‘‘Yes.’’ Rachel’s mouth turned down and quivered. ‘‘I’ll say nothing against her Swift Antelope. God knows she needs a special friend right now.’’ She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. After a long while she seemed to come to grips with her thoughts and sighed. Clasping Loretta’s hand, she asked, ‘‘You think this Hunter of yours’ll like me?’’
Loretta set her trencher aside and gave her aunt a hard hug. ‘‘Oh, Aunt Rachel, I love you. It makes me so glad to have your blessing.’’
Suddenly Rachel stiffened. ‘‘Speak of the devil, there he comes.’’
Joy surged through Loretta. She leaped to her feet and ran toward the gate. Up on the rise she could see horses and riders outlined against the darkening sky. The Comanches reined in, forming a sparse front rank, a few others pulling in behind them. Loretta’s footsteps dragged to a stop. Even at this distance and with poor light, she could see the men wore war paint. Her heart plummeted. Surely Hunter didn’t believe she had willingly left with his people’s murderers?
‘‘Go into the house, Aunt Rachel,’’ Loretta called.
‘‘Why? What is it?’’
‘‘I’m not sure. He comes in anger.’’
‘‘You come with me, then!’’
Loretta swallowed an upsurge of fear. One Indian was taller on horseback than all the rest, broader across the shoulders and chest. Hunter. She kept her gaze on him. A month ago she would have fled in panic. She would never run from him again. ‘‘Go to the house, Aunt Rachel. Pull the shutters. Do as I say!’’
Loretta began walking again, afraid yet not afraid. A war party of Comanches was an intimidating spectacle, even to her, but the man she loved rode with them. Before she reached the gate, the warriors urged their horses forward. Instead of attacking, though, as she had feared they might, they rode the perimeters of the property, driving lances into the earth every few feet. Once again Hunter had come to mark her home.
Loretta no sooner realized that than she also realized that Hunter wouldn’t mark the property if he intended to take her with him. He was leaving her. She bolted into a run.
‘‘Hunter! Hunter, please . . .’’ She gained the gate and watched in helpless despair as the warriors sped past on their mounts, sending up such a cloud of dust that she couldn’t tell which man was Hunter. ‘‘Hunter, at least talk to me!’’
If Hunter heard her, he paid her no heed. Moments later the war party withdrew and rode over the rise. Loretta stood there, staring. Was Hunter divorcing her because of the tosi tivo attack?
As hurt as she was, Loretta could muster no anger. It was her own fault he was leaving her. The night before the attack, she had vowed to leave him if he wouldn’t go away with her. She had insisted he choose between her and the People. He had done just that. His father and countless others had been killed. His honor demanded that he avenge them.
She pressed her hand to her chest, over the medallion that bore his mark. Throwing back her head, she screamed his name, praying he would hear her and return. She waited, and she prayed. But he didn’t come.
‘‘Loretta! Get back in the yard,’’ Rachel called.
Loretta turned, hugging her waist, her body bent slightly to contain the sobs that tried to escape her. ‘‘Aunt Rachel, he’s leaving me. He’s leaving me!’’
Rachel came running. Wrapping both arms around Loretta, she cried, ‘‘Oh, honey . . .’’
‘‘He’s leaving me!’’ Loretta once again threw back her head. ‘‘Hunter-rrr!’’
The cry carried on the wind, shrill and mournful. Suddenly he crested the hill, a lone figure on horseback, etched in black against the sky. For a moment Loretta thought she was imagining him because she had wanted him to return so badly. Then he lifted his arm in a silent tribute, saluting her as one warrior would another. Honoring her. Loretta jerked from Rachel’s grasp, staggering toward him, drinking in the sight of him. She wanted to be beside him. She had to make him understand that. He needn’t choose between her and his people. She had been wrong, so horribly wrong.
‘‘Hunter! Take me with you! I love you!’’ she called. ‘‘I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean it!’’
He remained there, his arm still lifted, for several heartbreaking seconds. Then he wheeled his stallion and disappeared from sight. Hollow-eyed, Loretta stared after him. She had asked him to choose, and she had lost. Her legs buckled under her weight, and she fell to her knees, the pain inside her so excruciating that she couldn’t breathe.
‘‘Hunter-rr-r!’’
The wind brushed her cheeks, catching his name and carrying it away from her. She crossed her arms over her breasts and sobbed, her gaze fixed on the rise. She would never again look at the horizon without seeing him outlined there.
Hunter’s name drifted to him on the wind, the call barely discernible yet shrill, like the whisper of a lost soul searching for solace. He reined his stallion to a halt, bracing himself against the sound, teeth clenched, eyes closed, his trapped breath searing his throat. Hunter. His woman still called for him. When he began killing her people, would she ever call for him again?
It took all his strength not to go back for her. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her like this. Yet how could he not? He had to fight the great fight for his people. He had no choice. While he was away fighting, he wanted Loretta someplace safe. After the attack on his village, there was no question she would be safer here with her own kind. He had no control over the tosi tivo and their attacks, but he could see to it none of his own attacked Loretta’s wooden walls.
Another cry shivered through the gloaming. Hunter. He opened his eyes, peering at the cloud of dust up ahead. His honor lay before him, his heart behind him. Nudging his stallion into a run, he leaned low against the animal’s neck, using the wind against his face to filter out her voice as he raced to catch up with the other warriors.
Chapter 26
OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS, THE COMANCHES attacked with a vengeance. News came that the mercenaries, en route to attack another village, were all killed. Tales of Hunter filtered to the Masters farm, some horrible, some heartbreakingly familiar. As fiercely as the Indians waged war, Hunter still spared women and children. Loretta’s eyes filled with tears when she was told by the border patrol from Fort Belknap that somewhere along the Red River, Hunter had ridden up to a yellow-haired woman and saluted her. Loretta knew Hunter hoped she would somehow hear the tale and understand the message he sent to her.
She did understand, and she grieved for what might have been. With every Indian attack, the chasm between her and Hunter grew wider.
When the horror of it became too much, she found herself justifying the Indians’ actions by remembering the attack on the village. She recalled Many Horses, a frail old man, trying to rescue a child and dying as a result. She thought of the terrified young squaw, running for her life and her child’s, cut down from behind. She realized now that there was no good or bad, no right or wrong, just people fighting for their lives. Wonderful people, who lived and loved and laughed.
She thought of Red Buffalo often, finally accepting what Hunter had tried so desperately to explain, that good men can be driven to do horrible things. Red Buffalo had committed some unforgivable acts, but at long last Loretta could look deeper into the man and come closer to understanding why. She thanked God that she had saved Red Buffalo’s life during the tosi tivo attack, knowing that Red Buffalo guarded Hunter’s back against the tosi tivo with the same ferocity that he had once tried to guard Hunter’s future against one tosi woman.
Nearly two months after Hunter’s farewell salute to her on the rise, Loretta went to the privacy one morning and became violently sick. After repeated vomiting, she was too weak to return to the house, so she sank to the ground outside, bracing her back against the outhouse wall. Clammy sweat filmed her face. She closed her eyes, wondering if she might faint.
‘‘Mercy, Loretta Jane, what’s wrong?’’
Loretta opened her eyes to see her
aunt picking her way through the patchy grass, trying to avoid stickers with her bare feet, her voluminous nightgown drifting in the morning breeze.
‘‘I’m ailin’. Do you have any bee plant? I need some of your tea. My stomach’s in a bad way.’’
Rachel crouched, pressing a palm to Loretta’s forehead. ‘‘No fever. When did it come on?’’
Loretta frowned. ‘‘This morning. Come to think of it, I was queasy a few mornings ago.’’
Rachel frowned, staring hard at Loretta. ‘‘Any dizziness?’’
‘‘Yesterday. I thought it was this insufferable heat.’’
‘‘How long since you got your curse?’’
Loretta leaned her head back, trying to remember. ‘‘I reckon it was—’’ Her eyes widened, and she clamped a hand to her abdomen.
Rachel sighed. ‘‘I’m afraid bee plant tea won’t help.’’ She fell silent a moment. ‘‘Loretta Jane, normally I’d never ask a woman this. You want me to go pick you some tansy?’’
‘‘For what?’’
Rachel fixed her gaze on the barn. ‘‘In the early months, a few doses of tansy might rid you of the problem.’’
Problem? Loretta stared at her aunt, still trying to assimilate the fact that she might be pregnant. She didn’t feel pregnant. But if she was, she would never even consider aborting the child.
‘‘Aunt Rachel, how can you even ask me such a thing?’’
‘‘God’ll probably strike me dead. But I had to. It’s not good tidings, darling. It’d be bad if it was a white child, you with no husband and all. But to be in the family way out of wedlock with a Comanche’s baby? It’s a disaster.’’
‘‘It’s not out of wedlock! I’m married, right and proper!’’
‘‘Honey, you got no ring, no paper, no witnesses, not even a last name! And no man beside you. Who’ll believe it?’’
‘‘I don’t care who believes it. I know. That’s enough.’’
‘‘For you, maybe. How’s that child going to feel about being a bastard breed?’’
Loretta felt as if she had been slapped. Bastard breed. The words had such an ugly sound. She wrapped her arms around her waist, a sudden and fierce feeling of protectiveness welling within her. Hunter’s child. She’d love it with all her heart.
‘‘Oh, Aunt Rachel. A baby. Hunter hasn’t left me, after all.’’
Rachel threw up her hands. ‘‘Say that to me when you’re tryin’ to feed it in dead of winter. Henry’s such an ass, he’ll probably leave me if I let you stay here. The three of us gals on our own won’t have an easy time trying to make it.’’
‘‘I’ll leave, then.’’
‘‘You’ll do no such thing. I said it wouldn’t be easy, not that it’d be impossible.’’ Squaring her shoulders, Rachel gazed off into the distance a moment. When her eyes slid back to Loretta’s, there was a glint of determination in their blue depths. ‘‘Watching you and my daughter, seeing how you’ve survived things other women couldn’t—’’ She licked her lips. ‘‘That steel in your backbones came from your bringin’ up, from me. I’ve taught you to stand up and fight back. I’ve raised you proud. Lately, I’ve been staring into my looking glass, wondering where the old Rachel has got off to.’’
‘‘Oh, Aunt Rachel, you’ve only done what you felt you had to for me and Amy.’’
Rachel nodded. ‘‘Yes. But there comes a time when a body must draw the line.’’ She sighed and rolled her eyes, a reluctant smile tugging at her mouth. ‘‘If it’s a draw between a baby and Henry, I’ll kick his ornery butt all the way to the fancy house in Jacksboro and tell him to stay there this time.’’
Appalled and uncertain how to react, Loretta said, ‘‘Fancy house?’’
‘‘You don’t really think he goes there to get tobacco and coffee and the Godey’s Lady’s Book for us, do you?’’ Rachel touched Loretta’s shoulder. ‘‘Don’t look so woebegone. He leaves me alone for nigh on a month after. I consider it a blessing.’’
Loretta threw back her head and gave a weak laugh. ‘‘Uncle Henry visiting a fancy house? Oh, Aunt Rachel, I bet those ladies double their rates when they see the likes of him coming!’’
‘‘No doubt,’’ Rachel said grimly. ‘‘A lover, Henry ain’t. I’ve wasted a lot of years kowtowing to him. I don’t plan to waste any more. I can make it without a man. Just you watch me.’’ She pushed to her feet and extended Loretta a helping hand. ‘‘Come on, little mother. I’ll fix you some remedy for that rolling tummy.’’
‘‘Oh, Aunt Rachel, do you think it’s for sure?’’
‘‘Sure enough that we’d best start cutting out night-shirts. I got flannel tucked away in my barrel. That’ll make up nice.’’
Loretta smiled, and taking a deep breath, she passed a hand over her brow. ‘‘I am powerful pleased, Aunt Rachel!’’
‘‘Just keep thinkin’ that way until I get Henry told.’’
‘‘Do we have to tell him right now?’’
‘‘Honey, if you go to upchucking of a morning before you can reach the privacy, he’s gonna know anyway. May as well light his fuse when we’re expecting the explosion.’’
There was no such thing as being prepared for Henry’s temper when it blew. Though Loretta was braced for it, she still jumped at the first roar.
‘‘You’re what?’’
‘‘I’m in the family way.’’
With one suspender up and one down, his shirt partially untucked, and both feet bare, Henry was ill prepared for throwing a tantrum. His face mottled, the spots an alarming shade of purple. Eyes bugging like blue marbles, he croaked, ‘‘With that bastard Comanche’s get?’’
‘‘He isn’t a bastard. I met his father.’’
Henry worked his mouth like a beached catfish. Leveling a finger at her nose, he hissed, ‘‘I done told you what I’d do if you threw an Injun brat. I’ll swing it by its heels and bash its brains, that’s what.’’
Loretta’s stomach twisted into a knot. Fear for her unborn baby made her retreat a step.
‘‘Shut up, Henry.’’
Rachel’s voice was so soft, the words so calmly spoken, that for a moment neither Loretta nor Henry turned to look at her. Then Loretta registered what she had heard. Her aunt stood by the rifle rack. She had the Spencer in her hands; the barrel was pointed at the floor, but she was ready, if her stance was an indication, to throw the butt to her shoulder.
‘‘What did you say?’’ Henry grated.
‘‘I said shut up, Henry.’’ Rachel’s voice was still soft, but the glint in her eyes was fighting mean. ‘‘I’ve put up with your cussedness for nigh on nine years. No more. You apologize to Loretta Jane this instant.’’
‘‘Or you’ll do what?’’
Rachel lifted a challenging brow. ‘‘Well, I reckon you’re too big for me to grab you by the heels and bash your brains. Guess I’ll have to blow them out. Now apologize. I won’t have that kind of talk in my house.’’
‘‘Your house?’’
‘‘That’s right.’’
Henry did an admirable job of trying to appear amused. Placing his hands on his hips, he bent one knee and eyed the rifle. ‘‘Rachel, darlin’, you have a gun right now. Here shortly, you’re gonna have to put it down and cook. And when you do, I’m gonna beat the sass plumb out of you. Now I suggest you be the one to apologize. If you do it convincin’ enough, maybe I’ll forgit this ever happened.’’
Loretta figured the bluff would probably work. Aunt Rachel had never been long on guts, and Loretta didn’t see her getting a goodly supply in the space of ten minutes. Rachel surprised her, though. Instead of apologizing, she set her jaw and raised her chin.
‘‘Henry, if you touch me when I’m cookin’, I’ll rip you from stem to bow with my butcher knife. I’ve had it up to my gullet with you.’’
‘‘Give me that gun!’’ Henry stomped toward her.
Rachel took quick aim. The explosion of noise nearly scared Loretta out of her skin. Henry jump
ed straight up, clearing the floor by several inches.
‘‘Holy Mother, you near shot my foot off, you damned fool woman!’’
‘‘Next time I won’t miss.’’
Henry sputtered, so mad he looked fit to bust. ‘‘Rachel, I swear, I’ll give you the hidin’ of your life for this.’’
‘‘Touch her, Uncle Henry, and I’ll knock you senseless with a chunk of firewood,’’ Loretta inserted.
‘‘And if she don’t do a good job of it, I’ll finish it for her!’’ Amy yelled from the loft ladder. ‘‘Good for you, Ma! Give the old wart toad what for!’’
Rachel returned the Spencer to the rack. ‘‘Well, Henry? It sounds like three to one. You gonna apologize to Loretta Jane or not?’’ She shrugged. ‘‘I reckon you can leave, if that strikes your fancy. But if you’re stayin’, you’ll apologize before you have your breakfast.’’
Henry doubled his fists, trembling. Loretta moved toward the hearth and grabbed a chunk of wood, just in case she needed it. Amy swung off the ladder, ready to do the same.
‘‘I swear, I don’t know what the world’s comin’ to,’’ Henry rasped. ‘‘Women lippin’ off and threatenin’ a man like they don’t got good sense! I could take on the three of you and roll a smoke while I was at it.’’
‘‘Then make like a frog and hop to it,’’ Amy challenged. ‘‘Otherwise, you tell Loretta you’re sorry like Ma says.’’
Henry hesitated, as if he were considering his options, such as they were. ‘‘As if I’d really hurt a baby!’’ he snorted. ‘‘If Loretta Jane don’t got the sense to know better, then I surely do apologize.’’
‘‘Accepted,’’ Loretta murmured.
Henry jerked up his left suspender and raked his hand through his hair, looking at the hole Rachel had shot in the puncheon. ‘‘What in hell you gonna tell people happened to your floor, missy?’’
Rachel smiled. ‘‘Why, I’ll tell them how quick you got in and fixed it, Henry. We can’t have holes in the floor, can we?’’
Late that evening Loretta went outside and sat on the top rung of the fence near the front gate, swinging her feet and gazing at the rise. Rachel had won the first round with Henry, but she was still afraid for her baby once it was born. She considered trying to find Hunter, but how? He might be anywhere in a vast radius—if he had survived the battles since her last word of him. Please, God, let Hunter be alive. Bring him back to me. An ache of yearning centered itself in her chest.