Page 30 of The Last Warrior

Black Lion, I, too, choose thee.”

When she had finished, she looked up at Black Lion and found him staring at her as though she might have said a thing quite alien.

“Is something wrong?” she asked. “You look…startled.”

“Hiya. Hiya, nothing is wrong. Truly, I think something is very right.”

She smiled at him. “I am glad.”

“As I am, also,” he responded in kind. “Your voice is very beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

“And I have heard it before.”

“You have? Did you attend the opera in England, then?”

“Opera? Hiya, no. No opera. I have heard your voice in my dreams.”

“Your dreams?” A grin pulled at the corners of her mouth. “How poetic.”

“Poetic? Perhaps. All I know is that in some way, in some unknown course in my life, I have had the good sense to do something very right this day. I have married you.”

Her stomach flip-flopped. She was flattered, and she looked at him as though his words were as precious as a discovery of gold.

He returned the gesture, and they stood close, staring into one another’s eyes, searching, as though each would understand the other better. Then, glancing down at their hands, he said, “The time has come for me to break the physical tie that binds us, for there is no longer a need of it, because we are now of one heart.” He let go of the buckskin. “At last it is done. We are truly married.”

“Yes, we are.” However, again constrained by conscience, she added, “But, please, in name only.”

He simply smiled at her. “Come. I think it time to take you back to Irena’s tent. For I do not believe you are ready to spend the night in mine.”

“I think not.”

“But before we go, there is one more detail we should discuss.”

“Oh?”

“Hau, there is.” Without another word, he kissed her, a sweet, lingering kiss. But it didn’t last. Pulling slightly away, he said against her lips, “It is done.”

“Yes.” And the good Lord help her, she responded to this man and his kiss once again.

Chapter

Nine

“Ladies and gentlemen, what you are about to witness is not a mere show. What you are about to see here today are the real people who made America into the great country she is today. The characters you will witness before you are not actors. These are the people who have lived their lives on America’s Great Plains. Ladies and gentlemen, permit me to introduce to you a Congress of Riders of the West!”

“I don’t know, Frank.” It was Buffalo Bill speaking. “I think the introduction is too long-winded. Let’s hear it again.”

The announcer, Frank Richmond, repeated word for word the opening introduction. Meanwhile, the participants of the show filtered into the arena for this dress rehearsal. All those first entering were cowboys who each one sat atop a multicolored steed. Behind them, a tall and elaborate painting of the Great Plains provided a backdrop over about one half of the arena.

How interesting, thought Suzette, staring at the painting. Like the theater, the show used props.

“I think,” said Buffalo Bill to Richmond, “you could leave out one of those sentences somewhere there in the middle. Brief, to the point. That’s the best sort of introduction.”

“Bill… Bill!” A short, dark-haired man ran across the arena toward Buffalo Bill. “Red Hand is not gonna be able to do the fight with you,” he said, out of breath. “Just got injured. Horse kicked him. We’ll be needing someone to replace him in the fight-to-the-death scene.”

“Damn! Is he being cared for?”