Capture the Sun (Cheyenne Series) Read online

  That week was a misery of antagonism in the big house. Hawk seemed most impervious to it, as he was used to Noah's outbursts and Mrs. Thorndyke's hateful silence, but Carrie literally tiptoed through the days, not wanting Bright Leaf to know how upset she was. God forbid Hawk and Noah might come to blows while the child was in the house.

  If Noah was unwilling to face down his son over the brief stay of one six-year-old Cheyenne, he was more than willing to subject Carrie to his sarcasm and cruelty for her part in the affair.

  The very night of his return he questioned her about possible pregnancy, and she confessed that her courses had come once again. After his disappointment in Chicago and finding an Indian child in his house, this was the last straw. “I'll just have to make good my promise to you about bedding you more often. I'm afraid I've neglected my wife. Since I have to go away next week for a stockmen's association meeting in Helena, I'll make it up to you tonight.”

  However, after nearly two weeks on the road, with no comfortable sleep during the grueling train and coach travel home, Noah was exhausted. He began his usual swift taking of her, shedding his robe and climbing naked into her bed. He could feel her cool, stiff form lying still, willing herself to let him touch her. By now even her freshness and striking beauty had worn stale for Noah. What he wanted, needed, was an experienced woman to stimulate his tired flesh. Of course, a good girl like Carrie did not and should not ever know how to do that.

  Nevertheless, he was angry with her lack of response. God, how he detested her passivity! Duty. She was doing her duty, damn her! But he found himself unequal to the task of doing his.

  As he ran his hands over her delicate breasts and down her sleek legs, he could feel himself softening. A few times in whorehouses after he'd been drinking all night it had happened, even when he was younger, but that was different. Tonight he had only one drink after dinner and came to bed early.

  A sick fear began to gnaw at the pit of his stomach as he fumbled to stroke himself back to an erection. He knew Carrie must wonder what was wrong with him, and that galvanized his fright into fury. This was her fault, damn her! Cold, barren, willful bitch! She was as bad as Lola, only in different ways. With Lola, too, it had happened toward the end, but then he had been drinking heavily and blamed it on that—that and her spiteful comparisons between his performance and her first husband's. Despite knowing Carrie had no one else to compare him with, he was not reassured.

  Finally, after he had lain still for several minutes, she worked up her courage and said, “Is—is something wrong? Are you all right?”

  “Yes, something is wrong,”, he hissed at her, rolling over and grabbing her by the shoulders. “I'm all right, but you certainly leave much to be desired! Barren and cold to boot! I gave a penniless orphan a home, wealth, position. All I asked in return is that she give me a son. All you want to do is adopt filthy savages and lay woodenly in this bed!”

  His snarling attack left her stunned and terrified, especially when he accompanied the verbal torrent by harshly clutching her arms and shaking her violently. Then he kissed her brutally, running his hands all over her body in rough, painful strokes, pulling, pinching, and rubbing. The abuse seemed to renew his sexual tension and he felt himself growing hard once more. Swiftly he clawed her thighs apart and thrust into her, spilling his seed in a few painful grunts. Immediately, he rolled off her and out of the bed, grabbing his robe and stalking from the room.

  In all their previous degrading and painful copulations, Carrie had at least been passively cooperative and he had seemed to enjoy her flesh, even if she could not respond in turn. He was her husband and she understood he had the right to her body. But tonight, this was truly rape. There was no other name for it. The earlier unintentional, even negligent brutality which he had inflicted on her paled in comparison to this. Her head ached from the way he had snapped her neck when he had shaken her. Wincing, she touched her abraded skin where he had scratched her with his nails and had rubbed so hard he actually had burned her, much as a rawhide rope might.

  Why? Oh, why this? She did not begin to understand. Was she so clumsy and cold as he said? So undesirable? Then why did Hawk look at her the way he did? Put his hands on her and kiss her so feverishly? No! She could not allow herself to think of that. Least of all now. If Noah is a rapist, then I am an adulteress, at least in my heart! In pain and humiliation she sank down into the covers and sobbed brokenly for what she had just confessed to herself.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Mercifully, Noah had to leave for Helena that Friday. The annual Montana Stock Growers Association meeting was too important to miss. For Carrie, his trip was a reprieve. If he had been inconsiderate and cold before, he had been truly brutal and sadistic the past four nights.

  Hawk left for Iron Heart's village hoping to hear that Bright Leaf’s parents had been found. He was not expected back until Noah was due to leave. In truth, rather than stay at the house and endure the crackling tension between Noah and Carrie, Hawk had wanted to escape. He hadn't felt this helpless since his mother had died. He knew Noah would not dare touch the child. He only wished that Noah could not touch the woman.

  Saturday morning Carrie awoke after an undisturbed sleep. It was her first night in five that had been so, and she was grateful. Stretching, she sat up in bed and looked around. Judging by the angle of the light streaming in her window, it must be quite late. Swishing aside the covers, she leaped from the bed and grabbed a silk wrapper. In a minute she was in Bright Leaf's room.

  The girl walked haltingly from the window to the door, then stopped in midstride when she saw Carrie. Bright Leaf stretched her arms toward the flame-haired goddess who had befriended her. She limped quickly into Carrie's embrace and chattered joyously, obviously proud of her rapid recovery. Carrie, too, was happy for Bright Leafs healing, but would be sorry to let her go.

  As if echoing her thoughts, Hawk spoke from the doorway, “Looks as if she'll be ready to travel Monday.”

  Carrie gasped as she released the squirming child who ran into his welcoming embrace. Self-consciously, she stood up and tightened the meager protection of the thin silk across her breasts. Damn, if she had known he would return this early, she would never have left her room in such a state of undress!

  Sensing her discomfort, Hawk looked over the shoulder of the chattering child and scorched Carrie with his hot black gaze. He smiled at her pink cheeks and nervous gesture as she folded her arms across her breasts.

  “Must you always sneak up on a person like a—” She stopped short.

  He supplied, “Like a savage?” His voice was level, but his expression turned hard as she blushed in guilty admission of her reflex response.

  Carrie raised her downcast countenance, looking straight into the midnight depths of his hypnotic eyes. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean it as a slur. It's just that you always seem to appear where I least expect you.” And your presence disturbs me in ways I do not want to admit.

  He relaxed and smiled, then said, “You mean places like the lake?” He was almost chuckling now, and she blushed again. The softening of his harshly chiseled features made a magical transformation, and Carrie was struck anew by how startlingly handsome he was.

  Just then Feliz padded up the stairs with Bright Leaf's tray. It was time for the midday meal. Excusing herself, Carrie rushed off to dress.

  Beneath the baleful glare of Mathilda Thorndyke, Bright Leaf came downstairs for the first time that afternoon. Her leg had healed wonderfully under Feliz's careful ministrations, and she was able to walk with only a slight limp. Carrie took her through the spacious, beautiful parlor and dining room, allowing the child's natural curiosity free rein.

  After a few minutes of awe-filled staring, her six-year-old energy reasserted itself and she began to rub the satiny shine of the glossy oak table in the dining room, giggling at seeing her own reflection in its polished depths. Carrie picked up a precious cut-glass flower vase and let the child examine its glittering prisms. Br
ight Leaf ran her fingers over the diamondlike surfaces in amazement and smelled the spicy essence of the huge fall mums it held. She would have many wonders to tell her friends about when she returned home.

  While Noah was away, Carrie and Bright Leaf ate in the kitchen with Feliz. Knowing where to find them, Hawk came straight from the corral with Kyle and headed there to tell Carrie that Bright Leaf must leave early the next morning.

  She did not receive the news with good spirits. “Must she go so soon? Noah won't be back until the end of the week. We could—”

  He interrupted her impatiently. “Look, I know you've grown fond of the child, but it will only be harder the longer you wait, both for you and her. She's very attached, to you, too,” he said, affectionately stroking the shiny black hair of the child as she sat cuddled up against Carrie on a kitchen bench.

  He said a few words in Cheyenne to her, and her expression darkened. Questioningly, she turned her eyes to Carrie and clutched her hand tightly, murmuring in her halting English, “Carrie go,” and motioning to herself.

  “She wants ya ta make th' trip with her. I guess she's afeard o' goin' ta a big village where she wont know no one,” Kyle said to Carrie.

  Hawk scowled. “That's out of the question. They'll make her welcome and she'll be fine.” He spoke again to the child, gently, and once more she clung to Carrie, but this time did not argue, only nodded in resignation.

  Taking a deep breath, Carrie said, “If I go with her she'll feel much better, Hawk.”

  “You can't go,” he replied in exasperation.

  “Why not? I care for Bright Leaf. Would your grandfather's people not welcome me because I'm white? Or is it because I'm Noah's wife?”

  He shook his head impatiently. “No, they'd treat you like royalty, I'm sure. But it's a hard four-hour ride there and another four back.”

  “That's not far. I could easily make it there and back in a day,'' she said spiritedly, waiting for him to voice his real objection.

  He looked levelly at her. “Do you seriously think you could keep Noah from finding out you went to a Cheyenne village?” And rode back alone with me? “He'd be furious with you.”

  She gave a sad little nervous laugh. “In case you hadn't noticed, I've never been able to please him anyway, so what difference can it make?”

  Realizing this was shaping up into a duel of wills, Feliz left her tasks by the stove and picked up the child. Kyle, who had been busily stuffing sweet rolls in his mouth, followed her outside. “We will show the muchacha some of those big chrysanthemums that grow in the garden. She loves to smell them,” the cook said airily.

  With that they were gone, leaving Carrie sitting alone on the bench and Hawk draping his long-legged frame over a chair across the table from her.

  “Now's not the time to push Noah further just to satisfy a girlish whim for adventure,” he argued.

  “Whim! Why, you insufferable—” She began to jump up, her eyes blazing at him. Then, dejectedly, she sat back down and took a deep breath. “Look, in spite of what you think, I haven't acted on childish whims for a long time. In fact, I had a remarkably deprived adolescence. I just want Bright Leaf to be all right, to know I care enough about her not to desert her. When she's met your grandfather and the young woman who'll care for her until her family returns, then she'll accept my leaving her.”

  He looked at her earnest face, determined and full of genuine love for the little girl. “We'll leave at daybreak. Have Feliz pack some food.”

  * * * *

  As bright fiery orange slashed across the morning sky, casting its warm light on the rustling dry prairie grass, they set out. Bright Leaf rode with Carrie on Taffy Girl, her slight frame adding little to the horse's burden. After an hour or so, the steady plodding of hoofbeats lulled the still-weakened child asleep. Motioning for Carrie to hand her over, Hawk took the girl whose unconscious weight pressed against Carrie uncomfortably. Bright Leaf stirred, but did not awaken.

  He held her effortlessly. Carrie thought they made a splendid picture, the delicate little girl and her fierce, tall protector. Hawk had been so gentle with the child. Although she had considered his complex personality many times, here was indeed a side to him she had never seen. Her reverie led her to ask, “Why did you become a gunman?” The minute she spoke the words, she wanted to call them back, fully expecting he'd turn on her once more, furious at her presumption.

  He surprised her, however, smiling ironically and seeming to ponder the question for a suspenseful moment. Then he said, “Lots of reasons, I guess. Part accident. When I wandered down to the Nations as a kid, it was either learn to shoot or be shot. That's where I found out I was naturally fast. A drunk cowboy called me a half-breed in a bar and threw his drink in my face. I hauled off and socked him. When he reached for his gun, I reached for mine.” He shrugged fatalistically. ”I was seventeen.”

  She shuddered at the violence of frontier life and how it hardened everyone, especially the young. “You could’ve stayed east. You obviously had a great deal of formal education.”

  He snorted in disgust. “Yeah, I learned a lot, a lesson a day. Do you know where I first learned to fight? Not at my grandfather's village. At boarding school when I was ten. Cheyenne children are taught to cooperate, not brawl among themselves. But rich white schoolboys are just the opposite.”

  “They picked on you because of your Indian blood?” She knew the answer, and it saddened her.

  “I don't have much use for most white men. Maybe that's really why I became a drifter and used my guns. No roots, no ties.” He stared at her defiantly. “Maybe I like to kill whites.”

  “But you have white friends,” she said, undaunted by his provocative remark. “Kyle, Feliz, and Frank. There must be others.”

  “Damn few,” he said laconically.

  “So, the whites were cruel. Did the Cheyenne accept your white blood?” Once more she sensed the answer.

  He sighed. “Not always. Actually I had to fight a few of my own cousins when I was growing up, too. Being Iron Heart's grandson, I'll always be welcome, but there are some who'd rather I didn't stay with the People. Maybe that's part of the reason I drift with Kyle so much. Men outside the law are men with no families, no prejudices. We understand each other.”

  “Maybe it's also a way to get back at your father. I think he's afraid of you.”

  Her perception no longer surprised him, but he found himself amazed that he was talking so openly with her. “Yeah, I guess if he ever feared anything or anyone, it's me. He spent my childhood trying to make me white, keeping me away from my mother's people as much as he could, shipping me east to school after she died. But it didn't work.”

  “Or it only half worked,” Carrie said gently, realizing the sundered world in which he had grown up. “Part of you is white, Hawk, whether you like it or not.” She could still picture him elegantly attired in formal evening clothes, dancing so superbly that night of the ball in Miles City.

  They rode in silence for a few minutes, but he did not attempt to argue her point. He had always known what she said was true. He belonged nowhere. Had he never wanted to choose, as Wind Song said? Or was the choice truly not his to make?

  He changed the subject, wanting to understand her earlier life. “What about you? You grew up in one secure world, then came here where it's brutally different. Why?”

  The way he asked the question indicated to her that he no longer prejudged her to be the cheap fortune hunter he had once imagined. It was incredible that they could talk this way for the first time.

  “I grew up in a split world, too—oh, of a different kind than yours. My parents loved me and pampered me, but they were killed when I was thirteen. My father's investments went bad, and he left me nothing. His brother took me in, grudgingly.”

  She went on to tell him of her nightmare years with Aunt Patience and Uncle Hiram and their spiteful daughters, describing incidents where her clothing, even her most treasured possessions, such as her por
celain doll and her mother's pearl necklace, were taken away in punishment.

  “Aunt Patience couldn't have me sweep the sidewalk or drive the rig. The neighbors and servants would talk, but she found plenty of ways to keep me in my place. I scrubbed floors, waxed furniture, and washed dishes aplenty. I was also sent away from school. I hated that worst of all, for I did love to learn. Luckily, Uncle Hiram inherited my parents' library, one of the few things left when they died. I read and studied on my own after Miss Jefferson's expelled me.”

  “What did you do to get expelled?” He looked genuinely interested.

  She cleared her throat nervously. “Well, you see there was Therese, my friend and schoolmate. She hated Charity, my eldest cousin, as much as I did, and Charity was inordinately terrified of insects. You know, things like big woolly caterpillars?” At his grin of dawning understanding, she went on. “We collected a whole nest of them from a big elm tree on the school grounds and smuggled them into her writing desk over lunch break one day. But I was the one who took a stick and broke open the webbing so they began to crawl out—all over her books and writing utensils. When she opened the lid and reached inside—well, she lost her lunch.”

  “And you lost your place in school,” he supplied with a chuckle.

  Carrie joined him in the laugh. “Unfortunately, several other girls had seen me at Charity’s desk. They tattled. The headmaster would have been inclined to let me off with a reprimand and some extra Latin conjugations for penance, but Aunt Patience took matters in her own hands. So much for girlish hijinks. It was almost worth it.” She laughed again rather wistfully.

  Hawk knew there was a great deal left unsaid about her unhappy youth. “And your cousin Charity—was she by any chance a bland-looking, plain creature?” Things were becoming clearer to him.

  Carrie nodded. “Stringy tan hair and a great fondness for Switzer's licorice and other confections. Charity's probably fat by now,” she said on a note of long-repressed spite.