Page 49 of West Wind

“Protective, hell,” he whispered, as if he were afraid the Indians might be listening. “The Cheyenne don’t feel protective toward white women.”

She turned away from him; he grabbed her arm.

“No touching, remember?” she reminded him.

She was tired of avoiding his glare, of hiding from him the way she’d hidden from every difficult moment in her life. She lifted her face and stared into his eyes. “It’s your rule,” she said as he dropped her arm.

“Perhaps he admired your bravery.”

She would’ve expected sarcasm to drip from such a statement, but he sounded sincere. “He said I was a white warrior woman, but I’m not brave. Not at all,” she insisted. “I’m afraid of everything. I run from my fear because I can’t stand to face it.”

“You were brave with Red Wolf, and the Cheyenne respect bravery more than anything else.” He smiled too easily. “It was brave to kick Swift Eagle in the… well, where it hurts the most.”

“That was different,” she said. “He was going to kill you.”

Shelley shrugged. “Maybe.”

“What do you mean, maybe?”

“I’ve been in worse situations and come out just fine,” he declared.

She rolled her eyes. “Men.”

“You walked right over to those Indians and singled out the leader and made your own peace treaty.”

“I just asked myself”—she hesitated—“what would Shelley do?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Is that a fact?”

“Well, you were no help, lying on the ground bleeding to…” She stopped short; a tremor ran through her body. She’d been about to say bleeding to death when a vision of Henri entered her mind. “I did what I had to do to get us out of there alive,” she said simply. “That’s all.”

Shelley hung the medicine bag around her neck. “It was very brave. Red Wolf thinks so, and so do I.”

“Do you?” She looked up at him. “Do you really think I’m brave?”

He nodded, but she still felt, deep inside, like a coward.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Their pact, and the fact that she now rode her own horse, eased the tensions of their journey during the following week. Annabelle placed the feather securely in the headband of her hat, wore the medicine bag around her neck, and tied the beaded belt at her waist. Swift Eagle’s knife hung in its sheath at her hip. She wasn’t sure why she felt so much comfort from the objects Red Wolf had left for her, but she did. At night she slept with the dreamcatcher propped up close by and the dream, the nightmare that had haunted her for months, disappeared.

At night she sang for Shelley, often singing him to sleep. She’d fall asleep a long while later, after watching the stars for a while. Some nights she persuaded him to recite a limerick he’d written; he rejected the bawdier ones for those that were simply tasteless.

He was actually pleasant to her, most of the time, as they traveled westward toward the desert that would present their toughest challenge. He’d adopted an almost businesslike attitude toward her. Once again she was the employer and he her hired hand. Now and then he stared at her wearing an expression that bordered on distaste, but when he noticed her looking his way he smiled, flashing his trademark grin.

They camped by a gently flowing creek he promised would be the last decent water they’d see for a while. He explained that though they would follow the Humboldt River across the desert, the water was so heavily alkaline it was too dangerous to drink.

She couldn’t find two trees close enough together to string a rope between, so she devised her own barrier. She drove two sticks firmly into the ground and hung the blanket over them. The makeshift tent provided a small amount of privacy on the bank of the creek, but it was sufficient. Shelley wouldn’t bother her as she bathed.

Since it would be their last chance for a real bath for a while, she stripped to her skin. She’d wash out her underthings as best she could and let them dry in the sun. They’d become so thin it wouldn’t take them long to dry.

She cautiously stepped into the cool, pleasant water. It felt wonderful, but she missed the fun she’d had when the women from the wagon train bathed together, splashing and playing. That was a good memory, one she’d hang onto.

Annabelle immersed herself in the water and came up slowly, her face lifted to the blue sky so that her hair fell straight down her back, slick and clinging to her head. The sunlight on her face felt warm and wonderful. Would she ever enjoy a tub bath so much?

When she opened her eyes she saw it, black and twisted, slithering across the top of the water. “Shelley,” she whispered. “Snake.”

He didn’t come. Of course he didn’t come. He couldn’t hear her because she couldn’t find her voice. So she screamed. When all else failed, she knew how to scream.