At last he spun back toward her. “Do not seek out my company, and do not lie to me with your body.”
“Lie to you? With my body?”
“Do not flirt with me, do not smile at me, using your body language to hint that you might welcome me in your life, and do not tell me you enjoy my company, no matter how much you wish my help. I am but a man, and I would not be male if these things did not put ideas in my head.”
“But—”
“You know you were flirting with me.”
“Yes, but I have not lied to you.”
For a fleeting moment, there was a look within his gaze that she would have been hard-pressed to explain. But too quickly, it was gone. “Perhaps you do not lie with words, but your body says things I know you do not intend. I warn you. Do not play with me. Though I am curious to know if you can truly help me,I am aware of how you ply your beauty to gain those things you desire. Know that I am unaffected by your looks, and by you. Do not be deceived by me again. I am not a white man, and I will not bend to your wishes simply because you smile at me.”
“But I—I have not meant to?—”
He waved away her protest. “If we are to be in one another’s company, as you want us to be, you must contain your flirtations. Otherwise…” He shuddered. “Do you understand?”
Slowly she nodded. “I do.”
He turned away from her then, staring straight forward, out onto the empty prairie. “I will hold you to that promise.”
So saying, he strode away from her, his long legs carrying him far into the distance in a matter of a relatively short time.
It left Angelia dumbstruck, hardly knowing what to think, and she gazed after the man for a very long time indeed.
Chapter
Eight
Dear to me is the lumbering herd of buffalo, of curlews dipping in a moist meadow, of cows in a line ambling to the milking shed, of trips across the Great Plains in a covered wagon…
—MARIAN RUSSELL,LAND OF ENCHANTMENT: MEMOIRS OF MARIAN RUSSELL ALONG THE SANTA FE TRAIL
That had been a week ago, a week in which Angelia hadn’t seen Swift Hawk at all.
Was he gone? Or was he simply avoiding her?
In the beginning, Angelia had expected the man to turn up sooner or later. But he never had. After the first few days of speculation, Angelia began to worry that she might have done something to make him stay away.
“Them Injuns ain’t human. Now, see here, they may not look it, but they’s more animal than you or I,” muttered an old man. “Don’t rightly care about their children, neither, nor about each other, fer that matter. Cain’t trust ’em, cain’t live with ’em. They’s better off dead.”
Angelia glanced at Mr. Wooster, a man who had taken to sharing their late-afternoon fire and lecturing her nightly on the unwise actions of speaking to Indians. Small, sandy-haired, with a reddish beard, black hat turned up in front and a hunch in his shoulders, the man had commenced to recount stories of Indian atrocities to Angelia and her brother. That these stories caused Angelia nightmares seemed only half the battle, for iftruth be known, it was not because of nightmares that she was losing sleep. No, rather it was due to concern.
What if Swift Hawk were really gone?
Surely it wouldn’t be as if the world had suddenly stopped turning on its axis, she assured herself. Swift Hawk wasn’t her only means of security against a bounty hunter’s capture. She wasn’t without resources. Certainly she would be able to think of some other scheme to keep herself and Julian safe.
But what?
To date, she hadn’t determined another single plan. Except that perhaps she should go on hoping.
But hoping for what? That Julian would come to his senses? That the others in their wagon train wouldn’t find them out?
It didn’t help that their situation, as part of the wagon train, was one of some idleness, since their train awaited the arrival of even more wagons from the east, a thing that was a necessity, since it was well known that the Indians along the trail were hostile. It simply wasn’t safe to travel without enough manpower to ward off an attack.
“I warn ye now,” continued Mr. Wooster. “With hair the color of yours, ye’ll be the first ta lose yer scalp, that’s fer sure. Course, not afore they has their way with ye, miss. Dirty heathens.” He coughed up something foul from his throat and spit. “If I was you, miss, I’d stay put, mind ye. This trail here. It ain’t fit fer a woman.”
This last had Angelia glancing up toward the old geezer. Ever since the day when she and Julian had accompanied Swift Hawk into the woods, Mr. Wooster had impressed himself upon her, both at noon and in the evenings. His stories were brutal, bloody and prejudiced.
