A cottonwood shot up here and there, and grass—some of it short in thick clumps, some tall as a horse—filled in the rocky landscape. They rounded a mesa and spooked a herd of antelope, then minutes later circled another mesa and a wide valley opened up before them. Grazing in the valley was a huge herd of buffalo.
Glynna heard Paul gasp at the magnificent beasts. She was pretty sure she’d made a similar noise. They were riding single file, and her son was right in front of her, trailing Luke.
“Give those critters a wide berth.” Luke veered away sharply from the animals. “They’re mean if they take a mind to be.”
Glynna couldn’t take her eyes off the herd. A couple of the spring calves took notice of them, and one even trotted in their direction as if curious. But the adults all kept grazing, as if riders were an everyday sight. Glynna had heard of the buffalo hunters and she could well imagine how easy it would be to shoot the big animals.
“Tighten up.” Luke’s voice snapped Glynna back from thinking of the majestic buffalo to see Luke pulling his horse to a walk until they’d all come up beside him. “Look ahead.”
Smoke.
The ground was so broken it looked like the smoke came out of the earth, but as they continued forward, there was a steep slope. As they neared it, a teepee appeared about a half mile away, smoke curling from its top. A moment later, a second teepee came into view, not quite as tall, followed by at least a dozen more.
A breath of wind blowing in their direction carried the wails of mournful song and the smell of death.
Chapter 5
“Let’s get down there.” Dare tightened his grip on the reins, but Luke stuck out a hand.
“Slow, Dare. I know you want to help, and maybe they’re beyond protest, but there’s a right way and a wrong way to approach an Indian camp. We’re going in slow and easy.”
As they reached the slope and started down, there was no guard who stepped forward, no one came out, armed, to challenge them. Instead, there were bodies, dozens of them, lying to the side of the village in tidy rows. Though they could hear the loud cries, not one living man, woman, or child was visible.
“This is a fraction of the normal size of this village, even counting the dead,” Luke said, picking up speed as if he couldn’t stop himself from hurrying despite his own warning. “I wonder where the rest of them are?”
Dare did his best not to spur his horse past Luke, to get there and then get to work. To help.
As they neared the village, Dare said, “Luke, stop! This is as far as you’re going.”
Luke stared at the village, hearing the rise and fall of wailing sobs joined with the chilly breeze until the whole world seemed to grieve. They were about a hundred feet from the village. “I’ve got to go in with you.”
Dare shook his head. “No, you’re staying back. If one of them comes out and we need you, if we can’t avoid it, then fine, you can help, but there’s no sense in you exposing yourself to the sickness if you don’t have to.”
“I didn’t ride all this way to stay back and watch.”
“No, you didn’t. You rode with us because you can speak some Kiowa and because you wouldn’t stay behind. You can speak to anyone we find, but from a distance, if they don’t speak English. Get started unpacking the horses. There’s plenty to keep you busy.”
The opening on one of the teepees flapped and a woman stepped out, her arms laden with what looked like a bundle, a blanket.
“Stay here.” Dare gave Luke one more dark look. “I don’t need to add any more patients.” Dare began riding toward the village, the rest of their group right behind him.
The Indian woman turned. Her wailing stopped and she shouted guttural words. As Dare approached the camp, the woman sank to her knees as if to beg for mercy. She looked healthy. Her hair, liberally streaked with gray, told him she was an elder of the tribe. And that bundle, that unmoving bundle, the way she clutched it—Dare knew it was a child who hadn’t survived the measles outbreak. How many more were there?
Dare pulled his horse to a halt and swung to the ground, his focus on the bundle so complete that he was only distantly aware of the other riders dismounting. He walked up to the woman slowly, his arms extended so she could see he carried no weapon. The same couldn’t be said of all those with him.
“Help?” He hoped she knew this one word.
The woman’s brow furrowed, but she didn’t run, neither did she attack. Other teepees flapped open, and more people emerged. One adult man, the rest women. Seven people in all.
The man held a rifle and swept it up to point it at the group.
Dare froze. The man was healthy, his aim held true, and his eyes looked deadly.
“We’re here to help.” Dare saw the rifle swing to aim straight at his chest. “We mean no harm.”
Could they even hope to ride out alive? The man pulled back the hammer on his rifle with a loud metallic click. Luke’s men wouldn’t stand still while they were shot. This could turn into a bloody shootout within seconds.
Raising his arms, Dare said, “Red Wolf came to us.” He enunciated each word, not even sure they would recognize the words Red Wolf. Surely the man’s name was spoken in his own language among his people.
Then the man spoke words that Dare couldn’t understand.
“Help. We help,” Dare repeated.
Slowly the man moved forward, wary. Dare saw two of the women take a step forward, each carrying a knife.
“I am a doctor.”
There was no relenting of the suspicion. Dare knew they would have to ride away—if they were allowed to.
“Anemy? I am Luke Stone.”
Dare heard Luke right behind him and wanted to growl. But what was the point? Luke was all the way in, and if he got sick, Dare would doctor him.
“Red Wolf find Luke?” The woman spoke in broken English, then sighed until Dare thought she’d collapse.
Luke walked straight for the woman, right into the middle of the circle of teepees and drawn weapons. “Yes. Red Wolf reached my ranch.”
“He lives?”
“Yes.” Luke nodded. “He rests there.”
A furrow creased the woman’s forehead, and Dare doubted that she was understanding more than a few of the words Luke spoke, but she said something in her own language to her people and they seemed to relax, at least a bit. The rifle lowered, an inch at a time, toward the ground, but none of the Kiowa took their eyes off the group from the S Bar S. The knives were still in hand.
“Luke help my people?”
“Yes,” Luke said, turning to point at Dare. “My friend, medicine man.”
“Kiowa medicine man, Wise Buffalo, died as sun rose. Red Wolf rode away to find you.”
“We will help, Anemy.”
The woman turned to face the handful of healthy Kiowa. Anemy spoke swiftly in words that reminded Dare distantly of the few native people he’d seen from time to time.
Though there was no sign of pleasure at her words, the group nodded. Each of them retreated back into their teepees except the gray-haired woman with the bundle. She walked toward the row of bodies and, once there, knelt with the bundle and resumed her wailing chant.
Anemy turned back, and Dare stepped in, wanting to talk directly with her. “I need boiling water.”
The woman’s brow furrowed in confusion and she shook her head.
Dare turned to Luke. “Help me.”
Luke came closer. “T’on. That’s the Kiowa word for water.” Then he said to Anemy, “You are Red Wolf’s woman. I am a friend to the Kiowa. Please talk with our medicine man.” Luke rested a hand on Dare’s shoulder. “I will stay close. He needs t’on.”
A halting exchange between Dare and Anemy, with Luke’s help, began to produce what Dare needed. Anemy’s broken English became a bit better, as if talking with Luke was bringing back a long-forgotten memory.
“How long since your village fell sick?” Dare asked her.
“Seven suns. The first child red sic
kness. This come before. Spreads and kills.”
While Dare worked, he found out that every family except the one with the sick child had packed up and moved a distance away. They’d left the child’s family behind, but they’d also separated from each other, agreeing to return if the sickness came to them. Putting distance between them and a contagious disease. A self-imposed quarantine? These people had almost as much medical knowledge as he did. There were many families in this Kiowa band, but only these ones had returned, and it had been long enough that Dare hoped no one else had been exposed. The healthy ones here in the village, like Anemy, had survived the last measles outbreak. They’d stayed behind to tend the sick and bury the dead.
But he did have some medicine they didn’t, like a good supply of willow bark tea, though maybe there were plants in this region with the same ability to bring down fevers.
With good care and proper medicine, he hoped he could save some who would have died. He also hoped that Luke would react like white people often did. Unlike native people, measles was an unpleasant illness for whites, but rarely fatal. White folks usually survived just fine, yet they were likely to expose tribal people to the terrors of disease.
“Do you have hot water . . . uh, t’on? I need to get to work.”
Anemy nodded. “I show.”
In the light of a fire in the center of the teepee, Glynna knelt and gently slid her arm beneath the shoulders of a delirious boy just a bit younger than Janny.
“Take a sip,” she urged. Glynna slowly lifted him, every muscle aching after hours spent tending the sick children. It was time for another dose of the fever-reducing medicine Dare had prepared.
This little one moaned and struggled weakly. There were four other children in the teepee, also sleeping in the early hours before dawn. All of them needed the tea, but Glynna hated to disturb their sleep, because when they were awake, they cried from the torment of the itching rash and the burning fever.
There was barely room enough to move between them. “Paul, hold his head still. Help me.”
Dare had moved all the children together, then put Glynna and Paul in charge. Glynna wondered if his aim wasn’t more about her safety than the importance of getting the children in one place. Some of the stricken adults had fought Dare’s treatment. Only the fact that the healthy Kiowa had helped calm their family had prevented serious injuries.
The children fought too, but they hadn’t the size or the strength to do much damage.
Kneeling across from Glynna, Paul steadied the child’s head, and the boy’s whimpers rose to near screams. The rash was worst on this child until it no longer looked like spots. His whole body was bright red where it showed around the white poultice. Glynna prayed as she urged him to swallow, wondering if she was causing him pain everywhere she touched.
Anemy, the woman Luke had recognized, stuck her head inside the teepee. The suspicion in her eyes was hard to endure. Glynna didn’t blame the woman for letting the distressed child upset her.
“Can you help?” Glynna knew the woman was running herself ragged trying to keep an eye on the people who had invaded her village. She didn’t trust them, but she let Dare take charge. Anemy was doing her best to translate, talking mainly with Luke but answering questions asked by Dare.
Would helping make Anemy less worried? Or was it one thing too many for the overburdened woman?
Nodding, Anemy picked her way between the children to kneel at the boy’s head. She crooned to him in her native language as she used both of her strong hands to keep him from turning away from the tea. Paul supported the child in a sitting position. Glynna tried to squeeze the boy’s mouth to get it open. Anemy reached for the boy’s nose and pinched it. The child gasped for air, and Glynna, exchanging a lightning-fast glance with Anemy, quickly poured the tea in. The boy sputtered and coughed, but the tea mostly went down.
Glynna smiled at Anemy. “Good idea.”
Anemy said, “Who next?”
Working as a team and using Anemy’s method, the three of them got the medicine administered just as Dare came in bearing a basin of pasty white liquid with a stack of cloths over his arm. “Time for a new poultice. Cover the rash as much as possible. It will ease the itching and help them rest more comfortably.” He set down the basin.
“How are they doing?” Glynna regretted speaking the moment the words were out. Anemy’s attention was so rigid, fearing more bad news.
“We’ve lost three more.” Dare looked at Anemy.
Anemy didn’t respond. Glynna didn’t know if she understood Dare’s words, but there was no doubt she caught his meaning.
“They were so sick. There was nothing . . .” Breaking off his words, Dare looked overcome with guilt. Swallowing, Dare went on, “I see signs of pneumonia and encephalitis in quite a few of your tribe. Those are deadly complications.” Dare shook his head. “I’m sorry, Anemy, but there is little chance those will pull through.”
“Pull through?” Anemy didn’t seem to know what this meant.
“Pull through . . . uh, get well. Live.” Dare sighed, looked the woman in the eyes. “They will not live.”
“More Kiowa die.” The woman, though young, showed lines of grief on her face. “Red Wolf should be with his people.”
Glynna remembered Dare saying Red Wolf had pneumonia. He gave orders to Ruthy before he left, but Glynna knew pneumonia was a killer. Yet a young, healthy man, with good care and God’s healing grace, had a chance.
“Red Wolf is resting at Luke’s cabin,” Glynna said.
As always, the mention of Luke’s name had an almost miraculous effect in gaining Anemy’s cooperation. Despite the risk to Luke, because he was now exposed to the measles, they’d have never been allowed to help the Kiowa if he wasn’t here working beside them.
Dare left the poultice. Glynna, with Anemy’s and Paul’s help, tended the children through that night and the following day.
A wail went up through the village too often. Glynna knew it meant another had died. The children held on. Dare, on one of his visits, said their fevers had lessened. Of course, the sickest had succumbed before the group from the S Bar S had arrived.
Glynna only knew the day passed because of the fading light. She was still on her knees, replacing poultices, bathing fevered bodies, dosing willow bark.
Dare came into the teepee. “I’ll watch the little ones. There’s food. Go eat and get a few hours’ sleep.”
Glynna lifted her eyes from the little girl she tended. Only then, as if she felt the effort it took to focus on Dare, did she realize how near to collapsing she was. “I can keep working.”
“The children are asleep right now. They won’t struggle as I examine them and listen to see if their lungs are clear. This is a good chance for you to get yourself something to eat and then a little sleep. I promise I’ll wake you if I need help.”
“You need sleep, too,” Glynna said. She wanted to say more, but she noticed Paul had fallen asleep where he sat. His head was slumped forward and his eyes were closed.
Glynna stood and stumbled. Dare caught her and prevented her from tumbling onto her patient.
“You’re done in, Glynna. Take a break now. I need you rested.” Dare didn’t let her go.
Glynna realized she was leaning almost all her weight on him. In the dim light of the teepee fire she saw the strength in Dare. He’d been up for just as long as she had, and he’d been hurt in the avalanche.
“How’s your back?” she whispered.
His blond brows arched in surprise. Then his mustache bent upward in a tight smile. “Believe it or not, I forgot about my back. I reckon that means it’s okay.”
It couldn’t begin to be okay, but Glynna knew he’d never quit working, so she didn’t bother to chide him. She just stood there, supported by him, another burden. Their locked gaze seemed so open, as if she could look into his soul and see his need to heal, his grief when he failed, and his strength to bear what he must.
“You’re a fine
doctor. I don’t care what papers you’ve earned or not earned.”
“No, Glynna, I—”
She rested her fingertips on his mouth to stop his protest. “We can argue about what you should be doing with your life another day. Save your energy for doctoring these good people.”
The prickle of his mustache on her fingers reached well past her hand until she seemed to feel it all up her arm, into her heart. Her very tender, very untrusting heart.
Lifting her hand away, she stood on her own two feet. They were too close, and she was drawn to him like she’d never been to either of her husbands.
For one moment he leaned closer, and she thought he’d kiss her—and even hoped it.
A soft cry from one of the children had them straightening away from each other.
Dare jerked his head toward the teepee entrance. “Go. Take Paul and you two get something to eat. One of the women made stew. Make sure to savor it—you won’t get too many chances to eat buffalo.”
Glynna decided retreat was a wonderful idea. Besides, being near Dare right now was too confusing. “Wake me when it’s your turn to get some sleep.”
Dare’s eyes flickered to her lips, then away.
She turned to awaken Paul and saw he was watching them. Paul sprang to his feet and with two long strides was face-to-face with Dare and swung a fist. Between exhaustion and surprise, the fist landed hard on Dare’s chin. The unexpected attack nearly knocked Dare into the fire.
Glynna cried in horror and caught Paul’s arm as he drew back for another strike. “Paul! Stop that right now!”
Dare stayed on his feet, rubbing his chin and staring at Paul.
“You keep your hands off my ma. Leave her alone. She doesn’t need another man. She’s got me.”
“Paul—” Glynna began.
“No!” Paul wrenched his arm from her grasp and turned on her. For one terrible second she wondered if her son would now hit her. She saw Dare gather himself as if he would step in to protect her. It made Glynna sick to think of Dare and her son fighting. Dare would win, a tough man and fully grown. Another terrible failure for her son.
Fired Up Page 6