The Guardian (11 page)

He stared down into the canyon, knowing she was right. Even with her, the anger was there. The knife he carried was a constant reminder of it.

For the space of a breath she was silent, as if gathering her courage before she spoke again. “When we leave this place, I'll be putting my life and my baby's life in your hands. You've already taken great risks to protect us, and I'm grateful for that. But you can't imagine what I went through during all those days and nights when you were gone. If I'm to trust you completely, I need to know you won't desert us or betray us. For that, I need to understand your anger and where it comes from. Let me see into your darkness, Black Sun.”

Still reluctant, Black Sun fingered the polished bone handle of his hunting knife. Hearing the story he'd kept to himself for half his lifetime might help her understand him. But the truth would be more likely to shatter her trust than to strengthen it.

“You're not going to like what you hear,” he said.

Her answer rippled through his senses like wind in spring willows. “I'm not expecting to like it. But if you can be honest with me about that night, you can be honest with me about anything.”

Anything? The word triggered an involuntary tightening of Black Sun's mouth. He could lay his past bare for her to see. But the hunger he felt for her would have to remain his secret.

She was silent now, waiting for him to begin. Still, he hesitated, on the brink of pain.

“Your white stepfather was drunk and he was beating your mother,” she prompted him gently. “You were only a boy, and when you tried to help her, he threw you out into the night and locked the cabin door. That's all you've told me.”

Black Sun took a deep breath, feeling as if he were about to unravel his heart and pull the strands of it out between his ribs. He could refuse to tell her, he knew. But Charity was right about one thing. If he wanted her trust—and their lives could depend on that trust—he would have to give her what she wanted.

Reaching down, he pulled the hunting knife from its sheath and held it out, lying flat, toward her. “Hold it in your hands while I tell you,” he said when she recoiled from the weapon. “You wanted truth. This is truth.”

Black Sun laid the knife on her open palms. She accepted it gingerly, holding it in front of her like an offering as he took up the painful thread of the story.

“I pounded on that door until my hands were bloody. From inside the cabin I could hear the two of them fighting. I could hear the curses and screams and the sounds of things falling and breaking. Suddenly everything on the other side of the door went quiet. I thought maybe he'd passed out. That was how most of their fights ended—my mother would let me in and I'd help her put him to bed. But this time was different. The bolt slid open. My mother staggered out onto the porch and closed the door behind her. Her nose was broken, and blood from a cut above her eye was streaming down her face. ‘Let's go,' she said. ‘Let's get out of here.' I wanted to go back inside and get some food and blankets before he woke up, but she wouldn't let me. ‘We have to get away now,' she said.”

Charity had not stirred. Thunder echoed over the distant peaks, blending with the throb of drumbeats as Black Sun continued his story.

“It was dark and cold, and she was in so much pain that she couldn't walk far without leaning on my shoulder. Later I saw the bruises where he'd kicked her belly with his big boots. We got as far as the first ridge above the cabin. When we stopped to rest, she lay down on the ground and couldn't get up. ‘I'm going to have this baby right here,' she said, ‘and you'll have to help me.'”

Black Sun felt the anguish well up in his throat. He gazed down at his hands, choking it back. “I helped her as best I could. But by the time the full moon reached the peak of the sky, both she and the baby were dead.
I built a platform in a tree and laid them on it and sang the death song over them—what I remembered of it. Then I started back for the cabin. I don't know what I planned to do. The only thing I knew for certain was that I wanted to leave and go back to my mother's people. With luck, I thought, the monster would still be passed out. I could gather up a few supplies and leave him there.”

He glanced up to meet Charity's silvery eyes. In the darkness he caught the glimmer of tears. But the story wasn't finished. By the time he reached the end of it, her sympathy would be replaced by revulsion.

“I reached the cabin and opened the door. Inside, the lantern was still burning. I was hoping my stepfather wouldn't be awake—he was a big man, big enough to kill a boy like me with his bare hands.” Black Sun swallowed hard. “I walked into the cabin and found him lying dead on the floor, with his own hunting knife driven into his chest.”

Charity's eyes widened. “Your mother—?”

“Yes. She'd stabbed him with the last of her strength. He would never beat her again.”

She stared down at the knife in her hands. Even in the darkness, Black Sun could sense that her face had gone white. “This—” she whispered. “This was his, wasn't it? This was the knife she used to kill him! You took it, you use it—”

“Yes, I took it.” His voice had dropped to a hoarse
rasp. “And I did more. After I pulled the knife out of his body, I stabbed him with it again and again and again, as I'd wanted to do when he was alive. It was pitiful revenge for what he'd done to my mother, but his spirit had passed beyond my reach. It was the only thing I could do.” He gazed at her stunned face, knowing he had to finish. “After that, I gathered up the supplies I could carry and took them outside. Then I poured lamp oil over his body and set it on fire. When I walked away, I didn't look back.”

The story had drained Black Sun of emotion. He felt as empty as he had on that night, when he'd walked away from the blazing cabin into the wilderness, drowning in a boy's helpless rage.

“And you kept the knife.” Her voice was as fragile as the etching of frost on grass on a winter morning.

Black Sun tried to arrange his features into a mask of cold composure. “I keep it with me always, and every time I see it, every time I touch it, I remember what that white man did to my mother and how she used his own knife to kill him.”

Her breath hissed out as if she'd been punched in the stomach. She slumped where she sat, gazing at him with hollow eyes. He had shocked her. He had
wanted
to shock her, to repel her to a safe distance where she could not be touched by the heat of his desire.

“You wanted the truth,” he said. “Now you have it. You're holding it in your hands.”

She stared down at the knife, a visible shudder pass
ing through her body. “Have you ever killed a white person?”

“Never,” he answered truthfully. “But I would have found a way to kill my stepfather if my mother hadn't killed him first.”

“You're not a boy anymore,” she said. “Wouldn't it be better to throw the knife away and forget that terrible night?”

He shook his head, pushing the frightened boy back into memory. “I keep the knife to remind me of my mother's courage, and I keep it to remind me of how much I hate all whites for their greed and selfishness.”

“Do you hate me, Black Sun? Do you hate my child?”

“Your people are my enemies. I know that if I live long enough, I'll see them sweep over the whole land, destroying everything fine and sacred. If I thought I could stop it from happening, I would go to war and kill them all. But the answer to your question is no, I could never hate you, Charity. I could never hate your child. All I want is to get you safely back to your people.”

“I see.” Her hands quivered as she laid the knife on the rock between them. “I asked you for the truth. You gave it to me.”

“And does it change anything?” He picked up the knife and slid it back into its sheath. “Have you learned anything about me you didn't already suspect?”

He waited for her response, but she had turned away.
A distant flash of lightning cast her face into stark profile. The need to be held and comforted in her arms was like a cry in him—a cry he willed himself not to hear.

“I want you to promise me something.” He spoke above the thunder that rumbled over the peaks. Charity had turned back and was gazing at him with curious eyes.

“If I get you and your daughter to a white trading post, I ask one thing,” he said, letting the anger creep into his voice. “I want you to go back East where you came from and stay there. If you ever return to this place, alone or with your people, you will return as an enemy.”

Her gaze flickered to her hands, which were clasped in her lap.

“Promise me, Charity,” he said. “Say the words.”

Her gaze met his, but with a flash of evasion that made Black Sun wonder what she was thinking. She took a little breath. “Of course,” she said. “Yes, I promise.”

Lightning flashed above the rim of the canyon. The answering thunder was like the low growl of an approaching beast. A few raindrops spattered the rock where they sat. Charity rose to her feet, one restless hand brushing back her hair. “It's time I was getting back to Annie,” she said.

Keeping his seat, Black Sun looked up at her, but her expression told him nothing. “Sleep well, Charity,” he said.

She nodded farewell, then turned away. He watched her climb the narrow trail. Had he imagined the slight hesitation in her voice when she'd given him her promise? Was there something she wasn't telling him?

Inwardly churning, he gazed into the darkness. The light drizzle of rain had not stopped the drums. Their rhythm floated up the canyon, low and steady, like the pulse of the earth itself. Black Sun felt it moving through his body, stirring the loneliness, the raw need, that slumbered in the depths of his soul. Only Charity, warm and soft and golden, could ease the pain of that need. But he knew better than to touch her. She was not for him. She would allow him to be her rescuer and her guardian, but she would always see him as a savage.

Would she trust him now? He had been brutally honest with her, but it had gained him nothing. She had looked into the depths of his savage heart and been repulsed by everything she saw.

And that was just as well, Black Sun told himself. The boundaries had been drawn. No matter how he might ache for her, he would never be tempted to cross them again.

The rain was falling harder now. It spattered against the rocks, drowning the sound of the drums. Rising to his feet, Black Sun moved under the lip of the shallow cave. No one would come into the canyon tonight. It would be safe to get some needed rest.

Stretching out on his side, he made a pillow of the bundled provisions and closed his eyes. But sleep was
as elusive as the fleeing game herds he'd tracked on the plain. He lay with his eyes open, watching the raindrops splash into the pool and burning with hungers that would never be satisfied, wanting the sight of her face, the sound of her voice, wanting her in his arms and in his bed.

Charity.

A white woman.

C
HARITY LAY AWAKE
,
listening to the drizzle of the rain and the rumbling sigh of distant thunder. Her cave was warm, almost cozy. The entrance was sheltered from the weather, and she had covered the floor with the largest of the buffalo robes. Her supply of roots and dried fish was stored under a ledge, and bunches of herbs and flowers she'd gathered hung drying from a pole beneath the ceiling.

Against the inner wall, Annie slumbered in the cradleboard Black Sun had woven on the night of her birth. Illuminated by occasional flashes of lightning, the child was the picture of contentment, a fearless and serene little island in a sea of danger.

Sadly, Annie would not recall any of this time. She was far too young for that. But maybe when she heard the story of the sacred canyon where she'd spent the first weeks of her life and the tall Arapaho warrior who'd brought her into the world, a few buried impressions of this place, and of Black Sun, would awaken and remain.

Charity shivered as she remembered the cold weight
of Black Sun's knife lying across her hands. That knife had been used to cut Annie's birth cord, giving life as it had once given death, she reminded herself. A weapon was not innately good or evil, only the intent with which it was used.

Black Sun's honesty had stunned her. His act of boyish rage, shocking as it had been, was easy enough for her to understand and forgive. But the fact that he'd kept that fury inside him, as he had kept the knife, continued to trouble her. Black Sun had never shown her anything but kindness. But she knew that the anger was there, simmering below the surface, waiting to strike.

Raising up on one elbow, Charity gazed out at the gray rain. There was little danger that anyone would climb the cliff in such weather. Knowing that, Black Sun would have taken shelter by now. But the shallow cave by the pond would be damp and cold, the night miserably long.

Should she ask him to come up and join her in her own warm, dry place? Would he understand that her invitation was meant only as a kindness?

A kindness?
Would she really expect him to believe that? Did she believe it herself?

If you ever return to this place, alone or with your people, you will return as an enemy.

Charity lay back on the buffalo robe. Black Sun had meant to repel her. He had made it clear that, despite the desire that had flashed between them, he wanted no part of any white woman.

But even as he had been telling his terrible story, even as he had been telling her how much he hated the white race, she had wanted only one thing: to be in his arms.

When had she discovered that she loved him? There was no easy answer to that question. She only knew that when she was with Black Sun the earth sang beneath her feet. He had awakened her to the warmth of the sun, to the sweetness of the wind and to the world of womanly sensations that had slumbered, untouched, in her own body. He had taught her courage and selflessness. She would never forget him.

But she had no illusions about the future. Black Sun had weakened for a moment, but there was no place for a white woman in his life, and no place for an Indian brave in hers and Annie's. She had to go forward, doing what was best for her daughter.

If you ever return to this place, alone or with your people, you will return as an enemy.

She heard his words again, as if he had burned them into her memory. Did Black Sun know about the gold in the canyon? Had he guessed that she would find it? Was that why he had given her an ultimatum that was tantamount to a threat?

She had promised him that she would go back East and never return to the sacred canyon. She planned to keep that promise. But why should it prevent her from filing a mining claim that she could sell to the highest bidder? The nugget would provide enough evidence to dazzle any buyer. Charity didn't care about being
wealthy. She only wanted enough money to raise herself out of poverty and to give her daughter a respectable future. The gold in the canyon was her best hope of doing that.

And that, Charity reminded herself, was one more reason why she should distance herself from Black Sun. He would be outraged if he discovered her plan, and he would do everything in his power to stop her. Then they would truly be enemies.

Her plan to exploit the gold was a betrayal of everything she owed him. Charity was well aware of that, and she had agonized over her decision. But when she weighed her daughter's welfare against her hopeless love for Black Sun, there was no question of where her duty lay and what she must do.

All the same, it tore her apart. As she lay staring up into the darkness, Charity knew that it was Black Sun's love she wanted most of all. A happy life with him would be worth more than all the gold in the world. If only it were possible…

She was drifting into a fitful sleep when the storm struck in its full, squalling fury. Lightning hissed out of the sky. Thunderbolts crashed off the canyon walls, echoing like a cannonade. The drizzling rain became a torrent that gushed down the ledges, flooding the pool and turning the waterfall brown with mud.

Below, in the Blackfoot camp, the drummers and dancers, their bodies likely streaked with ceremonial paint, would be trembling in their lodges.

The Great Thunderbird was walking in the canyon.

And in the hidden cave, his woman was waiting.

 

B
LACK
S
UN HAD ABANDONED
the low cave when the floor became flooded with water. Now he stood in the shelter of a rocky overhang, holding the bundle of smoked antelope meat between his body and the face of the rock in an effort to keep it dry. He had no fear of storms and had spent many nights in the rain. He would not be hurt by a little water. But the meat was too precious to risk spoiling.

A bolt of lightning crackled down the canyon, chased by a deafening boom of thunder. Water coming off the high slopes was funneling down through the canyon in a muddy river that covered his feet and swirled around his ankles. He would be foolish to stay here when Charity's safe, dry cave was only a short climb above him. Still, he hesitated. She had not invited him to share her shelter, nor had he asked her permission to do so.

Both of them knew the reason why. Even though they had never spoken of it, the memory of his hand caressing her breast hung between them in the tension-charged air. He wanted to touch her again, and he wanted more. He wanted her naked on the buffalo robe, the liquid heat of her body flowing beneath him, her legs parting to offer him the place where he knew he would fit as perfectly as a knife in its own sheath.

Did she know the hunger was still there inside him,
tormenting him every time he thought of her? Did she feel a hunger of her own?

He could not afford to take the risk of finding out.

When he'd touched her before, she had responded with an ardor that left him breathless. He was the one who had pulled away, Black Sun reminded himself. He had heard the warning voice in his head and he had listened. Facing temptation a second time, would he hear the voice again or would he will it into silence?

Thunder crashed above the ledges as lightning struck a towering pine tree. It was dangerous here in the open, but even more dangerous in the place where his legs wanted to carry him. Wiser to stay here, he admonished himself. Before the night was over, the storm would end. But the consequences of being alone with Charity in the dark cave could pain him for the rest of his life.

“Black Sun!” He heard her voice, calling above the sound of the rushing water. “Black Sun! Where are you? Are you all right?”

“I'm here!” he shouted in reply. “Don't worry about me, I'm used to storms! But take this meat and keep it dry—”

She made an odd sound that could have been either a moan or a laugh. He saw her then, ghost-pale in a flash of light, standing on the ledge below the cave. “Don't be so stubborn!” she shouted. “You have to get out of the storm! I'm not going back until you come with me!”

Thunder crashed again, shaking the ground beneath his feet. Black Sun needed no more urging. Clasping the bundle, he followed her up the path and through the sheltered slit that marked the cave's entrance.

As he put the bundle under shelter and stepped into the darkness, a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky. For the space of a heartbeat, its blue light illuminated the inside of the cave. Black Sun saw the buffalo robes on the floor, the baby slumbering in the corner, the dried herbs bunched and hanging below the ceiling.

His throat jerked, cutting off his breath for an instant as the sense of destiny washed over him.

It was the cave he had seen in his dream.

 

T
HEY MOVED BEYOND
the entrance and into the cave's shadowy embrace. The air was warm and vibrant, as if it had taken on a life of its own. Charity felt its movement on her damp skin. The sound of Black Sun's breathing mingled with her own, echoing like soft wind in the hollow space. Behind them the cave's opening, partly concealed by the ledge, was a broken rectangle of pewter-colored rain, lit now and then by blue-white flashes of lightning.

“Give me your hand. I'll guide you.” She groped for Black Sun's fingers. “It seems dark when you first come in, but soon you'll be able to see a little.”

Black Sun's hand found hers. His chilled fingers curled around hers, seeking warmth. The contact was so subtle, yet so intense, that Charity felt it as a sen
sual explosion all the way through her body. Her hand stirred. Her fingers skimmed his wrist. She felt the quickening of his pulse, heard the catch in his throat, as if he already knew what was destined to happen.

She had spent the past hours wrestling with the demon of common sense. She had reasoned and rationalized, tying her mind and her conscience into knots. They were enemies, the two of them, from different worlds. Soon those worlds would tear them apart.

Only by staying apart could they prevent the anguish of separation. Only by denying love could they avoid the pain that would come when their time was over.

She had called him into the cave with the purest of intentions—or so she'd told herself. She had only meant to give him shelter from the rain. But as the two of them moved through the entrance, a sense of peace had stolen over her, as if some knowing, invisible hand had swept through her mind, clearing away the clutter of doubt and leaving one simple truth.

She loved him.

The floor of the cave was rough and uneven. Her foot struck a high spot in the darkness and she stumbled forward. He caught her from behind. His hands curved around her ribs as he pulled her back against him to rest against his chest. For a long moment they simply stood there, her warmth flowing into his chilled body. She could feel the pounding of his powerful heart, its rhythm echoing the racing beat of her own.

Black Sun had insisted that he would never want a white woman, but Charity felt his tenderness in the way he cradled her against him, his lips pressing into her wet hair. Had the cave cast its spell on him, as well? Had the labyrinth that separated them become as clear and simple for him as it had for her?

Her hands moved upward and found his, where they rested against her ribs. Arching slightly, she moved them upward so that his palms covered her swollen breasts through the buckskin shirt. He gasped, then moaned low in his throat, holding her close as they swayed in the darkness. Where her hips nested against his thighs, she felt him stir and harden, pushing against her in a long, jutting ridge. Charity's legs went liquid. Her head fell back against his chest, eyes closed, lips parting, as she drifted in the delicious sense of anticipation. She was his woman. She wanted him in the most intimate way a woman could want a man. She wanted his flesh against hers, wanted to feel his powerful body pushing inside her, filling her.

Slowly he pulled her around to face him. His hands moved upward, framing her jaw. His eyes studied her face in the dim light. “Charity,” he murmured, his voice thick with emotion, “there are things I can't understand, let alone explain. It's almost as if we were meant to be here. If you're afraid—”

She raised a finger to his lips. “No,” she whispered. “I don't understand it, either. But if something happens to us, if we don't make it out of here alive, I want to
remember this time with you. I want to be with you while I can.”

Pushing up onto her toes, she kissed him—tender, nibbling, greedy little kisses that tasted like rain on her tongue. His arms went around her, pulling her close against him. His lips responded, caressing her mouth, her face, her throat with a slow, sensual hunger that turned her molten inside. Black Sun had not mentioned the future. Neither would she. For them, no future could exist. There was only this secret place and the strange enchantment of this night.

Lightning forked in a joyful leap above the canyon as he eased her down with him onto the buffalo robe. Thunder trembled in the air around them as his hands slid the buckskin shirt off her shoulders, tasting her skin, stroking and nibbling her exquisitely sensitive breasts. “We have time,” he murmured against the hollow of her throat. “Time enough to pleasure each other as much as we like.”

A vague fear seized her. She had married a man to whom pleasure was a sin. Black Sun would soon discover that she was woefully lacking in experience.

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

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

“You don't?” He laughed, a low, delighted rumble. “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'd met him. Not ever.