Amanda Wright looked at the three men, an overwhelming sense of relief sweeping over her. They were dead, thank God. They could no longer touch her, could no longer hurt her, could no longer force her to bend to their will.
The nightmare had lasted not much more than a minute. Amanda had been returning through the Badlands after looking at some prize horses her brother was considering buying, when three Indians had appeared out of nowhere. They’d said nothing when they’d blocked her path. Amanda had smiled, her internal warning signals not yet registering danger. Then the Indians had attacked, swiftly and silently, pulling her from her horse, tearing at her clothes—her familiar cotton man-cut shirt and new Levis. With the buttons of her shirt popping off when the men attacked, she’d fought and screamed, managing to kick one of her attackers in the groin so hard that he’d fallen to his knees and had abandoned his assault upon her.
But the other two hadn’t. Grim-faced, as silent as death itself, they’d moved in relentlessly, separating Amanda from her horse, making sure she had no avenue of escape.
Suddenly her rescuers had ridden in, guns blazing. And though both cowboys had been badly in need of shaves, baths, and a clean change of clothes, they’d seemed heaven-sent to Amanda. They’d swiftly and surely cut her attackers down with a barrage of gunfire as deadly as it was quick.
“Thank y-you,” Amanda stammered, getting to her feet. She pulled her shirt closed, covering her chemise, which had been badly torn during the assault.
If Amanda’s warning signals had been slow initially, they intensified when her ‘heroes’ dismounted. The nearest one—the one who had wielded the shotgun with lethal efficiency and great pleasure against her Indian attackers—grinned wide to show stained, rotting, and missing teeth. He spat a long stream of tobacco juice onto the ground in the general direction of the corpses. Then, with his free hand, he rubbed his crotch as he walked slowly toward Amanda, his gaze devouring her as a wolf’s gaze might devour a young fawn moments before he moved in for the kill.
“Killin’ redskins is what I do second best in the whole world,” the man said with a twisted glint in his eyes. “And ‘cause I’m such a nice fella, I’m gonna show you what I do best.”
Amanda stepped backward, nearly stumbling. Judging from the filthy appearance of these two white men, they were even worse than the men who had attacked her.
“D-don’t do this,” Amanda said, the breathy rush of words little more than a whisper. She hated the weakness her voice betrayed.
The man chuckled then spat another stream of tobacco juice onto the ground. “You’re not being very social, ‘specially after what me an’ my partner here jus’ saved you from.”
Amanda turned her attention away from the leader. The other man grinned, hungrily assessing her as he moved to the side. All Amanda had to do was look into the man’s eyes to know that he would obey any orders given to him. Amanda would find no sympathy in his heart.
“Make it easy on yerself,” the leader said, slowly walking forward, still fondling himself. “It ain’t a matter of if we’re gonna do it, only on how mad you make me ‘fore we start.”
The sound of pounding hooves made all three turn to see a tall, lean Indian riding through the trees into the clearing. The Indian leaped from his horse at a gallop, lunging for the man closest to Amanda, moving with astonishing speed and precision, not giving the man time to raise his shotgun. Together they went spinning and tumbling to the ground.
The Indian reacted like an agile, powerful mountain lion. After knocking the white man to the ground he moved quickly to his knees. Amanda trembled, awestruck, as the Indian drew a revolver from the holster at his hip and fired with speed and deadly accuracy.
The shotgun-wielding white man, the first to demand Amanda’s sexual favors, had recovered and was raising his weapon to cut the Indian down.
“Look out!” Amanda shouted, lunging at the shotgun and knocking it aside a second before it roared with a lethal charge of buckshot.
Amanda fell face down onto the grass at the crack of a firearm a moment after the shotgun blast. She heard the startled gasp of the white man but felt no sympathy for him at all as she saw him fall heavily to the ground.
“Was it just those two?” the Indian asked, the revolver still in his big right hand.
Amanda got quickly to her feet, clutching at her shirt to pull it even more tightly around her. She stared at the Indian suspiciously, unwilling to trust any man after what had happened to her during the past ten minutes.
“Was it just those two?” the Indian asked again, a hint of anger in his tone. He was obviously concerned that the danger was not over. He glanced first at the two white men whom he’d killed, then at the three Indians they’d shot. Finally, he holstered his weapon and approached Amanda slowly, his hands out in front of him, his palms pointed upward, as though to show he would not harm her. “It’s over now. There’s nothing more to fear.”
Amanda backed away from the man. She would not trust him. She had trusted too many men already, and it had very nearly gotten her raped. She refused to trust this one, even if there was compassion and sympathy in his dark eyes instead of lust and savagery.
“Don’t come any closer,” Amanda said, biting the words off sharply, sounding considerably more forceful and in control of herself and her emotions than she really felt.
“I won’t hurt you,” the tall Indian said, the timbre of his voice resonating with Amanda’s need to trust him. “I promise, I won’t hurt you. And these men can’t hurt you anymore.”
Ten feet separated them. Amanda gazed straight into his eyes and he did not look away, as she’d expected him to. Her surprise made her remember that the eyes were the windows to the soul, and that a liar instinctively knew this. If he was lying to her, telling her the words she wanted to hear just so she would let down her guard, she would see the mendacity reflected in his eyes. But he wasn’t trying to hide anything at all…or did it just seem that way?
“My name is Hawk Two Feather,” he said. When he gave her a half smile, a dimple formed in his gaunt cheek. “I’m telling you the truth. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Amanda was momentarily suspicious. “You speak English very well.”
“And you’ll hold that against me?” Hawk replied, cocking a brow over eyes that feigned offense.
“No, I guess not. My name’s Amanda.”
“Amanda?”
Instantly, all her protective walls went up once more, and she took a step away from Hawk. She wouldn’t give her last name.
“Just Amanda,” she said quietly.
For several seconds they stood there, eyeing each other, passing silent questions back and forth. Still, Amanda didn’t speak. The Wright name was well known throughout the territory, and the Circle S horse ranch was famous for the quality of its riding stock. She did not want to tempt Hawk with the possibility of getting a ransom for her safe return. So far, he’d shown himself to be a gentleman, but she’d assumed the two grizzled men who’d killed her original attackers to be honorable men, too.
“Where are you from?” Amanda asked, breaking the silence with a question.
Hawk gave her the first truly honest smile. “I’m a Sioux,” he said. “I was hunting elk near the creek fork and I heard your screams.”
Amanda tucked her chemise into her Levis, then pulled her shirt tighter and tucked that in too. It was difficult maintaining modesty when the chemise had been rent in half, and all the buttons from her shirt were missing. Even though she was suitably covered, there was something in Hawk’s eyes that made her feel just a little bit exposed, almost as though her breasts were naked to his gaze. But strangely, he wasn’t leering at her, nor ogling her like the men who had attacked her. He was just watching her, nothing more than that, and yet there was an intensity to his dark, fathomless gaze that touched Amanda and made tiny shivers run up her spine.
As Hawk inspected the area where the fighting had occurred and paid a second look at the corpses that moments earlier had been would-be rapists, Amanda was given the chance to gaze at the enigmatic man more closely. He was tall, particularly for a Sioux, standing at least an inch or two over six feet. His shoulders were broad, swathed in a leather shirt that laced in the front. His waist narrowed nicely, and he had lean hips. His thighs were thickly muscled, telling Amanda that he was a man who’d spent his life on horseback, though she’d already guessed as much, having been witness to his riding skill.
“Are you going to bury them?” Amanda asked, though she didn’t care if these contemptible men received a burial, or not.
“We’d better not take the time,” Hawk replied, having finished his inspection. “This is Cheyenne territory. Or maybe it’s Crow. Either way, I’m not welcome here, and neither will you be. We’d better just get our horses and…”
His expression went blank, as though he was listening to some mysterious voice in his head. Then, several seconds after Hawk had heard the approaching riders, Amanda did too.
“Come on,” Hawk said, reaching out his hand for Amanda as he rushed toward her.
Amanda hesitated for only a moment before taking Hawk’s hand. Hearing the approaching riders, she decided there was absolutely no telling whether the newcomers would be a greater or lesser threat to her than Hawk himself. Amanda had already been ‘rescued’ once, only to find herself needing to be saved from her rescuers.
Hawk’s fingers were long and callused, Amanda noticed when she placed her small, pale hand in his much darker one. Yanking her hand, he took off like a shot, half-dragging her through the trees behind him. In the hilly, wooded area, Hawk moved with the instinctive grace of a natural-born hunter and, in just a few seconds, the forest had swallowed them up.
“Where are we going?” Amanda asked, almost breathless. Keeping up the pace Hawk had set had been difficult, especially since he was pulling her left arm and she was using her right hand to hold her shirt closed.
“Quiet!” Hawk snapped, looking over his shoulder at Amanda for just an instant.
As they ran in a wide circle, Amanda quickly discovered what the Sioux warrior had in mind. They again approached the clearing, only this time coming upon it from a different direction. Amanda was gasping from the exertion of the run, Hawk was hardly breathing faster than he had been when he’d first started running. Though she’d always considered herself physically fit, Amanda was nowhere near the athlete Hawk was.
He still held her hand as he crouched down on the balls of his moccasin-shod feet. Twisting, he faced Amanda and put a finger to his lips, indicating silence.
Who are we running from?
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