for that wound.
Some water and ~ome alcohol to clean him up, and maybe a little for the
lieutenant to sip. My, that's a mean and nasty bash!' Hank was on his
way out. Jane was still staring in horror. 'Move!' Dolly commanded her.
In a moment the young woman was back with blankets. Jon draped them
around Jamie and rubbed his feet. Hank ~turned with water and a sewing
kit, and Dolly began to clean the wound. A long gash ran into the left
side of Jamie's temple.
'It's amazing he's still breathing!' Dolly murmured. 'He's Missouri
tough,' Jon told her.
'He'll make it, you'll see.'
'I intend to do my best to see that he does,' Dolly assured Jon. She
looked at him anxiously.
'What about Tess.9' Jon shook his head.
'I don't know. I had' to get him back here before he died. I'm going
back out to see what I can find.' He liftext his hat to Dolly and left.
At the door he paused and looked back.
'Now, don't you let him die.'
'I'm just going to sew him up. And I'm going to pray.' Jon hurried out.
But when he returned to the river, he discovered that whoever had
attacked Jamie and Tess had made an escape through the water. He would
need daylight to track them. There was nothing he could do that night.
But maybe there was. It was late, but saloons had a tendency to cater to
the late crowd. Maybe he could find out more from casual conversation
over a poker game than he could from a broken branch.
He turned the pinto toward town.
Jamie's d~s were occasionally dark and occasionally erotic, but always
fevered.
He fought giants with buffalo headdresses. Then the battle would fade
away, the powder would dissipate, the roar of the guns would cease. He
wasn't fighting Yankees anymore, he tried to tell himself in his dream
world. He was a Yankee, dressed in blue. He was a specialist in Indian
affairs, a linguist. And he knew Indians. He hadn't needed Jon Red
Feather to tell him that the Apache didn't like scalping. It was a
contaminating thing to them, and it had to be done with 191 careful
ritual. He should have known from the very beginning that the woman
hadn't lied.
The woman. Tess. And the Yankees were gone, and the Indians were gone,
and he was lying by still, cool waters, and she was walking toward him.
Her hair was like the sun, falling in soft, delicate tendrils over her
breasts and down her back, and her smile was at once wistful and
innocent and full of the most alluring promise. She knelt beside him and
her fingers touched him, raking gently over his naked flesh. He couldn't
take his eyes from her. Her eyes were so giving, velvet and deep, deep
blue, and startling in their honesty. He had thought that she would run,
but she had not. And now, no matter whether he woke or slept, she was
with him, the sun- ray webs of honey-gold hair spinning around him and
wrapping him in the sweetest splendor.
Her breath was soft against him. She leaned over him, and her breasts
