Cheyenne Captive (34 page)

Her face was both shocked and startled as she looked up from her sewing, and for a split second he wondered if she was going to laugh.
By Gawd, he’d kill her if she laughed at him!

She didn’t laugh. Her expression, though startled, was kind and gentle. “Thank you for the offer, Jake, it’s very sweet of you—”

“Nobody would dare bother you again, Texanna, they’d have to answer to me for it! We’ll leave Texas, make a new start somewheres—”

“You didn’t let me finish.” Her expression now was troubled, strained as she looked down. She fumbled with a button on the dress in her hands for a long moment. “I can’t marry you, Jake. I have a man already.”

“You mean, that damned Injun buck?” he snorted, his heart starting to sink.
She was going to turn him down after all. That’s what he got for trying to be gentle-like instead of just overpowering her like he usually did if the gal weren’t willin’.

His disappointment made his words harsh. “You can ferget that savage. You won’t never see him again. And you’re mighty uppity with old Jake! You should be purdee grateful I’d be willin’ to take an Injun’s leavin’s. Most white men wouldn’t!”

She jerked as though he’d struck her across the face and little blotches of color came to her cheeks. “I might have known you were just like the rest of them.” Her voice was cold, hurt. “You all figure if I’d sleep with an Indian, I’m a tramp and should be grateful for your offers.”

“That’s about the size of it, missy.” He’s tried the polite approach and it didn’t work. He’d treat her like he’d always treated women. His groin was aching with need as he confronted her, put his hand on her shoulder. “Look, Texanna, give my offer some thought. I want you. You know that. I wanted you when we was on that wagon train and I want you now. Never mind that Injun got you first. We’ll leave this town, dump those half-breed kids someplace, and go—”

“My children?” Her eyes widened with disbelief as she backed away from him, slowly shaking her head. “You think I’d give up my children?”

Now it was his turn to stare back at her in astonishment. “You didn’t think the offer included the kids, did you?” He moved toward her. “I know a good mission orphanage that’ll take half-breeds. I couldn’t have them kids around, every time I looked at either of them, I’d think about that damned savage forcin’ hisself between yore legs—”

“He didn’t force me!” Her voice rose in strident anger as she confronted him. “Do you hear? He didn’t force me! I took him willingly and, God willing, someday I’ll take his children and go back to him!”

Jake felt his small eyes widen in surprise. “You’re loco!” he whispered. “They been sayin’ it all over town, but I didn’t believe them! You do deserve the insane asylum! You’re plumb loco!”

Her eyes flashed like deep blue fire. He had forgotten how spirited and feisty she was when she was angry. “Loco, why? Because I’m faithful to the man I love? Because I’m just waiting for the chance to escape and go back to his arms? If that’s loco, mister, I plead guilty!”

She was more desirable and beautiful than he had remembered as she glared at him. All the jealousy, frustration, and hunger of wanting her made something inside him go out of control when he realized she was rejecting him. She would never be his, never sleep with him, despite his new clothes and clumsy gentleness.

“By God, woman!” he swore. “I will have you, missy, at least onct!” His big hand reached out, dragged her to him. His mouth covered hers as she tried to cry out and he lifted her off her feet, crushing her in his bearlike embrace. He could feel her full, milk-swollen breasts through the cloth of his coat as he held her and the taste of her mouth was sweeter than he had even imagined in his daydreams.

Yes, he would have her at least once, and then she’d change her mind once he’d put a baby in her belly and take him as her protector. That was how his pa had gotten his mama. Next year, that could be Jake’s baby in that cradle, his son sharing those full, swollen breasts with his daddy.

“I’m gonna have you, Texanna, if I have to knock you out to do it,” he muttered feverishly against her lips as she writhed in protest. “I know you’re used to havin’ a man and I’m eager to prove I’m ever bit the stud War Bonnet was! I’ll make you forget him when I love you!”

“You rotten bastard, let me go!” Her frantic shriek woke up the baby and it started crying as Jake struggled with Texanna.

The half-breed boy came through the bedroom door then, sleepily rubbing his eyes. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, son,” Texanna answered coolly, pulling from Jake to rearrange her rumpled dress. “Now you go back to bed like a good boy. I’ll see to the baby.”

Jake smiled benignly at the uncertain child. “Your ma and I is just havin’ a friendly visit, that’s all. Now you go on back to bed like she says.”

He wondered if the boy had caught the tension in Texanna’s voice.
She was afraid for the kid’s safety. Yeah, she’d let him love her right there on the sofa if he threatened her damned kids.

Jake and War Bonnet’s son eyed each other a long moment while Texanna went over to lift the baby from the cradle and soothe it. Jake wasn’t too worried about the boy. Texanna was a good shot, Jake remembered that from the wagon train. But everyone in town said the kid still hunted with a lance or bow and arrow. No, he was no threat.

Texanna put the baby back in its cradle and looked from one male to the other. “Go back to bed, son,” she said again.

Almost reluctantly, the boy disappeared into the bedroom and Texanna strode over, closed the door. Before Jake could anticipate her next move, she ran to grab up a shotgun leaning against a wall in a shadowy corner. The slender blonde leveled down on him. “You get out of here, Jake, or I’ll blow you to Kingdom Come and you know I shoot well enough to do it.”

Would she? Jake knew she was a good shot and brave as they come, but he wasn’t sure she’d actually kill a man.

But as he started to advance on her, she hefted the gun and took dead aim at his belly. “I know what you’re thinking, Jake, and yes, I would!” Her voice shook a little from fright but her eyes were determined, her hands steady. “Unlike Ransford Longworth,” she said, “you aren’t a pillar of the community and a lot of folks don’t like you. Why, the town might make me a heroine all over again if I killed you!”

“Now, Texanna.” He gestured placatingly, but all he could think of was the ache in his groin, how he was going to throw her across the sofa and take her when he managed to get that gun out of her hands. “Let’s talk about this—”

“You come one step closer, and you’ll think talk,” she declared. “Get out of here, Jake, and don’t you ever come back!”

Suddenly, the half-breed kid stood in the bedroom door with an arrow fitted to his bow. The arrow was pointed at Jake’s belly. “Get away from my mama,” the kid said, and his eyes were as brave and savage as any grown Dog Soldier Jake had ever fought.

Jake’s lust faded fast as he faced two weapons and knew by the expressions that the woman and boy thought they had little to lose by killing him.

“All right, all right! I’m going!” he muttered, swearing under his breath as the two backed him out the front door. They didn’t lower their weapons as he turned and stalked furiously out to his horse.
Damn! If word ever got out he’d backed down to a woman and a kid, he’d be laughed not only out of Fandango, but every saloon and gambling hall in Texas!

Mounting, he rode toward town, sawing cruelly on his gelding’s mouth. He’d wasted all that time and money getting cleaned up and buying new clothes and had nothing to show for it. There was no use wasting all this trouble when there were women at the saloon. Tonight, and the rest of his life, he’d mistreat and brutalize women, trying to get even with a tall, slim girl with red-gold hair who had rejected his clumsy offer of love.

Jake seldom came to Texas after that, but when he did he avoided Texanna’s house and hung around the saloon with a woman named Kate. More than four years passed. He didn’t see Texanna or her half-breed son again until late one afternoon when he’d caught that devil’s spawn of War Bonnet’s topping Kate. That started the whole chain of events that climaxed with the town mob wanting to hang the boy after Jake almost whipped him to death. But gritty Texanna had confronted them all with her shotgun, just as War Bonnet and his raiding party finally rode in to carry her off.

Texanna,
he thought.
Texanna. Where was she now after all these years?
He came back to the present with a start and remembered the cavalry was about to attack the Cheyenne village. He looked down at the unconscious girl in his arms.

Almost tenderly, he shifted the Van Schuyler girl so her face rested on his shoulder and he kissed her still lips. Then very carefully, he lay her in a thicket of wild sand plum bushes. Jake checked his Sharps rifle and felt for the hilt of his Bowie knife, still bloody from the sentries’ throats. He rolled up his whip and hung it again from his belt. With that, he mounted his scruffy bay pony, swearing a little because he didn’t make enough as a scout to support drinking, gambling, and buying a better horse, too. Well, he’d get a fine-blooded horse now, either out of that Cheyenne herd or with the reward money he was going to get for returning the Boston girl.

From where he sat his horse on the little rise, he could see the blue of the troopers’ uniforms as they spread like shadows around the camp. Gripping the reins tightly, he held his breath and waited for the first gunshot. His mouth felt dry and he wished he had a shot of strong, sour mash whiskey or, at the very least, a cup of black coffee laced with chicory the way they made it in the Cajun country he had spent a little time in.

Jake licked his lips. The other thing he wanted was a cigar but there wasn’t time now that the raid was about to begin. Somewhere in the camp, a dog barked a warning and it drifted on the frosty, clean air as he inhaled.

Almost detached from the scene below him, he watched the Yankee captain bring his arm down in a charging motion and for a split second, he wondered if that sweet little brown bitch, Gray Dove, was in the camp.

He shrugged and spat to one side. It couldn’t be helped now if she was and he’d had no way to warn her and get her out. Anyway, she’d be madder than hell at him when she realized she’d been double-crossed and followed back to camp instead of meeting at old Fort Gibson like they’d agreed. He never intended to split that five-hundred-dollar reward with her anyway. He needed it all to open that fancy saloon up on Cherry Creek in the gold diggings they were already referring to as “Denver.”

Rifles cracked suddenly in the still air and now all he thought of was charging into the camp, killing as many Indians as possible. He dug his mean Spanish spurs into the scruffy bay nag, raking its flanks cruelly with the sharp steel as he raced into the camp.

The next ten minutes were a blur of noise, blood, and confusion. Half-naked Indians ran out of tepees only to be cut down by gunfire. Women screamed, running about, and children cried out in terror. Dogs raced around the camp barking. The big pony herd, stampeded buy the noise, galloped through the camp in a cloud of dust. Here and there, a brave tried to grab a running horse and mount up, but mostly the man attempting it was trampled by the milling, churning herd. Jake grinned as he aimed down his rifle sights at a very old brave wearing a scalp shirt. He had always hankered to own a scalp shirt. If he aimed low and gut shot the old man there wouldn’t be any blood all over the front of that fancy shirt. He didn’t give it much thought that a gut shot man takes a long, long time to die in agony.
Hell! They was just animals anyways,
he thought as he took aim.

But as he squeezed the trigger, the pony under him jerked nervously, spoiling his aim, and the shot went high. The front of the shirt seemed to explode in a splatter of blood and he swore angrily. Damn! The shirt was ruined now. He couldn’t wear it with a big hole and blood all over it! The smell of gunpowder and fresh blood made his horse shy again and he jerked furiously on the reins, sawing the pony’s mouth cruelly as he fired a second time. He brought down a running squaw with a baby in her arms. Jake decided not to waste a bullet on the baby. He could hear it wailing over the noise in its dead mother’s arms. All around him echoed shooting and screaming. Horses reared and whinnied in agony as bullets struck them. The smell of death and smoke hung over the scene like a shroud as troopers torched the tepees.

The Injuns was making a game effort to defend themselves,
Jake noted as he saw a soldier clutch at a lance in his leg and fall from a snorting, stumbling horse.

That lance was thrown by one of the biggest bucks Jake had ever seen. He stood in the middle of the chaos, evidently trying to rally the warriors.
The Injun wore a strange earring,
Jake thought. It looked almost like a button off a cavalry jacket, and from the bone whistle visible in the neck of the deerskin shirt, he knew the Indian was a Dog Soldier, bravest of the brave. For a moment, he thought the man looked familiar, that he had seen him somewhere before. But he dismissed the idea.
Hell! All Injuns looked alike!

The bigger they are, the harder they fall!
Jake thought with satisfaction as he swung the Sharps around toward the big Indian and pulled the trigger. But Jake’s horse jerked at the same time the Dog Soldier moved. Though the man went down soaked with blood, Jake figured the shot might have gone a little high. He’d aimed for the heart.
But the Injun shore looked dead from here,
he noted with satisfaction as he reined his pony around, looking for another target. He thought he saw Gray Dove running through hazy smoke toward the woods and he grinned to himself and didn’t pull the trigger. There was no need killing her; she was too good in the sack. Sooner or later, she’d turn up at the fort again and he could enjoy her some more. Then, too, if he did get to open that saloon, she could make him a lot of money as a whore. Jake spat to one side. Yes, she’d come to the fort again because she was too lazy and greedy to stay with the Indians. But if the Cheyenne ever found out she was the one who betrayed them, she might not have enough hide left to hold her meat and bones together. Angry squaws would beat her to death if they got the chance for revenge.