Venturing into uncharted territory while being pursued by thugs of various guises who wanted her blood? No, she hadn’t truly had time to pray for understanding. The visions, which had struck her fast and furious, also seemed to have abated. Perhaps her desire to complete them meant the spirits had granted her a measure of patience.
Somehow, though, she knew in her soul the time for patience would end and soon. She needed to complete the vision quest and learn what the eagle wanted to teach her.
“My thoughts exactly,” Jimmy said after a pause, and he glanced at Mrs. Davis with regret. “Ma’am, your generosity is more than I could have asked for, but I fear our path is a dangerous one and we are moving at a swift pace.”
“Don’t you worry about me, I have a single bag and I can ride well enough. I’m more interested in the company than protection…”
“Ma’am…we don’t want anything to happen to you, and traveling with strangers may not be safe.”
Mrs. Davis paused, consternation in her eyes. When her gaze landed on Blue, however, her smile turned benign. Her next words made Jimmy uncomfortable.
Disliking the effect, Blue gave him a questioning look.
“She said she would be perfectly fine traveling with us since my wife was.” He grimaced and Blue had to swallow a smile. The presumption probably needed clearing, though she didn’t imagine Jimmy wanted to explain as much based upon his reaction. The woman said more and Jimmy sighed. “She’s pleading now. I don’t like the idea of taking her.”
“Nor I, but she has offered us a kindness and we are only a few hours from this other town, yes?” If they rode steadily, they could be there before sundown. “If we take her, I’ll remain outside town this time, so you may purchase the supplies you need.”
His expression turned fierce. “It’s not safe for you to be on your own and they can be a bit more Christian in their welcoming.”
Understanding his reluctance as well as the reaction of the towns folk, Blue released her horse and put her hand on his arm. Meeting his gaze, she smiled gently. “Fear makes fools of us all. Why else would we call someone as beautiful as you cursed?”
Dislike still in his eyes, his expression softened. “Understanding means listening.”
“And a willingness to hear.” She should know, the spirits had trying to teach her for weeks and she’d failed to understand the portent of their visions and dreams. “What is important is supplies for the trail, and rest for the horses. I am not so used to towns.” After Broken Sky, she preferred the trail and the land to the box shaped buildings filled with judgment and hostility.
Rubbing her arms against the sudden chill, Blue glanced at Mrs. Davis as Jimmy delivered the information they would see her as far as Balch Spring. Her smile didn’t quite complete, in fact the left side of her mouth drooped as though it didn’t have the strength to match the right. Having seen similar effects in the elders of her own people, Blue considered what supplies they had remaining. Should they not make the next town before nightfall, she could make her a tea to help with the aches and pains.
As though noticing her study, Mrs. Davis held out her hand. Not understanding the gesture, she glanced to Jimmy for guidance.
He coughed once, clearing his throat. “She wants to introduce herself, but I think we should all keep our hands to ourselves.” Then he added in English to the woman. “The Cheyenne do not greet each other that way, don’t take her declining as an insult.”
Accepting Jimmy’s wisdom, Blue turned back to her horse. More than capable of mounting from the ground, she had to smile when Jimmy cupped his hands together as a makeshift stirrup. Placing her foot in his hands, she quickly found herself on the horse. His hand lingered a moment on her leg as he said, “Shane will ride with Mrs. Davis, stay with me.”
“She is an elder Jimmy,” Blue objected.
“At the moment, she’s a stranger and all strangers are not to be trusted with you.” Implacable will and fierce protectiveness went arm in arm with his tone.
“As you wish.” Acquiescing cost her nothing. True to her word, Mrs. Davis claimed a horse from the same stable, which refused them earlier. When the stable master saw who she planned to travel with, he refused to saddle her horse. Shane assisted her instead while Jimmy set his rifle in front of him and gazed forbiddingly at what few townsfolk peeked at them.
More than glad to be shed of the town, Blue tapped her horse up to a jog as soon as possible. She rode side by side with Jimmy with Shane and Mrs. Davis riding behind them. It took miles for Jimmy to relax his vigilance.
“You have more questions,” she said quietly, hoping to lure him out of his foul temper.
“Dozens,” he agreed. “Not right now.” He glanced back at Mrs. Davis and Shane.
“She cannot understand us.”
“We hope.” Suspicion marked the words and Blue frowned.
“Not everyone is an enemy, Jimmy.” To believe so would be to abandon hope.
A shrug served as his only response. “Outside of you, beautiful one, every person I’ve met on this journey has had an agenda, a grudge or a weapon they used to try and kill one or all of us. I’m not feeling particularly friendly.”
“Yet you judged the people of the town for feeling the same way about me.” At the accusation, he jerked his head to stare at her. Beneath the veneer of anger was a hint of wounding. Her words had found their mark.
“Blue, they were inhospitable as hell. I wasn’t inhospitable to the old woman. I thought she would slow us down and we might be a threat to her if those hunters come for you here. We have to protect her and if the choice is between she and you, she’s going to lose where I’m concerned.” Anger simmered in every syllable. “Those people wanted to shoot you. There is a considerable difference.”
“Except they didn’t shoot me, Jimmy. They didn’t pull out a weapon and they didn’t try. They simply didn’t want me there.” Pushing him wasn’t the kind thing to do, but allowing him to hold the anger so close would hurt him like a festering wound. “You are too honorable a man to believe distrusting everyone is the right course. Should we trust all? No. Should we judge them based upon their actions and their choices? Yes. The townsfolk were injured by some who looked like the People. Not my people, I hope, but other peoples of the plains. They do not know the difference between I and they—you do know the difference between that woman and the hunters.”
His jaw tightened. “You are impossible to argue with.”
“We are not arguing.” Hiding a smile, she eased her horse closer to his, enough so she could hold her palm open to him. “Every choice is a path we take. Like the lines that mark our hands, placed there from birth. Some decisions are made for us, but we cannot make them for others. Who we are and what we do must come from within. I am guilty of the same charges you leveled against the town.”
“I don’t agree, not entirely.” He sighed. “Blue you called us Cursed because you were taught to believe we are, and you know, maybe we are cursed. Yet you never hesitated to help us—to help me, to help him. You haven’t let what you thought stay your hand.”
“So will you do the same?”
The request demanded much of him, yet he’d proven to her time and again to be thoughtful and compassionate. Even in the midst of his hunt for a man he was desperate to find and end, he’d detoured on his father’s request to find her. Then, not knowing who she was, he sought to assist her and took her needs into consideration. His proud soul did him credit, and she would not see him fall into darkness of a festering injury.
“Yes,” he said finally. “I will do the same.” Then switching to English, he called back. “How are you doing Mrs. Davis? Do you need a break?”
“Kind of you to offer, but I seem to be holding up relatively well.”
After Jimmy translated, Blue smiled. “Thank you.”
He adjusted his hat and made a faint grumbling noise, then finally released a whoosh of breath. “You’re welcome. You do not fight fair.”
&nbs
p; “I told you, I wasn’t arguing with you, but for you. You know right from wrong, and you carry a great burden as it is.” Or he wouldn’t insist on burying every body. Not even warriors of her people showed such deference to the enemy dead.
“You get one win today,” he said. “I’ve decided. So we can argue—or discuss if you prefer—my burden tomorrow.”
Amused, she squeezed his arm once then let her horse drift apart from his. The trail proved smoother than their previous two days. The rich plains gave way to rolling hills and river country where water would be plentiful. Despite the colder weather and the promise of snow continuing to linger under the overcast skies, the game also seemed plentiful.
Jimmy had pegged two large rabbits not long after they left the town. She would skin them later and they would have a meal no matter what their reception in Balch Spring would be. Flexing her fingers, she tried to ease the stiffness from the cold. The horse helped to keep her legs warm, but the wind seemed to increase with every mile they traveled.
“I do have a question though.” Jimmy relented after another brief break to let the horses stretch and for Mrs. Davis to relieve herself. The older woman refused any assistance and limped off the trail until she found a space in the tall grass.
Rubbing her arms to chase away the chill, Blue raised her brows. “I am willing to answer.” She had offered earlier.
“I know, hard to think around the all the questions I have.”
She could understand the dilemma, for she wanted to ask him more about his ability and Shane’s. In all the years she had heard about the cur—Fevered—she hadn’t known any personally. The man with lightning and the other who created shades of himself were disturbing. Jimmy explained his eyesight, yet she suspected far more to his talent for she had never seen him miss a shot. Shane’s strength also increased when he fought, but why? Perhaps if she understood, she could help.
Or perhaps I am merely curious.
Glancing behind them, she knew Jimmy wanted to make sure Mrs. Davis kept up. Shane kept dropping back so he rode the tail of their formation and it placed Mrs. Davis in the center, a safer position.
“When you say descended from the spirits,” he formed the question slowly. “What does that mean exactly?”
“There is an easy answer and a more difficult one,” she admitted. “The easy answer is it means what it says. We are the flesh and blood descendants of the spirits. Their power, the power to call them—lives within us. It is not something we can teach or can give to another save to the children of our bodies—the children of our blood. To be of the Blood is something you have to be born into having.” She held up her palm again. “Like the choice is made for you because of your father or your mother.”
“So only one has to be of the Blood?”
She nodded. “It will only ever be one. Those of the Blood were not permitted to take each other as husband or wife.”
“Why not?”
“Because power begets power—if I were to take a man of the Blood as a husband, my children could be granted more power. It is dangerous.” Struggling to find the words, she shied away from the word forbidden. The warnings against taking another of the Blood were said in the same breaths with the cursed.
“Two powerful beings can create one of more power?”
“Yes.” The simplified explanation did not touch on all aspects of the warning, yet within it nestled the truth.
“Fevered can pass their abilities on to their children.”
Another shock, yet not as unexpected as she might have once believed. “With only one Fevered parent?”
“Sometimes two. My sister’s daughter doesn’t seem to have any abilities, nor her son. Yet. They don’t always show up immediately.” He rubbed his jaw. “Mine didn’t. I didn’t think I had anything special about me for a long time.”
Tucking away the shared knowledge for the future, she studied the clouds ahead. Darker gray and slanted as though misting—they were riding into a storm.
“What’s the difficult answer?” Jimmy brought them back to his original question.
Some knowledge was only meant to be shared among those of the Blood and other knowledge protected by the calling of shaman. Jimmy was neither, yet she’d promised him an answer. He speaks the language of the spirits. If they didn’t want him to know, they wouldn’t have allowed the gift.
“To understand the difficult answer, one must understand there are more to the spirits than we know.” She flexed her fingers, the cold bit at them. The drop in the temperature made the bruised wrist ache more than usual. “Spirits of the sky, of fire, of water and earth. These are older spirits, they have always there. A place can develop a spirit if the people believe enough. And there are foreign spirits who came with the invaders and the whites. They answer to white man’s magic and not to ours.”
“Magic isn’t real.”
“Isn’t it?” Blue smiled. “With all you have seen? Can you say truly it does not exist?”
An image flickered across her mind’s eye. The woman—Alicia—kneeling by a fire and casting herbs into it and the face appeared in the blue flame. The woman who called her sister. She was a witch and used white man’s magic. A witch as wife to a shaman? The whole idea was so anathema she forgot her next words.
Jimmy’s gloved hand came across hers, pulled her back to the present. “You went pale, are you all right?”
She opened her mouth to explain, but all came out was, “A memory,” she told him. “Nothing more.” Whatever lived within the visions, the knowledge they were sharing, was not for him.
“You sure?” He squeezed her hands lightly. “You’re cold.”
Yes, she was. “Movement helps.”
Looping his reins over the saddle horn, he stripped off his jacket and passed it over. Warm from his body, it wrapped around her and she slid her arms through the sleeves. Too large by half, but the coverage helped chase away the chill.
“Now you will be cold,” she told him by way of thanking.
“I’ll be fine. You tell me when you’re cold. You can ride with me, if you like. We can share heat.”
A smile tugged at her lips. That, they could do. Jimmy kept her very warm when they shared the bedroll or when she rode with him. Being close to him was a wonderful place. “We should not burden the horse.”
“You’re not a burden, Blue.”
Warmed further by the affection under the sentence, she smiled. “Whether you believe or not, magic exists for the whites and the spirits answer to the shamans. They say it was…” The words died unspoken in her throat. A second revelation and she blinked. The shaman and the woman Alicia mingled their magic to save their sons. Overhead, the Great Eagle let out a cry and she tracked his movements. The spirit soared higher and though he was some distance, she heard his acknowledgement.
They say it was the white man’s magic, which angered the spirits and cursed the ill. The whites say it was our magic, which cursed them. The cursed do not care for they are forever changed. She wanted to say those words, but they would not leave her soul. These words were not for him and the Great Eagle’s presence reminded her of such.
“They say it was what?”
“They say it is the arrival of these foreign spirits which created such discord between the People and Whites. Our spirits deserve to be honored and these new spirits wish to be honored as well. But before the whites and even before the People, there were another people—who lived hand in hand with the spirits, and so great was the love of the spirits for these First People, they came unto them and when they passed, they joined with the spirits to become one with them.”
He frowned. “You mean your ancestors became spirits?”
“Yes, and no.” When he scowled, she couldn’t suppress her chuckle. Uneasy with the insight, she clung to the discussion. “They were one with the spirits. It’s not clear whether they transitioned to become spirits or if they are in essence, our ancestors and look after us alongside the spirits.” She couldn’t
escape the shadows in the vision quests and the sensation of others along the journey.
“Souls.” Jimmy said. “You’re talking about their souls. Their souls became one with the spirits.”
“That is a way of looking at it. I only know the stories, the oral history. We accept the knowledge because we believe.”
“And that’s faith.” The scoff was so unlike him. It was her turn to frown.
“You do not have to believe as I do.”
He waved a hand. The wind tugged at her hair, pulling tendrils from her braids. The distant weather continued to close on them.
“I don’t mean to insult, Blue. I’m trying to understand. You’re talking about souls and faith and belief. I guess I wanted there to be real answers.” Rising in his stirrups, he squinted at the distance, then settled into the saddle once more. “We need shelter. There’s ice in the storm.”
Ice could be deadly dangerous in the open.
Over his shoulder, he said. “Shane, take lead of Mrs. Davis’ horse. We need to run.”
“Do you see a place for shelter?”
“I hope so. Or we’re in for some hurt.” He scanned the horizon. “You good to ride?”
She nodded, then leaned forward to murmur to the horse. They would need his cooperation and the cooperation of all the animals. “I can ask the spirits to hold off the wind.”
“You do that, I’ll look for shelter. Stay with me. Understood?” The snap of command in his tone betrayed his worry. Whatever he saw in the distance, she didn’t question.
“Understood. Where you lead, I’ll follow.”
His gaze connected with hers and the corners of his mouth curved. “Good.”
A shiver rolled through her, one not associated with the cold. When Jimmy kicked his horse to a gallop, she clung to the back of the gelding and did the same. They were racing the wind and closing her eyes, she called out to the Great Eagle—his wings could beat back the storm for a time.
They would need all the help they could get.
The Quick and the Fevered Page 25
