Gear, W Michael - Novel 05 (48 page)

 
          
 
Heals Like A Willow was watching him, drinking
his soul with her eyes.

 
          
 
Witch, you won't win. I'll beat you . . . in
the end. . . .

 
          
 
The ringing in his ears, the growing gray mist
before his eyes, they seemed to fade. If he could just remember. . . what he'd
...

 
          
 
To this war of every man, against every man,
this also is consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and
wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common
power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in
war the two cardinal virtues. Justice, and injustice are none of the faculties
of neither the body, nor mind. ... It is consequent also to the same condition
that there be no propriety, no dominion, no mine and thine distinct; but only
that to be every man's, that he can get; and for so long as he can keep it.

 
          
 
—Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

 
          
 
Reckon that was plumb center!" Travis
called from where he lay. The musket fell from Richard's numb hands as the last
echoes of the shot died away. He walked through the curling blue smoke,
smelling the odor of sulfur from the burned powder. The horses snorted and
stamped, panicked by the scent of blood and the sounds of human violence.
Richard stared at the macabre scene.

 
          
 
What have I done? The young Pawnee's body—the
chest torn open—dear Lord God, so much blood! How did the human body hold it
all?

 
          
 
The young man's eyes were wide in the
penny-brown face, staring and glassy, the black pupils large. Clots of frothy
red blood still leaked from his mouth, soaking into the moldy leaves beneath
his cheek.

 
          
 
Young. So very young.

 
          
 
The woman moaned and moved in a slow writhe.
Richard turned, backing away from the dead man, watching her uncertainly. She
winced in pain.

 
          
 
The Indian hit her. Richard remembered that
twisted fury when the young warrior turned on her. Why? Because she'd laughed.
Right there in the middle of the nightmare, she'd laughed. And the warrior had
gone berserk.

 
          
 
The war club whistling down; the woman
twisting desperately away; the war club bouncing off her back to hit the horse;
the animal rearing. Her body had slammed the ground like a sack of onions.
Still, she'd struggled to escape as the warrior pursued on foot. But her hands
were tied. . . tied

 
          
 
And then I grabbed up Half Man y s musket.
Lifted it as the war club was raised. Had he sighted down the barrel, or just
pulled the cock back and triggered?

 
          
 
Don't remember. But the echoes of the shot
remained— along with the image of the young warrior jerking from the bullet's
impact. Frozen forever in Richard's mind.

 
          
 
He blinked at the woman. Mute misery reflected
in her face, and with it, fear. A young woman, beautiful in a wild sort of way.
Her glossy black hair was loose, spilling over her shoulders. Had he ever seen
hair that black, that lustrous before? Her skin had a smooth radiance, a
vitality he didn't understand.

 
          
 
She had such slender hands, the fingers long
and delicate. Then he saw her wrists' red welts and the rawhide thong that had
cut and chafed them.

 
          
 
"You're safe now," he told her
gently, and tried to smile. He reached out to her, to reassure her. But his
guts felt suddenly queer. The trembling in his fingers moving into the hand
he'd offered her, and on to all of the muscles in his body. Shaking
uncontrollably, he sat down to cradle his head in his hands.

 
          
 
"Oh, God, what did I do?"

 
          
 
"Dick?" Travis called. "Ye all
right, coon?"

 
          
 
Richard rubbed his face with shivering hands.
"I'm alive, Travis. I guess I'm . .. alive. Dear sweet Jesus. I'm alive/'

 
          
 
"Easy, coon," Travis soothed.
"It comes on a body, sometimes. It'll pass."

 
          
 
I killed a man. Shot him dead. He didn't need
to look again. Those empty staring eyes, the blood, would be with him whenever
he closed his eyes. But for the wound and blood, the young Pawnee would have
looked peaceful, as in repose for a nap, his arm outstretched.

 
          
 
Richard glanced at the woman; she watched him
intently with fathomless, dark eyes.

 
          
 
The trembling receded, leaving hollow weakness
in its wake. He stood, again offering his hands. For an eternal moment her eyes
bored into his, and then she reached out to him.

 
          
 
Her hands were cool, firm in his. As he pulled
her to her feet, Richard saw the pain in her face. "You're tougher than I
am," he told her. "After what you've been through, I'd be
screaming."

 
          
 
He held her hands up. The knots had pulled so
tightly that he couldn't undo them.

 
          
 
Her eyes fluttered, expression going slack.
She swayed on her feet then, head lolling, and Richard caught her as she
wobbled and collapsed.

 
          
 
"What the hell?"

 
          
 
Travis laughed from where he lay. "Reckon
she took a hell of a wallop when she hit that ground. This child would guess
she stood up a mite too quick. Pack her over hyar, lad. Let's see what ye
ketched."

 
          
 
Richard got a good grip, and dragged more than
carried her. She should have been heavier. Then he was shockingly aware of her
soft breasts against his arms. He laid her down gently, awed that he'd touched
her so.

 
          
 
Travis studied her with quizzical eyes.
"Snake, by damn! What in hell's she doing clear out hyar?" Then, "Slave,
by God."

 
          
 
"Slave? But she's Indian."

 
          
 
Travis gave him a disgusted glance. "And
I reckon yer Roosoo don't figger 'man in nature' takes slaves?"

 
          
 
"It's Rousseau. And no, he didn't."

 
          
 
"Wal, lad, a Pawnee don't tie up his wife
with bindings like this. Let's see—roll her moccasins down."

 
          
 
Richard tried not to touch her warm skin as he
pulled the soft tops of her moccasins down to her ankles. The welts there had
mostly healed.

 
          
 
"Slave, all right, " Travis cocked
his head, curious blue eyes on Richard. "Reckon she's yern."

 
          
 
"What?"

 
          
 
Travis scratched at his beard with blood-caked
fingers. "Wal, hoss. Ye raised that Pawnee what had her. She's yers now by
mountain law. Reckon she's worth keeping, too. She's right pert. Do ye a good
day's work. Warm yer bed at night, if'n she don't drive a knife atwixt yer ribs
while yer on her."

 
          
 
"Travis! She's—she's a human being. I
won't own another human being. It's . . . beastly."

 
          
 
"Wal, fine, Dick. Reckon ye won't mind
if'n I take her?"

 
          
 
"You take! Hell, no! She's free,
Travis."

 
          
 
The hunter chuckled. "Ye takes some, ye
does, Dick. You and yer Yankee ideas."

 
          
 
Richard sighed wearily, absently stroking the
woman's hair. How incredibly soft. He'd imagined Indian hair to be bristly. But
then, he'd never touched a woman's hair like this—or a woman's breast, for that
matter. She was so unlike his Laura.

 
          
 
Travis winced. "Now, why don't ye take my
strike-alight, and build us a fire. I reckon we ain't a-going nowhere
soon."

 
          
 
"I don't know how to make a fire,
Travis."

 
          
 
"Wal, coon, it appears t' be yer day fer
laming."

 
          
 
Heals Like A Willow slept late into the night
She blinked, coming awake slowly. The pain wasn't just part of her dreams. She
cataloged the sounds as she tried to gather her muzzy thoughts: the distant
hoot of an owl. Horses cropped nearby, and water was trickling through the
grass. A fire popped. Someone grunted in pain.

 
          
 
Pain? She reached up to rub her face. Her head
ached as if she'd been clubbed half to death . . . and the memories of the
afternoon came back in vivid clarity.

 
          
 
White men! Packrat was dead.

 
          
 
Willow
sat up and gasped. The ache in her head
left her sick and reeling. Agony shot up through her hips and back.

 
          
 
A blanket had been placed over her against the
chill of the night, and when she looked down, her wrists were free. When had
that happened? How long had she been out?

 
          
 
Short flames licked up periodically around a
chunk of firewood lying in a round bed of glowing coals. In the firelight, she
could see one of the White men, the old one. Those odd, pale eyes watched her
with interest. His face was drawn in pain. It looked wrong, somehow misshapen,
but she knew little of White men and how they ought to look.

 
          
 
He made the sign for her people:
"Snake?"

 
          
 
She nodded then signed: "What are you
going to do with me?"

 
          
 
He smiled crookedly. "Free."