Winter's Touch

by Hudson, Janis Reams

  Megan pouted. “The porch grabbed me.”

  “It did? Well, we’ll have to be having a talk with that mean ol’ porch, won’t we?” While she spoke, she quickly caught the splinter between her fingernails and pulled it free. A tiny drop of blood oozed out of the hole.

  “You’re supposed to kiss it and make it better.”

  Winter Fawn smiled. She remembered her own mother kissing her skinned knees to make them better. She raised Megan’s finger to her lips and placed a kiss on the hurt spot. Then she pressed the finger into her palm.

  Megan tilted her head and watched. “What are you doing that for?”

  Winter Fawn felt the heat, the tingling, the slight sting on her on forefinger. “Making sure the kiss won’t fall off.”

  Megan’s eyes grew large in her face. “Does that work?”

  “Sometimes.” She released the finger. “There, is that better?”

  “Oh, yes! Thank you, Winter Fawn.” She threw her arms around Winter Fawn’s neck and hugged. “You’re the best hurt-kisser ever.”

  Feeling the child’s arms around her neck warmed Winter Fawn’s heart in a way nothing else could have.

  As the days passed, a deep bond was formed between the three females. Winter Fawn sometimes feared she was growing to care too much for Bess and Megan. They became the sisters she had never had. When it was time to leave the ranch she would miss them terribly. But she did not try to stop herself from loving them, for they needed her even more than she needed them.

  Bess was grateful for an older woman to rely on, even though that woman knew little about white ways. And Megan was starved for attention. The three became inseparable.

  Winter Fawn was so happy with her new life that the thunderstorm took her completely by surprise. It struck late one night when she was fast asleep. It began with the low rumble of distant thunder and hurled her, still asleep, back in time until the spring of her twelfth year.

  Over the trickling sound of the creek came a faint rumbling. Startled from her daydream, Winter Fawn looked up. The sky overhead, what she could see of it above the tall cottonwoods lining the creek, was cloudless. Not thunder, then.

  Could her uncle and the other men of the band be moving the horses?

  No, it was too soon. They had only started packing this morning. Her mother had told her they would leave at midday on their journey to join the rest of the tribe. There was time yet before Winter Fawn needed to go help her mother dismantle the tepee.

  With an exaggerated sigh, Winter Fawn trailed her fingers in the icy waters of the creek and felt them instantly start to numb. She did not want to move. She liked it best here in this spot in the foothills of the great mountains. She liked it best when it was just her band.

  Her father had told her many times about the white man’s custom of most people living in one place year-round. It had sounded impossible to her young ears the first time he had told her. Did the white man have some sort of magic to make the buffalo come to them, then? How else did they manage such a mystery as staying in one place all year?

  But the white man, her father had told her, did not live off the buffalo. He instead raised cattle and other animals, grew crops, and bought other goods in towns.

  Impossible, she had thought. But, being a white man himself, her father should know.

  Now, facing her twelfth summer, Winter Fawn wondered what that might be like, staying in one place all year. She thought it sounded fine.

  But they did not live in the white man’s world, and it was time, as happened every year when the snows melted, for her band to journey out onto the plains and join with the rest of Our People. Arapaho, the whites called them. Southern Arapaho.

  Some day she thought she would like to know what it was like to not have to move constantly. To know upon awakening how far she was from water, that her favorite tree stood not far away, that the same bald hill stood in its same spot as always.

  Someday…

  The rumble sounded again, and this time she knew it was thunder. She glanced up to see dark, angry clouds boiling across the sky.

  Maybe they wouldn’t take down the tepees just yet. Maybe the women would wait until the storm passed. Maybe by then it would be too late to start out today, and the band would spend one more night in Winter Fawn’s favorite spot.

  She thought about following the creek back to camp, but that would not be fair to her mother. The creek wound and twisted and snaked around rocks and hills on its way to the river. It would take much longer to follow it than to simply climb the bald hill behind her. Camp was just on the other side.

  “Good-bye, creek,” she whispered as she pushed to her feet. “Good-bye, tall willow.” A tree grew strong and sturdy by staying in one spot. So, too, she thought, might she.

  But it was not to be. Not now. For now it was time to go. Already the wind was whipping the branches and the sky looked dangerous. Winter Fawn hurried away from the creek and toward the hill.

  As she left the trees and neared the hill, she heard her mother’s voice calling her name. Looking up, she spotted her standing at the top of the hill, waving.

  “I’m coming, Mother!”

  She should have returned sooner. It was not fair to force her mother to come looking for her. Winter Fawn began to run.

  This side of the hill was not steep, but once on top a person could look out over the tops of the trees lining the creek, for the hill, with no trees of its own, was the tallest thing around. When Winter Fawn reached the top where her mother waited, she paused.

  “Hurry, child, a storm comes.”

  “Just one last look,” Winter Fawn pleaded.

  Smiling, her mother turned with her to take a final look at their winter home. “One look, to last until next autumn.” Winter Fawn’s mother always smiled. That was why she was called Smiling Woman.

  As they stood atop the bald, flat-topped hill and gazed at the small valley nestled in the foothills of the mighty mountains, Winter Fawn felt a sudden prickling along her arms. The sensation spread until it felt as though every hair on her body was standing on end. It tickled.

  Laughing, she glanced at her mother.

  Smiling Woman was no longer smiling. She was looking up at the clouds, her eyes wide, her breath coming fast.

  “Mother?”

  “Run,” her mother cried.

  “What? Why?”

  “Run, child!” Smiling Woman grabbed Winter Fawn’s hand and began to run toward the far side, toward camp.

  Stumbling in her mother’s wake, Winter Fawn felt the prickling along her skin intensify. Now it did not tickle. Now, it hurt. It stung like a thousand bees. “What’s happening?”

  “Run!”

  As they neared the edge, where the bank cut sharply down, Winter Fawn tried to slow. It was steep there and she had no desire to fall.

  But Smiling Woman would have no slowing. Screaming now at Winter Fawn to run, she planted her feet in the gravely dirt and flung her daughter over the edge of the hill.

  For one horrifying instant, Winter Fawn hung suspended in the air, staring in shock at her mother standing on the hill. While she watched, helpless, arms flailing, a bolt of lightning reached from the dark sky and struck Smiling Woman.

  Before Winter Fawn could even scream her mother’s name, her mother was thrown into the air, her body arced like the curve of a bow, before slamming back down to earth. Then Winter Fawn herself dropped like a stone from the sky. She hit the ground hard, felt the sharp scrape of rock against flesh and tumbled down the steep slope. She screamed. And screamed, and screamed.

  The harsh effort of her own screaming brought her upright in bed. What in her sleep had been a scream was no more than a harsh exhale. Her throat was locked and could make no sound.

  Icy sweat soaked the nightgown Bess had given her. Terror and anguish clutched her throat. Every flash of lightning outside her window made her flinch in terror.

  She would not think of her mother. Would not allow herself to remember the
bolt of lightning that had struck and killed her mother right before her eyes.

  Yet how could she not remember, when the nightmare was so fresh and vivid and every few seconds the room filled with another flash of light as bright as midday, and the thunder sounded like the end of the world?

  Winter Fawn buried her face in her shaking hands and prayed for the storm to stop.

  Think of something else. Anything else.

  Carson. She would think of Carson. Had the storm awakened him?

  Don’t think of the storm!

  What about Bess and Megan? Were they frightened of the jagged lightning, the crashing thunder?

  Don’t think about the storm!

  Carson, she reminded herself. She must think about Carson.

  Deliberately she let herself remember the taste of his lips, the way the hard calluses on his fingers and hands felt scraping tenderly across her skin.

  She saw him many times throughout each day, yet there was always someone else about. Her father, her brother, Beau, Frank, Bess, Megan. Always someone.

  Except two days ago when he had forgotten his leather work gloves. The men were mounting up to ride out and check on the cattle after breakfast when Carson had come back inside for his gloves. Bess and Megan had gone outside to wave them off.

  Winter Fawn had heard the front door open and thought it was the girls returning. She had turned from checking Bess’s bread dough with a guilty smile curving her lips. She had learned from Bess one of the greatest delights of the white world—stealing a pinch of raw, yeasty dough while it was rising.

  “The trick,” Bess had said with mock seriousness, “is to not get caught doing it.”

  Now Winter Fawn had been caught. Not by Bess, however. By Carson.

  He looked as surprised to find her there as she was to see him. He glanced from her fingers, which were still in her mouth, to the large bowl of dough on the counter, then back to her. “Caught you,” he said with a teasing grin.

  His grin, as it always did, backed the breath up in her lungs. She tried to laugh at his teasing, but couldn’t quite manage it. Quickly she took another pinch of dough and held it out to him. “If you have some too, then you canna tell on me.”

  As he walked toward her, his grin disappeared. He stood before her a long moment, staring into her eyes, holding her captive as if she were tied to him with braided rawhide. Slowly he leaned down toward her offered fingers. His lips parted, his mouth opened.

  Winter Fawn held her breath and waited for that instant when his mouth would caress her fingers. Her heart pounded in anticipation. Her own lips parted, yearned for the taste of his.

  Gently he closed his mouth over her fingers. With his tongue, he captured the dough and stroked it into his mouth. But he did not straighten and leave. He lingered, running his tongue over and around her fingertips, sucking on them, stealing her breath, all the while still holding her captive with those vivid blue eyes.

  Then slowly, reluctantly it seemed, he pulled his mouth away and straightened. He brushed her cheek with one hand. “You’ve been working hard. How’s your side?”

  “It’s…fine.”

  His gaze lowered to her lips. He leaned toward her.

  Winter Fawn sucked in a sharp breath. He was going to kiss her.

  Outside a horse neighed, a man shouted. Megan giggled.

  Carson straightened abruptly and moved away. “I forgot my gloves.”

  He disappeared into his bedroom, then quickly left. Before he closed the front door behind him, he looked back at her. Just looked, that was all. But with such heat in his eyes that she nearly cried out and ran after him.

  How dare him, she thought now, her fists clenched in the sheet. How dare he lead her on that way and make her think he wanted her as much as she wanted him, then treat her that night as if nothing had ever happened between them.

  Something had happened between them. Something wonderful, that last morning on the trail, before they reached the ranch. He had given her the most precious gift of all, the gift of her own pleasure as a woman.

  How could she want more from him, how could she care more each day for the man he was, the way he loved his sister and daughter? How could she be falling in love with a man who wanted her one minute, but not the next?

  Two days after the storm, four days after he had gone back into the house after his gloves, and Carson was still unable to forget the pull of her.

  He had had no intention of getting near her that morning. A smile, a word, that was all that was necessary. Yet he had been drawn to her as if he’d had no will of his own.

  Or as if he had thrown out all common sense and let his will have it’s own way.

  It was only physical, this need he felt for her. He had teased and tormented himself with imagining what it would have been like if they had made love that morning on the trail, if he had buried himself inside her instead of holding back.

  He had to quit thinking about it, dammit. She was his guest. Her father was his friend. She deserved better than a roll in the hay, and that was all he really wanted.

  Wasn’t it?

  “You expectin’ any company, Cap’n?” Beau asked.

  Carson hadn’t heard that particular tension in Beau’s voice since their last battle during the war. He looked up sharply and followed the man’s gaze. “No,” he said grimly, “but it looks like we’re about to have some.”

  From around the bend in the bluffs to the east, a large gray cloud of dust boiled into the air.

  “I make it around twenty riders,” Beau said, squinting at the dust cloud.

  Carson grunted in agreement, then swore. Had Crooked Oak managed to track them here and gone back for more warriors? Damn.

  “Beau, you and Frank take the barn.”

  “Yessuh,” Beau said quickly, as if the war had never ended and Carson was still his captain.

  “Innes, get Hunter and come to the house.”

  “Aye,” he said slowly, eyeing the approaching cloud. “That I will, lad, that I will.”

  Carson sprinted to the house. He burst through the door and reached for his rifle, which rested on pegs above the door.

  “What is it?” Winter Fawn asked quickly.

  “Company.” He glanced around, making sure all three girls were there. From the looks on their faces, he knew they realized he hadn’t meant invited company. Being raised during a war gave even Megan an understanding he wished he didn’t need to be grateful for.

  His mind scrambled for the safest place to put the girls. Every room in the house had at least one window. He didn’t want them near a window. “I want you upstairs, but stay in the hall and out of the bedrooms.”

  “Can we help?” Bess asked tightly.

  “You can bring me the box of ammunition from the bottom of the wardrobe in my room, but hurry.” A glance out the front window showed the dust cloud was nearly at the bend.

  Winter Fawn came to the window. “Is it Crooked Oak?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where are my father and Hunter?”

  As if in response to her question, the front door burst open and Innes and Hunter rushed inside. Innes carried his rifle in one hand, ammunition pouch in the other.

  “Hunter,” Carson said when Bess brought his ammunition. “Get the girls upstairs. Stay with them. Keep them in the hall and away from the windows.”

  Hunter did not bother getting insulted over being sent to watch the girls rather than take part in the fighting. If that was Crooked Oak out there, Hunter wouldn’t mind putting a hole or two in him, but otherwise, he would not—did not think he could—fire on any of Our People.

  “Come.” He took Bess by the arm and Megan by the hand and led them up the stairs into the short, dim hallway.

  “I’m scared,” Megan complained with a whimper. “Is it the Yankees? Are the Yankee Bluebellies coming?”

  Bess brushed a shaking hand over the girl’s hair. “No, honey, it’s not the Yankees. That war is over, remember?”
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  “I want to stay with Daddy.”

  “You will be safer, and so will he,” Hunter told the child, “if you stay here and let him do what must be done.”

  Megan slid to the floor and started crying, loud, racking sobs. “I want Daddy!”

  Bess was scared too, and wanted Carson. She tried to soothe Megan, but it was Hunter who got through to the girl.

  “Your tears are an extra weapon in the hands of your enemy.”

  The statement was complex enough to give both Megan and Bess pause.

  Megan sniffed and looked up at him as he crouched beside her on the floor. “My enemy? You mean the Bluebellies?”

  Hunter shrugged. “Any enemy.”

  “But a weapon is a gun or a knife,” Bess said. “A tear can’t be a weapon.”

  “It can. If your enemy knows you are frightened and crying, he becomes stronger. It is what he wants you to do.”

  Megan sniffed again and looked to Bess, who nodded. Megan looked back at Hunter. “But nobody but you and Bess know I’m crying.”

  “If your father hears you, he will know. Your tears will hurt and weaken him, when he needs to be strong. He needs to know you are strong.”

  The child’s face was pale, her eyes wide. “Oh. Am I strong?”

  “Aye, you are.” He looked up into Bess’s eyes. “You are both very strong.”

  Bess felt pride swell within her at Hunter’s praise.

  Megan sniffled again. “Will you keep us safe, Hunter?”

  Hunter looked down at the tiny girl solemnly. Her belief in him was humbling. “I will do my best, lassie.”

  “Where’s Winter Fawn” Megan asked.

  “She is downstairs.”

  “I love Winter Fawn.” Megan smiled, her tears and fear forgotten for the moment. She reached up and patted Hunter on the cheek. “I love you, too, Hunter.”

  Hunter felt his chest swell with pride that the little one and her sister should trust him so much.

  Downstairs things were not so cozy. Carson glared at Winter Fawn. “Get upstairs with the girls.”

  “I willna. Surely there is something I can do to help.”

  “Dammit.” Carson took another look out the window, saw the dust cloud advance closer to the point. He glared back at Winter Fawn. “I will not have you taking another arrow or bullet meant for me.”