The Endless Sky (Cheyenne Series) (35 page)

      
Stephanie stood frozen with shock. He could die in this savage wilderness! She had always known, from the time he left her in Boston, that his life with the Cheyenne would be dangerous. Learning about his dual identity and the raids had increased her awareness a hundredfold but somehow the image of him lying bloody and cold, shot dead, had never been real before. It was now. She worked her way through the murmuring crowd toward the lodge, never even thinking about what his death would mean to a white captive left alone among hostile Indians hundreds of miles from civilization. This was Chase, the only man she had ever loved, even if it was a forbidden love.

      
He cannot die!

      
Elk Bull stood guarding the door and upon seeing her approach, he braced his feet apart and crossed his arms, a formidable warrior whose impassive face revealed nothing. It was apparent he would not let her pass.

      
“Please. You must let me help. I'm a nurse—a healer.” She reached frantically through her limited vocabulary in his language and came up with the words, “medicine woman,” pressing her fist to her chest to emphasize the point.

      
The big man remained unmoved but from inside Stands Tall heard her plea and pulled open the skin covering. Elk Bull stood aside then and she entered the dim interior. Red Bead and the shaman Sitting Medicine worked over Chase's unconscious body. He was breathing shallowly as his great-aunt cut away the bloodied shirt from his injured shoulder.

      
Stephanie knelt beside the old woman while Sitting Medicine chanted, keeping a watchful eye on the white captive. “He's lost a lot of blood. It's a wonder he made it back here.”

      
“He rode from Fort Laramie,” Red Bead said matter-of-factly.

      
“That must be over two hundred miles,” Stephanie whispered, looking at the waxy pallor beneath his bronzed skin.

      
Red Bead instructed Stephanie, “Go and gather more red dock and make a paste. I do not have enough here. I have shown you how. It dries in the winter sun, growing along the river's edge.”

      
Stephanie knew the plant helped clot the blood when poulticed over a wound. She ran from the lodge to the river and did as she was bidden, returning quickly as images of Chase's blood-soaked clothing flashed in her mind. As she reentered the lodge with the medicine, Chase's eyes fluttered open and focused on her, pain and fever clouded, yet flickering with recognition.
Stevie
. Had he said her name aloud? She was not certain if his lips moved but she felt the jolt of communication deep in her heart.

      
“Send her away. She disturbs the Spirits,” Sitting Medicine said to Red Bead in Cheyenne.

      
But before the old woman could reply, Chase's hand reached out and clutched Stephanie's as she knelt at his side. She stroked the long black hair from his fevered brow, caressing his face. “Don't you dare die on me, Chase Remington. I won't let you. Your people need you.”
I need you!

      
Red Bead turned to Sitting Medicine. “I think the Spirits are content,” she said simply.

      
“It is his white blood, then, that wins him in the end. I can do nothing for a white man.” The fat old man stood up. Gathering his robes regally around him, he stalked from the lodge.

      
Stephanie did not require fluency to understand the gist of the exchange. “We must save him, Red Bead,” she whispered. The old woman merely grunted, then continued cleaning the wound. When she made ready to apply the poultice, Stephanie asked, “Has the bullet come out the back?”

      
“It is still inside,” Red Bead replied. “We can do nothing for that.”

      
“He will die of blood poisoning or infection if we don't take it out.”

      
“He has lost much blood already. He can not lose more,” the old woman said, but she looked at Stephanie with a measuring gaze as if trying to decide what she should do.

      
“I've seen white doctors remove bullets from soldiers. I can do it,” she added after a moment's hesitation.

      
Red Bead knew most warriors shot by the Long Knives died if the bullets remained inside. She, too, hesitated for a bit, then nodded. “You will need a knife.”

      
Stephanie took the slender boning knife the old woman offered her and laid it in the fire with trembling hands. She had assisted post surgeons several times when soldiers were brought in with gunshot wounds. Although the skill levels among army physicians were not particularly high in spite of their medical degrees, they had ether and scalpels. Could she do as she had said? If this were any man but Chase she would not find it half so daunting.

      
Yet he would surely die if she did not try...but he might also die because she did. What would be her fate if the Cheyenne believed she had killed her captor? Stephanie realized that it did not matter. If Chase died, her life meant nothing at all to her. Willing herself to stop shaking, she picked up the blade, now sterilized by the flames. “Be ready with the poultice to stop the bleeding as soon as I get out the bullet,” she said to Red Bead.

* * * *

      
“He will need chickada to help him sleep and feverweed to rub over his body to bring out the sweats,” Red Bead said late that night. Both women were bone weary. After digging out the ugly lump of lead, Stephanie had been terrified that the ordeal would kill him. He had awakened at the first probe of her knife but clenched his teeth after looking at her and saying, “Do it.”

      
She had. Midway he had passed out and then the blood from her probing had welled out in a frightening amount. Calmly Red Bead had poulticed the clean wound and the red dock did stop the flow after a few moments—the longest of Stephanie's life. They watched over him until past moonset when the fever came on and he began to thrash and moan.

      
The old woman dug into the big buckskin sack holding her various medicines and retrieved several items. First she steeped an infusion from chickada leaves and stems and spooned it between Chase's lips as Stephanie held his head. When the restless tossing abated a bit Red Bead nodded in satisfaction.

      
Stephanie was unfamiliar with feverweed and watched as the old woman mixed the herb with sweet grass, then soaked it in a bowl of water. “Rub it on his skin—all over,” she said, pulling away the covers in the warm lodge.

      
When she began unfastening the fly of his pants, Stephanie swallowed nervously.” All over?” she echoed.

      
“All over,” Red Bead replied with a hint of a smile, as she pulled the pants off, leaving Chase lying naked on the pallet. The old woman took a fistful of the herbal concoction and began to massage it up one arm. Hesitantly Stephanie did the same for his other arm, beginning with his long elegant fingers. How beautiful his hands were. She remembered how they had felt caressing her body, cradling her face as he kissed her. Thoughts like that were dangerous. She suppressed them.

      
Just as they worked their way to his chest, Red Bead stopped. “You see how it is done. Now finish it. Then repeat each time he grows hotter until the fever breaks. I am tired and must sleep.” With that announcement, she stood up and slipped through the door, leaving the white woman alone with Chase.

Chapter Sixteen

      
Unable to stop herself, Stephanie looked down at his body. Once when she was half-frozen and semiconscious, helpless, he had looked on her naked body, touching it intimately, warming her to save her life. Now she must save his life. Had he looked at her, studied her flesh the way she longed to feast her eyes on his? Had she been as beautiful to him as he was to her?

      
“Stop it,” she commanded herself, taking a fresh handful of the sopping herbs and plopping it on his chest. Doggedly she set to work, trying not to think about what she was doing as her hands rubbed gently downward, following the arrow descent of hair across his hard belly which pointed to the heavy patch at the juncture of his thighs where his sex lay. Avoiding that forbidden territory, she began to work on his legs beginning with his feet, moving upward. When she reached the same inevitable destination a few moments later, she paused. Surely Red Bead did not mean
there
!

      
All over
echoed in her mind.

      
All over it would be. Easier said than done. For all the nursing she had done, never had she handled a man—any man, much less this one—so intimately. In the post hospitals the soldiers were always covered below the waist and male orderlies took care of their personal needs. She gathered her courage and continued, working gingerly around his genitals with the cool wet grasses. When his staff swelled a bit and twitched reflexively, she jumped back. Then realizing he was unconscious, she resumed her ministrations. She was merely curious about how male anatomy worked, she told herself, in spite of the heat flaming in her cheeks. In three years of marriage, she had never once looked upon Hugh's naked body—and never wanted to. But this was different...this was Chase.

      
Chase, who is deathly ill
, she reminded herself as she began to dry off his fevered body. He was burning up, his skin dry to her touch. She started to spread the buffalo robe over him, then realized it was far too heavy. The lodge fire burned brightly, warming the tightly knit interior which held chill late autumn winds at bay. She needed something lighter with which to cover him. Then an inspiration struck her.

      
In moments she had returned clutching a bundle of soft black and white cloth—the dress and petticoats she'd worn when he kidnapped her. Washed and folded away these past months, the impractical garments would now serve a useful purpose. Of course she had to cut open the gathered waistbands on the skirt and voluminous slips but in a few moments she had a soft, lightweight bed sheet of sorts. Spreading it over him, she marveled at all the yards and yards of cloth she had worn in white civilization. “No wonder I was always so hot in summer,” she murmured as she smoothed the covering.

      
Stephanie drowsed by the fire, checking him every quarter hour or so. She repeated the massage with the feverweed twice more but saw no improvement. Stands Tall entered the lodge just as she completed a treatment. She was embarrassed at the intimacy of the act and quickly covered Chase's naked body.

      
“Is he any better?” his uncle asked.

      
“No...but no worse either. If only I could get the fever to break,” she said in despair.

      
Stands Tall knelt by Chase's side and turned his troubled gaze to the woman. “You love him.”

      
A denial sprang to her lips but she did not voice it. “It does not matter what I feel. I am married to another.”

      
“Perhaps,” was his enigmatic reply. “I will watch now while you sleep a little.” He sat back, indicating she should take the other pallet, which she belatedly realized was his. This lodge belonged to him, yet he had left her to tend Chase and gone elsewhere, probably to the lodge she shared with Red Bead.

      
Stephanie would have protested but knew there was nothing she could do. A few hours of sleep would not hurt Chase and would make her a better nurse. She did as he said. Near dawn Chase began to thrash and toss restlessly, awakening her from the exhausted slumber into which she'd fallen. His teeth chattered as chills wracked his body.

      
“I will summon Red Bead. Do what you can for him,” Stands Tall said as Stephanie quickly moved to Chase's side and replaced the light covers with the buffalo robe. She nodded to Stands Tall and he left. The only remedy at hand was the feverweed but surely it would not serve while chills gripped him. She leaned over him, willing her body's warmth to touch him, cupping his face in her hands, letting her warm breath touch it.

      
Red Bead entered and silently witnessed the gesture. As she walked closer, Stephanie became aware of her and pulled away. “What should we do? He has chills now,” she said to the old woman.

      
“Wash with feverweed one more time, then lie with him,” Red Bead replied calmly, pulling down the blanket and setting to work.

      
“Lie with him?” Stephanie's voice sounded as if she'd swallowed a burr.

      
“Body heat,” was the laconic reply. When she finished with the feverweed, she looked at the young woman.

      
Stephanie hesitated for only a moment and then started to lie down beside Chase.

      
“Take off dress.”

      
Startled, Stephanie looked up at Red Bead. “My dress?” Now she sounded as if she had swallowed
two
burrs. “No! I can't...It would be...wrong...bad.”

      
The old woman snorted impatiently. “Stephanie”—the name came out “Sta-fan-nee”—“are you weak here?” She patted the side of her head. “Doeskin gives no heat. Flesh to flesh gives heat.”

      
Stephanie glanced at the unconscious Chase and then back to his aunt. “You don't understand...”

      
Red Bead made a chopping motion with her open hand, cutting off the explanation. “I understand. Hear me. Among the People you are the White Wolf's captive so there is no wrong. Among the whites, this man is...a patient, a sick one. He will not even know you warm him. No wrong. He needs the heat of your flesh to call his spirit back to his body. Call him back to us, Sta-fan-nee.”