Bonds, Parris Afton
Page 10
Anne's eyes widened, but all she said was, "And if Chief Iron Eyes doesn't?"
The white teeth flashed in the darkness. "Then we'll have to fight our way out―something I've got an idea you're good at."
Anne followed behind Brant as they walked through the Kwahadi village. Unlike her first arrival, there was a heavy silence, The children stopped their play, and the wives left off their gossip to watch. Even the yelping dogs were silent. Afraid the others would see the fear in her eyes, Anne trained her gaze on the bronze muscles that rippled in the thighs with each of Brant's long strides.
When they reached Iron Eyes' tepee, Brant motioned her to wait outside and spoke rapidly to one of the braves before being ushered within. Anne kept her gaze on the cracked, parched earth before her, desperately wishing she could hear what was being said inside. Then at last the buffalo hide was pushed aside, and she saw Pa-ha-yu-quosh's stony face. He indicated with a jerk of his head she was to enter.
After her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw that Iron Eyes sat in the center of the tepee before the firepit. In spite of the evening heat, he was wrapped in a blanket. Sitting crosslegged on either side of him were Pa-ha-yu-quosh and Brant. Brant ignored her.
"Your brothers, the Peneteka Comanche," Brant was saying, "have agreed to come to the Council House to talk with our leader, Sam Houston, about a peace between our nations. How can the people of Sam Houston put down their long guns in trust, if you will not even release the wife of one of your own brothers?"
The chief said something which Anne could not follow, and Brant put his right hand to the side of his head with his finger toward the leather-colored hair, then made a downward sweeping movement.
Pa-ha-yu-quosh sprang to his feet, spewing furious words. Iron Eyes frowned impatiently at his son. "Must you behave as a squaw, my son? You bring me great shame." The chief faced Anne, and gray eyes met gray eyes. "Firebrand says you are his woman, Ma-be-quo-si-tu-ma? This is so?"
It took Anne a second to realize that Firebrand was the same as Brant. She nodded mutely.
"You say you come as a brother," Pa-ha-yu-quosh spit. "Yet I see no such marriage markings to show you have married her by the rites of our tribes!"
"We were married by the Black Robes," Brant said calmly.
"That is not enough! The white man's way is not honored here."
"Do you speak for your father?" Iron Eyes demanded angrily of his son, but turned to Brant. "You say you are married in the way of the whites. But as a brother of the Tonkawa, will you also honor your marriage?"
At last Brant looked at Anne. "Iron Eyes," he told her in English, "will only honor my claim to you as my wife if we are married in the Indian manner. It isn't a pleasant ceremony." His brown eyes watched her, colder, harder than any Indian's ever had. What choice had she? Once more she nodded.
Pa-ha-yu-quosh's opaque eyes never left Brant. The Indian's words came in staccato, as if each were a lance thrust into the heart of his enemy ...the white man who walked and talked like an Indian. "I will not give her up. I captured her. She is mine. I will fight you for Ma-be-quo-si-tu-mal"
"This is my son's right," Iron Eyes said.
Brant shrugged. "I accept your son's challenge, Iron Eyes."
In the flickering light of the torches Brant and Anne came together in the center of the circle of the Kwahadi people. In the darkness beyond the firelight nearly one thousand pair of eyes watched the couple. An awesome silence pervaded the village. Iron Eyes came forward and took Brant's left hand. Slowly the chief drew the sharp blade of his knife across the back of Brant's hand. Blood sprang up like beads of sweat, yet Brant never flinched.
Then Iron Eyes turned to Anne. Her heart drummed with the anticipation of pain, but she wordlessly presented her hand to Iron Eyes. As he had with Brant, Iron Eyes scored the back of her hand. And as the blood formed a bright crimson line, the Chief of the Kwahadi Comanches took both her and Brant's hands and joined them back to back. At that solemn moment, as their blood mingled, Anne looked up to meet Brant's enigmatic gaze. It was the simplest of ceremonies. But they were husband and wife, no less.
Pa-ha-yu-quosh stepped into the circle's center. "I will kill the husband of Ma-be-quo-si-tu-ma now."
Anne was forced back into the ring of spectators. Brant removed his shirt, then drew forth the knife sheathed in the left legging of his moccasin. Warily the two men circled each other. The sweat glistened on their chests, running in rivulets down the corded muscles of their stomachs. For three unbelievably long minutes the two weighed each other.
The encircling crowd was tense in spite of the lack of emotion on their expressionless faces. Anne herself felt the tension that hovered over the crowd like an evil spirit, and her nails dug into the palms of her hands. If Brant died, all hope for escape died with him. Nevertheless, she stood as impassively as the others and watched the two combatants, awaiting the outcome of her fate.
With lightning swiftness Pa-ha-yu-quosh took the offensive. His knife cut across the space separating him from his opponent. "Pei-da Ta'kae'keh!" He cried when a thin red streak appeared across Brant's chest. "Death to the white man!"
Brant's eyes never left Pa-ha-yu-quosh. He moved to the left, feinted with his knife as his leg shot out, twisting about that of Pa-ha-yu-quosh. The Indian went sprawling in the dust. Brant dove on him. Grunts exploded from the two. They rolled, one over the other, stirring up the dust so that it was hard to distinguish the two. There was a sudden stillness. Then Brant's knife gleamed against Pa-ha-yuquosh's throat. The Indian's body went slack, waiting for the inevitable.
Brant looked toward Iron Eyes .The old man's face was like carved granite. Every breath was held in suspense. Brant released his hold on Pa-ha-yu-quosh and rose. "I give you your son's life, Iron Eyes, in return for my wife."
There was only the slightest flicker in the old man's eyes to indicate his relief. But when Brant turned away, Pa-ha-yu-quosh sprang upward. Hatred contorted his face so that he looked like one of the gargoyles that decorated the Old Town Hall in Bridgetown, and Anne screamed in warning. Brant whirled, ducking, and drove home his knife, burying it to the hilt in Pa-ha-yu-quosh's stomach .The Indian doubled over, then fell forward. The death gurgle bubbled from his open mouth. His body twitched spasmodically.
Brant bent over Pa-ha-yu-quosh. His knife moved expertly. In a few seconds he lifted the black-braided scalp and tucked it in the band of his breechcloth before sheathing his knife.
Still no one moved. Anne tore her gaze from the grizzly sight of Pa-ha-yu-quosh's mangled skull to meet Brant's dark eyes. He crossed the open circle to her as Morning Sky gave a shrill animal howl and threw herself on her husband's lifeless body.
"Let's go," Brant said and took Anne's wrist, pulling her through the crowd that parted for them.
Anne stumbled after him, not quite believing the savagery that she had witnessed. In the darkness Brant went unerringly .among the hobbled Indian ponies to find his sorrel. He caught Anne by the waist, swung her up on the horse, and mounted Indian style behind her.
She flinched away from the contact of his body. "No," she whispered hysterically as the wet scalp brushed her thigh. "Don't―"
Brant's arm wrapped around her waist like a shackle, and the breath shot from Anne in an expulsive rasp. "Shut up!" he warned.
His moccasined feet dug into the sorrel's flanks, and the horse sprang forward into the night. The Indian village fell behind them. The desert floor with its sentinel shadows of cacti loomed up before them. The cool wind whipped at Anne, reviving her. "Where are we going?"
His voice came above her head. "Eventually southeast. To San Antonio."
Anne tried to twist about in the saddle, but he held her firmly. "You're not taking me home?"
"Does home mean to your husband―or Donovan?"
"Why must you keep bringing up Colin's name?" she demanded.
"I kind of thought it was Donovan you would be interested in―since he offered the reward to find you."
"I've business in San Antonio."
"But you said Colin offered a reward to bring me back."
"Nope. He offered a reward to find you. There's a difference."
"Ohhh! You clod―you swine!" Anne struggled to break free.
Brant sawed sharply on the reins, and the sorrel reared its forelegs, pawing the air. Brant's muscled thighs touched those of Anne's, and she could feel him bring the sorrel under control with only slight pressure against the horse's flanks.
She heard the anger in his voice, barely held in check. "Iron Eyes has lost his son. And as noble as the chief might be, it won't take long before he decides to avenge his son's death. Now do you want me to leave you here―'cause, ma'am, I really don't care much either way. You'll only slow me down."
Anne turned her head upward, and in the harsh planes of his face she saw no leniency. He had found her―and that was all he needed to do to collect the reward money. It would do her little good to cry or flirt or use any feminine wiles on him. "I have no choice, do I?"
"Doesn't seem so."
XIV
For how long they rode that night, Anne was not sure. She only knew of the acute ache in her buttocks, shooting up her spine, and even jarring her teeth from the interminable hours astride the horse. And she remembered trying to keep awake and her head falling forward, jerking her awake again.
Brant kept the horse to the stony beds of washed-out gulleys and rocky barrancas. When a riverbed forked, he would take one fork, backtrack, then take the other fork. All this seemed to be taking precious time, but Anne kept her complaints to herself, determined not to let him see her frustration.
Once, when she shivered from the night cold, Brant stopped and wrapped his saddle blanket about her. If he noticed the way her deerskin dress hiked up over her bare thighs, he said nothing. "Can't we stop now and rest?" she asked.
"Not as long as it's dark. When the sunrises and it gets hot―maybe then."
Sinister fingers of scarlet streaked the cold dawn sky, and the desert sands yielded to cedar and mesquite thickets. And still Brant rode for an hour more before reining in at a grove of twisted mesquite and chaparral that afforded some shade. In the near east could be seen the purple shadows of the Guadalupe foothills.
Brant swung down off the horse, and Anne did not demur but gratefully slid into the arms that rose to take her. Her head fell against his chest, her cheek absorbing its warmth.
She was vaguely aware of the heavy-lidded eyes that studied her, scorching her. Then he lowered her to the ground. When he drew the blanket from her, spreading it out, she protested drowsily. "I'm cold!"
"So am I, sweetheart. Move over."
Her body went rigid as he pulled her against him. "I'm not going to hurt you," he said. When the minutes passed, and there came only the steady cadence of his breathing, she relaxed, letting the warmth from his body seep into hers.
"Why did you take his scalp?" she asked suddenly realizing it was no longer at Brant's waistband. "Did you have to behave like one of them would?"
From over her shoulder his voice came in a chuckle, stirring the stray wisps of her hair. "You keep forgetting. I am one of them. A blood brother." Then, "If I hadn't taken Pa-ha-yu-quosh's scalp, it would've been a sign of weakness. And they would've killed us thereon the spot. The other way―we at least have a chance."
"Oh―yes," she replied, half asleep now. It was hard to remember, when she couldn't see him, couldn't see the tattoo that branded the jutting jaw, could only hear the huskiness of his voice, that Brant was not just another Texian. But then, what was he? A scout for Sam Houston, as she had at first thought? A pirate, as Johanna had mysteriously claimed? A half-breed? Or a mercenary―as Brant himself had demonstrated by hiring out for Colin's money? Maybe all of those.
Too soon, it seemed, Brant was shaking her shoulder. When she sat up, sleepily pushing the hair from her eyes, he handed her a stringy piece of dried meat. "Pemmican―jerky," he told her.
Anne tore into it hungrily. "It's delicious," she said, and noted Brant's surprise. But then, she thought, there were a lot of things she was capable of doing and had not been before that were surprising.
When Brant finished, he hunkered down at her side and took a handful of her hair. "What are you doing?" she asked, tossing her head.
Brant jerked her head about again by the tangled mass of hair. "What you should have done, sweet. Braiding your hair. I'm tired of it whipping in my face when we ride."
She eyed him from the corner of her eyes, her lower lip thrust out. "I can do it."
"Oh, but I like to. After all, you are my wife: aren't you?"
"You know that's not so! I had to go through that ridiculous―"
Brant yanked at her hair, and tears sprang to Anne's eyes at the pain. "Be still while I finish."
"You're the most despicable―"
"I know, I know. But if you expect to be taken back you'll have to put up with my quirks of nature." He slanted a dark brow. "Seems to me you still owe me for the first trip."
Anne's head swung about. The smoky eyes took fire. "Don't hold your breath, Brant! I'd sooner share Pa-ha-yu-quosh's bed than yours. At least he acted like what he was―a Comanche. He didn't try to fit in the white world―and you shouldn't either. You're nothing but a savage! You don't know what it's like to behave decently!"
She saw the flicker of the muscles that played beneath the high cheekbones, the eyes that narrowed into dangerous slits, and she wondered fearfully if she had said too much. He was quite capable of leaving her out there in the middle of a treeless wilderness. But all he said was, "Strange you should talk of decency, Anne Maren. Married to one man and wanting another."
He broke off, and Anne knew the eyes, as hot and brown as the desert sands, were studying her, watching her reaction when next he spoke. She waited, stifling the nagging fear that rose in her throat.
"Of course," he said at last, "now that you are a widow, you're free of guilt, aren't you ...and free to go to Donovan in Houston?"
At first she did not understand. Then her eyes opened wide. Her voice rasped out the question. "Otto? He's dead?"
Brant rose, standing over her. "Funny thing―only the people from your cabin were attacked. You're carried off, and the child and Delila are killed. And your husband."
Like veils of Spanish moss the gray eyes shadowed over with pain. "How did he die?" she asked tonelessly.
Brant's voice turned harsh. ''There's no grave for you to weep over, Widow Maren. Peter Giles said your husband went wild―tried to follow the Kwahadis along the riverbank when a tomahawk caught him. Giles helped search the river for two days before riding to Houston with the news of the uprising."
"And the others?"
"Like I said―only your cabin."
Anne's straight dark brows knitted in puzzlement, but Brant said, "Get up. We're leaving."
He swung up over the sorrel and held down his hand. Reluctantly Anne took it, letting him pull her up before him. The journey resumed in silence; only it was worse with the afternoon sun beating down on them. All about was a stillness. Dust from the horse's hoofs seemed to hang motionlessly in the arid air. The cloudless sky was a brassy reflector of the heat on the sun-baked earth.
Yet for the first few hours Anne scarcely was aware of the perspiration that rivered the valley between her breasts and soaked the inside of her thighs where they rubbed against the sorrel's steamy flanks. Thoughts whirled about her brain like wind-whipped tumbleweed. She was free ... and Colin had paid to find her. In a matter of days she would be with him again. There was nothing to hold her here any longer. Together they could leave this land she detested so much―the extremes in weather, the Indians, the starvation, and the poverty.
Colin wanted her. Her heart beat rapidly at the thought of him, and time after time she wished Brant would push the horse faster, shortening
the time until she would be in Colin's arms.
But even these treasured thoughts died away under the glaring sun that seemed to Anne to dry out every ounce of moisture, drying up even her life blood, so that it was an effort to keep her head from falling forward. Once Brant stopped and handed her his canteen. Greedily she removed the cork and drank the water in spite of his warning. His lips flattened in a thin line. "If you fall sick on me, I'm leaving you here for them."
Anne followed the direction of his nod and a second later caught the metallic flash of light against the cobalt sky. "Mirrors?" she asked.
"They're still with us."
Brant did not stop to rest that night. Only the dismal hoo-hooing of the prairie owl and the mournful wailing of the coyote told Anne that there was a realm out there beyond herself and Brant. For those infinite hours the two of them were one, molded by exhaustion and danger. Yet Anne's determination to prove she could endure as much as Brant collapsed toward dawn when she found that, in her nearly unconscious state, she had wet herself like a child. And like a child she began to cry, mortified.
"Hush," Brant told her gently as he lifted her from the horse and deposited her in the lee of a draw. He flashed a boyish grin that startled her because it was totally out of place in the cynically rugged face. "Did you believe I thought you were a China doll?"
Her own smile was rueful. "I had hoped to prove to you that I could survive out here as well as―the next woman." She had almost said the name Dorothy.
It was Brant's turn to look surprised."Why should you care what I think?"
"I don't know. Maybe it's because you seem always to be judging me."
He frowned. "Maybe it's you who's doing the judging."
She sensed he was getting too close to something she did not want to know, not then. "Is there any water left?"
"No. We're detouring the few waterholes in case Iron Eyes is following us still."
Anne slumped back against the rocky wall. "I've never been so thirsty." Her voice was like a croak.