by Anita Mills
“Come on—I’ll turn my head.” He lifted her, then put an arm beneath hers, taking most of her weight off her sore feet. “You can do your business here, if you want. We’re moving on, anyway.”
In the distance a coyote howled, its chilling cry piercing the darkening desert. She shuddered, then tried to take a step, stumbling against him.
“I don’t know how the hell you thought I could get you all the way to the Ybarra like this,” he muttered.
“If I didn’t want to see Ramon hang, I’d gladly die,” she said wearily. “I’m so sick … so sick …”
She got no further. Her stomach convulsed, sending her food back up. He barely had time to lean her over his other arm before she vomited. As he held her helplessly, she retched and retched until there was nothing left to come up. And still she heaved. He dragged her to where he’d already packed the canteens. Opening one, he dashed a little of the water into her face.
“Better?” he asked hopefully.
“No. I can still taste the coffee.”
“Poor Amanda,” he murmured soothingly, turning her against his chest. Resting her head on his shoulder, she clung to him as though he were life itself. “It’s all right,” he whispered over and over. “You’re going to get better—you have to.”
“I know.”
“Come one—let’s take care of nature now.” Easing her back onto his arm, he tried to walk her. This time, she didn’t stumble, but she was mostly dead weight. “That’s the girl,” he encouraged her. “We’ll stop anywhere you want.”
“I don’t care.”
“How about here?”
“No.”
“Amanda, you’re damned contrary—you know that, don’t you?”
“All right—here then.”
She was too dizzy, too sick to care anymore. She reached out, gripping his hand. Holding her, he managed to get her drawers down, then he fixed his gaze on a stand of mesquite as she sank to a squat. It wasn’t until she announced, “I’m done,” that he looked down. The puddle was small and as dark as his coffee. She wasn’t getting enough water.
“See—you didn’t die, did you?”
“I thought about it.”
He pulled her up and yanked up her drawers, catching her chemise under them. “Damn, but you’re helpless as a baby, aren’t you?” he said, straightening it out.
“Yes.”
“I’m going to tie you onto Hannibal,” he decided.
“I’m too dizzy to think.”
“I know.” She looked more like a lost waif than the Ybarra heiress. “But I’m going to have to try it.”
“I’m telling you I’m sick.”
He regarded her soberly. “Are you telling me you can’t sit a mule if you’re tied on?” he asked finally.
“I don’t know.”
“Amanda, I’ve got to get you somewhere where you can drink. Otherwise, you’ll lose ground, and I’ll have it all to do over again.”
“But I’m sick—truly sick.” Even as she said it, she swayed, and for a moment, the world went black. “Please—”
“Look, we’ve got to travel in the cool of the night. If you don’t want to ride with the packs, you can ride with me.” Seeing that she just stood there, he added brusquely, “It doesn’t make any difference to me.”
“I don’t want to be tied down.”
“Fine. Here—lean against this tree.” Releasing her, he finished packing, then he swung his saddle over the paint mare’s back, tightened the cinch, and checked it. He added the blanket to his bedroll and tied it behind. When he turned around, he was basically ready. “I guess that’s it,” he said. “How do you feel now?”
“I can make it.”
“How about a drink before we go?”
“I don’t think it would stay down.
No matter how she felt, he couldn’t afford to wait much longer. “All right. I’m going to put you up in the saddle, and you can hang onto the horn. I’ll ride behind and hold you on. Think you can ride like that?”
She closed her eyes for a moment, then nodded. “Yes.”
He lifted her up, pushing her into the worn leather saddle, and as her leg went over, her chemise rode up. Before she had time to pull the ruffled hem of her drawers down to cover her bare legs, he swung up behind her. Reaching around her for the reins, his arm brushed against her breast. There was a momentary pause in his breath, then he recovered.
“Ready?”
“Yes.” Too sick to worry about propriety, she leaned back, resting her head on his shoulder. “I’ll be all right—I’ve got to be.”
Clay reached for the lead rope with his free hand, then nudged the paint mare with his knee. The horse started forward, but as the rope tautened, the mule threw its head back, baring its teeth. He jerked the rope, pulling the animal up short, and it sullenly fell in behind them.
“Keep this up, Hannibal, and one of these days you’re going to be supper,” Clay warned the mule.
His arm tightened around Amanda, holding her. It was nearly dark, and he could hear a whole pack of coyotes howling at the moon. He looked down at the shadowed head against his breast and felt an odd tenderness. Tomorrow she’d probably be the greatest nuisance of his life, but tonight she seemed frail and vulnerable in his arms, and he wanted to protect her. For a foolish moment he even dared to wonder what it would be like to have her, then he caught himself. As his Aunt Jane often said, that would happen when pigs flew.
Ahead he saw the eerie silhouette of two Indians against the brightening sky. Shifting Amanda’s weight to his other arm, Clay reached for his spyglass. As he focused on them, he was relieved. Both wore the long, unbraided hair of Comanches, and it looked as though they might be waiting for him. He cupped his mouth with his free hand and gave his long, lonesome coyote howl. Almost before it ended, they answered. Amanda roused slightly and turned her head into his shoulder. It wasn’t a very satisfactory position, but she’d been so dizzy when he’d stopped that he had to turn her sideways and hold her. Now his arm and back ached like the devil.
She seemed to be getting worse instead of better, and every drop of water he’d tried to put in her was coming back up. But he had to admire her—as sick as she was, she’d hung on. He brushed his hand against her temple, discovering it was hotter, dryer then before. Before the sun rose much higher, he was going to have to get something into her, and she was going to have to keep it down.
He shouldn’t have made her eat the hackberry ball, he knew that now. The tallow had been too heavy for her stomach—that and the strong boiled coffee. He could still taste the bitterness himself, and he could drink damned near anything.
He was thirsty, terribly thirsty, but he didn’t want to stop. Not yet. If he did, he’d have to get her down and then back up. And he was tired, nearly too tired to think. Days of unrelenting heat and his own lack of sleep were telling on him, and his nerves were strung as taut as bowstrings.
He closed his burning eyes, squeezing tears into them, then straightened up, shifting her again. Slowed by the weight of two people, the paint mare walked doggedly, and he knew she was as tired as he was. Before the sun got much higher, he was going to have to change mounts, which would necessitate changing packs between her and Hannibal. The temperamental mule tolerated him, but it would probably balk when he put Amanda on.
When he looked up again, the Indians were gone. He blinked, and they reappeared, two riders with a horse between them, coming down the gentle slope toward him. They closed the gap, then pulled up less than a hundred feet away, and Clay could see yellow warpaint in their hair. One of them called out, asking his name. It was as though there was a momentary pause in his heartbeat, as though time waited for the answer he would give them.
“Nahakoah!” he shouted. “Nermernuh!”
Awakened, Amanda tried to sit up, but his arm tightened around her. “It’s all right—just stay still,” he told her. Raising his free arm, he pointed his hand a
t them, asking “Nokoni?”
“Nokoni!” one of them responded.
Hearing the foreign words, Amanda looked up at him in bewilderment. He didn’t know whether she could understand or not, but he tried to reassure her. “They’re friendly,” he said under his breath. “They won’t hurt you.”
“No,” she croaked.
“These are my people, Amanda—because they think you belong to me, they welcome you.”
She turned her face into his shoulder and held on. “I’m sick … so sick,” she whispered.
“I know,” he consoled her. “But once I get you to Nahdehwah, you’ll get better.” The one leading the horse rode closer and struck his breast. “Tshantai,” he announced. Bear Claw. And the painting on his shield indicated he belonged to the Crow Warriors. Turning in his saddle, Bear Claw gestured to his companion. “Asenakei.” Waits for Deer.
Waits for Deer raised a lance high at the introduction, then grinned as he lowered it. Half a dozen fresh scalps swung below its sharpened point. By the looks of him, he was a Crow Warrior also. The war party had sent two members of the highest Comanche military society to guide him to Ketanah’s camp.
“I am honored,” he said, acknowledging their worth.
Bear Claw looked Clay up and down, then nodded. “We have heard of you, Stands Alone. You are brother to my brother.”
It was an acknowledgment of kinship between The People that even Hap couldn’t understand—a bond of belonging rather than one of blood. Clay nodded. “Brother,” he said solemnly.
Glancing to Amanda’s still form, Waits for Deer clucked sympathetically. “The Kiowas told of your sick woman. Like you, we have little water, but you are welcome to it.”
“She can’t keep it down.”
“If she can live until we reach Ketanah’s camp, Nehdehwah will cure her.”
“She’ll make it—she has to.” But as Clay looked down, seeing Amanda’s head against his shoulder, he wasn’t as sure as he sounded.
“You have other wives, Stands Alone?” Bear Claw asked.
“No—only this one.” Seeing that they regarded him with pity, he added, “She has no sisters.”
“But you gained her brothers,” the Indian murmured, trying to put the best face on what he perceived to be Clay’s unfortunate predicament. “They hunt with you.”
“She doesn’t have any brothers,” he admitted. “She has no one.”
Bear Claw digested that, then decided, “You are a good man to take a girl without family, Stands Alone. I married a woman with two sisters, so now I have three wives who help each other.” He gestured to Waits for Deer. “His wives are not sisters, and they quarrel too much.”
Not wanting to discuss his situation, the other Indian changed the subject abruptly. “We brought a horse for your woman, but I can see she cannot sit alone,” he said. ‘Two Owls did not tell us she would need a travois, and we have no poles to make one,” he added apologetically.
“I can hold her until we stop.” As he spoke, Clay flexed his tingling fingers, trying to increase his circulation. When he did stop, he was going to have to try tying her onto Hannibal. By now, the mule ought to have lost enough of his vinegar to stand for it, he reasoned.
Bear Claw turned in his saddle to survey the flat terrain, then shook his head. “Not here,” he decided. “There is no place to hide.”
“But soon there will be a small hill,” Waits for Deer promised. “Then if she cannot ride, I will take Stands Alone’s woman on my horse.”
It was a generous offer, but if Amanda awakened in the Indian’s arms, she’d be terrified. As sick as she was, Clay still more than half expected her to cut a real dido when she found herself in a Comanche camp. And if she did, he was going to suffer a real loss of face.
As the two warriors fell in beside him, they told of raiding deep into Mexico, all the way to Durango, and bringing back “many horses, many captives.” They also said that while the main band was encamped near the big spring on Sulphur Draw, there were a number of Nokoni Comanches who’d come down as far as this side of Castle Gap, where the weeping springs still gave water. By Clay’s reckoning, that put the camp twelve miles beyond Horsehead Crossing.
He didn’t even want to think of Horsehead Crossing. That was the big test—he was going to have to get across the Pecos with her, and even in dry times, the river was treacherous and unforgiving of mistakes. There’d been a lot of folks who’d learned that lesson the hard way, and whole cattle herds had been known to perish there. As much as he disliked ranchers, he felt almost sorry for Rube Grey, whose thirst-mad herd had plunged over the river banks to drink, then died bawling in the quicksand below. It didn’t matter—to get where he needed to go he was going to have to get across the Pecos. Resolutely, he turned his attention to the woman in his arms.
He couldn’t see her face, so he didn’t know if she slept, or if she was hiding from the two Comanches. All he knew was that he could feel her breath on his arm.
“Amanda?” he asked softly. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes.” Her answer was barely a whisper.
“You’re going to be all right—you know that, don’t you?”
She didn’t answer.
He slowed the paint to a walk. Transferring the reins to the hand that held her, he reached for his nearly empty canteen, twisted the lid off with his teeth, and caught it with his hand. Tipping the container, he drank enough to wet his mouth, hoping to slake his own awful thirst. He leaned forward, laying Amanda in the crook of his arm, then held the canteen to her mouth.
“Here,” he urged her, “take a little of this. Come on—you’ve got to be thirsty—you’ve got to.”
She pushed it away.
Bear Claw leaned out to touch her dry skin, then shook his head. “Bad,” he grunted. He reached down and untied his food sack from his saddle. Dipping his fingers into it, he drew out several peyote buttons and gave them to Clay. “When I had fire in the gut and could not eat, they cured me,” he offered in testimony.
“Thanks.” Clay shifted Amanda again. ‘Try to eat these,” he coaxed.
She turned her head and closed her eyes.
“You’re making this hard—you know that, don’t you?”
“No,” she whispered.
“All right.” His hand forced her mouth open and he pushed the peyote buttons between her teeth. “All you’ve got to do is chew these.” She gagged, then recovered, but he held his hand over her mouth just in case. “Keep trying, and you can do it,” he encouraged her. As he watched, she worked her jaws, then swallowed. “Keep going,” he urged. She swallowed again. “That’s good, amiga—get it all down.”
As he looked into her face, seeing her sunburned cheeks, her cracked, blackened lips, part of him told him it would have been easier and kinder to have let her die. Instead he’d made himself responsible for her. And right now he was too tired to even ponder why he’d done it. But as her image that night at Comanche Springs appeared in his mind, the dryness in his mouth came from more than a lack of water.
It seemed as though an eternity passed before Waits for Deer observed, “Your mare is tired,” breaking into Clay’s thoughts. “And there is a hill behind us now.”
Clay noticed he’d said mare rather than horse. But left unsaid was that a man should ride a gelding rather than a mare, that a mare was for a child, a woman, or an old man, not a warrior. “She’s got more heart than any other horse I’ve ever owned,” Clay declared. “There hasn’t been a place I needed to go where she wasn’t willing to carry me. We’ve crossed desert, mountain, canyon, and river together. But I probably ought to rest her and ride the spare horse for a while,” he conceded, reining in.
The Indian dismounted. Walking to the paint mare, he reached up for Amanda, steadying her while Clay gingerly eased his aching body from the saddle. She swayed, nearly falling, then grasped the saddlehorn. Her glazed eyes blinked, trying to focus on the hideously painted face. As a s
cream fought against her seemingly paralyzed throat, he smiled at her, then said something to McAlester.
Clay reached for her, lifting her, then carrying her to where Bear Claw had already laid a brightly colored Mexican blanket on the ground. As he placed her on it, she rolled to her side, drawing her knees to her chest. Nearly too dizzy to think, she curled up like a small child. Her mouth was so dry she couldn’t swallow.
“Thirsty … so thirsty,” she whispered.
As if he understood what she said, Waits for Deer untied an almost empty water bag and brought it over. “For your woman,” he said. “We can get more at the river.”
This time, when Clay propped her against his knee and held the mouth of the container to her lips, she drank noisily, guzzling it, spilling it onto his shirt, until he pulled it away from her. When he laid her back, he felt considerable relief. The peyote had worked, and once she kept the water in her stomach, she was going to feel a whole lot better. He took a big swig himself, and as it went down his parched throat, it was brackish, heavy with gypsum. If he hadn’t been so thirsty, he’d have spit it out. But she hadn’t noticed.
He walked, stretching his legs, swinging his arms to ease his aching shoulders. A big, thick-bodied diamondback buzzed in warning, but instead of killing it, he went the other way. He was just too hot and too tired to care right now. Leaning against the skeletal branches of a dead mesquite, he squinted up at the cloudless sky.
The sun would be high enough to blister the ground with its heat in another couple of hours, but there was no sense making camp. Not now, not when they were within a couple of hours of Horsehead Crossing. No, as hot as it was, it was better to get the treacherous Pecos behind them in full daylight.
He walked back and found that they’d already moved his packs from Hannibal to Sarah and had saddled the other horse they’d brought. Waits for Deer had folded Clay’s frayed government-issue blanket and placed it on the mule, tying it in place with a long piece of rawhide.
As much as they tried to hide it, there was no mistaking the eagerness of the two Indians. Having delayed long enough to make a triumphant entrance, the Crow Warriors were now hoping to reach Ketanah’s camp before the scalp dance began. Clay would have told them to go on, but right now he couldn’t afford to lose them.