Katrina broke off her stare at White Eagle to glance quickly toward the prince, then at the marquess. She said, “In truth; my party, the marquess, his men and all his hounds, even my maid could travel to the other fort…by land.”
“By land?” This from the men—every single one of them.
“Yes,” Katrina said. “My uncle has instructed three Indians he sent here, plus a squaw they brought with them, to take us to him.
We could travel with them as he wished us to.” She raised her chin. “It is the obvious solution.”
Silence. No one moved; no one said a thing
.
“My dear.” It was the marquess who first broke the quiet. “Are you suggesting that
I
travel with…Indians?”
“Yes.” She nodded, although she glanced toward the ground. “I am.”
More silence.
“Well,” the marquess said, slowly, as though to accentuate every word, “I will not do it. How could you even hint at such a thing to me? That your uncle would ask this is something I can understand, but you…you are engaged to be married to me. And with this engagement comes responsibility. Why, my dear, don’t you know that you do not have the right to do something like this without first consulting me? By our agreement, you will soon belong to me, and you must learn to stop thinking on your own. Why, you embarrass me, you do. Do you mean to insult me, too?”
Katrina gasped. “Insult you? Embarrass you? But m’lord,” she said, “you take me to task when the burden of the…”
White Eagle had heard enough. It was one thing to tease a woman; it was another thing altogether to overwhelm her with talk.
White Eagle stepped forward then, out of the shadows and into the light, his footsteps making little sound. Still, no one noticed him. And it was only when he spoke, his voice alone reaching out to them, that the men were even alerted to his presence. He said, simply, his voice strong, direct,
“I do.”
Everyone, all at once, stared at him.
The marquess snickered. “Look,” he said, “an Indian.”
White Eagle didn’t react. He merely said, in the same, unswerving voice that he had used before, “The woman does not insult you,
niitsaapiikoan,
although I think that she should. I, however, do.
Kitomitaisski.”
“What? What did the…heathen say?” The marquess sputtered, his eyes bulging and his hand coming to rest upon the pistol at his side. But the Englishman became suddenly silenced, his hand falling away, when one of his followers pointed to White Eagle, perhaps directing the marquess’s attention to observe just how greatly armed was the Indian.
White Eagle didn’t pay any attention, however. He said, “Never have I heard such whining, such excuses from, someone who calls himself a man—that is, unless that person is not truly a man and is only a coward, unable to do more than hide behind a woman’s skirts. Is this what is wrong with you, Englishman? Are you a coward?”
The marquess visibly shook. “I don’t recall giving you permission to speak—”
“I have not finished.” White Eagle went on, ignoring whatever it was the marquess had to say. “I believe this man”—he pointed at the marquess—“to be a coward; I believe this man is a woman dressed in men’s clothing, and it is this, and this alone, which is the reason this man does not wish to travel. It is not because of his dogs, and it is not because of the woman. Why, the woman, herself, has shown more courage.” White Eagle had stepped in front of Shines Like Moonlight as he spoke, a completely conscious move on his part, to protect her.
But if the marquess noticed the gesture, he quite ignored it. As it was, the marquess leapt backwards, his face changing, if it were possible, into a more fiery shade of red.
“What does the pagan mean to do?” The marquess asked the assemblage, his lips pulling together into a silly grin. “Challenge me?”
“As you wish.”
“What?” The marquess’s complexion turned suddenly from red to white, and he glanced over toward the Indian as if seeing the man, his spear, his bow and arrows, his shield, his rifle, for the first time. His eyes bulging, the marquess glared at the Indian.
“Come on,” said White Eagle, “let us settle this now.”
“My…my good man…”
One of the marquess’s followers leaned toward his employer of a sudden to whisper something into the gentleman’s ear, causing the marquess to undergo a swift change. His complexion changed to a more normal color and he tsked, tsked, drawing out his hanky from his pocket to wipe his brow. He said, feigned boredom fairly dripping from each word, “Fancy that. The heathen expects me to fight with him…why, it’s quite beneath me. A savage to challenge an aristocrat? Really.”
White Eagle didn’t react. He merely repeated, “The white man is proving that he is a coward.”
“Now, see here, Indian—”
“Come on and fight me, coward, if you dare.”
“I wouldn’t stoop to—”
“If I win, you go to see her uncle. If I lose, I bring her uncle to you.”
“Why, I wouldn’t so much as soil my hands upon you as to fight with you.”
“Then the white man must be afraid he will lose.”
“Never! It is only that savages—such as yourself—are quite beneath me. Besides, the odds would be uneven. You are conditioned to fighting every day of your life. Whereas I am a more gently raised man. And I must say that I am not a trained fighter.”
“Except with a woman, where the odds more greatly favor you.”
“Now see here—”
“If the white man does not fight, does he do anything well?”
“I resent that, Indian. I am an aristocrat. I do many things well. But if I want a fight done, I will hire others to do it for me…”
“Because this man lacks the courage—”
“I hunt, I race,” the marquess interjected. “Fighting with your kind is quite beneath me, I’m afraid, but then you wouldn’t understand that, being of an inferior breed of—”
White Eagle frowned. “What do you race?”
The marquess pumped himself up and strutted forward. He said, “I race my dogs, my horses, why, at home, in England, I am quite a sports enthusiast. I’ll have you all know,” he addressed the crowd, “that I hold many a racing cup. Now,” the marquess brushed at an imaginary piece of lint on his shirt, “if you would care to race…”
“Soka’pii,
good. It is done. I will race you.”
“What? Race me? For what?”
“For the woman.”
“For the woman? Now see here—”
White Eagle grinned. “For the woman’s honor. She has said she will go and see her uncle. If I win, you and the woman will come with me, as she wants. If I lose, you may stay. I bring her uncle to you.”
The marquess hesitated, glancing quickly around him. “What kind of race?”
White Eagle shrugged. “A pony race.”
“Ponies?”
White Eagle nodded.
“You will race your pony against a
horse
of my choosing?”
Another nod.
“My lord,” McKenzie spoke up for the first time since the argument had begun, “I think I should tell you something of the Indian ponies and their—”
“I accept.” The marquess ignored McKenzie, brushing him aside. “But I must warn you, Indian. I am known to be quite the horseman back in England. Have many a trophy, don’t you know? Now, when will this race take place?”
White Eagle glanced at the sky. “Very soon. When the sun is at its highest peak, we will race, out there on the prairie, close to the fort. We will pick the track together.”
The marquess smirked, his thin lips still wearing the rouge he’d adorned himself with the previous night. “It is…done, and will be…quite fun.” He snickered, his laugh almost a giggle, as he went on to say, “Ah, what a poet I am, do you see? It quite rhymed, it did. Quite.”
Chapter Ten
The sun was high overhead, and the winds had, for the moment, died down to a gentle breeze. Off in the distance birds sang, while a hawk soared overhead.
Like its surroundings, the fort was quiet at this time of day.
In essence, there was little to be heard, little to draw attention, save the buzz of hundreds of tongues as Indians and traders alike crowded around the approved track.
Word of the race between the Englishman and the Indian had spread throughout the Indian villages and the fort, as an autumn fire might do over dry prairie grass. Bets were flying among the throng.
The course they would run had been agreed upon by both White Eagle and the Marquess of Leicester only an hour earlier, the path being one that skirted the fort on its northern and eastern sides. The route disappeared into the hills, up and over them, down into a glen of trees, through and around the wooded area there, to return over the hills. The final stretch of the track circled in closely to the fort.
Boundaries had been set, the rules had been outlined, and now all that remained to be done was to start the race.
Hundreds of people had gathered around the course, congregating about the starting point, the finish line and the route itself, a steady line of people forming almost all the way into the distant hills.
The whole scene teemed with excitement. In truth, all who were assembled here seemed to be stimulated, agitated…except for one. Katrina.
What was she to do?
She was certain that, while White Eagle had meant the best, to assist her and to ensure she would be able to travel with him to see her uncle, this race would decide nothing for her.
Win or lose, she could not stay here at Fort Union.
Win or lose, she intended to go with the Indians, and it didn’t matter who said what. She only hoped White Eagle would be the victor. It would make the traveling so much easier, and it would force the marquess to join them—a necessary condition, if her finances were to remain intact.
She grimaced. She hated to think of the bill the marquess might accumulate over a few months’ time; a debt she was certain Kenneth McKenzie would be only too happy to accommodate.
Besides, hadn’t her uncle stressed that he must
meet
the marquess before distributing the funds of her dowry?
She broke off her train of thought and glanced toward White Eagle and the marquess.
The marquess was dressed in very proper riding clothes of red tailcoat and tan pants, black boots and black cap. His dogs circled him and, except for the nervous wiping of his brow, he looked as though he awaited none other than a simple, common fox hunt.
Next to him, and positioned closer toward her, stood White Eagle, a buffalo robe thrown over his body. He looked calm and relaxed as he worked over his horse, his long fingers painting the face and neck of his pony in blue-and-white stripes, even going so far as to braid an odd-looking contraption into the pony’s mane. Strange. The thing looked like a halter made of horsehair.
She shook her head.
What an odd contrast the two men made, one’s skin fair and freckled, the other’s tanned and dark. One man stood slightly pudgy, the other boasted all lean muscle and brawn. And Katrina would not have been a woman had she not taken careful note of and admired the strong strokes of White Eagle’s fingers as he painted a line of blue dots down his pony’s legs. For a moment she imagined those tanned fingers trailing over her skin, doing…what?
She shivered.
“Are you cold, mistress?”
“No, Rebecca. I am only nervous.”
Rebecca nodded and placed her hand over her mistress’s own. Said Rebecca, “I hope that he wins.”
And Katrina nodded, having no doubt as to exactly which man the maidservant meant.
“If he loses, I shall go with him and his friends, anyway.”
“I know, mistress,” Rebecca said, squeezing Katrina’s hand. “I know. And I will go, too.”
Katrina smiled at her maid, staring at the young woman for several moments before she said, “I don’t know when I have made a better decision than when I hired you.”
She looked away. “Thank you, Rebecca.”
“Hmmm,” said Rebecca. “Look, it appears that they are getting ready to race.”
Katrina glanced back to where the two riders were preparing to mount, and again she found herself comparing them. She knew she shouldn’t do it, that holding one man up against another was a terrible thing to do; still, she couldn’t help herself. The differences between them were so extreme.
And she was not at all surprised when the Indian came out the winner in that comparison.
How could he not?
Where her fiancé looked weak and decadent, perhaps the result of his overindulgence the previous night, the Indian appeared strong and vital, dressed only in robe and…
White Eagle threw off his robe.
Katrina gasped, clutching Rebecca’s hand so hard all at once, the girl actually cried out in pain.
“Rebecca.”
“What is it, mistress?”
“White Eagle.”
“Yes, mistress.”
“White Eagle is…”
“What is it?”
“Do not look over at him.”
“Yes, mistress, but—”
“Rebecca, he is…”
“He is what, mistress?”