Providence (35 page)

Luke fought the bile that rose in
his gorge. The fear was a palatable presence, riding beside him. He fought the
urge to ride quickly, afraid that he might miss something along the road. The
colt snorted and pawed impatiently as Luke scanned every broken branch, scouted
every side path. Where was she?

 An hour of agonized riding
and still there had been no sign. Was the search futile? The full moon cast a
glow over the landscape that aided the process though the clouds still obscured
the moonlight from time to time, causing him to pause and wait for additional
light. Every rustle tickled the hollow of his ear, urging him to peer deeper
into the bushes. The night sounds became a haunting chorus, taunting him with
the promise of finding her just over the next rise, around the next bend, but
still he could not find her.

Voices. Reining in the colt he
listened. Surely he had heard a voice off to the left. Staring transfixed into
the trees, he waited, stilling his very breathing, he listened. The soft hooting
of an owl, the scurry of a rodent in the brush, only the night sounds
surrounded him. Expelling his breath in rush, he urged his horse on yet again.

How many miles had he come? Jake
had said it was nearly eight miles to the marker. He had covered perhaps half
that distance. The pale light of the moon was coming more from the west with
every step. A permanent chill had settled in his bones, fear permeated every
cell, his head pounding, fingers numb, still he rode on, searching.

Blood. A small pool of blood lay
before him on the road drying and clotting in the moonlight. Streaks of brown
and red gore showed plainly where the victim had crawled or been dragged off
the road to the west. Shredded leaves and mangled branches gave their own mute
testimony to the passing.

Swallowing the fear that rose
within his throat, Luke dismounted in one swift, fluid motion. The buckskin
followed Luke into the trees reluctantly, snorting at the coppery scent of
blood, eyes wide with fear. Not fifteen feet from the road, they emerged into a
small clearing.

 She lay sprawled beneath a
scrub oak, blood soaking the jacket and trickling from her mouth. Dried gore
matted her hair. She made no movement, no sign of life was evident in the still
form. A moment, frozen in time, Luke’s heart stopped in paralyzing fear. The
colt behind him, already filled with a sense of panic, sat back on his haunches
at the sight of her body, jerking the reins from Luke’s hand. The sudden
movement jarred him from his dazed stupor.

“Whoa, boy, whoa,” he said to the
quaking horse. Picking up the reins he looped them securely around a stout
tree. Turning to Kate, he knelt beside her lifeless body. Her skin was cool,
but still held the resiliency of life. Placing his fingers on her neck in a
feather-light touch, he felt for life. Barely breathing, he waited, moving his
fingers as he sought the artery near the side of her neck. There, it was there,
he could just feel the blood still pulsing faintly beneath her skin.

Now what? What could he do here,
in the middle of the night, in the cold? He knew so little about healing. He
had dug a slug out of a cowboy’s arm one rainy night years ago. But this was
the woman he loved, her lifeblood seeping from her in an inexorable tide. Panic
began to overcome him. He was going to sit here and watch her die, there was
nothing he could do. Luke had never felt so utterly alone and helpless in his
life. The fear held him in iron bands, constricting his chest, binding his
heart.

 Breathing in deep ragged
breaths, he closed his eyes and turned his face to heaven.
“God, oh God,
why?
I am coming to You, broken, helpless, humble. There is nothing I can
do. Only You can cleanse me, Lord. Only You can heal her. She has been Yours
for so long, and only now do I truly realize what that means. To be wholly
yours, I have to sacrifice every earthly desire, trust You, stop relying on my
strength and allow You to work through me. God, save her, save me.”

The shriek of a night-hunting
hawk rent the air. Luke’s eyes flew open. A man stepped from the shadows, his
dark gaze searching Luke’s face before falling on the woman still motionless on
the ground.

Luke’s hand reached instinctively
for a gun he no longer wore.

“She lives,” the man pronounced.

Luke nodded. Though wary of the
stranger, something about him told Luke that he meant no harm.

“Tochoway?” Luke whispered.

The man nodded. “She has spoken
of me.”

“Yes.”

Tochoway knelt beside Kate.
Removing his woolen jacket, he placed it over her cold body. Gentle fingers
probed the wound on her head, then moved to her chest. Lifting her slightly, he
explored her back. Nodding, he turned his gaze on Luke.

“How bad is she?” Luke asked.

 “The bullet has gone
through. That is good. She has lost much blood, and is too cold. We need to
move her to shelter now.”

“Bullet? But who would...” Luke
trailed off, realization dawning, anger rose to replace the fear

“The blood still flows,” Tochoway
observed, waving off Luke’s concern. “We must stop it.”

Jolted into action. Luke
unstrapped the bedroll from the buckskin, still pawing the ground where he was
tied. Opening the roll he retrieved several cotton rags and a green wool
blanket.

Tochoway took the rags. Folding
them into tight bundles, he placed them over both entry and exit wounds to
staunch the flow. Luke laid aside his jacket and removed his muslin shirt. The
icy wind raised chill bumps along his exposed skin. Ignoring the cold, he tore
the shirt into long strips to bind the makeshift bandages into place. Working
together the men shifted her enough to get the strips bound tightly around her,
stemming the flow of her blood.

Tochoway raised his head,
listening to the wind. “Come.”

“How?” Luke asked. “She’ll never
survive the ride all the way back to Providence.”

As they rolled Kate gently into the
relative warmth offered by the blanket, a groan escaped her.

“Shhh, it’s going to be all
right. You’re going to be fine,” Luke whispered to her, not knowing whether she
heard or not. His heart ached, but he knew they had to work quickly in order to
have any chance of saving her.

 Tochoway picked up the limp
form, cradling her within the shelter of his arms. With no more than a glance
toward Luke, he set off through the trees. Luke untied the reins of the colt
and followed behind.

The man ahead of him traveled
swiftly and silently even with the burden he carried. Luke was hard pressed to
keep up, and more than once thought he had lost him. Each time, Tochoway paused
and waited for him to reappear.

After an hour of travel this way,
Luke found himself in a valley, surrounded on three sides by rocky canyon
walls. A lake shimmered with ethereal beauty under the waning moonlight ahead
of them. Tochoway stood before the door of a simple log cabin, all but hidden
in a copse of trees. Tying the colt to a fence rail near the cabin, Luke
hurried over to open the door.

Pushing through the door,
Tochoway laid Kate on the rough bed occupying one corner of the small room. A
stove glowed in the opposite corner with the fading radiance of banked coals.

“Build the fire up. We will need
water heated.” Tochoway said.

Luke complied, finding the wood
and kindling near the door of the cabin. A kettle stood atop the stove, already
filled with water. As the fire caught and began to warm the room, Luke moved
the kettle over the heat and waited, watching Tochoway minister to Kate’s
wounds.

 “The bleeding has slowed,
perhaps stopped, but the wounds are bad. There is a woman in the village
skilled in healing. I will bring her.” Before Luke could respond, Tochoway
vanished.

Luke poured warm water from the
kettle into a basin and carried it to the bed. He set the bowl on the floor,
and retrieved one of the two chairs from the table, which along with a chest
and one wall cabinet, made up the only other furnishings within the austere
cabin.

Tochoway had left a cloth over
her forehead. Taking the rag, Luke dipped it in the water and wrung it out. He
daubed the wound on the side of her head, cleaning away the blood and dirt to
reveal a small cut, some minor swelling and bruising. Another rinse in the
soothing water, and he began to wash the dirt from her face. Her eyes
fluttered, opening for a brief moment, but unable to focus, they closed again.
She moaned in pain, trying to get up.

“Shhh, Kate, lie still. You’re
going to be all right,” Luke said, pushing her gently down.

She collapsed back on the bed and
lay so still that a moment of panic seized Luke, until he saw the gentle rise
and fall of her breast with each shallow breath.

 The chill in the cabin was
slowly dissipating as the fire warmed the air. The stars still twinkled through
the window, though the eastern sky was beginning to lighten. The Insleys would
be waking soon. What would they think? Jake would find Kate’s horse in the barn
and Luke missing. Worry began gnawing at him even as he bathed Kate’s face.

The sound of horses approaching
stirred him from his reverie. Moments later, the latch moved, and the door
swung in silently. Tochoway was followed by a woman bundled in a bright blanket
and two or three shawls. Her black hair was streaked with silver, but her
bearing was erect, her eyes bright and clear.

A few phrases were exchanged
between the Tochoway and the woman in a language Luke could not discern. As the
woman removed her outer garments, Tochoway returned to Kate, watching her
shallow breathing with an immutable gaze.

The Comanche woman paid scant
attention to Luke as she checked the kettle on the stove, removed a bowl from
the cupboard and began measuring out herbs from a pouch at her waist. Luke watched
in fascination and growing concern as the woman poured steaming water over the
concoction and took it to Kate’s bedside. A few more words were exchanged, and
Tochoway motioned Luke to follow him from the cabin. Glancing at Kate and the
woman standing beside her, Luke reluctantly followed Tochoway through the
narrow door.

Gray skies lightened the eastern
horizon as a bleak dawn approached. The clouds lay low in the sky, and a damp
chill penetrated even through Luke’s heavy jacket. The two men stared at the
lake, as ripples blown by the wind washed the silver shore.

 Luke watched the light play
against the waves as the pale morning light began to break. Tochoway stood at
the rail, gaze fixed on a distant point. In that instant, the realization
struck Luke fully.

“You’re in love with her,” he
stated flatly.

Tochoway made no answer, but a
tremor ran through his jaw as it tightened, and his focus remained fixed for a
long, tense moment.

“Why?” Luke asked. “Why haven’t
you told her?”

Drawing a deep breath, Tochoway
began to speak in a quiet tone, “There is a Comanche legend. A small girl,
She-Who-Is-Alone, lost both parents in a great famine. The rains did not come,
the people were afraid. The only thing she had left was the beautiful cornhusk
doll made by her mother and decorated by her father with the blue feathers of
the jay.

“The medicine man prayed to the
Great Father to send the life-giving rains, but still they did not come.
She-Who-Is-Alone told her precious doll that all would be well, surely the medicine
man would know what to do.

 “Finally one day the
medicine man went alone to the mountain. He fasted and prayed and sought the
will of the Great Father. When he returned, he told the people that they were
becoming selfish and forgetting the bounty was provided by the Great Father.
They were to sacrifice their most valuable possession in a fire, repent of
their selfish ways, then the rains would come.

“The people grumbled among
themselves. ‘Surely, he does not mean my bow,’ said the warrior. ‘How then
would I hunt to provide meat?’ And the maiden said, ‘I must have my blanket to
stay warm. He could not mean for me to give that up.’ So the people drifted
off, saying that tomorrow was another day.

“She-Who-Is-Alone looked down at
the wonderful doll in her hand, the only thing she had left in the world. ‘It
is me, I must do this,’ she said to herself. With tears in her eyes, she
gathered some small sticks, took a burning ember from the village fire, and
began the long walk to the mountain alone.

“There she built a pyre, laid her
precious doll atop, and with a trembling hand, laid the fire brand against the
dry sticks. She watched as the doll burned in a swirl of blue smoke. Then,
exhausted, the girl fell asleep upon the mountain.

“When she awoke the land was
covered in a carpet of beautiful blue flowers the very color of the jay
feathers, and the rains came.” Tochoway turned toward Luke. “She-Who-Is-Alone
did not want others to endure the loss she had suffered. The Heavenly Father
sent a son, knowing that he would die in agony, so others could be spared the
pain of eternal death. My sacrifice is a small one, knowing the prejudice she
would suffer as my wife or my lover. I have endured the heartbreak of being
caught between two peoples, I will not ask that of her.”