Colorado Dawn (41 page)

She couldn’t bear it. Wouldn’t allow it.

Bracing herself, she put a foot on the first step.

A hand touched her shoulder. “Miss Lincoln.”

She turned, impatient to reach Thomas, then saw the worry in Angus Wallace’s startling green eyes. “Yes?”

“Anything you need, ma’am. Anything at all. He’s a good man, so he is. He deserves everything we can do to save him.”

“Yes. He does,” she said and continued up the steps.

It was late. Wind howled at the door like a starving beast, and already snow had formed crescents on the bottoms of the windowpanes.

Shivering, Pru settled deeper into the chair beside the bed and pulled her shawl closer. Even though the little woodstove in the classroom down the hall was blazing as high as it could go, the chill reached into her very bones. She doubted she would ever grow accustomed to it. Having lived most of her life at near sea level in the sultry bayou country of Louisiana, she still struggled with the thin, cold air of the Colorado Rockies.

She watched the slow rise and fall of Thomas’s chest and felt her own lungs take on the tempo, expanding and contracting in unison with his, as if to encourage him to take the next breath. The rhythm soothed her.

Over the last week, her life had been pared down to simple, rote responses to the most basic needs of the man lying in the bed—warmth when he shivered, cool cloths when he burned, water if she could force it down him. Keeping him alive.

She refused to fail him. To do so would wrest all hope from her life.

Thomas made a restless movement, then lay still again.

She checked the small watch she wore pinned in her skirt pocket, wondering if it was time to give him more medicine. His fever had started up again earlier this evening after Declan and Mr. Wallace had stopped by with another basket of food from the hotel kitchen. He had become agitated despite the laudanum the doctor insisted she give him for pain and restlessness. But after dosing him with two droppers of aconite solution, he seemed to have settled somewhat.

The wound had improved but was still oozing. Doc Boyce had shown her how to flush it with carbolized water but said it couldn’t be allowed to close, since it had to heal from the inside out. He had instructed her on how to fix a drawing poultice made from flaxseed and ground mustard, which she was to keep applying as long as it was still drawing out infection. For almost a week now, she had flushed the wound every time she had applied the poultice, and it seemed to Pru the oozing was less and the redness was beginning to fade.

But that could be wishful thinking.

She rolled her head, trying to ease the stiffness in her neck and shoulders. As she did, her gaze fell on the small leather pouch sitting on the bedside table. Declan had given it to her when they’d first brought Thomas to the schoolhouse.

“Keep it safe,” he had said, handing it to her. “It’s sacred to Thomas, and he’ll want it when he wakes up.”

It weighed next to nothing and felt empty except for a single hard, round thing. It had no beading or painted symbols like on his war shirt, and the stitching was crude. “What’s in it?” she had asked Declan.

“He’ll tell you if he wants you to know. Put it where he can see it.”

She had done as he’d asked, thinking this was just one more thing about Thomas she didn’t know. There was so much she might never truly come to terms with…his language, the myths and spirits that guided him, his reverence for all living things even though he would willingly take a life, as she had seen when he had
come to take her from Lone Tree. And she was certain she would never understand the sacred sun dance ceremony that required self-mutilation to prove manhood.

But she did know the heart of the man who bore those terrible scars, and she loved him.

“Eho’nehevehohtse…”

Pru jerked upright in the chair, realizing she had fallen asleep. Her gaze flew to Thomas, who had rolled onto his uninjured side. His eyes were open and fixed on her.

She stared back, trying to find her Thomas in that dark, unwavering gaze, rather than the stranger who had drifted in and out of fevered sleep over the last days.

He smiled weakly. “Prudence.”

“You’re awake.” Rising quickly, she went to rest a hand on his forehead. Cool. No fever. A giddy relief made her hand tremble. Tucking it behind her skirts, she let out the breath she hadn’t even been aware of holding and smiled down at him. “You’re better.”

“Better than what?” He grimaced and licked dry lips with a coated tongue. “Did you give me
mataho
?”

She shook her head, not sure what that was. “Laudanum.”

“I do not like it. You will not give it to me again.”

She smiled at the haughty command even as tears clouded her eyes. He was going to be all right. He was going to live. “Are you hungry?”

“Water, first. Then buffalo steak.”

“Water, first. Then broth.” She was unable to stop the tears from overflowing.

He frowned, his dark eyes shadowed with weariness even though he’d slept a day and a half. “Why do you cry,
heme’oono
?”

She blotted her face with her apron, but still the tears came. “Because I’m happy. Because you’re going to live. Because I couldn’t have borne it if you weren’t.”

He patted the bed beside him. “Come, Prudence. Lie beside me and I will dry your tears.”

She had to laugh. Did the man actually think to come at her in
his condition? “Let me get the water and broth. If you’re still awake after that, maybe I’ll let you read to me from the primer.”

She returned several minutes later with a pitcher of fresh water and a bowl of broth. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, one hand clasped to his injured side, the other clutching the leather pouch. As she set the tray on the table, he looked up with a stricken, almost panicked expression—if such an emotion as panic was possible for Thomas.

“I thought it was gone. I thought I lost it.”

She sat in the chair beside the bed, and leaning forward, braced her crossed arms on her knees. “Declan saved it for you. He told me to put it where you could see it, but I must have accidentally pushed it behind some of the medicine bottles. I’m sorry for worrying you. I know it’s sacred to you.”

“Not sacred. Necessary.”

She waited, but he said no more, and his closed expression forbade her to pry.

After he drank two cups of water and half the broth, he sank back onto the pillows, the pouch still clutched in his hand.

“Would you like for me to put it around your neck?” she asked.

But he was already asleep, the hand holding the pouch resting on his scarred chest.

She pulled the covers over him, then quietly left the room.

He slept most of the next two days. When she went in on the third morning after the fever broke, she found him standing at the window, fully dressed, squinting out at the snow-covered street. The glare of sunshine off the unbroken white was almost painful to the eyes. “You shouldn’t be up,” she scolded, setting the breakfast tray on the chair so she could clear space on the small bedside table.

He didn’t respond but turned to watch in silence as she carefully set the pouch aside, then moved the tray from the chair to the table. This time she’d brought oatmeal with honey and cinnamon, stewed apples, and two coddled eggs.

“Still no meat?” He eyed the tray with a look of disappointment.

“Perhaps tomorrow.”

He started to say something, then changed his mind and came to sit on the bed. He ate in silence and with such single-minded determination she wondered if he was that hungry or simply intent on rebuilding his strength as quickly as possible.

She poured a cup of water for him, then sat back and studied him as he ate. His improvement was remarkable. No fever, the tremble in his hands was gone, his appetite was back. Yet she sensed a distance growing between them and didn’t know what had caused it.

When he finished the last bite of oatmeal and had returned the empty bowl to the tray, she asked if she could check the wounds. He nodded and lifted the leather tunic to expose his bandaged ribs.

She removed the wrappings and was relieved to find no new evidence of infection. She flushed both wounds. His continued silence created an awkwardness that hadn’t been there before. She hated it. Feared it.

“The children do not come for lessons today?”

“It’s Saturday. They won’t be here tomorrow, either.” She didn’t mention that she had closed the school the previous week, as well, because she had been too involved with Thomas to teach the lessons.

“Where is my horse?”

“In the pen around back. Mr. Wallace brought hay and grain.”

“He is Mr. Wallace now? That Scotsman has too many names.”

Smiling at the description, she smeared carbolic ointment on two bandages, then motioned for him to hold them to the wounds while she applied sticking tape.

“He says I owe him for saving my life. When I am well, I will wrestle him and let him win. That should make him happy.” He tipped his head to study her face. “I owe you even more, I think.”

“There is no debt between us, Thomas.”

“I am glad.” He said no more until she finished wrapping the
gauze around his chest, then he dropped the shirt back over his torso and stood. “Thank you, Prudence. Now I will walk.”

“Walk where?”

He pointed down the hall to the far wall of the classroom. “Fifty times. You will listen to me count and tell me if I miss numbers.”

He began stronger than he finished, but he completed the fifty laps, drank copious amounts of water, then slogged through a foot of melting snow to the outhouse rather than use a chamber pot. He ate lunch with the same grim-faced efficiency, washed in a bucket of warm water she brought him, then slept for two hours.

And still that space between them remained.

Pru was beside herself. What had she said or done to cause this breach between them? She could feel him drifting away but had no idea how to stop it. By the time she brought him supper, she was bouncing between anger and fear that she was losing him.

He was at the window again. She set the tray onto the table with a bang, then faced him, hands on hips.

He studied her for a moment, then walked over to take his seat on the bed. He took a bite of chicken, swallowed, and said, “You are angry.”

“No,” she lied. “I’m confused.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because you won’t talk to me.”

“Talk to you about what?”

Throwing her hands up in disbelief, she whirled and left the room.

When she came back later for the tray, she found him doing laps again. She picked up the tray and was turning to leave when he appeared beside her so suddenly she almost ran into him—how did the man move so silently?

Taking the tray from her hands, he set it back on the table, then pulled her into his arms. “Do not be angry,
eho’nehevehohtse.
”

“I’m not angry. I’m confused.”

“Between us nothing has changed. All is well.”

Well?
After his silent treatment? Yet she allowed herself to lean into him, drawing strength from the steady beat of his heart beneath her cheek. He was her anchor, her slender thread back to a life of joy and love and hope. But she doubted she would ever understand him.

Moving his hands to her shoulders, he dipped his head and kissed her, then stepped back. “Sit, Prudence,” he said, motioning to the chair. “I will tell you what is in the pouch so you will understand and put away your anger.”

“I’m not angry.” But she sat and waited for him to speak.

He sat on the edge of the bed across from her, their knees almost touching. “Not long ago,” he began, “I was a Dog Soldier.” As he spoke, he stared past her at some distant point in his mind, his thumb idly stroking the worn leather of the pouch.

“We were foolish. We thought if we were brave enough and fought hard enough, we could defeat the bluecoats. Many died. Still the whites came. When I saw we could not win this war, I talked of finding a better way to take back our lands. But my Cheyenne brothers were too angry to listen.”

She saw the heartache in his eyes, heard it in his voice. Instinctively she reached out to brush her fingertips against his cheek, wanting him to come back to her and away from that sad place.

He seemed not to notice and looked down at the pouch, blinking hard. “I was not afraid to die, Prudence. But I did not want my family to struggle on without me, either. So I took them into the mountains where we could live in peace.”

He opened the pouch and pulled out a short length of straight black hair tied with a leather strip. “This belonged to my wife,” he said and set it on the table at his side. “And this was my son’s.” Another lock, baby fine and glossy as a crow’s wing.

Pru pressed her hand over her mouth.

“And this”—turning the pouch upside down, he shook out a small, misshapen piece of metal—“was the bullet that killed them.” He set it carefully on the table beside the locks of hair. “One bullet.
Through my wife’s back and into my infant son as he slept in her arms.”

When he looked at her, Pru saw the sadness had been replaced by a coldness that took all expression from his face.

“One bullet,
eho’nehevehohtse
. Sent by a trapper who did not even know them but only sought to rid the world of two Indians with a single shot.”

Swallowing hard, Pru clasped her hands in her lap and looked toward the window. Beyond it, darkness turned the snow a ghostly gray.
It will freeze tonight,
she thought. In the morning, they would awaken to a crust of sugary ice crystals that would melt away by afternoon to expose the mud and withered foliage beneath.

It explained so much. That unshakable strength in him. That amused tolerance with which he viewed life, and his protectiveness toward his new family in Heartbreak Creek. There were no surprises left for Thomas. He had seen it all and endured the worst. He had watched his dreams destroyed by a single, random, senseless act of evil and had seen beneath the glittering façade to the harshest reality a human could suffer.

And yet here he was. Still caring. Still trying. Still believing in second chances.