Susan Johnson Read online

  “Are there any objections?” Hazard asked, attentively regarding the circle of startled guests. “Good,” he declared into the ensuing silence.

  It wasn’t as though white people hadn’t married into the tribe before. Since the early days of the nineteenth century, many white men had married within various Absarokee bands, and all had been accepted eventually as full members of the tribe. The only difference here was that one of their chiefs should choose a yellow eyes woman. That had never happened before.

  “Tell me,” Hazard ventured into the stillness, “are the buffalo near enough for the hunt?”

  From that point, Rising Wolf’s interpreting resumed. No further discussions arose over Hazard’s new wife. Plans were made to hunt in two days’ time, animated anecdotes were exchanged about previous hunts, and, after being served a sweet concoction of wild raspberries, hazelnuts, plums, and honey, the guests departed.

  “Does everyone always listen to you so obligingly?” Blaze inquired as Hazard dropped the door robe behind the last guest. She had noticed the few abrupt silences, heard Hazard’s curt replies, recognized her name and the occasional shocked reactions.

  He walked across the width of the large lodge and dropped into a sprawl beside her on the bed of buffalo robes. “Everything’s open to discussion in our tribe. No single person makes all the decisions.”

  “It seemed that a few of the older men took offense at some of the things you said.”

  Hazard shrugged and stretched out on his back. “Can’t please everyone all the time,” he philosophically replied. “Some of the older men are less open to compromise.”

  “That’s pretty true everywhere.”

  He nodded abstractedly, his eyes on the starry night visible through the slowly spiraling smoke wafting up through the smoke hole. “The world’s changing so fast,” he softly said, thinking how small they all were under the canopy of endless sky. “If we don’t adapt, we won’t survive.” He didn’t speak for a moment, and when his eyes turned to Blaze his tone was less pensive. “There’re only six thousand Absarokee Indians; twice that many people live in Virginia City alone.”

  “Do you ever despair … with those odds?” He had never talked about his people before, and the melancholy was pungent in his voice.

  He smiled. A small gentle smile. “At least a hundred times a day—or a thousand,” he softly added.

  She wanted to offer him comfort, help in some way, ease the sadness behind the smile. “Hazard, I have money; I know people, I can—”

  His dark fingers curved around her wrist. “Hush, Boston princess. Hú’kawe,” he murmured, pulling her onto his chest. “No more serious talk, bia. None. We’re here for fun,” he whispered, “fun and play. So kiss me, darling Boston.”

  He held her close all night and they slept like exhausted children, safe now after weeks of uncertainty, at home in the chief’s lodge in the center of the encampment. Protected and guarded.

  Chapter 24

  The camp’s morning activities woke them. The dogs barked first, followed by the high-pitched sounds of children at play, and soon the full bustle of bathing, fire building, food preparation—all the early day occupations—buzzed around them as they continued dozing.

  “Ummmm,” Hazard murmured later, stretching leisurely. “I haven’t slept like that in months.” Rolling on his side, he bent to kiss Blaze—a soft good-morning kiss. “And how is the loveliest redhead in camp?”

  “The only redhead, you mean,” she lazily responded.

  “That too,” he said, smiling. “Ready for bathing?”

  Blaze only slid further under the fur robes.

  “That excited? At least we’ll have the river to ourselves. Everyone else bathes at sunrise.”

  Blaze groaned.

  “Fortunately no one expects you to act normal,” he teased.

  “Good,” came a muffled reply from under the mounded furs.

  “Not normal. But … civilized. Come, bia, you have to bathe. Do you want me to lose face?” His tone was mocking.

  The body beneath the robes gave no indication of moving.

  “I guess I’ll have to carry you down to the river.”

  Blaze sat bolt upright and furs slithered away in gleaming folds. “You’re being a bully again, Hazard,” she blurted out, prickly in an instant, but looking much more like a soft, tousled kitten with enormous doting blue eyes.

  “Perhaps we could negotiate this, bia-cara,” Hazard murmured placatingly. “Item one: Permissive as our culture is, certain requisite precepts remain, namely, cleanliness. Item two: I could find a warm, sunny spot where the water isn’t too deep and will be hot enough even for you. Item three: I cannot, sweet pet, haul water for you here. Even I have my moments of consequence. And item four: If you come down to the river and bathe with me like the dutiful wife everyone here assumes you are, I promise to—”

  “Stop a minute,” Blaze demanded, scrambling onto her knees, her heart beginning to accelerate in irregular pitta-pats. “Back up a bit.”

  “I promise to—” His eyes were lit suddenly with a flame she’d never seen before.

  She cleared her throat. “Farther back.”

  His voice was level. “Everyone here assumes—”

  “Farther.”

  It had surprised him too, how easily the words flowed from his tongue, and he knew what she was asking. Looking at her directly, he repeated without sarcasm, as if the words had a compelling life of their own, “the dutiful wife?”

  Blaze’s gaze was also direct. “Now why,” she very softly said, “would people assume that?”

  “Because,” Hazard replied gravely, “that’s what I told them.”

  “Are we married?” Her voice shook like the quaking aspens outside.

  “In the eyes of my people, we are.”

  “You didn’t have to tell them that, did you?”

  “No.”

  “I could have been your …”

  “Paramour,” he finished. Reaching over, he brushed a coppery curl behind her ear. “But I didn’t want you to be.”

  “Because you love me,” she said, awareness vivid in her eyes.

  “I … It’s been so long,” said Hazard slowly. “There’re so many problems … too many …”

  “Why, then?”

  “I didn’t want any shame attached to you, because you’re with me.” It wasn’t only a matter of conscience, but he wasn’t prepared to confront the fullness of what it was. “And you have to be with me,” he went on, “at least until your father arrives.”

  “And then what?” she softly asked.

  “Let’s not think about it for the time we’re here,” he said quietly. “Can’t we just enjoy ourselves? Can’t we forget your world and what it’s doing to mine? Can’t we forget next month, next year?” The image of the future had never seemed more vulnerable. “Please,” he said, scarcely above a whisper. Nothing more tangible than a sense of personal honor drove him and at times his spiritual reserves were at a low point. He didn’t want to face any questions that had no answers. He only wanted pleasure and ease, pure in its simplicity.

  Listening to Hazard’s whispered plea, Blaze realized, unlike her own pampered life, this young man she loved had taken on an enormous responsibility for his people. He’d gone East, understanding that the Absarokee way of life was in peril, and understanding as well that his duty lay in minimizing that peril. If he could learn the white man’s ways, he might have the tools and weapons to stay the corruption, mitigate the losses. He knew what he must do, why and where it led; knew all the sacrifices honor must make to expediency; understood the shabby compromises the future held in store. He was under pressures she’d never contemplated in her own self-centered life. And when he softly pleaded, “Can’t we forget?” she understood he wanted to close the doors, at least temporarily, on every world but their own.

  “What does a dutiful wife wear on the promenade to the bathing facilities?” she asked with a smile.

  Hazar
d’s dark eyes warmed instantly, dissipating the momentary bleakness. “A robe, a dress, anything. Hell, wrap that fur around you and I’ll carry you down.”

  She looked up saucily from under lacy lashes. “And what of your consequence?”

  Pulling her to him, he covered her face with kisses, light, dancing butterfly kisses, joyful buoyant kisses. “To hell,” he murmured, “with my consequence.” And lifting her into his arms, he carried her through the sunlit camp, past smiling glances, ribald comments, speculative murmurs, knowing eyes, down the path lined by drooping willows.

  And the private bend of the mossy-banked river he carried Blaze to, shaded by willow shrubs and tall cottonwoods, was warm and sunny as he’d promised, and unveiled for Blaze a new and joyful glimpse into the boyish spirits of the mercurial man she loved.

  It was a warm and golden day that fed the senses an overwhelming banquet of pleasure. They splashed in the azure water, played tag in the slow-moving current, washed each other with the sweet yucca soap, and, when their heated young bodies demanded, made love under the willows while warblers sang overhead.

  In all their loving, she’d never seen anything as beautiful as his body that day, broad-shouldered and sculptured, glistening with pure mountain water, dusted golden with sunshine, lean and lithe as his namesake mountain cougar.

  He made love to her and she to him as if it were the first time, kissing, undressing, tasting each other’s lush flavors, the sun burning above, a pale second to the brightness of their love. He was the best thing that had ever happened to her in a life lived amid the luxuries of the world. He was the absolute best.

  He told her in his own lyrical tongue that her beauty was the beauty of the sun as it slips down behind the mountains, her voice like the soft music of wind in the pine trees, her eyes the limitless blue of his own country’s skies. Her expression was tender and solemn when he murmured the Indian words, and when he was finished, she told him, very very softly, “I am yours. And you are mine. Absarokee doesn’t matter. Boston doesn’t matter. Where you go, I go also.”

  He didn’t answer. Only smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Hang on tight,” he whispered and rolled onto his back. After settling comfortably, she lay on him drowsy and replete, her breath wafting softly across his throat. “How do you like the summer hunt so far?” he murmured, his fingers lazily stroking her spine.

  “Has anyone told you that you’re the world’s best host?” she languidly inquired, unmoving, like a kitten being stroked.

  “Do you want the truth,” Hazard amiably replied with a faint smile, part wolfish, very boyish, all beauty, “or something more diplomatic?” He grunted when she punched him and found himself looking into peppery, narrowed blue eyes. “In that case,” he said after he caught his breath, his tone mockingly serious, his dark eyes alight with amusement, “the answer is no.”

  It took soothing after that, playful soothing, to placate his feisty companion, but they both reveled in the game, Blaze’s teasing as provocative as his. And of course, the game had a predictable and delicious ending.

  Much later, when the noon sky filtered apricot sunshine through the soft green leaves, Hazard asked, “Are you getting hungry?”

  Blaze was lying on the crushed pungent grass beside him and turning her head slightly, raised one mischievous brow. “Is that a serious question?”

  Schooling his mouth from its impulse to smile, Hazard said with a modicum of gravity. “Swear to God.”

  “A little,” she replied, throwing her arms above her head like a coltish child.

  “I’ll send for food.”

  “Here?” Blaze looked around nervously, but all she saw was varying shades of green and gold. “What will people say?”

  “They’ll probably say, ‘He must love to make love to her; I thought he’d get hungry sooner.’ ”

  “How embarrassing.” Her cheeks had flushed rosy.

  “Why, because I’m hungry?”

  “You know damn well what I’m talking about,” she retorted, her voice low and heated.

  “Weren’t you the one,” he patiently, inexcitably asked, “who wanted me to keep my schedule open for you today?”

  “Well, yes, but—I mean—”

  “I did, that’s all, and I knew we’d have to eat eventually. I’m not allowed to cook here.” His brows rose and fell quickly. “My consequence, you know. And I knew we couldn’t rely on your cooking, if you’ll pardon my mentioning it, ma’am,” he teasingly finished.

  “Did you actually tell someone you’d be busy all day making love to me and that you’d need food later?” Her arms were crossed under her head now and her glance was piercing.

  “Not someone, precisely,” he mildly answered, “and we don’t say ‘making love.’ We call this pleasure ah-x-abaw.”

  “Don’t quibble, Hazard. Whom exactly did you tell?”

  “The ladies,” he said in a conversational tone as one might use discussing the weather, “who cooked for us last night, and the men who wanted me to ride out and scout the buffalo herd today.”

  “Oh, my God,” Blaze gasped. “Everyone knows.”

  “Look, sweet,” he calmly explained, watching the blush creep up her slender throat, “there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You’re my wife. This is all the usual married stuff. And with one look at you, anyone could see I didn’t marry you because you could cook and sew.” He ran the tip of a blade of grass down her sun-dappled body. “You are the joy of my life, bia, and I don’t care who knows it.”

  The simple words were a balm. Blaze looked up at Hazard, his hair—uncut since June—a silky black fall, his classic face warm with affection, his lean body luminous in the light. “You are my life,” she whispered, and she knew her heart wasn’t wrong. Despite Hazard’s reluctance about tomorrows, undeterred by his evasive reaction to the word love, she was militantly sure that she and Hazard could overcome whatever odds were stacked against them … she knew their love was right.

  “Terrifying prospect,” he whispered back. “But I’ll try to live up to your modest expectations.” He had the look of a man not quite sure the natives were friendly, but cautiously hopeful.

  They returned to the lodge to eat, Blaze not comfortable about eating by the riverbank. Hazard indulged her uncharacteristic prudery with only a minimum of teasing, reminding her that anyone who outclassed Lucy Attenborough in audacity should hardly be concerned about such mundane irregularities. He received a kicked shin in reply and orders to return her to his lodge.

  Hazard smiled often on the walk back to the lodge; his replies to the cheerful comments addressed to him were equally lighthearted. Blaze hid her face in the solidity of his shoulder and counted his steps across the grassy plain.

  The women who brought the food giggled when they left, except one tall, slim woman who looked at Blaze coolly and then spoke briefly to Hazard. His reply was terse.

  “Friend of yours?” Blaze remarked after she left, capable of recognizing a former girlfriend when she saw one.

  “Apparently not,” Hazard replied, a trifle distractedly. He was digesting Little Moon’s provocative comments. One of the young braves, it seems, was bragging about abducting Blaze. That sort of bravado was to be expected in a coterie of rash young bloods, but Little Moon’s promise worried him more. She’d said she’d come and visit him some night.

  It wasn’t uncommon for lovers to slip under the tepee covers at night, especially in the summer, especially in the easy atmosphere of the summer hunt when dalliance was at its peak. He’d refused her, but he couldn’t be sure she’d honor his wishes. If only Blaze understood all the idiosyncrasies of Absarokee culture. It was like a dance—complex, subtle, formalized by convention, an arrangement of humans moving in intensely convoluted ways. Oh, hell, he’d face the problems as they rose. Perhaps they wouldn’t surface at all. In any event, he couldn’t possibly educate her in a thousand-year-old culture in a few days. So, cavalierly disregarding the possibility of problems, he surve
yed the variety of food arrayed before them and smilingly said, “Maybe we should have a food taster if Little Moon helped prepare this.”

  “Ah … a jealous girlfriend.”

  “Former girlfriend,” Hazard corrected and tentatively tasted some stew.

  “If you’re still alive in ten minutes, I’ll try some of that.”

  “Right. Hell hath no fury …”

  “So you turned her down.”

  “Absolutely. I’m taking this marriage business seriously.” He had by now tasted three other dishes in addition to the stew.

  Blaze assessingly watched him dip a spoon into a fruit concoction. “You believe in living dangerously. I wouldn’t trust that woman an inch.” Her smile was guileless.

  Hazard looked straight at her for a moment, his mouth twitching uncontrollably, and then he fell back against the robe-draped willow backrest and laughed out loud. He laughed until tears came to his eyes, and Blaze cautiously wondered if he was convulsing from a fast-acting poison. He quieted at last, wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands, clasped his fingers behind his head, and lay motionless against the shiny furs.

  “What was so funny?” Blaze asked, relieved to see him still hale and healthy.

  “The irony, pet, of your remark about living dangerously. As if some small bite of food can matter when I’ve lived my whole life on a knife edge. Do you realize we Absarokee are surrounded by powerful enemies? The Lakota outnumber us ten to one; the Blackfeet almost the same; the Shosone and Striped Arrows together are eight or ten times stronger than we are. They all want our hunting ground because it’s the best in the world. And I should worry about food? Sweet puss, you’re a darling,” he said, his dark eyes expressive in the afternoon light, “but you don’t know a scrap about the world or survival.”

  “I’ve a trust fund available when I’m twenty-one and it’s my own money to do with what I wish. I could help the Absarokee survive.” It was a rich young woman talking, assured and confident.

  “This may sound cynical, puss, but I doubt very much whether the trust fund would be made available to me. In any case, I don’t want or need it. My claims are rich—the best north of Virginia City. There’s enough gold there to serve my needs. How,” he said, sitting upright and reaching for a cup of cool water, “do we continually get into this subject when all I want is to hold you, make love to you, and forget everything for now? Look,” he casually remarked lifting the cup and spreading his arms wide, “I haven’t died. Come and eat, princess. You’re going to need your strength. I’ve given strict orders not to be disturbed until tomorrow morning.” He had, in fact, changed not only his schedule, but everyone else’s as well, to conform to Blaze’s wish for his time. Taking a drink, he smiled at her over the rim of the cup.