Love and War: The Coltrane Saga, Book 1 (62 page)

Travis told him he didn’t think that would be necessary. “But you are losing a lot of blood, old man. And that ball has to come out, and we’re out here in the middle of nowhere with no doctor to be found.”

John looked up at him, his one good eye watering painfully. “Then you got to dig it out, Coltrane, and get me up and out of here. I can’t rest knowing my girl is with those savages…” He gasped, gritting his teeth against the agony. “Get the damned thing out, please…”

Sam and Travis locked eyes over the groaning man. “You ever dug a ball out?” Sam wanted to know.

“Hell, no, and I’m not going to try now.” He yanked off his greatcoat, tore at his own shirt, wadding it to make a thick bandage which he pressed against the bleeding wound. “We’ve got a pretty good idea where there’s a Federal winter camp located not too far from here. If we start out at daylight, we should make it by mid-afternoon if the snow lets up. We can probably hold the bleeding down, but if that ball doesn’t come out, he’ll likely get gangrene and die.”

“No!” They looked down at John, who protested in spite of his pain, “Got to get to Kitty. Too close to turn back now.”

“If we don’t get you to a doctor, John, you’re going to die,” Travis pointed out bluntly.

“Sam can take me. You go on.”

“You think I can take on a tribe of Cherokees?” His laugh was brittle, cold. “John, thanks for the faith, but I can’t do it.”

“You can try. They might not be hostile. You can at least go on and scout ‘em out, make sure Kitty is still there, that she’s all right, then ride back for a patrol to go with you.”

Travis swore under his breath.

“He’s right,” Sam pointed out. “If we turn back now, we may regret it. I’ll get him to the camp, and you go on ahead.”

Travis chewed his lower lip thoughtfully, finally deciding to be completely honest with them. “I had decided I’d just back you all up if you needed me. I wasn’t going to see Kitty. I still don’t know what my reaction will be if I come face to face with her again.”

With amazing strength in spite of the wound, John raised his head, glaring out of his one good eye. “I know what
my
reaction will be if you don’t. If I get well, then I’ll make you wish you had gone on and found her, Coltrane.” He fell back, gasping. “You should’ve let her go home back in sixty-two…”

He was right. Perhaps she wouldn’t be here now if he hadn’t kept her a prisoner. All right. He would go. And he would find her, and then his obligation would be fulfilled and he wouldn’t have to feel any remorse for any of it. Straightening, he motioned to Sam to get ready for the ride. “I want to finish this business once and for all,” he said grimly.

And maybe then,
he thought silently,
when
my
debt, if there is one, is paid, I can forget the damned woman.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Kitty spooned broth into the Indian boy’s mouth. It was cold, freezing cold, and the braided blanket she wrapped tightly around her shoulders did not give enough warmth. Neither did the fire just outside the flimsy tent. Trapped on all sides by the war, the Cherokees did the best they could for their winter encampment. Kitty learned from those who spoke broken English that when the snows melted and passage was possible, they were planning to move further west to try to escape the war.

The war. It seemed a lifetime away. True, the Indians had been good to her, even worshipping her as “big medicine”—and that, alone, had saved her from suffering at the hands of the braves who had eyed her so lustily at the beginning. The Chief’s son had been quite ill with a very bad cold, Kitty had noticed right away. But because he was burning with fever and lying quite still, the Indians feared the Great Spirit was taking him away. With what few supplies Kitty had in her bag, she was able to nurse him out of it. And since, they had held her in high esteem.

But if only they would take her back t her people, she thought dismally. She’d tried to teach them what she, herself, knew about “big medicine” so they could minister to their own people. Their reaction was to think she was tetched to want to leave them when the “spirits” had sent her to them. And all she could think of over the long, cold months had been that other world, wondering if the South was winning or losing, if her father was alive, what had happened to her mother—and yes, huddled in her blankets on the ground at night when she tried to sleep, she thought of Nathan and Travis, the two interspersed in lie dreams. Did the war change Travis or had he always been so callous and brutal? And had the war changed Nathan to the point that all between them was lost forever?

So many questions, questions that would probably never be answered because Kitty strongly doubted that she would ever be allowed to leave the Indian tribe, small as it was. They watched her constantly. Oh, they were good to her, but they still kept her captive.

It could have been worse, she thought with a tremor of fear. She would never forget the night the brave called Long Foot became angry with his squaw and stripped her naked and raped her right out on the ground in front of all the teepees with people watching from inside. Kitty had watched, too, horrified, as the young buck plunged into the woman again and again, shrieking like a wild banshee as she screamed in pain and terror. When he’d finished, she lay there, bleeding profusely between her legs. Kitty had treated her, but could do little for the lacerations. She bathed the area and applied some salve that she mixed with pine-bark drippings. The young woman became ill, her wounds filled with pus, and after two weeks, she died. Kitty suspected there was internal damage, too—damage that could not be seen.

Still, the memory was vivid. So she felt fortunate that the braves didn’t bother her, that she’d been treated well. And one day, perhaps a miracle would come and she could leave this place and go home.

The little boy slept. Kitty stood up, gathered the blanket about her shoulders and stepped out into the chilly night. Looking up, she saw that the stars were out. It was clear. Good. Maybe the snows would stop and it would warm up some. At least for now she could go to her own teepee and pull the bearskins over her body and be a little warm, if only for a few hours. When the sun rose, there would be more sick children and the older Indians to treat. They expected her to work from sunrise to sunset—and even more if there were many sick. And the Indians had been plagued with illness. Some Kitty could help. Others died. With practically no medicine at all to use, and no facilities or instruments of any kind, Kitty just had to depend mostly on the Lord’s will in treating the sick, hoping that not too many would slip by her, lest the Indians decide she really had no magic powers after all and should be used as just another squaw.

She curled into a ball, the warm bearskins pulled around her shaking body. Her stomach gave a rumble. There was never enough to eat and she would never get used to the unpalatable food, anyway. Her own body could not stand much more of the terrible diet, the exhaustion, and the cold weather. How much weight had she lost? She tried to guess. Thirty pounds at least, maybe more. There were no mirrors for her to see herself, but she knew she probably looked a fright. When possible, she heated water to bathe and attempt a semblance of cleanliness. She washed her hair and tried to keep it tangle-free, which was difficult. It would be easy to lose all desire to be attractive, to become dull and dirty and ugly. But she was determined to hold onto something, if only her looks.

Closing her eyes, every bone in her body ached with cold and weariness. And, as always, the vision of Nathan and Travis came to her. Nathan—what they had once was beautiful. Travis—cold, brutal, yet gentle and compassionate when he wanted to be.

To wile away her moments of misery before falling asleep, Kitty tried to imagine what it would be like if she were Travis’s wife. Would he stand in the way of her pursuing her own goals in life—her own ambitions? Would he want her to sit at home and be just a wife and mother to his children, as she knew Nathan would? Travis was strong-willed. If he had opposed her, they would have locked horns just as she’d done with Nathan.

Her eyes grew heavy. She was drifting. There was the feel of warm lips pressed against hers, moving, searching, seeking. Nathan’s kiss. No, Nathan never kissed that way. The only time he had ever kissed her with his mouth open was that night when he was drunk and raped her. But Travis kissed this way, forcing her own lips to part as his tongue probed inside her mouth. It always made her feel dizzy, and suddenly the bearskins became unbearable as great waves of warm passion moved over her body.

And then he was no longer kissing her. She felt a firm hand pressed over her mouth. This was no dream! She opened her eyes, fighting to see in the darkness, struggling against the strong grasping hand across the lower part of her face.

“Don’t make a sound,” a familiar voice hissed in command. “You want to wake up every goddamned Indian around here?”

Slowly, the pressure of the hand released enough to enable her to whisper, “Travis.”

“Right. Now, you come with me and be quiet, damnit. I slipped in here with nobody seeing me and I can get out the same way if you don’t fall down and wake everybody up.”

Dizzily, she let him take her hand and pull her to her feet. Tiptoeing on moccasined feet, she followed him out of the little teepee, around to the back, and into the scrubs and underbrush beyond. Her heart was pounding like the giant drums of the Cherokees. Travis was here! Really here! He was rescuing her. Oh, God, she prayed, don’t let it be a dream. And if it is a dream, then don’t let me wake up. Let me stay asleep forever if sleep is this much sweeter.

When they reached the brush, Travis made her move faster. “I’ve been watching this damn camp for two days,” he told her, “watching for you to make sure where the hell you slept at night. I figured you’d be married up with some buck by now, and I’d have to slit his throat to get you out of here.”

They kept moving. Kitty had a thousand questions but she was unable to speak. Travis was here! He had come for her! That meant he cared. And he had been kissing her—she was sure of it. And now her insides were all twisted around. What was happening? Why was he here? He’d never loved her, never really wanted her. Why did he risk his life?

Finally, after perhaps a half hour of tramping through the woods and snow, they reached the thicket where Travis, had tied his horse. He hoisted her up behind him, then moved out, back to the deeper woods, wanting to put as much distance as possible between them and the Indians. The sky was clear. There was no more snow. They would leave tracks, for sure. If they didn’t run into any problems, they could make the small camp of Reb deserters he’d spotted earlier within a couple of hours, then skirt around them and disappear. When the Indians tracked them, they would naturally think the Rebs had stolen Kitty—and there would be a fight. But Travis planned to be a hell of a long way away by daylight when the Indians discovered their “big magic” princess had escaped.

Kitty rode in silence for a while, then knew she had to begin getting some answers. “How did you find me, Travis?”

Holding on to his waist as they rode, she felt him tense. “Me and Sam and your father have been tracking you for quite a while.”

“Poppa?” Tears sprang to her eyes, her heart constricting joyfully. “You mean Poppa’s here, too? Alive? Well?”

“He got hit by a Reb bushwhacker a few days ago. Sam took him to a Union camp to get him patched up. He made me promise I’d go on and find you.” He spoke in clipped, curt tones.

“But he is all right” she persisted. “The wound wasn’t severe?”

“A ball had to come out. He should be fine.”

A moment of silence passed. Kitty’s mind was whirling, and finally she exploded: “Travis, thank you for coming for me. They…the Cherokees have been good to me, in their way, but there was no chance for escape. I started thinking I never would, get back to civilization. I…I didn’t even know if you were still alive.”

There, she had said it, brought it out in the open. She felt him tensing once again. Then he ground out the words: “You didn’t bother to check and see, did you, princess? You kept right on riding, didn’t you?” He dug his heels angrily into the horse’s flanks as the animal bogged down knee-deep into a snow drift. “And I think you would have made it back to civilization. As cunning and resourceful as you are, sooner or later you would have made it. You could always trick the Chief into thinking you were in love with him.”

She felt as though she’d been slapped. Flaring instantly, Kitty fired back, “You asked for it. You kept me prisoner against my will. It was the only way I could escape you and get back to my people, where I belonged. I even had to leave Andy. You think I wanted to? You were cunning enough to make him idolize you, you know.”

“Andy’s dead.”

Kitty blinked, feeling a thud in her stomach as his words washed over her. “No…”

“Killed on Missionary Ridge last November. He’d taken an oath of allegiance to the Union and been fighting with us for quite awhile. He’s the reason we found out where you were. His mother heard from a relative in Goldsboro.” And then Travis told her about the visit back to see Lonnie Carter and find out where the Indians had been encountered.

It was all too much. Kitty’s head swam dizzily. Andy was dead. Poppa was alive. Travis was here. She was free. Without realizing what she was doing, she lowered her head onto Travis’s back as the tears began to trickle down her cheeks.

Travis felt as though someone had kicked him about six times right in the gut. The girl was pressed against his back and he didn’t like the response from his body. She was still pretty, even with her hair hanging scraggily down her back, her face pale and drawn, and her body almost skin and bones—she was still pretty. And damn it, he still wanted her. But he also knew she was still as treacherous as always, and he wasn’t about to be taken in by her because of any pity he might feel.

Her voice was lifeless as she asked, “Where are you taking me?”

“Don’t worry. I’m heading straight for the camp where your pa is. I’m not going to stop along the way and rape you.”