Free Comanche Woman by Joan Johnston

doesn’t take after you much.”
    “She looks like her father,” Bay replied, knowing that was at least the truth, if not the whole truth.
    Long Quiet looked at the child again. He could find nothing of Bay in the little girl and wasn’t sure whether that pleased or upset him.
    Cries at Night stepped inside the tipi. “I would not have disturbed you, Shadow, but now that I am here, Many Horses has asked that I help you serve his guest in whatever way I am needed.”
    “Will you take care of Little Deer while I prepare a meal for our guest?”
    “I will do it gladly. Is there anything else?”
    Bay tried to decide whether she should ask the older woman to run an errand for her, then decided it was not too much to ask. “Would you bring my
parfleche
of herbs to me?”
    “Of course.”
    “I will keep Little Deer until you return.”
    Cries at Night examined Long Quiet for a moment before she cackled to Bay, “He is a lusty one, eh?”
    “What?” Bay gasped.
    The old woman was gone with a speed that belied her arthritic limbs.
    Long Quiet laughed at the old woman’s observation, but seeing Bay’s flushed embarrassment, he tied on his breechclout. His eyes caught a movement by Little Deer in Bay’s lap and the grin on his face faded.
    Bay followed Long Quiet’s searing glance only to discover that Little Deer had reached out to play with one of her nipples. Somehow Long Quiet’s easy manner had allowed her to forget about her nakedness. Now she was forcefully reminded of it.
    She tried to remove the child’s hand. “No,
ona
, baby.”
    Little Deer resisted. “Pretty.”
    “The child is right,” Long Quiet said. “Very pretty.”
    Bay grabbed Little Deer’s hand and brought it up to her mouth to kiss it at the same time she hugged the child to her. When she looked up, the frown had returned to Long Quiet’s face.
    Mercifully, Cries at Night arrived at that moment with the rawhide bag full of healing herbs. Bay kissed Little Deer’s cheek and gave her another quick hug before handing her to Cries at Night.
    “Go with your
kaku
. I will come play with you later.”
    “Do you promise?”
    “I promise,” Bay said with a quick kiss for the little girl.
    With the child gone, Bay became conscious again of her nakedness and hurried to pull on her simple clothing. She would never get used to the Indians’ matter-of-fact attitude toward their bodies. Young boys wore nothing until the age of eight or nine, young girls only a breechclout until puberty, and she’d spent her first days in camp constantly flustered by the sight of them. That feeling was nothing compared to the way her pulse galloped at the sight of the muscles and sinews along the naked flanks of the man sitting across from her.
    Once she was dressed, Bay worked quickly. She poured water into the buffalo paunch hanging on sticks to one side of the fire. She put heated stones from the fire in the paunch to boil the water and threw in some carefully selected herbs.
    Long Quiet remained lying comfortably on the buffalo robe, watching her work. “What are you making? Something to eat?”
    Bay laughed. “No, not unless you have a taste for cotton.” She held up a piece of brightly colored cloth she knew had been stolen from some Texas settler’s home before dropping it in the hot water. “I’m making a poultice for the wound on your arm.”
    Long Quiet’s hand reached reflexively for the wound. “It isn’t necessary.”
    “Perhaps not, but I noticed last night the cut is pink and swollen around the edges. This poultice will draw out any poisons.”
    His voice was husky as he asked, “You examined me while I slept?”
    “I only . . .” Bay’s mind raced for an excuse to cover the truth. “I thought you, like Many Horses, might have been hurt in the battle with the Tonkawas.”
    With the same catlike grace she’d seen before, he rose and seated himself beside her. She flinched when his hand reached up to brush a curl from her brow.
    “I