[Montacroix Royal Family Series 03] - The Outlaw (17 page)

"Some Anglos," Noel corrected mildly.

Despite the seriousness of the subject, Second Mother's lips quirked in a vague smile. "Some Anglos," she conceded. She fell silent again, thinking quietly. "Would it help you save my son if you had a powerful Anglo man speak for him?"

Noel's instincts were humming. "It certainly couldn't hurt."

Second Mother rose from the bench and went into the hogan. Noel waited, hearing the thump, thump, thump of the shuttle as she watched Running Girl weaving nearby.

When Second Mother came out of the hogan again, she was carrying an envelope. "This was sent from Fort Prescott," she said. "To my sister many years ago. Wolfe had not yet lived one winter. But he was being raised in the way of the Dineh, so I sent back word that she had perished on the way back to Dinetah."

As Noel took the envelope, a jolt of electricity shot through her fingers. It was so strong that both women jumped back. The envelope fluttered to the ground, yellowed ivory against the red dirt.

Noel bent down and gingerly picked it up. Although the ink was faded, she could read the bold scrawl. "It's from his father? The cavalry officer who raped her?"

"He did not rape my sister." Second mother sighed and looked away again. "He loved her. And she loved him. But times were difficult and the Anglos were much-hated. As were any Dineh women who lowered themselves to sleep with the soldiers. So, my sister hid from everyone the fact that she was with child."

"Everyone but the baby's father, who, of course, recognized the changes in her body. It was only when she gave birth on the Long Walk that her secret was revealed to our people."

"So, when he wrote asking about Wolfe's mother, and his child, you told him they'd both died."

"It was better for him to think that."

Although the letter had been written years ago, the emotional state of the writer lingered like a fiery aura. Wolfe's mother had not only loved her young officer, she'd been loved in return. By a power so forceful that only death could have kept them apart.

"The same way it was better for Wolfe to be eaten up by hatred all his life? Thinking some
bilaganna
soldier raped his mother and was responsible for her death?"

"You do not understand."

"I'm sorry." Noel took a deep breath and let it out slowly, striving for calm. It was not her place to attack the woman who'd only been trying to do her best for her dead sister's son.

"Wolfe's father is an important man now," Second mother revealed. "He is a federal judge in Flagstaff. Perhaps he can help his son."

"Perhaps." Noel ran her hands along the top of the envelope, considering her options. "Thank you," she said. "And I'm sorry I was impolite."

"That is not so surprising."

"Because I'm Anglo?"

"No. Because you love my son."

Noel knew she could no longer deny it. To herself. Or to this woman who saw so much. "It's that obvious?"

"Of course." At the sound of the hooves hitting turn, Second Mother and Noel both turned toward the rider who was trotting into camp.

Noel's heart soared when she recognized, beneath the coating of black ash, this man who was so clearly her destiny. Then, mindless of what anyone would think, she went running toward him.

9

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The sight of her, running toward him, a wide, welcoming smile on her exquisite face, shouldn't give him so much pleasure, Wolfe told himself. It shouldn't make him feel the same way he felt whenever he glimpsed the red cliffs of Canyon de Chelly. It shouldn't make him feel as if he'd come home.

But it did. He reined in his horse.

"You're back!" Relief shimmered in her wide blue eyes, echoed in her tone. The bright dawn light revealed dark smudges beneath those incredible eyes, silent testimony that her night had been as sleepless as his.

"I told you I would return," he reminded her. Without taking his gaze from her face, that pale exquisite face, he reached a hand down and patted the massive yellow head of the dog as it jumped up and down in canine welcome. The pony, accustomed to the ubiquitous dogs at the canyon, remained calm.

"I know." She drank in the sight of him, as if to convince herself that he was truly here. That he was not some vision conjured up by her desperately hopeful mind.

He was covered in black ash. Yellow pollen clung to his hair and the pungent aroma of smoke surrounded him. Noel found him wonderful.

"I was so worried. I saw things. Terrible things. You were battling with a horrid giant. I was afraid he'd eat you. But just when I was certain I would lose you for good, you killed him. With three arrows. The final one struck him in the heart."

Wolfe knew that the odds of her knowing the details of the Blackening Way were slim to none. "You were in my mind."

Her gaze turned solemn. "I have been. From the beginning."

A memory flashed in his mind. A memory of the female with hair the color of moonlight, who'd soothed his wounds with magic herbs, allowing him to return to vanquish the giant.

Wolfe was not prepared to admit to Noel's presence in the holy ceremony, since he wasn't sure what such thoughts meant.

"There's something else," she said. "This morning, I couldn't sleep, so I went for a walk. Down to where you showed me your family had planted their corn. Where you kissed me. I was sitting there, worrying about you, when I saw Bret Starr."

"In a vision." He no longer questioned her abilities.

"Yes. He was lying in bed, with a woman. The sign above the door of the building said, The Irish Rose." She frowned. "But I can't see where it is."

"The Irish Rose is in Silverton. In Colorado." Wolfe attempted to rein in the blatant hope on her face. "But even if Starr is there, we don't know that he witnessed the massacre."

"But the woodcut—"

"And even if he did," Wolfe cut her off with a swift wave of his hand, "the fact that he took off to Silverton doesn't suggest a willingness to help keep my head out of the hangman's noose."

"Then we'll just have to talk him into cooperating," Noel decided. The fact that she and Wolfe had shared, telepathically, his encounter with Yei Tsoh, had only deepened her belief that this man—and this mission— was her destiny.

"We?"

Her enthusiasm immediately turned to a tenacity that was all too familiar. Princess Noel Giraudeau de Montacroix was both the most appealing and frustrating woman he'd ever known.

"I told you," she said, "we're in this together."

"And if I said I didn't want you with me?"

"I'd say that's too bad. Because I have no intention of letting you leave without me."

"Has anyone ever told you that such mule-headed behavior is most unfeminine?"

"Why don't you ask me if I care?" She shook her head. "Besides, you have to take me with you. Unless you want me to be hung for murder on the same gallows the good people of Whiskey River built for you."

Despite the seriousness of their situation, Wolfe laughed. "You do not fight fair, Princess. However, you make a good point. I suppose I have no choice in allowing you to accompany me to Silverton."

Having gotten her way, Noel was diplomatic enough not to argue. "Thank you."

He laughed again, a rough, resigned laugh and shook his head. "Go get your things," he said. "I've arranged for Many Horses to bring you some of his younger brother's clothing to wear on the trip."

"It'll be much easier riding in trousers," Noel said gratefully. Although Second Mother had given her some herbal cream to rub on her chafed thighs, she wasn't looking forward to getting back in the saddle again wearing a skirt.

"That was my thought. But pack your red dress to wear when we arrive in Silverton. With that hair and your white complexion, there's no way we can pass you off as Dineh."

"So you'd rather I look like a prostitute?"

"Next time you steal clothing, I'd suggest taking something more subdued," he suggested.

"If there had been a more appropriate outfit for escaping a posse, I certainly would have selected it."

"If you'd have stayed in your room the way any sensible woman would have under the circumstances, you wouldn't be forced to escape a posse," he told her dryly. "We'll be leaving camp in thirty minutes. There is something I must do first."

Before she could answer, he turned and rode away.

After changing into the trousers Many Horses gave her, gathering up her belongings and saying goodbye to Second Mother, Noel grew impatient. Rather than wait for Wolfe to come fetch her, she went looking for him.

She found him down at the spring, sitting on a rock beside the water, spinning tales of Navajo gods and of the hero twins who'd first fought the giant, to a rapt audience of children seated in a semicircle at his feet.

That he relished his role of storyteller was more than a little obvious. It was when she found it so easy to imagine him telling similar stories to his own children—
their
children—that she realized she'd fallen in love with Wolfe.

As she waited for him to finish the tale, Noel's mind reverberated with that amazing thought. And al-though she could not understand a word, the emotion in his tone held her as spellbound as the children.

When the story ended, the children loudly begged him to tell another, but he shook his head, then told them something that had them all looking at Noel. As he stood up and walked toward her, a dozen pair of dark eyes followed him.

"They remind me of my sister and me," Noel said with a smile. "Always asking for one more bedtime story before
Maman
turned off the light."

"Someone needs to keep the stories alive," he said, somewhat defensively, Noel thought.

"Of course that's important," she said. "And no one tells them better than you."

"Ah, but you are undoubtedly prejudiced."

All the love she was feeling for him shone in her eyes as she smiled up at him. "Of course I am." She wanted to touch him, only a hand to his cheek, but restrained herself, worried that such an outward sign of emotion would embarrass him in front of the children who were watching them with unblinking attention.

"But that doesn't change the fact that you're a wonderful storyteller, Wolfe. Which is why people will still be reading your stories a hundred years from now."

The idea, which should have pleased Wolfe, did not. Because it reminded him that at any moment his princess could return to her own world. Her own time.

Would he remember her? he wondered, knowing that he would.

Would she remember him? That was only one of the questions that were gnawing at Wolfe's gut as they rode out of the Canyon de Chelly camp.

Noel was not particularly disturbed when Wolfe did not speak during the long ride out of the canyon and across the high desert. Having grown accustomed to his thoughtful silences, she knew that no amount of prompting, pleading or threatening would coax a solitary word from his lips. He would talk when he was ready, and not before.

While Noel was drinking in the magnificent scenery that was so unlike her homeland, Wolfe remained deep in thought. He was thinking about the events that had nearly led to his death. About that damn book—
Rogues Across Time
—she alleged to have brought with her from the future that described his death by hanging.

And, as they rode side by side across the vast open, lonely land, he thought about the chances, slim as they were, that Bret Starr could actually clear his name.

He also, of course, thought about his princess. And her claim of having crossed time to come to Whiskey River in the first place. He wondered if she'd be surprised to learn that he did not consider the idea as outlandish as a white man might. There were, after all, more things on earth and in the heavens that any one man could possibly understand.

Such knowledge usually led to a type of serenity in the face of the astounding. One that was rooted not in submission, but in acceptance. There had been a time when ancient man were terrified by an eclipse. And although Wolfe now knew the scientific cause for the seeming disappearance of the sun or moon, the sight nevertheless strummed innumerable primal chords deep within him.

Those instinctive, primitive feelings had been born in the very first man and continued throughout succeeding generations. The same could be said about the need of a man for a mate.

Which led him back, full circle, to the princess Noel.

Wolfe sighed inwardly, as his troubled thoughts went round and round, like a leaf caught in a swirling whirlpool.

After they'd been on the trail about five hours, he decided it would be safe to stop. If he'd been alone, he would have kept going, but observing the shadows beneath her eyes and taking into consideration her recent lack of sleep, Wolfe decided that if she didn't get some rest soon, she'd end up falling off her horse.

He led them off the trail, to the base of a rugged red mountain, into a grove of cottonwood trees.

"We'll stop here."

Watching him dismount with a lithe yet powerful grace, Noel experienced a familiar fluttering in her heart. A fluttering that grew even more intense as he lifted her to the ground.

When their eyes met, she thought—hoped—that he might kiss her again. But instead, he released her and walked off to hobble their horses in a grassy spot, allowing them to graze.

While he took care of the horses, she knelt beside the river, and cupping her hands, scooped up some fresh cool water.

Watching her drink from the crystal river, Wolfe thought what a lovely picture she made, how natural she looked in this remote and wild place that he loved so deeply, when he saw something that made his heart leap to his throat. A mountain lion, crouched on the limb of a tree directly over her bent head.

"Don't move," he said in a low rough voice.

"What—"

"And don't say a word. Just stay right where you are." Wolfe feared that if he told her the danger she was in, she'd move suddenly, or scream, causing the giant cat to make its move. Better that she just follow his instructions. Explanations could come later. After she was safe.

The warning in his gruff tone—echoed in his flinty eyes—was enough to make Noel shut her mouth so fast and so hard her teeth slammed painfully together. Her heart trebled its beat and she grew instantly chilled, as if a thunderhead had suddenly moved across the sun.

"You must trust me."

Her eyes—wide and terrified—nevertheless assured him that she did. With her life.

"Whatever I do, whatever happens," he said softly, "don't move. I don't want to risk hurting you."

She swallowed and managed a slight nod, watching as he slowly took the Winchester from the saddle.

"I'm going to pull the trigger on three. The minute I do, I want you to move as quickly as you can to the right… One."

The tension surrounding them was palpable. "Two," he said softly as he watched the giant cat get ready to spring.

Inside, Noel was screaming. Outside, she pressed her lips together and held her breath.

Just when she didn't think she could remain silent another moment, Wolfe said, "Three!"

Then, with a movement too swift for her to follow, he lifted the rifle and pulled the trigger. At the same time, Noel rolled away from the tree, nearly landing in the river.

The shot rang out, the sound ricocheting against the red rocks. A moment later, she heard a mighty roar, followed by the breaking of tree limbs as the mountain lion came crashing down.

It was then she screamed.

He was dead. Looking down at the lifeless cat, Wolfe felt the cooling waves of relief wash over him. Relief that was tempered with a faint sadness. It was a beautiful animal. Brave and strong and born to hunt, like the Dineh warrior of old. Wolfe knew it bore them no personal animosity. It was only following its nature.

Even as he knew he'd had no choice, it did not escape Wolfe's notice that the same guns that had conquered the Dineh had allowed him to conquer another of nature's own.

Although time seemed to have slowed to a crawl, all those thoughts raced through his mind in an instantaneous flash. The following second, he was kneeling beside Noel and dragging her limp body against his, holding her tightly, as if he would never let her go.