“Just don’t expect us back before morning, Rachel. She’s got a couple of hours on me.”

“No matter how long it takes, I’ll feel better just knowing you’re out looking for her.”

Jeb watched the stranger saddle up and ride out. Nice piece of horseflesh, he admitted grudgingly. Too bad the poor creature would be riding days on end for no reason. Well, it wasn’t Jeb’s fault they assumed Jessie’s Indians were reservation Indians. He hadn’t felt obliged to set them straight. His loyalty was to Jessie, no one else. He knew Jessie wouldn’t like being followed. Wasn’t she in a fit because of that man? Wasn’t he why she’d left?

It was just as well Jeb hadn’t explained that Jessie was riding to the Powder River region, an area the Army had conceded to the Indians in 1868. It was the hunting grounds of the Northern Cheyenne and their fearsome Sioux allies. When Chase Summers returned, empty-handed, in a week or so, that would be the time to set him straight. He would no doubt thank Jeb for saving him from venturing into hostile Indian territory.

Why, I probably saved his life by keeping my mouth shut, Jeb reasoned. After that, he didn’t give the matter another thought.

Chapter 4

IT was after midnight when Jessie reached the grubshack used by men working the northern range. No one slept there in the warmer months, so she had the little one-room storehouse to herself. There was even a cot. The next morning at dawn she gathered some supplies and set off. Making excellent time, she reached her destination on the evening of the third day.

Then she found she had made the trip for nothing. She stared across the winding creek at the area where, in winter, fifty tepees crowded beneath the trees. Either she was early, or they were late returning from following the buffalo north. White Thunder’s small tribe had not arrived yet.

She watched a squirrel running through the tall grass. The grass had grown well during the spring and summer. It would support the tribe’s horses for most of the winter, until the tribe moved on. Jessie stood looking around her wistfully. She had looked forward to talking to White Thunder, and she was terribly disappointed. She had not seen him since the spring, so he didn’t know that her father was dead. Now she probably wouldn’t see White Thunder until later in the fall. She wouldn’t be able to get back this way until after the fall roundup.

Jessie crossed the creek, deciding to make camp for the night. She went directly to the spot where she had spent so many nights, the place where White Thunder’s mother, Wide River Woman, always erected their tepee. But it was lonely there without her friend and his family, without the sounds of the children, without the women telling stories as they worked and the men calling triumphantly after a hunt. It seemed more lonely there than any other place on the trail had seemed.

As she spread out her bedroll and gathered wood for a fire, Jessie recalled the first time she had come to this region, eight years before. She had followed her father without his knowing it, followed him because he had a newborn baby with him, and she feared he meant to leave the baby somewhere to die. He had been furious because it was a girl, Jessie wasn’t so ignorant that she didn’t know the baby was her half sister.

Her father had brought the baby here, and she had been relieved. She wasn’t aware that he was leaving the baby with its grandmother. The Indian mistress who had lived with Thomas for a year had died giving birth. She was White Thunder’s older half sister. Jessie learned all that much later.

Wanting assurance that the baby would be safe, Jessie revealed her presence to the Indians after her father had left the camp. White Thunder’s mother guessed who Jessie was by her resemblance to her father, and because she could speak English, she and Jessie became friends. Even White Thunder’s austere stepfather, Runs with the Wolf, tolerated Jessie. He had known Thomas Blair from his early trapping days in the late 1830s, and they had long been trading friends.

Jessie came to see the baby every month that year, until the weather got too harsh for the journey. She grew close to White Thunder and his younger sister, Little Gray Bird Woman, and she flourished, having friends for the first time. Her father was not a warm man, and the Indians filled a gap in Jessie’s life.

The following year, when the weather finally permitted Jessie to travel north again, it was to find that her baby sister had died during the cruel winter. Jessie might have stopped going, but she’d found that the Indian camp was the one place where she could be herself. She could even dress like a girl, which her father wouldn’t allow. She found deepening friendships there, particularly with White Thunder.

She had the best of both worlds when she stayed with the Indians. She could stay by the tepee as young girls were supposed to, learning to sew and create beadwork, to cook, to dress and tan buffalo hides. But it was not frowned upon if she wanted to go hunting with White Thunder, or enter a horse race, or join in the boys’ games. She could get away with all of that because she wasn’t one of them, and also because she had come to them in male attire and displayed excellent male skills.

They accepted her. They called her Looks Like Woman. With her midnight hair and summer-bronzed skin, she looked like an Indian. Jessica loved her Indian name.

Thinking about the people she loved most brought to mind the man she hated most—Laton Bowdre. Middle-aged and balding, he had brown eyes that were most expressive, telling of the lechery that moved constantly through his mind. There wasn’t much to recommend the man, not his ostentatious clothes, certainly not his gaunt body. He was ugly. He reminded Jessie of a weasel, intent on nothing but his own pleasure.

The first time she met him, even while he was demanding payment on the note he had won from her father, his eyes strayed boldly over Jessie’s body. She had the feeling that if others hadn’t been there, his hands would have followed his eyes.

How right she had been. Her second run-in with the man hadn’t been so easy. Bowdre cornered her on the way to the train depot when she was about to depart for Denver and a shopping spree. There was no one around to rescue her.

She could clearly remember that purring voice.

“Fancy meeting you, Miss Blair. I barely recognized you, my dear, in a dress.”

“If you’ll excuse me.” Jessie tried to pass, but Laton Bowdre blocked her way.

“Perhaps you have something for me?” Bowdre asked smoothly.

Jessie was furious. “We agreed you would get your blood money in three months.”

The man shrugged. “I just thought you might like to pay sooner. But of course you can’t afford to, can you? How could I forget?” He grinned. “It was rather generous of me to give you time, wasn’t it? I never was thanked properly for my kindness.”

Jessie gritted her teeth. “It was decent of you,” she said woodenly.

“I’m glad you realize that. Of course, a little interest on the side wouldn’t hurt.” Before she could answer, he went on. “My dear, I might even be persuaded to wipe out a portion of your debt if you—”

“Forget it!” Jessie snapped. “You’ll get your debt—in money!”

Bowdre chuckled at her indignation and reached out a bony hand to touch her face. “Think about it. A girl needs a man. I might even consider marriage. After all, you can’t be expected to run a ranch on your own. Yes, I might consider marriage.” His hand dropped to her shoulder and started to move lower.

Jessie reacted instinctively, slugging the man with a closed fist that ended up hurting her all the way to Denver. His surprise did not appease her anger, nor did the trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.

“Don’t ever put your hands on me again, Mr. Bowdre,” she warned him icily.

“You’re going to regret that, little girl,” Bowdre said just as coldly, all pretense gone.

“I doubt it,” Jessie retorted hotly. “I might have some regrets if I were wearing my gun, because then I’d have to explain to the sheriff why I put a bullet through you. Good day, Mr. Bowdre.”

Just remembering that encounter gave her the creeps, and she pushed it from her mind.

With a fire going, Jessie cleaned the large grouse she had shot earlier that day. She cut it up, threw it in a pot of water along with some dried peas, spices, and a bit of flour, then whipped up a thick batter from her supplies and added it to the pot in chunks for dumplings. She had learned long ago never to scrimp on a meal just because she was by herself. A large meal could go a long way. It also provided the nourishment for long, tiring days in the saddle.

With the food cooking over the fire, she turned to Blackstar and gave him a good rub-down. Then she threw a blanket over him for the night. She kept her fringed deerskin jacket on for warmth. Summer was over, she realized. She wrapped her only other blanket around her legs and settled down by the fire to eat.

She was only half-finished eating when Blackstar started snorting and stomping his feet, and she knew she was no longer alone. Jessie knew better than to jump up in alarm. That was exactly what Indians would expect of a white, and she might get an arrow in her back for her foolishness. She stayed right where she was.

She waited several moments more before she spoke in a loud, clear voice, her tone friendly: “I can use the company, and I’ve food to share, if you’ll just come by the fire where I can see you.”

No one answered. Should she say it again in the Cheyenne tongue?

She still didn’t move, but she tried Cheyenne. “I am Looks Like Woman, friend of the Cheyenne. I have a fire to share and food, if you will make yourself known to me.”

Still no answer. She moved between fear and relief when ten minutes passed without a sound. Blackstar had quieted down, too. Still, it wasn’t like Blackstar to make a fuss about nothing.

And then suddenly he was there, standing beside her. Jessie’s hand flew to her chest in shock. She hadn’t heard him approach. One second the space was empty, and then those moccasined feet were there, spread apart, inches from her crossed legs.

Her eyes traveled up his long legs in fringed leggings, past the breechcloth that came only to the middle of his thighs, over the wide expanse of chest that was bare and thickly muscled. Scars there attested to his courage and endurance. White Thunder had similar scars, scars from a Sun Dance of several years past.

As her eyes moved upward, she was surprised to see a man not more than twenty-five years old. His face was arresting, with copper skin stretched over high cheekbones, a hawklike nose, and ebony eyes. The eyes revealed nothing. His black hair was long and loose in the back, with two thin braids in the front. In one braid he wore a single blue feather. A bow and arrows were slung over his shoulder. His hands were empty, showing that he did not consider her a threat.

“You’re a handsome one, aren’t you?” Jessie said as she finished looking him over.

The brave’s eyes met hers, and she blushed, realizing what she had said. But his expression didn’t change. Had he understood? She got to her feet slowly, so as not to alarm him. Then she got her first reaction from him, as the blanket fell away and he saw her skintight pants and gun holster.

Before she could think what to do, he reached for her jacket and spread it open. His eyes lingered on the soft mounds that pressed tightly against her shirt front, yet Jessie didn’t dare jerk away.

Finally he released her, and Jessie let out the breath she had been holding. “Well, now that’s settled, perhaps we can communicate. You speak English? No?” She switched to the only Indian tongue she knew. “Cheyenne? Are you Cheyenne?”

He surprised Jessie then by letting off a long stream of words in a deep, resounding voice. Unfortunately, the single word she recognized was a Dakota word.

“You are Sioux,” she concluded, disappointed, because although the Cheyenne and Sioux dialects were similar, they were not the same.

Jessie had never talked with a Sioux warrior, had only seen a few over the years, a few who had visited White Thunder’s camp. This brave was of the tribes still actively hostile to whites, tribes so powerful they had forced the Army to abandon territory. The Sioux and Northern Cheyenne had not been subdued by the whites, unlike nearly all the other Plains Indians. They had demanded the whole Powder River region as their hunting ground—and gotten it, too. And here she was, facing a Sioux warrior, and he had found her in his territory.