by Merry Farmer
As the elders spoke amongst themselves, Grandfather motioned for Aiden to sit down. “Sky Bear says that he should be given time to prove to Burns With Fire that he is the better man. He has asked the elders to make this decision.”
Aiden remained standing. He glared at Sky Bear, peeked at Katie—who was no happier about the explanation than he was—then looked to Grandfather. He took a careful breath before saying, “What good will it do if Katie is given a day or a month or even a year while this man pesters her to be something she doesn’t want to be?”
“Are you so sure she will not be swayed?” Grandfather asked. Aiden couldn’t tell if he was teasing or if it was a genuine question.
“I love her,” he answered. “I do. I always have, since we were children. She is mine.”
Grandfather nodded. “And does she feel the same?”
Both Grandfather and Aiden looked to Katie. Katie blinked. The question must have caught her off-guard. Her cheeks flushed pink and she shifted her weight from side to side.
“I….” She closed her mouth as soon as she’d opened it, pressing her lips together. The glare she sent Aiden wasn’t exactly a declaration of undying love.
“Well, a ghrá?” Aiden asked her. “Do you love me?” Tell them, he thought to himself. Now was not the time for her to turn stubborn, nor was it the time for her to tweak his nose just to prove a point.
“I don’t want to marry Sky Bear,” she answered.
Aiden clenched his jaw and arched an eyebrow at her. It wouldn’t hurt her pride that much to admit what they both knew was true, would it? He turned his hands up in a gesture that pushed for the answer they both needed her to give.
It was the wrong thing to do. In a flash, Katie’s back was up once more. She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at Aiden. “I don’t know if I could love a man who pushes me this way and that, always two steps behind me, looking over my shoulder and telling me what to think, whether he’s Cheyenne or Irish.”
Two Spots translated for the people watching as Aiden winced. Burns With Fire indeed. No woman was more aptly named. He would show her a thing or two about fire once he had the chance. If they even got the chance now.
The Cheyenne who were watching chuckled at the turn of events. Even Sky Bear seemed arrogantly satisfied. A moment later, Aiden found out why as one of the elders made a short speech.
“Elk Man has decided that Burns With Fire should have until the new moon to decide whether she will be Sky Bear’s wife,” Grandfather said.
“The new moon?” Katie lost some of her fight and lowered her arms. “How long is that?”
Grandfather glanced up at the evening sky. “About ten days.”
Elk Man’s pronouncement had already been made in Cheyenne and the onlookers were returning to their feast. Sky Bear sent Katie a self-satisfied look that made Aiden’s blood boil. Everyone seemed satisfied about the decision except for him and Katie, and perhaps Two Spots, who stared at the ground with a worried frown. Aiden still had questions. Magpie Woman had a hold on Katie’s arm now and was tugging her back to whatever work the woman had for her. Aiden nodded to let her know it was all right to go, that he would take care of things. True to form, Katie tilted up her chin and snapped away from him as if she didn’t need or want his help, walking off with Two Spots in tow.
“And at the new moon?” he asked Grandfather, clenching and unclenching his hands at his sides. “If she still doesn’t want Sky Bear?”
Grandfather shrugged. “If Burns With Fire does not go willingly to Sky Bear’s tipi, he could still take her there unwillingly.”
“I won’t let him,” Aiden said. “I’ll kill him if he tries.”
“With what?” Grandfather asked. He gestured to the fiddle lying in its case near where Aiden had been sitting. “You make wonderful medicine, but Sky Bear is a warrior. He has killed many enemies. More, he is angry over what was done to him. He would kill you in a fight.”
Try as Aiden did to argue the point in his mind, a gloomy part of him considered that Grandfather may be right. He was a fair hand at dodging his way through a brawl, but if he had to face a man like Sky Bear head-on, would he win? He wasn’t sure he could risk finding out. With a heavy sigh, he sank to sit beside Grandfather.
“Eat,” Grandfather told him, handing him a shallow bowl with cooked meat and vegetables. “Food makes the body strong. It makes the mind strong as well. A strong mind is as good as a sharp weapon.”
Aiden arched an eyebrow and glanced at Grandfather. There was more to his words than sage advice. He took a bite of the seasoned meat and chewed it before saying, “Are you telling me to think my way out of this?”
A mysterious smile touched Grandfather’s face. “A wise man would think like the fox. The fox is clever. He finds a way to take him and his mate out of danger before danger arrives.”
Aiden’s grin grew. “You are telling me to think my way out of this. I can’t beat Sky Bear in a fight, but I can outsmart him and escape with Katie, no matter how stubborn she chooses to be.”
Grandfather nodded, focusing on his dinner. “I think we should call you Thinks Like Fox.”
In spite of himself, Aiden chuckled, but there was a note of bitterness to his mirth. He had ten days to think of a way to whisk Katie out of the Cheyenne village without starting a fight that could turn what had so far been hospitality into hostility.
Chapter Thirteen
“Mahpe,” Aiden said the Cheyenne word, holding up a bowl of water.
“Héehe'e,” Two Spots answered ‘yes’ in Cheyenne.
A tiny thrill of victory, like he was getting somewhere with the strange new language, shot through Aiden.
Three days had passed. Three more days in which he had been able to do little but play his fiddle and sing for the Cheyenne, watch Katie as she worked, and chip in to help with the work himself. He had tried to help Katie with the animal hides she had been set to clean, but the old woman teaching her had laid into him, scolding him and pushing him off. He’d found out later that only the women treated hides for clothing or other purposes, and that it was an important task that held great symbolic responsibility. After that, he’d made it his job to learn as much about the Cheyenne ways and language as he could.
“Moéhno,” he repeated to Two Spots, smoothing a hand down the back of a horse who grazed by the edge of the village where they were conducting their impromptu lesson.
“Mo'éhno'ha,” Two Spots corrected his pronunciation. She smiled. “Horse. Yes. Héehe'e. You learn fast.”
“I have to learn fast,” he told her. “I have to do whatever I can to figure out a way to safely take Katie away from here without offending Sky Bear.”
Two Spots lowered her eyes and clasped her hands in front of her. “You love her very much.”
“I do.” Aiden continued to stroke the horse’s back, but he watched Two Spots, more curious about her than anything else.
“Burns With Fire loves you too,” she said, although she didn’t seem happy about it. “I can see it when she watches you. I… I know that look.”
“Héehe'e,” Aiden said. “I think you do. Sky Bear.”
Two Spots’ face flushed, the discolored patches standing out. “I do not understand how Burns With Fire could love you so much but not say anything,” she avoided his indirect question.
Aiden crossed his arms and grinned. “Don’t you?” As far as he could see, she was doing the same thing.
Two Spots’ eyelashes fluttered as she kept her face turned down, and she wriggled on her spot. Yes, she knew she was doing the same thing too.
“My Katie is a stubborn one,” he admitted. “She hates it when anyone tells her what she should do or feel, especially when it’s what she already feels. I’ll admit, I was surprised when she wouldn’t swallow her pride and come out with it at the feast the other night.” More than surprised. He still burned with frustration every time he thought about it. “It must be a compliment to your village.”
�
�Compliment?” Now Two Spots glanced up, confusion relieving the embarrassment in her expression.
“Héehe'e.” Aiden nodded. “She must feel comfortable here on some level. If she were truly afraid, she wouldn’t have been so stubborn. Your hospitality has made her feel at home, is my guess. A little too at home.”
Sudden worry filled Two Spots’ eyes. “She would not choose Sky Bear in the end, would she?”
The idea sent a stab of fury through Aiden, but he knew Katie well enough to know that would never happen. What intrigued him, though, was how upset the idea made Two Spots.
“Isn’t this a merry gathering,” Katie interrupted them. She came striding through the tipis at the edge of the village with an empty water skin, heading toward the river, but stopped and planted her fists on her hips when she saw the look on Two Spots’ face. “What did you say to upset her, Aiden Murphy?”
Aiden was so happy to see her with her sass exactly where it should be that he grinned from ear to ear. “That’s Thinks Like Fox to you.”
“Thinks Like Fox is it?” Katie smirked and continued walking past them up the hill and over the crest to the river.
Aiden jumped to follow her, Two Spots bringing up the rear.
“It’s just as apt a name as Burns With Fire,” he called after Katie.
“I would have named you Frustrating Bull myself,” she commented over her shoulder.
The spark in her words combined with the look she sent him over her shoulder flooded Aiden with heat. Half of it was the bone-deep need to take her in his arms and kiss the breath from her, and half of it was the desperation to get her away from the dangerous game they played with their Cheyenne friends.
“Who’s calling who frustrating?” he said, turning a shade more serious. “You had the chance to get out of your predicament with Sky Bear. All you had to do was tell the elders you love me, that I’m your man.”
Katie’s saucy grin dropped. “I’m not leaving one trap only to find myself in another.”
“Is that what you think I am?” His irritation with her mounted. “All I want to do is get you to safety, and you’re blocking me with your own stubbornness.”
Katie stopped and twisted to face him. “What do you think would have happened if I had told everyone that I loved you when the question was put to me like that?”
Aiden came to stand toe-to-toe with her, glowering down at her. “They would have honored your choice and let us leave, safe and sound.”
Katie shook her head. “Did they say they’d do that? Did they even imply it?”
She turned to Two Spots for confirmation. Two Spots responded with an uncertain look, twisting her hands in the folds of her dress.
“If I had declared that I love you in front of everyone, Sky Bear would have challenged you to a fight and you could have been hurt,” Katie went on. Her words echoed what Grandfather had told him too closely. “Neither one of us has any weapons, Aiden. Neither one of us would be a match for half of these people, even if we did. I care for you—really, I do—but if you were to lose a fight with Sky Bear, the worst you would lose would be your life.”
Aiden barked a bitter laugh. “And that’s such a small thing?”
“You would lose your life, but what do you think would happen to me?”
Deadly anger hardened Aiden’s muscles and jaw. She was right. He didn’t want to think what Sky Bear would do to her if he won the fight and Aiden wasn’t there to protect her. Still, the truth was a bitter pill to swallow.
“I do not think Sky Bear would force you,” Two Spots said.
Her words were so quiet that at first Aiden wasn’t sure he heard her. She continued to stare at the ground, twisting her fingers together. She must have felt his doubtful stare and Katie’s as well. She took in a breath and looked up, glancing between them.
“Sky Bear is a good man. He is a noble warrior,” she insisted. Again, Aiden had the feeling that there was much more to her words than the words themselves.
“I know you think so,” Katie said, far kinder than he would have been, “but so far all I’ve seen is an angry brute who snatches women from their families and forces them into unwanted marriages.”
Two Spots shook her head. “This man you speak of is not the man I know. The man I know is brave and honorable.”
Aiden shifted, raising a hand to rub at the itch down his neck. “Two Spots, there is nothing honorable about kidnapping or forcing a woman. It’s the worst kind of dishonor.”
Again, Two Spots shook her head, more adamant this time. “He has changed. He is full of anger, like a feral dog. You do not know what it was like when his wife was killed.” She lowered her head once more and her words faded to a whisper.
As much as Aiden wanted to hold on to his own frustration, the pieces of the story were adding up. He tried to imagine what he would be like if someone had killed Katie. The well of hatred in his gut only made him more uncomfortable. He would be just as vicious as Sky Bear.
“You defend him all the time,” he said, trying to find something to talk about that didn’t make him want to scream with rage. “Do you love him?”
“I….” Two Spots jerked as though he’d raised a hand to her. She touched the pale patch on her cheek, hiding it.
Katie’s mouth dropped open. “You do,” she said. Hope lit her eyes. “You do love him.”
Two Spots shook her head. “It does not matter if I love him. He wants another. He has always wanted another.”
Aiden’s heart twisted at the sorrow in Two Spots’ expression, and the sympathy in Katie’s.
“But if you love him,” Katie stumbled to put together her thoughts, shifting the empty water skin from one hand to another, “and if everyone keeps telling him he should take another wife, why doesn’t he marry you?”
Two Spots’ looked as though she might weep. “He does not want a weak woman with an ugly face, he wants a beautiful woman as brave as he is, as strong as Magpie Woman.”
“But you’re not weak,” Katie said. “You’re beautiful. You’re one of the bravest women I’ve ever met.” When Two Spots glanced up at her, heart-wrenching hope in her eyes, Katie went on. “You were taken away from your family, and yet you survived. You learned a whole other language, an entirely different culture, and yet you came back and made a place for yourself here. You speak up for Sky Bear, and you have spoken up for me.”
“Those are the actions of a very brave woman,” Aiden seconded her.
It was painful to watch the tug of emotion in Two Spots’ eyes. Had no one ever told her how strong she was?
She shook her head and lowered her eyes once more. “Sky Bear looks at me and sees what I am. Two Spots.” She covered the white-pink patch of skin on her cheek. “He does not want an imperfect woman, a woman who is cursed.”
“Bollocks,” Katie grunted. She crossed her arms, the water skin swinging in her hand. “Any man who would think a couple of spots makes a woman less beautiful doesn’t deserve a woman like you.”
“You a beauty, inside and out,” Aiden added. “He should see that.”
The tears came back to Two Spots’ eyes and she managed a weak smile. “No one has ever called me beautiful. They only call me Two Spots.”
“Well, whoever named you was heartless,” Katie huffed.
As indignant as Aiden felt on Two Spots’ behalf, thoughts and ideas popped through his mind that went far beyond the unfairness of the way Two Spots was treated. He could have sworn that he had seen Sky Bear look at her with more than indifference. Several times in the last few days, he had seen the two of them talking.
“Two Spots, are you absolutely certain that Sky Bear would not take you for his wife?” he asked. “Are you sure he doesn’t have any feelings for you? Even a little?”
Two Spots lowered her eyes. “I do not know. Once I thought….” She shook her head. “He said he must take a white woman to be his wife since the white men took his wife from him.”
“That sounds more like revenge th
an love to me,” Katie grumbled.
It seemed like more than that to Aiden. It seemed like foolish pride. It seemed like rejecting someone who loved you simply to prove a point. He peeked at Katie, wondering if she saw it too. Katie caught him staring. Their eyes met. The spark of her indignation flared to something that made his heart beat faster. She did see it.
“I think I have an idea of how we might be able to satisfy Sky Bear and make it possible for Katie and I to leave this village on the very best of terms with the Cheyenne,” he said.
“You do?” Katie’s brow rose in question.
Two Spots glanced to him with curiosity.
Aiden shifted his weight and rubbed his scruffy chin. “I don’t have a complete idea yet, but I can feel a plan trying to form itself,” he said. “But it depends on you, a ghrá.”
“Me?” Katie eyed him suspiciously.
“Yes. It depends on you pretending to go along with whatever is asked of you. Act like you’re willing to consider Sky Bear’s suit.”
“Why in blazes would I do that?” she muttered through clenched jaw.
“Because it will take suspicion off of you,” Aiden battled her stubbornness with reason. “Because when the time comes, it will give us the freedom to move without you constantly being watched. Remember, you catch more flies with honey than with fire.” He winked at her.
Katie narrowed her eyes. “You catch plenty of flies with fire,” she argued.
“And burn the house down in the process,” Aiden finished. “For the time being, I need you to play along.” She didn’t look happy, but she didn’t protest. “This also depends on your willingness to help us, Two Spots. Would you?”
Two Spots glanced from Aiden to Katie and back, her mouth falling open. “You have been kind to me. Very kind. I will help you in any way I can, but….”
“I’ll make sure no harm comes to you,” Aiden promised her.
“Me too,” Katie added. “If anyone tries to cause trouble for you, they’ll have to answer to me.”
