Comanche Rose (4 page)

On the other side of Bull Calf's tipi, Little Hand hesitated, then lifted a tattered flap. "Saleaweah?" Then, "Saleaweah!"

"Go away," Annie croaked.

"Saleaweah!"

This time there was anger in Little Hand's voice. She didn't want to come any closer. Annie rolled over and looked through the interior darkness to the lifted tipi flap, where she could see the sleet coming down almost sideways. Cold air rushed past her, blowing at the hide walls. Annie watched the Indian woman hesitate, then edge gingerly inside, still holding the flap, ready to flee. Her black eyes flitted around the circular room as though she expected to be seized at any moment by whatever possessed Annie.

She picked up one of the rocks from the pile blocking a hole and threw it at Annie, striking her shoulder, shouting for her to get up, that Bull Calf wanted her outside. To make her point, she bent down for another stone, then dropped it when Annie sat up. Her broad, flat face broke into a broken-toothed grin as she changed her manner, speaking kindly now. Backing out through the flap, she beckoned as though coaxing a child to follow her.

Though Annie was fully dressed, clad in an odd combination of fringed leggings and an oft-mended buckskin shirt pulled over a faded calico dress, she shivered as she stood. Picking up her tattered army blanket, she turned the bloodstained holes away from her and wrapped herself in it. Pulling it close, she followed after Little Hand unsteadily. Her limbs felt almost too weak to hold her.

The wind peppered her face with tiny pellets of sleet as it blew between tipis. Beneath her frayed moccasins a thin layer of ice cracked like eggshells as she walked over it. Coming around the side of Bull Calf's lodge, she saw a knot of Comanches gathered around someone on horseback. Her breath caught and her heart pounded with the realization that it was a white man.

He was looking at her, and she heard him mutter, "She looks like death warmed over."

"She no sick, no hurt, only
loco,"
Bull Calf declared defensively. "No hurt woman. Saleaweah," he said, beckoning to her. Turning back to the rider, he translated, "Woman Who Walks Far."

As she passed them, women pulled their children into the shelter of their bodies and looked away. Warriors touched medicine sacks and amulets to protect themselves from her evil spirit. But Bull Calf stood his ground, trying not to show fear. Of all of them, only he had been kind. She kept her head averted, afraid he'd look into her face and know she'd duped him.

Hap tried to study her through the fog in his mind. Her face was gaunt and dirt-streaked, her greasy hair a matted nest of God only knew what, and her tattered clothes were filthy. She didn't look much like a white woman until she raised her eyes to him. They were blue, and a furtive hope flickered in them. He didn't have to ask—he knew she'd been through hell. As he looked at her, he didn't trust himself to speak.

Behind her, Bull Calf explained, "She no talk—
loco.
You take woman, tell Haworth only one," he insisted. "He give food, give smoke white chief promise!"

"Look, I—" Knowing he had no strength to help her, he ran his tongue over cracked, wind-raw lips. "I'll try to send somebody back for you," he promised lamely. "I'm sorry." Her eyes widened, then she blinked back tears, shaming him. "I can't—I'm in no shape—" His voice dropped almost to a whisper as he looked away. "I'll get somebody. I won't forget—"

"No! You can't leave me!" Annie cried. "You're my only chance!" Lunging at him, she grabbed his leg and clawed his arm, pulling herself up as she put her moccasined foot on his boot. For a moment she hung there, both of them teetering awkwardly. Then she managed to get her leg across the roan's back. As he struggled to keep his balance, she settled her body behind the saddle and leaned forward. Pulling the blanket up to cover her head and shoulders, she slid her hands beneath his coat to grasp his gun belt.

Shocked that she'd spoken, Bull Calf reached out to her, but she leaned away. "Let's go!" she yelled behind Hap's ear. Her foot kicked Old Red's flank, and the horse broke free, jerking the bridle out of the Comanche's other hand. Hap caught the saddle horn and held on.

Still stunned, Bull Calf stared after them, then found his voice. "You tell white chief Bull Calf no take woman— you tell him! Tell 'um give food!" he shouted.

"You'll rot in hell first," Hap muttered under his breath. As he said it, the woman's knee bumped his left thigh, making him sick to his stomach. It was all he could do to gasp, "Got a bad leg. Damned thing's sore as a boil. Got to watch out for it. Can't stand—"

Feeling him weave unsteadily, she reached around his waist and locked her thin fingers together across his stomach, holding him within her tight embrace. Despite the heavy hide coat, his body felt cold and his shirt was as soaked as if he'd been in the river.

"You sick, mister?" she asked over his shoulder.

He started to deny it, then swallowed the words with another wave of nausea. "Yeah, well, you don't look too good yourself," he managed finally. "Be damned lucky if we make it in."

"We've got to. How far to the agency?"

"I don't know," he gritted out.

All he could think was that he had to concentrate on getting there. He was so tired, so damned weak. He felt like some old man about to nod off, but he couldn't. He had to keep thinking. He had to keep his mind going somehow. With an effort he pursed his lips and tried to whistle "Dixie," but after the first bar he lost his place and had to abandon it.

As silence descended like a curtain between them, the sleet came down harder, icing everything it touched, even his mustache, laying a deceptively pretty glaze over rocks, bare limbs, and dead grass. If the heavy snow would just hold off a little longer... just half an hour longer...

They were going to make it. They had to. She'd come too far, endured too much, to give up now, Annie told herself fervently. She was holding freedom within her grasp, and God could not abandon her now. Closing her eyes, she prayed for the man in front of her, for her own safety, and for Susannah. Always for Susannah. She didn't know how long she prayed, only that she did.

His whole body shook as if he had the ague, and yet he didn't feel cold. He was sweating like it was July instead of November. Blinking to clear his mind, he tried to fix his thoughts on the woman behind him.

"Name's Walker, Hap Walker," he mumbled.

The wind carried his words away. "What?" she shouted.

He roused. "Hap Walker!"

The name seemed familiar, but it had been so long since she'd heard anyone speak her language. Hap Walker, he'd said. She hesitated, then blurted out, "I'm Mrs. Bryce, Annie Bryce!"

Bryce. He ought to know the name. Annie Bryce. He furrowed his brow, trying to break through the haze clouding his mind. Ethan Bryce. And in a flash of lucidity, he was standing on the porch of an empty house, looking across a yard, watching those bedsheets flap on that laundry line, feeling helpless. Yeah, he remembered when it happened, all right.

"Sorry, damned sorry," he mumbled. He slumped, nearly losing his balance, then he righted himself. "Damn."

Alarmed, she turned loose of him long enough to pull her blanket around his shoulders also. Tucking it in at the front of his neck, she could feel his pulse beneath her cold fingers. It was faint and uneven.

"Mister, you need a doctor right now."

"Just got to get there—just got to get there, that's all," he muttered thickly. Willing himself to hang on, he straightened his shoulders. "I'm all right," he insisted, but he knew he wasn't. He was sick enough to die.

The wind had lessened somewhat, but the snow was picking up, coming down in large flakes, laying a white blanket over the veneer of ice. If they got lost in the storm, there wouldn't be any hope for either of them. She felt for the reins, and he didn't resist when she took them.

She had no idea where she was, but she could tell the horse was following a road of sorts, so she let the reins slacken in the hope that the animal would just keep going. Sooner or later they had to reach something, but right now all she could do was try to hold Hap Walker on his horse while she prayed for help. If he lost his seat, she knew she couldn't help him.

They rode what seemed like an eternity through nearly blinding snow. Her arms ached from holding him, yet she didn't dare ease them. Finally, her own fatigue made it nearly impossible to go on. Leaning sideways, she tried to look around him.

"Do you see anything?" she asked anxiously.

He didn't answer.

"Mr. Walker, can you hear me?" she shouted.

Nothing.

Frightened and unable to see much of anything, she reined in and tried to dismount. As she leaned to her right, his weight shifted, and both of them fell, landing in a tangle on the snow-covered ground. His heavier body pinned her there, forcing her to struggle from beneath him. As she rolled him over, he made no effort to help himself. She stood up shakily, then looked down. His eyes were closed, his face ashen.

"Mister, you've got to get up!" Bending over, she tried to lift his shoulder, but couldn't. He fell back like a sack of sand, unmoving.

Panicked, she turned, her eyes searching for some sign of life somewhere. She hadn't come this far to die in a blizzard with a stranger. Tears of frustration stung her eyes, nearly blinding her, then she blinked. Wiping her hand across her face, she stared, scarcely believing what she saw. In the distance the faint outlines of several buildings rose through the swirling snow. They'd almost made it, but not quite.

She scooped a handful of snow and rubbed it over Hap Walker's face, trying to revive him. "Listen, I think I see the agency," she said loudly. "Come on, you've got to get up. We're almost there!"

His eyelids fluttered but did not open. "Go on," he mumbled. "Can't—"

"You've got to!"

It was no use. He wasn't going to move, and she couldn't make him. She straightened her aching shoulders and gathered her blanket closer. Grasping the horse's reins, she tried to pull the animal toward a rock so she could remount. It wouldn't budge, and she didn't have enough strength to fight it, either. Instead, it dropped its head to stand guard over Walker.

Now it didn't matter that she was too weak to walk more than a few steps. If she didn't, they'd both die. And she hadn't survived Two Trees for this. After casting one last, desperate look at Hap Walker, she squared her shoulders beneath the blanket and started for what she hoped was the Indian agency.

Her moccasins slipped and slid on the ice, forcing her to plod through the deeper snow, while the wind whipped the blanket back from her face. Fixing her mind on the agency, she kept her head down and walked. And walked. And walked.

As she stumbled into the agency yard, an Indian came out of the stable and found her. Too tired to fight or think even, she lunged past his outstretched arm, then fell into a snow drift. Summoning the last of her strength, she crawled on all fours to the door, where she collapsed against it. Reaching over her, the Indian rapped the wood with his knuckles. She almost fell inside when the door opened.

"My word, whatever—?"

She looked up, saw a white man standing there, and she managed to gasp, "I left Mr. Walker out there—Hap Walker—and—"

"Hap Walker!"

Catching her breath, she nodded. "I think—I think he may be dead by now. I couldn't help him—" She choked, unable to go on.

Somebody lifted her and carried her to a rocker by the fire. As the blanket slipped, she heard a woman's voice say, "Why, she's naught but skin and bones!" Too exhausted to respond, she turned her head against the hard back of the rocker and held on.

CHAPTER 3

It was cold in the ambulance, and the heavy canvas covering beat like giant bird wings against its frame. Heavily bundled in wool blankets, Annie lay still, fighting to keep down the bowl of beef broth she'd drunk at the Indian agency. A medical corpsman, Corporal Nash, knelt between her and Hap Walker, trying to steady both stretchers as the vehicle rocked and lumbered awkwardly through the snow.

There was an unreality to everything. After months and years of dreaming and planning for this day, she felt an odd detachment, almost a strange, unexpected melancholy. The joy she'd first felt was tempered now by the realization that nothing would ever be the same again, that she'd lost Ethan and Jody forever, that she'd be going home without Susannah. She'd be facing her neighbors alone. And she held no illusions about that.

No, the hope of finding Susannah had sustained her throughout her captivity, and it had to sustain her now. If she gave up on that, she might as well die. She had to believe that either the state of Texas or the United States Army would help her regain her daughter. Without Susannah she had nothing.

Lurking in the back of her mind had always been the fear that Susannah's captor might have murdered her like Two Trees had killed Gretchen Halser. Poor Gretchen. When the soldiers were closing in, Two Trees hoped they'd take some time to bury the white girl, giving him the chance to escape. Annie would have shared the same fate, but instead of cowering, waiting for that final blow, she'd attacked him, shrieking wildly, making him think she'd gone insane. As mean and violent as he was, he feared the spirit world, believing if he killed a possessed person, the evil spirit would take him instead.

So he'd abandoned Annie in a brush-filled ravine, and by the time she'd managed to crawl out of it, the troopers had already passed. Ironically, they never saw Gretchen Halser's body, nor did they hear Annie's cries for help. Left alone in the desert, she'd tried to walk out, taking the opposite direction to keep from being found by Two Trees. She'd believed if she went far enough, she'd encounter a fort—or at the very least, a white settler. And she'd been wrong.

She walked as far as her feet would hold her, losing all sense of time, but it must have been two or three days before a band of Penetaka Comanches found her. She'd never forget the bitter frustration she'd felt, looking up at the ugly, big-chested, bandy-legged Bull Calf. With her last ounce of strength she'd lunged at him, scratching his face, screaming invectives, hoping he'd be as afraid as Two Trees.