Cheyenne Captive (27 page)

Finally, her pretty mother seemed to have no more screams left and she gave Gray Dove one last look and died.

She could not believe her mother was gone; she who had looked after everything and everyone. And Gray Dove had helped kill her. But she had no more time for regrets, for the men were all looking at her. Kiri-kuruks, Bear’s Eyes, fingered his knife as he studied her.

They were going to kill her now,
she knew it. She tried to smile as she had seen the women at the fort smile at soldiers.

“I am a virgin,” she said in Arapaho, “but I am fourteen years old and ripe for a man! Take me along! I would be a good second wife for your lodge.”

He seemed to consider, his twisted face frowning. Then regretfully, he answered in Arapaho. “Now that I look at you more closely, your soft body might tempt me, but we are on a raid and don’t need a captive to slow us down.”

The others were nodding in agreement and she smiled at them desperately as she spoke again in Arapaho. “I know of your ceremony of sacrificing a maiden to the Morning Star to insure a good crop and a good hunt. Maybe you would want to keep me for that.”

She knew very little of this human sacrifice the Pawnee did except that they didn’t do it regularly anymore. But once, the Skidi had been known for this savage ceremony of hanging a beautiful, naked maiden over a fire facing Morning Star and piercing her with arrows to let her blood drip into the fire. Gray Dove had no intention of ending up as a sacrifice, she was only trying to think of any way to delay her own death and perhaps, later, she might escape.

Hawk Wing asked the leader in Pawnee, “What do you think of saving the girl for the Morning Star?”

Bear’s Eyes seemed to be considering while Gray Dove held her breath. Then he shook his head. “We only do that ceremony in the early spring at the main village on the Loup Fork River. The old chiefs don’t do it much anymore for it annoys our friends, the La-chi-kuts, the Big Knife White soldiers. Anyway, we would have to drag the girl with us on this war party and she would slow us down. Then we would have to hold her captive for months until time for the ceremony. It isn’t worth the trouble. I say we cut her throat and be on our way.”

It took all her courage not to show she understood his words. Desperately, she stripped off her deerskin shift so they could all gaze on her body. “If you do not want me for the ceremony, I could cook for you along the war trail and warm the warriors’ blankets at night.” She knew her breasts were still not those of a woman. Her monthly menses had only begun a few months ago so she was narrow through the hips but she knew their eyes now looked at her hotly as she walked up and down, parading her charms. She shook her hair loose from her braids and it was black as a raven’s wing as it fell below her hips. She paused, smiling up at each in turn, knowing she would do anything to stay alive.

The one called Hawk Wing looked at her with hot eyes and ran his tongue nervously along his lips as he watched her. “I would like to sample her.”

Bear’s Eyes grunted contemptuously. “She is not a woman but a child without enough width to her hips or big enough teats to give any man pleasure.”

“But she is a pretty child,” the big-eared one argued in Pawnee, his eyes never leaving her naked body. “If we aren’t going to save her for the sacrifice, what does it matter to take a few minutes to turn this little Arapaho bitch into a woman?”

The others laughed and nodded in agreement as they crowded around.

“Well ...” Bear’s Eyes hesitated. “We need to get to our camp on further down the Kizkatuz, that which the La-chi-kuts call the Platte River, but I suppose a few minutes more won’t hurt.”

She smiled up at him and he seemed to reach a decision after looking around the circle of lusting faces. “We can only travel a few more miles before sundown and aren’t going to hit the Cheyenne camp until dawn. So we will take a few minutes to enjoy this pretty and you, Hawk Wing, may be first since you counted the most coup this day.”

The other needed no urging. He jerked off his loincloth and grabbed her, throwing her roughly to the dirt. Always, she would remember the feel of the rough, gritty soil under her naked back and the bruising grip of his hands forcing her slim thighs apart. She wanted to please him, hoping he might beg for her life. But when she saw his naked manhood jutting out she was afraid and did not think her small sheath could take his sword’s length.

He struggled to force himself into her and the pain was so great she thought she was being torn apart, but she bit her lips and did not scream for she did not want to anger the men.

Still he tried vainly to take her while the others laughed and hooted at his efforts. “Hawk Wing is a poor marksman! Let one of us show you how to pierce the target!”

“She is so small!” he panted as he threw the whole weight of his body behind his manhood. She could not keep from crying out as she felt something tear. Then he plunged his great length into her and she felt she was being impaled against the ground. She could not help but weep as he drew out and plunged into her again. Gray Dove could feel his manhood throbbing deep inside her. She could not keep from whimpering and writhing under him at the pain as his mouth bit her small breasts.

In another moment, she felt him gasp, shudder, and collapse on her body with his great weight. She trembled, hoping she had pleased him enough. He scrambled to his feet, displaying his manhood triumphantly, covered with her virgin blood.

Bear’s Eyes used her next and wiped himself off with her long black hair. Then the others took turns until she reeked of their spilled manseed.

“Enough!” Bear’s Eyes said finally. “We have played the dog with this small bitch already too long! Hawk Wing,” he ordered in Pawnee, “cut the girl’s throat and add her scalp to your belt!”

“Could I not take her once more first?” he argued. “It was good to feel a woman’s body clasp my manhood so tightly. I would like to use her just once more before I kill her!”

Her body was one ache of agony but she smiled at Hawk Wing, trying to buy more time for herself, pretending she did not understand what was being said.

“Look at her smile!” Bear’s Eyes sneered. “She thinks she has saved her life with her body and that her life is to be spared!”

Hawk Wing looked at her and licked his lips. “Just one more time?”

The chief shrugged. “Have it as you will. The rest of us are moving out and you can join us after a while when you finish with the girl and kill her. We will leave your paint horse for you and you know where we will camp tonight.”

The big-eared one grinned, nodding. “I will enjoy her again,” he said in Pawnee, “and then cut her throat and join you!”

Bear’s Eyes mounted his horse. “Because you have shown much bravery today, I grant you this! But do not take long!”

Hawk Wing nodded, his eyes on Gray Dove’s face. She smiled at him, promising him many things with her eyes. Against the whole war party she had no chance. Against one man, she might figure out a way to survive. The other Pawnee hooted and made ribald comments as they mounted and rode out. She and the big-eared Pawnee stood looking after them as they rode away. She smiled at him again as if she did not know he was supposed to kill her when he finished.

Gray Dove was instinctively a survivor and she had just learned two things about men that would serve her in good stead the rest of her life. One was that men often let lust interfere with their judgment and the other, that a man at the height of his passion is as helpless as a newborn colt. This second thing she counted on heavily now as she looked toward the Pawnee with his sharp knife in a scabbard at his waist.

Very slowly, she moved toward him, forcing herself to smile as she watched the war party disappearing over the horizon. She reached out to touch his manhood and made a complimentary remark about his size in Arapaho. He grinned back at her and she stood on tiptoe to kiss him as she had seen the easy squaws who hung around the fort do the soldiers.

He kissed her eagerly, his wet mouth all over her face as she rubbed her small, naked breasts against his chest. He gasped in pleasure and surprise and grabbed for her, but she stepped out of his reach, flaunting herself, stalling for time. She wanted the war party to be as far away as possible before she made her move. She teased him as long as possible before he lost patience and grabbed her, throwing her down on her back to mount her. She arched herself against him as if swept by passion. It was agony to take his length but she knew she must please and distract him.

Wrapping her slim legs around him, she urged him in even deeper, offering her small breasts up to his slobbering kiss as she made sure she would be able to reach his knife.

She dug her nails into his back and whimpered as if enjoying this act. He breathed deeper, gasping into her mouth as she kissed him. As his passion mounted, she shifted her narrow hips to give him deeper penetration.

Abruptly, he moaned aloud and stiffened. And in that brief moment of climax, when he was temporarily unconscious and helpless in her arms, she reached down for his knife. Savagely, she rammed it up to the hilt between his shoulder blades and muffled his scream with her kiss.

She saw his eyes widen in his sudden horror and he struggled to break free of her deadly embrace. But she kept him locked within her legs and smothered his cries with her mouth so that he could not call out after his friends.

After a moment, she pushed his still jerking body to one side and slid out from under him. Coldly, she looked down at him. “You are a stupid food!” she declared to the jerking body. “With no more brains than a rutting buffalo!”

Then she spat on him and turned to catch the paint horse that had been left for the warrior.
He had taken her virginity,
she thought in bitter satisfaction.
She had taken his life. It was a fair exchange,

Her small body was one raw nerve of agony but she must manage to mount up and get away from here before the dead man’s friends came back looking for him. Weakly, she pulled the deerskin shift over her head and mounted the pinto. Flies swarmed over the dead bodies of her family as she surveyed them and held back the tears that would do no good. There was nothing she could do for them now and she must save herself.
Her mother had died because she had stopped to help the others,
Gray Dove thought.
Her mother was a weak person. She herself would survive because she would always put herself and her own welfare first.

She gave only a brief thought to the Cheyenne the Pawnee were riding to attack. She might ride to warn them but she knew none of them and they were nothing to her. Let the Cheyenne look to themselves as she was learning to do. For only a moment, she considered riding back to the Arapaho encampment but she was not sure she could ride that far and, besides, with the death of her mother, the link had been broken. She hated her drunken father and did not want to go back to him. The white fort was not very far away so she rode there.

She was almost fainting when she finally reached it and a red-haired sentry came out as she slid from the paint pony to the ground and collapsed.

The sentry ran off and soon he returned with a sour-faced white woman. As she opened her eyes, Gray Dove knew she did not like the gray-haired woman with thin, unsmiling lips, but she recognized her and knew the woman’s husband was the Big Chief of the fort so she tried to smile appealingly up at her.

“Pawnee war party!” she gasped. “Family all killed!” That was not quite true, of course, but this seemed an opportune time to improve her lot and she decided to do so.

“Poor thing!” the woman said. “Bring her to my quarters and get someone to go for the post doctor!”

When she awakened, she was in a clean, white bed at the colonel’s quarters and it was very comfortable and warm. It occurred to her that it might be nice to stay with the whites permanently.

The doctor had a white mustache, yellowing around the edges, she noted as he examined her torn body. “How many of them were there?”

“Fifteen or twenty.” She sighed and the doctor looked sympathetic.

The colonel’s wife entered the room then and her lips pursed in disapproval. “Men! That’s all they ever think about!”

“Well now, Mrs. Willard.” The doctor scratched his mustache. “You really can’t expect savages on a war party to behave differently.”

“I wasn’t thinking just of Indians,” Mrs. Willard snapped. “Now, what on earth shall I do with her?”

He shook his head doubtfully. “I honestly don’t know, dear lady. She said her family is dead and no Arapaho brave would want her now for a wife. Perhaps you had better discuss this with the colonel.”

“You know how the colonel hates Indians!” she declared in a soft drawl. “Although I keep telling him it’s our duty to try to do a little missionary work among these poor savages; to teach them about God.”

Gray Dove did not like the white woman. She sensed that in her own way, the colonel’s wife was as hard and cold as she herself. But she also saw where her advantage lay.

“Let me stay with you, kind lady!” she begged pitifully. “I can cook and clean for you and you can teach me about your God.”

The woman reached over and picked up a big, black book off the washstand and seemed to be considering.

“You can teach me from your book,” Gray Dove said and managed to squeeze tears from her eyes. “And someday, I will go out and help you spread the word of your God!”

“Well,” said Mrs. Willard self-righteously, “I don’t see how I can pass up a chance like this to help spread the Gospel. Besides, I certainly could use some help around here. I never did housework before we came to this awful Nebraska Territory but we had to sell all three negras when we left Virginia. Got a nice price for them, too, but it was too bad we had to split up their family to sell them.”

The doctor looked as if he were about to say something and then changed his mind. “Maybe you’d better talk this over with the colonel.”

“But here is a lost soul!” the woman exclaimed, clutching the black book. “Don’t you see? I’ll be doing missionary work and I could certainly use a little household help for just the cost of her room and board.”