Reckless Love

by Madeline Baker

  I hesitated to answer, yet I knew it was pointless to lie. "Yes."

  Josh grunted. "How many bastards has he given you?"

  "I have three children."

  "Where are they?"

  "They went to Steel's Crossing with my father," I lied. "They'll be gone for several days."

  "And the redskin?"

  "He's hunting."

  Joshua nodded and I felt a shiver of apprehension as he began to stroke the butt of the gun shoved into the waistband of his pants.

  "I always meant to kill that Injun," Josh mused. "Maybe I'll just wait around and bushwhack him when he gets back."

  "Let's not waste time waiting for him," I said quickly. "He could be gone for days." I laid my hand on Joshua's arm and smiled at him, forcing as much warmth as I could into my expression. "California sounds exciting, Josh. Let's hurry.''

  Joshua looked at me hard, his blue eyes probing mine. Then he grinned. "Let's go," he said. He closed my valise, and then he kissed me. "California," he murmured. "We'll make it this time."

  XXIX

  Shadow It was nearly eight o'clock that night when Shadow returned home. He, Blackie, and Hawk had put in a hard day rounding up three dozen cattle that had broken down a section of fence and wandered into the hills south of Kincaid's cabin. Eight hours in the saddle made for a long day, and chasing a bunch of cattle that didn't want to be caught was never easy. Neither was repairing the fence the cattle had trampled in their clumsy haste to reach the grass on the other side.

  Shadow grinned ruefully as he rode toward the corral behind the house. Who would have thought the day would come when Two Hawks Flying, the last fighting chief of the Plains, would be chasing the white man's cattle instead of the shaggy-haired buffalo? Who would have dreamed that a Cheyenne warrior would abandon a snug hide lodge for a square house made of wood?

  But then, his life had changed in so many ways. He lived, ate, and spoke like a white man. He kept the white man's time, purchased supplies with the white man's currency, lived surrounded by white men who were once his enemies. His long black hair and dusty buckskins were the only visible sign that he was different from his neighborsthat, and the color of his skin.

  So many changes. No longer did he live within the sacred circle of the Cheyenne. No longer did he hunt and live and fight in the old way. And yet, he was not unhappy. He had three fine, healthy children, a lovely daughter-in-law. Soon he would be a grandfather. The thought brought a smile. But best of all, there was Hannah. Her sweet smile brightened the darkest days and the dreariest nights. His love for her remained a vital force in his life.

  Dismounting outside the corral, he unsaddled Smoke and threw the rig over the top rail of the corral. He gave the horse a quick rubdown, turned the stallion loose in the corral, forked it some fresh hay.

  Tired as he was, his steps quickened as he headed for the house. He was eager to see Hannah, to hold her in his arms. It was something that still amazed him, the way he missed her when they were apart for more than a few hours. Even after all the years they had lived together, he looked forward to being with her at the end of the day.

  He knew the house was empty the minute he opened the door. Walking noiselessly through the dark parlor, he struck a match and lit the lamp beside the sofa. There was no note waiting for him on the table to tell him where she had gone. Frowning, he picked up the lamp and crossed the parlor to the bedroom he and Hannah shared.

  He paused in the doorway. The armoire was open and he could see that some of her clothes were gone. Nothing else was missing.

  Turning on his heel, he went to the kitchen. The room was empty, clean except for a few dishes left on the table. His frown deepened. Hannah never left dirty dishes on the table.

  He went into Mary's room. His daughter was staying with one of the women in the south end of the valley. Mary's bed was neatly made. A vase of wildflowers stood on the small oak dresser.

  He felt a twinge of unease as he left Mary's room and went into Blackie's room, searching for some clue as to Hannah's whereabouts. Blackie's room was cluttered. A cage held a pair of young sparrows that had fallen from a nest. A tortoise slept in a box beside the bed.

  Returning to the parlor, Shadow felt a moment of relief that Blackie had decided to spend the night with Hawk and Victoria because something was wrong, very wrong.

  Placing the lamp on the table, he surveyed the parlor, his keen eyes taking in every detail. There was no sign of a struggle, everything was in its usual place. It looked as if Hannah had tidied up the house, packed her clothes, and walked out. But why?

  It was too dark to scout her trail and he spent the long hours until dawn pacing from one end of the cabin to the other. He would have preferred to be outside, but he dared not walk in the yard for fear of erasing Hannah's tracks.

  Hannah. In his mind, he pictured her ready smile, the smooth creamy skin that remained smooth and unblemished despite the passage of time. He remembered the way her eyes lit up when she met him at the door, the way she always melted into his arms, lifting her face for his kiss.

  Damn! Where was she?

  The hours passed by slowly and his thoughts were filled with the woman who had been the best part of his life since he first met her almost thirty years ago. Thirty years. Where had the time gone?

  He remembered the day he first saw Hannah out at Rabbit's Head Rock. He had been twelve that day; Hannah had been a skinny child of nine. Even then he had been drawn to her, captivated by the color of her hair and the warmth in her gray eyes. The times he had spent with her family were some of the fondest memories of his childhood.

  When he turned sixteen, he had stopped going to the Kincaid cabin and spent all his time preparing to be a warrior. But he never forgot Hannah, nor would he ever forget the day he had seen her, quite by accident, walking along the riverbank with Joshua and Orin Berdeen. The sight of her had taken his breath away and he had known at that moment that he would never be happy with any other woman. He had gone south to spend the winter with his people and when they returned to Bear Valley, he had but one thought in mind: to see Hannah again.

  He had gone to the river crossing every day for the next month, hoping to find her alone, and his patience had been rewarded. He would never forget that day. It had been Hannah's sixteenth birthday and she had gone to the river early in the morning for a swim. Even now, some twenty-two years later, he could clearly recall how the sun had danced in her flaming red hair and the way the water had glistened on her smooth ivory skin. Naked and unaware she was being watched. she had been the most beautiful creature he had ever seen as she swam in the clear water and then stood, drying, on the bank afterward. He remembered how her cheeks had burned with embarrassment when he had made his presence known. They had spoken only a little that day, but there had been no need for words. He had known from that brief meeting that Hannah would be his, and Hannah had known it, too. They had met at the river crossing the next morning at first light and gone straight into each other's arms. Hannah had begged him to kiss her, and when he hesitated, she had pulled his head down and pressed her lips to his. He had been unprepared for the rush of desire her kiss aroused . . .

  He swore aloud. Where was she? Why had she left without a word? Hannah. He remembered how she had seduced him into a proposal of marriage, how tenderly she had cared for him when the settlers had attacked him and left him for dead, how eagerly she had accepted his way of life when he had taken her to live with his people after her home was attacked by the Sioux.

  With the coming of dawn, he was outside, his keen eyes searching the ground. It took but a moment to find the tracks of a man wearing city shoes. Sitting on his heels, Shadow easily read the sign left in the soft dirt. The man had gone into the house. Later, Hannah had entered the house. Sometime later, Hannah and the man had left the house together. They walked side by side. There was no sign of a struggle, no scuffed prints to indicate Hannah had tried to run away from the man.

  Rising, Shadow followed the
twin set of tracks some distance into the brush, and there he found the prints of two shod horses.

  Muttering an oath, he returned to the house and left a short note for Blackie, telling him to stay with Hawk until someone came for him. That done, he turned out the stock that was penned in the corrals, saddled Smoke, and began to trail the man who had come for Hannah.

  Who was the man? The thought pounded in his brain as the miles went by. Who could show up at the house and take Hannah away without a struggle?

  With an oath, Shadow put the spotted stallion into an easy lope. Hannah and the stranger had about a sixteen hour lead, judging by the tracks. Later that morning, he found the ashes of the fire where they had spent the night. He stirred the ashes, studied the horse droppings. They still had a good lean on him, but he would catch them. Of that, he was certain.

  Riding on, his mind continued to play back scenes of his life with Hannah, and he remembered how she had ridden the war trail at his side, never complaining.

  How she had nursed the sick and comforted the dying. How bitterly she had wept when their first child had been born dead. How she had married a man she didn't love to save his life . . .

  Like a bolt of lightning slashing through blackened skies, the answer came. Joshua Berdeen. Somehow, the man had found Hannah and forced her to go with him. Forced her? A niggling doubt surfaced in the back of Shadow's mind. There had been no sign of a struggle back at the house, no indication that Hannah had been made to leave against her will.

  A sharp pain tore at Shadow's heart. Had she gone willingly with Berdeen? Had she been waiting for the man to come for her all along? No! There had to be another answer.

  Driven by his growing anger and frustration, he swung into the saddle, gave the stallion a sharp kick. The horse broke into a run, its long easy stride carrying him quickly across the miles. West, the tracks went. Always west.

  At dark, he reined the stallion to a halt in a copse of aspens. Hobbling the stud, he sank down on his heels and stared into the darkness. He had not taken time to pack food or water, but he felt no need for sustenance. Anger was his meat, hatred his drink.

  As the sun began to rise in the sky, he stripped off his buckskin shirt and pants and tossed them aside. With his clothing went the thin veneer of civilization he had worn for the past twelve years. Now, clad only in a wolfskin clout and moccasins, he swung aboard the stallion's bare back and picked up Berdeen's trail.

  He pushed the stallion hard, closing the distance that separated him from his woman. He stopped at noon to breathe the stud, let the animal drink from a shallow stream. Plucking a handful of berries from a bush, he crushed them in his hand, then applied the color to his cheeks and chest in broad crimson slashes. This day, he was a warrior on the hunt, and his prey was man. This day, a man would die. If it was his enemy, he would take his scalp and rejoice; if it was to be his enemy who emerged from the battle victorious, then he would go to meet Heammawihio dressed as a warrior, with paint on his face and a weapon in his hand.

  Kneeling on the ground, he raised his arms toward heaven. "Hear me, Man Above," he cried in a loud voice. "Give me strength to overcome my enemy."

  He knelt in the gathering dusk for almost an hour, his head thrown back, his arms stretched upward, a prayer on his lips.

  In the distance, he heard the cry of a hawk. "Be strong," the bird seemed to say. "Be strong, and everything you desire shall be yours."

  Face set in determined lines, Shadow swung aboard the stallion and resumed his search.

  It was the last hour before dusk when he found Joshua Berdeen's night camp. Dismounting, he left Smoke tethered to a live oak some twenty yards away, and then walked boldly forward to meet Joshua Berdeen for the last time.

  XXX

  The days I spent with Joshua were filled with tension. He was clearly mad, and I feared to say or do anything that might spark his anger. So long as I agreed with him, he was easygoing and quick to laugh, but the moment I disagreed with him, his temper flared and he grew angry and violent.

  As before, he kept my hands bound at all times. I was never allowed a moment alone. While riding, he tied my hands to the pommel of my saddle; my horse's reins were looped over Joshua's saddle horn. At night, when it was time for bed, he tied my feet together, slipped a noose over my neck and tied the end to his belt, or to a tree limb.

  My thoughts were ever with Shadow. What had he thought when he arrived home and found me gone? I knew he would come after me. Perhaps, even now, he was in pursuit. Joshua had made no effort to cover our tracks. A novice warrior could have trailed us with no difficulty at all. Was Josh deliberately making it easy for Shadow to follow us? Was he still determined to kill the man he considered a rival for my love?

  I had just poured Josh a cup of coffee when Shadow stepped noiselessly into the firelight. For the brief moment before Joshua became' aware of Shadow's presence, there were just the two of us. Shadow's eyes met mine across three feet of barren ground and a flood of warmth suffused my whole body. He had come for me, just as I had known he would. I smiled at him. In spite of my fears for his safety, in spite of Joshua sitting an arm's length away, I smiled, my heart swelling with joy because Shadow was near. He looked tall and formidable in the light of the flames. The firelight cast golden highlights on his bronzed flesh. The paint smeared on his cheeks and torso looked like blood.

  Shadow came to a halt a short distance from where Joshua was sitting on the ground, his back propped against a tree. Josh sprang to his feet when he saw Shadow, his hand grabbing for the gun tucked into the waistband of his pants. I gasped and took a step backward. I knew Joshua would not hesitate to kill Shadow, and I could not bear to watch. Yet I'could not turn away.

  ''You!" Josh breathed in disbelief. "What are you doing here?"

  "I have come for my woman."

  "She's my wife, you dirty redskin, not yours," Josh shouted. "I've got the paper to prove it." He pulled a crumpled piece of parchment from his pants pocket and waved it at Shadow triumphantly. "See?"

  "She is my woman," Shadow repeated quietly. "The mother of my children. She will never be yours."

  Joshua stared at Shadow for a long time, a trace of fear surfacing in his eyes. Shadow loomed tall and savage in the light of the flickering flames. I could see all of Joshua's old hatred for Indians swelling within him and I knew he was remembering that his parents and his brother had been killed by the Sioux in Bear Valley back in 1875. Josh had gone off to Fort Lincoln to join the Army after his family was killed, determined to fight against the Sioux and the Cheyenne, to avenge the death of his loved ones by shedding as much Indian blood as possible. He had been with Reno at the Little Big Horn on the fateful day in June, when his hero, General George Armstrong Custer and his men had been slaughtered. Josh had never forgiven the Indians for Custer's death, either.

  And now, here stood Shadow, the epitome of all that Joshua hated and feared. Shadow's hair, long and inky black, fell to his waist. Red paint was streaked across his cheeks and down his broad chest. His firm copper-hued flesh glistened in the firelight, while his eyes, black as the bowels of hell, burned bright with his own hatred, and a lust for blood.

  "She's mine," Joshua said. "I'll kill you and her before I let you have her!"

  Shadow's eyes narrowed ominously as Joshua threatened my life.

  "Go away," Josh cried, his voice edged with panic. "Go away!"

  But Shadow did not go away and Joshua raised his gun and leveled it at Shadow's chest.

  I pressed my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming out loud as Shadow took a step forward, closing the distance between himself and Joshua.

  Joshua took a step backward, and then another, his eyes wild. "I'll shoot!" he warned, his voice rising hysterically. "I'll shoot if you don't go away."

  But Shadow moved steadily forward. There was no fear in his face, none in his eyes. Slowly, he walked toward Joshua, and Joshua panicked.

  With a cry, Josh jerked the trigger. The bullet, meant for
Shadow's heart, went wide and grazed his left shoulder. Blood dripped onto the red paint daubed on his chest, and still he came steadily forward. Josh fired his gun a second time, but again his panic spoiled his aim and the bullet plowed into the ground several feet behind Shadow. Again and again, Josh fired and missed. And now Shadow was only inches away, his dark eyes blazing with anger as his hand closed over the gun, wresting it from Joshua's grasp.

  "Go ahead, you dirty red bastard," Josh rasped. "Go ahead and kill me."

  Shadow nodded, his eyes filled with contempt as he tossed Joshua's gun into a thorn bush. Then, with a ghost of a smile playing over his lips, he withdrew two long-bladed knives from his belt.

  Hope flickered in the back of Joshua's blue eyes as Shadow thrust one of the knives into his hand.

  "You always were a stupid bastard," Josh hissed, and lunged forward, driving the blade toward Shadow's mid-section.

  But Shadow moved easily out of harm's way, his movements as lithe and graceful as that of a cat on the prowl. Lips pulled back in a feral snarl, Shadow lashed out at Joshua, and he did not miss. His blade opened a long gash the length of Joshua's left arm. And then, before Josh could strike back, Shadow's knife was flashing through the air again, swift as a serpent's tongue, the sharp blade biting into Joshua's left side just above his waist. Joshua loosed a harsh cry of pain and rage as he began slashing wildly, but Shadow eluded the blade with ease.

  Shadow. He was Two Hawks Flying now, and beautiful to watch. Never had he looked so primitive, or so deadly. Years of living as a white man had not dulled his reflexes or dampened his skill with a knife. His lean bronze body was as fluid as water as he parried Joshua's thrust. He moved lightly, agilely, on the balls of his feet, as graceful as a ballet dancer, as elusive as smoke in a high wind. An exultant cry rose in the air as his blade drew blood yet again.