Frontier Lady (Lone Star Legacy Book #1)

by Judith Pella

  Deborah could not quell the impulse to look back and did so just as a Pawnee caught an arrow in the throat. He lurched from his horse and as he hit the ground, the Cheyenne who had killed him raced up to his fallen body. Deborah shuddered as she thought the brave was going to scalp the man, but the warrior merely thumped the body with a stick and then returned his concentration to the battle.

  In the brief instant her head was turned, Deborah stumbled over an exposed root. She went down with a thud and only the soft, river-watered grass kept her and Carolyn from serious injury. But as she struggled to her feet, still clutching her daughter to her, she suddenly found herself alone, momentarily separated from Crooked Eye and the others.

  Before she could fully gain her balance to make a sprint to cover, one of the Pawnee swooped down on her. She could tell by the gloating expression he wore that he believed he had found a prize, indeed, in this white captive. He grabbed Deborah with such force she lost hold of her baby and the precious bundle fell, squirming and crying, into the grass. The Pawnee, unaware of the lost bundle, cared only about the valuable white woman now grasped in his hands.

  Deborah screamed as her captor’s horse reared; it would certainly crush her baby. But suddenly, as if he had sprung from the grass itself, a figure on foot bodily charged the Pawnee, coming between the infant and the rearing horse. The animal’s lethal hooves thundered down, missing the interceding warrior’s head by mere inches, but a safe distance away from Carolyn.

  In spite of the sudden attack, the Pawnee kept his head and managed to hold his mount under control, so that when its hooves struck the ground, he spurred it immediately into a gallop away from the battle, his prize still in tow.

  But the Cheyenne warrior’s objective had not only been to save the baby. He gave chase to the Pawnee on foot, and though he stood little chance of catching him, he did keep within shooting range. Thus, running to maintain this edge, he lifted his bow from where it was slung over his shoulder, whisked an arrow from his quiver and set it to the bowstring. He stopped running only when he was ready to take aim.

  Twang!

  Many a seasoned marksman could have failed at such a range, but it was a shot one desperate warrior dared not miss.

  Deborah, lying nearly horizontal across the Pawnee horse, had no idea what was happening. Nevertheless, she was nearly in a swoon thinking her daughter was dead. Her first clue that something had changed in her fortunes came when her Pawnee captor slumped over, his weight nearly suffocating her. She struggled desperately to free herself. The galloping animal jogged her terribly, making movement awkward at best, but dangerous, too. At last she managed to push the dead Pawnee from the horse, but, as good a horsewoman as she was, from her present ungainly position, she had difficulty bringing the racing animal under control.

  She fought tenaciously and finally caught hold of the reins, which she tugged at furiously until the horse slowed enough to allow Deborah to swing a leg over the saddle and wiggle into an upright position. Easing the mount to a manageable canter, she was at last able to turn him around.

  Deborah was almost afraid to go back. Her baby was dead, and even if she may have wished her dead on occasion before her birth, she knew she had never really meant it. Still, those bitter wishes now heaped guilt upon her grief.

  29

  The Cheyenne rescuer, now standing over the dead Pawnee, was Broken Wing. In the heat of danger, Deborah had not been able to discern such details. Now details were all too clear. In one of his hands he held a bloody knife which he wiped against his leggings before sheathing it. In the crook of his other arm, he held a small bundle; this he held out to Deborah as she rode up.

  Deborah slipped from the Pawnee horse and, half-stumbling on shaky legs, ran to him.

  “She is well,” Broken Wing said with a relieved grin. “She bellows like a wolf. I think you should call her Singing Wolf.”

  Deborah grabbed her child as if the devil himself were holding her. All she saw at that moment was killing and wild Indians with the vicious cries of battle still rising from the village. On the ground lay the dead Pawnee, a bloody patch on his head indicating that even those she had thought her friends could be dangerous adversaries. Was she crazy to think she could make a home with them, bring her child up in this savage environment?

  Yet the squirming bundle in Deborah’s arms forced her thoughts away from her renewed confusion and horror. All attention focused on the noisy, wiggling child. The baby was indeed crying at full throat. Deborah loosened the blankets and carefully examined her daughter, finding, to her relief and astonishment, that Carolyn indeed seemed no worse for her recent ordeal. All at once she realized this miracle had occurred only because of Broken Wing. Both she and her daughter lived because of him.

  “Come,” Broken Wing said urgently, “you are still not safe.”

  Leading the Pawnee horse by its buckskin rein, he saw them safely back to the river. He then returned to the battle.

  Another hour raged on before the Pawnee war party was finally repulsed. The victory carried with it heavy losses. A woman had been taken captive and two warriors killed, in addition to the loss of three lodges and about fifty horses stolen by the Pawnees. But, even as Crooked Eye made his gloomy report, his sinister face lit up in a heartening grin as he told the price the enemy had paid for their booty—five dead warriors and three lost horses.

  “And the best Pawnee horse now belongs to you, Deborah!” he exclaimed. “You have counted your first coup!”

  “But it is only a horse,” said Deborah, perplexed. “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “The white man thinks killing is everything,” said the old shaman. “But that is not so with the Cheyenne. The highest honor for a warrior is to count coup on a living enemy. Most white men do not understand that counting coup is to touch an enemy, so it takes more courage to touch a living one than a dead one. But living or dead, the warrior must touch the enemy to receive credit. Three coup may be counted upon a single enemy, but it is the warrior who counts the first coup that receives the greatest honor.”

  Deborah had observed this procedure when she had returned to the safe cover of the river: one or several warriors striking a fallen body. Now she knew what it meant. But there was something else she had seen that she did not understand.

  “What about scalping?” she asked, still shuddering at the shocking introduction she had already received.

  As she spoke, Broken Wing approached where the group was still seated on the banks of the creek, eating some meat and taking a short rest from the rigors of battle before returning to the labors that lay ahead in restoring order to the village.

  Broken Wing stood silently by while Crooked Eye answered Deborah’s inquiry. “Phsssh!” he said with a depreciating shrug. “Scalps are nothing—unless the one removed happens to be your own scalp!” He chuckled at his humor.

  “What Crooked Eye means,” added Broken Wing, “is that we do not fight for scalps because they are not an important coup.”

  “But you—”

  “I am sorry if what I did in battle disturbs you. That Pawnee was an old enemy of mine. I have fought him before, and once he counted coup upon me. His hair is a great trophy to me, but now I wish I had not touched him.”

  He turned abruptly and strode away. Deborah remembered how it had disturbed him when the captive children had cowered away from him in fear. Of course no one would like such a thing, but could it be that to Broken Wing, it was also a matter of honor? Deborah wondered if she would ever comprehend the complexities of the Indian mind, especially the mind of this particular Indian. Surprisingly, understanding him was suddenly very important to Deborah. She jumped up and hurried after him.

  “Broken Wing!” she called.

  He stopped but did not turn. She had to walk around him to face him.

  “Broken Wing, forgive my hasty judgments,” she said. “The Cheyenne way is so foreign to me. Maybe I will never be able to understand it. What I saw today shocked me and i
t nearly made me forget something very important. You saved my life and the life of my baby. We are strangers and of the race of your enemies, yet you risked your own life for us. I may not understand your ways, but I know enough to realize you are a man of courage, and you deserve my thanks, which I have rudely withheld. Thank you, Broken Wing; I am again in your debt.” She paused, remembering something Gray Antelope had recently told her of Cheyenne customs. “Wait here,” she said and hurried off to the riverbank.

  When she returned a few minutes later, she was leading the Pawnee horse.

  “I wish to give you a gift to show my gratitude.” She extended the reins to him.

  “This is a very expensive gift,” he replied with a clear note of humility in his tone. “A good horse with a blanket and a saddle.”

  “It is nothing to what I owe you.”

  “It is your own horse.”

  “Gray Antelope told me squaws don’t own stallions.”

  “Not usually, but you won it fairly.”

  “Only because you shot its rider. But I’ll tell you what, let’s consider it an even trade if you allow me to ride him once in a while.”

  He smiled. “I saw that you ride well.”

  “Yes, I love to ride and I haven’t been able to do so for a very long time. Though I was scared nearly to death when that Pawnee had me, I also felt a certain sense of exhilaration.”

  “Then ride now!” urged Broken Wing, his dark eyes flashing with enthusiasm.

  “But the Pawnees?”

  “They are far away and will not risk losing their stolen horses by returning.” He handed back the reins.

  Remembering the feel of the animal’s mighty flanks beneath her and the sting of the wind on her face, Deborah could not refuse. After determining that the strange animal would cooperate with a new rider, and coaxing him with soft-spoken words and a gentle touch, Deborah mounted. The saddle, which she later learned was made of a folded strip of buffalo hide stuffed with grass, was soft and pliable, more comfortable than the English saddles she had used in Virginia or the western ones on the Stoner Ranch. This, Broken Wing told her, was a war saddle and thus was lightweight for speed and agility. She had already seen the other more cumbersome wood-frame saddles used by the Cheyenne for transport.

  Broken Wing watched with folded arms and a slight smile on his face. “Indian horses do not usually take well to white riders. I think you are becoming more Indian than white already!”

  Deborah pressed her heels gently into the animal’s flanks.

  The horse, a gray stallion with a charcoal mane, stepped out into an easy canter. He was a lively mount, no more than three years old and in the prime of life. Riding in a wide circle upon the same open grassy area where the ordeal with the Pawnee occurred, Deborah could sense the stallion holding back his great strength.

  “So, you are a runner, are you?” she murmured to the gray.

  She, too, was holding back. It had been so long since she had ridden, so long since she had really been so free. On the Stoner place, her rides had always been accompanied by a cautious fear lest her husband discover and punish her, and the flight with Griff had been far too dangerous to appreciate.

  Did she dare now to give vent to the straining desire within her? Was there anything to prevent her?

  Laughing aloud, she dug her heels deeper into the stallion’s sides.

  He needed little urging. His mighty legs stretched immediately in response and flew away in a fleet gallop. Deborah gave a whoop as unabandoned as any Indian war cry. The ground was level and offered no resistance to horse or rider, and they covered a mile in less than two minutes. The gray, for all its shabby coat, painted now with war paint, would have been a prize to any thoroughbred stable in Virginia, perhaps in the entire South. Deborah spurred him into a wide turn, and he lost an incredibly small amount of time in the maneuver.

  Deborah gave him full rein for the run back. She could tell he was hardly exerting himself. This indeed was a fine mount, and she was glad she had given him to Broken Wing. A man like that deserved an animal like this, and the gray deserved a master like the strong and courageous Cheyenne warrior.

  He was watching her, laughing, too. Deborah would have been surprised to know that he was thinking the same thoughts about her.

  Finally, she reined the gray to a stop, but the horse pranced and snorted, obviously unhappy with the brevity of its exercise. Just as reluctantly, Deborah dismounted. She gave him an affectionate pat. “I wish I had a lump of sugar for you,” she told him, then turned to Broken Wing. “Thank you! I can’t remember when I have enjoyed myself more.”

  “You have great joy upon the back of a horse, with the wind blowing through your hair as if you were an arrow shot from my best bow.” He studied her for a long time, her glowing face, pink and windburned, her eyes shimmering with joy. He especially listened to her merry laughter, realizing it was the first time he had heard such music from the white woman’s lips. It was a pleasant sound, indeed.

  “It is time you had a Cheyenne name,” he said suddenly. “I have wondered about this before, but until now I have seen none that fit.” He paused, momentarily uncertain. “But it might be you don’t wish to have such a name.”

  Deborah had been dismayed by the events of the day, the battle and the horrors accompanying it. Did she want to be identified with them to the extent of having a Cheyenne name? She had been disillusioned by Broken Wing’s part in it. Yet, she could not deny the overwhelming sense of love and acceptance she had felt since her arrival here. She only subtly recognized the deep need these people were answering in her wounded heart. Their customs were wild, perhaps even savage, and it would take some time for her to accept that, if she ever could; but she knew without doubt that the hearts of these Cheyenne who had become her friends were good and noble, and to be associated with them could only be an honor.

  “I would like a Cheyenne name,” she said simply.

  “I think you should be called ‘Wind Rider.’” Deborah wrinkled her brow at this, and Broken Wing asked, “You do not like this name?”

  “Well … it sounds a bit much, as if it should belong to a warrior. Just because I like a fast horse doesn’t mean a name like that fits. How about ‘Horse Woman’?”

  “Wind Rider fits you well, because I think that inside, you are a warrior.” He again studied her with that intense, probing gaze that made her tingle all over.

  But Deborah recovered quickly from her discomfiture. Even if Broken Wing had read her character incorrectly, she realized he saw, if not the reality of who she was, then at least who and what she desired to be.

  “Broken Wing, I think I am too helpless and ignorant to be a warrior. But more than anything, I desire to be. Would you teach me?”

  “You wish to join the braves on the warpath?”

  “I just wish not to be helpless as I was when you found me on the prairie.”

  She remembered when she had made the same request of Griff. He hadn’t had much of a chance to help her, and now he was probably dead. Would she fare better here with these Cheyenne, with Broken Wing? Would she at long last become a self-reliant woman, the kind of woman who would never again be at any man’s mercy? She thought of that Pawnee warrior who had nearly taken her captive. What would have happened had he succeeded? Again she would have been a man’s slave, powerless and impotent. She knew that as long as she remained ignorant of even the most elemental methods of self-defense, she would never be safe, never truly free.

  She cast imploring eyes at Broken Wing. She could not degrade herself by actually begging him, but he did not give her reason to.

  He answered quickly. “I will do it,” he said without reluctance.

  “Thank you,” she replied with as much relief as gratitude.

  30

  In July, Black Kettle’s band moved north to take advantage of the excellent hunting in the rich region between the Smoky Hill and Arkansas Rivers. Deborah worked alongside Gray Antelope Woman to disassemble the
lodge, an almost exclusively female task. Smaller lodges were comprised of perhaps eleven buffalo hides, but Crooked Eye was affluent, and his tepee used twenty-one. Packing the heavy hides was no small chore. Several horse-drawn travois were necessary to hold the hides and all the other household belongings. Then the stock had to be rounded up and driven behind the packhorses which, in the case of Crooked Eye’s and Gray Antelope’s combined wealth, amounted to a sizable herd.

  A white visitor to the camp once commented on how Indian women worked like slaves while the strong warriors sat back like lazy overseers. A squaw corrected him, reminding him that it was the warrior who almost daily risked his life raiding enemy tribes to bring more horses and weapons home, and who labored, at no small danger also, to supply their families with meat and vital skins. The division of labor was equal enough, though even Deborah wondered as she whisked a stream of sweat from her brow.

  Deborah was able to pack her gradually accumulating possessions, greatly increased since the birth of her daughter, on her own pony. The horse, a roan and white pinto mare, had been a gift from Crooked Eye. He had been tremendously impressed by her generosity in giving the fine gray stallion to Broken Wing, in the true Cheyenne spirt of giving. Moreover, he had begun to feel certain familial obligations toward the white woman who was becoming more and more a part of his family.

  “It is customary,” he told her, “for the child’s father to give away gifts when a child is born, but you have no husband and no gifts to give, so I have given away horses for you. I also give you a pony, so that you might one day be a squaw of important standing in this camp.”