Authors: Madeline Baker
With a sigh of resignation, she ducked inside the gloomy wickiup. “What do you want?” she asked, hoping her voice sounded as curt and unfriendly as his had been.
“I need you to hold him down while I splint his leg. Can you do it?”
“Of course.” Loralee knelt beside Short Bear. His eyes were glazed with pain. She saw the fear lingering behind his eyes, fear of the pain that was to come. For all his brave front, he was still just a boy. She sent him an encouraging smile as she placed her hands on his shoulders.
“Keep him as still as you can,” Zuniga instructed.
Loralee nodded. She felt Short Bear grow tense as Zuniga took hold of his broken leg, and she leaned across the boy’s body, blocking his view as she held him down.
The boy gave a hoarse cry of agony, then went mercifully limp as Shad pulled the bone into place.
Sitting back on her heels, Loralee watched as Zuniga quickly and expertly splinted the boy’s leg.
Seeing there was nothing more for her to do, she stood up, anxious to be away. There was so much she wanted to say to him, so much to explain, yet the words would not come. With a curt nod, she left the lodge and swung into the saddle.
“Thanks.”
He had followed her out of the lodge. She could feel his presence behind her, could feel his eyes on her back.
Loralee nodded, afraid to speak, afraid to look at him for fear she would dissolve into tears.
She did not go riding in the hills any more after that. Seeing Shad was too painful. She could tell herself she hated him until she was blue in the face, but in truth, she loved him desperately. Would always love him.
But she never wanted to see him again.
Short Bear frowned at his cousin. “How much longer do I have to lie here?” he asked sullenly.
“Another two weeks,” Zuniga answered matter-of-factly.
Short Bear groaned. Two more weeks of lying on his back, doing nothing, or sitting out in the sun, or hobbling around on the crutch Zuniga had improvised. Two more weeks of inactivity, when he longed to be out with the other boys, or riding the hills on that wretched horse that had thrown him.
“Red Crow stopped by with your school work while you were asleep,” Zuniga remarked.
Short Bear groaned again. Miss Warfield made certain that one of the boys brought him his homework every day. Often she sent him encouraging notes, commending him for a paper that was exceptionally well done, or she penned a few words to say she hoped he was feeling better. Once she had sent him a box of oatmeal cookies. Another time she had sent a get well card that had been signed by the whole class. Zuniga seemed amused by it all, but Short Bear was confused. Only a few months ago, he had been trying to drive the new schoolmarm away, and now she was sending him homemade cookies and get well cards.
With a sigh, he looked at the book Zuniga handed him, then dropped it onto the ground. “I don’t feel like studying,” he declared. “Tell me about the time you were in jail in Mexico.”
“It was a bad time,” Zuniga replied, frowning at the memory. “Why do you want to hear about it?”
“Because you were so brave,” Short Bear answered.
“You are the brave one,” Zuniga countered. “You did not cry when I set your leg, and you have not complained once about the pain. You would have made a fine warrior.”
Short Bear’s face glowed at his cousin’s praise. To be a warrior was all he had ever wanted, all he cared about.
“Tell me about California, then,” Short Bear prompted.
“California,” Zuniga drawled, smiling. “A pretty place. Forests and valleys and mountains. And that beautiful blue ocean.”
“Murdock,” Short Bear stated impatiently. “Tell me about Murdock.”
John Murdock was a wealthy rancher who owned a large cattle ranch that covered thousands of acres.
“I was just passing through,” Zuniga began, his mind going back in time. “It was shortly after I escaped from prison, and I had the urge to travel. It was about noon on a hot day in July. I was crossing Murdock’s land when I heard a scream for help. I started toward the sound and saw a small boy in the middle of a lake. His shirt was caught on a snag and he could not get free. He was tiring fast, and he went under the water as I rode up. I swam out and got him and he asked me to take him home.
“I thought Murdock was going to shoot me on sight,” Zuniga said, grinning, “but then he saw the boy sitting behind me, and he came running down the porch stairs.
“‘What the hell happened?’ Murdock demanded, and the boy began to explain how he had gone for a swim and got hung up. Murdock grabbed my hand and pumped it up and down, thanking me all the while for saving his grandson’s life.
“He insisted I stay on for a couple of days, and I took him up on his offer.” Zuniga shook his head in wonder. “I never lived so good in my whole life. Three good meals a day, every day. And if I wanted something special to eat, all I had to do was ask. Murdock even offered me a job bustin’ broncs, but I turned him down. Nice as his place was, it was not home, and I was just passing through.”
“But he said you could have the job any time you wanted it,” Short Bear said.
“Yeah. And he gave me the dun as a going away present,” Zuniga finished.
“Do you think you’ll ever go back to California?” Short Bear asked.
Zuniga shook his head. “No reason to go back.”
Short Bear studied his cousin intently for a moment, then blurted, “Why aren’t you courting Miss Warfield anymore?”
“I never courted her,” Zuniga answered tersely.
“It looked like courting,” Short Bear said candidly. “Everyone on the reservation thought you would marry her.”
Zuniga stared at the boy, speechless. How did such rumors get started? Marriage, indeed!
“I think perhaps you speak of that which you know nothing about,” Zuniga said curtly.
“I know more than you think. I saw the two of you together at Shadow Lake one day.”
“Have you taken to spying on me?” Zuniga demanded angrily.
“I was not spying,” Short Bear answered with dignity. “I was hunting. I did not stay to watch what happened after you kissed her, but I know what goes on between a man and a woman.”
“Do you?” Zuniga asked, his anger momentarily forgotten.
“Yes.” Short Bear’s face flushed guiltily.
“And who taught you how to be a man?”
Short Bear shrugged. “No one. A girl in town. A street girl.”
Zuniga grinned, amused by his cousin’s unexpected revelation.
“You are not going to marry the white woman?” Short Bear’s query was more like a plea than a question.
“No,” Zuniga answered tonelessly. “I am not going to marry her.”
“But you would like to?”
“Have you always been so full of questions? Go on, do your school work and stop pestering me.”
The sound of hoofbeats roused Zuniga from a restless sleep. Visions of Loralee responding to Mike Schofield’s caresses faded into nothingness as he rose quietly to his feet, his hand automatically reaching for the hunting knife at his bedside. He glanced quickly at Nachi and Short Bear, still sleeping soundly, then slipped outside.
The morning was cold, the sky overcast and dreary. He turned sharply to the right, his eyes narrowing in anger as he saw Sergeant Schofield and a dozen other soldiers surround the lodge.
Schofield glared at Zuniga. The Apache was clad in a brief deerskin clout, nothing more, and Schofield thought derisively that he looked more like a wild animal than a human being. He had a fleeting image of Loralee bending over Zuniga’s shoulder as she explained the difference between a noun and a verb.
Anger washed through Schofield as he remembered the way Zuniga’s eyes had moved over Loralee’s face and body, lingering on the swell of her breasts and the curve of her hips. His hand caressed the butt of his service revolver. It would be so easy to unleather the weapon and place a bullet between Zuniga’s eyes. So easy…revulsion welled within Schofield as he realized what he was thinking. He was not a man normally given to violence. How could he even contemplate killing a man in cold blood, even Zuniga?
Schofield’s hand dropped stiffly to his side, and he stared intently at the knife in Zuniga’s hand. “I’ll take that weapon,” he said curtly. Dismounting, he held out his hand.
Zuniga shook his head. “No.”
“I said I’ll take that knife.”
“And I said no.”
A muscle worked in Schofield’s jaw. He had no right to take the knife, but he couldn’t back down now. Not in front of his men. Not in front of Zuniga.
“Hobart!”
“Sir!”
“Disarm him.”
“Yes, sir!”
In a move that had obviously been executed before, three men dismounted and moved toward Zuniga, their sidearms drawn and cocked, their faces determined. They were all young men, well disciplined and eager to prove themselves capable of handling any situation.
Corporal Hobart stopped directly in front of Zuniga and held out his left hand.
Zuniga ignored the corporal and the two men standing behind him. His eyes never left Schofield’s face as, with lightning speed, he reversed the knife in his hand and, with a flick of his wrist, sent the blade sailing through the air to land in the dirt between Mike Schofield’s feet.
Startled, Schofield cursed loudly as he took a hasty step backward, and he felt his neck burn as a few of the older men snickered. A stern look silenced the laughter.
With as much dignity as he could muster, Schofield bent down and plucked the knife from the dirt. It was a deadly-looking weapon, the blade long and straight, sharp as a razor. The handle was made of bone, wrapped with hide.
“Hobart, Ryan, search the lodge,” Mike ordered brusquely. “The rest of you, scout around out here.”
Without a word, Zuniga turned on his heel and followed the two soldiers into the lodge. Short Bear and Nachi were awake now. Short Bear was standing at the rear of the lodge, the crutch under one arm. He threw Zuniga a worried look.
“It is all right,” Zuniga said, his eyes warning the boy not to do anything foolish.
Nachi sat cross-legged on his blankets, his aged face impassive, his black eyes smoldering with fury as the enemy prowled around his lodge making crude jokes. Stupid
pinda-lick-o-ye
, he mused. Stupid white men. They never learned. Many times in the past they had come to his lodge searching for Zuniga’s weapons, but they never found anything. When would they give up? When would they realize that his grandson was too smart to hide the forbidden weapons inside the lodge where they would be easily discovered?
Closing his eyes, the old man let his mind wander back in time, back to the old days when he had ridden the war trails, when his arrows had sliced into the white man’s flesh. Ah, those had been the good times, the shining times. With a little sigh, he fell asleep, his chin dropping to his chest. In his dreams, he was a young man again, full of strength and vigor.
Zuniga stood near the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest, while the two white men searched the lodge, poking into jars and pots, peering under his bedroll, rifling through Nachi’s meager belongings as they made derisive comments about the Indians and their primitive way of life.
“There’s nothing here,” Hobart muttered as he lifted a pile of robes. “You’d think the sergeant would give up.”
“Yeah,” Ryan agreed. “Let’s get out of here. This place stinks.”
A low rumble of anger welled in Short Bear’s throat. How could Zuniga stand there and say nothing while the white men rummaged through their belongings and made tasteless jokes about their home, their women? He met his cousin’s eyes, silently pleading for Zuniga to do something, but Zuniga only shook his head.
“Shit, let’s go,” Hobart growled. “If I have to stay in here much longer, I’m gonna puke.”
The two white men ducked outside, and Zuniga followed them, first warning Short Bear to stay inside.
“Well?” Schofield asked impatiently. “Did you find anything?”
Ryan shook his head. “Clean as a whistle.”
Zuniga met Schofield’s accusing glance with an insolent grin. The soldiers had searched Nachi’s lodge more than a dozen times in the past six months, but they never found a thing. His rifle and his handgun were safely buried in the middle of the horse corral, safely wrapped in an oilskin together with several boxes of ammunition. His bow and arrows were hung in a tree, virtually invisible unless you knew where to look.
Mike Schofield held Zuniga’s gaze. Damn the man! He was nothing but trouble. Everyone knew he was a liar and a thief, yet no one could catch him in anything the least bit underhanded. But he would, Mike vowed. By damn, one day he’d catch the bastard red-handed, and then they’d see who had the last laugh!
Face grim, Schofield swung into the saddle. “Mount up,” he ordered tersely. Back stiff as a ramrod, he gigged his big bay horse into a trot and rode away from the old man’s lodge.
The first inkling Loralee had that something was sorely amiss came on a cool morning in late November when she vomited her breakfast. She passed it off as an upset stomach caused by overeating at the weekly dance at the fort the night before and thought no more about it, until it happened again the
next
morning. And the next. Stricken, she realized that she had not had her monthly flow since the first of October. Over
six
weeks ago.
She flew to her mirror, shook her head in disbelief as she studied her reflection in the glass. Her breasts seemed larger, tender to the touch. Her belly was gently rounded instead of flat. Or was it merely her imagination?
“No!” She shook her head, refusing to believe what she knew to be true. She was pregnant.
Guilt and remorse dropped over her like a dark shadow. What a fool she had been to think she could flaunt the laws of God and man and not have to pay the price. Still, it had never occurred to her that she might get pregnant. That was something that happened to other people.
She spent a sleepless night pacing the floor, wondering what to do. She was pregnant, and Shad Zuniga was the father. She would never be able to live down the scandal. She would lose her job, her good name, everything she had worked so hard to achieve. And all because she had been unable to control her desire for a man who did not want her.
She wept bitter tears, her fists pounding the pillow in frustration. What would people say? What would Mike say? She would have to leave the reservation before anyone found out. She could not bear the shame.
The tears came harder as she thought of leaving the children. She had grown to love them dearly. Why did this have to happen now, when she was finally making real progress, when they were beginning to enjoy the knowledge she was imparting? Oh, it wasn’t fair!
Mike watched her closely for several days, wondering what was bothering her. At first, he attributed her long silences to some problem she was having at school, but when her melancholy mood lasted more than a week, he began to worry.
“What is it, Loralee?” he asked one night as they were walking in the moonlight. “What’s troubling you?”
“Nothing, Mike.” She hated to lie to him, but how could she tell him the truth?
“Loralee, look at me.”
“I’m fine, Mike. Really.”
“Like hell!” He grabbed her arm and forced her to stop walking and look at him. “What is it?”
His voice was soft and caring. His eyes were kind, sympathetic. How could she tell him what she had done? How could she bear to see the affection in his face turn to disgust?
“Loralee?”
“Oh, Mike,” she whispered, and burst into tears.
“Loralee, honey, what is it?” He took her in his arms, and felt her body tremble with the force of her sobs.
Loralee cried for several minutes, unleashing all the unhappiness of the past few days in a torrent of cleansing tears. She didn’t want to tell Mike what was troubling her, but she didn’t want to move out of the circle of his arms either. It felt so good to be held, to know that he loved her even though she couldn’t love him in return.
When her tears subsided, she took a deep breath, then drew away from him. “I’m pregnant, Mike,” she said flatly.
Mike stared at Loralee, wondering if he had heard right. “Pregnant?”
She nodded.
“How?” he asked. “Who?”
“Zuniga.”
Mike’s face went white with rage. “That bastard!” he hissed. “I’ll kill him.”
“I’m as much to blame as he is.” They were the hardest words she had ever spoken.
Mike shook his head, not wanting to believe her.
Two large tears of shame rolled down Loralee’s cheeks. “I’m sorry, Mike. Good night.”
Turning on her heel, she lifted her skirts and ran home as fast as her legs would carry her. Tears blurred her vision, and she stumbled in the darkness, skinning her knee as she tripped over a large rock.
She sat where she had fallen, the tears falling faster and faster. She had lost Zuniga, and now she had lost Mike, and there was no one to blame but herself.
“Loralee,” Mike’s voice called to her out of the darkness, and then she felt his hand on her arm. Gently he helped her to her feet.
“Leave me alone, Mike. Please, just go away and leave me alone.”
“Does Zuniga know about the baby?”
“No.”
“Why haven’t you told him?”
“He hates me.”
“Why?”
“He just does. Oh, Mike, what am I going to do? I don’t want to leave the reservation. The children need me, and they’re learning so much now—” She broke off as another wave of tears washed down her cheeks.
“Loralee, don’t cry. Please don’t cry.” She sounded so unhappy and looked so forlorn that his heart went out to her. Whatever had happened, he was certain it hadn’t been her fault.
“I’ve made such a mess of everything.”
“Are you in love with Zuniga?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No,” Loralee repeated firmly.
“Okay, I believe you.” But he didn’t, not really.
With a sigh, Mike took Loralee by the arm and escorted her back to her house. Inside, he brewed her a cup of tea, wiped the blood from her skinned knee, and bandaged the shallow cut. And all the while a thought took root in the back of his mind.
Loralee sipped the tea slowly, her eyes on Mike’s face. What was he thinking?
With the air of a man who had just made up his mind, Mike sat down at the table across from Loralee and took her hand in his.
“Marry me, Loralee.”
“Marry you?”
Mike nodded. “You need a husband right away,” he said, keeping his voice light, “and I need a wife. We were made for each other.”
“But I don’t love you.”
Mike shrugged. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, serious once more. “I love you, and I’ll try to be a good father to your baby. What do you say?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say yes, and I’ll get started on the paperwork tomorrow morning.”
It sounded so simple. Marry Mike, and all her problems would be solved. She would have a name for her baby. She could keep teaching the Indian children. Her reputation would be saved. She would have someone to take care of her.
“It can be a marriage in name only, if that’s how you want it,” Mike offered. “And who knows, maybe one day you’ll learn to love me, too, and we’ll have a real marriage.”
“But, Mike, it seems so unfair to you.”
“Not really. I’ll be getting a live-in cook and housekeeper and family all in one.”
It sounded so easy.
“Say yes, Loralee,” he coaxed, squeezing her hand. “You won’t be sorry.”
She lowered her head for a long moment, and when she raised it her eyes were still wet.
“All right, Mike, I’ll marry you if you’re sure it’s what you want.”
“I’m sure. No more tears now.” Rising, he came around the table, bent and kissed her cheek. “I’ll talk to the colonel and the chaplain first thing in the morning. Don’t you worry, I’ll handle everything. You go on to bed and get some rest. You look all done in.”
“I am. Thank you, Mike.”
He gave her a warm smile. “Dream of me, will you?”
“I’ll try.”
With a nod, he picked up his hat and left the house, whistling softly.
Loralee stared after him. What had she gotten herself into? How could she marry a man she didn’t love? And yet, what else could she do? Mike was kind and good and sweet, and she did care for him. Perhaps everything would work out for the best after all.