With a sigh, Regan closed her eyes, imagining Santiago as a wild savage and herself as the young white girl he kidnapped. For a time, she let herself get lost in the fantasy. She could see it all so clearly, the two of them riding across the sunlit prairie, stopping beside a ribbon of blue water, making love on a buffalo robe under the stars, standing on a high bluff to watch a herd of horses running across the plains. It took her a moment to realize that the sound of hoofbeats growing ever closer wasn’t in her mind.
With a sense of foreboding, she opened her eyes.
Three mounted warriors clad in breechclouts and carrying bows and arrows stared down at her.
Chapter 14
Regan looked up at the Indians, her heart in her throat. Was she dreaming? Please, she thought, let me be dreaming! She blinked and blinked again.
They were still there.
A warrior with an eagle feather tied in his long black hair urged his horse forward a few steps. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing here? This is Lakota land. The wasichu are not allowed. To cross our border without permission is punishable by death.”
Fear knotted in the pit of Regan’s belly, and with it the urge to laugh. Mortals who strayed into You Bet Your Life Park did so at their own peril. Apparently that was true for whites who wandered, uninvited, into the Black Hills, as well.
“I’m…that is…” What should she say? That she was lost? That she was looking for a shaman? She slipped her hand into her jacket pocket, her fingers curling around the butt of her gun, and then, slowly, she withdrew her hand. She couldn’t just shoot them, not when she didn’t know if they meant her any harm. Besides, she had a feeling any one of them could put an arrow into her before she could draw and fire her own weapon.
The three warriors spoke to each other in a language Regan assumed was Lakota, then Eagle Feather dismounted and stalked toward her.
She shrieked when he grabbed her by the arm and hauled her to her feet. “Let me go!”
The warrior didn’t respond. Instead, he lifted her onto the back of his horse, then vaulted up behind her. Reaching around her, he took up the reins and urged his horse down the hill. The other two warriors followed.
“Wait!” Regan cried. “My things. I need my purse and my…”
But the Indian wasn’t listening.
She told herself there was no reason to be afraid. These weren’t uncivilized savages and this wasn’t the nineteenth century. In spite of what Eagle Feather had said, she couldn’t believe they would kill her just for trespassing! But maybe she was just fooling herself. Hadn’t the clerk at the sporting goods store warned them to be on the lookout for wild Indians? What had he said? The Sioux don’t take lightly to trespassers these days?
They could kill her, she thought, and no one could do a thing about it. They had their own land now, their own laws, and she was trespassing.
That thought was uppermost in her mind as they rode through a stand of tall timber that opened onto a flat meadow, and she beheld an Indian village for the first time. What looked like hundreds of tepees were spread alongside a slow-moving river. Horses grazed in the tall grass. Men and women, all dressed in Native attire, could be seen going about their daily tasks. Children ran among the conical hide lodges. Several old men were playing a dice game. Dogs slept in the shade. She couldn’t help grinning at the sight of two teenage boys clad in buckskin leggings tossing a football back and forth.
Eagle Feather reined his horse to a stop in front of a large tepee decorated with stars and half-moons. Regan checked her watch. It was three hours until sundown. She only hoped she was still alive when Santiago came looking for her.
The warrior riding behind her slid off the rump of the horse, then lifted her from its back.
Regan glanced around, her apprehension growing as dozens of men, women, and children gathered around her, their expressions ranging from merely curious to openly hostile. Angry voices rose on the wind, some of them in English, some in Lakota.
She clenched her hands at her sides, determined to keep her face impassive lest they see how frightened she was.
A sudden stillness fell over the crowd as a bent old man came into view. He leaned heavily on a wooden staff as he slowly made his way to the center of the group. His skin was the color and texture of old saddle leather. An eagle feather was tied into one long gray braid.
The old warrior stopped in front of Regan, his dark eyes moving over her from head to foot. “Who are you?” he asked. “Why have you come here?”
One look into his eyes and Regan knew she didn’t dare lie to him. “My name is Regan Delaney. I came here looking for a man, a shaman.”
The old man’s eyes glowed with interest. “What is this shaman’s name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then how will you find him?”
“I’m traveling with a friend. He knows the way.”
“Where is he, this friend of yours?”
“I don’t know. He was to meet me this evening.”
“Why do you need a medicine man? Are you sick?”
“No. Yes. Well, not exactly, but I might be. I was told the shaman in the Black Hills could help me.”
The old man grunted softly. Turning to the man beside him, he spoke a few words in his native tongue, then walked away.
Before Regan could call after the old man to ask what was going on, a grim-faced warrior led her to a small lodge and pushed her inside.
“Stay here,” the warrior said brusquely, and dropped the door flap into place.
Regan glanced around the dim lodge. It was empty. No blanket. No firepit. Nothing to eat or drink. Nothing to do but pace the dirt floor while her imagination conjured up one horrible scenario after another, each one worse than the last. The Indians would kill her and take her scalp. They would leave her in here to starve to death. They would skin her alive. They would bury her up to her neck in an ant hill and cover her head with honey. They would…
Muttering, “Stop it!” she sat down on the hard-packed earth and forced herself to take slow, deep breaths. Santiago would be rising soon, and he would come for her. Of that, she had no doubt.
Santiago rose as soon as the sun slid behind the horizon. For a moment, he simply stood there, basking in the beauty of his surroundings. It was a wild and beautiful land painted in vivid hues, from the rusty reds and earth tones of the shale and sandstone cliffs to the deep green of the pines. Animals were plentiful—buffalo and elk, beaver and muskrat, white-tailed deer and mule deer, bighorn sheep and mountain goats, eagles and hawks.
Standing there, his face lifted to the sky, he could feel the ancient power sleeping deep in the heart of the sacred Hills. He had felt similar vestiges of power at Stonehenge, in Chaco Canyon, at the Mayan pyramids, and at the pyramids at Giza, but nothing as strong as the power he felt here, in this place. For hundreds of years, mystics and shamans had come to the Black Hills seeking visions. The Lakota believed that the sacred Paha Sapa were the heart and soul of their people, and although Santiago was not Lakota, he was Indian enough to understand why the Lakota revered this place above all others. He knew of their unending struggles to regain the land through the centuries. He knew of the battles they had fought against the whites in the past, remembered their victories and their defeats. He had met some of their leaders. Men like Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, Two Hawks Flying, and Black Elk. All had been brave warriors, proud of their heritage, willing to sacrifice everything they possessed to preserve their way of life. He wondered if those ancient warriors knew that the Hills again belonged to their rightful owners.
Santiago blew out a sigh as the sun sank further into the west, splashing the horizon in vivid blood red hues, reminding him that he had not fed, but there was no time to search for prey now. He had left Regan alone long enough. He smiled at the prospect of seeing her again, and then frowned as a sense of foreboding rose up in his mind.
It took him only moments to return to where he had left her.
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Less time than that to realize she was gone.
He scanned the ground, his preternatural sight easily picking up the tracks of three unshod ponies and the moccasin prints of a Lakota warrior. He read the story quickly. Three Indians had ridden into Regan’s camp. One had dismounted, put her on his horse, and carried her away.
He glanced briefly at the hoofprints cut into the ground, but it was Regan’s scent he followed through the gathering dusk.
Regan lifted one corner of the door flap and peeked outside. The sun was setting in a splash of crimson. Plumes of blue-gray smoke rose from a multitude of smoke holes and cook fires. The scent of roasting meat reminded her that she hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since early afternoon.
Looking at the activity in the camp, it was difficult to believe that she hadn’t been transported back in time to the early 1800s. Except for the boys she had seen playing football earlier, there were no visible signs of civilization. No cars. No houses. Nothing but a vast untamed land, tepees, horses, and dogs. And people wearing native dress. If she wasn’t being held prisoner, she might have thought she had stumbled onto an old Western movie set, only these people weren’t actors, and there were no lights, and no cameras. And no sign of the Seventh Cavalry!
She watched the sun sink further behind the Hills, her anxiety growing as she wondered what was taking Santiago so long. Surely he was awake by now!
Nearing the outskirts of the village, Santiago heard the slow, steady beat of a drum, smelled the slightly nauseating scent of roasting buffalo meat and the acrid odor of smoke curling from numerous cookfires.
He paused at the tree line, his gaze sweeping the lodges spread along the river. Seeing so many tepees took him back in time, back to a large Lakota village camped along the Little Big Horn in the summer of 1876.
What a day that had been! It was a day still discussed in some places, a day made famous by the death of George Armstrong Custer and his command. Santiago had been unable to fight in that epic battle, but he had gotten his licks in after the sun went down. Impervious to enemy fire, he had slipped into the ranks of the soldiers under Reno’s command. The soldiers had taken refuge on a hill now known as Reno’s Hill. He had counted coup on a dozen bluecoats, killed a handful, and fed off a few others. His only regret was that he had been unable to fight alongside Crazy Horse.
Shaking the memories aside, Santiago ghosted past the sentries, strode into the center of the camp, and called for the peace chief of the village.
Moments later, a tall warrior carrying a feathered lance strode into view. “Why have you come here?”
“You have my woman. I have come to claim her.”
“She is trespassing. The penalty is death.”
“She is with me, and you will not touch her.”
The warrior stared at Santiago. “How are you called?”
“I am Joaquin. Crazy Horse called me Rides in Darkness.”
A collective gasp rose from the crowd that had gathered around Santiago and the chief. As one, the people took a step backward. It might have been respect. It might have been fear.
“Your name is well known to us,” the warrior said, his voice tinged with awe. “I am Hunonpa Luta. It has been many years since you walked among us.”
“If you know who I am, then you know of my power.”
Hunonpa Luta nodded. “It is said that you have great magic.”
Santiago nodded. “Release my woman.”
Hunonpa Luta spoke to the man at his right, who immediately ran off in the direction of a small lodge near the edge of the camp circle.
Santiago waited, his face impassive as he watched the warrior duck into the lodge. He emerged a few moments later, pulling Regan along behind him.
Santiago’s gaze quickly moved over her from head to foot. As near as he could tell, she was scared but unhurt.
Her relief at seeing him was a palpable thing. With a cry, she wrenched her arm from the warrior’s grasp and ran the remaining few feet to where Santiago waited.
He caught her to him, one arm slipping around her waist. “Are you all right?”
“I am now that you’re here.”
“Did they hurt you?”
She shook her head no just as her stomach growled.
“When did you eat last?”
“This afternoon.”
Santiago looked at the chief. “My woman is hungry. What has happened to Lakota hospitality, that a guest is not offered food and drink?”
A muscle twitched in the warrior’s cheek. “I will have my woman prepare something immediately,” Hunonpa Luta said, his voice brittle. “Will you stay the night?”
“It is not possible, but I thank you for the offer.”
“Then we will have a feast to honor your return to our people.”
Santiago nodded. It would have been rude to refuse the chief’s hospitality. He gestured toward the lodge where Regan had been held prisoner. “We will wait there.”
Inclining his head, the chief went to his own lodge. Seeing that there was to be no further confrontation, the crowd dispersed.
Taking Regan by the hand, Santiago led her back to the lodge at the edge of the village.
Inside, he drew her into his arms, his hands running lightly over her hair, her face, her arms. “I should not have left you alone.”
“I don’t know what else you could have done,” she replied, then frowned. “Where did you spend the day?”
Santiago considered his answer for a moment, wondering what her reaction would be. For all that she was a hunter—and he had no doubt she was a good one—she still had a lot to learn about the vampire way of life.
“I slept in the earth,” he replied.
“In the earth? Like, under the ground?”
He nodded.
“Sounds, um, dirty.”
He laughed, charmed as always by her candor. “Do I look dirty?”
She frowned. “No, you don’t. Why don’t you?”
“I cannot explain it, but the earth does not cling to us.”
“Interesting. I suppose you go down six feet?”
“Ah, Regan,” he exclaimed, “you are an endless delight. It is only necessary to go down deep enough to hide from the sun.”
She shuddered at the thought. All those bugs and worms…
“As always, you see only the worst,” he remarked.
“I’m sorry, I just don’t see anything good about it.”
“I suppose it depends on your perspective. Personally…” He fell silent as four women entered the lodge. The first one carried a clay bowl filled with soup. The second carried a plate heaped high with roasted meat in one hand and a tin cup of coffee in the other. The third carried a pair of backrests and a blanket, which she spread on the floor. The fourth carried a flat piece of wood and a candle.
It was amazing, Regan thought, how a blanket and a candle transformed the tepee from a prison to a comfortable abode.
Santiago nodded at the women. “Pilamaya.”
“Do you require anything else?” asked the first woman.
Santiago looked at Regan. She shook her head.
“Someone will come for you,” the woman said. Gesturing for the other women to follow her, she left the lodge.
One woman stayed behind. She was younger than the other three, tall and slender, with sleek black hair and large brown eyes. She looked at Santiago expectantly.
“Is there something you want?” he asked.
With a hand that trembled slightly, she pushed her hair away from her neck. In a voice that also trembled, she said, “I am for you.”
“What does she mean?” Regan asked.
“You have your food,” he replied, gesturing at the meal spread on the blanket. “And I have mine.”
“She’s your dinner?” Regan asked in disbelief.
“So it would seem.”
“You’re not going to…are you?”
“It would be an insult to refuse.”
Slipping his arm
around the girl’s waist, he drew her close. He could feel her body trembling. “Relax,” he said quietly, “I will not hurt you.” He gazed deep into her eyes for a moment. Capturing her mind with his, he assured her once more that there was nothing to fear, and then he bent his head to her neck. He took only a taste, and then released her from his spell. “Pilamaya.”
Looking vaguely disoriented, she smiled and left the lodge.
Regan stared at him, her own hunger forgotten. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“You did not have to watch.”
“How could I help it? Watching a vampire feed is something you don’t see every day.”
“I would not call that feeding,” he said with a wry grin. “I took only a drop, to be polite.” He would have taken more had he not been aware of Regan’s horrified reaction at watching him.
“Polite,” she repeated. “Yeah, right.” She tilted her head to the side. “So, that little bit filled you up?”
“No, but it is not necessary for me to…dine every night.”
“Oh. How long can you go without, ah, you know?”
“As long as necessary.”
“I always heard vampires went a little bonkers if they didn’t feed regularly.”
He lifted one brow. “Bonkers?”
“You know, crazy. Off the deep end. Nutters.”
“I know what it means,” he said dryly. “Though I confess I have never heard anyone use it before. But you needn’t worry. I am old enough to control my passions.” His gaze touched her lips, her throat, moved down to linger on her breasts before returning to her face. “All of them.”
“That’s…ah, good to know.”
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