Native Wolf (10 page)

Chase flinched. Like an expert hunter, the woman had found the gap in his defenses and shot an arrow straight into his heart.

“She said you would return," she bit out. "She believed you and your brother were coming home." She punctuated her angry words by poking him in the chest. "But you never did. I began to think there were no Two-Sons at all, that she'd made them up.”

He seized her hand to stop her poking, then lowered his brows in a defensive scowl as he growled, “We were never told our grandmother was alive.”

Her voice was bitter. “It never occurred to you to try to find out? For years she waited for you,” she choked out. “She died, waiting for you.”

“Now wait just a damned minute,” Chase argued. “It was
your
world that destroyed my grandmother. You and your father killed her."

"What!”

He cursed at her in the Hupa tongue, then bit out, "You don’t think I know what your father did?" A confusion of emotions—fear and anger and despair and regret—swirled together, melting like ore in a crucible, and poured out in an unstoppable stream. "Taking my grandmother from her people, from her family, keeping her as his slave." His ragged whisper broke under the weight of his pain. "The rest of her people,
my
people—her husband, her sisters, her son—he discarded like waste."

"That’s a lie!"

"
Qutxut!
It’s true! While my grandmother was forced to slave for you," he said, spitting derisively at the ground beside her, unable to temper his bitterness or silence his tongue, "her
own
young son, her
real
son, was left motherless."

"You don’t know what you’re talking about."

"
Nida-nonuntse!”
He didn’t want to hear her denials. What had happened to young Hintsuli, to his people, was an atrocity. Someone had to answer for it. "My grandmother’s spirit is uneasy. She demands
lenulya
. You know this word. It’s written in your Bible.
Lenulya,
vengeance." Still clutching her hand, he moved close and seared her face with his whisper. "
Lenulya
is mine."

The half-breed’s harsh words burned Claire’s skin like a brand, marking her with deadly promise. But she wasn't afraid. Despite his massive paw swallowing up her hand and his hot breath upon her cheek, now that she knew who he was, how could she be afraid of him?

"No," she said. "You're wrong. She loved me. She told me you would come, and she said it would be a
good
thing. She said you would fix the past and—“

He released her abruptly, and his loud exhale filled the cave like the steam from a locomotive. Without a word, he walked back to the mouth of the cave.

Claire remained in the shadows, not moving, not speaking, for a long while. Where on earth the half-breed had heard such horrid things about her father, she didn’t know. But he seemed to believe them with all his heart.

Claire knew otherwise. Samuel Parker wouldn’t enslave anyone. He might be stern and unsentimental, but he was a decent man, a fair man. He may not have loved Yoema like Claire did, but he was always kind to her. He would never have separated the dear woman from her family. The man was mistaken. There was nothing to avenge.

“My father is a good man,” she called out to him as he bedded down again at the cave entrance. “We all cared for Yoe-, your grandmother. If you take me home, you’ll see—" She stopped, suddenly remembering that, for all intents and purposes, she no longer had a home. She’d run away. There was nothing left for her at the Parker Ranch.

In fact, now that she thought about it, she realized that returning home was out of the question. If she went back, she'd have to face her father’s disappointment. And she'd have to deal with her hot-tempered fiancé, Frank. He wouldn't take kindly to Claire’s breaking off their engagement.

As odd as it was, she might be better off casting her lot with this stranger. He wasn’t exactly a stranger, after all. He was the flesh and blood of her beloved Yoema. Indeed, he even looked a bit like his grandmother. A tiny smile touched her lips. He had the same high cheekbones, dark scowl, and sparkling eyes.

If only he weren’t so full of hatred and vengeance, Claire thought as she lay down on the hard cave floor, she might actually welcome his companionship. After all, she had no one else in the world.

By the time Chase awoke, the sun was just beginning to run its golden fingers over the leafy tresses of the trees on the far ridge. He pushed up onto one elbow and glanced at the back of the cave to make sure his captive was still captive.

She was asleep, huddled into a ball in her mud-caked white camisole. Her hair stuck out at odd angles. Her face was smudged with dirt. But he’d be damned if she still wasn’t as pretty and delicate as a pale butterfly. Looking at her sweet face, he regretted his harsh words of last night. He’d let anger get the best of him. He’d been upset about the lost stallion, riled up about the march, and jittery about his grandmother’s ghost. The woman had hit a nerve when she’d asked where he’d been all these years.

She was right to wonder. It was a mystery, and Chase didn’t much like mysteries. Word had been sent from Samuel Parker to Nome Cult the day that his grandmother died. But what about before? Why had his Uncle Hintsuli known nothing about her captivity at the Parker Ranch? Why had the family believed for so many years that she was dead?

It was too late for those questions, he supposed. It had all happened long ago. Even Claire couldn’t really be blamed. She’d been a young child when her father enslaved his grandmother. She may have never even heard of the march. It wasn’t the sort of story a father would tell to his little girl, especially when he was the villain of the story.

Chase only hoped he could keep a better rein on his temper today than Claire had had on the horse last night.

The truth was the troublesome little lady had put Chase in real danger now, letting the horse go free. No longer able to rely on outrunning their pursuers, Chase had to try to outsmart them. The sooner they lit out, the better.

He called out softly. “Woman.”

She slept.

“Miss Parker."

Still she slept.

He rose on his haunches. “Claire.”

She stirred, then yawned, then stretched. He caught a glimpse of one long, lovely leg before she tucked it quickly back under her skirts.

“Time to go,” he grunted, tying his shirt sleeves around his waist.

She sat up with a sleepy frown. “Go where? Where are you taking me?”

He didn’t know how to answer her, so he didn’t bother. He just waved her forward. “Come on.”

She crossed her arms. “Why?”

He scowled. She’d certainly woken up in a mulish mood. And now that she knew who he was, she didn’t seem quite so afraid of him. He wasn’t sure that was a good thing. “Because I said so.”

She thrust out her stubborn chin. “And what if I won’t come, grandson of Yoema?”

He growled. Now she was baiting him. And she was being ridiculous. The woman was half his size, and she was cornered in the cave. She must know he wouldn’t hesitate to toss her over his shoulder again.

He hopped up to his feet and took two steps forward.

Her eyes widened, and her arms fell out of their fold. “All right, I’ll come.” She snatched up her precious water-warped book, shot to her feet, and almost bumped her head on the roof of the cave. “But I want you to know I’m not coming willingly.”

He arched a brow at her. That much was obvious. “We have far to go. I can carry you, or you can—”

“I’ll walk on my own, thank you,” she primly announced, tucking the book into her camisole and picking her way toward him.

He extended his hand, which she ignored. But he wasn’t about to lose his valuable hostage in a landslide, so he insisted on taking hold of her elbow as they descended.

Once they reached the bottom, he grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her hastily along the pass. There was no time to waste. Samuel Parker’s posse had probably picked up their scent by now.

Claire refused to be intimidated. This Two-Son might be as big and surly as a grizzly, bristling and growling and snapping at her, but he didn’t frighten her anymore. Yoema had spoken often to Claire about her vision, the one in which the lost twins returned to Paradise, healing the past and making the circle whole again. And if Yoema believed that was a good thing, it must be so.

Still, as he began hauling her at breakneck speed past stands of toyon and redbud, through nettles, star thistle, and what she was sure was poison oak, her mood soured. She wondered if Yoema had misinterpreted her vision and the heroic role of the Two-Sons in it.

For one thing, Yoema's grandson didn’t seem very gallant. He was nothing like the heroes in her books. Those heroes didn’t have smoldering black gazes. They didn’t travel in stony silence. They didn’t wrap their hands possessively around the heroines’ arms. And they wouldn’t dream of venturing out of doors without a proper shirt.

Dime novel heroes were kind and sweet. Their noble deeds often moved Claire to sigh in adoration. This man with his fierce, wild, unpredictable, savage, reckless ways made her cheeks burn and her heart race.

Fortunately, at the moment, she was too busy keeping an eye on the path to spare more than an occasional glance at his half-naked body. But his shocking immodesty was never far from her thoughts.

As they trudged higher into the mountains, the oaks gave way to scrub pines. Buckbrush slapped at her ankles. Manzanita scraped her arms. Her eyes filled with grit. Her feet grew numb.

By midday, she was exhausted. She gasped at the stitch in her side. The only thing that kept her from falling into a dead stupor were the man’s grip on her and their unrelenting gait.

When they came to a grassy break in the wood, they stopped at last. The instant he released her, a small voice inside her told her to run—run like the wind. But she was too tired to even answer it. She collapsed onto the moist ground, careless of her already filthy clothes. There she remained, as docile as a kitten, and then watched with mild interest as he began to creep stealthily across the sun-speckled meadow.

His knife was unsheathed. His gaze was focused. His movements were slow and graceful, like the tomcat that stalked mice in her father’s barn. He was a natural hunter, she realized, watching the muscles of his lean torso tense as he stole through the grass. Then, before she could blink, he raised his arm and, with a flick of his wrist, sent the knife sailing forward.

Whatever creature he’d chosen for a target gave a short yip, and she winced. He returned moments later with something dead slung over his bare shoulder. She looked away. She hoped he didn’t expect her to eat a raw wood rat or possum or whatever horrid rodent he’d slain.

It turned out to be a rabbit, and he apparently
didn’t
plan to eat it, at least not yet. He tied its legs with plant fiber and hung it from a twisted reed that he slung around his hips like a gun belt.

With the game secure, he began poking at the wet ground with a stick, digging at the base of some plant. He uncovered the bulb beneath, mumbled a few foreign words, cut the leaves away, and brushed the dirt off on his trousers. Then he cut the bulb in two and extended a piece to her.

She looked away. She was hungry, but not
that
hungry. She might make a feast of wild greens, but she wasn’t about to eat a strange bulb he’d dug out of the ground. It might make her sick…or worse.

"Take it,” he grunted.

"I’m not hungry."

"You have to eat."

She shook her head. The heroes in her books could go for days without food.

He grumbled something, crunching into his half of the bulb. His grimace told her it was about as appetizing as she’d expected.

She closed her eyes with a sigh and imagined the meal she’d be eating at the Parker Ranch—a plate piled high with roast beef, potatoes, and two, no,
three
baking powder biscuits with butter and peach jam, followed by a big, scrumptious slab of apple pie.

Stubborn woman
, Chase thought as he finished off the beargrass bulb. Sooner or later she had to eat something. He’d been lucky spying the rabbit, but he didn’t feel safe stopping to build a fire until nightfall. By then, she should be hungry enough to eat dirt.

He glanced at her, sitting there on the ground, her petticoat puffed around her like a spent dogwood blossom. She had skin like his mother’s, delicate and as white as the spots on a fawn, and already her shoulders and the bridge of her nose glowed pink.

He untied his shirtsleeves from around his hips and handed the shirt to her. “Your skin is burning.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. You’re all…pink.”

She blushed, turning pinker. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Put the shirt on...unless you want me to hold you down and wrestle you into it.”

Her eyes widened. His narrowed. Finally, deciding his threat was genuine, she donned the shirt.

Chase knew she was tired, but they had to keep moving. He pulled her to her feet, tugging her after him like a dawdling child.

As they hiked into the mountains, the pines thickened, and cedars scented the woods. Though they traveled parallel to the main deer trail, the foliage was dense now. And so far, there were no visible signs of pursuit.