Savage Abandon (2 page)

Water splashed like sparkling crystal in the wake of the scow as it worked its way up the Rush River, toward St. Louis.

Mia Collins stood on the deck with her father and the man hired to help row the scow. She was eighteen years of age, petite, with long auburn hair, and she was wearing a comfortable full-length cotton dress.

She stood back away from the men so that she wouldn’t be in the way of the long oars that moved the scow through the river.

She was enjoying the warmth of the sunshine on her pretty round face as her luminous green eyes took in the sights along the riverbank.

She loved to see the occasional deer dipping its nose into the water for a refreshing drink, or a mother opossum carrying its babies on its back.

She loved to smell the scent of the wildflowers that dotted the land, as well as the cedar aroma coming from the towering trees that intermingled with oaks and elms in the shadowy forest.

She and her mother and father had waited to wander once again along the river in their scow, until the warmer weather of spring. Her father had longed for this journey all winter when he felt cooped up either at home, or working on the ships that he helped build for a huge company in St. Louis.

But this spring, the trip downriver was not the same as before. After traveling some distance in the scow, her father had said they must turn back.

He had confided in his wife and daughter about pains that he’d been feeling in his chest. He feared a heart attack was imminent.

They had turned the scow back in the direction of St. Louis, where their home had been locked up until their return. They were in the habit of spending the later months of the summer there when it got too hot to live on the scow.

Mia looked slowly around her now, at the bargelike conveyance on which her family had lived during these past weeks. It was built of logs, lashed together to provide a deck where a little cabin had been built. Here they could take shelter if there were storms and here their provisions were stored away from the elements.

They traveled by day and spent the nights beside a campfire near the river, while her father’s assistant boatman slept aboard the scow, which was tied up near them at the embankment.

If they did leave the scow to sleep on land, on the coldest of evenings, when they needed the
warmth of a campfire, they slept huddled in separate blankets beside the fire.

Mia gazed over her shoulder at a small longboat that skipped along in the water behind the scow, tied to it by a sturdy rope. It was there in case a quick escape was needed, for the larger vessel was not easily maneuvered.

Out of love and pride, Mia’s father had painted her name on both sides of the longboat.

With concern, she gazed at her father. His name was Harry. He was over six feet tall, yet seemed shorter now because he stood stooped over as though the world lay heavy on his broad shoulders.

He no longer had thick, red hair, but instead gray.

He had the same luminous green eyes as Mia, but they were filled with terrible sadness since the death of his wife.

Mia blinked back tears as she thought of how her mother had died. It had been on a day as beautiful as this one, and the scow had been leisurely making its way between tall cliffs along the river.

Mia had looked up just in time to see a lone Indian fitting his bowstring with an arrow. The flight of the arrow had been swift and deadly.

But it seemed the man had wished to kill only one person. After he had watched Mia’s mother fall, an arrow implanted in her chest, he had fled and had never been seen again.

Mia would never forget that moment. Her mother had died instantly, and the shock of seeing
her struck down had caused Harry Collins to suffer a minor heart attack.

It had been up to Mia to take over. She had grabbed hold of her father’s oar, and along with the assistant boatman, had rowed the scow to dry land on the far shore.

Her father had recovered from his attack enough to say a final good-bye to his wife, his sweet Glenna, after the assistant boatman had dug a grave for her beneath a blossoming apple tree, her mother’s favorite of all trees. Mia would always remember the beautiful blossoms that had perfumed the air above her mother’s grave with their hauntingly sweet scent.

It was the very next day that they continued homeward, the loss of Mia’s mother lying heavy on everyone’s hearts except for the man who was assisting Mia’s father to row the scow.

Mia looked at him now as he stood on the side of the boat opposite her father.

His name was Tiny Brown.

He was a small, boisterous man, his sun-bronzed face speckled with freckles, his brilliant red hair brushing his shoulders.

He was an admitted card shark, and although he was skilled at helping with the scow, he persisted in annoying and teasing Mia, showing her one trick and then another with his cards.

Mia was glad that Tiny had never openly flirted with her, and she knew why that was so. He didn’t dare try anything with her under the protective eye of her father.

Mia shuddered even now as she watched Tiny cast her a mischievous glance over his shoulder and nod to the deck of cards in his right shirt pocket.

She knew that he was anxious to show her another trick, although she was tired of everything he said, or did.

All of her troubled thoughts were swept away when Mia’s beautiful yellow canary began warbling, perhaps in response to some yellow finches that were darting here and there close to the scow, singing their own sweet songs.

Mia went to the spot where she kept the cage secured just inside the shade of the shed.

She leaned down and gazed directly into her bird’s black eyes.

“Did you hear the finches, Georgina?” she asked in a soft, melodious tone. “You sweet thing. I have never heard you sing any more beautifully than you are singing this morning.”

She heard a soft mocking laugh and glanced quickly over at Tiny.

She stiffened when she saw that he had stopped to stare at her bird, then at her.

She knew that he despised her canary. He complained all the time about the “racket” it made.

His dislike of the canary had proved to Mia just what sort of man he was. Anyone who couldn’t love something as sweet as her tiny canary surely didn’t have a good bone in his body!

Feeling uneasy in the presence of this man, Mia moved closer to her father.

She glanced at Tiny again, then looked into her father’s sad eyes. “Papa, I don’t mean to make any more trouble for you, but I just can’t feel comfortable with the likes of that man on our scow,” she murmured. “Papa, please consider finding someone else at the next town? Please? I just don’t trust this man. And I don’t understand how you can.”

“He has done us no harm,” her father said. “And you know how hard it is to find help these days, especially someone who don’t mind bein’ away from family on these long river journeys.”

He paused, cleared his throat, then said, “Anyway, we truly don’t have much longer before we’ll be home. Can’t you ignore him for the few weeks it will take us to get there?”

“It seems so long, Papa, before we’ll arrive home,” Mia said, swallowing hard.

“But it truly isn’t,” Harry said. He glanced over his shoulder, at the tiny weasel of a man.

Then he gazed into Mia’s soft green eyes. He raised a hand and gently drew his long, lean fingers through her waist-length auburn hair. “Be patient?” he said, giving her the smile she adored. “For me, Mia? For me?”

“Papa, usually when you give me that smile, I can’t say no to you, but this is different. I just can’t stand that man,” Mia said, visibly shuddering. “Please reconsider. Surely someone will be eager to take Tiny’s place for the amount of money you are paying for assistance.”

Harry placed a hand on her soft, round cheek. He gazed intently into her eyes. “If it means that
much to you, honey, yes, I guess I’ll do what you suggest, but it might delay our trip for several days,” he said. “It ain’t that easy, you know, to get reliable help.”

“Yes, I know,” Mia murmured. “Tiny Brown is proof enough of that.”

Tiny’s ears had picked up the whole argument and he knew now that he would be out of a job before long. He resented Mia’s interference with every fiber of his being.

It was hard for him to find jobs.

Anywhere.

He seemed to rankle everyone’s nerves almost from the very day he was hired to do this or that!

Well, this time he was not going to be let go so easily. He was going to show this miss prissy a thing or two before being given the boot.

He eyed the canary that she was so proud of.

His eyes lit up with a sudden idea.

By jove, he would use that canary to get back at Mia!

He would wait for just the right opportunity to open the door to the cage and watch the bird fly to its freedom.

Yep, he was going to make Mia pay for treating him as though he was beneath her. No one treated Tiny Brown like that and got away with it.

Mia grew cold inside when she saw Tiny glaring at her lovely bird, and then giving her a slow sort of knowing glance.

She was afraid that he had something on his mind now besides cards. But surely she was wrong.
He might be a man she despised, but she could not believe he would take his spite out on her lovely Georgina.

She went back and sat in the shade of the shed beside the birdcage. Georgina hopped closer to her and began singing again, this time even more beautifully than before.

“Oh, Georgina, what would I do without you?” Mia whispered.

Yes, ever since her mama’s death, she had found a measure of peace listening to the canary’s sweet song. She just wished the little bird had the same effect on her father.

She glanced at him now and saw how lost and alone he seemed without his wife.

She worried about the shortness of breath and chest pain he was so prone to having.

She was afraid that one of these days he would have a massive heart attack, and then she would be all alone in the world except for her canary.

She looked heavenward and said a soft prayer that she hoped would get her through these difficult times, praying especially to have the strength not to worry so much.

She gazed out upon the loveliness of the land the scow was gliding past.

Then she thought of that Indian who’d stood on that bluff, with his bow and arrow and hate in his heart for whites.

She knew that where there was one Indian, there were surely more, yet she had not seen hide
nor hair of any others since that one warrior had taken her mother’s life.

“Mia, bring me my pipe and tobacco,” her father suddenly said, drawing her attention back to him.

“Yes, Papa,” she murmured, scurrying to do something that she knew would make him feel better, at least for the moment. He loved his pipe sometimes more than food.

She took his pipe and bag of tobacco to him and watched him prepare the pipe, then leisurely smoke it.

“Ain’t cha going to share that with me?” Tiny said, laughing sarcastically.

Harry frowned at Tiny. “Not on your life,” he growled out. “Not on your life.”

Another shiver passed through Mia, for she felt certain that Tiny was up to no good. This sarcasm seemed to signal a change of attitude, for he never did anything to openly aggravate her father. He had tried not to get on her father’s bad side.

It seemed he knew that he wouldn’t be a part of their lives for much longer.

She wondered just how much Tiny
had
heard when she’d been discussing him with her father.

The birdsongs in the trees had stilled. Even the breeze seemed to hold its breath as two whiskered men, dressed in denim breeches and faded plaid shirts, slunk through the forest.

Each carried a rifle, and their squinting eyes searched avidly for the traps they had placed there earlier in the day.

It was very rare for them to forget where they had set their traps, but this time, they had decided to go far beyond their usual trapping lines, and they had become disoriented in the unfamiliar territory.

They had left their horses tethered close to a stream where there was thick grass for them to feast upon, not worrying about being able to locate them.

Not until now, anyway. They were lost, and frighteningly enough, were now concerned about not only being unable to find their horses, but where they had left the many pelts they had gathered up today. They had hidden them at an old
fort they had found upon their first arrival in this unfamiliar territory.

What worried them the most was the realization that they had traveled into Winnebago country. They had always known an Indian village existed somewhere in this forest, but until today had made certain to avoid it.

“I don’t like it one bit,” Jeb growled out. “You should’ve listened to me, Clint. We had no business temptin’ fate like this by comin’ so close to an Indian village, or traveling so far from the fort. Good Lord, Clint, we were doin’ well enough stayin’ away from this part of the forest. I wish now that we hadn’t taken such a risk. I say let’s leave this place right here and now. To hell with the remaining traps. A few more pelts ain’t worth the sweat it’s causin’ us. I smell like a skunk. That alone might lead Injuns to us.”

“Oh, jist shut up and bite off a plug of yore chawin’ tobaccy and take your nervousness out on it instead of me,” Clint snapped back. “We ain’t seen hide nor hair of an Injun. It’s my belief they stay close to home ’cause of bein’ scared of the soldiers and bein’ chased down and taken to a reservation. So jist shut up your whinin’, Jeb, and keep yore eyes peeled for those traps. They cain’t be all that far from here and I ain’t leavin’ ’em behind, especially if some frisky red fox got hung up in one of ’em. Those furs are worth the chance we’re takin’.”

Jeb frowned at Clint, but did as he suggested. He grabbed a wad of chewing tobacco from his front shirt pocket and placed it in the right corner
of his mouth. At first he nervously sucked on it, then began earnestly chewing it.

He spat a long string of rust-colored spittle from his mouth, wiping it from his lips with the back of a hairy hand. “No matter what you say, I don’t like this situation we’re in one bit,” Jeb growled. “I’m goin’ back, Clint. I’m gonna find my horse and that fort and gather up my portion of the skins and I’m leavin’ this dang place. You can stay if you want to gamble with gettin’ caught and havin’ your scalp hang on one of those Injun’s scalp poles.”

“I ain’t never seen a scalp pole, so I doubt there ever was such a thing. I’m not sweatin’ about losin’ my hair to any Injun,” Clint said. He chuckled as he reached up and ran his fingers through his filthy, tangled brown hair. “Anyhow, no Injun could want a scalp bad enough to take mine. The way it’s been itchin’ these past few days, I’d swear there’s fleas in it from those animals we’ve caught.”

Jeb stopped quickly.

He held a hand out in front of Clint.

“Stop,” he said, his eyes wide as he stared at something straight ahead of him. “Lord Jesus Almighty. I jest found two of the traps, Clint. Look yonder. Seems we caught way more than a fox in ’em.”

Clint almost vomited when he looked and saw what Jeb was staring at. “No,” he gasped, turning pale at the sight of two young braves lying on the ground, their ankles caught in separate traps, blood pooling on the ground beneath them.

“They ain’t movin’, Clint,” Jeb said hoarsely. “And my Lord, look at the god-awful blood beneath them on the ground.”

Clint swallowed hard. “The traps must’ve cut right through a major vein,” he said. “They didn’t have a chance in hell of escapin’ the steel jaws of death.”

“You know what that means, don’t ’cha?” Jeb said, his voice dry with shock and fear.

“Yep, it means we better get the hell outta here if we want to live another day on this earth,” Clint replied, yet he took another step closer. He hadn’t ever seen an Indian up this close.

He just had to take a good look. The two braves were no doubt full-blood Winnebago. Their hair was coal black and waist long. Their copper skin was smooth and hairless, very different from Jeb and Clint’s, whose faces were covered beneath their long beards.

The young men’s chests were also hairless, making Clint wonder if they shaved all the hair off their bodies every day. They wore breechclouts and moccasins, but otherwise they were naked.

“Whatcha doin?” Jeb gasped out. “Come on, Clint. This ain’t the time to fool around. We’ve gotta put many miles between us and those two Injuns. We truly might be scalped if their people realize we’re responsible for their deaths.” He squinted as he looked more closely at their faces. “They ain’t all that old, you know. Look at ’em. I bet they ain’t no more than fourteen years old.”

Jeb then glanced at the knives sheathed at the
braves’ waists, and at quivers of arrows on their backs. Two bows lay on the ground beside the youths. “Betcha they were out hunting,” he said thickly. “They never thought they’d end up bein’ the hunted.”

“None of this was done on purpose, so don’t say such a thing,” Clint said, nervously looking over his shoulder. “It’s time to go, Jeb. Now.”

“Damn it all to hell,” Jeb grumbled. “We should’ve been more careful where we placed our traps. We knew we were gettin’ way too close to an Injun village, but just couldn’t resist. We saw too many fat beavers and fox in this particular area not to take some for ourselves.”

“Jeb, why cain’t you listen to reason?” Clint whined. “The only thing I can think of now is gettin’ the hell outta here. Let’s go!”

Jeb’s eyes were still transfixed on the lifeless Indians. He realized he felt nothing at the sight of their bloody bodies. To him, they were not much different from the animals they caught in their traps every day.

The only difference was that he and Clint couldn’t sell ’em and make money from the kill.

“You’ve got that look I know so well. What would you do…empty the traps and place them somewheres else to catch a fox or beaver in ’em?” Clint growled out. “Have you gone nuts on me, or what? Come on. We’ve got to get outta here, and fast.”

Jeb laughed throatily. “What do you think I am? Looney?” he said. He stepped farther away from
the fallen braves. “I know the importance of gettin’ away from this place. We’ve got enough pelts hidden at the old fort. I say let’s leave the entire area now, then come back later and get our pelts after the Indians have cooled down. And don’t forget that the savages surely have more on their minds than the loss of two young braves. They have the survival of the entire village to concentrate on. It’s a fact that all Injuns have to watch their backs, because the United States government is rounding up as many as possible to send away to reservations.”

He smiled smugly. “Yep, the Injun tribe these young ones belong to won’t want to cause a stink over the loss of just two braves when they have their entire tribe’s survival to worry about,” he said.

“I say we forget everything but escapin’,” Clint said. “No matter what you think, they’ll be out for our hides, Jeb. As soon as they discover these bodies, they won’t stop until they find us. I say we hurry down to the river, and wait for the opportunity to steal a boat. You know how busy the river is these days, with so many folks goin’ to St. Louis to do business there. We’ll go as far as St. Louis, too. We’ll meet with the men who buy our pelts, and tell them about the rich hides that we’ll be bringing to them as soon as we can.”

“But…our…horses.”

“You’ve got to accept that we’ve lost ’em somewheres in this damnable forest,” Clint said sourly. “We’ve lost our way. I ain’t even sure we can find the river quick enough so that the Injuns won’t find us and hang us.”

With only their rifles in their hands, they started running from the gory scene. Then Jeb stopped and turned to look again at the dead braves.

“Whatcha think you’re doin’?” Clint growled out. “Come on. We don’t have time to mess around.”

Jeb ignored him.

He ran back to the fallen braves.

He knelt, reached out and yanked an amulet necklace from around one of their necks.

He chuckled as he placed the fancy, beaded thong around his own neck.

“Put it back,” Clint said as he came up and slapped Jeb across the back of his head. “Take it off. Throw the thing away if you ain’t going to put it back around the Injun’s neck again. It can only bring us trouble…bad luck.”

Jeb turned and glared at Clint. “Don’tcha ever hit me again, or you’ll not live to regret it,” he snarled.

“Your threats don’t frighten me, Jeb. Now do as I say. Put that amulet back on that Injun, or throw it away,” Clint demanded, his eyes glaring angrily into Jeb’s.

“Stupid, I’m keepin’ it,” Jeb said, putting a hand protectively over the amulet to keep Clint from grabbing it from him. “Don’tcha know, amulets are worn for good luck.”

“Stupid, did you see the good luck it brought the savage that wore it today?” Clint asked, laughing sarcastically. “He’s dead, Jeb. Damn dead.”

Jeb ignored Clint.

He started running again, and Clint soon caught up with him.

They ran and ran, until they were both too breathless to take another step, and then they saw the river up ahead through a break in the trees.

“See?” Jeb said, smiling at Clint. “The amulet’s already brought us good luck. We found the river.”

“Yep, but we lost two horses and maybe a stack of pelts, too, and I call that bad luck, Jeb,” Clint said breathlessly. All the same, he was relieved to see the shine of water up ahead.

They would go and hide by the river until night fell; then they would travel alongside the river until they found a moored boat that had tied up for the night, so that its occupants could get some sleep on shore.

When the travelers awakened the next morning, their boat would be gone and so would Jeb and Clint. They would be out of range of the Indians’ hatred and need for vengeance!

They looked over their shoulders to make sure they weren’t being followed, then loped onward until they found a thick stand of bushes where they could hide.