Free Comanche Moon by Virginia Brown

in a swift move that made her gasp with fright. But he did not try to hurt her, only turned her around and took her with him back down the grassy slope to the camp.
    When he left her at the entrance to his tipi, Deborah looked at Sunflower and wondered why. What had she done that had made him change so swiftly?

Chapter 6

    Hawk caught his swiftest horse and vaulted astride the broad back, drumming his heels against its sides. The animal snorted, huge hooves digging into the earth and sending up thick clods as it broke into a run.
    Both seemed to feel the need for a run, and the ragged edges of the moon offered plenty of light across the prairie as they flew like loosed arrows.
    There was a fierce, exultant pleasure in the run, the release of pent-up energies and frustrations.
    The night smells were familiar. Sharp-scented sage, the brisk fragrance of spruce, the hot smell of dust, all filled his nostrils and heightened his senses.
    Deborah.
    Her name was the driving beat of his horse’s hooves against the earth.
    De-bor-ah, De-bor-ah, De-bor-ah, the rhythm grew faster and faster, her name echoing in his mind with each strike of hoof, each fluid stroke of leg. Names were powerful; all Comanche knew that a person’s name had a special meaning, a special power all its own. That was why it was considered bad form to use a person’s name, an invasion of their privacy, or a way of lessening their power.
    Hawk wasn’t that superstitious. A result of his earlier upbringing, no doubt. Yet, when she’d said his name, both in Comanche and in English, she’d somehow touched a part of him that no woman had yet glimpsed.
    And he hadn’t taken her.
    He’d meant to. After all, that was why he had taken her from the tipi up to the privacy of that slope, so that if she resisted, no one would hear. To resist was not shameful, but he’d not wanted others to hear her cries.
    And he hadn’t taken her.
    He wasn’t sure why not. He knew how to play the game of courtship, teasing, touching, and he knew enough about white women to know what made them respond. Yet, he had not been able to finish what he’d begun.
    Somehow, her words had formed a wall around her that he could not bridge.
    It would have shamed him.
    Was there more to his attraction to her than just her delicate beauty? He wondered. For a moment, holding her small hand in his, marveling at the fragile delicacy of her bones and soft, creamy skin, he’d been reminded of his mother. Her hands had not been soft; hard work had roughened them through the years. Yet she had taken care of them, had rubbed them with ointment and cream and sometimes cried at the calluses marring palms and fingers.
    It had been a searing memory, long-buried and presumed forgotten.
    Until Deborah Hamilton had dredged it up for him, like a ghost from his past. He’d thought he could run from the memories, run from the things he did not want to confront, but he was wrong. He could not run from himself, and all the yesterdays had formed his todays.
    Resentment flared in him, that he could cope with the brutal way of life, yet flinched at childhood disappointments. It made him feel less a man, and weak. Reining his horse to a slow trot, Hawk knew that he would have to come to terms with the woman. She could not be allowed to affect him.
    Deborah wiped at her damp forehead with the back of her hand. She was helping Sunflower with the never-ending tasks, and found it much more difficult than chores in Natchez. Of course, in Natchez there had been modern conveniences to ease the backbreaking labor involved in washing clothes. Paddle-boards and huge tubs, and even a machine that could be turned by use of a large crank made life easier at home.
    But, washing clothes against rocks in a swift-moving stream was almost as effective. The soap was some sort of combination of animal fat and plant roots. They were far downstream from where the drinking water was drawn, and today, Deborah caught a glimpse of her cousin