Cry of the Hawk

She offered one to Jonah. He took one, then a second slice, glancing at the back of the lodge where Pipe Woman sat side-legged, the blankets pulled up beneath her chin. She was no longer looking at him the same way she had the day they met. Now, instead, there was an expression of horror on her face.

Jonah couldn’t blame her. What he’d done … But, hell, he’d done it for her too.

Shad asked, “He say when they come north?”

“Half a year at the most, from what Laughing Jack told us. Says Usher figures to be slow at moving west—back to Deseret. With their prisoners. Gritta and Hattie.”

“Usher won’t give her away, Jonah. Remember that. Not until someone finds Fordham.”

“They better not—or I’ll kill Fordham myself.”

He watched Jonah stand, finishing the last of his coffee. “Where you heading?”

“Don’t see any use in burning daylight, Shad.”

“Doesn’t answer where—so a man knows how to find you.”

“East from here. First I’ll check around Sedgwick down on the South Platte. Wander on to McPherson, and Kearny. Don’t hear any word there, I’ll push on south a bit into Kansas. Someone—soldier or civilian—at one of the posts will hear of that bunch. If they’re going back to Mormon country—there’s one good way to get there.”

“Then why the hell don’t you stay here and wait for ’em to come marching by, Jonah?”

He shook his head. “Can’t take the chance I’ll miss ’em. Can’t sit still—just waiting. I got to be looking.”

“I understand, son.”

Hook glanced at Pipe Woman a moment. Wishing there were something he could say to her, to make her see that he wasn’t a violent man. But what else had he shown her? The look in her eyes last night when he was preparing to draw down on the man hurting her … the look in her eyes for that instant last night when she and Toote saw Jonah opening Jack’s neck like a hog at slaughter—before Shad shooed them back into the lodge.

What do you say to such a beautiful young woman who you felt such an arousal for, such a heated yearning to feel flesh against flesh—but now saw in her eyes nothing but fear and loathing for you? He told himself maybe it was better this way—after all, she was Shad’s daughter. And he had a wife out there … somewhere. Better in the long run that he just go.

“I’ll be moving out now,” he said quietly, pushing aside the door flap and stepping from the lodge into the cold.

Sweete and his family joined Hook in the gray light of early dawn.

“You need help—wire me here. The colonel will get word to me, for certain,” Sweete said. He folded Hook into his arms.

Toote came into him next, murmuring some Cheyenne. Then she backed up, mist in her eyes, and said in English, “Thank … Pipe Woman … safe now.”

He nodded, self-consciously, then turned to take up the halter on the pack horse. That’s when she shuffled close, standing there so close he could smell her. Jonah turned, finding Pipe Woman at his shoulder, those wide eyes still filled with fear. But, perhaps now no longer any fear of the violence he knew was inside him—but fearful instead of what violence might do to him.

She put out her arms and came into him, her head buried against his bony chest.

“Thank you, Jonah Hook,” she said, quietly against his wool coat.

He smelled her hair, drinking in its fragrance of smoke and hides and sage, deeply.

Then turned quickly, mounted his horse, and jammed heels into its flanks so that none of them could see the hot tears.

44

Early Spring, 1868

SPRING HAS a way of slipping in on the plains like no other season.

Summer is always upon that land before you know it. Autumn arrives in the nonchalant way of a shy suitor. And winter usually blusters in with a fury, bravado, and sometimes sheer terror.

But spring most often of all sneaks up on a man with the seductive secrecy of a woman. Here he had been living through each winter day and night, surviving. Not really noticing that the sunlight grows longer by a few minutes each day. Perhaps not really noticing any change in the snowpack, realizing that what snow comes might be a little wetter, the winds a little stronger at times.

So it is with this beguiling seductive quality that spring arrives on the plains. Just like a woman will slip in on a man and tangle up his heart when he least realizes it. And when he finally opens his eyes one morning, she is there, she is everywhere, she is with him. And he is hooked. Madly, irretrievably in love.

Spring had come to the plains.