Susan Johnson

by Susan Johnson

  It was late at night when she felt the most terrible unease. Alone in a vast Indian village, certain she was carrying Hazard’s child, she prayed, “Please, God, let him come back safely.”

  On the morning of the third day, Blaze was awakened by a soft whinny, unusual in its proximity. Rolling over half asleep in the predawn coolness, she dozed off again. Moments later, the sound again awoke her. It was distinctly a horse and very close. Lying awake now, she looked up and saw the pale morning sky just beginning to shade into color.

  At the third clear nicker followed by an answering soft neigh, she slipped her fringed dress over her head, rose from the bed, and, walking across the silent lodge, lifted the entrance flap.

  A magnificent golden palomino, its glossy coat glistening like new minted gold, its powerful neck looped with a braided rope, was tied to the lodge pole. And slipped under the rope circling its neck was a bouquet of summerflowers. Hazard was back! Her heart danced with joy. He was back. And it wasn’t until the splendid palomino whinneyed again, only to be answered by several neighboring nickers, that Blaze glanced beyond the gilded beauty of the horse tied to the lodge. Her eyes widened in astonishment. Numerous other horses, each as beautiful, were tied beyond.

  “Do you like them?” said a lazy voice, warm and familiar, over her shoulder.

  She spun around. No more than a foot away, Hazard stood smiling. And she imprinted on her memory the image of him that morning: tall, collected, naked from the waist up, his hair still wet from his bath in the river, morning mist rising around him, a birdsong lifting on the breeze. He had a necklace of brown-eyed susans encircling his strong neck, spilling golden color down his sculpted chest. She ran toward him through the dew-wet grass, her face alive with happiness.

  He crushed her to his cool chest, pungent flower scent invading their nostrils, and felt a glowing contentment seep into every tired pore of his body. “I missed you,” he murmured, his chin resting in her hair. And they clung to each other, their love a tangible blessed presence. Feeling silent tears on his chest, he gently lifted her face and brushed away the wetness with his knuckles. “No need for tears, bia. It was a marvelous raid.”

  “I’m just happy,” Blaze sniffled, attempting a small smile.

  “It’s hard to tell,” Hazard teased, brushing away a smudge of pollen on her cheek. “Are you happy about your present, too?”

  Blaze looked up at him, thinking no other man could give her such joy. “They’re beautiful … and the flowers …”

  “You’re a woman of property now, in our clan.”

  “I am, you say.” She blithely giggled.

  “That many horses is considered an extravagant gesture,” he banteringly quipped. Hazard didn’t mention he’d risked his life to get the golden palomino.

  “Does a herder come along with the extravagant gesture? Because I don’t think I’m up to the job.”

  “Of course, princess. Chiefs’ wives don’t herd horses.”

  “I’m relieved to hear it,” she murmured. They hadn’t moved, content to stand holding each other, touching, talking under the rose-tipped rays of the rising sun, knowing that in each other’s arms there was joy.

  HAZARD slept for half the day and Blaze watched him, memorizing every line and plane, every muscle and silken hair, but restrained herself a dozen times from touching him; after all, he hadn’t slept in two days. And while she sat at his side she realized, now that he was back, how dreadfully frightened she’d been. How beneath the busy activities during his absence had been not just loneliness but a flood of fear. When he finally woke, she curled into his arms and lay at peace. “Tell me about the raid,” she said. And he did. Concisely, with a minimum of drama, editing the portions in which Spirit Eagle endangered his life.

  The true story was left unsaid between the carefully selected words: The Blackfoot raiding party had entered a friendly village late at night just within Blackfoot territory. Feeling safe, they had begun celebrating and five drums were going at once when Hazard’s band overtook them. The big flat was covered with horses.

  Hazard and several of the Absarokee had stolen into the camp to spirit away some of the prized horses kept close to the lodges, while the rest of their party rounded up the ponies out on the plain.

  Hazard saw the palomino tied to a tall lodge standing a little apart from the others. Immediately he set his heart on having it for Blaze. The palomino was eating grass before the Blackfoot lodge and a rope around its neck reached inside. Somebody loved it and slept with his hand on the rope. Hazard didn’t blame him; the horse was a beauty.

  Hazard was flat on the ground by the palomino, his knife lifted to cut the rope, when someone stirred inside the lodge. Even with the drums beating he knew he couldn’t stay there too long. Even if the Blackfoot inside the lodge didn’t see him, one of the other Absarokee might be discovered, and then he’d be caught and killed when the alarm was sounded. He was trying to decide how long to wait when a shot cracked, then another.

  He cut the rope, sprang upon the palomino, and lashed it into a run. As he careened out of the village, the first Absarokee he saw was Rising Wolf. He was waiting for him, astride a bay. By this time the whole village was aroused; guns were cracking.

  “What happened?” Hazard shouted.

  “You were the last one in there and Spirit Eagle accidentally stampeded the loose horses.” They were both racing for the place where they’d left their clothes with two men to guard them. Quirting their mounts, they dashed through the night.

  The palomino was fast, and Hazard reached the place first. Springing from the horse, he began pulling on his leggings. He could hear the pounding hoofs even before he’d finished tying his braided belt. Rising Wolf was just ahead of the pointers—men in the lead to guide the running horses—and close behind them thundered the frightened ponies rounded up from the plain.

  “Hell of an accident!” Hazard yelled above the noise of the approaching horses, and tossed Rising Wolf his leggings.

  “We should walk with Spirit Eagle down by the river if we get out of here alive!” Rising Wolf shouted back, reminding Hazard with that pertinent phrase of an event in their own impetuous youth.

  Hazard’s eyes gleamed in the moonlight and he laughed suddenly, recollecting a similar calamity many years ago, the jealous result of his and Rising Wolf’s amorous inclinations. “Like Bell-rock!” he cried, his grin wide. “Come on. Let’s see if we get out of this one as well. We’ll try the steep cut bank.”

  Hazard and Rising Wolf sprang to their horses and fought through the band of horses to the lead. The enemy was after them, guns flashed in the moonlight. Riding like the wind, they made straight for the canyon wall. The crest where the ground dropped away was only yards away. Taking a deep breath, Hazard gave his war cry and lashed the palomino over the brink. Rising Wolf on the bay soared simultaneously over the escarpment, his own yell screaming in the wind. Horses, riders, like a swirl of dry leaves in a gale followed and came down twenty feet below—alive!

  The Blackfeet stopped dumbstruck atop the precipice.

  Hazard’s raiding party sprinted for the timber and, out of sight of the enemy, leisurely headed home.

  Blaze listened to Hazard’s laconic narrative, but the casual words fell on a concentration attuned to other things, and she scarcely heard a word. His eyes were different from those in her memory—darker, under a strongly jutting brow. She had forgotten how they danced with amusement. He was smiling, asking her something. Without each other there was no calm center in their lives. “It was the longest two days of my life,” he whispered, bending to kiss her. “Did you miss me?”

  “It seemed like six months of an arctic winter without you.” Then their lips met and the ice of their separation melted.

  * * *

  THAT evening everyone in camp celebrated the profitable raid. They’d captured two hundred horses without any loss of life. Visitors drifted from lodge to lodge, jubilant over the triumph, and Hazard as a chief had more
than his share of well-wishers. Everyone, too, wanted to see the yellow eyes up close, wanted to see the woman to whom Hazard had given thirty horses.

  They entertained all evening, Hazard holding Blaze’s hand, smiling at her often, translating when he could. And when Blaze haltingly attempted some of the Absarokee words Red Plume had been teaching her, he beamed like a proud parent at her effort.

  Bold Ax and his family arrived late in the festivities. He apologized sotto voce to Hazard, “She insisted on coming,” he said, indicating his youngest daughter, Blue Flower. “She thinks the horses you sent are for her.”

  “They were for our old friendship.”

  “I know that,” Bold Ax muttered, “but try and tell her.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Hazard said mildly. “We’ll be leaving in a few days to go back to the mine.”

  While Hazard and Bold Ax had been quietly conversing, Blue Flower had been staring at Blaze with undisguised curiosity. Blaze smiled at her politely, secure in Hazard’s love, no longer suspiciously viewing Blue Flower as a rival.

  “She doesn’t even cook for him,” Blue Flower said to her mother, who immediately cast a warning glance at her daughter. It wasn’t a malicious remark, only a mild bafflement. Blue Flower’s passion for Hazard was absolute and devoted, and it bewildered her that a wife who loved her husband wouldn’t cook for him. She would have been more than happy to cook for him, if he would only have her as a second wife. The yellow eyes wife could be as lazy as she pleased. And even if he didn’t love her now, in the course of time she knew she could make him love her. The stars had fallen from the sky the night he’d kissed her at the owl dance, and she saw that as a propitious omen for their future together. “Who will take care of him,” she softly asked her mother, “when they go back to the mine, if she can’t cook or sew?” Her glance strayed briefly to Hazard, her expression demurely anxious.

  Before her mother could reply, an unruffled voice said, “I don’t need taking care of, Blue Flower, but”—Hazard smiled—“thank you for your concern.”

  Blue Flower blushed, a young girl’s shy response. Hazard didn’t seem to notice the fresh glowing bloom of an adolescent on the verge of womanly splendor, nor the doe’s eyes alive with adoration. Hazard was oblivious, but Blaze wasn’t. It evoked a twinge of jealousy after all. There was no denying the apple-blossom innocence of her beauty.

  Hazard diplomatically redirected the conversation into channels unlikely to cause anyone embarrassment. And after a decent interval the family left. Within the hour the last of the guests making calls was gone.

  “Did you see those soulful eyes? That is adoration,” Blaze couldn’t help saying, her voice infused with an unwarranted testiness.

  “I’m not interested in adoration, bia-cara,” Hazard soothingly replied, making no pretense of misunderstanding. He leaned back against the elaborate willow backrest and exhaled a deep sigh. “I hope that’s the last of the visitors tonight,” he said, deliberately diverting the subject. “I haven’t had you to myself for hours. And, princess, your Absarokee is charming; thank you for learning it.” His smile was affectionate.

  “You needn’t try enchanting me with your compliments when you’ve just insinuated that I’m not adoring,” Blaze hastily retorted. Blue Flower’s fresh innocence was still maddeningly vivid in her mind.

  Hazard laughed. “You’re definitely not adoring, pet. Adorable, yes, but adoring? Definitely not. Why would you want to be, anyway?”

  “Didn’t you notice those puppy-dog eyes trained on you? You could have drowned in their idolizing reverence.”

  “I’d much prefer drowning in your enormous storm-tossed eyes, Boston. Relax, we won’t be seeing them again anyway. We’re going to have to think about going back to the mine.”

  Even though Blaze knew their summer idyll must end, she felt a lurching sense of disaster at Hazard’s words. A visceral feeling, far removed from rational considerations. She knew he couldn’t leave the mine for long. She also knew, eventually, they must face her father, Buhl Mining, the uncertain future. She knew it but her heart resisted. “Couldn’t we stay a little longer?”

  “We’ve already stayed longer than I planned.” Hazard too had been ruled by his emotions. They should have started back a week ago. But the past days had been as close to paradise as he’d ever reached, and he resisted leaving their summer retreat.

  “When?” Blaze quietly asked, having promised herself she’d tell Hazard about the baby before they returned.

  “Day after tomorrow.”

  She had another day, then, to put off her disclosure.

  IT WAS well past midnight of their last night in camp and all was quiet save the fireflies dancing thick among the bushes along Arrow Creek. Hazard had been sleeping while Blaze lay awake. She hadn’t told him. She’d begun to a dozen times that day, but each time her courage had failed, uncertain how he’d take the news of impending fatherhood.

  Their lives were so complicated by extraneous forces: Buhl Mining; duty to his clan; the depths and shades and differences of their lives; the hundreds of whites streaming into the territory each day. It was like standing on a small island whose shores were being eaten away, inches at a time, but inexorably. And when the water finally reached their feet, what would they do then? So she hadn’t told him. But she knew she must.

  When she touched him, he woke and reached for his knife in one reflex action. He slid it back in its sheath when he saw they were alone. “Is something wrong? A nightmare, bia?” In the diffused moonlight he could see the worry lines above her downy brows, and her hands were clenched together, the knuckles white.

  “No, no nightmare,” she softly replied.

  Hazard was sitting up now, his dark glance searching her face, his powerful, muscled body braced as if reading her unspoken thoughts. “Whatever’s worrying you, bia, tell me. I’ll take care of it.” And he meant it. He’d move mountains for her. “Is it … the going back?”

  She shook her head.

  Lifting his hand, he touched her smooth cheek with the tip of one of his fingers. “Are you afraid?”

  “Not of that,” she whispered.

  “Of what then, princess?” he gently asked. His slender fingers took hold of her clenched hands, smoothing the backs of them with his thumbs.

  There was no subtle way to say it, although she’d considered a hundred possibilities in the last few days. “I’m pregnant,” she said.

  Hazard’s thumbs stopped their movement, and his eyes met hers calmly. “I know.”

  Blaze’s face was startled. “You know?”

  His thumbs’ soothing rhythm resumed. “I thought,” he quietly said, “maybe you didn’t know.”

  “How could you know?” she bluntly asked.

  “I’ve been with you every day, from maré à ape así E to batsu(w)ō’ oce. I would have known if your monthly cycle had come. It hasn’t.”

  “Are you angry?” she inquired, a breathless apprehension undisguised.

  “No.”

  “Are you happy?” And she waited for his answer, her heart filled with dread.

  It terrified him, but he couldn’t tell her so. He was vulnerable now for the first time in his life, vulnerable to the fear of death. His courage as a warrior, the courage which surrounded him with the sanction of invincibility, all the enviable successes hadn’t been based on an absence of fear. His courage wasn’t that. It was disregard of fear, a detachment from personal safety. And now his personal safety mattered for Blaze, for their child. Unlike his other children, who would be nurtured by his closest knit clan, even if he died, this new child would be alone in the world with only a mother if he should be killed.

  He had always known it was his destiny to save his beloved clan or die in the attempt. Either way, he’d be true to his vision. And he’d always been at ease with the truth of his mission. Now his neutrality in the face of danger was impossible, and he was terrified.

  Pulling her close, lifting her into his lap, he burie
d his face in her scented hair. Raising his head a moment later, he whispered, “I’m happy, bia-cara, about the child.” His mouth lightly caressed her cheek. “Our spirits are one now. When you breathe I feel it, when you smile the warmth touches my flesh, the pulse of our child’s heart echoes in mine.”

  “Do we have to go back?” she implored, feeling safe and protected here in the mountains.

  “My duty lies there. I must,” Hazard said, feeling the same sadness at leaving Blaze felt. “A lodge in the mountains with you and our child … someday …” His voice trailed off, the future too troubling.

  Tears filled Blaze’s eyes. “Can the baby be born here, in the mountains?”

  Hazard nodded, affected by the same impulse, wanting his child born in peace and in love. He and Blaze had found the very best the world can give here in the land of his people, and he dearly wanted the same bounty of love for his child.

  “Promise me,” she pleaded, needing to hear the words to counter the lurking apprehensions, willing to cling to the words against the trepidation filling her mind.

  “I promise,” Hazard said, because he loved this woman. It was a promise he wanted to believe, a promise he hoped he’d be able to keep.

  Chapter 29

  They started back at dawn escorted by Rising Wolf and a dozen warriors, for after the raid on the Blackfeet there was always the possibility of retaliation.

  The cabin was untouched when they reached the mine site, except for some supplies Jimmy had brought up. The mine entrance was intact; no visitors there either. Rising Wolf and the escort searched the entire area before they proclaimed it safe. No signs anywhere of trespassers. It was shortly before sunset when Hazard and Blaze bade them goodbye.

  “It feels like home,” Blaze said, standing just inside the doorway, surveying the small, primitive cabin. Everywhere she looked triggered memories.

  “Our first home,” Hazard said, coming up behind her and putting his arms around her waist. “Are you tired?”