The Spirit Path (14 page)

Hawk grunted, obviously disappointed.

“We don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” Maggie said, though once Sheila had her mind made up there was almost no way to make her reconsider.

“Is it something you want?”

Maggie started to say no, then realized it was something she
did
want. Not that she wanted to be on the cover of her book, but she would like to have some photos of herself with Hawk, and she knew Raoul would give her as many copies as she wanted.

Maggie nodded. “Yes, if it’s all right with you.”

Sheila and Raoul arrived early the following morning. After preparing a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs and pancakes, Sheila handed Maggie a vivid blue dress edged with white lace.

“I knew you wouldn’t want to wear anything too revealing,” Sheila remarked. “I think this is provocative without being immodest.” Sheila looked at Hawk. “I don’t suppose you have anything Indian you could wear?”

“Indian?” Hawk repeated with a frown.

“You know, one of those loincloth things.”

“Yes, I have one of those,” Hawk said.

“Good. Well then, we’re all set.”

The blue dress was flattering, the neckline low and square but not indecent, the skirt long and flowing.

Sheila assured Maggie she looked terrific, but it was Hawk who held the older woman’s gaze.

“You look…fine,” Sheila said, and Maggie almost laughed out loud. Sheila had been around male models for years, had been to Chippendale’s on numerous occasions, had been married three times, but it was obvious she’d never seen anything like Hawk.

“Shall we go?” Maggie asked.

“Go?” Sheila said.

“The pictures, remember?”

“C’mon, Sheila,” Raoul said, taking her by the arm. “We’re going to lose the light.”

They drove around Maggie’s property until Raoul found just the right place—a grassy meadow blooming with flowers. The Hills rose in the background, majestic and beautiful.

A small grassy rise provided just the setting he was looking for. It took twenty minutes before Raoul was satisfied with the pose. Hawk was on one knee with his back to the Hills, his hands resting on Maggie’s shoulders, while Maggie sat at his feet gazing up at him, one hand spread over his thigh.

“That’s good,” Raoul said. “Hawk, I want you to look down at Maggie. Pretend you’re a wild Indian and she’s your woman. I want you to look savage, arrogant, possessive. Maggie, I want you to look up at him adoringly. You’re his willing captive, his slave.”

Hawk looked down at Maggie, one black brow arching in amusement at the photographer’s words.
Pretend you’re a wild Indian.
A muscle worked in Hawk’s jaw as he heard the underlying disdain in the words, and then he grinned wryly. If they only knew how little pretending he had to do!

But then his gaze met Maggie’s and the humor faded from his eyes.
And she’s your woman.
Unconsciously, his hands tightened on her shoulders.

His woman.
Maggie gazed up at Hawk, wishing it were true, wishing that she could be his woman until the end of time. How many books had she read about white women abducted by Indians, women who fell hopelessly in love with their captors? She’d even written a couple.

As from far away, she heard Raoul call, “Perfect! Hold it!” But she was only aware of Hawk, of his dark eyes burning into her own, of the strength of his hands as he clutched her shoulders, of the muscular heat of his thigh beneath her fingertips.
His woman…

“Okay, you can take a break now.” Raoul looked at Sheila and shook his head. “I think they’ve forgotten we’re here.”

Sheila nodded, a faint look of envy in her eyes. She’d had three husbands and none of them had ever looked at her the way Hawk was looking at Maggie.

“Hey you two,” Raoul called. “That’s it.”

“What?” Maggie turned to face Raoul, felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment as she realized she’d forgotten that Raoul and Sheila were there.

“Well,” Sheila said, “if the look in Hawk’s eyes doesn’t melt the film, we’ve got ourselves a great cover.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Maggie said, not meeting her editor’s probing gaze.

“I’m sure you do,” Sheila retorted. “I’m also sure that it’s time for me to go back to New York.” She glanced at Hawk, then back at Maggie. “You behave yourself now, you hear?”

“It was a great shoot,” Raoul said. He shook Hawk’s hand, then Maggie’s. “I’ll send you the proofs.”

“Thanks, Raoul.”

The drive back to the ranch was uneventful. Sheila talked of a writers’ conference she’d been asked to speak at later in the year, and of the American Booksellers Convention she’d attended in June, and then they were back at the house.

Maggie sat in her wheelchair on the porch waving goodbye, more conscious than ever of the man standing beside her, of the way he had looked at her.

His woman.
It could never be, but the mere idea sent a warm shiver of delight down her spine nonetheless.

Maggie stared into the refrigerator. It was empty save for a half-gallon of milk and a withered red apple.

They would have to go to town.

She frowned at the idea. She’d lived in the Black Hills for two years and never ventured beyond the boundaries of her own property. Veronica had done the shopping and Bobby had run whatever errands needed doing and she had stayed home, as secluded as a monk. But that was about to change.

Taking a piece of paper from a kitchen drawer, she began to write a list: bread, eggs, bacon, potatoes, coffee, fruit, soap, toothpaste, canned goods, milk, orange juice…

The list seemed to go on and on. And then, abruptly, she stopped writing. How was she going to get into town?

“What is it, Mag-gie?”

The sound of his voice thrilled her as it always did. Was there any other man in the world who had a voice like his? Strong and deep and silky, like steel sheathed in layers of soft black velvet. “We’re about out of food.” Hawk nodded. Veronica always brought the food. It was something he could not quite comprehend, where it all came from, or how it was made. “Where must you go to get more?”

“Sturgis is the closest place.”

“Then let us go.”

“I don’t have any way to get there.”

“I will take you on the black.”

“No, it’s too far to go by horseback. And where would we put the groceries?” Maggie frowned thoughtfully. “Do you think you could drive the truck?”

“I do not know how.”

“I could teach you.”

Shadow Hawk looked doubtful, and then he shrugged. “We can try.”

They practiced driving around the yard for forty-five minutes. At first she was certain he would never learn. The truck lurched and jerked and bounced like a tumbleweed tossed by the wind as Hawk tried to coordinate steering, braking on turns, and working the gas pedal. Once she thought he was going to run into the front porch, another time he barely avoided crashing into a tree, but finally Hawk got the hang of the gas and the brake and Maggie decided he’d be able to make the short drive to town and back.

Maggie glanced over at Hawk, attired in only a clout and moccasins, and frowned, wondering how she could tactfully suggest that he wasn’t dressed quite right for a trip to town.

A slow grin spread over Hawk’s face. “I will change,” he said, obviously reading her thoughts.

“It might be best.”

She waited for him in the truck while he went into the house to change. He reappeared moments later clad in the black T-shirt and jeans that Veronica had bought him.

Seeing him in regular clothes reminded Maggie of the photo shoot. On their last trip to town, she had picked up copies of the proofs Raoul had sent, along with two checks from Sheila and a hastily scrawled note that read, “Standard pay for modeling. Sorry it couldn’t be more. P.S. Give my love to Hawk. Sheila.”

Hawk had been amused when Maggie explained what the checks were for. Jokingly she’d kidded him, saying that maybe if he stayed in her time he could go into the modeling business and pose for romance covers. He had considered her suggestion gravely for a moment and then nodded, saying he wouldn’t mind so long as she would always be the woman in his arms, and what had started as a joke quickly backfired because that was just what she wanted, to always be the woman in his arms.

Now Maggie watched Hawk as he crossed the yard toward the truck, her pulse growing more rapid as she boldly admired him, unable to decide if he looked better in his clout or Levi’s. Either way, he was drop-dead gorgeous.

He looked at her for a moment when he reached the truck, a rueful grin on his handsome face, and then he climbed behind the wheel, turned the key in the ignition and they started off down the dirt road that led to the highway.

For a moment, he concentrated on steering the truck and then he asked the question that had been bothering him for days. “Mag-gie, tell me what happened to my people.”

“What do you mean?”

“Where are they? Bob-by said they live on reservations. That they are soul sick and look for answers in the white man’s whiskey.”

“Yes, I’m afraid that’s true.” Life on the reservation was bleak, Maggie thought. Jobs were scarce. A single man received a measly fifty-six dollars from General Assistance every two weeks. She’d heard that teenage girls were getting pregnant just to get money from welfare. The homeless picked up aluminum cans to sell. What the reservation needed was industrial development, but the tribal council didn’t want outsiders there, perhaps afraid they’d lose control of the reservation. Maggie couldn’t fault them for that, considering past history.

“Why do my people live on reservations? Why does the white man control my people?”

“There were many wars in your day, Hawk. Do you know of Custer?”

Hawk grunted.

“Your people defeated him in a great battle at the Little Big Horn. It was the last great Indian victory. After that, the soldiers pursued the Indians until they were all hunted down and put on reservations. Crazy Horse was the last to surrender. He was killed at Fort Robinson, and after that, there were no more Indians living free on the plains.”

Hawk stared at the yellow line that ran down the highway, trying to understand what Maggie had told him, trying to imagine his people defeated, living as the white man’s prisoners on reservations. It could not be true. His people were born to the wind and the mountains. The thought of them living on reservations, stripped of their pride, their land, their way of life, was too painful to contemplate.

Slowly, he shook his head. “No…”

“I’m sorry, Hawk, but I’m afraid it’s true. As near as I can tell, you came here from 1872, maybe 1873. In another four or five years, the life you knew will be gone.”

“Could nothing have been done to change the fate of my people?”

“I don’t think so. There were too many whites who wanted to move west, lured by tales of rich grassland and fertile soil. At first the Army tried to stop them, but then Custer found gold in the Black Hills, and people poured westward. Miners and merchants and homesteaders and there was just no way to stop them.”

“So there is no hope for my people.”

“I don’t know. I’d like to think so. A lot of white people are beginning to feel ashamed of the way the Indians are being treated. Some of them are beginning to realize that your people knew how to take care of the land, that maybe some of the Indian ways are better than ours.”

Hawk’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. Was this why he had been sent here? To learn the ultimate fate of his people? Should he go back and warn them not to fight, tell them it was useless, that there was no way to win? Or should he urge them into battle, for he knew now that it was better to die as a warrior than be penned on the white man’s reservation, forced to live on his charity, never to be free again. Or should he live out his life here with Maggie? There seemed to be no point in returning to his own time. He could do nothing for his people. Nothing but warn them of what was to come.

“Hawk…”

He glanced at Maggie as she laid her hand on his knee, his gaze moving briefly over her profile before he turned his attention back to the road.

“Hawk, I’m so sorry. I wish there was something I could do.”

He nodded. Then feeling the need to touch her he placed his hand over hers. They rode in silence until they reached the town.

Sturgis had originally been an annex to Fort Meade, one of the Army posts established to guard the Black Hills from Indian attacks on white settlers and miners. The Seventh Cavalry, re-formed after the Custer massacre, was the fort’s first permanent garrison. A horse named Comanche was the only living thing found on the battlefield at the Little Big Horn. It had been officially retired with military honors at Fort Meade. In 1944 the old post had been turned into a Veteran’s Administration Hospital.

According to a brochure Maggie had read, Sturgis was “a pretty and prosperous town lying in the red valley on the eastern border of the Hills, almost in the shadow of Bear Butte”. It was here, at Fort Meade, that “The Star-Spangled Banner” had been played for the first time.

Maggie groaned when they reached the outskirts of town. She had expected to find the quiet little town she’d seen the few times she’d come to Sturgis. What she had forgotten was that during one week every August Sturgis welcomed over eighty thousand bikers and spectators to the Black Hills Motor Classic and Rally, a weeklong internationally famous motorcycle racing extravaganza.

And this was the week. Last year had been the fiftieth anniversary of the race and Veronica had told her that over two hundred thousand people had turned out to celebrate.

Thankfully, it wasn’t as bad this year, but there seemed to be people everywhere. Men and women old enough to be grandparents rode down the main street on Gold Wing motorcycles; long-haired hippie types clad in black leather lounged near the curb; a couple with blue hair were draped across a big Harley; a man in a pinstriped business suit was riding a big red, white and blue Suzuki. She guessed the people dressed in plaid shirts and blue jeans probably lived in town all year long.

Hawk stared at the crowd, the fate of the Lakota temporarily forgotten. He had seen few whites in his day, but never any who looked like these. There were young girls in short skirts, in bathing suits, in halter tops and skintight pants. Some wore high heels, some were barefoot. He saw men in colorful shirts and pants, shirtless men in shorts, men in suits and ties, men in tight-fitting jeans and black leather jackets.

He looked over at Maggie and lifted one black brow. “I do not think anyone would have noticed what I wore.”

“I guess you’re right. This place is a madhouse. I don’t know how we’ll ever find a place to park.”

Hawk drove around for a while, curious to see what the town looked like. Maggie looked out the window, unable to believe the crowds of people waiting at the McDonald’s and the Pizza Hut. They passed a Super-Duper Market, and a Piggly Wiggly. Shades of
Driving Miss Daisy
, Maggie thought with a grin. Most of the houses they passed were older wood-framed buildings, although there were some newer, larger homes on the outskirts of town.

Driving down Junction Avenue, she saw the house where “Poker Alice” Tubbs, the Queen of Women Gamblers of the Old West, had lived.

Alice had been born in England, but she attended an exclusive girls’ school in the United States. Later she married a mining engineer named Duffield and they moved to Colorado where her husband and his friends taught her to play poker. It seemed Alice was a natural and when her husband was killed in an explosion Alice turned to gambling to earn a living, following the gold trail from Leadville to Deadwood. When the rush in Deadwood began to fade, Alice moved to Sturgis where she raised three boys and girls.

The woman had lived an exciting life, Maggie thought, and made a mental note to visit her house some day. Perhaps she’d use Poker Alice in one of her books.

As Hawk drove on, Maggie saw Mom’s Cafe where she’d once eaten lunch, and the Philtown Motel, and later, a modern-looking apartment building for senior citizens.

Hawk drove down Lazelle Street until he came to Lynn’s Country Market and Maggie told him they’d shop there. After circling the block three times, he found a place to park. Maggie held her breath as he maneuvered the truck between a Toyota and a Dodge van. Hawk grinned at Maggie, then hopped out of the cab to get Maggie’s wheelchair out of the back of the truck.

The wheelchair turned out to be a blessing in disguise, Maggie thought, as people parted before her like the waters of the Red Sea.

Inside the store, they moved up and down the aisles. For Hawk, it was an education, though he felt foolish pushing the metal shopping cart.

Maggie grinned at him. “I guess you have something in common with white men whether you like it or not,” she remarked, “because most of them don’t like to shop, either.”

Hawk studied the cans he took off the shelves, looking at the pictures, frowning at the odd squiggles of the white man’s writing. He thought perhaps he’d ask Maggie to teach him to read and write. It might be a wise thing for his people to learn.

At the meat counter he stared at the neatly wrapped packages trying to imagine how many such packages it would take to hold a buffalo, and thinking how easy it was for white women. The Lakota had to hunt the buffalo, kill it, skin it, cut up the meat and haul it back to camp. White women had only to go to the store and the meat was laid out for them so that all they had to do was take it home and cook it. His mother would like that, he thought.

His mother…he gazed out the window wondering if she was well. No doubt she thought him dead, killed in the battle along with Heart-of-the-Wolf. He wondered if she had gone to live with her cousin and his wife, if they were taking good care of her, if she had enough to eat…

He gazed at the mountains of canned goods and felt a wave of bitterness wash over him as he thought of the long winters when Lakota babies cried for food, when old ones refused to eat so that the young ones wouldn’t starve. But the whites had enough to eat and more.

“Hawk?”

He glanced down at Maggie, saw that she was staring at him, her brow lined with concern.