Comanche Woman (13 page)

In moments, his breathing was ragged and she could feel his heart pounding beneath the hand she had pressed against his solid chest. He tore his mouth away and leaned his forehead against hers, his eyes closed, his jaw taut.

She gulped a breath of air, trying to calm the pulse that leaped at her throat. The kiss had been a surprise. As was the barest touch of his hand upon her skin. She began to see what he’d meant. It was a heady thing to know she’d so completely conquered his senses.

She had relaxed, thinking he’d proved his point, when Long Quiet’s hands grasped her waist, then dropped slowly to her buttocks as he lifted her up and into his body. She felt the hard evidence of his arousal, and froze. When she thought she would die with the waiting, he spoke.

“Can you feel me trembling? My blood races. My breath is stolen. And you say woman is weak? How can it be so when I’m robbed of my strength by your mere touch?”

No more so than I
, Bay admitted to herself. She feared what she was feeling, because she didn’t understand it. What was happening to her? She loved Jonas Harper. How could anything this white Comanche said to her affect her so strongly? Why was she feeling desire when she knew where that would lead?

Long Quiet tipped her chin up so he could see into her eyes. “You’re trembling. Are you afraid of me?”

She shook her head but remained stubbornly silent.

“Then what troubles you, Shadow?”

“I know what men do with women who belong to them . . . as you say I belong to you. I know of the bruises, the bleeding—”

He tucked her head beneath his chin, seeking to comfort, to protect, to reassure. “I wouldn’t hurt you.”

“Why not? Am I not as other captives?”

He held her away from him so he could look into her eyes. He saw the fear and confusion there and said gruffly, “No. This is different.”

“How? You’ve said yourself that I belong to you. What will stop you from using me as other white women are used by brave Comanche warriors like you?”

“I would not take you as an animal, without thought of your feelings,” he argued, upset by the sarcasm in her voice.

“You’re Comanche!” she spat.

“I’m . . .”

He would not deny what he was. But that didn’t necessarily make him inhuman or cruel. A Comanche was no more cruel than the circumstances required, even though Long Quiet would have agreed that a lifetime of war demanded a heart hardened against the pain of others.

“Have I been unkind to you?” he challenged.

“No. But I’m still afraid.”

“Of me?”

When she didn’t answer, he dropped his hands abruptly and turned away. He could not undo the awful things he well knew must have been done to her. He knew he should leave her now, proving his good intentions, but desire clouded his thinking. He turned back to her.

“Come here,” he entreated, his voice soft, as though he were beckoning to something untamed.

Bay came to him, but the moment his arms circled her she stiffened.

He stifled the muttered curse that sprang to his lips and said, as much to convince himself as her, “I can wait to have you until you’ve learned to trust me.” He set her away from him and said, “I must go now and find Many Horses.”

He walked away and left her standing there. He hadn’t offered to carry the heavy kettle of water back to the tipi of Cries at Night. She snorted. Of course not. He was a Comanche. And that was a Comanche woman’s work.

A cloud covered the sun, and Bay shivered as a breath of wind hit the perspiration on her body, cooling her. Joining her body to that of Long Quiet appeared to be inevitable. But how soon would it happen? Tonight? Tomorrow?

Over the past years, as hope of rescue faded, Bay had learned not to consider the future. She ignored what she was powerless to change. She turned and headed for the heavy kettle. She would live today and not worry about tonight . . . or tomorrow.

Long Quiet found Many Horses standing at the entrance to a brush enclosure that served as a corral. Within it roamed the most magnificent chestnut stallion Long Quiet had ever seen. Long Quiet edged up beside Many Horses and watched for a moment with the other man as the foam-flecked stallion lunged from one end of the brush enclosure to the other, seeking a way of escape.

“
Hihites
, Many Horses. Perhaps I should have looked at your herd before I rejected your offer,” he said with a rueful smile. “What a magnificent animal!”

“Yes, but unfortunately he cannot be tamed.”

“You cannot ride him?”

“I have tried everything I know, but he will not let me stay upon his back.”

“Would you mind if I try?”

Many Horses arched a skeptical brow. “Of course not. But do you think you can ride a horse I cannot ride?”

“We will never know until I try, will we?” Long Quiet replied.

There it was again, the hint of challenge, of antagonism, that seemed always to be there between them. Both men sensed it, both regretted it, but neither was sure what, if anything, could be done to temper it. What Many Horses said next only heightened it.

“If you can ride him, he is yours.”

Long Quiet watched the powerful animal fighting the constraints of the trap in which he found himself and couldn’t help smiling. He felt a certain affinity for the stallion. In love with a woman he couldn’t make his own, was he not also caught in a trap from which there seemed no escape?

“So be it,” Long Quiet said.

Many Horses turned to look at his blood brother. “Will you try to ride him now?”

“No. I will deal with the stallion in my own time. There are other matters of which I must speak with you. I looked for you in the tipi of the
puhakut
, but he said you had left already.”

“I was no longer welcome there. I offended the
puhakut
by giving Shadow into your keeping without first having him make medicine to determine whether it should be done.”

“Is there anything a brother can do to help mend the harm?” Long Quiet asked.

Many Horses smiled. “I should have known you would offer. No. The
puhakut
and I have a rivalry of long standing between us. I did not even know it existed until I asked the
puhakut
’s sister to be my wife.”

Long Quiet looked quickly at Many Horses. “Shadow told me you have no wife.”

The bitter smile on Many Horses’ face spoke for itself, but he added, “No woman has agreed to be my wife.”

Long Quiet’s astonishment kept him silent for a moment. “You are war chief of the
Quohadi
. What woman would not be proud to call you husband?”

“The
puhakut
’s sister,” Many Horses said flatly.

“You desire her still?”

Many Horses nodded curtly.

“Has she taken another warrior as her husband?”

“Not yet.”

“Then what keeps you from making her your wife?”

“Once She Touches First and I were lovers. We swore that we would spend our lives together. Then the day came when she refused to meet me along the banks of the creek anymore.”

“Why?”

Many Horses was absorbed for a moment by the bit of wolf fur hanging from one of his thick braids, the symbol of Shadow’s medicine. “Because I had brought Shadow to this village.”

“Why should that make a difference to the woman who will be your wife?”

Many Horses’ voice evidenced his confusion. “I do not understand it myself,” he admitted. “But after I brought Shadow to the village, She Touches First would not speak with me. And when I brought ponies to her tipi, she would not accept them. I would have made her
paraibo
, but she refused me.”

“Why have you not made Shadow your wife?”

“I cannot give Shadow the place my heart holds open for another,” Many Horses replied.

“Have you thought of stealing She Touches First?”

“The
puhakut
’s sister? I am war chief of the
Quohadi
. I need the
puhakut
’s medicine to see me safely into battle. I would not dare to offend him.”

“But now you
have
offended him by giving Shadow to me.” Long Quiet took a deep breath before he said, “Shall I return her to you?”

“It would make no difference now. The damage is done. The
puhakut
has said he will make medicine and tell me what I must do. But I have been thinking. In anger, I told He Decides It that I would keep Shadow even at the cost of my life.

“Perhaps I am tempting the spirits to make such a boast,” he admitted, his brow furrowing. “Perhaps the time has come that I should return the medicine Shadow brought to me. It can be easily done. I need only thank Shadow for the use of her medicine and then take this bit of wolf fur to the creek and let it be carried away. Then I will be free of both Shadow’s medicine and the tabu.”

Long Quiet asked what was uppermost in his mind. “If you give up Shadow’s medicine, what will you do with her?”

Many Horses frowned. “I have not yet decided that. Perhaps I will trade her back to the White-eyes. She will bring a great price.” He turned to Long Quiet. “Or perhaps you would like to keep her.”

Long Quiet hardly believed what he was hearing. He forced himself to ask, “What about Little Deer?”

“The child is close to Shadow. But there are others who could care for her.”

“What of Shadow’s love for the child? She does not want to be separated from Little Deer,” Long Quiet said.

“That may be so, but after all, she is only a woman. She will do as she is told.”

Long Quiet wasn’t sure what he was feeling at that moment.
Excitement
. There was the chance Bay would be his after all.
Sorrow
. When she became his, she would lose her child.
Anticipation
. He would fill her life with love and give her other children so she would have no time for despair over the one she’d lost.

“It is time to search for the buffalo. When we find them, we can plan the hunt. Will you come with me,
haints?
”

Many Horses’ words drew Long Quiet from his reverie. “Yes, I will come,” he said.

Long Quiet spent the rest of the day with Many Horses, combing the surrounding territory for signs of buffalo. They would need to find the herd before they could commence the fall hunt. His eyes were on the ground, but what he saw were visions of himself entwined with Shadow. He tried to imagine how she would accept the idea of living with him in his
Penateka
Comanche village. Then he wondered how those in his village would accept her. He tried not to think about how his grandfather, who hated all White-eyes, would react, concentrating instead on a picture of Shadow round with child. Then he pictured her with a papoose on her back and her belly swollen with a second child.

He fought the smile he felt forming on his face. It would not be wise to test the spirits by accepting this gift of happiness before it had been offered. He must be patient. He must wait for events to unfold in their own natural time. He could not rush headlong into the future. It would come to him when the Great Spirit willed it so. His teeth clenched over a groan. He prayed for Many Horses to make his decision soon. He had only a few weeks before he was to meet Creed in Laredo.

Long Quiet contemplated sending a message to Creed that he’d found Bay Stewart and couldn’t come. But he thought of Cricket, heavy with child, and knew he could not do it.

He would have to trust in the Great Spirit to make all things come aright. He fixed his gaze once again on the prairie around him and forced himself to see grass.

Chapter 7

I
T WAS NEARLY SUNSET BEFORE
L
ONG
Q
UIET SAW
B
AY
again. He found her sitting on a grassy knoll that overlooked the plain where Many Horses’ large herd of ponies grazed. She held Little Deer snuggled deep in her lap and was talking and laughing with the child. A speckled buff and black hound lolled beside Bay, its nose resting on her knee. A breeze that smelled of horses ruffled Little Deer’s cropped hair, and as Long Quiet watched, Bay tenderly brushed an errant raven strand away from the girl’s eyes.