Cherish thought his voice the most beautiful she had ever heard. She raised her head and looked into his dark face. His eyes gleamed.
“We will speak no more about it,” she repeated.
Sloan wrapped the blanket around her. There were still portions of the night that her weary, confused mind blanked out, and she was content to let it be so. She was exhausted. The pain in her jaw was not as acute, but there was a sour taste in her mouth. She remembered that she had been sick while coming through the woods. She didn’t want to remember anything unpleasant, but at the same time she seemed compelled to ask questions.
“How did you find me so soon? I don’t think we were in the cave long, though it seemed like an eternity.”
She looked at John Spotted Elk, but it was Sloan who answered.
“John sets a fast pace.” Sloan’s lips twitched in a half smile when he looked at his friend, but John was staring stoically into the fire.
Hesitantly, Cherish said, “There was another man coming. A man named Finger.”
The silence lasted so long that she was wondering if she had voiced the statement or only thought she had.
Finally Sloan said, “He came.”
In spite of her tiredness, Cherish’s mind was beginning to clear. She gazed into the sputtering campfire and wondered at the miracle of her rescue. She had lived through a horrible nightmare. Never as long as she lived would she forget the instant glimpse she’d had, before blackness took her, of John Spotted Elk behind Harry drawing his knife across his throat, of Sloan, cords of his neck standing out, lips skinned back, tomahawk in his hand, and the bloody dead bodies sprawled one atop the other.
She wanted to go home; and yet, now that her reason had returned, the barrier between her and Sloan had also returned. Quietly she accepted the fact that her place in Sloan’s life would always be what he had intended it to be when he met her on the trail: a nursemaid for the babe and, if she were willing, a companion for his bed. When she had accepted his offer, she had expected no more. He had not asked her to love him and could not be blamed for not loving her wholeheartedly as she yearned to be loved.
The cabin now was home, and she thought of it, the babe, True and Juicy, with longing.
As if in answer to her thoughts, Sloan began preparing to leave the cave. Cherish got to her feet and pulled the shawl up over her head. Her legs were weak and shaky, and when she moved she felt suddenly dizzy. She doubted her ability to walk the long distance back to the cabin, but she resolved to try. Then, a pain knifed through her and she leaned weakly against the wall, hoping the men would not notice her distress. Mercifully, it passed.
Sloan took her arm and led her out of the cave, keeping himself between her and the ravine that ran alongside the river. They walked down the incline and had reached the level ground when the second pain struck her, almost bringing her to her knees. She stood swaying until it passed, trying to hide it from them.
“What is it, Cherish?” Sloan peered anxiously into her face.
“A cramp.” She smiled weakly. “It’ll pass.”
Cherish walked on, determined that whatever it cost her in pain and weariness, she had to keep up. She lost all sense of direction as she concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. Her head felt light and empty and there was a buzzing in her ears.
Suddenly her insides were tearing apart. She gasped and clung to Sloan’s arm as she doubled over.
“What’s the matter? Cherish, sweet— What is it?” Sloan’s arms were around her, holding her. John turned and trotted back to them.
Frightened, she gasped, “I don’t know. Pains . . . in my stomach.”
John touched her face with a gentle hand. Beads of perspiration stood out on her forehead. He bent and picked her up in his arms. Her eyes closed wearily and her head fell back against his shoulder. John’s piercing black eyes looked directly into Sloan’s as he walked past him.
Sloan followed. “You have the right, my friend,” he said under his breath.
As soon as John Spotted Elk picked her up, Cherish fell into an exhausted sleep. But she slept intermittently. The sharp pains she had experienced had subsided into pulsing pains that started in her lower back and extended all the way around her middle. At times they were so severe she moaned.
She lapsed into a semiconscious state. From time to time she was transferred from one pair of arms to another. Both held her tenderly, but the pace remained the same. Once she knew she was being carried by Sloan, for when a groan escaped her, she heard his voice.
“Try and sleep, love. We’ll be home soon.”
Home. The small log cabin she shared with him had never seemed so much like home as now.
Around and around her confused thoughts wandered—to Sloan, to Orah Delle, to True and Juicy, and to John Spotted Elk. He was a special man. She felt an affinity with him, as if she had known him in another life. He was strong, yet gentle. She could have loved him—
Now the terrible cramps drove all other thoughts from her mind. She tried to recall when she had last had her woman’s time. It was while she was with Roy and the Burgess family. The first time she had lain with Sloan was during the blizzard—how long ago?
No! No! She could feel the warm sticky discomfort between her thighs. Oh, dear God, not that! Oh, please, please, God, let them hurry. If they should have to help her, it would be the final humiliation.
She began to cry softly.
* * *
Sloan carried Cherish into the cabin, past the two startled women and into the bedroom. John Spotted Elk parted from them at the door.
“I go for my father’s wife,” he said. “She will know how to care for Morning Sun.” He took off in an easy loping run for the Shawnee lodge.
Ada followed Sloan into the bedroom.
“What’s wrong with her? Where has she been all this time? Fine nursemaid you have, Sloan. That’s blood on her dress. Don’t put her on my bed! Do you hear me? Sloan!”
“Shut up and get out of here, Ada. Katherine, bring warm water and come in and close the door.”
“She’ll do no such thing!” Ada stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips. “Kat will not wait on your doxy! I’ve told you that before, Sloan. Kat is mine—mine! She takes orders only from me.”
Sloan’s face went white. The strain of the night’s ordeal had stretched his nerves almost to the breaking point. He grabbed Ada by the arm and roughly jerked her aside.
“Do as I say, Katherine!” he roared. “You make one move to interfere, Ada, and so help me I’ll break your neck.”
“Would you, darlin’? Would you, really?” She smiled up at him and rubbed her breasts against his arm. Sloan shoved her away. Her expression changed instantly. “Your dirty old friends came and took my baby. I’ll have the soldiers on them. They had no right to take her out of here.”
“They had every right because I told them to. You’re not fit to even touch that babe and you’ll never have her. Get that through your stupid head!” He grabbed Ada’s shoulders and gave her a vicious shake.
From where she lay on the bed, Cherish could see through the blur of her tears the smile on Ada’s face. She was looking at Sloan with pure lust, wanting him to hurt her, loving the way he was manhandling her. The sight was embarrassing to Cherish. And then embarrassment turned to disgust toward both of them.
Sloan pushed Ada into the other room and came back to Cherish. He knelt down beside her to remove her shawl. She pushed his hands away.
“Please . . . please!” she cried. “Leave me alone! I can’t stand anymore—” Between sobs she pleaded, “Please. Just go and leave me alone.”
The hurt and confused look on Sloan’s face was gone by the time Katherine came in with the copper kettle and a supply of towels.
“Do what you can for her.” He stood and looked down at the girl who meant the world to him. She had turned her face away and refused to look at him. He left the room, closing the door behind him.
Gently, Katherine
undressed the weeping girl as if she were a child. When the blood-stained garments were removed she pressed a pad of clean cloth bandage between her legs, washed her thoroughly with the warm water and slipped a clean nightdress over her head.
“You poor little thing,” she crooned. “You poor sweet girl. What did those evil men do to you? You’re worn out, is what you are. Mister Carroll is worried sick about you.”
Cherish continued to cry, pressing her fingers to her eyes as if to hold back the weight of tears that pushed for release against a barrier of despair. She no longer cried aloud, but silently, inwardly, the dry tears of hopelessness. Finally she exhausted herself and drifted to sleep.
She was awakened by the sound of Sloan’s voice in the other room. He spoke sharply to Ada and she replied with a purr in her voice that made Cherish cringe with disgust.
The door opened and a fat, round-faced Indian woman and a slim young girl came into the room. Katherine backed away from the bed as the woman and the girl came to the bunk and looked down at Cherish. The girl was beautiful. Her fine-boned features were perfectly formed. Her dark brows looked as if they had been painted on her face with a fine brush. They arched over large brown eyes with flecks of gold in their velvety depths. Her skin was flawless, her mouth soft and red.
The girl spoke. “My brother, John Spotted Elk, sends our father’s wife, Falling Leaf, to you, woman of Light Eyes.” The girl’s face was without expression, yet there was a resentful note in the tone of her voice.
Through the fog of her emotional turbulence, Cherish recognized the girl. She was Minnie Dove, the girl who was in love with Sloan. A wave of pity for the girl overwhelmed Cherish. Minnie Dove’s chance of having her love for Sloan reciprocated was even more hopeless than her own.
“Thank you for coming,” Cherish said. “I don’t know, but I think that I’m only having a bad . . . woman time.”
Minnie Dove translated for Falling Leaf in a soft melodious voice. The pleasant-faced woman listened and nodded her head. Then with a quick movement she swept the blanket from Cherish and flung up her nightdress. She took the pad from between Cherish’s thighs, examined it and returned it. Cherish’s cheeks flamed. She dared not look up at the woman. Falling Leaf spoke to Minnie Dove, who turned to Katherine.
“Falling Leaf wish to see dress and blanket.”
Katherine looked puzzled and glanced toward the pile of soiled clothing she had left beside the washstand. Falling Leaf’s eyes followed hers; she went to the pile and carefully unfolded the torn bloody dress and the shift. She found what she was looking for and took the soiled garment to the light from the window.
Her eyes were sad when she came back to the bed. When she spoke to Minnie Dove again her voice was low and sorrowful. She spoke long and elegantly. When she finished she stood at the end of the bunk, her arms folded over her ample bosom.
Minnie Dove looked down at Cherish for a long moment before she spoke.
“Falling Leaf say seed planted in woman of Light Eyes stay only a short time. White woman’s body not strong enough to hold seed, and it wash away in the flood of woman’s sickness.” Minnie Dove stopped speaking abruptly.
Falling Leaf looked at the Indian girl as if expecting her to continue, but Minnie Dove was silent, staring coldly at Cherish.
Cherish was not surprised by Minnie Dove’s words; they told her what she had suspected. She was, however, surprised at the girl’s hostility.
“It saddens me to lose the seed,” she said slowly. “And it saddens me that you and I are not friends, Minnie Dove. I have heard of the great beauty of Minnie Dove, sister of John Spotted Elk. Now I see with my own eyes that what I heard was true.”
A flicker of surprise passed across the Indian girl’s face, and she looked at Cherish with new interest.
“Who tell you this?”
“The one you call Light Eyes. He says that you are not only beautiful, but a woman of great intelligence. The men in the new cabin have also told me of your beauty. Can we not be friends? You and I could teach each other many things.”
Minnie Dove lifted her head proudly and folded her arms across her breasts. Looking down her nose at Cherish, as if she were a queen addressing a loyal subject, she said coolly:
“I will think about your wish.”
“Thank you,” Cherish said gravely, “and thank Falling Leaf for coming to see me.”
The two women left the room. Katherine covered Cherish with the blanket.
“Oh, ma’am, I’m so sorry,” she murmured. “You were starting a baby and now it’s gone.”
Cherish closed her eyes. “Katherine, dear,” she said wearily. “Please don’t call me ma’am ever again.”
She settled herself more comfortably in the bed and drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER
* 24 *
Sloan was restless, frustrated and anxious. Frustrated because he could not understand why Cherish was behaving so strangely toward him, and anxious because he feared she might have suffered an internal injury.
A wave of depression washed over him at the thought of her refusal to let him comfort her. He experienced once again the hurt he had felt when she pleaded for him to leave her alone. What a blind fool he had been not to tell her that he loved her long ago!
His heart filled suddenly with an overpowering protectiveness. She had been through so much, this slip of a girl. She had given her love freely, asking nothing but to live here with him and the babe, refusing even to take his name because she didn’t want to bind him to her if he didn’t love her wholeheartedly as a man should love his wife.
He looked up as Minnie Dove and Falling Leaf came out of the other room. He glanced at Ada sulking in the chair by the fire, then followed the Indian women outside where they could talk privately.
“Wife of Chief Running Elk, I thank you for coming,” he said, speaking in Shawnee.
“My husband commanded it.”
“I am worried that Morning Sun has suffered a grave injury.”
“Light Eyes, I feel great sorrow. The seed you planted in your woman is no more. It was not strong enough to take root and grow.”
She had been pregnant with his child. Of course! Why hadn’t he thought of that?
“And Morning Sun? Will she be well again?”
“She is young. She will sleep and grow strong.”
“Strong enough to bear other babes?” He tried to keep his voice from sounding anxious.
Falling Leaf’s fat face wrinkled into a smile.
“Plant your seed, Light Eyes. You will have many sons.”
Feeling heady with relief, Sloan smiled back and placed his hand on her shoulder.
“With my gratitude goes my wish and Morning Sun’s that you and Chief Running Elk have many moons of good health.”
Through all this Minnie Dove stood a short distance away, her arms folded, her chin tilted, her face turned away from him. Sloan went to her.
“My thanks to you, too, Minnie Dove, for bringing your father’s wife and using your skills to translate her message to Morning Sun.”
She looked at him. “My brother commanded that I come. He is much taken with your . . . woman,” she added spitefully.
“I know that. I am grateful that she will have a protector if I should be struck down.”
“He may take her and go far away.”
“He’ll not do that and you know it. He is an honorable man.”
“Yes,” she snapped. “But is Morning Sun an honorable woman?”
“I would stake my life on it.”
“If that is so, you do not value your life!” she sneered. “It is known that men think with the thing beneath their breechcloth.”
“If your brother heard you speak so, he could take a switch to your legs.”
“He is not here, and you will not tell him,” she said confidently.
“No, I’ll not tell him. But enough of that. I talked to John Spotted Elk about you. He thinks it would be wise if you came to my lodge and l
et Morning Sun teach you ways of the white woman. I will command her to prepare you for the day when you go to the white man’s lodge as wife to a white man. She will not refuse.”
Eyeing him contemptuously, Minnie Dove raised her chin a little higher.
“You need not command, Light Eyes. I, Minnie Dove, princess of the Shawnee, have already made plans for Morning Sun to teach me the ways of the white woman. I will go to her and we will talk.” With her head held at a haughty angle, she walked away. Falling Leaf, after a shy grin at Sloan, followed.
A smile lit up Sloan’s eyes. “The little devil,” he murmured. “How did Cherish manage that?”
* * *
Ada’s temper had never been worse. As soon as Sloan entered the cabin carrying a pot of stew True had prepared, she confronted him.
“Sloan, I want to talk to you. I demand that you go to that cabin and bring my baby back here. I will not have her with crude, dirty, ignorant men. They know nothing about taking care of a child.”
“They know more than you do. She knows and likes them. She doesn’t know or like you.” Sloan hung the pot on the hook and swung it over the low-burning fire.
His words went over Ada’s head. She continued as if he hadn’t spoken.
“I’m ordering you to bring my baby back here. I have decided to go back to Virginia, and I’m taking her with me. Do you hear me, Sloan?”
“I hear you. I could have heard you if I had been outside. But you’re not taking Orah Delle . . . anywhere. Now, do you hear me?”
“You’ll see. Just as soon as a boat comes upriver, I’m going, going, going! You can’t stop me. I’m going and taking that baby. I want money, Sloan. I want Slater’s part of the money your father left. As Slater’s wife, I’m entitled to it. Uncle Robert said I was entitled to it. Or did your dear, righteous papa leave it all to you? I wonder what your dear, righteous papa would think about your backwoods doxy, the trollop you got off a riverboat, or did she wander in out of the woods? The slut who has been spreading her legs for your fine Indian friend.”
Love and Cherish Page 22
