Yellowstone Romance Series - Bundle (# 2-5) (3 page)

 Chapter 3

Sarah stared at the man on the ground. His lids fluttered open for a mere second, and she caught a glimpse of emerald green eyes. The hint of a smile formed on his lips, and he groaned weakly before drifting back into unconsciousness.

“We found him wandering alone in the woods near the canyon of the
E-chee-dick-karsh-ah-shay.
The cold has made him sick in the mind.” The deep voice of the Absaroka warrior standing behind her tore Sarah’s gaze away from the man. She turned to look at the three Indians.

“
Dosa haiwi
will know what to do with him,” a second man added.

Yes, Mama would know what to do, but she’s not here.
She wasn’t about to let these men know that her parents were gone. The man they brought suffered from exposure. Even she knew that. She could help him without her mother’s presence. But that meant he had to stay here. She was alone. Her father would be furious if he found out she had kept a strange man in the house in their absence.

What choice do I have? He’s almost dead already. Mama wouldn’t let that happen
.

“Can you carry him into the cabin,” Sarah asked the men. “My mother will return shortly. I can care for him until she returns.”

The undecided look that passed between the warriors didn’t go unnoticed. She didn’t trust these men. The Absarokas weren’t exactly hostile, but they had a reputation to steal whatever they could. Having them in her parents’ home was not the wisest course of action, but she saw no alternative. Looking at the man on the ground again, she knew she’d never be able to move him on her own.

“What happened to his britches, and the rest of his clothing?” Sarah asked before she could recall her words. She hoped they didn’t think she was accusing them of stealing. The man’s dirt-caked britches fell barely to his knees, and his shirt was torn in several places.

“This is what he wore when we found him,” the first man spoke. Sarah caught the distinct note of annoyance in his tone. The other two picked him up, one man hoisting him up by the shoulders, the other by his legs. She rushed ahead to open the door to the cabin. Her parents’ home was a spacious three-room dwelling with a loft. The front door opened to a large main room. A huge hearth and fireplace took up almost an entire wall. Shelves and a workbench that served as the kitchen area covered the rest of the wall. A rocking chair stood in the corner. The center of the room held a large table with six handcrafted chairs.  Doors on opposite sides led to two bedrooms. One belonged to her parents, the other was hers. The loft had served as sleeping quarters for her brothers, as well as extra storage.

In a hasty decision, Sarah led the Indians to her bedroom. She flipped back the covers on her bed. The warriors dropped the man not too softly onto the mattress, and turned quickly to leave.

“Thank you for bringing him,” she called lamely. She followed the two men outside and watched them mount their horses. They took off at a fast gallop. She caught the angry stare of the one man who’d lingered outside. She hadn’t meant to insult him with her question.  Shrugging it off, she went quickly back to the stranger in her bed. This was not a good idea. Why couldn’t this have happened two days ago, while her parents were still here?

The man was covered in dried mud, but cleaning him would have to wait. She needed to warm him first. She unlaced and pulled his odd boots off his feet with some difficulty, and set them on the ground, spraying dirt all over the floor in the process. She covered him with the blankets on her bed, then left her room and rushed up the ladder to the loft to retrieve several animal hides – a buffalo robe and a bighorn sheep hide. She threw these over him as well, tucking them in at the sides. Her mother had taught her how to read a person’s heartbeat by feeling the throat. What she felt now alarmed her. His pulse was weak. His skin was like ice to her touch. She rushed to the main room and stoked the fire in the hearth. Next she poured water into the kettle over the flames. She reached for the three water bladders hanging on the wall by the front door, and filled them once the water was hot enough. She hastened back to her room, and placed one of the bags under each of the man’s armpits, and the third under his neck. It was all she could do for now. His body would have to do the rest.

Sarah stared at the man. Only his head was visible now under all the blankets and furs she’d piled on him. His hair struck her as odd. It was caked with mud, so she couldn’t even tell what color it was, but she suspected it would be a lot lighter once clean. She’d never seen such short hair on a man before. Curious, she reached out a tentative hand and touched it. It felt stiff with dirt. The man moved and groaned in his sleep, and she quickly pulled her hand away. She waited for any other movement, but he remained quiet.

A scraping sound and a whine brought her head around to the bedroom door. Something pushed it open from the outside.

“Come in, Grizzly,” Sarah said with a smile. “Where have you been?” She knelt down to hug the huge dog that padded into the room. His tail wagged furiously and he licked at her face. She buried her head in the dog’s shaggy gray coat. He looked more like a wolf, actually, and was at least as big.

Sarah stood, watching her dog’s nose twitch while he sniffed the air. A deep low growl emanated from his throat.

“It’s all right, Grizzly. He’s no threat to me.”
At least not for the moment.
She patted the dog between the ears for reassurance. Grizzly cautiously walked up to the bed and sniffed the man’s face. Then her dog ran his tongue across his cheek. He stirred again, and seemed to cringe, but he didn’t wake.

“All right, boy, that’s enough. Come on, let’s see if we can find something to eat. She slapped her hand against her leg, and the dog immediately turned and followed her out of the room.

The kettle still hung over the fire, and Sarah poured more water into it. She’d have to head to the river to refill the bucket soon. After adding more wood to build up the flame, she grabbed a slab of dried venison from a rack by the workbench, and pulled her knife from its sheath on her hip. The sharp blade sliced through the meat like butter, and she dropped small chunks of it into the water. She added a few onions that she had gathered the day before. If he was to regain his strength, the man would have to eat. She tossed several large pieces of meat to the eagerly waiting dog.

That’s when she remembered something else her mother had taught her.

She scooped a cupful of the hot water, and added a few spoonfuls of sugar to it. The man’s body needed fuel, and sugar was the simplest, quickest form. She stirred the cup with a wooden spoon to dissolve the white granules, then headed back to her room. She eased the door open tentatively and peered in.

The man hadn’t moved. Was he dead? She held a hand above his nose. No, she could feel warm breath on her hand. She knelt beside her bed, and dipped the spoon in the sugar water. She pried his dry lips apart with the spoon, and let the liquid flow into his mouth. Most of it dribbled out the side. This wasn’t going to work.

Sarah contemplated what to do. Taking a deep breath, she sat on the edge of the bed and scooted as close to him as she dared. Then she lifted his head into her lap. He emitted a low moan. His head felt heavy on her thighs. Her pulse quickened. With a trembling hand, she spooned more water into his mouth. Most of it remained, but she didn’t notice him swallow. She rubbed his Adam’s apple. There! Success. She repeated her actions several times, until a good half of the cup was empty.

The man squirmed. His eyelids fluttered, and slowly he raised them. Sarah stared down into green eyes again. His mouth moved, but only incoherent sounds came from his throat. Sarah smiled in encouragement.

“Angel.” She barely heard the raspy word. She lifted his head off her lap and scooted away. His eyes looked dull and tired, and he obviously had a hard time keeping them open. She readjusted the covers around his neck, and left the room.

For the better part of the morning, she completed mundane chores around the cabin. She finished tanning the hide she’d been working on for several days. She needed a new pair of britches. For hours, she sat outside in the sun, rubbing sheep and elk brains into the hide to make it soft as silk and very pliable. Her Tukudeka aunt, Little Bird, had taught the skill to her. After letting it cure in the sun for a day, she would soak it in the river, and in a couple of days, she could begin sewing her new clothing. She had also planned to forage in the woods for some bitterroot and camas, but she wouldn’t leave the unconscious man alone.

Late in the afternoon, she ladled some soup that had been simmering all day into a bowl, and sat at the table to eat. Her thought went back to earlier in the day.
Angel.
Something had stirred in her, like having her heart tickled by a feather, when he’d said that. Had he meant her? He was probably hallucinating. She finished her simple meal and sat the bowl on the ground. Grizzly eagerly lapped up the leftovers. She patted him affectionately on the head, then returned to her room to check on the man.

She found him shivering under the covers. It was a good sign. His body was responding again, working to warm itself up. When a person suffered from exposure and didn’t shiver, it was always a bad sign.

He’d worked his arms loose of the covers, and Sarah was about to readjust them. A glimpse at his dirty shirt gave her another thought. Should she dare? Oh, this was ridiculous! This man needed care, and propriety be damned. She’d helped her mother plenty of times with injured men. She certainly had seen plenty of bare chests. She hastily went back to the main room and set more water over the fire to heat, and found some clean washrags. When she returned, his shivering had slowed. She carefully pulled the covers further down. How would she be able to remove his shirt? He was a big man, probably taller than her father.

She inhaled deeply and tucked his shirt up, rotating his heavy body from side to side to work it up his back. The sun had burned the skin on his back. She worked the shirt over his head.  A thin silver chain hung around his neck, with a couple of rectangular pendants. She picked up the pendants. They were plain looking, nothing someone would wear as an adornment. Something that looked like a long row of numbers was etched into them. Carefully, she laid the pendants back on his chest.

 Remembering her task, she finished removing his shirt, setting the now-cold water bags aside. His long muscular arms were solid and heavy as she worked them through the sleeves. She hurried to retrieve her hot water and rags, then began washing the man’s chest and arms. She tried not to stare, but he was beautiful to look at. His muscles were well defined, his shoulders wide. She was about to scrub harder at what she thought was stubborn dirt caked to his chest just above his heart, then realized it was a marking. She wiped at it, and the black image of a scorpion emerged.

Sarah stared anew. She’d seen tattoos before, but nothing that looked as real as this. The image was a perfect depiction of a scorpion, its pincers held wide open, and the tail curved over the body, ready to strike. Tentatively, she touched it with her hand. His skin still felt cool, but the man was definitely warming up.

“Stared enough?”

The raspy voice sent her leaping off the edge of the bed, sloshing the water in her bowl over the floor.

“I . . . I didn’t realize you were awake,” she said awkwardly, averting her eyes. She heard the blankets scrape against each other and the mattress on her bed groan. She glanced up to see him push himself to a sitting position.

“Damn.” He touched his forehead. “What the hell happened?”

“You must have been caught in the storm two days ago. You were lucky the Absarokas found you and brought you here.” Sarah bent and reached for the bowl on the ground. The water had already seeped through the cracks in the wooden slats.

She kept a wary eye on the man in the bed. He was still too weak to be a threat, but Sarah’s hand instinctively felt for her knife, reassured that it was securely strapped to her hip.

“Two days ago? Shit. Where am I?”

“The Madison River Valley,” she answered.

The man shot her a perplexed look. “Madison? Why the hell there? Why not just take me to Canyon? They have a medical clinic.”

It was Sarah’s turn to look perplexed. This man must not be right in his head yet.  Unsure what else to say, she asked, “Would you like some food? Some strong meat broth will help you warm up.”