The Spirit Path

by Madeline Baker

  Perhaps they’d gone for an early morning ride, he thought, though it seemed unlikely that Miss St. Claire would go off and leave the front door wide open and the lights on. But then, she’d been acting strangely for the last two weeks.

  He went out to the back pasture where the horses were kept until cold weather set in, thinking that in a couple of weeks he’d have to start hauling feed out to the pasture.

  He grunted softly as the two bay geldings trotted toward him, waiting for the chestnut mare to join them. She was a favorite of his, always nuzzling his pocket for treats, lowering her head so he could scratch her ears. But the mare didn’t come.

  Bobby leaned against the rail. If Hawk had taken Miss St. Claire riding the chestnut mare would still be here. Unless Miss St. Claire had figured out a way to ride on her own.

  Returning to the house, he turned off the lights, fixed himself something to eat, all the while listening for the sound of hoofbeats.

  After breakfast, he went down to the barn to feed the chickens and the other animals, then, remembering that the pasture had looked pretty used up, he forked the horses some hay, pulled a dead branch from the creek.

  By noon he was really worried.

  Going into the house, he called Veronica, hoping she might know where Miss St. Claire had gone, but Veronica hadn’t heard from Maggie and when Bobby hung up, he was more worried than before.

  He walked through the house again, trying to ignore what he was afraid was true, what couldn’t possibly be true, but he had to know.

  Saddling one of the bay geldings, he rode out of the yard, searching for signs the way Hawk had taught him.

  He felt a thrill of satisfaction as he found the stallion’s tracks, and then frowned. If Maggie was riding the chestnut, why was there only one set of tracks?

  Not knowing what else to do, Bobby continued to follow the stallion’s tracks. He knew a moment of relief when he cut the chestnut’s trail.

  A short time later, he found the black stallion and the chestnut mare cropping grass about halfway up the mountain.

  Feeling a sudden sense of urgency, Bobby continued up the hill, winding up, up the side of the brush-covered slope until he came to a narrow ledge surrounded by trees.

  The Sacred Cave.

  He knew what it was though he’d never seen it before.

  Dismounting, he walked toward the entrance, stood there peering into the darkness. There was nothing inside that could hurt him, he thought. It was just an ordinary cave, except at night when the moon was full.

  Taking a deep breath, Bobby stepped inside, his body tensing even though he knew there was nothing to fear.

  The Sacred Cave.

  It was quiet, so quiet, as if nothing else existed. He cocked his head toward the entrance, listening to the silence.

  Was it his imagination, or was the air inside the cave moving? He had a sudden, horrible feeling that he was no longer alone. He tried to shake it off, tried to tell himself it was just his imagination working overtime, but he could not dispel the notion that there was someone, or something, in the cave with him.

  Proud Eagle, you must follow the Hawk.

  Bobby spun around, his eyes probing the darkness. “Who’s there?”

  Follow the Hawk. The words came again, echoing in his mind, frightening in their intensity.

  For the first time in his life, Bobby Proud Eagle knew real fear. And yet, who could blame him?

  He knew what the words meant. He only hoped he possessed the courage to do what he’d been told.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  They’d been traveling for three days and Maggie found herself thinking of all the wonderful modes of transportation that had been invented, buses, trains with luxury cars, airplanes that could get you across country in no time at all, taxi cabs, the silver BMW Frank had driven, her own pickup truck. She’d have settled for the old VW clunker she’d had in college if it meant she wouldn’t have to take another step. How had the Indian women done it, walking mile after mile? They’d carried heavy loads on their backs before the arrival of the horse. No wonder they’d died young!

  She looked at Hawk, striding along beside her. He never seemed to get tired. Didn’t his feet hurt? Weren’t his legs weary? Except for a fine film of perspiration on his chest, he didn’t even appear to be sweating much. But then, he was a warrior, trained from childhood to go long distances on foot without food or water, if necessary, to live off the land.

  Shadow Hawk glanced down at Maggie, easily reading the fatigue in her eyes, the faint look of irritation on her face. “What is wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Mag-gie.”

  “You!” she exclaimed. Coming to a halt, she planted her fists on her hips and glared up at him. “Don’t you ever get tired?”

  He nodded, confused by her outburst.

  “Well, it doesn’t show.”

  “That is why you are angry, because I do not look tired?”

  She giggled at the look of amusement on his face, and then began to laugh. “Yes,” she admitted between fits of laughter. “I’m mad at you because you never get tired.”

  Shadow Hawk stared at her for a moment and then he laughed with her. It felt good to stand beside the woman he loved and laugh out loud.

  “We can rest awhile if you like,” he said when their outburst subsided.

  “I feel better now,” Maggie said, grinning up at him.

  Shadow Hawk nodded. Taking her hand, he began to walk again, slower now, curbing his long stride to match her shorter one.

  It was late afternoon when Hawk came to an abrupt halt.

  “What is it?” Maggie asked. She followed his gaze but saw nothing to be alarmed about.

  “There,” Shadow Hawk said, pointing to a rising cloud of dust. “Riders. Coming our way.”

  “Pawnee?” Maggie asked.

  Shadow Hawk shook his head. “I do not think so.” He glanced around, looking for shelter, but there was none to be had. For miles, there was only the flat prairie.

  He stared toward the cloud of dust. “Wasichu,” he muttered. There were two of them, both heavily armed, both leading pack mules carrying picks and shovels.

  He was reaching for his bow when a chunk of dirt exploded at his feet and the sound of gunfire flatted across the stillness of the plains.

  “Don’t try it, red stick.”

  The warning came from a heavily bearded man wearing travel-stained twill pants, a buckskin shirt and a beaver hat.

  But it was the rifle in his hands that held Shadow Hawk’s attention. Wordlessly, Shadow Hawk lowered his arm to his side and then stood beside Maggie, his eyes wary as he watched the two white men.

  “That’s better,” the bearded man said. He gestured at Maggie with the barrel of his rifle. “You white?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thought so. Never seen no Injuns with curly hair.”

  “Good day to you then,” Maggie said, her gaze moving from the face of the black-bearded man to that of his silent companion.

  “Not so fast, girlie,” Black Beard said. “What are you two doing out here?”

  “Minding our own business.”

  “Maybe your business is my business.”

  “I doubt it.”

  The bearded man looked at Shadow Hawk thoughtfully. “He Sioux?”

  “Yes,” Maggie said. “Why?”

  The man leaned forward in the saddle, his deep-set brown eyes glittering with a strange light. “I heard tell there was gold in the Black Hills.”

  “So?”

  “So the Hills are Sioux country,” Black Beard exclaimed, a note of triumph in his voice. “And if there’s gold hereabouts, he’d know where to find it.”

  “We don’t know about any gold.”

  “And you’d tell us if you did?”

  Maggie stared up at the man wondering what to say. There was gold in the Black Hills all right, but it wouldn’t be discovered for another four or five years.

  “Well girli
e, speak up.”

  “I don’t know of any place where you could find gold,” Maggie answered, boldly meeting his gaze. “And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  The bearded man grunted. “You shackin’ up with this red stick?”

  “He’s my husband.”

  “Man and wife. Well ain’t that cozy. Ask him where the gold is.”

  Maggie spoke to Hawk in Lakota pretending to ask about the gold, when in reality she asked him what they were going to do.

  “Tell them the gold is in the Sacred Cave.”

  The cave, of course! Pleased at her husband’s cleverness, Maggie relayed Hawk’s words.

  “A cave? I never heard of finding no gold in a cave.”

  “That’s where he says it is.”

  The man rubbed his beard with his free hand, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You seen it?”

  “No.”

  Black Beard contemplated Hawk for several minutes and then nodded, as though he’d made a decision. “Tell your red stick to drop his weapons. Ferdie, you tie him up. I think we’ll just take them with us to make sure he’s tellin’ the truth.”

  Ferdie grinned as he removed a coil of rope from his saddle horn and vaulted to the ground. He was tall and thin with shaggy brown hair and tobacco-stained teeth. Maggie felt a chill as his hooded green eyes raked her from head to foot and she knew he wasn’t thinking about gold.

  A muscle twitched in Shadow Hawk’s cheek as he saw the leer in Ferdie’s pale green eyes. Unconsciously, he tightened his hold on the bow.

  “Later, Ferd,” Black Beard promised.

  Maggie took a step backward as Ferdie walked in front of her to get to Hawk. It had not occurred to her that they might rape her. They were white men, after all. Foolish as it seemed now, she had thought they might be of help.

  Ferdie was standing in front of Hawk now. Maggie’s mind was racing as she reviewed and rejected a dozen ways to help Hawk, but in the end, Hawk didn’t need any help.

  Moving as swiftly as a striking snake, he drove the end of the bow into Ferdie’s groin; then, as the man doubled over, gasping in pain, Shadow Hawk grabbed Ferdie by the shoulders and pushed him backward so that he crashed into his partner’s horse. The animal reared, one iron-shod hoof striking Ferdie across the back of the head.

  Muttering a curse, the bearded man toppled out of the saddle.

  The Lakota war cry rose in the air as Shadow Hawk sprang forward. Grabbing the rifle that the bearded man had dropped, he jacked a round into the breech and fired a single shot into the man’s chest.

  Maggie stared in horror at the bright red stain that spread over the man’s shirt, felt the vomit rise in her throat as a thin trickle of blood oozed from the corner of his mouth.

  “Is he dead?” It was a silly question, she thought. No one could live with a hole like that in his chest.

  “Yes, and the other one too.”

  Slowly, Maggie looked over her shoulder. Ferdie lay face down on the ground, the back of his head covered with blood.

  “I’m going to be sick,” she murmured, and falling to her knees, she began to vomit.

  Hawk was instantly beside her, his arm around her shoulders, supporting her. She retched until there was nothing left.

  She closed her eyes, felt Hawk’s hand in her hair, heard his voice speaking her name. He left her side for a few moments and when he returned, he wiped her face with a damp cloth, offered her a drink from a canteen that had obviously belonged to one of the dead men.

  “I can’t.” Repulsed by the thought of drinking from the canteen of a dead man, she pushed it away.

  Understanding how she felt, Shadow Hawk brought her the waterskin, held it while she rinsed her mouth, then took a drink.

  “Mag-gie?”

  “I’m all right now,” she assured him, but it was a lie. He drew her into his arms as she began to shake violently. It was just a case of nerves, she thought, there was nothing more to fear. But she couldn’t stop shaking. It could just as easily have been Hawk lying there with his life’s blood staining the ground. And she would have been at the mercy of those men… She realized that was why he had killed the bearded man, why he would have killed the other one too, if necessary. Alone, he might have been able to make a run for it, to find a place to hide. But she was a burden to him.

  Abruptly, she stared up into his face, her own going deathly pale. He had killed a man because of her. Killed him quickly, mercilessly. She had seen his face when he fired the rifle, his expression fiercely exultant, his dark eyes gleaming with a feral light as he shed the blood of his enemy. But there was no trace of bloodlust in his eyes now, only love and concern.

  She burrowed deeper into Hawk’s embrace, seeking the warmth of his body to chase away the cold, the strength of his arms to rout her fear.

  “You need not be afraid, Mag-gie,” Shadow Hawk vowed. “No one will harm you so long as I live.”

  She nodded, touched by the depth of emotion in his words, knowing he would die to protect her, yet unable to forget what would have befallen her if anything had happened to Hawk. She glanced at the bodies of the two dead men, feeling suddenly glad they were dead, and guilty for feeling that way.

  “You…you won’t scalp them?”

  “No.”

  “But you would if I wasn’t here?”

  Shadow Hawk considered lying to her, but it was best she knew the truth. There must be no lies between them.

  “Yes,” he admitted. “I would have taken their scalps. Among my people, it is an honorable thing to take the scalp of an enemy.”

  Maggie nodded, remembering the night he had danced for her and Veronica out in the yard. He had told her then how a man’s sisters or cousins carried his scalp stick while he danced. It was a matter of pride, of honor, to boast of killing one’s enemy and taking his scalp. But it sickened her just the same.

  She had nightmares that night, horrible dreams peopled with men who were dead. Men who looked like Ferdie and Black Beard. And she was back in her wheelchair, helpless to fight them. She screamed for Hawk, screamed her pain and fear, but he was out of reach, deep in the bowels of the Sacred Cave…

  “Mag-gie!” Shadow Hawk shook her again, frightened by her screams, the paleness of her cheeks. “Mag-gie!”

  “Hawk! Oh, Hawk.” She threw her arms around his neck, clinging to him with all her might.

  He held her close, whispering to her that he loved her, that there was nothing to fear. But deep inside he was afraid for her. She had told him what awaited his people, nothing but war and living death on the reservation. If he were killed in battle, she would be left alone, with no way to return to her own time, her own people.

  “Mag-gie, I will take you back to the cave in the morning.”

  “What?”

  “I think you must go back. You do not belong here.”

  He was going to take her home. She had never thought of her house in the Dakotas as home. It had only been a place to hide from the world. But it would be different now, with Hawk there to share it with her.

  “We’ll be happy there, I promise,” she said, smiling up at him.

  “I cannot go.”

  “What?”

  “I cannot go. I must go to Sitting Bull and learn the whereabouts of my people and then I will take them to Canada. But first I will take you back to the cave.”

  “I won’t go back without you.”

  “Mag-gie, I am only thinking of you,” he argued. “You know what lies ahead for my people. If we cannot make it to the Land of the Grandmother, if anything happens to me on the way, you will not be able to return to your own time. Are you prepared to spend the rest of your life here?”

  It was a sobering thought. Much as she hated to think about it, Hawk could be killed. They’d already had two close calls. What would she do if something happened to him? Where would she go?

  But then she looked into Hawk’s face and knew she couldn’t leave him. Even if she knew he would be taken from her in a day or
a week, she would not give up whatever time they might have together. Better to live in a hide lodge, or in poverty on the reservation, than go back home and spend a lifetime without him.

  “I’m staying here,” she said. “Nothing you can say will change my mind.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Four days later, Maggie wasn’t sure she’d made the right decision. Sitting on a low rise, she gazed down at the Indian lodges spread along the banks of a wide, slow-moving river.

  Indians. Nothing but Indians as far as the eye could see. She had been fascinated with Indians for as long as she could remember, but she’d never seen so many at one time, in one place. She felt as if she were about to step into one of her own romance novels. She felt like a white rose in a field of red carnations. The line from one of her books whispered in the back of her mind.

  She looked at Hawk, sitting on Black Beard’s horse, saw the eager anticipation in his eyes.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  Maggie nodded, her heart pounding with trepidation, fear, excitement, and dread.

  “Do not be afraid, Mag-gie. My people will not harm you.”

  “They won’t like me, either.”

  “Not at first, perhaps. But it is only because you are a stranger to them.” He smiled reassuringly. “When I tell them you are a Spirit Woman, they will honor you with gifts.”

  “Do you think they’ll believe you?”

  “My people live close to the gods. We have often been visited by spirits in times of need or trouble.”

  He took her hand in his and she felt his strength flow into her, calming her troubled heart. “Think of it as research,” he remarked, and then they were riding down the hill.

  Men, women and children crowded around them as they entered the village. The Lakota were a comely people, Maggie thought as she gazed into hundreds of upturned faces. Most of the men were tall and handsome, though none were as handsome as Hawk. The women, too, were tall and attractive. They wore long doeskin tunics decorated with fringe and beads. And the children. They stared at her, their luminous black eyes filled with curiosity as they reached out to touch her.