The Guardian

“What is it?” He rose up to look at her, a worried frown on his face.

She blushed in the darkness. “I've never—I don't know how to give you pleasure.”

“You don't?” He laughed, a low, delighted rumble, deep in his throat. “Then let me teach you.”

What had she expected of love? Her daughter had been conceived amid layers of proper nightclothes in a fumbling, furtive, painful act she only wanted to forget. Now she lay naked and shameless in the arms of a glorious man. The feel of his skin, gliding silkily against her own, awakened shimmering currents that rippled through every nerve in her body. For the first time in her life, Charity felt completely alive, completely free—and suddenly she knew there could be no going back to the woman she'd been before she met him. Not ever.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

EPILOGUE

April 1837

C
HARITY
B
ENNETT
braced her feet against the rattling tailgate of the covered wagon. Her buttocks, already bruised raw, thumped painfully against the crate where she sat. Her arms clasped her bulging belly as if to protect the unborn child that stirred beneath her ribs.

“It's all right,” she murmured to the kicking baby. “It's all right, my little love. We'll get through this day and a good many more before life is finished with us.”

The wagon lurched sideways as one wheel struck a jutting rock. The grease bucket that dangled from the rear axle clanged like a bell. Pots and tools clattered as they swung from iron nails that served as hooks.

Breaking through its frayed jute lashings, a flour barrel slid across the wagon bed and crashed against a massive trunk that was packed with bibles and hymnals. The impact split the barrel open, releasing a cloud of flour that filled the confined space like ash from an explosion. Charity coughed and sputtered, wiping her eyes to clear away the dust. Silas would be furious
about the spilled flour. He despised waste of any kind and had charged her with keeping their precious supplies in order. Once he saw the mess, she would not hear the end of it for the rest of the week.

Glancing forward through the sunlit opening in the wagon cover, Charity could see the outline of her husband's back. He was hunched over the reins, his hair hanging in sparse gray strings below the brim of his shapeless felt hat. She would have chosen to sit beside him on the wagon bench where she could breathe cool April air and enjoy the view of the sweeping short-grass prairie, but he had ordered her to stay hidden. The sight of a young, blond, white woman in this wild country, he'd insisted, could bring a horde of heathen savages sweeping down upon them to carry her off to unspeakable sin and degradation. Until they reached the Flathead Indian encampment on the Swan River, it was imperative that she stay beneath the cover of the wagon—a wagon she had come to hate with every bone in her tortured body.

Charity's grandparents, who'd raised her after her parents died, had been elated when the widowed preacher had asked for her hand. With their granddaughter on the brink of spinsterhood at two and twenty, they had fretted over what would become of her when they were gone. And what an honor for Charity to have been chosen! In their closely knit congregation, there was no higher calling for a woman than to be a minister's wife.

Charity had felt no stirrings of romantic love for the grim, graying Reverend Silas Bennett. But her long-denied adventurous spirit had been caught up in Silas's plan to convert the heathen tribes beyond the upper Missouri. As for her own feelings, she had accepted him with blind faith in her grandmother's assurance that, in time, they would come to care for each other.

In time.
For Charity, those words had long since lost their meaning.

Charity's arms tightened around her belly. She had long since given up any hope of a happy union with Silas. But in performing his so-called husbandly duty, he had given her a priceless gift. She might have lost the reverend to his God and to his grandiose dreams. But no matter. The baby would be all hers to cherish and care for, hers to shower with a lifetime of love.

“You all right in there, Miz Bennett?” Rueben Potter, the bewhiskered trapper who'd hired on as their guide, reined his spotted Indian pony up behind the wagon. When he'd met the little party at a trading post out of Fort Leavenworth, wearing a coonskin cap and grease-stained buckskins that looked as if they hadn't been off his body in years, Charity had thought him the filthiest person she had ever seen. But the old man had proven to have a kind heart. In truth, these days he treated her with more consideration than Silas did.

Along the way, as they'd traveled and camped, Rueben had taught Charity about the wilderness. He had shown her how to read a game trail, make a fire and
find her way by the stars. He had pointed out which plants were safe to eat and which were poisonous, and instructed her in dozens of little skills that would help her survive. For this, she would always be grateful.

Now Charity nodded, forced a smile as she clung to the bouncing wagon. “I'm quite well, thank you, Mr. Potter. But why are we…going so…fast? Can't we slow…down?”

A green horsefly rose from Rueben's beard as the trapper shook his head. “'Tain't safe.” He grunted. “This here be Blackfoot Injun country, and we seen signs of the murderin' varmints less'n two miles back. Looked to be a huntin' party by my guess, but with those bastards you can never tell. Things could turn nasty in the flick of a mule's tail. Sooner we git our tail feathers through this valley and across the river, the better!”

Charity's stomach, already queasy, contracted at Rueben's mention of the Blackfoot. All the way west, she had heard tales of these bloodthirsty raiders and the terror they had wreaked on white travelers. She had felt safe enough as long as their little party of missionaries and traders kept to the well-marked Oregon trail. But in the nine days since they had turned off and cut due north, through the trackless valleys that fronted the Rocky Mountains, she'd been unable to shake the feeling that they were being watched by unseen eyes.

“God will protect us,” Silas had declared when she'd voiced her concerns to him. Charity knew better than
to argue. But God had not protected her parents when their loaded wagon broke through the ice on the frozen Ohio River. Nor had God kept her little brother from dying of diphtheria that same terrible winter. Given the past, she had no reason to believe an angel with a flaming sword would swoop down and defend a little band of zealots who had forged their way into hostile territory.

“Sure as spittin' the bastards be out there, and they know we're here.” Rueben spoke as if he had read her mind. “But we ain't made no dangerous moves, and we ain't got much to steal. With luck, if'n we keep our noses clean, they'll look us over and let us move on.” The old man spat a stream of tobacco beneath the wheels. “Had a talk with your husband this mornin'. Told 'im we might oughta leave some vittles behind for 'em, so's they'll know we's peaceful. But he wouldn't have no part o' that idee. Give me a right smart dressin' down, he did, beggin' your pardon, ma'am. Said we got no grub to spare for heathen savages.”

Touching the edge of his filthy coonskin cap, he turned his horse as if to leave, then pulled close to the back of the wagon once more and caught the tailgate with one horny hand. His bloodshot blue eyes burned into Charity's as he spoke.

“If'n I had a daughter, I reckon she'd be about your age,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Listen, girl, if them Injuns ride at us, you stay in the wagon, and stay hid, no matter what, y' hear now?”

Cold fear twisted Charity's stomach as she nodded.

He turned to go, then hesitated yet again. Still keeping pace with the wagon, he reached into the depths of his greasy buckskin tunic and pulled out a small, dark object, which he thrust toward her.

“Take it, girl,” he rasped. “It be loaded and ready to fire, but it only shoots one ball, so save it till the last. If'n them red devils take you alive, you'll curse God and the mother what borned you!”

A leaden chill passed through Charity's body as her fist closed around the weight of a tiny pistol, the sort of gun that might be carried by gamblers and fancy men. She could only imagine how Rueben might have come by the weapon.

Momentarily puzzled, she stared down at it as Rueben wheeled his pony and galloped away. A gun that fired only a single bullet would be of little use against a charging band of Indians. Even if she was lucky enough to shoot one brave, others would swiftly take his place.

If'n them red devils take you alive, you'll curse God and the mother what borned you!

A moan escaped Charity's lips as the truth struck home. Rueben Potter had given her the gift of mercy. The single shot was not meant to be used against the Blackfoot. It was meant for her.

Shuddering with horror, she raised the gun, wanting nothing more than to be rid of the awful weapon, to fling it out of the wagon as if it were a venomous snake.
Her arm went back, poised for the throw. But at the last possible instant her fingers convulsed around the tiny grip, holding on to it so tightly that her knuckles whitened with strain.

Suddenly, uncontrollably, her whole body began to shake.

 

B
LACK
S
UN CROUCHED
at the edge of the bluff, his dark eyes narrowed to slits against the afternoon glare. His long brown fingers curled into angry fists as he gazed down into the valley at the
Nih'oo'oo,
the spider people. Even here they came, with their lumbering wagons, their iron-jawed traps, their picks and shovels, their thundering guns and their monstrous greed. Even here, where the land was unspoiled by their wagon tracks and the deer, elk and buffalo were still plentiful, they came to plunder the earth, the trees and the animals. They came to take everything they could and to destroy what was left.

Black Sun had seen wagons like these on the long trail to the south. The wagons always appeared from the direction of the rising sun, crawling westward in slow single file, toward a distant place the whites called Oregon. With their bulging canvas tops, they reminded him of swollen caterpillars.

The travelers tended to move in small groups, and so far there had not been many of them. But where there were few now, there would be more later. Many more, like the ones he was seeing now. This party troubled him
deeply because they had left the common trail and cut north into unmarked territory. Their wagons, as many as the fingers on one hand, were rumbling swiftly now, along the flatland that skirted this range of high bluffs. Their iron-rimmed wheels cut into the tender skin of the earth, leaving a wake of flattened grass and blood-red soil.

Black Sun leaned forward, straining to catch a glimpse of the men in the wagons without showing himself. But their path was angled away from him now and he could not see the drivers on the benches where they sat. A single rider, clad in the ragged buckskins and fur hat of a trapper, darted among the wagons on his spotted pony, pausing now and again as if to speak to the drivers. The man would be their guide, Black Sun surmised, and the others were most likely hunters and skinners, here to kill buffalo now that their kind had scoured the land of beaver.

Black Sun's fingers gripped the hasp of the long steel knife—the knife he had taken from his white stepfather on that long-ago night when he had fled, beaten and bleeding, into the wilderness. He knew the ways of white men all too well—their laziness, their brutality, their blind greed. Anger rose like a sickness in his throat as he stared down at the moving wagons. With a handful of seasoned warriors, he could wipe them from the face of the earth, take their horses and their guns, and leave their wagons in flames.

A bitter smile tightened Black Sun's lips as he
erased the thought from his mind. It had been nothing more than an idle wish. He had no warriors with him. He was alone, far from home in this remote, mountain-rimmed valley. And his people, the Arapaho, had never raised a lance against the white man.

Black Sun's body tensed as a movement in the trees below the bluff caught his eye. An aspen branch, laden with spring catkins, moved against the wind. Sunlight glinted on a bare, bronze shoulder, then another. Under Black Sun's careful gaze, heads and limbs materialized beneath the branches. The low nicker of a horse rose to his ears. Flattening himself against the ledge, he slid forward until he could see them all. Ten—no, eleven—mounted braves were moving stealthily through the trees, on a parallel course with the wagons.

Black Sun studied the riders, taking in their long, plainly braided hair, their fringed buckskin shirts and the moccasins that showed blackened soles when they leaned forward on their mounts. They were
Siksika,
members of the tribe the white men called Blackfoot, and all of them had the look of youth and inexperience. Little more than boys, they were outfitted for hunting, not for war. But now they were following far more dangerous game than deer or even buffalo. For their own sakes, Black Sun could only wish them the wisdom to stay out of sight and leave these white travelers alone. He had no great love for the
Siksika,
but these youths were as vulnerable as a gang of half-grown coyote pups toying with a rattlesnake. They were too young to understand the danger.

It would be the horses that drew them like moths to flame. Four powerful brown animals pulled each wagon. Compared to the wiry ponies the young braves rode, the white men's horses looked as massive as full-grown elk. The possession of such horses would make any man rich in the eyes of his people. Black Sun could not blame the young
Siksika
for wanting to get close to them, to touch them, to take them.

An experienced warrior would not risk a confrontation with the whites. He would follow at a distance and wait for darkness, when the travelers would be asleep and the horses tethered for the night. Then he would use stealth and cunning to slash their hobbles and lead them away. But not these young fools. They were only asking for trouble.

Black Sun eased his way down the rear of the bluff to the stand of lodgepole pines where his own two ponies were tied. This was dangerous country for a lone Arapaho, with his tribe more than twenty sleeps to the east. He had come here to his mother's burial place seeking a vision that would bring him the medicine he needed to serve his people. But even after four days of fasting, the vision had not come. Long years of bitterness had walled it out, and now the sight of the hated wagons had destroyed all sense of purpose. It was time to abandon the quest and to go back to his tribe on the open plains; back to his aging grandfather and to the small son he had left in the care of his dead wife's sister. He had been away from the boy too long.