Cheyenne Captive (35 page)

The Indian men stood their ground valiantly now, making a last ditch effort to buy time for the women and children running to the thick underbrush and woods to escape.

“Don’t let them get away!” Jake shouted, whirling his horse around. He’d like nothing better than a chance to ride some of them into the dirt. He grinned with satisfaction. “There’s plenty more to kill!”

But the young captain on his gray gelding was already signaling the bugler to sound recall.

“We ain’t killed ’em all yet!” Jake protested.

“This slaughter makes me want to puke!” The officer gestured toward the burning tepees, the wounded horses struggling to stand and neighing in pain, the crumpled human bodies. “I’m sorry I let you talk me into this, Dallinger!”

He signaled the bugler who blew again. “I always thought fighting Indians would be glorious, but, Christ! I feel rotten! Let’s regroup and get the hell out of here!”

“I’ll go back to the river and get the girl then.” Jake ducked his head humbly, hating the uppity Yankee but knowing enough to hold his tongue. “You might want to have them soldiers gather up that horse herd, sir, to keep the Injuns from comin’ after us! An Injun afoot is purty helpless!”

The captain nodded curtly and rode off to assemble his troops.

Jake jerked his pony’s mouth savagely as he turned back toward the wild plum thicket. Disgusted and annoyed, he thought about the missed chance to take a few scalps, do a little looting. It was probably just as well that the colonel would be back tomorrow and that sissy little captain wouldn’t be in charge anymore. He had had a bellyful of that snot-nosed kid. There was a rumor that some of them, including the scouts, might be transferred up farther north soon.
Everybody said there was gonna be a hell of a good fight in “Bloody Kansas” between pro and anti-slavery settlers,
Jake recalled. The gold-seekers flooding across Kansas toward Colorado were adding to the confusion. Anyplace there might be a fight and some killing, Jake wanted to be there. He smiled with satisfaction as he rode to the river.

The blond girl still lay unconscious in the grass where he had left her.
Gawd Almighty! She was one purty gal!
He swung off his horse and stood looking down at her, waiting to see if she stirred. When she didn’t move, he knelt beside her and touched her with an eager hand. Encouraged by her lack of response, he pushed her deerskin shift up and found she wore nothing beneath it. His dirty hand trembled as he reached out to touch one rosebud nipple. He could remember only one other girl so beautiful.

Unbidden, his thoughts went again to the only woman he had ever really loved.
He’d near about driven himself crazy thinkin’ about shovin’ it to that Texas gal.
She was the only woman besides his own ma that he had ever felt tender toward, offered to marry. And she’d turned him down for a damned, dog-eating savage! Thinking about her made his manhood grow hard and his anger and frustration over Texanna came back to haunt him now. He looked down at the unconscious blond girl in the grass.

He licked his lips.
Another damned Injun had gotten to this one first, too, but it didn’t matter none; nothin’ really mattered to him since he’d lost Texanna.
This time, Jake was going to make up for it. He could have a quick one at her expense and the unconscious girl would never know the difference. The fact she was helpless excited him and she looked enough like Texanna that he could pretend. Texanna’s hair had been redder, of course, almost strawberry blond and her eyes had been the bright blue of the Texas wildflower.

He’d never gotten to lay Texanna but he could have this one and get even with these two damned women who fought him off while they opened their legs to a rutting savage. Unbuttoning his pants, he positioned himself between the blonde’s satin thighs and ran his hands over her.
It wasn’t like she was a virgin,
he rationalized as he pulled his manhood from his pants. Besides, if some buck had already been enjoying her, it wasn’t gonna hurt her to give her rescuer a quick sample.

Five minutes was all he needed,
he thought, looking down at her as he ran his hands over her full breasts. Five minutes would ease the ache in his groin that had been hurting ever since he’d seen her, started thinking about Texanna. Jake laughed to himself, thinking what a big joke it would be on her high-class pa if nine months from now, she came up with a white baby and nobody, including herself, could figure out how she’d come by it.

Jake would know, he thought, looking down at the small, port wine stain between his fourth and little finger on his right hand. The Mark of Cain his pa called it, and every Dallinger had it. Yes, if he put a child in her belly, it would have that telltale birthmark. All the Dallingers had marked their children that way for several hundred years now.

He made ready to enter the girl.
Yep, that would be a joke on the rich folks if they had to raise a poor white trash baby.
There was only one thing Jake hated more than Indians and women and that was high-class, snotty men who treated him like dirt. That’s the way Ransford Longworth, Texanna’s brother-in-law had treated him.

He heard a movement in the trees behind him and jerked away just as he was about to rape the girl.

“Dallinger?” the captain called. “Dallinger, where are you? If you’ve got the girl, let’s get out of here!”

Swearing silently, Jake scrambled to his feet, forced his erection back in his pants, buttoning them quickly. Then he jerked the girl’s dress down to cover her ripe body.
He’d have an ache in his groin all the way back to the fort now,
he thought savagely, thinking how good it would have been if he’d just had another five minutes! Hell, he could have done it in three!

“I’m over here, sir!” he called out. “And I got the girl safe and sound! Be right there!”

Regretfully, he swung her up in his arms and kissed her lips. For a long moment, he pretended she was Texanna and frustration and anger overcame him as he looked down at the limp girl. “Missy,” he whispered. “You just barely missed gettin’ ole Jake’s big rod rammed right down your little musket barrel. I kin only hope someday I may get another chance at you, willin’ or unwillin’. If you damned women will let some Injun have you, you deserve to be raped or put to work in a whorehouse!”

With that, he turned, caught the reins, and mounted up, easily swinging the small, limp body up on the saddle before him. Now he rode out to join the troops who were already rounding up most of the big pony herd to take with them.

Smoke rose in a thin column. Tepees burned and the dying moans of men and horses drifted on the suddenly silent air. The high, trilling wail of grieving women started and he smiled in satisfaction.
There’d be a lot of cut legs and shorn hair among the Cheyenne tonight,
he thought, and he wondered suddenly about the big Dog Soldier he had killed.

Damn! That savage had had a knife in his belt that Jake would like to have for a souvenir.
No,
he decided,
what he really wanted was the buck’s hair to make hisself a warrior’s scalp shirt.
He hesitated, thinking about riding back in and taking the warrior’s scalp. And maybe he’d take his heart, too. Some of the plains tribes believed if you ate a brave man’s heart, it made big medicine. He wasn’t sure he believed it, but still . . .
Yep, he’d leave the girl with one of the soldiers and go back for the big Dog Soldier’s scalp and heart.
He imagined lifting it in his bare hands, still warm and bloody from the man’s chest. The idea was almost as exciting as raping the unconscious girl. He’d pretend it was War Bonnet’s.
Damn you, Texanna, what’d you see in that savage anyway?
He gritted his teeth, relishing the thought of eating the bloody Indian heart as he reined his scraggly pony around.

But as he reined around, that snotty pup, Baker, yelled at him. “Hey, where do you think you’re going?”

Jake hesitated. “I forgot something back there—”

“For Christ’s sake, whatever it is, we aren’t going back! We got the girl and that’s what we came for.”

“Yes, sir.” Jake scowled, hating his superior but afraid to dispute him. He could forget about the Indian’s knife and scalp. Although he’d been looking forward to seeing the captain puke in front of all the troopers when Jake came riding back with that bloody heart in his hand.

Yeah, he had enjoyed the morning’s work,
he thought as he glanced back at the burning camp before regretfully rejoining Captain Baker. The Cheyenne were clever all right, he had to hand it to them. If it hadn’t been for Gray Dove, nobody would have known which tribe hit that stagecoach. The raiders had done such a good job leaving Pawnee and Crow lances and arrows around, even Jake had been fooled. That was hard to do when it came to Indians.

Behind him, he could hear the keening trill of the grieving women over their dead. He looked down at the unconscious girl in his arms and smiled with satisfaction and fell in beside the captain in the line of march. The cavalry rode toward the east, driving the big pony herd ahead of them. He hadn’t enjoyed anything so much as he enjoyed this morning since a few days ago when he’d heard about the mistaken raid against Bull Hump’s Comanche down at the springs near Rush Creek. The Second Cavalry from Camp Radzimski led by Captain Van Dorn had attacked the Comanche in a bloody slaughter. An officer from another fort had arranged for them to come in for a peace parlay at the Wichita village but someone forgot to notify Van Dorn and old Sul Ross at the other fort.

Wasn’t that typical of the government,
Jake thought with glee as he rode into the rising melon-colored sun,
never let your left hand know what the right one’s doing.

Wal,
Jake thought as he rode alongside the captain,
the sooner the stupid government quit tryin’ to parlay with Injuns and just went ahead and wiped them out or herded them onto reservations, the better off white folks would be. And Injuns were no better than animals anyway.
His hand went unconsciously to tip his hat back, finger the bald spot in his hair.
Damned Comanche!

The captain looked over at the limp girl in Jake’s arms as they rode along. “Christ! What’s happened? She isn’t dead, is she?”

“Naw, she ain’t dead!” He reassured the officer as they kept their horses in an easy lope toward the east and the new day. “I think she musta fell and hit her head on a rock back at the river. After while, she’ll come to and be grateful as hell to you, Cap’n! Probably gonna give you a big kiss!”

He heard some of the troopers riding behind the pair snicker and had to agree silently. No girl in her right mind would want to kiss the little pimply-faced captain from New York.

“I’m having second thoughts about that raid,” the captain grumbled. “We slaughtered those people like flies! And I didn’t even have permission from the colonel to leave the fort!”

Jake yawned. Discussions about moral issues always bored him. “Gawd Almighty! You only had two men wounded and none killed. I reckon you can always ‘lose’ the report and tell the boys not to talk about it none. That way, nobody will ever really know about it if you was worried about the history books.” He guffawed.

Baker said nothing for a long moment as they rode back toward Fort Smith. “Christ! I may just do that,” he said finally.

It sure didn’t matter to him.
Jake spat lazily as he adjusted the girl’s limp form on the saddle before him. Once when no one was looking, he patted her thigh and then rubbed his hand under one of her full breasts. If she didn’t revive soon, he would get worried he’d hit her too hard. Automatically, one hand went to touch the silver butt of the big whip that was as much a part of his personality as his right arm. When anyone heard that twelve-foot lash snap, they didn’t have to ask why the ox and mule skinners from his home state were called “Georgia Crackers.” Yep, the boys from Georgia could really handle the oxen teams. He was an expert with the deadly lash, able to make it sing harmlessly out over a team of the giant Connestoga covered wagons or cut the eyes out of a man in a fight. He’d done both.

It seemed like an eternity ago now that he’d had to flee Georgia when he was just a young kid. He went to work as a lowly oxen drover on wagon trains moving down the trail known as the Texas Road. He was green and inexperienced, riding point too far out in advance of the train when he’d been ambushed by the Comanche war party. Unconsciously, he reached up to touch the bald, pink scar under his hat. The savages had been in the process of scalping him alive and laughing at his screams when men from the wagon train rode up unexpectedly and rescued him. After that, he never let Indians make the first move. He’d shoot them down like rabid coyotes and then ask questions. Jake had an underlying fear that sometimes gave him nightmares. In them, he was being tortured by Indians, tortured and killed while the warriors laughed.

A couple of years passed. It was the spring of 1832 and he was working as a scout for the wagon trains. But now, he was hard and experienced, one of the best scouts on the trail, everyone said. The Mexicans didn’t want any more Gringos. They were worried too many white immigrants would finally want to govern themselves and break away from Mexico. So the wagon trains had to take a chance on getting caught as they sneaked across Indian Territory into the Mexican holdings. He remembered now it was four years before the Gringos rose up and declared their independence at the Alamo. Yep, he sighed,
1832 was the year he met Texanna, the year the Cheyenne had carried her off. . . .

He was scouting for a train headed to a Texas hill country town called Fandango. The girl with the glimmering red-gold hair, Texanna Heinrich, had been with that train along with her old father and spoiled younger sister. The Heinrich brothers were already in Texas.

The limp girl in his arms moaned and moved a little. Jake studied her face and thought again that there was a slight resemblance between this one and his beloved Texanna.

His emotions were a mix of anger and anguish as he looked down at the girl and remembered another girl, another time and what happened that fateful morning....

The wagon train had already had more than its share of bad luck when, just south of the Red River, their luck ran out completely. It was dawn on the north Texas prairie and the wagons were still circled up. The little group had just finished burying the wagon master, leaving the train without a leader. Jake appointed himself that spot, knowing the immigrants were too afraid of him to argue the point. The people started gathering up to move out.

Jake frowned, remembering. A big Cheyenne war party had crossed their path and surrounded them.

He gritted his teeth even now, remembering the virile, dark warrior on his black and white stallion. The chief looked resplendent in a long feathered bonnet and garish war paint. The braves outnumbered the settlers so they had sent the preacher out to parlay, see what they wanted. The preacher came back pale and shaken and repeated the message: “Send out the girl with the red-gold hair and I will let the rest go on their way unharmed.”

That had started one hell of a fuss,
Jake thought, listening to the scissortail flycatchers in the trees around him as he rode alongside the captain with the unconscious girl cradled in his arms. . . .

Texanna’s mild little father had gasped and exclaimed, “Ach, are you sure, Herr Schmidt? Perhaps you misunderstood what he said! Maybe if we give the savages some food and trinkets—”

“Nein.”
The preacher readjusted his wire-framed spectacles. “Their leader spoke English and he said he wanted the girl for his woman. He mentioned red-gold hair several times.”

“Wal.” Jake pushed his hat back and glared at the magnificent chief waiting just out of rifle shot with his men. “He ain’t gonna get Texanna.”

The preacher nodded, “
Ja,
I told him that; I told him we would fight to the last man.”

One of the other men asked, “Then what’d he say?”

The minister sighed and looked around at the silent women and children of the party. “He said they outnumbered us and if we didn’t give her up, they’d take
all
the women when they’d killed
all
the men.”

Mrs. Johnson started sobbing then. “We’re all going to be killed! We’re all going to be killed!”

Hands on her hips, Texanna looked out toward the Indians with a defiant shake of her head. “The colossal nerve of the man! You’d think he was bartering for a bracelet or some such bauble.”

Her father, the frail little tailor, looked around the circle of silent faces desperately. “You can’t expect me to hand over one of my daughters to satisfy barbaric lust!”

Jake stepped in, took charge. “That savage bastard ain’t gonna get her.” He glanced over at Texanna’s lovely, troubled face. When the train got to Fandango, he intended to marry her himself although she’d told him she wouldn’t have him.

There was a chorus of frightened voices. “What are we going to do? Shall we fight? Can we give them horses or something to make them go away?”

“Shut up, everyone!” Jake shouted, gesturing. “Looks like we only got two choices: we can fight and we’re outnumbered, or we can give them a woman—”

Old man Heinrich protested again. “Not my Texanna!”

“I tole you it wasn’t gonna be Texanna!” He scratched his beard thoughtfully. “This is sort of like being in an overcrowded lifeboat. We got to sacrifice somebody so the rest can live.”

The immigrants nodded slowly. They understood this talk of ships. Most of them were fresh off the boat.

But the minister took off his glasses and stared at Jake. “This whole thing is immoral. I don’t think—”

“Gawd Almighty!” Jake swore and the man hesitated, backed away. “You can talk about right or wrong all you want, preacher, but the fact is, it’s either one sacrificed or they kill all the men and take every one of you women!”

The women shivered and looked uncertainly at each other.

Jake leaned over, began to pull dry grass stems. “That ruttin’ Injun don’t know one white woman from another. All he can think of is creamy pale titties! We’re gonna have us a little drawin’ here, and every woman but Texanna will draw! Whoever gets the short straw gives herself up to that chief—”

“But the chief was adamant,” the minister protested. “He said over and over, ‘the one with the red-gold hair’!”

Mrs. Johnson ceased sobbing and wiped her eyes. “If the Injun wants Texanna, she’s the one we should send—”

Jake glared at the woman. “It ain’t gonna be Texanna.”

Texanna drew herself up proudly. “It isn’t going to be anyone. We’re not animals here. We’ll fight rather than hand over a hostage.”

“Of course you’d say that.” Mrs. Olsen sniffed disdainfully. “Since he wants us to send you out!”

“We ain’t givin’ him Texanna,” Jake said, and his tone was cold and ugly. He put his hand on his pistol and glared into each face. “If we got to send one with light hair, we’ll send Mrs. Olsen or Carolina Heinrich.”

Both those women broke into hysterical sobbing and Joe Olsen pushed to the front of the crowd. “You can’t send my Hilda, we got two small children.”

Herr Heinrich faced up to the man. “Your wife’s got no more right than my Carolina.”

Jake pulled out his pistol. “What I say goes. Anybody don’t agree with me is gonna get a taste of this gun rammed down his throat or my whip on his back. I say all the women draw straws except Texanna—”

“That’s not fair, Jake.” Texanna’s bright blue eyes flashed. “I’ll draw along with the rest of the ladies, but don’t put my little sister Carolina in the hat, she’s only fourteen—”

“But my wife has two kids,” Joe Olsen protested. “How am I supposed to raise two little kids without a mama to cook and wash for all of us?”

“My wife shouldn’t be included, either,” someone else shouted. “She’s in the family way and it ain’t fair!”

Mrs. Schmidt, the pastor’s wife, stepped forward, her lips trembling. “I—I’ll go myself rather than send one of these others.”

“No!” the preacher exclaimed. “Not you—”

“Well,” exploded Mr. Olsen. “If not her? Who?”

The whole group acted like a pack of fighting hounds.
Jake remembered now as he rode along toward Fort Smith. Everyone wanted some other woman to go. While they were arguing and exchanging blows over who they’d force to be the sacrifice, brave Texanna slipped away from the train and started walking across the prairie toward the war party. She’d decided to give herself to save the others.

As long as he lived, he would never forget that scene; how courageous and alone she had looked walking through the bluebonnets from the wagon train to the Indian war party. He screamed at her, tried to get her to come back, told her he’d force someone else to go. But she only gave him that serene; brave look and walked on. She was too far from the wagons by then to risk running out to grab her. He saw the chief look down at her, offer his hand. She took it and he lifted her up on the saddle of the big black and white paint stallion ahead of him. The sunlight glinted on her hair as the war party turned and galloped away toward the north....

Jake swallowed hard, remembering. The settlers thought her dead after that, of course, and they talked about what a heroine she was. When they got to the new town site, the people built and named a school in her honor. Then, years later, Texanna returned. The Texas Rangers had brought her back by mistake, thinking they’d found the missing Cynthia Ann Parker who’d been carried off by the Comanche.

Even now, he could remember riding like hell to get there when he’d heard she was being brought back. And he also remembered his disgust and the town’s horror that their saintly dead heroine was not only alive, but had a half-breed kid and a swollen belly. That gave evidence that she’d let herself be taken by a savage instead of killing herself like she was expected to do.