Gray Hawk's Lady: Blackfoot Warriors, Book 1 (20 page)

Narrowing his eyes, he thought about it for a moment. She had just saved his life. She, who appeared to hate him more than any other being alive. She, who couldn’t wait to be gone from his presence. She, who did not want to accompany him.

He said then, as though to the wind, “You, little Gen-e-vee, are very brave, indeed.”

He supposed that had been the start of his change of viewpoint, the beginning of his state of indecision.

He no longer knew what to do with the white woman.

No matter his feelings for her in the past, he could no longer look upon Genevieve as his slave, nor could he pretend that she was the object of his revenge.

Not any longer. Not when she had come to his defense, when she had saved his life.

She had now come to that exalted status where he admired her. She hadn’t wanted to kill a man; it had made her sick to do so, yet she had done it—to save
him,
an Indian, a man whom she professed to dislike.

What she had done was a braver act than that of a man who went to war, to kill or to be killed: braver because it was not what she’d wanted to do; braver because she had set aside her own fears—and for
him
.

Her sacrifice was not something he could put aside easily.

So what was he to do about her? It was a dilemma.

What he had planned for her, to make her a slave, to seek his revenge by bringing her to ridicule within his camp, was no longer possible, nor even desirable.

But if
not that, then what? What was he to do about her?

He had to bring her home with him; he had to bring her into his camp, but how to do it without…

If he took her into his village without some satisfactory explanation for her being with him, he would make her the object of ridicule—for in his culture, a woman could not spend time alone with a man and retain her reputation.

And while this scenario had at one time appealed to him as a different means of revenge, it no longer did.

He could take her back to this St. Louis, he supposed, since he had begun to realize it was no idle problem she was trying to solve. Whatever it was that had brought her into this country alone had the power to ruin her life. This, he had come to understand.

But to his own way of thinking, to take her back to her home would be to accept defeat for himself.

Wasn’t it true? Wasn’t it what he had observed in his own, in others’ camps, that when a man takes a woman captive, he keeps her…captive? To do anything else would be to label himself a coward. It was the way of things.

He couldn’t likely do that.

Of course, there was one other step he could take, one he was reluctant to make, if only because of who he was and who she was.

He could make her his wife.

He snorted.

It was a foolish solution. He was not ready for marriage. He did not want it or a wife.

And though he knew that one day he would find a woman and settle her into his tepee, it was not a step he wished to take now, with a white woman.

He was too fond of the warrior life, too fond of the widows in his camp, too fond of the easy lifestyle of little responsibility.

No, he wasn’t desperate enough about the white woman’s situation to contemplate making her his wife—although, he thought, gazing over toward her, it did have the appeal of appeasing his attraction toward her.

He jerked his head to the left and scowled. What was he thinking? Once he returned home, there would be a number of women who would be only too glad to accommodate his needs. He didn’t have to concern himself about one skinny white woman.

And yet…

Perhaps if he weren’t so desperate to ensure the welfare of his mother and sisters, he might have turned around right then and catered to the white woman’s wishes, taking her back to St. Louis. Maybe if he weren’t so worried.

But he
was
desperate; he
was
worried.

Without enough food and clothing, those he loved most would not be able to make it through the long northern winters of Blackfoot country.

He had to ensure their welfare.

But that didn’t mean that he would like what he was going to have to do to the woman…Gen-e-vee.

Many men would then seek her out, if he brought her into camp unmarried; these men would believe her to be a loose woman of no honor. And it wouldn’t matter how much he defended her.

Words would not circumvent actions, and she had spent time with him, alone—unchaperoned.

He stared at her now as she bent over the task of skinning an elk. Slender to a fault, she looked as though a good gale would snatch her away. Her red hair, he noted for the umpteenth time, was an unusual shade, as were her brown eyes, which at times seemed to match the shade of her hair, appearing more tannish-red than brown.

She had refused the Indian clothing he had offered her, and she still wore the green white man’s dress, now tattered and torn almost beyond recognition. It was a problem, her dress. The bosom of it came down too low and, in the state of its disrepair, had her practically bursting from its confinement.

She was small, yet full-breasted, and he wondered just what those mounds of flesh would feel like in his hands. In truth, he dreamed about it.

He wouldn’t press her, though, to find out. The debt of gratitude that he now owed her would not allow him to approach her in a sexual, more suggestive way. Not any longer.

But this wasn’t all he noticed about her.

Her hair gleamed bright and shining under the sunlight. And it was all he could do to look elsewhere.

She had given in to combing the mane of it with the brush he had made out of twigs tied with rawhide. At present, she allowed the full locks of it to flow smooth and full around her face. Sometimes she looked as though a warm, glowing sunset surrounded her.

He shook his head. What was he to do with her?

He didn’t know. He just didn’t know.

But he had to decide fast. He had precious few days left before he would come upon his own village.

He watched her, trying to read her thoughts. But because he no longer played a game of chase with her, he found himself less interested in breaking into the privacy of her thoughts.

He admired her, too. She had learned to skin an animal quickly, just as she had taken to smoking the meat, even to cooking. She was bright and intelligent, and he wondered that he had never credited her, nor others of her race, with much intellect or humanity.

In truth, he had never been given reason to until now. He had considered the white man a coarse, unrefined and ill-mannered race.

After all, what did the white man know of this country? Very little that Gray Hawk could see.

The white man became lost more times than he could find his way; he knew nothing of woodworking, of the making of useful articles and fine weapons; he could not remember twenty days past in perfect recall so that he could tell from tracking how many days since a print had been made.

He knew nothing of sign language, of scouting, of using a network of runners as a means of communication—and the white man was more often drunk than sober. Besides that, he seemed intent on fixing the Indian into that intoxicated state too.

No, to Gray Hawk’s point of view, the white man would not even have made a worthy opponent, let alone become the object of admiration.

“Gen-e-vee?”

She stopped her work and glanced at him.

Said Gray Hawk, his attention seemingly on the tiny statue he was carving, “Tell me again of your father and his work.”

“Are you thinking of taking me back to St. Louis?”

“Quiet, white woman. I am merely curious.”

“Please, Mr. Gray Hawk, if you would take me back, I would be forever in your debt.”

He held up a hand. “I tire of hearing this same prattle. I think you must say this to me more times a day than I can count. Now tell me what he does and why it is so important for you to return. I do not understand, white woman, how a man can be so dependent upon a woman for his own livelihood.”

She turned around in full, sitting down upon the ground. She said, “That is not true, Gray Hawk. Are you not dependent upon your women? Who keeps your home for you? Who makes your clothes, your food, your bags? Who cares for your children?”

He nodded. “Yes,
I can see that you could say that. But these works that you mention are those of a woman, and it is a fact that a man cannot live without her. But he lives with her as a woman, not in competition with her as a man.”

“Mr. Gray Hawk, do you suggest—”

“Do I make a woman hunt for food for me? Do I require her to defend me? Do I ask her to make my weapons, to ensure their strength? These are my responsibilities. I might listen to her suggestions. I might even seek out her opinions, for she has many emotions that I do not often feel, and these emotions, these loves of hers, are her strengths. I often listen to her on these. But not on hunting, not on warring and certainly not on defense.”

When Genevieve opened her mouth to speak, he again held up his hand.

“What you do in your world,” he continued, “from what I can comprehend, is a man’s work. I can see, because I have had to teach you these things, that you did not cook before now, nor have I observed that you have talent toward the making of clothing or other items that are, in general, the woman’s sphere of activity. From what I understand, you do the same work as your father. How does he allow this? Does he not know that, to do so, he takes away the qualities and creativity of a woman, which are her beauty?”

She hesitated. She looked as though she might say something, but she held back, gazing away as though she studied something in the distance. At length, her attention still seemingly elsewhere, she said, “I have never heard such a viewpoint before and, I must say, Gray Hawk, it startles me a bit—yet I can see that it makes perfect sense to you. I must tell you, however, that in my society, for me to do such work as you describe would be to lower myself in the eyes of my peers.”

“Who are these peers, that they should judge you?”

“They are people of the elite status in my society.”

“Elite?”

“People who are…above…other people.”

“Above? You mean people of distinction within your tribe? People who have proven themselves to be able to provide, able to share their treasures with others?”

She frowned. “No, Gray Hawk. By ‘peers’ is meant people who are the children of great men, people who by birth are raised in status above others.”

“Just because they were born to a man of worth?”

“Yes.”

Gray Hawk paused, weighing what she said against what he knew. “How can this be so? Just because a man is a great chief does not mean his sons will be also.”

She sighed. “Let me see if I can help to explain this. Do you not have slaves in your society?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes we keep a captive and she becomes a slave to the one who captured her, doing much-needed tasks for the household. But she is not kept a slave. She often will marry into our tribe and thus become an equal to all others.”

The white woman brought her gaze back to him. “Well,” she said, “it is similar in our society. There are people who are servants who do the work of the household. By reason of birth, these people come from a lower class of people and so are hired to do our work. It is considered most degrading if a man of any higher class, and especially if a woman, were to do actual physical labor. Such would mean dismissal from the upper circles of our society. It is unseemly to do so.”

Gray Hawk paused. He took his time in trying to understand what this woman said, for it all seemed incomprehensible to him. Men and women who did no physical labor? He asked, “Are these ‘peers’ old people, then?”

“No,” she said. “They are all different ages. Simply by reason of birth, they are held in higher esteem than others.”

He frowned. “And these ‘peers,’ what sort of work do they do?”

She hesitated. “Sometimes they will run an estate that their father has left to them. Sometimes they will go into the same business as their father. But most often they are not required to work. To labor, to
have
to work at all, is considered a weakness.”

“And these slaves—”

“Servants.”

“And these servants do—”

“Most of the work? Yes.”

Gray Hawk shook his head. “Do your people not think of the life of that servant? Do they not consider that the servant, too, desires to enjoy life?”

“I do not believe it crosses many people’s minds.”

Gray Hawk gazed deeply at the woman to observe the truth or deceit of her words. Seeing her sincerity, he said, “I do not understand how this can be so.”

“Perhaps because there are people who do not observe as you do. Perhaps, too, because our towns are so big, it is easy to ignore the strife and suffering of other people.”

He nodded. He still didn’t understand, but he would leave the subject for now. “So tell me,” he said, “about your father, and why his work is so important to you that you would risk coming into my country alone.”