The Guardian Read Free Page B

ears for the sound of footsteps or voices. When she could no longer stand the silence, she raised the edge of the heavy quilt.
    Choking gray smoke stung her eyes and flooded her lungs.
    The wagon was on fire.

CHAPTER TWO
    C HARITY’S FIRST IMPULSE was to clamber out of the wagon and dash for safety. But there was no safety to be found. Above the hissing and crackling of the flames, she could hear the triumphant whoops of the Blackfoot braves. She could almost picture them dancing around the wagon, celebrating as they watched it burn. If she tried to escape, they would be on her like a pack of coyotes on a wounded sheep.
    Forced to choose, she weighed the prospect of a brief but agonizing death against the horrors she’d heard described in whispers around nighttime campfires. The baby was her biggest concern. Surely it would be more merciful for the small life to be snuffed out now, inside her body, than to suffer the terror that waited outside the wagon.
    Charity pressed her face against a knothole in the floor and gulped the precious air. No, she resolved, she wasn’t ready to die. Somehow she would survive. She would live to have this baby, to see her child grow up and to cradle her grandchildren on her lap. She would live, heaven help her, or die fighting.
    The crackle of burning canvas, soaked in linseed oil for waterproofing, had become a roar. Sparks were dropping like fiery hail on the surface of the quilt. Charity heard the popping sound as they struck the thick fabric and began to smolder. She thought of the water barrel, which sat just a few feet away, now hopelessly out of reach. Why hadn’t she had the foresight to soak the quilt with water? She should have known that if the Indians attacked, they would set fire to the wagons.
    Little cat tongues of flame were licking their way through the quilt. A red sheet of agony spread through Charity’s body as they reached the back of her dress and began to consume the worn cotton fabric.
    She could no longer hear the shouts of the young braves, but by now it would have made no difference if they’d been screaming in her ears. The fire had reached her. Seconds from now, if she could not get out of the wagon, she and her baby would be dead.
    Choking and blinded by smoke, she groped her way to the rear of the wagon. She could feel the skin blistering on her back as she found the tailgate and the iron hook that held it in place. Only the pain kept her moving. She could feel her reason ebbing, feel her mind sinking into a smoky black void.
    With the last of her conscious strength, she worked the hook free. As the darkness closed in, her frantic lunge shoved the tailgate open and her momentum carried her forward over its edge. With her gown smoking, Charity dropped to the ground, rolled onto her back and lay still.
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    B LACK S UN had followed the deer trail, which zigzagged down through the pines and into the ghost-pale aspens. By the time he emerged from the trees, he was east of the bluff, a safe distance from where he had seen the Siksika youths. He had heard the gunfire echoing in the distance but had willed himself to ignore it and to keep moving. Let his enemies destroy each other. He had no more use for the Siksika than he did for the Nih’oo’oo.
    He had dismounted and was watering his horses at a spring when the cry of a golden eagle called his gaze upward. High above, he could see the outline of the great bird against the blue sky. On wings that stretched as wide as his own arms, it was soaring lazily westward, toward the place where a rising column of gray smoke gave testament to what had taken place.
    Black Sun studied the smoke with narrowed eyes. Burning wagons could mean only one thing—the Siksika youths had won their fight. Even now they would be galloping home with their trophies—horses, guns, ammunition, whiskey and anything else they could lay their hands on. The prizes might even include a few white captives,