Savage Spirit (23 page)

Alicia was aware that somehow she had managed to sleep through the night. The room was dim in the early morning light, but not so dark that she could not see what was happening. As the woman lay on her back, looking up at the man, Alicia's gaze froze on her. Her calico blouse and skirt had been ripped down the front. It fell open, revealing copper skin and small rounding breasts with delicate nipples. An ugly blue knot had formed over her left cheek where someone had struck her. Her eyes revealed nothing. She wore a glaze of stoicism that hid whatever lay behind the black pupils.   Alicia was almost certain that the woman was Apache, and she soon discovered that she was right. When the woman spoke angrily at the vile man, it was in the Apache tongue.

Although He Who Knows Much had not had the opportunity to teach Alicia more of the Apache language and customs, she had been in Cloud Eagle's stronghold long enough to be able now to put words and phrases together that helped her understand the language.

"Apache squaw, it isn't smart to speak to your master that way," the man growled. "It will give me much more pleasure when I set the brand to your flesh."

Alicia's color faded. "Brand?" she whispered, squirming to try and get more comfortable in her small quarters. She cried out with pain. Moving even slightly sent spasms through her bound wrists and cramped legs. She scarcely breathed when the man stepped up to her cage and leaned into her face.

"Yeah, pretty woman," he said, leering at her. "A brand will mark not only the copper skin of the Apache, but also yours." He kneaded his whiskered chin. "The brand I use is an
A
, to stand for Apache. That will also be what will identify you, for you were living with the Apache, weren't you?"

He threw his head back and laughed, then forked an eyebrow as he gazed at Alicia again. "Why were you running away from the Apache chief?" he asked.

When Alicia offered no response, he shrugged and turned his attention back to the Apache woman, who had managed to crawl to the far side of the building. The man stamped toward   her and when he reached her and was about to stoop to grab her, he jumped back just as the woman's feet grazed his pants leg, narrowly missing his groin.

His face red with rage, he slapped the woman across the face and dragged her back to the cages and dropped her there within eye range.

Turning to Alicia, he emitted a feral snarl and unlatched the door to her cage. He grabbed her hair and yanked her sprawling onto the floor. Keeping hold of her, he dragged her until she lay alongside the Apache woman.

Alicia's heart hammered wildly. She cowered away from the man and reached a trembling hand to her mouth. It was swollen and caked with blood. The wound that had all but healed on her leg now throbbed unmercifully. Her whole body ached.

She turned her eyes quickly when Sandy Whiskers entered the building. She glared up at him when he came and stood over her and the other woman, his fists on his hips. "And now, pretty women, how do you enjoy my hospitality?" he said, laughing softly.

He jumped and took a quick step away from Alicia when she spat on his moccasins.

"Those who do not cooperate are always sorry," Sandy Whiskers said, then shifted his gaze to his hired gunman. "This must be done quickly. Both these women are trouble. They will escape at the first opportunity. Get them branded and back in their cages quickly."

The man nodded.

"You must also have men prisoners. Where are they? And how do you treat them?" Alicia shouted. "They cannot bear you children that   can be sold. My brotherwhat did you do with my brother?"

Sandy Whiskers stared at her for a moment, then gave her a slow, knowing smile and turned and walked away.

"You killed him, didn't you?" Alicia cried after him. "You sonofabitch cold-hearted bastard!"

Hearing such crude words coming from the mouth of a woman made Sandy Whiskers stop. He turned and stared at Alicia. He took a step toward her, his mustache trembling as his lips lifted into an amused smile. "I like you," he said, stroking his beard. "You have a spirit that is usually lacking in women. Your children will be spirited as well. They will bring me much more money."

"I will find a way to kill any man who tries to force himself upon me in that way," Alicia cried back. "You will see that you have brought the wrong woman to your breeding post this time."

"I do not see you stopping anything that has been done to you at my breeding post yet," Sandy Whiskers said, then walked away, his laughter loud and sharp as a whip crack in Alicia's ears, even as he stepped outside.

Guardedly, Alicia turned her attention to her true threatto the man under Sandy Whiskers' command. He was a big man. She knew that she would never be able to defend herself against anything that he might try with herunless she could manage to get his knife from its sheath.

She eyed the knife hungrily; then her vision was blocked when he knelt down between her and the Apache woman. She cried out with pain when his fingers locked in her hair as his other hand grasped the Apache woman's. Alicia gagged and   choked when he lifted her head, and soon had her head and the Apache's in a headlock.

Alicia squirmed and moaned as he rose with them and dragged them into a room at the far end of the building.

The man flung Alicia and the Apache like two sacks of grain forward onto the floor.

Alicia groaned and turned slowly over and looked around. The room was small. It had one window from which came a fluttering of light.

The floor was stone. In one corner, a blacksmith's pit was flued by a stone chimney. Across the low ceiling, a long pole was suspended by a chain at each end, looped around the pole and fastened to the ceiling.

A large wooden tub filled with water was the only furnishing.

Alicia scooted closer to the Apache woman. They huddled together, wide-eyed and helpless, as the man walked to the blacksmith's pit and pumped energetically at a bellows until red glowed through the charcoal. He chose two iron bars and nestled their heads in the red coals.

Quickly, he returned to them, his knife drawn from its sheath.

He slashed the hand ties of the Apache woman, then rolled her to her back and bound her hands in front.

Moving to Alicia, he did the same.

His eyes glazed with the pleasure that he was soon to get from the women, the man jerked the Apache woman upward. He leaned into her face as sweat rolled down his cheeks and into his beard. "All Apache women are pretty," he said thickly. He glanced over at Alicia. "And also those of my own kind. Today I will get
double
pleasure."   He laughed throatily as he seized the Apache woman by her wrists, jerked her upward, and grabbed her around the waist in a bear hug. In a quick rush he slammed her against the stone wall.

With one hand he lifted the horizontal pole out of its chain loop; with the other he raised her bound hands, then slipped the pole between her arms and raised the end of the pole back into the looped chain.

She was suspended, hands around the pole, her feet barely grazing the floor.

He turned and gave Alicia a slow smile, then just as quickly had her disabled in the shackles alongside the Apache.

Grinning, white teeth flashing beneath a thick, black mustache, the man slid his knife under the clothing of the Apache woman. He slit her dress, front and back, until she was naked.

His breath came more quickly now, and his free hand trembled as he ran the flat side of the knife over the woman's slender, supple bronze body, which was stretched upward toward her bound hands.

''You filthy bastard," Alicia hissed, disgusted by the lust she saw in the man's eyes and by how he was taking advantage of the Apache woman. And she knew that she would be next.

He ignored her.

After taking many liberties with the Apache woman, he took a rope from the wall and, looping the left ankle of Alicia and the Apache woman, drew their left legs outward and upward, tying the end of the rope to the pole.

He took an iron from the coals with tongs held in one hand and advanced toward the Apache woman.   Alicia's eyes widened and her pulse raced fearfully as she gazed at the iron bar. It was a branding iron and the
A
was glowing red.

Just as he started to lower the brand to the Apache woman's leg, something stopped him.

He turned and gazed at the door and dropped the branding iron to the floor.

"Apaches!" he cried, stumbling backward as the war cry of the Apache rang out, clear and distinct outside in the courtyard.

He also now heard the thundering of hoofbeats. He paled and fell across the branding iron, sprawling on his back on the floor.

Having caught the guard beside the gate dozing, Cloud Eagle rode squared-shouldered in his saddle into the courtyard. In fresh vermilion worn in long streaks along his cheekbones, he rode at the head of his mounted, excited, charging warriors, his aspect fierce and repellent.

Cloud Eagle raised his rifle with one hand above his head and waved it. As he shook his weapon for all to see, a sound began deep in his throat and scaled to a high-pitched scream.

"Eeeeewaaaah!"
he criedthe war cry of the Apache.

All the warriors joined in a confusion of screams and chants as they raced on their steeds throughout the courtyard, killing and maiming.

Some of the Apache horsemen, in charging the enemy, held fifteen-foot lances with strong, sharp points, above their heads with both hands, controlling their horses with their knees.

Others fired their rifles rapidly.

Rifle shots exploded, scattering over a wider and wider area.

After Cloud Eagle's first kill, he lowered his rifle   and turned his face to the sky like a coyote, savage and mournful. "
Haaaaooooh,
" he cried, crying out the death call.

Then he rode onward, dealing out death at every turn. His eyes searched for any signs of his woman and the Englishman.

One he would save.

The other he would kill!

Then he saw the wall at the rear of the outpost. He watched as several of his warriors dismounted and went to open the gate.

Cloud Eagle paused for only a moment, then rode like thunder through the gate and slid from his saddle.

His eyes narrowed as he studied the long cabin.

He gripped his rifle more firmly and stalked carefully toward the door.

Inside Sandy Whiskers' cabin, the Englishman had watched the attack from his window. Realizing that he did not have the manpower to stop the Apache, he saw that there was only one other recourse.

Escape.

For now he would escape, and to hell with the women prisonersand the men. The men would remain incarcerated in the cavern cells that had been dug beneath his outpost. He would leave them there to die if he did not have the chance to come back for them later. He knew that the women were lost to him. The Apache would free them.

Recalling Alicia, whom he would have to leave behind, waves of anger and regret rushed through him.

"Her brother," he whispered to himself. "If she   knew that he was below, in the cavern cells . . ."

He went to the trap door that led beneath his cabin to the caverns. He had made sure that when the cabin was built over the caverns, the floor boards had been made without hinges, so that when the trap door was lowered after his escape, if one was ever needed, no one would know to follow.

And if fire was set to the cabin, the second trap door made of steel would not cave in. Instead it would hold steady and become hidden beneath the ashes.

The gunfire and the constant screams of the Apache came from all sides of his cabin now. Sandy Whiskers lifted the first trap door, then the second. He wheezed as he fit himself through the small hole and awkwardly placed his foot on the top rung of the ladder.

Sweat pearling his brow, he lowered the wooden door back in place. He moved lower on the ladder, then reached overhead and lowered the steel door back in place.

Now all that he could hear was the muffled sounds of the gunfire overhead and the moans of the men in the cells below him.

Wriggling his way down the ladder, he was met at the bottom by two of his most trusted guards. They helped him down from the ladder, their eyes filled with silent questions.

"The Apache," Sandy Whiskers said, wiping his brow free of sweat with the back of one of his hands. "They have come." His jaw grew tight. "Alicia Cline. It's because of her that the Apache have gone against us."

He lumbered to the cells, then stopped at one in particular. He stared at Charlie Cline, who was   shackled to the wall, his torn and tattered clothes reeking of perspiration and his own filth.

Charlie looked empty-eyed back at Sandy Whiskers. His face was gaunt. His naked chest was striped from beatings. One of his arms was missing.

"You are a most stubborn man," Sandy Whiskers grumbled. "Those who cooperate and go to the silver mines without causing us problems are treated much better. Seems you needed convincing."

Sandy Whiskers grabbed the bars and leaned his face against them. "Alicia? Your sister?" he said, catching a sudden flicker of light in Charlie's eyes at the mention of his sister. "She is even less fortunate." He shrugged. "Her disobedience caused her an early death." He laughed throatily. "But I enjoyed her body before I slit her throat."

Remorse filled Charlie, making his heart feel as though it were being wrenched from inside his chest. The wrist of his one arm strained against the steel rings that held it to the wall as he tried to pull it free. He glared at Sandy Whiskers. "If ever I get free, it won't be to work in the silver mines," he growled. "It will be to kill you."

When another loud volley of gunfire spat out overhead, Sandy Whiskers looked up at the rocky ceiling of the cavern, then walked hurriedly away from Charlie.

Charlie turned his eyes upward and hope sprang forth within him. Someone had arrived. The outpost was being attacked!

He looked quickly at Sandy Whiskers, who was retreating into the darker depths of the cavern.

"Coward!" he shouted. "Run or die, eh? I swear,   if I ever get free, I will find you and kill you myself!"