Runaway (35 page)

He didn’t take time to bathe. He ran up the stairs two at a time and went to the washbowl to douse his face and chest in cold water, and don a clean shirt and waistcoat.

He turned to leave, but hesitated, his eyes falling upon the bed where they had shared their last night, the one that had haunted him the entire time he’d been gone. He noted that his room—masculine now for so long—was beginning to bear feminine touches. A tuft of lace protruded from a dresser drawer. A silver brush lay on his dresser. Even a soft scent of rose cologne seemed to linger on the air.

His hands clenched tightly into fists at his sides, his face constricted with tension. “Damn you!” he swore
aloud. He’d believed in her, he’d trusted that she meant to stay.

And she’d tried to run. She’d married him, entwined herself somehow into his hungers, cravings … his soul. And then she’d run.

Well, she was coming back. Damn her. She was coming back, and she’d have some kind of price to pay.

And he would name the price.

As long as she was facing no real danger.

That thought brought him to instant motion, and he ran down the stairs, out of the house, and back to the stables, where a groomed and watered Charlemagne waited. Jarrett leapt atop the horse. Charlemagne pranced, as if he, too, knew just how important his coming quest would be.

“I’ll get word to you as soon as I’ve found her,” he told Rutger and Jeeves. The two nodded anxiously. Jarrett nudged Charlemagne and raced toward the border of the Indian lands.

He prayed to find her quickly.

Tara didn’t know what she had been expecting, but certainly not the village they came to. Jolting along so that it seemed her teeth cracked with every movement, they came into the center of a cluster of neatly laid out and well-built, if simple, log cabins.

Tara was so frightened by the time they arrived that she nearly fell when the Indian eased her from his shoulder to let her slide to the ground. He quickly flung his leg over the side of his horse to reach the ground himself and drag her back up. She opened her mouth to denounce him in some way, but he called out a clipped command in his own language that she knew to be a
warning to keep silent. For the moment she determined to do so.

She knew that other Indians had followed behind them on foot, and she was dimly aware that some of them were arriving. The half-breed motioned for her to move. She backed away from him, and though she kept her eyes upon him, she also tried to see the layout of the copse where they had come. There was a large fire burning in the circle around which the cabins clustered, and a deer was being tended on a stake over that fire by a number of women. Some of them were dressed in skins, and some wore skirts in European fashion. Like the men they seemed fond of jewelry, many of them adorned with a multitude of necklaces. Off toward the trees children who had been playing with a ball and some netted sticks stopped in their play and watched her arrival.

One young woman broke away from the cooking circle, approaching the half-breed, who was menacingly advancing on Tara. She asked him a question, and he answered curtly. Her eyes widened and she stared at Tara, then began to speak again. Once more the half-breed answered her harshly, and this time, though she still seemed very angry, she fell silent. The half-breed spoke to her again, gesturing, and the young Seminole woman came toward Tara. Tara stepped away, wondering if the women might not be more barbarous than the men, as she had heard was true with some American Indian tribes.

But when she moved away, the Indian woman shook her head impatiently. She lifted a hand to indicate the largest of the log dwellings. When Tara still hesitated, she looked to the half-breed, but he barked out another order, and this time he was obeyed. The girl came forward and took Tara’s arm with impatience. Tara resisted, trying to wrench her arm away. But then her eyes widened
as she saw the half-breed atop his horse suddenly level his rifle in her direction, and she no longer resisted the young Indian woman’s attempt to take her arm. She was led into the large log cabin.

There was just one room to the house. A fire burned to the rear of it, and though it wasn’t exactly a chimney that rose above it, there was ventilation at the roof, keeping the dwelling from filling with smoke. There was a circle of stones in the center of the floor, and to the rear and sides were various pallets that seemed to be beds made of skins and furs. There were also rolls, which Tara quickly thought were the homeowner’s belongings, neatly tied together.

Just inside the place there was a stack of rifles, leaned one upon the other. Tara gave them a longing gaze, but then looked to the girl who had brought her in, and was stunned to realize that she couldn’t just pick up a rifle and shoot this woman. She wasn’t sure how, but she knew that the slender young Indian woman meant to offer her no harm.

Even if the half-breed did.

The girl lifted a hand, showing Tara one of the pallets. She indicated that Tara should sit. Tara shook her head nervously, but as she did so, the blue-eyed half-breed entered the log dwelling. He seemed to assess the situation immediately, and he strode to her, capturing her wrists and bringing her to the pallet, where he forced her to sit. Barely breathing she tried to wrench her hands away. He released her and walked away, talking again to the Indian girl in their own language. Again the girl argued. And again he snapped out an answer. The girl straightened her shoulders, snatched up something from one of the bundles, and came toward Tara, hunching down by her. She had brought a long leather thong, Tara
realized. She stared at it, then at the girl, her alarm apparent in her wide eyes.

“No, please!” Tara whispered.

The girl dropped her voice to something lower than a whisper, speaking in English. “Give me your wrists! He will not hurt you.”

“Please, please, talk to me—” Tara began, but the girl quickly stood, looking back over her shoulder toward the blue-eyed warrior.

The girl spoke sharply in her own language, her narrowed eyes warning Tara to shut up.

But if Tara was going to be massacred, she wasn’t going to submit to it easily. When the Indian girl knelt down to secure Tara’s wrists, Tara was quick to take her by surprise, shoving her to the floor and leaping up.

But she never reached the door to the cabin. He was there, standing in the doorway. She found herself grimly dragged back into his embrace. His fingers formed a vise around her wrists as he dragged her back to the pallet, shoved her down, and quickly bound her hands together with the leather, then looped another length around that, creating a leash with it. The far end of that he tied around one of the cabin’s support beams, leaving Tara to hope that she could somehow untie it later. But his eyes were very hard on her as he tightened the knot, and she knew with a sinking heart that she would never manage to free herself.

So what now?
she wondered. She had read that some Indians saved hostages to torture to death during special celebrations.

Maybe he just wanted her kept in one place while he sliced away her scalp.

To Tara’s amazement he walked away from her and the beam, going to the pretty girl with the slender build and deep hazel eyes. Then, to Tara’s further surprise and
Irritation, his voice became gentle, persuasive—tender—as he spoke to the Seminole maiden softly in their own language. The girl looked across the room at Tara, still disagreeing, but then she nodded her head to his will. He reached down a hand to her, and she came to him.

Tara gradually became aware that a frown was searing the half-breed’s features, and he wasn’t paying her his entire attention. Then she became aware that there was a great deal of commotion outside. There were shouts—greetings, she thought, and the sounds of many hoof-beats.

The half-breed spoke curtly, then spun around. He took the girl’s hand, pulling her along, and they were swiftly gone. Tara was alone.

She waited several seconds, but no one came. She could hear voices outside and then the rise of an argument. There were curt laughs, whispers, she thought, more shouting, and then silence.

A second later the first Indian she had encountered on the path, the one with headdress and red leggings, came and stood just inside the cabin for a moment.

She barely dared to breathe as he stared at her. She stood up, backing toward the wall, both terrified and ready to fight again, as he neared her. He grated out a question she didn’t understand and she just stared at him, praying that her knees would not give way.

The pretty Indian girl was back in the cabin, the blue-eyed warrior behind her. “He wants to know if you are the wife of the White Tiger,” he asked her in guttural English.

“The what?” Tara said, keeping her eye on the man before her. He had an arresting face, small, keen, hazel eyes, and broad, high cheekbones. His stare was
level and intelligent, inquisitive—and dangerous, she thought.

The Indian girl sighed. “Are you McKenzie’s new woman?” she also asked in English with impatience.

“New woman …” Tara murmured. “Yes! I’m McKenzie’s wife,” she said swiftly. Her heart slammed painfully within her chest.

What had she just done? McKenzie—her husband—was the White Tiger? They even had a name for him? It was amazing that his friends in the military hadn’t strung him up, for he surely seemed more on the side of the Indians than of his own people.

Somehow Lisa McKenzie had died among these people. And now here she herself was too.

The Indian leveled a finger at her and said something very sternly. Behind him the blue-eyed warrior spoke up. The red-legged one spoke to her again. She felt like a child being chastised.

She was being chastised. The girl interpreted the scolding for her.

“He says that you should be switched.”

“What!” Tara gasped.

“You have disobeyed your husband, you wander where you should not be. You put yourself into grave danger.”

“Tell him to go to hell!” Tara said, shaking even as she spat out the words. The girl’s eyes widened.

She opened her mouth to speak, and Tara was sure that she had no intention of relaying her words to the red-legged warrior. It didn’t matter. The warrior had understood her, and he lifted a hand, stopping the girl from speaking. He grated out another few words himself. The girl didn’t offer to translate them to Tara.

“What …?” Tara asked, dreading the answer.

“He says that if your husband does not switch you, he will gladly take up the task.”

The warrior stared at her another moment, and though she was certain that he would like to take a switch—or a knife—to her, there was a slight glimmer of admiration in his eyes, and an even slighter curl to his lip. Almost as if he had teased her rather than threatened her.

He turned suddenly to leave. Tara felt her spine stiffen as she realized the blue-eyed warrior was staring at her still, sending rivers of fear cascading down her spine. But then he turned as well, leaving with the other man.

Tara was achingly relieved. Her knees very nearly gave, but the girl was following the two men out. Tara tried to stop her from doing so.

“Wait, please!” she begged softly.

The girl hesitated and saw that the warriors before her were involved in their own conversation now. They were already out the door and not paying any heed to the women.

“What?” she said quickly, nervously.

“Please, what’s going to happen to me?” Tara demanded.

“Nothing’s going to happen to you.”

“Nothing?” Tara whispered.

“Not if you behave. You—you shouldn’t have been where you were!”

“I shouldn’t have to be in fear, I shouldn’t have been attacked! I—”

“Quit talking!” the girl said, and she followed the men out.

The door closed with finality behind her.

This time Tara sprang up quickly. She hurried to the support beam, wildly trying to dislodge the knot tied there.

After several exhausting moments she realized that the leather was not going to give. Frustrated, she walked
back to the pallet. She sat down, staring at the circles that now were reddening upon her wrists. Each time she fought the rawhide that constrained her, it tightened.

After a while she stood again. She paced the narrow area of her confinement and tried to see if there wasn’t something with which she might try to slice through the leather ties that bound her. Nothing was within her reach. There were cooking utensils neatly set against a far wall, but they were perhaps two feet beyond the area she could reach. She stretched, she swore. She couldn’t get where she needed to be. Weary again, she stormed out a few curses, then returned to her pallet, sinking down upon it, resting her head this time on a pillow of furs. She lay still for a second, then thought that she heard a sound at the door and panicked. She started to leap up again, her heart pounding furiously, but if footsteps had sounded near the door, they had hesitated there only a second, and then passed by.

She was thirsty, tired—and terrified. She lay there in torment, wondering if she dared trust in the Indian girl’s words—that no harm would come to her. No harm! She was a prisoner here, and she hadn’t been scalped so far simply because she was McKenzie’s woman. Not his
wife
, to the Indians, but something more like his property! But her husband must know these Indians well. Perhaps he had even taught the young woman to speak English?