A Heart So Wild (2 page)

F
OURTEEN hell-bent men rode out of Wichita the next morning. Young Peter, nineteen, was thoroughly excited. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. He was thrilled for this chance. And he wasn't the only one, for some of the men simply enjoyed killing, and this was a perfect excuse.

Elroy didn't care much for any of these men. They weren't his kind of people. But all of them had been out West much longer than he had, which made him feel inferior. They all had one thing in common, at any rate. Each had his own reason for hating Indians.

Chapman's three regular hands gave their first names only—Tad, Carl, and Cincinnati. The three gunmen Chapman had hired were Leroy Curly, Dare Trask, and Wade Smith. One of the Wichita men was a traveling dentist with the unlikely name of Mr. Smiley. Elroy didn't understand why so many folks who came West felt the need to change their names, sometimes to suit their occupations, sometimes not. There was the ex-deputy between jobs who had wandered down to Wichita six months ago and was still between jobs. How did he support himself, Elroy wondered, but he knew better than to
ask. The third Wichita man was a homesteader like Elroy who'd just happened into the saloon last night. The two drifters were brothers on their way to Texas, Little Joe Cottle and Big Joe.

With hard riding and the hope of picking up a few more men, Chapman led the men into Rockley by noon that day. But the detour gained them only one more man, Lars Handley's son, John. They found there was no hurry, however, because Big Joe Cottle, who'd ridden ahead with an extra mount, met them in Rockley and reported that the Kiowas were still camped on the riverbank.

They reached the Indian campsite in mid-afternoon. Elroy had never in his life ridden so hard. His backside was killing him. The horses were done in, too. He would never have ridden a horse of his own like that.

The trees and lush vegetation growing along the river gave Elroy and the others ample cover. They moved in close and watched the camp, and the roar of the river drowned out the little sounds they made.

It was a peaceful setting. Stately tepees spread out beneath the huge trees. Children tended the horses, and the women were gathered in a group, talking. One lone old man was playing with a baby.

It was hard to imagine that these were blood-thirsty savages, Elroy thought, and that the children would grow up to kill and steal. Why, the women were known to be even worse than the men at torturing captives, or so he'd heard. There was only one warrior visible, but that didn't mean anything. As Little Joe pointed
out, there might be other warriors, all taking siestas the way Mexicans did.

“We should wait until tonight, when they're all asleep and unsuspectin',” Tad suggested. “Injuns don't like to fight at night. Somethin' 'bout their dyin' and their spirits bein' unable to find the happy huntin' grounds. A little surprise wouldn't hurt none.”

“Seems to me we got surprise on our side right now,” Mr. Smiley pointed out. “If those warriors are all napping anyway—”

“They might not even be around.”

“Who says? They could be makin' weapons in them tepees, or humpin' their women.” Leroy Curly chuckled.

“That'd be a mighty lot of women, then. There's only ten tepees, Curly.”

“You recognize any of your horses over there, Mr. Chapman?” Elroy asked.

“Can't say as I do, but they're herded too close to get a good look at 'em all.”

“Well, I know Kiowas when I see 'em.”

“Don't think so, Tad,” Cincinnati disagreed. “I believe they're Comanches.”

“How would you know?”

“Same way you
think
you know Kiowas,” Cincinnati replied. “I know Comanches when I see 'em.”

Carl ignored them both, for Tad and Cincinnati could never agree on anything. “What's the difference? Injuns is Injuns, and this ain't no reservation, so it's sure as hell these aren't tame.”

“I'm after the ones that raided—” Bill Chapman interjected.

“Sure you are, boss, but are you willin' to let
this band go their merry way if they
ain't
the ones?”

“They could be the ones next year,” Cincinnati pointed out as he inspected his gun.

“What the hell's goin' on?” Little Joe demanded. “You mean we blistered our butts all day and now you're thinkin' of turnin' back without killin' 'em? Bullshit!”

“Easy, little brother. I don't reckon that's what Mr. Chapman was thinkin' at all. Was it, Mr. Chapman?”

“Not likely,” the rancher said angrily. “Carl's right. It don't make much difference which band of savages we got here. We get rid of this band and others will think twice before they raid around here.”

“Then what are we waitin' for?” Peter looked around eagerly.

“Just make sure you save the women for last.” Wade Smith spoke for the first time. “I'm gonna have some. For my trouble, see?”

“Now you're talking.” Dare Trask chuckled. “And here I thought this was gonna be just another
routine
job.”

There was now a new element to the excitement running through the men as they moved back to collect their horses. Women! They hadn't thought of that. Ten minutes later the crack of rifles broke into the silence. When the last shot was fired there were four Indians left alive, three women and one young girl that Wade Smith had found too pretty to pass up. All four of the women were raped many times, then killed.

At sundown, fourteen men rode away. The ex-deputy was the only one of their casualties.
As they removed his body from the scene, they felt that his death was a small enough sacrifice.

The camp was quiet after they left, all the screams born away on the wind. Only the roar of the river was heard. There was no one at the camp to mourn the dead Comanches, who were unrelated to the band of Kiowas who had raided Bill Chapman's ranch. There was no one to mourn the young girl who had caught. Wade Smith's eye with her dark skin and blue eyes, eyes that gave away the trace of white blood somewhere in her background. None of her people heard her suffer before she died, for her mother had died before they finished raping the girl.

She had marked her tenth birthday that spring.

“C
OURTNEY, you're slouching again. Ladies don't slouch. I swear, didn't they teach you anything in those expensive girls' schools?”

The chastised teenager glanced sideways at her new stepmother, started to say something, then changed her mind. What was the use? Sarah Whitcomb, now Sarah Harte, heard only what she wanted to hear and nothing else. Anyway, Sarah was no longer looking at Courtney, her interest now drawn by the farm just barely visible in the distance.

Courtney straightened her back anyway, felt the muscles around her neck scream in protest, and gritted her teeth. Why was she the only one to feel the lash of Sarah's scolding tongue? Sometimes the older woman's new personality amazed Courtney. Most times, though, Courtney just kept quiet, drawing into herself as she had learned to do to keep out the hurt. It was a rare thing these days when Courtney Harte drew on her old courage, only when she was overly tired and just didn't care anymore.

She hadn't always been a veritable mass of insecurities. She had been a precocious, outgoing child—friendly, mischievous. Her mother
used to tease her, saying she had a bit of the devil in her. But her mother had died when Courtney was only six years old.

In the nine years since, Courtney had been sent off to one school after another, her father unable to cope with the demands of a child while he was so deeply in mourning. But apparently Edward Harte had liked the arrangement, for Courtney was allowed to come home only for a few weeks each summer. Even then, Edward never found time to spend with his only child. During most of the war years, he hadn't been at home at all.

At fifteen, Courtney had suffered being unwanted and unloved too long. She was no longer open and friendly. She had become a very private and cautious young girl, so sensitive to the way others treated her that she would withdraw at the slightest hint of disapproval. Her many strict teachers were responsible for some of the girl's awkward shyness, but most of it came from trying continually to regain her father's love.

Edward Harte was a doctor whose thriving practice in Chicago had kept him so busy he rarely found time for anything but his patients. He was a tall, graceful Southerner who had settled in Chicago after his marriage. Courtney thought there was no man handsomer or more dedicated than he. She worshiped her father and died a little every time he looked at her with those vacant eyes, the same honeyed brown as her own.

He had found no time for Courtney before the Civil War, and it was even worse after. The war had done something terrible to this man
who ended up fighting against the home he'd come from because of his humanitarian beliefs. After he came home in '65, he had not resumed his practice. He became reclusive, locking himself away in his study, drinking to forget all the deaths he'd been unable to prevent. The Harte wealth had suffered.

If not for the letter from Edward's old mentor Dr. Amos asking Edward to take over his practice in Waco, Texas, Courtney's father would probably have drunk himself to death. Disillusioned Southerners were pouring into the West, looking for new lives, Dr. Amos wrote, and Edward decided to become one of those who chose hope over disillusionment.

This was going to be a new life for Courtney, too. There would be no more schools, no more living away from her father. She would have a chance now to make him see that she wasn't a burden, and that she loved him. It was going to be just the two of them, she told herself.

But when their train was delayed in Missouri, her father had gone and done the inconceivable. He had married their housekeeper of the last five years, Sarah Whitcomb. There had, it seemed, been some mention of the impropriety of a thirty-year-old woman traveling with Dr. Harte.

Edward didn't love Sarah, and Sarah had eyes for Hayden Sorrel, one of the two men Edward had hired to escort them through the dangerous territory to Texas. The very day of the wedding, Sarah was transformed into a new person. Where she'd once been so kind to Courtney, she was now a veritable shrew—bossy, criticizing, unmindful of anyone's feel
ings. Courtney had given up trying to understand the change. She simply tried to keep out of Sarah's way. That wasn't easy when five people were traveling by wagon across the plains of Kansas.

Traveling along the Arkansas River since leaving Wichita that morning, they had left the river to see if they could find a homestead or town to spend the night. After all, sleeping under a roof was one of the things they would have to do without once they reached the two-hundred-mile stretch through Indian Territory.

Indian Territory. The name alone was enough to frighten Courtney. But Hayden Sorrel and the other fellow, called simply Dallas, said they had nothing to worry about as long as they took along some cattle to bribe the Indians with. Jesse Chisholm, a half-breed Cherokee, had discovered a comparatively flat route between San Antonio, Texas, and Wichita. Chisholm used that route to haul merchandise in '66, and settlers had used it ever since to cross the plains. People were now calling it the Chisholm Trail. The first of the Texas cattle herds had reached Abilene over this route.

A livestock broker from Illinois, Joseph McCoy, was responsible for the herds coming through Kansas this year—McCoy and the Kansas Pacific Railroad, which had finally reached Abilene on its slow trek west. What with Abilene having ample water from the Smoky Hill River and good grazing land in the vicinity, as well as having Fort Riley nearby to protect folks, the Chisholm Trail was now the ideal route to bring the herds for shipping east.

The railroad had made a phenomenal differ
ence to Abilene. Just last year the town had been no more than a dozen log dwellings. It had grown monstrously in just a year's time, and now there were a dozen saloons and other dens of vice to attract the cowhands who brought in the herds.

It would have been nice if the railroad had reached even farther, but it didn't yet, so Abilene was as far as the Hartes had been able to travel in relative comfort. They bought a wagon there to carry the few possessions from home, one of the chuck wagons, in fact, that had already traveled the Trail. Knowing that their mode of transportation had come safely through Indian Territory at least once was a little reassuring.

Courtney would much have preferred to return east and get to Texas a roundabout way. That had, in fact, been their original intention, to travel through the South and then enter Texas on its eastern border. But Sarah wanted to visit her folks in Kansas City before she settled as far away as Texas was. So when Edward heard about this cow trail that had been traveled safely and learned that it passed right by Waco—their destination—he was adamant about changing their route. After all, they were already in Kansas. So much time would be saved by traveling directly south. A secret truth was, he didn't want to travel through the South and see again the destruction wrought there, not if he could take this other route.

Dallas rode ahead to the farm they had sighted, then returned to inform them that they were welcome to spend the night in the barn. “It'll do, Doctor Harte,” Dallas informed Ed
ward. “No sense ridin' the extra mile out of our way to Rockley. It's an itty-bitty town anyhow. We can head back toward the river come mornin'.”

Edward nodded, and Dallas fell into place beside the wagon. Courtney didn't like the man very much, or his friend Hayden, either. Hayden kept making eyes at Sarah. Dallas was much younger than Hayden, maybe twenty-three, so he wasn't interested in Sarah. He'd shown an interest in Courtney, though.

Dallas was good-looking in a rough sort of way, and Courtney would have been extremely flattered by his interest if she hadn't seen the way his eyes greedily took in every female they saw. She was smart enough not to let the novelty of a man paying attention to her go to her head. She knew she was only catching his eye because Dallas was a normal, healthy male, and she was the only female around young enough to suit his tastes.

Courtney knew she wasn't attractive, at least not enough to draw men's interest when other females were present. Oh, she had pretty hair and eyes, and her features were set up kind of nice if you saw beyond the fullness. But men didn't usually notice that. They would look at her short, chubby frame and then look no more.

Courtney hated the way she looked, but she often turned to food as a solace for unhappiness. A few years ago, she hadn't cared. When other children teased her about her weight, she just ate more. When she finally began to care about her appearance, she made an effort to lose weight and had succeeded. Now she was called chubby instead of fat.

One good thing had happened after her father's marriage, and that was his taking notice of Courtney. He began talking to her at length when they rode side by side in the wagon. She didn't actually credit the marriage with this. It was more likely the forced intimacy of the trail that did it. At any rate, she was beginning to think maybe it wasn't hopeless after all. Maybe he really was starting to love her again, the way he had before her mother died.

Edward pulled to a stop in front of a large barn. It still amazed Courtney, having lived in Chicago all her life, that people like this farmer who was coming out to greet them didn't mind living out in the middle of nowhere like this, with no neighbor in sight. Courtney liked being alone, but in a house surrounded by other houses, knowing there were people around. There was no security in this isolation, this wilderness where Indians still roamed.

The farmer was a huge man, at least two hundred and fifty pounds, with hazel eyes in his ruddy face. Smiling, he told Edward there was room to drive the wagon inside the barn. When that was accomplished, he helped Courtney down from the wagon.

“Aren't you the pretty one?” he said, then reached to give Sarah a hand. “But you need to put on a little weight, honey. You're a stick.”

Courtney blushed three shades of red and ducked her head, praying Sarah hadn't heard. Was the man crazy? Here she'd spent two years trying to lose weight, and he was suggesting she was skinny.

Dallas came up behind her while she was trying to sort out her confusion. He whispered
in her ear, “He's big enough to like big women, honey, so don't pay him no mind. In another year or so you'll be rid of that baby fat, and I'll wager you'll be the prettiest gal in north Texas.”

If Dallas had seen her expression, he might have realized he wasn't paying her any compliment. Courtney was mortified. All this personal criticism from men was more than she could bear. She rushed out of the barn and ran behind it to the back. She stared out over the flat land that stretched for miles. Tears glistened in her golden brown eyes, making them look like pools of honey.

Too fat, too skinny—how could people be so cruel? Could there be any sincerity in two such opposing opinions? Or was she learning that men never told the truth? Courtney didn't know what to think anymore.