Apache Runaway

by Madeline Baker

  “It is a long ride to the land of the Comanche,” Fallon commented. “I doubt this horse will make it.”

  Isawura nodded. He had started the journey on a sturdy mustang stallion, but the foolish beast had stepped into a prairie dog hole and broken its leg. The pinto had been stolen from a Mexican peasant. It was a sorry animal, but better than being afoot. No warrior worthy of the name walked when he could ride.

  “I have a fine roan mare that runs like the wind,” Fallon remarked.

  Isawura’s eyes gleamed like polished obsidian as he glanced with interest at the roan mare standing in the corral.

  “Would you be willing to make a trade for the mare?” the warrior asked.

  Fallon nodded. “I will give you the mare in exchange for the white man.”

  Isawura glanced at the prisoner, then at the roan. “I will trade,” the warrior said quickly, and thrust the prisoner’s tether into Fallon’s hand.

  Minutes later, Isawura was mounted on the roan and the Comanche were riding out of the valley.

  Fallon made no effort to conceal his disgust as he dropped the rope at Hank Braedon’s feet. As far as he was concerned, Isawura had definitely gotten the better end of the deal.

  Muttering an oath, Fallon turned on his heel and stalked into the cabin.

  Jenny was waiting for him, a question lurking in the depths of her lovely green eyes.

  “He’s outside,” Ryder said curtly, annoyed by Jenny’s visible relief and by the way she picked up her skirts and hurried outside to invite Hank in.

  Fallon swore softly as Hank followed Jenny into the house. What a cozy threesome they made!

  Jenny seemed oblivious to Fallon’s mood as she ushered Hank into the bedroom, pulled off his boots, then bade him lie down and rest.

  Fallon scowled irritably as she scurried about the kitchen, putting a pot of soup on the stove for supper, heating water for Hank to bathe in, filling the laundry tub so she could wash his clothes.

  “I don’t want him here,” Ryder said, trying to hold back his anger. “Feed him if you must, then tell him to get the hell out of my house.”

  “I can’t ask him to leave,” Jenny protested. “He’s sick.”

  “I don’t care if he’s dying,” Ryder retorted flatly. “Dammit, Jenny, it’s all I can do to keep from tearing him apart with my bare hands.”

  “It will just be for a few days, just until he gets his strength back.”

  “No. Either he goes or I do.”

  “You can’t mean that!” Jenny gasped. She shook her head incredulously, unable to believe he meant it.

  “Jenny…”

  Hank’s voice, weak and uneven, sounded from the bedroom, calling for help.

  Jenny stared at Ryder, her eyes pleading with him to understand.

  A sense of bitter frustration swept over Ryder Fallon. “Go on, go to him,” he said angrily, and turning on his heel, he walked out of the cabin.

  Whistling for Jenny’s horse, Fallon vaulted onto its bare back. Clear of the road, he urged the gelding into a hard gallop, closing his mind to everything but the surging power of the horse.

  The sting of the wind in his face and the serenity of the rolling hills cooled his anger, and he reined the horse to an abrupt halt.

  What the hell was he doing anyway? He couldn’t just ride off and leave Jenny alone with a sick man, not when her baby was due any day.

  Damn, he had never hated a man as much as he hated Braedon. The man had married Jenny when he had no business marrying at all, had dared to strike her, not once but many times for something that wasn’t her fault. Just thinking of it, remembering the bruises on her arms, the imprint of Braedon’s hands on Jenny’s cheeks, filled him with a cold and fierce anger.

  The man had hit her, and she felt sorry for him. It was beyond his understanding.

  The moon was high in the sky when he rode into the yard. Jenny was a dark shadow beside the front door. He felt her gaze on his back as he dismounted and led the gelding into the corral.

  “Ryder…”

  “Do you still care for him, Jenny?”

  “Of course not. But I do feel sorry for him.”

  “Sorry for him? Dammit, Jenny, you’d feel sorry for a snake!”

  “Maybe,” she admitted, “if he was sick and hungry and all alone in the world. He’s had a bad time, Ryder.”

  Jenny laid her hand on Fallon’s arm. Tears sparkled in her eyes as she sobbed, “Oh Ryder, I was afraid you’d left me!”

  With a sigh, Fallon gathered her into his arms and stroked her hair.

  “I’ll never leave you, Jenny girl,” he promised softly. “Not as long as you want me around.”

  He sat up long after Jenny was asleep. In the dim light cast by the coals in the fireplace, he could see her lying on the sofa, her rounded belly rising and falling beneath the blankets. She was so beautiful, so damnably sweet, and he loved her so much.

  In the bedroom, Hank moaned, tossing fitfully on their bed.

  Fallon stared into the fireplace, annoyed by the deep resentment that Hank Braedon’s presence aroused in him.

  He scowled darkly as Hank cried out in his sleep. Though he hated like hell to admit it, Ryder supposed he was jealous of the time and attention Jenny expended in Hank’s behalf. Yet the man was still her husband. Damn, the whole situation was ridiculous.

  “Ryder?”

  “I thought you were asleep, Jenny. Is anything wrong?”

  “No, I just don’t like sleeping alone. Do you think you could find room for me down there with you?

  He rose swiftly to his feet and went to her. Gathering her in his arms, he carried her to the buffalo robes spread before the hearth.

  “We slept here before,” Jenny said. “Remember? When we first came to the valley.”

  “I remember.”

  “Are you still happy here?”

  Ryder cradled Jenny’s face in his hands. “What’s troubling you, Jenny?” he asked tenderly.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Go to sleep, darlin’,” he murmured, gently stroking her hair, the curve of her cheek. “Everything will be all right.”

  Smiling faintly, she rested her head against his shoulder, her hand clinging to his.

  Moments later, she was asleep.

  Jenny summoned the doctor first thing the following morning.

  Dr. Wyatt’s face was grave when he finished examining Hank.

  Jenny closed the bedroom door before asking anxiously, “He’ll be all right, won’t he, Dr. Wyatt?”

  “I’m afraid not,” the doctor replied matter-of-factly. “It’s just a matter of time. A week, perhaps two or three. Just make him as comfortable as you can.”

  Wyatt snapped his bag shut with an air of finality, as though there was nothing more to be said or done. After giving Jenny a brisk pat on the arm, he settled his hat on his head, nodded briefly in Fallon’s direction and left the house.

  Hank Braedon declined rapidly during the next few days until even Ryder, who thoroughly disliked the man, could no longer begrudge him the time Jenny spent at his bedside.

  Braedon seemed to have lost the will to live and only seemed aware of his surroundings when Jenny was with him. He often talked about his old life before the war, when each day carried the same promise of happiness and serenity as the day before.

  He talked about his parents and reminisced about the good times he and Charlie had shared when they were growing up.

  And then, as he grew weaker, he hardly spoke at all. His only comfort was having Jenny nearby. Sometimes he was troubled by wild nightmares, reliving the battles he had fought during the war, sobbing as he saw men he’d known blown to bits, reliving his own agony as a shell fragment destroyed his manhood. At those times, only Jenny’s voice and the touch of her hand could soothe him.

  Now, holding Jenny close under the buffalo robes a week later, Ryder marveled at what a remarkable woman Jenny was.

  In a moment of crystal clarity, he realized Jenny wou
ld have extended the same hospitality and kindness to any passing stranger, male or female, red or white, who needed her care.

  Yes, he thought, she was a truly remarkable woman. With a sigh, Ryder buried his face in Jenny’s hair, delighting in its fragrant softness.

  “I love you, Jenny girl,” he whispered fervently. “Forgive me for being such a fool.”

  Jenny stirred in his arms. “I love you too,” she murmured sleepily, and curled deeper into his arms, asleep before the words were barely spoken.

  * * * * *

  “Ryder!”

  He woke instantly, aware that he had been asleep for only a short time.

  “What is it, Jenny?” he asked, alarmed by the note of panic in her voice.

  “The baby…it’s coming.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Jenny managed a weak smile between contractions. “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “Okay, darlin’. Just rest easy. I’ll go after Mrs. Barnes.”

  “Hurry!”

  Fallon slipped on his trousers, bent to give Jenny a hasty kiss of reassurance before he padded barefoot out of the cabin.

  Jenny’s horse came at his call, and after slipping a hackamore over its head, he swung onto the horse’s bare back and turned the animal south, riding down the dark trail toward the midwife’s house, remembering another night and another man’s child.

  Jenny sat up, her hands pressed against her belly as another contraction swept through her. She had forgotten how painful childbirth was. And then she smiled, remembering her joy when Ryder had placed Cosito in her arms. Surely any pain was worth the joy of holding a new life.

  She gasped Ryder’s name as another contraction knifed through her. She had once asked him how he had stood the pain while she dug the bullet out of his thigh, and he had told her the trick was to focus on something else.

  She groaned as the pains grew worse. Ryder. She concentrated on Ryder, summoning his image to mind, remembering the first time she had seen him in the Apache camp. Even then, wounded, with his hands bound, he had exuded an aura of strength and self-confidence few men possessed.

  She recalled how stoically he had endured the days and nights he had spent tied to the log, the way he had silently endured the pain when she probed for the bullet lodged in his thigh. Surely if he had been strong enough to endure such agony, she could bear the pain of childbirth, which was, after all, a perfectly natural part of being a woman.

  Oh it sounded so easy, but it wasn’t! The future joy of holding her child was swallowed up in the pain of now.

  She wished suddenly that Ryder would hurry back. She could bear anything so long as he was beside her.

  * * * * *

  Laura Barnes answered the door clad in a long pink flannel robe, her hair twisted into rag curlers. She was a woman in her late forties, plain of face, with placid brown eyes and a motherly smile.

  “Mr. Fallon,” she said pleasantly. “Is it time?”

  “Yes. Hurry, please.”

  “Don’t worry,” Mrs. Barnes said, stifling a yawn. “We’ve plenty of time. Just let me put on my slippers and we’ll be on our way.”

  She disappeared into the darkened house, reappearing a few minutes later carrying a flowered carpetbag, her feet encased in furry mules.

  Outside, Fallon lifted the woman onto the back of his horse, swung up behind her, and urged the bay into a gallop.

  “Gracious, Mr. Fallon,” Laura Barnes admonished nervously as she bounced up and down. “There’s no need to rush so.”

  Jenny felt a quick surge of relief when she heard Ryder’s footsteps. At last, he was here!

  Ryder knelt beside Jenny, his expression worried. Her face was sheened with sweat, her breathing was hard and fast. The blanket beneath her showed a dark, wet stain.

  “Oh my,” Laura Barnes murmured. “I think perhaps you were right to hurry so, Mr. Fallon. Quick, put the kettle on and bring me a clean sheet.”

  While Fallon went to do her bidding, Laura Barnes smiled reassuringly at Jenny.

  “Everything will be fine, Mrs. Fallon dear,” she said cheerfully. “You’ll be cuddling your wee one in no time at all.”

  The midwife offered Ryder a motherly smile as she took the sheet from his hand.

  “Why don’t you go along into the other room, Mr. Fallon?” she suggested. “This is no place for a man.”

  With a curt nod, Ryder left the parlor.

  Hank stirred, rubbing his eyes as Fallon entered the bedroom and closed the door. “Jenny?”

  “No, it’s me.”

  Pale yellow light flooded the room as Ryder lit the hurricane lamp beside the bed, then dropped into the rocking chair beside the window. He stared out into the darkness, praying that God or Usen or whoever was out there would keep Jenny safe and strong and give them a healthy child. A boy or a girl, it didn’t matter, so long as the baby was born alive and well.

  “Why’d you do it, Fallon?” Hank asked after a long while. “Why’d you buy me from the Comanche?”

  “Because Jenny asked me to,” Ryder replied curtly.

  “You love her, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I never meant to hurt her,” Hank said. “I loved her. I still do.”

  “That’s why you hit her? Because you love her?” Ryder snorted softly. “You’ve got a funny way of showing it.”

  “I couldn’t help it. Every time I looked at her, I saw her bedded down with that damned savage. And always, I knew people were whispering behind my back, calling me a squaw lover, snickering. If they only knew!” His voice turned bitter. “And then there was you. I knew she cared for you, though she denied it. I thought that she…that the two of you…”

  “I know what you thought.” Ryder glared at Braedon, but try as he might, he couldn’t hate the man. Not anymore.

  “She was never unfaithful to you,” Ryder said quietly. “Nothing ever happened between us until that night you beat her. I found her wandering around out in the dark and…” Fallon shrugged. “It just happened.”

  “She saved my life,” Hank said. He stared up at the ceiling, his thoughts turned inward. “I was wounded during the war. Maybe Jenny told you? They sent me home to recover from my wounds.”

  He laughed softly, bitterly. “Recover! As if a man could recover from…from losing his manhood. Jenny nursed me. She came to the hospital every day, always smiling. She read to me, books, newspapers. Sometimes she just sat there, holding my hand, keeping me company. I didn’t want her help! I didn’t want her pity!”

  A single tear trickled down Braedon’s cheek. “She refused to give up on me, and we became friends. She’d lost her parents, and I’d lost my will to live, but somehow we became friends. She was so beautiful. She was lonely. I was lonely.”

  Hank shrugged. “When I got out of the hospital, we started keeping company, and after a while I asked her to marry me, never dreaming she’d accept. What woman would want a man who couldn’t…couldn’t…but she said yes.” He sighed softly, as if still unable to believe his good fortune. “She said yes.”

  Hank began to cough, a deep rasping cough that drained what little color he had in his face, leaving him pale and breathing heavily. When he wiped his hand across his mouth, it came away stained with blood.

  “How long you been sick, Braedon?”

  “Six months, maybe more.”

  “I guess you’ve had a hard time of it with the Indians.”

  “Yeah. I thought the Apache would kill me, like they did Charlie.” He shuddered at the memory. “It was horrible, what they did to him. It took him two days to die, and it was still a better way to go than this.”

  Ryder stared out the window again. He had no words of comfort, spiritual or otherwise, to offer the man. Oddly enough, he wished he did.

  “Promise me,” Hank rasped. “Promise me you’ll take good care of her.”

  “I promise.”

  “I envy you,” Hank said. “You’ve got everything I ever wanted,” he said, his voice
filled with resentment. “Everything that should have been mine. Jenny. A baby…”

  A ragged sob tore at Hank’s throat and he turned his face away so Fallon couldn’t see his tears.

  “You’d best get some rest, Braedon,” Ryder said gruffly.

  Sitting back in his chair, Fallon stared out the window into the darkness again, wondering at the strange twists and turns of life. If Hank had stayed in the East, Jenny would never have been captured by the Apache, and Ryder would never have met her.

  He didn’t know whether it had been fate or destiny that had brought them together in Kayitah’s camp. He only knew it had been meant to be, that his life had been incomplete without Jenny.

  The first faint light of dawn was stealing away the night when a baby’s lusty cry sounded from the parlor.

  Ryder jumped to his feet and rushed into the other room as Laura Barnes wrapped the infant in a blanket.

  “Ah, you’re just in time,” she beamed, and thrust the mewling bundle into Ryder’s arms.

  Fallon stared down at the baby, seeing a thatch of thick black hair and a pair of unfocused blue eyes. He felt a sudden tightening in his chest. His child. It was a miracle wrapped in a blue blanket, the sum of a man’s dreams, the proof of a woman’s love.

  He knelt at Jenny’s side, awkwardly cradling the squirming baby in the crook of his arm.

  “Jenny girl, are you all right?” he asked anxiously.

  “Fine,” Jenny murmured. “A little tired is all.” She yawned hugely, her long lashes fluttering down. “It’s a boy, a beautiful boy.”

  “Jenny, I…”

  But she was already asleep.

  Ryder shot Laura Barnes a worried look. “Is she all right?”

  “Yes, she’s a fine healthy girl. Only tired now, and a bit sore. It’s hard work, you know, bringing a new life into the world. Not so easy, or so much fun, as the fathering,” she added, a twinkle in her eye. “Here, now, let me take the wee one and clean him up a mite.”

  Reluctantly, Ryder handed the baby to the midwife.

  “A son,” he said aloud, and the words sent a shiver down his spine.

  Suddenly, the cabin was too small to hold him and he strode briskly outside into the light of a new day.

  It was a bright and beautiful morning, all golden sunshine and brilliant blue sky. He heard the lilting dawn song of a sparrow, the crowing of a rooster, the lowing of cattle in the hills.