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  Winter’s Touch

  The Arapaho Touch Series: Book One

  Janis Reams Hudson

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  More from Janis Reams Hudson

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 1999 by Janis Reams Hudson

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email [email protected]

  First Diversion Books edition October 2014

  ISBN: 978-1-62681-481-3

  More from Janis Reams Hudson

  The Apache-Colton Series

  Apache Magic

  Apache Promise

  Apache Temptation

  Apache Legacy

  Apache Heartsong

  Apache Flame

  The Arapaho Series

  Winter's Touch

  Hunter's Touch

  The Two Oaks Series

  Truth or Dare

  Caught in the Act

  Thick as Thieves

  Angel on a Harley

  One Rainy Night

  Spontaneous Combustion

  The Deep Fork Trilogy

  Foster Love

  Coming Home

  For the Thrill

  The Homeward Series

  Long Way Home

  All the Rooms of my Heart

  Sammi's Heart

  Wild Texas Flame

  Warrior's Song

  Hawk's Woman

  Remember My Heart

  To Dean Sterling. The nugget was there, right where you said it was. Bright and shiny and gold. Thank you. Every day, in every way…

  And to Ron, my hero, without whom I would have starved long before this book was finished. I love you.

  Prologue

  The prophecy was old. So old that some said it was told to the First Pipe Keeper by Man-Above, Himself, and that the First Pipe Keeper entrusted it to the first man and woman.

  Others argued that it was first told by the wind to an ancient holy man generation upon generation ago, long before the ones who call themselves Our People ever learned of the wide, treeless plains they would one day roam. Long before Our People ever saw a horse, ever encountered a white man.

  The prophecy warned of a Plague of White Locusts. That one day Our People would become divided. Again and again they would divide, until their numbers paled in comparison to what they once had been. Game would grow scarce, and war would fill the land. Our People would be threatened with extinction.

  There will come a Woman Whose Touch Can Heal, and the Man Who Walks By Her Side.

  When Our People face great strife, the Woman shall heal a wound, and Man Who Walks By Her Side will show Our People the way to survive the Plague of White.

  Take heed, the prophecy cautioned. The way will not be easy.

  And now, the Plague of White Locusts is upon the land, and Our People, known to the whites as Arapaho, are few in number. Game is scarce, and war is upon the land. Our People are faced with extinction, if only they will realize it before it is too late.

  As promised, there is a Woman Whose Touch Can heal, but her touch is as yet a secret, and she walks alone. There is no Man Who Walks By Her Side.

  Unless…

  Chapter One

  The smell of burning cedar leaves, to keep the spirits of the dead at bay, wafted on the afternoon breeze. Wails of mourning echoed hauntingly through the small, protected valley in the Sierra Mojada. Winter Fawn’s throat tightened at the sound. One of the dead, now resting on a scaffold braced in the branches of a cottonwood along the creek, was her cousin’s friend, Long Nose.

  Long Nose and two others had ridden out of camp three days ago to bring down a deer. They would all be leaving the valley soon to spend the coming summer with the rest of the tribe hunting the buffalo and camping along the banks of the Arkansas River. The deer was to have been roasted for a feast the night before they left their winter encampment.

  Even as recently as two winters ago Our People would not have needed to leave their winter valley to bring down a large buck for the feast. The animals would have watered at the stream at dawn and sunset, there for the taking, yet taken only as needed. But every day more white people came to these foothills at the edge of the plains, crowding in, tearing up the land with their plows, dumping their waste in the streams. Every day the game became more scarce as the animals retreated higher up into the mountains or were slaughtered dozens at a time by the greedy white man. To find a large buck for this year’s feast, it had been necessary for the hunters to leave the valley.

  Now there would be no feast, no deer. No Long Nose or Spotted Beaver or Walks with Limp.

  If only the Cheyenne had not killed those soldiers so nearby. If only the Bluecoats could tell the difference between a Cheyenne and an Arapaho. If only the Bluecoats cared that there was a difference, that Our People, whom whites called Arapaho, had been staying away from whites, had been at peace with them for two summers now, soon three.

  But they did not. Winter Fawn, as well as the rest of Our People, knew that to most white men, the Bluecoat Army in particular, an Indian was an Indian, and they should all be killed. For the deeds of the Cheyenne, the Bluecoats had yesterday killed three of Our People.

  Now, while the elders of the Stoic Lodge urged caution and patience, the young warriors of the Staff Lodge, and the older Dogmen, the fiercest warriors of all, cried out for blood. A half dozen men from both groups had spoken all morning of riding out to punish the whites for killing three of Our People.

  “Why do you frown so, granddaughter? Does the work displease you?”

  “Of course not.” The work in hand was a new buckskin shirt for Winter Fawn’s brother, Hunter. When finished, the shirt would be given to Grandmother, who would give it to Grandfather, who would present it to Hunter. Since young men and young women, even brothers and sisters, were not permitted to speak to each other, or even be in each other’s company, this was the only practical way for him to receive the shirt.

  Hunter would be told it was from his grandmother, but he would know the truth. He would understand that the shirt was a gift in honor of the anniversary of his birth. Their father had taught them the white man’s custom of what he called birthdays. Keeping to the custom was Winter Fawn’s way of feeling closer to her father. For he had also taught them another white man custom—sometimes fathers went away. Sometimes they left their children to be raised by grandparents so they could roam the mountains season upon season, alone.

  Oh, their father came back to Our People now and then. He usually visited each spring and traveled w
ith the band to meet with the rest of the tribe for the annual buffalo hunt and summer gathering.

  But a visit once a year had never been enough for Winter Fawn’s heart. She loved her father deeply. After her mother’s death, during Winter Fawn’s twelfth winter, she had clung to her father as the only certainty in her world. He had been everything to her. Yet he had left.

  Grandmother’s sister said that Red Beard had left to wander the mountains alone because he could not face life without Smiling Woman.

  Winter Fawn knew in her mind that such was the truth, or at least part of it. Her father had seemed so lost after the storm took her mother’s life. Yet in her heart, Winter Fawn blamed herself for her father’s leaving. If only she had not—

  “If the work does not displease you,” Grandmother said, drawing Winter Fawn from her painful thoughts, “then why do you look so troubled?”

  Winter Fawn finished attaching the bead in the center of the flower on the shoulder of the shirt, then let the garment fall to her lap. “I am troubled about Crooked Oak and the others.”

  A sly look came over Grandmother’s face. “Are you worried that Crooked Oak might be killed if they ride out to attack the whites?”

  Winter Fawn’s frown deepened. “Not like you mean. Of course I am concerned that no more of Our People be killed.”

  “And Crooked Oak in particular?”

  “No, Grandmother. I have told you—”

  “Yes, you have told me that you have no fond feelings for Crooked Oak. If your father had not left such foolish instructions—that we were not to accept a marriage offer for you without his permission—Crooked Oak would long since be your husband.”

  Winter Fawn breathed a silent prayer of thanks that her father had left such instructions. The thought of being wife to Crooked Oak was not a pleasant one.

  “It does not matter what you think, you know that.” Grandmother paused and looked at her. “Your uncle thinks highly of Crooked Oak. He is a strong and brave Dogman. A fierce warrior. A man to make his wife proud. You will marry the man chosen for you.”

  “Yes, Grandmother. If it is my father’s wish.”

  Grandmother made a sound of disgust. “And what kind of father is it who leaves his children?”

  “Grandmother—”

  “I know you do not like to hear bad talk about him, but a father who abandons his children is no father.”

  “He is my father,” Winter Fawn said hotly. “I will hear no ill spoken of him.”

  “Do not take that tone with me. I am your grandmother.”

  “Yes, and I love you and honor you and respect you. But I am not a child to be scolded. I have passed my twentieth winter. I will hear no more ill talk of my father. When I spoke of my concern for Crooked Oak and the others, it was not their safety I meant. I am concerned about what will happen if they ride out and succeed in exacting their revenge against the whites.”

  “Why should such a thing trouble you?”

  “Our leaders have tried so hard to keep us out of the fighting. I fear that Crooked Oak will bring the Army down on us and we will all be slaughtered.”

  “You are thinking of Sand Creek.”

  “Yes.”

  Grandmother lowered her gaze and turned back to the deer hide stretched on the frame beside her. Neither woman liked to think of the hundreds of Cheyenne, and a few Arapaho, who were killed by the Bluecoats at Sand Creek two summers past. Most were women, babies, and old men. Crooked Oak’s father had been among those slain at Sand Creek. Since then he and others had urged all-out war against all whites, while the leaders of Our People had pled for caution.

  No matter which side a person took, what had happened at Sand Creek was too terrible to remember, to horrifying to forget.

  “The council will consider tonight,” Grandmother reminded her, “whether or not to send warriors out.”

  “There is talk,” Winter Fawn said quietly, “that Crooked Oak and a few others may ride the path to revenge regardless of what the elders decide.”

  Grandmother made a low sound in her throat, but did not otherwise comment. She knew as well as Winter Fawn that the Dogmen wanted to fight, lived to fight. It was not unlikely that they would go their own way and seek revenge on their own. Not unlikely at all.

  As the two women worked side by side in the late afternoon sun, the sounds of camp life penetrated the tension between them, dissipated it, pushed away the sad reminder of Sand Creek.

  Nearby, children laughed, splashed in the stream beyond the last row of tepees, shrieked at the shock of icy water. Dogs barked and chased the children. Women called quietly to each other as they worked. Men laughed, talked. The smell of roasting rabbit drifted from nearby.

  And faintly, on the breeze, lingered the wails of mourning, the smell of cedar smoke.

  The sounds and smells of life, the sounds and scents of death. Weaving in and out among each other. Intermingled.

  A low rumble sounded, tightening the muscles in Winter Fawn’s shoulders as if in fear of a blow. A moment later she identified the sound as hoofbeats and relaxed. Now that the council had broken up for a time, several of the men were racing their horses beyond the stream with the older boys. The pounding hooves, for an instant, had sounded like thunder. Thunder meant storms. Winter Fawn did not like storms.

  Grandmother noticed Winter Fawn’s reaction, but made no comment. She, too, remembered that day during Winter Fawn’s twelfth summer when the bolt of lightning from the eye of the thunderbird struck the hilltop near their camp and killed Smiling Woman. Winter Fawn had lost her mother; Grandmother, her youngest daughter.

  Red Beard, thought Grandmother, had never been the same. Smiling Woman had been his wife for nearly fifteen summers. She had given him two fine children, and he had loved her deeply. Within a week of her death he had left Our People to roam the mountains, seeking respite from his grief. Leaving his children for her to raise.

  He, too, had left during a storm.

  Hunter had been so young, only five when his mother died and his father left. He still missed his parents, but not to the extent Winter Fawn did. Being six years older than her brother, she had suffered more from their loss. In her mind, Grandmother knew, storms were to be dreaded. Storms took loved ones away.

  Someday, thought Grandmother, Winter Fawn would perhaps come to understand that storms were not evil. They were simply Man-Above’s way of cleansing the land and reminding Our People that nothing lasts forever. Sometimes they took, sometimes they gave. Rain was necessary to grow the grass that fed the buffalo that fed Our People. When brought on the wings of a storm, rain carved out new paths for rivers, tore down old trees that had lived too long, uprooted young trees that were too weak.

  Storms, to Grandmother’s way of thinking, were merely a part of life. As was death.

  “Look, Grandmother.” Winter Fawn touched Grandmother’s arm, excitement lifting her voice. “Hunter is going to race.”

  “Is it him you look at, Granddaughter, or the one he races against?”

  Winter Fawn made a sound of disgust. Until her grandmother had spoken, she had paid no mind to the other rider. “I assure you, Grandmother, I am not interested in Crooked Oak. It is Hunter I watch and none other.”

  “You speak with such pride.” Grandmother smiled, for she did not intend her words to sting.

  “I am proud.”

  “One would think you were his mother rather than his sister.”

  Winter Fawn smiled and stood to get a better view of her brother. “I suppose I have felt a little like his mother since he was born and I held him in my arms.”

  “A child yourself at that time.”

  Winter Fawn’s smile turned poignant, almost sad. “For a time. I was a child for a time.” There was no need for her to say more. Grandmother knew Winter Fawn’s sadness.

  But Winter Fawn was never sad when thinking about her brother. “Look at him,” she said in awe. “All he has to do is lean down and whisper in his horse’s ear, and the
horse will run his heart out for him. Look! He’s telling him to run like the wind.”

  “He has a gift,” Grandmother acknowledged without looking up from the hide she was scraping. “And he uses it wisely for one so young. I trust that you are being as wise with yours.”

  Startled, Winter Fawn gaped at her grandmother. Heat rushed to her face, and her heart leapt to her throat. “Wha—” Her voice croaked. She had to swallow and start again. “What do you mean? I have no gift.”

  Dragging the scraper toward her across the hide, Grandmother arched a brow. “Has the warmth of your hand not taken the pain from my shoulder? Did you think I would not notice such a thing?”

  Winter Fawn looked away quickly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She felt her grandmother’s stare, as if the old woman could see into her very soul.

  “Very well,” Grandmother finally said. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps your gift is better kept to yourself for now.”

  A deep shudder tore through Winter Fawn. “I have no gift.”

  Chapter Two

  When the Barlow, Sanderson and Company afternoon stage rolled to a stop at the depot in Pueblo, Carson Dulaney was the first passenger off. Despite the cloud of dust that had yet to settle around the coach, he took a long breath and smiled. It was good to be back. Better than he’d expected. Not that he was so fond of Pueblo—he’d only been there twice. No, it was simply good to be back in Colorado. He hadn’t realized how much he had already come to think of it as home.

  The West was for starting over.

  That’s what his father had done. That’s what Carson was doing. Starting over. Building a new life for himself and what was left of his family.

  Turning back to the coach, he helped his thirteen-year-old sister, Bess, alight, then Megan, his six-year-old daughter.

  “Ladies,” he said with a flourish, “welcome to Colorado Territory.”