Wild Desire

“Then you cannot arrest me for the crime,” Thunder Hawk said, lifting his chin proudly. “I was with Sky Dancer all night.”

When the man had slapped the rump of Sky Dancer’s horse, she had only ridden a few feet and then had drawn rein again, looking wistfully back at her husband.

One of the men leaned his face into Thunder Hawk’s. “Do you think we’d take the word of a Navaho squaw?” he said in a low hiss. “Or any Navaho, for that matter? Your whole damn tribe could come and speak up for you and we’d tell ’em to get back to their hogans, where they belonged.”

Sky Dancer broke into body-wracking sobs. Thunder Hawk stared at her, feeling utterly helpless and very much humiliated.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” the leader of the posse said. He wheeled his horse around and headed in the direction of Fort Defiance. “We’ll take him to the fort. He’ll be in the holding cell there a few days, and then he’ll be transferred to the larger jail in Gallup. Soon we’ll have us a hanging.”

One of the men grabbed Thunder Hawk’s reins and yanked them, forcing Thunder Hawk’s horse to follow the commands of someone other than his master.

Thunder Hawk looked over his shoulder at Sky Dancer. “I am sorry,” he cried. “Go home, Sky Dancer. Tell my parents what has happened. Stay with them until this is cleared up.”

Sky Dancer wiped tears from her eyes, then turned her horse back in the direction from whence she had come. What had just happened seemed so unreal. Surely she would wake up and discover that she had been experiencing a nightmare. How could one gain the world in one evening, only to lose it all the next day?

She looked over her shoulder at Thunder Hawk as he was led farther and farther away into the sun, then lifted her chin and reached deeply inside herself to find the courage to ride onward. She must get help for her husband: Sage, or perhaps even Thunder Hawk’s brother, Runner. They were the answer. They would rescue her husband.

With this, hope blossomed within her and she sent her horse into a canter. She felt strangely alone. Never had she been this totally alone. Her father had never allowed it. She felt vulnerable not only without an escort but also with no weapons for protection.

She gazed heavenward and whispered a prayer to the Great Unseen Power and asked that she would not be the next Navaho victim of evil white men.

When she felt something like a hand softly brushing her cheek, she felt as though her prayer had been answered. She said another quiet prayer to the Great Unseen Power.

“Please bring my husband back to me soon,” she said with a sob in her throat.

Chapter 29

The heart that has truly loved,

Never forgets.

—THOMAS MOORE

Still seeing the burning railroad cars in her mind’s eye, still stunned by the devastation, and fearing who might be blamed, Stephanie was glad to finally be back at her private car.

She wheeled her horse to a stop, puzzled. When she had left the wreckage, Adam had still been there, loudly voicing his opinion as to who might be responsible. Yet there his horse was, tethered to the hitching rail.

Stephanie’s gaze slid over to the other horse standing next to Adam’s, wondering who it belonged to.

And how did Adam get there before her?

Loud laughter wafting from Adam’s car, through a window that was partially up, drew Stephanie’s attention. She gazed up at the window and saw the silhouette of two men inside the car, seemingly oblivious of her arrival. She slowly slipped from her saddle and crept beneath Adam’s window, her insides coiling even more tightly when she recognized Damon’s voice as he began talking to Adam about the train wreck.

The more she listened, the more she felt ill, clear to the core of herself. She leaned closer, her hands tightening into fists at her sides as she heard them laughing about how they had duped the Navaho—about the sabotage.

“Adam, everything went off without a snag,” she heard Damon say. “It was easy setting the dynamite beneath the train and blowing it up without being seen.

“It’s going to be fun watching the Navaho try to squirm out of this one,” he continued. “It seems like I’ve waited a lifetime to see them get what’s coming to them. They’re all a worthless lot. Sheepherders are the lowest form of man on earth. Their damn sheep eat up all the grass, leaving nothing for cattle.”

“Count it,” Adam said. “See if I’ve counted it right. A thousand. Isn’t that what we agreed to? Will that be enough for the risk you took blowing up the train?”

“Wasn’t no risk at all,” Damon said, guffawing. “It was sheer pleasure. Perhaps even better than beddin’ a woman. No need in countin’ the money, Adam. I trust you.”

“Count it anyway,” Adam said, his voice bland. “I don’t want you coming back later saying I shortchanged you.”

“Friends don’t shortchange friends,” Damon said. “Now I guess I’d best be goin’. It wouldn’t do for anyone to see us together right now. They might focus attention on us, instead of the Navaho.”

“I tried my damndest to get the sheriff to go and arrest Thunder Hawk,” Adam said. “But he didn’t seem to listen to reason. Who’s to say who he will narrow in on at the Navaho reservation? As far as I’m concerned, he can take the whole damn bunch of them. Hah! Some friends they turned out to be. Sage, especially. He seemed to dislike me the minute he laid eyes on me the day Stephanie and I arrived on the train.”