Pale Moon Stalker (The Nymph Trilogy) (31 page)

Her matter-of-fact words startled him. But then, what did he know about Indian children—or English children—for that matter? He'd been the youngest in his family and always a bit of a loner, even as a boy, especially after Edmund died. He extended his hand and held her arm as she climbed over and sat beside him. "Hold on tight. Watch you don't fall off. We cannot afford to stop and pick you from a prickly cactus," he teased.

Fawn rewarded him with a giggle. "I will not fall, Stalker. I am strong."

"Yes, you are," he agreed. Lord, what this child had survived would have reduced many adults to blubbering bedlamites!

"Then I would make a fine second wife for you—in a year or so. I would do as Sky Eyes asked me and cause no trouble," she added dutifully.

When he had recovered his breath, Max replied as calmly as possible, "In a year or so you will be twelve. Even if white men were allowed to take more than one wife—which they are not—the woman would have to be at least sixteen or seventeen."

Fawn pouted. "That is very old. And having only one wife is very foolish." Then another thought struck her. "You could come and live among our people. There, a great warrior like you can have as many wives as he wishes!" Pleased with her solution, she beamed up at him.

He swore to himself and stared at the lead mule. Trading places with it was beginning to hold singular appeal, but in spite of himself, Max could see humor in the situation. With a teasing smile, he said, "Once you return to your people, there will be many fine young warriors growing into manhood. All of them will want you. You would be very sorry being stuck with an old man such as I. In a few years I shall grow so creaky my bones will sound like Grandfather's gourd. Sky will have to help me stand up and sit down. Englishmen don't last as long as Cheyenne warriors such as True Dreamer."

Fawn digested this for a moment, then shook her head stubbornly. "Grandfather is very strong. He has good medicine, but he would share it with you if you were part of our family. Then your bones would not rattle like an Englishman's."

They both burst into laughter.

From horseback near the end of the herd, Sky could hear the musical tones of Fawn's soprano and Max's baritone blending.
He would make a good father
, that inner voice whispered once again.

* * * *

Already scorching, the weather turned even hotter the next day. Awakening after spending a cramped, sweaty night in the wagon, Fawn announced, "I do not want to spend another night in here. It would be much better for us to sleep under the stars and feel the cooling night breeze."

Mopping perspiration from her forehead, Sky nodded, but before she could reply, the girl stated the obvious. "Then you can share Stalker's blankets once more. That will be good."

Sky's fingers froze on her thick plait of hair, which she was going to pin up to keep its warm weight off her neck. Her mind raced for explanations. "I have night riding duty. I'd only awaken him when I returned," she blurted out.

"He does not sleep well when he is alone. I have heard him cry out in the night several times, even though he sleeps far from the campfire. He misses you, I think."

Sky knew his nightmares were back. She had asked True Dreamer to dose him with more of his sleeping potions, but the old man simply gave her a lecture about her place at Max's side. "A wife is the best sleeping potion for a man," were his final words.

"My being there won't stop his nightmares, Fawn. Besides, there'll be little sharing of blankets the way you mean. With you, Grandfather and Bronc in camp, we would have no privacy. No, I'll sleep beneath the wagon with you."

Fawn sighed. "Sometimes I think I will never understand white people. Stalker should not allow you such freedom—and you should not want it," she added.

Freedom. The irony of Fawn's words struck Sky as she made up their bedrolls that night beneath the wagon. She knew the old drover must wonder why she and Max slept separately, although he was far too polite to mention it. True Dreamer scowled disapprovingly at her, while Fawn chattered away at Max as he prepared their dinner that night.

She watched him stir a bubbling pot over the fire. Because he could not help out on night turn watching the herd, he had inherited the cooking chores. And he was dreadful. This morning he'd made biscuits so leaden, Bronc claimed he broke a tooth on one. Even the coffee, which he had normally been able to make well enough, was full of grounds. Everyone had to strain it through their teeth. Having survived many a harsh trail experience, Bronc said that such "chawin'" was always required in Texas, even when one drank water.

The stew was a conglomeration of beans, bacon chunks, some wild onions Fawn had gathered and a rabbit True Dreamer had trapped last night. The meat was either greasy or stringy, the onions horribly strong and the beans had not soaked long enough to lose their crunch. But they were all so hungry from the day's hard work, they ate without complaint.

When she climbed into her bedroll next to Fawn, Sky felt as if the three men all watched her, Bronc puzzled, the medicine man disapproving, and Max... She was not certain what he felt. Anger? Embarrassment? Or sadness. She dared not look across the fire into those deep green eyes or she'd be lost. After they delivered their friends safely home, paid off Bronc and were alone—then they could sort their marriage out.

If it could ever be sorted out.

She lay staring up at the sky, listening to Bronc humming in the distance to the herd. Fawn and her grandfather were sleeping soundly. Bone weary after the long day, she knew she had only four hours to sleep before it would be time for her to take her turn with the herd. Yet sleep eluded her. She rolled over and had just begun to drift off when a loud cry rent the night air, eerie and terrible.

"Preeesent! Fire! Fire, dammit, fire, you bloody young fool! No!"

Chapter Sixteen

Sky threw off the light sheet and leaped to her feet, flying around the flickering embers of the fire and off into the distance, far from the others, where Max sat, staring into his own private hell. True Dreamer raised his head, nodding approval when he saw her pass. Fawn started to get up, but he whispered softly to her, "Do not trouble yourself, child. Sky Eyes knows how to heal the Pale Moon Stalker."

When she lay back down, he rolled over and waited, smiling to himself. The couple's journey would be long...but the Powers had given him a vision. He knew now how he could aid them in finding their way.

Sky knelt in front of Max and placed one hand on his chest, feeling his heart thud furiously. His yelled commands ceased the instant they made contact. With her other hand, she took his raised arm, the one cocking the imaginary pistol, and gently lowered it, while crooning softly to him, "It's all right, Max. The past can't hurt you. Lie back and sleep..."

She pressed against his chest and he leaned back, drawing her with him. Sky lay over him for several moments, feeling the steady cadence of his breathing. He was sound asleep. So was the rest of the camp. But when she attempted to slip from his side, his arm wrapped around her shoulders and he held her fast against him, turning them on their sides. His warm breath brushed the nape of her neck as they lay spooned together the way they had so often slept.

It felt so natural. Was he faking this? No, he would never intentionally reveal his nightmares this way. Nor did she feel an erection probing between her legs. He was truly asleep. Her presence had driven the dark warriors away. True Dreamer was right about the power she had to heal her husband. Perhaps that was fated to bind them together in this marriage, no matter what Max Stanhope's original intentions had been.

Too weary to think straight, she closed her eyes, but then heard the soft footfalls of the old Cheyenne. He drew just near enough so she could hear him say, "I will take your place with the cattle this night. You are where you belong now. Stay there."

With that, he returned to the campfire.

Is this where I belong?
Sleep claimed her and she sank into its welcoming embrace.

Max came slowly awake, feeling the first faint light of dawn seep beneath his eyelids. Then he inhaled Sky's unique scent and felt the warmth of her soft body pressed to his side. She lay with one arm across his chest, her head nestled against his shoulder. A soaring joy filled him as he opened his eyes and watched her sleep. But then he considered how she'd come to be there and memories of the nightmare crowded out his contentment.

She must have heard him. Flaming hell, the whole camp had probably heard him, including the steers! It was a miracle the dumb brutes hadn't stampeded. That was why she'd come to him—to shut him up. And that crafty old Cheyenne was complicit in seeing that she stayed. Without checking, he knew the old man must have taken her night turn riding herd. So she could ride herd on one raving mad Englishman.

He looked at her lovely face, peacefully asleep. But he could see the dark circles beneath her eyes and knew she was exhausted and had not been sleeping much better than he. "Ah, Sky, love, how will we untangle the mess I've made of our lives?" he whispered, placing a kiss on the tip of her nose as he gently lifted her arm and slid away. As camp cook, he had to restart the fire and begin making breakfast.

After spending years on the trail, he was used to fending for himself. Cooking simple food for one person or two was easy enough, but cooking for five seemed disproportionately difficult. He managed to wreck virtually every meal some way or other. Perhaps he was just too worried about his marriage to concentrate, he thought as he pulled on his boots and trudged off to gather firewood.

Sky felt the absence of his warmth and rolled over in time to watch him stride away from camp. Would he assume that she had returned to him for good? Or, would the realization that she'd gone to him because of his outburst make him angry and defensive as it had after they'd left Leadville?

"There's only one way to find out," she muttered to herself and sat up to face the dawn.

No one mentioned her absence on night duty, or where she'd spent that time. If Bronc figured it out, he was too much a gentleman to say anything. Sky could tell that Fawn knew, as well as her grandfather. Mercifully, the loquacious child for once kept quiet. Max said nothing to her as they ate breakfast and broke camp...but she could sense his speculative gaze on her as she rode away with the steers.

Just as they were skirting a small town to avoid trouble with unfriendly white men, a gaudily painted wagon appeared on the trail directly ahead of them. "It's a medicine showman. A snake oil salesman, or I miss my guess," Bronc said, turning the steers so as to avoid a collision.

"That man has no true medicine," the old Cheyenne said with a grunt of displeasure.

Sky approached the wagon, which did indeed say, DOCTOR ADAMS' MIRACLE CURES AND OTHER AMAZING FEATS. A rumpled, dusty man with a round face and keen dark eyes smiled broadly. He had a narrow mustache perched above a set of improbably white teeth, and held a cigar clenched in one of his meaty fists. Perched on a bar beside him at the front of the wagon was a tiny monkey dressed in a red satin cap and vest.

"Good afternoon, my dear young lady. Would you or your companions be interested in curing saddle sores, gout, boils, disorders of the intestines or social diseases?"

Suppressing a smile, Sky replied, "No, we're not afflicted by any of those things."
Although, if Max continues to cook, 'disorders of the intestines' may soon be a problem.

Bronc and True Dreamer reined in beside the wagon as the man was climbing down, waving a bottle. Max pulled up their wagon and Fawn immediately jumped down, her eyes growing large as she looked at the monkey, then the fantastical circus pictures painted on the sides of the strange man's conveyance.

"It is a house on wheels," she said in wonder. "And a strange animal who wears clothes!" She turned to Max. "Have you ever seen such a one, Stalker? Is it magic?"

"It's a monkey from Africa, Fawn, but not magic, I'm afraid."

"This here's a circus wagon," Bronc explained. "You have a show for the young'un?" he asked.

"I might. But first, I know you have been on this long weary trail for many days. You must try this fine elixir to help you sleep and grant you renewed vitality to face each day." He produced a bottle of some dark liquid and offered it to True Dreamer. "You, sir, appear to be most in need of revitalization."

The old man grunted and uncorked the bottle. He wrinkled his nose and shoved it back to the salesman. "Ugh! That is poison, not medicine."

Undaunted, the fat man pressed the awful-smelling bottle on Bronc and Max, both of whom blinked at its foul odor. "Smells like skunk piss," Bronc whispered to Max. "Bad 'nough to make yer eyes burn."

"Or blind you if you drink it," Max replied.

Overhearing their less than flattering comments, the showman said, "Nonsense. It's quite safe." To demonstrate, he took a deep swallow and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. " Aah, the elixir of life itself. Are you certain you don't wish to buy—"

"Do you have a show to entertain the little girl?" Sky asked impatiently. She had seen the disappointed look on Fawn's face when the salesman had ignored Bronc's request and Max explained that the monkey was not magic. The little animal studied them with his head cocked but remained at his perch on the wagon seat.