Wild Splendor

“E-do-ta, no,” Sage said, his hold on her not weakening. “I did not intend for you to be a part of my vengeance. You will not suffer for it more than I can help.”

“If you don’t want me to be a part of it, then let me go,” Leonida said, unable to control the sensual feelings that looking into his eyes caused.

“For many reasons Sage cannot do that,” he mumbled, wheeling his horse around, then leading it into a soft trot behind the frightened women and children. “You will go with me to my stronghold. There you will stay.”

Leonida’s lips parted in a slight gasp. “Do you mean that I am to be your captive forever?” she finally managed to say in a stammer. “The others will be captives forever also?”

Sage did not respond. He just gave her a look that she could not define.

Chapter 8

I strove to hate,

But vainly strove.

—GEORGE LYTTELTON

Aspens and fields of wildflowers brightened the wayside as the trail began to climb gradually into the mountains. Leonida noticed that Sage’s horse would turn, stop, or start at the mere pressure of his foot. The silver ornaments jingled on the horse’s bridle. They flashed brightly in the sun, reflecting into Leonida’s eyes as she sat much too close to the man that she had so many torn feelings about. Yet she had given up struggling with him long ago, knowing that he was as determined to hold her there as she had been to be set free.

Glancing ahead at the women and children stumbling along the trail, dread filled her. What could Sage be planning for these innocent women and children? Even herself?

Licking her parched lips, which had been baked the whole afternoon, Leonida glanced over her shoulder at Sage. He looked past her, his jaw tight, his eyes cold. But she could not hold her silence any longer. They had not stopped once since they had left the stagecoach. There had been no water offered or moments of rest. She was afraid that if they went any farther, those moving on foot might drop, not only from exhaustion but from thirst as well.

“Sage, when are we going to stop?” Leonida blurted out, her voice raspy from her thirst. “Have mercy on those who are walking. The children. The women. They must have a chance to rest. And they are in dire need of water.”

She regretted having not said something earlier, for the moment she asked, Sage drew his reins and motioned his warriors to stop. He gave his warriors commands in Navaho, then rode up to the women and children and told them to make a turn to the right.

“I will take you to a wet place where cattails can be found, pulled, and eaten raw,” he said. “This will quench your thirst even more than water. It will sustain you much longer once we move again farther into the mountains, toward my stronghold.”

Leonida’s heart cried out to the children, especially Trevor. He looked in worse condition than all the rest. His eyes were scarcely open and his mother had to keep pulling him up as he would slowly crumple toward the ground. Leonida understood why Carole did not lift the child up into her arms. She was too weak herself to carry the burden of another.

Leonida turned to Sage. “Let me walk with the others,” she pleaded. She nodded toward Trevor. “I can carry the child. I doubt he can go much farther on his own. Please allow me to help him, Sage. What should it matter to you that I do?”

Sage peered into her eyes, finding it more and more difficult to look at her as his captive. It was still hard for him to comprehend that she had been in the stagecoach. Seeing her there had brought many feelings to assail him.

But most prominent of all was the fact that she was traveling on that stagecoach away from him—which meant that she had not cared enough for him to stay.

This he could never understand.

He had felt so much in her kiss.

He had read so much in her eyes.

Yet another thought had come to him, one that pleased him. If she had be

en leaving Fort Defiance, she had also been leaving the man that she had planned to marry.

“May I?” Leonida pleaded.

Sage’s heart pounded as he gazed into Leonida’s eyes, seeing within them more than a pleading for the child. He could see that she was battling her feelings for him. Perhaps she was recalling their kiss, and the message that the kiss had sung to her heart.

If she searched her heart and thoughts carefully, he knew she would discover that she still had the feelings for him that had surfaced when he had held her and kissed her.

Yes, he thought to himself, if anything good at all came from the stagecoach attack, it was that it had led him to her, as though it had been their destiny.

“You may go to the child,” Sage said, loosening his arm around her waist. With his other arm he helped her down from the horse, her eyes having not yet left him.

“I learned from you how to say thank you in Navaho,” Leonida murmured. “Uke-he, Sage. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”