Defiant (28 page)

“We take him back to camp,” Manchez said. “Shavna will care for him.”

Wade hesitated. He knew only too well how Mary Jo felt about Indians, but he also remembered she had said the only doctor in the area was none too competent. He knew that Shavna often tended to the ill, that she filled in when the medicine man wasn't along. And he wasn't now, which was just as well. Sickness and its cures for the Utes were related to spiritualism and religion. Sometimes the medicine man or shaman went into long trances or would press the top of his own head against the sick spot on the patient's body, then ceremoniously spit from his mouth to the source of the sickness. Their herbs and poultices, though, were usually very effective.

And Mary Jo herself was good at healing. Wade was alive because of her.

Manchez waited for his reply, and Wade nodded. The wound was deep but Wade didn't think it was fatal. Blood poisoning, though, could be. And Wade trusted his Indian friends more than a drunken white doctor.

Because of Wade's bad arm, Manchez lifted the boy and handed him carefully to Cavera, who cradled him in his arms. Wade mounted his horse as Manchez gracefully leapt on the back of his, and they headed toward the mountain valley.

Mary Jo had spent a tense day in the Ute camp, despite Shavna's efforts to distract and comfort her. She was invited to join the women in tanning several deerskin hides, and she did so because she
had
to do something or go crazy, just as she used to wash floors over and over again when her husband had been late from an assignment.

Despite those moments of shared motherhood with Shavna, she felt awkward and out of place among these women dressed in deerskin dresses. Her skirt and blouse were hot and dirty but she couldn't force herself to wear the dress with its short skirt that would reveal most of her legs. Not here, not among … people she didn't know. She tried to erase the word “savages” from her mind. She held on to Shavna's kindnesses, to the fact that these Indians were looking for her son, that they were so obviously Wade's friends. “Brother,” he'd said.

But it was hard not to want to slide away, to close her ears to the melodic language she didn't understand, to close her eyes to the differences she didn't want to fear but did. So she kept her hands busy, using a large bone scraper to rub the flesh and hair from the skin, as she watched others work the skins in various other stages. One woman was stretching a drying skin by placing one end between her feet and continually pulling over and over again. Others were tending small fires, smoking hides propped over them.

While the other women worked, one of them tended to the children laughing and playing with sticks and balls covered in hide. It was the children who made her relax, who gave her a feeling of normalcy. She'd always wanted more children, and it had been a matter of sorrow that there had been no more after Jeff.

Her hands kept moving, but she felt herself smiling at one of the children, a little girl of three or so, who followed one of the older boys who was running. She fell on her bottom and chuckled, her face full of pure joy at being young and free. The other women nodded and smiled, and suddenly there weren't any differences anymore, none that mattered.

If only she knew that Jeff was safe—

Just then the camp dogs started to bark, and the children stopped playing. The camp suddenly became still, except for the woman pulling the hide, and the two tending the fires. Everyone else turned toward the opening in the mountain that led to the valley, and Mary Jo knew the men were returning. Mary Jo stiffened, her fear returning. What if they hadn't found Jeff, or what if they had, and he was—

But she couldn't think of that. She would know. Somehow she would know that her heart was gone.

She saw Wade first. He was riding as easily as the others, but he had a saddle, and his height and lighter hair made him stand out. And then she saw the others. Four of them, one of them holding something, another leading an old chestnut horse. Her chest seemed to burst with pain, with raw anguish, but then the riders were almost upon them, and Wade had slid off his horse and taken two quick steps toward her. “He's alive, Mary Jo,” he said. “Hurt some, but alive.”

Her gaze went immediately to the Ute lowering her son to another man. Mary Jo recognized Manchez, and she saw the gentleness in the way he took her son and moved toward Shavna's tepee. She followed, frantic to see some sign of life, kneeling next to her son as soon as he was laid down on the ground. She saw the blood-soaked cloth first and looked up toward Wade, who had also entered the small, compact space.

“Cougar,” he said. “Manchez shot him just as he sprang on Jeff. If he hadn't …”

Mary Jo looked up at the Ute. “Thank you,” she said brokenly. “Thank you for my son.”

He gave her a nod and left, while Mary Jo unwrapped the cloth from the wound, wincing at the raw meanness of it. Shavna had entered and kneeled on the other side. Jeff was so still, his face pale. She put her palm to his face, willing her strength into him, willing life into him. She looked up at Wade, looking for reassurance.

But he was looking intently at Jeff, his face expressionless.

Mary Jo looked back at her son. Her hand hadn't left his face. “Jeff?” Then louder, “Jeff.”

Shavna looked up at Wade and said something Mary Jo didn't understand.

“She said it's better he sleeps while she tends his wound.”

“I'll tend him,” Mary Jo said, more sharply than she intended.

The Indian woman looked up at Wade questioningly.

Wade reached over with his good hand and touched Mary Jo's arm. “Come with me,” he said gently.

She shook her head stubbornly.

“You want him to die?”

She looked at his face. The gentleness was gone, and a hardness had taken its place. “I can't leave him,” she said.

“Do you have medicines with you?”

She didn't. She didn't have anything but her heart.

“The Utes are good at healing. They have herbs and poultices that work. I've seen it. But they won't do it with you questioning everything. Come with me, just for a few moments. He'll be all right, I swear it.”

Mary Jo looked at Shavna, saw the compassion in her face, the desire to help. She reached up and took Wade's hand, letting him pull her up. She looked back at Jeff for a moment, reluctant, so reluctant to leave. She looked again at Wade. He nodded.

She had trusted him again, had sought him out, and he had found Jeff for her. She had no choice but to trust him again. But it went against everything she knew, everything she believed. She leaned against him, feeling his strength, his confidence, letting it seep into her. His arm went around her. “He'll be all right,” he whispered. “A scar, no more.”

She looked up into the green eyes, so deep and intense. And she believed. She believed he could move the moon if he tried. She let him lead her outside, into the sun.

“Thank you for finding him.”

“It was Cavera who found the trail, Manchez who killed the cougar. I … couldn't reach my gun in time.” Agony slid across his face.

“They wouldn't have done those things if it weren't for you.”

“And Jeff wouldn't be in there, cut by that cougar, if it weren't for me,” he said bitterly. “Every person I touch is … hurt.” Mary Jo knew he started to say something else, perhaps “dead,” and a shudder ran through her.

“No,” she said.

He looked away from her.

“I need you now.” Her voice was little more than a whisper.

“They'll take good care of him.”

“I know,” she said.

“No doubts?” he asked, bitterness still in his voice. “No fear they might scalp him instead of heal him?”

“No.”

He spun around and faced her. “You were damn sure they might a few days ago.”

Shame coursed through Mary Jo, shame and chagrin. She knew now what he'd tried to tell her, and she'd refused to hear. Shavna was no different than she. She loved her children as Mary Jo did, loved her husband as Mary Jo had, had taken a stranger, one obviously suspicious, to her heart because of a friend and a shared love of children.

“I was sure of a lot of things a few days ago, a few weeks ago. Now I'm not sure of anything,” Mary Jo said.

His lips quirked slightly in a half smile that disappeared almost immediately, replaced by the despair that had enveloped him seconds ago. She touched his good arm. “It wasn't your fault. None of this was.”

“He was following me. He thought … godammit, he thought I needed help. And I do. I always will with this arm. I couldn't shoot that cougar, I couldn't even carry Jeff. I'm no damn good for anything except—”

“Except …?”

“You don't know anything about me, Mrs. Williams,” he said in a hoarse voice. “You think you do, but you don't. Everyone I've ever cared for has died, everyone who has ever cared for me. It's like a damn shadow that follows me wherever I go.”

“Jeff isn't going to die. You said so.”

“Only because of a miracle,” he said flatly. “Only because Manchez was there. Jeff came too damn close. That's twice now, both times because of me. There won't be a third time.”

It was as if a cold wind blew through Mary Jo. In just a few weeks, he had become so important to her, to Jeff. While part of her realized he wouldn't stay, she'd never really admitted it to herself. Until now. His eyes were cold, like the death he'd spoken of. His jaw was set, the lines in his face more pronounced, like ridges in a mountain, unyielding and stubborn.

“You'll take us home?”

“Tom Berry can do that better than I.”

“And the horses you mentioned? He can't drive them back with Rachel. Besides, he doesn't like me.”

“He wouldn't have brought you here if he didn't like you,” Wade replied, although the set of his chin eased some, perhaps at the thought of Rachel the mule driving the horses.

“He doesn't like children,” she continued to argue.

“Jeff's no longer a child. It took a man to survive out here for four days.” There was approval in his voice. “If it hadn't been for that cougar …”

“He cares for you a great deal.”

Wade turned away. “I don't want him to care about me,” he said in that hoarse voice that Mary Jo now recognized as emotion he wouldn't, or couldn't, express in any other way. It was meant to be harsh, a warning, but it had the opposite effect. Mary Jo heard the need in it, the raw desperation in the denial.

She started to say something, but then Shavna poked her head from the tent, and gestured to her. She turned and hurried inside, kneeling once more next to Jeff.

His eyes were trying to open, and his thin body jerked with pain as he moved. There was a poultice, something that looked like moss, on the wound, but she also saw tiny little stitches at its edge. She placed a hand on his uninjured shoulder. “It's all right, Jeff. You're safe. You're all right now.”

Jeff looked frantically around, noting first the tepee and then finally Shavna, who was also kneeling next to him. “This is Shavna,” Mary Jo said. “Wade's friend. She's been taking care of you.”

“Shavna,” he whispered and tried to smile, a terribly lopsided smile that was half grimace. Mary Jo felt her heart jerk around inside.

“I'm … sorry,” he said, his gaze returning to her. “It was … dumb leaving, but—” He stopped.

“But what?” she asked gently.

“I thought … maybe if I could help Wade, he would …” His voice trailed off again.

“Stay?” she asked.

He nodded miserably. “I … just showed how much trouble I was.”

She put her hand to his cheek. “It's all right, Jeff. I don't think he cares about that now that you're all …” She hesitated, unable to finish the sentence. After a moment, she started again. “How do you feel?”

He tried to smile again, but his heart obviously wasn't in it. “Not so good. My head hurts, and I—” He looked down at his chest, then up at Shavna. He tried to move, but he fell back down with a groan.

His eyes seemed to cloud. “A big cat … a cougar. I saw it come at me.”

Mary Jo took his hand, clasping it tight. “Shavna's husband killed it just as it came down on you. Your head hit the ground, knocking you unconscious.”

His gaze searched behind her. “Wade?”

“He's outside. He helped bring you back.”

“I knew he would,” Jeff said. “I knew he would find me. Can I see him?”

“Not now,” she said. “I think you should get some rest.”

“Is he angry?”

“No,” she said gently. “He's grateful you're alive, just like I am.”

“I didn't mean to worry you.” His face flushed as he realized the foolishness of his words.

“Just promise you won't ever do anything like that again,” Mary Jo said.

He moved slightly, and pain flashed across his face. Shavna leaned down and held a cup to his lips. He took a sip and shook his head, but the Indian woman pressed it against his lips again, and Mary Jo nodded at him to drink. Wincing at the taste, he did.

Manchez had been sitting cross-legged in the back of the tepee. “He will sleep now,” he said. He and his wife exchanged looks, and Mary Jo saw the affection dart between them. And love. She suddenly felt envy.

She looked down at Jeff. His hand was still clenched in hers, but his eyes were already closing. His breathing was regular, his color not quite as pale as when he was brought in. Gratitude welled up inside her. She gently unraveled her hand from Jeff's and both of hers took Shavna's. “Thank you,” she said, hoping she understood.

Shavna gave her a shy smile and nodded, her hands briefly tightening around Mary Jo's before letting go.

Cavara, the Ute who had found Jeff, insisted that Wade and Mary Jo use his tepee that night.