Free Native Wolf by Glynnis Campbell Page A

back up the steep rise, and she didn’t dare upset his balance for fear of sending them both down the mountain.
    By the time they finally reached the cave, she wasn’t sure if she was more blanched white with fright or flushed red with shame at his cavalier handling.
    The minute he set her on her feet, she fled to the back of the cave. She was furious...with him, with the horse, with herself. This had been her big chance to escape, and she’d failed. Worse, she’d been subjected to unspeakable humiliation at her captor’s hands.
    Seething with anger, she wrenched his shirt from her shoulders, spitting a curse under her breath with each button she unfastened. She was completely flustered and disgusted by the brazen savage, and she didn't want anything to do with him. She didn’t care if she froze half to death—she never wanted to see...or, God forbid, touch...the half-naked half-breed again.
    She wadded up the shirt and tossed it at him. He caught it in one hand. Then she crouched in the dark, watching his massive silhouette as he crossed the passageway, and waited for him to put the shirt on. To her consternation, he didn’t.
    She wondered what he’d do to her. Would he punish her for losing the horse? Would he tie her up so she couldn’t flee? Would he subject her to some new degradation?
    In the end, he did nothing. He didn’t even give her a tongue-lashing. All he did was tuck the wadded shirt beneath his head and stretch out at the mouth of the cave, where she’d have to climb over him to escape.
    She rocked back onto her bottom and hugged her knees, thoroughly miserable. Curse it all, she couldn’t even escape properly. She withdrew the soggy dime novel from her camisole again and plopped it down beside her, glaring at the heroine on the cover. Claire was no intrepid Maude Burland—that was certain. Her books made it sound so easy to outwit villains. Indeed, Claire was beginning to question the accuracy of the stories.
    To add insult to injury, within moments she heard her abductor drawing in the deep, untroubled breaths of slumber, as comfortable on the hard stone as she was in her feather bed at home and as sure of her captivity as a cat with a mouse trapped under its paw.
    She dropped her chin onto her knees and scowled at the cave floor. Gradually, as the minutes ticked by, her anger began to diminish. But soon other feelings crept in to replace the anger—all-too-familiar feelings of defeat and disappointment.
    Could she do nothing right? Sometimes she felt like a complete failure. She'd never been able to please her father, and now even she was disappointed in herself.
    Why wasn't she as brave and capable as the characters in her books? Why wasn't she fearless, flawless, and tough as beef jerky? Dime novel heroes never lost their horses. They didn't bungle their escapes. They didn’t cry when their mothers fell ill and…
    Her throat tightened. Yoema had been the one person Claire could please. Her Indian mother had loved her for who she was. A tear formed in the corner of her eye as painful memories of Yoema surfaced, memories Claire could share with no one—memories of Yoema’s cheerful black eyes and healing hands, of her intriguing stories, her love of animals, her deep respect for nature. And, as on so many nights of late, the memories kept Claire awake.
    Her chin began to quiver. Yoema had always sung her to sleep. Without that familiar song, without those nurturing arms and that gentle voice, sleep lost all its comfort.
    She closed her eyes and tried to imagine the Indian woman beside her, brushing her hair, the long hair that Claire had cut off as abruptly as the old woman had been cut from her life. She heard the melody winding around her ears in the darkness.
    The tune started softly in Claire’s throat, almost of its own accord, thin and fragile against the heavy night. She mouthed the simple words around the lump of sorrow thickening her voice.
    "Unno winno, unno winno, unno