Chieftain (Historical Romance) (4 page)

His jaw clenched tight, Shanaco cursed the fates that had put this beautiful red-haired woman here on the reservation where he couldn’t talk to her, much less hold her in his arms. Another time, another place, it would have been different. He would have seen to that. Had he been home at his New Mexico ranch when he saw her running across a meadow, he wouldn’t have hesitated. He’d have gone after her. He would have stopped her, made her tell him her name. Made her…

Shanaco
needed a drink.

He headed for the civilian village bordering the fort. He had learned that there was whiskey to be had in the back rooms of some of the businesses. Not that the white proprietors liked serving him, but he didn’t give a damn.

His money was as good as the next man’s.

The village streets were almost deserted.

Shanaco was dismounting before the general mercantile store when he heard someone say his name.

“Shanaco,” Double Jimmy called out.

Shanaco turned and saw the Indian agent hurrying up the wooden sidewalk.

“Double Jimmy,” Shanaco acknowledged.

“Been looking for you, Chief,” Double Jimmy said, and smiled.

“You have found me.”

“So I have. So I have. I wanted to tell you that I’ve arranged a meeting. You, me, Colonel Harkins and Major Miles Courteen, the second in command. Tomorrow afternoon. Is that satisfactory?”

“It is,” Shanaco replied. Then, after only a brief exchange of pleasantries, he said, “I took a ride this afternoon, went down to the south part of the res. A young woman with blazing hair ran barefoot across a meadow with a big wolfhound dog racing after her.” He paused, glanced away, then asked, as casually as possible, “Any idea who she is?”

Double
Jimmy laughed, knowing immediately who Shanaco was talking about. “Red hair? Barefoot? Silver-furred dog? That could only be Maggie. Pretty Maggie Bankhead and her dog, Pistol.”

Shanaco kept his voice low, level, when he asked, “She one of the officer’s wives?”

“Maggie? Lord, no. Maggie Bankhead is a
miss.
And, she says she fully intends to stay one.” He laughed again before adding, “Maggie is a well-bred but fiercely independent Virginia girl who is like a daughter to me. Been good friends with her parents for years. Why, I’m the one responsible for Maggie coming out West. You met her, did you?”

“No. I didn’t meet her.” Shanaco shrugged. Then he said, “What’s she doing here at the fort if she’s not married to one of the soldiers?”

“She’s the reservation teacher. Maggie teaches English to Indian children. Well, not just the children. Anyone who cares to learn.”

“W
e
won’t be seen,” he whispered hoarsely, and deftly flipped open the buttons going down her tight bodice.

“But it’s a lazy Sunday afternoon,” she protested mildly. “Someone might ride out this way.” She didn’t lift a hand to stop him.

“They’ll see nothing but a buggy parked beneath a shade tree,” he said.

“Suppose they get curious?” she asked. “Come out here and look inside?”

“Since when are you afraid to take a little chance?” teased Captain Daniel Wilde, lowering his head to Lois Harkins’s open bodice and anxiously pressing his hot face against her soft flesh.

Lois giggled then. She stroked the back of Daniel Wilde’s blond head while he eagerly pressed wet kisses to the swell of her pale breasts.

“I swear, Danny, you are just too naughty for words.” Lois giggled again.

“You don’t fool me, Lois Harkins,” Wilde gently accused. “You want it as much as I do. You want it here and now and half the pleasure for you is the danger of getting caught. Isn’t it?” Smiling, Lois nodded in agreement. She pushed his face up, reached between them, yanked at her lace-trimmed chemise. When she’d totally freed a full, soft breast from its satin confines, she drew him back to her and reminisced, “Remember that first time we made love, Danny?”

“How
could I forget?” he mumbled, kissing the exposed nipple as he reached down and lifted her billowing skirts.

“It was my first night at the fort,” Lois whispered. “Father invited you and two other officers—Lieutenant Payne and Lieutenant Vane, I believe—to our residence for dinner.”

“I remember,” Wilde said with a laugh, raising his head to gaze fondly at her.

“He told me that you were his trusted aide-de-camp and that he thought the world of you.”

“And I him,” said Wilde, and they both laughed.

“Do you recall what happened once dinner was over and father asked you three gentlemen to join him on the porch for cigars and brandy?”

“I declined, because you requested that I stay and keep you company.” His grin was wicked and his eyes gleamed. “While the colonel and the others were outside having their after-dinner cigars and brandy, I was inside having you.”

Lois squealed with laughter. “I’ll never forget the look on your face when—midway through the meal—I reached under the table and casually put my hand on your groin. Aren’t I a witch?”

“A beautiful
witch,” he good-naturedly retorted. “God Almighty, there I was seated at the table with my commanding officer who happens to be your father. Making conversation. Enjoying my dinner. Behaving the polite dinner guest.” Wilde paused, ran a warm hand up the inside of Lois’s stockinged leg, and added, “While beneath the table you were coaxing me into a full-blown erection.”

“Ah, you were so easy,” she said with a half-petulant sigh. “When father introduced us, I knew that I could have you. That I would have you that very evening.”

As if she hadn’t spoken, he went on, “I was forced to sit there for a good half hour pretending that I wasn’t in agony.”

“You coward, you wouldn’t even look at me.”

“Coward? Hardly. Would a coward have made love to you right there at the dining table?”

“I guess not,” Lois murmured as Wilde’s hand grew bolder, moving higher, stroking a bare thigh. She wore no underwear beneath her full skirts.

Lois would never forget the night they met. It had been such fun, so exciting. She had arrived at the fort that very afternoon. At her father’s invitation, the three young officers had come for dinner. She had examined each and quickly decided that the blond, attractive Daniel Wilde was the one.

At least for now.

She had not
been in the least deterred when, introducing him, her father had mentioned that Captain Wilde had a lovely wife and two young children down in Texas.

When they went in to dinner, Captain Wilde had pulled out a chair for her, then taken the one to her left. Halfway through the main course, she had lowered her left hand to her lap. Seconds later, she had moved that hand to
his
lap.

Wilde had winced in surprise and everyone—including her—had given him a questioning look. His face flushed, eyes wide, he had quickly raised his napkin to his mouth and pretended to cough.

When he’d calmed a little, she had begun to stroke and mold him through his tight blue uniform trousers. Throughout she had continued to laugh and talk and enjoy the meal. Poor Daniel had hardly touched his food.

When at last her father had invited the young officers outside to smoke their cigars, Wilde was in a fix. He’d no choice but to stay behind.

“Stay and keep me company, Captain Wilde,” she had said, and he had, with her father’s smiling approval.

The others were hardly out the door before she leaned close and commanded Daniel Wilde to push his chair back from the table. He did and she ordered him to “unbutton your trousers and take it out. I want it and you must give it to me.” He had anxiously obeyed. Her heart fluttering with excitement and anticipation, she had tossed her napkin on the table, risen to her feet, stuck her fingers down into her half-full wineglass and spread the port up and down his throbbing length.

Then quick as
a wink she had lifted her skirts—underneath which she was bare—climbed astride the highly aroused Captain Wilde, slipped easily down onto him and laughingly demanded that he give her the best he had.

He did.

Oh, it had been so incredibly exciting to make wild, wanton love there in the candlelit dining room with her unsuspecting father and the other young officers right outside on the moonlit porch. She could hear the male voices lifting and lowering and knew that at any moment they might come back in and catch her furiously riding her new blond lover.

That very real possibility had made the fast, frantic coupling all the more exciting. If they had been caught, she would have been packed off to Europe to join the cold, uncaring mother she truly disliked, and poor Captain Wilde’s military career would be over.

The danger had been downright delicious.

Lois was snapped back to the present when Wilde abruptly lowered her skirts and said, his forehead wrinkling, “Jesus, I hear a dog barking!”

“So? You said yourself if anyone happened by they would see only the parked carriage. They’ll just suppose that we’ve gone for a walk. Everyone knows that you and I are out for a ride this afternoon with my father’s blessing.”

It was
true.

They had waved to several acquaintances on their way out of the fort. Lois was clever. She knew how to take full advantage of any opportunity.

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon, but her father was tied up with the fort’s Indian agent. She had interrupted the two and complained that she was “bored to tears.” The colonel understood and sympathized and suggested she go for a walk. He said he would enlist his aide-de-camp to escort her so that she would be safe. She promptly told her father that she had a better idea; she would like to take a nice, long carriage ride. It was such a warm, lovely day and she really hadn’t seen much of the fort. Her indulgent father had quickly agreed.

And now she and her lover were at the far southern edge of the big reservation, enjoying the warm, still day.

“That barking dog is getting closer,” said Wilde nervously.

Lois laughed off his concern. She lifted her skirts back up and provocatively parted her legs. Then she looked into Daniel Wilde’s eyes and commanded, “Take me, Danny. Take me now, lest I change my mind.”

Wilde nodded and fumbled anxiously with the buttons of his trousers. Lois laughed and helped him. When he moved between her spread legs, he murmured, “Lois, Lois, you thrill me like no woman ever has.”

“Even more
than your little wife down in Texas?” she taunted.

“More than any other woman.”

“That’s so sweet,” she whispered, then softly sighed, wishing that he thrilled her more than any other man.

He didn’t.

At first he had excited her. But their relationship was rapidly growing stale. Lately there were occasions when Danny was thrusting into her and grunting with exertion that she had to stifle a yawn of sheer boredom. Their lovemaking had taken on a too familiar pattern. She easily anticipated every move before it was made. He was not particularly imaginative.

“Lois, my love, yes, yes.” He was panting hard as he hammered into her.

He was, she knew, already on the verge of climax. How predictable. How tiresome. How disappointing. She wanted more than he was capable of giving. She wanted a powerful but controlled lover who could hold an erection until she had tired of playing.

The handsome, half-naked Shanaco instantly flashed into her mind. Lois closed her eyes and envisioned the dangerous, copper-skinned Comanche chieftain taking her. Forcing her to be his sexual captive. Keeping her locked up and naked. Making fierce animal love to her hour upon hour.

“Aah!” Daniel Wilde groaned out his release.

Lois sighed
with disgust.

And Maggie Bankhead, out for a romp with her dog on this warm Sunday afternoon, topped a rise, saw a parked carriage rocking violently and heard a man moan loudly as if in pain.

“Shh!” she warned Pistol, snapping her fingers to keep him silent. Puzzled at first, then horrified as she recognized the buggy and the terrible truth dawned, Maggie spun about and raced back the way she had come, desperate to get away, to not be seen or heard.

For a half mile, Maggie, barefoot, ran as fast as her weak legs would carry her. Soon she got a painful stitch in her side and had to stop and catch her breath. Hands clasping her side, she frowned with dismay. Now she was certain of what she had only suspected before.

Lois Harkins was having an illicit affair with the very married Captain Daniel Wilde!

I
n the cool
gray of the breaking October dawn, a solitary soldier came out of the silent, darkened barracks.

Brass bugle tucked under his arm, campaign hat on his head, uniform neatly pressed, the young trooper yawned, then stepped down off the barracks porch and into the empty quad.

He turned and headed in a northwesterly direction, passing the rows of darkened sandstone troopers’ barracks. Opposite the barracks, directly across the wide quadrangle, was officers row. In the center of the line of the officers’ quarters stood the commanding officer’s residence.

At the southernmost end of the parade ground were the administration, quartermaster and clerk’s offices. And, set alone and apart from the offices but bordering the parade ground, was the one-room schoolhouse.

The various buildings formed a rectangle around the fort’s large parade ground, where, at the center, a flagpole rose to meet the Oklahoma sky.

Behind the enlisted-mens’ barracks was the school-teacher’s cottage. The bakery. The regimental hospital. The post surgeon’s residence. The chapel. The mess hall. The ordnance, quartermaster and commissary warehouses. In back of the warehouses was “Suds Row,” where the laundresses were quartered.

Farther on out
were the stables. A big hay field. A well-tended garden patch that supplied fresh fruits and vegetables to the troops and the officers’ wives. Many of those wives could frequently be seen out in the garden, hoe in hand, bonnet on head, weeding the various vines. Or, down on their knees, skirts ballooning, basket over one arm, picking produce.

Directly outside the fort was a growing civilian community. A general mercantile store that doubled as the stage station. A tailor shop. A blacksmith. An apothecary. A card-and-billards parlor. An undertaker.

No saloons.

Saloons were strictly against government policy on a reservation. But liquor was readily available nonetheless, no matter how hard the Indian agent, Double Jimmy, and the army tried to put a stop to its flow.

In a couple of back rooms in the false-fronted businesses lining the wooden sidewalks, shot glasses of whiskey were served to paying patrons on makeshift rough plank bars that could be easily dismantled and hidden away at the drop of a hat.

Drunkenness was not all that uncommon. Occasionally there were knife fights and shootings, usually involving the shiftless, ne’er-do-well white troublemakers who hung around the fort.

East of the
fort were the buildings of the Comanche-Kiowa Indian agency. Double Jimmy lived there in a small two-room cottage. Similar dwellings housed other agency employees. Near the modest residences were a corn grinder, a sawmill and an Indian goods warehouse.

Still farther out and stretching in every direction as far as the eye could see were the conical buffalo-hide tepees of the reservation tribes.

On this very early Monday morning, the fort, the civilian community, the agency and the vast reservation were all quiet. Everyone was sleeping.

Private Preston Calame, bugle in hand, stepped into position beneath the parade ground’s flagpole. He licked his dry lips, drew a long, deep breath, raised the bugle to his mouth and blew the rousing notes of reveille.

The fort was bugle-blasted to life.

Maggie’s eyes flew open after the first couple of notes from Private Calame’s horn. Her cottage, just around the corner of the bakery, was near the parade ground. Pistol, dozing before the door, instantly awakened, jumped up and barked a cheerful good morning to his sleepy mistress.

“Be quiet!” Maggie scolded, then groaned and snuggled farther down into the warm bedcovers. She closed her eyes and sighed. Then yelped and sat up straight when Pistol raced across the room, leapt onto the bed and made himself comfortable, placing his head on her stomach. Maggie laughed and affectionately rubbed him behind his left ear. Pistol growled his pleasure. “Okay, boy,” she soon said. “Get down now and I’ll let you out.”

Pistol
barked, jumped off the bed and beat Maggie to the door. When she opened it a crack, he shot out, a streak of silver disappearing into the dawn darkness. Maggie called after him, “You be right here on the porch waiting for me in an hour, you hear?”

Maggie closed the door and shivered. The early mornings were getting chilly. She considered building a fire in the grate, but soon dismissed the idea. When the sun came up, the cottage would quickly warm. Until then she would just get back in bed.

Maggie crawled between the covers, turned onto her side, folded her hands beneath her cheek and closed her eyes. And frowned, troubled. She could not forget seeing Harkins’s parked carriage shaking and bouncing and creaking in yesterday afternoon’s brilliant sunshine. Nor the unsettling sounds of a woman’s sighing shrieks and a man’s deep groans coming from inside the jolting, jiggling buggy.

Half the population of the fort had seen Captain Daniel Wilde and Lois Harkins set out together for a seemingly innocent Sunday drive. Poor naive Colonel Harkins; foolishly supposing that he could trust his hand-picked aide-de-camp to look after his only daughter.

Maggie wondered if anyone else knew about the pair’s shameful indiscretion. She didn’t think so. She sure wouldn’t tell anyone. Maggie prided herself on not being a gossip. She never spread rumors. She paid little attention to those she heard. She disliked women who tattled and talked unkindly about others, saying hurtful, harmful things even when they had no proof.

Maggie rolled
onto her back, raised her arms and folded them beneath her head. Her brows knitted and she exhaled heavily. She should, she knew, keep the whole tawdry affair to herself. Tell no one. That’s what she had to do. But how could she possibly keep it from Katie?

An officer’s wife and Maggie’s dearest female friend, Katie Atwood was tiny, attractive, talkative and a totally likable young woman who loved her husband passionately and enjoyed every minute of her life at the fort.

Katie Atwood was one of the first people Maggie had met upon her arrival at Fort Sill. Katie had been a one-woman welcoming committee, meeting Maggie’s coach and immediately inviting her to tea. The two of them had been close ever since.

Maggie suddenly threw back the covers and bounded out of bed. She
had
to tell Katie. She would tell her everything—and make Katie promise to keep it a secret—when she saw her this afternoon. She and Katie had volunteered to hang new curtains in the house being readied for the half-breed leader, Shanaco.

The dwelling had been thoroughly cleaned. All it lacked was the new curtains and a few finishing touches. The Comanche chieftain was scheduled to move into the secluded cabin Wednesday morning, just forty-eight hours from now.

Maggie smiled
as she shed her nightgown.

Truth to tell, she could hardly wait to see the look on Katie’s face when she shared her shocking secret.