Agnes and the Renegade (Men of Defiance) (3 page)

Oh, God. She was alone, all alone, hours and hours from the nearest ranch.
 

She closed her eyes and saw again the terrible image of the face on the other side of the window. Her heart was like a sledgehammer in her chest. How many of them were out there? She’d thought this land was settled, but clearly it was not. What were their intentions? If they wanted to get inside her cabin, there was little she could do to stop them.
 

She stood in the center of the cabin’s only room, wondering what she should do. Not knowing how many there were, she wasn’t safe attempting to escape from one of the windows. And there was nowhere in the small cabin that she could hide. She was heaving air in rapid, terrified gasps, adrift in the darkness of her cabin.

If they were coming in, it was most likely they’d come through the door. She moved the two chairs to the same side of the table, then huddled beneath it. If they got in, she’d run out while they were looking through the cabin.
 

A terrible noise cut into her terror. They were banging on her front door. It was barred by only a foot-long piece of wood that dropped into the handle on the jamb. It wasn’t a wide piece of bar that went across the entire opening. Obviously, it had been made to secure the door from the wind, not marauding Indians.

The banging sounded again. The door rattled and jumped. Someone was bludgeoning it with an ax. Oh, God. Aggie watched helplessly from her cover under the table. The wood wouldn’t take much more abuse.

And it didn’t. After the next blow, it swung open. Aggie shut her eyes, instinctively worried the intensity of her gaze would draw the intruders to her hiding spot. The first one through the door moved quietly on moccasined feet—quietly but not silently to ears straining for the slightest sound. Those feet came straight toward her. The chairs scraped the floor as they were thrust aside. The table over her head was lifted and tossed into the room.

The warrior grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet. Aggie cried and pleaded, resisting his relentless grip as she drew back against the wall, then fear paralyzed her, freezing her in place. She didn’t struggle, didn’t fight him. It was futile. She looked toward the door, wondering how many others would come in with him, and was surprised to see he was alone.

The warrior held her pinned to the wall with a hand at her throat. She couldn’t see the details of his expression in the dark interior of her cabin. The paint that banded his eyes heightened his devastating effect. She could make out the whites of his eyes and his flashing teeth. She realized he was shouting at her. She couldn’t hear much beyond the racket of her own heartbeat thundering in her ears.

He took his knife out of its sheath and held it to her throat. Aggie closed her eyes and prayed her death would be swift.

Chayton looked at the woman he held. Her tears spilled down her face and splashed off his wrist. He could feel her rapid heartbeat and knew her terror, but she didn’t fight him, didn’t beg and plead. He wondered if Laughs-Like-Water had faced her last moments like this. Or had she fought to protect their children, fought to the bloody, brutal end?

He should kill this woman. Her life for his wife’s. That she was in his valley, unguarded, meant she was a gift to him, his to do with as he wished. If he killed her, he might be able to purge the guilt shredding him for being absent when his family most needed him. He touched the flat of his blade to the woman’s neck and pressed it upward over her face.

He could feel her body trembling against his. The dark was a kindness—it hid her eyes. If he could see them, he knew they would be blue eyes, eyes that had watched him so boldly, owned by a woman who had stood against the men of her people to defend him that very morning. He’d watched Logan bring her to his valley earlier in the day.

He pressed his knife to her hairline. And hesitated. This woman’s death wouldn’t be enough. A hundred women. A thousand men. He could kill them all and it wouldn’t be enough. If he surrendered to the bloodlust eating his soul, there would just be more dead. And still no Laughs-Like-Water, still no freedom to move in the lands of his people, and still his people would remain locked away in the unsustainable and soul-deadening life of the reservation.
 

The woman’s breath puffed against his face, sweet and hot, pulsing as fast as her heart. He released her and stepped back from her, sheathing his knife. She didn’t move. He turned and bumped into the table. He picked it up and threw it against the opposite wall. It bounced off her stove and shattered when he kicked it.

Chayton braced his foot against the door and yanked his ax free, then walked out into the night.
 

Aggie didn’t move from the spot he’d put her in for several long minutes after he left. She knew him. She’d drawn him; he was her Indian from the morning. Had the men not stopped him, would he have attacked her then? Did they know what she hadn’t? She’d been mesmerized by the lethal energy that surrounded him, blinded to his perilous nature.

A minute passed. He didn’t return. She eased herself away from the wall and pushed the door closed. It hung a little skewed and wouldn’t close properly. The latch was gone. Aggie dragged a chair over and propped it against the door. There was no door handle, just the latch and a strap for the latch from the outside. The wood block was in pieces on the floor. The chair wouldn’t stop him from coming back and finishing what he tried before, but at least there would be a bit of warning.

Her legs were shaky when she crossed the room. She picked up the quilt from the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders, then lowered herself to the floor at the foot of the bed. If he came back, she’d wiggle beneath it.
 

And if that happened, she hoped and prayed he’d believe she’d left.

CHAPTER THREE

Chayton sat on his black-and-white paint at the wide break in the sandstone bluff—a ridge that ran in an east-west direction for miles. His valley was on the south side of it, Logan’s land on the north side. His friend would be traveling this way to bring him the goods he had traded skins for in town yesterday.

As he waited, Chayton’s long-simmering frustration fed on itself, growing ever more virulent. His friend had brought someone to his valley. Not just someone. The white woman from town. The one whose eyes had haunted him through the night, taunting him with both her bravery in town and her terror last night.

After a while, Chayton saw Logan leading a horse packed with goods toward the pass. When he drew even with Chayton, they silently eyed each other. Chayton turned his horse and led him along the path they both knew so well. At the rocky base of a steep climb up a bluff, Chayton dismounted. He never took his mount up that way, which minimized wear of the habitat—something that had worked in his favor the times posses from town had come hunting for him.

“What’s on your mind, Chayton?” Logan asked in English as they began unloading the packhorse.

Chayton carried two more loads over to the stack of goods they were making on the ground before he answered in
Lakȟóta
. “You brought a white-eyes to my valley.”

Logan studied him. “It’s not your valley. It’s mine.”

Chayton’s rage broke free. “This is the land of my people. It has been so since my grandfather’s grandfather told the stories of his grandfather’s grandfather.”

Logan nodded. “An ownership that ended with your generation. I bought the land.”

“You cannot buy my land.”

“It was no longer your land.”
 

Chayton faced Logan. “Leave. And take the
wašíču
with you.”
 

“I had to buy it when the government opened it up for sale. If I hadn’t, someone else would have. They would have taken your horses. They would have hunted you down. I bought it so you would have a haven and your horses could continue to thrive in the Valley of Painted Walls.”

“I do not want the woman here. If you will not remove her, I will.”

“It is only for a summer. She’s an artist. She has come to paint the landscape. It would be unacceptable if you caused her harm. She’ll be gone by the time the leaves fall.”

“Or sooner.”

“Chayton, she is my guest. I ask you to guard her and help me see to her safety and comfort. She has come up here from Denver. She is not familiar with our country. She has no malicious designs on you, and, in fact, has no weapons.”

The two men eyed each other again. “We will see how long she stays.”

* * *

Aggie heard a horse outside. She jerked awake. It was light already. She had no idea what time it was; she’d slept little during the night, only shutting her eyes once dawn chased the darkness away. She couldn’t risk opening one of the shutters to see who was there—if it was the Indian again, she’d waste the few seconds she had to get hidden. She had lifted the bed skirt and started to crawl under the bed when she heard a man’s voice call out.

“Miss Hamilton? Oh, God! Miss Hamilton!” Mr. Taggert burst through the door.

She wiggled back out from under the bed. “I’m here.”

Mr. Taggert hurried to her side and crouched down in front of her. “Are you hurt? What happened?”

Aggie was never so glad to see another human being as she was right then to see Mr. Taggert. She shook her head. “I’m not hurt. Just scared to death. The Indian from town came here last night.”

Mr. Taggert lifted her to her feet and gave her a thorough once-over. “Did he hurt you?”

Aggie rubbed her throat. “He pinned me to the wall. I thought he was going to cut my throat or scalp me, but, obviously, he did neither. He broke your table. And the door—”

“Do you want to come up to the house?”

Yes
. But if she did, she wouldn’t paint. And if she didn’t paint, she’d have no income from the sales of her paintings to supplement her small stipend—she might even lose Theo’s warehouse. “No. Just tell me, is he crazy? Is he going to do that again? Am I safe here?”

Mr. Taggert released her and walked back to the door. He put his hands on his hips and lowered his head. The fact he didn’t immediately answer her question was not comforting. He looked outside, squinting into the morning light. “His name is Chayton. At one time, he had the gentlest soul I’d ever seen in a man. Now, I don’t know.” He looked over at her. His expression was hidden in the shadow of his hat’s brim, but the tension around his mouth was clear. “Let me bring you up to the house. Then I’ll go have a talk with Chayton.”

Aggie shook her head. “You go have a talk with him. If, afterward, you think I should leave, I will. If you think he’s safe, then I want to stay here and keep to the original plan.”

Mr. Taggert gave her a hard look, then nodded. “Agreed. I brought you some dairy items for the keeping box. And I’ve got your horse. I’ll bring them in, turn the horse out in the corral, then go see about Chayton.”

Aggie drew the edges of the quilt tighter about her shoulders. “What if you can’t find him?”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll find him.”

“Thank you.”

* * *

Chayton had been expecting Logan to return after visiting with the blue-eyed
wašíču
woman. He stood beside the rocky slope that led up to the bluff where his cave was. Logan tied his horse by a scrub pine and came straight toward him.
 

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Logan shouted. “Since when do you make war on women?”

“I did not harm her.”

“No? You terrified her. She’s my guest, Chayton. I gave her my word she would be safe here. I left her alone because I thought you would help me see to her welfare. Instead, you bust down her door and wave a knife at her.” Logan shook his head. “You gotta get your head squared away. You’re a guest here, too.”

Chayton thought back to their conversation earlier in the morning. “I am not a guest here. The land was sold illegally. How can your chiefs sell something that does not belong to them?”

Logan sighed and sat down on a large boulder. “Chayton, the world is not the same as it was when we met.”

“No, it is not. I have no home, no land, and no people. You and the
wašíču
have everything that belonged to my people.”

 
“Chayton, you have people on both sides of your blood.” A chill rushed over Chayton’s skin at Logan’s words, even in the glaring heat of the noon sun. “I’ve corresponded with your grandmother.”

The horror of Logan’s revelation made it hard for Chayton to breathe. “Why?”

“When I went to the reservation to trade with you last summer, you weren’t there. When I asked around, I learned your grandmother had sent a delegation to retrieve you, but that you hadn’t left with them. I thought perhaps you’d gone on your own to see her. I wrote to her hoping to find you.”

“It is because of her that I could not stay with my people. The soldier in charge at the Agency believed I was
wašíču
and forced me out. That old woman took what little was left of my life. Why would I go to her?”

“Chayton, you are half white.”

“I am
Lakȟóta
. My mother lived and died
Lakȟóta
. She was not
wašíču
.”

“Yes. But she was born white, taken on a raid, forced to live among your people.”

“She was not forced to do anything. She loved my father and bore him four children.”

Logan shook his head. “You’re missing the point. You have choices. Return to the Lakota, live in the white world, or live as a recluse here. The choice is yours, but you cannot scare my guests.”

A curious thought entered Chayton’s mind. “Is the woman your second wife?”

Logan’s eyes widened. “No, she is but a guest. And an artist. I’m hoping she will paint some landscapes that I can buy, both for my house and for my trading posts. Hurting her hurts me.”

Chayton crossed his arms and considered Logan’s demeanor and request. “I will allow her to stay the summer.”

Logan nodded. “Thank you. I’ll let her know she’ll have no further trouble from you.” Logan stood and set a hand on Chayton’s shoulder. “Please consider at least meeting your grandmother. She is of an advanced age. It would mean a great deal for her to finally set eyes on her grandson. I watched the hell my father went through when he was searching for my brother. It eats at a person to know your flesh and blood is out there somewhere in the world, alone.”