to get involved.
Miranda squared her jaw, her decision made. She would instruct the men to leave Ahkeah at the hospital where he belonged. Then she would put the tall Navajo firmly and permanently out of her mind.
Ahkeah drifted below the brink of consciousness, struggling again and again toward the surface, only to tire and sink downward once more into the enfolding darkness. Images floated through his mind—faces from the past, scenes of misery, horror and unspeakable sadness. The broken bodies on the floor of Canyon de Chelly…wise old Ganado Mucho lying in his own blood…the rocky earth falling onto Ahkeah’s wife’s lovely, cold face….
Surrounding everything was the aura of pain, spreading outward in quivering rings from his temple, like ripples on still, black water. He moaned, struggling to break into the light, then spiraling helplessly downward once more.
The fragrant softness that surrounded his body was alien to his senses, yet strangely familiar. Even in his semiconscious state he felt the nearness of the young bilagáana woman, the lean firmness of her thighs supporting his head and shoulders, the touch of her fingers like warm snow on his face. She smelled faintly of lilacs—an aroma he remembered and hated. Now he was floating in a lilac sea, drifting in scented warmth, in and out of awareness, in and out of pain. The scent was repellant, and yet, somehow, so arousing that he felt his body respond with a deep, stirring heat.
He had never considered bilagáana women attractive. The ones he’d known had been stringy, washed-out creatures with eyes like sheep and voices like wild crows—women like Mrs. McCabe, whose husband had bought him as a small, terrified boy from a Mexican slave trader. The nine years he had spent in the McCabe household still gave him bad dreams—the whippings to “break” his spirit, the crushing labor, the stream of shrill tirades from Mrs. McCabe’s hatchet tongue when he failed to speak English perfectly. And every spring the cloying scent of the blooming bushes that ringed the McCabes’ front porch. The scent of lilacs.
Now Ahkeah floundered in the shallows of a lilac sea. His efforts to break the surface were exhausting, even though he sensed the reality that his body had not moved. His eyelids were leaden, his limbs like stone, able to feel the jarring motion beneath them but with no strength to obey his will. He was trapped in this scented dream where pain swirled and dipped like a dancer in a floating skirt. And something else was wrong—an awareness that lay like a sheet of ice beneath the dream’s liquid warmth. What was it? Some word, something the bilagáana woman had said—
The sudden chill penetrated to Ahkeah’s bones as he remembered. They were taking him to the hospital, to that place of terror and pain where the ghosts of the dead lingered and the Holy People would not go. His fears were pure superstition, the bilagáana would say. But he had visited friends who’d been taken there, and on every visit he had felt the evil in that place, and had sworn he would never allow himself or any of his family to be taken there.
Wildly now, he began to jerk and thrash, willing his limbs to move, his voice to cry out in protest. But the lilac dream held him fast. He felt the woman’s soft, cool hand stroking his forehead, heard her whispering voice as he fought his way upward, struggling into the cold night air.
The Navajo’s head jerked in Miranda’s arms. His body twitched, quivering agitatedly along its length in the wagon bed. He muttered random words—at least she supposed them to be words—in his strange language.
“It’s all right,” she repeated, soothingly, her hand brushing tendrils of coarse, black hair away from his forehead. “You’re hurt, but you’ll be well taken care of. We’re going to—”
Her words ended in a gasp as his eyes shot open.
Miranda’s heart seemed to stop as the full fury of his anthracite gaze struck her. It was as if a sleeping tiger had suddenly awakened in her arms.
“What happened?” His voice was thick, the words slurred.
“You were hit. Your head is injured, and you need to keep still.” The words tumbled out of her as the heart that had frozen an instant before broke into a frenzied gallop.
“Where am I?” he demanded. “What happened to the old woman?”
“Nothing. She ran away.” Miranda’s outrage flared at the distrust his question implied. “No one would have harmed her, Ahkeah. I would never have allowed that to happen.” Her gaze flickered away as his cold eyes reminded her that she hadn’t stopped the soldiers from harming him. “One of the men struck you down to keep you from being shot. But the blow was harder than he’d intended. It was an accident, truly….”
Good heavens, she sounded like a fool, stumbling around in the morass of her own silly words. She shook off the condemnation in his hard black eyes and forced herself to continue. “You’ll be well looked after. I can assure you of that.”
“In the hospital?” He uttered the last word with the vehemence of a curse. Then, without waiting for her to respond, he rolled off her lap into the wagon bed and pushed himself to a shaky sitting position.
The lights from the fort were much closer now. Miranda could make out the low, blocky outlines of buildings and see the flare of torchlight on adobe walls.
“Stop the wagon,” Ahkeah said, looking as if he were about to faint. “I’m getting out right here.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Miranda snapped, reaching out to steady him. “You’re badly hurt. You need to be examined by a doctor.”
“I’ll be fine. If not, my own people can take care of me.” He shook off the clasp of her steadying hand. His jaw tightened as he gripped the side board of the bouncing wagon and struggled to stand. “I know my rights, Miss Howell. I’ve broken no rules, and you can’t force me to—”
The driver glanced back over his shoulder. “Everything all right back there, miss?”
“Yes. Fine.” Miranda’s upward glance confirmed that he wasn’t reaching for his rifle. “Just get us to the fort. Hurry!”
Spurred by the urgency in her voice, the young corporal slapped the reins down on the backs of the mules. “Ha!” The buckboard shot forward as the tired animals broke into a trot. Wheels bounced and flew along the rocky surface of the road as they pushed the outriders ahead of them.
When Miranda’s gaze returned to Ahkeah, she saw that he had gained his feet and was standing in a half crouch, his leather-clad legs braced apart to support him in the jouncing wagon. His face was ashen in the moonlight, his mouth a grim line of tightly controlled pain.
“Tell your driver to stop,” he muttered between clenched teeth.
“Don’t be a fool!” Miranda snapped, glaring up at him. “You need medical attention. You need—”
“Tell him to stop! Tell him now, damn it, or I jump out on the count of three!” The whites of his eyes glittered in the moonlight. “One…two…” His legs quivered unsteadily, and his eyes had taken on a glaze. “Three…” Ahkeah’s voice trailed off as he reeled and tumbled forward into Miranda’s arms.
Chapter Three
Miranda reacted instinctively, bracing herself against Ahkeah’s falling weight and reaching up to protect his head. Having cared for men with head injuries, she’d known what to expect when he tried to get up too soon. Ahkeah’s fainting had not
