The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,44

question. It was time to answer.

He pointed at her with his chin. “You will come with me.”

She took two more steps back and muttered. “Like hell! And why should I be comin’ with the likes of a heathen?”

“I take you for wife.”

His announcement was as plain as the small brown horse he was riding. But Caitie took it no better than the unwanted rescue.

“Ye’ll be taking yer’self to hell and back first,” she screeched.

“You come,” Eyes Like Mole repeated and swung his horse around, heading toward what he hoped was camp while motioning for her to follow.

As was her bent, Caitie O’Shea reacted, rather than thought. She came forward all right, but not to follow. Eyes Like Mole only saw her move. He did not see her purpose.

She raised her hand and slapped the horse’s rump with a sharp and vicious blow. It shot forward like a scalded cat, leaving chunks of sod and blades of grass soiling the air behind him.

Eyes Like Mole wasn’t prepared for the jolt, or the runaway horse. Instinctively, his knees gripped the horse’s belly as he fought for control. A skilled horseman, he soon had his mount in line, but relocating the woman was a serious problem. He rode up to the crest of the nearest hill and turned to look at the view far below. Seconds later, he grunted. A smile slid into place as he kicked his horse and rode back down the hill.

Caitie ran and never looked back. Her heart thundered in her ears and her lungs burned as she struggled for breath between each chop of her legs. And because she didn’t look back, she never heard the horse, or saw the Indian, until it was too late.

Eyes Like Mole stared passively at the shape upon the ground. His horse grazed nearby.

It was the scent of horseflesh, the sweet smell of grass being harvested by his horse’s teeth, and a shrill cry from a hawk overhead, along with the slow, even breathing of his woman at his feet that told him all was well. All were familiar sounds and scents he could identify. At that moment, he was satisfied.

And then Caitie came to.

“Wha’ happened?”

She rolled her tongue around a mouthful of dirt and grass that was imbedded between her teeth, then crawled to her knees and spit. Everything came back in a rush as the moccasins on the Indian’s small feet, as well as his leggings and a breechcloth moved into her line of vision. She didn’t like to think what lay beneath.

“You fall.”

“Like hell. Ye pushed.”

He shrugged. Arguing with a woman was not something an Arapaho warrior should have to do. Eyes Like Mole started toward his horse.

“We go.” He felt for the dragging reins of his horse and once he’d located them, vaulted onto its back in one smooth leap.

“I’ll not be goin’ anywhere,” Caitie argued, and then choked and gasped at the tug of the rope around her neck. She couldn’t believe it! While she was lying unconscious, he had hog-tied her like a pig being led to slaughter.

“We go,” Eyes Like Mole repeated, and nudged his horse forward, giving the woman no time to escape.

As an honorable Arapaho warrior, he might make a mistake now and then. A man was allowed a few in his lifetime. But he knew better than to let this woman get too close again. Keeping her on the far end of a long rope would serve his purpose nicely. The farther away she was from him and his horse, the better he could see her. And once they were on the move, she’d be too busy trying to save herself from being dragged to cause trouble.

Pheasant flushed from their nests as the odd duo passed. Eyes Like Mole turned often to check behind him, making certain that his woman was still at the end of his rope.

Caitie O’Shea was there, and almost at the end of a rope of her own. Blind with exhaustion and weak from hunger, she felt her legs giving way.

“Stop!” she begged, and tugged on the rope with both hands. “I cannot be runnin’ another step.”

Eyes Like Mole reined in his horse and frowned. His ancestors had sent him a woman as he’d asked, but she seemed to be weak in the ways that counted.

“You come?”

Caitie dropped to her knees, heart pounding—head aching.

“I’d be delighted,” she muttered, and tried not to cry.

They entered the Arapaho village to the tune of barking dogs and shrieking children. All work