Little Flower frowned at her. “Buffalo Run is a fine war chief, and an excellent hunter,” she told Christa. “He is half white himself. He was taken into one of the forts for several years when he was small. That is where he learned to speak English so very well.”
The water seemed to have grown very cold. She hugged her arms around her chest. “He is a fine warrior. It is just that—” She paused, feeling the anguish sweep over her. “It’s just that I love the husband I already have.”
Little Flower nodded. “He is very handsome and noble, especially for a white man.”
Christa turned away from her, hugging herself against the chill as she climbed up the embankment to find her clothing. Before she could reach the doeskin dress and boots, she paused, feeling the hair rise at her nape. Chills danced down the entire length of her spine.
An Indian brave blocked her way. He was the next tallest of the warriors to Buffalo Run. His breeches were made of animal skin, his shirt was cotton, covered by a fringed vest with beadwork. His long black hair was in braids, and a kerchief interlaced with rawhide was tied around his forehead.
Eagle Who Flies High, she thought quickly. She remembered the night when Jeremy had been so angry because she had made an appearance in the tent when he was there.
He’d been angry because the Indian had seen her. Eagle Who Flies High had initiated the war party to come after her and Jeff Thayer.
Now he was staring at her, blocking her path. She didn’t move, but felt her nudity more keenly with each passing second.
“Little Flower …?” she whispered.
The Comanche girl came from the water, her soft voice full of reproach, her language swift and intriguing with its rolling R’s.
But it did no good. Eagle Who Flies High answered her curtly and angrily. Little Flower argued back, but the warrior seemed to grow angrier by the minute.
“What is he saying?” Christa asked nervously. Surely, he couldn’t hurt her. Only Buffalo Run could hurt her, if he chose. Unless Buffalo Run were to be killed.
Then she might be sold, or traded, or given away.
“Little Flower!”
“He says that he saw you first. That by right, you are his captive. He says that Buffalo Run really has no right to you, that he has pampered you, that he has scorned the Comanche ways. He says that you should be his slave, and that he intends to take you.”
“Jesu, no!” Christa cried. Eagle Who Flies High took a step toward her, and she didn’t care if there were nothing but desert and dust and death if she ran from the encampment, she would not stand still and wait for this man to attack her. She spun around, naked still, and shrieked with terror. She raced across the water and started to run through the scruffy foliage on the other side of it. Brambles and branches tore at her flesh. Rocks bruised her feet.
He was slowed by the water between them. Christa continued to shriek and scream as she ran, but she wondered if she could be heard, and if she were heard, would anyone help her?
The calf-high boots that had slowed Eagle Who Flies High as he made his way through the water became his advantage when they were both on solid ground. She couldn’t run over the rocky terrain the way he could. Pain seared into her foot and she cried out, holding it, as a jagged rock tore the bottom.
And even as that cry left her mouth, another formed inside her, for the Comanche had caught up with her. She went spinning around and fell flat to the ground. With deadly serious eyes he started to lower himself upon her.
Christa struck out, kicking him with all the vengeance and desperation inside her. She must have struck thoroughly and well, for the warrior who never betrayed emotion showed signs of the pain she had inflicted. His bronzed features tightened, his teeth grated loudly. He fell away from her, rolling to his side. Words of fury escaped his lips, directed toward her. She leapt to her feet, certain that were he to set his hands upon her now, she would be brutally raped, mutilated, and perhaps, if she were lucky, killed.
She started to run again. She screamed as fingers wound into her hair.
But before she could be dragged back to the ground, a bullet exploded, splintering a rock near her feet. She shrieked and spun about, just as Eagle Who Flies High did.
Buffalo Run had come. Christa was certain that Little Flower had gone for him. The shot he had fired from a U.S. Army issue Colt—surely taken in some raid—had been meant as a warning one.
Angrily, Buffalo Run began speaking. Eagle Who Flies High responded in kind. Christa didn’t wait for the argument to finish. She shot back toward Buffalo Run, hiding behind him. Little Flower was there, awaiting her with a blanket. She wrapped Christa in it.
Others from the tribe had come around by now, but they all remained quiet, listening to Buffalo Run and Eagle Who Flies High. Tall Feather, the peace chief of the band, had come. He began speaking and the others listened.
“What are they saying?” she asked Little Flower.
But this time, there was no chance for Little Flower to answer her. Buffalo Run turned around angrily and caught her by the arm. He brought her back to the camp, dragging her along.
“I didn’t do anything!” she cried out. “Please, tell me what is going on!”
But Buffalo Run wasn’t going to explain anything to her. She felt a new rise of fear as he dragged her past his own tepee. He stopped before one that had been erected near his own. It had belonged to a warrior named Eagle Claw who had been killed in a recent raid. His young wife, childless, had returned to her father’s home. She was being imprisoned in a neutral territory, she realized.
He threw her into the tepee. “You!” he charged her. “You are nothing but trouble!”
“But I didn’t do anything this time! He just came after me—”
“This time! You freed the other captives, you cost us good horses. You were captured yourself to free the gray soldier.” He spat on the ground. “The gray murderer! For McCauley, I have kept you from punishment. Your nose should have been clipped! You wouldn’t have created such a lust in Eagle Who Flies High!”
“But I—”
“Stay here! I will come for you soon enough. You are a dangerous prize—someone will pay the price for you. And tonight—you will pay yourself!”
Furious, shaking, he turned and left the tepee. Terrified, she tried to come after him.
Basket Woman waited outside, grinning cruelly. She held a knife, and quickly raised it to Christa’s throat.
The woman would gladly kill her, Christa knew.
She moved back into the tepee and sat. A few minutes later, she heard a soft whisper. Little Flower had brought her clothes. She came in and hastily started a fire, speaking as quickly as she could. “I cannot stay. There is tremendous trouble now, over you.”
“What will happen?”
A blaze started up in the center fire. “You will be warm at least.”
“Little Flower, please—?”
“I don’t know! We have never had such an argument before. I don’t know how it will be solved. Eagle Who Flies High says that he will use you as a captive should be used if Buffalo Run will not do so, as you should be his captive by right. Buffalo Run told him that Morning Star was to have been his wife, so you are his captive in exchange. He also says that he snatched you from your horse. There is great trouble, so something must happen. But now, in the midst of this there is more. I don’t know quite what happened myself, but Tall Feather and Buffalo Run and Eagle Who Flies High have all gathered with—”
A sharp command came from outside. Basket Woman was warning Little Flower to come out.
“I don’t dare stay longer! Their tempers are so high! Someone, I think, must die—”
Another roaring command came from the outside. Little Flower jumped up, stared at Christa, then hurried from the tepee.
Christa dressed and sank down upon a pile of furs, trying not to shake. Jesu, she should just die and end this agony!
But then, just as the thought came to her, she felt movement.
/>
The baby was moving again! After everything. The baby was alive inside of her. She had to live. No matter what happened to her, no matter what was done to her, she had to live. If nothing else, she meant to see to it that she delivered her baby. If Buffalo Run had any sense of honor, and he did, he would see to it that Jeremy received their child.
She lowered her cheeks to her knees and fought the tears that threatened her. What would come now? Maiming, torture at the hands of Eagle Who Flies High?
Or would Buffalo Run return. He had said she should have had her nose clipped. Perhaps he would only rape her.
It was then that she heard the drums. A slow, steady beat. Continuous. Threatening. They seemed to go on for hours and hours. Hours in which she thought that she would lose her mind. Thump. Thump. Thump. They beat on. Warning of dire things to come.
What things?
Jeremy would know.
Tears, unbidden, slid from her eyes. She wiped them away.
It was then that she looked up, and terror struck her heart once again.
Someone was there. Tall, indomitable. Filling the entrance to the tepee.
A scream, silent and terrible, welled in her throat as she watched him come into the tepee.
Twenty-three
He hadn’t traveled much beyond the point where he had parted from Company D when he began to feel the sensation of being watched.
He was, indeed, in Buffalo Run’s territory.
There was something so unnerving about the feeling, that he was upon occasion tempted to turn his horse about and race as hard and fast as he could in the opposite direction. He could never do that. Even if the desperate, all-consuming need to find Christa should suddenly and inexplicably fade, he could not turn and run.
He was being watched. He was close to the encampment and Comanche warriors were watching his progress.
He wasn’t alone. Morning Star was with him.
Thankfully, when he had come upon the ex-Reb outlaws, they had been so busy with old Joseph Greenley’s money and trading goods that they hadn’t had time to give much attention to Morning Star. She was just a girl, younger than her sister Little Flower, but by Indian standards she was certainly old enough to wed, and it would not be at all unusual for Buffalo Run to take her into his household, where he would then have two sets of sisters, and those sisters cousins with one another. Morning Star was quiet, with a curious wisdom far beyond her years. He’d tried to talk with her, but there was very little she would tell him. She was grateful to be with him. She had known him from Buffalo Run’s encampment, and she had come to him when he had seized the outlaws with an implicit trust that had been both frightening and endearing. “McCauley bring Morning Star home,” she had told him, and of course she had been right. No matter what happened, he would see to it that she was returned to Buffalo Run and the Comanche encampment.
But he didn’t imagine that he would be riding into the territory in the company of one small Indian girl. Nor had he ever imagined that she would be part of his bargaining power when he asked for the return of his own wife.
Moments later, he saw a warrior on the wave of ridge he approached. As he moved closer, a second warrior appeared, and then a third.
Within a few minutes, the Indians had slowly encircled him. No violence was offered. They kept their distance as an escort, bringing him the rest of the way into the camp.
He hadn’t quite reached the first pathway through the tepees when he saw an old Indian step out, barring his way. For a moment he felt his muscles tensing, then he relaxed.
It was Tall Feather, the peace chief. The Indian lifted a hand in greeting to him.
“McCauley,” he said.
Jeremy dismounted from his horse, walking the few feet that remained between them. “I’ve brought back the girl, Morning Star,” he said. “And I’ve come for my wife.”
“You wish to trade women?” Tall Feather said.
He shook his head. “I would have brought Morning Star home no matter what. If my brother Buffalo Run seized my wife, I wish to think that he would bring her home to me—no matter what.”
Tall Feather lifted his arm, indicating his own tepee. “There is some trouble over your wife,” he commented.
Jeremy felt his heart careen against his chest. He tried to still the panic rising in his breast and followed Tall Feather into his tepee. A good guest, he entered carefully to the left and sat with his legs crossed.
Tall Feather spoke to one of his wives in his Comanche tongue. Jeremy couldn’t follow all of the words, but he knew that he sent the woman for Buffalo Run—and for Eagle Who Flies High.
Tall Feather produced one of his pipes. It was an exceptionally fine pipe, made with a stone bowl polished with buffalo grease. The stem was decorated with beads and horsehair, and Jeremy knew it was the old chief’s best pipe, which was an encouraging sign. The Comanche respected him and wanted to remain his friend. Also, no serious business could possibly be done without the smoking of a pipe between men.
Jeremy tried to conceal his fear and impatience, inhaling deeply on the pipe before returning it to Tall Feather. “What is this trouble with my wife?” he asked, his heart pounding. All manner of horrors raced through his mind. They had punished her for freeing the other captives. They had slashed her legs or her face. They had clipped her nose or ears. “As Buffalo Run is my brother—”
“Buffalo Run does not refuse you your wife. He has been waiting for you to come.”
“Then—”
“Buffalo Run said that we must leave the problem of the outlaws to you. They were white men trying to commit crimes as Comanche. He knew that you would believe us. But Eagle Who Flies High gathered the force to ride to your encampment to see that the white men had been taken. They found that the white man was escaping, and they passed their own judgment.”
“I know that,” Jeremy said. “I found the man.”
Tall Feather nodded sagely. “We hear many things, so we know that your wife was with the army of the men in the gray coats.” He leveled his finger at Jeremy. “A man should have control of his own home.”
At that particular moment, Jeremy’s fingers itched to slide around Christa’s neck. “I bow to your wisdom, Tall Feather,” he said to the Indian.
The tepee flap moved. Buffalo Run and Eagle Who Flies High entered, came around the left, and accepted the pipe so that they could be involved in the business at hand. Buffalo Run stared levelly at Jeremy. Eagle Who Flies High seemed to be staring above him. Jeremy realized that the man who had come to him before as Buffalo Run’s emissary was gaining an equal footing with Buffalo Run as a war chief.
“She is well,” Buffalo Run assured him, and Jeremy wondered just what of his fear he had given away. “For my part, my brother, I give up my rights to her, as you have returned Morning Star to me.”
“Then I may take my wife and leave—” Jeremy began.
“No,” Eagle Who Flies High said.
“There is the matter of which man here has the right to the captive,” Tall Feather told Jeremy. “Eagle Who Flies High was the warrior to lead the raid. Before we knew of your coming today, they had disagreed about her. Eagle Who Flies High challenged Buffalo Run, and they agreed to meet with knives to settle the dispute.”
“I will not give her up,” Eagle Who Flies High said flatly. His eyes met Jeremy’s at last. “It was not my woman you returned. I owe you nothing.”
“I will not leave without my wife!” Jeremy insisted softly.
“Then Buffalo Run must be taken from this dispute,” Tall Feather said. “And you, McCauley, must be ready to meet Eagle Who Flies High in his stead. Is your wife worth this?”
She is worth everything, he might have said.
But he had to take care. “She is mine. And I will leave with her.”
“Or die in the trying,” Eagle Who Flies High said with quiet menace.
It was more than just keeping Christa from this brave, Jeremy realized. It was a power struggle within t
he tribe.
“Or die in the trying,” Jeremy said.
“It is settled,” Tall Feather said. “You will meet in the morning with knives. The fight will be fair, between two warriors, in our fashion. The tribe will be witness.”
“If I win,” Jeremy said, “it is agreed, on your honor, that I leave here in peace with my wife?”
“It is agreed. You leave with our gratitude, for Morning Star is returned.”
Tall Feather started to knock the burned tobacco from his pipe—a clear sign that the meeting was ended. It was time for them all to rise and leave the tepee. Jeremy, though he knew the etiquette, sat still.
“I will fight in the morning. I want to be with her tonight,” he said.
“That I will not agree to—” Eagle Who Flies High began.
But Buffalo Run protested before Jeremy could. “The woman is McCauley’s wife. And has been. And carries his child. He may well die. There are matters to solve between them. I say that he should have the night.” He looked to Tall Feather.
Tall Feather nodded. “This is only just. We have kept our two good war chiefs from meeting one another and injuring one another when all braves are needed, when we can trust so few of the white soldiers and settlers. Neither will Buffalo Run and McCauley, who are brothers with mingled blood, meet one another. The fight will be good and fair, the outcome just. Buffalo Run, you will see that your white brother reaches the woman. And you will tend to his needs for the fight to come in the morning. Eagle Who Flies High—you will wait until then.”