Comanche Moon (53 page)

Tears welled in her eyes. ‘‘I love you, Hunter, but my mother’s screams call out to me. I’ll never be free of that, not as long as I stay here. One morning you will awaken and I won’t be here. And I’ll make sure this time that you never find me.’’ He started to speak, but she silenced him, touching her fingertips to his lips. ‘‘Don’t. Empty threats won’t keep me here. You won’t beat me.’’ She moved her palm to his cheek. ‘‘Do you think I don’t know that by now?’’

He clamped a hand behind her head and drew her against his chest, burying his face in the hollow of her shoulder. ‘‘It is not the way of a Comanche to beat his woman,’’ he rasped. ‘‘Just as it is not his way to let her go away from him.’’

She turned her face to touch her lips to his neck. ‘‘Make a memory with me, Hunter,’’ she whispered huskily. ‘‘One more beautiful memory.’’

Cinching an arm around her waist, Hunter stretched out with her on the fur. Never before had she initiated lovemaking. His hand trembled as he skimmed his palm down her spine.
Make a memory with me,
Hunter.
As he dipped his head to kiss her, he wondered why it was that those words had a ring of farewell.
One more beautiful memory.

Loretta awoke shortly after dawn, alone in a cocoon of fur. She had only the haziest memory of Hunter carrying her to bed after making love to her last night. She sat up, clutching the buffalo robe to her naked breasts. Her clothing lay neatly folded on the foot of the bed, the rawhide wrappings for her braids resting on top. Her blond hair fascinated Hunter, and he had never yet made love to her without first unfastening her braids. A sad smile touched her mouth. Hunter, the typical slovenly Indian, picking up after his
tosi
wife. She had been so wrong about so many things.

She hugged her knees and rested her chin on them, gazing sightlessly into the shadows, listening to the village sounds. A woman was calling her dog. Somewhere a child was crying. The smell of roasting meat drifted on the breeze.
Familiar sounds, familiar smells, the voices of friends.
When had the village begun to seem like home?

Loretta closed her eyes, searching desperately within herself for her own identity and memories, but white society was no longer a reality to her. Hunter had become the axis of her world, Hunter and his people. Amy lay sleeping on her pallet a short distance away. Loretta listened to her even breathing.
Amy, Aunt Rachel, home.
Could she return there now and pick up the threads of her old life?

The answer wasn’t long in coming. Life without Hunter would be no life at all. Yet to see Red Buffalo, day in and day out, was inconceivable.

Throwing back the buffalo robes, Loretta slipped from bed and quickly drew on her clothes. The only way she could get through the day was to ignore Red Buffalo’s existence and concentrate on Hunter. There was a fire to build and breakfast to prepare.

After sloshing a measure of water from the pouch into the washbasin, Loretta scrubbed her face, then brushed her hair and plaited it in a single thick braid down her back.

Outside, the morning air was cool and damp with humidity. Birds trilled in the nearby cottonwood trees, creating a cacophony of sound. Loretta paused just outside the lodge, keeping her face downcast. Only two pieces of firewood lay near the firepit. She would have to gather more as soon as she got a fire started.

Kneeling by the firepit, she unearthed last night’s coals and arranged bits of kindling over them, adding dry grass as tinder. Bending low, she blew until the coals flared and caught the grass. Then, straightening, she placed the logs over the licking flames.

A loud clunk resounded behind her. She glanced over her shoulder, expecting to see her husband. Instead she looked straight into Red Buffalo’s black eyes. For an instant her heart stopped beating. She stared at him. He stared back. His arms were laden with firewood. One piece lay at his feet. Very slowly he hunkered down and began unloading the rest.

At last Loretta found her voice. ‘‘Get out of here!’’

‘‘I bring you wood,’’ he replied softly in English.

Even Loretta knew warriors didn’t demean themselves by gathering firewood; it was woman’s work. Red Buffalo was humbling himself, making her a peace offering. She didn’t care. ‘‘I don’t want your filthy wood. Take it and leave.’’

He continued his task as if she hadn’t spoken. Rage bubbled up Loretta’s throat. She leaped to her feet and strode toward him. ‘‘I said get out of here! Take your damned wood with you!’’

Just as she reached him, Red Buffalo finished emptying his arms and rose. He was a good head shorter than Hunter, but he dwarfed Loretta. She fell back, startled, wondering if he could smell her fear. Lifting her chin, she cut him dead with her eyes. He inclined his head in a polite nod and turned to walk away.

‘‘I said take your wood with you!’’ she called after him. ‘‘I don’t want it!’’ Picking up a log, she chucked it at him. It landed on end and bounced, hitting Red Buffalo’s calf. He stopped and turned, his face expressionless as he watched her throw the remainder of the firewood in his direction.

Saying nothing, he began to pick up the firewood. To Loretta’s dismay, he returned to her firepit and began unloading the logs there in a neat pile. From the corner of her eye, she could see neighbors gathering to find out what all the commotion was about. Heat scalded her cheeks. She couldn’t believe Red Buffalo was humiliating himself like this.

‘‘Don’t,’’ she said raggedly. ‘‘Go away, Red Buffalo! Go away!’’

He tipped his head back. Tears glistened on his scarred cheeks. ‘‘Hunter has cut me from his heart.’’

‘‘Good! You’re an animal!’’

Red Buffalo winced as if she had struck him. ‘‘He has forbidden me to enter his lodge until you take my hand in friendship.’’

‘‘Never!’’
Appalled, Loretta retreated a step. ‘‘Never, do you hear me?’’

Red Buffalo slowly rose, brushing his palms clean on his breeches. ‘‘He is my brother—my only brother.’’

‘‘You expect me to feel sorry for you? How dare you come near me? How dare—’’

Her voice broke, and she spun away, running inside the lodge. Heedless of Amy, who was sitting up on her pallet, Loretta threw herself onto the bed. Knotting her fists, she stifled her sobs against the fur. Hatred coursed through her, hot, ugly, and venomous, making her shake.
Take his hand in friendship?
Never, not as long as she lived.

Hunter was returning from a bath at the river and witnessed part of the confrontation between Loretta and Red Buffalo. Remembering the ultimatum Loretta had given him last night, he did an about-face and returned to the river, in too much turmoil to face his wife until he had time to think.

Lengthening his stride, he set a swift pace, following the stream until the village was far behind him and he had expelled some of his tension. He sprawled under a cottonwood and braced his shoulder against its silvered trunk, his gaze riveted to the flowing water. He let his mind go with it, to a faraway place. The breeze was brisk, the rose-streaked sky gunmetal gray directly overhead. He inhaled the scent of grass and earth, familiar smells that soothed him. Birds twittered above him, celebrating the new day.

Hunter wished he had gone out with the other hunters this morning. The danger, the ceaseless tension of a buffalo hunt, might have cleared his mind. He had to make a decision about Loretta, and he had to do it soon. Cruel fingers squeezed his heart. His people or Loretta? His mother’s and father’s faces flashed in his mind. Then others crowded in, Blackbird, Pony Girl, Turtle, Warrior, Maiden of the Tall Grass, and Red Buffalo. As much as he loved them, he had come to love Loretta more. When had it happened?

He had once told Loretta that he would be as nothing without his people, and that was true. He would be giving up all that he was to be with her. Yet how could he live without her? The prophecy had come to pass. Without her, he had no tomorrows. How could a man live without them?

He sighed and closed his eyes. From the moment she had stepped out from her wooden walls, the path ahead of him had been clearly marked, but he had been too blind to see it. A
tosi
woman and a Comanche, their pasts stained with tears and bloodshed, had little hope of coexisting happily with either race. To be as one, they had to walk alone, away from both their people.

Where, that was the question. And Hunter had no answers. West, as the prophecy foretold? Into the great mountain ranges? The thought frightened him. He had been raised in open spaces, able to see into tomorrow, with the north wind whispering, the grass waving, the buffalo plentiful. What would he hunt? And how? He wouldn’t know what roots and nuts to gather. He wouldn’t know which plants made good medicine, which bad. Did he dare take a woman into an unknown land, uncertain if he could feed her, care for her, or protect her? What if she came with child?
Winter, the time when babies cried.
How would he stand tall like a man if his family starved?

Hunter opened his eyes and sat up, raking his fingers through his damp hair. Looking skyward, he searched for Loretta’s Great One, the Almighty Father to whom she gave thanks for her food. At first he had been disgruntled by her prayers. Her God didn’t bring her the food; her husband did. Loretta had explained that her God led Hunter’s footsteps so his hunts were successful.

Was her God up there in the sky, as she believed? Did he truly hear a man’s whispers, his thoughts? Hunter could see his own gods, Mother Earth, Mother Moon, Father Sun, the wind coming from the four directions. It was easy to believe in what he could see. Why did Loretta’s God hide himself? Was he terrible ugly? Did he hide only from Comanches? Loretta said he was father to all, even Indians.

Peace filled Hunter. With so many Great Ones, both his and hers, surely they would be blessed. Relaxing his body, he surrendered himself to fate. The Great Ones would guide them. Loretta’s God would lead his footsteps in the hunt when his own gods failed him. Together he and Loretta would find a new place where the Comanche and
tosi tivo
could live as one, where Hunter could sing the songs of the People and keep their ways alive.

Rising, Hunter turned back toward the village, his decision made, his heart torn, acutely aware that the prophecy had foretold this moment long ago.

The blast of a gun and a shrill scream brought Loretta up from the bed. Whirling, she fastened horrified eyes on the lodge door, her senses pelted by a barrage of noise, screams, running footsteps, more rifle shots, and the yells of white men.
An attack.
For an instant she was so frightened that she couldn’t feel her legs, couldn’t move. Then she saw Amy’s empty pallet.
Oh, God.

She moved toward the doorway, her mind screaming hurry, her every movement agonizingly slow. Running, running, inch by inch, toward the screams and the stench of death, to find Hunter and Amy. Ducking beneath the flap, she burst outside, her gaze darting from one lodge to the next, uncomprehending. White men, smoke, careening horses, and blood.

‘‘Hunter! Amy!’’

She staggered forward. A woman ran past, screaming her child’s name, knocking Loretta off balance.

‘‘Amy! Hunter!
Hah-ich-ka ein,
where are you?’’

Loretta’s voice was lost in the confusion of noise. She tripped over something and glanced down. A little boy lay sprawled at her feet, his chest bathed in crimson, his brown eyes staring fixedly at the sky, already glazed with death.

‘‘Oh, my God!’’

Stumbling backward, Loretta clutched her throat, unable to drag her gaze from the child. Four years old, maybe less, slain by a white man’s bullet. She whirled, assailed on all sides by more death, unable to believe what she was seeing. White men didn’t do things like this. They
couldn’t
!

‘‘Amy, where are you?
Hah-ich-ka ein
?’’

Loretta ran along the path between the lodges. A horse charged past her, and metal flashed. She threw up an arm and shrank away, expecting the brandishing saber to cut her down. When the bite of the blade didn’t come, she inched her arm down. The man, dirty rather than dark, had shoulder-length, greasy hair. He wore tall boots, coated with dust and drawn over bright purple trousers. The handle of a large bowie knife protruded from one of his boots. Attached to his belt were two large revolvers. A border ruffian? Loretta had heard stories about them, but if that was what he was, he was a mighty far piece from home. White trash, more like, which could take root anywhere. His thin, cruel features held her attention, the world around him a spinning kaleidoscope of color.

‘‘A white woman!’’

Loretta met his glittering, blue-eyed gaze, shock rendering her mindless. She spun away and ran into the melee of scrambling bodies, men, women, children, all fleeing for their lives.
Tosi tivo
everywhere, the reports of their guns deafening. Ahead of Loretta, a young squaw zigzagged in terror, trying to escape the saber-swinging horseman bearing down on her. On her back she carried an infant in a cradleboard. The ruffian’s sword made a deadly sweep, and the woman sprawled facedown. The man reined in, riding the horse in a circle around her body, raising the bloodied blade for another thrust. Loretta screamed and scrambled toward him.

‘‘No! Not the baby! Oh, my God, no!’’

Startled by her voice, the man turned his head and fixed his gaze on her hair. Judging by his expression, he was stunned to see a white woman. He hesitated just long enough. She threw herself over the baby, sobbing prayers. The man drew back his saber, staring down at her as she pulled the cradleboard off the dead squaw’s shoulders. The baby flailed the air with his tiny fists. Loretta clutched him to her chest and staggered away.

Hide him.
The thought became a litany. She darted between the lodges, aiming for the woods. Brush slapped her face. She lunged through it, her arms crisscrossed over the child to protect him. When she came upon a fallen tree, she plunged into the undergrowth behind it. Peeking over the log, she made sure no one had followed her. Then she shoved the infant deep into the foliage, praying that his cries wouldn’t lead the white men to him.