Wildest Dreams - By Rosanne Bittner Page 0,88

what he could determine, the warriors were wary of what they had found, probably didn't want to get mixed up in what was apparently white man's business. Another came riding in, shouting something at the others, and quickly they all remounted and rode off at a gallop. Minutes later Luke heard more horses.

"There he is!" someone shouted. He recognized Runner's voice.

"Jesus, I hope he's still alive."

That one was Tex.

Someone knelt over him, another Indian. This time it was Runner. "He's still alive."

"Mrs. Fontaine will be glad to hear that," Tex said.

So, Lettie was all right, thank God. Everything became a blur then. He wanted to ask them about the Indians. Hadn't they seen them riding away? Had it all been a dream or some kind of hallucination after all? No one said anything about them. Someone picked him up to place him on a makeshift travois, and it was then the pain hit him full force. Who was that screaming? It sounded like someone far away.

"Watch his leg," Tex was saying. "Jesus, I never saw something that looked that bad. We'd better wrap it some more. I can't believe he's still alive."

Billy Sacks spoke up. "Takes a lot to kill somebody like Luke. What about these other bodies, Tex?"

"You and Runner go back and bury Ben first, and get the gear off the dead horses and bury them, too. Leave the goddamn buffalo hunters for last, if the buzzards pick at them, so be it. I'll start back with Luke and send you some help in burying them soon as I get back."

Luke felt someone wrapping his leg, then felt himself being tied to something. Someone else put a blanket over him. He wanted to thank them, and he wanted to ask them about the Indians. Surely if one of them had light hair, the men would notice. He tried to ask, but every time he opened his mouth, he could do nothing but groan. He felt the travois begin to move then, and he cried out with pain at every jolt and bounce. The way home was going to be a miserable trip, but there was no other way to get him there.

Thank God Lettie was okay. He'd be home soon. He could hang on now, for Lettie and the kids. His leg would mend in no time, and everything would be back to normal, except that every time he closed his eyes he remembered being carried another time, on a stretcher, to a medical tent. He remembered the smell of blood, the blood on the doctor's apron. He remembered the ugly saw and how it felt when he realized the doctor was thinking about cutting off his leg. He thought about the Indians, and suddenly the vision of them was blurred by another vision, soldiers bending over him, blue uniforms, the hideous saw.

"Don't let them... take off my leg," he finally managed to mutter, but no one heard.

In the distance, from a thick clump of trees where they hid, the band of young Indian boys watched the white men pick up the wounded one. The one called White Bear had considered taking the wounded one's scalp, but something had stopped him. When the man had looked at him, his eyes were the bluest he had ever seen, blue like his own. That fascinated him, and there was something familiar about the man, but he wasn't quite sure what it was that stirred this wonder in his soul. He would tell his father, Half Nose, about what had happened today, about finding the white man badly wounded, other dead white men around him. The dead ones were the evil buffalo hunters they had seen other times. It was good that they were dead. But something told him that the wounded one was different. He was not evil like the buffalo hunters, and the way the man had looked at him... it gave him a strange feeling.

For ten days Lettie suffered the worst nightmare she had known since settling in Montana, worse even than when she nursed Luke after the bear attack. Then, infection had certainly been dangerous, but it had not run deep into Luke's body the way this one had; and there had not been the awful pain of a badly broken thigh bone, an operation to try to mend it, the threat that he might never regain full use of his right leg... if he lived at all.

In spite of her own cuts and bruises and what