Comanche Moon (32 page)

Her eyes darkened. ‘‘I’ll do anything.’’

Hunter was about to tell her he would find Amy, that she need not beg, but her last words stopped him. He was not a stupid man. He searched her pale face.

‘‘I’ll be your woman. That’s what you want, isn’t it? I’ll stay with you. Freely. If you’ll find Amy and bring her back to me. I promise, Hunter.’’

Her desperation made him feel ashamed. She had come to him for help; he couldn’t turn her away. He needed no reward for finding her sister. Yet he wanted this woman. And she was here, offering herself to him.

His gaze riveted on the faded bruise along her cheek. If he sent her back to her adoptive father, how many more bruises would she receive? ‘‘You make lies of your promises, Blue Eyes.’’

‘‘Not this time. I swear it, Hunter. I swear it before God, I’ll be your woman. Anything for Amy.’’

He caught her chin. ‘‘You make a God promise? You will lie with me in my buffalo robes?’’

Loretta closed her eyes. The words stuck in her throat. She was sacrificing her self-respect. Her own people would forever scorn her if they knew. But what choice did she have?

‘‘Yes, I’ll lie with you.’’

‘‘You will see into me when you speak.’’

She lifted her lashes. His eyes burned with an intensity she’d never seen before. ‘‘I’ll lie with you, I swear to God.’’

‘‘You will not fight the big fight when I put my hands upon you?’’

‘‘No.’’

‘‘And you will eat? You will stay beside me? Forever into the horizon?’’

‘‘Yes.’’

He brushed his thumb across her mouth, remembering how sweet her lips had tasted. A slow smile creased his dark face. ‘‘You will say it before your God.’’

Loretta blinked and met his gaze. ‘‘I swear it before God—I’ll eat and I’ll stay beside you, forever into the horizon.’’

‘‘You will not fight the great fight?’’

‘‘No, I won’t fight.’’

He slipped an arm around her waist and drew her against him. ‘‘Ah, Blue Eyes, it is a good bargain this Comanche has made.’’

‘‘You’ll go find her?’’

‘‘I will find her, and I will bring her to you, eh?’’

Loretta hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath. She exhaled in a rush, so relieved that she felt weak. Hunter bent his head and pressed his face against her hair. The next instant she felt his lips on her neck. She also felt his hand on her posterior. Frustrated by her high neckline and her full skirts, he made a fist in the calico.

‘‘So much
wannup.
Where are you, Blue Eyes?’’ He started to lift her dress. Loretta reached behind her and caught his hand. ‘‘Wha—what’re you doin’?’’

He lifted his head, eyes alight with teasing mischief. ‘‘I search for my woman. You are in there.’’

‘‘I’m not your woman yet. Have you no shame? It’s broad daylight. People might see.’’

‘‘They will see you are my woman.’’

‘‘They’ll see my drawers, that’s what they’ll see!’’

He abandoned his hold on her skirt to run his palm up her back. ‘‘No bones. That is good.’’

Loretta’s face flamed when she realized he was referring to the whale bones of a corset. A decent man didn’t mention such things. ‘‘You haven’t brought me Amy,’’ she reminded him. ‘‘Our bargain doesn’t start until you do.’’

‘‘I have spoken it. It is done.’’

‘‘Amy first.’’

Before she realized what he was about to do, he swept her off her feet and put her on the horse, then leaped up behind her. Cinching an arm around her waist, he bent his head and said, ‘‘This Comanche will sure enough find her quick.’’

Chapter 16

WOMAN WITH MANY ROBES, ARMS LADEN with weapons, came racing from Hunter’s lodge just as Hunter reined Friend to a halt outside the doorway. Blackbird trailed behind her grandmother, dragging a bulging parfleche. Puzzled, Loretta glanced at the things Woman with Many Robes held. War axes, lances, knives. Her gaze shifted to the parfleche Blackbird hauled behind her. A bit of calico cloth poked out from beneath the flap.

The woman and child looked flustered. Loretta felt Hunter’s body tense. He said something to his mother and slid off the horse. The woman turned and went back inside his lodge, shooing Blackbird ahead of her. A grim expression crossed Hunter’s face as he lifted Loretta from the saddle.

Circling Hunter’s war shield, which sat on a tripod outside the lodge entrance, Loretta was filled with mounting dread. She had the feeling Hunter’s mother had been trying to remove certain items from his lodge before she arrived. When she stepped through the doorway, it took a moment for her eyes to grow accustomed to the light.

Woman with Many Robes and Blackbird stood to one side of the room, their faces lined with guilt. Behind them Loretta saw a tall pole laden with scalps and feathers. Her knees turned to water. She looked over her shoulder at Hunter. He moved past her, avoiding her gaze.

‘‘Mea,’’
he barked.

His mother and niece skittered toward the door, throwing apologetic glances at Loretta. After they exited, Loretta stepped closer to the scalp pole . . . drawn to it with morbid fascination. The scalps were too numerous to count. She didn’t try. One would be damning enough. She studied the weaponry his mother had tried to spirit away. The parfleche probably held souvenirs Hunter had collected off his victims.

‘‘My mother wished to spare you sadness,’’ Hunter said huskily. ‘‘You came this day with no warning.’’

Loretta remembered the night Aunt Rachel had visited her in the loft. Loretta had defended Hunter that night. What a fool she had been. ‘‘Why did you hide these things from me, Hunter?’’

He stepped past her to grasp the scalp pole and jerked its tip from the ground. She knew he intended to remove the gory booty from the lodge, and she caught his wrist.

‘‘Please don’t. To take it away is as much a lie as saying false words.’’

His dark eyes held hers. ‘‘Blue Eyes . . .’’

Releasing him and pressing her hands to her waist, she spun away, sickened by the concern in his voice and so weary that she wanted to drop right where she stood. Dear God, what had she done? He
was
an animal, just like Aunt Rachel said. So many scalps. How many of her people had he mutilated? And she had come running to him for help.

‘‘You
will
go find Amy?
That
wasn’t a lie, was it?’’

He drove the pole back into the ground with such force that the leather walls vibrated. Loretta closed her eyes.
Amy.
She had to control her tongue, stay calm.

‘‘I fight the great fight for my people. I have never made a lie of that. My mother hid these things to spare you pain.’’

Loretta wanted to whirl on him. He had presented himself to her as a gentle man, hiding his vicious side. It had worked. She had broken a seven-year silence for him. And she had trusted him more than she ever would have believed possible.

‘‘Does it matter what I think?’’

‘‘Yes.’’ He circled to stand in front of her. Folding his arms across his chest, he said, ‘‘Your thoughts cannot change my face, but—’’

Loretta cut him off. ‘‘I don’t ask that you change, Hunter. All I ask is Amy’s return.’’

‘‘I will bring her to you.’’

‘‘Nothing else matters to me.’’

He studied her at length. ‘‘Your heart holds great love for her.’’

‘‘Yes. Those terrible men— She’s just a little girl. They’ve already had her for eight days. I can think of nothing else. Even in my sleep I dream about what could be happening to her, hear her calling for me. I try to find her, and I can’t.’’

He grasped her chin, his touch deceptively gentle, as it had always been. ‘‘This night, you will sleep without dreams. I have said I will find her.
Suvate,
it is finished.’’

With that, he left the lodge.

A few minutes later he returned. After donning a pair of buckskin pants, which he pulled on while still wearing his breechcloth, he gathered his weapons, making several trips outside to his horse. When he had collected everything he needed, he sat on a fur pallet, propped a small shaving mirror on his knees, and painted his face, outlining his eyes with black graphite and striping his chin thrice with crimson.

Loretta sat on the edge of the bed watching him. When he finished he glanced over at her. She was seeing Hunter the killer for the first time. On the one hand, he looked so fierce that he terrified her; on the other, she felt strangely reassured. Such a brutal, grimly determined man would be able to find and rescue Amy when another might fail.

‘‘What does the paint say?’’ she asked.

‘‘That this Comanche rides for war.’’

‘‘War?’’ she whispered.

‘‘Santos will know by the paint that I come in anger.’’

‘‘Will there be a fight? Amy might get hurt.’’

‘‘Your Aye-mee will suffer no harm.’’ He rose and put away his paints, cleaning his hands on a swatch of cloth. Turning to face her, he said, ‘‘My brother, Warrior, and my good friend Swift Antelope will remain beside you. Their strong arms are yours.’’ He motioned for her to stand. ‘‘I take you to Warrior now. You will sleep in his lodge circle. No harm, eh?’’

When Loretta stepped out of the lodge, she clasped Hunter’s arm. ‘‘My horse, where is he? I need to tend him, and I—I want my satchel.’’ She was afraid her mother’s comb might get stolen. ‘‘It has things I need in it.’’

Hunter never broke stride. ‘‘Your good friend is in the meadow. Your bag is with Maiden of the Tall Grass, in her lodge.’’

At the edge of the village, Loretta saw a group of men milling, their horses ground-tied and outfitted for travel. ‘‘Are those men going with you to find Amy?’’

‘‘Yes. I must hurry.’’ Hunter’s pace slowed as they approached Warrior’s lodge. Outside the doorway he drew to a complete stop and grasped Loretta’s shoulders, forcing her to meet his gaze. ‘‘You will walk in Warrior’s footsteps like a woman behind her husband? Until I am beside you again.’’

Loretta nodded, casting frightened glances into the shadowy lodge. All around her the village people went about their daily routines. She could smell meat roasting over a fire. A nearby group of women had stopped chatting and looked up from their needlework to stare at Loretta, their dark eyes lingering on her clothing. A group of children ran past, giggling and whispering behind cupped palms. Across the way a very old man sat under a brush arbor, studying her with unblinking intensity.

‘‘Does Warrior mind my staying here? What will his wife say?’’

‘‘She welcomes you. It is good. Be easy, Blue Eyes. My mother is close. She will come with her spoon.’’ He steered Loretta through the doorway. ‘‘Warrior? She has come.’’

From out of the shadows Warrior emerged, so dark of skin and hair that for a moment Loretta couldn’t discern his features. He was eating something, and before he spoke he pocketed the food in his cheek. She was relieved to see that he wore breeches and wondered if he had donned them in honor of her arrival.

‘‘My heart rides with you,
tah-mah.
’’

Hunter moved his hands in a light caress down Loretta’s arms, then released her. ‘‘And mine remains here.
Nei meadro,
I am going.’’

Loretta felt him move away from her. At the last second she turned. ‘‘Hunter—’’

He paused in the doorway to look back at her. ‘‘It is well, Blue Eyes.’’

She heard leather rustle behind her and knew Warrior had drawn near. So tense her neck ached, she glanced over her shoulder to find he was standing close enough to touch her. He didn’t. Instead he smiled, a gentle, reassuring smile. Outside, Loretta heard Hunter’s horse run past the lodge.

Warrior stepped around her to the lodge door and roared something in Comanche. Seconds later a slender young woman wearing a soft doeskin skirt and brightly beaded leather overblouse slipped into the room. She bent her dark head and addressed Loretta in a silken voice.

‘‘My woman, Maiden of the Tall Grass, invites you to her fire,’’ Warrior translated. ‘‘You will go. I come soon.’’

Loretta’s feet were anchored to the dirt. She was terrified of leaving Warrior’s lodge without Hunter. The woman murmured something, nervously stroking one of her long braids, her slender fingers coming to rest on the strip of ermine that bound it. After a moment she took Loretta’s hand, tugging her along.

‘‘
Mea,
go,’’ Warrior encouraged. ‘‘It is well.’’

When Loretta stepped outside, the sunlight blinded her. She shaded her eyes, glancing around them. The Comanches here had never dared approach her when Hunter was at her side, but now he was gone.
Gone.
When she had decided to come here, she hadn’t thought this far ahead. Being deserted in a village full of savages was more than she had bargained for. The women here didn’t speak English. That left her with only Warrior to talk with. Warrior, with the scalps on his horse’s bridle.

Maiden of the Tall Grass tightened her grip on Loretta’s fingers, her lovely features softening, her dark eyes filled with compassion.
‘‘Keemah, Yo-oh-hobt Pa-pi.Toquet.’’

Loretta recognized the words.
Keemah,
come.
Yo-oh-hobt pa-pi,
yellow-hair.
Toquet,
it is well. Searching her mind for their word for ‘‘enemy,’’ Loretta replied, ‘‘I’m frightened. Your people are
to-ho-ba-ka
to me.’’

Maiden’s cheek dimpled in a smile.
‘‘Ka to-ho-ba-ka!’’
She patted Loretta’s shoulder.
‘‘Hites.’’

No enemy! Friend.
Loretta smiled back, feeling reassured as she followed the Indian woman to a nearby tepee. Maybe she wasn’t completely alone after all. It was small comfort, but until Hunter returned it was all she had.

Hunter reined his horse to a halt and gazed at the relentlessly flat, endless expanse of land around him. Short golden grass stretched for as far as he could see.
Home.
This summer, the hunting was better to the east, but even so, Hunter missed the Staked Plains, especially the safe natural fortress of the Palo Duro Canyon. Here, the Quohadie ruled the land, and all who dared enter, even the fierce Comancheros, feared them. His people were never as carefree when they were forced to camp close to the
tosi tivo
settlements.