The Man From Forever. Dawn Flindt

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ green-clad men and women who were today’s soldiers would come and bear her away. Except then she’d tell them what had made her run, and his uneasy peace would be shattered.

      She’d reached her car. It took her a long time to open the door, and he guessed her fingers shook so that the task was nearly impossible. It was too late to bury his knife in her back and silence her. She’d gotten away!

      A sound like a bear’s deep growl escaped his throat. Turning his back on her, he stepped around the dance ring and stood where she’d been just before she ran. What fools the strangers were! Those who didn’t laugh and whoop like stupid children, walked slowly, reverently around it. At first he’d been mystified by their actions but finally he’d decided that they must think this weed-clogged circle of rocks was something to be revered. It had been, once. But the enemy had defiled it with their presence and Cho-ocks’s magic had long ago left.

      Left like everything of his time except for him.

      Another growl threatened to break free, but knowing it would only tear through him like what he’d felt at his son’s death, he stifled the sound. Looking down, he imagined the exact spot where the woman had placed her boots.

      She was responsible! She had brought him to this time he didn’t want, where he didn’t belong! Thinking to grind her prints into nothing, he lifted his foot, but before he could lower it, something on a nearby bush caught his attention. It was a single hair, long and rich, the dark color of a wolf in his prime. Freeing it from the bush, he held it between thumb and forefinger. Despite his roughened fingertips, what he felt reminded him of goose down. The hair belonged to the enemy-woman. In the hands of a powerful shaman, it could be used to bring sickness and maybe death to whoever it belonged to.

      He’d been wrong to do nothing but follow a warrior’s way. Cho-ocks had been willing to teach him his shaman’s magic. He should have stilled his impatience and anger against the enemy and listened and learned. If he had, he could…

      Soft. Soft as the down on a newborn chick. Touched with light from the sun. He brought the hair close to his nose and inhaled, but couldn’t smell anything. His need to understand what had happened to his world had brought him close to a number of women, always without their knowledge. He hated the way they smelled, their scents so strong that they overpowered the sage even. But this woman hadn’t covered her body with anything that assaulted his nostrils, and he liked that.

      Enemy-woman.

      She had a name. And she would tell him what spell she’d cast over him. Once he understood, he would…

      Eyes big and dark. A soft and gentle mouth. Long, strong arms and legs. Slender waist and hips that flared to accommodate a child placed within her. Hips and breasts made to taunt a man. To remind him of how long he’d slept alone.

      Breathing more rapidly than she should have a need to, Tory sped around yet another turn. The landscape whipped behind her on both sides, but although she’d come out here for the express purpose of observing the land before she had to share it with other visitors, she couldn’t put her mind to concentrating on it.

      She’d seen—what? A Modoc warrior? She’d been asking herself the same stupid question for the past fifteen minutes until she was sick to death of it. Unfortunately, she still hadn’t come up with an answer. At least now that she was no longer staring into eyes as dark as night, the stark and unreasoning fear that had sent her running had begun to fade.

      It must be some kind of joke.

      Slamming her fist into the steering wheel, she again ordered the stupid words to stop ramming around inside her. Hand stinging, she again tried to find a logical explanation. Unfortunately, as before, her mind didn’t want anything to do with logic.

      He’d looked so innately primitive, not at all like those so-called savages Hollywood slapped makeup on. She’d never been able to watch Westerns because the Indians looked so phony. Yes, she supposed that a lot of them actually were Native Americans, but they hadn’t belonged in the wilderness they’d been thrust into for the sake of the movie. Despite war paint and bows and arrows and little more than loincloths, there’d been something self-conscious about the way they presented themselves.

      This man, this warrior, was as natural a part of his rugged environment as the eagle had been. That was what she couldn’t forget. That, and something in those ebony eyes that had found and ignited a part of her she hadn’t known existed.

      A park-service vehicle coming from the opposite direction shocked her back to the here and now and away from absolutely insane images of herself willingly following the Indian back to wherever he’d come from. She thought about trying to flag the park employee down, but what would she say? That she’d had a hallucination about a nearly naked, absolute hunk of a man and wanted to know if it was a common occurrence around here?

      There must be some kind of an explanation, logical and practical, so clear-cut that she’d be embarrassed for not having thought of it before.

      Yeah, right.

      After traveling another ten miles, she reached park headquarters, only then realizing what she’d done. She’d intended to spend the day poking around the lava beds. Instead, tail tucked between her legs, she’d hightailed it for civilization. Angry with herself and yet unable to come up with the fortitude necessary for turning around and going back the way she’d come, she eased her vehicle into one of the parking slots. The rustic cabin she’d rented was not quite a mile away, isolated but accessible via a well-maintained footpath. It came equipped with a two-way radio to be used in case of an emergency.

      Some of the park personnel lived here year-round. While wandering around at dusk last night, she’d happened upon the paved road leading from headquarters to the small collection of houses within shouting distance of where she now sat. Although she hadn’t stayed around the residential area because she didn’t want to invade anyone’s privacy, she remembered seeing a couple of satellite dishes. Two girls riding bikes had waved at her, and when she’d asked them, they explained that they went to school in the town of Tulelake, which was “only” thirty miles away. They were on their way to the nearby campground to see if there were any kids their age staying there tonight. The girls were friendly and eager to talk; they’d argued with each other over whether they’d want to stay at the campground or where she was. One had always wanted to spend a night at the cabin. The other wasn’t interested because it didn’t have a TV or electricity and what would she do once it got dark.

      Tory hadn’t bothered to tell them that once she got to the Oregon coast, she expected to spend months camping out without electricity. Because it hadn’t been the first time, she hadn’t had any trouble falling asleep last night with nothing except coyotes and owls to keep her company. Tonight, however—

      She deliberately hadn’t told anyone of her ties to one of the central players during the Modoc War because she didn’t want to risk someone deciding to exploit that. Still, in the back of her mind rode the question of whether she’d thought she’d seen a survivor of that time because her great-great-grandfather had died here.

      Like that makes any kind of sense.

      “Will you stop it!” she muttered, and got out of the car. A strong breeze brought with it a hint of the day’s heat, the pungent scent of sage and lava and an almost overwhelming desire to walk away from this spot of civilization and out into the wilderness where he might find her again.

      When she checked in yesterday, the parking lot had been filled with dusty, crammed vans, cars with out-of-state licenses, even a group of senior citizens on expensive motorcycles. This morning, hers was the СКАЧАТЬ