Savage Arrow (20 page)

“Nay, that is never to be,” Jade sighed as she covered the food with a red-checkered cloth.

She carried the basket out to the wagon in the stable, then hurried back inside and gathered clothes and blankets and took them out to the wagon, too.

She covered the satchel of clothes and blankets with one larger blanket and set the basket of food on the seat.

After hitching the horse to the wagon, Jade took a long look at the house where she had lived for the past year. Had the man who had employed her been a decent sort, she would have been comfortable living there for many years . . . if she could have brought Lee-Lee there to live with her.

Having dressed today in something besides her usual black servant dress, Jade already felt free. She smiled as she slapped the reins and rode away from this house of evil.

When she drove into Tombstone she headed directly for the crib.

It was still too early for her daughter to be displayed in the window. The men who paid for her services came later in the day, and at night, when her daughter stood in the window illuminated by candlelight.

She would never forget the first time she had been sent into town late for supplies. She had seen her daughter standing in the window, scarcely clothed, a look of despair and shame in her beautiful black eyes, lipstick smeared on her pretty lips, and rouge bright red on her round cheeks.

It had been at that moment she knew she had to find a way to free her daughter from such degradation. But it had taken the courage a white woman showed her to finally decide to better her daughter’s life, as well as her own.

Ai
, Jessie had instilled in Jade her own courage. Jade hoped they would meet again someday.

But first she had to free her daughter from the crib and then get her to safety inside the burial cave that terrified Reginald Vineyard more than any other place.

She and Lee-Lee would have to risk facing whatever dwelt there besides the bodies of long-dead Sioux chiefs. Anything was better than bowing down to the wishes of a deranged man.

As she drove through the streets of Tombstone, Jade held her chin high and tried to pretend that this was just another trip to buy supplies. Her heart thumping in her chest, her fingers quivering, Jade made a sharp turn left down a small alley between two cribs and stopped when she came to Lee-Lee’s.

She sat a moment as she got the courage to continue with her plan. Then she approached the man who always guarded the cribs, handing him a note she had written herself, forging Reginald Vineyard’s signature.
The note said that the guard was needed out at the ranch.

Mumbling a few curse words, the man gave Jade a hard look, then spat into the dust. “Looks like the boss needs me elsewhere,” he said.

Still muttering to himself, he strode off toward the livery stable to retrieve his horse.

Jade tried to control her nervous breathing and the shaking of her hands as she grabbed the wicker basket from the wagon.

She tried to look ordinary as she went to Lee-Lee’s door and knocked on it.

She was, oh, so relieved when Lee-Lee opened it and let her inside.

But the moment Jade saw Lee-Lee, she went cold inside. Like Jade, Lee-Lee had a bruise on her cheek, as well as a blackened eye.

“Daughter, oh, daughter, who did this to you?” Jade cried as she placed the basket of food on the floor.

Lee-Lee hurriedly closed the door, then flung herself into her mother’s arms. “It was just one of those men who ask things of me that I do not want to do,” she cried, clinging. “Oh, Mother, I cannot live like this any longer. I choose death over this terrible life. Please, oh, please understand.”

Hearing her daughter actually say that she was going to take her life, Jade was so glad that she had come today to set her free.

Had she not, it might have been too late for her beautiful, sweet daughter!

“Do not speak of such a thing,” Jade said, stepping back from Lee-Lee. She placed gentle hands on her daughter’s tiny, frail shoulders. “We are leaving today, Lee-Lee. Get dressed in something more than a robe. But first, wrap some of your more decent clothes in a blanket. As you dress, I will take your clothes to the wagon.”

“Mother, what are you saying?” Lee-Lee asked, her eyes wide as she wiped tears from them.

“I am saying that while Reginald is at the Indian village begging forgiveness, I will take you away to a new life,” Jade said, stroking her daughter’s pale cheek. She could see the imprint of a man’s hand there.

“But where . . . how?” Lee-Lee asked, too stunned to move.

“We are going where Reginald Vineyard would not dare go,” Jade said tightly. “It will be a perfect place to hide from him, Lee-Lee. Perfect.”

“But where?” Lee-Lee implored. “No place is safe from him, especially once he finds us both gone.”

“We are going to the cave that Reginald has nightmares about every night,” Jade said, smiling in satisfaction at Lee-Lee. “It is a perfect hiding place because Reginald would never dare go there. To him it is cursed. The Indian spirits that dwell within haunt him.”

Lee-Lee took a quick step away from her mother. Fear entered her eyes. “Mother, if we go there, will not the Indian spirits also frighten us?”

“Nay because, sweet daughter, we have done nothing to harm them, or the Sioux people whose departed chiefs are buried there,” Jade said, stepping up to Lee-Lee
and again pulling her into her arms. She hugged her tightly. “Daughter, it is the only place we can go where we will be safe from Reginald Vineyard’s evil.”

Lee-Lee clung for a moment, then stepped away from her mother. “And . . . then . . . what, Mother?” she asked, her eyes searching Jade’s.

“We will wait for a while, then go to the Indian village,” Jade said softly. “They are a kind band of Indians, and that’s where Jessie has gone.”

“Jessie?” Lee-Lee asked, raising an eyebrow. “Who is Jessie?”

“I will tell you all about her once we reach the cave,” Jade said, eyeing the basket of food that she had brought.

She grabbed it up and nodded at Lee-Lee. “Get the clothes you want to take with you,” she said. “Hurry, Lee-Lee. The longer we are here, the more likely someone will come and see what I am up to.”

Lee-Lee nodded and rolled some of her clothes in a towel as Jade took the food back to the wagon and quickly covered it with a blanket.

She had only taken it in the first place to provide an excuse for her visit in case someone spied her.

When no one had come down the alley, or from the other cribs, she felt safe enough to return the food to the wagon; it was what she and her daughter would exist on for the next couple of weeks.

They would have to wait at least that long to venture out again. After that period of time, Reginald would no longer be looking for her or Lee-Lee.

Jade hurried back inside the crib. She grabbed the
rolled-up clothes, then gave Lee-Lee a quick glance. She saw that her daughter was dressed and ready. She nodded at her.

“Come on, daughter, but hurry,” she said. “And when we reach the wagon, Lee-Lee, hide beneath the blankets. That is the only way I can take you from Tombstone without someone seeing you.”

After Lee-Lee was safely hidden in the back of the wagon, Jade climbed aboard and drove away from the cribs. As she traveled down the main street, she was glad that there were no men loitering on the boardwalk or gambling in the saloons. The town had a peaceful air about it, even decent.

But soon that would all change. Soon men would be drinking and gambling and choosing pretty women to give them pleasure.

Jade smiled, for today no one could choose Lee-Lee.

She rode onward, traveled far from the town and into a forest of trees, only stopping when they were far from where any passersby could see the wagon.

“Lee-Lee,” Jade said, climbing down from the wagon. “It is safe now for you to leave the wagon. We’re close enough to the cave to walk the rest of the way.”

“Mother, how do you know?” Lee-Lee asked, throwing aside the blanket and climbing out of the wagon.

“I have seen the cave before,” Jade said, rolling up the blanket that had covered Lee-Lee, then handing it to her. “It suddenly came to me that the cave could be a perfect hideaway,” Jade said, taking the basket of supplies from the wagon.

Lee-Lee grabbed her clothes and as many blankets as she could carry.

“How far, Mother?” Lee-Lee asked as Jade started walking away from the wagon with Lee-Lee close beside her. She looked over her shoulder at the horse and wagon, then questioned her mother with her eyes. “And what about the horse? Will it be alright?”

Jade stopped abruptly. She looked over her shoulder at the horse, then set her supplies down and hurried back to the animal. She quickly released it from the wagon, then patted its rump and watched it run away, glad to see it ran in the opposite direction from Reginald’s house. She hoped it would find its way to the Indian village, where it could be fed and have a good home.

She hurried back to Lee-Lee and resumed their walk toward the cave. “I think the horse will be alright now,” she murmured. “As for the wagon? I only hope that Reginald doesn’t happen along and find it, but I doubt that he will. It’s way too close to the cave that haunts him.

“And we do not have much farther to go, Lee-Lee, to get to the cave,” she said, glancing down at the basket of supplies. She had made certain there was enough food, water, and even matches to last them for the two weeks she planned to be in the cave.

And Lee-Lee was carrying the blankets.

Ai
, it did seem that she had planned everything well enough. She was beginning to believe she would pull off their escape.

But she could see that Lee-Lee was very uneasy. She
could see fear in her daughter’s eyes, in the way she kept looking over her shoulder as though expecting to get caught.

“Daughter, we are safe,” Jade said reassuringly.

“I am so afraid of Reginald, and I am also afraid of . . . of . . . the cave and . . . what might be in there,” Lee-Lee murmured.

“Sweet daughter, you have to learn never to be afraid again, of
any
thing,” Jade said. “It is a cruel, complicated world, but we will make a new beginning. You shall see. Only goodness lies ahead for us both.” She swallowed hard. “I should not have waited so long to do this.”

Lee-Lee gave Jade a faint, quivering smile.

Panting and wheezing, and mopping his brow with his handkerchief, Reginald walked onward. He had left his horse and buggy a mile back. He was trying a different tactic today. He was trying to elude all the sentries so that he could get into the village.

He was determined to get the young chief’s attention. Surely Thunder Horse would take pity on him once he heard about the horrible nights that Reginald was having.

Surely the Sioux chief would have mercy. He had had enough nightmares already to last him a lifetime.

Reginald had watched carefully as he walked, keeping an eye out for sentries who would surely stop him. Thus far he had managed to stay hidden among the trees.

He wheezed and coughed into his handkerchief, hoping that he could stifle the sounds as he drew near the village. Only moments ago he had caught a
glimpse of tepees, and even now he smelled the smoke from the lodge fires, so he knew that he had almost succeeded with his plan.

But he was ungodly tired. He wasn’t used to walking this far. His legs were feeling rubbery and weak.

He wasn’t certain he could make it back to his horse and buggy. Again he hoped the savages would have some mercy and take him back to the buggy on horseback instead of making him walk all the way.

His lungs ached as if they were on fire from the effort it took to place one foot and then the other forward.

Again he wiped the sweat that was pouring from his brow. His hair was wet with perspiration, dripping onto his expensive suit jacket.

“You damn savages,” he whispered as he doubled a hand at his side in anger and humiliation. No one had ever seen him as disheveled as he must look now.

But he had only a short way to go before he would finally step into the village. He had succeeded in tricking them into receiving him.

Now if only they would let him talk. If only they would listen to reason.

He even had his pockets filled with coins. Money spoke volumes to poor people. And he saw the Sioux as poor. How else could anyone see a people who lived in tepees and who cooked over open fires inside small lodges?

Yes, coins might be the answer today where words had not worked. And today he would surely be able to talk to the chief.

Panting, and wiping more sweat from his face, hoping
to look as presentable as possible, he stepped up to the very edge of the village. He was stunned that even now no one noticed him there.

He stopped and gazed slowly around him. The women were busy preparing meat. The children were laughing and playing games. The elders were sitting around an outside fire, smoking their long pipes and talking.

And then something else caught his eye, someone who made his heart skip a beat. It was Jessie! She had just stepped inside a tepee not far from where he stood, and she was dressed as a squaw, her hair hanging down her back in one long braid.

Stunned at the sight of her, for he had never thought in a thousand years to look for her in an Indian village, Reginald could not stop a sudden bout of terribly loud wheezing. He began coughing so hard, he felt as though he might strangle.

He grabbed at his throat, the handkerchief falling to the ground at his feet.

Finally he got some control of his coughing. He bent and started to retrieve his handkerchief from the ground. Just as he did, he saw moccasins step up before him and knew that his coughing had caught someone’s attention.

Almost afraid to straighten his back and see who was there, Reginald breathed hard and stayed bent for a moment longer, just staring at the moccasins.

But when a hand fell upon his shoulder and a voice spoke, telling him to stand up, he knew that he had no choice but to look upon the face of whoever had discovered him standing there.