Untamed (38 page)

"You're not going anywhere, you miserable no-account coward. I'll probably need you to translate again."

Never, in all his memory, had Daniel ever wanted out of a situation as badly as he wanted out of this tipi. Even worse, he couldn't help but recall the day an extremely huge Tangle Hair went into labor with the twins. Guilt-ridden for having impregnated her in the first place, he'd gone a good long distance away from the birthing tipi and spent the better part of the day absolutely horrified by thoughts of what she must be going through. The experience so disturbed him, Daniel hadn't been the slightest bit disappointed about Josie's reluctance to have children, even if the underlying reason was the fact that she couldn't stand the idea of having a baby that was part Cheyenne. The last thing he wanted was for her to have to bear a child. The second to last thing was to have to stand around listening while another man's wife pushed a baby into the world.

"Oh, hell," Josie said, bringing him back to the present.

"You want me to translate that?"

"No, dammit." She got to her feet and came to him. That was when Daniel noticed that there were tears in her eyes. "The baby is coming feet first, and I think it's stuck."

Daniel squeezed his eyes shut against the sudden mental image of the upside down child. He'd pulled a turned calf once, killing it in the bargain, and couldn't stand the thought of a woman and baby having to suffer the same experience. He suppressed a shudder.

"Can you turn it?" he asked.

"Oh, Daniel, I'm afraid to even try." She threw herself into his arms, muffling her sobs against his chest.

"Take it easy, sweetheart, and don't be afraid. If you don't at least try, Walking Strange will die. You don't want that, do you?"

"Of course not." She pulled back, wiping her tears with the back of her hand. "It's just that the last time I tried to turn a baby, I killed them both, the child and my own mother."

At first Daniel didn't know what to say. He touched Josie's cheek, brushing away a few stray tears, and then lightly kissed her forehead. "You didn't kill them, sweetheart. Sometimes these things happen even when we try our best."

"My stepfather didn't see it that way. He—oh, never mind." She glanced over her shoulder to where Walking Strange lay twisting on the bed. "Tell her what's wrong, Daniel. Then tell her that I'm going to try and turn the baby. Tell her to be brave and that I'll do my best not to hurt her too much."

His heart full with something that went beyond the boundaries of love as he knew them, Daniel swallowed his emotions and relayed the message to Walking Strange. When he'd finished and waited for her reply, he translated for Josie.

"She says she understands what you're going to do, and that she wants you to save the child if it comes down to a choice." Daniel hesitated a minute, and then added his own thoughts. "l think you ought to do what you can to save the mother."

"That sounds familiar," she said sarcastically as she kneeled down beside her patient. "I think those are the exact words my stepfather said to me just before my mother died."

"Oh, Josie—I'm so sorry. I didn't mean—"

"Never mind. I've got work to do."

Intent on Josie, on her courage and the big heart she tried so hard to hide, Daniel buttoned up his lip as she'd asked, but forgot to turn his back to the procedure. Too late to close his eyes against the sight, he saw Josie position herself between Walking Strange's legs and then slip her hand inside the woman. A buzz, something that sounded a lot like a great swarm of bees, suddenly filled the inside of his head. The tipi began to spin, rotating in crazy directions. The next thing Daniel knew, he was falling, falling, and still falling. And then he knew nothing at all.

When he came around again, Daniel wasn't sure where he was or what had happened. For a moment he thought he might even have died. An angel was singing a Christmas carol, of all things, the one about the silent, holy night and virgins and mothers and children. A baby suddenly cried. Baby Jesus?

Daniel abruptly sat up, recognizing immediately that he was in the widows' tipi. Josie was singing the Christmas carol, and Walking Strange was lying beneath her buffalo spread, an infant at her breast.

"It's over?" he stupidly said.

Josie turned to him in mid-song. "How nice of you to join us again. Yes, it's over. Walking Strange had a boy, and they're both in fine shape."

"Thank God for that."

"You can thank me, too. It wasn't easy."

The memory of what he'd seen just before he passed out suddenly came clear in Daniel's mind. His gut rolled even as he marveled over Josie's strength.

"Thank you," he said, picking himself up off the floor. "You did a wonderful job. Sorry I wasn't more help."

She laughed, easing his conscience. "You were help enough until you got all weak-kneed and passed out. Did you hurt yourself when you fell?"

Embarrassed, he dusted off his trousers. "No, but I might have hit my head a little too hard. I thought I heard you singing Christmas carols when I woke up."

"You did. I was singing `Silent Night' because near as I can figure, it must be about Christmas, give or take a few days. Once the baby was here and healthy, I felt like singing."

"You're probably not too far off on the date. I'll tell Walking Strange she has a Christmas baby. The way those nuns have been shoving Christianity down the Cheyenne's throats, she might even understand the significance."

After he finished his discussion with the new mother, Daniel laughed as he said, "She understands all right. She's trying to decide between two names for her new son. Vokeme is her idea of a proper Christian name. It means Santa Claus."

"We can't let her call the poor thing Santa," she said, laughing. "What's the other choice?"

Daniel smiled. "Spotted Face Sings Nice. After you."

* * *

Christmas, as they defined it, came and went, and the snow continued to fall off and on during the first two weeks of January. Temperatures remained at better than twenty below zero, but Daniel was still able to ride out and check on what was left of his herd. Then suddenly, three weeks into the month, a chinook pushed the cold air from the mountains, bringing with it warm, dry winds that began to melt the snow.

Jacketless for the first time since September, Daniel trudged through the slush that filled the path he'd carved between the barn and the cabin, and then went about the business of tending to the livestock. When he parted the back door to toss some hay to the buffalo and her bovine companions, he was startled to see that no less than a dozen Cheyenne braves were surrounding the corral.

Each of the men had donned a feathered headpiece and his finest quilted shirt, and their leader, White Bull, wore a quilted robe along with a headdress made of buffalo horns and wolf-skins. At the moment, the center of their attention, good old Sweetpea, seemed more curious than alarmed over her surprise visitors. Daniel had worked around the mercurial beast long enough to know that she could go wild at any minute. He tossed the hay in the animal's general direction, and then hurried outside to join the tribesman.

"Greetings," he said as he approached. "Our fine warm weather makes for a good visiting day."

"We come to see this buffalo for ourselves," said White Bull. "She is a very impressive beast."

"Impressive," Daniel agreed. "But also very dangerous. She gets pretty upset when strangers are around. Maybe we should go talk somewhere else."

White Bull didn't move. He just kept staring at the buffalo as if he'd never seen one before. "We will talk and smoke, and when we leave, we will take this great beast with us."

Daniel had worked long and hard to gain the Cheyenne's trust, an especially difficult task considering how badly they'd been treated by some of the other agents they'd been forced to work with. While he felt comfortable around this group, and trusted them as much as he wanted them to trust him, he wasn't quite sure how White Bull and his council would react if he refused their request—which was definitely a declaration, not a petition.

Then, of course, there was Josie's reaction to consider. Could any form of punishment White Bull came up with be worse than what his red-haired wife would do if he let this group ride off with her precious pet? She hadn't been herself for the past few days as it was, crying one minute, grumpy the next. Daniel had pretty much been walking on feathers around her, assuming the monthlies were almost upon her again. If he so much as asked her to allow White Bull to ride off with Sweetpea, it would at least cost him a few incredibly lusty nights spent with her writhing in his arms—and not just because of the monthlies.

Testing what he was beginning to think of as the lesser of two evils, Daniel said, "You fellahs are going to have to leave that buffalo here for the time being. I'll figure out a way to get her down to the encampment by summer."

"The buffalo comes with us now," insisted White Bull. "My people need the joy the sight of this beast will bring to them. It is done."

It would be pointless to argue with the man any longer. He was taking Sweetpea, assuming he could get her to move, and no one could stop him. Daniel was simply going to have to find a way to explain it all to Josie, a chore he intended to put off for as long as humanly possible.

As it turned out, he didn't have nearly as long as he'd hoped. As two of White Bull's companions climbed over the fence and slowly approached the buffalo, the echo of a door slamming against its jamb filled the air, followed shortly by what could only be described as the screech of an enraged woman.

"Stop," Josie cried as she raced toward the corral. "Stop those sons of bitches right this minute, Daniel. I swear, if anyone so much as lays a finger on Sweetpea, I'll shoot him where he stands."

Incredulously enough, Daniel saw that she intended to carry out her threat. Josie was waving his Peacemaker toward the two braves in the corral. Instinct guiding him, he stepped between her and the target.

"Get out of my way," she screamed, utterly out of control. "I'd just as soon shoot you as them."

"Josie, for heaven's sake. Shut up and put that gun down before you get us in the kind of trouble I can't explain away."

"Shut up?" Her dark eyes seemed huge and she was breathing hard, just this side of snorting like a mad bull. "Shut up?"

She raised the Peacemaker, pulled back the hammer, and fired. The bullet went whizzing past Daniel's ear, close enough to give him one hell of a fright. He reached for the gun, wresting it away from her before she could cock the damn thing again.

"What the hell is wrong with you, woman? You damn near blew my head off."

"Give me back the gun. I promise I won't miss this time." She twisted in his grasp. "Turn me loose."

"Not until you tell the why you're acting so crazy."

"Because, because..." She looked up at him with tears glistening in her eyes, a condition he couldn't reconcile with anger.

"Josie, what's wrong with you?''

"Can't you figure it out?" Tears were streaming down her face by now. "You've gone and knocked me up, you miserable no-account bastard."

Chapter 23

Josie remembered looking out the window and seeing a whole flock of savages done up in warbonnets and other fighting regalia. She even recalled thinking that if she didn't get outside and do something quick, the warriors would harm Sweetpea or even kill her. What she couldn't remember, even after Daniel had carried her back to the cabin and laid her down on the bed, was threatening to murder him and everyone in sight.

True, she had been a little testy of late, and why not? Last month when the miseries quit on her after just one day, she'd been about half sure that she had a bun in the oven. This month she'd skipped the mess entirely, a sure sign that a baby was under way. This morning when she got out of bed, any doubts she might still have entertained vanished. Not only had she suffered a dizzy spell on her way to the stove, but after one sip of coffee, her stomach lurched and she spat it back up. Now this, taking potshots at her husband. Complete lunacy.

Daniel, who was fussing near the stove, suddenly hurried back to the bed carrying a damp rag and a cup. He placed the cool cloth on her forehead, and then sat down beside her.

"Here," he said, offering the cup. "Maybe if you drink some water, you'll feel better."

The thought made her tummy do a somersault. "Not right now, thank you."

Daniel set the cup on the floor. Then he looked at her the way a parent prepares to scold a child—with censure, but a fair amount of compassion. "What happened to you out there?"

Josie shrugged, still angry and too full of conflicting emotions to sort through them. "I don't know."

"You said you were—ah, that we might have had some kind of accident and that you—"

"I'm with child, Daniel."

Surprising the hell out of her, his expression reflected the same disappointment she felt.

"You're absolutely sure about that?" he asked.

"If there's one thing in this world I know about, it's when a woman is going to have a baby. My mother had seventeen of them. I'm as sure as I can be."