Chapter Three
Summer reacted with horror as she felt his hands relax and he slid from the horse to the ground. “Iron Knife! Two Arrows, come quick!”
She dismounted, then handed the sleepy baby over to old Pony Woman. Kneeling by her fallen man, Summer reached out and touched the wet, scarlet stain. “Oh, dear God, he’s hit!”
His two cousins ran immediately to his side.
Lance Bearer’s handsome face was stern. “I saw it happen; I got that soldier with my lance.”
She put her hand on Iron Knife’s pulse. It felt weak and thready. “Are you telling me he was shot as we left the camp?”
The other nodded. “He has ridden all this way with his life running down his shirt, but what else could he do? Safety lay in escaping Sand Creek!”
All around them, women were weeping as they tried to aid the wounded, running to each new straggler, asking for details of loved ones.
“Help me get him to shelter,” Summer said. Keeping her hand on his arm for reassurance, she directed his cousins in picking her man up and carrying him to a brush arbor out of the wind. “Are there any matches?”
Two Arrows nodded. “Only a few, but if we dare build a fire, the soldiers might see or smell the smoke.”
Summer looked up at the mid-morning sun. “It’ll be a cold night. Some of these people will freeze to death if we don’t get help.”
Plump old Pony Woman hugged Summer’s baby to her. “My husband has sent a runner to the Arapaho for help. In the meantime, we do the best we can; no one knows for sure how many are dead or so badly hurt they will die later.”
“What about the old chiefs?” Two Arrows asked.
“Some are dead. Black Kettle and his wife made it out, but I think they may be hurt,” Pony Woman answered.
For a long moment, Summer put her face in her hands and shook. If she were back in Boston, she’d have the best of doctors at her disposal. She’d have a big warm bed for Iron Knife, and all the warm broth and medicine she needed.
She looked at the flow of blood from Iron Knife’s side, but Two Arrows shook his head. “He’s too far gone, Summer. Let us work on the ones we know we can save.”
“No!” She looked from her love’s wan face to his cousin’s sad one. “No, I won’t give up on him, not when he’s made this sacrifice to save me!”
She grabbed the big knife from Iron Knife’s belt and cut the deerskin away from the wound. He was still losing blood. His cousins were right; if she couldn’t stop the bleeding, he didn’t have a chance. She remembered then what he had done long ago when she had been wounded. “Two Arrows, stake him down so he can’t move and build me a little fire.”
The two handsome Cheyenne brothers looked at each other a long moment. Lance Bearer said, “What you’ve got in mind may take more nerve than a white girl has.”
“I’m not a white girl any longer; I’m Summer Sky of the Hevataniu band of Cheyenne, and I intend to save my man! Now help tie him down.”
It seemed warmer in the little shelter once Two Arrows had a tiny fire burning. Iron Knife’s clothes were wet and bloody. Summer took a deep breath and began to cut them away. His cousins had spread-eagled the unconscious man and staked his hands and feet down securely. She examined the wound; it appeared the bullet had gone clear through and left a clean wound that might not have hit any vital organs. If only she could stop the bleeding, he might have a chance.
She put the knife blade in the fire and took a deep breath. Could she do this? He was staked down securely, so he couldn’t fight her if he came to while she was attempting to cauterize the wound. Summer swallowed hard. “Now you clear out,” she whispered to his cousins, “and see if the women can take care of my children for me the next few hours.”
“Consider it done.” Lance Bearer, the older one of the two cousins, looked at her a long moment. Among the Cheyenne, should a warrior die, one of his brothers usually added the widow to his own family as another wife so the dead man’s woman and children would be cared for. If Iron Knife didn’t pull through this, she would have to take one of his cousins as her man. It was the way of things, but she couldn’t even imagine another man touching her but the one lying so pale and still before her. She wouldn’t think about that now. She motioned them both to leave.
Iron Knife lay there staked down and unconscious. She picked up the big knife that glowed red in the coals. Oh, God, she wasn’t sure she could do this, but if she didn’t, he would bleed to death. For an instant, she almost went outside and called to Two Arrows and Lance Bearer, but they had other responsibilities with wounded still straggling in and the possibility that the soldiers might trail them here. To ask for help would show that she was only a weak white girl after all, unworthy of the warrior who had made her his woman.
Iron Knife’s dark eyes flickered open. He looked almost delirious as he glanced around, as if he were not certain where he was or what had happened. His gaze centered on the glowing knife in her hand and then went to her set face.
“No!” He pulled at his restraints. “No! Don’t torture me!”
“Stop that, you’ll hurt yourself more!”
Oh, if only he had remained unconscious! His magnificent naked body strained against his bounds as he tried to break free. “This is going to hurt, but there is no other way, dearest.”
He was protesting and struggling. When he opened his mouth to cry out, she gagged him with a strip of leather. He would need something to bite down on when she put that glowing blade on the wound. He bucked like a trussed stallion as she knelt over him with the knife. He didn’t seem to recognize her in his delirium. Did he think she was going to kill him, torture him or geld him? Summer couldn’t know; she only hoped that Two Arrows had driven the stakes deep so that the virile warrior couldn’t move. He tried to protest, but now she had him securely gagged and bound.
“Close your eyes,” she ordered, “and it won’t hurt so much.”
Instead his dark eyes glared into her blue ones as she slowly brought the glowing blade down. At the last moment, her hand hesitated, trembling. She couldn’t do this; she must do this. He strained against his bindings like a wild stallion. Summer swallowed hard and laid the glowing hot knife against the wound. He cried out against the leather gag. Sweat broke out all over his face and muscular dark body as he tried to wrench free. Then, mercifully, he fainted.
In his mind, he was a thirteen-year-old boy in a Texas town again who had been invited up to a pretty red-haired whore’s bedroom. He didn’t know Jake Dallinger was her pimp who hired her out to soldiers and took her money. When Jake walked in unexpectedly, he beat the boy unmercifully, then strung him up by his wrists in the town square and took his bull whip to the boy’s bare back. Only the half-breed boy’s brave mother, Texanna, had saved his life when she held the crowd off with a shotgun and ordered Dallinger to untie him. At that very moment, his father, the great chief War Bonnet, had ridden in just in time to put them on galloping horses and race out of town ahead of the mob. There was no way to get the sick baby sister, Cimarron, who had been left behind with a kindly minister and his wife. His mind was a swirl of nightmare and bloody pain. If his back was being whipped, why did his side feel on fire?
Maybe he was again taking part in the medicine lodge ceremony: the Sun Dance. In that, the bravest of the Cheyenne warriors ran leather thongs through their chest muscles and hung from the pole chanting sacred songs for hours or days until the men finally managed to pull hard enough to tear the thongs out, leaving scars that attested to their bravery. No, he couldn’t be in the Sun Dance; the agony was in his side.
He opened his eyes slowly, looked around. He was naked and staked out on the ground. There was a fire and a pretty, yellow-haired white girl just putting down a glowing knife and taking a gag from his mouth. Was she torturing him? Gelding him? She looked familiar somehow. Then she leaned over him, looking at him anxiously, and he knew her and smiled. His woman— his once in a lifetime love—Summer Sky. He knew. every inch of that beautiful body. He had thrust into her and come away stained with her virginity. And that full, soft mouth had kissed his lips and kissed his manhood. He had tangled his fingers in that yellow hair the color of ripe wheat and ridden her hard, putting his babies in her lean belly. They had lain in each other’s arms warm against the elements and secure against the world. She was his, and he would protect and cherish her always. “Little One?”
“Iron Knife, do you know me?” Her lip trembled and she began to cry.
Everything came back to him. He wasn’t dead after all. It was not his day to die. “Yes, I know you, my Summer Sky. You have just done a very brave thing.”
“I did what any Cheyenne woman would have done.” She untied his hands and legs.
He felt weak. “If I don’t make it, Lance Bearer has no wife.”
She wiped tears from her eyes and gave him a weak smile. “I’ll have you know, I don’t intend to warm his bed, so you’d just better get well, do you hear?”
He nodded. So tired . . . so very tired. But she was safe; it had been worth the sacrifice. “The children. . . ?”
“The children are all right. All our family got out, but there’s many dead and hurt among the people.”
I—I must help.” He tried to sit up.Summer restrained him. “There’s nothing you can do that’s not already being done. Just lie there and let your cousins do what they can.”
It was good to finally pass the responsibility on. He wasn’t sure he could sit up anyway. “Cold,” he whispered, “cold.”
“I’ll take care of you.” He felt her small hand on his face, and he took a deep, comforting breath and dropped off to sleep.
Summer looked at his clothes. They were wet with blood, and cut to pieces, so she couldn’t put those back on him. There was part of an old buffalo robe in the shelter, and she had her body heat. She stripped off her deerskin shift and lay her naked body down the length of him. His skin was cold and he trembled. If she couldn’t warm him, he might freeze to death. She pulled the scrap of buffalo robe around their naked bodies and pressed against him, praying her body heat would permeate his skin and warm him. After a while, he stopped trembling. She lay with him all afternoon, afraid to leave him, but her milk-filled breasts grew swollen and painful. She slipped on her shift as the sky darkened and went outside. The day had warmed some.
Young Pretty Flower came to her, carrying Garnet. “How is he?”
“I can’t be sure.” Summer sighed, and took the baby. “How bad is it with the others?”
“Bad. Many women and children dead in their blankets, not realizing we were being attacked. We are sharing what little food there is. Maybe by tomorrow, we can count on some help from our friends among the Arapaho.”
They found a place out of the wind, and Summer nursed her baby. “Is there not even food for the wounded?” If he didn’t get nourishment, he would die.
Pretty Flower shook her head. “Not much. I’ll boil a scrap of meat, see if I can make some broth for him. There’s only a little pemmican until the Arapaho come.”
“I—I’m not hungry,” Summer said, “give my share to Iron Knife and the young and wounded.” Summer checked on her sons, then handed little Garnet back to Pretty Flower. “Look after her, will you?”
The Indian girl nodded as she handed Summer a small gourd of broth. “I’m sorry there isn’t more.”
Summer inhaled the scent. The tantalizing aroma made her mouth water, but she must not eat it herself; her man needed it too badly. It was almost dark now as she crawled back in beside the big dog soldier.
Iron Knife’s eyes opened. “Food?” he whispered.
“Yes, there’s broth.” She raised his head and held the gourd to his lips.
He started to sip it, then looked at her. “Have you—have you had some?”
“Of course,” she lied, “now eat so you can regain your strength; we need strong warriors to go hunting as soon as you can.” She must not let him know how little food there was or he would refuse this bit of broth, insisting that Summer drink it or share it between the children and the old ones.
He sipped it, and it brought tears to her eyes to see how weak this mighty warrior was now. “Are our children all right?”
“Yes, our family is fine; others are hurt.” She must not tell him how many were dead or badly wounded. He needed rest to get well, and if he knew how dangerous their situation was, he would struggle to his feet and try to help. She managed to get the little bowl of steaming broth into him, and he sighed and closed his eyes again.
He was shivering in the winter night, and she was cold, too. She knew an injured person must be kept warm to survive at all. Quickly, she stripped off her doeskin shift and snuggled down against him under the scrap of cover. Immediately, her body heat began to radiate through his big one, and after a moment, he stopped shaking. She was growing warm also as she held her beloved close. Summer was still hungry; but he had been fed, and her naked body was keeping him warm, holding the breath of life in him. That was all that mattered at this moment and all she could do anything about.
Somewhere out there in the cold, other wounded were freezing to death, scattered and alone after the attack. She could only hope and pray that they could make it until morning so that the able-bodied Cheyenne could return to find the injured and the lost children.
All during the night, Summer shared her warmth and willed him to live. By morning, when the Arapaho rode into the little camp to bring food and buffalo robes, Iron Knife was conscious and growing stronger.
In early December, the month the Cheyenne called Mahkhekonini, the big freezing moon, the people remained hidden while the wounded improved, and the able-bodied warriors talked of painting their faces for war. Iron Knife grew stronger every day once he had meat to eat, but for a few days, Summer had not been certain her beloved would live. She worked tirelessly as she looked after him, stopping only to see after her three children, but for the most part, Pretty Flower and old Pony Woman cared for them.
Old Pony Woman scolded, “Take better care of your own health. If you get sick and die, who will take care of him and your children?”
The old woman was right, she knew, but still she would not let anyone else touch him or take care of him. Time lost all meaning, and sometimes she collapsed in a sleep of sheer exhaustion.
Gradually, as the days passed, Iron Knife began to improve, although she knew the wound would have killed a lesser man. His uncle, old Clouds Above, looked at the weak, wounded Iron Knife and said to Summer, “It may be a long time before he carries a lance or bow again, and the survivors are cautious as wild horses about staying where the soldiers might attack them.”
She looked back over her shoulder at Iron Knife asleep on his blankets. “He is better, but in no shape to ride hard and far.”
“Exactly.” The old chief fingered the bear claw necklace he wore as he asked, “Did his stallion ever come in?”
Summer shook her head. “He loved that horse like a brother. It may have found its way back to Sand Creek, but by then, we were all gone.”
“We have all been on the watch for it, but it may be that a soldier rides it now.” He considered. “We must move far from here, away from the soldiers, so we can make plans.”
She knew by the set look of his lined old face, but she hoped against it. “Will there—will there be war?”
“The soldiers have brought it to us, and now we must fight them or be tracked down and killed like rabbits in their burrows.”
“But Iron Knife has always tried to live in peace with the whites.”
“And where did it get my nephew?” His lined face looked grim. “The whole Cheyenne tribe is punished for what a few hot-blooded young warriors do. No, there will be raids, and women and babies on both sides will die.”
Summer put her hands over her ears at his words and winced. “No. My man is half-white himself and—”
“His heart is Cheyenne,” his uncle snapped, “and you will have to decide where your loyalties lie. Are you white or are you Cheyenne?”
“I am human,” she wept, “and we will not get caught up in this bloody war!”
“A woman does not speak for a Cheyenne warrior, especially one of the carriers of the Dog Rope. I know my brother s son better than you. When he is well, he will put on the war paint, dance the ceremonial dances and ride against our enemies, no matter what their color.”
Summer turned and walked away. How had she gotten herself and her children into this hellish mess? All she wanted was to be allowed to live and raise her children in peace. She looked about her and imagined that the other Cheyenne glared at her with suspicion and anger because of her white skin. Where did her loyalties lie? Once, a long time ago, she had been called upon to make that decision when she turned her back on her rich, white civilization because of her love for a half-breed warrior. Things had been fairly peaceful between red and white since that spring day in 1859 when she had handed back the fine diamond and sapphire engagement ring to her fiance and ridden away with Iron Knife. What would she do now if she had to decide? And what would Iron Knife choose to do when he was well enough to ride again? She didn’t ever want to think about it.
Days passed, and across the Rockies and the Colorado plains, icy winds blew as the tribes huddled around their fires and stayed put. Gradually, the stories drifted back to them of the half-breed Cheyenne, Robert Bent, being forced at gunpoint to lead the soldiers to the Sand Creek camp, and how, after the massacre, the drunken victors had paraded scalps and captured Indian children through the streets of Denver. Over a hundred Indians had been killed, mostly women and children, and at least three chiefs. No one, even the Indians, would ever be sure of those figures; it was probably much higher. Only eight or ten soldiers had been killed.
When Iron Knife heard these stories, he tried to get up, vowing with anger in his voice to join the other braves in riding the war trail.
Summer restrained him. “If you aren’t careful, you’ll tear that wound open and you won’t be any help to anyone.”
He glared at her. “You’re white down to the bone. Of course you don’t want me attacking them, do you?”
She saw the look on his face, and tears came to her eyes. “What’s happening to us? You never thought the color of my skin was important before.”
He looked troubled and turned his face away. “That is the first thing I think of now when I look at you. Sometimes I wonder if love can really bridge the gap between two warring cultures. Sometimes I think I should not have taken you as my woman. Don’t you ever have doubts?”
Indeed, was love enough? She didn’t answer him because often now, late at night, she lay sleepless, listening to the wind moan like the dead at Sand Creek, like the dying cries of white settlers, and wondered if she should have stayed in Boston where no one knew about terror, starvation and death.
“You have answered me with your silence,” he said.
“I don’t know—”
“That is what bothers me, Summer Sky, that you don’t know, that you are no longer sure. Well, I am sure of only one thing; I must fight to preserve my way of life.”
“Oh, please, no!” She caught his arm, but he shrugged it off.
“What else can I do? You know I am one of those who has always counseled for peace, but now I see it has brought only death and pain to my people. When I am well, I will join the other braves in riding the war trail.”
“Against my people?”
He laughed without humor. “So the truth comes out; you still think of yourself as white!”
“I think of myself as a human being!” she lashed out, “and I don’t want to see women and children of any color tortured and killed!”
“Remember,” he said grimly, “the whites started this.”
Had they? She no longer remembered who had started it or where, and to her, it didn’t matter. However, she knew how it would all end: with death and destruction. “The tribes cannot win against the whites.”
Iron Knife shrugged and looked at her as coldly as if she were a stranger. “Maybe not, but I would rather be a dead lion than a live dog.”
She couldn’t believe they were arguing like this. Their love had been enough to bridge any chasm—until now. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just what you think it means, my white captive. When the old chiefs call for who will smoke the pipe, I will paint my face for war and ride to attack the whites who box us in, attack us. I will not be herded to a reservation while I can fight and die breathing free air.”
“So what happens to me and my children if you are killed?”
He shrugged. “You know the answer. If you were really part of our culture, you would be satisfied to mutilate yourself in mourning, then let Two Arrows or Lance Bearer take you as a wife.”
“I will not be treated as chattel or a mere captive.”
“You are mine and I do not intend to lose you over this.”
“As a possession or your woman?”
“That’s your choice.” His face was troubled.
“I don’t seem to be getting any choice at all . . . master.” She got up and stalked out.
She thought she heard him call her name as she walked away, but she didn’t look back. The Indian wars had changed many things, including their relationship. Summer was in a Cheyenne encampment with three small children sired by a warrior who might be spilling blood next week. She didn’t even want to think about what the future would bring or what she would do next.
Later, she overheard Iron Knife’s cousins and uncle come into the makeshift lodge to talk with him.
Two Arrows said, “The old ones want to have the Ceremony of the Arrows before they go into any full-scale war against the whites.”
Old Clouds Above grunted. “That will have to wait several months, of course, because as you know, all ten bands of our people will have to gather for the ceremony, and with this bad weather, that is impossible.”
“The Ceremony of the Sacred Arrows?” Iron Knife sounded hesitant.
For the first time in years, Summer remembered Angry Wolf and what had happened to him; that secret between she and Iron Knife. Murder among the Cheyenne was a terrible taboo, and she was guilty of it. She knew the ceremony was only done once in a great while; certainly it had not been done all the years she had been Iron Knife’s woman. She shuddered, thinking about it. It was said that if murder had been committed among the people, when the bundle of Sacred Medicine Arrows was opened, they would be covered with blood. Then everyone would know there had been a murder for which no justice had been done.
Blood. She put her head in her hands and thought of that crisp autumn day in 1858. She had been a new captive among the Cheyenne and had tried to escape. There was a pretty Arapaho girl with the Cheyenne back then, Gray Dove, who was jealous of Summer because the Indian girl loved Iron Knife. Gray Dove had plotted to send Angry Wolf after Summer to kill her so there would be no chance she would ever be recaptured and returned to the Cheyenne and Iron Knife.
That long-ago day, Angry Wolf had captured Summer near a fast-moving creek where she had stopped to drink.
“So, white bitch, we meet again,” he hissed as he pulled her to him. “Only this time, there is no half-breed bastard to save you or even my own men to share you with!”
“Let go of me!” she shrieked, clawing at him.
“Scream all you wish!” he said, laughing, twisting her arm behind her painfully as he pulled her up against him. “There is no one to hear you!”
She could smell the reek of his sweat, and she recoiled from his clammy skin.
“You will not mind the smell of me when I am through with you, Yellow Hair! You will beg to be allowed to kiss my sweat away if only I will stop hurting you!”
“If you hurt me, you will regret it,” Summer challenged as she turned her direct, stubborn gaze upon him. “Even now, a soldier patrol from the fort might cross this area and find us.”
“Not likely!” Then he proceeded to tell her with relish that Gray Dove had purposely given the white girl wrong directions so she would never find the way to the fort and to make sure she would never come back to the Indian camp; Gray Dove had sent Angry Wolf to kill her.
Angry Wolf had his hot mouth on hers now, forcing her lips open. She freed one hand and clawed his face.
He swore a white man’s oath and struck her, knocking her half-conscious to the ground.
“This time,” he promised, “you are going to pay for that, and Iron Knife will not be here to stop me! Because of you both, me and my followers have been whipped through the camp like misbehaving puppies. You have brought disgrace on me, and now you will pay for that. I only wish that son of a white whore could be here to see what I do to his woman!”
He staked her out, spread-eagled, and cut the deerskin shift from her ripe body. Then he taunted her with how he intended to rape her repeatedly, then smear her naked body with wild honey and cover her with thousands of big, red ants.
When he went off to a bee tree down the trail to get the honey, Summer lay there, tied down and shaking with terror. She closed her eyes at the sound of a step, not wanting to look into his ugly, grinning face as he returned.
But a big hand touched her face ever so gently. She would have known that touch anywhere. Her eyes blinked open to look up into Iron Knife’s angry face. She saw his dark eyes glitter in hate at the bruises and teeth marks on her fair skin.
“Whoever did this will not live to see the sun set!” he muttered as his blade flashed and he cut her ankles and one wrist free, but then Angry Wolf sneaked up behind him and attacked Iron Knife. The squat, heavier brave caught Iron Knife off balance, and her rescuer hit his head on a rock as he fell. The two rolled over and over. Then they stumbled to their feet, facing each other warily.
Iron Knife gestured toward Summer, still pinned by one wrist. “You have tried to violate my woman, you whelp of a coyote! For this, you will surely die!”
“Brave talk for one who stands before me empty-handed; no knife, no quirt,” the other sneered, pulling his quirt slowly from his belt, hefting his knife in his other hand.
Summer saw her big brave glance toward his horse. His quirt hung from the saddle; his knife lay on the ground just out of Summer’s reach. Angry Wolf crouched between him and the weapons and now smiled slowly.
“We shall see who will die! I have been whipped through the camp by the leaders of the seven warrior groups! Never have I felt such humiliation! I want you to know the taste of my lash!”
He whipped his quirt against the ground. “Always I have lived in your shadow before the Council of Chiefs. Always the people follow you, listen to your words so you will be chosen next time they pick a chief. My friends and I will go off to join the outlaw dog soldier band. When the people see our bravery, they will sing songs of us around the camp fires, and Gray Dove will look at me with new eyes.”
Iron Knife did not answer as he backed slowly toward the swollen creek. He moved as if injured, and Summer saw the blood well up scarlet over one eye where he had struck a rock when he fell. He wiped the blood from his brown face and gestured. “Let us talk of this, fellow dog soldier.”
“Talk! You are as bad as your woman about wanting to talk!” He gestured disdainfully. “Sing your death chant, Iron Knife, son of a white whore! And then with your dying eyes you will see me mount your woman. Because of you, I have been spurned by mine!”
The big warrior backed slowly into the swirling water as Angry Wolf advanced on him with knife and quirt.
Summer reached for the knife on the ground that lay just out of her reach. She tried to pull the last stake out of the soil to free her wrist, but she was too weak. The rope would have to be cut. She clawed the dirt . . . reaching . . . reaching.
Iron Knife glanced at her in wordless appeal, the scarlet blood running down his bronze face and into the water. She couldn’t do it, but she must do it! Again, she clawed the dirt, straining toward the knife. The rawhide thong bit into her wrist as she struggled toward the weapon. Blood seeped under the rope as she reached and threw her weight against the rawhide.
Once more she strained, and then she had the knife by the tip of the blade! For a long, heart-stopping moment, it almost tumbled away from her, but she had it! Quickly, she cut the remaining rope from her wrist. Now she crouched, knife in hand, watching the two in the knee-deep, swirling water. So intent was Angry Wolf on his injured quarry that he never turned to look behind him. He quirted his enemy across the face, and Iron Knife grabbed the lash. But it dropped into the swift water and was swept away.
The other laughed in triumph. “So now, it is only we two with no council or tribe to back you up. I have dreamed of this moment. Your heart is about to take my blade, and then I will finish off your woman; and no one will ever know what happened to either of you!”
“You know it is a terrible taboo of the Cheyenne to commit murder among our own. You would be exiled for four years, and my cousins would seek revenge.”
Angry Wolf shrugged. “As I said, they will never know. Since you will both be missing, they may think you have dishonored your people and returned to the white civilization to live with your woman.”
Behind him, on the bank, Summer hesitated with the dagger in her hand and looked toward the Appaloosa stallion grazing nearby. Why should she care what happened to either of the men? All she had to do was let them fight it out to the death while she took the swiftest horse and fled. She knew which direction to take now, and she did not think either man could catch her if she rode the fine stallion. What did it matter which man was killed? Why should she care about the wounded dog soldier? And yet. . . .
Even as she turned toward the horse, she stopped and looked back to the battle in the water. Iron Knife would surely lose. He was at a clear disadvantage, wounded and weaponless, as the other moved in for the kill.
In that moment, the squat Indian lunged, cutting the other a glancing blow across the shoulder. They meshed, struggling in the racing water, churning it to bloody foam like two great stags in an age-old battle. Iron Knife hung on valiantly, but his opponent, using his heavier weight, took him to his knees in the boiling current.
As she watched in growing horror, Angry Wolf dropped the knife, but lifted a rock from the bottom and struck Iron Knife a glancing blow. Iron Knife staggered, seemed to slip on the slick bottom. He went down in the foaming water, and the squat dog soldier had him by the throat holding him under, drowning him.
This was her last chance to run for the horses; she knew that. In another minute or so, her attacker would be finished with his murder and coming after her. Still, she hesitated. Her head told her to run, but her heart told her something else. Without even realizing it, she ran toward the water, her hand still clutching the dagger.
Angry Wolf had his back to her, intent on murder. She was almost upon him, running lightly and unencumbered by clothes across the sand. Summer was in the water before he seemed to hear her. His hands let go of Iron Knife’s throat as he turned abruptly to face her.
He made a futile grab, but her anger made her swift. As he lunged, she dodged his arm and plunged the knife deep into his chest, then jerked it free.
His mouth opened in disbelief, and fear spread across his face. He gave a weak cry as he staggered, the scarlet stain spreading down his chest into the water. He made a threatening gesture, then clutched at his fatal wound as he fell backward into the current and was swept away.
Summer stared in shock, the bloody knife hanging limply from her numb fingers. She had killed a man!
Iron Knife staggered to her side, still choking and coughing from the water. Together, they watched a long moment as the body washed down the stream and on over the rapids.
She looked up at him and then at the bloody knife in her hand, suddenly feeling very faint. “I—I owed you that,” she said simply and swayed on her feet. But deep in her heart, she knew she lied. That wasn’t the reason she had done it.
Quickly, he caught her in his arms and lifted her as she collapsed, carrying her to the shore. The sun came out from behind the clouds in sudden brilliance as the warrior stood on the sand and cradled her gently in his powerful arms, looking down at her.
Summer stared at the bloody knife in her limp fingers that now draped across his broad shoulders. It occurred to her that it was still not too late for her to stab him in the back and run away, freeing herself from the Indians forever. She need only take his horse and head for the fort. No one ever need know what had happened here. She could keep the secret.
For a long moment, he looked deep into her eyes as the sun warmed them. Finally he spoke. “Will you now kill me with my own knife, Summer Sky?”
Her mouth dropped open at his question and at the realization that he made no move to protect himself. Her fingers unclenched, and the dagger clattered harmlessly to the ground behind him.
“I might have killed you!” she whispered.
He still held her naked, wet body swinging lightly from his strong arms. “I was willing to bet my life that you wouldn’t.”
“You’re a reckless fool!” she challenged. “Why were you so sure? I didn’t know for a moment what I would do.”
“I knew, my Summer Sky. I knew the moment you came into the water to save me instead of running for the horses.”
She could only look dumbly up into his eyes, her emotions a tangle. He bent his head, and his lips brushed hers, as light as a butterfly’s wing caressing a flower. It was a hesitant kiss. He seemed almost to be awaiting her command to pull back. He seemed to expect her rejection which would be swiftly followed by the sting of her hand across his scarred face.
She was surprised by his hesitancy, this bold savage who had tasted her lips with such assurance in the past. And this, perhaps, triggered her own reaction. She seemed to have almost no control over her own body as she felt her arms reach around his sinewy neck. Her soft hands pulled his bronzed, bleeding face down to hers, and she kissed him in a way that she did not know she knew.
He started in surprise as instinctively, her mouth explored his deeply, thoroughly. Then, he was all man, crushing her to him as she still swung in his embrace.
That long-ago day, they had made love the very first time, lying naked on the creek bank after Angry Wolf’s death. For the very first time, she had experienced the splendor of sharing her Cheyenne warrior’s passion. 1858. A long time ago, Summer thought with a sigh as she came out of her memories and looked around at the cold. Now the Cheyenne were scattered from the attack on Sand Creek, she and her once in a lifetime love were tense and short with each other, and sometime soon, the Medicine Arrow bundle would be opened. Would there be blood on them or was that only a superstition? One thing was certain, if the arrows were bloody, her secret would be out. Had her actions that long-ago day brought this bad luck to Iron Knife’s people? And what could be done about it now?