The Touch of Fire

by Linda Howard

  By dawn, five more people had died.

  Doggedly Annie made the round with yet more tea, her eyes dark-circled with fatigue. She entered one wickiup to find a warrior trying to roll to his side, his hand reaching out for the woman who lay beside him. Her heart catching, Annie rushed to the woman and found that she was merely sleeping. As this was one of the Indians whose lungs had been congested, she went almost limp with relief, and gave the warrior a blinding smile. His slanted, enigmatic black eyes studied her, then with a groan he collapsed onto his back again.

  She slipped her arm under his shoulders and eased him up so he could sip the tea, which he did without fuss. When she let him back down, he seemed to be a little dazed, but he muttered something to her in his guttural language. She placed her cool hand on his forehead and indicated that he should go to sleep. Still looking puzzled, he did so.

  She stumbled as she left the wickiup. Rafe was immediately beside her, his hard arm around her waist. “That’s enough,” he said. “You need some sleep.” He guided her to the blankets he had spread in the shade of a tree, and Annie gratefully sank down. She should have argued with him, she thought tiredly, but she had sensed that he wasn’t going to give in this time. She was asleep by the time her head touched the blanket.

  The two little boys had crept curiously near. Rafe put his finger to his lips in a hushing motion. Solemn black eyes looked back.

  He was tired himself, but rest could come later, when Annie was awake. He wanted to hold her in his arms while she slept, feel the warmth of her slight body and absorb some of her magic. It was enough, though, to guard her as she slept.

  By the third day, Annie didn’t know how she was going to make it. She had slept only in snatches, as had Rafe. A total of seventeen people had died since she and Rafe had entered the camp, eight of them children. It was the loss of the children that hurt her the most.

  Whenever she could, she would sit and hold the plump baby girl who glowed with health like an oasis in the midst of the desert. The infant cooed and squealed and waved her dimpled hands about, smiling indiscriminately at whoever held her. The weight of that small, wriggling body in her arms was infinitely soothing.

  The baby’s mother seemed to be recovering, as did her father. The young woman had smiled wanly at her daughter’s imperious wails. The round-faced warrior still slept a lot, but his fever seemed to have abated and his lungs were clear.

  Then, within a matter of hours, one of the little boys who had seemed so healthy began running a high fever and went into convulsions. Despite the willow-bark tea Annie spooned down him, he died that night without ever breaking out into spots. Only the circles on his gums indicated the disease that had burned through his young body. Annie cried in Rafe’s arms.

  “I couldn’t do anything,” she sobbed. “I try, but sometimes it doesn’t seem to matter. No matter what I do, they still die.”

  “Hush, sweetheart,” he murmured. “You’ve done more than anyone else could.”

  “But it wasn’t enough for him. He was only about seven years old!”

  “Some younger than he was have already died. They don’t have any resistance to the disease, honey; you know that. You knew from the first that a lot of them would die.”

  “I thought I could help,” she said. Her voice was thin and desolate.

  He lifted her hand and kissed it. “You have helped. Every time you touch them, you help.”

  She still couldn’t feel as if she were doing enough. Her supply of willow bark had all been used. What she wouldn’t have given for more, or for meadowsweet, which was even better at lowering fevers but didn’t grow in the Southwest. Jacali had shown her some bark and indicated it came from a tree Rafe called a quaking aspen, but it seemed the women in the band had gathered it during a forage to the north and there was only a small supply of it. She boiled it much as she had the willow bark, and the resulting tea had helped the fevers, but it didn’t seem to be as efficient, or perhaps she was simply making it too weak. She was too tired to decide.

  Jacali shuffled around with the endless cups of jerky broth, coaxing nourishment down sore throats. The little boy whose friend had died began shadowing Rafe, often peering at Annie from behind the shelter of Rafe’s long, muscled legs.

  When some of the warriors began showing distinct signs of recovery on the fourth day, staring at her with their unreadable gazes, Annie expected Rafe to throw her on a horse and start riding.

  Instead, late that day, he came to her with the baby in his arms. She was crying ceaselessly, her tiny arms and legs jerking, and her dark skin was flushed even darker with fever. Black spots had begun breaking out on her stomach.

  CHAPTER

  16

  “No” Annie said hoarsely. “No. She was fine this morning.” Even as she said it, she knew what a useless protest it was. Illnesses didn’t always follow the same timetable or have the same symptoms, especially in infants.

  His face was grim. Only one of the Indians who had broken out in the black spots that signaled hemorrhaging had lived, and that one was a warrior, with a warrior’s strength. The man was still very ill and weak. Rafe knew as well as Annie that the baby’s chances weren’t good.

  Annie took the baby. The little thing stopped crying, but moved fretfully in her hands as if trying to escape the pain of fever.

  It was dangerous to give medication to a baby this little, yet Annie didn’t think she had a choice. Perhaps it was just as well that the tea from the quaking aspen was weaker than the willow-bark tea. She dribbled a small amount of it down the baby’s throat, then spent an hour gently washing her in cool water. Finally the baby slept, and Annie forced herself to carry her back to her mother’s side.

  The young woman was awake, her dark eyes huge with anxiety. She turned onto her side and touched her daughter with a trembling hand, then tucked the hot little body close to hers. Annie patted her shoulder, then had to leave before she began crying.

  There were still too many very sick people for her to allow herself to break down. She had to see to them.

  Rafe had noticed that a few of the warriors were recovered enough to sit up and feed themselves. He was right behind her every time she entered one of those wickiups, the thong slipped off his revolver, and his icy gaze saw every movement while she was there.

  The warriors, for their part, stared just as fiercely at the white man who had invaded their camp.

  “Do you really think this is necessary?” she asked when they left the second wickiup where the performance had been repeated.

  “It’s either that or we leave right now,” Rafe flatly replied. They should have left anyway, and he knew it, but he would have to tie her over the saddle to make her leave the baby, and something in him didn’t want to leave, either. The baby didn’t have much of a chance as it was; if Annie left, she wouldn’t have any.

  “I don’t think they’ll try to hurt us. They’ve seen that we’re only trying to help.”

  “We may have violated some of their customs without knowing it. White people are their hated enemies, honey, and don’t forget it. When Mangas Coloradas was tricked into a meeting under a guarantee of safety, then killed and his head cut off and boiled, the Apache swore eternal vengeance. Hell, who can blame them? But I won’t trust your safety with them for one minute, and for your own sake don’t ever forget about Mangas Coloradas, because they won’t.”

  So much pain, on both sides. It weighed down on her as she went from patient to patient, dispensing tea and cough medication, trying to soothe both fever and grief, for there wasn’t a family in the little band that hadn’t been touched by death. Jacali too made the rounds, talking to her people, so everyone knew the magnitude of the tragedy that had befallen them. Annie heard the soft, stricken wailing within the privacy of the wickiups, though they never displayed their grief in her presence. They were both proud and shy, and naturally wary of her anyway. All of the goodwill on her part wasn’t going to wipe out the years of warfare between their peo
ple.

  When she checked on the baby she found her lying listlessly, no longer even fretting. Again she spoon-fed the tea to the baby and sponged her with cool water, hoping to bring her some relief. The little chest sounded so congested it was as if there were barely room for air in her lungs.

  The mother forced herself to sit up, and she held her child on her lap, crooning weakly in an effort to rouse the baby. Rafe entered the wickiup and sat down just inside the entrance. “How is she?”

  Annie looked at him with agony in her eyes and gave a tiny shake of her head. The young mother saw it and uttered a sharp protest, snatching the child to her breast. The round, fuzzy head lolled back on the doll-like neck.

  Jacali too came into the wickiup, and sat waiting.

  When the mother grew tired, Annie took the baby and rocked her while she hummed the lullabyes she remembered from childhood. The peaceful, infinitely tender sounds filled the quiet wickiup. The baby’s breath grew more labored. Jacali leaned forward, her old eyes sharp.

  Rafe lifted the baby from Annie’s exhausted arms and put her to his shoulder. She had been plump and energetic only that morning, but already the heat of the disease was wasting her. He thought of the round cheeks and spiky hair, and the two gleaming little teeth that nipped so sharply.

  If it were his child, he thought, to lose her would be unbearable. He had known her only four days, and spent only an hour or so playing with her, yet he had such a heavy weight on his chest he felt almost smothered.

  Annie took her again, and coaxed more tea down her. Most of it dribbled from the small, slack mouth. She was still holding her when the tiny body began to stiffen and shudder.

  Jacali snatched the baby and carried her outside, despite the mother’s sharp cry of anguish. Annie jumped to her feet and surged through the open flap, propelled by a burst of fury that banished her exhaustion. “Where are you going with her?” she demanded, even though she knew the old woman couldn’t understand her. She could barely make out Jacali’s departing figure in the darkness and she ran after her.

  But Jacali only went to the edge of the camp and sank down on her knees. She laid the baby on the ground in front of her, then began a low, mournful chanting that sent shivers down Annie’s spine.

  Yet when Annie reached for the baby again, Jacali snatched her up with a hissed warning.

  Rafe put his hand on Annie’s shoulder, holding her in place, his face like stone as he stared at the tiny form in Jacali’s hands.

  “What is she doing?” Annie cried, tugging against his grip.

  “She didn’t want the baby to die in the wickiup,” he said absently. Perhaps the baby was already dead; it was too dark to tell if she was breathing or not. He felt Annie’s warm vibrancy under his hand, and it pierced all the way to his heart.

  He hadn’t asked her about her special gift, hadn’t alluded to it in any way. He was almost certain she didn’t realize the power she had and he had kept his awareness of it to himself, probably out of pure selfishness, for he had wanted something of her that no one else knew existed. What was it like for other people when she touched them? Did they feel the same hot rush of passion that she always evoked in him? Surely not, for he had noticed that her touch had calmed the fevered Indians rather than rousing them. And females wouldn’t be stirred to lust by her touch anyway. He had puzzled over the quality of it even as he kept the knowledge to himself.

  It had been almost a relief to realize that she couldn’t work miracles; people still died, despite her healing touch. But if she realized the power of her gift, she would feel an almost crushing responsibility to use it even when it was hopeless, and for that reason, too, he had kept silent. She worked herself to exhaustion now; what extremes would she push herself to if she knew? How much more deeply would her failures hurt her? Because she would consider them personal failures, and would try all the harder. How much strength did it cost her, this gift, and how much could she bear to lose before her heart or her spirit gave out under the burden of it?

  All of his natural instincts shouted for him to protect his woman. He would fight to the death to protect her from harm. Yet how could he stand here and watch the baby die when it was possible Annie could save her? It might not work; the child might die within the next minute, but Annie was the only chance she had.

  He moved like lightning striking, scooping the limp little body from Jacali’s arms before the old woman could even cry out. He turned and thrust the baby into Annie’s arms. “Hold her,” he said between his teeth. “Put her against your breast and hold her. Rub her back with your hands. And concentrate.”

  Stunned, Annie automatically cradled the infant to her. The baby was still alive, she realized dimly, though essentially lifeless with fever. “What?” she asked in confusion.

  Jacali was screeching in fury and trying to get around him. Rafe put his hand on her chest and pushed her back. “No,” he said in such a deep, crackling tone that the old woman stopped still. His pale eyes glowed with a rage that burned through the darkness, like a demon’s, and she screeched again, but this time in terror. She didn’t dare move.

  Rafe turned back to Annie. “Sit down,” he barked. “Sit down and do what I told you.”

  She did. She sank down onto the dirt, feeling the grit shifting beneath her. The cool night wind fluttered in her hair.

  Rafe squatted in front of her and arranged the baby so that she lay against Annie’s breast, Annie’s strong heart thudding beneath the tiny, failing one. He took her hands and placed them against the baby’s back. “Concentrate,” he said fiercely. “Feel the heat. Make her feel it.”

  She felt totally confused; had both Rafe and Jacali run mad? She stared at him, eyes wide. “What heat?” she stammered.

  He put his hands on hers, forcing them to flatten against the little form. “Your heat,” he said. “Concentrate, Annie. Fight the fever with it.”

  She had no idea what he was talking about; how could you fight a fever with heat? But his eyes were glittering like ice in the moonlight and she couldn’t look away from him; something in those pale, crystalline depths pulled her in, sent the night swirling away. “Concentrate,” he said again.

  She felt a deep throbbing. His eyes still held her, filling her vision until she could see nothing else. It wasn’t possible, she thought, to see so clearly in the dark. There was no moon, only a faint starlight. Yet his eyes were a colorless fire, pulling her out of herself. The throbbing intensified.

  It was the baby’s heart, she thought, that she could feel throbbing. Or perhaps it was her own. It filled her entire body, surging like the tide. Yes, it was a tide, lifting her up and sweeping her away. She sensed the deep rhythmic surge of it, surrounding her with liquid warmth. She heard the roaring of it, muted and far away. And what she had thought was the moon was really the sun, burning brightly. Her hands were burning too, and now the throbbing was concentrated in her hands. Her fingertips pulsed, her palms thrummed with the energy of it. She thought her skin must surely dissolve under the pressure of it.

  And then peace began to edge in as the tide became gentle breakers, lapping lazily against some unknown shore. The light was even brighter than before, but it was also softer, and incredibly clear. She wasn’t drifting, she was floating, and she could see forever. The land spread out before her, great expanses of green and brown, and the deepest blue of the oceans, bluer than she had known anything could be, and she could see the misty, glowing curve of the earth, and it humbled her to think that everyone she had known and would ever know lived on this small, lovely place.

  The throbbing had subsided to a steady hum, and she felt both incredibly heavy with exhaustion and weightless, as if she were indeed floating. The great light began dimming, and gradually she became aware of the warm little body she held to her breast, wriggling under her hands, crying fretfully.

  She opened her heavy eyelids, or perhaps they had been open anyway and only now could she see. A sense of unreality seized her, as if she had awakened
in a strange place and didn’t know where she was.

  But it was the same place. She was sitting in the dirt at the edge of the camp, and Rafe was kneeling in front of her. Jacali was squatting on her haunches a few feet away, her slanted black eyes filled with a sort of wonder.

  It was daylight. Somehow the day had come and she hadn’t noticed. Perhaps she had slept, and dreamed, but she was so very tired she didn’t see how she could have slept. The sun was high; it was late in the morning.

  “Rafe?” she asked, bewildered fear making her voice desperate.

  He reached out and took the baby, who was squirming and wailing. The fever was down, though not broken, and the spots weren’t as dark. She was awake and fretful, and her mother would be totally frantic. He kissed the silky, spiky hair and passed the infant on to Jacali, who accepted her in silence and hugged her to her own sagging bosom. Then he took Annie in his arms.

  He was so stiff he could barely move, and he felt disoriented. How had so much time passed? He had been lost in the dark pools of Annie’s eyes and . . . and something had happened. He didn’t know what. All he knew was that she needed him, and he was burning for her with a frenzy that was almost uncontrollable. He lifted her high in his arms and bore her away, pausing only long enough to snatch one of their blankets.

  He followed the stream until they were out of sight of the camp, and hidden from any casual view by a small copse of trees. There he spread the blanket and placed her on it, and stripped away all of the clothing that had been keeping him from contact with her skin. “Annie,” he said in a rough, shaking voice as he spread her thighs, his hard, callused hands dark against the paleness of her skin. His shaft was so engorged he could scarcely breathe or move from the throbbing pressure of it. Her slim arms came up to wrap around his muscled shoulders, and he pushed deep into the tight, wet welcoming of her body. Her soft sheath embraced him with a rhythmic clenching as she adjusted to his width, and her legs came up to lock around his hips.