Defiant (29 page)

After they had taken the evening meal—fresh antelope meat and dried cake made, Wade said, from the root of the yampa plant, and piñon nuts—Wade asked Mary Jo to take a walk with him. Jeff was still sleeping peacefully.

It was a beautiful night, soft and gentle with streaks like rivers of peach and pale gold stretching across the sky. The wind was low, and the temperature unusually warm for these mountains. Children's laughter echoed across the rich green grass, the sound enriched by the soft call of night birds; the evening air smelled of smoke and roasted meat. The world seemed at peace here in a valley cradled like a gem between snow-covered peaks.

“It's so beautiful here,” Mary Jo said after several moments of silence.

“The Utes have lived here for hundreds of years,” he said, his voice full of regret and sadness. “Their shining mountains.”

“The name fits them,” Mary Jo said. “They
are
shining.”

He swung around on her. “It's not fair. They're being taken away, piece by piece, and soon they will have nothing. They're being forced to move to some piece of arid ground like all the other tribes, forced to give up everything meaningful to them.”

Mary Jo didn't know what to say. Until now, she'd approved of efforts to move the “savages” away from whites. Today, she'd learned just a little about the harmony between these people and the land.

“There's nothing on God's earth anyone can do,” Wade said. “One incident, one hothead, and they'll be shipped away, just like the Apaches have been, the Cherokees, the Creeks, the Sioux.”

“That's why you wanted me to get your gear.”

He nodded.

“You can't help at all? You can't go to the governor or—”

“Hell, I can't help anyone. If I tried to protest and anyone discovered who I really am—” He stopped, aware that he was about to say something he'd regret.

She had stopped. “Who are you, Wade? It won't make any difference to me.”

He laughed bitterly. “Believe me, you don't want to know. Isn't a cripple who killed three men enough to scare the hell out of you?”

The darkness was back in him. For a few moments, he'd seemed almost relaxed, comfortable with these people and his surroundings, but now those terrible shadows were once more shrouding him, pulling him away from her again.

“No,” she said softly. “You'll never scare me.”

“I will, lady. Give me the chance, and I will.” He walked on, not waiting to see whether she was following him. She almost had to run to keep pace with him.

He stopped again in the shadows of a tree. The moon was up now, fragile and luminous. “Cavera has given his home to us tonight,” he said. “They will be insulted if we don't use it.”

She didn't understand at first, then slowly comprehended. They were expected to stay together in a tepee. And Wade didn't like it at all, but he didn't see any way out.

“Why?”

“They think you're my woman. That's why they went after Jeff. It would hurt them deeply if my woman didn't, wouldn't, share their hospitality.”

“But you were married to Manchez's sister.”

“Utes are very practical. They mourn as we do, but they believe in family, in the need for children. They would want me to find a new woman.”

His woman. Wade's woman
. A shiver ran down her back. A shiver and something else, something warm and thick and sensuous, like molasses flowing through her body. She hadn't ever wanted to be someone's woman again. She hadn't wanted the pain that went with it, the dependence, the waiting, the hurting.

But she wanted him. She wanted to bring a smile to his lips, to hear him chuckle. She wanted to feel the tenderness of his hands, the excitement of his body, the joy of his mating. She wanted all that, and she wanted more. She wanted to dissolve his ghosts, the bleakness she so often saw in him.

“What will they do?” she said finally.

“Cavera's not married. He'll sleep outside tonight. Shavna will continue to care for Jeff. She's the healer.”

Mary Jo hesitated.

“He will be well taken care of.”

“I know, but—”

“They will be hurt if you don't trust them.” He said it reluctantly, and she knew he didn't welcome the prospect of spending the night alone with her. But then he had made it clear he didn't want any further involvement.

She thought about lying next to him. Heaven and hell. Could she do it without touching him? Without him touching her? After that afternoon several days ago, which now seemed so far away, her body ached for him. “What about you? What do you want?”

“It doesn't matter what I want,” he said curtly. “I don't want to offend Manchez. If you can bear it, for one night, I promise not to touch you. I had no right before. It was a mistake.”

She swallowed hard. He didn't want her. She nodded miserably.

“I'm sorry, Mary Jo,” he said quietly. “I'm sorry you found me. I'm sorry I've brought you so much trouble. I'm not going to make it worse.” He turned then and walked away, making it clear, very clear, that he wanted to be alone.

She watched him move through the trees until he disappeared into the shadows. Alone. Wounded in so many ways. Yet proud. Always so proud. Too proud to share the hurts and the pain and the loneliness.

Mary Jo felt ice touch her heart. Sometimes he reminded her of a wild and graceful animal. One with courage and heart and endurance. There was something she remembered being told about animals like that. They usually went off someplace alone to die. He seemed to be preparing to do that, if not literally, then in all the important ways. His soul was dying, and she didn't know what to do about it.

18

Mary Jo spent the rest of the evening with Jeff, just watching him as he slept. Whatever Shavna had given him to rest worked.

A small fire flickered, casting a glow over his face, over the freckles that seemed more pronounced than ever. But his breathing was easy and only occasionally, when he moved, did a small moan escape his lips.

He was a man, but he was also a boy. And he looked so young and vulnerable with the poultice on his chest and the many bruises and cuts that ringed the flesh around it. She had been so lucky it wasn't worse.

Only Shavna sat with her, her two children nestled in buffalo robes. The men sat outside, smoking pipes, talking. Mary Jo wasn't sure whether Wade was with them, or whether he was roaming the valley, expelling demons. He would return tonight, because it would be a discourtesy not to. And she knew now that while courtesy had not been supreme in his relations with. her, it was with these people.

As she looked at Jeff, she wondered about the younger Wade, the boy he'd once been. He couldn't be that much older than she, and her life had not been easy, yet he had obviously been marked by events she couldn't even comprehend. The war? He would have been very young, but many boys fought in that war. She knew a few, including some who had later become Rangers. Their eyes had been haunted, their faces marked forever. Her own husband had missed it; his company was one that had stayed in Texas, and she used to thank God that it had.

She leaned down and brushed her lips against Jeff's cheek, wanting to guard him against death and horror and hopelessness. She loved him with every ounce of her being, and the last two days had shown her that she too might give up if he were taken from her.

Was that why Wade appeared so alone, so lost? His son? His wife? Or was it more than that? How many references had he made to the past, a past he obviously abhorred, one he felt made him an outcast forever? She couldn't imagine him doing anything dishonorable. She understood why he had gone after those three men he'd said he killed. She too would have gone after anyone who had killed her son.

So she just stared at Jeff's face, still young, still innocent, wishing it could always be thus, knowing it wouldn't. And then Manchez returned to the tepee, and she knew it was time to leave. She knew that Wade would join her soon, not because of desire, or want, but because he didn't want to offend those who had helped her son.

She felt terribly unsure. She had been so frightened these last few days, she just wanted to be held. Comforted. Reassured.

Loved.

Wade delayed his return as long as possible. When he finally went back to the camp, the men were discussing the upcoming talks with the government in Washington. Some Utes, knowing what would happen, knowing they would lose even more land, advocated fighting. But fighting, others argued, only meant that the end would come sooner. Look at the Sioux and Cheyenne. They had been virtually destroyed in the year after their one great victory at Little Big Horn. Chief Ouray's negotiations had kept the Utes among the last of the tribes not yet forced onto a reservation. It was best to follow him.

When asked his opinion, Wade reluctantly concurred. To go to war with the whites meant only death and annihilation of a people. Give as little as possible, keep the young warriors in check. Don't give whites the reasons they wanted so badly to remove the Utes from their spiritual home. Manchez watched his friend from across the fire, nodding. He knew Wade had risked his life, had probably given his arm, to avenge his sister and nephew, partially so blame wouldn't fall on the Utes. The tie between them had pulled even tighter these last few months.

When the last of the men went off to their sleeping places, Wade had little choice but to join Mary Jo. He went first and checked on Jeff. The boy was sleeping peacefully and there were no alarming streaks of red around the wound. He was a damned tough kid, he thought with affection. Hell, his mother was a damned tough woman under that prettiness.

He was still surprised that Tom Berry had brought her up here. He didn't even want to think about the way his heart responded when he first saw her yesterday. Realizing full well how she felt about Indians, he knew how much courage it had taken to come here almost alone. Berry certainly hadn't provided much reassurance. She could have gone into Last Chance, raised the countryside, brought in troopers from Fort Wilson. It would have meant no little trouble for Manchez and his band, and for Wade. She had chosen, instead, to trust him when he'd given her damn little reason to trust, to go against all those lifelong fears for him.

That trust had felt too good. For a few moments yesterday, he'd even allowed himself to hope, to believe that something could be salvaged from his life. But then he'd seen that cougar and had been unable to do anything about it. Manchez, not he, had saved Jeff's life with that shot. That moment had deepened his conviction that he couldn't take care of those he cared about. Nor could he forget Kelly, or others who knew of his past, of the price on his head, of the scars that were being rubbed open again in a soul he'd tried to lock away. That damned shining trust in Mary Jo's eyes was misplaced.

He wanted to cry. He wanted to rage at the demons in him, the demons that had made Mary Jo Williams a dream he could never have, the demons that put her within touching range and then told him he would destroy her if he did. He lifted the flap of the tepee and allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkness. The night had turned cooler in the past several hours and she was wrapped in a buffalo robe. He listened for a moment to her breathing, hoping she was asleep. He would move to the far side, shiver in the cold, for there appeared to be only one robe and his bedroll was in Manchez's tepee where he'd been staying.

He willed himself to sleep, but he couldn't. He lay awake, rigid and hurting, knowing full well that release was only a short distance away, a smile, a hand touch from him. Even through the not-too-clean smell of the buffalo robe, he caught the scent of flowers, or perhaps it was his imagination. He always thought of her that way. God, how he wanted to hold her, pull her to him.

He didn't know how long he lay there when he heard the first sound of distress, the quiet whimpering sounds and then the small plaintive cries. He caught the word “Sally,” and he wondered whether that was the sister who had been taken.

Wade's body tensed as the nightmare continued, and then she was jerking, crying, and he couldn't bear it any longer. He moved over to her, putting his good hand against her cheek. He felt wetness, tears, those very rare tears. His heart swelled with compassion, personal gut-deep caring, the kind he'd tried so hard to avoid. He would have given his life to take away the pain and the memories that still haunted her, and he realized again how much strength it had taken for her to come here alone, to give up her son to Shavna's care.

“Mary Jo,” he said softly. The buffalo robe moved slightly as she seemed to struggle, and then she slowly sat up. Even in the darkness, or perhaps it was just in his mind, he could see the green of her eyes, the waves of hair falling alongside her right breast. He couldn't see, but he could imagine, the expression in her eyes: the fading of terror, confusion, then the softness that so often came into them when she looked at him. Softness and trust. That was the worst of it.

She sat there for a moment. “Jeff? Is Jeff all right?”

“I just looked in on him. He's fine.”

“I waited for you. For a long time.”

His jaw clenched. “You were having a bad dream.”

“I don't know why. It's been so long … since I had it last.”

“Your sister?”

She nodded, her hand taking his and holding on tight, as if the images still were real to her.

“You were tired. You've been scared half to death.”

“I knew you would find him. Jeff was sure, too. He said he knew you would come.” It was so simple a statement. So positive.

Her hand was trembling in his. It made her vulnerable, so very vulnerable to him, and he found himself doing what he promised he wouldn't do: he wrapped his arm around her, holding her tight to him. “It's over,” he whispered.

“Don't leave,” she pleaded. And he knew she was asking him more than not to leave the shelter.