Ellie's Wolf (4 page)

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Jeremy Stokes had covered over one hundred miles in two days. He’d stopped whenever he could to trade for a fresh horse and check his directions. It had been ten years since he’d made such a ride, and he was feeling it in every muscle in his body. It was worth it though. He hated the idea of Mrs. Overdahl forced into a marriage she didn’t want. He had a little daughter of his own, and the thought of someone forcing her into marriage rubbed him raw, so he didn’t grudge the sore muscles and aching bones. He stopped in Kearney to get directions to Taye Wolfe’s place and made it up there before supper.

The Wolfe compound was large and well-guarded by a solid stone wall eight feet high. It looked to Jeremy like Mrs. Overdahl hadn’t exaggerated her cousin’s wealth. Only a man of means could hold a place like this. Jeremy presented himself at the gate and waited for the small, reinforced window in the gate to open to ask his business.

The face in the small window was cold with suspicion. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

“I’m Jeremy Stokes, here on business from Mrs. Overdahl. Mr. Wolfe’s cousin, I mean. I have an urgent message from her.”

The gate was instantly opened, and two large dogs pressed against him, herding him into the compound. His horse came with him, snorting uneasily. A cluster of half-naked Native American men stood watching him. One of them looked him over.

“Give me all your weapons.”

Jeremy silently handed over his pistol and his knife and waved a hand at the rifle in the saddle scabbard. “That’s all.”

The guy nodded. “Snake, Blaze, take him in to see the chief. Paint, look after his horse.”

Two men flanked Jeremy like guards. When he was led into a large room with a big fireplace, he understood why he was being treated like a possible threat. Beside the fireplace sat a hugely pregnant woman with long brown hair. Standing protectively beside her on one side was a fiercely scowling man, and on the other side, a three-year-old boy scowled just as fiercely. From the looks of their faces, they were obviously father and son. A dozen men lounged around the room, bodies appearing relaxed but eyes keenly watchful. Their stares made Jeremy want to squirm. He turned to look at the man beside the woman.

“Mr. Wolfe?” Jeremy asked.

The man gave one sharp jerk of his head.

“I’m Jeremy Stokes. I work for the Ryan Thomas Trading Company.” There Jeremy stalled briefly. “Your cousin, Mrs. Overdahl, sent me with a message for you.”

“Oh, thank goodness!” said the woman. “We haven’t heard from Ellie in ages. How is she?”

When Jeremy hesitated, the weight of the eyes on him grew heavier. “She’s well,” he said carefully. “But she needs your help.”

Taye Wolfe leaned forward, dark eyes hard under lowered brows. “What do you mean?”

Jeremy swallowed. “Her husband has died, and she’s been sold to the Trading Company to be taken to Ellsworth. The men there are having a Bride Fight in a week or so…”

A snarl jerked Jeremy’s head around. He saw nothing but men with angry faces. No longer lounging in relaxed sprawls, they looked ready to spring. Most of the men were clearly Native American, with black hair hanging in braids or loose down their backs, but one of them had curly brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. He was on his feet, practically shaking. With rage? Yes, Jeremy was certain it was rage that clenched the man’s fists and jaw. He hesitated before turning his back on the man, shoulder blades twitching.

Taye Wolfe’s set, angry face wasn’t any less scary. A bead of sweat rolled down the back of Jeremy’s neck.

“Where is my cousin?” Wolfe rasped.

“She’s travelling to Ellsworth for the Bride Fights.” Jeremy blotted his upper lip with his wrist. “Rye is making sure the women are treated with respect. He has to fulfill the contract to deliver brides, but he sent me to let you know what’s happened to your cousin so you could help her.”

That same snarling noise jerked Jeremy’s head around again. The curly-haired man was closer, eyes glowing eerie green under clenched brows. “Who dared to sell her?” he demanded.

Standing between Taye Wolfe’s cold fury and this man’s volcanic rage was ulcer inducing. Jeremy felt the prickle of more sweat forming on his back. “I don’t know all the details. A man named Moore sold her to the last owner of the trading company.”

The woman gasped. “That’s the man Neal worked for. What about her son?” she asked Jeremy.

Inwardly, Jeremy flinched at the memory of Mrs. Overdahl’s heart-broken shrieks as the wagon drove her away from her crying son. “He’s still with Moore as far as I know. Look, you have to hurry. Rye said he would travel as slowly as possible to give you time to get to Ellsworth and stop the fights. But, even if we left right now, we might not get there in time.”

“Taye, you have to go at once.” The woman struggled to heave her bulk out of the chair. Wolfe pressed her gently back down. “Taye!”

“I can’t leave you, not with the baby due any day.” Wolfe looked at the men in the room, and Jeremy noticed that their number had more than doubled in the last few minutes. “Quill,” he said to the curly-haired man. “Pick a dozen wolves and get to Ellsworth as fast as you can. Once you have Ellie secure, go to Moore’s Mill and get the boy. Bring them home.”

The face under the curly hair was equal parts grim and strangely elated. “I’ll bring them home, Chief.”

Jeremy cleared his throat. “Mrs. Overdahl said you would take care of Miss Nelson too.”

Taye Wolfe’s eyebrow arched. “Was she sold too?”

Jeremy nodded. “And she’s not happy about it. She’s not even seventeen yet.”

Disgust overlaid the cold fury on Wolfe’s face. “Quill, bring the other girl too.”

Quill nodded.

“You’ll need gold to buy them,” Jeremy advised.

“Gold.” Quill curled a lip. “I’ll buy my mate with the blood of any man who stands in my way.”

Ryan Thomas and his goods arrived in Ellsworth on a sunny afternoon. It was a small dusty town just north of the Smokey Hill River, with many of the abandoned houses and buildings left to crumble with no apparent efforts made to tidy up the mess. After a brief harangue by three members of the town council over their tardiness, money was transferred from Ellsworth to Rye, and women were transferred from Rye to Ellsworth. At Ellie’s urgent look, Rye drawled, “You seen a guy named Taye Wolfe in town?”

The council members looked at each other and shrugged. “Don’t know anyone by that name,” the tall, skinny one said.

Standing beside the wagon on a street filled with gaping men, disappointment crashed over Ellie, followed by fear. Rye gave her a hearty pat on the shoulder. “He could still be here,” he said. “This town is swarming with strangers. Tell you what, we have to wait for Jeremy anyway, so we’ll hang out and ask around.”

The women gathered their few belongings and followed Ellsworth’s councilmen to the largest house in town, the one belonging to the mayor. The mayor, they were informed, had vacated the premises for the night. Ellie was appalled by the state of the once grand home. Pigs lived in cleaner environments than this house. She was sure the kitchen floor hadn’t been scrubbed in this decade. Sara clutched her fabric suitcase to her chest, obviously unwilling to set it on the filthy floor.

The oldest of the councilmen looked to Ellie like a picture of Santa Claus from the Times Before. He had a snowy white beard, an immense belly, and a red nose. His habitual expression seemed to be a cheery grin. “You have the house completely to yourselves for the next two hours,” he told them with a jolly laugh. “You can take a little time to have a bite, get cleaned up, and have a little rest. We’ll be back then and take you out for the parade.”

“Parade?” Mel said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “What parade?”

“So the men can see what they’ll be fighting for,” he explained. “After the parade, we’re having a little meet-and-greet, so the men can get to know you.”

“Uh-huh,” said Mel.

“Now, lock the door behind me. Don’t worry about being private. We’ll have guards around the place to be sure you’re left alone.”

After the door was locked behind him, Sara turned to Mel and Ellie with a brow arched. “A parade. They’re gonna show us off all around town in a parade. Don’t you feel special?”

Mel shrugged. “We’ll get a chance to look around for Ellie’s cousin. The town’s pretty big for central Kansas, got about eight hundred residents. But, even so, Ellie should be able to spot him, right? What’s he look like, El?”

“Taye is about thirty now.” Ellie could picture Taye in her mind, so protective of the women in his life he would wrestle the devil to save them. “He’s tall, with black hair cut short and black eyes. He’s Lakota.”

Sara looked her up and down. “You’re Lakota?”

That made Ellie laugh. “No, his dad was Lakota, and his mom was my dad’s sister. Aunt Naomi was blonde and blue-eyed, but Taye takes after his father’s side of the family. He looks hard and fierce, but really he’s sweet.”

Mel raised an eyebrow at her. “Uh-huh. Okay, we’re looking for a tall Indian with a scowl and a heart of gold.” She curled her lip as she glanced around the filthy kitchen. “I hope they don’t expect us to clean this place.”

“I’m not cleaning this dump,” Sara declared. “If that’s what they expect, they can kiss my—”

Ellie rushed to cut her off. “Let’s hurry. I don’t want them coming in before we’ve finished.”

They cooked oatmeal, ate, heated water to bathe in, and put on clean clothes. Ellie took stock of the bag Mr. Moore had packed for her. Two pairs of jeans, three blouses, two breast wraps and three pairs of panties. She gritted her teeth at the idea of him pawing through her underwear drawer.

In precisely two hours, the councilmen came to collect them for the parade. Ellie didn’t like horses; the big, smelly beasts frightened her. But she was mounted on one, clenching the saddle horn in a death grip, with Mel on her right and Sara on her left, and led through the streets of Ellsworth under heavy guard for prospective fighters to view.

Ellsworth might be the most important town in a hundred miles, but it wasn’t that big. Most of the brick buildings they passed by looked as though they’d been taken care of, like a low building whose weather-beaten sign identified it as Ellsworth High School. Ellie wondered how many students it had held in the Times Before and how many of them had been girls. One stone building only a few blocks away from the school was ten stories tall, such an unusual sight that Ellie stared at it, wide-eyed, until she heard Sara snort.

“They don’t exactly take care of their streets,” the teenager sneered.

Sara was right. Some of the side streets had huge cracks, big enough for trees to grow out of. Ellie found it depressing. Kearney, Nebraska, where her mother’s family lived, was far better maintained than this. The mayor of Kearney and his council took good care of their town and its people. The mayor and council of Ellsworth, she decided acidly, should use any money they made from the Bride Fights to repair their town.

The men in the streets shouted things so sexually explicit Ellie’s face felt as though it was frozen in a horrified mask. No one had ever said those kinds of things to her. Where was Taye? He would kill any man who dared to insult her. She searched for his dark head on every street and found nothing but crude strangers.

“Anyone else feel like a prime heifer being led out for auction?” Sara quipped darkly.

“You mean slaughter?” Mel quipped back. “See your cousin, El?” she added.

“No, not yet.” The oatmeal sat in Ellie’s stomach like lead. But she knew Taye would come. It was only a matter of time before he came for her. But, with each street they passed with no sign of Taye, her spirits flagged until she felt as though she was moving through a dream. Or perhaps a nightmare. They returned to the house for the second half of the day’s festivities.

In the house, lamps were lit in the living room and three chairs placed in different corners, one for each of the women. Ellie stood quietly in front of the empty fireplace, wishing she could wake from this nightmare. How could this be happening to her? What was Connor doing right now? Playing with Tommy? Crying for her? The need to hold him was a physical pain.

The lead councilman was there, still beaming at them like some demented version of Santa Claus. “Now, you all sit down. We’re going to let men come in three at a time. Each man will get two minutes to talk to you then rotate to the next lady. That way they’ll get a chance to know you, to see if they want to fight for you. You just have a nice visit with these men. Now see, you’ll be safe with us to guard you, so don’t be nervous.”

Nervous? Ellie was afraid she’d throw up. Her shyness was hard to overcome at the best of times. Being forced to make small talk with strangers for two whole minutes was like torture. The minutes were precisely timed, and in three hours, Ellie had met more than two hundred men. Her hands were clenched so tightly in her lap that the knuckles were bone white. That strange dream-like feeling wouldn’t lift, leaving Ellie numb. But under the numbness, fury and panic danced an energetic polka.

None of the men was Taye. Some of the men were handsome, some ugly. Most were young; a few were old. Some seemed shy, others braggarts. None of them stood out for Ellie except three darkly handsome men. She noticed them not because they were handsome but because Mel was furious when she saw them.

“Oh, hell no!” Mel’s voice rose over the low babble in the room. “They are not letting you fight!”

“Oh, hell yes they are,” said a man’s low voice. “One of us is going to win, and we’ll see to it you get the treatment you deserve.”

Finally the line of men stopped, and the women were allowed to go up to a bedroom to sleep. The room was crammed full with three twin beds, and at least the sheets looked fresh. But Mel didn’t appear to notice the room. Her face was still fiery red with rage.

Sara tapped her arm. “Who were those guys?”

Mel sputtered a string of angry curses, ending with, “Fosses!”

“Oh. Relations?”

Mel swung around to pace the crowded room with short furious steps. “My husband’s brothers.”