Comanche Moon by Anita Mills

Author:Anita Mills
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION/Romance/Historical
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2013-11-13T16:00:00+00:00

Clay entered Nahdehwah’s tipi and saw Amanda. She was sitting up, looking alert, but it was a good thing she didn’t have a mirror. Her thick auburn hair was plastered against her head, falling like string ropes over her shoulders. To compound the sight, the black grease still covered the sunburned portion of her face and neck. While he groped for something to say, she was truly relieved to see him.

She looked up, and as he stood over her, he seemed to fill the whole lodge. Acutely conscious of how dirty she was, she couldn’t meet his gaze. When he didn’t say anything, she sighed. “I’m quite a sight, aren’t I?”

“How do you feel?”

“Better.” She pulled the calico dress over her knees, trying to cover her lower legs. “I thought Indians only wore buckskin,” she said.

“Not if they can get cloth from traders. They like the bright colors.”

“You don’t really expect me to believe that, do you? About traders, I mean?”

“Does it make any difference?” he countered.

“Well, I’d hate to think I’m wearing a dead woman’s dress.”

“Do you want me to ask her?”

“No, of course not.”

“It’s a little bit big on you, but you look pretty good in it,” he offered.

She made a face at him. “Now that’s a lie, and I know it.”

“Well, you’d look even better if you washed your face,” he admitted. “Then every tuibitsi in camp would be bringing horses to Nahdehwah’s door.”

“I don’t think I want to ask what a two-bitsy is,” she muttered.

“You haven’t got the sound right on your tongue. A tuibitsi is a handsome man riding a fine pony.” He dropped down to sit cross-legged beside her. “Fixed up properly, with a clean face and with silver and beads in your braids, you’d be worth four or five horses, maybe more.”

“How awful.” She thought he was teasing her, but she couldn’t be certain. “Is that a good price?” she asked curiously.

“Fair to middling.” He cocked his head slightly to study her fine-boned profile. “If your family wanted more, and if your tuibitsi could afford it, he’d probably come up with whatever they asked. But,” he added, smiling now, “he’d want to know that you could butcher a buffalo, make his clothes, set up his tipi, make all his food, and carry his children on a cradle board hitched to your back. Otherwise, you’d be pretty useless to him.”

“How primitive.”

“Oh, I don’t know that it’s any more primitive than the way the Spanish go about it.”

“Well, it is.” Ill at ease, she studied the dress, pleating the cotton skirt with her fingers, then smoothing it out again. “Whoever wore this was a lot shorter and wider than I am. When I stand up, it doesn’t come to my ankles.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that—I’ve seen a whole lot more than an ankle.”

Her face flushed. “Well, I must say it isn’t very gentlemanly to mention that,” she muttered.

“What?” Then it dawned on him what she thought he meant. “Oh. Well, I wasn’t expecting you to take it personally,” he assured her.

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