Apache Protectors: Running Wolf Part 12

"Both. I am so hungry I could eat the hide."

He remembered his grandmother speaking of a time when the people did just that, boiling hides and drinking the broth. Now there was plenty. He could not imagine a time when there would not be enough buffalo to feed them all.

She gathered the fuel. He butchered the meat. This time there were no prying eyes. He did not have to be war chief and she did not have to be captive. For this evening they seemed alone in the world and he felt comfortable and content.

He found himself wishing he could keep the sun from rising. Together they laid the tinder. From his pouch he drew his steel and flint. The days had been dry, so he was careful to clear the ground so a stray ember would not set the plain ablaze.

As the coals grew hot, Snow Raven raked the embers aside and set the meat roasting. He watched her, finding pleasure in her graceful movements. He was happy just being near her. Here he did not have to be a wise leader or a brave war chief or court a woman he did not want. With her, he could be himself.

She turned the roasting meat again, testing the firmness of the flesh with a finger and then offering him the stick. He accepted it and waited until she had her own.

They ate in silence. She seemed to be trying to eat as much as she could hold. Afterward she drew close to the fire. Nights were cold, and she had only her thin dress to warm her.

He settled in beside her, looping an arm about her shoulders. She glanced at him and then back to the fire. She did not move away. He thought it the most perfect moment of his life, sitting side by side, her body tucked against his. She looked toward the heavens.

"Do you see the Way of Souls?" she asked, pointing at the band of white stars that littered the sky, marking the path to the Spirit World.

He nodded. "One day, we will all walk that way. My people call it the Ghost Road."

He felt her head move as she silently agreed. "I have heard it called such, as well."

They sat there in silent contemplation for some time.

"Your mother has walked this way," he said, recalling that she had told him this. He worried for a moment that his tribe might be responsible for her death. He knew what it was to grow up with such hatred in one's heart and did not want her broken in that way.

"Yes. Spotted sickness took her and many others. It is why we moved into the tall gra.s.s."

So their chief was caught between the white man's diseases and Sioux land. A difficult choice.

"I am sorry," he said.

"I was sick, too. But she left me here on the Red Road and went on ahead of me. See?" She turned her head and pointed to a place beside one eyebrow. "There is the scar here from one of the spots, and here beside my mouth."

He had not noticed the tiny blemishes before, but now he could see the small marks she revealed. They seemed to add to her beauty, giving her the imperfections that told who she was.

"Yes. They are small."

Snow Raven settled beside him again and gazed upward. "When she left I was angry for a long time. I would not do as my grandmother told me. I went into the woods and stayed there for many days. I did not come when they called. I did not follow when the tribe left."

Like a vision quest, alone, without food for many days. He thought of his own quest and the wolf that had given him his name.

"That was dangerous."

"I wanted to follow her. I waited in the woods thinking that when the stars came down to touch the lake I would be able to follow."

Like the story, he thought.

"I woke in a new snow to find a raven sitting on the stump beside me. It watched me with hungry eyes, so I thought I was already dead. When I did not rise to follow, it came back and called again. Finally, I followed. The raven led me to a p.r.o.nghorn with a leg trapped in a hole, and then I knew two things. I was not supposed to follow my mother and that I would call myself Snow Raven."

"I have heard of ravens leading hunters to a kill. They are very smart and know that we will always leave some meat for them."

"That is what I did. When I got back to our camp, I found my father and brother waiting. Just their tepee all alone in the empty camp. I told my father I was a hunter and that I needed a horse."

"What did he say?"

"Nothing, but he gave me a horse."

"How did your mother call you?"

"I do not speak that name. That girl is gone."

"I will call you Raven."

She nodded. "That is what my family calls me. My father, grandmother and my brother."

"Your brother?" He had a curious suspicion.

"Yes. You fought him, knocked him from his horse."

"That was your brother?" His voice was louder than he had meant it to be. "Bright Arrow."

"Yes."

"So you are...the daughter of Six Elks."

"I am."

Chapter Eleven.

No wonder she was so brave, Running Wolf thought. Six Elks was a legend. Until Running Wolf's raid, no one had ever defeated the old Crow leader. He was infamous for taking no captives and killing every enemy on sight.

A second realization rocked him. He had come so close to turning back and killing the warrior who fought for Snow Raven. If he had killed Bright Arrow, such a thing would have driven them apart forever. He met her gaze, seeing that she had known this all along, how near he had been to losing all hope of ever having her willing and wanting in his arms.

Did she also remember that he had spared her brother's life?

"Why tell me this?" he asked.

"So you will know why I cannot be like the other captives. They know who I am and they look to me for...courage."

"How do you know I will not tell my chief, use you to lure your father into battle?"

"He has not come because you have taken all they had. They will be lucky to survive the winter, and he is too wise to risk more men to recover me."

Her thinking was good.

She lowered her head and spoke in a much softer tone, all the bravado gone from her voice. "Also, you have earned the truth."

"How?"

"Sparing my brother. Allowing me to keep the hides I catch. Leaving me your stew bowl when your mother would not feed me. Allowing me to keep the pemmican I took from your food stores. Giving me a blanket. Letting me sleep inside your lodge."

He had done all those things.

"Do you trust me?" he asked.

"No. I am grateful to you. You are strong, but you do not need to destroy those who are weaker. I think you would make a good chief."

He reminded himself that it was a chance he would never have if he picked Snow Raven over his duty.

"But I would not stay with your mother if you marry Spotted Fawn," she said.

Was she asking to come with him? He hoped so, but then he was struck with a vision of Spotted Fawn, the daughter of a chief, sharing his lodge with the daughter of another chief. He grimaced. The two women were so different, but he knew a young bride would not relish her husband's attentions to a captive.

"You might be safer with my mother."

"The morning your mother found me inside her lodge," said Raven, "when you went to bathe, she chased me out with a knife."

"Why did you not tell me this?"

"If you defend me, it will make matters worse."

Likely true, he realized, contemplating the problem.

"She wants you to court Spotted Fawn. She thinks your interest toward me is unseemly, that I am encouraging you."

He found that all he wanted in the world was to hold her in his arms. All other ambitions and all his plans dissolved like the mud that had caked their bodies.

What was happening to him?

"My mother hates all Crow," he said.

"And I am both Raven and Crow," she joked.

But he had no laughter for her humor.

"Raven, you have told me who you are. Now hear who I am. My father was killed by Crow. My mother says that she will mourn him forever and will not marry again. She has no other sons. My father's brother was also killed by the enemy and so could not take my mother as a second wife. This adds fuel to her hatred of the Crow."

She drew her knees to her chest and hugged her legs, rocking slightly, like a child seeking comfort. "Again and again, we kill and are killed. Only the hate lives on."

Their gazes met and held.

"Is that why you are war chief?" she asked. "So you can kill as many Crow as possible?"

"He was my father."

"And my uncle and the fathers and brothers of my friends. How many will be enough?"

He shook his head. "I do not know." In truth he had never thought to ask such a question. But then again, he had never sat under the stars with the daughter of a Crow chief. "I think only of my duty and the next coup."

"We were pushed from the mountains, you know?"

He was silent, staring at the coals as they collapsed upon themselves.

"The whites build their forts in our land and the diseases came."

"One day we will have to fight them, too," he said.

"Yes. I think so."

Raven caught his gaze once again. "I know of your mother's hatred. What of yours?"

"I do not hate the Crow or the Blackfoot. I only defend what is ours and take what they cannot protect. This is all there is for me." Or it had been all. He scrubbed his jaw with his knuckles, feeling the scratch of the growing beard and the p.r.i.c.kle of her questions. "I want only to lead my people with honor, earn coups for brave deeds and have stories of my battles told when I am an old man." Or that was what he had thought he wanted. Sitting so close to her, he wondered if life might offer more.

"You are war chief."

He nodded. "I have the honor."

"And your mother says you will be chief one day. Is that so?"

He lowered his head in modesty and to hide the confusion that tore at him. Why should he care what this woman thought of him? She should be nothing but a captive, a Crow.

"You have asked many questions. Now answer one of mine." He liked the way she met his gaze directly. "Why are you not married?"

She laughed, a musical sound of merriment that resonated inside him.

"I have shared a blanket with some of the warriors in my tribe. But none have yet offered a bridal gift."

Did the Crow women do as the Sioux? Did they stand outside their parents' tepee, wrapped with a blanket with their sweethearts, making plans for their future and... His smile dropped away. The image of her in the arms of another man raised only fury in him. He knew this was unreasonable and struggled to control his ire.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"But you have not chosen?"

"No. None have made my heart soar." She cast him a long look, and he felt a surging of hope that he was the man that made her feel like a hawk in flight.

Is it me? he wanted to ask. Instead, he said, "For me, also."

"But what of Spotted Fawn?"

"A difficult situation. Her father encourages me. His new wife has not. Now I find that my friend has secretly loved her but been too shy to speak to her."

"Big Thunder, Weasel or Crazy Riding?"