To make things even worse, the two wolves had disappeared that evening, only to show up the next day. No one went unarmed to fetch water from the stream. Young boys no longer took old pieces of hide and hid under them to play nanip’ka—“Guess over the hill”—because it took them too far from their grandmothers’ watchful eyes. For the first time in memory, Bay was glad for the superstitious nature of the Comanches, because although there was talk of killing the wolves, no one dared.
Bay heard Long Quiet suggest to the men with whom he gambled away the early evening hours that the wolves had been sent to protect her from those who might wish to harm her. She was appalled at the tale but did not chide him, because although she could never catch anyone at it, Bay often felt as though she were being followed. She thought about confiding her suspicions to Long Quiet but decided against it. They would be leaving soon. At least, she thought they would.
There was another person equally concerned about when Shadow and Long Quiet would leave the village. The puhakut had been besieged by complaints from the villagers, demanding that he do something to rid the camp of the evil aura that surrounded it. And so, three days after the appearance of the wolves, the puhakut approached Long Quiet and asked, “Do you plan to stay among us long?”
“Is there some reason I am not welcome here?” Long Quiet challenged.
“None of which I am aware,” the puhakut replied in a voice that, to his chagrin, trembled slightly. The puhakut shivered at the cold menace that had come to Long Quiet’s eyes, the hardness in his voice, the tensing of steely muscles. Only the knowledge that the rest of the tribe watched their confrontation made him speak again. “But Shadow . . .”
Seeing the jerk of Long Quiet’s muscles, the puhakut almost didn’t finish his sentence. It was unnerving to think that this intruder could make him feel so uneasy. He chided himself for his fear. His medicine was very powerful. It had been enough to put Many Horses in his place. He would do the same with this pretentious warrior.
“But . . .” Long Quiet asked, his tone chilling.
“You must know there has been talk of Shadow.”
“What talk?”
The puhakut took a deep breath. “That Shadow’s medicine causes misfortune in the village.”
“Who says such things?”
He Decides It hadn’t expected to be confronted directly. He countered by asking, “Can you deny there have been a number of strange happenings in the village lately?”
Long Quiet snorted. “A burned finger? A lame horse? A sick child? How are these strange?”
The puhakut frowned. “Each by itself is not so unusual,” he agreed, “but there have been too many such incidents to be easily explained.”
“And you think Shadow’s presence here is the reason for these . . . happenings?”
He Decides It had not gotten where he was without learning diplomacy. “I cannot say for sure,” he hedged. “I do know the people fear what they do not understand. It would be better if Shadow left this place.”
Long Quiet was frustrated and disappointed. He’d hoped to be able to leave Shadow in the village while he attended to his business for Creed, but it was beginning to look like that would be impossible. He tried once more to make his point with the puhakut. “Shadow is no sorceress.”
The puhakut shrugged dismissively. “Perhaps not. But look what happened to Many Horses. He has never been a careless man. How do you explain what happened to him? I cannot, except to say that he was warned to send Shadow from this place and did not heed that warning. Can you blame the villagers for their alarm when other unexplained accidents occur? Fear is a powerful enemy to reason. If Many Horses dies, I cannot say what will happen. There is great danger for Shadow so long as she stays among us.”
Long Quiet was even more blunt than the puhakut had been. “I will kill any who threaten her.”
In that moment, He Decides It knew real fear for the first time in his life. He had no doubt Long Quiet meant what he said. But that didn’t change what would assuredly happen if the rumors continued and Shadow stayed in the village. His voice was soft as he explained what Long Quiet refused to acknowledge. “You must know she will not be threatened directly. One possessing such awesome power could do great harm if confronted face to face.”
“What are you saying?”
“That none will think it wrong to end Shadow’s life through stealth.”
Long Quiet tasted copper in his mouth and tried to swallow it back down again. If he left Shadow in the village, sooner or later someone would come after her in the dark and she would be killed. He had no choice. He would have to take her away from here.
But where would be the safest place for his wife? Should he leave her in his Penateka Comanche village while he went to Mexico? What if rumors of Bay’s sorcery made their way from the Quohadis to his Penateka village? Would his grandfather be able to protect her?
Or should he take Bayleigh Falkirk Stewart home to Three Oaks? And if he took her home to Three Oaks, would she willingly rejoin him in Comanchería?
The closer evening came, the more restless Long Quiet became. He would have to make a choice soon. He had barely enough time to make the journey to meet Creed in Laredo.
He was on his way back from his second needless trip to check on the chestnut stallion when he was halted by a raspy voice from the shadows.
“Do not turn around. I came to warn you. Watch carefully tonight or Shadow will not live to see the morning.”
Chapter 12
BAY NOTICED LONG QUIET WAS EVEN MORE RESTLESS THIS evening than usual. After she’d settled Little Deer on her pallet, she came to sit by the fire at the center of the tipi. She admired her new husband’s grace as he paced the edges of the tipi. What was it about him that attracted her like a warm fire on a cold night? Bay picked up a pair of buckskin leggings she was making for Long Quiet and sewed steadily along the seam while she tried to think it out.
She was chagrined to admit that whenever she thought of him, her body responded as though he were actually touching her. And when he touched her, she had no willpower to resist him. Last night she’d melted in his arms the instant his flesh had touched hers. She’d lost all sense of caring whether what she was doing was right or wrong. She’d only wanted to feel his skin warm and slick against her own, to feel his tongue possessing her mouth and the corresponding thrust of his manroot deep inside her.
But it wasn’t only the tumultuous lovemaking that had held her captive in his arms. It was the talk afterward. Not immediately afterward, of course. It had taken time for them to recover from the ecstasy of that moment when he planted his seed within her. For a while they’d merely lain quiescent, letting the shudders slowly ease the tension from their bodies, letting their minds descend from plateaus that could only be reached by two souls journeying together.
Eventually, he’d turned her in his arms and she’d nestled against him comfortably. Then they’d shared their thoughts as completely as they’d shared their bodies. At first they’d spoken of inconsequential things. Later they’d told stories of their childhoods. And finally they’d shared their hopes and dreams.
Long Quiet’s words shook Bay from her dreamy remembrance of the past evening. “What did you say?”
“I said it’s time for us to leave here.”
“And go where?” she replied.
“To the village of my people.”
Bay sighed. “Will they be any more accepting of me than the people of this village?”
“Of course they’ll accept you. You’re my wife.”
“And none will resent my presence? Or despise me because I am a tabeboh, a hated White-eyes?” Bay could see her argument held some sway, because Long Quiet’s brow furrowed. She knew he couldn’t deny there would be some in his tribe, like Long Quiet’s grandfather, who’d hate her simply because her skin was white. There had been too much enimity between their two peoples for the situation to be otherwise.
“At least none will wish to
kill you,” he said at last.
“Are you sure?”
Long Quiet wasn’t sure, and it made him angry with her for making him confront the issue. He wondered whether there was any place in Comanchería where Shadow was really safe now that she’d been named a sorceress by the Quohadi. He knew it was his fear of losing her that kept him from suggesting she return to Three Oaks. But might he not also lose her if she stayed in Comanchería?
“We will leave soon to go to the village of my grandfather. Because you are my wife, he will not refuse to keep you safe.” He paused and added, “Unless you would rather go home.”
Bay’s eyes were bleak when she raised them to his. She did not anticipate the warm welcome Long Quiet obviously expected her to receive in his village. Perhaps it would be better to go home after all. “Would you come with me if I went back to Three Oaks?”
“I have to go to Mexico.”
“And after that? Would you come and live with me at Three Oaks as my husband?”
“I am Comanche. I will return to my village.”
Bay’s shoulders sagged. He seemed indifferent about which choice she made, even though one meant spending the rest of her life with him and the other meant leaving him forever. Did he care so little? “Do you want me to go to Three Oaks?”
Long Quiet wondered how she could ask such a question after what had passed between them the previous night. “No.”
Bay carefully set her sewing aside. “Then why did you offer it as a choice?”
He met her gaze and held it. “Because I don’t wish any harm to come to you.”
“Because I belong to you?”
“Because you’re my wife . . . and I love you.”
Bay was overwhelmed by Long Quiet’s admission. She hadn’t even known she’d wanted him to say the words until he said them. But the simple phrase he’d spoken unlocked the chains around her heart. While she couldn’t yet speak of what she felt inside for her Comanche husband, she reached out her arms to him.
Long Quiet dropped to his knees before her and his arms circled her, pulling her forward and crushing her to him. He kissed her feverishly, desperately, on her neck and throat and face, until he finally found her mouth and took it with the full force of his need.
There was nothing gentle about the way his tongue claimed her mouth, nothing gentle about the way she returned his demanding caresses. His mouth left hers and searched for the soft skin of her neck. He kissed. He sucked. He bit her and sucked again.
Bay quivered at the alternation of arousing pain and exquisite pleasure. At her insensible, guttural groan he laid her flat, his body mantling hers, his loins searching for her welcoming cradle and finding it. The hard length of his manhood pulsed against her, and he pumped once before he stopped and groaned. His hands grasped her hips and arched her upward. But it was not enough, not close enough, and in the next moment her skirt was bunched above her waist and he was inside her.
He stopped abruptly and looked at her. Bay saw the shock in his eyes, as though he couldn’t believe what he’d just done. But she also saw the need and the desire, both of which matched her own. Her hands clasped his firm, tight buttocks, and she arched her hips upward, pulling him deeper inside, holding him captive. His eyes closed and slowly opened again. What had been banked coals was now raging fire.
She slid her hands up the length of his body, finding taut, corded muscle, until she reached his shoulders. She urged him down, down to her. His mouth sought hers, his tongue searching out the soft skin behind her upper lip, then pressing beyond her teeth and skimming her mouth, filling her, as his manroot filled her body.
She sought to give as much as she received, but he held her enthralled with his mouth and tongue. At last his mouth sought the skin at her throat once more. She searched for some part of him to kiss to show her love and found only his chin. She nipped at it, kissed and sucked at it, and then nipped it again.
Bay gasped as Long Quiet’s mouth left her throat for the pulse behind her ear, then dropped to her collarbone, then the center of her throat, before setting off on a journey to realms of delight. When buckskin barred his way, he yanked it off her shoulders so that her breasts were free but her arms were bound. She moaned as he withdrew his body from her entirely. She throbbed with need. She ached.
“Why are you stopping?” she asked.
“I don’t want it to end,” he rasped. “I want to please you for more than just a moment. I want it to last forever.”
When she would have said something, he closed her mouth with his, while his hand touched her nether lips, teasing, searching. She bucked against his restraint, but he used his strength to hold her still.
“What are you doing to me?”
“Giving you pleasure,” he murmured. “As much as you can stand.”
She groaned in answer as his thumb found what it sought. He dragged his tongue from the base of her throat to the tip of one breast and licked her there . . . like a cat tasting cream, and sucked . . . like a babe drinking mother’s milk, and bit . . . like a hungry man.
She wanted to touch him. She wanted to share with him.
Suddenly his fingers slipped inside her, moving in a rhythm that had her thrusting against his hand in counterpoint. She fought the binding buckskin, panting, moaning, unable to speak but begging him with her body to give her release.
He murmured love words in her ear, urging her to take his gift, urging her to fly with him, and then his hand was gone and he was inside her again and they were one.
His moist breath rasped in her ear and his groans matched hers in aching need. She could feel him tensing even as her own body arched taut as a bowstring and began to spasm. Agonized sounds wrenched from her throat and she clasped him with her legs to hold him inside her, refusing to let him go.
He grunted and drove his loins against her, trying to get even closer, giving her the gift of pleasure he’d promised. He clamped his mouth on hers, muffling the cry that broke from both of them when he came.
It was a while before he eased himself away to lie beside her. He pulled her into his arms and, totally enervated, she allowed him to mold their bodies together.
“Sleep, Shadow,” he whispered. “Tomorrow we begin our new life together.”
Long Quiet smiled when he realized she was already asleep. He tried to stop his eyes from drifting closed, knowing there was some reason he had to stay awake. But nature’s command was stronger than his will, and moments later he followed Bay into sleep.
The quiet ripping sound nudged at Long Quiet’s consciousness. His eyes opened slowly, but he instantly became aware that something was wrong. He held himself still, waiting. The strange ripping sound began again. Long Quiet searched the edges of the tipi until he saw the sawing knife point glinting in the dim firelight. Whoever was cutting his way into the tipi had already created a sizable slit in the buffalo-hide wall.
Long Quiet eased himself from Bay’s embrace and moved stealthily toward the tipi opening. Before he’d crawled more than a foot, his hand came down on another body. Instinctively, he clutched at what he’d found and woke the sleeping child who’d crawled close to sleep at the foot of their pallet. Little Deer let out a wail that woke Bay.
Long Quiet saw the knife point disappear, and he bounded for the tipi opening. “Take care of her,” he snapped at a completely disoriented Bay as he headed outside.
Long Quiet ran quickly around the tipi but found nothing. Whoever had been there was gone now. He vented his frustration with a round of curses in English, none of which made him feel any better. He shouldn’t have gone to sleep. What was he thinking to make love to Shadow. He pursed his lips ruefully. The plain fact was he didn’t do much thinking around Shadow. She swamped his senses so he could only feel.
His heart pounded with the remnants of fear. He’d only half believed the warning he’d received tonight, but here was proof that someone had deadly plans for Shadow. It was a good thing they were leaving in the morning. He wouldn’t be caught
unawares a second time.
When Long Quiet reentered the tipi, Bay had already quieted Little Deer and returned her to her own pallet.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Someone decided to come visiting.” Long Quiet walked over to the slash in the tipi and slipped his hand through it.
“Oh, my.”
“Why don’t you go back to sleep now. I’ll keep watch,” he said.
Bay shivered involuntarily. “I don’t think I could sleep now. Can I sit up with you?”
“You’ll be too tired to travel tomorrow if you don’t get some rest.”
“I’m scared.”
Long Quiet saw the plea in her eyes, saw how her body quivered with fear, and crossed to sit beside her. He pulled her between his thighs and wrapped his arms around her. His body was rigid with anger at whoever had been responsible for frightening her like this. “We’ll both be exhausted tomorrow,” he said.
Bay leaned back into his solid strength. “It’s hard to believe someone wants to kill me.”
“You’re safe now. Tomorrow we’ll be gone.”
Bay shivered again but said nothing.
It was a long night for both of them. Bay managed to drowse but was immediately caught up in a terrifying dream. She was being chased by a hulking figure, and no matter how fast she ran, she couldn’t escape. She could see Long Quiet in the distance, and somehow she knew if she could only reach him, she’d be safe. Just as she stretched out a hand to him, she tripped and fell. When something grabbed her ankle, she awoke with a scream, struggling violently against whatever held her prisoner.
Little Deer’s yelp brought Bay fully awake, and she realized that what she’d felt on her ankle was Little Deer’s waking hand and that it was Long Quiet who was trying to keep her hands from lashing out at the two of them.
“Shadow, stop. Wake up!”
Bay slumped in Long Quiet’s arms. He released her and she turned and burrowed into his embrace as tears of frustration and fatigue gathered in her eyes. “I was having an awful dream—”
Comanche Woman Page 16