“Naomi! No! No!” He shook her, trying to will life back into her body. “Damn it, woman. You can’t leave me now!”
The stage rolled away rapidly, its wheels kicking up dust.
“Help me,” Bobby shouted, cradling Naomi in his arms. But the stage kept going, and he knew the driver couldn’t hear him anyway.
He touched her neck. Her pulse, though weak, lingered. Thank God. Quickly he reached under her skirts for her petticoats, ripped them, and tore them into strips. He bandaged Naomi’s shoulder and then checked her pulse again.
The next town was over four hours away on horseback. Naomi wouldn’t make it four hours, especially at the pace he’d need to keep.
There was a closer place to get the help she needed. Bobby grimaced, but he had no choice. He would go three miles north, to a Lakota encampment.
There he would beg the people he hated to help the woman he loved.
Harnessing his anger and hatred, Bobby rode into the Lakota camp. Years had passed since the Dakota uprising, and though he wasn’t certain it was the Sioux who had attacked his family all those years ago, he had his suspicions. He’d heard not all Indians practiced scalping, but that didn’t matter. They were still red savages. He gritted his teeth and rode firmly. These people were all that stood between Naomi and death.
Conical tents surrounded the tamped down grasses of the camp, and several maidens carried water, lowering their eyes to Bobby’s gaze. Barely clothed children stopped scurrying about and hid behind the women’s fringed skirts. Braves, dressed in buckskins, met his gaze with mistrust and uncertainty in their dark eyes. Could they speak to him? Would they?
One large man, his ebony hair twisted into two thick braids, approached Bobby and held out a bronze hand to touch Thor’s nose. His stern brown face exhibited an aquiline nose and high cheekbones.
“Why do you come here, white man?”
Bobby swallowed. He would not succumb to fear, doubt, or hatred. “I come for help. My woman has been shot.”
The Indian nodded. “I am Standing Elk. My wife, Summer Breeze, is a healer. Come. I will take you to her.”
Bobby followed on the stallion, ignoring the stares of the Indians. When they stopped in front of a large tipi, Standing Elk took Naomi from his arms. Bobby dismounted.
“You stay here,” Standing Elk said. “This is the healing tent. I will take her to Summer Breeze.”
Bobby shook his head. “I can’t leave her.”
“You must. My wife will not harm her.” The Indian extended his arm forward, still holding Naomi. “Stay.”
Though Standing Elk looked like a young man, possibly younger than Bobby himself, something in his demeanor commanded authority. Bobby nodded, and Standing Elk disappeared into the tipi with Naomi in his arms.
Everything in Bobby’s soul screamed at him not to trust the Indian, but he had no choice. Naomi wouldn’t have made it to the nearest settled town. These people were her only hope.
A young Indian boy, no more than three or four, appeared and scrambled around Bobby’s legs and into the tipi.
Within minutes, Standing Elk emerged with the boy.
“Your woman is in the care of Summer Breeze and her mother, Laughing Sun, who is also a gifted healer.”
“I need to see her.”
“No. You must stay out here. They will fetch you when you can see her. They must remove the bullet from the white man’s weapon. It is...a difficult task.”
Bobby shivered. He knew what a difficult task it was. He’d had a few bullets removed from his own body in this lifetime. Agony coursed through him at the thought of Naomi having to endure such torture.
The little boy jabbered in Indian language to Standing Elk. After he responded, the boy ran away.
“My son, Silver Raven,” Standing Elk said. “He wants his mother and doesn’t understand that she is occupied.” The Indian sighed. “Come.” He gestured. “Let us see to your horse, and then we will speak.”
Bobby nodded. What other choice did he have?
When Thor was taken care of, Bobby sat with Standing Elk. “It was right for you to come here,” he said. “We have medicine that the white man does not. Your woman...what is her name?”
“Naomi.”
“Naomi...will have all she needs to survive.”
“And if she doesn’t? Survive?”
“Then it is the will of the Great Spirit, and we have no choice in the matter.” Black rubbed his temple, regarding Bobby with his black eyes. “What are you called, white man?”
“Morgan. Robert Morgan.”
“Are you hungry, Robert Morgan?”
Bobby’s stomach churned with a dull ache. “No.”
“You must eat. You must remain strong for your woman. I will take you to my father, the chief of our tribe. His name is Black Wolf.”
“I...I don’t have much to offer him for Naomi’s treatment. He can have my horse. My guns.”
“He will not ask you for such.”
“But...he is entitled to payment for his healers’ services.”
“We do not follow the way of the white man. We do not demand payment for what is our duty to give. The Great Spirit gifted Summer Breeze and Laughing Sun with their abilities to heal. It is their duty to use those gifts. To give where they are needed.”
Bobby struggled to maintain composure. Worry for Naomi overwhelmed him, coupled with his inability to understand the philosophy this Indian man spouted. He spoke of duty, yet his people had raped and killed Bobby’s ma, scalped his pa, stolen from them, set fire to their barn. None of this made any sense at all.
None of it mattered anyway. All that mattered was Naomi.
As they readied to meet the chief, an Indian maiden rushed from the tipi. She spoke to Standing Elk in her native language.
“Your woman, Naomi, lives for now,” Standing Elk said to Bobby. “Summer Breeze has removed the bullet from her shoulder and sealed the wound. She is weak. But she lives.”
Relief swept through him, but fear for what lay ahead consumed his innards. His bowels clenched, and he fought the nausea that rose in his throat. “I need to see her.”
“She is with Laughing Sun. Summer Breeze says to expect fever. She will need to be watched closely.”
“Damn it, I need to see her!”
“You will. She cannot be moved, so you may stay with her in the healing tent.”
“Thank you.” Bobby fidgeted, unsure of what else to say. “Why do you help me?”
“Because you need my help. Your woman needs the help of my healers.”
“But you...your people...they’ve massacred white men. They’ve—”
“They’ve done what’s been done to them. But not me, and not this tribe. We have chosen to abide the white man’s laws, even if we do not agree with them. We have sought guidance from the Great Spirit. We move on when we must. We wish only to exist in peace.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Do you judge all white men by the actions of some?”
“No. Of course not.” Certainly not, in his line of work. Bobby knew some men were pure evil.
“Then why should it be so with red men?”
Bobby had no answer. Such a notion that had never occurred to him, and his mind was too full to ponder it now. He cleared his throat. “How is that you speak my language?”
Standing Elk turned, and his chin quivered slightly. “My mother, who learned it from her mother, my grandmother. She was the daughter of a white man.”
As darkness set in, Bobby sat on a fur in the corner of the healing tent. Summer Breeze, her long hair plaited into an onyx braid that hung nearly to her feet, tended Naomi. Summer Breeze did not speak English, but Bobby read her facial expression.
Naomi was in danger.
She slept fretfully and was not responsive. Her slender body shuddered, and perspiration poured from her. But still she was beautiful. And pure. And good.
Much too good for the likes of him.
Bobby clenched his hands into fists and squeezed his eyes shut. Fear absorbed him for the first time in decades.
Naomi was a preacher’s daughter and she believed in God. Standing Elk spoke of the Great Spirit. Bobby’s mother used to read from the Bible. Long, long ago.
The day Indians had taken her from him, God had abandoned Bobby, so he in turn abandoned God and never looked back.
Now, he prayed to a God he wasn’t sure existed. But he had to try. God, the Great Spirit, whatever one called it, was his last hope.
Save her, he begged silently. Save her, and I’ll see her safely home to her pa. I know I was never meant to have her. Forgive me for trying to take what was never mine. I’ll give her up, I swear it, if only you’ll let her live.
Time passed like a locust caught in tree sap. Bobby lost track of the days, the nights. He ate smoked venison and corn because Standing Elk insisted, but he had no appetite. He refused Black Wolf’s pipe and drank only enough water to sustain himself. He had to live to see Naomi home once she recovered.
If she recovered.
After that, he didn’t give a damn what happened to him.
The next morning, when Summer Breeze lifted a blood soaked cloth from Naomi’s body, Bobby shuddered, and then relaxed, but only a bit. The cloth hadn’t come from Naomi’s wound. It had come from her private parts. She had started her courses.
Sadness, coupled with relief, enveloped him. The primal male part of him wished he’d impregnated her. Perhaps he’d have been able to keep her then, to watch her pretty belly swell with his child. But it was better this way. She could go on now, find someone worthy of her who could take care of her and keep her safe.
A knife settled in Bobby’s gut at the thought of another man touching Naomi. Lying with her. Impregnating her.
He forced away the hurtful images. What was important was that she live. She’d be safer without him.
On the fourth day of fever, convulsions seized Naomi’s weakened body. Bobby stiffened, fear pulsing through his veins. Summer Breeze ushered him out of the tent, jabbering in Lakota. She yelled something, and her little boy, Silver Raven, clad only in tan buckskins, came running. His cherubic tan face was solemn as he listened to his mother’s rapid words and then sped off in a cloud of dust.
Bobby sat outside the tent, his head in his hands, oblivious to the goings-on in the camp. He didn’t pray again. If God hadn’t heard him the first time, he wasn’t listening anyway.
At least his heart had stopped hammering. It had broken days before, when he realized Naomi was no longer his.
Had never been his.
Standing Elk came forward, his son in tow. He didn’t speak to Bobby as he passed him and entered the tipi.
Bobby had no idea how many hours had elapsed when Standing Elk finally emerged from the tent.
“Robert Morgan,” he said, his firm hand a strangely soothing presence on Bobby’s shoulder.
Bobby looked up, and to his surprise, a smile adorned the Indian’s usually stern face.
“The fever has broken. Your woman, Naomi, will live.”