Cheyenne Captive (45 page)

“The white girl!” she snarled. “I came to kill her!”

The big man laughed and slapped his leg. “If you ain’t something! She’s already gone, missy, gone on the train, the Iron Horse, understand? Has been since a couple of days after the raid! Matter of fact, I’m leavin’ at dawn tomorrow myself. You almost missed me.”

“You are leaving?” She sat up on the bed. “I have no place to go now, take me with you.”

He sat down on a corner of the chest by the bed and lit a cigar. “Why should I?” he asked coldly. “I’m bein’ sent up to Fort Leavenworth because of all the trouble in Kansas. The army’s tryin’ to keep peace until Congress decides whether it’s gonna be a slave state or free.”

“But I have no place to go! No money!” She held up her hand to him appealingly. “You promised me a hundred-dollar reward and then you tricked me!”

“Don’t ever trust nobody who’s as rotten as you are yourself.” He blew smoke toward her. “I got the reward okay; got it right here.” He pulled a strange little leather pouch from his vest, then put it back.

“Why didn’t you wait?” she raged. “I would have brought the girl to the fort!”

He laughed easily and scratched his dirty beard. “Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn’t! But the army couldn’t take the chance that something might go wrong and we’d miss a chance to rescue the little bitch! She was a beauty, all right! I can see why the brave didn’t want to give her up. She musta thought plenty of him, too! I had to fight her to get her out of there!”

She glowered at him. “What is it all men seem to see in that white girl?“

He took a deep, thoughtful puff on the cigar. “Wal, she’s a purty thing, but that ain’t it. There’s lots of good-lookin’ women out there.” He blew smoke toward the ceiling. “No, that weren’t it! She had a strange combination of softness and steel to her, a conflictin’ mix of innocence and passion that would make a man give up a front seat in hell just to have her love him once!”

She pouted. “I thought you liked my body!”

“I do, honey, I do!” he said soothingly. “But you ain’t been innocent since you was a baby! There’s no mystery, no interesting contradiction to you at all! Hell, if you had as many pricks stickin’ out of you as have been stuck in you, you’d look like a west Texas cactus!”

She decided to bargain. “You talked of going to the gold fields once, I want to go there with you.”

“Gawd Almighty! Not in the wintertime!” He shook his shaggy head and snuffed out the cigar with his boot. “It’s cold up there! What I got in mind is lay around Fort Leavenworth and take off next spring when the weather warms up. Then’s a good time to fleece them miners.”

She looked at him and took a deep breath so her big breasts swelled against the ragged buckskin. “Take me with you to Fort Leavenworth, then.”

She could see him looking at her breasts as he licked his lips ever so slowly. “You’d be a lot of trouble to take along, although I could probably make a little money off you among the soldiers up there. Reckon you’re so bruised up right now, men might not hanker much for you.”

She reached out, took one of his big hands, putting it inside the torn dress where it could cup the soft swell. “Can you look at me now, hurt as I am and not hunger for me? Have you forgotten what it was like with me?”

She felt his hand close and squeeze cruelly. “You’re a hot little piece, okay,” he admitted grudgingly. “I reckon in time you’d heal up and lonely soldiers would pay me good to hump you.”

Without removing his hand, he moved to sit on the edge of the bed. “You’d be a real drawin’ card all dressed up in my saloon if they thought you was a Spanish duchess or something like that Lola Montez who created such a ruckus in Californy.” He ran his hand from her breast down her belly and she smiled at him invitingly.

Gray Dove eased onto her back and pulled at him. “Let me show you how grateful I could be for your taking me to Kansas with you.”

“Let’s see how grateful you are!” he challenged and she pulled open the front of her torn dress, revealing her full, big breasts. With a muttered gasp, he buried his shaggy face in her bosom while she glanced over to the cast iron bootjack laying on the bedside chest. It was what white men called a “naughty lady,” shaped so that the boot heel went between her cast iron legs.
That would do nicely
, she thought coldly, regretting the fact that Jake had thrown her knife outside.

Letting him nuzzle her like a greedy baby, she looked about the room and saw his coiled big whip lying by his things. One misstep and he would probably beat her to death. She could make no mistake.

“Take me with you,” she whispered in his ear while he pawed her body and she unbuttoned his shirt. “Think how I can warm your bed all winter and keep your clothes washed and cook for you!”

“Missy, I’m not sure I can turn down your offer. It’s beginnin’ to make sense.”

Slowly she unbuttoned his shirt, running her fingertips over the matted fur of his bearlike chest. The hair repelled her, for she thought of a big, dirty animal. Indian men’s bodies were almost hairless, as were their faces.

His slick, wet mouth made slimy trails across her bruised skin as he mouthed her nipples. “Honey, you shore do make a convincin’ argument. I believe I will load you up and take you along!”

“I would be very grateful!” she breathed into his ear. Running her tongue deep inside, she felt him gasp and shiver.

He threw her across the bed and his face was flushed with passion. He jerked open his pants and took her, not even bothering to take his pants off, and the big metal belt buckle cut cruelly into her torn flesh. She whimpered in protest but that only seemed to excite him more, made him more brutal.

“I love it when I hurt you!” he gasped. “And I like it even more when you hurt me! Hurt me some more!”

She needed no encouragement as she raked his back and sides with her nails until she could feel the fresh blood wet on his skin.

He drove into her hard, cutting and bruising her lush body with the hard belt buckle. The more she whimpered in pain, the more excited he became. She enjoyed clawing him and biting his lips until they bled since there was an anger that only hurting him could fulfill.

She let him ride her with savage abandon although she cringed at the pain he caused her injuries. He gasped as she dug her nails hard into his hips. As he shuddered and went into climax, she reached for the bootjack. The lesson the Pawnee had taught her she would never forget. In that split second when Jake Dallinger was rigid and helpless in her arms, she grabbed the Naughty Lady. He never knew what hit him as she brought it down with a crash.

He collapsed on her body with a grunt and she slid out from under him. Repairing her clothing, she looked at the unconscious man with satisfaction. “Don’t ever trust nobody who’s as ruthless as you are yourself.” She echoed Jake’s words with a mirthless grin as she looked down at him.

It would be hours before he came to life again. Gray Dove had a terrible urge to go get her knife and stab him to death, then she reconsidered. If she killed the scout, the army would come looking for her because the sentry had seen her. If, on the other hand, she only knocked him out and robbed him, he wouldn’t tell anyone because he would look the fool. Other men would laugh at him since it happened often enough on Saturday night in the saloons.

“Filthy dog!” She spat on the limp form as she used all her strength to turn him on his side so she could reach the vest. There was more money in the pouch than expected and it dawned on her the reward had been bigger than he had told her. There was $250 in the leather pouch. She took the gold and hid it in her clothing, throwing the pouch down.

Now that she had the money, she didn’t need Jake Dallinger. He had told her everything she needed to know to start her own pleasure palace up in the Colorado gold country. It wouldn’t be much at first, but with the love-starved men up there, she could quickly add to her money and hire more girls to work for her. With fine clothes and paint like the white saloon girls wore, the Arapaho girl, Gray Dove, was about to disappear forever to be replaced by a high-class Spanish madam. Stopping to pick up her small knife, she rode out of the fort unnoticed.

Darkness spread like velvet across the hilly forest and it was a very long way to the Rockies for an injured woman alone. But she was a survivor and she had not come through all this to die along the trail. Shivering in the damp cold, she rode northeast, listening to the small screech owls in the shadowy woods and thinking of the
mistai
, the ghosts who walked about.

Her mind went again and again to Iron Knife. She would always love him and she knew she would probably never see him again. The memory of his angry face came to her. She remembered now how he had kept them from killing her and stared after her in rage as she was driven from the camp.

Iron Knife had stood watching in fury as the vindictive women quirted Gray Dove’s horse and drove her from the Cheyenne camp. He felt no compassion for her. The horse galloped into the trees and was lost to view.

“Are there enough horses left in camp at all to make up a small war party?” he asked.

Lance Bearer gave him a troubled look. “There are a few horses, but I am not sure the old chiefs will approve of a war party. We are trying to leave for the Big Timber country right away before the soldiers return. The revenge is not worth what it will cost us in lives. Forget about the white girl. If she loved you, she would have returned or never left. Take a girl to wife from one of our own or from the Arapaho.”

Iron Knife shook his head. “I want only her light skin and hair like pale gold.”

His cousin frowned. “Then we will hit a ranch somewhere. We’ll raid one of those wagon trains that goes near our hunting grounds on the paths the whites call the Santa Fe or the Oregon Trail. I’ll help you steal another white girl or maybe two if you want them.”

“No, I want none but Summer Sky,” he sighed. “And I ride to the fort, not only to bring her back to me where she belongs, but to take revenge that scout owes me from long ago.”

Two Arrows joined in the conversation. “There is only one good reason to ride to the fort,” he said logically, “at least, only one the old chiefs would approve. The bluecoats drove away nearly all our horses and we must have more to pull the travois and carry the people when we leave for the Big Timbers. Let us go talk to the old chiefs and see if they will consent to a raid to get back the stolen horses!”

The old chiefs did consent for that reason. It was the next day before the war party could be readied and it was not a very large group that rode toward Fort Smith. Many were dead or still too injured to ride. Near the fort, they located the stolen pony herd and saw no guards around it.

“The soldiers do not expect us after they have raided us so savagely.” Iron Knife sat his borrowed black gelding easily. “But I do not see my spotted Appaloosa stallion in that herd.”

From their position on a small rise, his eyes searched in vain but he did see the little chestnut mare, Starfire.

“Summer is here!” he trilled with excitement.

But the small boy they sent in to beg at the fort so he might spy for them reported back differently when he returned through the early November frost.

“The white girl has been gone a long time from what the soldiers say,” the boy informed him. “They have put her on the Iron Horse and sent her back to her people.”

Iron Knife’s spirits fell. He would never see her again. “And the scout? I will kill him for his part in this as well as what I already owe him.” He patted the big knife in his belt.

The child shook his head. “He is also gone. The Great White Father had him sent farther north and he took your stallion with him. Gray Dove has been here, too, but she left. But she did not leave with the white man.”

Iron Knife swore bitterly in the white man’s tongue. Anguish twisted his insides until he almost cried out at the knowledge he had lost Summer Sky. It was salt in the wound that Jake Dallinger had had a hand in this and added insult to injury by stealing his beloved stallion.

“We will attack the fort anyway!” he cried. “And then we will ride after this scout and try to find him so I may kill him!”

His cousins exchanged glances and Lance Bearer said, “No, we will not do this thing. The girl and the man are both gone from here. There is no reason for our small group to attack the fort since we can easily steal the ponies back without fighting bad odds.”

He touched Iron Knife’s arm gently. “Someday, you may cross this man’s path and take revenge. But now we must put the People first. That means we take the horses and ride out of the Indian Territory and on toward our mountain hunting grounds as fast as we can!”

“You are right, of course,” Iron Knife agreed grimly. “The survival of the Cheyenne means more than either love or revenge! We will wait until dark to raid the ponies and by the time the soldiers realize what has happened, we will be on our way back to our camp.”

And that was the way it was. The Cheyenne moved like a swift whirlwind in the darkness. There was great confusion and shooting, but the Cheyenne lost not a man. Now they drove the thundering pony herd ahead of them in the night and the victory was sweet in the mouth.

When they reached the encampment, the band was waiting for them with tepees already down and travois loaded. On that morning the lances of the Red Shields did not come down and they pointed the way northwest as the tribe moved out. As always, the Dog Soldiers brought up the rear, expecting that any time they would have to fight a delaying action and give up their lives to the avenging soldiers.

But the soldiers did not come.
Perhaps they weren’t sure which Indians. were to blame
, Iron Knife thought. Maybe they thought the ponies were not worth the trouble. But the People were afraid to linger, to camp along the trail. Who knew when the soldiers would decide to follow? The only thing that gave him pleasure as he left the memories behind and started northwest was the little mare. She nickered and raised her pretty ears. Because they were short on mounts, he put four children on her back.

Makhikomini
, the month of the big, freezing moon the whites knew as December, would be here before they could ride all the way to the Rockies. The winds turned cold as the tribe set its march across that desolate waste of the panhandle the whites called No Man’s Land.

It was already too late into the winter season to move the camp. But they were afraid to stay where the soldiers had attacked them, afraid the soldiers might attack again. They hoped to be fortunate enough to make it to the Colorado area of the Shining Mountains before the first blizzard caught them.

They almost made it all the way before Hoimaha, the Old Man All White who brings the cold from the north, blew in on his churning snow clouds with his frosty breath.

They were so close to safety, and yet so far as they fought their way through the drifts and abandoned most of their gear and anyone who could not keep up. All that mattered was moving forward. Several old people fell in exhaustion and were left to die because there were not enough travois and the northern movement could not be stopped. To the northwest lay shelter with the other clans among the foothills of the Rockies and, at all costs, the tribe must survive.

A baby was born in the howling snow and died in the cold. Its father had been one of those killed by the soldiers. The baby’s widowed mother placed it among the rocks and gently covered it with her shawl. But Pony Woman took the shawl from the small body and shook her head. “We cannot afford even this small luxury,” she said with a sob, and she took the shawl and wrapped it about a still living baby who shivered with cold.

Iron Knife helped the woman cover the tiny body with stones so that the hungry coyotes would not get it. Then he gave the woman his horse and buffalo robe and pretended not to see the tears freezing on her face. As he staggered through the snow, leading the horse, he thought of another time, another dead baby....

He did not want to remember Texanna’s death, but the howling wind became a baby’s plaintive cry in his mind and he could not stop his mind from reliving the tragic drama. . . .

She had less than a year to live that night she had stood off the irate whites with her shotgun to save her son. At the last moment, War Bonnet had galloped in, jerked the two up on his paint stallion, and rode out just ahead of the mob.

War Bonnet had still not taken another wife although his woman had been gone for five years.

Iron Knife smiled a little as he bent against the blizzard, remembering now the joy of their homecoming. The clan had turned out to greet the two, Texanna, and the boy who had been called Falling Star. His laconic, stern father had not given way to emotion until he had them both inside the tepee.

“I have waited and never given up hope,” the great chief exclaimed, hugging them to him. “Several times, I have led a war party down to Texas to find my family. But it is such a big country and we never knew where to look. A trapper passing through our camp said he had seen a woman with red-gold hair in the Texas hill country and gave me directions.”

Falling Star saw the tears start down Texanna’s face and he marveled because she seldom cried.

“It doesn’t matter, my love,” she whispered as she went into his father’s embrace. “All that matters is that we have finally made it back to where we belong and we will never leave you again in this lifetime.”

But War Bonnet pulled away, looked down at her with a puzzled frown. “Golden One,” he exclaimed. “In the excitement of the rescue, I forgot the new child—”

“A beautiful little girl,” Texanna answered sadly, “with a loud wail and a fiery temperament like your own. I called her Cimarron.”

War Bonnet nodded, satisfaction on his stern, dark face. “
Wild One’. It is a very good name. But what has happened—?”

“The baby was sick,” Texanna answered with regret. “And the angry mob was between me and the child who had been left with the minister and his wife.”

The boy apologized to his father. “We did not mean to leave her behind. When we rode out ahead of the mob, there was no time to tell you of her.”

“It will be all right,” Texanna assured the chief. “The preacher will be kind to her and soon we will sneak back into the town some night and reclaim her. But for now, let us not think of anything but the present and our happiness at having the three of us reunited.”

But they had so little time left to them, so little happiness before them.
Iron Knife sighed now as he clutched his thin blanket around his shoulders and waded the snow drifts, still leading the horse.

In less than a year from that joyous reunion, Texanna would be dead. In another, War Bonnet would be bleeding his life away in his half-grown son’s arms. No one ever got back to Texas to reclaim the small sister. Falling Star had thought of it many times, but when he mentioned it to his uncle, Clouds Above had shaken his head.

“The girl has been with the whites too long to reclaim her now. Her feet are set in the white path and she would never adjust to the Tsistsistas way. Besides, with the Texas Rangers and our Comanche brothers continually fighting each other, and the White Chief in Washington often warring on the Mexicans, it would be hard to slip through and reclaim the girl.”

The boy nodded sadly. “What you say is true, my uncle. But someday I must see my small sister again. I have sworn this on the body of my dead mother.”

My dead mother
. Iron Knife thought of Texanna as he faced into the cold north wind and icy needles stung his face. His feet seemed numb and without feeling, but he knew the band must keep moving. They would all be safe if they could make it to the winter camp near Bent’s Fort.

The grieving woman on the horse he led sobbed quietly and he thought of her dead infant, the one who never had a chance against the harsh elements. A small pile of stones back on the trail was the only monument that the tiny being had ever existed except for the pain in its mother’s heart.

He sighed as he walked, remembering. They had placed Texanna’s dead new baby in her arms when his grieving father placed the Golden One on the burial scaffold. Then they left her on the desolate plains.

Such a little time for love War Bonnet and his mother had had together after the return from the whites, Iron Knife remembered bitterly.

No, he must not be bitter
, he reminded himself with a determined shake of his head. Most couples never shared as much love and devotion in a lifetime as his mother and father had shared in those few months between the time she returned and the day she died in childbirth.

Only she needn’t have died
. Iron Knife gritted his teeth, hating the Pawnee and glad he had brought Bear’s Eyes to justice. He had owed it to both his parents.

The weather had been cold the day of the Pawnee attack, too, he recalled now, but Texanna hadn’t died of the cold. Most of the men were gone hunting. It was the month of
Mahkohktsiutsi
, the Big Wheel moon the Whites called February, and it was often a hungry time if the hunt was not good. There was no meat in the camp. War Bonnet had led most of the men on a hunt, looking for deer, rabbits, anything to fill many hungry bellies. If no meat were found, they would be forced to eat the horses and this was distasteful to the People. Horses were like brothers.

He remembered now how eager he had been to go on the hunt. But his father had insisted someone must stay behind to look after Texanna who was in her seventh moon of the new baby growing within her.

“But Father,” he argued, “I am almost a man. Next season, I shall join the Dog Soldier society. I want to go on the hunt, not stay behind with the women and small children.”

War Bonnet smiled from the back of his black and white paint stallion. “No, my son. Someone must stay behind to guard the camp and I leave you the responsibility of my most precious possession.”