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She damned Josh beneath her breath.
His head throbbing, his tongue thick, Gray Falcon awakened from his drunken stupor. Blue Blossom was still at his side, asleep. The morning light was pouring in through the smokehole in the ceiling.
Turning to rise, Gray Falcon stopped short and
stared at something that had fallen from his hands. He stared unblinkingly at the floss of hair that lay golden against the dark bear pelts. He reached his fingers to it and touched it.
"Golden hair . . . ?" he said, running his fingers over the hair. "How did it . . . ?"
Then his gaze moved quickly upward. Now that he was coming out of his drunken state, he remembered his captive. His eyes darted around the dark recesses of the wigwam and his gut twisted when he saw that Melanie was nowhere in sight. She was gone! She had escaped!
Again he looked down at the hair. A slow, lazy smile lifted his lips. "Shane," he whispered. "He came. He stole his woman away from me. He cut his hair and left it for me to find. He is clever! He is even more cunning than I!"
He rose into a sitting position and lifted the hair up into his hands. His smile faded, knowing that Shane had cut his hair for more than one reason. It was a way of showing Gray Falcon that Shane had severed his ties with the Chippewa forever!
A pang of regret stung Gray Falcon's heart. Were the games, the challenges with Shane truly over? Now that they seemed to be, Gray Falcon was not at all happy. There would now be a void in his life, and he was sorry now that he had forced Shane's hand.
Perhaps he should offer a truce to Shane, he thought, still studying the hair, sad that Shane had actually parted with it. Perhaps he should offer himself as a brother to him. Did it take this, to
make him realize just how important Shane really was to him?
Blue Blossom stirred at Gray Falcon's side. She leaned up on an elbow, the blanket falling away, revealing her thick breasts. "Ah-neen-ay-kee-do-yen?" she said, smiling up at him.
Then she suddenly remembered the captive and shot her eyes around and gasped when she discovered that Melanie was gone. She looked guardedly back at Gray Falcon. "White woman," she said softly. "She is gone."
"Ay-uh, she is gone," Gray Falcon grumbled. He gazed at the golden hair that lay within the folds of his hand. "And Shane is also gone. Forever."
Blue Blossom stared down at the hair, recognizing it. She placed a hand to her mouth, stifling a sob.
A great bellowing across Shane's pasture met Melanie's approach. Worried, she looked at the restless longhorns, then at Shane's house and the yard that surrounded it. Everything was too quiet.
But of course, it would be, if all of the cowhands had deserted the farm.
Yet, where was Shane? Now that he had returned her safely home, she had expected to find him slaving away at his farm, trying to keep up with everything!
A sick feeling grabbed Melanie at the pit of her stomach. Had he left again? If so, where had he gone? Had he decided to leave all of his misery behind after all, or had he gone to find Trapper Dan's?
She brought the buggy to a halt and leapt from it and ran into Shane's house. More silence met her there. She ran up the stairs to Shane's bedroom and gazed with longing down at his pallet of furs, recalling the passionate moments spent there with him. Then she drew her mind back to the true reason she was there.
"He's gone," she whispered, placing a hand to her throat.
She rushed from room to room, just to make sure, then stopped when she came to Josh's bedroom. She inhaled the familiar fragrance of his cologne, which still clung to the drapes and bedspread. Her eyes narrowed angrily as hate rose within her.
"It's all his fault," she hissed. "If not for Josh and his attitude toward Shane, none of these things would have happened."
Racing toward the staircase, Melanie now knew what must be done. She had to go to St. Paul and find Josh. Come hell or high water, she had to find him and bring him home. By damn, he would make things right! He would even go and search for Shane and give him whatever assistance he needed, if she had to force him to do so at gunpoint!
She rode away from Shane's farm and went to her own and attached another horse to the back of her buggy. When Terrance came outside and demanded to know what she was up to, she paid no attention to him.
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Shane took several gold coins from his pocket and tossed them on the table in the blacksmith shop in St. Paul. "I will double this amount if you can find some dependable men who are willing to work as cowhands at my farm, under my employ," he said, giving the blacksmith a firm stare. "Tell them to come tomorrow morning. They will be well paid and fed for their services. My bunkhouse is better than some in these parts. During the winter months, the men will have a place to keep warm by a blazing fire. I will pay you well, Smith, if you will do me this service."
The blacksmith, tall and lanky, smoothed a hand across his bald head, eying Shane critically. "I heard that Josh had a twin brother and by damn, this time gossip was right," he said, spitting over his shoulder. "If I didn't know that Josh was over there in that saloon drunk and all whiskered up in the face, I'd think I was speakin' to him, instead of you."
"I am not here to be compared to my brother," Shane said, resting a hand on a holstered pistol. "I am here to make sure my farm does not go one more day without cowhands. Do I take those coins back, or do I leave them?"
"You keep callin' the farm your farm," the blacksmith said, spitting over his shoulder again. "Until you showed up, it was Josh's. Whose is it now? Yours or his?"
