There is always a choice. " "I never said I was a victim. " Luke said, threading a needle. "I am not the victim in this story. Ayanna, I know that. You are the women here are "Then do not ask for forgiveness. " she snapped. "I do not want forgiveness. " Luke's voice rose, startling a nearby horse.
"I do not expect you to forgive me. I do not forgive myself. " "Then what do you want? " Ayanna demanded, turning to face him. "Why do you stay? Why do you work yourself to death? Why do you save our children? " "Because I want to be something else. " Luke shouted back.
He dropped the saddle and grabbed her shoulders. The contact shocked them both. "I cannot change what I did. " Luke said, his voice dropping to a fierce whisper. "I cannot bring back the dead, but I can be something else now. I can be the man who stands between you and the wind.
Is that not enough? " Ayanna stared at him. Her chest rose and fell rapidly. The anger in her eyes melted into something terrified and hungry. She looked at his mouth. Luke looked at hers.
The distance between them vanished. The memory of the horse chase, the storm, the nights in the sick room, it all crashed together in a single moment of magnetic pull. Luke leaned in. Ayanna did not pull away. Their breath mingled.
Then, just as his lips brushed hers, she gasped. "No. " She jerked back, shoving him away hard. She scrambled to her feet, her hand flying to her mouth as if she had been burned. "I cannot. " she whispered. "I swore.
I swore I would hate you. " She turned and ran, disappearing into the maze of wikiups, leaving Luke sitting in the dust, his heart pounding like a war drum, the taste of her fear and her desire still on his lips. The camp was small. Nothing went unnoticed. The women began to talk. Luke heard the whispers as he hauled water.
"She looks at him like a woman looks at a husband. " one would say. "He is a wolf in the fold. " another would warn. "He will turn on us. " Chee, the old woman Luke had saved during the storm, stopped him one day. She placed a withered hand on his arm. "You are a good worker, Carver. " she said.
"You have a strong back, but do not forget you are white. You can fight for us. You can bleed for us, but you will never belong to us. The blood is too deep. " Luke said nothing, but the words cut. He knew she was right.
He was living on borrowed time in a borrowed life. And then, the time ran out. A trader arrived 2 days later. He was a Comanchero, a man who moved between the worlds of the white settlements and the hidden tribes, trading guns for horses and information for gold. He sat by the fire with Nalin and the elders.