“As long as your panther poses no threat to me or my people, he will not be harmed,” Fire Thunder said softly.
Tears sprang to Kaylene’s eyes when she suddenly thought of her father. Surely he was dead now. “What do you plan to do with me?” she blurted out.
When he did not answer her, Kaylene tried to rise on an elbow to move closer to him, to demand answers.
But the pain was too intense. She closed her eyes and breathed hard, then gazed over at Fire Thunder again.
“Surely what you think about my father is all a misunderstanding,” she said, in her voice a soft pleading. “Surely my father truly thought your sister was a runaway and took pity on her.”
Fire Thunder could not help but laugh sarcastically at that. “Yes, your father took pity on her and then locked her in a cage like an animal,” he retorted, his eyes blazing.
The memory of Little Sparrow in the cage made Kaylene ashamed and uncomfortable. She would always be ashamed for her father having done this terrible thing to the small child.
She turned her back to Fire Thunder. Weary over so many things, she closed her eyes, and soon drifted off into a restless sleep.
Fire Thunder sat up and stared at Kaylene. When she groaned with pain in her sleep, he eased over next to her. Gently he lifted her, and the blankets that she was wrapped in, onto his lap. While she slept, he rocked her, slowly. Back and forth he rocked her as his eyes devoured the loveliness of her face; the innocence.
He nestled her cheek close to his chest and kissed the waves of her hair at the back of her head, inhaling the perfumed sweet fragrance of it.
When she snuggled more comfortably against him, the fires of desire raging through him spoke to him in wild whispers, saying that this woman was his, forever his.
He would do whatever was necessary to make it so.
Chapter 7
I want you when the shades of eve are falling,
And purpling shadows drift across the land.
—ARTHUR I. GILLOM
A soft hand on Fire Thunder’s cheek awakened him with a start. He looked over and found Little Sparrow on her knees beside him.
He then followed the path of her eyes and discovered that he still held Kaylene on his lap, his arm on which her body rested numb from not having moved it for several hours. He had fallen asleep and Kaylene had not awakened yet to find herself there.
Fire Thunder looked awkwardly around him in the morning twilight, glad that none of his warriors had yet awakened. For certain he did not want to be caught in such a compromising position, showing that he cared so much for the white woman.
At least not yet. He had to secure her feelings for him before allowing anyone but Black Hair to know that he had plans that would bind their futures together as one.
Little Sparrow moved her hand to Fire Thunder’s free arm and shook it slightly, to draw his attention back to her.
He then watched her hands as, in sign language, she asked how Kaylene was this morning.
His hands not free to respond in sign language, he moved his lips in unspoken words that would tell his sister that it seemed that the white woman was all right. It was apparent that she had enjoyed a restful night of sleep.
He slipped the blanket down from Kaylene’s shoulder and gazed at the bandaged wound. No blood had seeped through it. That had to mean that the herbs were working well. The wound was healing.
As the sun peeked over the horizon in a great ball of orange fire, which would surely awaken everyone else, Fire Thunder anxiously, but gently and slowly, placed Kaylene back on the blanket beside the glowing embers of the campfire.
He watched her as she blinked her eyes open, being shifted from his lap and arms having awakened her.
Kaylene opened her eyes wildly and widely, at first disoriented as to where she was, and with whom.
Then she found two sets of eyes on her. One set, the child’s, smiled down at her. The other, Fire Thunder’s, studied her guardedly.
Kaylene gazed up at him, everything that had happened the prior day returning to her in flashes, causing her heart to ache to think about the fate of her father, and making the anger return against this man who was responsible.
Words failing her, to describe her feelings to her captor, Kaylene turned her eyes away.
She then looked slowly around again when she felt a tiny, soft hand on her face. She gazed at Little Sparrow as the child spoke in sign language to her.
Not familiar with sign language, Kaylene felt at a loss as to what to say in return. It was obvious the child was asking her something.
Just as Little Sparrow started to form the words of her question on her lips, Fire Thunder intervened.
“My sister is inquiring as to your welfare this morning,” he said. He reached for Little Sparrow and swung her around to sit on his lap. Beyond the campfire he saw the men rising one by one from their bedrolls.
Fire Thunder’s eyes met and held with Kaylene’s. “And what do I tell my sister?” he asked, his voice soft as he was caught up in the sight of this beautiful, green-eyed woman.
But he reminded himself once again that he must control his urges—his desires. Time lay ahead of them where he would prove to her that he set the rules between them. She was the captive, he the captor.
He must never be caught off guard with her, to allow her to know that if she played her cards right, she would be able to get more from him than she would ever imagine!
Yes, he had to watch his actions and his emotions well, or be made to look a fool, not only in the eyes of this woman, but also his people’s.
“And how should I be this morning after having been stabbed yesterday, after losing my father, after being forced to leave my mother?” Kaylene spat out.
She trembled from the anger that rose in her insides like hot coals. “I have no idea what your plans are for me,” she said, her voice breaking emotionally. “I’m not sure if I am to live or die the sort of death forced upon my father. So, tell me, Fire Thunder, how would you feel if you were in my position?”
He wanted to tell her that her anger was understandable, and that, in time, he would be so kind and gentle to her, she would wonder why she had ever felt this way about him.
Even about her father’s death. In time she would accept, even admit, that her father was a fiend who preyed on children. She would know that the world was a better place without him.
But each day as she drew closer to Little Sparrow as a friend, she would think back to when the girl was caged like an animal. She would feel a deep, cold dread inside her heart, that if Fire Thunder had not come and rescued his sister, and made the evil man pay for having treated her so unjustly, Little Sparrow would even now be caged.
Little Sparrow would have become nothing more to people than a novelty—something to gawk at. Kaylene would have been witness to Little Sparrow dying a slow death inside, eventually becoming only a shell of the sweet little girl she had always been.
Black Hair came to Fire Thunder.
Fire Thunder was glad to have someone interrupt the awkward moment with Kaylene.
“Should I send warriors out to find food for the morning meal? Or do you wish to go on to our village and eat when we arrive?” Black Hair asked, giving Kaylene a wondering stare, finding her glare cold and pitiless.
Fire Thunder rose to his feet. “We have been gone too long from our people,” he said. He combed his long powerful fingers through his thick, black hair, then lifted it back across his shoulders. “We will return home now. Once we are there, we will eat.”
Black Hair nodded and spread the word.
The campfire was covered with dirt, putting out any embers that might flare up again in the morning’s brisk wind. The blankets and bedrolls were tied to the horses.
Fire Thunder went to Kaylene and started to lift her to carry her to his horse, but she took a step away from him, refusing to allow it.
“You are still stubborn, I see,” Fire Thunder said, placing his fists on his h
ips. “You force me to give you two choices. You either come willingly with me on my horse, or you can walk the rest of the way to my village.”
Kaylene’s cheeks grew hot with a blush. She lowered her eyes, then looked up at Fire Thunder again as she shifted nervously from one foot to the other. She had to relieve herself in the worst way, yet how could she with all of these men around her? How could she even tell Fire Thunder what the true problem was? Never had she been in such an embarrassing, precarious position.
Little Sparrow came and took her by the hand and gently yanked on it.
Kaylene glanced down at her, touched deeply again by the child’s sweet, innocent smile.
Then an idea came to her. She moaned as she bent to her knees before Little Sparrow, the sudden searing pain in her shoulder a reminder that it was far from well.
She started to mouth the words slowly to Little Sparrow, that she needed to go to the bathroom, so that Little Sparrow could read her lips.
But Kaylene was keenly aware of eyes on her, watching her, knowing that Fire Thunder could read her lips just as easily as Little Sparrow.
Kaylene turned anger-filled eyes up at Fire Thunder. She sighed with impatience. “Please turn your eyes from me,” she said, her voice drawn. “I have something I wish to tell Little Sparrow.” Another blush rushed up from her neck to her cheeks. She smiled awkwardly at Fire Thunder. “Please? What I have to say is quite private.”
Glad at least that Kaylene and Little Sparrow had this growing bond, Fire Thunder turned his back to them.
Kaylene spoke the words slowly and distinctly to Little Sparrow, making sure to form them exactly on her lips so that she would not have to repeat them. The need was getting urgent.
Oh, how on earth was she going to manage to do this embarrassing thing without the world knowing and watching? She despaired as she waited to see if Little Sparrow had understood her.
Little Sparrow giggled, took Kaylene’s hand, and walked toward the thick stand of oak trees beside the meandering creek a short distance away.
Hearing the patter of feet moving away made Fire Thunder turn with a start. His eyebrows lifted when he saw his sister leading Kaylene to the stand of trees.
He started to go after them, then smiled slowly when suddenly it came to him what Kaylene had not wanted to tell him, yet confided freely in his sister.
He went to his horse and waited as the others mounted and gave him questioning stares. “Go on,” he said, gesturing with his hand toward the mountain pass. “Black Hair and I will catch up to you later.”
The horses’ hooves thundered off, leaving Fire Thunder and Black Hair alone as they waited for Kaylene and Little Sparrow to return.
“You are still determined to keep her?” Black Hair asked, fidgeting nervously with his reins as he waited on horseback.
“Forever,” Fire Thunder said.
Fire Thunder’s insides warmed at the sight of Kaylene as she walked toward him alongside Little Sparrow. Even with a wounded shoulder, she walked with such dignity, with such beautiful grace and ease.
Her raven-black hair fluttered around her face and shoulders in the breeze. Her face reflected the color of the rising sun in her cheeks. In her eyes, he saw a lessening of defiance.
Yet he feared that was just for the moment. He did not know what to expect from her in the coming hours or the coming days.
“I see that you are ready to travel now,” Fire Thunder said as Kaylene stopped and stood before him. His eyes danced before hers. “Have you decided whether or not you wish to travel by horse? Or by foot?” he teased.
Kaylene’s eyes narrowed and her jaw tightened as she glared at him.
He saw that his jesting had gone awry. It had brought out the antagonism in her again.
Shrugging slightly, he placed his hands at her waist and lifted her into his saddle.
He then went to Little Sparrow and lifted her up for Black Hair to put her in his saddle before him.
Fire Thunder swung himself up behind Kaylene. He grabbed the reins with one hand and slid his free arm around Kaylene’s waist, feeling her stiffening against his hold.
“Your ride will be much more comfortable if you will relax,” Fire Thunder said as he snapped the reins and rode off beside Black Hair.
“How am I to relax while I am still some crazed chief’s captive?” Kaylene spat out.
She gave him a venomous stare over her shoulder.
When she saw an angry fire leap into his eyes, she smiled smugly, then turned her eyes away from him and decided to make this easier on herself.
She inhaled a deep breath and forced herself to relax against his hard, powerful body. In time, when she was stronger, she would show him just how stubborn she could be.
She would escape. She would go back to where her father had been left tied to stakes. She would give him a proper burial.
She hoped that Midnight would stay close by so that she could escape with him. They both would return to the carnival. She would talk her mother into disbanding it to go and try and find some sort of semblance of a normal life elsewhere.
Roots. Kaylene longed for roots.
She gave Fire Thunder a sly glance. Her heart throbbed. While he was not aware of it, she was attracted to his handsomeness again. She could have loved him so much had he not proved to be such a fiend! She would have willingly lived with him in his lodge. She could have made such a perfect, contented wife for him. Even the thought of one day possibly having his children thrilled her clean to the very core of her being.
Lowering her eyes, and sighing with regret, she looked away from him, for that dream was no longer possible. Even if she did love him deep down, he could never know it, for that would mean that she condoned what he had done to her father.
Not wanting to think about such things any longer, Kaylene tried to focus her thoughts on the scene around her. Except for the rough travel up the mountainside on a bone-rattling dirt road, everything was beautiful in the early morning. They rode past a tangle of mountain streams, a vivid carpet of purple verbena, and yellow globe mallow, which snaked its way up the hillside.
She admired the prickly pear plants. They looked to her like they were going to devour their own flower, their brilliant yellow blooms like pieces of sunshine.
Kaylene smiled as the horse traveled up the mountainside, feeling strangely serene, and at peace with her surroundings.
In the foothills there were quail and coyotes. Some of the flat valleys were covered with soft, gray-green sagebrush.
Kaylene had never seen anything as beautiful as this mountain and its offerings.
It was all like one big magnificent painting.
It was as though she were entering another world, one which had never included her mother, the carnival, and perhaps never would again!
Chapter 8
Let those love now who never loved,
Let those who have loved, love again.
—COVENTRY PATMORE
Kaylene’s spine stiffened as the mountain spread out and Fire Thunder took her across an extensive valley, where nestled under great-grandfatherly trees was a mixture of glistening wigwams, Mexican jacals, which were small huts, and cabins.
She gazed at the wigwams. Instead of being covered with birch bark, as she knew they were in the northern states she had traveled with the carnival, they were covered with something else. The absence of birch trees in Mexico, had apparently forced the Kickapoo to seek a new material for their lodge coverings.
Soon she recognized that the coverings were cattail mats. She knew them well, because her mother had acquired several cattail mats from an Indian tribe to make traveling in a covered wagon more comfortable.
At the far end of the village, stood a lodge which she knew must be the medicine lodge. It was distinct from the others, painted with the symbols of the shaman’s particular dream-giving powers—two huge grizzly bears in black, below which were red circles of moons.
Way beyond the village, in the farther re
aches of the valley, Kaylene saw vast herds of longhorns grazing. On the far side of the pasture, she saw many beautiful horses fenced off from the longhorns.
In another section of the valley, away from the animals, crops were growing in extensive fields.
She assumed from these sights that the Kickapoo were a rich tribe, far richer than the Indians who lived across the border in the States.
She had heard tell of the Mexicans having been generous to an Indian tribe, in order to get them to come to Mexico, to help ward off Comanche renegades.
Now she knew which tribe. She knew which chief led this tribe, and silently admired his prowess and power, now more than before.
If only she had not been given cause to hate him, she thought sadly to herself. This man, this powerful Kickapoo chief, had the means to give her all that she had ever hungered and dreamed for. Roots.
It was obvious that he and his people had deeply entrenched roots in this mountain land. She doubted anyone could ever wrench it away from them. She silently envied them, wishing she could, somehow, become a part of it.
As they entered the village, people came from their lodges to stare. When they saw Kaylene on the horse with Fire Thunder, they held their children back so that they could not come to greet their chief as they usually did.
It was obvious to Kaylene that these people did not trust all that easily.
When they shifted their gazes and saw Little Sparrow on Black Hair’s horse with him, they broke into relieved smiles to know that she was safe and unharmed.
Then Kaylene started when a man and woman ran from their lodge and met Fire Thunder’s approach.
Fire Thunder drew a tight rein as they came to the right side of his horse, their anxious eyes on him.
“I do not see Good Bear with you,” Gentle Song said worriedly. “You found your sister. Where is my son?”
Fire Thunder’s gaze wavered. “I hoped that he would be here,” he said thickly. “I hoped that he would return home. You have not seen him?”
Tears sprang from Gentle Song’s eyes. She placed a hand over her mouth in despair. “He is lost!” she cried. “I know he must be dead!”
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