Sundancer (Cheyenne Series) (51 page)

      
“Now, Mrs. Cain, you heard your husband.”

      
“Yes, I did.” She gave him her most beguiling smile, then scrambled up into the rocks where her gelding was hidden. “Have the detail wait for me down by the river. I won't be long,” she called out cheerfully, kicking her mount into a trot as the colonel swore to himself.

* * * *

      
By the time Cain reached the village, everyone knew the danger was past. Order was returning among the People, who calmly began unpacking the items they had seized when they fled. He rode straight to Leather Shirt's lodge, where the chief and Sees Much waited with grave faces.

      
“My warriors say the Blue Coats will not attack us,” Leather Shirt said.

      
“No. I took Her Back Is Straight to them. They are returning her to the Iron Horse trail.”

      
“In good time,” Sees Much replied enigmatically, but Cain was too preoccupied to attend him.

      
“Take me to Powell and Lame Pony. I must get some information from them.”

      
Leather Shirt nodded and led Cain across the camp to the lodge where they had confined the prisoners. Sees Much remained in the center of the village, looking expectantly toward the south.

      
Leather Shirt opened the lodge flaps and Cain slipped inside, then snarled a furious oath in English as he knelt by the body of one of the Dog Soldiers. “His throat has been cut,” he said furiously as his grandfather entered the dark interior. “Lame Pony and Powell are gone.”

      
“It must have happened during the confusion when we thought the soldiers would attack,” Leather Shirt said angrily.

      
“I must send a message to the Blue Coat leader explaining that the renegades have escaped. He too will wish to join in the hunt for them.” Cain quickly returned to his chestnut and extracted a pencil and a scrap of paper. After scrawling a terse message, he handed it to his grandfather. “Have one of your warriors take this to Dillon under a white flag. One of the men with Lame Pony is Weasel Bear. I am certain of it. I am going after them.”

      
The old man placed a restraining hand on his arm as he accepted the note. “I will send warriors with you. They have shed the blood of the People. This is our concern now.”

* * * *

      
Cain rode north toward the mountains with several of Leather Shirt's finest young warriors. In the village the family of the slain Dog Soldier slashed their arms and legs in mourning as they prepared the body for burial

      
Roxanna hid in the trees at the riverbank until Cain was gone, then rode up to where Sees Much stood with his arms crossed, as if expecting her.

      
“I could not leave without telling you good-bye,” she said as she dismounted, “I'm so sorry to have brought this danger to the People and grateful that you took me in when I needed a place to stay.”

      
“The danger is past now, child, thanks in large measure to you as well as my nephew. You risked your life to stop the Blue Coats from riding down on us. We too are grateful. Have you told Brother of the Spirit Bull about your dream?”

      
Roxanna sighed. So much had happened since the Medicine Lodge ceremony that she had almost forgotten about the dream. “No, there has been no time.”

      
‘There will be time.”

      
‘Then you are certain my husband will be safe?” she asked worriedly.

      
“I have not been given to see all that will happen, no. But it does not seem to me that the Powers would grant you both the same vision only to deny your sharing of it. It was a portend of the future.”

      
Roxanna felt his serenity and her own troubled emotions calmed magically. She smiled and said, “I shall look forward to sharing my dream and my life with Brother of the Spirit Bull.”

      
He returned her smile. “And sharing in the life of the child you carry...and many more children as well, I think. We will talk more when we meet again.”

* * * *

      
Cain and the warriors with him followed the trail left by Powell and Lame Pony for nearly an hour before losing it in the rocky bottom of a shallow stream. “We'll have to split up and search the banks to find where they came out of the water,” he said to the others, damning Lame Pony for the cunning bastard that he was. Perhaps Dillon would have better luck, but he doubted it, since the soldiers no longer had scouts to track for them.

      
The warriors split into four groups and began to comb both sides of the river upstream and down. Cain, on a hunch, led his two companions downstream, heading in a westerly direction, unaware of the hate-filled eyes narrowed on him from a stand of cotton woods a hundred yards away.

      
Weasel Bear had left the others, who went in search of the Iron Horse man. He knew after they had failed to kill the half-blood and his woman that their employer would be furious. They would not be paid. All he cared about was vengeance now. Leather Shirt's band was unscathed and the blue bellies would pursue Weasel Bear and the raiders until they were all either killed or captured. The only satisfaction left for him was the man in his rifle sights.

      
He would kill Not Cheyenne. He grunted in disgust at the name, for now because of the hated half-blood, he too had been sent away in disgrace, a man who belonged nowhere. “I will not kill you quickly with bullets. I will wait my chance and kill you slow,” he muttered to himself, lowering the rifle.

      
In fact, he was not a good marksman, or his enemy and the woman would have fallen before his rifle earlier. His long-range vision was too poor, a deficiency he had attempted to conceal since boyhood, which only became worse as he grew older. But he was very good with a knife. Patting the wicked looking blade at his side, he began to stalk his prey.

* * * *

      
Roxanna and her escort rode until they left the open country around Deer Creek far behind, heading toward the desolate looking foothills to the southwest. The corporal in charge of escorting her to the railhead was a dour Prussian immigrant who replied to her attempts at conversation in monosyllables. Gustave Fenshlage was furious at being left behind to baby-sit a redskin-loving hussy dressed like a squaw while the colonel chased after the renegades without him. What respectable white female would voluntarily live with savages, much less marry one of them? It did not matter that Dillon said he was some high-ranking official on the Union Pacific. He was still a dirty breed to Corporal Fenshlage.

      
The sun was blistering hot and Roxanna found she tired far more easily because she was pregnant. “Do you suppose we could rest a bit when we reach the next water?” she asked as she wiped the trickling perspiration from her forehead with the back of her hand.

      
“
Nein
. The railroad we will not reach by nightfall if we do not
mach Schnell
.”

      
Roxanna debated telling the hateful man that she was in a family way, then decided he would not care. She had seen the way he looked at her beaded buckskin tunic.
He thinks I'm some sort of traitor for marrying a breed. Damn his ignorance,
she would simply dismount when they reached the next water and refuse to ride until she had rested and cooled off. He had been given a direct order by Colonel Dillon to escort her to Medicine Bow. He could scarcely ride away and leave her.

      
She doubted he would have nerve enough to try to forcibly place her back on her horse.
Let him try
, she thought with a grim smile. He would be eating those corporals stripes by reveille!

      
When they reached the creek, Roxanna followed her plan. Just as Fenshlage reluctantly ordered his men to dismount and water their horses, they were alerted by the sounds of another small party of riders approaching. He signaled for them to draw their weapons, but as soon as the men came into view it was apparent they were white—and that Mrs. Cain knew their leader.

      
‘‘Larry! What on earth are you doing out in the wilderness?” she said, amazed and pleased to see him.

      
Lawrence Powell dismounted and walked over to her, nervously crushing his hat brim in his hands. “Thank God you're all right!” he said in an impassioned croak. His face was beet red, part sunburn, part the natural flush which he could not subdue when agitated.

      
He shuffled awkwardly from one foot to the other as she smiled and gave him a hug. “Yes, I'm all right.”

      
Before she could launch into an explanation of the dangerous turn of recent events, he blurted out, “I'm afraid I sent Cain to Leather Shirt's camp. He came to my office in Salt Lake, Roxanna. I...I guess I'm still afraid of him,” he said, shamefaced, looking off at the pale lavender mountains rising in the distance. He swallowed audibly, then continued, “I told him where you were and he stormed out after making some pretty ugly threats. The more I thought about it, the more worried I became. I didn't know if he'd harm you—if the Cheyenne would let him just drag you away because he was your husband. So I hired these men—expert trackers—to take me to Leather Shirt.”

      
She patted his arm reassuringly. “I can imagine you had a long dusty ride tracking us down. The army certainly did.”

      
His shoulders slumped dejectedly. “We lost the Indians' trail days ago. I could scarcely believe my eyes when I caught sight of this cavalry patrol and you were with them. No missing all that silver hair,” he added with an embarrassed smile.

      
“I have so much to tell you, Larry.” She thought about his father, who remained a prisoner of Leather Shirt. Should she tell him? Best to leave Andrew Powell's fate to Cain. She would only describe her reconciliation with her husband and the brush with death they'd had. Then an inspiration struck her as the corporal cleared his throat behind her.

      
Turning to him, she said, “Corporal Fenshlage, this is Lawrence Powell, an officer on the Central Pacific railroad and an old friend. I'm certain he would be happy to escort me to the railhead so you could rejoin your command.”

      
“Yes, of course,” Larry chorused at once. “The only reason I'm even in this ghastly wilderness is to see that Mrs. Cain is safe.”

      
Fenshlage scratched his graying yellow hair in uncertainty. “I have my orders...” He was torn between his desire to chase renegades and his duty to follow orders. Yet he had heard of the Powell name. And the fellow had as much firepower as he did. Obviously his men were seasoned veterans who knew the country. The woman knew Powell and the younger man was willing to take her off his hands. “Ya, I suppose it will be all right.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

      
Cain felt a prickling along the back of his neck, a subtle tingle traveling down his spine that had often alerted him that someone was watching him—usually someone unfriendly. He had separated from the other warriors when they picked up the trail of two ponies headed west away from the river. The third man was unaccounted for. Cain sent his companions after the pair while he remained behind, searching for signs of that last man.

      
He had a hunch who it was. Veering off toward a small stream that ran into the river, he dismounted and knelt to drink, watching the surface of the placid water while he feigned fatigue.
Not much of an act
, he thought with grim humor. He was still weak from his Sun Dance ordeal. One mistake could be fatal.

      
Although he heard nothing, not so much as a leaf rustle, he could sense his stalker drawing nearer. Cain leaned forward just slightly and slowly dipped his left hand into the water, careful to disturb the placid surface as little as possible. Just as he raised the handful of water, he saw the reflection of a man directly above him.

      
Weasel Bear brought the club down in a swift deadly arc. An instant before the blow landed, Cain lunged to his left, thrusting out one leg to knock Weasel Bear off balance. With a grunt of angry surprise, the Cheyenne stumbled but righted himself before he fell.

      
Cain drew his Smith and Wesson, but before he could level the .44, Weasel Bear's club connected with the barrel, sending the weapon flying. The half-breed jumped to his feet and took a step backward, drawing his knife.

      
“Have no fear,
Cousin.
’’ Weasel Bear made the word sound like an obscenity. He tossed away his club. “I have no wish to brain you, only to take away your short gun.” Without taking his eyes off his half-blood cousin, he gestured in the direction of the handgun laying several feet away “I knew you would choose the white man's way rather than the Cheyenne's.” He drew his own blade and began circling.

      
In a crouch, Cain shifted position only slightly to keep his opponent directly in front of him, better to save his strength and let Weasel Bear do the moving. He goaded the other man. “Ah,
Cousin
, you are the one who should fear. The Everywhere Spirit frowns on cowards. This is the second time you have attacked me from behind. You are the one who does not choose the Cheyenne way.”

      
With a howl of rage the renegade launched himself at Cain. Weasel Bear's knife came in high, aimed straight for the half-blood's throat. Cain blocked the wicked thrust with his own blade, but the force of the Indian's body slammed him backward. Both men fell to the ground, Cain on the bottom. They rolled over and over, each with a death grip around the other's knife arm.