The Savage

by Nicole Jordan

  At least Lance seemed sympathetic. When he joined her in bed the second evening, he no longer appeared bent on revenge, thankfully showing no intention of repeating his mortifying, maddening, deliberately suspended seduction of the previous evening. And when she rolled nervously on her side to give him plenty of room and couldn’t stifle a muffled moan, he reacted with concern.

  “What is it?” he murmured in the darkness.

  “Nothing.” Summer shook her head ruefully. “Perhaps I’m not as strong as I thought. My muscles aren’t accustomed to hauling water and wood, at any rate.”

  He didn’t reply, but a moment later she felt his callused hand glide up her bare back. Summer tensed as his fingers closed gently over her shoulder, fearing a repetition of last night, with him leaving her aroused and unfulfilled. Instead Lance began slowly to knead her sore muscles. Summer stifled another groan at the discomfort, and yet his careful ministrations had an incredibly welcome effect.

  She closed her eyes gratefully and let her head fall back, savoring the texture of his work-roughened palms massaging her skin, the feel of his long, hard, sensitive fingers tracing the curves of her shoulders…her arms, her back…pressing gently…lightly rubbing in slow, rotating strokes…magically relieving the tight, knotted muscles. It was sensual and yet soothing, as if he wanted nothing more in the world than to comfort her.

  After a time she could feel the tautness and tension draining out of her, the pain begin to dissipate…could feel her aching body relaxing enough to sleep.

  She saw little of Lance during the days, although she knew he’d been hunting because he brought back two bucks for the women to skin and butcher. Comanche warriors, she learned from observation and from the loquacious Short Dress, bore the responsibility for hunting game and making raids, and that was about all. A warrior saw to the safety and well-being of his family and therefore his band, but the only duties he performed regularly were caring for his weapons and his horses.

  Otherwise a warrior spent his time lazing about the camp, smoking and talking, playing games or engaging in sporting feats, or engrossed in personal grooming. A man might fill endless hours simply combing and greasing and braiding his long hair, Summer learned to her curiosity and resentment. She herself was afforded only moments each day for her own grooming. In contrast to a husband, a Comanche woman had little time to preen; her life was occupied by endless, back-wrenching work. And she received little appreciation for it. Indeed, a warrior seemed to show his horses greater affection and consideration than he did his wives.

  Short Dress didn’t seem to mind the inequities, however. “It is our way,” she said with a shrug. “A horse carries a warrior into battle and to hunt the buffalo, whereas a woman is only good for unimportant tasks.”

  Working alongside Short Dress did at least give Summer the opportunity to learn more about Comanche customs, some of which made her wince—like eating the raw liver and heart of a freshly killed buffalo (considered a delicacy) and drinking its warm blood or curdled milk from its udder. The first time she saw the dozens of dried human scalps hanging from a lodge pole in Fights Bear’s tepee, she recoiled in horror. The grisly sight brought home more than anything else just how brutal and ruthless a people the Comanche were—a fact she had momentarily forgotten while accepting Fights Bear’s hospitality.

  As a Texan she’d always deplored the Comanches and their murderous ways, yet after listening to Short Dress, Summer began to realize that from their viewpoint, they were fighting for sheer survival. Not a single person in the camp hadn’t had at least one immediate family member killed by whites.

  “Wasp Lady has lost many relatives,” Short Dress said sadly. “Her husband and several sons, as well as two granddaughters. Can you not understand why she looks at your white skin and sees only an enemy?”

  Furthermore, acts that white society often considered barbaric, Comanche culture viewed as only natural and right, many of which were rooted in spiritual beliefs. The taking of a scalp, for example, wasn’t done for the purpose of torture, but because it destroyed an enemy’s soul and prevented it from returning to the world and plaguing the People, which was more effective than killing the body.

  To the Comanche, their code of behavior was simple. They raided for horses to increase their wealth and prestige, took Mexican and white captives as slaves to make their work easier and to bear their children, and made war to avenge a wrong or to turn back the tide of white immigrants. They hated passionately the settlers who had overrun their hunting grounds and driven the buffalo from the plains, leaving their children to starve, and decimated their camps with epidemics of cholera and smallpox. They especially abhorred the Texans, who had dishonored treaties and claimed their lands and forced them onto crowded reserves. Texans were enemies to be fought to the death.

  Lance’s mother had discovered that bitter truth shortly after arriving in Texas, Summer knew from what her brother had once told her. Charlotte Calder’s white family had been killed in a Comanche raid, while she was taken captive by their leader. Short Dress knew little about Lance’s mother, however, since their rescue had occurred long before the Mexican woman’s own captivity.

  Working with the women, though, did allow Summer to learn more about the enigmatic man she had married. Her third day in camp, she was put to work with a bone knife, scraping a deer hide that had been staked out on the ground, a task that abraded her knuckles raw and strained her back. Kneeling beside her, Short Dress was softening another hide with a mixture of animal brains, tree bark, and grease as she explained how Lance had become a Comanche.

  “I had been with the band three years when he arrived in camp,” Short Dress said with a smile. “I remember Pakawa called for a feast to celebrate the return of his son to the People.”

  According to Short Dress, young Lance had come searching for his heritage and his father. He’d been accepted guardedly into the band, yet as a boy, he’d endured the cruel taunts and scorn of the other youths, for he couldn’t ride half as well, or shoot a bow and arrow at all, or steal horses from under the nose of an enemy. He’d worked like a demon, though, to become a worthy warrior, practicing hour after countless hour until he could hold his own with all but the most skilled boys his age.

  And he’d had good teachers. His father, Pakawa, which meant Kills Something, had been a great war chief, a position of leadership that was earned by deed, not inherited, in the Comanche culture. His older brother, Fights Bear, who had also accepted responsibility for training Lance, had eventually become a war chief.

  “Lance wouldn’t talk about his father when I asked,” Summer admitted, “except to say that he was dead. Do you know how it happened?”

  Short Dress glanced cautiously over her shoulder. “The People do not care to speak of the dead, but I will tell you since you ask. Pakawa was the bravest of warriors. Sí, the People still sing songs about his courage. One day he led a war party against the white soldiers, and allowed his son, Sharp Lance, your husband, to accompany him for the first time into battle. Kanap-Cheetu was not called Sharp Lance then. It is a name of honor, for only the bravest warriors are allowed to carry a spear into battle.

  “But that day the evil whites had too many guns. Pakawa’s medicine was not good. His chest was pierced by a white bullet. Kanap-Cheetu took up his father’s lance and shield and stood over the fallen body of Pakawa to protect him from the blows of the white soldiers, until they could be driven away. It was a great deed—there is none greater to us. Sharp Lance’s bravery was much talked about among our people. But he cared nothing for that. His grief was great when Pakawa died. Afterward he had a powerful vision. It told him to return to the whites, his mother’s people. Wasp Lady agreed he must follow his vision and gave her blessing.”

  Greatly intrigued, Summer mentally filed away the tale to ask Lance about when next she saw him.

  The next time came that afternoon, although she had no chance to speak to him, for he was engaged in some kind of sporting contest o
n horseback with the men of the band. The entire village turned out to watch, and Summer was given a reprieve from her duties to admire and cheer with the other women.

  The feats the warriors performed were incredible. In addition to simple horse races, they galloped back and forth over obstacle courses, showed off their skill at archery, picked up objects from the ground as they dashed past, and speared targets with their long lances.

  The maneuver that impressed Summer the most—and seemed the most dangerous—was when a rider slid halfway off his mount, clinging to the horse’s side with one heel across the back, his elbow braced in a rawhide loop plaited to the mane, and shot arrows from a bow beneath the straining animal’s neck.

  Lance came close to winning one of the obstacle races, but lost to his brother, Fights Bear. Yet Summer could tell that her husband was pleased by his performance. As Lance rode past her, he sent her a rare smile that touched his eyes with a soft sparkle. A sparkle, Summer realized with dismay, that had the ability to make her heart beat faster. It was the closest she’d ever seen Lance come to showing true happiness, and she thought the sight incredibly appealing. His hard features lost their fierceness, their harsh arrogance, and relaxed into striking handsomeness.

  For a moment Summer wondered what it would take to make that expression permanent. She knew so little about the man she had married that she could only guess what Lance wanted or needed out of life, or what had made him the complex, guarded man that he was.

  The next afternoon, however, afforded her the opportunity to discover more. Summer was working over the deerskin before the tepee when Lance rode up on a pinto horse and offered to take her down to the creek to bathe.

  Surprised, Summer wiped her sweating brow and looked at him with misgiving. “You want me to bathe with you?”

  He gave her a wry smile that made her suddenly aware of herself as woman; the curve of his lips stole the harshness from his features, added the sting of sensuality. “No, princess, I’ll let you do it alone. I told you I’m not going to force myself on you. But I thought you could use the rest. And the chance to get clean.”

  Summer flushed, knowing she must look a sight. She’d scarcely had a minute to expend on her own grooming, and her hair badly needed washing. Yet she glanced uneasily over her shoulder. “Your grandmother might object if I stop work.”

  “I’ll handle my grandmother. If you want to go, then climb on.”

  Summer didn’t need to be asked twice. When Lance extended his hand to help her mount, she eagerly scrambled up behind him. It would be wonderful to escape, even temporarily, from Wasp Lady’s tyranny. And she craved the chance to rid herself of the dirt and sweat of the past week—even if it meant being alone with Lance.

  This would be the first time since arriving at camp that she had enjoyed his sole company…unless she counted the hours of warm, naked darkness she endured in his bed each night. Her cheeks colored hotly when she recalled that first night and Lance’s shameful, infuriating, carnal taunting.

  She supposed it was his way of punishing her…for all her earlier rejections of him, for all the times she had used her feminine wiles against him to gain her own ends. He had turned her own weapons against her, making her desire him—and it hadn’t felt at all nice.

  What was worse was the knowledge that perhaps she had even deserved it.

  Lance rode north about a mile, where the hills were more rugged and the timber thicker. Summer clung to his waist, her chest brushing his bare back. Lance had won that point, she had to admit. Because of their close proximity during the last few days, she’d become more familiar with his body. She hadn’t fully overcome her resentment at their unwanted marriage, or her natural reserve at the physical intimacy of their relationship, but she no longer went rigid every time he touched her or whenever she came in contact with his naked skin.

  He found a protected area where cottonwoods and elms lined the creek, and a small pool between the rocks offered the perfect natural setting for a bathtub. Dropping the reins, Lance slid to the ground and helped Summer down, then hefted his rifle and the bundle he’d brought.

  When he started down toward the creek, though, Summer glanced at the paint pony he had borrowed from his brother. “Shouldn’t you tie him up?”

  “He doesn’t need to be tied. A Comanche horse is trained to stand with the reins down.”

  Lance had brought blankets and a leather parfleche that contained, to Summer’s delight, soap, a cloth towel, and a porcupine-quill brush. He’d also supplied her with fresh clothing—a blue calico shirt and deerskin skirt that he said belonged to his sister. She’d seen some of the Comanche women wearing calico that they’d obtained from white traders, but that wasn’t what surprised her.

  “Your sister doesn’t mind if I borrow her clothes?” she asked.

  “She was the one who offered.”

  Summer looked at him in amazement. “I didn’t think Dawn liked me very much.”

  Lance’s smile held real amusement. “She didn’t at first. But she says for a white woman, you show courage.”

  Summer smiled back at him, inordinately pleased at that dubious compliment. If his hostile sister had begun to soften toward her, then perhaps her exhausting labor and her genuine efforts to adapt to Comanche customs had been worth-while.

  Lance turned his back like a gentleman, giving her the privacy to bathe, and settled on a blanket, his shoulders propped against the trunk of a tree. Summer unbraided her hair and shed her heavy deerskin dress and moccasins with only a momentary concern for modesty. She’d lost much of her self-consciousness during the past few nights of having to sleep naked with Lance, and it seemed foolish to be nervous now. Indeed, one of the things she liked about Indian society was the physical freedom. After all the years of enduring constricting whalebone and horsehair and layer upon layer of undergarments, she enjoyed the license permitted by the primitive Comanche culture. Picking up the soap, she stepped cautiously into the pool.

  The cool water was heavenly. Raising her face to the sky, Summer gave a sigh of pure bliss. She knew she shouldn’t enjoy herself while Amelia’s fate was so uncertain, but she couldn’t help feeling pleasure at the simple chore of scrubbing herself clean.

  She had washed her hair and was rinsing out the soap when she remembered Lance. He wasn’t watching her, she noticed with a glance over her shoulder. Certainly he wasn’t ogling her the way she had him when he’d bathed in front of her. In fact, he seemed to be ignoring her entirely.

  His disinterest stung. For a brief moment Summer considered calling to him, just to gain his attention, to make him look at her—and yet she didn’t want to push him too far. Lance had set the rules of their relationship; he was keeping his distance with an iron will. If she broke them, if she tried to exercise her feminine powers on him gain, he might never bring her back here. Or worse, he might pay her back the way he had the other night.

  It was a long while before she reluctantly ended her bath. After wringing out her wet hair and drying off with the cloth, she donned the shirt and skirt and her moccasins. Then she went to join Lance on the blanket, settling beside him in the dappled shade of the cottonwood tree.

  His black gaze traveled over her coolly, and yet she thought she could see approval in his expression.

  “Feel better?”

  She laughed. “Immensely. You have my undying gratitude.”

  “That so?”

  His gaze dropped to her mouth, and suddenly the air was charged with a subtle tension. She could see desire in Lance’s eyes, hot and smoldering, and the sight heartened her. For the past several days he had pretended total indifference, but he wanted her now; she knew it with every womanly instinct she possessed.

  The knowledge soothed pride that had been stung by his previous rejection. She wasn’t the only one so strongly affected. Yet she also saw the sudden hard clench of his jaw as Lance clamped down on his urges.

  Self-consciously Summer picked up the hairbrush he’d brought. When she sta
rted to use it on her wet hair, though, Lance startled her by taking the brush from her.

  “Turn around. I’ll do that.”

  Tensely she did as he asked, presenting her back to him. She felt his fingers gently arranging her wet locks, felt the careful stroke of the brush as he pulled the quill bristles through her tangles. It was soothing and yet disturbingly arousing. His slow, sensuous ministrations reminded her far too much of their wedding night.

  The silence between them grew. After a moment, Summer decided it might be wise to break it—before she did something foolish like testing Lance’s restraint.

  “Amelia used to brush my hair like this,” she said tentatively.

  She winced at the sudden, sharp tug on her scalp as the brush caught on a snarl. Perhaps Amelia wasn’t the safest subject after all. Biting her lip, she tried again.

  “Short Dress told me how you acquired the name of Sharp Lance—because you performed a great act of courage in battle—but she never said what you were called before then.”

  A moment went by before Lance answered. “It was White Woman’s Son.”

  “That sounds like a Comanche name. Didn’t you have a white name? One your mother gave you?”

  “Yes, but I quit using it when she died.”

  “What was it?”

  “It doesn’t matter. That part of my life is over.”

  Summer hesitated, not wanting to pry, yet wanting to discover more about her husband and his complex past. “Was that part so painful, then?”

  Lance gave a curt laugh. “You might say that. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live through it again.”

  “You were twelve when you went in search of your father, weren’t you?”

  “So what?” His tone suggested wariness.

  “My brother Reed once told me what he knew about you. He said that when your mother died, you ran away to find your Comanche father.”

  “That’s about right.” She could almost feel Lance shrug. “When Ma died, there wasn’t any reason for me to stick around Austin.”