Savage Arrow (16 page)

It was foolish of him to think otherwise. She had no one to go to should she decide to leave his home. And she had no money to pay for her passage back to Kansas City.

Yes, she was horseback riding and he would wait for her on the porch. He would scold her and tell her never to do this again. He needed to know where she was at all times. She was not familiar with this land and she could get lost and be attacked again by outlaws, or . . . Indians.

His heart went cold to think that someone might do harm to his cousin. Although she had tried his patience recently, and he had not been all that kind to her at times, he did love her and wanted nothing to happen to her.

And . . . she was with child. She had to think about her baby. She would do nothing to endanger it.

He stood and stared into the distance, watching for any signs of someone approaching on horseback. Surely she would return soon.

But as the sun rose higher in the sky, and then began making its descent, and still there was no sign of Jessie, Reginald’s anger began to swell within him.

He was feeling duped. He no longer believed she was only out horseback riding. She had left him for good.

“But where could she have gone?” he said, scratching his brow.

His jaw tight, he hurried to Jade, who was preparing food for their evening meal.

He took her by an arm and swung her around to face him. “You know all about it, don’t you?” he said, wheezing hard as he waited for her reply.

“All about what, sir?” Jade asked, feeling weak. She was afraid that he was about to try to force answers from her, but no matter what he did, she wouldn’t betray Jessie.

Jessie was the lucky one. She had escaped this madman. Now if only Jessie could find a way to include Jade and Lee-Lee in her plan!

“You knew about her plan to leave, didn’t you?” Reginald said, his hand squeezing Jade’s fleshy arm.

“Nay sir, I did not,” Jade said, her voice small because the fear inside her was so great.

“Are you saying that you had no idea she was planning to leave me?” Reginald shouted, releasing her arm.

“Nay I did not,” Jade said, flinching when he raised
his hand as though he was going to hit her. She breathed a sigh of relief when he dropped it back down to his side.

“Oh, well, she’s not worth bothering over anyway,” Reginald said. He turned and glared out the kitchen window toward the corral where his prized horses grazed on thick grass.

“Are you saying she’s gone . . . forever?” Jade dared to ask, trying to pretend innocence.

“More than likely,” Reginald said, shrugging as he walked away from Jade and left the kitchen.

He went to Jessie’s room and opened the chifferobe, where the clothes he had recently purchased for her were hanging.

Angrily he yanked one from a wooden hanger and pitched it to the floor. He continued doing so until everything he had bought was piled in the center of the room.

He went to the corridor and shouted Jade’s name.

She hurried to him, her eyes fearful as she gazed at him. “Yes, sir?” she said. “You called me?”

“Take all these clothes and burn them,” Reginald shouted, gesturing toward the lovely creations. “I don’t want anything in my house to remind me of her. Do you hear?”

“But . . . what if she returns?” Jade asked, playing her role to the hilt.

“If she does, I’ll buy her some more,” Reginald said, shrugging. “Go. Take them. Get them out of my sight, and yourself as well. You sicken me, Jade. Sicken me!”

Jade cowered beneath his glare, then gathered the clothes into her arms and ran from the room.

When she reached the kitchen stove, she began shoving one dress at a time into the flames, then stood back while tears rolled down her cheeks. How she felt Jessie’s absence now! She feared she might never see her again. If only she could believe that Jessie would remember her and Lee-Lee, living with Reginald a few more days would be worth it.

But if Jessie didn’t come back to help her, Jade had her own ideas as to how she would escape and rescue her daughter. Jessie’s success had given her the nerve to try.

She heard Reginald stamping down the corridor toward his room, then flinched when he slammed his door. Afterward, the house was silent.

Reginald sank down in his rocking chair before the fireplace in his bedroom and began slowly rocking back and forth as he tried to figure out what he would tell his friends about Jessie’s sudden strange disappearance. Although he had decided to forget her, and was even hoping the coyotes would remove all traces of her from this land, he had others to think about.

He had been stupid to allow Jessie to interfere in his life, yet she could have added so much to his parties. She was so pretty and all. But soon she wouldn’t be pretty. She’d be fat with child.

The one thing that now concerned him about her disappearance was how he could explain her absence to those he so badly wanted to impress. It was crucial that he keep people’s attention away from what he did besides attending church and giving parties.

If any of the decent townsfolk heard about his cribs, he would be ignored or treated like trash for the rest of his life. And he couldn’t bear that thought. He enjoyed the kind of attention the upstanding citizens of Tombstone gave him.

“What can I tell them?” Reginald asked himself, wheezing.

He would have to make up some sort of story. He would say that Jessie had been called back to Kansas City because of a friend’s death.

Yes, that would work. That story would save face for him.

“But if I ever come face to face with you again, you’ll pay, Jessie,” Reginald grumbled, suddenly wheezing so hard he could hardly catch his breath. “Damn it, you’ll pay!”

As Reginald’s hate for Jessie swelled inside his heart, Jade was crying from fear of what might happen to Jessie. She prayed Jessie had found a safe haven.

If only she could gain the courage to try her own plan of escape.

Soon.

Ai
, she would, and soon!

“Lee-Lee, please have the strength to live another day,” she whispered as she gazed out a window toward the town where the cribs so brazenly displayed her daughter’s beauty. “Do not be one of those who commit suicide because of hopelessness!”

It was early evening. The meadow hummed with crickets. Cottonwoods shimmered along a creek that ran glassy-smooth through bear grass and camas.

The hunt was now over, and Jessie sat beside the huge outdoor fire where the overnight camp had been set up.

To her surprise, when Thunder Horse had led her back to the camp after the hunt, she had found many women from his village there, awaiting the arrival of the hunters.

They had come during the hunt and prepared the meat racks, which were ready now for the fresh meat. A fine bed of coals had also been prepared to cook the meat.

Fat ribs of deer were now roasting over these coals, and the dripping fat was popping and snapping, sending up a tantalizing aroma.

Jessie’s attention was drawn to the sight of more
warriors and their packhorses entering the camp. The meat was folded inside skins on the packhorses, with the large bones tied on top to be broken later for the sweet marrow.

She turned and watched for Thunder Horse’s return. He had left a short while ago to go to the top of a hill, where he would leave a gift of gratitude—the finest cut of meat taken today. This offering was made to their brother, the deer, because so many of the deer’s relations had died to feed the Sioux, who would one day also die and feed the grasses the deer fed from.

That had touched Jessie’s heart, to learn that the Indians never took anything without giving back. Oh, if only all white people could be as grateful for what they had received from heaven above. Instead, it seemed that many of her own people were greedy and never seemed to have enough.

Reginald was the worst of that kind. She felt so grateful that she was no longer a part of his life. She dearly hoped that he would not find her and try to ruin her life again. She had found a home among these Sioux people, thanks to the generosity of one man: Thunder Horse.

She had never met anyone as kind and giving.

Although her parents, and also her husband, had always thought of others before themselves, Thunder Horse was even more generous.

She thought back to this morning, when Jessie had awakened in Thunder Horse’s lodge, where she had slept snugly wrapped in blankets across the fire from him. She had found him kneeling beside her, watching her sleep.

He had bent low and kissed her, yet he did nothing more than that. Then she had noticed what he had draped across his arms: the clothing of a Sioux warrior.

When he had explained to her that she must wear these garments in order to disguise herself in case Reginald Vineyard was out searching for her, she had willingly dressed in the fringed breeches, shirt, and moccasins.

She had sat in front of him as he braided her hair into one long braid down her back; then she had turned and smiled as he placed a beaded headband around her head.

She had departed for the hunt mounted on one of his horses. The beautiful white steed she had brought from Reginald’s corral remained safely hidden in case her cousin came to the village.

Thanks to Thunder Horse’s precautions, she had felt quite safe as she witnessed the hunt. She had been impressed by the skills of the hunters and the clever way they had brought down the deer.

As they had left the village, Thunder Horse had explained that there was a place the Sioux called the Deer Run. It was to this place that the Deer Dreamer, with his mysterious powers and medicine, sent the deer for the Sioux people. There the hunters could easily kill all the deer that were needed for meat and skins.

She had discovered that the Deer Run was an un-wooded space on the bank of a river. This bank was high and steep, and at its foot the river ran dark and deep. No deer would dare leap from this bank.

She had sat back on her horse and watched as the warriors cut a path through the woods up to the clearing on the riverbank. On the forest side of the clearing, the woods were thick, and the limbs and boughs were interlaced to form an unbreakable fence that the deer could not penetrate. This had left but one entrance to the deer enclosure.

The warriors then rode in a great circle until they found a herd of deer. Steadily and slowly, they directed the deer toward the path that led to the enclosure.

Soon the deer were within the enclosure. The warriors had a great hunt, taking back to camp much meat, and many skins to be tanned for garments.

And as soon as all the warriors came in with their loads of meat, there would be a feast. Tomorrow they would return home so that the women could smoke the meat and tan the hides. No one would be without food or clothing during the long, cold months of winter.

Thinking about the winter ahead made Jessie think of something . . . someone . . . else. She placed a gentle hand on her stomach. She knew that when Thunder Horse learned about her child, it would not change how he felt about her. She and her unborn baby would have a safe, warm shelter this winter.

Yes, she knew that Thunder Horse, whose heart was filled with love and caring, would not turn away from her because she carried another man’s child. The child was born of a rare sort of love. She and Steven had cared deeply for one another, but theirs had not been a passionate love, only one that was comfortable and respectful.

When she was with Thunder Horse, passions she’d never known could exist were awakened inside her. She felt a wondrous thrill to imagine how it would be the first time they made love. It would be something she would cherish forever and ever. . . .

She had become so lost in thought, she hadn’t heard Thunder Horse come up behind her. He sat down beside her on the thick pallet of blankets a short distance from the fire.

“It is done,” he said, reaching over and sliding a stray lock of her hair back from her brow. “I have thanked the deer for all they have given us today.”

“It seemed to be a good hunt,” Jessie said as she scooted closer to Thunder Horse. She noticed that he was fresh and clean from a bath in the river.

“My warriors are skilled hunters. They can smell a deer before the deer smells them,” he said. “Every boy hunts from his fourth or fifth year of life, first chasing rabbits with a bow and wooden arrow, and later with larger bows and arrows that are strong enough to kill a deer or an antelope. He learns to creep upwind, slowly, with no more stirring than a bull snake easing up on a gopher in the grass. Those young boys grow up into the finest of hunters, men of patience, guile, and speed.”

“Do you hunt often?” Jessie asked, wondering how often Thunder Horse would be gone from home after they were married.

Yes! She did believe they would be married! Although such a union was taboo among whites, she could not imagine life now without Thunder Horse.

“There is more than one fall hunt,” Thunder Horse patiently explained as he stared into the leaping flames of the fire, his stomach reacting to the smell of the meat cooking over the coals.

“There is first the deer hunt, and then the hunt for buffalo to provide the heavily furred robes that keep us warm against the blizzard winds. The buffalo also give us beds and winter lodge floors and linings, in addition to the fat meat and the tallow for cooking,” he said. “Fall also brings ducks and geese to hunt. Then during even the longest winter there are rabbits to be snared and trapped.”

He stopped to nod a quiet hello to other warriors who had come from their baths in the river and were settling down around the fire, anticipating the food that would soon be offered by their wives.

Then he smiled at Jessie and continued describing the hunt. “After the midsummer hunt, the jerky hardens fast and sweet in a few hours of hot wind, and hides are easily cleared of their thin summer fur for lodge skins, saddlebags, shield and regalia cases,” he said. “When we hunt the buffalo, young cows are selected. The skins are lighter and thinner, softer and easier to tan and handle; the meat is better, too, more tender and fat-veined.”