Cheyenne Captive Read online

  The deafening roar of the fire almost drowned out the labored breathing of the man carrying her as he stumbled, going to his knees.

  She fought to get out of his arms. “You can’t make it with me weight!” she screamed. “Leave me behind and go on!”

  She saw his hand coming as he clipped her across the jaw and she collapsed, only half-conscious.

  Vaguely, she heard his gasp, “Sorry, Summer Sky, I had to do that!” Then he threw her across his wide shoulder, staggered to his feet, and ran on.

  Overhead, she was dimly aware of thunderheads gathering, the distant rumble of thunder. It was going to rain, she thought, but not in time; not in time.

  Dear God, she prayed silently, can’t you see us? Can’t you help us?

  She prayed silently, feeling the tears running down her dazed face as she felt the man stumble, go to his knees again. It seemed to take him a long moment to struggle to his feet.

  The last of the animals who had survived ran past them and into the water only a few hundred feet ahead.

  She heard, the rumble of thunder again and looked up. The angry clouds built jade green behind the red and yellow flames. They weren’t going to make it, she thought as Iron Knife staggered forward, unless ...

  Summer prayed harder than she ever had before and as she did, she thought she felt the wind shift. For a long moment, she thought it was her hope and imagination and yet ...

  “The wind,” she gasped. “The storm is causing it to shift. It’s no longer blowing toward us; it’s blowing the opposite direction!”

  Iron Knife paused and swung around to look. “You’re right, Summer,” his exhausted voice held new hope, “the fire is blowing back toward itself. We’re going to make it after all!”

  They wouldn’t have made it otherwise, she thought as she closed her eyes to return thanks. The last few yards, Iron Knife stumbled forward at a walk.

  Then, she came alert suddenly as he waded into the cold water with her in his arms. She laughed in delight at the feel of the waves lapping at her smudged, scorched skin. Animals surrounded them, small eyes and ears peeking out from the surface and they seemed to look curiously at this human who laughed out loud. All turned to watch the great wall of fire that faltered only a few hundred feet from the edge of the river and started to consume itself as the shifting wind blew it back.

  Iron Knife carried her out deeper and she floated free and put her arms around his sinewy neck, reveling in the exuberance of being alive when she had resigned herself to death.

  She looked up into his tired face. “You were about to give your life for me even though I had lied and told you I didn’t love you, didn’t want you. Why?”

  He shrugged as he kissed her forehead. “Because at the last moment, when it looked like we would die together back there in the forest, you called me ‘dear’ and ‘dear one.’ I knew then that you lied to try to make me leave you behind. But I do seem to spend a lot of time saving you, Summer. It makes me think the great god, Heammawihio, doesn’t really want me to have you and someday will cease playing with me and take you away forever.”

  She winced at the thought. “We are meant to be one. Somehow, whatever happens, we are fated to spend the rest of our lives together.”

  His face saddened. “I wish I could be sure of that. My mother felt the same way.”

  They turned to watch the fire. From a great red outlaw monster, it was rapidly dwindling to an impotent cannibal dwarf. It fed on itself and barely moved across the sparse grass near the water’s edge.

  Iron Knife turned toward the other bank. “I know a cozy nook almost like a cave under a rocky ledge on the far side of the river. There’s a shallow place up around the bend where we can cross”.

  He took her hand and led her as the animals watched them with curious eyes. The flames were dying fast, Summer thought, and the coming rain would drown out the remnant quickly.

  Thunder rumbled again and the air was cool on her wet body as they stumbled out of the water onto the far bank. A few giant drops of rain splattered on the river, making small, rainbow pools that widened across the surface.

  Iron Knife started to lift her again as they staggered out onto the bank, but Summer protested with a stubborn shake of her head. “Give me a little assistance and I can make it,” she said.

  He looked as if he might argue the point with her, then shrugged as he mumbled something about her strong will. He put one strong arm under hers and half-supported, half-carried her as she hobbled across the ground on the sprained ankle.

  The ledge was not so very far from the water but it seemed a long way to Summer as she gritted her teeth and limped. It really was a cozy lair under an overhanging rock with a view of the river.

  With a tired sigh, she collapsed on the layer of soft scented pine needles.

  He looked down at her tenderly. “You need to get out of that wet shirt.”

  She looked down at his oversized buckskin she still wore, and with no shame, pulled it over her head and hung it on a rocky outcrop in their cave.

  She felt no shame at her nakedness or the way his eyes appraised her nude, ripe body.

  Slowly, he took off his wet breechcloth and fringed pants and hung them to dry next to her shirt. Then he settled himself next to her on the pine-scented bed with a tired sigh.

  Summer leaned back against the rock, watching the occasional raindrop hitting the grass at the front of the cave. “We made it, love, I really didn’t think we would.”

  He put one big finger under her chin, turned her small, heart-shaped face up to his. “I told you we would make it together, or die together.”

  She caught his hand with her small one and kissed his fingertips. “I wish I could find a new way to say how much I love you.”

  His hands reached out and pulled her against him. “My English isn’t good enough to find the words I need for this moment.”

  But there were no words needed between them as they embraced and watched the fire sputtering on the far side of the river. It was hard to believe the weak, orange sparks were great walls of red flame only minutes before.

  Summer frowned. “I wonder what happened to your horse?”

  He shook his head. “Spotted Blanket is the smartest horse I ever owned. He either made it out onto the prairie where the wild horses graze safely, or he swam the river like we did. Sooner or later, I will find him or he will return to the village. They will send out a search party when he comes in without me.”

  Iron Knife stopped to examine her ankle, his big hands gently touching the swollen, discolored sprain.

  She bit her lip and winced as he moved it. “I don’t think I can walk all the way back to the village.”

  “No matter,” he said. “We are both too exhausted to do any traveling and it is going to storm.”

  She glanced up at the thunderheads still building on the horizon as another raindrop spattered on the rock outside their lair.

  Iron Knife stood up and she realized again what a marvelous physical specimen he was as she studied his nude body. It was almost like having their own little Garden of Eden, she thought, looking down at her own nakedness. A few short days ago, she could never have imagined being caught up in a romantic adventure such as this.

  He stretched his rippling muscles and looked outside. “It will be raining hard in a few minutes and we will need a campfire as the rain brings a cool breeze. Also, we must have food.” He stepped out to the cave’s entrance. “I must go back across the river.”

  “No, don’t leave me!” She reached up to grasp his fingers.

  He squeezed her hand, then disengaged his own. “I must, Summer. I will have to make several trips, but I’ll bring back a burning stick so we can have a campfire.”

  “Where will you find food?”

  “One of those deer or rabbits that didn’t survive will provide us with plenty of delicious roasted meat.”

  So saying, he strode away. She watched anxiously as he crossed the river and was soon swimmin
g back with a burning branch held over his head. Within minutes, he had a merry fire crackling under the ledge to warm her trembling, naked body. Then he returned to the smoldering remnants of the forest fire and brought back a haunch of venison.

  The animals that had survived the fire left the river now; some crossing to the far side, others scattering into the unburned areas to the south of the forest.

  Iron Knife just managed to crawl under the shelter of the ledge and flop down beside the campfire as the rain commenced. They gobbled the delicious meat, licking their fingers and putting small morsels in each other’s mouths as they sat by the warm fire and watched the sky break open. The rain came down hard.

  Over on the other side, the forest fire was out, an occasional wisp of smoke or a tiny pink tongue of flame licking weakly at the blackened underbrush. The cold rain fell among the blackened skeletons of burned trees and she stared, shuddered to think how close she and her love had come to being burned alive.

  But this was not the time to think of that, she thought with a contented sigh as she ate the last of the meat and lay down next to the fire with him. It seemed they were the only two people in the whole universe. Summer was filled with calm satisfaction. The soft, scented pine needles made a velvet bed beneath her naked skin. There could be nothing more wonderful in life than this, she thought.

  She smiled at him. “I would be happy to stay here forever, just the two of us.”

  He grinned. “Like the white man’s story of Adam and Eve?”

  “You know our story of the world’s beginning?”

  He nodded, reaching out to stroke her hair. “The only people who were kind to my mother and me when we lived among the whites was an old minister and his wife. He told me the Cheyenne believe that all the world was water and a great duck swam to the bottom and brought mud up in his bill over and over until land was formed.”

  She closed her eyes, loving the feel of his hands stroking her hair. “And the People?”

  “The People lived under the ground and came up to the light. We have stories of another time when the Cheyenne lived far from here, had no horses and grew corn.”

  “Grew corn?”

  “We lost the corn and could grow it no more. It is part of our legends like that of Ehyophstah.”

  “Who is that?” She brushed her fingertips across the dark rosette of his nipple.

  “The Yellow-haired Woman Who Brought the Buffalo to our People. When my father first saw Texanna, he had never seen a woman with light hair and pale skin. He thought she was the magic woman of the legends and, entranced, he stole her from the wagon train.” Iron Knife caught her small hand with his big one, looked into her eyes intently.

  She thought how big and callused his hand was, covering her small one. “The People cannot live without the buffalo, can they?”

  He shook his head. “When the time comes that we lose the buffalo,” he answered, his eyes growing more smoldering, “we lose everything, our freedom, our way of life.” His free hand stroked gently along her rib cage as the rain poured down outside. ”I would like to make love to you, Summer, but you are too hurt, too exhausted—”

  “Try me,” she smirked impishly, reaching up to pull his face down to hers.

  “Lay still and let me amuse you, then,” he whispered and she lay back with a sigh. She shook her damp hair so it spread out like a pale halo around her and closed her eyes.

  She felt him move to her feet. “I’m going to kiss every inch of you,” he whispered and she felt him pick up one of her small feet in his two big hands. His lips were light as butterfly wings against the sole of her foot as he kissed it, moved slowly up her swollen ankle, her leg.

  Now she felt his warm, moist lips leaving a velvet touch on her thigh and she started to protest. “Not there, you surely aren’t going to kiss me there!”

  “I said every inch of you,” he murmured and she felt his breath warm on her inner thigh, gasped in surprise at the eager way her body responded to the touch of his lips.

  His fingers followed his lips, gently spreading her legs apart, stroking, caressing.

  She protested at the idea. “You shouldn’t . . . really shouldn’t . . .”

  But his fingers stroked in a manner that excited her in a way she had never felt and she couldn’t bring herself to try to make him stop.

  As if she could, she thought, half-opening her eyes to study the lithe, bronze naked body of the man who touched her. She was a small plaything in his big arms. No, she was queen and he was a slave, commanded to amuse and satisfy her on threat of death.

  The fire crackled and the rain beat down outside, but they were safe in their own little world of love.

  She felt his fingers stroking her silken insides and she knew she should make him stop but she found her body responding to his light touch. Her thighs spread themselves, her body arching up for the caress of his hand.

  Her nipples hardened with desire and his free hand came up to stroke her full breasts as his other hand touched deeper and deeper.

  It was a world of touch sensation, she thought with a sigh as she breathed deeper, her body tightening with tension as his hands and mouth loved her. His lips were everywhere as he had promised, sucking, kissing, caressing.

  His lips were on her ear. “Now, you stroke me, Summer, caress me as I have loved you.”

  She felt her face burn at the thought but she did as she was commanded, running her hands over his hard lean body, across his flat belly.

  He caught her hand, moved it to his chest. “You know where I want you to touch me,” he murmured.

  His nipples grew hard under her fingertips as she touched, bent her mouth to kiss them.

  She heard the sudden intake of his breath, felt the tension of his big body. His hand caught hers again, bringing it down between his legs. “Touch me, Summer,” he commanded. “Make me want you more.”

  Her hand held his manhood. It was hard and throbbing in her grasp as she stroked him rhythmically. His fingers went deep inside her, stroking her velvet wetness. His mouth nibbled her breasts and she arched herself, urging him to nip her swollen nipples with his teeth.

  She was caught up in a frenzy of desire, wanting him to take her breasts deep in his mouth, suck them and delight them with his tongue. Summer felt the virile seed of the man seeping on her hand as he slowly spread her thighs.

  She looked up at him with half-closed eyes, gasping with her need as she reached up to him.

  “I love you,” he whispered as he came to her and took her in his arms.

  She accepted him deep within herself and moaned aloud as she felt him hard and throbbing with life at the very core of her being.

  He made love to her very gently, his hands stroking her long hair, his lips soft on her face, her eyelids.

  She reached up to embrace his strong body, feeling the muscles bunch under her feathery touch. The power and the size of the man still astounded her and the wonder of it was the way he responded to her desires, eager to please her.

  She whimpered and tensed and his breath brushed her ear. “Not yet!” he commanded. “Not yet, Little One! Make it last and last . . .”

  She tried to obey him but could not. Her body had a mind of its own, trembling with desire and eagerness. She fought to hold back as he commanded, but every nerve fiber seemed to be on fire, her senses reacting to his touch, his taste, the man smell of him.

  She opened her lips, taking his tongue deep in her mouth as her body took his manhood, relishing the warm, moist invasion of him, the total domination of his maleness. She was swept by a frenzy of desire, her small hands running up and down his naked body, fighting to keep from clawing him, pulled him even deeper. She could feel him throbbing in the very core of her, pulsating and swelling with the life he was surging to place within.

  She was not going to be able to wait for him, she thought with regret, feeling the trembling beginning deep in the very soul of her being. The trembling became strong convulsions of desire and her smal
l hands gripped his hard hips as her body gripped his maleness. She kissed his lips and felt his hands covering, squeezing her breasts as he drove hard and deep into her.

  “I—I can’t stop,” she whispered as she surrendered to the tidal wave of pleasure that was sweeping her along on its crest.

  “Don’t stop. Come with me,” he gasped. Then she felt his body hesitate, shudder deep inside her. For a split second, she was aware of the way her eager body seized his, eager for the seed he was placing deep where she wanted it, needed it.

  The tidal wave swept her along helplessly. She couldn’t stop it, didn’t want to stop it. The intensity of the feeling swept her under and she was gasping like a drowning victim, holding on to the man in her arms.

  “It’s all right, Summer,” he whispered. “Let it take you . . .”

  And she relaxed and gave way to the urges of her body, floating on the tidal wave as it crashed against the shores of her consciousness. They seemed caught in time as he gave up his lifeseed and she accepted it willingly, hungrily.

  It was a sensation she didn’t want to give up, the passion of the crashing waves, but slowly it was receding, leaving her flung on a distant beach. She wondered for a moment where she was. Her eyes flickered open and she realized he held her against his heart very tightly. She could feel her breast pressing against his beating heart, her own rhythmic pulse. She heard his gentle breathing, felt the fine dew of perspiration on his bronze skin.

  She looked into his eyes. Only moments before, they had been burning and intense. Now they were soft pools, reflecting her own image back at her because of the flickering fire against the twilight outside.

  She smiled and reached up to touch his cheek. “I see me in your eyes,” she murmured.

  “Do you see me also in your heart?” he asked earnestly as if suddenly aware that it might be too good to last. His big hand cupped her small face ever so gently as if he were afraid she was a ghost that would disappear if he loved her too deeply.

  “You know I do.” She said, smiling, reaching her arms up around his neck, remembering how he had refused to leave her behind in the forest, even to save his own life. He still lay within her and she didn’t want him to move.