No Other Man (5 page)

It was a damned frightening possibility. Coming closer and
closer.

Hawk knew that it had been his father's love for him that had
convinced his father he must marry a white woman. Live a white life. So what
had David done? Pretended to a young gold digger that she was marrying a man
on his last leg only to fall prey to her before bringing her west?

Because he hadn't wanted to see his son exterminated.

Except that David Douglas hadn't been on his last leg when he
had gone east. He hadn't looked any different than he had looked all his life.
A tall man, lean, white-haired, aging, still handsome with his extreme dignity,
eyes that seemed to see and know everything, and understand. He had been
healthy all his life. He had constantly endured the rigors of travel. He had
lived among the warriors of the Sioux nation, he had withstood tests of
endurance with the heartiest of them. Of course, that had been many years ago.
But still, when he had left here, he had seemed fine.

I should have gone with him!
Hawk thought, pain and guilt returning to tug upon
his heart.
I couldn't have gone, not the way thai matters between
the army and the Indians have been escalating here.

But this . . . could it be real? Legal?

Hawk closed his eyes tightly. He'd been a brave warrior to
the Sioux, a courageous soldier in the Union Army in the recent War of the
Southern Rebellion.

But he couldn't fight away the future.

He knew it; his father had known it.

For a moment, he saw a faraway time when the Black Hills had
belonged to the Indians. The Sioux hadn't actually lived there then; the land
had been sacred, a place to hunt, a holy place, and a shelter when it was
needed. The Sioux were nomads, already pushed westward from the Mississippi by
the flow of the white men. There were many Sioux: the Sans Arc, the Brule, the
Oglala, the Two Kettles, llunkpapa, and Blackfeet Sioux. And among those many
Sioux, there were even more bands. Any warrior or family could break away as
they chose. The Sioux were a free people, respected for the lives they must
lead as individuals. It was a virtue among them.

And yet, as the whites encroached upon them, this independence
became a danger as well. It made them divisible and vulnerable.

As a small boy, he had grown up in his mother's world. I le
had lain in his cradle board, seen the buffalo skins of I lie tipi as his first
walls.

He had been loved. The Sioux valued their children. He was
treated gently not only by his mother, but by Flying Sparrow, his mother's
brothers, and his grandfather, the peace chief, Sitting Hawk. He was never
struck. He called all men of the tribe "father," all women
"mother." He was welcomed in any tipi. A Sioux boy must learn two
things: to be a good hunter and to be a good warrior. Both meant life for his
people.

Until his eleventh birthday, he knew very little of the white
world. He knew now that until the Mexican- American War of 1846-1848, the
Americans—who had gained the plains through the Louisiana Purchase—had considered
them the Great American Desert, a permanent Indian border. But with the land
gains made after the war, America's western boundary was thrown open to the Pacific.
In 1851, he had gone with his mother's people, a small band of Oglala Sioux, to
Fort Laramie, on the North Platte River. It was the largest gathering of
Indians he had ever seen—many of the Sioux bands were present along with
Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Shoshones, Crows, Assini- boines, Arikaras, and others.
It was agreed that the Indians were to be paid each year to make peace with the
white emigrants—many traveling through to the new gold finds in California—and
among themselves. The white men chose to call certain men "head
chiefs." The Indians were told that they couldn't make war among themselves,
but that was impossible because warring against one another was a way of life.
The treaty was doomed from the time the whites first had their so-called head
chiefs "touch the pen"—or put their hands upon it before white men
signed their names for them in the white language.

From that day on, the whites began to come, but they didn't
much influence his life. Yet.

He had been Little Sparrow then. He had remained Little
Sparrow until a few months after his twelfth birthday. Then he had counted
coup
against one of his Crow enemies, slapping
the warrior on the cheek before they engaged in hand- to-hand combat with their
knives. Counting coup—striking an enemy face-to-face rather than killing him
from a distance—granted a warrior honor.

It had weighed heavily on him that he had taken a life, even
though he had fought the Crow with a deep-seated fury. A Crow warrior had led a
war party into their Sioux village when their own warriors had been hunting. He
had seized three young women, taken two for his own, and given one to a friend,
Snake-in-the-Tree. Snake-in-the-Tree had abused his young captive so thoroughly
that she had taken her own life. The young woman, Dancing Cloud, had been his
grandfather's great-grandchild, and he had known that he must avenge her death
to prove his worth.

At a victory dance that night, Little Sparrow had been given
the name Thunder Hawk, for he had been as swift and strong as the bird of prey,
as fierce as the thunder that could shake the plains.

Another year passed, and he danced the Sun Dance. The Sioux,
the many factions and bands, met together once a year every year for the Sun
Dance. It was the most important of the ceremonies prescribed to them by the
White Buffalo Woman, who had come at the beginning to teach l hem their morality
and their way of life. It took place in June, the month of the chokecherries,
and lasted twelve days, requiring great strength of body and mind.

At nearly fourteen Thunder Hawk was a tall boy, almost six
feet, taller than many of the grown warriors, though his height was not that
unusual, since he knew a Miniconjou Sioux, Touch-the-Clouds, who was nearly
seven feet and truly towered over other men. Thunder Hawk wanted to be both a
great warrior and a wise one. He wanted the guidance of Wakantanka, the Great
Mystery, so he danced with skewers piercing his back muscles, praying for his
people mid for strength against all his enemies until he fell. He was honored
among his people as a young warrior who showed promise of greatness.

Then his father had suddenly come back into his life.

He hadn't known the blond, green-eyed stranger who had come
into their village, but he had known that something was different about him,
and he had known that change was coming, and he had hated that change. He had
feared
it, but a boy newly
become a warrior with the name Thunder Hawk could not betray fear.

The stranger who came to them was welcomed
by the older warriors. He was an old friend who had lived among them before.

A white, who had danced the Sun Dance with the skewers
through his chest, who had fought the Crow with them and counted coup.

He was still stunned to discover that the white man had come
because his white wife had died—and because he wanted to make Flying Sparrow
his wife now in his white world as well as in the Indian world. The Sioux did
not think badly of him for having two wives—most Sioux warriors had more than
one wife, though their wives were often sisters.

The man who came spoke the Sioux language very well. He was
liked; he was called brother by the warriors. Thunder Hawk learned that the
man had come here years before as a representative of the American government,
as a man called a topographical engineer, a mapmaker. The Sioux had come upon
him while scouting. He had fought bravely and been wounded. He had been taken
captive, and Flying Sparrow had nursed him back to health. Then he had been the
younger son of a wealthy British chief. Now he was no longer the younger son
because illness had taken his brother. And now he wanted to make sure that his
son by Hying Sparrow could be a legitimate heir to his vast estates. He had
another son himself, an older son by his white wife. But that son did not mind
having a brother.

Hawk minded. He didn't want to leave the band. He had many
friends who were just becoming men, who had also counted coup, killed their
first buffalo, and killed their first enemies. He had a
kola,
or best friend, Dark Mountain, who planned
strategies for the hunt with him.

He had gone to the foot of the hills for his vision quest.
For a Sioux boy, the vision quest was the center of his life. In his vision, a
Sioux touched something sacred: he learned what road he must follow, what path
he must take.

After three days without food or water, Hawk had col-

I
 
ipsed and his vision had come to him. He had ridden a Mack pony between
a herd of buffalo to his left and a flight nt eagles to his right. The animals
had cried out to him, tried to tell him something, yet he could not understand,
lie had to ride harder and harder. Then he was able to understand the eagles
while the buffalo could not, and likewise, he was able to understand the
buffalo while the eagles could not. A rain of arrows had come over him as he
had udden, but no matter how close they came, he knew that lu- had to keep
riding. In the end, he saw the sun, and he kept riding toward the blinding
golden light of the sun, irnching then into the sky to collect the arrows and
keep Ihem from falling.

His dream had disturbed him, but Mile-High-Man, a relucted
holy man, had told him that he was indeed intended lo be a warrior, one who
would be wise and able to communicate with others and lead well.

If
such was to be his role
in life, then how could he leave his band and join the household of a white
man?

Perhaps he needed to go, Mile-High-Man suggested, to
Irani
the ways to communicate with
both the buffalo and the eagles.

A whimper from the bed suddenly distracted him from Ins
thoughts. He came around, staring down at the beautiful blond woman lying on
the bed. Her arms suddenly rose as

II
  
she were warding off a blow. He frowned, almost reach- Ing out to wake
her then, but her arms fell; she shuddered and went still.

I le wondered if she was still fighting him or if someone
rise was haunting her dreams. Now she lay so peacefully, I in features delicate
and exquisite, her hair a pool of gold io frame them.

I le turned from her abruptly, walking away, staring into
llie fire.

He watched the flames. In time, he'd wake her. His fin-
Kris
clenched his palms. Indeed. In time, he'd wake her all n
ight.

Four

Half a continent away, a young woman hurried along a hallway
carrying a pile of bath sheets and two large bottles of liniment. She was of
medium height, but she moved with such carriage and grace that she gave the
impression of being taller. Her hair was a deep, dark brown, just touched with
hints of henna that gave it a rich, sable appearance. Her eyes were a dark,
vibrant blue-green, almost turquoise. Until her mother's recent death, she
might have claimed to have lived a happy life, despite the secrets of the past
that had haunted them all.

But now ...

In the last three weeks, she had faced far more than tragedy.

Horror itself had entered into her life. And surprisingly
enough, she had discovered she had the strength to deal with it. Skylar had
given her that strength. Skylar had always been there for her. She hoped that
now ... finally they were managing to rescue one another.

Outside a doorway, she paused, squaring her shoulders. No
matter what was said, she would play her part. Give nothing away. Nothing.

She pushed open the door.
He
sat there in his specially carved wheelchair, an afghan thrown over his useless
legs. Still, he was somehow not a man to be pitied because when he gazed at
her, the demons of cruelty and anger and ... revenge were in his eyes.

The doctor stood behind the chair. "Ah, there you are,
my dear! The liniment, just as I've asked. Good. A number of towels, yes. Ah,
there now, dear, fetch the brandy, a snifter for the senator ... ah, yes, a
good brandy relaxes the muscles, and the body—"

"Doctor," the senator said, shaking his head sadly.
"Brandy, liniment. Relaxed muscles, tensed muscles! What does it matter,
when I will never walk again?"

"Courage, now, Senator!" the doctor said. He was a
bcwhiskered old man. Sabrina thought he was doddering, and wondered why the
senator had chosen him for his treatments.
Because
the doctor wouldn't ask too many questions?
She'd been surprised at
first that the senator hadn't ( ailed in the police.

But then, if he'd thrown out accusations, he might have had a
few accusations thrown back at him.

He was still staring at her. Smiling, a smile that conveyed
no humor, no warmth. It was a chilling smile. One that warned, menaced ... and
promised as well.
I will have my revenge!
that smile seemed to vow.
In my own way, my own
time. And don't doubt my power: God, no, girl, don't you go doubting my power.

Perhaps, she told herself, determined not to respond to that
smile in any way. If the doctor weren't there, she might be tempted to laugh,
to taunt him in return.
You can't hurt me now, you
fool. You can't hurt me. Skylar stopped you when you tried!

He was a good-looking man. Handsome, dignified. He was always
so careful to speak in low, well-modulated tones. His constituents knew him as
a kind man, a bene- I actor to so many worthy organizations, a strong man, always
willing to fight.

God, they didn't begin to know how willing he was to fight,
or to what levels he would stoop to win whatever it was he wanted. Whom he
would hurt.