by Karen Kay
“I will.”
“Well, that’s that, then, is it?” Julian spoke up from the shadows. “I must say I am relieved to know I might have your help, Mr. Hawk. And if I might add to my sister’s cause, I will help her with your tutoring as much as possible.”
Again, Swift Hawk raised an eyebrow. “Will you?”
“I certainly will.” Julian extended his hand toward Swift Hawk, who stared at that hand before clasping it in his own. “Now, if you two will excuse me…”
“Julian!”
Julian clamped down hard on his heels and turned to his sister. “The wagon master is having a conference. I can see it from here. I need to be there.”
“But you can’t leave me alone with—”
However, her protest was useless. Her brother had already turned and was walking away even as the words left her lips.
Angelia glanced toward Julian, then back toward Swift Hawk. Shyly, she smiled. “Please forgive my brother’s manners. But as you can see, he is quite anxious to learn about scouting.”
“Haa’he. That he is,” said Swift Hawk, who, although he held fast to where he stood, was drawing back away from her…perhaps spiritually.
Angelia cleared her throat. “It is embarrassing, isn’t it?”
“Embarrassing?”
“To be left alone, as we are, here in the dark with only the moon above us for our light.”
Swift Hawk didn’t say a word. Perhaps it was this that allowed the music from the dancing to drift toward them. Even the wind carried the tune.
It made her realize that someone must have requested a slow waltz. She loved the waltz, had always done so, and the music pulled at her, inviting her to dance. She moved this way and that, keeping time to the music.
“Do you like this kind of dance?” asked Swift Hawk.
“Yes. Very much. It reminds me of my youth. My father used to forbid me to dance, although secretly I would watch the others, and I would practice alone, until one day my brother caught me. From then on my brother and I practiced together.”
Swift Hawk slanted her a scowl. “Your father forbade you to dance?”
“Yes. He thought it would lead to other desires of the flesh, and so he forbade it to us.”
“To the Indian, to dance is to live.”
She smiled at him. “You are lucky to have been raised that way.”
Swift Hawk’s glance at her was long and hard. “But you danced nonetheless?”
“Yes, I did. Alone. At least until I discovered that my brother loved to dance as much as I did.”
Swift Hawk paused, as though uncertain what to say. “You and your brother must be very close.”
“Yes. That we are. We’ve had to be. We grew up traveling from town to town with our father. And because we were never in any one place for very long, neither one of us made many friends. So we became a friend to each other.” She smiled. “My brother, you see, is my dearest friend.”
“He is a fortunate man to have you. Perhaps I was wrong to judge you so hastily.”
“Perhaps.”
Slowly, as though he were doing something that went against his better judgment, Swift Hawk held out his hand to her. “Would you like to dance?”
She gasped. “What? Here?”
He nodded.
Angelia frowned up at him. “But do you know how to do this dance?”
The Indian gave her a half-cocked smile. “I have often seen this dance done at Bent’s Fort. I have even danced it with my cousin, Yellow Woman.”
“Have you, now?” Angelia placed her hand in his. “Then by all means, let us dance.”
He held her at arm’s length, his hand barely touching her waist. And then as easily as that, they were gliding around and around that woodland paradise, the fragrant grasses of the prairie scenting an already balmy night.
For a moment, no one else existed but the two of them, as they spun around the clearing. With the moon bathing them in a silvery mist, Angelia felt as though she might have been floating, so lightly did her feet touch the ground.
“You are a good dancer,” she said rather dreamily to Swift Hawk.
“As are you,” he responded.
Angelia smiled up at him. Hardly aware of what she did, her body drew in closer to him.
His hand tightened on her waist. He stared down at her, she up at him.
He leaned down toward her, closer and closer, until his handsome features were swimming before her. She parted her lips in anticipation, barely knowing what she was doing. All she felt was that she wanted this man to be near to her.
She shut her eyes, and then…
She was free. He had let her go.
Not only that, he had turned and was striding away from her at a rather fast clip.
What had happened? Why was he leaving?
Rational thought seemed to have deserted her, and acting on impulse, she spurred herself to hurry after him.
“Mr. Swift Hawk?” she called. “Please wait for me. Mr. Swift Hawk?”
He paused as she came toward him, and said, “You should not follow me.”
“Shouldn’t I?” She shook her head, as though such an action would make her mind stop functioning in a haze. “Oh, yes, yes, of course I shouldn’t follow you. But I…”
He didn’t swing around to look at her, but he didn’t step another foot forward either. Nor did he utter a sound.
“I…I…” Angelia stumbled over her words. Gulping quickly, she stated, “I wish to thank you for the dance.”
He sighed. “That is all?”
“I…ah…I enjoyed the dance. Perhaps in the future, if you decide to help us, we might have another…”
She left the rest blank, realizing that she had best stop speaking altogether. She was aware she was acting oddly, fumbling about as if she were under a spell. To her mortification, the words seemed to tumble out of her mouth without any forethought.
But if he noticed, he didn’t show it. In truth, he didn’t answer her for the longest time.
At last he spun back toward her. “Do not seek out my company, and do not lie to me with your body.”
“Lie to you? With my body?”
“Do not flirt with me, do not smile at me, using your body language to hint that you might welcome me in your life, and do not tell me you enjoy my company, no matter how much you wish my help. I am but a man, and I would not be male if these things did not put ideas in my head.”
“But—”
“You know you were flirting with me.”
“Yes, but I have not lied to you.”
For a fleeting moment, there was a look within his gaze that she would have been hard-pressed to explain. But too quickly, it was gone. “Perhaps you do not lie with words, but your body says things I know you do not intend. I warn you. Do not play with me. Though I am curious to know if you can truly help me, I am aware of how you ply your beauty to gain those things you desire. Know that I am unaffected by your looks, and by you. Do not be deceived by me again. I am not a white man, and I will not bend to your wishes simply because you smile at me.”
“But I—I have not meant to—”
He waved away her protest. “If we are to be in one another’s company, as you want us to be, you must contain your flirtations. Otherwise…” He shuddered. “Do you understand?”
Slowly she nodded. “I do.”
He turned away from her then, staring straight forward, out onto the empty prairie. “I will hold you to that promise.”
So saying, he strode away from her, his long legs carrying him far into the distance in a matter of a relatively short time.
It left Angelia dumbstruck, hardly knowing what to think, and she gazed after the man for a very long time indeed.
Chapter Eight
Dear to me is the lumbering herd of buffalo, of curlews dipping in a moist meadow, of cows in a line ambling to the milking shed, of trips across the Great Plains in a covered wagon…
Marian Russell
Land
of Enchantment: Memoirs of Marian Russell Along the Santa Fe Trail
That had been a week ago, a week in which Angelia hadn’t seen Swift Hawk at all.
Was he gone? Or was he simply avoiding her?
In the beginning, Angelia had expected the man to turn up sooner or later. But he never had. After the first few days of speculation, Angelia began to worry that she might have done something to make him stay away.
“Them Injuns ain’t human. Now, see here, they may not look it, but they’s more animal than you or I,” muttered an old man. “Don’t rightly care about their children, neither, nor about each other, fer that matter. Cain’t trust ’em, cain’t live with ’em. They’s better off dead.”
Angelia glanced at Mr. Wooster, a man who had taken to sharing their late-afternoon fire and lecturing her nightly on the unwise actions of speaking to Indians. Small, sandy-haired, with a reddish beard, black hat turned up in front and a hunch in his shoulders, the man had commenced to recount stories of Indian atrocities to Angelia and her brother. That these stories caused Angelia nightmares seemed only half the battle, for if truth be known, it was not because of nightmares that she was losing sleep. No, rather it was due to concern.
What if Swift Hawk were really gone?
Surely it wouldn’t be as if the world had suddenly stopped turning on its axis, she assured herself. Swift Hawk wasn’t her only means of security against a bounty hunter’s capture. She wasn’t without resources. Certainly she would be able to think of some other scheme to keep herself and Julian safe.
But what?
To date, she hadn’t determined another single plan. Except that perhaps she should go on hoping.
But hoping for what? That Julian would come to his senses? That the others in their wagon train wouldn’t find them out?
It didn’t help that their situation, as part of the wagon train, was one of some idleness, since their train awaited the arrival of even more wagons from the east, a thing that was a necessity, since it was well known that the Indians along the trail were hostile. It simply wasn’t safe to travel without enough manpower to ward off an attack.
“I warn ye now,” continued Mr. Wooster. “With hair the color of yours, ye’ll be the first ta lose yer scalp, that’s fer sure. Course, not afore they has their way with ye, miss. Dirty heathens.” He coughed up something foul from his throat and spit. “If I was you, miss, I’d stay put, mind ye. This trail here. It ain’t fit fer a woman.”
This last had Angelia glancing up toward the old geezer. Ever since the day when she and Julian had accompanied Swift Hawk into the woods, Mr. Wooster had impressed himself upon her, both at noon and in the evenings. His stories were brutal, bloody and prejudiced.
She had learned the hard way that arguing with him was not an option. To debate with the man only caused him to stay longer. So Angelia had taken to humoring him. “I thank you kindly for the warning, Mr. Wooster. And I will be certain to remain cautious. However, my mind is set on making this trip.”
“Don’t say I dinna warn ye, miss.”
“I won’t, Mr. Wooster. I won’t,” she replied, gazing around her, seeking an escape.
“Now, did I ever tell ye about the time them Injuns swooped down on us as we was…”
Angelia’s mind wandered. Fact was, every campfire within this mass of pioneers accommodated at least one wagoner or merchant who told similar stories—stories of the red man’s slaughter, of his unconditional murder, his indecency to the white man—and to each other. It was said that the trail was littered with the bones of Indian victims.
Though Angelia listened as heartily as the next, she was inclined to disbelief. She did keep her opinions to herself. Hadn’t she heard equally prejudiced stories about the Asian, the Negro slave, even about the Irish? No, to her way of thinking, prejudice was merely that—a means and a justification for committing unthinking crimes, for if the object of one’s gossip were made out to be little more than the work of the devil, what did it matter?
Shaking her head and looking outward, Angelia sighed as her gaze alit upon wagon after wagon, their blue-painted bodies, red wheels and white canvas covers making a colorful sight. There were about fifty of them, and they were stretched out over this lush green prairie, a prairie that extended around Fort Leavenworth in all directions. But fifty wagons weren’t nearly enough to stave off Indian attacks.
Rumor had recently started to circulate that a big government train was due to arrive in a matter of days. It meant more manpower, more protection. That this would be a welcome relief for most people went without saying, for it signified an end to the waiting.
However, this might not be an advantageous situation for herself and Julian. Wouldn’t a government train carry the knowledge of a bounty that was offered for the capture of a certain brother and sister?
Or would it? Would the state of Mississippi have issued a warrant to the federal government?
Still, it made her wonder. Should she and Julian stay and take their chances? Or should they go now while they both had the opportunity to do so?
In her heart, Angelia felt they should take their chances and go elsewhere. But where? Fort Leavenworth was literally the westernmost outpost of civilization. If she and Julian were to try to make the trek to Santa Fe on their own, it meant certain death—if not from an Indian attack, then from the elements alone.
Problem was, it wasn’t any good talking over her concerns with Julian. He simply refused to see the danger of his actions, or of their situation. For some reason, he lived under the impression that his alleged relationship with this John Bogart character offered them impunity.
Oh, where was Swift Hawk? she wondered for the umpteenth time. At least with him, in an odd sort of way, she could talk and express her concerns, whereas with the others…
“And so, miss, ye’d do well to heed my warning…”
Angelia nodded, as though she’d heard every word. Her mind was still so far away that, staring into their evening campfire, she completely blanked out Mr. Wooster’s voice.
By chance she gazed up, and there, off in the distance, beneath a fiery-red sunset, she spotted Swift Hawk. At once, everything in her immediate environment, except him, faded to a dim blur, as if he, and only he, were real.
Swift Hawk strode through the tall grasses—grasses and vines that rippled in the wind. His pony, weighted down with something, followed in his wake. That the grass hampered his tread didn’t seem to slow his stride. In truth, he looked determined.
He was quite a sight to behold, and she thought she would never forget the beauty of it, for the tall grasses mirrored the extravagance of the sunset, their whitish tops casting a pinkish-red glow over the land, the sky, and over him. A lump formed in her throat.
She drew in a deep breath, and as she did so, she sniffed, at once cognizant of the fragrant, late-afternoon scent of grass, dirt and pure, oxygen-filled air.
He was back. The good Lord be praised, he was back. His glance spoke volumes, for he looked unswervingly at her. She knew. He had come to a decision. Hope blossomed within her, and it seemed to her that the native grace of the landscape reflected her mood, giving her spirits a buoyancy she hadn’t felt for many a day.
“Miss. Ah, miss?”
But Angelia barely heard the old geezer. She had eyes and ears only for him.
Swift Hawk’s stride brought him directly toward her campfire, and then he was in front of her, for he had stopped his pacing a mere few inches from the blaze. His pony snorted behind him, then commenced to munching on the grass.
Swift Hawk stood, his long, buckskin-covered legs flung far apart, arms crossed over his broad chest. He stared down at her.
Gazing upward, Angelia drew herself onto her knees while Julian continued to doze. She squinted up at Swift Hawk as the evening sunset outlined him in reds and pinks and oranges. She tried to study him, attempting to determine what she could witness within his countenance.
Silently he stared back at her, and beneat
h the heat of his gaze, Angelia let her own glance drop to the ground. Cautiously, she breathed in and out, hardly daring to say a word.
He said to her, “I have come to tell you that I have made my decision.”
“Miss,” piped up the old geezer, “have ye heard nothin’ I’ve been saying to ya?”
With her right hand Angelia shushed the man, while she spoke directly to Swift Hawk. “Have you?” She bestowed a smile on Swift Hawk.
“Haa’he, I have.”
“Consortin’ with Injuns!” declared Mr. Wooster, coming up to his feet and shaking a finger at her. “Ye’ll come to harm, I tell ye.”
“Yes, yes, Mr. Wooster. Thank you. I’ve heard you,” Angelia said, though the man, for all the attention she paid him, might have been invisible.
“Of all the…” The rest of whatever censure Mr. Wooster had to say was lost to the wind, for he left forthwith. Unfortunately, his stench lingered behind him.
Angelia waited, for Swift Hawk did not at once elaborate on what his decision was. Unable to bear the anticipation, Angelia brightened her smile and cast Swift Hawk the most flirtatious gaze she possessed. “Yes?”
Looking away from her, Swift Hawk stiffened.
Smiling, Angelia again coaxed, “Yes?”
Swift Hawk said, “I have decided that I will help you and your brother.”
She gulped. “You have?” Slowly, Angelia stood. “You will?”
“Haa’he. I will.”
The feeling of relief was so great, Angelia became incapable of speech. Something powerful had welled up inside her, and she found she could do no more than smile, although a laugh of sorts escaped her.
It sounded more like a cough to her own ears, however, and she pressed her lips together. In a moment she was able to pull herself together, and she said, “I…I am so glad you have come back and that your decision is to help.” After a time, she forced herself to move, and she gestured to a spot across the fire. “Here, please sit and join us. Have you had your supper? You are more than welcome to anything that we have.”
He shook his head. “I have returned from a hunt and have brought you some deer meat.” With his head, he gestured to his pony, which stood behind him, busily grazing. “I am not hungry.”
