Cheyenne Captive (44 page)

He took the bowl and looked at her a long moment. “You have been very kind,” he said finally. “Everyone says I owe my life to your care.”

She shrugged. “Have you ever doubted how much I think of you? I have waited a long time to show you my devotion and love.”

He sighed. “It is good for a warrior to have a woman for his tepee. I thought Summer Sky loved me as I loved and trusted her, but I suppose I was wrong.”

“Of course you were wrong!” She almost snapped at him for mentioning the other’s name. “I would never betray you and go off with the whites. That is what you get for trusting those of the pale skin when they have demonstrated time and again they are unworthy of trust. You are Cheyenne, Iron Knife, and you should remember that and not put your faith in any white at all!”

He looked at her a long moment. “No doubt you are right, although my heart does not want to believe it. I do not know what to do to demonstrate how grateful I am to you.” He finished his stew and set the bowl aside.

“Do you not?” She set her own bowl down and reached out to touch his cheek. “I have no relatives left, no place to go. I am at the mercy of any man who will offer me shelter and food.”

He reached out and caught her hand, looking into her eyes. “I suppose I owe you that much, although I cannot promise my whole heart.”

She moved close to him and saw the sudden need in his eyes. “I am willing to gamble that I can change all that, make you really care for me.”

He was close enough that she could feel his breath on her cheek. “I have been all these weeks without a woman.”

In answer, she took his hand and placed it on her full breast. “And I have hot had a man all this time I have cared for you,” she whispered. “Let me pleasure you so that you will think of no other. I can take you in my arms and wipe the memory of anyone else from your mind.”

She ran her hand lightly across his hardening manhood. He gasped softly and reached up to tangle his hand in her ebony braids, pulling her hard against him.

Eagerly, she opened her lips to his, taking his tongue in her mouth as she had always wanted to take his manhood. His mouth searched hers in a passion so savage, she tasted blood. Savagery always excited her and she responded by stroking his throbbing manparts. She felt a growing wetness between her thighs, signaling her own body’s hunger and need.

His hand went down to stroke her there, and she opened her thighs to his touch, willing him to touch her yet deeper in her innermost being. But she was too hungry for him and she could not stop herself from arching against his hand as her body surrendered to the touch of his fingers. She tried to hold back but she couldn’t stop herself as she gasped and shuddered in a frenzy of passion.

Her reaching the pinnacle of desire seemed to drive him wild. “Why didn’t you wait for me?” Savagely, he ripped the front of her deerskin shift and her breasts spilled out like ripe fruit to his hungry mouth.

Eagerly, she clasped her arms around his dark head, clasping his face against her breasts as she arched against him. His lips were hot and wet on the dark circles of her nipples and there was nothing gentle about him at all.

“I want you!” he gasped. “My body is eager for yours!”

“You will have me, my darling! Now and as often as you need me!”

He had said nothing about love, but she knew that his desire for her might sometime turn to love. Now she was satisfied to be able to drive the small white bitch from his mind. Gray Dove knew there was no one as skilled at dealing with a man’s passions as she was.

His hungry mouth nursed her breasts until she was shaking at the touch of his tongue, wanting his body to invade hers.

Roughly he pushed her down on her back, shoving her thighs apart with brusque, violent moves. Somehow, she had expected he would be a gentle lover, but he took her now with almost a vengeance. But it was enough to her that she lay in his arms. He rode her with a savage intensity that told her there was nothing but lust in his mind. Still, she knew that as skilled as she was at mating, he could be thinking of nothing but her as she tilted herself up so she could take his full length. No man had ever been so virile and powerful and she did not mind too much when he bit her lips instead of kissing them.

Feverishly, she ran her hands over his scarred back as she spread her thighs even farther, wanting to take his seed deep in her womb so she might give him a son. Surely, a man could not keep from loving a woman who gave him that.

Never had she known such ecstasy as he filled her and drove home hard again and again. She arched herself against his sinewy body and reached up to brush his nipples with her warm lips. Then she could not stop herself and she was soaring in her passion like riding a dream stallion in a rush across the clouds with the wind blowing wild and free against her naked body.

She never wanted to come down from that surging peak, but as she returned to consciousness she felt him begin his rise to passion and he drove into her hard. She dug her nails into his rippling back and knew with satisfaction that she had driven thoughts of any other from his mind as she took his virile seed.

But as he came, he whispered, “Summer! Summer! I love you so much! Don’t ever leave me again!”

Heya
! She had never been so furious! No man had ever made love to her and called out another’s name. Trembling with uncontrolled rage, she rolled out from under him and stood, pulling the torn remnants of her dress together.

“I save your life, care for you without ceasing, and you return my love by calling out the white bitch’s name as you make love to me!”

He half raised from the pallet and held up a placating hand to her. “I am sorry to hurt you. I never meant to. But surely you must have realized that only she held control of my heart!”

“How could you?” she wept with jealous rage. “I thought I could at least push her from your mind during lovemaking!”

He stood slowly, adjusted his breechcloth. “I never lied to you, Gray Dove. You took advantage of my need for a woman when otherwise I would not have touched you. Summer Sky will never be completely gone from my heart.”

Iron Knife tried to reach out to her, but she slapped at his hands furiously and backed away. She was past caring about anything, only wanting to hurt him as he had hurt her.

“Can you understand now why I was so desperate to get her out of this camp? Why I tricked her into leaving and sent Angry Wolf after her to kill her?”

He looked at her almost as if he didn’t comprehend what she was saying. “You were responsible for Summer’s first escape? You sent Angry Wolf after her?”

“Men are so stupid!” She threw back her head and laughed viciously. “Yes, it was me! I hated the white girl so much, I plotted to get her out of the camp when you were gone hunting! All I could think of was how much I hated the thought of her in your arms and would do anything: You hear me?
Anything
to get her out of this camp!”

She saw the sudden, stunned look of realization cross his face as he stared at her. “Then you, Gray Dove, you are the one who betrayed this camp and brought the soldiers, aren’t you?”

“Yes! Yes!” she raged, not caring any more that he knew. “I told her I would help her leave and she told me that she loved you and intended to stay with the Cheyenne forever and be your woman! You look so shocked!” She sneered. “Did you not realize how much she loved you? That she would never have left your side?”

He advanced on her and she saw the anger in his face. She was past caring about anything but her revenge in hurting him with her slashing words. “Yes, it was me who went to the fort and told the soldiers! But I was tricked and followed back to camp by the scout, Jake Dallinger!”

He swayed on his feet with the impact of her words and she saw rage in his eyes such as she had never seen before on a man’s face. “You have turned the woman I love over to a man called Jake Dallinger?” His hands grabbed her throat. “For this one thing alone, I will kill you!”

For a long moment, as his fingers tightened in furious passion on her neck, she did not even care if she died. Without his love, life was nothing to her. But she was a survivor and her primeval instincts took over. She fought for her life as she stumbled backward out of the tepee, not seeing the curious faces of the others outside.

“Kill me!” she gasped as she fought to break the steel grip of his fingers on her neck. “Kill me! If I could do it again, I would still bring the soldiers to take the white bitch away!”

She started blacking out as he choked her. She struggled, trying to break his grip as he gradually cut off the life-giving air. Never had she seen such a murderous rage on a man’s face and she knew he would not stop until he killed her.

Dimly, she could feel people pulling him away from her, breaking his grip. Gasping for air, she fell on her knees and realized that in her jealous fury she had told all.

She looked up into a growing crowd of hostile Cheyenne and Arapaho faces.

Old Blue Eagle stared down at her. “Is this true what you say? Was it you who betrayed us to the soldiers?”

She tried to deny it but as the faces around her grew more hostile, she knew her guilt must be written in her eyes and many had heard her incriminating words.

“Turn her over to the grieving women,” Blue Eagle ordered. “They will know how to deal with her!”

Helplessly, she looked around for a friendly face, but saw only angry ones. Voices called out for revenge for the death and destruction she had brought. Almost, then, she told of what she suspected of the death of Angry Wolf. But she loved Iron Knife still and because of this, she did not tell as she faced the hostile crowd defiantly.

The women attacked her with sticks and quirts and she struggled to fight them off as they ran her through the camp like a cur dog gone mad. She threw up her arms to protect her face but the hard blows rained down. As she stumbled and fell, she began to lose consciousness and could feel the deep bruises and the blood running sticky down her body. But still she fought, for she would not die easily.

Then she heard Iron Knife’s voice. “Enough!” he ordered. “This is a dirty business! It turns my stomach to watch even one such as this being beaten to death. She has saved my life and now I ask you to spare hers so we will be even and I will feel obligated to her no more!”

The young widow of Pretty Flower Woman’s brother cried out, “You are right. It is too easy to kill her! Let us send her into exile instead so she can know all the anguish and the loneliness she has visited on this camp!”

There was a chorus of agreement. “Yes! Exiling is more hurtful than death! Send her out of this camp!” A straggly, thin pony was brought forward and someone picked her up roughly, threw her upon it.

“Leave this camp!” Old Blue Eagle ordered. “And never show your face among the Cheyenne-Arapaho again! You are banished from our camps forever!”

“But how shall I live?” she gasped, holding to the horse’s mane to keep from falling off. “I have no people save these!”

“Then you have no people at all,” the old chief said with finality. “You are now a dead person to us.”

The young widow pushed forward. “Yes, go to the whites! Maybe you can be one of them, for you are no longer one of us! If you ever try to come back, the women will not be stopped again from torturing you to death!”

So saying, she struck the horse hard with her quirt. It bolted and galloped wildly from the camp with Gray Dove hanging on for her life. The pony ran a long way before it tired and slowed to a walk.

She tried to decide what to do. Word would go out to all ten bands and their comrades, the Arapaho, too. She would not be welcome in any camp. Exile was usually a death sentence since no one could survive against cold, hunger, and their many enemies alone.

She would go to the whites
. They had accepted her long ago and she had nowhere else to go. And if she got a chance at the fort, she intended to kill her rival, Summer Sky, and the white man who had betrayed her and brought her trouble. Now she remembered the reward money that Jake Dallinger owed her. She thought she might survive if she could insist he give her that money.

It took more than two days to ride to Fort Smith. She did not think she would make it as she shivered through the cold and her body ached with green and purple bruises. All that kept her going was her strong sense of survival and her thirst for revenge. If she got a chance, she would kill the white girl and Jake Dallinger.

When she finally arrived it was almost dusk. She sent the sentry looking for Jake, telling him she would be at the scout’s quarters.

Limping into the tiny room, she looked around. The room was a mess, clothes and gear piled everywhere. Obviously, the scout was going somewhere.

He entered just then, acting happy to see her. “Wal, if it ain’t the purty little squaw!” Peering at her more closely, he swore under his breath. “What happened to you, gal? Looks like someone tried to beat you to death!”

She reached into her clothes for the small knife she always carried. “Because of you! Because of your raiding the camp, I have been thrown away by my own people!” She tried to attack him but she didn’t move fast enough. He grabbed her arm and they struggled for a moment over possession of the knife.

But it was no contest. He twisted her arm cruelly as he took the knife from her and, opening the door, tossed it outside. Then he slapped her, throwing her backward on the bed. She held her throbbing arm and whimpered as he grinned down at her. “Don’t ever pull a knife unless yore sure you can use it and don’t give no warning first! If you hadn’t given me such a good tumble in the hay last time you was here, I’d have made you eat that blade!”

She lay on the bed, helpless in her pain and rage. “You are rotten! You tricked me by following me back to the camp and needlessly attacked and killed my people! You are as ruthless and cunning as the lean lobo wolf that runs down the baby deer and tears its heart out before it is even dead!”

He leered at her. “That makes us two of a kind, don’t it, honey? Neither of us ever lets scruples get in the way of what we want! Why did you come here, any ways?”