CHAPTER

9

Cuidado returned with Little Stick’s yellow calico braid dangling from his saddle horn and a summer storm dogging his heels. He found us readying to leave Red Rock. Quinn and his traders dispersed early in the morning in four directions, each with a teamster and two guards armed with Spencer repeating rifles. We would follow Quinn’s wagon, headed for the northern portion of Indian Territory. Welcome news since it would get us closer to our ultimate destination, though with the return of Cuidado, Kindle had lost his bet and his gray. We were now officially Bell’s prisoners.

Dressed in my spare clothes and wearing a piece of her torn deerskin dress like a shawl, Aénhé’ke helped me saddle our horse. She lifted the saddle onto the palomino’s back and winced in pain. I tried to take over the task but she pushed me away. I stood back and glanced around the abandoned trader camp.

Bell, Kruger, Tuesday, and Cuidado were in a group a little ways off, talking and looking in my direction too often for comfort. Kindle saddled his horse alone, neither with Bell’s group nor with me, an island unto himself, accompanied only by a raging hangover, if his countenance was any indication.

I mounted my horse and held my hand out for Aénhé’ke. She took it and leapt up behind me. She grunted in pain as she settled on the back of the horse. Knowing the agony she was in, I placed my hand on her leg and squeezed it in encouragement. We rode to Kindle, who was adjusting his saddle to Bell’s blaze-faced sorrel. His rifle scabbard was empty as were his holsters. I said his name softly, and he ignored me. “William,” I said, firmly. He looked over his shoulder. His hat was pulled low, shadowing his eye, but I could see the frown beneath his beard. My horse shielded him from the gang’s prying eyes. I handed him the knife he had given me the night before. He knelt down and put it in the scabbard inside his boot and returned to tending his horse.

My chest constricted. I had spent a long, sleepless night wondering if either of us were the same people who fell in love at Fort Richardson. I was changed, maybe irrevocably. I saw threats everywhere, even in a kiss from the man I loved, a kiss similar to ones we shared the night before we separated on the Red River. Of course, he would think of it as passionate, whereas this version of me felt nothing but terror as he held me. How could I explain to him the alarm that flooded my chest at being pinned, motionless, by strong arms? How would I ever be able to let Kindle lay on top of me without panicking?

As darkness gave way to twilight, so too did my anxiety about what I might never regain change to fury at what I’d lost. I’d never realized what had been missing from my life, how my happy, satisfying existence could be made better, complete by the hands of another. It wasn’t as simple as loving and being loved; I’d known platonic, familial, and romantic love before. Never, though, had I known lust and passion and the primal connection these emotions brought with them. The breathless physicality of stripping away all guile and baring myself to another and the yearning and acceptance offered in return.

The loss of that desire, that hunger, was keener than I expected. I loved Kindle, would always love him, as he would me. But, without that component of our relationship—with the memory of it taunting me—I would never truly be happy. Our life would be half-full.

I refused to let that happen. I refused to let Cotter Black win.

Bell rode up. “We have to get riding if we’re gonna beat this storm.”

Kindle mounted the sorrel. “Stay or go, we won’t beat this storm. But you’re the leader. Lead on.”

Bell stared at me under furrowed brows. “What’s got your dander up?”

I unclenched my jaw. “If I had a gun right now, I’d blow your head off.”

Bell’s eyes widened and Kindle looked slowly up from the reins in his hands. “Because of that whore?” Bell motioned to Aénhé’ke. “I didn’t even fuck her, no thanks to you.” He kicked his horse and trotted off. Kindle reined his horse around to follow.

“William, wait.”

He pulled up and we stopped beside him.

“About the kiss …”

“Laura …”

“No, listen,” I snapped. I wasn’t going to wait to clear the air, to ride on without him knowing where we stood. I met his eyes. “I cannot be pinned like that.” He opened his mouth but I didn’t let him speak. “I know you didn’t mean to, but … I just cannot be held like that. Not yet. Maybe not ever.” I paused. “Do you understand?”

Cuidado rode up, and stopped next to us. He looked between the two of us, suspicion clear in his expression. “Vamos,” he said.

Kindle kicked his horse into a trot to follow Bell. Cuidado glared at me for a moment more and nudged his brown-and-white paint mare to follow the others.

We fell in line behind and rode away from the shelter of Red Rock. Aénhé’ke shifted behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw her watching the formation recede. She faced forward with a determined thousand-yard stare. Her eyes focused on me, and after a brief flicker of a smile, she returned her focus to somewhere, or something, in the distance.

Behind us, Tuesday’s horse snorted.

We blew my horse trying to outrun the storm.

Ahead of us the sun rose in the bluebird sky, beckoning us forward, away from the storm howling at our backs. Wind pushed us across the plain, swirled around us, and changed direction to push us back, our only respite coming when we dipped down between the rolling hills.

Aénhé’ke and I fell behind, Piper laboring under our double weight, losing sight of the others for increasingly long stretches. It was little comfort Tuesday stayed behind with us. If she decided to take revenge for the night before, we were defenseless; I’d given Kindle the knife and Enloe’s gun was wrapped in the buffalo hide tied to the back of my saddle.

We crested a hill and saw the four men cresting the next. Kindle pulled up and turned to find us, his horse throwing his head and prancing. He kicked his horse into a run toward us, motioning for us to come toward him. His panic carried across the expanse and I turned to look behind me.

Fingers of lightning reached out from a dark boiling sky and touched the glowing orange horizon. The clouds rolled and swirled into a column, as if being shaped by an unseen hand. Lightning flickered, and a boom of thunder shook the world. Fat pellets of rain fell as I tried to make sense of a sunset in the middle of the day. Kindle’s voice was indistinct, dispersed on the wind circling us.

“Ho’e˙stave.”

I looked at Aénhé’ke. “What?”

Tuesday grabbed the reins of my horse and pulled us down the hill. The mare pulled against her, deciding this was as far as she would go. The horse dropped to her knees. With more presence of mind than I, Aénhé’ke grabbed the back of my shirt and jumped from the horse, pulling me free with her as the animal collapsed on its side.

At a full gallop, Kindle rode toward us, arm out. Aénhé’ke took his arm and swung herself up behind him. Tuesday held her arm out. I pulled myself behind her with the awkward difficulty of a woman raised in the city. She kicked her horse into a run and I almost fell off the back, but grabbed the edge of her saddle in time. I bounced around, trying to find purchase, and finally wrapped my arms around Tuesday’s ample torso and clung to her for dear life.

Inexorably, the storm bore down, hammering us with rocks, sticks, and large balls of ice. The wind ripped our hats off and pulled at our shirts. Lightning and thunder like the boom of battlefield cannons cracked the sky wide open. Fire leapt from the ground in front of us and, fed by the wind, raced across the ground. Over my shoulder, the golden horizon raced forward.

Kindle and Aénhé’ke ran through the wall of flames, never breaking stride. “No!” My scream was lost in the roar surrounding us. Tuesday reached her arm back and held me close to her, kicked her horse, and we followed Kindle into hell.

Inside the walls of fire, the scene was strangely calm. Acrid smoke surrounded us, muting the sound and the violence of the storm raging outside. The horse’s hooves pounded on the hard ground and it snorted as it tried to breathe in the smoke. Clumps of fire burned here and there, forcing the horse to change direction until soon we lost our bearings. The horse stopped and twirled in a circle, unsure where to go. Tuesday used both hands to pull at the reins, trying to move him in the right direction, and with a grunt of anger, kicked the horse violently. The horse snorted, shook its head, and bolted forward with a jolt.

I flew off the back of the horse. The last thing I saw was the pale yellow sun in the smoke-filled sky.