Savage Beloved (7 page)

Oh, Lord, surely she would die, for why would this Indian spare her life after having taken so many others? She was swept by a stark fear that he would use her sexually, then scalp and kill her.

She closed her eyes and said a silent prayer, then sobbed as she recalled the instant of her father’s death, and then dear Malvina’s.

She was oh, so alone in the world.

She had even lost her beloved pet wolf!

Perhaps dying would not be all that bad if it would save her from the disgrace of being savagely taken by this Indian, and those who rode with him.

She gulped as she looked from side to side, and noticed that some of the warriors were giving her hard stares. The day had turned to night, yet the moon was high and bright enough for her to see
everything and everyone around her, and . . . for them to see her.

She closed her eyes, hoping to blank out as much as she could until the moment of decision came . . . whether she lived or died!

Thy voice, slow rising,
like a spirit, lingers,
O’ershadowing me with soft
and lulling wings.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley

Trembling, her stomach churning with fear, Candy hugged herself as she sat beside a low-burning fire in the fire pit of a tepee she had just been taken to. The tepee was devoid of furnishings or utensils of any sort. All that was there, on the bulrush mats covering the earthen floor, were blankets rolled up and tied, a few feet from her.

When voices spoke from outside the lodge, she looked quickly at the closed entrance flap. She recognized one of the voices.

It belonged to the man who seemed to be the leader, who had brought her on his horse to the village.

She was in awe that the conversation was being conducted in perfect English.

She leapt to her feet and went to stand beside the entrance flap, listening to what was being said, for she knew it was about her.

The one Indian, whom she thought so handsome, had remembered her name and used it now as he gave the other man instructions.

She cringed when she heard that she was to be guarded at all times. Even if she got brave enough to try, she wouldn’t be able to escape whatever fate awaited her.

When the voices stopped, she again heard only the same sounds that she had been listening to before the conversation began.

She heard women’s voices and children at play who seemed happy as they laughed among themselves. She also heard what sounded like the voices of older men.

Before being taken inside this lodge, she had gotten enough of a glimpse of the village to see a huge outdoor fire burning in the center of many tepees. Older men were sitting around it smoking pipes; they had been conversing among themselves until they spotted her being brought into the village. As she was led to this tepee she could not take her eyes away from the big, roaring fire with its flames leaping skyward, lighting up the dark heavens.

Seeing that fire made a lump rise in her throat, for the burning inferno of the fort was the last thing she had seen as she had been taken from the scene of the massacre.

Not only had the Indians come and killed everyone there except herself, they had also set all the buildings aflame.

What had happened to the many horses that belonged to the soldiers? What had happened to those that belonged to her father, to her own strawberry roan, which she had adored riding on the days her father allowed her to leave the fort?

She jumped with alarm when the entrance flap was suddenly shoved aside and the handsome Indian came into the tepee. He caught her standing there, and surely guessed that she had been listening to his instructions.

But his discovery of her eavesdropping was not what frightened her. She grew pale, and the sick feeling that had overcome her since the beginning of the horrible massacre worsened when she saw what the warrior was bringing into the lodge.

As he turned to her, his eyes gleaming, she trembled at the sight of the irons and chains he was dragging behind him. The dried blood on them made her gulp hard in order to keep from losing everything that was rolling around in her stomach.

“What . . . are . . . you going to do with those?” she finally had the courage to ask.

She flinched when she suddenly recalled the last time she had seen such irons and chains.

The old Indian had been forced to wear them, and then made to walk from the fort with them on; the soldiers had been riding in front of him, leading him by a rope around his neck.

She gagged as another thought came to her. Was the blood on these iron and chains the old Indian’s?

It made her feel ill to think of the kind old man being forced to wear those horrible things, and for such a length of time.

Two Eagles lifted and began swinging one of the chains before Candy’s fearful eyes.

She watched it as though it were a pendulum, slowly moving back and forth, each swing counting off another moment of time.

She was afraid that each swing of the chain was counting off the moments before she would be killed for the sins of her father.

“You do recognize these, do you not?” Two Eagles asked tightly. He had seen a look of recognition and horror in her eyes as she watched the chain moving back and forth.

When Candy didn’t respond, Two Eagles stepped closer to her and leaned into her face. The chain now hung quietly at his left side.

“You know that these chains are the very ones that were placed on my uncle by the white pony soldiers at the fort,” he said, his teeth clenched. “You will now wear them. My uncle’s blood will mingle with yours when they cut into your tender white flesh. Flies and gnats will buzz around your bleeding flesh and eat the blood as they did while my uncle wore them.”

Candy was mortified to know that the old man was this Indian’s uncle.

That made the situation even worse for her than she had imagined. Surely he was going to make her
wear these nasty chains for a few days, and then kill her.

As she looked onto his face, the scar that ran in a jagged line beneath his lower lip was clearer; she noticed that the tattoos on the backs of his hands were in the design of a bird’s foot, and on his right arm there were tattoos in the shape of a small cross. She found it hard to speak. Her words seemed frozen inside her. Her fear was so acute that she now felt cold all over.

“You have nothing to say?” Two Eagles demanded, finding it hard to be cruel to her, since everything about her spoke of innocence and loveliness.

But he could not allow himself to forget what had happened to his uncle and that Short Robe was even now surely dying because of his horrible treatment at the hands of the white soldiers.

For a moment, Candy seemed to see a softening in the handsome Indian’s midnight-dark eyes, as though he realized that what he was doing was wrong.

But then, in the very next blink of an eye, there was that fierceness and anger again as he glared at her.

Still, she did have a glimmer of hope because of that one brief moment when his conviction had wavered.

He had a good reason to hate her.

She, too, would hate anyone who had treated her beloved uncle in that manner. God rest his soul, he had died while she was living in Saint Louis with
her parents at the lovely fort that overlooked the Mississippi River.

He had loved taking walks with her as they gazed down at the paddlewheelers passing down below in the muddy Mississippi. It was on one of those outings that he had suffered a heart attack. He had died in her arms after he had fallen to the ground, unconscious.

Yes, she did understand how one could hate so much, but . . .

“I am not responsible for any of this,” she blurted out. “Especially not for what happened to . . . your . . . uncle. I was horrified by all that was done to him. But I had no voice in the matter. Please believe me. I could do nothing to stop his mistreatment.”

Two Eagles leaned closer to her until their breath mingled as they gazed into each other’s eyes. Again he found it hard not to weaken beneath the pleading in her lovely blue eyes.

Even her voice had momentarily entranced him. Never had he heard such a soft, sweet voice.

But he forced himself to remember his uncle and what had happened to him. And he would never forget the two scalps he had found in the colonel’s office . . . scalps of his mother and sister.

He had already taken them to where they should have been all along . . . to their graves.

“Did you plead for my uncle when you saw him being beaten?” he hissed out. “Did you ask that he not be treated in such a way? Did you ask for his release?”

“I did, but nothing I said helped, for I had no say
in anything that happened at the fort,” she said, her voice breaking. “My father . . . was . . . the colonel. He . . . listened . . . to no one, especially not his daughter.”

Candy suddenly realized what she had said when she saw a fire leap into the warrior’s eyes at the news that her father had been the commanding officer of Fort Hope. It was the worst thing she could have told him.

She was doomed now!

Two Eagles took a step away from Candy, only now realizing that he had achieved more than he could have hoped for. The very man who had ordered the inhumane treatment of his beloved uncle, who had abducted and scalped his mother and sister, was this woman’s father!

Ho
, Two Eagles would get much pleasure in having her at his mercy, yet . . . yet . . . he saw much about her that said she was not like the man her father was, even though they shared the same blood. She was strong and courageous in the face of danger, and she had spoken in behalf of his uncle. She seemed helpless, sweet, and oh, so beautiful.

But he would not be sidetracked by his emotional response to her.

She would be used as an example to the white eyes, just as his uncle had been used.

Tears spilled from Candy’s eyes as she tried one last time to make this Indian see reason. “After I saw how the old man . . . your uncle . . . was being treated, I gave him food and water when none saw
me do it,” she murmured. “I . . . even . . . washed his bloody feet.”

Two Eagle was filled with rage at her words, for when he had asked his uncle if he had been fed while he was incarcerated at the fort, he had spoken of weevils in his food, and stringy, spoiled meat. He had most certainly not said one word about a woman being kind enough to bring him food, much less bend low and wash his feet!

“You lie!” he spat. “You lie in order to be treated better by the Wichita than my uncle was treated by whites!”

Candy’s eyes widened. “I . . . I . . . have never lied about anything in my life,” she said, her voice breaking again. She gazed into his eyes. “How . . . how . . . is your uncle?”

“You want to know how my uncle is faring?” Two Eagles asked, dropping the chains to the mat-covered floor of the tepee. “Come with me. You will see firsthand the damage done to the man I have admired and loved all my life.”

Candy’s heart sank, afraid now that the elderly man was dying. If he was, what then would be her own fate?

I love your hair when the
strands enmesh your kisses
against my face.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Two Eagles grabbed Candy by an arm and shoved her outside.

She was very aware of the quiet that suddenly descended on the village. The people nearby stopped their activities and stared at her until she was taken inside another tepee.

The light of the flames in the fire pit was enough for Candy to see Short Robe lying on the far side of the fire in a pile of blankets.

He was so lifeless, she thought he was dead.

She saw her own life flashing before her eyes, because she knew that she would be made to pay for the crimes of her father.

She was very aware of a medicinal smell that permeated
the lodge, and another aroma she was not familiar with that stung her nostrils. The smells gave her hope that perhaps the elderly man had been doctored; perhaps he would survive his terrible treatment.

Yet . . . he was lying so still. She could not see him taking breaths.

“Is . . . he . . . dead?” she blurted out, her knees trembling so terribly, she felt they might not hold her up much longer.

Her eyes widened, and she gasped when Short Robe opened his eyes and saw her there with his nephew.

He reached a shaky hand out toward her, but it fell limply at his side and he again drifted off into a deep sleep.

Candy was immensely relieved that he was alive. As long as he lived, she herself had a chance, especially if he eventually told his nephew how she had tried to help him.

Two Eagles interpreted his uncle’s gesture very different from the way Candy wanted him to. He glared at her and strengthened his hold on her arm. “My uncle looked at you and pointed at you because he saw that you are rightfully the captive of his people,” he said tightly.

“No!” she cried. “You misinterpreted what he was trying to do . . . to say . . .”

She yanked herself free of Two Eagles’s grip and went to her knees beside Short Robe. “Short Robe, oh, please, Short Robe, awaken again,” she cried. “Please
tell your nephew what I did for you. Please, Short Robe. I’m afraid . . . my . . . life depends on you.”

Two Eagles’s eyebrows rose when he heard Candy calling his uncle’s name and pleading with him, as though she might really have spoken to him before.

Could it be true that she had helped him?

Then he recalled his uncle’s description of what he had been fed. He had said nothing about a white woman bringing him food, or doing anything else for him, for that matter.

Two Eagles could not allow himself to be misguided by this woman’s soft voice and lovely eyes. She was as guilty as her father; did she not have his evil blood running through her veins?

He went to her and yanked her to her feet, then took her from the tepee and back to the one where she would be held captive.

Terrified now, truly believing that nothing she said or did would save her life, Candy sobbed as she watched Two Eagles place the bloody irons around her wrists and ankles. The chains attached to them were bloody and heavy.