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Voices close by outside in the dark came to Thunder Horse, and his heart skipped a beat.
He stepped quickly away from the doors and the candlelight that shone through them. He placed his back against the wall of the house once again, hoping that he was hidden well enough, for there were men outside. They were not far away, standing and smoking what Thunder Horse knew were white men’s cigars.
He could tell that the men hadn’t seen him yet.
He hunkered low and moved stealthily away from the veranda, blending in with the darkness as he ran to safety in the close-by trees. He hurried onward to where he had left his sorrel picketed.
But before mounting, he glanced again toward the bright candlelight spilling from the windows and doors and listened again to the stringed boards making their noises while people laughed and danced.
In his mind’s eye, he saw Jessie. He had not gotten any answers tonight as to why she was living with Reginald Vineyard.
Was she planning to marry him?
Or was she married to him already?
Surely it was one or the other!
One thing was certain. The woman had suddenly complicated his plans, for he truly didn’t want harm to come to her. He feared it might if she stayed with the evil man.
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sp; Thunder Horse could tell that she was a sweet, soft-spoken person . . . and obviously uneasy with the tiny weasel of a man.
But, again . . . why? Why would she come to Tombstone if she disliked him so much?
Thunder Horse swung himself into his saddle and rode away into the night, away from the woman who intrigued him so. But putting distance between himself and Jessie did not erase her from his mind, or his heart.
Ho, there was something about her that would not allow him to forget her. That first moment they had made eye contact, he’d known she would not be someone he could easily forget.
He had saved her life then.
Would she need to be saved again . . . saved from a rat such as Reginald Vineyard?
From the way she had looked at the man, with a contempt she had tried so hard to hide, Thunder Horse knew that she had no good feelings for the tiny white man.
So what did that mean?
Why was she with him?
Thunder Horse’s heart would not rest until he had the answers to those questions.
He rode onward, glad that the music and laughter were far behind him now, for the silence all around allowed him to think more clearly. The main focus in his life at this moment must be his ailing father and his duty to his people, both those here in Arizona as well as the ones already living on the reservation.
In time, he would see the latter again and embrace them. But until then, he had those who remained at his village to see to and keep safe.
And he must protect his father’s interests. White Horse deserved to be interred with the other great, noble chiefs of their Fox band.
“It will be so, ahte, my Father,” he said into the wind as the glow of his people’s lodge fires appeared ahead of him in the darkness.
But suddenly a woman’s voice came to him in the night, causing him to flinch in the saddle. He knew that voice.
It was the flame-haired woman! He knew that she wasn’t anywhere near him, yet he could hear her call to him inside his heart.
He brought his horse to a sudden halt and turned in the saddle, staring back in the direction he had last seen the woman called Jessie.
Although she was still at the white man’s house, she had managed to come to him in the night inside his heart. It seemed to Thunder Horse that she was crying out to him not to forget her.
“What does this mean?” he whispered to the heavens as he sought answers from the Great Spirit high above.
