AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Bryce gave Charlotte another quick glance. "You don't leave this wagon unless it's at my side, do you hear?" he said sternly. He reached back inside his wagon and grabbed a small, pearl-handled pistol. "If I don't get back to you, and you and our child become threatened by a redskinby God, woman, shoot to kill."
Charlotte flinched at the sight of the firearm, having never liked them. But having no choice, she took the pistol and held it tightly within her grip as she watched Bryce leave the wagon, warily approaching the dead person. His pistol was drawn, and the other men were armed with rifles.
Bryce crept slowly toward the hand, and when he saw that there was no one there, ready to pounce on him, he swung his pistol back into its holster and hurried onward.
When he separated the lower branches of the bushes and got a closer look, he was stunned at what he discovered.
"It's an Indian woman and a childI'd say no more than a few hours old," one of his companions said, mirroring Bryce's very thoughts. "And, Bryce, the woman is dead."
Bryce knelt down beside the woman and closed her eyes, then gently picked the child up into his arms. It was apparent that the mother had at least managed to cut the umbilical cord, but she had surely died before she had a chance to cleanse the child, or perhaps even feed it.
The dark eyes of the baby looked up at Bryce trustingly. Then the child began to cry softlya cry of hunger…
Without further thought, Bryce carried the tiny thing to the wagon.
"Oh, my lord, it's a baby," Charlotte said, gasping.
"The mother is dead," Bryce said sadly, holding the baby out so that Charlotte could see the infant better. "The child is a girl. Isn't she just too beautiful, Charlotte?"
"Oh, yes. So very," Charlotte said softly, the baby's cries tearing at her insides. "But the poor thing. Surely she's hungry." She glanced down at Kirk, then at her milk-filled breasts, so heavy she knew that she had more than enough milk for two children.
She turned a smiling face to her husband. "Let me feed her," she murmured. She reached a hand out to Bryce. "Please, darling? If not, she may die
."
"For sure she would," he said. "But let me give her a quick washing. I'll bring her to you then."
The others had come to their wagon and were watching. Bryce took the child to the back of his wagon. Taking warm water from a canteen, he bathed the baby, then took her to Charlotte, handing the child up to her after she had placed Kirk comfortably across her lap.
Giving Charlotte the needed privacy, the men walked away and stood in a group, discussing the find.
Charlotte opened her dress to the tiny baby girl. Tears came to her eyes when the child began suckling from her breast. She gazed with wonder at the child's beautiful copper skin and tiny toes and fingers. It came to her that the child was now motherless and that perhaps Kirk could have an instant sister. She was not sure if she could have any more children. It had taken so long to finally have her adorable Kirk…
Bryce still stood beside the wagon, watching the baby nursing. "I don't know what to do," he said, his voice drawn. "If we try and find the village from which this woman came, we might somehow be accused of the woman's death. I don't think I want to trade my scalp for the chances of trying to find this woman's people."
"And the child?" Charlotte said, her heart pounding at the prospect of getting to keep the child as her very own.
"We've got to keep her, Charlotte," Bryce said, giving her an easy stare. "Would you mind? It's your breasts that would be feeding her."
Tears came to Charlotte's eyes as she gazed down at the tiny bundle of joy that still so hungrily fed from her breast. "Do I mind?" she said, slowly shifting her gaze to her husband. "Darling, I couldn't leave her behind, not after having held and fed her. She'll be our daughter. Kirk will be raised with a sister. We will give her the name that we had picked out should we have a daughter instead of a son."
"Jolena?" Bryce said, reaching a hand to touch the soft thigh of the girl child.
"Yes, Jolena," Charlotte said in a sigh, as she again watched the child with adoration. "It's such a lovely name to fit such a beautiful little girl."
"Then it's settled," Bryce said firmly with a nod of the head. "She's ours from now on."
He turned and looked toward the bushes beneath which lay the lovely Indian woman. He had not taken much time to look at her, being too worried over the child's welfare. But in one glance he had seen her exquisite loveliness and knew that some Indian warrior would mourn deeply over such a loss. If Jolena took her looks from her mother, this new daughter of his would one day be just as exquisite!
"I can't bury her," Bryce said quickly. "I must leave her out in the open for her people to find her. Her soul would not rest if she was not given a proper Indian burial ceremony and placed with her people's dead. We have no choice but to leave her like that, instead of hiding her in a grave in the ground."
"How soon do you think she will be found?" Charlotte asked, worrying about animals feeding on her.
Bryce kneaded his brow thoughtfully as he looked into the distance. "It is said that the Indian women go far enough away to have their child so that it takes three days' travel on foot to get there," he said. "On horseback, the way the warrior husband will travel when he comes looking for her, it will take only one day. So he should be here I'd say at least by tonight."
"That means that we most certainly must be aboard that riverboat before he arrives," Char- lotte said, her voice wary. "Can we truly, darling? Can we make it?"
"I'll see to it," Bryce said, climbing aboard his wagon. He leaned out and shouted for everyone else to be on their way, then turned to Charlotte with heavy eyes. "I hate like hell depriving a man a look at his newborn child, but once he finds his wife dead, he will become enraged enough to kill anything and anyone in his path. We have no choice but to take his child and raise her as our own."
