Wolf Shadow’s Promise (7 page)

He didn't even glance down at himself. “I only do so because you stripped me, white woman, and I cannot find my clothes. Did you hide them from me?”

“Of course not. I had to cut your clothes away because the injury you sustained was close to your…ah…to…well, you can see for yourself where it is. I'll find you some clothes after I see you back to your bed.”

A feeling of weakness overwhelmed him, yet he could not help baiting her further. “And did you enjoy taking my breechcloth from me, young Alys?”

“Why…why, you ungrateful—” Despite his waning strength, he observed that his use of her name had an impact on her. “You…you know who I am?”

“I suspected.”

“And you remember me?”

“How could I forget the one who saved me so long ago? I have never forgotten you, though I recall that many great
suns ago you rejected a proposal of mine to become my wife. Is this how you repay the honor I bestowed upon you? For if it is, young Alys, come here. We were both too young the last time we met. But I am ready to be enticed by you now.”

He closed his eyes and swayed. He had meant the words to be no more than a teasing comment, but too late he realized their effect had a far more serious ring to them. Again, he silently scolded himself.

Still, all his talk had the effect of goading her. How could it not?

He watched as she stalked toward him. “I can't believe how I have fretted over you these past few days. If I'd known what an insolent, impudent oaf you've become, I wouldn't have bothered. I simply would have left you to yourself.”

He knew even as she spoke that it wasn't true. She was too kind, too considerate, had been so even as a child. It was he who had pushed her into anger; he who had set into motion the outrage he now witnessed in her, causing her to say these things. But she was continuing. “What a fool I've been. Why did I bother with you? It's evident that you have no sense of gratitude. And here I thought that you were a man of honor. At least that's how I'd remembered you. If you only knew how I—”

He collapsed. He couldn't help himself, the weight of his body and, perhaps, his guilt finally being too much for him.

Whatever she had been about to say ended abruptly as she closed the distance between them. Pulling his weight onto her own, she directed him back into the caves. He noted, though, that his weakness did not prevent her from scolding him.

“Of all the stupid, idiotic things to do,” she admonished. “The first thing you do upon waking is to get to your feet
and waste your strength telling me what a fool I am. Well, I'll tell you true, mister Wolf Shadow,
you
are the fool.”

He couldn't have agreed more.

Half-conscious though he was, her touch on his naked skin was creating urgent, pressing needs on his body, making him think of carnal pleasure, of bliss, of promises he knew his body could not fulfill, at least not in his current state of health.

He looked down at her and, still treading down the same dangerous path, commented, “If it was your intention, sweet Alys, to touch me like this, and make me think of other things we could be doing, I must tell you that I am too weak to do anything about it. At least for now. But I promise you that in a few days, I will—”

“Hush, do you hear me? You know perfectly well that I am only trying to help you.”

“
Aa
, yes, I like your help very much. But then, if you look closely at me, you can probably see that for yourself.”

She glanced down automatically, his laugh quickly bringing her eyes back to his half-lidded gaze. She shook her head. “Men.”

He chuckled again. He couldn't help himself. It was all so ridiculous. And she did have a point. A very good point.

At length, they came to his bed, and he noticed that it was made of soft blankets and pillows, all clean and fresh. She had done much to help him, this sweet Alys. He must keep reminding himself of that, for his body had other, less than honorable cravings toward this girl who had grown into such an enticing woman.

But as he had said, he was in no condition to do anything about it…now.

He collapsed onto the bed of blankets, Alys following him down. He had only closed his eyes when from somewhere nearby he heard her pick up something, felt the cool touch of the white man's metal against his head.

“Do you see this? Do you feel this?” she asked, and he opened his eyes sleepily to note that she had a gun, his gun, in her hand. He yawned. And she continued, “If you so much as look like you're going to move again, mister Wolf Shadow, I will finish the job the soldiers tried to do. Do you understand me?”

Another yawn.

“Just give me a reason to pull this trigger.”

“I am sure I have given you plenty already. If it is this that you wish, to take my life, by all means do it.”

He heard her softly muttered oath, felt the stirring of her indrawn breath. “Now, listen here,” she began, and he peeped an eye open to watch her, to admire her. “I have to leave you for a little while to go and get more clothes, for both of us. I'll bring some food, too.” She glanced over toward the wolf. “Guard him, wolf. Don't let him get up again, do you understand?”

Those golden eyes stared back at her, not a whine or a howl coming from it.

“By force, if necessary.”

The wolf blinked.

“Good. And you,” she glared down at him, “you rest, do you hear me? Rest. Nothing more. I will be back.”

“Tell your mother that I am all right. And see how she is for me. I brought more herbs for her that my ‘almost mother' gathered. I put them in the cellar, on a shelf. You bring them to her now.”

“You know my mother?”

Ah, so he had been right. The two women he had met in the caves were mother and daughter. He said, “For many years, I have known the woman Ma Clayton.”

“Of course. You must have met in the caves. And you two get along?”

He nodded. “You take her the herbs. They will make her better.”

“I will.” Alys made to get up, but knelt back down beside him. “Would you look at what you've gone and done?”

He opened an eye.

“Your bandage is soaked with blood. I can't leave you now, not like this,” she motioned toward his thigh. “I'd better change it before I go. I'm going to have to apply a tourniquet.”

“What is a tourniquet?”

“A tight bandage which will keep your leg from bleeding.

He accepted this piece of knowledge in silence and watched as she tore a strip off a piece of clothing…her own undergarment…

He felt her soft hands, down there on his thigh. And perhaps it was only the loss of blood that kept him from disgracing himself with his body's need to display his sexual prowess yet again. He sighed, comforted that he had regained some control over his urges, and hopefully over his tongue, too.

But he was comforted too soon. Her hands kept nudging him in places best left for the eyes of one's wives, and he supposed it was bound to happen. He became all too intensely aware of her.

And then she began to talk. “Wolf Shadow, I think, despite the way you speak to me, that you might be a little happy to see me again.”

“Only a little?” he countered. “Truly, I would like to see more of you, the way I had only moments ago.”

“You speak to me as though you can only think of one thing, but I am not talking of that. I am speaking about the affinity one person feels for another, not…not…”

He did not answer, just grinned at her and lay his head back, shutting his eyes. “
Aa
, yes,” he said, “I think that I have spoken too harshly and too openly to you, young
Alys. I hope you will forgive me, for I had not expected you to grow up to be so…female…and I think that you should be warned of me, of my unhonorable urges. I fear that seeing your body as I did made me think of you in a way which I should not. But know that I am glad to see my friend Little Brave Woman again.”

“Little Brave Woman?”

“It is the name you are known by.”

“Known? By whom?”

“By my people. It is the name that my sister and I gave to you.”

“Little Brave Woman?” she repeated.

“
Aa
,” he acknowledged, then almost at once fell into a light, restful sleep, with her gentle touch still down there where, had he a choice, he would never have had her go.

Well, maybe not never.

A
lys knew a little about herbs and about healing, having learned from an old Indian woman who had married a local trader, and from her mother, who had once told her that she had the “gift.” She put that gift to work now, urging her mother to sip the dandelion tea she had just brewed.

Ma Clayton put down her cup and eyed the fresh herbs in her daughter's hands. “So you say Moon Wolf had you bring these herbs to me?”

Alys nodded, sitting down on the bed. “He said his almost mother had picked them for you.”

“Then they will be good. His almost mother often doctors the people in their tribe.”

“Does she? What is an almost mother?”

“I believe it is another wife of the father.”

“Hmmm,” Alys mumbled, fingering her mother's quilted bedspread, barely paying attention. The mere mention of Moon Wolf's name had brought back to mind a
mental picture of his nude body, forever etched upon her memory.

“Why didn't he bring these herbs to me himself?”

“What? Who?”

“Moon Wolf. Why didn't he bring the herbs to me himself?”

“I think he meant to, but—” Alys glanced up swiftly. “Mama, you allow that man to come into the house?”

“Of course.”

“Is that safe?”

“Now, Alys, don't tell me your eastern education has caused you to become prejudiced?”

“No, not prejudiced. It's just that…have you thought what would happen if he were to be caught here? What if those vigilantes—the seven—eleven—seventy-seven—should find him here? They would hang him and maybe you with him.”

“I don't think they'd do too much. Don't reckon that vigilance committee would even recognize him. Naturally, I've thought about it. And you're right. I reckon it is most dangerous. But it's not likely that any harm would come from it.”

“No harm? How can you say such a thing? Mama, Wolf Shadow is not your usual Indian, and I'm afraid that if that group of men caught him here…have you thought that we don't even know who the men are that make up that committee? What if one of them saw Wolf Shadow coming in and out of here?”

“Sh-h-h, don't say his name aloud.” She motioned her daughter to lower her voice. “Do you want Mary to know all about it?”

“I thought that Mary would be a party to all this, too…well, if he comes here, and she is Indian—”

“No one knows that he is the Wolf Shadow except me…and now you. And he comes to the house only after
dark, when Mary is asleep. Besides, you must have seen the way he is disguised when he appears in the fort.”

“What do you mean? I saw him the other night.”

“Well, then you know.”

“Know what?”

“Why no one would think anything about…” Her mother eyed her suspiciously. She asked, “Just what happened the other night when you discovered Moon Wolf? How did you find out about him, about him being the Wolf Shadow?”

“I saw him, I followed him.”

“What? How?”

“A few nights ago he upset a shipment of supplies going north into Canada.”

“The whiskey trade. So, you saw him in action.”

“Yes.”

“Really,” Ma Clayton frowned, “it's gotten so that the whiskey problem is plumb out of hand.”

Alys nodded thoughtfully. “You could be right.”

“Then you have seen him only as the Wolf Shadow?”

“Only? You talk about him as though there were some other person involved.”

“Hmmm, I suppose I do. Tell me what else happened that night.”

“Well, I watched him, and I didn't understand what he was doing until I came closer to the shipments. Then I smelled what was in the cargo and I understood. That's also when I saw that he'd been hurt, so I decided to follow his trail.”

“He left a trail? That's odd. He usually covers his tracks well.”

“It was a path of blood, Mama.”

“Of blood? He's not—”

“No, I think he'll be fine now. For a few days, he ran
a terrible fever and I didn't know if he would pull through, but I think the worst is behind him.”

“So he's recovered?”

Alys nodded.

“And that's where you've been these past few days, I would assume?”

Another nod.

“I had wondered. You were gone for so long each day and seemed in such a hurry, even when you were here.” Her mother looked thoughtful. “A trail of blood, you say? Did anyone else see it, do you suppose?”

“I don't think so.”

Ma Clayton seemed to settle down somewhat, though her eyes took on a faraway look. “He told me what you had done for him when you were young,” she said. “I don't think he ever knew that you were my daughter, I had never mentioned you, but he told me how he'd come to know about the caves.” She gave her only child a warm look. “That was a brave thing you did for him. Why did you never tell me about it?”

Alys shrugged. “I was afraid for them, the Indians and for myself, too, partly. I was too scared to say a word about it.”

“I understand.” Her mother took Alys's hand into her own and patted it, continuing, “I don't rightly know when the few white people in this town came to be in such a powerful grip of hate. I can still remember the first time your father and I took a look at this land—right here where this town is. We fell in love with it. There was nothing here back then, not in the fur trade days, and making friends with the Indians was a necessity if we wanted to stay alive. Why, I've thought more times than I can count that if it weren't for the caves and the legacy to you down there, I'd have left here long ago.”

“To go back east?”

“East? Land sakes no, why east? I don't know anyone back there. No, I've often wondered what it would be like if I should go spend some time with the Indians. I have a hankering to see how it might feel to be free again.”

“But we live in a free country now, Mama.”

“In this town?”

Alys grinned. Her mother had a point. Although the country was free, here one had to toe the line with certain people, whose tongues were known to be more than a little unfriendly. That is, if one didn't want to find one's life in a shambles.

Luckily for her, her mother had never cared to cater to such people. “I never knew that about you, Mama, that you yearned to be with the Indians.”

“Well, I never told you or many others about it. I wanted a better life for you. That's why I sent you east.”

“Only to have me return as soon as I was able. I never really fit in back there.”

“I'm sorry.”

“I learned a lot, though,” Alys added as an aside in the hopes that her mother might not think her efforts had been wasted.

“What's he doing now?”

“Moon Wolf?”

Her mother nodded.

“Oh,” a wave of heat washed over Alys's skin and she prayed that if there were any color in her face, her mother wouldn't notice. “He's probably asleep,” she offered. “I left him with the wolf to guard him. I guess I'd better get back and see how he is faring.”

“Yes, you're probably right. You go on ahead, then. And treat him well. He's a right honorable young man.”

“Hmmm,” Alys uttered noncommittally.

“Go on, now. There's some fresh bandages in the drawer
over there and you can take him some of your father's old clothes.”

Alys drew in her breath in a hiss. Had she mentioned that Moon Wolf lay naked in the caves?

“If I know him,” her mother went on, as though reading Alys's thoughts, “he's probably only wearing that breechcloth. He'll need something warmer.”

“Thank you, Mama.” Alys let out her breath slowly and arose, stepping quickly toward the chest of drawers. “I'll be back tonight to check on you.”

“That will be fine, although you know that I have Mary to take care of me.”

“I know. I'll be back tonight, anyway.”

Ma Clayton looked doubtful, but Alys didn't see.

 

“Now look what you've gone and done,” Alys scolded, coming upon the man in the caves. She eyed the bandages around his leg. “Have you been moving about some more?”

He didn't budge.

“Are you awake?”

A single eye popped open. She saw it.

“Well, your dressing is soaked with blood again, Mister Wolf Shadow.”

“The wound will get better,” he muttered.

“No thanks to you.” Bending down toward him, she fingered the old bandage and began to strip it away. “I'm going to have to stop this bleeding, wash it again and put another poultice on it. And when I'm done with it this time, you are to stay put until I tell you that it's all right to move. Do you understand me?”

He didn't say a word, although he smiled.

She stripped the bandage away, taking care to place a blanket over his unmentionable parts and avoid them altogether. Even more carefully, she retied the tourniquet
and, putting a fresh bandage to the wound, pressed on it until the bleeding subsided.

“When did you decide to return to the caves?” she asked, choosing her words and her subject with care. “I've only been away at school for five years, and I don't remember your coming back while I was still here.”

“I returned four great suns ago, or four years as the white man says, when the whiskey traders started coming north.”

“I see. Not until then?” She let up on the pressure and picked up a bunch of herbs, beginning the task of crushing them.

“I did not want to return to this town. It held bad memories for me.”

“All bad?” She cast a shy glance at him.

He came up onto his elbows, his look humorous, yet serious all at once. “Not all.” His eyes raked over her form, up and down, from the top of her dark-brown head to the tips of her slippered toes, where they peeped out from beneath the folds of her dress. He commented, “I was happy to see that the school is no longer here. It was a bad place.”

She nodded. “It did not last long. A few weeks after your trouble, the teacher quit and went back east. It was just as well. I would rather have been taught by my mother anyway.”

“
Aa
, yes,” he said as he attempted to sit up straighter. “It is always better when someone close to you educates you in the ways of the world. In my village, it is one of the highest duties of an Indian parent, to teach their young. No man or woman ever becomes a parent without dedicating their life to their children. And teaching them, this is the natural way for a child to learn.”

She gave him a smile. “I think that's a wonderful thing,” she remarked, her tone social, “and I do agree, but please,
Mister Wolf Shadow, do not move about when you talk to me. It makes the wound bleed again. I may have to sew some stitches in it, I fear.”

“
Aa
, if you must,” he uttered and fell back down. “Why do you not call me Moon Wolf, or perhaps ‘Indian' as the other pale-eyes call me?”

“I don't know. It seemed the right thing to do. And I'm not like all the other ‘pale-eyes.'”

“
Saa
, no, you are not.”

She paused, expecting him to say more, her brow pulled into a frown. But, at last, when it appeared he had finished, she asked, “Am I not supposed to call you by your name?”

He gazed upwards, toward the solid rock of their ceiling, his voice low as he said, “It is a sacred name, given to a man who helps his people, a man who is more ghost than real flesh. Or so it is said. It is not a name that others call me.”

“Is it not? And what do other people call you?”

“It depends upon who is talking. To you, I would be a friend…although maybe, if we were to be again at the falls, you might call me your—”

“Do not say it.”

He chuckled, although he relented. “I am sorry, young Alys, I should not tease you in this manner. But to answer your question, to my mother, I would be a son; to my other relatives, a brother or perhaps a cousin.”

“Does no one address you by your name?”

“Good manners do not allow this. Only if a person has another's permission, is it used.”

“I see. I didn't know that. I did not mean to offend you by calling you Wolf Shadow. It's only that—”

“You have my permission to address me directly as Moon Wolf or as the Wolf Shadow, if you would like. I gave that right to you many suns ago when I had my sister tell you my name.”

“Thank you.” She poured water on the herbs she had Crushed, slowly making a paste out of them. “Would you prefer me to call you Moon Wolf?”

“
Aa
, yes, at least for now.”

“I see.” She became silent. At length, she asked, “Why do you do it?”

“What?”

“Why do you harass the military and the merchants of the town? Wouldn't things bode better for you personally if you kept to yourself? Then you wouldn't be shot at or—”

He rose up onto his elbows. “Do you insult me?”

She gave him a blank look.

“What is this thing that you ask of me? Are you inviting me to think only of myself? What sort of a warrior would put himself and his own needs before the welfare of his own people? Look to me closely. Do I appear to be such a man?”

“No, I only…” What had she meant? Was she questioning him because, in her experience, she'd known only a few people who would champion the well-being of an entire group of people before their own? Perhaps she simply didn't understand him.

“Look to yourself,” he suggested.

“What do you mean?”

“Many years ago a young girl threw herself into danger when she aided two Indian children. Think well. Why did you do it?”

“That was different. You were being mistreated.”

“
Aa
, yes, mistreated. Now, maybe you understand.” He lay back, sending his gaze up toward the ceiling.