Velvet Thunder

by Teresa Howard

  “I’ll save him. But he will have his pia to raise him,” Stevie soothed, rubbing Gentle Fawn’s stomach, easing her through another contraction.

  There was so much Stevie wanted to ask. Why was Gentle Fawn out here alone? Where was Black Coyote? How long had she been bleeding so profusely? She settled for “How long have you been in labor?”

  Gentle Fawn did not possess the strength to answer.

  Heath stood riveted, unable to look away. The power surrounding Stevie was almost visible. She eased Gentle Fawn’s pain with the touch of her fingertips. And her spirit soothed the girl’s fear and despair as surely as her hands relieved the pain.

  It was almost a spiritual experience, as if he were a part of Stevie, as if his love for her made him an active participant in the unnatural phenomenon he was witnessing. He was mesmerized and overwhelmed by this woman he loved more than life itself.

  “What are y’all doing?”

  The mystical spell was broken by Erica’s nasal whine.

  Stevie stiffened. For the first time since Heath entered the clearing, she lifted her gaze to him. “Get her out of here.”

  Their eyes met and held. “Don’t you need me?” he asked.

  Stevie regarded him for what seemed like forever. She had known he was there all along. And she had known he was participating in the healing process. It had been as if they were one. The power flowing through her fingers had never been so great. Heath had made her feel as if she could accomplish anything, as if they could accomplish anything, together.

  But as she looked at him now, standing so tall and glorious in the waning light, with the small white woman pulling on his arm . . .

  She wanted to shout, “No, I don’t need you.” But she couldn’t bring herself to lie. So she said, “Just get her out of here.”

  Hurt, anger, and fear of a future without Stevie gripped Heath’s heart. Wheeling around, he grabbed Erica by the arm and shoved her ahead of him. “Let’s go. You can help make camp.”

  “But I’m tired. Let her do it. Why’s she fiddlin’ with that squaw anyway? She’s just a dirty old Indian. It’d be better if her whelp died. And her along with it.”

  Heath jerked her to a halt and spun her around. “You say another word like that, just one more word, and I swear to God, I’ll turn you over my knee and wallop the daylights out of you,” he growled down into her face.

  She spat, sputtered, and dredged up crocodile tears. “You wouldn’t dare. Why, I’ve never been spanked in my life.”

  “That, madam, is abundantly clear. Now, come along. I’ll start a fire and you’ll cook while Stevie takes care of Gentle Fawn.”

  When the enraged marshal and the petulant belle arrived back at the horses, Erica stamped her foot and crossed her arms over her chest. “I will not put up with such abominable treatment.”

  Heath didn’t trust himself to speak. Frustrated, he unsaddled the horses and gave each a vigorous rubdown. He hobbled them and turned them loose to graze.

  Erica remained where he left her. The look she gave him when he returned would cook an egg in its shell. She was obstinately mute.

  Thank God! “If you don’t like our company, you are welcome to leave at any time,” he threw over his shoulder as he headed back toward Stevie and Gentle Fawn.

  The sound of Stevie keening, as her ancestors had done for generations, almost brought Heath to his knees. Never had he heard anything that moved him so. It floated on the wind. Mingled with the shrill cry of an infant, it wrapped around his heart and squeezed painfully.

  He hastened his step, his long stride devouring the ground that separated him and Stevie. If he didn’t touch her soon, his heart would burst, of that he was convinced.

  When he reached the clearing, he found what he expected. Stevie, kneeling at the side of the still maiden, holding a blood-smeared baby in her arms. The life’s blood from the mother had stained Stevie’s platinum braid. A silver-gold rope tinged with crimson, it rested against the infant’s glistening black head.

  “Sweetheart,” he said, hurrying to her side. He drew her and the baby into the shelter of his arms. “Gentle Fawn?”

  “Suvate, it is finished,” was all she said.

  “The baby?”

  “It’s a girl.”

  Sitting beside Gentle Fawn’s still, lifeless form, he rocked Stevie and the baby back and forth. Stevie’s tears soaked the front of his shirt, warming his skin as the feel of her in his arms warmed his heart. He was unaware that he had dropped his hand to the infant’s head.

  But Stevie was quite aware of his action. She knew she should resist his comfort, draw into herself, but she needed him so much.

  Settling her closer, Heath dropped his gaze. “What will happen to her?”

  “I’ll raise her with Winter. What did you expect?”

  “Just that.” He smiled down at her, caressing the baby’s head. “She’s so small.”

  When the child made a weak attempt to cry, a feeling of protectiveness slammed into his gut. The sight of the tiny scrap of life nestled trustingly against his body and Stevie’s gave rise to a wave of love such as Heath had never experienced. It was the kind of intense feeling he had for Stevie, almost as strong, but different, the kind of love he imagined his father felt for his sisters, the kind of love that would make a man lay down his life for his child gladly, without a moment’s hesitation.

  Heath knew that he would kill for this Comanche baby. If anyone anywhere dared to hurt her, he would not be responsible for his actions. Retribution would be swift and sure . . . and harsh. And he had absolutely no idea why he felt this way. Emotions were like that, he supposed. They just sneaked up on you and you were powerless to do anything but feel.

  He was unable to speak for a long time, so moved was he. Finally, he dropped a kiss on Stevie’s brow. “Sweetheart, let me take you and the baby back to camp. Then I’ll see to Gentle Fawn.”

  Tears started to streak down her cheeks again. “We can’t even give her a proper burial.” She leaned forward and kissed the still, peaceful form of Gentle Fawn.

  Heath gathered her back against him.

  “Oh, Heath, she was so beautiful. I remember when she and Black Coyote first married. She was so happy. And now her life’s over.”

  The question uppermost in Heath’s mind had to be asked. “What about the others? Her husband? Did she say?”

  “The village was attacked. Everyone’s dead. All the women. All the children. Black Coyote. Everyone.” She wasn’t prepared to tell him that she knew the identity of the men who had committed these atrocities. She would keep that information to herself. And somehow she would make them pay.

  If Heath knew their identity, he would be obliged to turn them in. The murdering thieves would probably be given a reward for ridding the West of a bunch of filthy savages, she thought bitterly.

  Her voice dropped to an agonized whisper. “Why? Why did they have to kill them?” She turned a tortured gaze on Heath.

  His heart clenched at the pain in her eyes. He was unprepared for the sound of her harsh laughter.

  “You know something? I’ve lived my whole life ashamed of what the Comanches have done to whites. But white men are no better. Not one bit. They’re . . . they’re worse.” She buried her face in the baby’s hair. “I hate them,” she cried brokenly. “I hate them all. If there was a Comanche village nearby, I would go to it. I would live there . . . like an Indian . . . and never go back to Adobe Wells. Never. I would raid with the warriors. Kill the whites. I would kill them. I would kill them all.” She dissolved into silent tears. The only sign of her distress was her shaking shoulders.

  “Shhh, sweetheart. It’s okay.” He crooned nonsensical messages. He knew she didn’t really mean what she said. For a moment he had been taken aback by her expressed hatred for whites, fearing that she would blame him for what his people—if indeed whites were responsible for the raid on Gentle Fawn’s village—had done. But she was grief-stricken. She didn’t hate all white me
n.

  Dear God, he hoped she didn’t.

  When Stevie and Heath finally returned to camp, Stevie was inordinately subdued from exhaustion, physical and emotional. The baby lay listlessly in her arms, weak from lack of nourishment and the strain of a difficult birth.

  “She’s hungry.” Stevie’s voice was completely devoid of emotion.

  Heath eased her down on the pallet he had placed close to the fire. He noticed for the first time that Stevie held a square, flat pouch. The pitiful mewling of the hungry child drew his attention away from the soft leather bag. “I don’t have much experience with babies, but . . . can she drink sugar water? Until we reach Adobe Wells tomorrow?”

  Stevie nodded, never taking her eyes from the baby’s face. After her earlier outburst, she had grown almost as listless as the babe.

  She was a far cry from the fiery hellion who had taken shots at him from Mustang Mesa. And it scared Heath spitless. “I’ll get it.” Worried about both Stevie and the baby, he didn’t notice Erica approach, didn’t see the hatred and disgust on her face as she glared down at them.

  She motioned to the buckskin sack. “What’s that?”

  Stevie didn’t answer, just clutched the baby closer to her body.

  “It gonna live?” Erica asked in a low voice, gesturing toward the baby.

  Heath didn’t hear the question, but Stevie did. Still, she didn’t respond.

  “Did the squaw die?” Erica prodded.

  Stevie looked up at the girl, violence blazing in her ebony eyes. She nodded tersely.

  Erica tossed her head and huffed, “Too bad the brat didn’t.”

  Stevie placed the baby and Gentle Fawn’s pouch on the blanket gently. With a low growl emanating from her throat, she gathered her legs beneath her and lunged for Erica, claws bared. The words she shrieked in Comanche were unintelligible to Erica, but the message was crystal-clear.

  The catfight was over almost as soon as it began. Dropping the cup of sugar water on the ground, Heath ran over to the women and grabbed Stevie around the waist. Holding her tight against his chest, he whispered into her ear, “Don’t, sweetheart.”

  Stevie jerked around and stared at him, bewildered. She was crushed that he would protect Erica, a spoiled, selfish girl who could wish an innocent baby dead simply because she was an Indian.

  Heath had not heard Erica’s horrible words, but he had no doubt that she deserved any abuse she got. His intention was not to spare Erica as Stevie supposed, but to protect the woman he loved. Stevie was part Indian. Erica was the daughter of a white Army officer. The society they lived in would not allow an Indian to attack a white woman no matter the provocation. The fact sickened him, but it was a fact nonetheless.

  Erica regarded Stevie as if she were a bug to be squashed. Pinning her gaze on Heath, she questioned, “She some kind of Indian lover or something?”

  Stevie jerked free of Heath’s hold and bent to pick up the child. “No. I’m not an Indian lover. I’m an Indian.” She turned her back on the two white people in camp and went about the business of seeing to the Indian baby—her own kind.

  “What did you say to her?” Heath growled low when Stevie was out of earshot.

  Erica tossed her hair behind her shoulders and regarded him petulantly. “Nothing. Just that it was too bad the brat didn’t die with the squaw.”

  Heath truly saw red, blood red. He wanted nothing more than to wrap his hands around Erica’s throat and squeeze until her haughty face turned purple. When he spoke, his voice trembled with rage. “If you say one more word to offend Stevie, you will be camping elsewhere. Do you understand me?”

  Without waiting for a reply, he turned on his heel and stomped away. He followed Stevie to the edge of camp, where he found her perched on a boulder, dribbling sugar water into the baby’s mouth. His eyes and heart softened at the sight they presented. He moved closer, standing so near to Stevie their thighs touched. “She looks like a hungry little bird.”

  She swiveled her legs, turning slightly away from him.

  He knew why she was angry at him, but it didn’t make her rejection sting any less. “Honey, let me explain.”

  Stevie refused to meet his eye. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  He looked as if he would say more, then thought better of it. Stevie was too distraught to think rationally. She wouldn’t appreciate his explanation, that society would judge her harshly for touching a white woman, even if that white woman deserved to have her neck wrung. “I’ll check the horses,” was all he said.

  When he returned to camp, both women were lying on their blankets. Erica was snoring.

  The only sound coming from Stevie was a soft snubbing sound like that of a child who had cried long and hard. He closed the distance between them quietly, dropped his gaze, and stared down at her slender form.

  She looked so small, so helpless, little more than a child herself. Life was cruel, he acknowledged. This precious woman with a heart the size of Texas—though she tried to hide it—had been hurt time and again by all the Ericas of her world. He wanted to protect her, if only she would she let him.

  “Stevie,” he whispered. She pretended to be asleep. Placing his blanket close to hers, he lay down. Her back to him, he drew her into his embrace. “I love you, sugar,” he whispered tenderly.

  “Don’t.”

  “Don’t touch you?”

  “Don’t love me.”

  “Too late. I already do.”

  What could she say? She should move away from him, but couldn’t if her life depended on it. She needed to be close to him tonight.

  His body warming her back, she fought in vain for the mind-numbing oblivion of sleep. A lone tear slid softly down her cheek, disappearing into the sleeping infant’s ebony hair as it mingled with her own white-blond tresses. Pressing the baby’s tiny body against her breast as if she could keep her heart from shattering into a million pieces, she prayed for the strength to deny her all-encompassing love for Heath, love for a white man, a love that might well destroy them both.

  Twenty-nine

  Two hours outside Adobe Wells they saw a swarm of buzzards winging in the distance.

  “I’d better check it out,” Heath said.

  “Not me,” Erica whined. “I don’t want to see anything dead.”

  Heath glanced back at Erica and noted the unpleasant smirk on her face. “Suit yourself.”

  “Unless it’s Indians,” she added spitefully.

  Heath stiffened. When he looked toward Stevie, she acted as if she had not heard Erica’s hateful statement.

  “You coming, sugar?” he asked softly. Truth to tell, he didn’t want to drag her to a scene of carnage—human or animal—after what she had been through with Gentle Fawn. Yet he didn’t want to leave her to suffer Erica’s verbal abuse either. He was in a dilemma.

  Stevie took the matter out of his hands as she kicked her horse in a gallop and headed toward the circling carnivores.

  Heath soon drew alongside her and they moved down the trail in silence. The stench that met them caused Stevie to gag over the side of her horse. He offered her his blue bandanna to cover her nose and mouth.

  Stevie was not surprised at what they found, nor was she particularly saddened. Lying around a smoldering campfire, like wax figures, their scalps bloody and bare, with feathered arrows protruding from them like giant winged porcupine quills, were the men—minus Sims—who had pursued them into the mountains. The same men—Stevie knew—who had attacked Gentle Fawn’s village. She sat her horse in silence, the sleeping infant clutched to her breast.

  Heath dismounted and checked each man to determine whether he was alive or dead. They were all dead. After they had been shot with arrow or bullet, their throats had been slit. It looked as if they all had grisly smiles tucked beneath their chins.

  He stood above Two Paws’s lifeless body and raised his gaze to Stevie. What he saw in the ebony depths caused his stomach to lurch, accusation and distrust, directed at him. What had h
e ever done to her that would make her look at him that way?

  “I suppose you’ll report this to the army and they’ll hunt them down like animals,” Stevie said tonelessly.

  Heath was hurt that she had so little faith in him. He pointed to the dead men scattered about him like fallen toy soldiers on a parlor rug. “This doesn’t bother you?” he accused, striking back without thinking.

  “These men attacked Gentle Fawn’s village in the dead of night. They shot everything moving—men, women, children, animals. The ones they couldn’t smoke out of their lodges, they burned alive. After everyone was slaughtered and the village was in flames, they found Gentle Fawn in the birthing lodge with the medicine woman, Cares for Everyone. They shot Cares, and while she was dying they cut her breasts off, bragging that the soft brown skin would make good tobacco pouches.”

  She stopped speaking and dropped her head back on her shoulders. After drawing a cleansing breath into her lungs, she was able to continue. “Then they started on Gentle Fawn. She was in labor, but that didn’t stop them from taking turns raping her. One of these fine, upstanding men even raped the medicine woman. Gentle Fawn wasn’t sure, but she thought Cares was already dead.” Tears streaked down her cheeks. “Oh, by the way”—her voice rose hysterically—“did I tell you that Cares was seventy-three years old?” She laughed without humor. “And that she delivered me after the good people of Adobe Wells refused to tend my mother?”

  “Stevie.” Heath’s voice was husky with emotion. He stepped toward her.

  She raised her arm as if to ward him off. “No! Let me finish. They threw Gentle Fawn over the back of a horse then. By that time her pains were almost continuous and she was bleeding like a stuck hog. But they decided to take her along as sexual entertainment . . . for as long as she lasted. When they got word that there was a party of renegades in the area, they threw her off the horse while it was still moving, They didn’t even slow down. We found her an hour later.”