IRONHEART Read online

  They also didn't like poachers, and from time to time they had trouble with out-of-season hunters who wanted to bag an elk or a moose.

  So he would just go up and check things out.

  Before he got halfway across the meadow, however, his quarry figured out he'd been spotted. With a roar of his motorcycle engine, he took off into the trees, giving Gideon a view only of a flash of sun off metal.

  Dirt biker, Gideon thought, listening to the engine roar fade with distance. He stood there for a minute, clenching and unclenching his fists, angry at the intruder. For a long time he'd lived in cities, and he'd never owned property, so his territory had been limited to his personal space. Suddenly the Double Y seemed to have become his territory, and it irritated the hell out of him that some idiot had flouted the signs and ridden his bike all over Sara and Zeke's property. What was it with people like that? he wondered. Why couldn't they respect other people's rights?

  He turned at the sound of boots moving through the grass and saw Zeke approaching. "Dirt biker," he said.

  Zeke nodded. "I heard him. Don't go after them yourself, Ironheart. You never know when one might be armed. It just isn't worth it."

  "Makes me almost want to string wire here and there as a lesson."

  Zeke shook his head. "Think of the horses. They'd be the ones to suffer. Come on. It's just one biker. Let's go get some coffee."

  "Where's Chester?" Gideon asked as they walked toward the house.

  "He headed back to town."

  "Why doesn't he just stay up here in the bunkhouse? I sure wouldn't mind."

  "Chester hasn't taken a dime from anybody in his life," Zeke said. "He'd feel like he was taking charity, and he wouldn't like it. Besides, he'd miss playing checkers over at Bayard's Garage."

  That was another one of the local charms, Gideon thought. A bunch of old coots settled on chairs beneath the tree at the corner of Bayard's Garage and played checkers with each other by the hour, weather permitting. On the couple of occasions he'd gone by, he'd stopped to watch them play. They sat there, chewing tobacco, telling tales as tall as the Rockies, and laughing the hearty, wheezy laughter of old men. Dirk provided a spittoon and kept the price on his soft-drink machine at cost for them.

  Just another one of those things that got a man to thinking that Conard County wouldn't be a bad place to grow old.

  The house was quiet when they entered, no sound issuing from the other rooms or the upstairs. Sara must have decided to take a nap, Gideon thought. He'd been a little surprised to see her up and about at noon when Cumberland had arrived, because she'd worked the graveyard shift last night.

  He didn't like her working graveyard. He'd stewed about it the last two nights while she did it, and it hadn't helped to tell himself that it was none of his business and that she'd been doing it for years. It didn't help to remind himself that she was a trained, experienced cop and that she carried a gun she knew how to use.

  Simple fact was, Gideon Ironheart was old-fashioned in some ways. Some women might even consider him a male chauvinist, though they would be wrong. He was perfectly willing to acknowledge that a determined woman could do anything a man could. And Sara was a determined woman. He had no doubt she was a damn good cop, too. That wasn't the problem. The problem was, he had been raised to believe that a man owed a woman his protection. The nuns hadn't been plagued with any notions of female equality. They'd raised the boys to be chivalrous and protective. His uncle and grandfather had done little to disturb those ideas. Men were the warriors. Period.

  All of that made it hard to stand back and be silent when a woman went ahead and did something dangerous. Something a man ought to be doing. That was all.

  But he kept his mouth shut, because it really wasn't any of his business, because he knew that women felt differently about such things, and tried to ignore his discomfort.

  Zeke made a fresh pot of coffee and then joined Gideon at the table. With little in the way of livestock, the pace at the Double Y was sometimes downright lazy.

  "You getting restless yet, boy?" Zeke asked.

  Gideon shook his head. "Not at all, old man. I don't get restless that easy."

  "Then how come you never settled down?"

  Gideon turned his head a little, looking out the screen door, across the porch and yard to the mountains behind the barn. Wildflowers bobbed their colorful heads along the corral fence, adding color to a green-and-blue world.

  "Did you know," he said slowly, "my people—the Cherokee—had a democratic government and a constitution before Jackson drove them from Georgia? One of my people created an alphabet for our language without even being able to read English. All he did was understand the idea of written language. We built brick homes and schools. We had our own newspaper. We married and intermarried, farmed, and trusted Andy Jackson because he was our friend."

  He turned and looked at Zeke. "Then they drove us out of our homes and sent us on the long walk, the Trail of Tears. They drove us clear to Oklahoma, and we died in the thousands on that march. But some of us survived, and we built homes and farms and married and had children… And then came the discovery of oil. They drove us out of our homes again, and we rebuilt again. We're not restless by nature, old man. We're builders, survivors. Adaptable and strong. But not restless."

  "And you?" Zeke said.

  Gideon shrugged. "I moved on because I never found anything that made me want to stay once the job was done. I hate to be idle."

  When the coffee was ready, Gideon rose to fill their mugs. He hadn't missed the stiffness of Zeke's movements, and while the old man didn't let his arthritis keep him from doing a single thing, Gideon couldn't see any reason not to spare him some of the little stuff.

  "Thanks," Zeke said.

  Gideon returned to his seat, crossing his legs loosely and fixing his attention on the world beyond the open windows and screen door. He didn't know why he'd brought up all that stuff about Cherokee history except that it was about the only thing he had that gave him a sense of his place in the scheme of things. He sure as hell didn't know a damn thing about his European half. The half that was probably responsible for the way he moved on when the job finished. The half that was undoubtedly responsible for his inability to feel that he belonged anywhere.

  Zeke startled him out of thought. "You need a vision quest, boy."

  Gideon turned, facing Zeke directly. "You've done it?"

  "Many times. I had my first vision when I was ten, and my second one before I asked Alma to marry me." Zeke gave a faint, rueful smile. "A man has to give serious thought to what he's about to do when he considers marriage to any woman, but most especially when she's of another race and culture. My mind and heart were both troubled, so Chester took me to a wichasha wakan—holy man—and I followed the Lakota rite."

  "You've known Chester all this time?" The thought of a friendship spanning more than fifty years was rather awe-inspiring.

  "We were orphans together in the mission school. I don't know if you know anything about it, but most of the Lakota religious practices were outlawed in the last century. In fact, the massacre at Wounded Knee came about as an attempt to prevent a Ghost Dance. Then, in 1923, Congress passed the Religious Crimes Act, which outlawed the practice of all Indian religions, so things got even worse. I was a small child at the time, but the primary effect of it for me was that I needed a friend to direct me in secret to a holy man, one who wasn't even of my own people. All of it was done in such secrecy."

  "And you married her?"

  Zeke smiled. "I married her. I guess the most surprising thing was that her father didn't raise any objections. There are times when the strands of destiny weave together seamlessly, and without the least struggle your dreams come to pass. But first you must dream."

  First you must dream. Maybe three or four times in a lifetime, if a man was lucky, he heard a truth that he recognized in his soul. This was one of those times, and Gideon sat perfectly still as he let it fill him and settle in. When
had he last dreamed? he wondered suddenly. When had he last dreamed anything at all?

  "Just let me know," Zeke said presently. "I can arrange it all."

  The sound of footsteps alerted them to the fact that Sara was up and about again. A few moments later she appeared in the kitchen, her cheeks still flushed from sleep and her long, inky hair caught back in a loose ponytail. Smothering a yawn, she bent to kiss her grandfather's cheek, then joined them at the table with a mug of coffee

  "Where's Chester?" she asked her grandfather. "I thought you were going to ask him to dinner."

  "I did, but he had other plans. You're stuck with just the two of us again, Sarey."

  She gave her grandfather a teasing smile. "I don't know if I can stand it."

  Zeke chuckled and reached over to pat her thigh, while Gideon wrestled with a sudden surge of the desire he was trying to ignore. She looked so sweet just now, softened by sleep, and her black-satin voice was even huskier than usual, brushing over his nerve endings like the seductive touch of warm, smooth skin.

  Maybe, he found himself thinking, he ought to ask her out. Just one date, on which he could kill two birds with one stone. He could tease himself a little, which always felt good, however frustrating, and maybe he could get her to talk about Micah Parish. His conscience objected a little at his mixed motives, but he reminded himself that having mixed motives was a far cry from dishonesty.

  Sara looked at him. "You look like you're pondering the fate of the world."

  "He's giving some thought to Hanblecheyapi," Zeke said, using the Lakota word for the ceremony, speaking of it as if it were a natural thing, not an embarrassing one at all.

  Sara looked at Gideon with renewed interest. "Really? You're thinking about crying for a vision?"

  Gideon squirmed uncomfortably. After a lifetime in the Anglo world, some things just didn't feel comfortable. He wanted to change the subject—fast. "Partly. And partly I'm thinking about asking you to have dinner with me."

  Over the years, Gideon had experienced all kinds of reactions from women when he asked them out, everything from borderline ecstasy to utter indifference, but he didn't think he'd ever made a woman turn as white as bleached cotton.

  Sara felt as if something inside her were about to splinter. No man had asked her out in ten years, and she had come to believe she was completely unattractive. She had also come to believe that she liked it that way. Abruptly, she knew she didn't like it that way at all, but she also couldn't suddenly believe that she was attractive. That any man could be interested. That Gideon Ironheart could be doing anything except making fun of her.

  "I… No!" Rising swiftly, she left the room, and her footsteps could be heard mounting the stairs.

  Gideon looked at Zeke. "What the hell did I do? Apart from maybe moving too fast, that is."

  "That's for her to explain," Zeke said impassively, dark eyes almost watchful.

  "Then how about some advice, old man?" He was troubled by Sara's reaction, by the inexplicable feeling that he had harmed her in some way. A partly guilty conscience didn't help.

  Zeke chose his words carefully, betraying nothing. "Maybe you haven't given her any reason to think you find her attractive."

  Gideon's mouth opened to answer, but no words emerged. He had been about to argue that a dinner invitation was ipso facto a declaration of interest but he realized that wasn't necessarily so. "Does she date at all?"

  "No."

  Well, that didn't shock him. He wouldn't date at all himself, except it was part of the mating game, and a man had a biological urge that had to be satisfied occasionally. He tended to avoid women like Sara, though. Women who didn't know the rules. Maybe he ought to just drop this now.

  But he remembered her shocked expression and the way she had paled, and he knew he couldn't drop it. He had hurt her somehow, however unintentionally, and he just wasn't capable of leaving things that way. He looked at Zeke. "She's upstairs? In her bedroom?"

  The old Shoshone nodded.

  "What will you do if I go up after her?"

  The faintest of smiles touched the corners of Zeke's mouth. "I'm an old man. What would you expect me to do?"

  "Fight like a warrior to protect your own."

  Zeke gave a small nod. "But sometimes true protection is not always doing the obvious thing."

  Gideon pushed back from the table. "I'm going up."

  From the kitchen he walked through a dining room that was graced by a scarred but polished cherrywood table and eight chairs with worn embroidered seat covers. Probably as old as this house, he thought as worn carpet silenced his steps. The dining room opened directly onto a living room furnished with the overstuffed pieces of another era, and everything—everything—showed signs of age, wear and care. Poor but proud, that was the history of the Yates family.

  The staircase rose at the far end of the living room, along the wall right beside the front door. As soon as his booted feet hit those wooden treads, they were no longer silent. Sara could hear his approach, and he wondered if she would lock her door. Damn, why hadn't he thought this through a little more before he blurted out that invitation? What had seemed like a good idea five minutes ago suddenly looked like the ultimate in stupidity.

  She didn't lock him out. She hadn't even closed her door. Maybe she didn't really believe he would have the gall to follow her. Maybe she had thought those footsteps on the stairs were her grandfather's. Whatever, he found her in the first bedroom on the left. She stood with her back to the door as she stared out the window. Sheer curtains waved lazily in the breeze, wrapping from time to time around her jean-clad legs. Her arms were tightly wrapped around herself, a defensive posture he felt as much as he saw.

  "Sara?"

  She sighed, a heavy, sad sound, but didn't turn around. "I'm sorry, Gideon. I was unforgivably rude."

  "Not to worry." He stepped into the room and looked around with quick curiosity. If a woman lived here, no one would ever guess. The room was sexless and sterile—except for the tiny pink stuffed cat tucked away on the corner of the dresser. "I guess I took you by surprise."

  "Mmm." Still she didn't face him. "Did my grandfather tell you to come up here?"

  "Not exactly."

  "Well, I apologize, but I'm not going to change my mind, so you might as well go."

  He stared at her stiff back, noticing its graceful, slender line, noticing just how small the bones beneath her creamy skin were. She was a woman, all right. A woman in hiding for some reason.

  "Thanks for telling me," he said quietly. "For a minute there, I thought I was going to have to beg."

  It took a moment, but at last a chuckle rose in her, shaking her shoulders and spilling over her lips, a gentle cascade of sound. God, he thought, that laugh was an aphrodisiac! She turned, still chuckling, to face him. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes sparkled with amusement.

  "Nothing throws you, does it?" she remarked.

  "Very little." He stepped closer. "I have to admit, it throws me a little when I ask a woman to dinner and she turns as white as a sheet."

  Her smile faded. "Are you asking for an explanation?" She was looking wary again, he noticed. A lot like that mustang outside.

  "Naw," he said casually, easing closer, keeping his voice soothing. "It's none of my business."

  "That's right."

  "But I wondered if maybe you have something against Cherokees."

  She blinked, obviously astonished. "Why would I? And how was I supposed to know you're Cherokee?"

  He shrugged and moved a little closer. "You're at least a quarter Shoshone, right? Well, for all I know, there's bad blood between our tribes."

  She was watching him in helpless fascination, so distracted by his crazy suggestion that she was utterly oblivious to his close approach. Sleight of hand, that was what it was, and she was falling for it.

  "I never heard of any bad blood," she said. "And really, I didn't know you were Cherokee until just now, when you told me."

 
"Actually, I'm half Cherokee."

  "Like Micah Parish. He's half Cherokee and half European."

  "Yeah?" He was only a foot away from her now, and he halted. "So you didn't turn me down because of my blood?"

  She blinked. "Good Lord, no!"

  "Then why?"

  "Because I don't want to be a fool again." The words were out before she could stop them, and before she could take them back, he covered her mouth with the hard, callused palm of his hand.

  "Shh," he said, calming her as he had calmed the mustang. "Easy, Sara. I don't want to make a fool of anybody. Not you. Not me."

  "Then why…?" The words vibrated against his hand, and her wide brown eyes never left his face.

  "Because you turn me on, lady," he said bluntly, watching color flood her cheeks all the way to the roots of her hair. "I figure that's worth looking into." He dropped his hand, but she didn't attempt to speak. "Maybe it'll wear off in a couple of hours and I can forget about it. Maybe it won't. There's only one way to find out. Go out with me tonight, Sara Jane Yates."

  Sara stared up at him, unaware that every bit of her yearning, every bit of her uncertainty, was showing in her eyes right now. Gideon Ironheart said she turned him on, and her insides clenched when she thought of him saying that. This incredibly virile man, so much older and more experienced than she, wanted to take her out because she turned him on. Oh, God! It was at once a dream come true and a terrifying threat. Whatever it was that men really wanted, Sara Yates knew she didn't have enough of it. George's defection had made that clear.

  She licked her lips. "I don't think—" She couldn't finish. She couldn't bring herself to say no.

  "Please?" He coaxed her the way he would have coaxed a shy horse. He didn't mind asking. A man too proud to ask never got anything.

  Finally she nodded, apparently unable to voice even so much as a yes.

  "Good," he said with a broad smile. He turned and walked to the bedroom door, where he paused and looked back. "Tonight at seven," he told her. "Wear jeans and bring a warm jacket."

  * * *