He had no answer for them. The tension in the small cabin grew thick. It was a living thing, an unspoken awareness that filled the space between them. He felt her eyes on him when he thought she wasn't looking. He was intensely aware of her smell, a clean scent of wood smoke and the wild sage she sometimes crushed in her hands.
He found himself thinking of Elara less, and when he did, her face blurred, sometimes replaced by Tyen's dark, watching eyes. He fought it. He fought it with a grim, stubborn desperation. This was wrong. He was her protector.
She was a refugee, a victim. She was Apache. And he was white. The world outside this small, isolated valley would see it as a sin, a crime. The men in town would call her a squ.
They would call him something worse. He was nearly 40. She was barely 20. He was taking advantage of her, of her gratitude, of her loneliness. He tried to be colder.
He spoke to her less, kept his gaze fixed on his chores, but his distance only seemed to make her more determined. She was like a plant seeking the sun, and she had decided he was it. The spring thaw finally came in earnest. The creek, which had been a ribbon of ice, swelled into a rushing, muddy torrent. The air was still sharp, but the need for a real bath, one that wasn't a sponge and a cold basin in the cabin, was overwhelming.
Daniel took his rifle in a bar of lye soap and headed down to the sheltered bend in the creek where the water pulled deeper. He told himself he was going to hunt, but he left Tyen at the cabin. He needed a moment alone, away from her presence. The water was so cold it stole his breath. He stripped and waited in, his body rebelling at the shock.
He scrubbed himself quickly, the harsh soap biting his skin. He was washing his hair, his head dunked under the water when he surfaced and found her standing on the bank. She was holding his towel. "Jesus," he yelled, stumbling back into the deeper water, dunking himself to his shoulders. "Tyen, what are you doing here?
Get back to the cabin." "You hunt," she said, her voice calm. "But you bring soap," he felt the blood rush to his face, a heat that had nothing to do with the icy water. "Go now." She did not go.
She sat on a rock, her back to him, and waited. He was trapped. He could not get out without exposseng himself. He stayed in the freezing water until his teeth were chattering and his feet were numb. Damn it, woman.
Turn around all the way. He heard her shift. He waited. "I am turned." He climbed out, his skin blue, and grabbed the towel, wrapping it around his waist.
He was shaking as much from anger as from cold. "You can't do that. You can't just follow me. You must give a man his privacy." She stood and faced him.
She looked at the towel, then at his chest, then at his face. You were dirty. Now you are clean. I do not understand privacy. It means alone, he said through chattering teeth.
It means where people can't see you. "I see you every day," she said. "Why is this water different?" He had no answer. He dressed quickly, his fingers clumsy on the buttons.
As he was pulling on his boots, she came closer. She knelt, her eyes fixed on his leg. He had forgotten about the scar. It was on his left thigh. A puckered, ugly knot of tissue where a Confederate Minié ball had torn through the muscle.
Before he could react, she reached out and touched it. Her finger traced the edge of the wound. "This one was bad," she whispered. It was a long time ago, he said, his voice tight. He tried to pull his leg back, but she held it fast.
She leaned down. Her black hair fell forward, brushing against his skin. She pressed her lips softly to the scar. It was not a kiss of passion. It was like her question about his chest.
It was an act of acknowledgement, a reverence for the wound, for the fact that he had survived it. but it ripped through him like a bolt of lightning. He jerked his leg back so fast he almost kicked her. "No, don't—don't ever do that." He stood, grabbing his rifle. He stalked back to the cabin, leaving her by the creek.
That night, the fragile piece between them was shattered. He sat in his chair, cleaning his rifle, pointedly ignoring her. She sat by her own fire in her small room. The door open. He could feel her watching him.
The silence stretched, filled with his resistance and her confusion. Finally, she spoke, her voice small, coming from the shadows of her room. "The men before the black coat." He stopped cleaning. He did not look at her.
"What about them?" "They hurt me." He closed his eyes. He had known, of course. He had seen the terror in her that first day, but hearing her say it here in the safety of his home made his stomach clench.
They were white men, soldiers. Maybe they found me after my family. They She struggled for the words. They put their hands on me. They did things.
When they were done, they sold me to the preacher. He set the rifle down. He looked at her. She was just a shape in the shadows, illuminated by her own small fire. "Tyen," he said, his voice thick.
"You don't have to. They hurt me," she repeated, her voice stronger now, as if saying it aloud gave it a shape he could understand. "It was cold." "When they touched me, it was cold and hard, like stone." She stood and came into the main room, stopping a few feet from his chair.