The doctor sighed and raised his hand from Nate’s hot forehead. He thoughtfully chewed on his lower lip for a minute, then pivoted and regarded his audience somberly. “I’m afraid there’s nothing more I can do. His life is in the hands of a higher power than mine.”
Winona, seated in a chair between Shakespeare and Blue Water Woman, with Zachary rigid on her lap, averted her eyes and swallowed hard. A peculiar lump obstructed her throat and she experienced difficulty breathing.
“We appreciate all you’ve done, Doc Sawyer,” Shakespeare responded, rising.
“I just wish it could have been more,” Sawyer said, and frowned. “He’s lost more blood than any person can dare afford to lose.”
The mountain man nodded, then stepped over to the bed. “We did the best we could. Rode day and night to get here.”
Sawyer looked at Winona and Blue Water Woman. “The dressings these ladies applied did a world of good. Probably kept him alive until you arrived.” He ran a finger over his drooping black mustache. “Perhaps they would be willing to share their secret sometime. I’m always open to Indian remedies. I’ve found they often work better than the cures touted by my learned colleagues back East.”
“We will write the herbal ingredients down for you and give them to you the next time you visit,” Blue Water Woman said.
“Thank you,” Doctor Sawyer said, and stooped to pick up his large black bag. He stared one last time at Nate King’s terribly lacerated features, grimaced, and walked to the doorway. “If he does by some miracle pull through,” he told Winona, “he’ll be scarred for life. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t care about scars,” Winona said softly. “I only want him to live.”
The physician mustered a wan smile and departed.
For a while no one else uttered a word. It was little Zach who finally broke the silence.
“Is Pa going to die, Ma?”
Tears filled the corners of Winona’s eyes and she pretended to be extraordinarily interested in her moccasins.
“Will he, Ma?”
Blue Water Woman stood. “No one can say, young one.” She leaned down and lifted Zach in her arms, grinning bravely. “Why don’t you come with me and I’ll let you have more of the pudding I made last night?”
“Could I?” Zach asked eagerly.
“Your mother won’t mind,” Blue Water Woman said, moving off.
“Thanks.”
“Thank my husband. He was the one who taught me how to prepare it. Dried-fruit pudding is one of his favorites.”
They were almost out the door when Zachary glanced at the grizzled frontiersman. “Shakespeare can cook?”
Then they were gone.
“Nice kid,” Shakespeare muttered. “Takes after his old man.”
Winona fought to prevent the tears from flowing. The women of her tribe prided themselves on their courage in the face of adversity and their ability to stoically endure any hardship. No warrior in his right mind wanted a wife who was weak in that respect, who whined and cried like a pampered child, and every Shoshone maiden worked hard at cultivating the proper emotional maturity. She had been reared to believe there was a proper time and place to express sorrow, and this was most certainly not it. Not with Nate needing her and Zach depending on her. She must be strong now, stronger than she had ever had occasion to be.
Shakespeare came over. “I’m going shopping with Tricky Dick and his wife. Care to tag along?”
“I will stay here.”
“Suit yourself,” Shakespeare said. “Is there anything you need?”
“No.”
“Anything for the boy?”
“No,” Winona said, but remembered something as Shakespeare walked away. “Wait. Yes. Nate promised to buy him some candy. Would you?”
“Consider it done,” Shakespeare said, and glanced at the prone figure of his friend covered to the neck by a thick quilt. “Tell you what. If you want, I’ll take Blue Water Woman and Zach along. Give you some time alone with him. What do you say?”
She looked at him, her face reflecting her gratitude.
“I figured as much,” Shakespeare said. He hurried from the bedroom.
Standing, Winona stepped lightly to the side of the bed and gently sat next to her husband. She reached out and tenderly touched his cheek, appalled at how his skin burned to the touch. The white bandage on his neck and the bandages on his arm, shoulder, and side were clean and fresh, changed by Sawyer ten minutes ago. She stared at the five deep gashes on Nate’s forehead, at the stitches holding the severed skin together, and vented a low groan of despair.
If she lost him, what would she do? She couldn’t conceive of life without him. Until she met Nate her life had been pleasant enough but empty. She had done her best to be a dutiful daughter and to make her parents proud of her accomplishments in the womanly arts. She had learned to sew and weave and cook and prepare animal skins, to find medicinal herbs and forage for edible plants. She had excelled in everything a Shoshone woman needed to know. But deep down she had always felt a certain emptiness, as if part of her were missing.
The many braves who had courted her had not interested her in the least. Not even the son of a prominent chief who had offered her father sixty horses for her hand. She had stood under a blanket with many and let them talk on of their deeds and possessions, but none had stirred her heart, none had touched the core of her being where every woman desired to be touched by the man she would marry.
And then along came Nathaniel King, a white man no less. She still vividly recalled the very first time she saw him, when he charged to her rescue during a Blackfoot attack. How brave he had been! How magnificent! The moment she had locked her eyes on his would always be etched in her mind. At that instant it had been as if her heart tried to fly from her body and stick to his. Her blood had raced, and she had felt a strange warm flush all over.
She touched a finger to his lips and felt his warm breath. If he died she didn’t want to live. If not for Zach she would be inclined to put an end to her life as other Shoshone women who had lost their husbands had done, by venturing off unarmed and without food or water into the wilderness until hostile Indians or wild beasts put an end to their misery. But she had her son to think of. Nate would expect her to carry on, to rear Zach as they had planned. She must not fail him.
The Harrington cabin was quiet and she wondered if everyone else had already gone. Pulling a chair up to the bed, she sat down and took Nate’s limp hand in hers. Fatigue tugged at her senses and her eyelids fluttered. For three days she had seldom left the comfortably furnished bedroom and eaten scarcely enough to fill a raven. She needed rest but she didn’t want to give in, not yet, not until she knew Nate was going to recover.
Minutes dragged past.
Winona heard Nate’s breathing and watched the quilt over his chest rise and fall. She closed her eyes to rest for just a little while. A few minutes, at most. That was all. A few peaceful minutes. A few ...
Her intuition flared as her eyes snapped wide and she knew something was wrong. She sat up, blinking, annoyed that she had fallen asleep. In front of her Nate still slumbered. A glance at the window showed the sun shining brilliantly so she couldn’t have slept for very long. Suddenly she sensed they were no longer alone, and she twisted in the chair to gasp in surprise as a shiver ran down her back.
Framed in the doorway was a beautiful blond woman dressed in the finest clothes money could buy. Sunlight from the window struck her golden hair in such a manner that it ringed her head in a shimmering halo. Her striking blue dress perfectly matched the hue of her eyes. She advanced without saying a word, her lovely face betraying no emotion whatsoever, and studied Nate intently before turning. “I came as soon as I heard.”
Winona couldn’t seem to find her voice. She stared in astonishment at this vision, icy fingers freezing her soul, and nervously licked her lips. “Who are you?” she finally inquired, knowing the answer before she asked.
“Adeline Van Buren. And you?”
“I am Winona,” Winona responded, then thought to quickly add, “Mrs. Nate King.”
The woman smiled but the smile didn’t light her eyes. Her features were totally devoid of human warmth. “So. Yes, I had heard. Pity.”
“I beg your pardon?” Winona said, struggling to control the turmoil in her breast. She placed both hands on the arms of the chair and rose slowly.
“That man Gordon and my other informants told me he had married …” Adeline said, and paused, then finished her statement distastefully. “An Indian woman.”
“Informants?” Winona said, puzzled. “I don’t understand.”
“It doesn’t matter,” the woman responded, and rested her hand on Nate’s shoulder. “All that matters is he’s here and everything will be wonderful again. Everything will be just as it was.”
Winona felt the first jealousy she had ever known, a bitter surge of raw resentment that made her yank the white woman’s hand off her husband. “What do you think you are doing? Why are you here?”
Adeline Van Buren stiffened and rubbed her wrist. “To claim what is rightfully mine,” she said coldly.
“Nate is my husband.”
“Of course he is, dear,” Adeline said with the condescending air of an adult addressing a vexed youngster. “And who can blame him for marrying you? He’d been off in those dreadful mountains for so long. He needed companionship on those cold winter nights.”
Winona couldn’t believe the woman was talking to her like this. She had heard there were many whites who despised Indians, but she had never met anyone like this woman who wore her hatred on her sleeve, as it were. She keenly resented Van Buren’s attitude, and it was all she could do not to slug the white bitch in the mouth. “I want you to leave,” she declared.
“We will shortly.”
“We?”
Adeline Van Buren took a seat on the edge of the bed. “You must try to comprehend my position. I’ve expended a great deal of money and time in tracking Nate King down. I’ve come all the way from New York City to this wretched city that doesn’t know the first thing about culture, and where it isn’t safe for a woman to walk the streets alone after dark. And I have no intention of returning empty-handed.”
Winona stepped between the woman and the door. “Nate is in no condition to go anywhere, and he would not go with you even if he were.”
The woman laughed. “So you would like to believe. But given a choice between the two of us, which one do you think he would prefer?”
There it was. The very question Winona had worried over for weeks. For years. Would Nate pick her or this other? Did Nate truly love her? She gazed at him, thinking of all the happy times they had shared, thinking of their joy-filled life at their cabin high in the Rockies, of all he had done for her during their marriage, and of the love she saw frankly reflected in his eyes every time he looked at her. “He loves me,” she said. “Not you.”
“Perhaps he thinks he does. But all that will change with time.”
“How dare you,” Winona bristled, clenching her fists. “I want you out of this house this instant.”
“I’m leaving, but I’m taking Nate with me.”
“I will kill you first.”
Adeline Van Buren smiled again, this time with real pleasure. “I came prepared for such a contingency.” She gazed past Winona. “We dare not waste more time, Rhey. Yancy won’t be able to delay McNair and Harrington forever.”
Shifting, Winona saw a man enter the room, a thin man with angular features and dark eyes. From head to toe he wore black: black jacket, black shirt, black trousers, black boots, and a black hat. He was clean shaven, his skin unusually pale as if he rarely was abroad during the daytime. “What is the meaning of this?” she demanded, suppressing a flutter of fear.
“I think you know, dear,” Adeline said, moving to one side. “And don’t expect help from your friends.”
The man in black halted and brushed the right flap of his jacket aside, exposing a pistol stuck under his black sash. But instead of grabbing it he reached into an inside pocket.
Winona saw him draw a small gun, smaller than any she had ever seen, and point it at her. She tensed, dreading what would happen next and wishing she had a weapon. “Why?” she asked, stalling while she racked her brain for a way out of the fix she was in.
“That you will never know,” Adeline said harshly, then seemed to soften. “Actually, I can’t blame you, can I? I hear that any Indian woman would give her eyeteeth to hook a white man. You were only doing what comes naturally to your kind.” She glanced at Nate. “He’ll get over you eventually. And he’ll get over your half-breed brat as well.”
“Don’t you lay a finger on our son!” Winona cried, taking a step toward the woman and raising her right fist to strike. She heard the crack of the small gun, her legs gave way, and she fell. The last sight she saw before a dark cloud enveloped her mind was the smirking face of Adeline Van Buren.