The Buffalo Hide

So I reread "Grey Eagle's Bride" recently to brush up on some specifics, and damn if I didn't fall in love with that book all over again. While I got mine for $.10 at a road trip yard sale in middle-of-nowhere Kentucky, if you like well written romances I seriously recommend checking it out at your local library or getting a dirt-cheap used copy off abebooks.com. Better yet, (shameless plug) sign up at igive.com for a charity cause you believe in, like:

• St. Joseph Lakota Indian School
• St. Labre Cheyenne Indian School
• Any other Native American support organization you know of

Then shop through the igive mall at abebooks.com, so a portion of your purchase goes to helping your cause. I encourage you to spend Christmas at igive.com and help others while you shop.

Also, for your listening pleasure, I've built The Buffalo Hide Soundtrack. *Allows a moment for applause* Access it here:

http://listen.grooveshark.com/playlist/The_Buffalo_Hide/85461

Click "Listen to Playlist" and enjoy! I've arranged the songs to correlate with the general outline of what I have planned for the story, so take whatever clues from it you will. ~_^ It was a very fascinating journey scouring for this music, because I discovered the instruments of all the cultures involved - Japan, the Old West, the Cheyenne - sound pretty similar. The flute and drums of the Plains Tribes could be long lost brothers to the Japanese shakuhachi flute and taiko drums, while the Japanese biwa and koto, and the Chinese ehru and pipa carry visions of American Mountain music, those bluegrass tunes that evolved from the influx of poor European immigrants. It's beautiful to hear these sounds weave together and imagine how easy it would be for people's hearts to do the same.

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha, Grey Eagle's Bride or any of the songs on my TBH soundtrack. No money no problems.

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Chapter 3 - Captive Audience

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Men don't cry, Souta repeated to himself, wiping his cheeks clean, I can't cry. I won't. Not now.

He glanced up at his father rampaging in front of the officer's desk, his voice hoarse and his heart raw, both crumbling like brittle winter bark. He turned at the choked sob his mother tried to hide behind a handkerchief Kagome had embroidered for her birthday last August.

Not when they need me.

"Mama," Souta whispered as he grasped her hand, flinching when she jumped, "Everything will be okay. They're gonna find her."

"That's not good enough!" Josiah bellowed before Haruka could answer, punching the post commander's desk with such force it cracked, smearing blood where his knuckles sliced through the skin. "This is my daughter we're talking about! I'm not going to sit here and wait for you to bring her back. I'm leading this expedition whether you like it or not!"

"You'll be watching us march by from a jail cell if you don't calm down, Mr. Henderson." Colonel Franklin F. Flint, the fort's gallant new post commander and a decorated war hero, was normally a stalwart man who kept a firm check on his emotions, but even his imposing frame couldn't contain his mounting agitation at Josiah's persistence. He couldn't allow one man to stir up dissension amongst the families of the wagon raid victims who looked to him for guidance, their numbers littered in tight clumps from the office lobby to outside past the porch steps. His sympathies could only stretch so far before order took precedence. "I will have the leader of this perilous mission be in full control of himself. That is why I commissioned Captain Flannery to the post."

Heads turned to the debonair man standing to attention astride the Post Commander's desk. As tempers flared and revenge was demanded for those killed, he'd observed discreetly, standing immobile and ignored. Now everyone looked to him expectedly. Nathan's eyes slid back in their direction, as if the dead silence had brought a wooden statue to life.

He turned crisply, clicking his heels together with a jut to his chin. "I believe we have gathered sufficient evidence to mount a fully-armed counter-offensive. Items and footprints left by the heathen attackers suggest they were Sioux traveling north, northeast from the Nebraska territory. We shall ride out and follow them, then surround them and strike them down."

"Strike them..." Josiah gaped, then his face twisted in rage. "You can't start a battle! Kagome could be killed!"

Nathan was undeterred. "Every effort will be made to the contrary, sir."

"Like it was when the tracks were fresh and you sat here on your laurels doing nothing? I've seen you make quicker decisions for stolen cattle!" Josiah challenged, his fists shaking. "Where was your ardor then?"

"I say let the soldiers go!" Another man yelled from the back, a rancher whose son had been shot through the head, "Kill 'em all and bring back their scalps so I have something to show my boy's grieving mother that justice's been done!"

"Let the Captain do what he must, Josiah," it was Mr. Bithlow's turn to add fuel to the fire, "We demand these murderers be dealt with by whatever means necessary. It's only right!"

"What if Martha'd been taken? Would you want them to shoot indiscriminately? Burn your baby alive? Huh? Would you?"

Mr. Bithlow looked upon the golden head of his daughter as she quietly cried in his arms. He had the good sense to shut his mouth, castigated and secretly grateful he wasn't in the Henderson's shoes.

As more men stepped forward and a chorus of discordant voices rose to a fervor, Souta huddled as close to his mother's wool skirts as he could, trying to disappear in the folds and smother the vitriol charging through the air like static. He could easily understand his father's madness, although that did nothing to lessen his terror at the rare sight. Nearly two days had passed since Kagome's disappearance and the military was just now getting up in arms to do something about it. It was equally, if not more surprising that so many townspeople had joined his family to demand military retaliation, but almost a dozen had died that night, and few were really concerned about Kagome.

When news had traveled from those fleeing the attack, his father and Mr. Orion Beaudine had been the first to sound the alarm. Families scattered to count their loved ones amongst the survivors, but when confronted about those missing no one from the cavallard was composed enough to give a solid answer.

Souta couldn't have run fast enough to follow his father through the crowds, leaping from person to person with the same unanswered question - "Where's Kagome?" - and when he finally caught up Josiah immediately ordered him to return to his mother's side. He hadn't listened, because at that moment there was nothing he could do but scream.

"Papa, look! Someone's coming!" He'd pointed to a horse galloping hard toward them. Pink skirts had billowed out from the saddle, but it was a teenage boy who commanded the reins and pumped his fist in the air, crying for help.

"That's Jak and Ayame," Josiah had heaved and sprinted to the fort entrance, waving them down. A heated exchange passed between them, and Souta's knees nearly buckled when Jak pulled Ayame from the horse and she collapsed, wailing uncontrollably. Somehow Josiah shook a coherent answer from the girl, and she screamed it for all to hear.

"She wouldn't get on the horse! She slapped it and trapped herself there!" Ayame had sobbed. "I saw her run into the woods. They followed her! They followed her and now she's gone!"

A weight sagged across Souta's back as he'd stood rooted to the spot like a weather-beaten sapling. He saw his mother's blue shaw flutter in the corner of his sight and gulped as her thin arms tightened around his neck. He felt her shoulders tremble as tears saturated his hair. Supporting her with the trunk of his body, he'd trained his sight on his father, waiting for the man to react.

It took Henry Jed Beaudine shoving a rifle and satchel in his hands, towing two excited paint horses, to spur him into action. He ran back with assurances that he was going to find her. It had been a long time since Souta felt so fierce a hug from his old man. He barely responded, but at his mother's turn she clung to Josiah for dear life.

Orion and Henry Jed rode up and Josiah broke away, mounting his own horse and charging back to the massacre with a bestial war cry. For hours its haunting echo floated around them and through the deserted parade grounds as luckier families garrisoned themselves inside the safety of their shops and quarters. The only eyes that watched for Kagome's return with he and his mother were the shivering oil lamps sitting on their curtained windowsills. Ayame was too distraught to look back, and Jak had enough work to do comforting her.

Three ghosts returned to them in the dead of night, the full moon's cold reflection rolling on the men's rifles and the metal buckles binding the bridles and stirrups as they rocked with the horses' tired gait. Its luminance hid nothing of the despair on his father's face. His mother half-ran, half-stumbled to the side of Josiah's horse and grabbed his empty hands. The Beaudines trailed close behind, standing as silent sentries around the weeping couple.

The men dismounted and Orion softly explained what they had found, disclaiming that it was too dark to be certain and better tracks could be gleaned by daylight. There was still hope, he'd asserted, even though at first glance it might not appear so.

When Haruka pressed, Henry Jed had segued into specifics. Something about blood and a broken wagon spoke...a field full of arrows, a few bodies, but no Kagome...

That's what they'd said.

No Kagome.

That's all Souta heard.

"I know what this is." Souta shook himself free of the memory and looked up. His father loomed toward Capt. Flannery like a bull in a pen, preparing himself to break loose. "She's not worth the effort a white girl would garner, is she? Is she? Her life isn't worth the spit in your can!"

"Josiah!"

The men retreated back to their places, stunned. Josiah stilled on his way to Nathan with his fist raised in mid-air. It wasn't any masculine threat that demanded their attention, but the brokenhearted cry of a mother, the other woman missing in their concern. Haruka couldn't rein in her tears, but her voice straightened with her spine and her face settled into an unshakeable calm as she gripped Souta's hand until it turned white.

"Please. Let's listen to what Captain Flannery has to say."

"I am obliged Mrs. Henderson," Nathan nodded in deference before turning his attention to the tense, but sublimated crowd, "Gentlemen, you know we live in dangerous times, surrounded by monsters lurking in the shadows, just waiting to kill us. Our peace treaty is just two years old and already they break it, disregarding the respect we've granted them, and for what? To attack and butcher defenseless young men and women." He glanced pointedly at Mr. Bithlow, allowing a moment as the stocky man tucked a sniffling Martha deeper into his hold. Nathan waited to make sure everyone noticed the gesture before he continued, addressing them all from fear's fiery pulpit. "My strategy to engage them in battle is not to put Ms. Henderson in danger. I will rescue her and make sure no redskin is left behind to terrorize any of your children in the future. It is my duty to cleanse this plague, and I humbly ask for your invaluable support," his gaze brushed across Josiah and the Beaudines, "just not as civilian scouts on a mission of military significance."

Josiah struggled to submit. "But–"

Nathan bowed sharply, cutting him off, "With due respect, Mr. Henderson, your family needs you here. I am more than capable of returning your daughter safely. Please place your trust in me."

Orion put a hand on Josiah's shoulder and leaned in, pleading privately, "Josiah, we can't track an entire war party on our own. We need the military's resources for something this big. Henry Jed or I can stay behind to help you with anything you need, but you've got to let the Captain go on or things could get a lot worse."

"I won't make you do that. I just..." Josiah's face crumpled and he looked down, words escaping him.

The crowd regrouped and looked questionably to Col. Flint, who sighed and leaned back in his chair, popping its joints as he rolled his shoulders. "Direct any further inquiries to Capt. Flannery. He is in charge."

They turned to him with doubt stinging their tongues, but he held up his hand, snuffing their questions instantly. "A patrol is already assembling on the parade grounds to leave at my signal. We understand your concerns and the gravity of the situation, and plan to conduct ourselves accordingly. You have my solemn vow," Nathan finished, his confidence impregnable, "I have every intention of making them pay."

-----

"Kagome."

A woman's voice cut through a dreamy haze. Kagome's mind fumbled for the solid sound. "Wha–"

"Kagome. Wake up." She spoke firmly, like an older sister.

"Who–"

Apparently the woman wasn't keen on patience. Her face, the details blackened by the blinding halo behind her, loomed above Kagome's cloudy vision as phantom hands shook her shoulders. "Remember, girl, and wake up. Your captain has come."

Images from the night before rained down in a torrent, memories churned up like a river's raging rapids. She saw a pale man charge like a vengeful ghost at two dark Indian braves, knocking them both to the ground with one swift swing apiece, right before she fainted. That focused gleam in his eye and that calculated skill in the way he struck them was evidence of an experienced hunter, Kagome was sure. She'd witnessed a similar glint in her father's eye the day he'd shot at a few bandits who dared to prowl around their farm. The memory still made her shiver.

For some reason her queasiness at the memory wouldn't go away, and her teeth chattered uncontrollably. A jolt of damp cold across her stomach woke her with what would've been a scream had a large, calloused hand not clamped itself over her mouth. She bucked under the vice, flailing her legs and arms and howling like a rabid dog until it wasn't just a flash of ice down her side, but her entire body dunked under the water of a snow-fed creek.

The same hand released her mouth to steady her neck, lifting her out of the water so she could sputter the icicles and indignation from her lungs.

"Whu-what the hell? Who do you think you are?" She screamed, frightening a few blackbirds from the blanket of rusted boughs overhead. The firm grasp disappeared and she opened her eyes, flopping backward and freezing at the sight.

Staring at her from an uncomfortably close proximity was the strange man from the night before, or at least, she tried to convince herself he wasn't some sort of native kami. Or demon, she swallowed, her melodramatic imagination bombarded with more of her mother's folktales. No man she'd ever seen was so unearthly beautiful.

According to his clothing, he was Indian as well, but everything else was everything but. He wore what most Indian men would in late autumn, a fitted buckskin shirt and matching leggings that did little to hide the hard berth of his body, but she'd never seen a set so bleached before. If it wasn't for the yellowed seams along the fringe and red paint lining the cuffs and shoulders, she would've been sure he wore the rest of her white buffalo hide. Only his breechclout, draping across the ground with a length that made her blush, stood out with its bright ochre paint and bold blue trim at the bottom. His moccasins were so heavily beaded in black they disappeared beneath his bent legs like roots in soil.

The skin peeking from under his buckskin shirt was deeply tanned, but his unbound hair - and it was a sin to call it something so human - was so blonde it might as well have been white. Lamb's wool white. Except those areas the leafy shadows couldn't reach, where the strands held the filtered sunlight for ransom; those gleamed like newly minted silver. A breeze kicked up a pewter eagle feather dangling securely at the back of his crown and rustled the sparse fringe along his brow, waving her attention over to his eyes.

That's not the gold of Ayame's mother's heirloom broach, Kagome assured herself, those are definitely his eyes.

They studied her just as fiercely and penetratingly as her brief memory of them last night, but the darkness had dampened their stunning color. Like looking squarely into the noonday sun, she had to squint her own eyes to perceive them correctly. Their lightness was normally reserved for the airy greens and blues belonging to white men, but the tawny shade was a pale imitation of the deep, walnut brown people of so many heritages passed to their children, especially Indians; the woodland color of her mother's eyes she could've had as well.

She couldn't even begin to speculate where he came by such alien features.

Glancing again across his stolid face, she tensed, realizing why his appearance was so arresting. War paint slashed in striking contrast against his precious metal palette, two mulberry red stripes highlighting the prominent bones of each dark cheek and a blueberry crescent moon sitting on the sky of his forehead, obscured by his hair like a cloudy night. All at once, there were too many colors to contend with, too much ethereality to handle. The full scope of him was like trying to take in the entire prairie landscape in one brief glance; it was impossible without becoming dizzy.

Feeling her sight tilt at a nauseating angle, Kagome dismissed his unblinking attention to digest her surroundings. Didn't she see the misty outline of a woman before she woke up completely? Hadn't she attended to her in kindness? Surely she didn't abandon Kagome to the whims of the youkai man currently sizing her up for what was undoubtedly nefarious plans. She wouldn't just vanish, would she?

I swear I heard a woman's voice, Kagome thought, Where is she?

She heaved in a full breath, turning her eyes left and right as panic simmered in her belly. There was no evidence another woman had been there, not even her mirage.

Please don't say I was imagining things!

Every tree looked indistinguishable from its neighbor and every brambled vine tangled together, blocking any escape route like a barbed hunter's trap. There was no trace of civilization, no sign of human help, just feral animals and suffocating wilderness.

Just him.

On instinct she reached around her shoulders for her white buffalo hide, wanting desperately to disappear under its comfort and wake up in her bed, relieved that it was all a nightmare, but she only found air.

Oh no, she squeezed her eyes shut, forcing the moment to evaporate like every dream should, no no no no! Where's my pelt? I couldn't have lost it! It protected me...

When her fingers clawed her sleeves, coming up empty, Kagome never wanted to surrender to hysteria so much in her life. She couldn't lose that pelt; just the night before she'd vowed to take better care of it. As a gift from her father, it was the only security she could hold on to until he could protect her in the flesh. How was she supposed to stay strong now? Just a touch of its softness always cleared her head, sweeping away any anxiety with the fortified vision of her family's hearth fire. Now it was gone, all that hope, left somewhere in the woods like rotting game.

An animal nickered behind her, the guttural sound impatient, but she didn't have the courage to search for its source until the Indian's sight flicked to a spot behind her head. It was risky to chance a corroborating glance, as there was no telling what he would do with the opportunity, but common sense was always severely inhibited when under extreme duress, at least where she was concerned. She darted one quick look, then did a double take, eyeing a pinto stallion tied to a tree not far from the stream bank, the beast looking bored as it swatted its tail at flies lighting on leather saddlebags draped over its flank and dipped its head to nibble on some grass.

Hmph. She shot the horse an impetuous glare. I'm glad somebody's feeling safe and calm. Stupid, selfish donkey.

She corralled her attention back to the man at her side. His gaze had settled its home upon her again, remaining intense and hypnotic. It held her more securely than any ropes ever could, and she wondered how many prisoners he'd captured with just one look alone. When it fell to a spot on her torso, she followed it down, startled to find a freshly cleansed wound. It was ugly and puckered, scabbed, inflamed and definitely needing stitches.

This is from the wagon train attack. That means...

"Am I your captive? What are you going to do with me?" She whispered hoarsely. He looked peeved at her comment, as if such an idea was ridiculously below him, and she couldn't help but feel she insulted him. The quick stab of guilt at his reaction brought her up short. Seriously, what else is she supposed to think? Here they were, probably miles away from her home by now, going God knows where, and she's bleeding all over her beautiful dress with not a legitimate doctor in sight.

"I'm bleeding!" She squealed. He stared at her with one dark brow unscrupulously arched as if she was daft for just now figuring this out.

"I need a doctor!" His face relaxed in comprehension, but the conviction in his eyes was relentless. He shook his head with a firm, echoing 'no' and lifted one of his strong hands with her beloved white buffalo pelt in its grasp.

"This belongs to me."

Now Kagome had seen honey before, on the Post Trader's shelves, in a lovely tin pot on her kitchen table every morning at breakfast, complete with the little metal comb so she could spread its sweetness over her toast, hell, it congealed to amber right in front of her in his astonishing eyes. But in that moment, she was convinced she was the first person in all of creation to hear what honey sounded like. And really, she shouldn't have been surprised it would drizzle its golden tones from lips sculpted like his.

Kagome distinctly forgot to process exactly what it was he said.

"Oh. Alright."

Eyes narrowing, the pale-haired brave looked vaguely taken aback at her sudden acquiescence. With those lips thinning in a cautious glare, he pressed his advantage. "I will take it back to my village."

"Yeah?" she said distractedly. "Okay."

"With you inside."

Cognizance chose that moment to flick her between the eyes. "Sounds fine with...hey, wait a minute! I'm not going anywhere with you!"

He muttered something unintelligible, and no doubt insulting, under his breath.

An unbridled rage registered up her water-numbed limbs as she took stock of what he held. "Give that back to me, you thief!"

His expression climbed a cliff face, stony and eroded clean of any trace of emotion. If it wasn't for those damned eyes she'd be convinced he turned to marble. She took his immobility as a chance to snatch her pelt away, but as soon as she lunged he sprang back like an antelope, dangling it just out of her reach.

"I don't care what you think. That's not yours! My father gave it to me! Now give it back!" She attacked again and a searing pain ripped through her abdomen. Kagome groaned and doubled over in the creek, soaking her bodice to her skin.

The Indian looped an arm around her shoulders, lifted her out and sat her back down on dry land, holding her firm until she put her hands out to support herself.

"Please give me my pelt," she brattled pitifully, "Please just let me go."

He didn't speak, but she heard his answer in the way he ignored her and stood to walk back to his horse, where he folded her precious pelt neatly and sat it upon his saddle, then cleared and rearranged the provisions in his saddlebags to make ample room, tucking it carefully inside. He stood out like a bleached ox skull next to his stallion's dark desert hues, a forbidding reminder of the deadly command he employed the night before against his Indian brethren, who she just realized were no where to be found.

"Where are the other two?"

He secured the sparsely beaded flap on the saddlebag and turned around with another raised brow. Somehow she knew it would translate as an irritated "Who?".

Done with his games, she retorted with an expression full of "Duh!", "The two who were after me. What did you do with them?"

She could see the subtle puff of his chest and the smug superiority in his gaze as he walked back to his place, that silent, male gloat of victory, and her stomach dropped so fast it could've drowned her in the shallow water.

"They will never be able to get you now." He was very sure of himself.

Oh sweet Lord God Almighty. She deduced in an instant. He killed them!

Her mind ran circles around "Will he do the same to me?". A name cowered on her tongue, the perfect label for a monster like him, so aristocratically proud of his atrocity. Her eyes scanned his broad, toned body for scalps or other bloody proof of his conquest. With the air of a prince, he sat in perfect stillness and flexed his arms across his chest, telling her without words he was openly posturing for her perusal.

Such a pompous cur. Such a pompous...savage...killer...murderer...oh God!

The name fell out in a terrified wheeze.

"Sesshoumaru!"

His pride visibly deflated and he stared at her like she'd grown another head. No, no, two heads would be bad. Then he'd have to kill you twice! Hell, I'd want to keep both heads! Yes and yes!

"I need to go home!" she whined. The brave scowled again, but it wasn't quite as threatening as before. Kagome was convinced she was in the first stages of delirium, because she swore there was the slightest hint of sympathy in that frown, one drip from his frigid facade, and she couldn't help but notice how utterly handsome he was even with such a sour look on his face. What would this man look like smiling? And what the hell was wrong with her to be wondering something so asinine when she's bleeding half to death?

"You are injured."

"That's why I need to go home! I need a doctor! Just give me my pelt and let me go!"

"No." he challenged her firmly. She lagged in surrender, suddenly aware of how exhausted she was and unable to force any more retaliation out of her mouth. "We are closer to my village than we are to yours. I can heal you. Then I will take your pelt and bring you back to the fort."

Closer to...just how long have I slept? She thought ruefully. With a man I don't even know? An Indian man, at that?

The annoying little voice she effectively kept prisoner during the majority of her decisions - reason, some called it - peeped for her attention. Perhaps she should give him some credence, considering he'd already had days to kill her and she was very much alive, her frozen, waterlogged dress and washed wound proof enough of that.

Defeated, she bowed her head to curtail the evidence of tears. With a heavy sigh, the brave brought his hand up to her waist, touching her wound so tepidly she sucked in a feverish breath.

"It is almost washed." he murmured. "I will continue." She never would've expected him to warn her with the patience one used for a frightened child. The oddity of the action jarred her focus and she swallowed her panic, at a loss of how to interpret this strange man.

When he finished, he stood promptly and drew her up alongside him. Pain exploded in her side and her unused legs gave out. She fell to her knees but he barely stumbled, his grip a snug harness under her arms. Kagome clamped her mouth shut, sealing a vagrant scream inside. She wasn't in the mind to debate why she was unwilling to cry in front of him; her pride was always contentious. As the pain subsided, her body immediately registered their closeness. Her nose twitched inches away from the flexed bicep hidden under his smooth buckskin shirt. She imagined a few veins growing more pronounced as he strained to keep her erect.

Um... Her last shard of modesty went up in smoke. I have clearly been hanging out with Jak too long. Damn dirty mind!

Dread hid a beehive in her stomach. I take it back, God. It's not long enough. Please... let me see the people I love again.

Almost in response to her thought, his hands flexed along her skin, reminding her why she'd tripped down that rabbit hole to begin with. Sweat beaded along her hairline. He extended his arms, pushing her away to study the symptom. His inspection was so impersonal, it was obvious he wasn't nearly as affected by their proximity as she was. That was all the cold bath she needed. Taking a deep, cleansing breath, she scooted away until his arms fell empty at his sides.

He didn't hesitate to widen the gap between them, turning on his heel to rummage through the saddlebags again. He quickly procured a tightly wrapped bundle that reeked so much of mint Kagome felt her nostrils clear from a few feet away. It was good to know she had no fear of catching a cold in his presence.

He turned back around and ordered her tersely. "Lie down–"

"Pardon?" Kagome interrupted him, quickly coming to the end of her patience. "Why did you force me up, then? Make up your mind!"

Apparently the feeling was mutual. He did not look amused. "Lie down," he stressed, "by the fire."

Oh. She felt meek as a mouse, but would never admit such a thing aloud. He'd only gloat over it, the rake. Calling him a plethora of creative names inside her head, she did as told and got comfortable on the fire-warmed earth.

It soon became clear why he needed her there. The light displayed every gruesome detail of her injury. Kagome quickly looked away and found him squatting not a foot to her right, his crotch perfectly aligned with her face.

"Kiya!" she squeaked, wishing she had a needle and thread to sew her eyes shut. "Do you understand the concept of advanced notice? Or personal space, for that matter?"

He unrolled a surgeon's worth of modern medical instruments neatly arranged in companion to tiny parfleche containers and beaded herb pouches. She sneezed once, her nose having found the origin of the mint. The stiff, painted leather boxes were full of aromatic Indian salves.

To her horror, one of the instruments was a surgeon's needle and thread, the apparatus perfectly designed to stitch flesh. Why does that wish get granted? she lamented as he carefully prepped a long string. He stuck the needle in the bundle's rough leather and opened a particularly acrid container, extracting a suspect lump of snot green goo.

"Where exactly do you plan on putting that?"

He caked it over her wound, eyeing her blandly. Then he reached for the needle.

"Ho-oh no!" She scooted along the ground. "No no no no. You're not sticking that thing anywhere near me!"

"I know what I do," he assured her. "Take my help or it will be your dead body that returns to the fort."

"How dare you threaten–"

"Infection does not show mercy."

"Oh, my mistake. But you, on the other hand, are a regular saint. Why don't I just call you reverend?"

"If that permits me to damn you to hell, go right ahead."

"Well." She tutted, affronted to the point of silence. He reprimanded himself for not trying that method sooner.

"Do you normally carry a surgeon's kit when you hunt alone?" She looked baffled. "Are you so much a man you can sew up your own wounds?"

His challenging stare was rebuttal enough. He might as well have shown her the scars to prove it. She looked away, unable to deny it was shameful to question his endurance considering how far they'd come with her contributing little more than dead weight.

Sighing, she gave conciliation another go. "Can you tell me what's in that stuff you wiped on me?"

"Why?"

"Or talk about the economic impact of expanding immigration to the western United States territories, anything to keep me distracted, please?"

He chuffed, clearly not enthralled with her wit. "Yarrow stalk, ground to a paste and mixed with lemon mint and beeswax. It should numb the area slightly."

Kagome shuddered. "We'll find out, won't we?"

"Grip this." He wrapped a long, hardy leather cord around both her hands and pulled it taut. As an afterthought, he added softly. "Don't look."

She felt the needle's intrusion coil up her spine, pinching an uncomfortable pain through every nerve. She didn't even want to think how bad it would feel without the salve. He quickened his strokes, noticing her distress.

"Yarrow, huh," she gasped in between shallow breaths. "Achilles used that when he fought the Trojans, you know. Oh," she grimaced as the needle pierced a tender spot, "you probably don't. Sorry."

"And as an infant, his mother dipped his entire body except his heel in a Yarrow brew, making him nearly invincible...or so the legend goes."

The girl was right. Their conversation was as effective an anesthetic as his mother's old ointment mixture, or perhaps, if he could judge by her owl-eyes and slackened jaw, an even better one.

"Shocked a savage knows his Greek mythology?" He knotted the thread and clipped it with his knife. She didn't even notice.

"Would it be redundant of me to say yes?"

He regarded her speculatively and rolled up his medical supplies. She wondered what other surprising things he knew, then noticed he was already back up by his horse, returning the medicine bundle to its saddlebag.

"You're done?" she said in disbelief.

What does it look like? His posture suggested, but in keeping with tradition he hadn't the decency to grant her a verbal answer.

She thumbed the finished product. "It looks good."

Not that the Indian needed her approval, of course. He went about his business like he hadn't just performed surgery in the middle of the woods, like he didn't literally hold her life in his hands. Kagome couldn't describe how worthless that suddenly made her feel. Was she even human in his eyes?

She fought another wash of angry tears as he offered her a thin slice of pemmican jerky, but out of damaged pride she refused it. He left it on a flat stone nearby. "Stay put and rest. We leave when you're dry."

She wasn't inclined to be submissive, but the low-burning tinder was a welcome reprieve. They sat in silence as the brave made no more effort to speak. She bristled at the slight, but didn't want to ponder why. Isn't that the treatment she expected, or preferred, even? She had no desire to be this kidnapper's friend.

After the brief meal he rose to put away belongings she hadn't noticed until then: a kettle over the firepit, the bundle hiding his pemmican supply and another smelling of dried fruit, a pile of used bandages, and blankets...two blankets, one of which was damp from an apparent attempt at washing but still sported a darker stain in its middle. Her stomach rolled when it occurred to her the stain was from her blood. It compelled her to double check her appearance, picking a few briars from her skirts before giving up. Everything a foot below her wound was so caked with mud she didn't even want to imagine what the rest of her looked like. She attempted to comb through her hair which had long since escaped its careful curls, but her fingers got stuck on the first pass. Her natural waves were a tangled mess. Disgusted, she swiped a finger across her cheek, expecting a thick layer of nature's detritus, but thankfully, it came back clean. Guess that "bath" in the creek was good for something. Trying to look casual, she sniffed her armpits and reflexively scrunched her nose, nearly gagging. Good, but not good enough.

Content to let her stink be his punishment, Kagome lay on her back and monitored the sun's slow progress through the sky. The few surrounding clouds moved with a brisk pace she knew the brave would've preferred to match. She opted for finding stories in their shapes. One the color and texture of milkweed floss walked up on massive paws, its husky body covered in what resembled fluffy fur. Jaws gaped toward the sun, reaching for it like a farm dog chased a ball.

Kawaii, that's what it is. A big, white inu.

It controlled the skies with its bulk, and all the other clouds skipped around it, playing its game.

You deserve a good name, puppy. Hmm...what to name you... Where'd you come from anyhow? Do you belong to anyone? I know my little brother always wanted a dog.

Maybe you'd like to come home with me?

Suddenly, Big White Inu turned and looked her square in the eyes. Wait a minute, wasn't that like a challenge in dog language or something? For her own safety, shouldn't she look away? Fluffy - because that's the name she decided upon in that very instant - didn't give her the chance to worry as he fell out of the sky and snuggled on top of her, licking her face and swapping dust for his slobber.

What warm-blooded girl wouldn't bask in such affection?

A gruff shove to her shoulder ruined the moment, and Fluffy bared his teeth at the intruder. A man loomed over them, but when Kagome looked up to give him a piece of her mind his face transposed over Fluffy's, so that the giant dog stared at her with the sentience of a human soul.

The vision rattled her with its intensity, and she bolted upright, smacking it away with a yell. Flapping her hands at air, she blinked her eyes wide open and darted them around the clearing, her breath chasing the last remnants of sleep. When had the shadows stretched so far across the ground?

"Was I dreaming?" She asked no one in particular.

The brave retorted as he brushed and fed his dutiful horse. "For about two hours."

"Did you shove me in my sleep?" She yawned irritably. "You made the white dog go away."

He pivoted in her direction, picking her apart with the piercing, indecipherable gaze of a wild animal. "What did you say?"

"Oh, I don't know," careful of her side, she stretched on her back, massaging a hand over her face, "I was making up stories with the clouds and I guess one found its way into my dream."

"Hn."

With one last rub along the horse's muzzle he walked over to stand her up, his stare more calculating, and wary, than she'd ever seen it. She followed him to the horse at a cautious distance. He hopped on its back in one fluid motion, and with a startled peep she felt him secure his hands under her arms and hoist her in front of him, lifting her like a feather and positioning her legs to straddle the horse in a very unladylike fashion, the way she secretly preferred to dash through the meadows by her farm. She blushed heatedly when his arms came around her to take control of the reins and his hard body curved against her smaller one. It might've been a sweeter shelter if their situation was different. A thoroughly annoying part of her refused to dismiss how hard it made her heart beat.

"Is there a reason we have to ride like this?" She absolutely despised the coy sigh in her voice.

He scoffed. "Do I make you uncomfortable?"

"Yes!"

"Good. Now be silent."

Kagome learned quickly he meant what he said, and once a law was decreed, he took its enforcement very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that she was certain his ability to engage in civil human chatter was trapped in some remote prison behind the pole up his ass. No matter how many times she made the slightest comment, or dared the simplest question, he tossed it aside with a snap to his horse's reins.

His stubborn silent treatment nearly went all the way till nightfall, which actually wasn't as long coming as Kagome expected it to be, but an hour into being forgotten she'd devised other means of amusing herself. They'd followed the creek through rolling hills and pungent glades, small clearings and short, jagged bluffs. The landscape was so pristine it was easily to forget why she was in it. It soothed her anger like the hot cup of tea she always shared with her mother on winter nights. They passed slopes that stretched for miles with little families of fragrant lodgepole pine and valleys that spread picnic blankets of budless wild bergamot. The tree-lined ridge that buttressed the stream for a few miles was just high enough for her to watch the clouds' low-slung shadows meander across the valley floor, resembling a translucent blot of ink spilled across the slender washi tapestries that hung in her home.

"The land is really beautiful here," she murmured in awe.

She felt him shift behind her. He seemed oddly unsettled. "It used to be."

Kagome allowed herself a moment of shock that he'd actually answered, then pondered his cryptic words. "I can't imagine what paradise it must've been if you can't see its loveliness now." She had an inkling there was something more to what he meant and risked probing further. "What changed?"

Birds chirped the seconds away and she was convinced, albeit irritated, he was going to snub her for the millionth time. "That meadow." His low voice startled her. She followed his gesture to the right. "What do you see?"

"Green grass."

"Exactly."

She frowned. "I don't understand."

"Years ago, many buffalo grazed here. The meadow was nearly brown with their numbers. White hunters are destroying them."

"Oh," Kagome didn't know how to respond to that. She recalled that when Midoriko's people camped near Ft. Laramie most of their hides, tools and tepees were crafted from some part of the buffalo. In fact, aside from buckskin clothing, she couldn't remember much that wasn't buffalo. Its utility was woven into the fabric of their life. What would they do if the buffalo disappeared? Various scenarios transpired in her mind, none of them good, and it left her heart in conflict.

Relations were tenser than normal between them after that abstruse conversation, at least for awhile. His words put a blight on the scenery, and she could no longer find it a comforting diversion. It conjured memories of her Priestess and the ridicule she'd endured. How had Midoriko chosen that path over these elysian fields? What had she seen in Ft. Laramie to make it worth abandoning her home?

As darkness gradually encroached, it wiped away her sullen thoughts alongside the land's sunbathed beauty, and instead tucked fleeting, fearful apparitions in the corner of her sight no matter which way she looked. Apparently, since daylight had passed so quickly, she'd not only been out a few days, but a few and a half days. It seemed her body was a lot more trusting of this man than her heart was, shutting down and content with his supposed protection. How quaint.

When they entered a cozy clearing, he parked the horse by another tree and dismounted, then helped her down. Her gunpowder nerves fired again as she slid against his flinty frame, but she wasn't about to let herself return down that futile route. She discharged from his hold as quickly as she could and planted her aching body on a patch of dry grass.

Scraping two stones together, he sparked a fire that leapt from another well-used pit, telling her in not so subtle language she was stuck there for the night. So he'd camped in this area before, eh? She wondered how many other helpless, beautiful, alluring damsels, not including herself of course, he'd trapped in this remote bastion of the Wyoming wilderness.

With nothing else to do, she watched him go through the motions of setting up camp and realized with a douse of humility he was doing much of it more for her benefit than his. Considering all the provisions she noticed him pack up that afternoon, he must've been dancing the same routine for awhile yet. Not that such acts would be rewarded now that she was conscious of them. What exactly did he expect to gain by performing considerate gestures for a girl knocked cold?

Then without warning he stalked over, pulled her to her feet and touched her without any notion of personal space or manners, just shoving his large calloused hands in intimate places they should not be.

"I'd have you not be so familiar with me, sir."

With a firm frown boring down on her from a height she hadn't noted until just that perfectly inopportune moment, he jerked the bandages tied tight around her middle, ripping them in half noisily. She gasped incredulously as the cloth fell away, exposing a not-so-healthy expanse of skin.

"Perhaps you'd rather check your wound yourself."

"Perhaps?" she fumed. "Of course I would!"

His stare flattened in rising irritation.

"Now you!" she ordered, "Turn around!"

When he decided he'd rather impersonate an immovable mountain, complete with an ice-capped peak, she decided it wasn't worth the struggle and swung around with her back to him to inspect his handiwork. Surprisingly, it held up well, the stitching nearly flawless in its execution. As she fumbled around in the darkening twilight, her fingers slipped and she smeared dirt across the cut. Its microscopic shrapnel stung viciously and she grit her teeth against the pain. She wasn't aware she'd made a noise until a tall shadow loomed over her, blocking the fresh moonlight floating through the leaves. Glancing up she saw the pale brave illuminated in the hazy glow, his hair outlined in shiny nickel and his eyes...those eyes...lit by their campfire like the oil lamp on her kitchen table.

She couldn't look away and didn't have the voice to protest when his hands sank their iron weight on her shoulders, spinning her slowly and guiding her back to the creek bank. He shoved a few sticks around with his toes, clearing a comfortable space and sitting her down. Then, with a primal grace, he resumed the actions she'd woken up to that afternoon as if they'd never left their original spot.

A strange thought occurred to her then, one more notch on a belt loop of the bizarre things she'd encountered in his presence. "How do you speak english so well?"

His hands stilled briefly, as if her question caught him off guard, and although he continued the feathered pass of his fingers dripping cool, clean water over her wound, he didn't reply for quite awhile.

Finally, he answered quietly. "My father taught me."

Suddenly shy, she blurted the first thing that came to mind. "He did a good job."

His hand stilled again, but when he answered she could hear the dissonant coupling of arrogance and, dare she think it, embarrassment in his deep voice. Too bad there was no indication of the latter in his reply. "When we get to my village, thank him yourself."

So much for sympathy, she scowled. He stood up and left her there to stew while he retrieved the two wool blankets he always tied above the saddlebags for long trips. One was wholly hers now that her blood was smeared all over it. He nearly sighed. Waste of a damn good blanket, if you asked him.

"I'm going to wash up a bit." She called.

He tossed his blanket by the fire and sat down, chewing his pemmican jerky, dazing off as the flames danced and thoroughly ignoring her.

"So no peeking! You got that?"

He spared a unimpressed look in her direction, driving home the suggestion there wasn't anything worth seeing.

Well, if that wasn't a blow to her feminine pride. She knew it was irrational to feel insulted, but she was a woman, after all. She certainly didn't need her ego as bruised as her side, especially by such an uncouth cretin as him!

"Humphing" loudly, she struggled with the fastenings of her bodice, pulling it down just enough to expose her back, shoulders and the very tops of her breasts. It was awkward to reach around and splash water in the spots that needed it, and during a few attempts her limbs got as tangled as her hair, trapped in her sleeves at incongruent angles. It started to feel like someone was gleefully using her arms as darning needles. Grace was never Kagome's middle name, but really, couldn't the good Lord spare her some agility just this once instead of abusing her as human yarn?

Belatedly, she noticed the campsite had grown exceedingly quiet. The Indian was indeed a dull, humorless man, but did he really have to tread so invisibly? Grumbling at how much effort it took to switch positions, she dared a look back at the fire.

And found him staring at her with that damned brow cocked patronizingly.

"I said not to look, you cad!"

He grunted, but actually listened, returning to his unhealthy fascination with the flames.

That's right! Take that! she whooped triumphantly inside, then wiggled around to her original position, slipped, and plunged backward in the water with a dog-whistle shriek.

She bolted upright, nearly leaping out of what felt like a bath of nails left to freeze in a blizzard-buried barn. Her hair was completely sodden now, for the second time that day. Oh well, at least she could use the opportunity to pick the tangles free. Best to look on the bright side in a hellish situation like this, right? Shivering violently, she spat a mouthful of water with a growl drumming through her teeth.

Feeling his gaze, she shot a warning look to the Indian, only to have her concentration evaporate in a heated blush.

He was staring at her again, looking so much like a hungry predator she couldn't decide whether to run or play 'possum. The firelight's shadows trailed his eyes as they meticulously dripped over her body. Apprehensive of what exactly he was staring at, she looked down, and came face to face with a cornucopia of cleavage.

"What were you saying about nothing to look at?!" she crowed, never mind that he'd never said such a thing aloud. Regardless, he proved her right, because that time he looked away much quicker and schooled his face in blatant disregard.

What the hell had he been thinking? He cringed internally. That was the problem, he wasn't. He was a man, after all. He wasn't blind, even to shrill harpies with a penchant for accidents. Excuses be damned; any slip of control was unacceptable. He wasn't some immature buck who needed a dunk in a creek, much like the available one slinking under the moon's seductive light next to their campsite. He certainly wasn't as weak as his brother, who couldn't face the village girl named Bellflower without his nose bleeding all over his shirt. He'd stood against whole bands of battle-crazed warriors with more composure.

His muscles jerked restlessly, and as he listened to the white girl splashing like a newborn foal in the water, muttering colorful curses under her breath, he moved to ready their pallets for sleep. The material thumped with his sharp movements. Combined with the noise she was making, it was almost rhythmic.

With a weary groan, he heard her emerge and wring out her dress. "Kuso. I can't sleep in this." He could tell she hadn't been talking to him, but he threw her an extra shirt from his saddlebag anyway. She whispered a reluctant "thank you" and resumed the war to remove her many layers of clothing.

"Don't look this time either."

I wouldn't dream of it, he said to himself, banking the fire fiercely before moving to her bedding. The girl aired her dress over a low branch and "humphed" again, reading his mind.

"Do you need help retying the bandages?" he snapped cooly, making it perfectly clear he wasn't offering.

"No, thank you." she spat venom, already unwinding the thin strip of fresh cloth he'd left out.

He finished folding her blanket in a makeshift pallet and threw back the cover layer, "Then hurry up and go to bed."

"I'm not sleeping over there with..." she sputtered, tugging down the oversized shirt that barely skimmed her knees, "with you! There's no telling what liberties you'll take!"

"Our arrangements," and he used the term loosely, "didn't bother you the last two nights."

"I didn't exactly have much of a choice!"

"Fine," he rolled his jaw, "the bears can have you, then."

A few seconds passed in blessed silence. He turned his back on her to climb in his own pallet and smirked in the shadows. That certainly did the trick. His demon of a little brother was actually right about a battle tactic for once.

It took every ounce of willpower not to chuckle dryly when he heard her gulp, "Bears?"

"And mountain cats, too. Sometimes coyote. Or wolves. Or snakes. Or venomous spiders..."

"Venomous spiders?!"

"Or all of them at once. Considering this is the time of night they hunt."

Although she never gave him a verbal answer, he didn't have to wait long for her to scuttle like said midnight dangers over to her bedding. He watched over his shoulder in vague fascination as she tested the cloth with her hands, then acquiesced and lay down, cocooning herself in its protection and promptly slipping into a light, breathy snore.

About damn time, he thought. Sunrise wasn't as far away as he was sure she'd hope it to be, and he wasn't going to wait around all morning for her to snivel and lolligag as if he'd forced her to trek across the entire Oregon Trail. Although he was seriously reconsidering his sanity at the time of this choice, he'd pledged his word, even if only to himself, that he'd see to her survival. He wasn't about to let her ruin his honorable reputation.

Just a few more days, he kept telling himself, rocking his mind to sleep with the chant. In just a few more days, the white buffalo pelt would be where it belonged, and he could tell the annoying girl exactly where to go.

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Thank you to all my readers for your continued encouragement!!! I really appreciate the time you take to review, and all of your insightful comments. They mean the world to me!!!!

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The encyclopedia's small this time:

Colonel Franklin F. Flint was the real Ft. Laramie post commander in October, 1870. He was actually quite the looker for his day, which, considering the hairstyles, isn't saying much... http://www.generalsandbrevets.com/bf/bf2.htm

Parfleche is a rigid rawhide container of varying sizes used by tribes to transport all sorts of goods. They were normally very elaborately painted. I'm kinda making up the medicinal use in this chapter. There's no evidence such parfleche ointment boxes exist anywhere outside my whacked out imagination.
*This is not to be confused with a Medicine Bag, which is actually a very sacred, specifically designed purse, for lack of a better term, kept by men. Items placed in the Medicine Bag were usually found during his adolescent vision quest, so they were just as personal as they were spiritually powerful. I'm sure "Sess" will end up with one eventually. http://www.windriverhistory.org/exhibits/ShoshoneArt/parfleche/index.html

Washi is traditional japanese paper, made of various substances: rice, mulberry wood, etc. etc. It was mainly used for artwork, including wall hangings.