Deborah Camp (4 page)

Feet Like Wind drifted silently to the crude cross she had erected. The others circled him. They spoke with their hands and eyes, risking no sound in the still pre-dawning. One pointed to Sentry. Another waved toward the stables. Feet Like Wind kicked at the snow covering the ground in front of the cross. Sweat beaded Copper’s brow as she sighted her rifle in the vicinity of Feet Like Wind’s heart. Does he know? she wondered. Do his feet feel the unbroken ground? One of the braves started for the stables. Copper’s trigger finger flexed. She wouldn’t give up her stock without a fight.

A grunt from Feet Like Wind stopped the brave in his tracks. The leader’s hands flashed signals of retreat. Copper released her breath in a sigh as Feet Like Wind’s black eyes swept her cabin again.
Would he see the gun barrel? She pulled it ever so slowly back into the cabin. Two of the braves argued with their hands, trying to convince their leader to raid the stables. Feet Like Wind chopped the air with a beefy hand and the signed discussion ended. Like ghosts, they departed, slipping over the white ground and into the deep purple dawning.

Copper dressed warmly and took the repeater with her while she did her chores outside. Later, she tramped through the snow and followed the tracks of the early visitors. They had crept in on foot from the northeast. Where the woods thinned, she found the tracks of their horses. The hoofprints arrowed due north toward the geyser land where the Crow were camped for the winter. Like Pierre Sartain, the Gros Ventre had become scavengers, feeding off others’ scraps and goodwill.

The fire had died to embers in the hearth and it took her a half hour to manufacture a roaring blaze again to chase away the creeping chill. She dressed the game outside, throwing scraps and entrails off to the side for the dogs. When she entered the cabin again, it was warm and the fire still roared and threw sparks up the chimney.

Grizzly Gus and another mountain man, Micah McCall, had helped her build her cabin and outbuilding. They had taken pity on her and had done what they could to provide creature comforts. Gus had continued to check on her, but Micah hadn’t been around in months. Gus had heard that Micah had taken up with a cantankerous Sioux widow and had been seen camped near Fort Laramie.

“He got tired sniffing after you and getting nothing for his trouble,” Gus had told her. “So he took himself that Lakota to warm his buffalo robes at night. Can’t blame him none. He’s young and must vent his manly urges on something ’r other.”

Running her hands down her body, she remembered
being the recipient of such urges and craved no more of the same. It would be wonderful to have a man around to help her with life’s chores and tribulations, but the payment for masculine company was too great.

Her gaze slid to the lower bunk. The white man lay on his side, his back to her. Firelight scampered over his sandy brown hair. She might be able to make a fair trade with this man, she thought. He was in her debt and she could use that to her advantage. Providing he’s a man of honor, she reminded herself. If he proved to be a scamp with no sense of fairness, then she would send him out into the snow drifts and let him fend for himself again. And if he tried to lay one hand on her, she’d kill him and dig a real grave for his useless carcass.

Gus had said she’d grown tough and he was partly right. Her years as Stands Tall’s wife also had hardened her, dashed many of her girlish notions and taught her to survive in a world that often ground women under its heel. If for nothing else, she had Stands Tall to thank for her stubborn hold on life. He had given her a reason to live, in spite of all his efforts to do otherwise.

Her eyelids grew heavy and she curled in front of the fire like a cream-fed cat. Stacking her hands beneath her cheek, she slept and dreamed of those dear to her; Grizzly Gus, Goose Down Woman, Much Smoke, Micah McCall, and the man … the one in her bed with the splinted leg and fevered brow. In sleep, she frowned, perplexed that this man was welcomed by the others in her dream.

In the bunk, the man stirred and life flooded through his limbs and pumped messages to his brain. His eyelids allowed narrow bands of light to filter through his tangled lashes. The light burned his eyeballs, but he tolerated the discomfort, for it was nothing compared to the gnawing pain in his chest or the shooting bursts of fire attacking
his leg. He moved his tongue, which felt like a flap of dried leather in his spitless mouth. He opened his eyes and stared at irregular logs and dried mortar. Biting down hard on his lips, he flopped onto his back, then lay limply, panting and fighting the onslaught of agony. He tasted blood and was glad because it wet his tongue and made him feel alive again.

Grains of sand seemed to scrape across his eyes as he surveyed his shelter. He made out another bed above him, felt the heat of a fire along one side of his body, sensed the presence of someone nearby. He turned his head and saw the woman, swathed in volumes of skins and furs, sleeping peacefully. Her hair was as fiery as the blazes in the hearth. The sight of it triggered a vague memory of a woman on horseback against a setting sun, her hair on fire. He could make out very little of her features. A thick lock of her flame-colored hair curtained her cheek. Her nose was small, sculpted, a touch pugnacious. Her skin was lightly tanned, but looked to be soft. She had a generous mouth, her upper lip curvy and her lower one full, glistening. The primary attraction, to his mind, was that she was a white woman. Thank God. She had to have a man somewhere—hopefully, a white man who would help him out of this patch of trouble—if he lived that long.

Whatever dream enthralled her also worried her, for her brow puckered, and she frowned and shifted irritably.

He swallowed, making his throat work, then cleared it. His voice rattled past his dry lips.

“Ma’am?” That’s what he’d meant to say, but what came out wasn’t a word, but the sound of an old, dying toad.

Coming awake instantly, she sat upright and blinked owlishly at him. Her eyes were dark, framed by auburn lashes.

“Ma’am?” This time the word emerged, but his voice was still not his own. “I hurt.”

“You’re awake!” She leaned closer to peer into his face. “And about time, too.”

“I hurt … bad.”

“Good for you. That means you’re alive. You’ve been close to death the past few days.”

Her voice was rich, deep, a little breathy. It fell pleasingly on his ears. “Days?” he repeated.

“I set your leg and pulled the arrow from your chest. Now that you’re awake, I can tend to your wounds better. My medicine has chased away sickness. I can see color in your face. That means death has left you in my hands for now.” She pressed the back of her narrow wrist against his forehead. “Cooler. Much cooler.”

“Water?”

“Yes.” She dipped a tin cup into the bucket near her and gave it to him. His hand shook, but he directed the cup to his lips and spilled not a drop. “I’ll shave you and bathe you tonight.”

He rolled his gray-green eyes her way. “Th–that’s okay.”

“Your wound must be cleaned. Might as well clean all of you. I’ve done it once already.”

It was then that he realized he was buck naked under the wool blanket and buffalo robe. Modesty spilled heat over his neck and face.

“Uh … where’s your man? Out trapping?”

She pushed her hair away from her face, then took the tin cup from him. Her eyes were dark brown and made him think of warm cocoa. The firelight played over her face and he saw that she was beautiful. Her skin was unlined and lightly freckled. Her eyes were large and wide-set. A shallow dimple adorned her chin.

“I have no man,” she said, tipping up that chin in a show of pride. “I have tended to you by myself.”

No man. Well, maybe that’s for the best, he
thought, eyeing her beauty. An air of nobility clung to her. A wild spirit inhabited her earthy eyes. Suddenly, he was glad no man had claimed her.

“What are you called?” she asked, rocking her head to one side, her hair spilling like a red curtain over her shoulder.

He moistened his dry lips with his tongue. “Tucker.”

“What Tucker? What is your Christian name?”

“That’s it. Tucker Jones. What’s yours?”

“You call me Copper. My whole name was Copper Headed Woman.”

“That’s an Indian name.”

She faced the fire, averting her gaze from his. “Yes. I’m Absaroka. Crow.”

He stared at her for a full minute, sensing the pain beneath the stillness of her expression. “But you’re white. Did they kidnap you from your family?”

She blinked and turned her head slowly to look at him again. “They are—
were
my people …” Her voice faded, then returned. “I have a hazy memory of my first family, but in my head and heart, I have always been Crow. It’s all I’ve known. But now I live on my own and belong to no people.”

“On your own, huh? Since when?”

“Last winter.” She looked into the dancing flames again. “You must be hungry. I’ll get you a bowl of soup.” Pushing to her feet, she let the wool shawl drop from her shoulders. She bent toward the pot near the fire. Steam curled from it. “It’s good soup, seasoned with turnips and buffalo fat.”

When she reached for one of the wooden bowls stacked on a high shelf, her buckskin dress clung to her body. Tucker swallowed a groan. Not only was she beautiful and unmarried, she was great with child.

S
lowly coming awake, Tucker opened his eyes to slits and watched firelight play over the walls and the skins that covered him. It was night, but he didn’t know how late. Time had ceased to exist for him. Day into night, minutes into hours, all jumbled together, leaving him in limbo.

His body parts responded to his brain’s commands with caterpillar-like slowness. Random twitches and stabs of pain bedeviled him, interrupting his sleep, turning his dreams to nightmares.

He opened his eyes wider, the simple action requiring a great effort. He turned his head, sensing the woman’s nearness before his eyes located her. She sat by the fire, using its light to see the stitches she poked into buttery soft leather with an awl. She was making mitts. Mitts too big for her delicate hands.

The wind whined outside as if wanting to come in and blow out the fire in the hearth. One of her dogs lay beside her and lifted its head to listen to the high-pitched moaning. Tucker’s gaze drifted to the woman’s belly, swollen with life. God in heaven, what was she doing out here in that condition? She should be with her family, her mother, a nursemaid—any grown female would do.

“Hungry? There’s stew in the pot.”

He cleared his throat, uneasy that she’d known
he was awake and studying her. “Later, maybe. My throat doesn’t seem to be working very well. It burns.”

“Parched, most likely.”

“Are you making those mittens for yourself?”

“No, for a friend. It’s part of a trade.”

“What’d you get in this trade?”

“A wolf skin. Silver wolf.” She smiled, although she still didn’t look at him, keeping her attention trained on the handiwork. “I’ll make a cradle blanket out of it for my baby.”

The baby. He shut his eyes, seeing trouble ahead. “When’s the baby supposed to come?”

“Soon.”

“How soon?”

“Next month.” Her gaze lifted briefly to his, long enough for her to see his grimace. “You ever been around babies?”

“Not much. I do know that you don’t have any business giving birth out here in this wilderness all alone.”

“I’m not alone.” Finally, her dark eyes met his and seemed to envelope him in a warm, brown embrace. “And where else would I have the child? This is my home. This is where I live and where my child will live.”

“You should have gone to the fort to be near a doctor.”

She shrugged. “Women don’t need doctors for birthing. It’s a natural thing between the woman and her maker. I can manage without a doctor, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a friend about after the baby’s born. At least for a few weeks.”

“You have one near here?”

Setting aside the mitts, she folded her hands in her lap and faced him. The firelight burnished her flaming hair. A quiet strength emanated from her. She was younger than he’d thought at first. No lines marred her skin. She was no older than twenty-five, he figured. Young, optimistic, full of
vigor and mistaken beliefs in her ability to survive.

“Are you a trading man, Tucker Jones?”

“Sometimes,” he answered, as wary as a coyote approaching a baited trap.

“What say, we trade off services, you and me?”

He didn’t answer; didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t fathom what
services
this pregnant woman could offer him.

“I’ve saved your hide. Guess you’ve figured that out by now.”

He nodded, his bearded cheek rubbing against the pillow’s ticking. “Much obliged.”

“It’s said that you’re a deserter and a horse thief. People are sniffing your trail. Indians, white men, army officers. You’re a Yank, aren’t you? You were wearing part of a blue uniform when I found you.”

He worried his lower lip over his upper teeth. “That’s right, and I’m not a deserter or a horse thief. I was transporting prisoners. They jumped me and another soldier. Killed him and took me hostage.”

“And you stole horses from the Gros Ventre?”

“The others did that. I told them they were crazy, but they weren’t interested in my advice. Of course, the Indians tracked us down. I guess the others got away.”

“Not from what I hear.” She poked at the fire with a thick, blackened stick and turned her head so that she was in profile.

She had long, thick, straight lashes. He tried to imagine her in party finery instead of animal skins, but the mind-picture was silly—like putting a saddle on a peacock. She faced him again.

“I heard that those fellow travelers of yours got themselves dead.”

“That wouldn’t surprise me. The bunch of them couldn’t produce a lick of common sense. Seemed like they were bound and determined to get themselves
shot full of holes.” He hunched his shoulders, feeling death on his heels again. “The Indians got them, huh?”