Trail of Hope (Tales of the Scrimshaw Doll) (10 page)

Clay nodded slowly. He frowned as an idea formed in his mind. “The mounds. Celebrations and burials are still honored there by small tribes around here.” He saw the flicker of hope in Martin’s eyes.

Bryan walked his gelding forward a few paces. “I know the place. My grandfather lives close t’ Fort Smith. He’s Cadodacho. In celebration of our people, he has taken me to Spiro for the fall busk.” His horse struck the ground a couple of times with a hoof as Bryan answered the question he knew they were about to ask. “Dad’s Irish. Got into the army ’cuz I favored him.” He shrugged. “Guess I never got ’round to tellin’ the Army about the rest of my family. There’s one place—the burial mound—Major Todd might take Miss Sophia there. Several tribes are tryin’ to find looters who stole things from inside the mound.”

Martin nodded. “We have mounds like your Spiro back home. A spiritual place.” He turned to look at Clay, then glanced back at Bryan. “How far to these mounds?”

Bryan thought a moment. “Two, maybe three miles.”

Martin grinned. “Well then, what are we waiting for? Lead the way.”

Chapter Sixteen

Sophia hit the ground with a thud and a very unladylike grunt. She glared up at the man who’d caused all of her troubles over the last eight months. Her hip and elbow burned from scraping the rocky soil. With her hands still tied behind her, sitting up was harder than she thought it would be, but she wouldn’t give Major Todd the satisfaction of helping her.

“Ay eeyl keyoo!” she chewed out against the bridle of cloth tied around her head. Major Todd only laughed and hopped down from the wagon. She stared up at the sky. Soft shades of red and orange streamed through the darkening blue-gray expanse. From the corner of her eye, she watched every move the major made. She had maybe two hours of daylight left to figure out how to get away from this madman.

She tensed when he dropped the last branch in his hand onto the small fire he’d built, then turned and headed in her direction. His boots crunched and scuffled across the pebbly ground. Concentrating on the sky, she drew in what little air she could as her lungs quivered like jelly inside her chest.

“Since you sat here like a good girl, I will let you sit with me and eat.” He knelt and grabbed her chin, his nails biting painfully into her cheek. “However, should you scream, I will return the gag. Better yet, don’t talk at all.”

When he jerked at the knot, the disgusting cloth cut into the edges of her mouth. She pressed her lips together to relieve their stinging stretch, the metallic taste of blood coating her tongue. He jerked her upright, pulling hard on her arm. Trying to get moisture back into her parched, gritty mouth without water proved impossible, so she gave up and simply grunted, jerking her arm from Todd’s grasp. Her glare never faltered. She concentrated on her hatred of him to take her mind off her sore shoulder.

Todd chuckled. “Good. Still full of spirit. I like that in a wife.” He motioned for her to follow him, then pointed to an ancient-looking tree. Near the edge of its large overhanging canopy, the fire crackled and popped, the orange flames bouncing in and out of the thrown-together pile of logs.

Surprisingly, he gently eased her down onto the hard ground next to the comforting warmth, released the ropes tied around her ankles, then stood. Walking around the fire, he sat down, a haughty sneer pasted across his face. He’d left her hands tied together behind her.

The wonderful smell drifting to her nose from the pan resting on the burning logs made her stomach rumble. The last time she’d eaten a good meal seemed a lifetime ago, and the savory smell of roasting meat forced another, louder rumble from her shrunken stomach.

The major barked out a laugh. “Hungry?” He flipped the juicy meat over, then caught her gaze with his. “You can have whatever is left over. But I can already tell you—it won’t be much. I’m hungry.” She glowered at the man sitting across from her in his pristine uniform. She glanced down at her own filthy appearance and grimaced. She couldn’t wait to burn her dress, which now looked more like a cleaning rag. She looked terrible. Felt that way too. There was dirt and grime where dirt and grime shouldn’t be.

“You know, dear Sophia, your young man is, by now, dead.” He shrugged. “Or, he soon will be.” His words closed around her fragile heart and squeezed, their icy fingers sinking deep. Her mind screamed, but her lips remained clamped together.

His eyes widened slightly. “What? No ranting or wailing? Crying? You aren’t even going to beg for his life?” He raised a thin brow. “Hmmm, I’m disappointed.”

Careful to keep her expression blank, she asked, “Why should I? Would pleading do me any good? Besides, I already know what you have planned for me—and it’s not living comfortably as your wife.”

His oily smile returned, sickening in its assurance. “No. But I would think you’d care just a tiny bit about what happens to your beau. As for the other? Well…”

She willed her facial muscles to stay relaxed and still blank. “Whatever do you mean? Mr. Clay Jefferson is merely a friend, nothing more.” She was completely unprepared for the hurricane-force of anger that hurtled his slender body almost over the fire.

“You, then, are a strumpet! You kissed him. You kissed that dirty, red-skinned savage,” he spit out at her, his face growing redder with each passing second. “I will
not
allow my future wife to romp about with
those
people. Even if you are almost one of them…”

Her mind buzzed in confusion. “Excuse me?” Only a whisper pushed through her frozen lips as she tried to make sense of his words.

He continued in a condescending tone as he flipped the browning meat, “Although Emily assured me she had trained you to behave like a proper lady and not a half-breed. I simply have to kill him.”

Sophia’s skin turned clammy, and a million thoughts fluttered around her mind. She forced her thoughts to slow. She needed to think. If what he’d just said was true, it would explain so much—why Emily Deveraux had treated her more like a slave than a daughter. For some unexplainable reason, she knew Todd spoke the truth. A burning tidal wave of anger coursed through her. A fierce pleasure swelled her heart as she allowed her love for Clay to spread, heating its way through her body. She would not allow Major Todd or anyone else to hurt Clay.

“You. Will. Not. Hurt. Him,” she promised in a harsh tone. He laughed and looked into the hissing fire. With horror, she watched as a surge of orange flames dipped their bright blue tips into the pan. Hot grease showered him, spattering over his face and hands. In morbid fascination, she watched his pasty skin turn brilliant red with a mask of white puffy blisters already covering the burned areas. She wasn’t sure what had just happened, but she couldn’t be sorry about it.

He scrambled to his feet, screaming and racing around in a pain-filled frenzy. Suddenly, he turned and faced her, his eyes wild and accusing. “You!” he screamed. “You did this!”

Her mouth dropped open in disbelief. He sped around the fire and grabbed her by the arm, dragging her across the uneven ground.

“I will not take this from anybody, much less a half-breed,” he muttered, shoving her into a dark hole near the base of a giant mound of dirt. Following her through the hole, he pushed her out of the way as his quiet mutters grew angrier in the silent enclosure. “I don’t deserve…”

Sophia’s head slammed forward into the hard-packed earth when he rammed her from behind. Just when she thought she couldn’t get any more scared, the chilling edge of the major’s voice proved her wrong.

“It all makes sense. Why didn’t I see it before—what you really are. You are a witch!” he screamed. “This is all a spell. A curse! Yes, that’s it—that explains everything. From the moment I saw your face…you’ve controlled my actions…the very intimate thoughts in my head.”

Sophia rolled onto her back and listened in growing horror to his wild ramblings. She’d heard tales of witch hunts. The Salem trials had been almost a hundred and fifty years ago, but people still believed. She wanted to scream at him that she wasn’t a witch, but she knew he wouldn’t listen. A shiver of apprehension rattled through her body as the cool, underground air goose-pimpled her skin.

She wasn’t sure which of her two options were the lesser of the two evils. The last thing she wanted was to be buried alive in this horrible place. But to be thought a witch? She would die either way. Inhaling the heavy, stagnant air in relief, she made her decision when his pale voice echoed within the small enclosure: “You don’t deserve the life I would have given you.”

The smoldering ball of anger inside her chest exploded. “As I’ve told you many times already, I would
never
marry a man like you!”

“Now, dear Sophia, you won’t marry anyone.” As soon as the echoes faded—along with his torchlight—the significance of his words sank in, leaving a cold chill skittering down her spine. Fear churned in her stomach. He’d left her in this nameless place—and she’d let him. The deathly quiet closed in around her, but before despair overwhelmed her, she detected a lighter patch of darkness a few feet away. A small kernel of hope smothered her fear. She rolled to one side and, using her elbow, pushed hard against the ground and heard the
pop
of something breaking beneath her. Carefully moving her fingers over the dirt, she found the sharp edge of what felt like a piece of pottery. She sawed at the rope in desperation, thankful it wasn’t very thick, then drew her feet underneath her and tried to stand. Her head bumped the tunnel’s low ceiling, so she walked on her knees toward the small patch of light.

Chapter Seventeen

Noiselessly, they rode into the dark campsite. A dilapidated wagon rested with its long, wooden tongue propped against the ground. Tied to the tongue was a lone gray horse, quietly pulling at the tufts of grass between its hooves. Clay placed a finger against his lips and motioned for Martin and Bryan to dismount. They ground-tied the horses and cautiously moved forward, finding good positions around the immediate area.

Stopping in front of the smoldering pile of logs, Clay focused on the army-issue revolver gripped in the man’s bandaged fist. They’d found the major. Occasional bursts of red embers scattered into the night’s gentle breeze, with just a hint of burned wood scenting the air. He pulled his gaze from the gun and ran it up the arm to the major’s bright red, sleeping face. He waited for Bryan’s quiet but distinctive
chirrup
and Martin’s
tur-a-lee
telling him they were in place and ready.

He crept toward the slumbering man, halting when a loud
snap
echoed like a gunshot. The major’s eyes popped open and, gun in hand, he scrambled to his feet. The two men stared at each other, their venom-filled gazes locked.

“Where is she, Todd?” Clay snarled. He clamped down an iron hold on the fury welling up inside his chest. He didn’t understand or like the out-of-control feeling—as if his heart had been cleaved in two. He glanced over the large, oozing blisters covering Todd’s face and hands, but bit back a humorless chuckle.
That’s my girl. Gave him what he deserved, didn’t you?

“Have some trouble, Todd?” Clay knew the question hit a nerve when the major’s hands twitched in time with his left eye.

“You are too late, injun. Dear Sophia will die just as you will—and seeing as how you don’t have a gun, I believe it will be sooner than you think.”

While the arrogant man boasted, Clay’s hand crept behind his back, his fingers slowly curling around the handle of the knife he’d shoved under his leather belt. With the familiar deer-horn gripped in his hand, he breathed a little easier.

A soft gasp sounded behind Clay, and time stood still. Major Todd jerked into motion and swung his pistol, his shot echoing in Clay’s ear as Clay threw his knife. Todd’s grip on the revolver slowly loosened, and he stared at Clay in disbelief. His gaze fell to the knife protruding from his chest as the gun slipped through nerveless fingers and landed with a dull thud on the ground. Several heartbeats passed before his body slithered downward, lifeless eyes staring up into the blinking night sky.

Clay whirled around, his mind tumbling over itself in fear of what he would find. Martin lay on the ground with his head nestled in Sophia’s lap, blood oozing from a hole in his shoulder. Relieved, he started toward them, only to twist back around when Bryan hollered at him from behind. Bryan pushed a newcomer into the campsite, his gun steady and pressed against the man’s back. Clay was surprised to see Sophia’s strange little doll tucked into the crook of Bryan’s arm. He tamped down his building frustration at not being able to help Sophia or Martin. Instead, he met the stranger’s anxious gaze and barked, “What are you doing here?”

The tall man glanced from Clay’s angry face to Bryan’s, then back to Clay’s. His dark brows lowered into a frown, as if trying to decide his options. He shrugged as if realizing he had none and started talking. “I’m camped on the other side of this strange place. I was minding my own business until I heard shouting. I scouted over this way, looking to see what was happening, and this fellow here showed me his gun.” He tilted his head toward Bryan.

A small grunt sounded behind Clay, and he watched the stranger’s mouth draw into a tight line. The man leaned sideways to see what was going on. He took a step and then jerked to a stop as Bryan jabbed him with the barrel of his gun. The stranger raised his hands in surrender. “You have someone hurt back there. I’m not a doctor exactly, but I can do fine for simple things.” The man’s anxious gaze traveled back and forth several times before finally resting on Clay’s face. “Please,” he pleaded. “Let me help.”