Winter Woman

by Jenna Kernan

  He descended the steep slope at a trot and quickly saw to the horses, securing them under a rock outcropping similar to the one he had found above. Then he dashed back to the stream and cut a great armful of river grass, dumping it before them.

  He threw a leather strap on the ground and began tossing dried branches and logs hurriedly upon it. Then he wound the strip about the load and hefted it to his shoulders, resenting even these few minutes away from her.

  The heavens opened up and the rain poured from the sky. He swore as he dashed up the incline carrying the load of wood and trying to shelter his rifle from the worst of the rain.

  “Oh, Thomas, look at you,” she said.

  It was good to hear her laughter again. How long had it been? Too long, he decided, unable to remember.

  “You look like a drowned beaver.”

  He tossed the wood back beneath the overhang and crouched to crawl into the rock shelter. It was a good camp, he thought, as he watched water run in rivulets away from them.

  “Damn, my Bess is wet.”

  “Give it to me. I’ll dry and oil it for you.”

  He handed over his Bess. Water ran off his buckskin, pooling at his feet. Raindrops dripped from his hair and rolled beneath his shirt. He shook himself like a Saint Bernard, violently throwing his shoulders from side to side. Water droplets sprayed in all directions.

  “Oh, stop that! You’re getting me wet!” she howled. She held his gun before her with both hands like a shield. He shook his head again and was rewarded by another squeal.

  “Quiet now,” he said.

  She grew still. Her neck seemed to grow longer as she craned to look about.

  “Why?” she whispered. “Did you see signs of Blackfoot?”

  He knelt beside her and whispered back.

  “No, but I’m afraid a mountain lion will mistake you for a wild pig.”

  She pushed his shoulder and he allowed himself to roll backward in the soft sand. He lay there a minute enjoying the sound of her laughter. When he rolled back up he heard her quick intake of breath.

  “Thomas! You’ve got sand stuck all over your shirt. Pull it off so I can beat it.”

  He looked at the wet shirt coated with mud.

  “You’ll not beat this shirt over my bed,” he said.

  “Then you do it.”

  He peeled off the shirt and shook it near the rain line, then thumped it several times.

  “Lay it on a rock until it dries,” she said.

  He turned to find her gaze fastened on his bare chest. His skin felt as if she had doused him in whale oil and set him ablaze. When she lifted her eyes to meet his, he saw desire burning bright within her golden eyes.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Delia stared at his bronze chest, wet with rain. A flash pan of fire ignited within her belly. Her fingers curled as she imagined running her hands over the warm slippery skin.

  Nash pinned her with his eyes, as if sensing her desire. His glance revealed smoldering heat beneath clear blue eyes.

  He waited, still and powerful, for some sign. She knew she could withdraw by merely looking away. Her voice could rescue her. But the throbbing of her own heart seemed to close her throat.

  He was moving now, slowly, stalking her like the mountain cat he had just mentioned. His step was silent, his movements graceful as he glided ever closer.

  He sank to his knees upon the soft furs. She raised her hand to touch his moist skin. Her fingers scored his flesh. The shudder of his body seemed to travel up her arm and shake her to the core.

  “I’ve never felt this way before,” he said. “I can’t control this wanting.” His hands gripped her shoulders, blaming her for his passion.

  “I feel it, too,” she said.

  “It’s like wildfire down a mountain.”

  He pulled her tight against his chest. The rain dripped from his hair to her neck. He lowered her to the soft furs. His teeth scored her neck, taking tiny bites of her flesh as she arched to give herself to him. His hands caressed her breasts rousing a shudder of delight. His descending mouth captured her moan of pleasure. The force of his kiss dashed all thoughts from her mind. She writhed and moaned in pleasure as the rain beat down upon the rocks above them. Her hands tugged at his shoulders, insisting, demanding. His fingers slid the leather dress over her hips.

  His warm body nestled between her thighs. She lifted for his thrust, rising to meet him. He grasped her hips, holding her captured against his embedded flesh, as if her movement caused him pain. She thrust again and wrenched a cry from him. Some internal dam burst within him. Now, he was all frantic motion. He drove into her body again and again. She absorbed the wild thrusting, throwing her hips against him. The wave rose within her, cresting and breaking in a violent surge of pleasure. She gripped his shoulders with all her strength.

  Her cry seemed to be a signal. She heard him groan as he gripped her. Then her body was falling, weak and replete, into the soft furs. He followed, resting half upon her. Too sweet, she thought, as their bodies lay motionless but for their rapid breathing. All about them the rain seemed to envelope them in a curtain of seclusion. The steady fall of water soothed and her eyelids drooped shut. How I wish I could stop here and hold this moment forever.

  After a time, her strength returned and she stretched like a cat. His head jerked as if her movement stirred him from sleep.

  The bandage on her foot had loosed and the poultice slipped to the fur. The steady ache returned, rising slowly to the center of her awareness. She reached for her foot with one hand.

  “I’ll do it,” he said. “How does it feel?”

  “I didn’t notice it until now.” She smiled. His method of distracting her was wonderful. He did not return her smile. He furrowed his brow as he studied her ankle. She saw the worry reflected in his gaze. Apprehension coiled within her belly, like an angry rattlesnake. He pressed his lips tightly together, squeezing away the color.

  “There must be something wrong with me,” he muttered. “To fall on you like a rabid dog and you injured to boot.”

  “I’m not that injured,” she said. Her smile again yielded no harvest.

  “You deserve better.”

  She glanced away. This passion he stirred frightened her. Desire changed her. Somehow her thoughts dissolved, leaving nothing but the feral urgings. This made her no better than a beast. Embarrassment heated her face and neck.

  It was this place, this wild, dangerous country. She had no anchor—her husband, her church, her entire world seemed far, far away. How could she ignore this virile man? He was as rough as these mountains, and as beautiful.

  No, she shook her head. It wasn’t the mountains and it wasn’t the man. The wildness was inside her. Even in Ohio, she had sensed the stirring, baying at the moon. She kept the animal caged. All these years, she’d locked her hunger away, denying her passions and hoping the animal would die. Now this man and this place had unleashed the monster within. Suddenly she knew she couldn’t go back. She would never again be satisfied with rigid rules of her old life, with the tame, tepid emotions.

  She’d changed into someone she hardly knew. This new woman ran about with no corset or underclothes, indulging her basest desires.

  Who was she now? How could she look into the eyes of a proper God-fearing woman? She was wicked, fallen, wild. I can’t stay here. The fear rose up, overtaking the guilt. Her throat was suddenly dry as chalk. But I can’t go back.

  He shook her shoulder and she focused on him once more.

  “Delia!” She looked into his crystal eyes. “It ain’t that bad. The heat just dried the poultice a bit. I’ll moisten it up. I think the swelling’s gone down.”

  She looked at her foot, but she did not recognize it. Her toes stuck out of the end of a puffy red mass. Her skin was stretched tight and shiny. The distended flesh looked as if with one pinprick her foot would explode like a bursting balloon.

  Then she saw the red streaks. She pointed, speechless.

 
He lifted one of his eyebrows and considered her silently before pressing one broad hand to her forehead. “Lay down, Delia.” He pressed her firmly to the hides. His hand remained on her, holding her down. She wiggled beneath his restraint. “You got a fever, girl. Lay still.”

  “I’ve fallen.”

  “No, you ain’t.”

  “I’m going to die for my sins, Thomas.”

  Something needed to be done. She had blood poisoning. Nash had seen that before. Once it traveled to her heart, she’d die. He’d have to take her foot. She’d never forgive him. Elizabeth hadn’t. She’d blamed him for allowing the doctor to take her leg. Before she had died, she had made him swear not to seek revenge against that devil of a driver. He would have promised her anything. After she’d died, he knew he’d break his vow if he ever saw the man again. So he had left and had come to the mountains.

  He studied Delia’s damp, flushed face. The orange firelight sent strange shadows dancing across her fevered body.

  Why did she have to mention dying? Because death was a real possibility, that’s why. There was no guarantee that she would not die of infection after he took her foot.

  The fear gnawed at him like a dog at a bone. He was strong, but not strong enough to lose another love. This one would kill him. She had brought him back to life after Elizabeth and all she had asked in the world was to go home. But he had kept her here, where she didn’t belong and look what had happened. This was his fault.

  “Don’t die, Delia,” he whispered to her in the night.

  He waited through the darkness. Using a wet scrap of buckskin, he wiped away the sweat from her fevered brow. When he could see the treetops silhouetted against the sky, he boiled the water. When the liquid bubbled, he drew it from the fire. He reached into a small leather pouch and dropped the dried fragments of a crushed plant into the steaming water. A familiar sweet odor of the seeping plant instantly emerged. Damn, he hated this little flower. Images of the medicine man holding the ladle to his lips spun in his mind. Then the pain was gone, and the visions began. He shook his shoulders, driving away the memory. It was necessary to bring down the fever and stop the pain so he could take the foot. Her visions might not be so terrible.

  He threw his hunting knife and awl into the pot. The medicine man said the Squaw Weed would give the cutting blade power.

  As the sky grew brilliant crimson, he began offering the yellow liquid to Delia. Her color changed first. The flush disappeared and her cheeks grew pale. He saw her breathing slow. He called to her. She opened her eyes but seemed unable to focus upon his face. Her pupils were huge black moons rimmed with gold.

  He looked at his knife and felt his body break out in a cold sweat. He thought of all the animals he had butchered. He could cleanly slice through any joint without nicking the bone. But not on a living being, not on the woman he loved.

  You have to. She’ll die otherwise. Firmly he clasped the knife and gathered his resolve. He raised a trembling hand and laid the sharp blade against her swollen skin. His stomach clenched and coiled. For a moment he thought he’d vomit.

  It was the only way! He fell back to his heels. His wrist swept across his damp brow. His breathing came in rapid gasps.

  Elizabeth had died anyway.

  He grasped her ankle and pressed the knife into her soft flesh.

  She screamed when he cut. Her fingers, curled like eagle’s talons, clawed toward his face. He dodged and managed to capture her wrists.

  He grasped her ankle tight and cut along her heel until he hit bone. He had to try. He could still take the foot if this didn’t work.

  “Easy, Delia. Rest now.”

  She trembled like a spent mare. He’d never forget the sight of her eyes rolling white and wild. Her body stilled and she looked about. Her gaze seemed to focus on some point beyond him. Now her hand jabbed at the air, pawing at the creatures only she could see.

  “Where is he?” she asked.

  He looked at the clear blue sky.

  “I’ll find him for you. You lie back.”

  She nodded and he eased her back to the fur. Her eyelids drooped.

  He turned back to her foot, pulling her skin aside, and peered past the gore. The smell of putrid flesh rose up. He used the awl to search. The metal struck a hard mass, resting in a pocket of yellow pus. He flicked it from the wound. The little pellet landed in the dirt. He scooped it up and examined the thing. It was a fragment of the wood, no bigger than his thumbnail.

  “You little bugger.” He had missed it! All the while it had festered within her. My, God, he thought. I almost took her foot. He looked at the draining wound. The danger was still great. Infection could travel or she might spike a fever.

  “Please, not that,” he muttered.

  He poured the seeped Squaw Weed water over the wound. At last only clear fluid and blood ran from the incision.

  He made a new poultice of the Blood Grass and Horse Tail. He threaded his needle with rabbit gut and stitched the wound. Then he bound the compress about her foot.

  When he was finished, he knelt. For the first time since before Elizabeth died, he prayed.

  “God, it’s me. I know I haven’t been speaking to You. Truth is I was angry ’bout Lizzy. But I don’t hold no grudge now. I’m asking You to help Delia through this. She’s a good woman, too good for me. But she could sure be of use to You down here. Besides, you got enough angels. Ah—amen.”

  He sat watching her. She lay still but for the gentle rise of her breast. There was nothing for him to do now but wait.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Surely this was hell. Little red devils poked at Cordelia with spears. She ran along the black path, the coals burning her flesh. A lance ripped at her foot and she fell. The devils jumped upon her, grabbing her arms.

  Thomas was there, holding her, shielding her from the demons. But he could not see the bats. Hundreds of little bats, swooping and shrieking. Sharp white teeth snapped at her.

  He was gone. Somehow she was alone again. She screamed for Thomas and hands pinned her to the ground.

  With each bite, they took a tiny bit of her flesh. Sins of the flesh, she thought.

  “I’ll get them for you,” Thomas said. “You lay back. They won’t get you on the ground.”

  He was right. But here the coals slowly burned her skin away. It was better than the bats.

  She burned away and floated up in the smoke.

  “Cordelia.” She knew his voice. Her husband called.

  “John, where are you?” She could see him now and she saw through him. The air about him was silver, like moonlight through the clouds. “John, what happened to you?”

  “My body melted with the snow, but my soul rose.”

  Her grasping fingers could not touch him.

  He gave her the crooked little smile she’d nearly forgotten.

  “Be good, Cordelia.”

  His image melted into light and fell cold upon her. Then, like a passing lantern, she was alone in darkness.

  Hands to God, hands to God. She looked and her hands were gone. Now what would she do? Without her hands she could be of no service to God.

  Nash watched her twitch and tremble. Her muttering ground his nerves like acorns beneath the pestle. The Flatheads said not to touch. This disturbed the vision. But he couldn’t stand to watch her lost inside her mind. He thought of his visions, nightmares really, running after carriages, running to save Elizabeth as the wheels cut into her soft flesh. His hand reached out and clasped her arm.

  “Delia!”

  He gave her a little shake. She screamed. The sound raised the hairs on his neck. He released her and she settled back to her panting and tremors.

  By nightfall she stilled. He thought the worst was over. Never would he use that damned moccasin again. He’d tie her down or hold her. Pain was better than this. Quick and soon forgotten.

  He crawled beneath the bearskin, careful not to touch her. He watched. In the heart of the night she rolled to her side an
d groaned. He heard her say something that sounded like his name. He clasped her extended hand and felt their fingers entwine. She sighed. He gathered her close, tucking her head beneath his chin and breathed in the smell of her hair. She was back.

  Cordelia woke cradled in his arms. What strange dreams, she thought. He released her gently and she rolled to her back. His arm draped, familiar, across her chest.

  The pain in her foot drew her attention. The poultice must be dry again. An uneasy feeling crept through the fog that separated dreams from day.

  Her hands! She held them up to see. There they were, slim and callused. She sighed in relief.

  John.

  She had seen him! He was an angel. Then he must know she had sinned.

  Her hands flew to her cheeks. Nash groaned and dragged his hand across her breasts before rolling away. Be good, John said.

  The little demons rose in her mind and she cried out.

  Thomas was there now, leaning over her. He studied her closely with red-rimmed eyes.

  “Delia? Do you know me?”

  Know him? What was he talking about?

  He stared at her. “You awake?”

  She nodded. “Don’t you see me looking at you?”

  He gently held her head between both of his broad hands. She did not understand the relief that flooded his face. He smiled wearily.

  “Yes, I see, at long last.”

  “I had, I don’t know what to call them. Worse than nightmares,” she said.

  “I gave you some medicine. It brings on dreams, waking dreams.”

  Dreams? It was only medicine. Somehow the un-ease would not be so readily shaken.

  “It didn’t feel like a dream.”

  “Flathead call them visions and set store by them.”

  “They believe they are real?”

  “In a manner.”

  He unwrapped the bandage. She sat up to see and gasped at the change. The swelling was nearly gone. How long had she slept? He pulled away the compress and she saw the three-inch scab on her heel. A row of even rawhide stitches knit the skin together.