by tiffy
Taking a seat by the open fire where Talks With Fists was roasting a savory haunch of venison, he inspected Eliseʹs appearance. ʺWell, Iʹd say you emerged from the combat in amazingly good form,ʺ he said in English, touching a long scratch across her cheek. ʺBest tend to your injuries before they fester.ʺ
ʺIf you think I look injured, you should see the goose egg on Shining Crowʹs head,ʺ she replied curtly, uncomfortable under his intense scrutiny. All morning long, she had agonized over how she would face him after her tears last night.
She desperately wanted to put that behind her.
ʺYou were fortunate. She could have killed you.ʺ
His low tone of voice seemed accusatory to her. ʺAnd we couldnʹt have that. It would mean you forfeit your second three thousand dollars. I was forced to defend myself. Talks With Fists seems pleased.ʺ She paused and looked at him, half afraid of what she might see in those piercing green eyes.
Santiago nodded. ʺThe Osage are people who turn against anyone who shows weakness, even a white female.ʺ After that back‐handed compliment, the men were served their meal under the direction of Talks With Fists. As Quinnʹs ʺwifeʺ
Elise was given the galling task of offering him a chunk of juicy roast meat and corn cakes. When he accepted the food, the laughter in his eyes revealed to her how much he enjoyed playing by Indian rules.
ʺSmall wonder you chose to live with Apaches,ʺ she muttered in English as she stalked away to wait with the women and children for their share of the meal.
Elise studied Santiago as he talked expansively with Rich Man and No Ears in their language. How much had they told him about the visit of Pike and his men? The return of No Ears and Talks With Fists and the other captives? Perhaps she should ask him. It would be a test of sorts to see if he would tell her the truth or lie to her, thinking she had no means of communicating adequately with the Indians, who spoke little French and no English.
Later that afternoon, Spybuck rode out with No Ears to check on a buffalo herd for an early hunt in honor of the visitors. Elise found Santiago alone, lounging in the shade of a big cottonwood tree, watching a bunch of naked Indian boys playing with toy bows and arrows. The lodge with the flag still waving lay just across the open square in the center of the village. She sat down beside him with her words all rehearsed.
ʺSpybuck told me there is to be a buffalo hunt tomorrow. How long must we remain in the Osage camp?ʺ
Santiago admired her sun‐darkened skin and gleaming braided hair. ʺDo you dread our communal sleeping arrangements in the lodge so much?ʺ
Her face heated, but she met his eyes. ʺYou know I donʹt find it pleasant.ʺ ʺLiar.
You found my body heat quite pleasant last night.ʺ
ʺI wish only to reach Santa Fe! Iʹm anxious about my brother.ʺ She paused, then deliberately changed the subject. ʺHave you heard anyone mention that American flag? Where did the Osage get it?ʺ
Santiago grinned. ʺI wondered when youʹd get around to asking about that as soon as I saw it on the chiefʹs lodge pole. A Lieutenant Pike, who stopped here, gave it to the Osage.ʺ
He went on to recount much of what she had already learned from Talks With Fists but he did not mention the praise heaped on General Wilkinson. He studied her critically. ʺYou said your brother is a captive in Santa Fe. Are you perhaps anticipating the fact? Is he with Pike, who may well be captured by the Spanish and taken there?ʺ He watched her face, which was unreadable. Except for those brief flashes of temper or passion, she was a chillingly controlled female.
Elise considered whether to tell him the truth and decided against it. She shrugged. ʺNo, my brother went to Santa Fe on a private diplomatic mission.
What makes you say these American explorers will be captured in Spanish territory?ʺ
ʺThat would tend to aggravate tension between the United States and Spain. You said your brother wanted to avert war. He might have infiltrated Pikeʹs force, which I believe is a reconnaissance expedition for a possible American invasion.ʺ
ʺOr an invasion by another force, perhaps not authorized by the American government?ʺ she probed.
ʺYou refer to General Wilkinson. Would he betray his Spanish paymaster?ʺ He fenced with her.
Realizing she would learn nothing more from this mysterious Spaniard who had disavowed all loyalty to king and country, she stood up, prepared to leave. ʺI know James Wilkinson, is a dangerous man, Monsieur Quinn. So are you.ʺ
He rose in a lithe movement and took her hand, raising it to his lips as if they were in a Paris drawing room. ʺAfter all we have sharedand will sharecan you at least call me Santiago?ʺ he asked in teasing French, then began to kiss her hand.
She jerked away as if scalded, but he swiftly seized her wrist and gently examined the bruise discoloring her knuckles where she had struck Shining Crow. ʺI have some herbs in my pack, from a Lipan medicine woman. Iʹll have Talks With Fists steep them in water. Soak that hand in the solution.ʺ
He caressed her knuckles with a light kiss that Elise felt all the way to her toes.
Santiago Quinn was a dangerous man . . . in more ways than one.
Chapter Thirteen
Elise dreaded the prospect of again sharing a blanket with Santiago that night.
Inexplicably, his tender gestures alarmed her even more than his aggressive sexual overtures. If he persisted in his sensual assaults, might she one day succumb? Increasingly, she feared she would.
Across the campfire, he was sharing a pipe with several other men. Elise realized how her eyes unconsciously sought him out in a crowd, how much she enjoyed gazing on his hard, beautifully chiseled features. The mysterious scar on his cheek added to his dramatic handsomeness. He moved with catlike grace and his voice was low and smooth, especially when he spoke French. What would it sound like whispering to her in Spanish?
Thinking of the night to come, she trembled. This is madness.
From the shadows between two small lodges, Sean Brenden watched Quinnʹs raven‐haired woman. He had hoped his sly words to No Ears would provoke the chief into challenging the Spaniard, but his ploy had failed. After the way she had threatened him with a gun and Quinn had thwarted his attempts to disarm her, the Irishman burned with the desire to see them both destroyed. Somewhere along the way he would seize an opportunity.
Santiago noticed Elise enter the lodge and smiled grimly, certain she would pretend sleep when he came to lie beside her. What torture that would be for the second night in a row! And he must endure it for several more before they could leave the Osage. Deciding it might be easier if he let her play the charade, he lit a cigarillo and smoked it slowly as the darkness gathered. Let her fall asleep, if she can.
The day of the buffalo hunt dawned hot and bright. Everyone in the village arose early. All the able‐bodied young warriors were to join the White Apache and his men. Most of the younger wives would accompany their husbands, along with a group of slaves, to gut and skin the carcasses of the great beasts.
Santiago had spent the night in restless misery, desiring the woman who lay beside him, but she had made it clear she did not want his attentions. Perversely, he wanted her to have to perform the hard, messy chores of an Osage squaw during the buffalo hunt to bring her down a peg or two, but he decided finally to leave her in camp.
Elise watched the hunters and their women preparing weapons and tools. She had heard of the great bison, a mammoth breed of cattle whose numbers were said to blacken the western prairie. She was curious. Talks With Fists was going with the hunt to supervise the womenʹs work. Might she not go along as well?
ʺWith luck, we should return by nightfall, depending on how many buffalo we kill,ʺ Santiago said to her as he prepared his gear.
ʺI would like to go. Iʹve never seen a buffalo before.ʺ She watched him check his saddle cinch.
He turned in surprise. ʺThere will be lots of buffalo for you to see on the journey.
Best you remain here.ʺ
She felt a surge of purely ir
rational anger at his patronizing tone. ʺBut we wonʹt be hunting them, only passing by. I understand the hunt is a contest of great skill.ʺ
His eyebrow arched quizzically. ʺAnd who told you that?ʺ
She could not confess she had overheard the conversation in Spanish. ʺI read about it back in Virginia.ʺ
ʺYouʹll have to work with the other women,ʺ he said, a dare in his voice.
ʺIʹm not helpless.ʺ
He grinned wolfishly. ʺSo you arenʹt. Ask Spybuck to saddle your mare.ʺ
They rode for about an hour, then Spybuck and the Osage who had accompanied him in scouting the herd gave a signal. Everyone reined in, and the women dismounted. Elise had enjoyed the warm wind blowing across the wide‐open stretch of gently rolling hills. The farther west toward the land of the Kaws they traveled, the fewer were the trees, the flatter the horizons. Was this the beginning of that vast, trackless desert earlier explorers had spoken about?
She knew President Jefferson was eager to know more of the wilderness. He had dispatched a team of superbly equipped scientists, Lewis and Clark, commissioned to explore all of the Louisiana Territory. They were due to return to St. Louis within months of her departure. Now in the vastness of the American wilderness, she shared Jeffersonʹs intense curiosity. The Louisiana Territory was magnificent.
The men rode toward a small outcropping of rocks, moving slowly and quietly around the limestone formations. Several of the more adventuresome young women began to walk toward the rocks to get a view of the hunt. Elise followed them. When they crested the rise, the spectacle robbed her of breath. There in a wide, shallow valley with a small stream meandering through it were hundreds of great shaggy beasts. They grazed calmly on the tall, tough grass she had seen for several days before reaching the wooded area where the Osage kept their permanent village.
The buffalo were like something out of a fairy tale, misshapen, humpbacked creatures with small hindquarters and oversized heads. They were spread out randomly up and down the valley, oblivious of the hunters approaching them.
Their eyes were so tiny that Elise thought they must surely be blind. Noting that Talks With Fists had slowly walked up to the promontory and joined her, the white woman asked, ʺCan they not see the hunters?ʺ
ʺTheir sight and hearing are weak, but their noses are keen. Only wait.ʺ As she spoke, the head woman knelt down and opened a leather satchel that one of the captive Pawnee girls had carried for her. She began to remove an assortment of knives for the arduous chore of butchering.
Elise kept her eyes fastened on the scene unfolding across the valley. The horsemen approached downwind of the peacefully grazing buffalo. It seemed hardly sporting to slaughter such bovine creatures, even though most of the Indians carried only bows and arrows. Surely the beasts could not outrun a swift horse. Suddenly the whole scene erupted before her eyes. Just as the lead Osage hunter neared the rear of the herd, the wind shifted and the animals seemed to turn in a gigantic wheel. With amazing coordination and speed, they regrouped into a tight pack that raced across the shallow stream with astonishing speed.
The hunters kicked their horses into a gallop, closing with the rear of the herd.
Yelling and urging their mounts recklessly into the bobbing stampede, they cut out animals from the herd and shot them at dangerously close range. Often it took several rifle balls or arrows placed high behind the shoulder, penetrating the chest cavity, to bring down one animal.
The hunt did not appear to be a cooperative venture. Every rider was out to make a kill for himself. A number of horses stumbled on the rough ground, throwing their riders into the churning dust. No wonder there were so many warriors crippled with poorly mended broken bones! Her eyes searched the melee for Santiago.
He rode furiously beside a huge racing buffalo, leaning dangerously near the animal with his Ferguson breech‐loading rifle. To get a close shot, most of the men hung precariously to one side of their mounts, giving the horse its head.
Now she understood why the Osage called Quinn the White Apache. He clung to his big bay stallion with a grace and tenacity unmatched by any of the others.
Just as he raised his rifle to fire, another figure raced beside him, obscuring Eliseʹs view.
Sean Brenden! She screamed a warning, but it was enveloped by the pounding din of the stampede mixed with the deafening discharge of weapons and screaming yips of Indians. Elise tried to run, but Talks With Fists seized her with strong brown fingers. ʹʹYou will only be trampled yourself.ʺ
ʺButSantiago!ʺ Elise watched in horror as Brendenʹs big sorrel slammed against the bay, attempting to crush Quinn between his own mount and his quarry. Just as the horses converged, Santiago fired and the buffalo dropped. Elise screamed as Santiago was knocked over the side of the bay. In the next instant Brendenʹs sorrel stumbled, pitching him headlong into the path of several buffalo. He disappeared in the dust, his screams drowned out by the general chaos.
From the hill, Talks With Fists and Elise watched the bay, now surrounded by the thundering herd. Suddenly Elise saw Santiago swing up into the saddle! She gave a small cry of joy, then bit down on her fist in fear as he guided True Blood, dodging clear of the last of the blood‐crazed buffalo. Then he wheeled about and returned to the place where he had made his kill and been attacked.
The big Irishmanʹs body had been trampled beyond recognition.
ʺLet the vultures eat it,ʺ he said to Spybuck, who had seen the incident from the opposite side of the herd.
The two men dismounted by the large cow Santiago had brought down. The herd had passed now, but more than a dozen of the great beasts had been killed.
Every warrior returned to his trophy, waiting for the women to come and do the gutting and butchering. The hunters themselves slashed open the big body cavities and removed the choicest morsels to share with friends luckless enough not to have killed game of their own.
Elise was still numb with fright as she raced to Santiago. He and Spybuck were working on the carcass the White Apache had killed. As soon as she reached them, she stopped, breathless and chilled in spite of the heat of the day. ʺI saw it all! Brenden tried to kill you. I thought he had.ʺ She dug her nails into her palms, struggling not to throw herself into his arms like a fool.
Santiago stood up, a wide smile slashing his dusty face as he observed her heaving breasts and pale face. God, her eyes looked big enough to drown in, great pools of violet. ʺYour concern touches me, querida, ʺ he said.
Querida. Beloved. A Spanish endearment he did not know she understood.
ʺBrenden almost knocked me free of True Blood, but not quite. Still, if his horse had not thrown him . . .ʺ He shrugged but it was not his usual careless gesture.
Their eyes locked and both stood very still, scant inches separating them. Neither reached out to the other, but the intimacy between them was palpable and trancelike in intensity.
Spybuck broke the spell. Cutting the warm, bloody liver from the carcass, he said, ʺHere, eat while it still pulses with body heat. Such will make you strong to kill many more buffalo.ʺ He offered the prize to Quinn.
Santiago tore his gaze from Elise and looked at his friend as if he had never seen him before. Slowly, he reached out and took the bloody chunk of raw liver in his hand and silently bit into it.
Elise gasped in horror as she watched both men consume the noisome stuff.
Then the sights and sounds surrounding her once more intruded. All the other hunters, Osage and white, were carving out and eating not only the livers, but other even more repugnant organs. No Ears was tearing at a huge pulsing red mass that must be a heart. Others pulled out lengths of entrails and ran them through their teeth, sucking out the half digested grasses the buffalo had consumed. Nausea churned in her stomach at the stark barbarity around her, for even the women and slaves participated, begging to share in the ʺdelicacies.ʺ
Rewards were given by the successful hunters to their favorites.
Santiago offered a small piec
e of the liver to her. ʺHere, a delicacy on a par with raw oysters, which I saw you consume at the Chouteausʹ ball. Try it.ʺ
She backed away in horror as he wiped a drop of blood from his chin with the back of his hand, How could she ever have been attracted to this savage? He was no better than the benighted Indians with whom he chose to live. Stumbling on a rock, she shook her head.
Feeling expansive and proud of his kill, No Ears approached his guest with a fat rope of entrails, wanting to show Quinnʹs beautiful white woman what an excellent provider he would be. He cut off a length of the awful stuff and offered it to her.
The grisly humor of his courtly looking gesture almost undid her, but Elise still had the presence of mind not to laugh. If she gave way to it, she feared she might continue laughing into hysteria. Nodding politely to him, her eyes moved in mute entreaty to Santiago and Spybuck. Surely they would not subject her to this! The chunk of liver was beginning to look downright toothsome by comparison.
Santiago exchanged several sentences with No Ears, and the chief looked at Elise with genuine astonishment on his face, then bowed stiffly and stalked off.
ʺWhat did you say to him?ʺ
Santiago grinned. ʺThat the Wa‐kon‐da of whites does not allow them to eat the entrails of animals, just as the Osage do not eat fish. Believe me, the idea of eating a fat trout would be just as repellent to most Indians as eating those intestines was to you.ʺ ʺRight now, not even a perfect fillet of salmon in caper sauce sounds good.ʺ She shivered. ʺIs Waʺ she stumbled over the word, ʺWa-kon‐da their god?ʹʹ
ʺThe nearest thing,ʺ Santiago said as he knelt beside Spybuck and began to skin the huge buffalo cow. ʺNot God as we think of him, but more like a life force, the source of all power and order on earth. There are lots of lesser gods and goddesses they make offerings to, asking particular favors. There was a purification ritual last night before the hunt.ʺ
