Woman of Three Worlds (23 page)

“Much blood has run out of him.”

Sara was standing across from Brittany. Their eyes locked. Brittany's dread must have shown, for Sara's face changed. “Perhaps I can care for him, wise one,” she offered. “I know a brew that might make him strong enough for his fate.”

The
di-yin
shrugged, probably relieved to avoid what he saw as a lowering of prestige if the victim escaped through natural death. “You can try. He needs rich broth, good easy food, like a motherless baby.”

Two men carried Zach to Sara's wickiup. Slipping in to look at him, Jody stared and burst out, “That's the man who took me to Camp Bowie! He bought me from the Mexicans!” He turned to Brittany. “My teacher, don't you know him?”

“I know him,” Brittany murmured. “Sara, the herbs—”

“Try to get him to swallow some of the soup in the kettle,” Sara said briskly. “I'll make tea to help his fever and a poultice for the shoulder.”

Jody dug his toe in the ground. “I wish they wouldn't kill him,” he whispered.

“It is with Ussen,” his aunt said. “But you could make him more comfortable by taking off his boots and belt. Then you must go out and leave him to us.”

Brittany went out to the fireplace and spooned venison broth into a gourd. She was trembling as she propped Zach's head against her breast and spoke softly.

“Zach, try to swallow.”

His dark eyelashes fluttered but didn't lift. He muttered something unintelligible. He was burning with fever. Still, when she put the bone spoon to his mouth, he took the soup eagerly.

“Not too much at once,” Sara warned, tying a mash of herbs and aloe vera over the wound with a strip of cloth. Her level gaze locked with Brittany's. “Is this the one?”

“Yes.”

“You have heard. He killed the One Who Is Gone. If he lives now it will be for a long hard death. It would be better to let him slip easily down the cone of death.” The Chokonen believed the afterworld was just below the surface of this one and that it was reached through a kind of funnellike hole similar to a large anthill's opening.

Though she had not really expected help from Sara, these words crushed down on Brittany like a rockslide. “I love him,” she said fiercely, cradling his face against her. “I—I will beg Fawn. I will take off my clothes and crawl as she did before Bent Nose.”

“It will profit nothing. It is good for members of a band to show each other mercy. We need each man, each woman, each child, for we are few. But when our friend hears her fatherless baby cry, she will not pity this man—or you.”

“They will have to kill me before they kill him.”

The other woman gave a scornful sniff. “What good would that do?”

“None, but I can't watch him die.”

“Talk a walk up the canyon.”

“Would you have done that if the man you loved was being tortured to death?”

Sara didn't answer. Rising, she went out to where water was now boiling and returned with tea that smelted of elderberries and joint fir. Between them, they got most of the brew down Zach's throat. Kah-Tay came in, looked moodily at the prisoner.

“This one was good to my son. I have gone to the women of He Who Is Gone and tried to ransom him, but they say they will make him a porcupine with spine splinters and set them afire before they shoot him with arrows.”

“You're the chief,” Brittany said. “Can't you order them to spare him?”

“Blanca, you have lived with us long enough to know that except in war, leaders do not order. They advise and reason and use their influence, but Chokonen are not slaves to breathe at another man's word.”

He left the wickiup. Sara brought cold water and she and Brittany sponged Zach to bring his fever down. Beard stubble covered his jaw, but there was a boyish vulnerability to his mouth. Brittany's thoughts skittered through her head like mice trapped in a maze.

Amazingly Sara put some of these scuttling notions into words. “He can't travel. He'll be well enough for killing before he's strong enough to walk or ride.”

Brittany's heart leaped. Was Sara even considering help?

“Maybe,” Sara went on, “he can act feverish and bad sick after he starts feeling better. Maybe he can get pretty strong. Maybe you can pack food then, have two horses up the canyon, and leave some night. Maybe you would take a rifle so he could hunt on the journey back.”

Joy flooded Brittany. Sara
would
help, or at least connive a bit. Because she knew the importance of truth among these people, Brittany resolved not to burden Sara with questions or plans but, if and as Zach mended, to set about making preparations.

Big Jaw had been properly buried with his horse and weapons, but the rest of his prized possessions were now buried in a canyon niche. Even as the wickiup burned, friends were building a new one for the bereaved family.

That night there was a dance around the fire as the returned warriors recounted their fight with the army patrol. Before they tossed it up in the branch of a tree so far down the canyon that his ghost couldn't find them, each of the party danced with the golden hair of Michael O'Shea.

Brittany stayed inside the wickiup, tended Zach, and wept for her friend.

Her lingering hope that tenderhearted Fawn would relent after the first shock of her husband's death was shattered a few days later when the wives and mother of Big Jaw visited the wickiup and stood gazing down at Zach. In spite of all Sara and Brittany could do, his fever had stayed high and his breathing was increasingly labored.

Sneezes cooed softly, dark eyes following charms dangling from the hood of his cradleboard, lightning-charred wood, a hummingbird's claw, a piece of cholla, bags of pollen, a stuffed badger paw, and a tag of wildcat's skin. Fawn nudged the prisoner with her toe. Her oldest sister leaned down and forced up his eyelid. The other pried beneath the poultice to inspect the shoulder.

“The White Eye hasn't been conscious?” asked Big Jaw's mother.

“No,” replied Sara truthfully.

The disappointed women conferred. “Do you think he'll improve?” pressed Fawn.

Sara spread her hands. “Who knows? The wound is bad.”

Again the women took counsel. The oldest sister said, “Even if he cannot feel what we do, we would rather kill him than have him cheat us by a peaceful death.”

Fawn looked directly at Brittany, beautiful face hard. “If you think he is dying, come quick and tell us,” she charged.

Brittany's eyes met Sara's. There would be no forgiveness.

XVII

Through five days and nights it seemed doubtful that Zach would mend, but on the sixth morning he rested more quietly. When Brittany raised him for his tea and gruel, his eyes opened, free of the fever wildness.

They went wide, so blue they stabbed deep into her. “Brittany!”

She touched his lips, fighting back tears of relief. “Don't speak aloud.” She went on to explain his peril.

His mouth twisted. “Fair enough, according to their rights.” He tried to raise himself, had to collapse against her. “Looks like I can't give them much argument.”

Swiftly, she whispered her hopes of escape and explained Sara and Kah-Tay's gratitude for his rescue of Jody. “That helps,” nodded Zach. “Fine. I'll act sick when strangers are around, but I'll eat and get as much exercise as I can inside the wickiup. We can't stretch the game too far or those ladies may decide to go ahead and kill me.”

As soon as she had fed him, he slept again.

His fever went up again that afternoon, fortunately in time to convince Big Jaw's visiting mother that he was still not a suitable target for their vengeance. After she went grumbling away, Brittany held Zach, gently bathed his hot face and upper body.

Giving in to irresistible longing, she kissed his eyes, the straight mouth, held him against her heart. He'd told her that this patrol commanded by Michael O'Shea had been only one of many sent to look for her after a sobbing Laurie had trudged into the laundresses' quarters and poor Harris's body was found in the road. Major Erskine had ridden out at once but his scouts found no sign, and by the time Zach was sent for, the Chokonens' route had been completely obliterated by late summer rains.

“This is a new place for Kah-Tay,” Zach had said ruefully. “I went to all his old haunts and even rode into Juh's stronghold to see if Kah-Tay was with him and Geronimo.” He smiled faintly. “Juh was so flabbergasted at my coming alone that he let me ride to the top of his mountain. Usually, his Nedhni roll rocks down on anyone who tries that. Juh claimed to know nothing of Kah-Tay's whereabouts. He let me go, even gave me a feast, but he told me never to ride up his trail again.”

So he
had
tried to find her. Brittany's glow was quickly dimmed by the coolly expressionless way he added, “Major Erskine has offered a private reward to anyone who helped find you. You must be flattered that he holds you in such esteem.”

Brittany's stiff smile had hurt her face. “Yes. I'm sure it takes a considerable inducement to get men who aren't under army orders to track after Apaches.”

Zach laughed dryly. “Apart from the reward, Major Erskine can be very persuasive.”

What did that mean? It sounded as if Erskine had offered Zach a secret incentive or wielded some kind of blackmail. He might have hinted that the post would buy hay and wood elsewhere if Zach didn't cooperate.

Humiliation at that thought and Zach's cold manner kept Brittany from letting Zach see how she felt about him. Only when he was oblivious dared she embrace him, losing herself in the achingly bittersweet delight of pressing her lips to his, matching her softness against the hard length of his body.

As his strength returned, he stretched and flexed his muscles in every way possible within the lodge, squatting to leap up, bending from the waist to sweep the ground with his hands, and “running,” feet falling in the same position.

Never again did Sara discuss their escape, but at various times Brittany found rawhide bags of food beneath her blankets, extra moccasins, two double-headed water jugs, and two knives. She concealed the supplies in the cache she had dug months ago, but she kept one knife under her bed and gave Zach the other. In case the patience of Big Jaw's women gave out suddenly, at least he could defend himself, force his attackers to give him a quick death.

On the tenth day after Zach had been brought in, Big Jaw's mother glared at the apparently stuporous Zach, who had failed to respond when she drove thorns into his arm.

“This one is never going to wake up!”

“I want him to know!” cried Fawn. “I want him to feel everything.”

Her mother-in-law shrugged. “Let's wait till tomorrow. Then I want to tie him to a pole.” She eyed Zach speculatively. “Maybe we can wake him up if we take our time. I have seen almost-dead men revive when their skin was peeled off.”

Brittany's stomach twisted, but she kept her eyes fixed on the moccasin she was making. When the women left, Sara remarked offhandedly, “Two mules might be hobbled tonight just beyond where the canyon narrows. There might be saddles in the cave behind the big juniper, and rawhide to tie on the hoofs to blur tracks.”

“There's no way to thank you.”

“You did when you were good to my nephew.” The medicine woman sighed. “Peoples war, but perhaps there is hope while men and women feel for each other in spite of their tribes. My brother will have to join the search for you, but I do not think his eyes will be very good. He might even follow the wrong tracks.”

The hide door fell shut behind her. Zach pulled the thorns out of his arm. “Sweet little old lady!” he winced. “I'd just as soon not find out what she can do when she's trying.”

“We have to go tonight.”

His dark eyebrows met in a frown. “Brittany, stay here. Even with Sara and Kah-Tay's help, we don't have much chance of getting clear.”

“We'll have at least ten hours' start.” She spoke confidently, though her heart lurched at his matter-of-fact fatalism.

“I've been in this part of the mountains a time or two but don't know it. Not the way they do—every wash, every cave, every spring—whether a canyon has a way out or ends in cliffs we can't scale.” He grasped her wrists, drew her down to face him. “It's scarcely conceivable that they won't pick up our trail. Even if they don't, they'll fan out and cover the routes we might travel.”

What he said was true. She'd been as much a fool to think they could get away as to hope that he might love her. Her throat ached and she couldn't speak.

He said more gently, “Sara's giving me the chance to die fast, and God knows I'm grateful. She knows, too, that the warriors won't kill you except by accident. But that could happen, Brittany. Stay here.”

If Zach had been completely well, he might have made better time without her. As it was, he was still weak. She could make sure he ate, take care of the mules, save his energy in every possible way, protect his back if they were cornered.

She could make sure he didn't die trapped and alone.

He wouldn't accept those reasons. Though his hands seemed to melt her bones, she forced a brittle laugh. “Don't you think I'm sick to death of living with these savages? You may not know this country like the palm of your hand but at least you can get us back to the post. Let's make a run for it.”

“You might get killed.”

Mockingly, she smiled. “Not if Kah-Tay can help it. He wants to marry me.”

Zach's fingers tightened. “So you flirt with Apaches when there aren't any white officers around?”

Stung, she gave one shoulder a careless lift. “A woman has to keep in practice.”

“
Women
don't flirt.”

“No doubt your experience makes you an expert on the subject,” she jabbed.

Shifting his grasp, he brought her full against him. His mouth punished hers, but the wild honeyed sweetness of his kiss robbed her of all will to resist. Lips parting, her arms slipped around him till her hands caressed the hardmuscled back of his neck, and she was lost in pulsing, questing hunger, the rapture of being again in his arms.