Winter's Touch (7 page)

The urge to reach over and touch the wound, place her hand on it and let the heat flow, was overwhelming.

What would it hurt? The girl was asleep. Grandmother and Grandfather were asleep. There was no one to know.

Just one touch. Just enough to ease.

Is if she were watching someone else, Winter Fawn saw her arm reach out, saw her dark hand press gently but firmly against the pale forehead, the raw, red scrape, the black and blue bruise around it.

Heat flowed instantly from her hand to the girl’s head. Pain, both sharp and dull, struck Winter Fawn in the temple. Enough pain that she had to clamp hard on her jaw to keep from crying out.

Enough. She forced herself to pull her hand away. If the touch went on too long, someone would notice.

Suddenly the girl’s eyes opened and stared straight into Winter Fawn’s. A frown line formed between the girl’s eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but Winter Fawn quickly pressed a finger to her own lips and shook her head. The girl closed her mouth, then opened it again and might have spoken, but something thumped against the outside of the lodge.

“Winter Fawn,” came a low whisper from without.

Winter Fawn’s eyes widened. Hunter! What was he doing here in the middle of the night, calling to her in English?

“Winter Fawn, come out. Crooked Oak is going to kill the white man, and I cannot find father. You must help me stop him.”

Winter Fawn motioned sharply for Bess to remain where she was. She knew the girl had heard Hunter. His words had been unmistakable in the still, quiet night. But the girl stayed where she was and did not make a sound as Winter Fawn quickly and quietly slipped into her clothes, wrapped her blanket around her shoulders against the night’s chill, and crept silently from the tepee.

Hunter, appearing as no more than a darker shadow among dark shadows cast by the tepee in the moonlight, touched her arm.

“What’s happened?” She whispered in English, as he had done, so that if they were overheard they would not be understood.

Her brother leaned close and spoke low so that his voice did not carry. “Father found me after the council broke up and took me aside. He asked me to make sure horses were ready and his packs from his mule were nearby in case he had to leave in a hurry.”

Winter Fawn stifled the low sound of distress that rose in her throat. There was no time for distress, and it was useless. Her father would leave when he wished. But not so soon! Please, not so soon. He’d only just arrived and she’d scarcely seen him.

“I hobbled the horses in the woods, away from the rest of the herd. Near them I hid his saddle and packs, bridles, rope, water, everything I could think of. But when I came back to camp, I couldna find Da.”

“Where did you look?”

“Everywhere I could. But I couldna very well look inside every lodge, now, could I?”

“Of course not.”

“I thought maybe he’d gone to talk to Crooked Oak, to try to convince him to give up the white man. That’s when I heard them.”

“Heard who?”

“Crooked Oak and some of the others. He said he was afraid our father would convince everyone to let the captive go free. He’s working himself up into a lather, saying that he’s going to go kill the white man now, tonight, and be done with it. We have to do something. The man is a friend of Da’s.”

“You’re right.” Winter Fawn clenched her fists at her sides. “We have to get that white man out of here. He won’t go without his sister and daughter. I’ll get them. Then you take them to the horses while I cut him loose.”

Hunter shook his head. “If one of us is going to get caught freeing him, it is better that it be me.”

“The only thing that is likely to get us caught is the noise the horses will make if you aren’t there to keep them quiet. I dinna have your gift. The horses dinna listen to me.”

Hunter might have objected again, but she turned away to get the girls.

She did not have to go back inside the tepee to get them. When she turned, they were there, standing outside the door flap, their pale skin glowing in the darkness, their eyes large and round with fear.

“Come, but quietly.” Winter Fawn held out her hand to the little one called Megan. “Go with Hunter, and I will bring your father to you.”

Winter Fawn waited until they disappeared into the woods at the edge of camp, then made her way quietly between lodges to the tree where the captive was tied. The moon was so bright she had no trouble avoiding the meat-drying racks, the skins staked out on the ground for tanning.

As if she had needed guidance, the captive’s white shirt glowed like a signal beacon in the dark.

Carson heard someone approaching and tensed. Even through four years of war he’d never felt as helpless as he did just then, as he had from the moment that afternoon when Bess had fallen from the wagon and he’d thought they were all going to die. Innes hadn’t been quite the protection he had promised to be.

Carson wanted to hate him for that, for giving him such a false sense of security. He wanted to rage at God, at fate, at anything and everything.

But Carson also knew he would be dead if Innes hadn’t been with them. He had no doubt of that. The girls might still be alive, but he couldn’t even let himself think of what would surely have happened to them at the hands of the Indians who had attacked them.

So much for his determination to never kill another man. He knew that if he had the chance right that minute, he would kill that leering arrogant bastard who had nearly scalped him, and the one who had grabbed Bess. He would kill all six of the warriors who had attacked them. The rage was icy cold in his gut, but hot in his veins.

Now someone was sneaking toward him through the dark, and here he sat, trussed up like a pig waiting for slaughter. The only thing missing was the goddamn apple for his mouth.

The night was so quiet he knew the Indian could probably hear him breathing. When the person stepped from the shadow of the closest tepee into the moonlight, the first thing Carson noticed was the gleam of moonlight along the knife held tightly in a fist.

Carson’s heart pounded like a drum inside his chest. He had a choice, it seemed. He might be able to kick with his bound feet if the Indian was stupid enough to get in front of him, but he doubted it would do him much good. There wasn’t a thing he could do about that knife. Killing him was going to be disgustingly easy for the sneaking bastard.

He could yell, but he would certainly be dead before anyone heard him.

Okay. This was it, then. He was going to die. He would fight if he got the chance, but as long as he was tied to the tree, the outcome was inevitable. The only question would be how he chose to meet it—cringing, begging for mercy, or with whatever dignity he could muster.

Regrets swamped him, but the largest, the one that nearly choked him, was that he had brought Megan and Bess to Colorado.
Please, God, keep them safe. Help Innes get them out of here alive. Help them find their way back home to Gussie.

That brief prayer steadied him and slowed his heart. It was all he had time for before the Indian was on him. Only then did he realize…it was a woman! He hadn’t been able to see her shape because she was wrapped in a blanket.

She bent down and leaned toward his head. In a quiet whisper, she said in English, “I’ve come to cut you loose.”

Carson recognized the voice with it’s soft Scottish burr. It was Innes’s daughter.

“My brother has horses ready, and the girls are with him. I will take you there.” Then she slipped behind the tree.

After a slight tug on the rawhide around his wrists, his hands were free. His shoulders screamed with pain as he pulled his arms forward for the first time in more hours than he cared to think about. The blood flowing back into his hands made them throb with agony.

“Where’s your father?” he asked in a low, urgent whisper.

“I do not know, but we must hurry.” She crept to his feet to sever the last of his bonds. “Hunter overheard Crooked Oak say he planned to kill you this night.” Her knife sliced through the rawhide around his ankles. “Quickly. We must go.”

To Carson’s chagrin, she had to help him to his feet. It took him a minute of leaning against the tree before he could feel anything below his ankles, and the pain of returning circulation had him grinding his teeth.

As she bent down and retrieved the strips of rawhide, Carson heard a noise. An indrawn breath, the shuffle of moccasins along the ground. A quiet word that to Carson sounded like a curse, although it was not spoken in English.

Beside the nearest tepee, twenty yards away, the shadow of a man loomed. A man drawing an arrow back to fire. An arrow aimed at Carson’s chest.

Winter Fawn stood and looked toward the shadow. “Crooked Oak, no!”

With a curse of his own, Carson tried to shove her away. “Get down,” he warned harshly.

But she didn’t get down, didn’t duck out of the line of fire. Instead, just as the man loosed the arrow, she committed one of the bravest, most foolhardy acts Carson had ever witnessed. Dropping her blanket, she turned and threw herself at his chest, shielding him from the arrow.

She slammed into him hard. Her breath left her in an abrupt
umph
. In reflex, his arms came around her to hold her. He felt a stab of pain in his side. He stared down at her, and in the moonlight he saw shock, bewilderment, and pain in her eyes.

Another rustle of sound had him clasping her close and looking sharply toward the shadows where the man stood. A second man, big and burly—
Innes
—rushed toward the first, and with a grunt, struck him in the head with the butt of a rifle.

The Indian fell to the ground.

Innes rushed to them. “Damn the bloody bastard,” came his harsh whisper. “He’s shot me lassie!”

It was then that Carson realized the cause of the sharp pain in his side. “He’s shot both of us, but she took the worst of it.”

“Both?” Innes demanded.

“Da?” the woman whispered. “Crooked Oak…was going to kill him.”

“Aye, I saw. You saved Carson’s life, lassie. Are ye bad hurt?”

“Aye, I be thinking I am. Hunter and…the girls are…waiting with…the horses. We couldna…find ye.”

“I’m here, now, lassie. Dinna talk. Dinna be movin’.” Innes’s brogue was thicker than usual. “We’ll take care of ye. Shot you both?” he asked Carson again, his voice quiet but tense. “The arrow went clean through her?”

Carson glanced down and even that slight movement drew a hiss from between his teeth. “Clean through both of us. She’s pinned to me, and I’m pinned to the tree. But she’s got the worst of it. For me I think it’s just under the skin.”

In the act of pulling the big knife from the scabbard at his belt, Innes paused and cursed under his breath. At least, it sounded like a curse to Carson. It could have been a prayer.

“Lass,” Innes said, his voice taut, “if you’ve a mind to pass out, now be the time for it. I’m going to cut the arrow off back here, then pull you off of it. I willna hurt you more than I have to, but it’ll still be bad.”

Looking down into her eyes, Carson could not fathom why she was still conscious, but she was. She leaned her head against his chest and raised to her eyes to his as she answered her father. “Be gettin’ it done, then, Da.”

“Aye. Carson, can you hold the shaft steady from your side?”

With another hissed breath, Carson reached a hand between his side and hers. The arrow that pinned her to him left barely enough room for him to grasp it between their bodies. He was relieved to realize he’d been right. While it hurt like a blue bitch, the arrow had skimmed along the outside of his ribs and lay just beneath his skin. That meant his wound wasn’t serious. But it also meant the arrow would be less stable when Innes started to work. He grasped it as tightly as he could.

His grip made the shaft move slightly, and the woman pinned to him moaned.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He could feel now where the arrow exited her body. It must have entered her back at her waist, a couple of inches from her side, for it came out just below her ribs. “God, I’m sorry,” he whispered again.

“Ready?” Innes asked.

“All right,” he whispered. “Do it.”

With a soft curse, Innes snapped the arrow off, leaving about two inches protruding from his daughter’s back.

The girl grunted in pain.

“All right, lass, here we go.”

Carson held the arrow as steady as possible while Innes pulled her slowly off the shaft. It seemed to Carson that it took forever. Throughout the ordeal, she never took her eyes from his. Something passed between them in those eternal seconds. A communication, wordless, indefinable. She had been pinned to his chest. They had been joined. Connected. A new connection formed now even as she was being separated from him.

And he thought,
I don’t even know her name.

As the broken end of the shaft slipped free of her flesh, she let out a soft moan and passed out, falling limp in her father’s arms.

Innes had his hands full, but Carson had a burning need to unpin himself from the tree before anything else happened. He would have to literally walk himself off of the shaft, but he didn’t relish walking himself off the extra six or eight inches that was sticking out of him. He needed to cut it off. “Pass me your knife,” he said tightly.

Innes looked up sharply. “Give me a minute and I’ll be gettin’ ye unstuck there, lad.”

“I’ll do it.” He didn’t want to, but he’d dug a bullet out of his own leg once. This couldn’t be nearly that bad. “She dropped her knife there by your knee. Hand it to me.”

Innes might have argued, but just then his daughter moaned. He handed Carson the knife and gave the girl his attention.

Carson gritted his teeth and, using the knife, snapped the arrow off as close to his body as possible. The arrow jerked and sent searing pain through his side. Before he could think about how bad this was going to hurt, he forced himself to step away from the tree.

It was just a big splinter, he told himself. Nothing more.

During the few seconds it took him to ease himself forward and off the shaft, his stomach rolled, his vision blurred, and cold sweat broke out across his face and down his back. Then, with a final hiss of pain, he was free.