Quicksilver Passion (133 page)

No you don’t!” Silver caught her by the sash of her dress.
What we’re going to do is wash up. Then we’ll have dinner and go out and get that candy.”

Waanibe nodded with enthusiasm.
A treasure to put in my pocket?”

A treasure to put in your pocket!” she promised and tried not to think about Cherokee. She didn’t know whether he was alive or dead. One thing was certain; if her half-breed prince ever did return, he wouldn’t want Silver with her scarred face.

Late October 1864
. Jake Dallinger glared at the prison warden and ran his fingers through his gray-streaked beard.
Now that I’m gettin’ out, do I get my whip back?”

The grim officer hesitated, reached behind his desk, and handed over the silver-handled bull whip.
We even saved that smelly fur vest and the old Western hat of yours with the feathers in the band. What you don’t get back is your weapons.”

Gawd Almighty!” Jake drawled in protest, grabbing the whip and rolling its lash up. He hung it on his belt.
A man kin get hisself kilt out there in the West without weapons.”

Then don’t go west. There’s Indian trouble there anyhow. You’d be smart to head east.”

Cheyenne most likely and their allies.” Jake spat to one side and stared at the port wine birthmark on his hand.
I’d like to kill me a few of them. If it weren’t for one of their warriors, I wouldn’t have ended up in your damned prison.”

I had hoped being here for five years would have taught you something,” the officer said coldly,
but I suppose that’s too much to hope for. Just stay out of trouble, Jake. I don’t want to see you back here.”

I’d die before I end up back in prison,” Jake muttered. He took the whip and the other things the warden handed him, turned, and walked out the iron gates. He didn’t have a horse or a gun. Never mind, it wouldn’t be much trouble to steal one and some weapons, too. Stay out of the Rockies? Hell no! There were Cheyenne to kill in Colorado Territory and there was no one Jake hated as much and with good reason.

The only woman Jake had ever really loved, Texanna, had spurned him many years ago to run away with War Bonnet, and had produced the half-breed son, Iron Knife. Back in the spring of ’59, that now grown son, Iron Knife, had gelded Jake in a bloody knife fight and handed him over to the army for trial. If Jake had been smart enough to leave Iron Knife’s woman, Summer Sky, alone, he wouldn’t have ended up in prison.

In between Texanna and Summer, there had been another girl with almost milk white hair he had lusted after and sold into a whorehouse in Chicago.
Silver
. He wondered for a moment if Bart Brett still had her.

Women
. They had been his downfall. There was also an Injun gal Jake wanted revenge against—a little Arapaho named Gray Dove who had robbed him and knocked him in the head. He had a feeling he knew where she might be, too. Yes sir, he would get even with all of them. He’d been brooding over it for more than five years now. But first, he had to have some weapons and a horse.

It was all so easy for the big Georgia cracker. First he picked a lonely prospector who told him there was still a few strikes in the South Park region of Buckskin Joe and Fairplay if a man wanted to work hard. He invited Jake to share his fire and what little food he had. In the middle of the night, Jake garroted the man with the lash of the big bullwhip. Then Jake stole the prospector’s bowie knife, his little stash of gold, an old Sharps rifle, and the man’s horse. Jake didn’t want to work hard to get gold; he’d rather rob lonely old prospectors who might be hiding a stash. Fairplay or Buckskin Joe. Jake headed up into the Rockies.

The town of Buckskin Joe wasn’t much, he decided as he rode down the main street. He’d seen better towns. A pile of blackened rubble showed where some building had once stood that hadn’t been rebuilt when it had burned. He reined in, looking around.

Down the street came a rattletrap buggy driven by an older man with a mustache and rumpled suit. He looked like a respectable citizen who probably knew everyone in these parts. Jake hailed him and the buggy reined in.
Howdy, stranger, I’m lookin’ for an old friend and I plain forgot directions to his claim.”