Cheyenne Captive (37 page)

But she didn’t stop screaming. Pa hit her to shut her up and her head snapped back. Her skull must have hit the sharp edge of the heavy wood bedstead. Jake lifted her, looked back at the blood on the bed, and then felt it on his hands. “Gawd Almighty, Pa, you’ve killed her! You’ve killed Ma!”

His father sagged a little, all the color draining from his face. “I never meant to hurt either of them,” he said tonelessly. “I only came to fetch her home. But Junior St. Clair said everyone knew, and he laughed! He laughed! If only she hadn’t screamed—”

“We can’t worry about what’s past, Pa!” Jake laid the nude, limp body back across the bed with a sigh. “We’ll have to get out of here before they come back from sellin’ that slave girl.”

“You? You don’t have to run, you didn’t do nothin’!”

Jake shook his head. “You think them men will believe that? They’ll be lookin’ for both of us, Pa! We got to get out of here!”

But the other still stood and looked in shock at the pretty, nude body. “I was crazy about her,” he whispered. “If only Junior St. Clair hadn’t laughed—”

Jake grabbed the man and shook him roughly. “Snap out of it, Pa! We can’t worry about none of that now! The St. Clairs is the richest, most powerful family in Georgia! Our lives ain’t worth spit if we don’t clear outa this whole state!”

“You’re right, son. We’d better each go a different direction so’s they will have a hard time trackin’ us! I’m gonna take my own chances in the swamp! I know it purty well and it’s hard for dogs to track a man through there!”

Jake remembered his own terror even now. “Gawd Almighty, Pa! You ain’t gonna try to make it across the Okefenokee! Iffen the quicksand don’t get you, the alligators and the water moccasin snakes will!”

“I don’t got much choice with the reward old St. Clair will be offerin’ for my hide! You head out west, boy, and if I make it, our paths will cross again sometime!”

Jake nodded, sensing he was seeing his father for the very last time.

Pa turned toward the bed and there were tears in his eyes. “Always remember, boy, a woman caused this! They’re all like that, lettin’ any man hump ’em that has a little gold or pretties to give’em. Remember, all women is whores at heart so just use ’em when you feel the urge and toss ‘em aside! And treat every man like he’s gonna cheat you or try to kill you ’cause most of ’em will. If you’ll remember all that, Jake, you’ll survive in this dog-eat-dog world!”

They’d separated then and Jake blinked back tears as he left the house, thinking of his ma. But he had no time for sadness as he fled for his life. With only his whip and the gold St. Clair had given him, he’d made a run for the wilderness and found himself a job as a drover with a bunch leading wagon trains to Texas.

Pa never made it across the swamp. Jake wasn’t out of the state yet when he heard folks talking about that poor white trash fellow who’d been lost in the trackless Okefenokee. It seemed St. Clair’s hounds lost track of him on the edge of a deep, slimy pool of quicksand that seemed almost bottomless.

How many years ago had that happened? Twenty-eight? Thirty? He tried to figure as the girl in his arms moaned a little and brought him back to the present. He’d taken Pa’s advice and lived as ruthless and cunning as any predatory animal. He asked no quarter and gave none. And he treated all women like whores because in his heart he was sure they were. Only Texanna had made him think of marriage and in the end she was no better than the others. She’d turned him, a white man, down, while willingly spreading her legs for that savage chief.

The blond girl in his arms stirred a little and her long lashes flickered uncertainly. “Hey, Cap’n Baker,” Jake said. “The lady’s finally beginnin’ to come to!”

“About time! I was beginning to worry!” The captain rode over and peered down anxiously at the semi-conscious girl. “By the way, Dallinger, what about the reward money? What happened to the Indian girl?”

Jake took one last drag on the cigar and tossed it away. “Gray Dove?” He shrugged. “Who knows? Like I tole you before, it was smarter to trail her back to that camp than to trust her to bring the girl to us like she promised. Them Injuns might have decided to move the camp too fast or Gray Dove might have decided to double-cross us. Anyway, I figure I’m entitled to the reward money now.”

“You mean,
we’re
entitled to the reward money,” the captain said. “I figure I should get half.”

“Anything you say, sir.” Jake gritted his teeth, knowing better than to argue the point.
They was all the same,
he thought,
all them high-class, uppity folks like the St. Clairs who wanted to make it miserable and stomp all over poor folks.
“I would like to have one special horse outa that Injun pony herd.” He smiled humbly at the officer. “Iffen you don’t mind, sir, I’d be mighty obliged iffen you was to give me that strange-colored stallion.”

The boy picked at his face absently. “You mean that bay with the funny white blanket rump with the red spots?”

“That’s the one! I never seen a horse colored like that before and I’m hankerin’ to own it.”

The captain laughed good-naturedly. “Christ! Why not? Nobody but an expert tracker like you could have followed Gray Dove back to that camp.”

The girl in Jake’s arms moaned and her eyelids fluttered. “She’s comin’ around, sir. Maybe we should stop and rest the horses anyways. That was shore some big buck I killed.”

“The one with the earring? Strange, it looked almost like a cavalry uniform button.”

“Yeah, that’s the one, the big Dog Soldier! Did you ever see so much blood when he went down?”

The girl jerked suddenly in his arms and said something unintelligible.

Jake reined in his horse and spoke respectfully as he had learned to do to survive among his betters. “You’re okay now, miss, you done been rescued!”

She looked up at him with those great blue eyes and he saw both hate and fear there.
I shoulda humbled you, you sassy little bitch,
he thought,
if I’d just had two more minutes there by the river . . .

Gawd Almighty! It was a long way back to Fort Smith,
he thought as the troop pulled up for a rest. He’d like some sour mash whiskey, but right now just a cup of coffee would taste mighty good with a cigar!

Summer came back to consciousness gradually, her head aching. Her mind was alert several minutes before she stirred and she listened to the conversation, dimly aware she was being held by someone on horseback. The words were English, not Cheyenne, and her ears picked up two accents, one ignorant Southern, the other a high-pitched Northern voice.

The smell of the man who held her assailed her nostrils as her face pressed into his dirty fur vest and she couldn’t imagine how she got here. The last thing she remembered was walking down to the river to fill her water skins. Then someone had grabbed her and clasped a hand over her mouth to stop her from screaming out a warning. Somehow, it seemed a long time had passed since then.

Warily, she opened one eye and looked up at the man who held her and the blue sky past his shoulder.
Yes,
she decided,
this was the man she’d fought with on the riverbank.
She thought she recognized the other voice, too. There had been an officer at the river. She remembered that they had talked about Gray Dove as she struggled to break free.
Gray Dove.
She tried to make her mind stop whirling.
Gray Dove had betrayed her and brought the army down on the Cheyenne camp.

Stubbornly, she tried to open her eyes again and make them focus. She stared at the man’s hand, a large, dirty hand with a small birthmark between the fingers. Her head ached and her mouth tasted very dry. What was it the men were saying?

That was shore some fight today . . . did you see that one big buck I shot . . . the one with the earring. Strange, it almost looked like a cavalry uniform button. . . .

They couldn’t be speaking of Iron Knife! Her dazed mind couldn’t unscramble the jumble of words that made no sense to her. The man who held her spoke to her and she tried to protest the logic and the reality of his words that echoed through her brain:
Did you see that one big buck I shot ... the one with the earring . . .

It was all some horrible dream,
Summer thought. Any minute now she would awaken safe in her lover’s arms by the fire pit of their tepee. But first, she would have to erase all those terrible words and images before she could awaken snug by his side. She who was so strong-willed, willed herself to faint back into unconsciousness again so she could wipe out the nightmare.

Summer knew a long time had passed as the horses reined up and the big man who held her dismounted and lifted her off his horse. As he seemed to realize she was fully conscious, he stood her on her feet and held her up as she swayed.

Abruptly, all her senses came alive, her head cleared. She realized she stood on the parade ground of a fort, surrounded by dismounting cavalry soldiers. Now she knew that this was reality and she couldn’t creep back into the blackness and pretend it was all a bad dream. Looking around, she saw her plump Irish maid and her stooped, gaunt Uncle Harlow rushing across the parade grounds toward her.

Anger swept her and she turned on the big man in a fury of small fists and sharp nails, screaming curses at him she didn’t even know she knew.

His small, mean eyes widened in astonishment as he threw up his powerful arms to protect his bearded face. “Gawd Almighty, mah’m! I don’t understand what’s ailin’ you—”

“You’ve killed him!” She screamed, attacking him with her fists. “You’ve killed him!” But her words all ran together in a high, unintelligible wail.

The young captain’s eyes widened with shock as he grabbed her flailing arms. In a frenzy, she attacked him, too, leaving bloody scratches down his pitted face.

“Christ! What on earth is happening?”

The big man tried to help the captain hold her as she struggled and fought. “You better send for the post doctor, sir! The lady’s been under a terrible strain!”

She would always remember the astonished faces of the troopers around her and Mrs. O’Malley wringing her plump hands helplessly.

“May the saints preserve us!” The Irish brogue stood out among the other voices. “What on earth—?”

Summer tried to tell the maid what was wrong but realized that it all ran together in hysterical screaming. She looked into the dour, disapproving face of her uncle and saw him tap his head as a signal to the red-faced doctor who ran puffing with his little bag.

The memory came back with crystal clairty of what Iron Knife had told her of his mother’s ordeal when she tried to return to the Indians.
An asylum,
she thought with a chill.
If I’m not careful, they might lock me away in an insane asylum.
With that thought, she quit fighting and collapsed.

She was only dimly aware of anything that happened the next several days except that the fat doctor came and went. Someone returned her locket to her with the chain repaired. Around her, everyone seemed to be making preparations for her return to Boston and no one asked her what she wanted to do, which, of course, was go back to Iron Knife.

No, she couldn’t do that.
The thought came back to her troubled mind. He was dead as were many of the others among the Cheyenne she had known and loved. So when no one watched her, she hid her face and wept in deepest grief.

Now there seemed to be immediate plans to leave and the gray-haired Irish maid attempted to dress her in strange, uncomfortable clothes.

“But these aren’t mine!” Summer protested as the woman laced her into a tight corset that narrowed her waist and made her gasp for breath. “My dress is deerskin with lazy stitch work of pony beads.”

The short woman looked at her with kind, watery eyes. “Don’t you remember, Lamb? You left these clothes behind when you fled the hotel.”

Yes, that was right, wasn’t it?
For a moment, she had been confused as to her identity. She had almost begun to think of herself as someone else. But who?

The maid’s double chins waggled as she slipped the long, full dress over Summer’s head and put tiny, handmade shoes on her that pinched her feet.
These couldn’t be hers.
Hers were soft, comfortable moccasins.
But no,
she reasoned,
the moccasins belonged to that other girl and she didn’t exist anymore. Maybe she had never existed except as a forlorn hope in Iron Knife’s mind.

Uncle Jack Harlow came to escort her and Mrs. O’Malley to the stage that would connect with the eastbound train at St. Joe. She sat in the stage unmoving as her uncle leaned over to give her a dry peck on the cheek. Summer thought that his black suit smelled like a musty closet that was seldom opened.

“Remember me to your father,” Uncle Jack said stiffly, “and pray that you will conquer this terrible sin of being so stubborn and headstrong that caused God to bring all this trouble and woe upon you.”

She looked into his dour face, too saddened and burdened with grief to retort with her usual fire and spirit, but she did her best just as the stage pulled away.

“Uncle Jack?”

“Yes, my dear?”

“Go to hell!”

The memory of his shocked face and his mouth hanging open made her laugh for the first time in days as the stage pulled out and she heard the Irish maid muffle a delighted giggle.

On the train headed east, she brought the image to her mind again and again to hearten her, for the only other thing to do was watch Mrs. O’Malley’s short fingers knit endlessly. Summer stared at her own tired reflection in the window glass for hours while the wheels clicked out a rhythm that said over and over:
Who are you . . . ? Who are you . . . ? Who are you? Are you? You? You?

She was Summer Priscilla Van Schuyler, of course.
The thought came to her as she and the Irish maid stood forlornly at the Boston station in a pouring rain waiting for someone to meet them. Her dark blue print dress made her feel morose.

“Sis! Hey, Sis!”

Summer looked around the station to see her blond twin brother fighting his way through the crowds to reach her.

“Oh, David! I’m so glad to see you again!” They fell into each other’s arms, both talking excitedly at once while the maid tried to get a word in.

“Are you well, Sis?”

“Of course! And you? How is Harvard and are you still painting?”

David hugged her to him, his sensitive face alive with feeling. “One question at a time!” He laughed. “Harvard and I are not getting on too well, I’m afraid. And yes, I’m still painting but on the sly! You know what Father thinks of such useless frivolity. Mrs. O’Malley!” He embraced the chunky woman. “Good to see you, too! Mother has been worried sick about you! Did you have a good trip?”

“Aye! And ’tis glad I am to be back to civilization.” She adjusted her bonnet which David had knocked slightly askew with his enthusiastic embrace.

Flannigan, the bulbous-nosed family coachman, arrived on the scene, nodded politely to the ladies, and attended to the luggage.

In the carriage, Summer tried her best to be cheerful for David’s sake, but the cold, rainy gloom of the crowded city depressed her as the horses clopped along.

“Well!” she exclaimed a little too brightly. “How is everyone? Why didn’t anyone else come to the station to meet us?”

David looked embarrassed as he glanced over at the Irish maid who had pulled out her knitting. “Frankly.” He hesitated. “Father seemed afraid to come, afraid the reporters would hear of it and do a big story about your return. I think he hopes no one in town will even remember you were gone. You know how important appearances are to him. Besides, he was busy with his many business appointments, as usual.”

“Of course.” Summer tried not to sound bitter but there had never been much love lost between her and her father. He wanted everyone to do exactly as they were told without question and Summer couldn’t or wouldn’t do that. This was one more small way of punishing her for daring to cross him in the first place. “And Angela?”

“Our spoiled baby sister is now in Miss Priddy’s Academy. She’s in class today as they struggle to turn the brat into a well-mannered young lady.” David shrugged as the carriage rolled through the narrow, twisted streets. “It does amaze me how Father dotes on her and thinks she can do no wrong while neither you nor I ever seem to do anything right!”

“I don’t know why it should amaze you,” Summer replied shortly. “Everything about Angela is a mirror image of Father and you know how much he thinks of himself.”

“Now, now, you two.” Mrs. O’Malley’s double chins waggled disapprovingly. “You’re both behavin’ like two jealous cats. Young Miss Angela may not ever be the popular belle you was, Miss Summer, but she will be a great beauty someday and make her father proud.”

“You’re probably right,” Summer said grudgingly. “I’m not usually so mean-minded. Speaking of cats, David, does she still have that monster?”

“Coaldust?” The slim, blond boy nodded. “I’m sorry to say that black tomcat is more a companion to her than either of our parents. I’m away at Harvard, of course, and Father has his business, and Mother . . . Well, you know about Mother.”

Summer sighed audibly. “I had hoped she might be better and would come to the station to meet me.” She stared out the carriage window at the old North Church tower of Paul Revere fame as the carriage drove toward the family estate.

“Saints preserve us!” The Irish maid looked at David over her knitting. “I had hoped your dear mother might have improved some while we were stranded in that wild, heathen place.”

David didn’t answer and Summer felt the crushing sadness of reality like a weight on her heart. She herself was a strong person and would finally come to grips with the reality of her lover’s death. But whatever it was in Priscilla Van Schuyler’s past that grieved her only seemed to make her flee deeper into the haunted maze of sherry and that new opium derivative called laudanum. All the society doctors were prescribing it for that nebulous condition called “nerves.”

Mother had not yet lost complete contact with reality but she seemed to be attempting such. How often Summer remembered now had she seen Mother sitting in her rose garden, staring into space at ghosts only she seemed to see or seated before the fire looking into the flames for hours as she drank.

The carriage rolled through the big estate gates and Summer became even more depressed as they stopped out front. Father had built the house as a display of wealth when Summer was a small child and it was a grandiose mansion in the style known as Gothic Revival. But as Flannigan helped her out and she looked up at the cupolas and turrets, she knew she would always think of the fashion as Ugly Victorian. The chill, early November gloom encased the large home like a wet shroud.

Evans, the British butler, took David and Summer’s wraps and welcomed them with stiff formality. The entry hall was as cold and cheerless as it had been in memory.

“Well!” David said too brightly, rubbing his hands together. “Does it look like you remember it?”

“Yes, it’s exactly as I remember.” She sighed, breathing in the musty, decayed smell. Could she ever have forgotten the dark, ornate furnishings, the heavy drapes, and murky oil paintings? Bric-a-brac seemed to be everywhere and large, Oriental rugs lay faded on dark walnut floors.

Her thoughts went unbidden to a simple, cheery tepee with a warm fire pit and only a few buffalo robes and willow backrests for furniture.

Tears came to her eyes at the thought and she blinked them back. “I—I’m tired, David. It’s been a long trip. If you don’t mind, I’ll go to my room and see everyone at dinner.”

“Of course!” Her twin sounded puzzled but he had always been so understanding and sensitive to others. “I’ll help Flannigan see to your luggage.”

Quickly, Summer turned to the maid who had just shaken the rain from her bonnet and cloak. “Mrs. O’Malley, I know you’re eager to see Mother and your friends. I can manage just fine for a while.”

“Well, I don’t know, Lamb. It’s me duty to shake the wrinkles out of your clothes and all—”

“No.” She wanted desperately to be alone for a while. “No, you go along,” Summer insisted as she started up the ornate curved stairway. “I think I’ll nap a while.”