Sun God (34 page)

Checking the foolish urge to smile at this brave, angry man, Amy recalled, for the hundredth time, the unforgettable moment when first she had looked on his face last night.

It was just at sunset that Chief Snake Tongue, wearing the hideous devil’s mask, had come for her. Cutting her down from the cedar pole, he had lifted her up into his arms and carried her, screaming in terror, to his wickiup.

She was so hysterical, she had hardly realized that he immediately crossed the dim wickiup, slashed through the animal-hide lodge, tossed her roughly over his shoulder, and ran from the camp.

She vividly remembered being bounced uncomfortably, his powerfully muscled shoulder cutting into her stomach and the sharp crimson horn of the evil mask scraping her bare back as she struggled. Swiftly he had sprinted across the timbered terrain as dusk slowly descended over the Chisos.

They came upon a big paint stallion tethered to a leafy juniper, and Amy was immediately lowered to the ground. Confused and terrified, she whirled about and started to run for her life, but the tall chief grabbed her. Holding her with one strong hand clamped around her wrist, he reached up and tore the horrid devil’s mask from his head and tossed it away.

She blinked in shock.

The bronzed, handsome face of El Capitán had emerged from beneath the horrid mask and Amy, continuing to scream, stared at him, afraid to believe her tear-filled eyes. She was not given time to wonder at how such a marvel had occurred.

Before she could choke back the sobs and regain her voice, the buckskin-clad El Capitán swiftly untied the big paint, looped the reins back over its neck, turned and lifted Amy up across the saddle.

He swung up behind her and the paint immediately went into motion. The stallion galloped through the towering trees and dense underbrush, quickly putting distance between them and Chief Snake Tongue’s wildly celebrating Mescaleros.

Feeling calmer, Amy caught her breath and wrapped her weak, trembling arms tightly around his trim waist. She pressed her cheek to his broad chest, closed her eyes for a minute, and inhaled deeply of his clean, unique scent.

He had come for her! Thank God! The grotesque chief would
not
be raping or killing her tonight! This fearless warrior whose heart beat a slow, sure cadence beneath her ear had saved her! Had walked unarmed right into the hostile camp and carried her away!

Her senses assailed with the scent and feel and power of him, Amy slid a hand around to Luiz’s chest. Her dirty fingers crawled up to the laced opening of his buckskin shirt. She nudged the soft fabric apart and smiled when a gold chain winked brilliantly at her. Her fingers curled tenaciously around the heavy chain and she drew out the glittering gold Sun Stone.

With a soft little sobbing gasp of gratitude, she brushed her chapped, parched lips to the cool solid metal. For a time she was content to stay just like that, one hand clinging to El Capitán’s back, the other clinging to the Sun Stone.

Oblivious to everything save the all-encompassing power of man and medallion, Amy felt her tired, tense body slowly relaxing as a wonderful sense of well-being replaced the numbing fear she’d known for the past four harrowing days and nights.

The sound of the drums grew steadily fainter, the glow of the campfires against the night sky had all but disappeared. There were no sounds of thundering horses crashing through the forest. No blood-curdling cries of vengeful, pursuing Apaches.

Amy was certain the danger had passed. Miraculously they had escaped. Now they would ride down out of the mountains and go home to Orilla. She yawned, took a long, slow breath, and raised her weary head from Luiz’s chest.

Raising her voice to be heard over the wind, she said, “When are we going to stop for the night? I’m exhausted.”

His black eyes flicked to her face for an instant, and Amy caught their almost imperceptible narrowing. He gave no verbal reply. She waited for him to speak. He said nothing. She finally tried again.

“Please, we have to stop. I can’t go on.” Still he said nothing. His eyes remained on the treacherous trail ahead. Exasperated, Amy explained, “I am too tired to ride farther. We’re safe now and—”

“We are not safe.” He spoke at last, interrupting. “You will ride as far as I tell you to ride.”

It was her first taste of what the long journey home would be like. But she was too tired and too relieved to argue. She merely nodded and snuggled back down on his chest. Maybe he was right. Maybe they should put more miles between them and the Mescalero camp before they stopped.

So she didn’t complain when they continued to ride as evening turned into night and night changed to morning, the mountain air growing bitingly chilly. She didn’t attempt to make conversation. Luiz’s starkly chiseled features, sporadically illuminated by appearing and disappearing wedges of mountain moonlight, wore a cold, impenetrable expression that held her silent.

Intuitively Amy knew it was wise to let him be. It was a long way home; he couldn’t remain distant and uncommunicative forever.

Sunrise.

In a high, carefully chosen valley with a narrow, concealed mouth and high protective walls of stone, Amy stood on unsteady legs and faced the tall, unsmiling man who had not spoken all night.

The unsaddled stallion cropped contentedly at the grass inside the hidden canyon, oblivious to any tension between the two humans. Totally exhausted and wanting nothing more than to lie down and sleep, Amy supposed El Capitán was waiting for her tearful apology for causing everyone such anguish.

Shifting from one bare, dirty foot to the other, she rubbed her badly sunburned face, licked her cracked lips, took a deep breath, and said, “I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused. I thank you for coming after me—for saving my life.”

His reply was a quick, dismissive shake of his dark head.

Amy felt compelled to say more. “The chief was a vile, depraved man and I—I …” She shuddered and hugged her arms to her sides. “Thank God you got there before the beast could do anything. Did you kill him?”

“No.” He spoke at last. “I do not kill brothers.”

“You don’t—” Amy looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “But he was going to—”

“You must understand the Apaches, my tribal brothers.” His voice was conversationally calm. “They are still a primitive people, like children.” He shrugged wide shoulders. “Mischievous children.”

Amy’s tired chin lifted minutely. “Mischievous children? How can you stand there and defend them? They are dirty, uncivilized, bloodthirsty Ind—”

“Indians? Is that what you were going to say?”

“I—I … didn’t mean that every—”

“The way you and your family feel about my race has never been a secret.”

“That’s not true. I never … My daddy had great respect for … Besides, you’re not a … You are—”

“A breed? A mixed blood? Isn’t that even worse?”

“No, it isn’t. You are—”

He cut her off. “Your opinion of me is of no importance.” For a moment he stared at her in hard-eyed silence then said, “You will do as I say until I get you safely back to Orilla.” A muscle worked in his jaw and he added, “After that, I don’t give a damn what you do.”

“Listen, I realize that you’re angry with me, but—”

“Angry?” His voice cut like a knife blade. “I ought to take over where the Apaches left off. I should rape and torture you myself.” Suddenly he swung forward, the breadth of his shoulders shadowing her from the rapidly rising sun.

Amy trembled but stood her ground. Still weak and upset from her ordeal, she had had just about enough of this man’s high-handed behavior and habitual coldness. Too much, in fact.

“Well, what the devil are you waiting for?” She narrowed her scratchy blue eyes and whipped her tangled hair back off her dirty face. “I’m totally defenseless. So weak and tired I can barely stand. I can’t fight you, so have at it! Get it over with! Torture me. Rape me. Kill me. Name your pleasure, El Capitán!”

Her outburst surprised him. “Calm down, I’m not going to—”

“No? Why ever not? To the victor goes the spoils! You snatched me from the chief. Wasn’t that because you want the same thing he wanted?”

“That’s enough of that,” he said, ending the conversation. Shaking his dark head, he moved away from her.

He turned to the gear he’d stacked on the grass. Crouching on his heels, he unrolled his pack, drew from it a pair of soft doeskin trousers and a pale-blue cotton pullover shirt. Tossing them over his arm, he rose.

“There’s a shallow spring around that corner.” He inclined his head. “Down about fifty feet, in the bottom of the canyon. I’ll stand guard while you bathe. Put these on when you’ve finished.” He held the shirt and trousers out to Amy.

Indecisive for only a second, Amy snatched the clothes from his hand and said tiredly, “I don’t suppose you have any soap?”

Wordlessly he produced a small new bar of castile, and it was all Amy could do to keep from sighing with pleasure. Suddenly she felt so sticky and miserable she couldn’t wait to hurry down to the stream, strip off her torn, soiled clothes, and wash away four days and nights of grime.

While Amy bathed, Luiz, his back resting against the smooth, high wall of rock, sat at the mouth of the narrow canyon with a loaded Winchester rifle across his knees. His alert black eyes constantly moving, he scanned the rugged region surrounding the concealed canyon for any sign of approaching Apaches.

When half an hour had passed, he began to worry.

It was then that Amy came up the draw from the spring. As she rounded the corner of soaring rock and stepped into full view, Luiz, despite himself, stared like an entranced youth.

She had washed her hair. The long golden glory of it, still in damp strands, fell down her back and captured the sunlight. Her face glistened with cleanliness and her sky-blue eyes held a warm, drowsy expression.

The shirt she wore—his shirt—was the exact same hue as her sleepy eyes, and it clung damply to her clean skin, contouring the roundness of her breasts and the taut, chilled nipples.

The doeskin trousers were appealingly snug over her flaring hips and shapely bottom, but they were far too long. She had rolled them up over her bare, bruised feet. She stood with one knee bent and cocked outward. The leather strings that laced up the pants from crotch to waist were loose, the ends falling over her flat stomach and swinging gently between her long, slender legs.

She stood looking at him, the newly risen sun striking her full in the face. She yawned sleepily. And she asked, “Can we go to bed now?”

Though his heart kicked against his ribs, he said tonelessly, “Sure.”

And remained as he was, seated with the rifle across his knees, his eyes locked on her. Never had she looked more blatantly desirable and at the same time so sweetly innocent. His tired, lean body responded automatically. The blood rushed into his groin, expanding it painfully. The heat moved upward attacking every part of his body.

His heart pounded and he could scarcely breathe. His face was so hot it felt as if it were on fire. While he found the physical reaction downright annoying, he understood it and was not particularly concerned. It was lust, pure and simple. She was undeniably beautiful and he desired her body as any healthy man would.

But he experienced another emotion that disturbed him a great deal more than the simple passion she stirred in him. An emotion far more dangerous. An emotion so alien to him, he did not fully recognize it for what it was but was frightened by it.

Sexual hunger he could understand and control. But the strong unbidden yearning to enfold this slender, sunburned, golden-haired woman tenderly in his arms and keep her safe forever—even from himself—was terrifying.

He behaved as every frightened male since Adam had behaved. With unreasoning anger. Anger that he directed at her as if it were her fault, not his.

“What are you standing there for?” he said through thinned lips. “I thought you were tired.”

“I am a little tired,” she said, then lazily raised her hands, raked slender fingers through her long, damp hair, and shook her head about. Impulsively she bent over from the waist and whipped the clean, shiny tresses forward over her head until the golden hair almost swept the ground.

Unknowing and uncaring that his fierce black gaze was locked on her, Amy stayed in that position for a time, her hands flattened on the grassy ground, her shapely rear pointed skyward.

Her unselfconscious limbering exercise made the angry El Capitán even more angry. Made him mad as hell. Certain that she was doing it just to devil him, he was determined she would not know how well she had succeeded.

As casually as possible, he said, “Better go on inside the canyon, spread the blanket, and go to sleep.”

Amy’s head came up. Her face was red from the blood rushing to it. Her hair was a wild golden mane spilling around her shoulders, blazing in the sunlight. She cocked her head and looked at him and moved closer. She crouched down directly in front of him and absently slapped at his arm with the long leather lacings of her borrowed trousers.

“What about you?” she asked after yawning.

“Don’t worry about me.”

“But I do. Surely you—”

“Get on over there.” He cut her off. “Mind me now.”

She didn’t mind him. She continued to crouch on her bare heels, curiously examining his dark, rigid face.

There was a stern, angry look in the black eyes of El Capitán as he sat gripping the Winchester rifle too tightly in his bronzed hands. But it was different somehow from the undiluted anger she’d seen there so often. Now, mixed with the anger was the slightest hint of … what? Agony? Fear? Regret?

“Is—is something wrong?” she asked gently.

His face and body suffused with a burning heat, his groin aching, his heart behaving strangely, he managed coldly, “Not a thing, Mrs. Parnell. Not one thing.”

A
MY STIRRED, OPENED HER
eyes, and wondered what time it was. The narrow, steep-sided canyon was completely in shadow, but high above, a slender ribbon of blue sky was bright and clear. She turned her head. El Capitán was not there beside her.