Night Thunder's Bride: Blackfoot Warriors, Book 3 (4 page)

They had reached the tepee and Night Thunder pulled back the rawhide flap, entering the structure before her. And with little urging, she followed his example.

Since the tepee had been put together in a hurry, twigs and leaves still cluttered the floor and the tepee covering didn’t quite fit with the lodge poles. Yet someone had set a fire to burning in the center, scattering a few robes across the ground, too.

Had this been done by the same men who had only moments ago been ready to destroy her? She was struck by the incongruity of it.

She glanced up at Night Thunder, who motioned her toward him.

“The fire throws shadows onto the tepee, illuminating our figures upon it,” he told her. “Come, let me hold you, while the others might still be watching. Then we will put out this fire, or at least reduce it to embers, so that we can sleep in separate sleeping robes without the entire camp knowing what we do.”

Rebecca rubbed her hands over her arms. She took a few steps toward him.

“Are you cold?”

She nodded.

He drew her into his arms. “Let me warm you,” he said, and proceeded to run his hands up and down her arms, down over her spine.

It felt good.
He
felt good, and she trembled, but whether from cold, reaction to him, or the whole ordeal this evening, she couldn’t be certain.

“You have been through much this night,” he said, seemingly reading her thoughts. “Come,” he said and sat down with her, still holding her in his arms.

It felt so natural, so right, to be held just like this by him. He ran his hands over her back, her arms, even her legs, through the layers of her skirt. But rather than his action being sexual, his touch felt soothing, and she relaxed. She lay her head against his chest and closed her eyes, not fully realizing until this moment how tired she was.

She opened her mouth to whisper a word of thanks for all he had done for her, for all he
was
doing for her, but the words never passed her lips. And the last thing she remembered was the strange melody of a song he sang as she drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Three

Night Thunder held her, even as she slept.

She felt so right in his arms, but how this could be he did not know. She was not truly right for him, could never be right for him. Still…

He glanced down at the young woman whom he knew by the name of Rebecca. Her golden-brown hair, as it spilled over his arm, felt soft and supple as she lay against him. Long eyelashes shadowed her cheeks, which were now blushed with the flush of warmth. Her face more resembled a heart than a circle—the Blackfoot beauty standard—and her lips were slightly thinner than those of the women of his tribe. Even so, her lips were parted slightly, beckoning him to savor again the exotic taste of her. Night Thunder felt himself shudder.

Looking away from her, he sighed. He did not need this complication in his life; nor, he expected, did she. It would be his responsibility, also, to put their relationship back to where it should be.

She moved slightly in his arms, sighing deeply in her sleep, and unwillingly, Night Thunder returned his attention to her.

Her bone structure was small, delicate, and more slight than that of the women in his tribe, and he wondered how she would fare if she ever spent a winter in this place. The color of her skin was several shades lighter than his own, and it called to mind his first impression of the white man.

He had at first thought the white man, so unusually pale, a ghost; but as he had grown to realize that this person was flesh and blood, not an apparition, he had decided that the race as a whole appeared lackluster and sickish. More contact had made him develop, of course, accustomed to their look.

He had also pondered the lack of white women in this country, having seen only three in his entire life.

But this woman, the one in his arms—this woman was beautiful by anyone’s standards, no matter their race.

Unusually pleasant, her sweet scent wafted up to his nostrils and he inhaled sharply, his body responding to her all out of his control.

That she was desirable was more than apparent. If he were to be completely honest with himself, he would have to admit to being attracted to her from his very first sight of her, white woman or not.

Yet in all the time that he had watched over her, guarding her within the white man’s fort, he had not once compromised her honor, nor his.

Nor would he have ever done so now, if it hadn’t been for…

He inhaled another quick breath.

Tomorrow he would return her to her own people, without arousing the suspicion of Strikes The Bear.

He had better forget about her, about that kiss. He had also better get some sleep so that his mind would not be cluttered on the morrow.

Laying Rebecca gently on the ground atop the bed robes, he paused for only a moment to look down at her before crawling to his own place within the tepee.

Settling down, he looked up toward the lodge poles where they met at the top of the tepee, the familiarity of the structure and the stars overhead setting his mind at ease.

He wondered for a moment at the spirits who had forced him to make a choice between two different sets of honor. No matter which path he had chosen this night, he would have lost his integrity.

He had long been of the opinion that nothing happened without purpose and he wondered briefly if
Napi,
if Old Man, were playing tricks on him.

It was the last thought he had before he drifted off to a fretful sleep.

Rebecca awoke to the sound of splashing.

Startled, she sent a quick glance across the embers of the fire, toward Night Thunder. He lay facing her, his gaze touching her softly.

“The warriors bathe before they go to hunt,” he explained quietly. “It is necessary to wash away the man scent each morning, if one wishes to be a successful provider for his family. It is why I believe the white man to be a bad hunter. An animal can smell him long before the white man spies the animal.” He paused for a moment. “Tell me, why does the white man not bathe?”

She almost choked, so great was her surprise. How did one answer such a question? And what had prompted it? Prejudice? Surely not. At last she pulled herself together and answered, her voice barely over a whisper, “I reckon that the white man finds it unnecessary to bathe,” she said. “Many people believe that bathing can cause a man to catch his death of cold.”

Night Thunder laughed softly and shifted so that he lay on his back, arms folded behind his head. “Since before I had memories, or in the words of the white man, before the age of three, I have taken a bath in the stream each morning. It did not matter if the weather were warm or a blizzard. And never once have I caught a cold or known a man who has. Do you make a joke?”

“No.”

Night Thunder continued to look amused. “I think the white man makes an excuse to remain dirty.”

Rebecca grimaced. She’d never given much thought to bathing, but in light of Night Thunder’s viewpoint, she could see why the Indian might see the white man as being a bit odd…and smelly. “Perhaps,” she said, “you are right.”

“Perhaps.”

A long moment of silence passed. At last, however, Rebecca asked, “Night Thunder?”

She glanced over to him when she didn’t hear a response. He still lay unmoving, hands behind his head, his gaze upward, toward the tepee poles.

“Night Thunder,” she began again, “will it look bad for you now if you are in here with me, not out there with them, bathing, too?”

He grunted. “No one will expect me to do anything this morning. It would appear strange if I joined the others, rather than staying here with my…wife.”

“Oh.” It was all she said for quite a few moments. Then, “Night Thunder, why did you tell them I was your…wife in order to save me? Was there no other way?”

Night Thunder heaved a great sigh. When he spoke, he said his words slowly, as though brooding over each one. “I have many relatives in this camp. I could not fight them in order to protect you. And yet I had made a vow to do so. Within my camp, a slave belongs to the one who captured her; it is a law that I cannot break. But as I sat on the edge of camp last night, I realized if I claimed you as my wife, you would belong to me. In this way I could save you.”

“I see,” she said. “And did you tell true? Do you intend to…marry me?”

“
Saa
, no.”

Rebecca didn’t know why his answer offended her. It was the response she had known she would receive; the one she herself wanted. Yet…“What kind of trouble will you bring to yourself, now, for the tales that you have told? I know there will be some.”

Again he sighed and a long pause followed her question. At last, he replied, “There will come a day when I will have to confront the others in my village, and my ancestors, with what I have said, what I have done.”

A strained silence followed his words. Rebecca sat worrying. Not about herself, but about a man—an Indian—who had abandoned his own honor to save her. She asked, “And what will happen to you, then?”

He looked over toward her, his glance sullen, though he said nothing.

“What?” she prompted.

He cut a glance to the lodge poles above him before he replied at last, “Why concern yourself about me when it is you who is in danger?”

“I…I can’t help but have a wheen bit of worry about you. I…I have known you for several months, and I…well…you came to my defense.”

“That is not the same.”

“How is it different?”

“
I
am a man. I am expected to risk my life for the good of the tribe, for honor. But you, you are woman. What would happen to a tribe if a woman were to risk her life as must a man?”

She didn’t answer all at once. At length, she voiced, “So you admit that you are risking your life for me, now?”

“Talk too much,” he said. “Better a woman remains quiet.”

Rebecca almost laughed. “If you will be bringing trouble upon yourself, why don’t you marry me and make it a truth? After returning me to the fort, you could always say that my heart was low at the thought of leaving my own people. And this caused me to stay behind.”

His eyes sought out hers across the fire’s dying embers. She met his gaze and neither one said a word for several moments. Then he asked, “Would you be willing to give your body to me in that way?”

She coughed. “Give my body to you? As in when a man and woman…when they…”

He nodded.

And she gulped. “Performing a marriage ceremony is what I’m talking about, not—”

“To the Blackfeet,” he interrupted, “there is only one way that a man and woman become truly married. They become united only after they are…joined in the flesh.”

She gasped. “Oh,” she said, catching her breath yet again. “I did not mean to be so bold as to—”

“I did not think so.” He grinned at her before he shifted his position, his gaze once more becoming centered upon the lodge poles.

A new sort of tension stretched out between them, causing the silence in the lodge to become more pronounced.

At last she asked, “What will we do, then?”

He shrugged. “As I had intended. I will keep my promise to you and my friend. I will return you to the fort where you belong, and I will confront the lies that I have told this day in my own way. I knew the consequences of what I did.”

“But—”

“It is not your concern. Perhaps you should get more sleep.”

She became silent for so long, he wondered if she might have decided to go back to sleep. But then she said, “Thank you.”

As they gazed at one another, she thought she glimpsed a particular warmth, there within the deep set of his eyes. Idly she wondered if there were an answering fervor within her own. She took a deep breath and asked a little too quickly, “When will it be proper for us to arise and start on our way back to the fort?”

He held her gaze for a little longer, his dark eyes sharp and assessing as they met hers, before he answered. “The others will prepare a feast for us. They will want to honor our marriage and will try to make you think more favorably toward them, especially because of what they tried to do to you. It would bring them dishonor if we were to leave before they are given a chance to make amends to you.”

“It would? They would do that?”

“
Aa,
yes,” he said. “It is the way of things. If one has harmed another, it is only right that he bring him gifts to try to make up for the damage he has done. And so my friends must do to you, or incur the wrath of my family. It is something none of them wants.”

“They would not want to do something to anger your family?”

“
Saa
, no.”

“Then your family must be…powerful?”

He shrugged. “There is much…medicine which runs in my family. No one wants that power turned against them.”

“Medicine? Power? Talking about magic, are you?”

“Magic?” he snorted. “What do you mean by magic?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Tricks of the eye. Tricks to make a body believe that somethin’ unusual, somethin’ one doesn’t see everyday, has occurred.”