Golden Hawk 3, page 2
When they reached the cabin, Singing Wind dismounted first, then helped Hawk dismount. He thought he was in fine shape, but when his right foot hit the ground, his knee buckled under him and he fell face down in the snow. Singing Wind struggled to pull him to his feet, but he rolled over and waved her aside.
“Get my rifle,” he told her in Crow. “It’s inside the cabin. I’ll use it for a crutch.”
Hawk struggled to a sitting position in the snow and watched her disappear into the cabin. He realized he would be in good hands once he made it inside.
A moment later, a tall Comanche strode outside, his forearm locked around Singing Wind’s neck, a gleaming blade held under one of her naked breasts. There had been a struggle; Singing Wind’s dress had been ripped brutally down the front. She had not let the Comanche take her easily.
Hawk had not had to contend with a Comanche attack for more than a year now, and he had begun to think that the Antelope band—so many leagues south on the Texan high plains—had finally given up on its costly attempt to take his scalp. He saw now how wrong he was. The band’s memory of Hawk’s betrayal would last as long as the band itself. Hawk barely recognized the Comanche brave, for the last time he had seen him, he had been one of a gang of ten or twelve year olds tearing around the village with others of his size. Hawk now realized that any brave coming of age who was desperate to prove his manhood and take a wife would have to return to the band with Hawk’s scalp on his lance. And maybe his balls, too.
“Let her go,” Hawk told the brave in harsh Comanche. At the same time he reached back for his stirrup and pulled himself upright. Adrenaline pumped furiously through his weakened body, and Hawk reckoned he still had a chance if the Comanche got close enough.
The Comanche flung Singing Wind aside and strode toward Hawk. Incredibly, he was carrying a willow coup stick with eagle feathers attached. He had sheathed his knife and in his left hand carried a hatchet with a Spanish broad ax blade, a single eagle feather depending from the shaft.
The hollows of the Comanche’s cheeks were painted black, signifying the fires of revenge that burned within him, while diagonal streaks of white crossed his forehead; on his naked shoulders broad strokes of blue paint alternated with black, the black predominating. The significance of the paint was not lost on Hawk. The blue symbolized the sky—the habitat of the hawk—while the black signified the hawk’s death as an act of retribution. The Comanche was a fearsome, yet magnificent sight as he approached Hawk, and Hawk was sorry that he might have to kill him.
“How are you called?” Hawk demanded, hoping to distract the young warrior.
“Young Eagle,” the Comanche replied proudly.
Hawk nodded. It was a name this Comanche had clearly chosen for himself; eagles drove hawks from their hunting grounds, sometimes killing them in the process. That would explain the eagle feather on his hatchet.
“I have just fought the grizzly,” Hawk told him. “I am weak from loss of blood. Your victory over me will be a poor one.”
“But it will be a victory,” the warrior pointed out with a smile—a cruel, vindictive smile that wiped all compassion from Hawk’s mind.
Stepping away from his horse, Hawk almost slipped on the snow-slicked ground. Then he took his bowie from its sheath at his side and held it lightly by its tip. The Comanche had heard of Hawk’s prowess with a knife. He pulled up warily, his coup stick still held out in front of him, its wavering tip less than a yard from Hawk.
Hawk hurled the large bowie. Expecting this, Young Eagle ducked quickly aside, evading the thrown knife. Triumphant, as if he now had Hawk powerless before him, Young Eagle charged. Hawk’s hand flashed back to his sheathed knife behind his neck and sent it flying with lightning speed at Young Eagle. Taken by surprise, Young Eagle did not duck in time and the blade buried itself in his chest.
Staggered, the Comanche glanced down at the knife’s protruding hilt, withdrew it, and flung it aside. A gout of blood pulsed from the wound. He looked with fury at Hawk. This second knife he had not expected. Now he was dead, and there was only one thing for him to do. He flung himself toward Hawk, reaching out with his coup stick.
Hawk had expended his last ounce of energy on the last knife throw and was now too weak to even pull back. He felt the coup stick brush against his shoulder as the dying warrior collapsed forward onto him, lashing out feebly with his hatchet. The ax struck Hawk’s shoulder, inflicting a painful, but superficial wound. Unable to keep his balance, Hawk collapsed back into the snow, the dying Indian on top of him. With his last remaining surge of energy, Young Eagle raised the hatchet over his head. Dully, bled white by this time, Hawk looked with cold, fatalistic eyes at the hovering ax blade.
It came down, but only crookedly, missing Hawk entirely as a blast from the cabin door tore into the Indian’s spine and sent him sprawling off Hawk. The wound in his back and chest turned the snow crimson underneath him. Hawk glanced up and saw Singing Wind standing in the cabin doorway, slowly lowering his Hawken.
Yes, he told himself again, he would be in good hands once he made it safely inside his cabin. Then he passed out.
Chapter Two
HAWK DIDN’T KNOW how Singing Wind managed to get him inside, but he awoke not long afterward to find her pulling off his clothes. He tried to say something to her, but it came out in Comanche and that only seemed to startle her. He passed out again and later awoke to a world so quiet it was like a shout in his ears. He glanced out the window and saw nothing, even though he knew it must be close to midday. Singing Wind was over by the fireplace cooking something. The two carcasses he had hung over it were gone, and racks of stripped meat were hanging alongside the fireplace. He frowned. That was a damned lot of meat to strip and cure. How long could he have been out?
Hawk tried to say something to Singing Wind and saw her turn, but it was as if his voice belonged to someone else. For no reason at all his head began to swell and he was terrified that it would crash out through the cabin’s roof. Instantly, it seemed, Singing Wind was beside his cot, spooning some evil-smelling potion in to his mouth. He fought her off, saw the spoon go flying as she sprang back, her face rippling like a blanket in the wind.
He yelled something at her, but did not hear it, then turned to the wall and fell through it, twisting slowly as he plunged back into darkness.
He was well again. But he was missing something. The fever had burned him out, leaving him as empty as a stove with only ashes left in the potbelly. Singing Wind had to prod open his mouth with her spoon to get any nourishment past his lips. He felt weak, listless. Days passed like fence posts, one no different than the other.
The early-winter storm had long since passed, and Singing Wind, supporting him as best she could, flung open the door one day and helped him outside. He saw the path she had tramped to the barn and noted how high the snow had drifted around the cabin, but it made little impression on him. It was as if he were looking at a painting without color. With Singing Wind supporting him, he hobbled as far as the barn, then returned to the cabin. She led him over to his cot and he fell immediately into a deep, dreamless sleep generated by pure exhaustion.
Singing Wind was patient and persistent. Every day after that she forced him to make the same journey as far as the barn, sometimes getting him to go even farther, following a path she broke for him. But his exhaustion, both of the spirit and of the body, was such that all he could do afterward was sleep. One day she propped him up on his cot and, using his straight razor proceeded to shave off his beard. Then she took a rusty pair of shears she had found somewhere and began to trim his unruly, tangled mat of long blond hair. Hawk watched her, feeling nothing, even though occasionally, as if to arouse him, she playfully snapped the scissors at him.
He drifted off before she finished trimming his hair.
It took most of one afternoon to get him into the washtub and fill it with water hot enough to scrub him clean. Hawk’s wounds were puckered with scars, he noticed, but the scars were no longer painful. All the inflammation had gone down. His elbow was fine and he could flex his right hand, including the thumb, with little difficulty—and the deep, boring pain that had lived in his left side like a small, burrowing creature, was finally gone.
He leaned his head back against the tub as Singing Wind washed him all over, leaving no region untouched. He noted calmly that she was especially attentive to his groin, but felt no arousal. He thought he caught a glint of anger in her dark eyes, but paid no attention. When she helped him up and dried him off, he went straight to his bed and dropped onto it, asleep the moment his body struck the mattress.
Was he still asleep?
He turned over—or tried to. He couldn’t. He opened his eyes and found himself looking deep into Singing Wind’s. She was atop him, as naked as he was, her long legs apart, her knees digging into the bed alongside his narrow hips. He felt her hand fumbling with his flaccid penis and groaned, turning his head away from hers.
She plunged her face down and closed her lips about his, her arms enclosing him fiercely as she began to rock back and forth. Hawk was too tired to pull back and let her take him as best she could, dimly aware that it was going well for her and wondering why she bothered. Her tongue slipped past his lips and met his tongue. There was a faint, answering surge deep inside him. He tried to lift his arms to hold her, but could not.
She began to cry out softly to him, murmuring not in her own tongue but in the universal tongue of woman throughout time. Her cries struck an answering note deep within him. As her soft, mewing cries filled his ears, he felt himself stirring. His arms came up off the bed and closed about her slim, silken back, his fingers resting on the indentations of her delicate vertebrae. What happened then he did not know for sure, but a kind of endless roll began, with Singing Wind clasping him so closely he seemed to become part of her flesh.
Hawk drifted off, swimming in a dim tide of warmth and feeling. He felt her lift off his body, then her lips moving hungrily over his face, his neck, his chest, down past his thigh. Everywhere they touched, her lips seared him. Deep within him arousal stirred like a nocturnal beast coming awake to the darkness—and the night’s hunt. He felt her back moving like a serpent as she glided up onto him again, her fingers doing what they could to guide him into her. At last her hot, wet moistness folded over him, sucked his growing erection deeply inside her.
Still resting her cheek on his chest, she gasped with delight as she felt him enter her, her crooning sharpening as the teeth of arousal tore at her. Still over him, she lifted up and planted her hands on the bed beside his shoulders as she continued to rock, locked in a dance as universal and unchanging as the stars’ march across the heavens. Her hot perspiration struck his face as she leaned over him, and he licked the drops eagerly off his upper lip. Then he felt himself let go, but it was a weak, gasping ejaculation.
An enormous fatigue fell over Hawk. Before he drifted off, he saw the disappointment on Singing Wind’s taut face, but he could not help himself as he sank into an exhausted sleep.
He awoke before morning in great distress, his distended shaft throbbing painfully between his thighs. Singing Wind was still in bed with him, tucked against his back, spoon-like, her arms wrapped around his waist. His head clear for the first time in weeks, he trembled with eagerness as he turned swiftly to face Singing Wind, pushed her onto her back, opened her thighs with his knee, then thrust home. She came awake with eyes wide, uttering a small, startled cry. He drove into her with a grim, fierce urgency that would allow no holding back. Swiftly Singing Wind adjusted, flinging her arms about his neck and lifting her buttocks so he could plunge deeper. Half-wild with his urgency, Hawk felt her crossing her ankles behind his back while her long legs scissored his waist.
It was over almost at once for Hawk as he climaxed, but he remained locked within her and was soon able to thrust again, almost as urgently as before, grunting with each thrust. Beneath him, Singing Wind shuddered as he set off a series of minor earthquakes. Over and over, she climaxed, squeezing him tightly with each orgasmic thrust. He lost count of her climaxes, and after two more of his own, he began to regain some control over the wild, naked lust that drove him.
At last they pulled free of each other, both of them covered with fine beads of perspiration. Remembering the disappointment he had seen in her face before he dropped off earlier, he took Singing Wind’s face in his big hands and kissed her tenderly on the lips.
“You see,” he told her in Crow. “I am still a man. I can satisfy you.”
“You are sick no more,” she whispered in awe.
It was clear that she had just about given up on him.
“You have cured me. Your warmth has made me alive once more, the feel of your arms about my waist, the fire of your lips. Singing Wind, I think you have just brought me back from the dead.”
She smiled then. “Let us be sure. Maybe you are not still dead.”
As she spoke, she reached down. Her hot hand closed like a vise about him, and sure enough, he came awake once more. He did not protest, but moved closer to her, holding her tightly and nuzzling her breasts with his lips as she shifted eagerly to greet him.
Hawk did not have any answer as to why he had been so weak all this time and he had no idea how Singing Wind had worked her miracle, but he was well again and she had done it.
They crept closer to the ridge and peered down at the elk herd on its way to the lower valleys where they would spend the winter. There were about sixty in this herd, but most of them were on the far side of the stream, with only a few nearby. One male elk with a massive rack had frozen; his stance was regal as he looked up from the patch of grass his sharp hooves had uncovered a moment before, his nose lifted slightly, testing the wind for sign of predators.
Singing Wind was with Hawk. This was the third herd they had intercepted in the past four weeks, and they had plenty of venison. Hawk had his rifle primed and ready, while Singing Wind preferred her lost warrior husband’s bow and arrow. With it, she had already brought down two mule deers.
“Let’s get closer,” he whispered to her.
She frowned and shook her head at him.
“Come on,” he said.
He took her mittened hand and pulled her after him. Again she shook her head. He was about to ask her what the problem was when the snow beneath them gave way and they plunged off the ridge, struck a smooth snowbank, then started rolling down the rest of the slope. The elk was off in an instant, and his warning cry to the herd along the stream was enough to set them all on a run downstream.
As Hawk and Singing Wind sat up in the snow and watched, the last of the elks disappeared beyond an outcropping of spruce. Hawk looked at Singing Wind, feeling faintly ridiculous. She had been trying to warn him that the frozen ridge of snow they had crept out onto was not safe for both of them.
“Singing Wind,” he told her, frowning fiercely at her, “why did you not tell me of our danger?”
She shrieked with sudden laughter, picked up a wad of snow, and rubbed his face in it. He howled, blinked away the snow, and did the same to her. She scrambled to her feet in an effort to escape, but he caught her about the waist and brought her down. She turned to face him, her buckskin cloak falling open. Before he knew what he was doing, he had freed one of her breasts and his lips were closing about the nipple.
Singing Wind uttered a cry of delight, sat up, and held his face eagerly to her breast. Hawk moved closer to her and then onto her, the snow packing solidly under them. There was no more laughter then, only a quick, intense need for each other; and under the wide, cloudless blue sky atop a bed of immaculate snow they coupled with the intoxicating joy of wild animals…
They were inside the cabin on a pile of blankets in front of the fireplace. Singing Wind was leaning back into Hawk’s arms, and they were letting the fire build within them in order to make its quenching all the more exciting. Singing Wind had just admitted that she was of the Flathead tribe and had been captured by the Crows as a young girl. She had never been happy with the Crow warrior who had purchased her. He had been a poor lover and a miserable provider. His unhappy demise after he brought down the elk was typical of his luck.
Hawk said nothing for a while. Then Singing Wind pushed herself closer to him, turned her head, and gazed mischievously up into his eyes. “When next it comes time for the grizzly to mate,” she told him, “we will watch them.”
“Singing Wind has seen this?”
“Yes,” she answered softly, leaning her head back against his shoulder, “I have seen it.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Do you want me to? Maybe it is time for you already?” She moved her back into his crotch and wriggled slightly. “I can feel something there.”
He grinned at her. “I can hold out as long as you can.”
“We shall see.” She turned to face him so that she was in his arms, gazing up at him as she spoke. “I was picking berries on a bare slope when a female grizzly came into sight below me. She was grazing farther down and did not see me. Behind her is big male with a fine silver coat. I did not run away. I could see they too busy to notice me. While the female graze, the big male nuzzle her flanks and snuffle in her ears. He groan and pant. He is very anxious. But the female do not pay him much attention. Not at first. But then she not push him away, so the big male is encouraged.”
He smiled. “Of course.”
“Then another grizzly bear comes. He can smell the female, too. This one is much smaller than the other. The big grizzly turn on him. He chase the younger male away and stand up on his hind legs and bellow. I think he even taller than you.”
“Seven foot tall or more. A big one,” Hawk commented. “Maybe more than nine hundred pounds.”
“Yes. He very big. So the younger male slink off to find himself another female.” Singing Wind chuckled as she recalled the scene. “Then the big fellow smell the female and she let him. She is very excited now by all this fuss over her. The big grandfather grizzly sniffle at her with great pleasure, then mount her. She stand rigid until he is inside her. For long, long time the two move little. They are like in a dream.
