Blaze (64 page)

"Personally, I find perfection revolting, so don't expect any compliments," Blaze cheerfully retorted.

"What can I say? You yellow eyes just don't come up to our high standards," he mildly challenged with a gleam in his eyes. While a facetious comment, it was true that Hazard's personal standards had always acknowledged only the exceptional.

"Maybe not, but some of us yellow eyes make beautiful babies, you must agree," Blaze brightly returned.

Hazard eased himself out of his lazy sprawl and sat straight-backed across the fire from Blaze, holding Trey to her breast. "No argument there," he quietly said, adoration in his eyes. "Absolutely none."

EACH night all Trey's dressing was removed, he was washed, greased again, and left to kick up his heels while his mother and father played with him and talked to him and he talked back in irresistible gurgles. They marveled at his eyes, bright and alert in the firelight, exclaimed over the perfection of his tiny fingernails or toes or lashes, and decided, unanimously, that he really was a treasure.

"Are all babies so adorable?" Blaze wondered aloud.

"I think it helps if they're related to you," Hazard replied with a smile. But they both agreed he was the most perfect baby in the world.

SPRING came very late that year, but it seemed to them all too soon. Warm suns melted ice and snow, buds came out on the bushes, in the low places grass showed green, and every run was babbling with water leaping down to the plains.

The mountain passes were open last, and then their first visitor reached them.

Rising Wolf became unofficial godfather to Trey and, in the way of Hazard's clan, a substitute father. He was suitably impressed with his new godchild, to please the two most doting parents he'd ever set eyes on. "May his moccasins," he said to Hazard, "make many tracks in the snow." Blaze smiled at Rising Wolfs wish of long life for Trey.

Hazard gripped his hand and softly said, "Your heart and mine have always spoken as brothers and always will while snows continue to fall upon my head. Thank you from my son."

Rising Wolf brought other news as well, in addition to his congratulations on their new son. He told Hazard of it the afternoon of his first day, when they strolled away from the lodge to check the melting ice in the creek.

Yancy Strahan was back in Diamond City. The winter had driven him back to Boston, but he had returned in mid-April and set out a week earlier with a Cheyenne scout for Lakota territory. "Should we go after him?"

"No," Hazard answered, his breath spiraling in the chill air. "I want him."

"He may get away."

"He'll be back, greedy soul that he is. I'm sure he'll give another try for the mine… and try to ensure his inheritance once again."

"It's possible he's given up. There's talk of gold in Lakota land. Maybe he goes for that."

"Yancy Strahan has failures in his past that require more and more money to pacify," Hazard replied. "He never has enough. A character flaw I look forward to correcting," Hazard mildly said, "when I kill him."

"And if he kills you first?"

"He can't touch me here," Hazard lazily replied, "and down the mountain, I move with a bodyguard this time."

"We're going to the mine?"

Hazard nodded. "It has to be reopened, because the sooner we buy land and have it registered, the better. I want to buy it all at once and register it in Blaze's name. If it's done swiftly, there's no time for the legislature to push through a law making it illegal. There's not going to be any reservation for my clan. I saw the Indian Territory north of Texas; it's pure hell. I'd sooner kill myself."

"Blaze won't be at the mine this time, will she?"

"No."

"How did she respond?"

"I haven't told her yet. It's going to be one hell of an argument. But it's too dangerous. I want scouts around the clock this time, and if we're lucky and the vein holds, in two or three months, combined with the reserves we have already, we'll have enough for all the land and homes and horses we'll ever need. After that, if Yancy hasn't come looking, I'll go looking for him. He was going to kill my child, you know. I wish I had the stomach for torture; he'd be a perfect candidate. As it is, I'll console myself with sending him off to his eternal hell with a well-placed bullet. He doesn't deserve it, but we Ab-sarokee are just too damn refined."

protested, but logically knew Hazard was right. Until Yancy was dead, she and Trey would be safer in the village.

"It won't take long. Rising Wolf and I are taking twenty warriors, and I'll come back whenever I can to spend a few days. By midsummer"—he shrugged—"I'll probably be back for good."

When Hazard readied to leave the village, it was the final week in May. Blaze's eyes were liquid with feeling, and with a little sob she leaned into his chest. "It won't be long, will it?"

"No."

"How long?"

Hazard hesitated. "Weeks."

"Tell me."

"Maybe two weeks."

"You'll be back then?"

"For a visit."

"And then?"

He sighed. "I'll be back whenever I can." In his arms Blaze seemed small and vulnerable; her face was ashen.

"I know you have to go. I know it, but—"

"It won't be forever, bia. Take care—I need you. And take care of our son. He needs you."

"Can't I come with?" It was a forlorn desperate hope, anxiety in her voice and face.

"Not yet," he said gently. Not until Yancy's dead, he thought. "When the baby's bigger, then you both can come."

"Don't keep me waiting too long."

His hands tightened on her. She seemed delicate and fragile. He loved her more than he should. "Two weeks, no more," he promised.

* * *

WlTH the machine gun manned twenty-four hours a day this time, Hazard worked shifts around the clock. He wanted to get enough gold out for the land, and after that a more leisurely pace would prevail. If he was lucky —and with gold veins, luck was a predominant factor— the mine would keep them all comfortable for life.

A WEEK later, a full moon shone on both the mine and the Absarokee village on Ash River.

Hazard was sleeping before going on the third shift at midnight.

Blaze had left Trey with Red Plume and was practicing some new Absarokee words in the lodge of Rising Wolfs mother. She intended to surprise Hazard and speak his language well when he returned.

The dogs barked once that evening, a loud, clamoring sound that drifted across the river but abruptly stopped almost as suddenly as it began, unnoticed.

When Blaze walked home under the silver moon two hours later, a cool spring wind was blowing down from the mountains, bringing with it the smell of rain.

A tingle of unease, dim and obscure, fluttered through her mind when Hazard's wolfhound didn't rise to greet her at the lodge door. He'd been raised by Hazard from a pup and was the most loyal of guard dogs. She brushed away the irrational premonition, silently listing a dozen reasons he wasn't there to greet her. She opened the lodge flap and stepped inside.

And screamed.

Red Plume lay in a pool of blood only inches from her feet. The wolfhound, his rough coat matted with blood, lay dead with his fangs bared in attack. Trey's cradle was ripped from its frame. Her baby was gone.

Her second scream pierced the clear, moon-drenched night like a cry from hell.

Hazard received the news thirteen hours later. A relay of horses had ridden at a murderous pace through the night and early morning.

Yancy. No one else would single out his son to kidnap. He knew what Yancy was capable of, knew brutali-zation meant nothing but a means to an end for him. And closing his eyes, he steadied himself against the messenger's final words. When the last awful sentence was through, he walked to Peta and leaned his face against the smooth warmth of her neck until the nausea passed and the blackness cleared from his brain. Then he mounted his favorite horse and rode through the rough, wild country, far in advance of the troop sent to fetch him.

was trembling when he pulled her into his arms. She was close to collapse. A note had been found, she sobbed, left on a war lance driven into the ground near the river ford.

Hazard had already been apprised of its contents.

"He'll kill him! He'll kill our baby!" she wept, clinging to Hazard with the wild strength of hysteria.

"No, he won't. He won't," Hazard soothed, not really believing it, but saying the words. "He wants the mine. Trey's ransom for the mine. We'll give him the mine, that's all. And we'll have Trey back." His large hands were stroking Blaze's hair, her back, gentle, calming, although his own brain was wrought with terror.

"Can you find him? Where did they take my baby?" Blaze whispered, lifting her face to Hazard. "Where is he? He has to be fed. Jon, what if no one's fed him?"

"They'll feed him, bia. Yancy needs him alive for the mine. Don't cry, angel. I'll find him." He started to disengage her clinging arms. "I have to go now. They're waiting for me. Pearl Light will take care of you. Please, love." Her hands had tightened on him. "Every minute counts."

"I'm coming too!"

He looked down at her and softly said, "No." Even if she was strong enough, which she probably wasn't so soon after Trey's birth, Blaze presented added dangers. Yancy would as soon see her dead as alive. Hazard had never underestimated Yancy's callous greed.

Blaze whirled away from him, then turned back in the same sweeping motion, her eyes feverishly aglow. "He's my baby!" she cried.

Hazard put his hands over his eyes and inhaled deeply. Dropping them a second later, he exhaled quietly and spoke, his voice harsh and raw. "If you fall behind, I can't wait for you," he said. "I just want you to understand." He was tautly adamant. Yancy had his son and every minute wasted was danger to him.

"You won't have to," Blaze replied in an unearthly calm voice. "I'll keep up." She stood splendid in her determination—slender, pale, but no longer trembling.

Their eyes met and he reached out to her. They clung to each other for a brief moment, then Hazard swept her up in his arms and strode out of the lodge. "Six more horses," he ordered, carrying her toward the waiting mounted men. "And bring up the palomino."

They rode at a frightening pace, without stopping, swinging over to a fresh mount when the pony they were riding flagged. Blaze maintained her place at Hazard's side. He gave her marks for courage. If she'd faltered, he would have had to leave her with an escort home. They both understood. Their son's life was at stake.

The party of Yancy's hired Lakota they were trailing was large and riding hard for their own territory. When they crossed out of Absarokee land midafternoon of the next day, they paused briefly to check their weapons, water the horses, set up two flanks riding protection, and throw a scouting party forward several miles in advance.

Hazard quietly passed the word along that ranks were to close around Blaze if they were attacked.

He wasn't anticipating trouble, but it never hurt to be prepared for the possibility. Yancy's note had been succinct enough, and at least until the mine was signed over an attack was not very likely. Provided Yancy could control the Lakota braves he'd hired.

The Lakota tribes were many times more numerous than the Absarokee, and Hazard had only ninety warriors with him from his small clan. But none of these possibilities mattered; his son's life was at stake. They rode without rest or concealment straight to the Lakota camp.