“It exists,” Raven explained once more. “And I must find the keeper of the mountain. He will show me the way.”
Raven didn’t know why she mentioned only one of the men. Explaining that she expected to find a man who came as a cougar was more than even she wanted to try.
“You’re just going to ride off into the sunset and wait for some old man to step up and say, ‘Look here, girl, I’m to be your guide.’ ”
Raven ignored her sister’s logic. She knew he would come. “It’s the Arapahos’ last chance, Sabrina. With the gold, we can buy land, good land, where all can live without being dependent on either crooked Indian agents or a government that changes the rules before the ink on the treaty is dry.”
“But Papa’s silver mine is producing now, Raven. And a share of it is yours. If you want to buy land, you can have the money. You may be part Arapaho, Raven, but you’re Cullen Alexander’s daughter too.”
“Yes, my father was an Alexander, Sabrina, but my mother was an Indian. My hair is as black as the bird for which I am named. My eyes are brown and my skin has been touched by the sun. We are sisters of the heart, but we are different. We each have our own purpose in life. I must follow my destiny.”
“Destiny, smestiny! You sound like some highbrow English novel. The Arapaho will be fine on that reservation in Wyoming. What you need is to come back home and forget about the Indians.”
“You forget, Sabrina, I am part Indian, more Indian now than white. But more than that, I made a promise. It was Grandfather’s dying wish that I journey to the mountains in the south and find the guardian. I gave my sacred word.”
“What guardian?”
“When the Arapaho tribe left the southern mountains, part of their people stayed behind to guard the sacred mountain. The secret of its location was left to those in the south, but one member of each succeeding generation in the north was given the means to find the treasure. Grandfather passed that secret to me. All I have to do is find the guardian.”
“And how do you plan to do that?” Sabrina asked in disbelief.
“I don’t know,” Raven admitted. “Grandfather said the spirits would guide me.”
Sabrina wrung her hands. “But why you?”
Raven tried to find the right words to explain. “Because those who are left are divided. Swift Hand and his followers want to challenge the soldiers. The elders are weary of fighting. There are fewer than a thousand Arapaho left, and they go to the reservation because they have no choice. I am the only one who can change that.”
In deference to her sister’s concern, Raven had donned proper traveling clothes and taken the stagecoach from Denver to Santa Fe. But her horse, Onawa, carrying her Indian dress and bedroll, was tied to the back.
More than once in the last two days, she had regretted her decision. Sharing her stage with a frightened mail-order bride and her small daughter and a newspaperman heading for Albuquerque made the journey seem endless.
“I’m Lawrence Small, a reporter for the New York Daily Journal,” the thin young man said eagerly. “Are you a native of the West?”
“I was born here, yes,” Raven had answered reluctantly.
“And do you know any outlaws or cowboys?”
Once she answered, “I’m afraid not,” he lost interest in Raven and began to interview the woman who’d answered an ad from a rancher who needed a wife.
Raven longed for her horse. Even her bones were sore from bouncing around the hard seat. She’d long ago given up on keeping the dust from her clothing, and the only way she could control her hair was by braiding and covering it with the absurdly small hat someone had devised as a way to torture its wearer.
Long before Santa Fe, she decided to leave the stage at the next stop, remove the travel dress with its tiresome bustle, and don her buckskins.
Taking in a deep breath of the crisp, cool air, Raven cast her gaze outside the window and studied the mountains looming larger in the lengthening shadows of late afternoon. It was early spring and snow still capped the tops of the peaks, giving their stark variegated edges the look of jagged hard candy dipped in sugar frosting.
She longed to lie beneath the stars in peaceful solitude. The moon would be full, a bright silver disk etched with lacy shadows, resting against a dark tapestry embroidered with pinpoints of starlight. The wind would sing to her. From the looks of the clouds beyond the peaks, she might even feel the cleansing rain sweep over the earth.
At times like this, the spirits would come. A kind of silver mist would fall over her, and everything would grow quiet. Then, from somewhere beyond her mind, a chorus of muted voices would begin to chant and she would experience what she had come to call her waking dreams, dreams so real that she could experience pain and fear. But all the while, she’d be divorced from danger.
Longing for some kind of reassurance, at the next way station she decided to carry out her plan. While the food was being prepared, Raven found a private place to change her clothing within a stand of cottonwood trees. The travel dress with the bustle was stored in the bedroll along with her slippers and petticoat. Her tired body welcomed the soft buckskin dress and moccasins.
When she started back to the shack, the child met her, eyes wide. “You look like a princess in a fairy story. Do you have wings to fly?”
“No, I don’t fly, little one. But I am going to leave you here and ride my horse across the pass into the mountains.”
By the time the driver started to get worried about her whereabouts, the exotic Miss Alexander had been replaced by an Arapaho woman in a buckskin dress.
The stationmaster reached for his rifle.
The newspaperman gave a disbelieving whistle.
The mail-order bride fainted dead away.
Raven left her case and most of her clothing for the bride, mounted Onawa, and rode west toward the mountains, feeling freedom settle over her like a peaceful mantle.
This was her quest, her mission, the unknown she’d waited for. Energy bubbled to life within her, and she let out a cry of joy as the horse beneath her leapt forward.
“Aieee!”
On the third night, the moon rode high as Raven crested the peak, casting a light as bright as day. She could hear the labored breathing of her horse and regretted not making camp earlier. Traveling unfamiliar territory was difficult enough in the daytime. At night it was foolhardy. But Onawa never faltered, and as Raven climbed higher she had felt herself drift into a spiritual meditation.
Now the horse slowed her steps, slinging her head as if she were listening to some unseen voice. Raven, too, sensed something she couldn’t identify. They rounded a boulder, and the path she followed went dark as it intersected with another. Her horse stopped, waiting for direction. A shaft of moonlight suddenly found an opening in the overhanging ridge above her, casting a circle of pale silver around her that increased Raven’s unease. “Which way, Grandfather?”
But there was no answer. Never had she been so tired. Her food supply had been exhausted since she’d left the main trail the day before, and other than a few berries, she’d had nothing to eat since then. She could have foraged the countryside as she’d been taught by her mother’s family. But she felt driven and she hadn’t taken the time. The area where she rode had become more and more rocky, almost as if a playful child had picked up a handful of assorted boulders and dropped them in a heap. The trail was steep and barren, with little foliage and no wildlife, except for the wave of black birds that appeared periodically overhead.
Birds. For the past two weeks, she’d had recurring dreams about large black birds and a rangy, untamed mountain lion of a man with hair the color of the sun. Then the man had gradually changed into a sleek, tawny cougar whose power was as great as the control with which he contained it.
Always before, Mother Earth had protected and provided for Raven when she was alone. This time she seemed strangely distant, almost as if she were punishing the child of her loins.
From the time she’d l
eft the stagecoach, Raven had moved south as Flying Cloud had directed, following some inborn instinct. Now she was confused.
“Oh, Grandfather,” she whispered, “show me the way to the guardian.”
You will know the way, my child. The secret is hidden in your heart, the path in your mind. The guardian is one of us. Soon it will be clear.
“You choose, Onawa.” Raven allowed the horse free rein. For a moment the small mare hesitated. Then, as if she’d been nudged, she turned to her left, taking the trail that continued upward.
Raven felt as if she were being watched over, but she was receiving conflicting images of her protectors. She had to be careful. She’d walk for a while, restraining the brave Onawa, who seemed suddenly eager to move ahead.
Searching inward, Raven reached out to the spirit world. Of late she was becoming more proficient at closing out the real world and taking herself to a place of communion with the spirits. Her sisters wouldn’t have understood how she could feel the presence of those who’d gone before, of the mountain, the moon, even the wind. But she was gaining the ability to make herself silent and listen.
There was a dangerous stillness in the night, a dark, powerful force that lingered in the wind. Above, the stars hung like teardrops in the black sky, so close that she could almost reach up and wipe them away. It was only then that she felt the dampness of her own tears on her cheeks. For a moment she wanted to turn back, call out to Sabrina, tell her that she needed to be the little sister again. But that life was over and gone. Every step took her farther away.
The savage call of a mountain lion echoed down the canyon, bouncing off the boulders and raking her nerve endings. Then came the answer, a response just as intense, but less aggressive. He was calling to his mate and she was answering in kind.
In the silence, she could hear the gentle slap of water against the rocks below. The fresh wind added its whisper to the scuff of the horse’s hooves and the animals’ cries, all merging in a rhapsody of lonely sound.
Then a sense of purpose stole over her, a sense of direction, an eagerness that quickened her pulse. She was being drawn by something in the rocks above her.
Something, or someone, waited.
2
Swift Hand stepped into the tepee, lowered the flap behind him, and took his place in the circle of men surrounding the fire. He accepted the pipe packed with tobacco, lit it, and took a deep, slow draw, releasing the smoke to waft upward across his scarred face.
“I have had a vision, a way to take back the land of our people—our trees, our streams, and the buffalo,” he said and passed the pipe.
Each member of the circle smoked and nodded his agreement.
“The Great Mother Earth will share her riches with us. She has provided a guide to show us the way.”
The pipe circled the fire once more, then a third time before Swift Hand tapped it against one of the rocks and spilled the tobacco onto the coals. The remaining shards turned into curls of fire and disappeared in smoke.
He looked at the man seated across from him. “We will follow the white medicine woman. She will lead us to great wealth. Are we agreed, Little Eagle?”
The young man with the eagle feather in his hair nodded. “We are agreed.”
Swift Hand knew that some of his followers were still skeptical, but they were determined not to be relocated to the Wind River Reservation with the elders. That land belonged to the Shoshone. The Arapaho would have their own land or they would die. No matter that Raven had been chosen, he knew in his heart that he was to take the Grandfather’s place.
Sounds Loud, one of the older warriors, voiced the question shared by them all. “But does she know the place?”
Swift Hand stood and stared into the coals. “Flying Cloud made the child of his blood a medicine woman. It is she who now speaks directly to the spirits, who shares their great wisdom. But Flying Cloud’s vision was tainted. It is wrong that a white woman knows our secrets. We will let her find the guardian of the sacred mountain, then we will claim what rightfully belongs to our people. The spirits will protect us.”
There was a long silence, then an uneasy chorus of assenting nods.
“So be it,” Swift Hand said. “We leave at first light to follow the path of the medicine woman who holds the secret of the Arapaho treasure.”
Raven walked through the darkness, her feet moving with certainty on the mountain trail. Onawa’s hooves moved beside her in tandem, almost as if the two separate travelers were one.
The trail was sheer rock, the surface hard. Low-lying clouds drifted like fog across the moon, filtering out more and more of the light. Now the wind picked up, lifting sand and leaves and flinging them against Raven’s bare arms and legs.
For the first time, she was afraid. How would she find these men who would lead her? Flying Cloud had told her no name. He only knew that when his people had drifted to the north, the chosen ones had remained behind to be caretakers of the treasure.
“You will know him,” Flying Cloud had said. “The cougar will show you the way.”
Now a storm was coming. There would be rain soon. And the mountain where she walked would be an unforgiving place to find shelter. She quickened her step. Then, as if a warm, hard hand had been placed across the trail, Onawa stopped.
Raven felt the wind die. Nearby, the cry of a cougar echoed through the rocks. Not a cry of attack nor an announcement of his power, but a different song—enticing, alluring, melodious.
She again recalled her dream of such an animal and felt disoriented. The darkness around her seemed to swirl and change, circling her like a whirlwind of clouds. She heard the chanting begin. But there was a new sound, a gentle, rhythmic movement almost like the beat of drums, as if she were back in the dream that had haunted her for days. A raven and a cougar, lying together. The cougar was grumbling in a low voice as he watched the wary bird, yet he did not harm her.
But this time she was awake. This time she knew that she couldn’t move her arms and fly. Still, there was no ignoring the urge she had to move to the edge of the path. Cautiously she stepped forward, searching the darkness for the sight of the river.
The earth started to rumble, and suddenly the ground on which she stood gave way. This time she didn’t move her arms, and there were no feathers on her body. Instead she bounced off a rock and landed with a jolt on a ledge below the place where Onawa stamped her feet and neighed softly in alarm.
Raven lay where she’d landed, her head aching. The chanting grew louder and the swirl of fog returned to envelop her, closing around her in a fitful sleep that took away all thoughts and dreams.
Across the valley, masses of rain-filled clouds boiled over the mountains and descended to the ledge where she lay. In the stand of trees farther up the trail, Onawa sought refuge beside another horse, both animals nickering nervously as the clouds approached.
But the rain held off.
It was the sound of thunder that woke Tucker, followed by hard, pelting rain that stung his face. He sat up, disoriented for a moment as he tried to remember where he was.
Rain. He was outside. But where was Yank? A flash of lightning lit up the sky, revealing the side of the cliff and an opening in the rock before him. He pushed himself onto his elbows, his head vibrating as if he’d been hit by the lightning flashing in the distance.
Gingerly he began to feel his way toward the wall, his hand encountering something in the darkness—something that ought not to be there. An ankle. A slim ankle leading to a foot encased in a soft moccasin.
Tucker froze. He wasn’t alone. Wherever on the west side of hell he was, he had a woman with him. But why wasn’t she having a reaction to his touch? Another jagged streak of silver split the sky and illuminated her face—he could see that she was an Indian, wearing a buckskin dress.
He must have had more to drink than he’d thought. Maybe he was hallucinating. Or this was a dream. No, the leg he held was real. It was warm and soft and feminine. But something was w
rong. No woman would sleep through a storm.
As the rain streamed down his face, Tucker turned to look behind him. All he could see was rain and—space.
Space? His stomach contorted and his knees quivered. He said a small prayer of thanks that it was dark. He didn’t want to know how high they were. They were on some kind of damned ledge and she was hurt or unconscious.
He blinked, trying desperately to close out the ringing inside his skull. Once a horse he’d tried to break had kicked him and left him like this. A couple of times, he’d tied on a good one, but nothing like this had happened to him then. Too much whiskey made a man weak, and Tucker Farrell never lost control.
The rain came down harder. The woman. If he didn’t get her out of this downpour, she could die. Taking her by the arm, he tugged her against him. With one hand behind him and the other arm around her waist, he inched away from the edge.
At last, with one final jerk, they were inside the cave, out of the elements. Tucker shivered from being wet. His bedroll was on Yank’s back, wherever Yank was. Tucker didn’t want to think that the horse had gone over the edge with him. Tucker always took care of his horse. Just like his namesakes, the big black was indestructible. They were a good match, a Southern Rebel and a horse named Yank. Both were survivors.
The cave was small and damp. The woman, still lying against his chest, was cold. He shook her gently, waiting for a reaction. But the only response he felt was his own as the top of his index finger found the space beneath her breast.
“Ma’am … Lady … I beg your pardon, but would you wake up.”
She moaned and turned slightly so that her face was against his chest. His hand, below her breast only moments ago, was now holding it. Tucker froze, waiting for her to come to her senses and chastise him for his liberties.
But she didn’t wake. He had the absurd feeling that he’d been cut into two people. His head ached fiercely while the lower half of his body, very much alert, announced a raging male hunger. Until he understood what was happening, he’d force his thoughts and touch away from that need as he cradled her head and laid her down.
Raven and the Cowboy: A Loveswept Historical Romance Page 2
