Authors: Cassie Edwards
He stopped just inside the entrance flap and stared down at Joylynn as she sat before the fire. She had not yet noticed that he had come into his lodge.
He knew that she must be worried about the outcome of his mother learning her secret.
Joylynn gasped when she turned and found High Hawk standing there. Quickly she moved to her feet. The moment she stood before him, his eyes went to her belly.
She knew the beautiful dress she was wearing clearly outlined the small mound of her growing baby. When he continued to stand there, staring at her belly, she was sure he realized that she was most certainly with child.
Suddenly he came to her and gently placed his hands at her waist. There was no contempt in the gaze he leveled on her. “Where is this child's father?” he asked thickly.
That question made Joylynn cringe. She couldn't tell him the truth, for she had never told anyone about the rape. She especially didn't want to tell this man, a man she was beginning to love.
When Joylynn refused to respond, High Hawk was torn. He was not certain how to feel about her. He had begun to love her, but now it was obvious she did not care enough about him to be truthful with him.
He gazed again into Joylynn's eyes, then turned and left the tepee without saying anything else to her.
Feeling as if she had lost the world, Joylynn crumpled to the rush mats, held her face in her hands and cried.
Joylynn now felt more uncomfortable with High Hawk than when he had first abducted her. He hadn't spoken one word to her since she refused to answer him about the baby. Awkward silence reigned between them.
Even now, as they ate their morning meal, she could hardly swallow the pieces of fruit. She ignored the meat altogether since her stomach was so tense.
She was frightened to learn what her fate would be. High Hawk had full control of her future, whether she and her unborn child lived or died.
Still, she couldn't believe he would harm her in any way. Perhaps his silence meant that he was making plans to release her.
“High Hawk!”
A voice outside broke through Joylynn's troubled thoughts.
She looked over at High Hawk. He had scarcely touched the food on his plate. Instead, he sat staring into the flames of the early morning fire.
The alarm in the voice of the warrior shouting High Hawk's name brought him quickly to his feet.
Joylynn watched him rush from the lodge.
She followed.
She stood back and watched as he talked with a mounted warrior. The rider was gazing with a troubled, sad expression down at High Hawk as he spoke.
When High Hawk turned from the warrior, his face was filled with pain and his eyes and hands reached toward the heavens, as though he was crying out to his Great Spirit. Joylynn knew that the news was not good.
She watched him hurry to his horse, then ride from the village with the warrior who had come for him.
Joylynn feared the worst . . . that his father had been found, and was perhaps dead.
His heart heavy, High Hawk rode alongside Three Bears to meet the warriors who were bringing his father home on a travois.
His
ahte
and those who rode with him had been found, and the news was not good.
Chief Rising Moon was badly injured and the others were dead.
Although terribly injured, Rising Moon had managed to stay alive until he was found this morning, hiding in the thick brush.
His wounds were too severe for him to last much longer. It was a miracle that he had survived this long.
Three Bears had told High Hawk that those who were slain now lay side by side in the shade of a tree, awaiting transport back to the village for burial.
High Hawk rode his horse at a hard gallop away
from Three Bears when he caught sight of the warriors who had found his father. They were coming slowly toward him, dragging the travois that carried his father.
When High Hawk reached them, they stopped.
High Hawk wheeled his horse to a stop, then leapt from the saddle and fell to his knees beside the travois. The sight that met his eyes was so terrible, his heart felt as though it was being squeezed inside his chest.
“
Ahte
,” High Hawk said, trying to keep his emotions in check as he leaned down and placed a gentle hand on his father's cheek.
His father was covered up to his chin with a blanket, preventing High Hawk from seeing his wounds.
He focused on his father's eyes. As Rising Moon looked up at him, the light and energy seemed to have left his gaze.
“My son,” Rising Moon said only loud enough for High Hawk to hear. He reached a trembling hand from beneath the blanket and gripped High Hawk's fingers. “I . . . will . . . soon be gone . . . from you. Mole. It was Mole who did this.”
Rising Moon closed his eyes, choked, then cleared his throat and clung even harder to High Hawk's hand. “High Hawk . . . now . . . chief . . .” he said. His hand fell away as his eyes locked suddenly in death's stare.
Everything within High Hawk went cold when
he realized that he had just lost his beloved father. And at the hands of a villain everyone detested.
Mole!
He swallowed hard as tears rushed to his eyes. Only now did he realize that his father had named him chief even without knowing that High Hawk had succeeded in both challenges set to him by his father.
It had not mattered to his father whether High Hawk had or had not abducted a white woman.
Yet he had, and as a result, he was in the midst of a dilemma.
But for now, all he could think about was his
ahte
, and the pain he felt at knowing he would never hear his father's voice again, or know those moments of laughter when his father forgot the solemnity of being chief and reveled in the joy of having a son.
“Your
ahte
was shot many times, but he still managed to ride away from the shooter. He was finally stopped when he was shot in the back,” Three Bears said thickly as he dismounted and knelt beside High Hawk. He placed a comforting arm around his best friend's shoulder. “Being so strong-willed, your
ahte
lived long enough to tell you that you are now our people's chief.”
“That coward . . . shot . . . my
ahte
in the back?” High Hawk said between clenched teeth. A slow rage was building within him.
He knew the killer from other altercations. He
was a man who, until now, had always cleverly eluded anyone who would hunt him.
High Hawk reached a gentle hand to his father's eyes and slowly closed them. “
Ahte
, he will not get away with this,” he said tightly. “
Ahte
, I vow to you that he will die!”
Distraught, feeling empty inside, High Hawk lifted his father from the travois and carried him the rest of the way to the village. His people were outside their lodges, waiting.
When High Hawk saw his mother break into a run toward him, he felt as though someone was stabbing away at his heart. On her face he saw the despair she felt over the loss of her beloved husband.
When Blanket Woman reached them, and High Hawk saw the sadness in his mother's eyes, he felt helpless. He did not know what to do or say to comfort her.
He winced when she started wailing and pulling at her hair. She continued doing this even when High Hawk carried his father's body into Two Stars's lodge, where the shaman would pray for him and stand by as Blanket Woman prepared her husband for burial.
Joylynn had heard the commotion and had gone outside.
She went cold when she saw High Hawk coming into the village, carrying his father's dead body.
Joylynn was touched deeply by the utter sadness she saw in High Hawk's eyes as he gazed momentarily
at her before taking his father into the shaman's lodge.
She could not help sympathizing with the tormented woman who was now a widow. Although Joylynn had found it hard to like Blanket Woman, she did feel sorry for her in her time of grieving.
She gulped hard when she looked around her and beheld a full village of mourners who were also wailing.
She was aware of drums thumping somewhere in the village in a steady rhythm, adding to the sadness of the moment.
Even the children were no longer laughing. They were silent as they stood beside their mothers, tears streaming down their small, round cheeks.
Joylynn's heart skipped a beat when High Hawk left the shaman's lodge alone and came toward her. He stopped and gazed into her eyes, then brushed past her and went inside his tepee.
She wasn't sure what she should do.
She felt awkward standing there alone while everyone else was now grouped together in their sorrow in the middle of the village near the shaman's lodge. Joylynn knew she had no choice but to go back inside High Hawk's tepee.
She crept inside.
She found High Hawk sitting beside the fire, his face ashen and solemn, his red eyes filled with both anger and sadness.
She sat down, then finally found the courage to
speak to him. “High Hawk, I am so sorry about your father,” she said softly. “How . . . did . . . he die?”
He turned to her and held her gaze steadily. “He was downed by a heartless man who has been named Mole because of the many ugly moles on his face,” he said thickly. “My
ahte
was shot many times, even in the back. The other warriors who were with my father were also killed by those who rode with Mole. My men have gone now for our fallen ones' bodies.”
Joylynn grew cold inside when she heard the name Mole.
She gagged, choked, and turned her head away as she stumbled to her feet.
The man who had raped her, who was the father of the child that grew inside her, had killed High Hawk's father.
Now she and High Hawk both had cause to seek vengeance against Mole!
High Hawk had heard Joylynn gag, had seen her turn her eyes quickly away from him. He was puzzled by her reaction.
He rose and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him. “It seems you know this name. Why did you react as you did when I mentioned the man named Mole?” he asked warily.
She turned her eyes to him again, looked at him through a wash of tears, then reached for one of his hands and placed it on her stomach, where the child lay in the safe cocoon of her womb.
“
This
. . . the
child
. . . is why,” she said.
Stunned to know whose child lay within her womb, he glared at Joylynn. “Were . . . you . . . that man's woman?”
“No, oh, Lord, no,” she gasped out, her heart going cold at the thought. “That man was nothing to me. I hate him. He changed my life forever.”
“How?” High Hawk asked, searching her eyes.
“He . . . ambushed me one day and . . . heartlessly raped me and . . . left me for dead,” she said, tears spilling from her eyes as she spoke the horrible words aloud.
It had been enough to see the rape over and over again in her dreams. But to speak of it was like living it all over again.
“Raped?” High Hawk gasped.
He reached out and brushed tears from her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs, then took her hands and urged her to sit beside the fire again with him.
He sat there and listened to the story of how she had been a Pony Express rider, and then how Mole had stopped her one day during her ride, and raped her.
A bitter rage toward Mole filled High Hawk anew when he imagined such a thing happening to his woman.
Yes!
His woman!
He loved Joylynn with all his heart. He was actually
relieved to finally know exactly how she had come to be pregnant. And he felt deeply the pain that madman had caused her.
“Yes, raped,” Joylynn said softly, lowering her eyes.
She rose to her feet and turned her back to High Hawk. “Afterward, he choked me. He thought I was dead when he rode off. But I wasn't. I had enough breath left in my lungs to survive the terrible rape.”
Suddenly she felt strong arms around her.
She melted into High Hawk's embrace as he turned her toward him.
While she sobbed and cried, he held her ever so lovingly.
When he placed a finger beneath her chin and gazed down into her eyes, she saw cold determination. “The man will die for sinning against you and my people,” he said angrily. “He does not have much longer on this earth.”
“He cannot die soon enough,” Joylynn said, sighing when High Hawk held her close, proving that she had nothing to fear from him any longer.
She could feel his love for her in the tender way he held her and talked to her.
“Although I am now chief, and I have the last word in everything at my village, I will not promise anything except this. Mole will die a horrible death when he is found,” High Hawk said thickly.
For now, that was enough for Joylynn.
Despite the terrible circumstances that had brought them together, she found herself rejoicing.
Yes, even though High Hawk understood that she was with child, and knew who the father was, he had not turned away from her. She knew now that she was much more to this handsome warrior than his captive. She was not just a woman he had brought home to his people as some sort of trophy.
She knew now that he loved her, as she loved him.
She savored his embrace, for who was to say what tomorrow would bring to either of them?
Sleeping Wolf had been up all night mourning his beloved father. Now he sat before his morning fire, his eyes swollen from crying, his heart feeling empty at the loss of his
ahte
.
He still could not believe that someone had callously murdered Rising Moon. He had been shot more than once in the belly, and when his father had found the strength and willpower to wheel his horse around and ride away from the ambushers, the man called Mole had shot him in the back.