Comanche Moon (6 page)

Loretta felt a rush of tears welling in her eyes. Angrily she dashed the wetness from her cheeks.

Tom sighed, and before she knew what he was about, he stepped onto the porch and took her in his arms. ‘‘Ah, Loretta girl, don’t cry. I’ve got hide thicker’n a buffalo’s, and I’m twice as ornery. Ain’t no dad-burned Injun gonna get the best of me. I’m goin’ to Belknap because it’s gotta be done. When I git back, we’ll take up right where we left off, me bein’ a pest, no obligation on your part. I understand that, and I’m goin’ anyways. Clear? Take a herd of horses to stop me.’’

Loretta wrinkled her nose. The smell of his shirt stifled her. His hand on her back was gentle, though, reminiscent of her father’s when he had held her this way. She twisted her face to one side to get some air, her cheek to his chest.

He gave her a fierce hug, then grasped her firmly by the shoulders and set her back from him to study her face. There was a curious gleam in his eye that made her uneasy. Catching her chin, he tipped her head farther back. As if reading her mind, he said, ‘‘Don’t be afraid of me, Loretta Jane. I’d never set out to hurt you.’’

His voice rang with such sincerity that Loretta relaxed. She no sooner did than she saw his head bending. Here it came, the dreaded kiss. . . .

Chapter 3

LORETTA CLAMPED HER LIPS TOGETHER. The next second, Tom’s beard touched her skin, coarse as a wire scrub brush, and from its bushy center protruded hot, wet lips that smacked down on hers with bull’s-eye accuracy. His arms tightened and pulled her flat against him. Then he darted his tongue past her lips and licked her teeth. Was this how people kissed? He tasted of sour tobacco, and her gorge rose. By the tense way he held her, she knew he was trying to elicit a response. She hated to hurt his feelings but couldn’t pretend she liked any part of what he was doing. What little bit of dinner she had managed to swallow earlier was working its way back up her throat.

Just when she feared her convulsing stomach might humiliate them both, Tom gave her a pat and turned her loose, smiling as if he had done himself proud. His eyes glowed with fondness. ‘‘I thank you for that, Loretta. It was mighty fine, and even if you don’t never marry me, I’ll have it to remember.’’ He gave her a little push toward the door. ‘‘You git on back in the house now.’’

As revolting as she had found his kiss, Loretta hesitated. At times, her silence rose around her like a wall.

‘‘I’ll be careful, and there’s no need for thanks.’’ He flashed a grin. ‘‘Don’t stand there lookin’ silly. You only think you can’t talk, girl. Them there eyes of yours never shut up. Now, go on, git. I can’t leave with you standin’ out here.’’

In a swirl of skirts, she turned back and hugged his neck, surprising herself as much as him. Before she lost her nerve, she kissed his cheek. Then she dashed into the house, her heart pounding like a kettledrum. Through the door cracks, she heard Tom chuckle. She swiped the back of her hand across her lips to get rid of the tobacco taste. Only then could she smile.

As soon as the dishes were washed, Loretta climbed the ladder to the loft where she and Amy shared a bed. The fading light of the downstairs fire shone through the cracks of the planked floor, shooting shafts of muted gold clear to the rafters. Amy’s soft, regular breathing whispered in the semidarkness. She slept in a sprawl with the gray down quilt thrown off her hot little body, the hem of her nightdress riding high on her skinny thighs. Loretta went to the foot of the bunk and unfastened the doeskin membrane on the window to let in some air. The child sighed in her sleep and muttered something.

A breath of coolness touched Loretta’s bare limbs when she peeled off her clothes. It felt so good that she lifted her arms and turned a full circle, allowing the night air to wash over her before she hung her dress on the hook and slapped at it to get the wrinkles out. Every little crease showed on homespun. Remembering better times, mostly in Virginia, but some here in Texas when her parents had still been alive, Loretta sighed and went to the nightstand. Sloshing water from the pitcher into the washbasin, she added a dash of lavender, then carried the bowl and her washcloth to the windowsill.

Leaning her head back, she began her nightly ritual, wringing the rag to trickle the scented water along her throat and over her breasts. In summer, the customary week between tub baths seemed like an eternity. Running the cloth slowly over her body, she closed her eyes. Lands, it was so hot. A female could cook in this country, wearing all those clothes.

She had finished bathing and was rinsing her drawers in the leftover water when a coyote wailed. She poked her head out the window to watch the full moon. A wisp of cloud drifted across the moon’s milky face, casting ghostly shadows on the ground.
A Comanchemoon.
Uncle Henry said it was called that because the Indians often raided on moonlit nights. Good light to murder by, she guessed.

Comanches.
She backed from the window and clasped her soppy bloomers to her chest. Was she insane, flitting around naked?

‘‘Loretta Jane Simpson!’’ Henry yelled. ‘‘Damn, girl, you’re pourin’ water through the ceilin’ like it’s a bloomin’ sieve!’’

Leaping back to the window, Loretta knocked the bowl over as she held her underwear out the opening.
Oh, blast!
She watched the bowl go bumpety-bump down the bark slabs. And stop. Right at the edge of the roof.

‘‘What in hell?’’ Footsteps thumped. ‘‘Quiet it down up there, or I’ll come up and shush you good.’’

Loretta swallowed. The pitch of the roof was steep. How could she retrieve the bowl without telling Henry? He’d be a wretch about it. She just knew he would. Amy moaned and murmured. Tomorrow, she’d find a way to get the bowl tomorrow.

After throwing on her nightgown, she hung her underwear over the sill to dry and sat on the edge of the bunk to brush and plait her hair. On the bedside table was a portrait of Rebecca Adams Simpson, her mother. In the dim light, her features were barely discernible, but Loretta knew each curve of her face by heart. Sadness filled her, and she traced the scrolled frame with a fingertip. If her father had yelled about water dripping through the floor, Rebecca would have said, ‘‘Oh, pshaw, Charles, don’t get in a fuss.’’ Not that Charles Simpson would have yelled. He had been a small man with a quiet manner.

Loretta opened the nightstand drawer. Inside, arranged upon a fold of linen, were her mother’s diamond comb and her father’s razor. Two mementos and a portrait, all she had left of her parents. Her mouth hardened. The comb had been one of a pair, her mother’s most prized possessions. Now, only this one remained, the other taken by a Comanche along with Rebecca’s scalp. Tears filled Loretta’s eyes again, making her wonder what had come over her since Hunter’s visit. Seven years, and she hadn’t shed a single tear, and now she couldn’t seem to stop crying. It didn’t make any sense. The time for grief was long past, and Loretta didn’t cotton to weepiness.

She closed the drawer with a click and wiped her cheeks with the heels of her hands. As she stretched out by Amy, she pulled her rosary from beneath her pillow. Kissing the cross, she whispered her soundless prayers, comforted to know that God could hear her.

It seemed a long while before the pressure in her chest subsided and an uneasy sleep stole over her. Then, suddenly, she awakened, not knowing why but glad to have an end to her dream. She lay rigid in the bed, her nightdress wringing wet, her throat aching with unvoiced screams, and remembered the Indian of her nightmare. With trembling fingers, she clutched her rosary and stared at the window. Had she glimpsed a shadow there, or was that more of her dream?

The night wind whispered, rattling the bark on the roof. She strained her ears. A footstep? A rustle of leather? She set her rosary aside and crawled to the window. Silver light shifted in the swaying trees along the river, and she felt a cool breeze.

Oh, Lordy, her pantalets were gone!

She clutched the sill and eased her head through the square. What she saw didn’t surprise her. Hunter sat astride his horse, right out in the open, bold and challenging. The wind caught his hair, whipping it about his carved features. He lifted a powerfully muscled arm to her in silent salute, his fist clutching her wet drawers. For several endless seconds they stared at one another, then he wheeled his horse, his arm still held high, her ruffled underwear fluttering like a flag of glory behind him. Loretta watched long after he rode from sight.

I’m dreaming. He wasn’t really there. I’ve just been dreaming.
She had nearly convinced herself when her gaze fell to the edge of the roof. Where was her bowl? Had the heathen lowlife swiped that as well? Then she spotted it sitting under the window. She knew then that the Comanche had been there and had stared at her while she dreamed of him. She couldn’t make herself touch the bowl.
He
had touched it. Oh, mercy. And now he had her drawers. Had he spied on her while she bathed? The thought made her feel naked as sin.

She began to shake. She sank back onto the bed and hugged herself, trembling so violently that she was afraid she might wake Amy. Her dream came back to haunt her. She stared at the uncovered window and wondered if she should refasten the membrane and pull the shutters closed. Picturing his huge knife, she rejected the idea. If he wanted in, it would take more than wood to keep him out.

Her thoughts flew to Tom Weaver. He had to make it back in time. He simply had to.

Loretta awoke the next morning to find Amy’s face hovering above hers. The girl’s blue eyes were wide with questions, her bow-shaped mouth agape. It was barely dawn, that eerie, quiet time when the sun still strained to peek over the horizon. Shafts of blue-gray light slanted through the loft window, but beyond their anemic glow, the room was still dark. Loretta scuttled deeper under the quilt.

‘‘You woke me up,’’ Amy accused in an emphatic whisper. ‘‘You talked out in your sleep and woke me up.’’

Loretta stifled a yawn and blinked.

‘‘You talked! Dad-blast if you didn’t!’’

Dad-blast?
If Aunt Rachel got wind of the language Amy was using, she would scour her mouth with lye soap. Coming wide awake, Loretta rolled over on her side. Amy shifted on her knees, pressing her face so close that Loretta’s eyes crossed.

‘‘Do it again,’’ she insisted. ‘‘Say somethin’. I
knew
I heard you make a noise yesterday. Boy, won’t Ma have fits? Talk, Loretta. Say my name.’’

Nonplussed, Loretta decided that she wasn’t the only one who had been dreaming.

‘‘Come on, Loretta, you ain’t tryin’ by half. Say my name.’’ A determined glint crept into Amy’s eyes. ‘‘Say something—or I’ll get Ma’s hatpin and give you a poke.’’

A tense silence followed. Then, in a hoarse, terrified whisper, Amy cried, ‘‘Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat, there’s Injuns in the yard!’’

Loretta catapulted upward and landed on all fours in the middle of the bed. Peeking out over the windowsill, she looked at the yard and saw—just that: the yard. Not an Indian in sight. Amy reared back, her eyes the size of cow pies. Loretta skewered her with a murderous glare.

‘‘Well, it might’ve worked.’’

Relief made Loretta giddy. She flopped down on the mattress and hugged her pillow. Her heart felt as though it might pound its way up her throat.
Hunter.
When Amy had said Indians were outside, Loretta had pictured him as he had looked yesterday, high atop his horse with a hundred warriors behind him, his broad chest and corded arms rippling in the sunlight. She had never seen such fierce, burning eyes.

‘‘I—Loretta, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to give you that bad a turn, honest. I was just funnin’ you.’’

Loretta clenched her teeth and burrowed her face deeper into the pillow. She wanted to throttle Amy for her foolishness.

‘‘Loretta, please, don’t be mad. I never thought you’d believe me. Where’s your sense of humor? You don’t really think that ol’ Injun will come back? What would an Injun want with a skinny runt like you? They like fat, brown girls who smear bear grease all over themselves. You’re probably downright ugly to his way of thinkin’, the drabbest-lookin’ female he ever saw. No gee-gaws. Stinky, too, with that lavender smell on you. And no creepy-crawlies in your hair.’’

Loretta kept her face buried, determined not to laugh.

‘‘And sayin’ he liked you? There ain’t no such thing as a polite Comanche. He wouldn’t
buy
you! He’d just steal you. He came to look at you, that’s all. Maybe he thought he had a hankerin’ for ya and decided different once he got here.’’

Turning her head, Loretta cracked an eye, smothering a grin.

‘‘Come to think of it, you do look sort of pitiful,’’ Amy teased. ‘‘That’s probably why he rode off. He took one look and got such a fright, he still ain’t stopped runnin’.’’

Springing to her knees, Loretta grabbed her pillow and whacked Amy over the head. Amy, well aware that Henry would tan both their fannies if they woke him, smothered a shrill giggle, dove for her own pillow, and came up fighting. For several minutes they pummeled one another. Then exhaustion took its toll, and they collapsed upon the bed in a heap, their gowns damp with perspiration, their cheeks rosy from suppressing laughter.

When she caught her breath, Amy whispered, ‘‘I guess maybe I dreamed you was talkin’. You reckon?’’

Nuzzling her cheek against the quilt, Loretta smiled and nodded. With the golden streaks of dawn behind her, Amy looked like an angel, her hair a molten halo about her heart-shaped face, her eyes big and guileless. What an illusion.

Amy fiddled with the corner of her pillow, her small, freckled nose wrinkling in a frown. ‘‘You ever heard tell of blessed release?’’ she asked softly.

It was Loretta’s turn to frown. Talk about out of the blue. Who had told Amy about such a thing?

‘‘Last week after we run into them Injuns by the river, Ma was talkin’ to old lady Bartlett, and they was sayin’ a decent woman was better off seekin’ blessed release than bein’ took by Comanches. What’s that mean? It’s somethin’ bad, ain’t it?’’