His Dakota Captive

by Jenna Kernan

  That recognition made him break out in a cold sweat. There were many reasons why he could not pursue her. His mind instantly supplied the objections and countered them all just as quickly. Married—to a friend. But she will divorce him. She told you so. Eagle Dancer is making an offer to the daughters of Joy Cat on your behalf. He won’t want you and you don’t even know those women. It is the right thing to do. Ha, you don’t want her because she could make you happy and you can’t allow that, now, can you?

  Sky cleared his throat and Lucie glanced toward him, smiling broadly.

  “You have no manners,” he said.

  “You are only angry because I snuck up on you.”

  His mouth quirked. “Perhaps.”

  She turned the green stick that held the roasting meat. “Would you like me to stretch the skin?”

  “I can do it.”

  He ignored her frown at his rejection of her offer. But he did not want her keeping camp as if she were his woman.

  Sky made a circular frame from a cottonwood branch and sewed the rattlesnake skin in place, using thin strips of moose hide. He set aside the project when she offered him a skewer. She used her own stick to flick something out of the fire.

  Sky recognized it immediately and was so pleased he forgot his dark mood as he spoke in Lakota. “You found potatoes!”

  His outburst brought another tinkling of her musical laughter before she answered in English. “It’s been a long while since I cooked groundnut. It’s not really a potato.”

  “It’s the only kind I like.”

  She drew a breath and straightened, looking pleased at his reaction. Then she fished five more tubers from the coals. Their skins were burned black, but the inside was white and fleshy.

  “I like the seeds the best,” said Lucie.

  “Roasted.”

  They shared a smile and then were silent as they ate their meal. With her, he forgot that he preferred his own company. She didn’t make him feel awkward or unwelcome. She no longer stared at him as if she feared what he might do. Oh, he could get used to the company of such a woman.

  “It’s nice to sit with someone who doesn’t stare at me,” she said, voicing his very thoughts.

  He lifted his eyebrows at that. “Is that what men do?”

  “They either stare or try not to stare. But you make me feel like there’s nothing wrong with me.”

  “There isn’t.”

  Her smile seemed sad. “Well, of course there is. They’re hideous, I know. But my point is that you seem to see past them and see me.”

  He was about to object. To tell her how lovely she was in the firelight, but then he remembered himself. To tell her this was to tell her that he could not control himself. It was bad enough that he recognized his weakness. He would not let her know, as well. So he focused on his meal.

  The riding and the absence of lunch gave Lucie a hearty appetite. She ate all of her share of the meat, but only two of the six groundnuts. The others did not go to waste.

  After the meal, Sky leaned back against his saddle and sighed contentedly.

  “Been a long time since I shared a meal with anyone.”

  His comments wiped the smile from Lucie’s face.

  Every night since her arrival, she ate in the dining hall, surrounded by her girls, reminding them how to hold the fork, helping them grow accustomed to the napkin and cutting the meat for the littlest of her charges. Before that she shared a table with her family.

  All that time, Sky had eaten by himself.

  “You live a lonely life.”

  “By choice. Rather be in my own company than with most folks.”

  “Because you feel different?”

  “Because I am different.”

  She nodded. “Yes. I feel like that, too, sometimes.”

  He stared at her. “Only sometimes?”

  She gave him a commiserating smile. “I was not with them so long. Not quite a full year.” She moved a little closer, wondering if he might feel more inclined to talk when his belly was full. She steered clear of asking him the whys and hows of his departure from the Bitterroot tribe and tried another path. “Where did they take you, after you left Fort Laramie? Last I remember Mrs.

  Douglas was trying to teach you to use a fork for a berry cobbler. You had juice and pulp all over your hands and face.”

  Sky flushed. Somehow she thought he did not embarrass easily. But she knew things about him most didn’t. She had seen him then, when he was a frightened boy, alone in a strange place. He raked his fingers through his hair.

  “That was long ago.”

  “Yes, and not so long ago. Will you tell me of your life since then?” When he did not answer she offered bait. “I’ll tell you of mine,” she coaxed.

  He pressed his lips together and glowered, but his glare had no effect whatsoever. Now he was the one off balance and he did not like it. If her fear of him was gone, then one more barrier between them had fallen.

  “Come now, is it so bad?”

  He lifted his unmasked gaze to her, allowing her to see the pain that remembering that time always caused him.

  She dropped her teasing tone and grew serious. “I’d still like to hear.”

  “You like sad stories, then?”

  “Well…let’s say I’m accustomed to them.”

  “The ladies at the fort made me their project. I hated the shoes and threw them off whenever I could. I liked the pies. That first night I snuck out the window and started for home, but then I remembered…” He fell silent and shook himself. “I didn’t have one. So I crawled back inside. I think Captain Douglas was jealous of me, because his wife spent more time fussing over me than him. He was the one that arranged for me to go with Eli Sutton.”

  “Was that his name? I never knew it. He seemed very serious.”

  He clenched his teeth as he remembered. “Yes, beating the devil out of me was serious business to him.”

  “He beat you?” Lucie did not try to hide the horror in her voice. An instant later her shock dissolved as she pressed her lips flat, looking ready to spit nails. It touched him that she should be so outraged on his behalf.

  “Regularly, and he didn’t feed me much. I learned how to work a plow and recite the Lord’s Prayer and that he was stronger than me. But I was growing. He didn’t stay stronger very long.”

  Lucie’s eyes widened. Did she think him a murderer? Well, so he was, but not in the way she imagined. He scowled as his mood darkened.

  “Sky?”

  He made a face. “I didn’t kill him. Should have, but didn’t. I stole his horse.”

  “In Texas?”

  “What? No, Utah. That’s the second time you mentioned Texas.”

  Was she blushing? Certainly she could no longer meet his gaze.

  “Mr. Bloom at the trading port said you were a murderer and a wanted man. He mentioned Texas.”

  Bloom couldn’t know about Sacred Cloud. But he’d been half-right, just the same. He was wanted, but not by the whites. He glanced at Lucie. This was why he kept to himself. Too many questions without answers. Too many mistakes that could never be righted. He was only worthy of his own miserable company. He didn’t deserve her, never would. Not after what he’d done.

  His voice sounded wooden. “Only thing I did in Texas was drive cattle.”

  “You were a cowboy?” She sounded delighted. Obviously, she’d never been on a drive or she’d know it was about as romantic as any fall butchering. Just took longer.

  “I worked a few drives after I ran away. Found I had a knack for catching horses. I liked saving animals better than driving them to their deaths, so I quit riding for the cattlemen.”

  “I’d like to see you work with horses sometime.”

  A few had asked him that, but he’d never been inclined to let anyone see him work—until now. Training horses was the only time he allowed himself to feel free and connected. His method was deeply personal, but he discovered he wanted Lucie to know that part of him
. It was the very reason he should tell her no. Instead, he found himself nodding. “Sometime, maybe.”

  Lucie smiled during the silence that no longer felt strained.

  “You said you’d tell about your time away from the Dakotas,” he reminded her.

  “Yes, well, where to begin? My parents remain together, even now. They have five other children. There’s David, born within the year of their marriage. He’s a man of nineteen now, a soldier at Fort Sully. I hope he can help us, though I am not certain. He doesn’t understand the People and holds them a grudge.”

  “Why?”

  She gave him an indulgent look. “You don’t understand whites very well, do you? In any case, David has a promising career before him.” Her proud smile died a slow death. “I’m certain my mission will embarrass him. You don’t think it will damage his career, do you?”

  “I don’t know.” Sky still considered soldiers as the enemy and did not like Lucie connected to a man who shot women and children in the back.

  She thought on that and a crease formed between her brows. He resisted the urge to touch the furrow there. After a moment, she seemed to mentally shake herself. Lucie forced a tight smile. “Then Julie, born the following year. She’s engaged to a fine man.”

  He noticed the hitch in her voice and wondered at the cause. She glanced away now, not wanting him to see—what? Did her sister’s impending marriage remind her of what she did not have? Did she also long for those connections? Looking at Lucie, he wondered if she might be different from the other Wasicus and more like him.

  She rattled on now, as if nothing had happened, filling the silence with empty words. “Julie’s fiancé is a naturalist who means to drag her off to the Alaskan territory. Cary is thirteen already and wants to be a painter. Nelly is ten. It took Mama six years to get her to wear skirts. Then there was Melissa, who passed away from a disease of the lungs. That was very sad. She was just three and everyone loved her. Then last year Theodore surprised everyone, a late blessing. I call him Beaver because when he was teething, I watched him gnaw through the handle of a wooden spoon.” She laughed.

  He tried to hold his smile, but his heart wasn’t in it. She had family, brothers, sisters, parents. Why did knowing she had kept them all through her captivity make him feel so alone? Her bounty somehow made him feel solitary as a tortoise gazing at a family of rabbits. He may want what they had, but he knew he’d never cast off his shell, no matter how much he longed to. He tried to picture them all about her.

  “All with red hair?”

  “Yes, some dark, some coppery.”

  “Any like yours?”

  Lucie’s smile failed her. “Melissa’s was just the same.”

  He’d made her sad again. He tried over. “You were much older, more like an auntie.”

  Lucie could not hold her smile. Unintentionally he’d touched another source of sorrow. He seemed to have a knack for making her miserable. He sat forward, interested now, to understand her.

  Her voice was so low he had to strain to understand her words.

  “I sometimes pretended they were mine.” She swiped at her eyes, dashing the offending tears the instant they dared breach her lower lids.

  Why would that make her cry? He shifted back, drawing away from the pain that was too raw and too similar to his own.

  “Sometimes when I was tying a shoe or braiding hair, I’d realize that this was as close as I would come to motherhood.”

  He denied it. “You could have a family.”

  “As if anyone would want me.” She glanced at him, keeping a brave face, despite the tears that brimmed in her eyes. “I hope you aren’t shocked to hear that I did not have a flock of beaus following me about.”

  “White men are foolish,” was all he said.

  “I’m lucky to have my family. I know that.” He nodded.

  “But sometimes…”

  “You don’t have to be alone to be lonely.” How had he read her emotions so perfectly?

  She stared at him, seeing a new openness there in his eyes. “Yes, that’s right. It is hard to watch them leaving. First David, and now Julie. She’ll have a husband soon and children, God willing, while I just—” Her voice broke again. She squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to say aloud that her life had stagnated like a pond robbed of fresh water. They would all leave home, one by one, all but her. That recognition had given her the push she needed to leave the safety of her parents’ house, but that had worked little better. She drew a long breath of the crisp air and found the courage to face him again. She could not expect honesty from him if she would not give him the truth in return.

  Lucie scraped her palms over her skirts as if wiping away her misery. “I did have one proposal.”

  Sky’s brows descended low over his eyes. “But you are already married.”

  “My mother said my Indian marriage wasn’t real.”

  “What do you say?” he asked.

  Lucie stared into the fire, watching the flame embrace the logs. Finally, she lifted her gaze to his. How could she make him understand?

  “Eagle Dancer loves you. You are first in his heart.” He watched her, intent as any hunter. “He could give you a family.”

  She pursed her lips. “But I do not love him. I was always, and only, his captive.”

  “His feelings for you are strong.”

  “They always were. Nothing I said could dissuade him. But are those feelings love?”

  “They are.”

  “You think it is love that made him take a girl that was terrified to marry, keep her against her will and prevent her from ever seeing her family? Is that how you think of love, Sky?”

  “It was a war.”

  “If he loved me, he would have done what was best for me, what would have made me happy.”

  Sky nodded. “Perhaps he loved you too much to bear living without you.”

  “And so he made the decision for both of us.”

  “If he was so selfish, why do you care what happens to him now?”

  Lucie drew her knees up and hugged them. “I would like to help him, if I can.”

  “Why? You say you will break the bonds that hold you to him. So why do you tell those Wasicus that you are his wife and then tell me you will break your marriage?”

  Her eyes grew even wider. “You must not tell anyone I spoke those words.”

  His body stiffened at that. Didn’t he want her to be Eagle Dancer’s wife?

  They stared at each other, her with speculation and him with a stormy look. “Why not?”

  “Because I can only help him if I am his wife. Wives have certain rights. I can visit him and argue on his behalf.”

  “So now you will be his wife?”

  Lucie shook her head. “No. I will not—never again. But you must not tell them, or him. Not yet.”

  Sky stood to add more wood to the fire. When he settled himself Lucie spoke again.

  “Who do you think killed Norm Carr?”

  Sky tried not to shift under her focused gaze. Should he tell her the truth? He played with a stick as he debated the question.

  “I don’t know.”

  “But not any of the head men. They were miles west on the reservation.”

  “It’s just a nasty trick to force them to hand over the culprit, don’t you think?” Lucie said.

  She looked at him for reassurance and he wondered how much he should tell her.

  “Likely. But Carr did catch Eagle Dancer’s nephew. He beat him. He was preparing to…to use him as a man might use a woman.”

  Lucie’s eyes widened in shock. “What? Are you saying he was going to rape a child—a boy?” Sky nodded.

  Lucie sat back, still and pale. She remained motionless so long, she looked carved of wax.

  “But how could you know that?”

  “Because I am the one who stopped him,” said Sky.

  Lucie nodded her understanding and then her breath caught. He saw the instant the possibility crossed her mind. She
didn’t know him, didn’t know that he was not a killer, couldn’t kill, not since that day.

  “I didn’t do it, Lucie.”

  Her stiff posture told him she was unconvinced.

  “I used my gun to stop him. When he was mounting, he drew on me and I shot him through the fleshy part of his shoulder. Here.” He pointed his index finger to the fleshy part of his upper arm, marking the path of the bullet.

  “You shot him?”

  He nodded. “Then I sent his horse back to trigger a search. It was less than a hundred miles. He should have made it.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “No.”

  “What did you do with the boy?”

  “I brought him to the reservation—to Eagle Dancer. No Moccasins told him about you and he sent me back to the school with the message. I looked for Carr, but when I didn’t see him, I assumed he was already back. At the school I learned his horse returned, but he did not.”

  “You don’t know what happened after you left him?”

  “No.”

  “But you shot him and then abandoned him.”

  She made it sound like it was his fault.

  “He hurt the boy. He did not merit help.”

  Lucie glanced toward the horses. What would he do if she tried to leave him now? The overpowering urge to keep her sprang on him with such force it momentarily stole his breath. Was this what Eagle Dancer had experienced, this possessiveness?

  “You should have told the school what happened.”

  Going to the BIA had never occurred to him. In his eyes they were still the enemy, not to be trusted and certainly to be avoided.

  “They could have investigated. Found Carr and arrested him. At the very least they would have dismissed the man.”

  “You only say that because you trust them to do what is right.”

  “You do not?”

  “I see what they do at that school. There is nothing right there. You should not be a part of that place.”

  “We are teaching them to be civilized.”

  “You are making them ashamed to be what the Great Spirit made them.”

  “No. We’re teaching them useful skills, converting them to American citizens.”