Apache Protectors: Running Wolf Part 13

She knew his closest friends. What else did she know?

"Big Thunder," he said.

"I see him hanging about her. She speaks of you and of him."

"Does she?" he asked. When really he wanted to tell her not to talk about Spotted Fawn. To forget her and the tribe and the world beyond their fire.

"I know she has no favorite, but is ambitious and thinks you would be a good choice. But she says you are too serious. She said she has never heard you laugh."

"I smile." I smile with you because you make me happy.

"Yes, but not often."

"When do you speak to Spotted Fawn?"

"I have not. But I hear her talk to the women at the river, when I carry water. Usually, they take no notice of me. Usually."

He lifted his brows. "Usually?"

"Red Hawk was there."

This got his attention. "At the women's bathing area? What happened?"

"He said that if I speak to his wife he will cut out my tongue. And if I touch her again, he will cut off my hands."

Now Running Wolf was simmering like the coals. Red Hawk had no right to threaten his captive. He wanted to go find this man and drag him from his lodge. Instead, he clasped Snow Raven's hand and thrilled at her sharp intake of breath.

"If he touches you, he will be very sorry." He lifted her hand and pressed his lips to the back of it.

This time, her smile reached her eyes.

"Red Hawk asked Spotted Fawn if she would like to come to his tepee for a meal. He said his wife wanted to talk to her. That night she told her mother that Buffalo Calf asked her if she would be interested in being Red Hawk's second wife."

This made him sit up straight. "What?"

"She told Buffalo Calf that it was an honor and she would have to consider that. But she told her mother that Red Hawk is too old and wrinkly. Though her mother said that he is destined to be on the council of elders and would be a good choice."

"Would you make such a choice?"

"I might." But she shook her head. "I understand it. Many women would. But I am different. Not so ambitious." She looked at him a long moment. "I would choose for love, and I would want a husband who will think of me before all else."

His fingers slid from hers. "That is not the way for a man. He must always think of his people first. His duty to his family is only part. He has a duty to the tribe."

"I know this in my head. But my heart speaks its own tongue. Perhaps this is why I have found no man. The man I take will know that if it comes to a choice between the two, he would choose me."

"This is a kind of selfishness. Only by the survival of the tribe do the people survive. A man must risk his life to save his people."

"Then, he should do no less for the woman he wishes to wed."

"Anything else?"

"He must make my skin tingle and my heart beat fast."

"Yes. On that we agree." He smiled.

"And he must be a skilled horseman."

"What if he could beat you in a race?" He grinned at the prospect of racing over the prairie after Snow Raven.

"That would be a start."

"Perhaps I will race you."

Her smile died and she looked at him with sad eyes. "We will never race."

He knew she was right. Women of his tribe used horses to carry and to drag their possessions. They never rode out alone, as he suspected Snow Raven once did. She knew her place, even if he had forgotten it.

He flicked a broken stick into the fire, feeling morose now, trapped like one of her rabbits. The more he struggled, the tighter the noose became.

She sat with perfect stillness, savoring the heat of the fire.

"You asked me of Spotted Fawn," he said. "I would tell you something I have shared with no other."

She straightened, giving him the gift of her attention.

"All these other women." He waved a hand in the direction of the tribe. "They bore me. They all bore me. I cannot imagine spending a meal with any of them, let alone a lifetime. Now I have finally met one who interests me and stirs my blood." He stroked a finger down her soft cheek. "She rides and hunts and does not speak nonsense, and she is you."

Raven pressed her fist to her mouth and regarded him in silence.

"I cannot have you, Raven. Not and do my duty. I cannot choose a captive as a wife and lead my warriors against yours."

"I understand."

"Do you? Before I met you I knew what to do. The ground beneath me did not heave and shudder. I never asked the questions that you ask, like when is the killing enough? I fear if I stay here with you I will not want to do what a man must do, that I will not want to ever go back. But I must."

She bowed her head and pressed her hands over her face. Her words were m.u.f.fled, but he heard each one. "Even if you asked, I could not take you as my husband."

He narrowed his eyes. "You are a captive. Marrying me would raise your status, make you one of us. You have everything to gain."

"It would raise my status among my enemies and lower it among the other captives."

"Why do you care what they think?"

"Because they are Crow and I am Crow." She beat her fist on her breast. "Do you think you are the only one that risks losing who and what you are? I am the daughter of a chief. I am a Crow woman. If I married you, what would I be? No one. My father would have nothing to do with me. My brother? You might have to kill him in a battle. Do you know what that would do to me? I cannot. I will not."

"What do we do, then?"

She lowered her head and gripped her fists in her hair.

"I only know what I cannot do. I cannot be your woman."

The silence stretched. He wrapped an arm about her. She resisted the pressure of his embrace.

"In the darkness, one cannot see who is Crow and who is Sioux."

She relaxed against him, and he relished the feel of her warm body next to his. Why did this one have to be Crow?

After a time, her head sank forward, then bobbed back up.

He knew he must bring her back, because if he slept with her out here in the cottonwood grove one thing would happen, and even if it did not, others would think it had. He scattered the coals and covered them with dirt. Then he packed what meat he could carry in the skin.

He led the way back to their camp. Only once he was at the place where his mother slept did he recall that his mother had left only two sleeping skins. One for beneath him and one for over him. He dragged away the top buffalo robe and pointed to it. Snow Raven wrapped herself up in her blanket and the robe with her back toward him. He did the same.

It did not help.

All he could think of was that she was lying at arm's length and he could pull her to him and they could touch and lick and fondle until they both found release. He feared that even this would not satisfy him, for he no longer wanted just her body. He knew he would not force her because taking her would help kill everything that was interesting and good inside her.

Instead, he rolled to his back and looked at the stars a long time, searching for some way to have Raven and keep his place in the tribe.

Running Wolf opened his eyes to see Snow Raven kneeling at his side and putting the second buffalo robe over him. She swept back the hair from his forehead and pressed her lips there. He reached for her, but she was already gone.

The birds were singing around him as he watched her walking with the six empty buffalo bladders in the direction of the stream.

Had any of last night really happened? Had she killed the p.r.o.nghorn and had they sat arm in arm in the moonlight? His mother coughed and then made a startled sound.

"When did you catch this?" she asked, peeking inside the skin of the antelope at the tender ribs and haunches.

He answered with two words. "Last night."

His mother crawled from her skins. "We should give most of this away. Fresh meat on the trail is a blessing, but it will not last."

"Yes. Give it all away and give the skin to Snow Raven."

"Who?"

"You know who."

"Her name is Kicking Rabbit."

"No. It isn't."

Her mother's bright mood now darkened. "She knows her place here. Why is it you do not?" When he did not answer, she muttered, "We should give her away with the meat."

Now he was glaring.

"Will you ride with Spotted Fawn today?" asked his mother.

"I will ride with the men, as I always do. We should reach the herd of buffalo today."

In fact, they did see the buffalo. Running Wolf was in the front of the line when they spotted the herd, covering the next hillside and stretching back as far as he could see.

"Tomorrow," said Iron Bear, "we will gather much meat."

On the ride back to camp, Weasel galloped past, whooping and shouting.

Was his friend as anxious for the hunt as he was? The truth-that he kept in his heart-was that he loved the hunts much more than the raids and far, far more than the battles. He was not afraid, but he gained no joy from killing enemies. When a buffalo died, it fed his family. But killing men was different somehow.

Raven's words came to him again. When will it be enough?

Big Thunder drew up beside him riding one of his traveling horses. Today his friend's face was all smiles.

"Spotted Fawn spoke to me yesterday."

He sounded pleased, and that made Running Wolf happy.

"What did she say?" He really didn't care one way or the other, but his friend seemed so excited.

"She said, 'h.e.l.lo, Big Thunder.'"

It was all Running Wolf could do not to laugh. Where Weasel could not shut his mouth, Big Thunder rarely opened his.

"Did you answer her?"

"I did."

Running Wolf feigned that he might fall off his horse from shock, which brought a smile to Big Thunder's face.

"What did you say?"

"I said, 'h.e.l.lo.'" He sat straighter and his chest lifted, reminding Running Wolf of a grouse fluffing his feathers.

"Well. That is good."

Big Thunder grinned. "I never spoke to her before. She even looked as if she would have said more, but I rode away."

"Next time, stop your horse."

Big Thunder's shoulders rounded. "What's the use? Her father wants you."

"Who does Spotted Fawn want?"

Big Thunder thought about that. "I do not know."

Running Wolf knew that choosing Spotted Fawn would help him with his ambition to rise to the position of chief. But he did not want to take the woman his friend desired, if you could call her a woman. And especially when there was no pull of attraction between them, no rising of heat, no yearning, no need and no fascination.

Only one woman gave him those feelings, and she was the one woman he could not take as wife.