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

from Our People. That if he traveled with me, he would be safe, for I am one of you. Have been one of you for many, many seasons. He trusted me. He believed me. And now he comes to this. He must be set free.”
    This time the murmur was of protest, and came from only a handful of warriors.
    “I would speak,” said Bent Old Man. “If we let the white man go, will he not tell the Bluecoats what has happened and bring them down on us to kill our women and children?”
    People shifted where they sat. Mothers pulled their children closer to them. The murmurs were of anger and fear.
    “No,” Innes said. “That he would not do. He just spent four years fighting this same Bluecoat Army that plagues Our People. He has been their enemy, the same as we have. They killed his father—my friend. He would not go to them.”
    “He fought against his own kind?” Little Raven asked.
    Innes shook his head. “Not like you mean. He was of the Gray army and fought against the Blue. Just as Our People fight the Utes.”
    That comparison they understood. Many faces filled with consideration and turned to study the captive more closely.
    But some were not convinced. “He is still a white man,” Crooked Oak stated. “They are not to be trusted.”
    “I am a white man,” Innes reminded him. “Am I not to be trusted either? Would you kill me because my skin is not as dark as yours?”
    The struggle on Crooked Oak’s face was plain. His mind cried Yes! I would like to kill you!
    Innes could not fathom from where such hatred sprang. He couldn’t recall anything he’d ever done to Crooked Oak—to anyone among Our People—to cause such hatred.
    But Crooked Oak won his battle with self-control. “You are not white,” he said to Innes “Not in your heart. In your heart you are one of us.”
    Innes was forced, for the sake of politeness, to nod in acknowledgment of the high compliment.
    “Are you willing,” Little Raven asked Crooked Oak, “to set your captive free?”
    Crooked Oak squared his shoulders. “I am not. White blood must be spilled to avenge the deaths.”
    “You have spilled his blood,” Innes pointed out. “Your bullet struck the back of his head and nearly killed him.”
    “Yet he still lives,” Crooked Oak complained.
    “Perhaps,” Innes said, “because he is a strong man, a worthy man. Perhaps it is meant that he live.”
    “Perhaps it is meant that he die,” Crooked Oak countered. “Perhaps he is meant to live long enough to give him to the women who lost their men four suns ago.”
    “If they don’t want him,” came an old, wavering, voice from the back of the crowd, “I will take him.”
    Heads turned, mouths flew open. The one who had spoken so boldly out of turn was Old Widow Woman. She had seen many more winters than anyone among Our People. She had outlived three husbands and now lived with her youngest son, who was himself no longer young. The gleam in her eye and the grin on her thin, old lips as she stared approvingly at the captive bound to the tree elicited a burst of laughter from the crowd. It was well known that Old Widow Woman would much prefer a man of her own than to live the rest of her days on the charity of her son.
    Old Widow Woman’s daughter, Sits By Fire, was also widowed and lived with her brother, the same brother who provided for Old Widow Woman. “If you get him, my mother, I hope you remember to share with your daughter.”
    As unseemly as her words were, the crowd could not help but laugh. Sits By Fire was herself so old that she had no teeth left with which to chew her meat.
    The laughter eased the tension that had been building, but soon talk turned again to what to do with the captive. Some sided with Crooked Oak, believing that all whites should be killed—except, of course, for Red Beard, whom they did not consider white.
    And praise be to the Holy Faither for that bit o’ reasoning , Innes thought fervently.
    Around and around the discussion went, along with the