This Savage Heart (25 page)

Adam walked over to the window, something in her voice making his heart burst all over again. “Derek?” he repeated. “Who is this Derek to you?” He waited, nerves taut, for her answer.

“I love him. I’ve loved him for a long, long time, but it was only on the wagon train that we both came to realize how much we meant to each other. No one is going to stop me from finding Derek.”

He stared out the window at the barren land between him and the mountains. At that moment, he’d had all he could take.

He went to the door, summoned a guard, and ordered, “Take her to her room, lock her in, and post a guard outside the door. No one is to see her or talk with her except myself or Dr. Mangone. Move the squaw to the stockade and see that she’s looked after. The minute she’s well enough, I want her off this fort!”

“Adam, no!” Julie sprang to her feet, running to him, but the guard restrained her. Adam left the room. Struggling, she screamed at him as he walked quickly down the hallway, “You can’t do this! I’m not crazy. I’m telling the truth! Talk to Sujen! Listen to her,
please
.”

“Ma’am, I don’t want to hurt you,” the guard warned as she continued to struggle furiously. “Please calm down.”

“Oh, damn you, let me go!” Julie twisted, trying to break his grip. Two soldiers, hearing the commotion, rushed to the guard’s aid. The three men dragged her away.

Adam kept on going, heading straight for his quarters. When he got there, he found Elisa having tea with Katrina Melling and Mina Tooley. The women looked up, startled by his appearance. Even Elisa knew better than to argue when he said, “I apologize, but if these good ladies will excuse me, it’s very important that I speak with you alone. Now.”

As soon as the door closed behind her guests, Elisa cried, “Just what was that all about, Adam?”

“Where is my son?” he demanded coldly.

“Why, with Carlita, I suppose.” She shrugged. “Why?”

“Have you even seen him this morning?”

“What?”

“You heard me!” He was fighting himself to keep from grabbing her and shaking her. “Have you seen him at all today? Did you give him his breakfast? Did you give him his bath? Have you even held him? Did you hold him yesterday? Did you play with him?”

“Adam—” She backed away as he advanced menacingly.

“Answer me!” He was dangerously close to slapping her, and he hated himself for the temptation. “You never do anything for the baby, yet you told me not to listen to Julie’s story.
Is
Julie telling the truth?” His voice cracked. “Is that baby my son? Tell me!”

“That conniving whore will stop at nothing!” she cried, desperation making her sound righteous. “She bedded every man on our wagon train, and now she’s after you, so she’s trying to cause trouble between us. How dare she say Adam isn’t mine? Dear God, when I think how I suffered giving birth! Well, I’ll take my son and leave here before I’ll let you abuse me this way! The idea!”

She began to cry, flinging herself against him. Adam couldn’t face the possibility that the baby might be taken from him. He held her to him, folding her against his chest, letting her cry. He felt like the biggest hypocrite of all time. He despised Elisa and he loved Julie, but he was not going to lose his son to either of them.

When Elisa’s hysteria subsided, Adam led her to the sofa to lie down, then brought her a glass of sherry. She gulped it eagerly, and he saw how overwrought she really was. He sat down beside her. She looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes and proclaimed hoarsely, “I hoped our marriage would be strengthened by the birth of our son. Please don’t let that crazy woman come between us.”

He did not meet her gaze. “You’ve got it all wrong, Elisa.”

“Do I?” she challenged. “If I have to, I’ll take little Adam and leave here. I’ve known Julie Marshall much longer than you have, and I know she’s capable of anything. I’ll take the baby and run away if I have to, I swear it. If you want Julie, take her. But you’ll never see your son again.”

Adam still didn’t meet her gaze. “All right, Elisa. I understand.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

In the end, it was Elisa who unraveled the tangled skeins, Elisa who helped Julie escape her prison and sent her away from the fort on horseback. Oh, she didn’t think of it as helping Julie. She meant only to be rid of her, for she knew she couldn’t put an end to Adam’s infatuation without getting rid of Julie.

Elisa knew that by letting Sujen and Julie go she was taking a chance on Julie’s coming back for her nephew. But she guessed that neither Julie nor her Indian friend would survive for very long. No, she decided, there was no great risk in getting the women away from the fort—and Adam. But there was a terrible risk in letting them stay.

So it was that Julie and Sujen found themselves miraculously freed and sent away across the desert with horses, some water, and a little food. It was a hard trek, nevertheless, and Julie worried about Sujen. Could she muster the strength she needed, so soon after her ordeal?

Julie herself felt strong, sure of herself, full of hope. An hour passed, then another then another. They were riding bareback, but no matter. She suddenly seemed to have all the will, all the fire she’d been without since the massacre.

Sujen slowed their pace only after the land became rougher, with hills to climb and holes the horses had to avoid. Riding beside Julie, Sujen asked, “You are tired?”

Julie shook her head, but confessed, “I’m hungry, and I could do with a drink of water. Is there any nearby, or should we use the little we have with us?”

Sujen answered, “Spring has thawed the mountain snows, and the streams are too muddy to drink from. Take just a little from the canteen.”

Worried, Julie asked, “Are you sure you’re all right, Sujen?” But even as she asked, Julie realized that Sujen would never admit a weakness.

A little later, Julie quietly told her friend the story of the wagon train massacre, as much as she knew. It brought startled gasps from Sujen, who was usually stonily composed.

When Julie finished, Sujen was too disturbed to say anything about the Indians. She turned the subject to Derek. “It is wise that I lead you to the Apache camp. Captain Arnhardt will surely sink further under the spell the medicine man casts upon him with peyote. I do hope your face will make him remember who he is. But…this is strong magic. I fear for your life, Julie, yet I can think of nothing to help you.”

“Sujen,” Julie said sharply, “I have to find Derek, no matter what happens. But if you’re afraid of Cochise’s people, what will you do? Is there anywhere you can go? Will you hide nearby and wait for…for whatever happens to Derek?”

Sujen did not reply. Instead, fingers wrapped tightly in the horse’s mane, she steered her horse suddenly to the left, down into a brush-filled ravine. “We go this way and hope we do not awaken rattlesnakes, for with the warm spring sun, they no longer sleep soundly. Then we will climb the mountain and take shelter to hide us when dawn comes.”

“But, Sujen—” Julie persisted.

“We talk then,” was Sujen’s curt response. “Now we must be quiet, to listen for the rattlesnake’s warning.”

As night fell, Sujen found a small cave. There were no signs of recent animal occupants, so they prepared to spend the night there.

“You certainly know this country,” Julie marveled. “I would never have gotten this far so well on my own.”

As she spoke, she turned in time to see a very dark look cross Sujen’s face.

Julie prodded, “Must you go away? You could speak Apache and…and…”

Sujen shook her head. “When the sun rises, I can do no more for you. If the Apache see me, they will surely kill me.”

Julie groped for, and found, Sujen’s hand in the darkness. Squeezing it tightly, she fervently told her, “You’ve already done too much and suffered too much.”

Silence hung like a shroud for a long time, and then Sujen said, “When the first light of dawn comes, I will leave you. Forgive me if you think I abandon you, but I do what I must do.”

Julie swallowed hard. “Tell me what I should know about the medicine man, about peyote.”

Sujen shrugged helplessly, searching for words. “In the beginning, I do not believe the shaman meant to confuse Captain Arnhardt by giving him so much. But the great Cochise saw what a giant he held captive, and who knows what he was thinking when he ordered more and more peyote.”

After a moment’s reflection, Sujen continued, “Cochise feels your man is a brother, a friend. He does not want Derek to leave, and he won’t let him be killed. What else to do but keep him safe by keeping him drugged?”

“How is the peyote given to him?”

“In food, in drink.”

Julie took a deep breath and let it out slowly, not wanting to ask her next question. “Has Derek ridden with the Apaches on any of…their raids, Sujen? Please tell me. I have to know.”

Sujen smiled. “I know why you ask me. When I was a little girl my father took me with him on a hunt. We saw raccoons, and I watched how they wash their food before they eat. I asked my father if they did this to make food taste better, and he told me yes, it would taste better if clean. That is how it is with love. To know that your warrior killed your brothers would make your love taste not as clean. But be at peace, my friend. I am sure he has not been part of Cochise’s raids.”

Julie hoped desperately that Sujen was right. She would learn the truth soon enough, she reminded herself.

Another question tormented her. “What…happens to a person who takes peyote?”

“We believe,” Sujen told her, “that if a man is not morally true, he cannot use peyote. The cactus that brings visions is like a teacher or a healer, a great spirit. My people have used mescal, which is both like and unlike peyote.

“My father was called a giver of visions. He took them both. He told me of dreams, visions of the future. People would go to him with great problems, and he would dream the answer.

“It is said,” she went on, peering out of the cave toward the horizon, “that once two warriors were lost, and their sister looked for them and did not find them. She fell to the ground, exhausted from searching. A dream came to her that her answer would come with the dawn. When she awoke, she found the peyote plant. She ate it, only because she was hungry, and she had a vision that told her where her brothers could be found. There are many stories like this.”

“But can’t it harm him?” Julie blurted, frightened. ‘If they keep on giving it to him, over and over—”

“I never heard of anyone dying from peyote. Too much makes a man loco, yes. I think they do this to Captain Arnhardt because they fear him—for if he comes back to his true self, he will fight to the death. Cochise does not want this. It would be a waste. He keeps him a prisoner of the drug until he thinks of a way to make him one of them. He wants no fights, nothing to put danger in Derek’s path.”

After a while, Sujen asked the question Julie had been asking herself for two days. “What will you do when you find Derek?”

Julie’s voice choked. ‘I don’t know, Sujen. I’ll stay hidden for a while and watch them. Maybe something will come to me.” She flashed a wry grin. “Maybe I’ll find a cactus and eat some peyote and have a vision.”

Soon enough, the blackness outside their cave became a bluish-gray. Sujen sprang to her feet. “I must go now. When you leave here, climb on up to the top of the mountain where it is flat and runs either way as far as the eye can see. There are mesquites and creosotes that will hide you, but be cautious. From there, is not too far to return here at night. But be very careful always, for the Apache have many eyes.”

She led the horse to the entrance as Julie scrambled to her feet, calling, “Wait! You can’t leave, Sujen.” Tears filled her eyes as she embraced her friend tightly. “I may never see you again! We’ve been through so much. You’re my sister.” Her voice caught.

Sujen pulled away gently and mounted the horse. Silhouetted against the gray sky, the young woman looked like an apparition. “It is said among my people that when two hearts have touched, they become one. Once this happens, though the two walk different paths—never to cross again—they are always as one, for their hearts beat together, even in death.” She reached beneath her buckskin dress and brought out a knife. Handing it to Julie, she said, “Take this. There was one of the Apache group who was not all evil. Dark Buffalo speaks English, which he learned from trading with your people. He gave this to me the night I was dragged from the camp. He gave it to me, not for protection, but to end my life before the wolves killed me. I did not have to use it. Perhaps it will give you protection…or end your life if you must.”

She held out her hand for one last clasp, and Julie grasped it. “My friend, our hearts have touched. We are one. Even in death.”

She turned and rode away, disappearing as a rosy mist began to overtake the gray shroud.

Great clouds crowded the horizon, and the ringing mountains stood like attentive spectators as Julie crouched behind a thick clump of pale, feathery mesquite. She surveyed the plateau she had stealthily climbed. Like a flat-topped fortress, the plateau was dark, solid against the morning sky. Along the edges, gypsum rock shimmered silver in the sun.

She was lost. In either direction, there was a maddening maze of gullies and ravines rimming the desert.