by Lori Austin
The tepee was shaded by the riverbank, and the air inside was cooler than she would have thought. She cast a glance at the rear of the enclosure, wondering if Ethan had slipped in this side and out the other, but the only openings in the conical structure were the one behind her and another high above to release smoke.
The mats and blankets on the ground began to move. Annabeth pointed her gun at the shivering, shaking mass. Ethan’s dark head emerged.
She went to her knees, set aside the weapon. At first she thought he’d fainted again, until the violent movements, the rigid set of his neck and jaw brought a different diagnosis.
“Paroxysms.” She hadn’t seen those since the war. She hadn’t liked them much then, either.
Quickly, she turned her husband on his side so he wouldn’t choke. She made sure there was nothing anywhere near him on which he might hit his head. His head had been hit enough.
She considered running to the river and retrieving cool water to bathe his fiery skin, but until the paroxysms ceased, she could not leave his side. What if he stopped breathing? She’d seen it happen before. Often the result of a high fever, or a head injury, there was little to be done for the condition but treat the symptoms.
Cool water. Rest. If those didn’t work . . . an early grave.
“No,” Annabeth murmured. “Please, no.”
Whom she was talking to, she wasn’t sure. God hadn’t listened to her in . . .
“Forever.” Then again, she hadn’t spoken to him in nearly that long.
Ethan’s violent movements slowed, although his legs continued to twitch as if he were running. He was drenched in sweat. She removed his clothes so he wouldn’t be chilled when night fell. After tossing the soaked clothing outside, she settled him on the woven mats. He still shuddered, but the movements became more natural, the result of cooler air brushing his damp skin.
Annabeth stroked his brow. “Hush your cries,” she whispered. “Close your eyes.” Her mother had sung those words whenever Annabeth was ill. There was more, but she couldn’t remember it. “Something about ponies.”
He quieted, pulling in on himself. Curling his legs toward his chest, his chest toward his knees, cradling his belly as if it hurt. The position was the one she’d taken the night their child died—first protecting what lived within and later mourning what lived there no longer.
Annabeth’s eyes burned; she got to her feet. Snatching an earthen bowl that hung from the center pole, she stepped into the blazing Kansas sun.
Except the sun wasn’t blazing, at least not on her. Instead, the glare was blocked by the shadows of four men.
CHAPTER 23
Annabeth stumbled back, reaching for her gun, but it was gone. She���d dropped the Colt to help Ethan and then forgotten it completely.
The Indians stared at her with no expression in their dark, endless eyes. One had hair standing straight up along the center of his head, while the rest of his scalp had been shaved. The other three bore only a single long lock that fell past their shoulders. Every one of them had been tattooed.
They made no move to touch her. Their weapons—bows, arrows, a rifle or two that resembled those carried by the army—remained slung over their bare shoulders. One of them held the reins of Ethan’s horse.
“That’s mine.” She pointed to the animal.
No one moved; no one spoke. Hell, no one blinked. They seemed to be staring at her hair. Even chopped at the shoulders, no longer hanging to her waist, it was hard to miss.
Annabeth stepped toward the horse, and the largest Indian—still not as tall as her, but taller than any other she’d ever seen—shifted. Just a tilt of his hips, his shoulders, and he blocked her way.
“That’s mine,” he repeated, but he pointed to the tepee.
“Oh. Yes. I apologize, but we . . . he . . . Ethan, he’s—”
“E-tan?” The tall man, the only one who’d spoken thus far, strode toward her so fast, she stepped out of the way lest she be plowed over. He stuck his head into the opening and then pulled it back out. “Nika,” he said.
Annabeth stared at him blankly and spread her hands.
“E-tan.” His thick, dark arm shot into the tepee. “Doc.”
“Yes. He’s a doctor.”
“Ni.” He pointed to the river with his other arm, then to his head. “Wexli.”
From that she assumed he wanted her to put water on Ethan’s head. What nika meant, she had no idea.
Nodding, she sidled toward the river. The three braves who’d barred her path separated. They continued to stare at her hair; she thought one even reached out as she passed and touched it, murmuring something that sounded like zhu’je, but when she turned, their hands remained at their sides, their lips compressed into identical flat lines.
Annabeth hurried to the water’s edge, dunked the bowl beneath the surface, and hurried back. Only three people and five horses remained outside the tepee. Terrified at what the Kansa leader might do—even though he had appeared to know “E-tan,” it didn’t mean he liked him—she rushed inside.
The man sat on the ground next to her husband, blowing sweet-smelling smoke from his pipe into Ethan’s face. Ethan remained unconscious, but he seemed less ill. He’d straightened from his curled-in, defensive position and lay on his back, his breathing almost normal.
She caught the glint of her gun half buried beneath a woven mat and dropped down in easy reach of both Ethan and the weapon. She didn’t think the Kansa were going to turn violent, but one never could tell.
“Wak’o.” The Indian pointed at Annabeth. “Ni.” The bowl. “Wexli.” He tapped Ethan’s head.
Annabeth tore off the least muddy, sweaty portion of her shirttail, dipped it into the water, and bathed Ethan’s face. She didn’t care for the puckered look of his stitches. If she didn’t cut them free soon, Ethan’s body would begin to reject the foreign matter with an infection.
She wished for some alcohol to clean them. While she was at it, she wished for scissors and Freedom, a world where her child wasn’t dead and Ethan didn’t blame himself for it. She also wished she’d never seen Lassiter Morant or Moses Farquhar, for that matter.
“If wishes were horses,” she murmured.
Then it wouldn’t matter that the Kansa had taken theirs.
• • •
Ethan swam toward the surface. The water was thick and dark and hot, like nothing he’d ever experienced.
His thirst, the aches were familiar. But his pulse raced, fast enough to concern him, and his belly cramped, hard enough to embarrass him.
He came awake retching. A bowl beneath his mouth caught the tiny amount of liquid that spouted free. His bowels loosened, but there was little left to lose. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d eaten, or when he’d drunk anything but—
His hand went to his pocket, except he had no pocket. His clothes were gone.
“Better?” Annabeth asked.
He opened his eyes; however, the face that filled his vision was not his wife’s but—“Joe?”
The Indian’s lips twitched, his version of a smile.
A curse drew Ethan’s attention to Annabeth as she placed her palm on his forehead. Her lips frowned. “What year is it?” she asked.
“I’m not out of my head.” Though he wished that he was. If he was delirious, he wouldn’t be so mortified.
“You called him Joe.”
Joe grunted at the mention of his name and muttered, “Wak’o,” with the manner of every man who’d been exasperated with a woman in his life.
“I think his name is Wak’o,” she said.
“Wak’o means woman.”
Annabeth’s frown deepened. “Then I don’t much care for his tone.”
Ethan laughed, but the movement jarred his belly and bowels, so he stopped. “His name is long and unpronounceable, except for Wasabe, which means bear. I assume he’s called Big Man Who Kills Bears, or Black Bear, Brown Bear, Crazy Bear Who Kills Anything. I just call him Joe. Saves time
, and he doesn’t seem to mind.”
“How can you tell?” Annabeth asked, eyeing the Indian, who couldn’t stop eyeing her hair.
“He hasn’t scalped me yet.”
“He seems more interested in scalping me.”
“Hair like yours is unusual in his world.”
“In any world unless you’re a Phelan,” she said.
Ethan had never seen anyone with hair quite like it, and no doubt Joe felt the same. Ethan couldn’t resist teasing her. “I’m sure a scalp in Phelan red would be an incredible prize.”
Instead of inching closer for protection, her hand crept beneath the mat she knelt upon. Ethan caught the flash of a gun barrel.
“No,” he snapped, and she froze. “He wouldn’t hurt you even if he weren’t my friend. The Kaw, which means People of the South Wind, is what the Kansa call themselves, and they’re peaceful. Most of them are on the reservation.”
“And that isn’t anywhere close.” She kept her hand on the gun and her gaze on Joe.
“Every so often, Joe and his friends go off to hunt.”
“The army must love that.”
“Which is why Joe comes here. This isn’t—wasn’t—their territory. It belonged to the Wichita.”
At least as much as land could “belong” to an Indian. They believed the earth belonged to everyone—a conviction the white man had made good use of.
“The Wichita have been confined in Indian Territory since the war,” she said.
“How do you know so much about Indians?” Had Moze told her? Perhaps Lassiter Morant? Or some other man she’d spied on and lied to in the past five years?
“When riding about, it’s best to know who you might encounter and how friendly they’re apt to be. I’ve seen Kans—” She paused. “I mean Kaw tepees before but not Wichita.”
Joe growled at the final word.
“I don’t think he cares for them,” Annabeth said.
“His people usually fought with the Cheyenne,” Ethan began.
Joe snarled. Ethan ignored him. The Cheyenne had been sent to a reservation in Indian Territory, but they hadn’t stayed on it any better than Joe stayed on his.
“The Kaw also skirmished with any other band that got in their way,” he said.
“Like the Wichita.”
Ethan nodded, then wished that he hadn’t when the sudden pain in his head made his stomach roil. He breathed in and out as he had a stern talk with his belly. If there’d been anything in it, he might have lost the argument, but for now he managed not to dissolve into another pathetic bout of retching. Though he couldn’t say how long that would last.
“With the Wichita on the reservation,” he continued, “and actually staying on it, unlike most other bands, their territory is open.”
“And their territory was here.”
“When Joe and his friends leave the reservation, the army looks for them in Kaw territory.” The army wasn’t exactly known for its ingenuity. To be fair, they weren’t expected to be.
“How do you know all this?” she asked.
“Joe told me.”
“You speak Kaw?”
“Enough.”
“Enough for what? You’ve obviously been here before. You know each other. How? Why?”
“I treated one of his men.”
“You just happened across a band of Indians as you were strolling across the prairie?”
“Something like that.”
He wasn’t going to tell his wife the whole story. Which involved his getting on a horse half conscious, planning to . . . he couldn’t quite remember what. Die, most likely—back then that had always been his plan. He’d just never been very good at it.
He’d fallen off his horse. Only his sorry state had kept him from breaking his neck. As his father always said: God watched over fools and lunatics. Most days Ethan was both.
Joe had found him, brought him to this tepee. Joe and his men had sat around the fire staring at Ethan; Ethan had stared back. He’d figured they would kill him eventually, and since he’d been trying to die anyway, he didn’t care.
“One of the braves had a cut on his hand that had putrefied,” he said. “I drained, cleaned, and stitched it. After that, I returned every month around the full moon.”
“Why?”
“Because a few weeks later, Joe walked into Freedom. The only reason he left alive was that he was holding a feverish Kaw child. From then on, we met here.”
“Androcles,” his wife murmured.
Joe snorted. Both Ethan and Annabeth glanced at the Indian as if a dog had sat up and spoken.
“Do you think he—?” Annabeth began.
“No,” Ethan said, but he wondered. Sometimes he thought Joe understood a lot more English than Ethan understood Kaw.
“Do you know the fable?” she asked.
“I do.”
“My mother used to tell us stories at night.” Her face went soft at the memory. “Sometimes it was the only way to get so many of us to sleep.”
Ethan had not had a mother to read to him. Instead he’d read to Mikey. Aesop’s Fables had been one of his brother’s favorites.
“Joe followed you like the lion in the story,” Annabeth continued.
There were times Ethan felt like a slave. And other times he wished to be devoured by wild animals.
“Joe isn’t tame.”
“Most lions aren’t, even when they pretend to be.”
Ethan wasn’t sure whom they were talking about anymore. He didn’t think it was Joe.
“Why the full moon?”
“It’s a time he understands.” Days, weeks, months, hours meant nothing to the Kaw.
“If he meets you every full moon, then why is here now?”
“Just because he meets me under the full moon doesn’t mean he doesn’t come here at other times. It’s his tepee.”
“There’s no doctor at the reservation?” she asked.
“Joe prefers me.”
“Mmm,” Annabeth murmured, gaze on the half-naked man. “Just don’t stick your head between his jaws.”
“I don’t plan to.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“I don’t care.” Ethan liked Joe. The man was quiet and still—the perfect companion. They’d shared many friendly fires. Joe smoking, Ethan sipping.
“Could I have some water?” Ethan asked.
“Can you keep it down?”
“Doubtful.”
“Then no.”
“I might get paroxysms.”
“You already did.”
Ethan frowned. He was a lot worse off than he’d thought. “We should get back to Freedom.”
“After you rest.”
“No.” He struggled upright. “I have to go.”
She pushed him down. Ethan was so weak, she didn’t even need Joe’s help, though he gave it. “Deliriums,” she muttered.
“I am not delirious.” But he would be.
“It’s nearly night.” Annabeth stood and went through the opening in the tepee. Her words drifted back. “We’ll see how you feel in the morning.”
• • •
When darkness descended, the Kaw built two fires—one in front of the tepee and one within. They hunkered around the flames of outdoor fire and cooked a few rabbits.
Except during the time he retrieved a bit of meat for himself and Annabeth, Joe remained nearby. He pointed a greasy finger at a fitfully sleeping Ethan, lifted the meat, and shook his head.
“No food for him,” Annabeth agreed.
Concerned with how sunken Ethan’s eyes appeared, she’d relented and had given him the requested water. He’d thrown up almost immediately, and her concern had deepened to fear. A man could live a long time without food. Water was another matter.
She bathed his face, his neck, and his chest, his entire body. Perhaps some of the liquid would seep through his skin. She knew better—even if it did, he was emitting more through sweat and vomit than she could ever rub in. Still she ke
pt trying. She had no idea what was wrong with him, and therefore no idea what to do. But she had to do something. If he died . . .
Her mind faltered; her heart stuttered; her hands began to shake. A world without Ethan Walsh was not a world she could even bear thinking about.
Joe continued to sit and smoke and stare. She wanted to ask what it was that he smoked and if it would help Ethan. But even if he understood her question, she would not understand his answer.
In the darkest part of the night, Ethan spasmed and jerked. His harsh, rasping breaths frightened her. Until they stopped. Then terror paralyzed her.
“Iha!” Joe pointed to his lips, to hers, to Ethan’s. When Annabeth didn’t respond, he banged his fist against Ethan’s chest—once, twice, again.
“Stop.” Annabeth reached for his hand. Joe pulled it back and pointed once more to his mouth. “Iha,” he said, then blew out. When she continued to stare, he leaned over as if he might kiss Ethan, and suddenly she understood. If Ethan could not breathe, then she would breathe for him.
She placed her lips on her husband’s and blew. The air rustled her hair as it came through his nose. Two long, dark fingers pinched Ethan’s nostrils shut. Annabeth tried again. This time Ethan’s chest lifted and then lowered. She did this several times. She had no idea if it would work, but she felt less hysterical doing something.
Joe smacked Ethan in the chest again, and this time Ethan gasped and then began to breathe on his own. Annabeth laid her cheek against her husband’s. His was damp. Or maybe hers was.
As she lay there breathing in the scent of him—not the most pleasant right now, but still him—she understood that she would always love Ethan Walsh. No matter what he’d done, no matter what she had. Even if he’d died, she would have loved him every second until she did. She would still leave—he deserved the life he’d always wanted, and he could have that with Cora—but for her there would never be anyone else in the way that there was Ethan.
“Beth?”
She peered into his pale, damp face. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what’s wrong.” Something flickered in his eyes. “Do you?”