The Touch of Fire Read online

  “I’ll need my bag,” Annie said briskly, her mind already on the monumental job ahead of her even as she rocked the baby in her arms.

  CHAPTER

  15

  “There’s nothing you can do,” Rafe said with slow menace. “It’s measles. It’s the same as smallpox: they’ll either die or they won’t.”

  “I can give them something to bring the fever down. I can make them more comfortable.” They had been arguing for ten minutes. She still held the baby, who had smiled at her to reveal two tiny white teeth and was now noisily sucking on a plump fist.

  “What will you do when some of the warriors get well and decide to kill me and make you a slave? That’s if the medicine man doesn’t get jealous and decide you should die, too.”

  “Rafe, I’m sorry, I know it’s against your better judgment, but I can’t leave any more than I could not have come here in the first place. Please understand. Most of them are already broken out in spots, so it will only be a few days before they’ll begin getting well. Just a few days.”

  Rafe wondered when his brain had begun turning to mush where she was concerned. “You know I can make you go.”

  “Yes, I know,” she admitted. He was strong enough to make her do anything he wanted. She could even understand his position, and knowing the validity of his arguments made her doubly appreciate his restraint, especially since he was usually so implacable.

  “It’s dangerous for us to stay so long in one place.”

  “But on the other hand, an Apache camp is probably the safest place for us to be if we aren’t moving. How many bounty hunters are likely to look for us here?”

  None, he had to admit.

  He found himself giving in again. “All right. Will four days be enough?”

  She thought about it. “It should be.”

  “Whether it is or not, four days is the outside limit. When a few of the bucks start moving around, we leave.”

  “All right.” She saw the wisdom of his qualification. Just because she would be working to help the Apache didn’t mean they would appreciate it.

  She had counted sixty-eight people. She had never had so many patients at one time before and hardly knew how to begin. The first thing she did was go from wickiup to wickiup and check on the condition of each person. Some people seemed to have mild cases of the disease, some severe. The old woman who had evidently been trying to care for the entire band worked up enough courage to fly screeching at Annie when she knelt beside the sick people in the wickiup where she had hidden. Rafe quickly caught the old woman’s arms and made her sit down. “Stop it,” he said sharply, hoping his tone of voice would keep her quiet even though she wouldn’t understand what he was saying. He wished he spoke at least a few words of the Apache tongue, but he didn’t, and it wasn’t likely anyone here would speak any English. The old woman, however, cowered back into her corner and contented herself with glaring at the intruders.

  Annie didn’t have much hope for the ones with black measles, though she had seen people recover. The greatest danger, to all of them, was the fever that could soar so high it caused convulsions. She had seen that often people who survived such a high fever weren’t right in the head afterward. There was also the possibility of pneumonia and other complications. If she let herself stop to think, common sense would force her to admit it was hopeless to expect much. Rather than do that, Annie didn’t let herself stop. Even if she saved just one person, that was one person, an atonement for Trahern.

  She hoped her supply of willow bark held out. She fetched water and put it on to boil, all the while deciding on her course of action. She would make the tea weak; it would lower the fever even if it didn’t break it, and her supply would last longer that way. She was sure the Indians themselves would know which local plants could be used to fight fever, but the language barrier prevented her from asking.

  While the tea was steeping she began another search of the wickiups, this time looking for any of the herbs the Indians normally used. Perhaps she would be able to use some of them. Rafe followed her every step, as alert as a hunting wolf.

  The baby was howling again. It was probably hungry. She went into the wickiup where it lay screaming and picked it up. Evidently it was more frightened than hungry, for again it cuddled contentedly in her arms. She couldn’t bear listening to it cry continuously like that, so she carried the infant with her, reasoning that it couldn’t be exposed to the disease more than it already had been.

  She did find bundles of dried plants but didn’t recognize most of them. She wished she had spent more time in the area so she could have explored the healing properties of the local plants. Nevertheless she gathered them up; maybe the old woman would be able to indicate how some of them were used.

  The two young boys had crept out of their wickiup to stare at her and Rafe with huge, frightened eyes. One of the youngsters carried a bow that was as long as he was but made no effort to use it. Annie smiled at them as she rushed past in an effort to reassure them, but they hid their eyes.

  “Let me have the baby,” Rafe muttered as she held it with one arm and tried to measure honey and cinnamon into the willow-bark tea with her free hand. She looked at him in surprise; somehow the idea of a baby being cradled in those steely arms seemed ludicrous, but she gladly gave up her burden.

  The baby began to cry again. Rafe cradled the fuzzy little head in his big hand as he held the child to his chest, but it wasn’t soothed. Annie gave it a worried look. “I hope it isn’t getting sick,” she said. “Measles is so hard on tiny babies. Maybe it’s just hungry.”

  More than likely it was crying because Annie wasn’t holding it, Rafe thought. It was undoubtedly hungry too, but Annie’s touch had calmed it despite that. He dipped his finger into the jar of honey and slipped it into the little mouth. The baby squalled around his finger for a minute, then the sweet taste registered and it clamped down on his finger with a frantic sucking. He winced as two sharp little teeth dug into his flesh. “Hey! Damn it, you little cannibal, turn loose!”

  The honey was gone and his finger wasn’t very productive. The baby began wailing again. Rafe started to dip his finger in the honey again but Annie stopped him. “You have to be careful giving honey to babies. Sometimes it makes them really sick. Maybe the mother is still nursing; why don’t you check and see? If not, I wrapped up a biscuit left over from breakfast. Soak it in water and give it to the baby in tiny bites. And see if the baby needs drying.”

  She was gone in a flurry of skirts. Rafe looked down with alarm at the little carnivore in his arms. How had he wound up as mammy? How was he supposed to see if the mother was still nursing the baby? The woman was almost unconscious, and he didn’t speak Apache anyway. And what did Annie mean, see if it needs drying? So what if it did? He had no idea what to do about it.

  Feeding it, though, seemed like a good idea. He could handle that. He searched the saddlebags until he found the leftover biscuit. The kid was squalling again, and kicking in outrage. He’d thought all Apache babies were kept bound in cradleboards, but maybe that was only when the mother was carrying it around.

  He did as Annie had directed and soaked the biscuit in water, then broke off small bits of the soggy bread and poked it into the baby’s mouth, taking care to avoid those two small teeth. Evidently the baby had already learned the mechanics of eating, because it knew what to do. Blessed silence fell again.

  Rafe kept his attention on Annie as she moved from wickiup to wickiup with the pot of willow-bark tea. The two little boys were staring at him as if he had two heads. Probably Apache warriors didn’t tend to babies. He could understand why.

  The baby did feel decidedly damp. Sighing in resignation, Rafe began unwrapping it. After all, he couldn’t keep thinking of it as “it.” Time to find out if it was a he or a she.

  It was a she. To his relief, being wet was her only problem. The naked baby in his lap seemed to enjoy the cool freedom, and kicked energetically while she made cooing sounds. He smi