Winter's Touch by Janis Reams Hudson Read Free Book Online Page A

the track they usually follow. Late in the afternoon we heard the noise of an approaching wagon. We hid behind some rocks and waited. When the wagon appeared, we attacked.”
    “Yet you did not kill them,” Little Raven said.
    Crooked Oak met Red Beard’s gaze squarely. “No, we did not. Red Beard, who had been traveling with them, said the man was his friend. Out of honor for his position in our band, I stayed my hand. I could have taken the white man’s scalp. I had my knife at his head. But I did not.”
    When Crooked Oak did not continue, Little Raven asked, “Why have you brought the white man here?”
    Innes couldn’t help the way his chest swelled with emotion. To Little Raven, there was only one white man in the camp, and that was the captive. To Our People, Innes was not white. He was Red Beard. Husband of Smiling Woman. Father of Winter Fawn and Hunter.
    Little Raven’s continued acceptance of him, when he only visited once a year now instead of living with them, humbled him and gladdened his heart. With a few notable exceptions, he thought with a glare at Crooked Oak, these were good people. He was proud to be considered one of them.
    He waited now, knowing that to speak out of turn would make him appear rude and contemptuous of custom. He saw plainly that Crooked Oak did not know how to answer Little Raven’s question.
    In truth, Innes was correct. Crooked Oak, even after several hours since the incident, was not certain what to say. He decided to tell as much of the truth as he could bear. If he strayed too far, Red Beard would surely protest, and Crooked Oak wasn’t sure that any but Two Feathers would back him up.
    “I did not wish to,” he said straightly. “I do not care that he is a friend of Red Beard’s. He is an enemy. His kind have spilled the blood of Our People. He has brought his children here to this land.” He nodded with his chin toward the two young white girls with Winter Fawn.
    “He will claim the land as his own, the way white men do. He we tear it up, drive off or kill all the game, poison the water. He is an enemy. He should die. I am a warrior. I kill our enemies. I bring him here only out of respect for Red Beard, because he did not wish me to kill the man. I bring him here so that others can make Red Beard see that the killing is needful.”
    Calmly, deliberately, Little Raven turned to Innes with an inquiring look.
    Innes wished again, desperately, for one of the bottles tucked into the supplies he’d carried in on his pack mule. He thought for a moment that it might be to his and Carson’s advantage to pass a few of those bottles around. Get all the warriors drunk, then sneak Carson away when they all passed out.
    But it was just as likely that after a few drinks Crooked Oak would take it into his head that he should just kill Carson and be done with it. No one other than Innes would really care one way or the other.
    So Innes discarded the idea and fought the burning need in his belly. Slowly he looked around the circle of dark, serious faces, not lingering on any one, until his gaze met Little Raven’s.
    “I cannot say what was in Crooked Oak’s heart and mind when I stopped him from killing the son of the dearest friend a man has ever had.” A lie, Innes thought, but a necessary one. He’d known exactly what Crooked Oak had been thinking. “I only know that, as the warriors did not realize that I was traveling with the wagon, neither did I realize who was attacking us until I aimed my rifle at the warrior who was about to scalp my friend. Had he not looked up and recognized me and halted, I would have killed him before I even knew it was Crooked Oak. I was defending my friend. There is not a man here who would not have done the same.”
    A murmur of agreement swelled, then faded.
    “I am shamed,” Innes continued in Arapaho. “My honor has been stained. I will not say this was deliberate, but it has happened. I swore to my friend that he had nothing to fear