"Don't say that," Mary admonished. "If it wasn't for me, this never would have happened."
"Do not blame yourself," Cloud Walker told her. "You could not have known this would happen. Your husband may have had nothing to do with it."
"He did," Mary said positively. "I know in my heart that Frank is responsible, and I'll never forgive him for it. Never."
"Mary." Cloud Walker held out his hand, wishing he could see her face.
Mary took Cloud Walker's hand in hers and held it to her breast. Tears filled her eyes as she gazed at his face. It was horribly bruised and puffy. His eyes were both swollen shut, and she was glad he could not see her tears.
"Mary, what are you thinking?"
"Nothing. Would you like some more water?"
"No."
"Can I get you anything else?"
"No."
"You should get some sleep."
"I am not tired. Why are you awake at this late hour?"
"I . . . Katherine woke me."
"We need no lies between us, Mary."
"I'm sorry. I was worried about you, and upset about Frank. I don't know what to do. I think maybe I'll go back to Chicago, after all. Katherine needs a father, and I can't stay here forever. It isn't fair to expect my parents to support us."
"Do not run away from me," Cloud Walker said, and, drawing her hand to his lips, he kissed her palm.
"I can't be responsible for something like this happening again," Mary cried, jerking her hand free. "What if he kills you next time? I can't have that on my conscience. I can't!"
"I would rather be dead than face the future without you," Cloud Walker said quietly. "Only Maheo can see tomorrow. Let us live each day as it comes."
"I don't want to live without you, either," Mary admitted.
Cloud Walker smiled as he held out his arms. With a little sigh of contentment, Mary leaned toward him, her lips lightly brushing his.
Somehow they would find a way to face the future together.
21
The first gray light of false dawn was lighting the sky when Hawk left the house. Victoria had begged him not to go, but he had refused to be swayed by her pleas. He was tired of letting the whites walk all over him, tired of cowing to their laws and prejudices. Cloud Walker had been cruelly beaten, and the four white men who were responsible were going to pay for it.
Saddling the blue roan, he rode out to the ravine and picked up their trail, his eyes easily reading the tracks left by their horses.
The four men did not expect to be followed, Hawk mused. He had no trouble at all following their trail. They were heading east, toward Steel's Crossing.
There was nothing but open prairie between the ravine and the town, plenty of places to hide four bodies where they would never be found.
Hawk followed the tracks until sundown and then, in the distance, he saw them. Four men sitting around a small campfire, drinking coffee and smoking long black cigars as though they hadn't a care in the world.
Drawing his rifle, Hawk rode toward them.
Shadow pushed Heyoka hard. The horses's drumming hooves seemed to cry, "hurry, hurry, hurry" as he followed Hawk's trail. He had to reach Hawk in time, had to stop him from doing something for which he would be sorry once he'd cooled off enough to think rationally. The white man's law would not look with favor on an Indian who killed four men simply because those four men had roughed up one Indian.
At sundown Shadow topped a small rise and there, as if frozen in time, he saw Hawk and the four white men. Hawk was standing with his legs spread, his rifle trained on the four men.
Castrell stood up then, a cup of coffee in one hand. "Take it easy, boy," he said affably. "Don't do anything you'll regret."
"I will not be sorry to kill you," Hawk replied. "It is better than you deserve."
"Dammit, boy, it was just a job. I told you that."
"You talk too much," Hawk said. Lifting his rifle to his shoulder, he sighted down the barrel.
"Hawk!"
Shadow's voice rang out in the heavy stillness.
"Do not try to stop me, neyho," Hawk said, not taking his eyes from Castrell.
"Do not be a fool," Shadow said. Dismounting, he went to stand beside Hawk. "What will you solve by killing these men? You said yourself they were doing a job they had been paid to do. If you want vengeance, why not find out who paid them?"
"I have asked this one," Hawk said, gesturing at Castrell. "He refuses to talk."
Shadow glanced at the three men still seated on the ground, and then he looked at Castrell, his eyes thoughtful.
"I will make you a deal," Shadow said to Castrell. "My son desires vengeance, and I wish to know who hired you. I think you and Hawk will fight. If you lose, you will tell my son who hired you. If you win, you can go your way. What say you?"
Castrell snorted derisively. "You must think I'm crazy. What's to stop you from killing me if I win?"
"I give you my word as a warrior that I will not touch you."
Castrell nodded. He had dealt with Indians in the past. Most of them were decent, honorable men.
"A fair fight," Shadow said. "I will hold your gunbelt, and those of your men."
Castrell nodded. A sharp word stilled the protests of his companions. Moments later, Hawk and Castrell stood across from each other. Castrell's men stood bunched together, their faces showing disapproval. Shadow stood across from them, their gunbelts slung over his shoulder, Hawk's rifle resting in the crook of his arm.
"Any time," Castrell told Hawk, and Hawk rushed toward him, his eagerness to draw blood making him careless. Castrell pivoted on his right heel, his fist catching Hawk along the side of the jaw as Hawk lunged past.
Shadow's face remained impassive as the two men came together in a rush. Hawk and Castrell were about the same size. Hawk was younger, Castrell had more experience. Castrell's men cheered loudly as Castrell drew first blood. Their cheers became more exuberant when it appeared that Castrell would win. And for a time it did seem as if the white man would win the fight. But then, as Hawk's rage cooled, he began to move more carefully, and the battle swung in his favor. Castrell was tiring now, and both men were bleeding from a profusion of cuts and lacerations. They came together in a vicious charge, fists lashing out, and then Hawk knocked Castrell off his feet and pinned him to the ground. His hands closed around the white man's throat, and for a moment every old hurt and slight Hawk had ever received burned in his brain, urging him to choke the life from the man struggling beneath him.
He remembered living at the San Carlos Reservation, being forced to stay in that horrid place because his father was Indian. Later they had moved to New York. He had been seven or eight then, and obliged to attend school. His teacher had refused to let him keep his Indian name. "You're no longer a little savage running around on the reservation," Mr. Patten had said disdainfully. "It is time you had a decent name like everyone else in class."
He remembered going to his mother, his pride outraged because his teacher insisted he choose a white name. It was his mother who had suggested the name Hawk. Mr. Patten hadn't liked it much, but it was English.
And then there was Nelda Sprague, looking at him as though he were an inferior class of human because he was a half-breed. He recalled how Mary had told Nelda, in a proud tone, that the two of them were half Indian. Nelda's reply had been burned into Hawk's brain: "Well, I wouldn't brag about it if I were you," she had replied scornfully. "Everybody knows Indians are no good." There had been so many times when people had looked down on him, judging him by the color of his skin, willing to think the worst of him because he was Cheyenne . . .
Abruptly he loosed his hold on Castrell and stood up. Killing the white man would not atone for the many abuses he had suffered in the past. It would only prove he was indeed a savage. Slowly he shook his head. Nothing could change the past, or restore the way of life that was gone forever.
He gazed out at the endless prairie, and it was as if all the old hates and hurts had never b
een. He glanced down at Castrell, who was sitting up massaging his throat, and he wondered why it had seemed so important to avenge himself on the man. Why was he here, his knuckles bruised, his nose and mouth bleeding, when he had a beautiful wife and two fine sons waiting for him at home?
He glanced up at the sky and there, drifting on the air currents, he saw a solitary hawk. For a moment he was transported back in time and he was fourteen again, alone in the hills to seek his vision. A yellow hawk had appeared to him, a hawk that had changed into a man with yellow hair. "I am waiting for you," the hawk-man had said, and then it had turned around and walked away. And as it walked, it turned into a hawk again and disappeared into the sun. Shadow had interpreted the vision for him.
"In your heart, you are Cheyenne, but the day of the Indian is over. If you wish to survive in this land, you must do so as a white man. You may hold fast to our beliefs and to the qualities that make a man worthy to be a warrior and a Cheyenne, but you will not be able to live as an Indian. The man with the yellow hair is you, just as the hawk is you. The hawk-man is a symbol of your mixed blood."
With a last glance at Castrell, Hawk turned and swung aboard the blue roan. It was time to accept what the hawk had told him, time to admit that he was as much white as Indian, time to stop wishing for the past to return and accept the present. "No one can destroy you except yourself," Shadow had told him long ago. Hawk knew now that his father had been right again. He had been so full of hate since his arrest for killing Lyman Carter, so filled with bitterness, that it had been eating him alive. But no more.
"Neyho," Hawk called cheerfully. "Let us go home. My woman is waiting for me, and it has been a long time since I gave her the attention she deserves."
"What of these men?" Shadow asked, perplexed by the sudden change in Hawk's attitude.
Hawk shrugged. "They are no longer of importance."
Shadow grinned at his son. He was not often surprised by what others did, but today he had been caught completely off-guard.
"Then let us go," Shadow said. Swinging up on Heyoka's bare back, he looked down at Castrell. "I would know the name of the man who paid you."
"Smythe," Castrell muttered. "Frank Smythe."
Shadow nodded. "Do not come to Bear Valley again," he warned. And dropping the gunbelts on the ground; he reined Heyoka into a rearing turn and rode after Hawk.
22
Victoria paced the house, anxiously wringing her hands. Hawk had gone out to kill four men in cold blood. She could not believe that the man she loved was capable of murder, and yet she had seen the look in his eye when he left the house just before dawn. His eyes, so dark and intense, had burned with a fierceness she had never seen before, and it frightened her. The fact that her husband was half Cheyenne had never bothered her, not been important. It was what he was, a part of him, and she accepted it, just as she accepted the color of his hair and eyes. It was what made him unique, a man apart. She had never thought of him as a savage, never understood why her parents had been so upset over her marriage. Now, for the first time, she had an inkling of what her father had meant when he had called Hawk a savage, for he had looked totally wild and uncivilized that morning.
She had begged him not to go, pleading, weeping, threatening to leave him if he walked out the door, but it had all been in vain.
''I am going," he had said curtly. "It is a thing I must do."
She had been afraid of him then, for the first time in her life. When he was ready to go, he had come to her, bending to kiss her good-bye, but she had turned away.
Now, abruptly it occurred to her that Hawk might be killed. She thought of all the awful things she had said to him, accusing him of not loving her, of caring more about his stupid honor than he did about his wife and children. A sob rose in her throat as she remembered how she had screamed at him and then refused to kiss him good-bye. What if he were killed? What if she never saw him again, never had a chance to apologize for the awful way she had treated him? How would she live with herself if he died, knowing that his last memory of her was of an angry wife who had behaved like a shrew? She hadn't even tried to understand how he felt.
If only he would come home, safe and unhurt. She would beg for his forgiveness, on her knees if necessary. Hawk was her whole life. She could not face the future without him by her side.
Hours passed, and her guilt grew, tormenting her until she was near tears. And then she heard the sound of hoofbeats in the yard.
"Hawk!" She breathed his name as she ran to the front door and flung it open.
And he was there, swinging down from his horse.
She gasped as he turned toward her. His face was badly bruised, one eye turning black, his lower lip swollen. There was blood on his shirt.
"Hawk!" She cried his name as she flew toward him, her feet hardly touching the ground.
"I am all right, Vickie," he said reassuringly.
"Your face"
"I am all right. I got into a fight."
"With that man?"
"Yes."
"Is he . . .?"
"No. I did not kill him."
Relief made her knees weak and she swayed against her husband. "Oh, thank God."
She clung to him as they walked into the house, her eyes never leaving his face. He was alive. Nothing else mattered.
They went into the kitchen and Victoria filled a bowl with warm water and bathed Hawk's face and hands. His knuckles were scraped and swollen, she noticed, and tried not to think about how they got that way.
"Does your eye hurt?" she asked anxiously.
"A little. I am all right, Vickie. Stop fussing over me and give me a kiss."
"Your mouth," she protested. "Your lip is cut."
He didn't waste time talking any more, but pulled her onto his lap and kissed her hungrily. He stroked her hair, liking the way the long strands curled around his fingers. He kissed her eyes and her cheeks, her nose and forehead and the slender curve of her throat before returning to her mouth. She was so sweet, and she tasted so good. Had he killed Castrell, he might have lost her forever.
"Hawk," Victoria protested as he stood up and carried her toward their bedroom. "It's the middle of the day."
Hawk smiled down at her. "Do you really mind?"
"No," she answered softly. "I want to."
His grin was a trifle smug as he stepped into their bedroom and closed the door.
Placing Vickie on the bed, Hawk closed the curtains, then stood there, just looking at her.
"Are you going to stand there gawking all day?" Victoria asked coyly. "The twins won't sleep forever."
Hawk laughed softly as he stretched out beside Vickie, his mouth claiming hers once more. What a charming little witch she was, wanton and yet shy, teasing one minute and surrendering the next.
Victoria returned Hawk's kiss, her mouth parting as his tongue slid across her lower lip. She loved his kisses, loved the way they made her feel, all warm and mushy inside, as if all her bones had turned to water. Loving him, touching him, it was all so wonderful that she sometimes felt guilty for being so happy. Her mother had warned her that the intimate side of marriage was something a woman had to endure for the sake of having children and to please her husband, or else he would visit prostitutes to satisfy his coarse needs and desires, but Vickie never "endured" Hawk's touch. Rather, she glorified in it, thrilling to his caresses, basking in the warmth of his love.
She sighed as he began to undress her, his hands moving slowly as they slid her dress over her shoulders. Bending, he kissed her neck, her shoulders and arms, his kisses butterfly light as they continued to fall over each newly exposed area of flesh. She shuddered with delight as his tongue flicked over her bare belly and breasts, and she began to unfasten his clothing, wanting to see him, to touch him as he was touching her.
"Vickie," he groaned. "You are so beautiful."
"You are" she whispered, and choked back a sob when she saw the ugly bruises on his torso.
"What is
it?" Hawk asked, frowning.
"You're hurt."
"It is nothing," he assured her.
"Hawk, I'm so sorry for this morning. I didn't mean those awful things I said. Please forgive me."
"There is nothing to forgive," Hawk said, kissing her cheek. "I was wrong, and I deserved just what I got." His arms drew her close. ''I did not mean to frighten you. I swear it will never happen again."
She nodded, too close to tears to speak. He kissed her then, a fiercely passionate kiss that told her better than words how much he loved her. Their bodies strained together, flesh caressing flesh, until they became one and there was no more need for words . . .
Hawk was different in the days that followed. He was more relaxed, more at ease. Victoria had not realized before just how tense Hawk had been most of the time until the tension was gone. He smiled more readily now, and spent more time playing with his sons. They went into town more often, sometimes for no other reason than to have a soda at the drug store.
Victoria was stunned when Hawk suggested that they invite a few friends over for dinner, and even more surprised when he casually remarked that he thought he might go to church with her the following Sunday.
Hawk could be quite charming when he put his mind to it, and many of the young women in town began to understand why Victoria had married him. He was tall, dark, handsome, with a roguish smile that could melt a heart of stone.
Vickie was baking bread one afternoon when Hawk entered the kitchen whistling cheerfully. Turning, she let her mouth drop open in surprise, for there stood her husband in a new light blue shirt, black twill pants, and a black leather vest. The blue in his shirt perfectly complemented his dark eyes and hair, and she thought he was quite the most beautiful creature she had ever seen.
Hawk flushed a little under her openly admiring gaze. "What do you think?"
"You look wonderful." Vickie smiled up at him, her eyes twinkling merrily. "I see you kept your moccasins."
"Boots," Hawk said with a grimace. "I could never stand to wear them."
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