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realized what it meant.
    The Blackfoot were coming back and her life was in the hands of a man she scarcely knew.

CHAPTER THREE
    B LACK S UN listened long enough to estimate the number of riders and judge their speed and direction. The party was small, very likely the same Siksika who’d burned the wagons. After hiding the stolen horses, they could have decided to return to the killing ground for more prizes, such as jewelry, clothing, knives and scalps. Drunk on victory, they would be in a wildly dangerous mood.
    The white woman’s fingers dug into his ribs as he swung his horses to the left, moving deeper into the trees. Had the young braves seen her lying beneath the wagon and mistaken her for dead? Would they notice that she was gone and try to trail her?
    His spirits darkened as their peril sank home. The Siksika were known to be superb trackers, and Charity Bennett’s pale, tawny hair would be a trophy worth pursuing. If the braves picked up her trail, they would be relentless.
    Charity gasped as the horse swerved around a massive boulder. The woman was in terrible pain, he reminded himself. She was bearing up stoically, but in herinjured condition she could not travel fast or far. They needed a safe place to hide, where she could rest for a day or two while he treated her blistered skin.
    And then what? Black Sun suppressed a groan as he thought of Charity’s swollen belly. Judging from the size of her, she was less than a moon from giving birth. If he didn’t get her back to her people soon, she would go into labor with no women or doctors to help her. If her labor went badly, she and the child could die. And even if things went well, he would be stranded in hostile territory with a helpless woman and a newborn baby on his hands.
    What a joke Heisonoonin had played on him! He had asked for a vision to cleanse his spirit and make him one with his people. Instead this white woman had been flung across his path, bringing him nothing but danger and difficulty.
    The Siksika were coming closer, making no effort to keep their presence a secret. Young and careless, they were laughing and singing about their victory. Had he wanted to risk it, Black Sun might have found a vantage point and tried to pick them off one by one with his arrows. But he did not make war on children—not even cruel, dangerous children like these. Right now, the only prudent course was to get himself and this woman out of their reach.
    As they slipped through the trees, Charity clung to his back as if using his body to shield her unborn child. So far she had displayed remarkable courage. But herstrength wouldn’t last much longer. They needed to find a safe place where the Siksika might not look for them.
    Black Sun knew of one such place, a deep box canyon fed by springs and riddled with small caves. It was close enough to be reached before nightfall. But the canyon held its own dangers. It was sacred ground—sacred to the Siksika, to the Shoshone, to the Crow and to many other tribes, including his own people. To enter the canyon, especially in this season of renewal, would be to invite disaster and death.
    Almost any place of refuge would be better than that forbidden canyon, Black Sun thought. But unless they could find another way to elude the Siksika, it might be their only choice.
    So far, he had not taken time to cover their trail. But now that would have to change. Moving deeper into the trees, he began to wind back and forth, avoiding soft earth and patches of melting snow that would show the prints of the horses’s hooves. When they crossed a shallow brook, he traveled upstream before emerging onto the bank again; and where the trail forked, he chose a treacherous path across a rock slide instead of keeping to the easy game trail below.
    Even so, Black Sun felt uneasy. The tricks he’d used to cover the way they’d gone were simple ones, known to any good tracker. Worse, he could no longer hear the