by Sharon Ihle
Behind the fleeing horse, Jacob spurred the gelding on, whipping the animal as he'd never whipped a mount in his life. He saw Peaches swerve and prepared to witness the worst, but Dominique surprised him by keeping her seat. The big sorrel was finally gaining ground on the smaller, faster bay, but would they be in time? Could he catch the terrified beast before she stumbled and fell, tossing and perhaps killing her burden in the process? Would Dominique's strength give out before he could prevent the inevitable fall?
The gelding leapt over a small bush and accelerated as his rider leaned forward and encouraged his progress. As they approached the foaming mare, Jacob slid down to the right side of his saddle, then encircled Dominique's waist with his arm as he raced by her flying skirts. Scooping her off Peaches and veering away from the mare in the same motion, he straightened in the saddle and shouted, "Put your arms around me, Dominique. Hang on."
Her fingers clawing at the fabric of his shirt, she managed to cling to him, dangling from the side of the slowing gelding until it skidded to a halt. Then she released her grip and slid to the ground.
Jacob sprang off the horse and shooed him away. He dropped to his knees and cradled her in his arms. "Dominique, are you all right?" he gasped, out of breath, wild with concern. "Come on, tell me you are all right."
Her lashes fluttered lazily. Her eyes popped open. With a start, Dominique pushed herself up to a sitting position, then scrambled to her feet. She stumbled in a blind circle trying to get her bearings. "Oh, Mon Dieu!"
Jacob got to his feet and pulled her into his arms. "Easy, crazy one. You are only frightened. Your confusion will pass."
She allowed him to comfort her, and she gradually forgot her terror as his strength seeped into her. Snuggling her head against his chest, she sputtered, "Oh, Jacob, I was so scared. Peaches wouldn't stop. I yelled at her. I said everything you taught me, but she wouldn’t listen."
"Hush, now. The horse is stupid. You are not to blame." He kissed the top of her head and rocked her, surprised at the depth of emotion welling up inside him. "You are all right now," he crooned. "Nothing can harm you when you are with me."
"Oh, Jacob, how can you say that now?" she cried, lifting her head off his shoulder. "You're leaving tomorrow and I'll never see you again."
Her doelike eyes glistened as she looked up at him, and her rosy lips beckoned with a need he hadn't the strength to fight. Ignoring the voice of reason calling him from somewhere down inside, Jacob lowered his mouth to hers and took his fill of her sweetness.
The kiss was incredibly soft and nurturing as he came to her, but when Dominique parted her teeth and invited him inside her sanctuary, a sudden surge of passion combined with the anticipation of tomorrow drove them deep inside each other. Tongues entwined, hearts united as one, they grasped at the moment, at the only chance they might ever have to know what they could be together. She encouraged his loss of control, mimicking his movements, matching them, and surprised herself with a few of her own. Today was all that mattered. This moment would be the sum total of their short time together. Dominique suddenly wanted it all.
She pulled back from his fevered lips and drew her fingertips across them. "Oh, Jacob," she sighed. "If only you weren't leaving, if only you could stay."
"Don't," he whispered hoarsely. "We should not have done that. It will be best for us both if we do not speak of this kiss, or of tomorrow, again."
"Oh, stop it. I'm tired of hearing you go on about what we should and shouldn't do. I want to be with you, and I know you feel the same way about me." She looked into his dark blue eyes, waiting for some kind of acknowledgment, but the shutters were firmly in place. "Well, don't you, Jacob? You do want me, don't you?"
Still holding her in his arms, his hips pressed against hers, he was surprised she had to ask. Attributing the question to her inexperience, he allowed himself a hint of a smile as he said, "I do not have the right to want you. It is foolish for either of us to think that I do."
He tried to push away, but Dominique kept her arms locked around his waist. "Is it because you're a private? If that's all, don't give it another thought. I couldn't care less about rank and who's who."
"No, that is not the problem."
"I've heard enough from you," she said with a pout. "Stop fighting me. You're out of excuses. I know you must care for me. I've seen the way you look at me, and sometimes when we're talking, I can tell by the way you gaze into my eyes and touch my hand that you care."
"Stop it," he said, breaking free of her arms. "This is no good. It cannot work."
"Of course it can. If you feel the same way I do."
"I don't want to know how you feel. Please do not tell me."
"Then you tell me, Jacob. Stand there and tell me you don't care. Tell me you hate me and wish I'd go away."
"What do you want from me, Dominique? What do I have to say? That I love you and I always will?" he raged. "That I've loved you from the first moment I saw you floating down the river? Fine. I will say it, then."
"The river?" she cut in, her face ashen. "The river, Jacob?"
His heart beating wildly, no longer with passion or anger, but with fear, he said, "I do not know why I said that."
"Crazy one?" She took a backward step. "You called me crazy one, too. I don't understand. How could you know that name? Oh, my God." She took another, larger backward step. "You're not Jacob at all, are you? You're you and your supposed brother."
"Dominique, please." He started toward her, his hand outstretched as he glanced beyond her to judge their position. Peaches had led them farther from the fort than he'd first thought, around the bend in the river and down to a small grassy valley hidden by a row of oak and elm trees, out of sight of the blockhouse and the guards. Barney and Hazel were at least thirty minutes from finding them, maybe closer to an hour in the slow-moving buggy. Was it enough time to convince her she was wrong?
Dominique's mind worked frantically as the implications of what she'd stumbled over came into focus. "Why are you doing this?" she demanded. "What do you have to gain? Are you some kind of spy for the Indians?"
"Please, I would like to explain."
"I don't care what you'd like. I don't care about you. When I think of all the lies, the filthy rotten—"
"Dominique, you must believe me when I say I never meant to hurt you."
"I'll never believe another thing you have to say, you miserable heathen," she sputtered, still backing away. "You tricked me. You lied and pretended to be someone you're not." As his deeds piled up, as she recalled some of the things he'd said, she became more enraged, and continued to list her grievances. "And to think you let me go on and on about a brother you never had. You really had me feeling sorry for you and that clabber-headed behemoth who never existed, didn't you? You are lower than the soles of my shoes. Why, you're so low, I can't even think of anything low enough to be on the same level with you."
"Dominique," he said softly, following along in her tracks.
"And don't call me Dominique. Don't you ever speak my name again, you no-good Indian snake, or whoever in the hell you really are."
"Please. If you will just listen to me, I can explain."
"Explain? That's a laugh. You'll explain all right, but it will be to my uncle, General Custer, not to me. I don't want to hear another thing you have to say."
"In that case," he said with a quiet sigh, "I am sorry."
"Sorry? You think you can pull a trick like this, sneak into the cavalry for God knows what purpose, trifle with me, and then brush it off with an 'I'm sorry'?"
"No, crazy one," he said with a heavy heart. "I am not sorry for any of that. I am sorry for this."
Then he drew back his fist and drove it into her chin.
Barney urged the team of horses up the small hill, careful not to whip them into a speed they couldn't handle, then pulled the rig to a halt at the crest. "I can't understand it," he said, scanning the valley below. "We should have caught up with them by now. I wonder
how far that crazy mare got?"
"Oh, Barney, do you think Dominique's going to be all right?" Hazel twisted her hands as if she were wringing a load of laundry.
"Don't worry, sugar. Jacob's the best damn horseman I've ever seen. He'll catch up to that skittish animal and see that Dominique's safe. Don't you worry." But he didn't really believe the words himself. He slapped the reins across the horses' backs and started down the hill, knowing they couldn't go much farther. Not alone. Not in the flimsy buggy. And not under these suspicious circumstances. If he didn't find some sign of Dominique and Jacob before he reached the bend in the river, he would have to turn back and round up a search party. Then he spotted an odd-looking sapling standing alone in a clearing a few yards ahead. Guiding the buggy to the spot, he squinted, then his eyes widened as the tree came into focus. What he had assumed to be a sapling was a large branch stripped of its leaves, stuck into the ground to resemble a pole. An unmistakable Lakota warning.
Handing the reins to Hazel, he whispered, "Get a tight grip on these. I'm gonna check that tree ahead. If I turn and holler, you hightail it outta here. Understood?"
"But, Barney, I'm not going to drive off without you.”
"Do as you're told, woman. I don't have time to explain."
"Yes, Barney," she said as he climbed down off the buggy and stole over to the clearing.
Glancing from side to side as he approached the branch, his eyes and ears fully alert, Barney made a fast study of the piece of fabric hanging from it. Then, his eyes bulging, he spun on his heel and raced for the buggy. Vaulting onto the seat, he motioned for Hazel to remain silent as he whipped the horses into action and turned the buggy back up the hill. When they'd passed the crest and were in view of the blockhouse again, he relaxed his tense muscles, but kept the horses going at top speed.
"Why was that branch stripped of its leaves, Barney?" she said against the wind. "What was hanging from it?"
"It was a little message from the Sioux."
"Indians?" she gasped.
"Don't be alarmed," he said, even though he knew he was telling her an outright lie. "It probably doesn't mean a thing."
And it didn't. As long as she didn't understand the challenge represented by the strip of cloth tied to the branch like a flag. As long as she hadn't noticed the lock of Dominique's hair fastened to that flag.
Chapter Eleven
When Dominique came to, she was flopping to and fro, though a strong hand gripped her waist. She struggled for breath. Jacob? The powerful aroma of moist horse hair told her that her face was pressed against the shoulder of his mount. Then she became aware of a series of familiar pains; a fiery agony flared in her ribs, and a steady throbbing hammered at her chin. She opened her eyes and saw the ground racing past at a dizzying speed. Her mind spinning, she raised her head and saw that Peaches was attached to the gelding by a rope and was galloping along behind. Directly ahead, hooves thundered, kicking up clouds of dust. Through the haze, she could see a half- naked Indian, a Lakota, she supposed, on a black and white pinto. Where had he come from?
Dominique groaned as her memory jolted her. Jacob had hit her—again, she remembered as she merged him with the Indian called Redfoot. Apparently after that, he'd flung her over his mount like a sack of grain. Grimacing as the galloping horse jolted her bruised ribs, she clung to the sorrel, praying Jacob's strong hands would keep her across its withers long enough for her to regain her strength. Then, she swore to herself, she would kill him. The horse jumped over a clump of brush, landing with a mind-jarring thud before resuming its breakneck speed. Dominique blacked out again.
The next time she regained consciousness, she was in semidarkness. Her incredulous, bleary eyes told her she was standing next to a cylindrical beam of light that seemed to sprout from the earth. Someone slapped her face, forcing her to stand on legs that seemed to have no bones.
"Come on, Dominique. You must wake up now. I have no time for this." Unable to hit her again, sickened by the bruise he'd been forced to raise on her chin, Jacob turned his head to call for water.
Dominique saved him the trouble. "You. How dare you touch me.'' She spun out of his arms and lurched into a buffalo-skin wall. Snapping her head upward, Dominique saw that the beam of light shot down to, not up from, the earth. She was in a tipi.
"No." She whirled around, facing Jacob like a spitting wildcat. "You can't do this to me again. I demand that you return me to the fort at once."
If his plight hadn't been so dangerous, he would have laughed, for her words prompted a memory of the first time they had met. She'd made nearly the same request then, in almost the same tone. His answer this time had to be different.
Forcing an anger he didn't feel, Jacob buried his feelings of compassion. "You are in no position to demand anything," he snarled, gripping her arms. "You are lucky to be alive. Remember that."
"I remember plenty, you bully. I intend to make sure you pay for it all."
"You will still your tongue now, or I will have to still it for you," he shouted, causing her to cringe. Satisfied that she understood how deadly serious her situation was, he went on with his instructions. "I have no time to explain anything to you right now. I must get back before the soldiers come."
"Oh, they'll come, Jacob, and when they do, you’ll be sorry."
"If you interrupt me again," he warned, squeezing her arms so tight he feared he might snap them, "I will have no choice but to kill you now and spare you the torture the others will put you through. Which will it be?"
Dominique glared up at him and saw instantly that the shutters in his eyes were thrown wide open. There were no illusions, no signs of deceit. If she didn't obey, he would break her neck as easily as he would a twig. She pressed her lips together and nodded.
"That is very wise." Jacob relaxed his grip, but kept his big hands wrapped around her arms. "I have time to say this only once, so listen carefully. You are in my Hunkpapa camp with around seventy Lakota Indians. There is no chance for escape, and if you try this foolish thing, you will surely be killed. Your death, should you take this risk, will be very unpleasant. Do you understand?"
Tears sprang into the corners of Dominique's eyes. She'd heard terrifying stories at the fort about the Sioux and their particularly nasty forms of torture. She understood only too well. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she whispered, "Yes."
"Good. I cannot take the time to explain the customs of the Lakota people to you now, but pay close attention to what I am about to say. This wiggling tongue of yours can be very entertaining, but in this village, only to me. If you choose to flap it around the women in this camp, they will remove it for you."
"Remove it?" she gasped.
He gave her a solemn nod, then lifted a length of her hair. "They will be jealous of this golden crop also. Braid it and try to keep it out of sight. They will want to remove it, too."
"Oh, Jacob," she cried, tears spilling in earnest. "I'm frightened. Please take me away from here."
"I would if I could, but that is impossible. You will be safe enough for tonight and tomorrow. Just remember to keep that wagging tongue of yours still around the women in camp." He released her and stepped away. "There is one other very important thing. If you want to keep your life, make sure you do not mention the general or the fact that his blood fills your veins. Say nothing about this to anyone."
"The Indians know about my Uncle Armstrong?" she said through a sob.
"They know the name Custer very well. The Lakota consider him their greatest enemy.'' He turned and walked toward the opening in the tipi, reassuring her as he departed. "I will try to return by tomorrow night, and surely by the night after if that isn't possible. You will be all right if you do as you are told and say nothing."
Dominique hiccuped, watching him through fearful eyes as he opened the flap. When he lifted his foot to step out into the camp, away from her, panic seized her. "Wait."
Jacob halted in midstride. "What is it? I have no time to spare
in conversation."
"I was wondering ..."
"Yes?"
"If I'm so much trouble, if all anyone around here is going to think about is ways to torture and kill me, I was wondering—why didn't you just murder me out on the trail and be done with it?"
Jacob stared down at his troop boots for a long moment, then raised anguished blue eyes to her. "Because, crazy one," he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper, "I love you." Then he was gone.
After tying a rope around his waist, Jacob called to his good friend, Drooping Belly. "Go now, see that your horse is quick." Then he allowed himself to be dragged through the rocks and brush outside the camp.
He spun over and over like a leaf in the wind as the pony raced across the plains, but Jacob endured the pain, found a certain satisfaction in it when he thought of it as a punishment. He deserved worse for bringing the crazy one to camp, for loving her. And now that he had done so, he was responsible—for her life, for the peril her presence might bring to his people.
