The Endless Sky (Cheyenne Series) (28 page)

      
“The White Wolf has done a foolish thing, I think, following his heart. You will bring trouble for him...but the Powers will decide.”

      
“The Powers? You mean the tribal elders?”

      
“No. If the White Wolf has captured you, you are his to keep. No man will stop his doing with you as he wishes. The Powers are spirits. You call God. Only White Eyes do not believe we share your God. Perhaps we do not,” she added enigmatically.

      
Stephanie detected censure in the words and felt constrained to say, “I did not wish to be brought here. Chase kidnapped me from a white man's town.”

      
“Chase the Wind no longer uses his boy's name. Now he is the White Wolf,” Red Bead replied, ignoring Stephanie's remarks. “You eat, then I take you to the river to bathe and put on clean clothes.”

      
Red Bead all but turned up her bony nose at the dirty wrinkled black cotton dress, by now so dusty it had paled almost gray. Stephanie was sure it smelled worse than a horse blanket! Her face reddened in mortification as Red Bead rose and scuttled outside, quickly returning with a bowl of bubbling stew.

      
Under the old woman's watchful eye, Stephanie took the bowl and a small knife, which she had observed was the Indian's major eating utensil. Gingerly she stabbed at a chunk of meat swimming in the brown broth, praying it was edible. Although somewhat flat, lacking salt, the flavor was sweet and the meat tender. She grew bolder and tried some of the unidentifiable vegetables which were also quite palatable.

      
“It's good,” she offered politely to Red Bead.

      
‘‘Yes. Fresh bear meat. Killed yesterday,” the old woman responded.

      
Bear! For a moment the sweet taste started to roil on the back of her tongue, but Stephanie quickly quashed the impulse which might have offended her hostess. It had tasted good. A bear was wild game just like a buffalo or a deer and she had grown used to both, as fresh domestic meat on army posts was seldom available. When it was available, it was either strong grass-fed beef or the world's oldest roosters, fit only for the soup pot.

      
She smiled at Red Bead and continued eating. Finally, when all that remained was the broth, she puzzled for a moment since she did not have a spoon. Red Bead answered the unasked question, saying, “Drink.” She made a motion for her to upend the bowl. Stephanie did so, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, which was far cleaner than the sleeve of her dress.

      
Red Bead nodded her approval and took the bowl. “Now you bathe,” she said peremptorily. She rose, gathered up some items from one of the storage containers behind her, then walked outside, once more expecting Stephanie to follow her without question. When they emerged from the lodge, Stephanie glanced nervously around. Chase and his uncle were nowhere in sight, nor were any of the young warriors. A few old men sat smoking and working on ceremonial paraphernalia and a group of women knelt on the ground, sewing buffalo hides together.

      
‘They make a lodge for Magpie this day. She is to marry Swift Antelope as soon as it is complete,” Red Bead said as they passed the working women. Several of the younger ones glanced curiously at her, but quickly looked down, too shy to meet her tentative smile. An older woman with a stony impassive face stared at her boldly, almost as if challenging her.

      
“That one is Granite Arm, mother of Kit Fox, who expects to be the White Wolf's wife.”

      
Stephanie's heart squeezed painfully. Of course Chase would marry a Cheyenne woman. The only surprising thing was that he had not already done so, she reminded herself.

      
“She has no reason to be jealous of me. I am his prisoner, not a rival. I am already married to another.”

      
Red Bead said nothing in reply, only continued walking toward the winding stream that dissected the flat open ground. A stand of alder trees sheltered the rushing water from the early-morning sun's heat, affording seclusion for her bath.

      
Thank heavens I can bathe in privacy,
she thought, but then she heard soft giggling and splashing as they rounded a copse of kinnikinnick bushes. A dozen or more Cheyenne women, several of them with young children, cavorted in the water, which surprisingly ran shoulder deep in places. Little boys and girls swam gracefully as young otters, as did several of the women. Two women sat on the bank, nursing infants. All were completely naked and totally unashamed of ‘their bodies.

      
Heat rushed to Stephanie's cheeks as everyone's eyes turned to her, standing there fully clothed, filthy and bedraggled. How dearly she longed for a bath! Yet she desperately did not want to strip and have all these curious women see her naked body. No one had ever seen her naked in daylight, not even Hugh.

      
But Chase had. Memories of him stripping every stitch from her soaked, frozen body and rubbing her numb arms and legs came rushing back to her.
Don't think about it!
Red Bead interrupted her trance.

      
“Take off all your clothes and bathe,” she instructed. When Stephanie still did not move, she said, as if talking to a dim-witted child, “Here is soap. Clean the stink of sweat from your skin. I will bring clean clothing.”

      
“I—I've never undressed in front of anyone before,” Stephanie confessed, clutching the small bar of soap, which was stamped as army issue, no doubt a product of another of the White Wolf's raids.

      
Red Bead gave an inelegant snort, indicating what she thought of white women's sensibilities. “No men invade the bathing place now. They know it is time for the women. You are safe undressing.”

      
The old woman did not move but stood waiting until Stephanie began to unbutton the front of her dress. If she had been white, no doubt she'd have tapped her slipper with impatience. Realizing there was no way out except compliance, and that procrastinating was only making her audience more curious, Stephanie set to peeling off her dress and undergarments as swiftly as she could.

      
The younger women stared in open fascination at her ivory skin, pale pink nipples and the light brown hair at the junction of her thighs. Several of them began to giggle and chatter among themselves. Stephanie fought the urge to shield herself against the invasion but Red Bead explained, ‘They were only curious to see if the color of your hair below matched that above.”

      
One of the young mothers suckling her baby, pointed to Stephanie's breasts and asked something in Cheyenne. Stephanie turned to Red Bead who replied, “She asks if such pale nipples work the same way our dark ones do.”

      
Having never nursed an infant, Stephanie did not know what to reply and quickly decided it best not to attempt any explanation. Instead, clutching the soap, she walked into the water as deep as she could go and began to paddle around. Thank you, Aunt Paulina, for seeing to it I learned the unladylike sport of swimming! she thought as she moved through the water. It felt different swimming without anything on, free and faintly erotic. What was wrong with her! Only a few hours spent with the savages and she was starting to think like one. This was all Chase Remington's fault, damn him. Why had he not left her in Rawlins? Why had she committed the insane folly of following him down a dark alley?

      
There was no use even thinking about it. All she could do was make the best of an impossible situation and pray Chase would set her free soon. To do what—return to Hugh? How would she explain her absence? Being a captive of Indians forever tainted a woman, placing her beyond the pale of civilized society. At best she would be pitied, at worst castigated for not killing herself. Chase had made no attempt to force her to submit to him...yet. But even if he did not touch her, no one would believe it.

      
Stephanie forced the disquieting thoughts aside and lathered up her hair after scrubbing days of trail dust from her body. Then she plunged into the water and swam until she was rinsed clean. After completing her bath, she looked toward the shore, uncertain of what to do next. She had no towel, but neither did the other women who seemed content to sit on the rocks sunning themselves dry while they combed and plaited their hair.

      
Dare she join them? For the most part they had seemed friendly enough, if embarrassingly curious. There was nothing else to do until Red Bead returned with the promised clothing. She had hoped to salvage her undergarments and wash them but the old woman had taken every stitch with her when she left. Working her courage up, Stephanie began to walk through the shallows up to the rocky bank where she took a seat and started to wring the water from her sopping hair, then detangle it with her fingers. If only she had remembered to bring the comb Chase had given her.

      
Then one of the young women shyly held out her hand offering a comb. “Your hair is good,” she said in halting English. “Like the sun is caught in it. Magic.”

      
Stephanie smiled and accepted the comb. “Thank you.”

      
“I think it is ugly, like pale river mud,” another woman said spitefully, also in surprisingly good English. Several of her companions gave her reproving looks but she ignored them and stormed away angrily.

      
“Do not listen to She Bear. Her man was killed by Long Knives. She has much bitterness,” the handsome young girl who offered the comb said.

      
“You are kind and you speak my language well.”

      
“I am Kit Fox.” Her dusky cheeks darkened with a blush as she added, “The White Wolf taught me.”

      
“Oh,” Stephanie exclaimed, surprised. This was the girl Red Bead spoke of, who expected to marry Chase. No wonder she'd learned English! “I... I am Stephanie.”

      
Huge dark eyes studied her face for a moment. “The others say you are his captive, wife of a Long Knife.”

      
Stephanie swallowed, uncertain of what to say.
 
“My husband is a soldier, yes. And Cha— I mean, the White Wolf did take me prisoner.”

      
“You knew him in a long-ago time.” It was not a question.

      
“How did you know that?” Stephanie asked.

      
A look of wistful sadness came over Kit Fox's face. “He did not say so...but I know he loved a white woman before he returned to us.”

      
And this white woman was you
. The words hung unspoken between them. Had Chase ever really loved her? Over the years, Stephanie had agonized about the question, but it was far past the time for regrets now. “I am wed to another now. I do not wish to be your rival, Kit Fox.”

      
The girl looked into her eyes for a moment, then, as if satisfied, nodded. “If you are not my rival, then will you be my friend?”

      
“I would like that very much. I have need of a friend, Kit Fox,” Stephanie replied with a strained smile.

Chapter Thirteen

      
“The half-blood brings death among us! The white woman belongs to a Long Knife. The soldiers will come searching for her,” Pony Whipper said, gesturing angrily to where Stephanie stood, pale and trembling. Red Bead had just brought her up from the river after having her don a Cheyenne tunic and moccasins. The group of women with her looked on in silence at the confrontation between the White Wolf and Pony Whipper.

      
Chase stared with impassive calm at the seething troublemaker. This was not the first time they had tangled but bringing Stephanie here had certainly given his old foe good ammunition in his campaign to unseat the half-blood from his position of leadership among the young warriors. As soon as Pony Whipper rode into camp and learned that Stands Tall's nephew took a Blue Coat's wife captive, he had searched out Chase, spoiling for a fight.

      
“The soldiers will never find us in the vastness of the mountains at our winter stronghold. Already we have begun the journey away from the other bands' great summer camp. No one in the white town even knows that I took her.”

      
“Why did you bring her here?” Elk Bull asked, not unreasonably.

      
This was the question he had been dreading. ‘‘She knew me as Chase Remington in the East. When she saw me in Rawlins she figured out that I was the White Wolf.”

      
“If she would betray you, why did you not kill her?” Pony Whipper snarled.

      
“I do not know for certain that she would betray me. She was my friend when I was a child, and I do not repay kindness with death. But I also could not take the chance,” Chase replied.

      
Pony Whipper spat on the ground and looked at Stephanie, then back to Chase. “Her white blood calls to you! You desire her—and you would endanger all of us to have her!”

      
“I would never do anything to place my people in danger. It is time to move into the mountains where we will be safe for the winter. Then I will decide what to do with the white woman.” Against his will, Chase's eyes strayed to Stephanie and she returned his troubled gaze. In spite of the buckskin tunic Red Bead had given her, there was no way she could be mistaken for anything but a white captive with her shimmering bronze hair, golden eyes and pale skin.

      
“If you do not desire her, sell her to me then. I will give three fine ponies for the shining hair,” Pony Whipper said with glittering triumph.

      
He knows I can't do it, the bastard.
“No, Pony Whipper. I would not sell you a dog. She is my captive and I choose to keep her,” Chase said arrogantly.