Native Gold (17 page)

"Damn it all!" she bit out.

It was Mati, struggling out of a patch of deerbrush as her hair snagged in the branches. She bent to examine her skirt. Something had ripped a fist-sized tear in the cloth.

"Oh!" She stamped her foot.

Then she straightened and scanned the forest around her, her gaze crossing blindly over him. She wiped her forehead with the back of her arm and sighed.

"What happened to the trail?" she asked the trees.

Choosing an opening in the manzanita, she marched forward, so close to him that he felt the air of her passing. He couldn’t breathe or blink.

Where was the woman going? This passage joined up with a rough trail that traversed the canyon wall in a more conspicuous incline. But there were many offshoots of that trail. If she lost her way...

He had no choice but to follow her and make sure that didn’t happen. After all, what good would it do to leave supper at her door if she never found her way home to eat it?

She was a nuisance, he told himself, as unpredictable as a rattlesnake and more trouble than Hintsuli. He should never have made the promise to his sister to watch after her. But his heart still flipped over like a landed trout when he spied her delicate white arms and her hair that shone like sunlight.

He followed her as softly as mist, so that even when he walked only four spear’s-lengths behind her, she didn’t hear him. Several times she uttered the word—"damn"—that Noa liked to use and a few other words he hadn’t heard before. It was clear she didn’t know her way, for she crossed the same clearing twice.

Finally, she broke free of the wood and headed toward the high ridge cresting the canyon. Pausing like a triumphant warrior at the top, she began her descent.

It would be more difficult following her here, for few trees grew out of the canyon wall to conceal his passage. It was also treacherous ground. The way was steep and littered with loose earth and pine needles. She maneuvered carefully down the slope, and he watched with growing impatience and worry as she slipped farther and farther from his sight. When the top of her head finally disappeared, he crept out from the trees to pursue her.

Sakote had taken only two steps when he heard pebbles showering down the sheer cliff ahead of him. His heart knifed through his chest, and he sprang forward. The sound grew in volume, first a heavy rain as he raced to the edge of the canyon, then a thunder of rock. The woman shrieked like a wounded eagle. Sakote dropped his hunting pouch and his kill and bolted toward her as fast as he could. It felt as if he staggered through clay.

Just as he closed the distance to the rim, a horrible thud from below ended the scream. The pebbles, their work finished, slowed to a trickle. Sakote’s breath caught, and his pulse pounded in his ears as he peered over the edge of the cliff, dreading what he would find.

Stunned, Mattie lay on her back, staring up at the periwinkle sky in wonder. A final insult of gloating pebbles trickled down to rest beside her shoulder. There was no pain—just a strange, still numbness in her body, a heavy hollowness to her breathless chest, and a faint quivering inside that left her as weak as a babe.  There was no fear—just her pulse whooshing like a river through her ears.

How silly, she thought, to be lying on the ground like this. She should stand up, dust herself off, gather her things, and push onward. At the very least, she should tug down the skirt that had slipped immodestly high on one thigh. But she was curiously unmotivated.

There was no pain. No fear. No air.

Indeed, she might never have taken another breath.

But the bright sky suddenly plunged into darkness. It seemed as if a great black condor swooped down upon her. The startled gasp she drew through her collapsed chest felt like a sword pulled from a wound, and instantly every bone in her body felt the impact of her fall. She opened her mouth to scream, but coughed on red dust instead.

"Don’t move!"

She squinted up at the figure silhouetted against the cloudless expanse. Not a condor. The Indian. Hintsuli’s brother. What was
he
doing here? Now she
knew
she should fix her skirts. She stretched her fingers down and tried to sit up on the narrow ledge despite the limpness of her body.

"Don’t move!" he insisted, willing her compliance with a stern glare.

He crouched over her, and for one moment she feared he intended her harm. She’d heard the accounts—decent pioneer women abducted, raped, murdered by Indians. And here she lay, as helpless as a kitten, completely at the savage’s mercy. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the slash of a scalping knife. It was only gentle fingertips that brushed over her forehead, but she flinched from his touch.

"Are you in pain?" he murmured.

Mattie opened her eyes. In one glance, she realized she was mistaken about the Indian. He didn’t mean to ravage her. In fact, worry curved his brow. There was genuine, pure concern in his expression.

"Where does it hurt?" he whispered, bending close.

She wanted to reply, but her eyelids suddenly grew unbearably heavy, and her already feeble strength waned. The Indian’s voice sounded distant now, pleasant, deep and airy, like the voice of the wind. It made her want to float away.

"Mati!"

Her eyes flew wide. How did he know her name?

"Mati, don’t leave me."

It was a strange thing to say. She understood his meaning. He meant don’t faint on him. But something in the words he chose, something in the soulful, desperate look he gave her, made her believe he meant precisely what he said.

"I...won’t," she promised, startled by the thickness of her own voice.

"Don’t move. I’ll help you."

Mattie believed him. For no good reason. He was a savage, after all, from a culture whose healing practices likely consisted of rattling bones and the incantations of medicine men. But she believed him. He looked trustworthy. He looked confident. And he looked like the only other human being around for miles.

"Does it hurt?" he asked again.

"No." In truth, now she could feel very little of anything, but her body had begun to shiver as if she were lying in snow.

He stared at her a moment, measuring the truth of her words.

"The pain will come soon," he said.

"I’m fine. I just need to..." She broke off with a gasp as she spied drops of fresh blood smearing his fingertips. "Am I bleeding?" She reached up to explore her forehead herself. A bump the size of a quail’s egg rose high on her brow, and when she pulled her fingers away, they were sticky with blood. "Oh!"

She quivered uncontrollably now. Heavens, how badly was she hurt?

"Lie quiet," the Indian told her. "Breathe slow."

She didn’t want to lie quiet. She wanted to get up off her back, brush off her skirts, pack up her sketchbook, and be on her way. She didn’t want to be...broken.

Only the gentle touch of the man’s hands on the crown of her head convinced her to stay. He spread his fingers carefully and methodically over every inch of her scalp, taking the weight of her head in one hand. When he was satisfied she hadn’t cracked her skull, he tenderly returned her head to the ground and took hold of her left wrist, turning it over.

The palm was completely raw and glistening. She wished she hadn’t looked. She could feel it now, the faint sting of oncoming pain. The underside of her forearm was likewise scraped, and bits of gravel dusted its length. He grasped her shoulder with one hand and slowly lifted her arm, testing the joint, and then repeated the entire process with the right arm. Her drawing hand, thank goodness, hadn’t suffered a scratch. In fact, it looked like she’d sledded down the hillside using her left arm as a runner.

One of her boots had come loose in the fall. Crouching between her parted ankles, the Indian tugged off its mate, leaving her stocking-footed. She gasped at his impropriety. Decent men didn’t look at—let alone lay a hand on—a lady’s limbs. But the sensation of his warm palm cupping her foot, gingerly checking it for injury, left her breathless. His thumbs searched her ankle, then higher along her shin, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She bit back the cries of outrage she knew she should be making as he touched her where no man had before.

But then his questing fingers grazed her knee, and she sucked in a gasp of pain. Lifting her head, she saw the source of her hurt all too clearly. A ragged, gravel-peppered wound decorated the cap of her knee. And protruding from its center was a wicked inch-long splinter of rock.

Panic whispered in her ear. Her breath came fast and shallow, and her heart raced. She wanted to turn back the clock, to pretend the accident had never happened. Why, oh why had she decided to hike down the canyon?

"I’ll make it better," the Indian told her, placing a comforting hand on her forearm. And as absurd as it was, something in his voice eased her. "Breathe like the wind, slow and steady."

She looked into his face, into the calming depths of his eyes—so darkly foreign, but so soothing. She swallowed hard and breathed with him.

But he didn’t touch her knee again. Instead, he moved higher, probing the long bone of her thigh. There was no physical discomfort there, but Mattie closed her eyes against pangs of shame. Though his touch was far from sensual, something in his frank manner aroused her. And yet it was ludicrous, she thought, to feel such stirrings while her lifeblood drained away onto the ground. She winced as his thumb found a nasty bruise on the bone of her hip. He grunted in acknowledgment, then shifted to examine her other limb.

Her right leg seemed to be undamaged, aside from the brands she was sure his fingers left on her flesh, and it was with a curious blend of regret and relief that she finally opened her eyes, thinking he was finished.

He wasn’t.

Now he trapped her hips between his moccasined heels, and the hanging edge of his breechcloth flirted with her skirt as he crouched directly over her. A lock of his long, thick hair fell forward over his shoulder and onto her breast like a brazen paintbrush as he slid his fingers gently along her lowest rib.

Two layers of cotton separated their flesh, but she felt the heat of his fingers like a crimping iron as he tested her ribs one by one. She stared at him, scarcely daring to breathe. Twin creases marred his otherwise smooth brow. His hair shone as black and sleek as a raven’s wing. His nostrils flared as he worked, and his lips tensed in concentration. His bare face and chest seemed sculpted of caramel clay. She was forced to take a quick gulp of air when he released her diaphragm, and then she caught his fascinating scent—the scent of smoke and deerskin and mountain bay. It made her feel lightheaded.

His thumbs prodded methodically along the outer edges of her rib cage now, deftly sliding over the bones, till she flinched back with a gasp.

He frowned and slipped his fingertips carefully again into the same spot between the ribs. Again she winced.

Then he lifted one fine, coal-black brow and slowly wiggled his fingers. This time, a giggle slipped out of her before she could stop it.

A knowing grin quirked up one corner of his mouth, and Mattie enjoyed a moment of heart-melting delight at the sudden transformation of sullen savage into adorable rogue. Then, absurdly, he began to tickle her, and it was all she could do to think straight.

She was in mid-laugh when he did it. Reached behind his back and pulled the splinter out of her knee. All at once, with no warning. She yelped and bent forward in pain, but he ignored her protests, wadding a fold of her dress over the wound and leaning his weight on it to stop the bleeding.

It hurt. Oh, Lord, it hurt. She could feel every heartbeat throbbing in her knee. How could he have done such a horrible thing—betraying her trust like that?

His smile was gone now. He stared at her with mild interest while he waited for the bleeding to subside. It was unnerving, that stare of his, an unsettling combination of amusement and remorse.

"Why did you do that?" she sulked when at last she could speak.

"You wish I’d left it in?"

She thrust her chin out in defiance.

After a moment, he nodded, pretending to search the ground. "I’ll put it back."

"No!"

There was more than a little chiding in his answering smile.

"No," she said more calmly. "I don’t mean to appear...ungrateful. It’s only that..."

Now he was staring at her lips. It was almost too much to bear.

"Must you...sit on me?" she asked.

"Until the bleeding stops."

The sun blazed down, scorching her skin, leaving her slippery with sweat, but it was nothing compared to the heat emanating from the man hovering over her.

"Is that the way you remove arrows from your brave warriors?" she asked, casting a dubious glance his way. "By tickling them?"

"No." His eyes crinkled in mild amusement. "This is how I take thorns from my little brother."

Effectively insulted, Mattie huffed out an angry breath. She started to cross her arms in defiance, but forgot about her injured elbow and winced when it caught on her dress.