Lakota Surrender (20 page)

Even in his own tribe, if a girl submitted to a boy without marriage, she was marked as promiscuous for the rest of her days. This was one of the many reasons Tahiska had insisted upon marriage with Kristina. He would bring her no shame.

But if he were truthful with the white man, would he bring disgrace upon Kristina with her own people?

If he died in pursuit of his revenge, would her own people shun her, no longer accepting her amongst them?

Wakan Tanka had put these thoughts into his dreams. He could not ignore them.

There was only one solution. And though he was loath to do it, it would create a more secure future for Kristina.

Tahiska straightened and listened for the sound of the animal he was tracking. He had made his decision, and thus resolved, he was free to stalk this game.

He glanced around, and on silent feet, advanced in the direction of his prey.

It was still early morning when Tahiska returned to camp.

Kristina had bathed and was dressed in his shirt instead of her own ivory gown.

This pleased him very much. Her hair hung down her back in wet strands and her cheeks shone with a rosy glow.

She greeted him with a shy glance. He returned the look, and dropping his game next to the fire, he knelt beside her.

“Nihwa hwo?”
he asked, then translated in sign, “Are you tired?”

“Hiya,”
she answered, with a shake of her head, then asked in his own language,
“Nihwa hwo?”

He smiled.
“Hiya.”

He lifted the golden strands of her hair, his fingers running over the waves, easing through the tangles. A smile crept onto his lips. He held a lock to the sun, watching closely as the golden highlights shimmered. Ah, his Kristina. She was such good medicine.

“We will eat and I will take you back.”

Kristina nodded. He sensed her uncertainty with this situation, not knowing how to act around him, feeling unsure of herself. He wanted to take her in his arms until her shyness passed, yet he was just as reluctant to do it. He hoped she was considering all he had said to her and would realize all she had to lose. He had told her
it may be all that you will have of me.
Did she fear that may be true?

“Tahiska,” she spoke his name, placing her hand on his arm. “You seem anxious to be away, but I must know. Do you love me?”

Tahiska still knelt beside her. He shut his eyes and drew a deep breath. Finally, he opened his eyes, gazing straight at her. He touched a finger to her lips, then signed, “Why do you want to know? Didn’t you divorce me, deciding that you want only an affair; a shallow existence with little love and no consistency? I have told you I will try. What do you want now? A fleeting romance, yet great love? What should I answer?”

Kristina looked down, and he knew he had been too harsh.

He brought her face back to his, running his fingers over her cheek. The caress was only a prelude, for soon he kissed her, and again his emotions raged out of control.

The desire to love her was so instantaneous it took him by surprise. Yet already he was hardening in anticipation.

He had intended to kiss her slowly, but the moment his lips touched hers, a spark ignited between them and he could no more have set her away from him than he could stop breathing. He gathered her into his arms, and tearing his lips from hers, blazed a path of kisses over her cheek to her ear. At the same time, he rubbed his body up against hers.

“Kristina,” he whispered in his own, tongue. “Kristina. Do you have your answer?”

The scent of her hair drifted up to him, her perfume a natural fragrance of femininity and prairie grass.

He wanted to love her, but he was also reluctant to do so. After a night spent with little sleep and much passion, he was concerned that more lovemaking would bring her pain.

He broke away from her, wanting more than anything to smile down into those eyes whose color seemed to mirror the green grasses. But he couldn’t. If he gave in even slightly, he would never let her go. No, he would stick to his decision. Let her think what she wanted. He knew the truth.

“Are you sore?” he signed to her instead of declaring his love.

She looked away and a delicate pink flush spread over her cheeks.

“A little,” she signed back, her gaze distant.

Tahiska sat back upon his heels, studying her.

“Are you hungry?” he gestured at last.

Her eyes met his.

“Yes,” she rejoined.

Was her meaning double-edged? Tahiska resolved against determining her intent. Instead, he said, “I am hungry also.”

He did, however, take her hand in his and after pulling her to her feet, he enveloped her in his embrace. He touched her everywhere, reveling in the feel of her softness against the hard contours of his body.

“You ask me if I love you,” he said in Lakota. “I do not think that I have ever loved another as I love you. It is good. You have captured my heart and I think we have met as spirits. You are within me now and if we should be parted, I believe neither one of us would be whole again. Remember this,
mitawicu,
for there is much before us to brave.” He didn’t translate. He simply smiled at her as he ran his fingers through the golden locks of her hair.

Chapter Nine

Tahiska and Kristina returned to the fort in the late morning. They walked into the gates as though they had merely gone for an early morning stroll. No one molested them. No one stopped them.

Kristina breathed a sigh of relief. All morning long, as they had traveled over the swollen hills of the prairie, her gaze had searched the horizon for a party of troops. But they had seen nothing. They had been stopped by no one.

Tahiska led her horse by the reins. He stopped now to hand the bridle back to her.

“Hau,”
he said stiffly. He became at once the stoic, unsmiling Indian she had become accustomed to in her dealings with him at the fort.

“Hau,”
she whispered in his own language.

She gazed up at him and smiled. The man affected her in a most peculiar way. She was so caught up with him that she didn’t observe all that was happening around her until she heard a screech. “Kristina! Where have you been? Guards, arrest that Indian!”

Startled, Kristina whirled around. Her mother stood before them, and there was a look about her that made Kristina shiver.

“Mother, what…? Don’t you dare touch him!” Kristina demanded of the men gathered at her mother’s side, but already one of the soldiers was grabbing Tahiska.

“Mother! Do you know what you’re doing? This man is my friend!”

“Arrest him! Throw him in jail! Dirty Indian!”

“Mother! Stop this!” Kristina spun toward her mother. It was the first time she noticed the wild gaze in her mother’s eyes. “Mother!”

“If that Indian laid a finger on you, I’ll see that he hangs. My poor Kristina!”

“Mother! Tahiska is my friend. He’s done nothing wrong. Why are you doing this?”

Maggie Bogard gripped her daughter’s arm. “Tahiska? You call that Indian by his name? Do you know how this looks? Well, I’ll have no more from you. You’ll go to your room and by God, you’ll stay there!”

“I’m not going anywhere until you calm down and stop this!” Kristina easily spun out of her mother’s grasp, but when she whirled about, she screamed.

Two soldiers lay knocked out on the ground and Tahiska circled another. At his back two more soldiers descended. All were armed, whereas Tahiska had only his strength and cunning.

Two soldiers seized him from behind, but he tore out of their grasp and now circled three instead of the one soldier.

“Leave him alone!”Kristina cried and flung herself upon one of the soldiers.

That soldier made the mistake of slapping her. A flame leapt in the Indian’s eyes. Tahiska bent suddenly. Pivoting, he plunged into the soldier. The man left the ground, a look of horror upon his face as he was thrown javelin style into the two other soldiers. They all hit the ground with a thud.

Tahiska let go his war cry, and snatching Kristina by the hand, sprinted across the grounds.

But his cry alerted others… A swarm of ten to fifteen soldiers surged around him. And before he could lift Kristina to the horse, the bold butt of a rifle cracked into his head. Tahiska went down.

“You idiots!” Kristina leapt forward and snatched one of the soldier’s rifles. She stood over Tahiska, rifle poised.

Tahiska recovered in an instant. He leaped to his feet but was seized from behind. And while Tahiska struggled out of that grasp, Kristina was swarmed, her weapon captured.

“Lock him up!” Maggie Bogard barked out the orders. “And lock her up, too. In her room. She’s to be guarded!”

“Mother!”

Tahiska was not to be led to the guardhouse without struggle. It finally took five soldiers to restrain him and even then he practically slipped away from them twice.

They flung him into the darkened cell and closed the steel bars with a loud clank.

Tahiska stared about him. He was furious.

He began to pace his cell, now and then darting a glance to the hall outside the jail.

Fools! He had meant to speak with the white men. Now he would parley with no
washechu!
He would have his revenge!

Tahiska had never before been locked inside four walls. The room was small and dark, and it smelled terribly. Dirt from past residents clung to every crevice and there was evidence he shared the cell with several rodents.

For a moment the longing to see the graceful lodges of his home was overwhelming. But he damped the yearning and set about making a plan for escape.

He already knew every crack and opening in the jail cell. There was only one way out and that way was barred. He shook the cell door, he pounded upon it. He studied it. Why would it not open?

He paced, he schemed, he waited. Fury burned from his eyes.

Food was brought to him at dinnertime. But Tahiska had no sense of the time. He could not see the sun.

He watched the guard, his alert gaze noting the keys, the lock, the peg where the keys were hung, the pistol in the guard’s hand.

Tahiska flung the food aside. He had no wish to eat in such a place as this.

The jailer made a mistake, and Tahiska was quick to note it.

Nervous in the presence of the Indian, the guard had jumped when Tahiska threw the food, plates and all, at the wooden wall. Anxious to be away, the guard left the keys on a peg outside the Indian’s cell.

They were out of reach, but that was no problem to him. Shrugging out of his shirt, Tahiska prepared his escape.

Rage burned within Kristina. She was locked in her room. She was guarded. Twice she had tried to escape, once out her door, the other through her window. Both times she had been hauled back and shoved into her room.

Where was her father? Where was her mother? She had asked both guards. Neither had replied to her.

She paced; she roamed over worn spots on the floor. Evening came too quickly, and Kristina realized she hadn’t eaten since Tahiska had fixed breakfast this morning. She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t sleep. She was past such things.

She stood by her window and planned an escape.

Wendall Bogard lingered outside his daughter’s door. He wiped his brow with a shaky hand. Damn, what a mess!

“Kristina?” He knocked on her door.

“Father!” She jerked the door open. “Where have you been?”

The major was taken aback. “I might ask you that same question, young lady.”

He stepped into the room. “Where’s the light, Kristina? Why are you sitting here in the dark?”

“Why not?” Kristina countered. “I don’t mind the dark. Your eyes just haven’t adjusted.” Nevertheless, Kristina lit a lamp by her bed.

“I’ve been looking for you all day, Kristina. I’ve been worried sick about you, and now I’m tired. Do I need to tell you that we’ve got ourselves a real problem on our hands? The young buck escaped. Did you know that?”

“Good!” Kristina snapped, but at the back of her mind she worried. If Tahiska had escaped but hadn’t taken her with him, would he ever return for her? She’d made it plain that she didn’t wish to marry him. Would he simply disappear from her life? Her stomach turned, and emotional pain swept through her.

“We’ll have a war on our hands, and I don’t know how to avoid it,” Major Bogard spoke, unaware of his daughter’s discomfort. “That Indian won’t allow this to go unchallenged. And he’s Sioux. Do you know how many warriors they have?”

Kristina mutely shook her head.

“Too many. If they attack our fort en masse, none here would survive.”

“That’s not likely is it, Father? His tribe is a long way away, isn’t it? He appears to be here with only his two friends. I doubt if he’s any sort of threat to the fort. Besides, he is my friend.”

“You believe that will stop him? What happened, Krissy? Why were you out all night, and why did the Indian bring you back to the fort?”