Loretta’s first thought when she saw him was that he seemed different from the others. A closer look told her why. He was unquestionably a half-breed, taller on horseback than the rest, lighter-skinned. If not for his sun-darkened complexion and long hair, he might have passed for a white man. Everything else about him was savage, though, from the cruel sneer on his mouth to the expert way he balanced on his horse, as if he and the animal were one entity.
Tom Weaver stiffened. ‘‘Son of a— Henry, you know who that is?’’
‘‘I was hopin’ I was wrong.’’
Loretta inched closer to get a better look. Then it hit her. Hunter. She had heard his name whispered with dread, heard tales. But until this moment she hadn’t believed he existed. A blue-eyed half-breed, one of the most cunning and treacherous adversaries the U.S. Army had run across. Now that the war had pitted North against South, the homesteaders had no cavalry to keep Hunter and his marauders at bay, and his raiders struck ever deeper into settled country, advancing east. Some claimed he was far more dangerous than a full-blooded Comanche because he had a white man’s intelligence. As vicious as he was, there were stories that he spared women and children. Whether that was coincidence, design, or a lie some Indian lover had dreamed up, no one knew. Loretta opted for the latter. Indians were little better than animals, killers, one and all.
‘‘What do you want?’’ Henry cried. ‘‘The cow’s a good milcher. There’s two mules and a horse out back.’’
A stench of fear rose from Uncle Henry’s sweaty shirt, the smell sharp and sticky. The Indian reached to his belt and pulled something loose. Lifting it high, he stared straight at the window where Loretta stood. She had the uncanny feeling he could see her. Something golden streamed from his fingers, shimmering in the slanting sunlight. ‘‘Pe-nan-de,’’ he yelled. ‘‘Honey, you call it. Send me the woman whose hair I hold.’’
‘‘Oh, sweet Jesus,’’ Tom whispered.
Unable to drag her eyes from the strands of gold trailing from the half-breed’s brown fingers, Loretta pressed a trembling hand to her throat. This isn’t really happening, she thought fuzzily. In a minute I’ll wake up. It’s just a bad dream.
‘‘We’re outnumbered fifty to one,’’ Henry said. ‘‘What in hell we gonna do?’’
Tom shifted at the window. ‘‘Ain’t no matter if it’s a hundred to one, you can’t send him the girl.’’
‘‘Better just her than all of us.’’ A trickle of moisture dripped off Henry’s nose, and he made a quick swipe with his white sleeve. ‘‘I got Amy and Rachel to think of. You know what those savages would do to Amy, Tom.’’
‘‘And what about Loretta?’’
Loretta reached to the wall for support. He wanted her? Fear turned her legs to water. No, I won’t go, she thought. Then she remembered Amy’s white face as the trapdoor closed. A hundred Comanches against three rifles? Everyone in the house would die, including Amy. And she knew beyond a doubt that the girl’s death would not be swift. Uncle Henry was right; better one life than five.
Loretta turned to her aunt. Rachel’s skin had blanched to alabaster. Their blue eyes locked. Then Rachel glanced toward the bed. That look gave Loretta the push she needed. She stepped toward the door, a haze of unreality surrounding her. The last seven years had come full circle. This time, she wouldn’t be a coward. She’d do for Amy what her parents had done for her. A second chance. How many times in her nightmares had she found the courage to open the cellar door, to go out and help her mother? How many times had she awakened from those nightmares, asking God to forgive her because she could be brave only in dreams? Now she could absolve herself.
As Loretta drew near the door, Tom cried, ‘‘No! You miserable coward, Henry. You send that girl out there, and you’ll never sleep a whole night through the rest of your life.’’
Loretta touched the door planks and froze. Through the cracks she heard bells tinkling, a merry sound, as out of place as cheerful music at a funeral. She made the sign of the cross and squeezed her eyes closed, trying to remember how to make an act of contrition, but the words jumbled in her head.
‘‘Henry, no,’’ Rachel pleaded. ‘‘Loretta, don’t open that door. If they want a woman, I’ll go.’’
‘‘It’s not you they’re wantin’,’’ Henry snapped. ‘‘One of ’em spotted Loretta down by the river the other day, and he’s come back for her. They’ll shoot ya down where ya stand.’’
Rachel whirled on her husband. ‘‘That girl’s my sister’s daughter. I’ll never forgive you if you let her go out there!’’
‘‘Ya don’t have to do it, Loretta,’’ Tom argued. ‘‘There’s some things worse than dyin’, and this is one of ’em.’’
Loretta hesitated. Then the door squeaked on its leather hinges, swinging open a crack. A shaft of light fell across her face. She stepped across the threshold. Better just me than everyone. Another step. Better the Comanches take me than Amy. It wasn’t so hard, now that she was doing it. She took a deep breath and walked out onto the porch. The door slammed shut behind her, and the bar thudded home with an echo of finality.
Staring at her with impenetrable blue-black eyes, the warrior on the black nudged the animal a pace forward. With that relentless eye-to-eye contact, he held her pinioned where she stood. For what seemed a lifetime, he studied her, not moving, not speaking, his lance still held aloft.
Loretta’s courage disintegrated, and a violent tremor swept the length of her. He noted the shudder, and his observant gaze trailed up her body in its wake. His attention fell to her hips, lingered there with an insulting contempt, then traveled upward to her breasts. Humiliation scorched her cheeks.
‘‘Keemah.’’ He hissed the word at her, but it seemed sharp as a rifle shot rending the air. Loretta jumped, confusion and mindless terror contorting her features. She understood no Comanche and hadn’t any perception of what he wanted. She only knew he would kill her if she angered him. Her shaking knees beat a tremulous tattoo against each other. His lips twisted in a sneer. ‘‘Come forward, so this Comanche can see you.’’
Too frightened to feel her feet, Loretta stumbled on the steps, nearly falling before she regained her balance. Her skin prickled from the two hundred eyes that watched her. As she drew near the Comanche, he wheeled his mount to one side. Cone-shaped brass bells sparkled against the stripped leather of his moccasin. His stare was a tangible thing, reaching to touch her.
‘‘Lift your face, woman.’’
She tilted her head back, keeping her expression carefully blank. He seemed to tower atop the stallion, his bare shoulders broad, his arms well muscled. The breeze swept his dark hair from his cheek, revealing a thin scar that angled from his right eyebrow to his chin. Brilliant white teeth flashed as he spoke.
‘‘What do you call yourself?’’
Loretta parted her lips, and the prolonged silence pulsated.
‘‘Answer, woman, or die.’’ Lifting his lance tip, he caught her braid, tugging it loose from its coronet. Slowly uncoiling, it snaked to her shoulder.
‘‘Loretta!’’ Rachel screamed from a front window. ‘‘Her name is Loretta. Oh, please, don’t hurt her, please.’’ A horrible, gut-wrenching sob punctuated the plea.
The Indian pressed the tip of his lance against Loretta’s throat. ‘‘Have you no tongue, herbi?’’
‘‘No-oo-o,’’ Rachel wailed. ‘‘She can’t talk! It’s the truth! Oh, please. She’s a good, sweet girl. Don’t hurt her.’’
To Loretta’s left, an Indian on a pinto began to babble in excitement and pointed a finger at her. The lead Comanche’s arm went taut, causing the lance to prick her skin. He leaned forward, the thick, veined muscles bulging in his upper arm as he tensed to drive the lance forward.
‘‘Ka!’’ roared the Indian on the pinto. Then he let loose with another garbled string of words.
Loretta closed her eyes and braced herself. Whatever it was the other Indian was saying, he was clearly arguing in her be
half. There hovered in the air a charged expectancy, turbulent, tingling along her nerve endings to the core of her, so that, for a suspended moment, she felt a peculiar sense of oneness with the man above her, perceiving his tumultuous emotions, his indecision, as if she were an integral part of him. He wanted to spill her blood with a primal ferocity, but something, perhaps the Almighty Himself, stayed his hand.
Sensing reprieve, grasping for it with eager disbelief, she lifted her lashes in confusion to see the same emotion reflected in his cobalt eyes.
He began to tremble, as if the lance weighed a thousand pounds. And suddenly she knew that as much as he longed to murder her, a part of him couldn’t, wouldn’t throw the lance. It made no sense. She could see nothing but hatred written on his chiseled face. He had surely killed hundreds of times and would kill again.
Slowly he lowered his arm and stared at her as if she had bested him in some way. Then, so quickly she couldn’t be sure she saw it, pain flashed across his face. ‘‘So you’re sweet?’’ His smile dripped ice. ‘‘We shall see, woman, we shall see.’’
He said ‘‘woman’’ as if he were spitting bile and slid his lance arrow to her chin. She had heard of women being disfigured by Indians and expected him to slash her as he outlined her mouth and the slope of her nose. Breathless fear brought moisture to her brow. Black spots danced, blurring her vision.
She blinked and forced herself to focus on him. Laughter twinkled in his eyes. She realized that since he had decided not to kill her, he was, for some reason she couldn’t imagine, playing a hideous game, terrifying her to test her mettle. She caught hold of his lance and shoved it aside, lifting her head in defiance. Chuckling low in his chest, he leaned over his thigh, making a fist in her hair. His grip brought tears to her eyes.
As he turned her face to study her, he said, ‘‘You have more courage than you have strength, Yellow Hair. It is not wise to fight when you cannot win.’’
Looking up at his carved features and the arrogant set of his mouth, she longed for the strength to jerk him off his horse. He wasn’t just taunting her, he was challenging her, mocking her.
‘‘You will yield. Look at me and know the face of your master. Remember it well.’’
Riding high on humiliation, Loretta forgot Amy, Aunt Rachel, everything. An image of her mother’s face flashed before her. Never, as long as she had life in her body, would she yield to him. She worked her parched mouth and spat. Nothing came out, but the message rang clear.
‘‘Nei mah-heepicut!’’ Releasing her, he struck her lightly on the arm. Wheeling his horse, he glanced toward he windows of the house and thumped his chest with a broad fist. ‘‘I claim her!’’
Loretta staggered, watching in numb disbelief as Hunter pranced his stallion in a circle around her. I claim her? Warily she turned, keeping him in sight, unsure of what he might do. He rode erect, his eyes touching on her dress, her face, her hair, as if everything about her were a curiosity.
A taunting smile curved his mouth. His attention centered on her full skirt, and she could almost see the questions churning in his head. He repositioned his hand on the lance. The determination in his expression filled her with foreboding.
He rode directly toward her, and she sidestepped. He turned his mount to come at her again. As he swept by he leaned forward, catching the hem of her skirt with his lance. Loretta whirled, striking out with her forearms, but the Indian moved expertly, his aim swift and sure, his horse precision-trained to the pressure of his legs. He was as bent on seeing her undergarments as she was on keeping them hidden.
The outcome of their battle was a foregone conclusion, and Loretta knew it. His friends encouraged him, whooping with ribald laughter each time her ruffles flashed. She snatched the dirty peace flag from the wooden shaft and threw it to the earth, grinding it beneath the heel of her shoe.
After fending off several more passes, exhaustion claimed its victory, and Loretta realized the folly in fighting. She stood motionless, breasts heaving, her eyes staring fixedly at nothing, head lifted. The warrior circled her, guiding his stallion’s flashing hooves so close to her feet that her toes tingled. When she didn’t move, he reined the horse to a halt and studied her for several seconds before he leaned forward to finger the bodice of her dress. Her breath snagged when he slid a palm over her bosom to the indentation of her waist.
‘‘Ai-ee,’’ he whispered. ‘‘You learn quick.’’
Raising tear-filled eyes to his, she again spat in his face. This time he felt the spray and wiped his cheek, his lips quivering with something that looked suspiciously like suppressed laughter, friendly laughter this time. ‘‘Maybe not so quick. But I am a good teacher. You will learn not to fight me, Yellow Hair. It is a promise I make for you.’’
In that moment, what she felt for him went beyond hate, a black, churning ugliness that made her want to seize the lance he brandished and skewer him with it. I claim her. He planned to take her, then? Her gaze traveled from his woven wool belt of army blue to the muscular tracks that rippled in his belly. The hilt of his knife protruded from a leather scabbard on his hip. How many soldiers had he killed? One, a hundred, perhaps a thousand?
Her hair hung from his belt, trailing in a spray of gold down the dark leather of his pants. She felt certain she had never seen him before. Yet he had her hair. The Indian down by the river must have given it to him, and he had come from God only knew where to get her.
With a start, she noticed the warrior had stretched out a hand to her. A wide leather band encircled his wrist to protect him from his bowstring. Staring at his dark palm and strong fingers, she shook her head in denial.
‘‘Hi, tai,’’ he said in a low voice. Guiding his stallion closer, he bent to touch her chin. Her eyelid quivered when he brushed at a tear on her cheek. ‘‘Ka taikay, ka taikay, Tohobt Nabituh,’’ he whispered.
The words made no sense. Puzzled, she met his gaze.
‘‘Tosa ehr-mahr.’’ Raising his hand, he showed her the glistening wetness on his fingertips. ‘‘Silver rain, tosa ehr-mahr.’’
He compared her tears to silver rain? She searched his eyes for some trace of humanity and found none. After a moment he straightened, raising his lance in what looked like a salute.
‘‘Suvate!’’ he yelled, his glittering eyes sweeping the line of encircling riders.
A low rumble of answering voices replied, ‘‘Suvate!’’
He seemed satisfied with the response and, with a mighty thrust, drove the lance into the earth. Again, he thrust out his hand. ‘‘Take it, Yellow Hair, in friendship.’’
She was afraid he might drag her onto his mount if she touched him, but his eyes compelled her. Besides, if he was set on it, he’d have his way, with or without her cooperation. She lifted a quivering arm, expecting the worst, and placed her fingers across his palm. His callused hand tightened on hers, the warmth of his grip shooting to her shoulder.
‘‘We will meet again. I will come to you like the wind, from nowhere. Remember the face of this Comanche. I am your destiny.’’
With that, he released her and rode his horse in a circle about the yard, one arm raised high, his head thrown back to emit a shrill cry that sent shivers up her spine. Moments later a cloud of dust rose in the yard, and four hundred hooves beat a deafening staccato of retreat.
Chapter 2
AFTER THE INDIANS DEPARTED, RACHEL bolted from the cabin and wrapped her arms around Loretta. Woodenly she returned her aunt’s embrace but kept her eyes on the cloud of dust that drifted toward the river, the Comanche’s words echoing. I am your destiny. Despite the heat, a clammy chill washed over her.
‘‘You’re all right,’’ Rachel crooned. ‘‘You’re all right.’’
Tightening her arms around her aunt, Loretta closed her eyes. She had stood face to face with a Comanche warrior and was still alive.
From inside the house came the sound of furniture dragging the floor, and a moment later Amy flew outside, her small face pinch
ed with fear. ‘‘I thought they’d kill you.’’
Loretta pulled away from Rachel and took the child into her arms, pressing her cheek against her braids.
‘‘I ain’t never gonna hide again,’’ Amy whispered shakily. ‘‘Not ever. Oh, Loretta, now I know what it was like for you that day when they killed your ma and pa, how sick you felt inside. I ain’t gonna go down there ever again. I swear I ain’t.’’
Loretta swayed back and forth, massaging the tension from the child’s shoulders. The smell of damp earth clung to Amy’s clothes. It called to mind the never-forgotten mustiness of her own hiding place in the cellar. She alone knew the agony Amy had just lived through, and the girl was right, it made a person sick inside. As horrible as it had been for Amy, though, Loretta knew she would do it again, protect her little cousin, no matter what.
With sudden clarity, Loretta at last understood why her parents had hidden her during the Comanche attack. At the time, she had been only six months older than Amy. If she had found the courage to open the cellar door, what could she have done? Nothing, save dying. Rebecca Simpson would not have wanted Loretta to reveal herself. Knowing her child was safe had probably been her only comfort those last torturous minutes. The realization eased the ache of guilt within Loretta that had been her constant companion for seven long years. She took a deep, cleansing breath, and tears she had never before been able to shed came streaming down her cheeks. A sob ripped up her throat.
Amy stiffened and pulled back. ‘‘Loretta, you’re cryin’!’’ Her eyes grew round. ‘‘Ma, Loretta’s cryin’.’’
Rachel put an arm around each girl. ‘‘And well she should. If anybody ever had call, it’s—’’
Amy shook her head. ‘‘No, Ma, really cryin’. I heard—’’
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