Susan Johnson Read online

“You don’t own me, Hazard!” It was a heated, angry cry, at frustrated odds with her circumstances.

  “Here I do. Here I very much do, sweet wife,” said the passion of an Absarokee chief who had fought like his forebears had, to retain possession of his land and property. “At least as long as I want you,” he rudely added, the thought of her mouth on Spirit Eagle’s etched on his memory.

  “I might leave you first,” said Blaze, her voice thin. “Everything’s egalitarian here, isn’t it?”

  “You might run into a little trouble leaving. Unfortunately, theory and practice aren’t always synonymous in real life. You’re very much mine, Boston. Predispose yourself.”

  Glowing with a furious incredulity, she stared at the man lying atop her. “And if I don’t?” she hostilely countered.

  His low, derisive laugh was exquisitely soft. “Then I’ll have to adjust my schedule,” he said, brutally courteous, “to allow time to persuade you. We’ll discuss it again,” he murmured drily, “one hour from now.”

  “You’ll have to force me,” she spat, flushed and glowering.

  His mouth curved into a genuine smile. “Don’t be stupid. You’re usually”—his mouth widened—“how do I put this delicately … agreeably anxious?” he murmured.

  “And you’re usually,” Blaze hotly returned, her magnificent eyes narrowed, her small body still fighting against Hazard’s steely fingers and solid weight, “like a damn rutting bull.”

  “That’s why we get along so well, I’d guess,” Hazard said approvingly and laughed quickly. A warm, pleasant sound. “Some like it tame, Boston. And some like it wild. And some say they like it tame but eat you alive when all is said and done. So don’t accuse me of obtuseness; you get exactly what you ask for. But we will in future,” he growled, “see that the asking is confined to me.”

  “Maybe and maybe not,” Blaze pugnaciously answered.

  “Positively and unequivocally,” Hazard commanded, his grip near to snapping the bones in her arms.

  “You can’t tell me what to do,” she stubbornly cried.

  “You need tutoring in holding your tongue. You’re a shade too noisy for my taste.”

  “And you’re too insufferably under control for mine,” she retorted, stony-faced and obstinate.

  Thoughtfully, his gaze scanned Blaze’s stormy face. “You’re willful,” he murmured, “exasperating as hell, and dangerous to my peace of mind.” Then he sighed, a deep and baffling sigh. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “Let go of my wrist,” she whispered pleadingly, a tiny wan smile toughing the corners of her face. “Peace of mind,” she tentatively continued, “is much overrated.”

  Hazard groaned mockingly, released his grip, and dropped his head into the curve of her neck.

  “Speaking of peace of mind, though,” Blaze ventured, “since you brought it up … not that I subscribe to it as a virtue, but tell me something,” she abruptly finished in a quick rush of words.

  Hazard had felt her body tense beneath him and when he looked up was relieved to see her attempt a small smile.

  “Honestly now,” she added, her face grave once again.

  “Of course.” He eased his weight lightly on his elbows.

  “Does she mean anything to you?”

  “The girl at the dance?”

  Blaze nodded, chastened and subdued and so unlike herself, Hazard worried for a moment he may have hurt her in their struggle. “No,” he said very gently. “It was only duty, ritual, ceremony … whatever you want to call it.”

  “No memories, no twinges of regret?” she asked, warily peering at him.

  “I don’t even know her. She was eight when I left for Harvard the first time.”

  “Then,” Blaze said in an altogether different voice, the familiar one with a touch of wanton cheerfulness, “… I didn’t have to try to make you jealous by kissing Spirit Eagle.”

  “You’re telling me,” he said, harboring his own suspicions, “that was deliberate?”

  Blaze’s mouth curved sweetly. “I saw you coming. Before that I’d been fighting to protect my virtue.”

  “Really?” His tone was vaguely dubious.

  “Don’t you believe me?”

  “Well, pet …” Hazard’s experience with Blaze had been rather the opposite; he’d been the one protecting his nonexistent virtue, so one must allow him his doubts.

  “Hazard!”

  “Of course I believe you,” he quickly acceded, warmed suddenly by memories of his darling, if vexacious lover, warmed by her astonishing diversity and plurality and fighting instincts. But being a realist, he made a mental note to see that Blaze was safeguarded when out of his protection.

  “You really don’t care about that girl?” she repeated, her anger gone but some niggling anxieties persisting.

  “I don’t care about Blue Flower or Little Moon or Lucy Attenborough or even—” He stopped before pronouncing the name and gently smiled at Blaze. “Even my memories are gone,” he softly went on. “You’ve taken every iota of space in my consciousness. “I love you,” he said, very, very quietly. “Stay with me.” Then suddenly he rolled off her and collapsed on his back, his fingers raking brusquely through his sleek black hair. “Damn it to hell,” he muttered. “How we’ll ever manage—” He left the unanswerable question unfinished. “I shouldn’t be saying any of this,” he went on, his arms thrown restlessly above his head, his eyes trained on the distant sky visible through the opening in the roof.

  All he could see was streams of yellow eyes overrunning his country, the prophecy of his long-ago medicine-dream disastrously true. The Indian tribes in dealing with the yellow eyes had never had any political advantage. They lacked the guile the white man cultivated like a precious virtue. Expediency, they called it, not ruthlessness. Progress, they said, instead of extermination. Was it possible to win? He didn’t know.

  In every generation there were men with outstanding powers; his father possessed the sacred gifts to see the future. And he did as well. But the success as a visionary chief rested on an individual’s consciousness of the ascribed powers, on self-sacrifice and compassion. The supreme test for both himself and his clan was near at hand. Winning might be possible; there was a remote chance with the gold. Or at least the contingency of not losing too disastrously. But he should nurture his sacred powers, focus on the seriousness of his clan’s future. Not let personal feelings interfere with the substance of his life as a chief and leader.

  Then suddenly all the conflict in his heart was submerged by the flow of love he felt for Blaze and duty faltered. Tonight he was willing to drown in the welcoming forgetfulness, settle only for his tremulous feelings. “Tell me,” he said, turning his head quickly back to her, “tell me you care. Tell me,” he pleaded, wanting her, at that instant, more than honor itself.

  Blaze threw herself across his body, loving beyond doubt, beyond differences, with all her heart and soul. “I love you,” she joyfully breathed. “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.” Butterfly kisses punctuated each blissful declaration. Blaze was suffused with the magic of her love, feeling a wondrous unity with the world, as if everything had fallen into place with the simplicity of a child’s dream. And she wanted to shout it from a mountaintop into a cloudless sky.

  Hazard’s arms were close around her, and looking into her sparkling eyes he asked, “How can you be so sure?”

  She nodded an emphatic, unequivocal affirmation. “I know,” she said.

  “Why is it so easy for you to say?” he wistfully murmured.

  “If you feel it, you say it,” Blaze explained. “No restrictions, spontaneous; I live, I feel, I am,” she went on in her impulsive rush of words. “Very simple. Don’t you ever feel that way?”

  “No,” he replied without hesitation. He wished his feelings were as uncomplicated. His love for her was hindered, enclosed, obstructed by a multitude of impediments, all mutually destructive.

  “Kiss me,” she urged, drawing him
from his morbid musing. “And love me.”

  “Little dictator,” he muttered. “You never change.” But he was smiling when he said it.

  She kissed him first, as it turned out, lushly and heatedly, a flaming prelude to passion, and in a few brief seconds he forgot the bittersweet sadness as the floodgates of pleasure opened in a rushing torrent.

  Chapter 28

  The following days were perfection; mostly play, all precious. A time to be treasured forever. Hazard kept Blaze near. He liked to be able to reach out and touch her, as if her tactile presence were talisman against the future he chose to ignore these few sweet weeks of summer.

  They rode out with the other lovers and sweethearts, picking berries and hunting wild rhubarb in a delicious season of merrymaking, laughter, love, and their own special oneness. They spent long, lazy hours in the sun-tinged willow bower playing at love and ignoring anything but the present.

  Sometimes at night they’d climb halfway up the mountain to some small hillside pasture and Blaze would lay curled against Hazard’s shoulder while he rested in the sweet-smelling grass. Under the glittering night sky, he’d point out the constellations, giving their Indian names, or he’d recount to her some of the Absarokee legends. Once he told her of his first vision on this mountain.

  “My uncle had died, killed by a Lakota on Powder River. My family mourned. I cut my flesh and bled myself weak.”

  “These are mourning scars?” Blaze’s fingers trailed over the ridged pattern of old scars on Hazard’s chest.

  He answered yes, quietly, but it was as if he had returned to that time, as if he remembered the grief anew. His eyes were lifted to the starry sky and the memory was so vivid for a moment, he thought he heard his mother’s wailing cries. “My uncle was young and brave,” he softly continued, “had counted coup many times already; he was an inspiration to me.”

  “How old were you when he died?”

  “Twelve, and I loved him dearly.” Hazard was silent for a moment. It seemed like yesterday when the crier had come back with the news. He sighed. “My heart fell to the ground and I knew I must dream if I ever hoped to avenge him. It was almost this time of year. The chokecherries were black and the plums red on the trees. I took extra moccasins and a good buffalo robe and walked to the mountains.”

  “What did your parents say? Twelve seems so young,” Blaze murmured, her cheek warm on his shoulder.

  “No one saw me leave the village. I slipped away. As soon as I reached the mountains I covered a sweat lodge with the robe and cleansed my body. Then I made a bed of sweet sage and ground cedar. The day was hot and, naked, I began walking on the mountaintop, crying for Helpers. But no answer came. I grew tired as the sun went down and lay down on my bed. For three days I fasted and walked and slept, and then I wakened the third night and heard someone calling my name. They had come for me. The People had come for me.

  “ ‘Come,’ they said, and I stood up, my head clear and light as air. I followed them, the wind cool on my skin, the trail smooth as the plains, although it was the mountaintop.” Hazard was speaking now as if he were back on the mountain.

  “I came to a burning fire. Six Little People were sitting around it in a half-circle.”

  Blaze was frightened suddenly; Hazard’s presence had altered, his voice taking on a remoteness. “Jon,” she murmured, placing her palm on his cheek, “I don’t understand.”

  Her touch seemed to bring him back. He shook his head slightly and then hugged her close. “It’s nothing, bia. It’s like a dream. We see signs in our dreams sometimes, that’s all.” He didn’t say, the medicine men had known when he came back from the mountain, had listened to his vision of the dwarf people, the spotted buffalo, and Four Winds, and had told him when was twelve that he already possessed the power to be great. Ah-badt-dabt-deah has given it to you, they told him, but the difference between men grows out of the use or nonuse of what is given them by Ah-badt-daht-deah. Learn to use what he has given you. You will become a great chief. From that day he had known himself.

  “It’s so different. I don’t feel I know you when you talk that way.”

  “Think of it like a religion and it seems less strange. All the white man’s religions are different, too. Scarcely any two white men can agree on which one is the right one. Some have two gods and a goddess, some many gods, some one, and the black robes talk of visions and miracles. Does that make it seem safer, bia? I didn’t mean to alarm you.” He gently stroked her hair.

  “It’s so much a part of your life, though,” Blaze softly said.

  “We simply meet our divinities face to face, without priestly go-betweens. And individual visions if successful are seen as a great source of power and a blessing to the tribe. We see mystic power in the wind and sky, in the rain, the rivers, in birds and mountains and prairies.”

  “The land’s important, isn’t it?” Blaze whispered, only half understanding the merging of self and religion, and oneness with nature.

  “It’s everything,” Hazard pronounced with reverence. Ah-badt-daht-deah, The-one-who-made-all-things, has given us the most beautiful land on all the world. No other country compares with Absarokee country. And it’s my dream to keep it for my people.” Now, as so often when he spoke of the future, he trailed off into moody silence. But he held her tightly while he gazed into the great star-filled sky.

  “You can do it, Jon,” Blaze whispered.

  “Maybe,” he softly murmured. “Just … maybe.”

  “I want to help. If I can in any way.” Her warm breath drifted across his chest.

  “You’re my second-by-second reminder that life is joy and happiness, bia. You’re my staunchest help. Now give me a kiss.”

  She did, and tasted the tears on his cheeks.

  Blaze came to understand on those quiet summer evenings Hazard’s pride in his heritage and the ties that bound him to this land. They were ethereal as a faded memory from childhood, yet indelible as a fingerprint. This land nurtured his spirit and his body, and in turn he loved it with supernatural mysticism.

  The summer encampment made their idle pursuits easy. Pleasure was everyone’s avocation. They were gathered together in their annual renewing of friendships, sharing the events of the last year. Relatives met each other again, and the days and evenings were spent in rounds of dining, dancing, game playing, horse racing, and sport.

  Overlooking acceptable social behavior, Hazard brought Blaze to council meetings. It was a gallant defiance done in the name of love. He warned her, though. “You’re welcome to come,” he’d said, “but expect some scowls. It’s not that it’s unheard of. We’ve had women warriors occasionally and treated them as equals in council. But not in the last decade, and people forget. Plus you’re attending as my wife, not a warrior. Don’t let anyone upset you.”

  Rising Wolf had said straight out and bluntly, “You can’t bring her in,” when Hazard told him he was bringing Blaze to council.

  “She wants to, and I’ll bring her,” Hazard had replied.

  “They’ll crucify her,” Rising Wolf said wildly, looking at Hazard as if he’d suddenly gone mad.

  “No one will remark on her presence or they answer to me. You can pass that information along.”

  “Damnation, Hazard,” he groaned in despair. “She’s a woman!” Rising Wolf’s glance was tender. He was an old friend whose favorite companion appeared to have lost his senses.

  “She’ll sit beside me tonight,” Hazard responded, his gaze clear and untroubled. “Tell them.”

  “Are you sure it’s all right?” Blaze asked one last time before they left their lodge that evening, aware of the etiquette involved.

  “It’s fine,” Hazard cryptically replied, his smile disarming. There were sure to be objections, but he was willing to put up with them. “A chief is the consequence not only of the individual merit of his coups,18 but also recognized for his medicine and his accomplishments for the clan. You prove your courage in battle and your fortitude in situ
ations that try the heart of a man. And that capacity allows you to lead and govern.

  “In theory, it’s not a hereditary position, and the clans are democratically organized,” Hazard reflected, “but family’s important. In our variety of communal living,” he continued, “a large and rich family ensures one’s own prosperity.19 In fact, the greatest insult you can direct at a person is to call him an akirī’ hawe, a person without relatives. Although my mother and father died last year, I still have a network of relatives, all supportive. In addition, my medicine has allowed me much success on raids. And the gold from the mine, the more prescient of the council realize, will ensure our survival. I am considered a kon-ning, ‘a man that knows and can,’ so”—he smiled—“you see, bia-cara, in the aristocracy of batsē’ tse, or chiefs, I’m able to do damn near anything I want.”

  “That, dear, is a source of both great joy and vexation to me—that predilection of yours.” Blaze’s smile was mockingly deprecating.

  “Similar feelings have crossed my mind on occasion, too, puss.” He tapped her lightly on the nose. “Your father indulged you much too much.”

  “And you find me unattractive?”

  He grinned. “Not altogether.”

  “How reassuring.”

  “One small assurance for me, love, if you don’t mind. In council, if you would refrain from outright ordering me about, my dignity would be preserved.”

  “You mean I can’t drag you away when I feel an unaccountable urge to make love to you?”

  “It might be embarrassing. We warriors are supposed to be above such frivolous emotions while in council.”

  “And are you?”

  “Hell no,” he said with a grin. “Another discredited theory, but we keep up the fiction for reasons of self-interest.”

  “I promise not to embarrass you in council,” Blaze declared with mock solemnity.

  “What a relief,” Hazard teasingly responded, wiping imaginary sweat from his brow. “But you might consider winking at me discreetly when you take such a notion and I’ll immediately recall some crisis that requires my attention.”