by stroke.

She twined her fingers through his thick black hair and urged his lips to hers. When he kissed her, she returned the kiss in a frenzy. Tears of joy streamed from her eyes. She was so glad that the wild splendor was still there while she was being loved by her husband.

Slowly the remembrances of those ugly moments with the Kiowa were fading away.

Pleasure was spreading in warm splashes through Sage. He knew by her response that his plan had worked, and that she was lost in ecstasy now, instead of doubts and fears about being with a man again sexually.

He moved his mouth from her lips and swept his tongue around one of her nipples, drawing a gurgling sound of delight from the depths of her throat.

He suckled the nipple and tongued it again, then lay his cheek on her magnificent bosom, the fire raging higher and higher within his loins. He was near to experiencing the height of pleasure with his woman again, and he felt blessed. The gods were still favoring them as a couple.

Leonida wrapped her legs around his waist, locking her ankles together in an effort to draw him even more deeply into her. She closed her eyes in rapture, feeling how he so wonderfully filled her. In and out he moved, each time reaching more deeply, each time stroking her with more ambition and heat.

She placed her fingers on his buttocks, unknowingly digging her fingernails into his flesh as the pleasure spread . . . and spread . . . and spread.

She tossed her head and moaned as the height of pleasure was finally reached. She clung to his rock hardness as his body shook and quivered into hers, accepting the spilling of his seed as it splashed into the depths of her womanhood.

A child.

She hoped that tonight they had made a child, a brother or sister to Runner.

Afterwards, they lay snuggled together. Leonida was stroking his perspiration-laced back. “I know that you have told me not to thank you for anything,” she whispered. “But, darling, I can't help but thank you for what you did tonight. I understand why you were determined that we make love.”

He whisked her into his arms and gave her a kiss filled with heat, his body arching against hers as he drew her against him. Again he plunged himself into her. This time she responded without any hesitation, or with any thought of why she had ever shied away from him even for a moment.

* * *

Having succumbed to the need for sleep, Chief Four Fingers and his warriors had stopped and were now sleeping soundly in a canyon, unaware that they had been surrounded by soldiers. When the chief felt the nudge of a rifle barrel in his back, he awakened with a start, then slowly turned and looked up and saw Kit Carson standing over him. A soldier beside him held a rifle aimed at the Kiowa chief.

A commotion drew his gaze away. He scowled when he discovered his sentries being herded into the camp at gunpoint, their hands raised high into the air.

“Got a mite careless, didn't you, Chief?” Kit said, chuckling low as Chief Four Fingers emitted a growl of anger. “I've had a hell of a time finding the Navaho.
You've
just handed yourself over to us on a silver platter, it seems. That's not like you, Four Fingers. I'd have thought you'd be the last Indian this easy to find. But it's about time. I've wanted the Kiowa no less than the Navaho. Once you're all rounded up neat like, I expect the settlers will be able to sleep at night without their fingers wrapped around the barrel of a shotgun.”

“Get to your feet, Injun,” Lieutenant Nelson ordered Four Fingers. “You've a long way to travel to get to the reservation. You might as well get started now while the sun is low in the morning sky. You'll be wishin' for the shade of a canyon again soon enough.”

Chief Four Fingers moved slowly to his feet, looking guardedly around him, then glared down at Kit Carson. “Let us have council between us,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion. “There is information Four Fingers can trade with you in exchange for Four Fingers' freedom. My band of Kiowa is less in number than Sage's Navaho. Would you not rather capture them instead?”

Carson looked up at Four Fingers. “It is my intention to place the Kiowa
and
the Navaho on reservations,” he said blandly. “It is not my intention to make a bargain with one for the other. So, no council this time.” He motioned with his head toward the other herded-up Kiowa. “Join the others. As of today, your rank is no greater than those others who will walk the many miles with you to the reservation in New Mexico.”

Chief Four Fingers' eyes narrowed. He leaned down closer to Kit Carson's face. “The white woman who is now married to the Navaho Sage is not worth bargaining over?” he hissed. “Chief Four Fingers can direct you to Sage's stronghold, where this woman and other white captives are being held. Is not that information worth the release of us few Kiowa? What harm can we wreak on the white pony soldiers in comparison to what Sage has already done? Give your word that I and my warriors can ride freely onward, then I give my word to you that I will give you accurate directions to Sage's stronghold.”

Carson's eyes widened with interest. He kneaded his chin, his eyes locked with the Kiowa chief's. “You say that Leonida is now Sage's wife?” he asked, confused by this bit of news. “How do you know this?”

“Chief Four Fingers trades with Sage,” he said. “I sought to trade for the beautiful white woman. Sage refused. He called her his wife. She spoke nothing against his declaration. So she is his wife.”

“You say you saw her,” Carson said, inhaling a quivering sigh. “That means you do know where Sage's stronghold is.”

Chief Four Fingers nodded. “That is so,” he said, folding his arms across his chest. “I will give you directions. You will give me and my warriors freedom. Do you not think it is a fair enough exchange?”

Carson's eyes shifted, staring at the chief's hand on which he displayed only four fingers. Then he looked slowly up at the chief again. “I vowed long ago that if I ever caught up with you, I would hang you,” he said. “Severing a finger from your hand was not enough vengeance for me for what you did so long ago against me. Although I have not written about it in my journals, and it is not something I have broadcasted for the world to know, my marriage to a lovely Indian maiden lasted only long enough for you to steal her away, rape her, and then leave her dying at my doorstep. I caught up with you after she told me who had done this to her, but it was a cursed day for me when you escaped after having only the one finger cut from your hand. I had meant for you to lose your fingers first, then suffer long and hard before I cut out your heart.”

“That was long ago when we both were young and foolish,” Four Fingers said, again unemotionally. “I had not yet been assigned my adult name. Because of you, I was appointed the name Four Fingers because it defined so well my appearance to those who would come across me on outings. So you see, white man who disfigured this Indian, at the age of twelve winters this act I am guilty of came as a careless prank of a youth trying to look big in the eyes of the older warriors. This was a challenge I could not say no to. If so, I would have been viewed as a woman in the eyes of the older warriors. I was next in line to be chief. I could not be labeled a ‘woman' and be a chief in the same lifetime.”