The Five Dollar Mail Book 3: The Road Home

34: All Too Short A Date

Cover painting by Angela Taratuta. Chapter artwork of Still Water Woman by Angela Taratuta . All graphics by me.

Book 1: The Green, Book 2: Lynch's Boys, Book 3: The Road Home, and the Riders & Kickers Anthology are available on Amazon under the name Regina Shelley. So if you hate waiting for chapter posts and/or want a more polished read, the finished product is available now.

"Jesse," Still Water Woman insisted, pulling him inside her lodge. "Come." Blood streaked down his face, pooling in the hollows of his eyes, dripping from his jaw and onto his worn deer hide shirt. The sight of it fueled her anger towards her brother. There was no reason for Eagle Bone to lash out at him like that.

When Jesse had slammed his head into Eagle Bone's face, Eagle Bone's teeth had left a jagged, bleeding gash across Jesse's forehead. Still Water Woman was fairly certain her brother's nose had broken from the impact, and she hoped that Two Elk and Runs Laughing were tending him over in Two Elk's lodge. Maybe having to walk around with his nose swollen and bent will give my brother some wisdom. She sighed unhappily, turning her attention back to the ghastly mess of Jesse's bloody face. "You can not go to talk to His Horses with your face still bleeding like that."

Jesse was agitated and angry. She could feel him shaking as she pushed him down against one of the backrests near the smoldering fire. She was worried about him, and her earlier fear that she was going to witness him being killed by her brother was still upon her. He could not understand most of what she was saying and she knew it, but she couldn't help it. Talking to him seemed natural, and the silence when she didn't was deafening.

He threw up his hands, gesturing as he chattered in his own language, his voice hoarse with stress. She could see the raw, red marks of fresh wounds across the previously healing cuts and scrapes on his knuckles. He is going to have to leave here. Eagle Bone is probably blind with anger right now. Jesse is going to have to go back to his family or Eagle Bone is going to kill him.

A thought struck her and she nearly smiled wickedly in spite of everything.

Or...he's going to try to.

She knelt in front of Jesse, pressing a handful of absorbent moss to his brow. "Be still," she said gently. His eyes were impossibly blue against the red smudging and streaking his face. He closed them, falling silent as she tried to stop the bleeding.

It was incredible to her that he'd bested Eagle Bone. Jesse, with his beautiful face and his graceful form, going barehanded against her fierce, angry brother. Eagle Bone, the powerful fighter with his knife and his war club... He struck Jesse in the chest with that war club. Hard enough to knock him down and make him cry out in pain and surprise. She grasped the untied neck hole on the shirt and pulled it open, peering inside and wincing. Angry purple bruises were already forming across the wiry muscles of Jesse's chest, a darkening, swollen welt forming where the heavy, knobbed end had slammed into him.

He was muttering disgustedly, more engaged with his anger than he appeared to be with the pain of his body.

She pulled at his shirt, directing him to hold the handful of moss against his brow as she helped him haul the garment over his head. That was a hard blow. A blow like that can break bones. She shook her head, incredulous. I should not be surprised. I know Jesse is stronger than he first appears. She pressed her fingers carefully along the rapidly darkening welt, and he flinched, sucking his breath through his teeth.

I don't think anything is broken...but I am going to need some willow bark. Getting to her feet, she retrieved the parfleche containing her healing herbs. She still had some willow left over from when she had tended him through his nearly lethal chill and subsequent fever. She dumped a little water into her cooking skin and dropped in a few rocks from her fire to heat it.

"Jesse," she said softly, hunting around for her bruise salve, and trying to remember the words in English. "You must go home."

He gave his face a swipe with the moss, and then looked at her. His eyes were the brightest thing in the lodge and she felt her spirit twist inside her. "I can't," he said softly, shaking his head. "Not yet. Not with..." He grimaced, trying to make himself understood through the wall their languages had thrown up between them. "I must help," he said in halting Lakota. "You will lose..." he paused, clumsily scrambling for words and gesturing around the lodge and towards the door. "Here. This. All this."

She knelt down and leaned close, carefully sweeping the salve across his contused skin as he went on, adding sign with his hands when he could.

"They will take it from you, he said, stumbling awkwardly over the syllables. "Those men today. But I can read...I can help. You saved my life. I will go. But...not yet."

His voice thrummed inside his chest, vibrating against her fingers. He took a hitching breath and the warmth and life of him tingled under her hands. She quickly looked away from his face, avoiding the unexpected tenderness in his expression. His breath, barely noticeable moments before, softly caressed her hair, and she realized with sudden nervousness that diverting her attention to her hands on the sculpted contours of his chest did nothing to quell the surge of heat flashing over her skin. This is foolish. I have seen this man naked. She tried to reason with herself. I have touched him before. More than this.

His breath deepened, and his heart quickened under her hands. He had leaned his face closer to her, and the change in his demeanor sent a jolt through her heart. While he was all but dead, yes. And a captive. Before he brought laughter to my little sister and traded his freedom for mine.

Before winter thawed and I saw summer in his eyes...

She froze, closing her eyes, acutely aware of his warm breath ruffling her hair. Leaning back away from him, she sat back on her knees, still not looking at his face. Knowing if she did, it would be impossible to let him go.

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