Comanche Moon (61 page)

Loretta stared at first one man, then another. They glared back at her with hate-filled eyes. She knew in that instant that if she stepped beyond the circle of wagons, the decision would be irrevocable. Suddenly she was afraid. Beyond the firelight Comanches waited, possibly the same Comanches who had killed Mrs. Bartlett.
A war party.
These men around her were her own kind and representative of her world. If she turned her back on them, she was turning her back on everything familiar and dear to her, including her family. Hunter had left her once. What if he had come now not to take her away with him, but only to let her know he was all right?

Loretta, paralyzed with indecision, swallowed and shot a frightened glance into the darkness beyond the wagons. If she didn’t go to Hunter now, he might never approach her again. She was carrying his child. He had a right to know that. If she went to him, he wouldn’t leave her. Not if he understood she couldn’t return to the wagons. Yet fighting for his people was important to him. Her people had spilled so much blood in his village.

Trust.
It was easier said than done. For a moment Loretta struggled, unable to make up her mind.
Chase Kelly Wolf. Indigo Nicole Wolf.
Her child had the right to know his or her father. And the chance would be lost unless she found some courage. Did she want to spend her life peering into her looking glass, as Aunt Rachel had, searching for herself, berating herself?

Loretta pulled her arm from Henry’s grasp. If she was going, she had to hurry before Hunter gave up and left. She shouldered her way through the men, ignoring the insults they hurled after her.

Amy appeared out of the darkness. From the look on her face, Loretta knew she had overheard. Loretta broke stride, then threw her arms wide to catch her little cousin in a fierce hug. ‘‘I love you, Amelia Rose. Don’t ever forget that.’’

Amy’s shoulders shook with sobs. ‘‘I won’t. I’ll miss you, Loretta. A powerful lot.’’

Loretta hugged her more tightly. ‘‘Maybe one day we’ll be together again. You’ve got to hold my baby!’’

‘‘Maybe after Swift Antelope comes for me.’’ Amy gulped and pulled away. ‘‘You’ll tell him, won’t ya? That I ain’t forgot my promises to him? That I’ll be waitin’ for him?’’

‘‘I’ll tell him.’’

‘‘You’d best go.’’ Amy rubbed her cheek with her fist. ‘‘Go on! Before Hunter leaves!’’

Loretta threw a regretful glance toward the buckboard. ‘‘Tell Aunt Rachel that—’’

‘‘She knows, but I’ll tell her anyhow.’’

Loretta touched her hand to Amy’s cheek, trying to smile but too frightened to manage. ‘‘Good-bye.’’

‘‘Good-bye, Loretta Jane. Good-bye!’’

The word followed Loretta into the darkness.
Good-bye.
As she left the wagons far behind, she felt more alone than she ever had in her life. Moonlight bathed the flats. Loretta turned in a slow circle but saw no one. If Hunter was out here, why didn’t he show himself?

The call of the coyote trailed skyward again. Loretta whirled toward the sound and ran toward the rise. As she crested the slope, Hunter loomed up out of the shadows, tall and dark, his hair drifting in the wind. His upper chest and shoulder were crisscrossed with torn strips of cloth. Calico and muslin.

Slowing her footsteps, she walked toward him a ways, then stopped. Did he even want her as his woman now? So much had happened since they last saw each other. So much pain and grief. His face was in shadow, so she could read nothing in his expression.

When Loretta drew to a halt several feet away from him, Hunter’s heart skipped a beat, then started racing. Peering at her through the silvery darkness, he saw a
tosi
woman in
tosi
clothing, her pale skin and golden hair illuminated by the light of the Comanche moon. Just as the prophecy had foretold, they stood on a high place, she on the land of the
tosi tivo
, while he, Comanche to his bones, stood on the land of the People. A great distance divided them, a distance much harder to bridge than the few feet between them.

Hunter ached with things he longed to say, but none of them seemed enough. He realized then that the great canyon filled with blood wasn’t a chasm in the earth but one in their hearts. There was an ache in Loretta’s eyes that cut clear through him. He knew the same ache was in his own. His father, Maiden of the Tall Grass, her parents. So many were lost to them.

‘‘Are you all right?’’ she asked.

Hunter was weak from loss of blood. His shoulder felt as if it had a red-hot coal buried in it. ‘‘I am well. You
came,
yes? There is much we must talk about.’’

‘‘I saw your good friend’s hoofprint at the Bartletts’ farm,’’ she said in a tremulous voice. ‘‘A woman and two little girls were killed. I know you were there.’’

Hunter closed his eyes. If only he could close the distance between them and hold her in his arms, but fear of rejection held him back. ‘‘Little one, I—’’

‘‘Don’t!’’ She threw up a hand. ‘‘Don’t say anything, Hunter.’’ Her arm quivered as she lowered it to her side. ‘‘I don’t want you to explain, really I don’t. There’s no need.’’

There was great need. Hunter studied the ground, searching his heart for the right words. None came to him. ‘‘I went to the farm after. It is the truth I speak.’’

Lifting his gaze to hers, Hunter tried to read her thoughts. What if she didn’t believe him? When he tried to picture what his life would be like without her, he saw only emptiness. She
had
to believe him.

Afraid as he had never been, he reached out to her, his hand palm up and open. For an endless moment she stared at his outstretched fingers; then, with a strangled cry, she ran toward him. As her hand met his, Hunter caught her slight form to his chest with his uninjured arm and hugged her until he feared her bones might break.
Flowers in springtime. Soft as rabbit fur. Warm as sunshine.
A sob caught in his chest.

‘‘Your shoulder. You’ll hurt yourself.’’

‘‘It is as nothing.’’ It wasn’t a lie. The pain seemed distant now, like a hawk hovering and circling. Later it would descend to tear at his flesh, but for now he could ignore it. Hunter buried his face in the curve of her neck, his favorite place. So many nights he had dreamed of this, yearned for her. Tears filled his eyes, and a tremor coursed through his body. ‘‘I have such great love for you, little one. Such great love.’’

‘‘I love you just as much, Hunter. I thought I’d die when you left me.’’

‘‘You will go from this place with me, walk in my footsteps?’’

A strained silence settled between them.

‘‘Oh, yes, Hunter, yes.’’

‘‘Do not make a promise of it quick. We must go west. Alone, Blue Eyes, leaving all that we are behind. All those we love, your people, my people.’’

Loretta caught his face between her hands, shaking with the intensity of her emotions. ‘‘Hunter,
you
are my people. I’ll follow you anywhere.’’

‘‘I do not know the way.’’ His voice was gravelly, the words he spoke halting. Admitting his own vulnerability didn’t come easily. But this was no time for pride. If Loretta chose to follow him, her life could be at risk. He wanted her to know that. ‘‘The song says we will make a new nation, but this Comanche fears he cannot feed even two. If you walk behind me, you follow a man who is lost.’’

Loretta encircled his waist with her arms and pressed her cheek against his chest, inhaling the scent of his skin, loving it. Her gaze settled on the gigantic moon that shone down on them.
Mother Moon, watching over them.
‘‘You aren’t lost, Hunter. The words in your song will guide you. And when you falter, your Great Ones will lead you—to the place we’re meant to find. We will sing the People’s songs to our children. The Comanche and
tosi tivo
will live as one forever. Don’t you see? You and I are the beginning.’’ She arched her back to see into his eyes. ‘‘Hunter and his yellow-hair, together as one.’’

‘‘You believe?’’ Hunter studied her, more than a little amazed. ‘‘The words of my song are inside your heart?’’

Smiling through tears, Loretta told him the meaning of her name. ‘‘Yes, I
do
believe. I believe in your Great Ones, I believe in your song, but, most important, I believe in you.’’ She touched her fingertips to the scar that lined his cheek. ‘‘I’m not afraid of anything except being without, you. This morning I thought you’d been killed . . . I’ve never been so frightened. Never.’’

Red Buffalo emerged from the darkness, leading his favorite war pony. Loretta and Hunter, arms looped around one another, turned to face him. When Red Buffalo reached Loretta, he grasped her hand and curled her fingers around the horse’s line.

‘‘Red Buffalo, I can’t take your war pony!’’ This horse, she knew, was Red Buffalo’s most prized possession, precision trained, his greatest edge when he rode into battle. It was a great honor he was bestowing upon her, perhaps the greatest honor a warrior could bestow on anyone, but she couldn’t in good conscience accept. ‘‘Please, keep your horse.’’

‘‘My cousin’s fine Comanche wife must have a fine horse to carry her. You will never make it into the west lands on a scrawny, poorly trained
tosi tivo
horse.’’

Red Buffalo extended his hand to her.
In friendship.
She had vowed once that she would
never
take his hand in friendship,
never.
For a moment she hesitated. Then the last hard little knot of hatred within her disintegrated, and she placed her palm across his. Loretta knew that her mother would approve. For Loretta and Hunter, the war between their people had to end. There was no room for the past in their lives, no room for bitterness.

Red Buffalo smiled, inclined his head to Hunter, and turned to leave.

‘‘Red Buffalo, would you give Swift Antelope a message for me? Tell him Amy hasn’t forgotten her promise, that she’ll wait for him.’’

Red Buffalo lifted his arm in farewell. ‘‘I will tell him.’’

As Red Buffalo disappeared into the darkness, Hunter’s hand, which was riding Loretta’s thickened waist, tightened. He glanced down, his brows lifting in question. With a wondrous expression on his face, he placed his other palm on her slightly swollen abdomen. ‘‘Blue Eyes, what is this?’’

Loretta looked up at him through tears. ‘‘Our child, Hunter.’’

His warm fingers flexed and curled protectively. A slow smile spread across his mouth. ‘‘A child . . .’’ The words were a reverent whisper.

‘‘
Our
child.’’

Loretta placed her hand over his, so filled with love for him that she felt she might die of it. The future was filled with uncertainty. The way ahead might be fraught with danger. And they would be completely alone. Two people, against a world of hostility.

None of that really frightened her, though. Theirs was no ordinary love, and she knew the course of their lives would have a far greater purpose than that of simply being together.

They would find their way west, just as the prophecy had foretold. She
knew
they would. The Comanche nation was doomed. There was no stopping the tide of white settlers that washed over their land. An entire race of people would eventually be conquered and all but destroyed.

She and Hunter were like a seed floating on the wind. Somehow, somewhere, they would find a fertile place, where they could put down roots and grow strong. Through them, the People would live on. The gods had sent her and Hunter a sign to help them believe, to give them faith, and she no longer had a single doubt that all the words of Hunter’s song would somehow come to pass.

Within her grew a child, both
tosi tivo
and Comanche, the child of the great warrior with indigo eyes and his honey-haired maiden. A child who brought new hope for the People and tomorrow.

Signet is pleased to reissue another long-out-of-print historical romance by Catherine Anderson, the sequel to
Comanche Moon
, Comanche Heart Available Spring 2009 Turn the page for a brief excerpt. . . . And don’t miss Catherine Anderson’s Morning Light The first of the Harrigan Family novels, available now. An excerpt also follows. . . .

October 1879

NOON SUNSHINE WARMED SWIFT’S SHOULDERS as he guided his black stallion up the steep, rutted road to Wolf’s Landing. After six months of traveling, some through desert, some through barren high plains, his senses felt bombarded by the sheer lushness of Oregon’s vibrant display of autumn. He took a deep breath of the crisp mountain air and feasted his eyes on the colorful hillsides, which ranged from bright orange to dark rust and varying shades of green. Never had he seen so many species of trees in one place, oak, fir, pine, maple, and a beautiful evergreen he couldn’t identify, with peeling trunks that twisted through the surrounding growth like gnarled fingers.

Children’s voices drifted to him on the breeze as he crested the hill. He reined in his horse and sat a moment, taking in his first sight of Wolf’s Landing, a bustling little mining town ten miles from Jacksonville, the county seat. The main street looked like any in a white community, with colorfully advertised shops lining the boardwalks. On the left, three two-story buildings loomed above the others, a saloon, a hotel, and a restaurant.

Up on the hillside, nestled behind a sprawling log house, Swift spotted two tepees. Judging from the smoke that trailed above the lodge poles, someone here clung to the Indian ways. He grinned as the words of the ancient Comanche prophecy ran through his mind:
A new place, where the Comanche and tosi tivo will live as one.

The wonderful smell of baked bread floated on the air. Houses of varying size and structure, some impressive, some one-room shanties with bare dirt yards, peppered the thick woodland. In the distance Swift saw a woman hanging up clothes behind a squat log cabin. Farther up the hill from her, two cows ambled through the brush, one bawling, the other stopping to graze.