by Vella Munn
And maybe, when they fell together on the ground, her eyes would shine as Whe-cha's did after a night in Kientpoos's arms. She'd feel the heat Whe-cha spoke of, make those animal sounds. Forget everything except lashing her body to his.
"I missed—" he whispered. "I missed you so much."
He would be magnificent, strong and possessive, appreciative of the gift of her virginity. Her maidenhood—to a soldier? "There is not a day or night that I do not think about you."
"It'd be easier if it wasn't this way."
"I know." She kissed him again. Although her body felt as if a summer's sun now pressed down on her and she hated the clothes that came between them, she found the strength to continue. "I still wish I had never met you. Never spoken to you or looked into your eyes."
"But you did."
"Yes. I have been changed by you."
"And I by you."
"I do not want—"
He gripped her upper arms and pushed her away until his face came into focus. "I know what you don't want," he said harshly. "Believe me, I feel the same way."
"Then—then you should not have come out here."
"Oh no, Luash. It could never be that way. Don't you know that?" he asked and gently stroked her chin with a finger that caressed despite his rough flesh. "If I thought there was any chance of seeing you, nothing would keep me away."
That was why she'd come here. If he hadn't found his way into her heart, she would have stayed where she was safe. Where the damage to her heart wouldn't become even greater. "You—you believe me?" Her voice was tight with desperation and regret, with fear unlike any she'd ever known. "Your life is in danger. If you go there tomorrow—"
Chapter 13
Luash was still at the lake when Jed returned several hours later. She'd asked him to take her to the general, but he'd adamantly refused. Given the level of tension simmering in camp, he refused to let her risk her life by walking among all those soldiers. He'd assured her that he'd talk to Canby himself. If the general wanted to hear more, Jed would bring Canby to her.
She'd agreed so readily that Jed understood just how upset she'd been at the prospect of leaving the relative isolation of the lake shore. Now, riding toward her, he faced how much she'd risked. Bottom line, she'd betrayed her people.
For him?
The fair-sized breeze grabbed her midnight waist-length hair and swirled it around her face and neck. She looked almost as if she could join her eagle spirit.
"I thought you would be gone longer," she said.
"There wasn't that much to say." He dismounted. He hoped she would put an end to what little distance remained between them, but she didn't, and he respected her unspoken message. "You didn't see anyone? No one bothered you?"
"Some men brought horses to drink, but they were far enough away that I felt safe."
He nodded, guessing she'd had to fight with herself to keep from running. He was glad, very glad, she hadn't.
"What did your general say? He will save himself?"
"There's nothing to worry about, he says. He can't believe Captain Jack would be that stupid."
"He is not stupid! My uncle believes he has no choice if he is to call himself a man."
"I know," he reassured her, "but there are things you have to understand about the general. He's under an incredible amount of pressure both from folks hereabouts and politicians back East to put an end to this embarrassment. A few people even think whites ought to clear out entirely."
"They think—"
He couldn't let blind hope get the best of her. Barely aware of what he was doing, he wrapped his fingers around her wrists and drew her close, thinking to force her to listen to facts. She resisted but didn't fight, a subtle difference that taught him a great deal about how much she wanted to trust him. "It won't happen, Luash. Not ever. What I'm saying is, that sentiment only adds to the pressures on the general. He's been wiring General Sherman, the president, and the secretary of the Interior that talks are coming along and that he's hopeful of a peaceful end to hostilities before much longer. Four months of stalemate, particularly given the army's vastly superior numbers, have everyone on edge and a lot of people saying the army can't do the job they were sent here to accomplish."
"Hostilities?"
"That's a polite way of saying war." When her eyes narrowed, he realized he'd spoken harshly. "If he doesn't show up for those talks tomorrow, General Canby will have lost as much face as your uncle almost did last night."
He wasn't sure she'd understand, but after a moment she nodded, features sober. "Meacham feels the same way as the general," he continued. "And Reverend Thomas—he believes he's got God on his side and God wouldn't let anything happen to him."
"God is his spirit?"
"I guess that's one way of putting it."
"And you believe his god is no stronger than Eagle, that we both cling to something which doesn't exist."
"I can't say what it's like for the reverend. All I know is, God didn't keep my parents alive or save eighty good men. If you can spend a winter living in a cave and still believe some eagle is going to protect you—"
"Stop it! You and I will always See differently on this."
She was right. Besides, they weren't here to argue about her beliefs or his lack of same. "I tried. I want you to believe that. But the general's not going to change his mind. He'll be there tomorrow."
"Then—" Her eyes became so dark, so deep and pain-filled, that it scared him. "Then he is a dead man."
"No," he insisted, despite the voice inside that said he was a fool. "Damnit, Luash, Captain Jack can't be crazy enough to risk the lives of all his people by doing something so incredibly stupid as killing a U.S. Army general. Whatever he agrees to in public because Hooker Jim's putting pressure on him, I simply can't believe he'd throw away his life, and the lives of his people, this way."
"His honor is at stake."
Jed opened his mouth to tell her that honor had to come second in this when, suddenly, he no longer wanted to argue. If Captain Jack and General Canby were true leaders, they would stand face to face and not give up until they'd worked out a compromise they could both live with. Too bad he had been part of the army long enough to know that such things seldom, if ever, happened that way.
But Luash—he needed to think about her, wanted her to know she'd turned his life and emotions around. Had she spun some kind of spell around him? If she had, he wasn't sure he wanted to know.
"I've been dreaming -about you," he admitted, his voice not nearly as strong as he wanted. "I've never dreamed about a woman before. At least not like that."
"You are with me every night."
He'd touched her as deeply as she'd touched him? It seemed impossible; he was nothing but a hard soldier who'd committed his life to ridding the west of savages—savages like her. Since knowing Luash, he'd begun to forget that he'd once thought of Indians as little more than animals.
"Do not go," she begged, night still in her eyes. "When they meet tomorrow, do not be part of it."
He had no choice in the matter, but that wasn't what he wanted to talk about now; in truth, words held no interest for him. A lifetime ago he'd watched his father greet women by kissing the back of their hands. Some of them had giggled and blushed; all had looked pleased. Although Luash wouldn't understand that such a kiss was a sign of respect and affection among so-called cultured and sophisticated people, he lifted her hand and touched his lips to the strong vein just beneath the smooth, dark flesh. When he gazed into her eyes, he could have sworn he saw tears in them. "Are you all right?" he asked.
"I do not know."
"What I just did, it's a good thing. A way for a man to show respect to a woman."
"Jed, I did not come here to feel your lips on my hand."
"You told me what you felt you needed to about what happened between your uncle and Hooker Jim. There's nothing more you can do."
"I tried to warn—"
"I know. And I appreciate
it. Most of all, I'm in awe of your courage."
"Jed, it takes no courage for me to seek you out."
"Because you've got this insane belief that your life's somehow blessed. Damnit, I know all too well how you think. Will you be there tomorrow?"
She started to shake her head, then stopped. "Ha-kar-Jim will say no, but I will ask my uncle."
Fear, which he'd denied himself ever since he heard what Hooker Jim and the others were up to, lashed through him. Meacham and the general knew she was Captain Jack's niece. If they believed it was to their benefit, to say nothing of upping their odds of staying alive, they might make her a hostage.
Running his fingers over hers, he waited until he had her full attention. "Do one thing for me, please. Stay away."
"And will you do the same for me?"
"I can't. I'm expected—"
"Your general comes before me?"
He clamped his hands more firmly around her wrist and held her against him. "It's not a matter of choosing one of you over the other. I have a job."
She opened her mouth; he sensed that she was marshalling her arguments and readied himself to hear her attack his career and his way of life, but she didn't. Instead, she looked down at her trapped hands, then back up at him. There was no fear in her eyes. "We are so different."
"Yeah. We are."
"I want to go home. I want to stop dreaming of you."
"No, you don't."
"Yes. I do. I have always known who I am, Jed. I am proud of being Modoc. But a true Modoc does not dream of her enemy."
If she'd resisted him, he could have forcefully ended that resistance and they would have finished the day as the enemies she'd just spoken of, but he'd felt her smaller body soft and strong and still against his, and it was too late.
Too late for anything except grabbing at a memory.
Maybe she needed the same thing, he thought as he slid his hands up her arms. He cupped her neck with fingers strong enough to kill her. There was still no fear in her eyes, nothing that would shatter this precious and insane moment when the world was reduced to only the two of them and all he wanted was to understand what he felt for her.
Luash's kiss, half gentle and half bold, stole his thoughts. He struggled against his desire for her for maybe a half second, then let it rage over him. His hands, mouth, breath even, gave him away, but he was helpless to hold back. He drew her tight against his body, holding her there while heat flooded between them and he wondered if he might die if he couldn't bury himself in her.
She still didn't resist. He felt her breasts flat against him and her hips melting into him, felt her begin to move in a rhythm he guessed was beyond her control. His blood heated until he thought he might explode, then heated even more. He embraced what was happening to him—accepted it for what it was—the greatest honesty he'd ever given a woman.
He wanted to keep his mouth clamped over hers until he'd pulled everything out of her, but there was too much energy in him and he couldn't be patient. Lost, he touched teeth, tongue, and lips to everything of her he could. She shuddered when he ran his tongue over the side of her neck but didn't pull away, only held on with strong fingers and breathed quick and hard. When he finally stopped long enough to drag in a lungful of sage-and water-scented air, Luash stood on tiptoe and clamped her teeth over the lobe of his right ear.
That stopped him as surely as a lasso would stop a wild horse. Energy continued to build inside him; he focused his entire will on keeping that energy contained. Her teeth—teasing now—made his entire body feel as if it was being stroked by a hot feather. His flesh jumped and trembled, recoiled in a self-protective gesture, came back for more.
She had to know what she was doing to his self-control when she began running her tongue over his cheekbone. She might be an innocent, but just because her body hadn't known a man's didn't mean she didn't have a woman's reactions.
A woman's wisdom.
Fighting her, fighting himself, he shoved her away and held her at arms length. She stared at him, eyes hooded, body tense and soft all at the same time. She breathed only infrequently and when she did, it sounded as if she'd forgotten how to do it. He knew exactly how she felt.
"We set each other off," he managed to say, hoarsely. "Right now, when I should be telling you to get the hell back to your people, I want to haul you back to my tent and keep you there."
"No. Not your tent. Come to the Land of Burned Out Fires with me."
The temptation was so great; he could lose himself in her world with its hearty sage and manzanita and the animals, birds, and fish that lived beyond the worst of the lava flow. They'd learn what it was about each other that kept them coming together when they both knew how insane it was.
"Do you really want that?" he asked. "You would keep me with you?"
"Not keep. I could never do that to you. But if you touched my Modoc heart, you would understand what this land means to me. And to my people."
I want that, he nearly said, before years of fighting and hating everything she stood for kicked in, tore him a little free of the insanity swirling around him. "I have a job to do tomorrow." He spoke through clenched jaws. "A job you say's going to get me killed and I say is going to put an end to this damnable war."
The passion went out of her eyes as swiftly and surely as if he'd struck her. "Oh yes," she hissed, leaning away from him so she could stare into his eyes. "Do your job, Jed. Either you will be killed or you and your general will say and do things that will force me to leave the land of my ancestors."
"It can't go on the way it is; you know that."
She pulled out of his grip because he let her, because he told himself he didn't want to hold her anymore. "And you say it has to be the white man's way. That the Modocs have lost everything that was once theirs. I was wrong. You will never understand my heart. And I no longer want you to." She turned away in one motion.
* * *
Luash was halfway back to the stronghold before her anger cooled. Then she walked without thinking, her mind numb. It wasn't until she'd climbed onto a rock and spread her arms so the Modoc sentries would know who she was that she faced what she'd done.
Terrified for his life, she'd struck out at Jed so she would no longer be swamped by her fear for him. She'd left him with her rage, with words she didn't mean—words that, maybe, were the only ones she dared say to him.
She hadn't yet reached her cave when Ha-kar-Jim intercepted her, demanding to know where she'd been. "I seek peace," she retorted. "Unlike you, I do not embrace killing."
"What were you doing?" He reached for her, but she evaded him, warning him not to try to touch her again.
"You do not tell me your thoughts," she accused. "You said nothing to me of the awful thing you were going to do to my uncle. Why should I say anything to you?"
He continued to grumble that she shouldn't have left the stronghold and that he didn't trust her, but when she turned her back on him, he didn't try to stop her. Despite her inner turmoil, she couldn't help smiling. It was good to have a powerful spirit. Ha-kar-Jim, killer of unarmed men, was afraid of Eagle.
Although she immediately went in search of her uncle, she didn't find him until late in the day. From what little he told her, she realized that he and Cho-Cho had walked deep in the lava beds, but what the two old friends had talked about, Kientpoos kept to himself. "Your army man would not listen to you, would he?" he asked. "He believes we would not be so foolish as to kill his leaders."
"Do you understand why I had to try?" she asked around the fear that gripped her. Kientpoos knew. "It was not because I have turned my back on you; I love you too much for that. But I do not want any more killing." She sighed.
"He would not listen."
"He listened," she insisted. "But I do not think he believed. Neither did the general."
"You spoke to General Canby?"
"Not me," she reassured him, then told him everything except for the emotion behind her trip. She finished by saying
that General Canby had refused to call off tomorrow's scheduled meeting. "Please," she begged, "let me go with you. Kaitchkana will be there, but she should not be the only woman. Men are less likely to fight in the presence of women."
"No!" Kientpoos ordered with uncharacteristic anger. "I have made a promise to my people. I cannot change now."
"But—"
"You say you understand a man's heart, but you do not. I will not go back on my word. I cannot."
Sick, she asked the one question she couldn't turn her back on. "You have said that you will kill the general and that others will shoot Meacham and the Sunday doctor. What about Jed Britton?"
He met her gaze calmly. "That has not been decided."
* * *
April 11, 1873
The night had been an agony of horrible possibilities and silent prayers to Eagle and Kumookumts. Luash felt as if she'd been trapped in a nightmare from which there was no escape. She should have pleaded more with Jed, should have insisted on talking to General Canby. But if she did that, and Canby and the others decided to come armed to the peace talks, and her uncle was killed, would she be responsible?
But if Jed took a bullet, would that be any better?
She gave up trying to get any rest when the sun sent its first fingers out over the land. Leaving her cave, she scrambled up to the surface and slipped as close to the lake as she dared. She thought she could see smoke rising from army campfires, but because fog still clung to the ground, she couldn't be sure. The only sounds that reached her ears came from the birds. Always before, their endless chatter had made her heart feel both light and full, but this morning they were less than mist to her. Cho-ocks had done a great deal of magic-making last night, to the accompaniment of chants and dancing, and had boasted that his magic was now so powerful that it could defeat an entire army. Although she'd watched the whole ceremony, she was unable to share the others' belief that the sun would set on a Modoc victory.
"Eagle!" she called out. "You see so much. Your ears tell you many things. Please, tell me what I should do. Let my eyes see into the rest of the day. Will Jed die? Will Kientpoos?"
