Blaze (37 page)

"Was that last boy you spoke to outside yours?" She was trying to stay calm against the tidal wave of emotion washing over her.

Hazard's expression softened and the graveness left his eyes. "You noticed the resemblance?"

"It was very striking," Blaze answered as tranquilly as possible. She was numb with jealousy.

"No, he's not literally mine, although he's designated bard'ke, my child, in terms of clan relationship. You'd call him a cousin, I think. Our relationships are quite different from yours. Red Plume is my father's sister's son." Feeling uncomfortable, Hazard attempted to end the conversation. "Let's drop the subject," he suggested. "It's endlessly complicated and not based on any of the white man's cultural traditions."

"After you tell me what I want to know," Blaze murmured, insistent.

"Why?" Hazard bluntly asked, preferring to avoid controversy.

"Because I'm jealous," she said very softly, "of any woman you've ever been with."

He looked away restlessly and uneasily slid down an inch or so on the willow backrest. She unnerved him with her candid honesty. After years of dealing with women in terms of honeyed love words and superficial endearments, he was forced to respond to this remarkably frank and independent woman in ways very new to him. He had to think for a moment to avoid the familiar pacifying phrases from his past. "You don't have to," he replied simply, at last. "You don't have to be jealous of any of them. And if you weren't still recuperating, I'd prove it to you."

"I get so angry with you," Blaze responded unexpectedly.

"You may have noticed," he drily retorted, "you have the same affect on me occasionally."

"About all the women in your past, I mean."

"Would you want me to protest about the men in your past?"

"There weren't any," she reminded him.

"Well, if there were."

"They wouldn't have mattered."

"And neither do mine," he quietly insisted.

"But the children…"

"They're with their mothers. Descent is through the female line. When they're older, the boys may want to live with me, in our way. When that time comes, a decision will be made. They're still young."

"Are there many?"

"No. Three. And the circumstances are…" He ran lean fingers through his hair in exasperation. "I'll explain sometime when—"

At that moment the lovely young boy who looked as Hazard must have at his age called out ' Dee-ko-lah," the polite announcement of a visitor. "Are you there?"

Hazard readily replied, welcoming the termination of a discussion which would only cause problems.

Behind the boy trailed six women, all carrying food.

Within minutes, a substantial meal was set before them. One women burned sweet grass so the lodge smelled fragrant and fresh. And then visitors paraded in.

Hazard was seated at the rear of the lodge, facing the door, aco—in the place of honor—with Blaze on his left in the most respected position for a guest. One older chief brought up what all the others were thinking when they saw Blaze seated on Hazard's left. "She stays," was all Hazard said. Since it was a social occasion other women were present, but not seated in such exalted positions. There was some low-voiced grumbling, but no one opposed him.

After a formal greeting of welcome, the visitors were asked to sit in a certain place, then invited to smoke. The pipe was passed around the crowded circle and all the men smoked. And since this was a social occasion and not a council, the young males were also allowed to participate in the pipe ceremony.

Following the offering of the pipe to the four directions of the compass, a great variety of food was served, beginning with the most succulent delicacy, roasted buffalo tongue. A stew was served of buffalo meat, squash, and wild celery in dishes made from the bleached shoulder blades of the buffalo. Pumpkin cooked with box elder syrup, wild turnip baked in hot ashes, and camas roots cooked in a pit over hot stones followed. Boiled artichokes, lushly green and seasoned with sage, contributed a colorful foil to bowls of ripe grapes and blackberries. The special sweet saved for important occasions such as this was brought forth to a murmur of delight. Cottonwood ice cream, a jellylike froth scraped from the peeled surface of the tree and tasting exactly like ice cream, was piled in milky clouds on a large wooden platter. The meal was an extravagance in preparation and display, suitable for a chief of Hazard's rank, and at the first taste, Hazard realized how much he'd missed meat cooked in the Indian way. And nothing in the world, he thought contentedly, compared to the delicate flavor of cottonwood ice cream.

A busy hum of conversation drifted around the sea of guests dining with Hazard and Blaze. Rising Wolf sat next to Blaze and interpreted for her, at least the portions that he felt were suitable. She was more than once the topic of conversation, and to the variety of questions, Hazard replied calmly. He explained she'd come to the mine as a bribe, he'd kept her as a hostage, and she'd now become his woman. There was some discussion over her exact position. Bia, they asked, or bwa-le-jah—sweetheart or friend? Buah, my wife, Hazard said firmly, seeing shock invade more than one set of dark eyes. Somehow, with clarification, many had felt she would be less than he had announced this afternoon. Fervently, many had wished she would be less. Eyebrows raised at his firm pronouncement, and for a moment there was an uneasy silence.

"Are there any objections?" Hazard asked, attentively regarding the circle of startled guests. "Good," he declared into the ensuing silence.

It wasn't as though white people hadn't married into the tribe before. Since the early days of the nineteenth century, many white men had married within various Ab-sarokee bands, and all had been accepted eventually as full members of the tribe. The only difference here was that one of their chiefs should choose a yellow eyes woman. That had never happened before.

"Tell me," Hazard ventured into the stillness, "are the buffalo near enough for the hunt?"

From that point, Rising Wolfs interpreting resumed. No further discussions arose over Hazard's new wife. Plans were made to hunt in two days' time, animated anecdotes were exchanged about previous hunts, and, after being served a sweet concoction of wild raspberries, hazelnuts, plums, and honey, the guests departed.

"Does everyone always listen to you so obligingly?" Blaze inquired as Hazard dropped the door robe behind the last guest. She had noticed the few abrupt silences, heard Hazard's curt replies, recognized her name and the occasional shocked reactions.

He walked across the width of the large lodge and dropped into a sprawl beside her on the bed of buffalo robes. "Everything's open to discussion in our tribe. No single person makes all the decisions."

"It seemed that a few of the older men took offense at some of the things you said."

Hazard shrugged and stretched out on his back. "Can't please everyone all the time," he philosophically replied. "Some of the older men are less open to compromise."

"That's pretty true everywhere."

He nodded abstractedly, his eyes on the starry night visible through the slowly spiraling smoke wafting up through the smoke hole. "The world's changing so fast," he softly said, thinking how small they all were under the canopy of endless sky. "If we don't adapt, we won't survive." He didn't speak for a moment, and when his eyes turned to Blaze his tone was less pensive. "There're only six thousand Absarokee Indians; twice that many people live in Virginia City alone."

"Do you ever despair… with those odds?" He had never talked about his people before, and the melancholy was pungent in his voice.

He smiled. A small gentle smile. "At least a hundred times a day—or a thousand," he softly added.

She wanted to offer him comfort, help in some way, ease the sadness behind the smile. "Hazard, I have money; I know people, I can—"

His dark fingers curved around her wrist. "Hush, Boston princess. Hü'kawe," he murmured, pulling her onto his chest. "No more serious talk, bia. None. We're here for fun," he whispered, "fun and play. So kiss me, darling Boston."

He held her close all night and they slept like exhausted children, safe now after weeks of uncertainty, at home in the chiefs lodge in the center of the encampment. Protected and guarded.

THE camp's morning activities woke them. The dogs barked first, followed by the high-pitched sounds of children at play, and soon the full bustle of bathing, fire building, food preparation—all the early day occupations —buzzed around them as they continued dozing.

"Ummmm," Hazard murmured later, stretching leisurely. "I haven't slept like that in months." Rolling on his side, he bent to kiss Blaze—a soft good-morning kiss. "And how is the loveliest redhead in camp?"

"The only redhead, you mean," she lazily responded.

"That too," he said, smiling. "Ready for bathing?"

Blaze only slid further under the fur robes.

"That excited? At least we'll have the river to ourselves. Everyone else bathes at sunrise."

Blaze groaned.

"Fortunately no one expects you to act normal," he teased.

"Good," came a muffled reply from under the mounded furs.

"Not normal. But… civilized. Come, bia, you have to bathe. Do you want me to lose face?" His tone was mocking.

The body beneath the robes gave no indication of moving.

"I guess I'll have to carry you down to the river."

Blaze sat bolt upright and furs slithered away in gleaming folds. "You're being a bully again, Hazard," she blurted out, prickly in an instant, but looking much more like a soft, tousled kitten with enormous doting blue eyes.

"Perhaps we could negotiate this, bia-cara," Hazard murmured placatingly. "Item one: Permissive as our culture is, certain requisite precepts remain, namely, cleanliness. Item two: I could find a warm, sunny spot where the water isn't too deep and will be hot enough even for you. Item three: I cannot, sweet pet, haul water for you here. Even I have my moments of consequence. And item four: If you come down to the river and bathe with me like the dutiful wife everyone here assumes you are, I promise to—"

"Stop a minute," Blaze demanded, scrambling onto her knees, her heart beginning to accelerate in irregular pitta-pats. "Back up a bit."

"I promise to—" His eyes were lit suddenly with a flame she'd never seen before.

She cleared her throat. "Farther back."

His voice was level. "Everyone here assumes—"

"Farther."

It had surprised him too, how easily the words flowed from his tongue, and he knew what she was asking. Looking at her directly, he repeated without sarcasm, as if the words had a compelling life of their own, "the dutiful wife?"

Blaze's gaze was also direct. "Now why," she very softly said, "would people assume that?"

"Because," Hazard replied gravely, "that's what I told them."

"Are we married?" Her voice shook like the quaking aspens outside.

"In the eyes of my people, we are."

"You didn't have to tell them that, did you?"

"No."

"I could have been your…"

"Paramour," he finished. Reaching over, he brushed a coppery curl behind her ear. "But I didn't want you to be."

"Because you love me," she said, awareness vivid in her eyes.

"I… It's been so long," said Hazard slowly. "There're so many problems… too many…"