Page 89 of The Spirit of the Wolf

“Tonight. Prepare Yellow Swan, and we will quit the fort as soon as the others here are settled in for the night. I will slip into your room for you.”

“Can you do that?”

He simply smiled at her.

“If you can do it, you should have come to me each night. I have a bed. Do you understand? I have a bed. We could have made love on a bed.”

“And alerted the household to what is between us,” he completed the thought. “Have you not noticed that the bourgeois of this place does not think well of the Indian? Beware, my wife, the bourgeois here is not a stupid man. As it is, even dancing as we are, I fear we flaunt the customs of this place. He watches us even now.”

“Does he? Where?”

“From the veranda.” Grey Coyote nodded toward it.

“Very well,” she said, as they stepped around their dance floor of dirt and rocks. “I will say no more on it. But I will also be ready to leave with you this night.”

“This is good, but be very careful. It is possible you will be watched.”

“I will be careful.”

“Good.” He smiled down at her. She couldn’t help herself; she beamed right back.

William Laidlaw stepped onto the veranda for a breath of air and a smoke. Striking a match, he cupped his hands around the flame, leaning his cigar down into the glow. He detected movement to his right, in front of the clerk’s house.

Glancing toward the house, he looked, not certain about what it was he was seeing. He gazed that way again.

Good Lord. What was this? The Indian and the lass dancing, touching?

The Indian was clearly overstepping his bounds.

And what was the lass doing, allowing him to touch her?

It was possible, he supposed, that Miss Marietta felt beholden to the Indian—if the man had saved her life as she said. But, even if this were the case, Laidlaw could little understand her actions, unless…

Had the Indian already lain with the maid?

Aye, it had to be. Look at them.

The thought made him burn. An Indian with a white woman?

One of his men, Allen Adams, approached, and Laidlaw turned toward him. “Where be ye goin’, man?” asked Laidlaw.

“Oh, pardon, sir, I didn’t see you there, and I have been looking for you.”

Laidlaw nodded. “What is it ye need, Adams?”

“I have a request from the lady.”

“A request?”

“Yes, sir. She fears there is something wrong, because it is too quiet. She has asked me to tell you this.”

Again, Laidlaw nodded. “There is a great deal wrong, but ‘tis not because ‘tis quiet. Gaze out yonder, man.” He pointed.

Adams did so. “Why, ‘tis the Indian who brought Miss Welsford to the fort, is it not?”

“That it be, Adams. That it be.” Laidlaw rubbed his chin. “But I fear the lady is confused and needs reminding of who she is. She has asked me about boats to St. Louis. It seems she has great need of traveling there.”

“But there are no steamboats going to the village of St. Louis for another year.”