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Jolena stiffened when she saw a quick anger leap not only into her brother's eyes, but also Spotted Eagle's. Spotted Eagle looked as though he was ready to pounce on the wagoner, yet Kirk beat him to it.
Jolena took a quick step back and covered a scream behind her hand when Kirk hit the wagoner in the chin with a doubled fist, knocking Billy off balance. When Billy stumbled backward and fell to the ground, Kirk was quickly atop him, hitting him again and again.
Then when Kirk started to rise away from Billy, thinking that he had gotten the best of him, Billy grabbed a knife from his waistband and started to raise it for a death plunge in Kirk's back.
But Spotted Eagle saw the danger. He ran to the wagoner and kicked the knife from his hand, then helped Kirk up and away from him.
Kirk stepped aside as Spotted Eagle reached down and grabbed Billy's shirt just beneath the chin and bunched it up between his fingers. Yanking on the shirt, he soon had Billy on his feet again, blood streaming from both his nose and mouth.
"I think you do not listen well," Spotted Eagle said in a low, threatening grumble as he stood eye to eye with Billy. "You were told to mind your business. That is good advice. Soon we will be entering Cree territory and all hands and guns will be needed if the Cree decide to attack."
Billy reached a hand up and wiped the salty blood away from his lips, then stumbled backward when Spotted Eagle released his hold on him.
Spotted Eagle followed Billy's retreat. "And white man, I believe you forgot to apologize to the woman," he said, his teeth clenched. "She is no squaw. She is no savage. Let me hear you tell her that she is neither."
Billy growled something down deep inside his throat, then turned to Jolena. "Sorry, ma'am," he said, then slouched back to the fire and sat down, his sho
ulders slumped.
As everyone resumed eating the evening meal, Jolena was hardly able to keep her eyes off Spotted Eagle, who had turned away from her too soon for her to thank him for what he had done in her defense.
She glanced at Kirk, thinking that it was perhaps best that she hadn't thanked Spotted Eagle for anything. She could tell that his pride had already been injured, in that he had been outdone by the Blackfoot guide.
The rest of the evening meal was completed in silence. Everyone then retreated to their own bedrolls or small tents. Jolena watched Kirk crawl into his tiny cubicle of a tent, and she soon heard her brother's familiar snores.
She smiled to herself, glad that some things had not changed. In the own privacy of her small tent, where blankets were spread warm across the ground, she made her entries in her journals, then laid them aside and stretched out on the blankets. She closed her eyes and pretended that she was back home in her room and that she had not yet been faced with problems of identities and whether or not it was meant for her to be a part of the white worldor the red. The sound of movement outside caused her eyes to blink quickly open. She scarcely breathed, wondering who was stirring around outside, when only moments ago it seemed that everyone was asleep for the night.
Too curious not to see who it was, Jolena threw her blankets aside and crawled to the tiny opening of her tent. Her breath seemed suddenly lodged in her throat and her heart skipped a beat as she watched Spotted Eagle leave the campsite carrying a large bow, a quiver of arrows at his back. With an anxious heartbeat, she watched Spotted Eagle until he became hidden in the shadows of night.
Without further thought, she scrambled from her tent and began following him.
Chapter Eight
Cicadas vibrated their wings and made loud buzzing sounds on all sides of Jolena as she crept along beneath the trees, the cicadas' song drowning out the rustling of the cottonwood leaves overhead as a brisk wind blew through them.
Fear made Jolena's throat dry, for she had yet to see Spotted Eagle. She was even beginning to think that she should turn back, to return to the safety of the camp.
Then the spill of the moon's light revealed Spotted Eagle's muscled body through a break in the trees, where he was sitting beside the river, seemingly in deep thought.
Jolena's pulse began to race, wondering if Spotted Eagle could possibly be thinking about her. Could he have wished her there? She felt foolish for allowing her fantasies to continue causing her to believe the impossible. Just because she had experienced strange, sensual dreams about an Indian, she could not keep allowing herself to believe that this Blackfoot warrior was, indeed, the man of her dreams. That was not possible, and she must stop thinking that it was!
Yet she could not help walking toward the Blackfoot, her heart pounding harder with each step she took closer to him. She knew that she should not be acting like a loose woman, actually seeking out the company of a manand not any man, a handsome Indian warrior!
But nothing less than a bolt of lightning striking her dead would prevent her from going to Spotted Eagle, to talk and to…
Jolena's face flooded with color as she stopped her thoughts, feeling shameful for once again allowing herself to think such things about Spotted Eagle. She must gain control of her thoughts and her desires, for he was now only a heartbeat away as she stepped out into the spill of the moonlight. Not far away, where the horses were reined upstream, they whinnied softly.
She jumped when Spotted Eagle sprang suddenly to his feet, an arrow already drawn from its quiver as he turned quickly on a heel, his lips parting and his eyes widening when he found Jolena standing there frozen, it seemed, to the ground as she gazed with startled eyes up at him.
Spotted Eagle easily slipped his arrow back into its quiver and bent and laid the large bow on the ground beside him, his eyes never leaving Jolena. His heart thundered wildly against his ribs, finding her even more intriguingly beautiful beneath the play of the moonlight. He gazed at the magnificent lines of her body as the wind pressed her skirt and blouse tightly against it, then watched the wind pushing the dark cloud of her hair back from the finely cut lines of her face. He desired her as he had never desired any other woman, except when he was a boy with the desires of a man for a woman twice his age.
He was that boy again, desiring a woman no less than then, and perhaps even more. He had to fight back speaking Sweet Dove's name, for surely the Gods had sent her back to him, to love with a man's heart and a man's body.
Jolena could feel his eyes on her, as though he were branding her as his, and blushed beneath the close scrutiny. Yet she did not look away from him with lowered eyes. She held her chin high and squared her shoulders even more, which made the magnificent swell of her breasts even more pronounced.
"I did not mean to disturb your moments alone," Jolena finally said, her words seeming to come in a mad rushas mad as the beat of her heart over being this close to Spotted Eagle and to be silently admired by him. "If you want me to, I can turn back and return to the camp."
Spotted Eagle said nothing for a moment, then drew himself out of his reverie and reached a hand out to Jolena. "No, do not return to the camp unescorted,'' he said, giving her a scolding look as he frowned. "You were foolish to come this far alone." He reached out a hand to her. "But now that you are here, ok-yi, come. Sit beside me. The night is warm. The moon and stars speak gently from the sky to me. Enjoy them with me."
