Read Online The Texan's Dream by Jodi Thomas - Free Book Online Page B

ahead of them for several feet, then stepped aside without a word. Quil, Kara thought.
    When Jonathan reached a tent made of hides, he drew her close and whispered, “Only the women will be in here. Go in and get Quil’s son. There is one who speaks English who will give you the baby.”
    Kara nodded and folded into the tent as though already carrying a baby in her arms.
    The inside of the tent was even darker than it had been outside. Kara stood very still. She could sense others in the darkness, but couldn’t see anything clearly. As her eyes adjusted, the rounded forms of women huddled around smoking coals in the center came into view. Embers floated toward the night sky, glowing like fireflies as they escaped through an opening at the top of the tent.
    Slowly, she stepped over sleeping children until she could stand straight without hitting the top of the tent. Women in blankets rocked and shifted, whispering in a language she’d never heard. A few had turned her direction when she’d let the cold wind in. But none seemed interested enough to follow her progress.
    Finally one woman near the back stood and walked toward Kara carrying an odd basket Kara recognized from pictures she’d seen. A cradleboard. Apache women strapped their young inside, then laced the basket to their backs or one of the lodge poles. Kara read a story once about how baby girls’ cradleboards were packed with inner bark of the cedar as stuffing to absorb soilings. Baby boys were strapped in with the bottom of the board left open to drip when needed.
    “You are Quil’s friend’s woman?” The stranger raised a wrinkled finger almost touching Kara’s cheek.
    Kara stared at the woman before her wrapped so tightly in a blanket that her face was completely hidden.
    “Yes,” Kara whispered back. Afraid to say more or try to explain. If this old one was expecting her, she’d need no other greeting.
    “When I lived among your people, I was called Raven.” The old woman sat the cradleboard down. “But, that was many years ago.”
    Kara knelt beside her, opening her shawl to receive the baby when he was removed from the board. “It is nice to meet you,” she said, thinking how the empty words meant nothing; they only filled the silence between them.
    Raven turned and covered Kara’s hands to still them atop the shawl. “The boy child of Quil.” Aging fingers gripped Kara’s hands for a moment. When she released her hold, she spread her hands palms down before Kara and brought one hand over the other again and again as if trying to make a sign that would explain. “Son of Quil has gone under,” she whispered.
    Kara felt a chill as surely as if the north wind had blown the tent down.
    The blanket slipped away from the woman’s face, revealing eyes so filled with sorrow no amount of tears would wash them clear.
    “No one knows but the two of us. These women are Comanche. They care not for Apache. The child has gone under,” she whispered once more in broken English. “He walks across the stars.”
    Kara began to shake as the words registered. The old woman’s grip grew tighter on her hands. “I have lived in both worlds. My man was a mountain man many, many years ago. When he go under, I moved back to my people. But I know both.”
    Kara tried to quit shaking and concentrate on the old woman’s words without looking at the cradleboard resting between them.
    “Quil is a brave man,” Raven whispered, “but he will not stay tied to the earth if he knows his son has gone on like all others in his family.”
    Kara knew what she was trying to say. Raven didn’t think Quil could take another round of grief. Kara had seen that happen more than once when a man lost all of his family to death. Strong, young men who buried their families would drink until they rotted inside, or take chances waiting for their luck to run out. She once saw a woman who’d lost baby after baby in the birthing turn her face to the wall and die.
    Tears clouded Kara’s already poor vision. “I’m so