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Authors: Georgina Gentry

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BOOK: Colt
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“Injun lover!” Captain Van Smyth spat the words out, then nudged his fine black thoroughbred out ahead so he wouldn't have to talk to Colt.
The moon came up then from behind the horizon, throwing weird shadows across the landscape of straggly buffalo grass and cactus.
“Damn it,” Colt muttered. The big moon lit the column up so they were easy to see. He said in a terse whisper to the Tonk scout. “How far?”
The Tonk kept riding and nodded. “Maybe when the moon is high overhead.”
“I don't like attackin' under a full moon,” Colt grumbled. “We need the cover of darkness.”
The Tonk scout shrugged. “We take what the gods give.”
Colt fell silent, listening to the jingle of bridles and spurs behind him. Here and there a horse snorted or whinnied and they kept riding.
After a while the captain came back to ride beside Colt as the scout ranged out ahead. “Lieutenant, do you think the Tonk might be leading us into a trap?”
Colt made a sound of disgust. “Captain, if you knew anything about Indians, you'd know the Tonks and the Comanche are old enemies. The Comanche think the Tonks are cannibals, and the Tonks scorn the Comanche because they are so savage. If they were to capture our scout alive, they'd torture him for days before they'd kill him. Learn to trust your scouts, Captain, because they know the terrain and the tribes better than you do.”
The breeze had picked up. Colt sniffed the air, and about the same time, the scout signaled them.
Captain Van Smyth said, “Lieutenant, give the order to halt.”
“We don't need any commands breakin' the stillness, and lettin' the Comanche know we're here,” Colt whispered and signaled Mulvaney to halt the troops behind them with a movement of his hand.
The scout rode back and said to Colt what Colt had already sensed from sniffing the wind; there was a camp somewhere just past the rise ahead. The smell of campfires drifted on the air.
Colt said, “Sir, if you'd like, the scout and I will ride ahead and look over the lay of the land.”
The Boston captain looked a little nervous. There were beads of sweat on his pink face even though the spring night was cool. “All right.”
He was losing his nerve, Colt thought in alarm, probably had never really fired a pistol or a rifle at a live man before. He motioned to the scout, and they dismounted, left their horses, and crept silently through the darkness and hid behind straggly bushes above the Indian camp.
It was late, a few fires still burning, one or two people walking around. Dogs lolled near fires with old men talking and smoking; horses were tied to a picket line on the outskirts of the camp. Thank God the wind was blowing toward the soldiers, Colt thought, or the dogs would have set up a barking alert that there was enemy nearby.
There was something wrong, Colt sensed. There didn't seem to be many men in the camp, although he couldn't be sure. The younger warriors might be gone hunting or out raiding some luckless, lonely ranch. He signaled the scout and they crept back to the captain.
“Well?” Van Smyth's well-manicured hands were shaking.
“Camp's pretty quiet and there don't seem to be as many men around as there should be,” Colt whispered. “If we can run off their horses, they'll be afoot and a Comanche fights best on horseback. We can do a surprise attack and scatter their horses, burn as much of their supplies and weapons as possible.”
Captain Van Smyth looked uncertain. This was apparently not something he'd ever studied at West Point. “All right. Lieutenant, give the signal to mount up. We'll take them by surprise and kill as many as possible while we attack.”
“They seem to be mostly women and old men,” Colt said.
“They're Comanche, aren't they?” the captain challenged. “They kill our women and children on every ranch they attack.”
Colt sighed and gave a hand signal to Mulvaney. Mulvaney nodded. The whole patrol was tense, unlike the people in the camp below, who seemed to be settling in for the night.
“Attack!” Captain Van Smyth pulled out his saber and brandished it.
Colt unholstered his pistol instead. A damned saber was no good unless it got down to hand-to-hand fighting.
The soldiers broke into a gallop. In that split second, the Cavalry came up over the rise and down into the Indian camp. Immediately, pandemonium reigned, people running and screaming, soldiers shouting, gunfire echoing, dogs barking, horses rearing and neighing as the patrol rode through the middle of the camp.
Colt took aim and killed a warrior who was about to throw a spear at a galloping soldier; then he rode to the picket line, paused a split second to cut the rope, and fired in the air, sending the paint ponies neighing and rearing, running pell-mell into the night.
Behind him, the patrol's pistols and rifles roared as they chased Indians down, pausing to set fire to teepees and piles of dried meat and supplies.
“Lieutenant!” the captain yelled over the din and acrid smoke of gunfire. “Get us a hostage who can tell us what we need to know!”
“We can torture a warrior to death and he won't tell us anything!” Colt protested.
“That's an order, Lieutenant!”
Of all the stupid—!
What they ought to be doing now that the horses were scattered and the camp aflame was chase after the survivors who were still shooting at them, but Colt sighed and wheeled Rascal to chase down a hostage.
Ahead of him as he galloped was a tall warrior, wrapped in a blanket, and running in confusion. Colt reined Rascal that direction, knowing full well the man could be carrying a knife or a war club and could kill Colt even as he tried to capture the man. He leaned out of his saddle and grabbed up the slender, running figure.
Too light for a man
, he thought in surprise, and then the blanket fell away and he saw the terrified white face and long yellow hair reflecting like gold in the flare of burning teepees.
“Good God, it's a woman! A white woman!”
Chapter 2
The girl in his arms screamed something at him. He recognized the garbled words as Comanche, but there was too much noise to understand her. Yet instead of being happy to see a white soldier, she was fighting to get away from him. He hung onto the wildcat even as he looked around and realized his troopers were splitting up and riding off in all directions after the warriors. Colt knew this was a common Comanche ploy that would get any single soldier ambushed and killed.
Fighting to hold onto the white girl, he yelled at his sergeant “Mulvaney, sound recall!”
“Yes, sir.”
Now it took all Colt's strength to hold the woman, who was biting and scratching as Captain Van Smyth rode up on his lathered horse.
“I didn't order recall! The men are hunting down the scattered savages.”
“I did!” Colt yelled back. “They'll get drawn out and ambushed. We've done what we came for, now let's get out of here.”
The captain stared at the fighting captive. “Good Lord! What—?”
“I don't know. Let's vamoose and then we'll find out.”
“Ma'am,” Captain Van Smyth shouted to the struggling girl, “don't you understand? We're rescuing you.”
The girl continued to fight and yell.
Colt hung onto her by sheer strength. “She may be a bit addled sir, if she's spent much time with the Comanche.”
“Could that be Cynthia Ann Parker?” The captain reined in his blowing horse.
“How the hell should I know?” Colt lost his temper as the girl bit his hand again. “Let's get out of here!”
The patrol had reassembled amid the chaos and noise. In the light of the flaming teepees, Colt looked down into his captive's eyes and they reflected back the flames in their pale blue depths. He realized suddenly she was terrified. He wheeled his mustang as the patrol rode out of the burning Comanche camp, the Indians firing scattered shots behind them.
Colt pulled the girl's slender body close to him and realized she was trembling in her dirty deerskin shift, but she was still fighting. She was trying to tell him something, but he couldn't understand her garbled Comanche. She must be frightened because she shook and her eyes were wide with fear, but she didn't cry. There were no tears in the pale blue eyes.
They galloped a quarter of a mile before they reined in.
Captain Van Smyth looked around. “Is everyone accounted for?”
Colt glanced behind him and relayed the question at Sergeant Mulvaney.
“Aye, it's Irish luck, I say,” the ruddy-faced Irishman shouted back. “Dugan's got a slight arrow wound to the arm, but everyone else is fine.”
“Then mission accomplished.” The captain smiled. “Now let's get back to Camp Cooper.”
The thoroughbreds were lathered and blowing, but Colt's mustang was still good. The girl trembled and fought to get away, and he tried to reassure her as they rode. “It's okay, ma'am. You're safe now. We'll take you back to the fort and find your kinfolk.”
“Go back!” she managed to say in broken English almost as if it were a forgotten language. “Got to go back.”
“No, no,” Colt soothed her and hung onto her, though she fought like a wildcat.
“What's the trouble, Lieutenant?” Captain Van Smyth rode up next to him.
“Shock, I think, sir. If she's been with them long, her mind may not be ... well, you know.”
The captain nodded and stared at the girl wrapped in her dirty blanket, then spurred his mount and rode up on ahead.
“Got to go back,” the girl gasped.
Colt shook his head. “No, you don't understand, we've saved you. We'll find your kin.”
She shook her head violently. “No. No.”
He looked down at her, wondering what sort of hellish life she'd been living. Her face was dirty and smudged, her yellow hair a tangle. There wasn't much water for bathing on the sparse Texas plains.
She was fighting him again and he hung onto her, gritting his teeth. He could hardly wait to get this crazed girl back to the fort and hope they could find some relative of hers. Looking down at her, he felt pity; she was such a contrast to the pale, delicate features of Olivia and her ladylike behavior. Well, Olivia hadn't been brutalized and surely raped by a bunch of warriors.
After a while, the girl seemed to grow quiet in his arms as if she understood or was simply tired of fighting him. He relaxed his grip as they covered the miles. The men riding with him were quiet, exhausted, and dirty, some of them half asleep in their saddles.
Abruptly the girl came alive and fought her way out of his arms, fell to the ground, got up, and started running back along the trail.
“I'll be goddamned!” Colt swore and reined in, dismounted, and ran after her. She was tall as well as slender and she wore a ragged deerskin dress that showed long slender legs as she ran. “Come back here!” he yelled, but she kept running.
Oh hell, he didn't need this aggravation. He had a mind to just let her go, but of course he couldn't do that. How would he explain losing the rescued white girl when he got back to the fort?
She was fast and he was tired. He cursed as he chased her with all the men in the patrol reining in and laughing as they watched. “Hey, I put a silver dollar on the girl!”
“No, I think the lieutenant will catch her.”
“She must be loco to want to go back to the Injuns!”
“Order in the ranks!” Mulvaney shouted while Colt put on a burst of speed to catch up with her. Again he cursed his luck on being assigned to the Second Cav.
Colt tackled her and they both went down, she still fighting and clawing. The dirty deerskin had slipped up, showing darkly tanned thighs. He felt soft breasts and a small waist as he wrestled with her, and then she turned her head and sank her teeth into his arm. He couldn't help but yelp. “Damn, she's worse than a coyote bitch!”
He gathered her up, kicking and protesting, and carried her back to his horse. She was light, probably not very well fed, he thought as he threw her up on his horse and mounted behind her. “Look, you're safe now. The Comanche can't get you. What's your name?”
The column was moving again.
“Muakatu,” she said softly in Comanche.
Moonlight
, Colt thought, a perfect name for a girl with golden hair. “No, what's your white name? Do you have family in Texas?”
She paused as if she couldn't remember, or maybe she'd been so brutalized, she'd lost her memory of the past and her language.
Colt looked down into her dirty face and guessed she must be in her early twenties. “Maybe you have a husband?”
“Puhu Retsi,” she whispered and Colt's blood ran cold. Spider. No wonder the girl was in such shock. Spider could be brutal when it came to women.
Colt rode up next to the captain. “I think we've just bitten off a big hunk of trouble.”
The captain looked over at him. “How so?”
“This girl is Spider's woman. He won't let us take her without a fight. He must have been out of the village with his braves or we might not have gotten away from there alive.”
“So what's one Comanche brave?” the captain laughed.
Colt didn't laugh. “He'll come after her or set the whole countryside ablaze in retaliation.”
“Good Lord, you exaggerate, Lieutenant.”
Colt shook his head. “I don't think so. He may gather up half the warriors in Texas and hit our fort. You don't take anything that belongs to that young brave without him wreaking vengeance.”
“Oh, pishposh.” The captain dismissed him with an airy wave of his hand. “Besides, once we get back to the fort, we'll send out messengers and find her family. Then she's their problem.”
Colt didn't say anything. Right now, she was his problem. She had dropped off to sleep from sheer exhaustion, and he cradled her closer and felt protective because he knew Spider so well. His blood brother. She was probably terrified that if she didn't go back, Spider would torture her when he finally recaptured her. Well, Colt didn't intend to let that happen. She had suffered enough. He looked down into her suntanned face and her dirty, tangled yellow hair. Moonlight. So unlike the dainty Olivia.
He thought about the perfumed lace hankie in his pocket. Beautiful Olivia, so civilized and sweet-smelling, not at all like this pitiful captive.
It was the middle of the night when the patrol got back to the fort, but still, many of the inhabitants turned out to hear what had happened. The wounded man was taken to the infirmary, and Colt carried the struggling girl in and sat her on a bed there, too.
The sleepy old doctor came in and the captain sent for Major Murphy. Colt stepped back and took a good look at the woman he had saved. She was deeply suntanned, but bruises and scratches showed up on her dirty skin. She was slender almost to the point of skinny, plus she was filthy and her yellow hair a tangle. She looked around at everyone, blinking in the unaccustomed light of the kerosene lamps. Colt felt pity for her and wondered if she could ever readjust to civilization again.
Just then, the major, still buttoning his uniform, came in, along with the lovely Olivia, and the curious crowd melted back to let them stand by Colt.
“Saint Mary's blood,” the major sighed. “Who is this?”
The girl only looked at him, blinking those pale blue eyes.
Colt shrugged. “Can't get much out of her, sir, except that she didn't want to come with us.”
The major moved closer and peered into the girl's face. “Are you Cynthia Ann Parker?”
The girl stared back at him as if having a difficult time with the English. Finally, she shook her head.
“Oh, maybe you are Hannah Brownley. Is your name Hannah?”
After a moment, she nodded, then tried to get up off the bed where she sat. “Little boy. Must go back.”
The whole crowd took a deep breath, and the major gasped. Olivia said, “Oh, the poor thing.”
The major squatted and took one of her dirty hands in his. “My dear, don't you remember? We were told your little boy is dead. He died right after birth.”
“No.” She shook her head and pulled away from him. “No.”
“You are married, right?” the major said.
She nodded. “Spider.”
A gasp from the crowd.
“No,” the major insisted, “your husband is Luther Brownley. You were captured while picking sand plums almost four years ago. Remember Luther?”
She scowled and shook her head, then looked toward the door. “Go,” she murmured. “Must go. My little boy.”
“Goodness gracious,” Olivia whispered and the rest of the crowd sighed in pity.
“Let me try,” Colt suggested and squatted, took the girl's hand in his. It was a hardworking hand with blisters and calluses, and long, shapely fingers that had seen a lot of toil. “Moonlight,” he said softly in Comanche, “you are safe now. Spider can't get you.”
A look of fear crossed her suntanned face. “He will come,” she said in Comanche.
“No.” Colt shook his head. “I will not let him take you. We will send for your husband and you can go back to your old life.”
“No.” Her voice was stubborn. “Not Luther.”
Colt sighed and turned to the crowd, shook his head and said in English. “She may have been so brutalized, her mind has been affected.”
“Oh, that's so sad.” Olivia began to weep big tears.
The bald old doctor pushed in just then, having treated the soldier's arrow wound. “Dag nab it, we need to give her a few days,” he said to the major. “There's no telling what she's been through. It may take her some time to readjust to civilization.”
Now Olivia said in a mixture of scorn and annoyance, “You'd think she'd be pleased to be rescued.”
Colt stood up and turned to the delicate beauty. “Miss Olivia, you can't even imagine what she's been through.”
Olivia was immediately contrite. “Oh, the poor thing. I'm sure you're right, Lieutenant. Maybe I can give her a bath and one of my dresses might fit her, although it will be too short.”
The chubby doctor nodded. “Yes, that sounds like a good idea, Miss Murphy. And then I'll give her a sleeping potion in some water and maybe some food. She's awfully thin.”
Colt didn't say anything, remembering there was not always enough food in a Comanche camp, especially with the white men spreading out across the plains and killing off all the game.
The major said, “Everyone, you heard Doc. Let's turn her over to my daughter and her servant to clean up, and in the meantime, I'll send a messenger and maybe in a few days, we can track down her husband.”
BOOK: Colt
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