Frontier Woman

by Joan Johnston

  Cricket couldn’t have imagined the next hour in her worst nightmares. Nearly every Indian in the camp, including the two who held her captive, took their turn at Amy’s torn flesh. Amy had long since ceased to make any sounds at all, and the disgruntled Indians voiced their displeasure at her lack of response.

  Cricket’s body quivered with tension. Her chest ached and her belly spasmed as though she’d been the one assaulted. She had no more tears left to cry. She was empty, barren, hollow . . . but she wasn’t dead . . . and Amy was. Cricket didn’t know how she was so sure Amy was dead, except no woman could have survived such an onslaught, especially not one as fragile, as delicate, as Amy Creed. Guilt and remorse tightened Cricket’s throat until it hurt when she swallowed.

  If only she’d heeded Creed’s warnings. If only she’d listened when Amy wanted to turn back. If only she’d shot Amy when she had the chance, or let the Indians slit her throat. Cricket retreated to a world inside herself where she turned back the calendar and relived the past days’ events. She didn’t argue with Creed. She didn’t go for a ride with Amy. She and Amy weren’t captured by Comanches, and Amy wasn’t repeatedly raped.

  An Indian rose from Amy’s body and adjusted his loin-cloth. Suddenly, he sank to his knees, clutching his groin, as a bloodcurdling war whoop came out of nowhere and gunshots exploded around them. The two Comanches holding Cricket simply fell away from her, dead with bullet holes between their eyes, as Jarrett and Tom Creed came galloping pell-mell through the camp, killing Comanches like rats in a barn. Cricket saw it all as part of her dream, where she changed the way things happened. This, of course, was the rescue, where Tom and Creed came in the nick of time.

  Tall Bear cursed Wolf. How had he found them so soon? The Comanche war chief was nowhere near his weapons, and there was no chance he could reach the Woman of the Wolf to kill her now. It was better to make good his escape and save his revenge for another day. As he slipped into the shadows he saw that Wolf had dismounted and was scalping the dead and the dying. He must be truly crazy with grief and anger. Wolf did not usually take scalps.

  Tall Bear smiled maliciously and shouted from his hiding place, “You may have your woman back for now, Wolf. But look well at the Yellow-Haired Woman and remember. For that will be your woman the next time.”

  “Come and fight me, you woman killer!” Creed bellowed in Comanche as he brandished a bloody scalp.

  “Another day, Wolf,” Tall Bear shouted back. “When you have no woman left to mourn your death.”

  Creed’s urge to follow his enemy was strong, but he wouldn’t leave Cricket now that he’d found her. He clenched the grisly object in his hand, furious at his impotence. It was the utter quiet of the camp that drew Creed’s attention back to it. The cedar brake was littered with the mutilated bodies of dead Comanches. Cricket was alive, but she was still standing frozen exactly where she’d been when he and Tom had attacked. Creed’s berserk rage left him as suddenly as it had come. He shuddered when he recognized what he held in his hand and threw the scalp to the ground near the Comanche he’d taken it from. He crossed to Cricket, feeling a surge of guilty relief that she hadn’t suffered Amy’s fate.

  As Creed soon discovered, Cricket hadn’t escaped totally unscathed. She looked at him, but she didn’t see him. Yet there was an awful knowledge in her eyes. She was shivering, and her skin was cold to the touch.

  “I’m here, Brava,” Creed said as he took her by the shoulders with his bloodied hands and drew her into his embrace. “I’m here.”

  At the touch of Creed’s hot, sweaty flesh against hers, Cricket finally believed he was real. “You came.” She grabbed him then like a drowning person grabs a lifeline, almost strangling him, so tightly did she clench his neck. She pressed her body to his, holding him, absorbing the warmth and life of him, praying she could somehow forget what she’d seen and smelled and heard but knowing she never would.

  Tom kneeled by the broken body of his wife but couldn’t bear to touch her. Her beautiful blond hair fanned out in the dirt around a face that showed the ravages of what she’d suffered. Her lush eyelashes lay feathered on sunburned cheeks. Her lips and nose were swollen and crusted with dried blood. Except for the lance in her shoulder, the Comanches had left Amy’s upper body untouched. Her skin was as white and smooth as he’d remembered it, her breasts full and round, the nipples pink as primroses. Her abdomen still mounded with their unborn babe. But her thighs . . . her thighs were bloody and bruised, and he could see and smell the signs of passage of many, many other men.

  Tom fought what he was feeling because it made him ashamed. Surely he would have been able to take Amy back after this. Surely what had happened to her was no fault of hers. But the words of his father came back to him, and he knew now what Simon had been feeling when he’d rejected Mary. Rage . . . and pain . . . and disgust. God help him! What would he have done if she’d lived?

  Neither man was conscious of the time he spent alone with the woman he loved. Neither man was conscious of the tears that streaked his face. It was a noisy fight between scavengers prowling the edge of the camp for Comanche carrion that finally forced them from their lethargy.

  Creed went to his horse to retrieve a blanket to cover Amy, while Cricket approached Tom. She’d never comforted a grieving person before, and she wasn’t sure how it should be done. She had to make him understand how sorry she was for everything that had happened. Tentatively, she laid a hand on Tom’s shoulder.

  Tom whirled on her with hate in his eyes and hurt in his heart. “Stay away from me! It should be you lying there instead of my Amy.” His face contorted, and he jeered, “But I guess the Comanches didn’t want to waste their time fucking just half a woman like you.”

  Cricket gasped at Tom’s words, which wounded her to the quick. She had no idea why the Comanches hadn’t raped her as well as Amy, but the thought they hadn’t considered her woman enough to do so had never even crossed her mind.

  “You got your ride around Lion’s Dare,” he shouted. “Are you satisfied? You killed my wife and our child as sure as if you’d stuck a knife in her gut yourself.”

  Tom was incoherent with rage and pain by the time Creed arrived at his side with the blanket. Cricket backed up when Tom struggled to his feet as though to attack her, and Creed stepped quickly between the two of them. “Stop it, Tom! You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “Get her away from me and my wife,” Tom snarled.

  Creed could see there was no reasoning with his brother. He threw the blanket at him and said with steel in his voice, “Take care of your wife, Tom.”

  When the weight of the wool blanket hit Tom’s hands, it snapped the thread of anger inside him, leaving only the terrible grief. He stared, shocked, at the gray blanket that would shroud his dead wife, and then he turned away from Cricket and Creed and knelt again beside Amy. Tom reached over to pull the lance from her shoulder as gently as he could— which was crazy, he knew, because she couldn’t feel anything now. When the lance came free, rich, red blood spurted from the wound.

  And Amy groaned.

  Tom threw the lance from him as though it were Satan’s staff and had conjured the dead to life. He stared in disbelief as Amy’s eyelashes fluttered and her delicately veined eyelids opened to reveal pain-glazed blue eyes.

  “Tom?”

  “Oh, my God.” Tom felt a rush of thankfulness so strong it brought tears to his eyes, and he choked on a joyous laugh that threatened to bubble up from deep within him. That fierce gladness was followed so rapidly by horror at what he’d have to accept if he took Amy back into his embrace that the smile he would’ve smiled was crushed beneath lips clamped tight to keep them from curling in disgust.

  Cricket rushed to Amy’s side. “Amy, you’re alive!”

  Creed stood stunned where he was. It wasn’t possible. After all she’d endured, Tom’s wife should be dead.

  “It hurts, Cricket,” Amy whispered. “But I stayed alive.”

  “
Yes, you did,” Cricket choked out. “You’re going to be all right now. Don’t worry, Amy. We’ll take care of you. Everything will be fine.”

  “The baby?”

  “Don’t worry about the baby right now. Let’s get you home, where you can rest and get well.”

  “Tom?” Amy got no answer from Tom. With great effort, she turned her head so she could better see her husband’s face. It was shuttered, and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. She lifted her hand, surprised when it moved, and reached out to trace a tear on his stubbled cheek.

  “Tom?”

  Tom jumped as though burned when he felt Amy’s fingers on his skin. She was alive! But lost to him all the same. She was soiled with the kind of dirt that wasn’t ever going to wash off, just as his mother had been. He’d never be able to hold her in his arms without remembering that her legs had been spread for an entire band of filthy Comanches.

  But this was Amy, his lovely Amy. Oh, God, he loved this woman. What could he do? What should he do? He reached out to touch her hand on his cheek. It was cold. So cold. He tried to meet her eyes, but his gaze slipped to her mouth, which trembled. He took her hand in his and laid it down next to her body very gently. He covered her with the blanket, ordering Cricket tersely, “Hold that tight over the wound.” Then he stood and walked away.

  Creed quickly caught up with him. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Creed hissed in a whisper Amy couldn’t hear.

  Tom didn’t turn around. “I . . . I have to get something from my saddlebag.”

  Creed grabbed Tom’s shoulder and yanked him around. “Amy needs you. Tell me what you want. I’ll get it.”

  Tom paled and the skin tightened along his jaw, but he didn’t speak.

  “All these years I thought you were different,” Creed accused, his quiet voice barely under control. “You’re no better than Simon!”

  “I . . . I’ll be right back.” Tom jerked out of Creed’s grasp and kept walking.

  Cricket was aghast. How could Tom leave Amy’s side when she needed his reassurance so much? Her eyes sped to Creed, only to find his face as bleak as Tom’s, and then to Amy, who looked back at Cricket with betrayed hurt.

  “You said he wouldn’t care. . . .”

  Amy turned her face away and then cried out in anguish as she grabbed her distended belly.

  Cricket stared with horror at the blood that began to pool beneath Amy. “She’s losing the baby. Tom, Creed, help me! She’s losing the baby.”

  Creed hesitated another moment before he turned from Tom and strode back to Amy’s side.

  Tom stood by his horse, trying to decide whether to stay or go. He wanted to run from everything he’d seen here . . . but that meant running away from the one person he loved more than his own life. He loved Amy. That hadn’t changed, had it? Then why wasn’t this decision easier? Oh, God. What should he do?

  Tom’s shoulders sagged as he admitted there was no escape in running. His life would be hell without Amy; it could be no less a hell to face what had happened. He didn’t know what else to do except pretend nothing had changed between them—and hope the pretense became a reality. Tom choked back his disgust and swallowed his guilt as he slowly turned and walked back to his wife.

  Cricket watched as Tom worked skillfully to keep Amy alive. He stopped the bleeding from her wounded shoulder and bound it. But there wasn’t much Tom could do about the baby except wrap Amy in the wool blanket and keep her warm while her body rejected the child, just as a part of him had rejected its mother.

  “I want to die,” Amy begged. “Please leave me here and let me die.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying, Amy,” Cricket soothed. “You’ll get well and what happened here will be forgotten in time.”

  Cricket watched as Amy tried to catch Tom’s eye to see if what she’d said was true. But no matter how long Amy stared at him, Tom avoided her gaze.

  Tom cared for his wife with efficiency, rather than tenderness, and although he carried Amy in his arms all the way back to Lion’s Dare, Tom kept his body stiff, touching her only when and where it was necessary. And he didn’t kiss her . . . not even once.

  The trip to Tom’s plantation took almost a week. Fortunately, Amy was delirious most of that time and living in a world of innocence that was gone forever.

  Every time Cricket thought Amy might die, Tom or Creed found a way to bring down the fever or stop the bleeding or counter the infection, and contrary to her often-voiced wishes, Amy survived.

  The constant tension between Amy and Tom transmitted itself to Cricket and Creed. Cricket wasn’t sure exactly what had gone wrong. Creed never said a word to blame her for what had happened to Amy, nor did he condemn her for the rift the incident had caused between him and Tom. In fact, he said very little to her at all. He treated her politely but like a stranger. And she didn’t know how to break through the barrier he’d erected between them.

  They hadn’t spoken about Tom’s harsh words to her in the cedar brake, but neither had Creed touched her as a woman. Cricket’s heart was like lead inside her—heavy and cold. Perhaps what Tom had said was true.

  Maybe she was only half a woman.

  Creed saw the pain and dread in Cricket’s expressive gray eyes. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her, to make love with her, to comfort her and be comforted. But he didn’t dare, for fear it would spark the memory of what she’d seen happen to Amy. Cricket had been distant with him, stiffening every time he came near. He didn’t know what else to do except give her time, so he kept his distance from her.

  Word of Amy and Cricket’s kidnapping spread from Tom’s slaves to the slaves of his neighbors, so that soon after they arrived back at the house, planters and their wives descended on Tom’s doorstep like vultures to see for themselves whether the stories they’d heard about Amy’s “disgrace” were true. Cricket took the same pleasure in scattering them as she would have the ugly black birds.

  “The only disgrace around here is the way you cabbage-headed harpies have imposed on Amy and Tom’s hospitality at a time of great bereavement,” she snapped. “Now, if you don’t fly out of here in a hurry, I’ll get a gun and see to you myself.”

  Cricket stayed constantly by Amy’s bedside, so she was there when Tom came to see his wife. He came at regular times in between his duties on the plantation but stayed only long enough to exchange a few words with Amy. Neither seemed to know what to say to the other. It was what they couldn’t say that tore at Cricket’s heart. The easy touching, the loving looks, the laughter between them, were all gone.

  It was another week of constant care before they were sure Amy wasn’t going to die from her injuries.

  “She’ll be all right now, won’t she?” Cricket asked when Creed pronounced Amy’s fever gone for good.

  “We’ll have to wait and see if her spirit will cooperate and let her body do its healing work.” He sighed, obviously discouraged. “I don’t know, Cricket. I think maybe it’s going to take something neither you nor I can give her to make Amy want to get well.”

  “She has to get better. I won’t let her die.”

  Creed met Cricket’s blazing eyes with a sympathetic look. She lowered her gaze. Creed didn’t blame her, but she knew everything that had happened was her fault. It lay unspoken between them that although Tom had been to see Amy every day, he obviously hadn’t been able to reconcile his feelings about what had been done to her by the Comanches. Nor had Creed been able to forgive Tom for his attitude toward Amy— so reminiscent of Simon’s rejection of Mary. Their suppers were somber affairs, each of them caught up in his own thoughts.

  Then the day came when Creed announced they would have to leave Lion’s Dare. “We can’t stay here much longer, Brava. We’re already late for our rendezvous with Commodore Moore. We’ve done everything we can. Amy’s fate no longer rests on whether we stay or go.”

  “Just a little longer, Creed,” Cricket begged. “A few more days, please.”

/>   Creed shook his head.

  Cricket reached out and grasped his arms. “Please.”

  It was the first time Cricket had touched him or asked anything of him since the incident at the Comanche camp. He didn’t believe it would change anything if they stayed, but he couldn’t deny her. “Two days. That’s all. Then we’ll have to leave.”

  Cricket threw herself wholeheartedly into assuring Amy’s recovery. She talked to her and fluffed her pillows and changed her chambray wrapper. Amy remained cocooned in a world of her own. Cricket brought Seth in to visit and let the child’s laughter fill the room. Amy simply closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep. Despite Cricket’s efforts, Amy’s condition worsened.

  “Amy, you have to eat,” Cricket coaxed. She held a spoonful of steaming broth under Amy’s nose, hoping the aroma would tempt her. It was no use. The sallow-faced, bitter-eyed woman who lay sprawled listlessly in the center of the huge feather bed was nothing like the loving beauty who’d greeted her the first day she’d arrived. Even the sight of Seth hadn’t roused Amy as Cricket had hoped it would. Amy had given up. If she wouldn’t eat, it was only a matter of time before she’d have her wish and leave a widowed husband and a motherless child.

  Cricket was fed up with Amy for wanting to die, furious with Creed for setting a deadline for their departure, and she’d had a bellyful of Tom, who could with a look and a word of love bring his wife back from the brink of death. All too soon the time Creed had allotted her was up, and Cricket decided she had no alternative except to confront Tom and make him see reason. But Cricket was equally sure Tom wouldn’t want to listen to what she had to say. He was likely to simply walk away from her when she started talking . . . unless she could convince Creed to help her.

  Cricket cornered Creed in the parlor before supper. He was stretched out in a chair with a brandy in his hand, staring into space. She hadn’t much time to enlist his aid before Tom came downstairs to join them. Cricket walked up to Creed and stood spread-legged next to him with her fisted hands on her buckskin-clad hips.