Sundancer (Cheyenne Series) (8 page)

      
Suddenly, feeling someone watching him, Cain turned and his dark eyes collided with Alexa Hunt's disturbing pale ones. “White eyes,” he murmured, tipping his hat in mock politeness. She raised her chin and looked away, every inch the haughty heiress even if she sat cross-legged on the prairie grass clutching a naked Cheyenne baby on her lap.

      
The day was long, hot and dusty as the column of people wended their way west toward the headwaters of the Niobrara. Small children rode on the heavily laden travois while the women and old people walked patiently beside them. Youths were responsible for keeping the large herd of horses under control. All the warriors were mounted, some riding point while others formed a strong line of defense from the head to the rear of the snaking train. Everyone remained watchful for the Pawnee, but when they neared the outer perimeter of the vast buffalo herd and camped on the banks of a wide creek, there was no sign of the ancient foe.

* * * *

      
The sound of the crier echoed across the arc of teepees as the sun inched its way above the horizon, sending rays of rosy golden light filtering inside the open door flaps of each home. Although she could not understand the crier's words, Roxanna knew he must be proclaiming the Elk Warriors' instructions for the hunt, for their society was in charge. The women boiled a porridge made of roots and served it to the hunters, who ate, then quickly prepared themselves for the day's activities.

      
“Come. We will watch,” Sees Much said to Roxanna as she observed the warriors riding out of camp. Cain, bare-chested, rode his big chestnut with a stripped-down saddle. Although his hair was shorter and his horse saddled, his skin was bronzed and his cheekbones and nose hewn in the same strong mold as the other warriors. Still, the aquiline cast of his features set him apart, as did the dark shadow of a beard across his jaw and the hair on his chest.

      
He’s an Indian yet not an Indian,
she thought as she nodded, following the old shaman.
An Indian yet not...
The thought seemed to echo something Sees Much had once told her, but she quickly dismissed the idea as they crossed the shallows of the creek and walked up a steep rocky rise. When Roxanna looked down on the flat bowl of the plain, her breath caught in her throat.

      
Spread below them lay a vast herd of bison, just as the eastern newspapers described it, a milling bawling sea of dark brown, undulating endlessly to the distant skyline.

      
“Once all the lands from the great Staked Plains below the Red River to the land of the Mother Queen to the north were filled like this,” Sees Much said.

      
“There must be thousands...too many for the mind to take in,” she replied in an awe-filled voice. A small calf, newly dropped, gamboled beside his mother. Roxanna smiled. “Why, he's a different color than the rest.”

      
“All newborns are yellow. Their fur darkens with age—all except the white buffalo, which is sacred to the People.”

      
As they spoke, other women, children, and the men too old to hunt, assembled quietly along the rim of the escarpment. The buffalo, with their poor sight and hearing, did not notice, since the people were careful to approach downwind. Then the mounted warriors appeared below them, walking their horses slowly forward in a wide arc, forming a semicircle amid the northernmost tier of the vast herd. Unconsciously, Roxanna searched for Cain's distinctive figure. Sees Much followed the course of her gaze and smiled, saying nothing.

      
For several moments the great beasts continued to graze obliviously. Then the wind shifted to the south and a muffled snorting echoed across the plain as the bison sensed danger. In an abrupt shift of mood, the placid herd erupted into a frenzy, their sharp hooves pounding across the hard-packed soil like thunder. Thick clouds of dust enveloped them and the yipping Cheyenne stretched out on their horses in swift pursuit. Shots rang out erratically, mingled with cries of triumph as several of the buffalo went down.

      
“The new rifles work well,” Sees Much said to Her Back Is Straight. “It is good that the Lone Bull brought them.”

      
Straining to see Cain through clearings in the dust, Roxanna's attention caught on the words “Lone Bull.” Her head jerked around and she looked at Sees Much, startled. “You called him the Lone Bull?”

      
“That was the name his mother Blue Corn Woman gave him. Always as a boy he was an outsider, proud and stubborn in the face of the other children's cruelties to one who was half white.”

      
Roxanna blanched, remembering her dream. “Last night you said you didn't know why I dreamed about a lone bull with bloody horns.”

      
“The Powers have not told me what the blood means yet,” Sees Much replied with a troubled sigh.

      
“But you knew who the buffalo symbolized,” she persisted.

      
Sees Much nodded. “I saw a silver-haired woman in a dream two moons ago.”

      
“Me?”

      
He smiled. “Yes, child, you—and it was clear that you would be the means to bring the Lone Bull back to his people...if only for a little while. There is a healing which must take place...” His words faded away as if he meant to speak further, then reconsidered.

      
Roxanna started to question him, but then saw Cain's chestnut, galloping hard as he approached a big bull. Weasel Bear cut in just behind him. Both men seemed intent on bringing down the same prey. Cain reached it first, leaning over with his Spencer aimed at a spot behind the beast's shoulder. Roxanna watched the quarry go down when he fired. Then Weasel Bear caught up. Shouting an infuriated oath, he swerved his piebald into the chestnut's side, raising his rifle butt and clubbing Cain hard in his back.

      
A loud gasp tore from her throat as Cain was knocked from his saddle, vanishing into the thick dust and sharp hooves of the stampeding herd. “He'll be killed!”

      
Sees Much closed his eyes, seeming to pray as the dust swirled. They stood by helplessly. Roxanna stared, trying to find the chestnut in the melee. Then she saw Cain. His left foot must have been caught in the stirrup, but rather than being dragged to his death, he had clawed his way back, hand over hand up his own leg, seizing the
sudadero
, then gaining purchase on the edge of the cantle, finally seizing the pommel until he could throw his right leg up and remount.

      
Cain hunched over the chestnut's neck, grabbing his reins, then guided the horse clear of the stampede. Roxanna and Sees Much raced down the rocky hillside toward him. By the time they reached him he was slumped over his lathered mount.

      
“Take care. Help me lower him to the earth,” Sees Much said when Cain began to slip from the saddle, unconscious. The herd had all passed them now, although the vibrations still jarred the earth as the old man grabbed one of his arms and Roxanna the other, half dragging him free. When they stretched him out, he came to with a ragged oath.

      
“My ribs,” he gasped.

      
Then Roxanna saw the widening red stain. “He's bleeding!”

      
Sees Much calmly examined the wound. “He has been gored by one of the buffalo when he was knocked from the saddle.”

      
“Saddle...saved my life,” Cain grunted through the pain.

      
Sees Much smiled as he slipped off his shirt and used it to apply pressure to the wound. “You must always be a white man. This time it was good that it is so.”

      
“I'll fetch help,” Roxanna said, dashing off toward the women whom she prayed would have medicines and bandages.

      
“What happened?” Cain asked, fighting the surging waves of blackness.

      
Sees Much's face was bleak. “Your cousin, Weasel Bear, struck you with his rifle butt. You had both chosen the same animal and you took it first.”

      
“He…always hated me,” Cain said, as he watched Alexa run fleetly across the ground, gesturing wildly to Willow Tree and several older women.

      
The old man pushed the bruised and bloodied area on Cain's side, holding the makeshift compress against the ugly gash. “Even now your eyes cannot tear themselves from her. She is your fate, I think.”

      
“She is trouble...” Cain gasped as merciful oblivion finally enveloped him.

* * * *

      
Outside the lodge where Cain had been taken, Roxanna sputtered, “But I'm not a nurse. I faint at the sight of blood!”

      
Sees Much only stared impassively, totally unmoved. “Look into your heart, daughter. Blood is not what you fear. You did not faint when you helped me take him from his horse. I do not think you will now. I must have a woman to assist me.”

      
“Why can't Willow Tree or Lark Song do it?”

      
“They are gutting the buffalo which the Lone Bull killed. Now, that might make you faint,” he said with amusement, recalling her reaction the first time she had been instructed how to kill and clean a pair of snared rabbits. Clutching his medicine sacks, he ducked and entered the open door flap, expecting her to follow.

      
Reluctantly she did. Cain lay on his back, breathing shallowly. When he heard them enter, his lashes fluttered. Turning his head, he looked at Roxanna through pain-glazed eyes, then blacked out again. Sees Much knelt beside the pallet and opened the leather pouches, removing various herbs and powders, along with several long strips of thin softly tanned doeskin. Then he reached up and began to unfasten Cain's breeches and pull them down his hips.

      
“What are you doing?” she blurted out, although it was perfectly apparent.

      
“I must see if his ribs are broken and cleanse the wound. He cannot remain covered with the tight white man's clothing,” Sees Much replied reasonably. “Come help me. Pull on the pants legs.”

      
Ugly memories from Vicksburg shuddered through her mind, but realizing that Sees Much waited patiently for her assistance, she forced them aside. A man was injured and in pain, she reminded herself. But this was not just any man. What was it about Cain that disturbed her so? Surely she did not believe Sees Much's oblique references to the dreams which led to her capture.

      
She knelt at Cain’s feet, from which the moccasins had been removed, and began to tug on the pants legs while the shaman shoved them below his narrow hips. When his sex was revealed, she caught a glimpse of it lying limply in a dense thatch of black hair, then quickly averted her eyes. The male member would always be ugly to Roxanna.

      
Sees Much covered Cain's hips with a light blanket, then removed the packing he had placed over the wound. Congealed black blood crusted to his side and had pooled on the skins beneath him. Gently, Sees Much probed the ribs around the gored area, then instructed Roxanna, “Hold the compress against the wound while I turn him.”

      
She moved closer and did as he instructed, but when the shaman rolled Cain on his side, she cried, “The bleeding's begun again.”

      
He nodded as he deftly examined Cain's back, where a large ugly black bruise was forming. “Weasel Bear has much to answer for. Always he had an uncertain temper. It is good he has run away to hide his shame for this dishonorable act.” Satisfied no bones in Cain's back were broken, he turned him once more and reached out to take the compress from Roxanna.

      
Her hands were red with gore. “Can he survive losing so much blood?” she asked.

      
“It seems more than it is. The danger in such a wound as this, deep and narrow, is that the blood remains inside and poisons. That is why we must draw out the bad blood.” He pointed to a small mortar and pestle, then reached for a bag filled with dried red dock roots. “I will grind these while you fetch clean water from upstream and set it to boil on the fire.”

      
When she had done as he asked, she watched as he poured the steamy water over the pulverized roots until he had made a sticky poultice. While it cooked, he cleaned Cain's wound of the dried blood. Satisfied with the cleansing, the old man began to apply the medicine, then opened another pack and removed a fistful of dried cattails, which acted as a soft absorbent bandage.

      
“Now we must bind his ribs. At least one has been cracked where the buffalo's horn struck him.”

      
To assist him in swaddling Cain's body in the long strips of soft doeskin, Roxanna had to kneel by the half-breed's side and lean over him. She could feel his heat, touching his flesh so intimately, knowing he wore nothing beneath the blanket. As they finished the task, a stray lock of night-black hair fell across his forehead and she reached up, gently stroking it back without realizing what she was doing.

      
Sees Much beamed to himself as he gathered up his medicines and implements. “I will sit with him through the day. Go and eat, then rest, for you will take the night turn when I grow weary.”

* * * *

      
Cain fought his way up through what seemed a deep well of blackness and pain. Blinking his eyes, he tried to focus on the blurry figure leaning over him. All he could make out was a silvery halo glowing around her head.
Alexa
. Had he said it aloud? Before he could decide, the ache in his side roared to life and he sank back into the dark well.

      
Roxanna sponged his face with a cool cloth, then rinsed it out and applied it again. When he first rode into camp, she had thought his features harsh and dangerous, but lying unconscious, she could see the incredible male beauty in them, the best of two worlds, red and white. She touched his beard-stubbled cheeks with their high Cheyenne bones, then ran her fingers over the ridge of his straight nose and elegantly sculpted mouth, recalling the whiteness of his smile in that bronzed face.