Savage Dawn (3 page)

Her jaw tightened when she thought of something else.

Was her father somehow responsible for what had happened in Tyler City? Had he gone back on his word and begun gambling again? Had he cheated one man too many?

Although her father had promised Nicole’s mother that his gambling days were over and done with, deep down inside, Nicole had always believed that was impossible.

When gambling got as deep in a man’s gut as it had her father’s, there was no way on earth that he’d ever be able to look the other way if he was challenged to a game of poker.

Feeling sick to his stomach from the raging temperature that had invaded his body, Eagle Wolf drew rein beside a stream.

He dismounted from his horse and stumbled to the water, falling to his knees beside it.

He hung his head over the water, but nothing came from his stomach. He had actually wanted to vomit so that he might feel a little better.

He raised his head and gasped when he saw his reflection in the water. His face was flushed from the fever and he knew that he must find a place to rest while he battled the disease that had weakened his body.

With knees trembling and broad shoulders drooping, he turned and looked at the place his horse had brought him. He had ridden the last mile with his eyes half closed, his ability to reason all but gone.

He had just hung on to the reins and let his horse take him where it would.

It seemed to Eagle Wolf that his steed had
sensed the importance of finding the right sanctuary for the man who had always treated him so well.

His stallion seemed to have understood the need for Eagle Wolf to be in a place where he could rest and get well without having to concern himself with passersby. The animal had brought him to a small, hidden canyon, where there was plenty of water from a stream trickling out of cracks in the mountainside, and where there were soft pine needles upon which he could sleep.

Not taking time to build a campfire, he secured his horse’s reins, then took a blanket from his travel bag.

Just as he had spread the blanket on the soft pine needles, and had turned to lie down, something in the distance caught his eye.

He crept over to the edge of the bluff that overlooked the land below.

In the distance he could see black, rolling smoke and he quickly realized where it was coming from.

He knew of a small town that had recently been established not far from Navaho Mountain. It was a town called Tyler City.

Word had been brought to him that the man who established this town was a well-known gambler who had come to this area from a place named St. Louis.

Eagle Wolf knew that the reputation of such gamblers followed them wherever they went, and
trouble followed them, too. There was always someone ready to challenge the one who was said to be the best.

Eagle Wolf had heard that often such duels with cards led to duels with firearms…and death. He wondered if this time someone had gotten angry enough to set fire to the entire town.

He watched the flames rolling upward from first one building and then another, as the smoke billowed into the sky.

If he were not alone, and he were well, he would ride down to that place of devastation and see if there were any survivors who needed help. Although he hated the U.S. government and its pony soldiers, he did not bear ill will toward the ordinary people, who had nothing to do with the decisions that had almost destroyed his tribe.

But as it was, he was alone, and his warriors were many miles up the mountain. And even if his warriors were close enough for him to go to them, he was not strong enough, either in body or mind, to even ride in his saddle now.

Suddenly he saw a lone rider traveling hard on a magnificent steed, toward the burning town.

He wiped at eyes that were blurring with fever, hoping to get a better look. When he lowered his hand, he realized that the lone rider was not a man, but instead…a woman!

He was awestruck by the woman’s long red hair, which fluttered and blew in the wind behind her as she raced onward, obviously intent
on arriving in the burning town as quickly as she could.

He wondered what she was doing alone when danger lay everywhere. A lone woman attracted the worst kind of men, those who would not hesitate to take advantage of her.

Where had this woman come from? He saw no other riders anywhere.

Suddenly he was overcome by dizziness. The land below him became a swirling mass.

He knew that he was in danger of falling if he did not lie down. He must concentrate on his own welfare now. Whatever happened below could not concern him.

He must think of himself now, for he had his people’s future to think about. He must get well so that he could return to them.

Even though he loved his brother, something in Eagle Wolf’s heart told him Spirit Wolf could not altogether be trusted. Lately his brother had looked at him with a strangeness in his dark eyes.

But this was not the time to concern himself with his suspicious. When Eagle Wolf returned home, he would look into his brother’s strange behavior.

He stumbled back to where he had spread the blanket over a soft bed of pine needles.

He eased down onto the blanket, and almost the moment he closed his eyes, he was fast asleep. But his sleep was not peaceful.

He dreamed.

He groaned.

He tossed and turned.

Suddenly he awakened in a sweat.

He did not feel as feverish as he had before going to sleep. But the weakness that had claimed him now was a new enemy.

Again he closed his eyes, and this time he slept more peacefully.

When he began dreaming anew, he saw the woman on the horse again, but this time her red hair was swirling all around her and her steed, fully enveloping them both. The woman’s hair was so beautiful as the sun shone on it, making it an even deeper red.

In his dream he saw the color of the woman’s eyes, which were as green as fresh spring grass.

And her lips. They were red, too, and oh, so perfectly shaped, as though they were made to be kissed.

He could not see much more than that since her long, flowing hair hid the rest of her. But his senses were so keen in this dream, he could actually smell the woman’s sweetness, as though she had bathed in the petals of the roses that grew wild along the plains.

His breathing was more even now. His body seemed to ache less. He settled into a deeper sleep.

In these moments of restful slumber, he would
find his strength again so he could return to his people a well man.

Yet…something made him want to find the woman first.

Fighting the sting in her eyes caused by the pervasive black smoke, Nicole came to a stop as she entered what had for a short time been a town named after her family.

A sob caught in her throat when she looked around her. All of the buildings, which had been few, were either already burned to the ground or burning rapidly.

Nothing had been spared, and no one.

She gulped hard as she tried not to vomit. There were dead bodies everywhere. She saw men, women, and children who had been viciously murdered.

“No!” she cried to the heavens as everything in her rebelled when she caught sight of the two people she had loved so dearly lying nearby.

“Mama, Papa…” she gasped.

Her heart seemed to stop the instant she saw them, lying side by side, on their backs.

She choked up with deep emotion when she saw that they were holding hands. It was such a
touching scene, for in death they seemed to have found the truth of their love for each other.

But when she saw how they had been killed, Nicole’s heart pounded and her face grew hot with a mixture of emotions—sadness, regret, pain, but most of all, hate for whoever had done this to her parents.

Each had been shot with a single bullet in the forehead, execution style. Nicole almost fainted from the shock of it.

Her despair was so overwhelming, she suddenly wished now that she had been with her parents, and had died with them. Living without them, alone, would be worse than death. How could she go on, knowing her parents had died in such a way?

But she again focused on their clasped hands. That lone gesture of love made their deaths more bearable for Nicole. When she was overwhelmed with sadness and loneliness without them, she would remember the love her parents had shared as they took their last breaths of life.

Sobbing, she slid from her saddle and started to go and kneel beside her parents to say a prayer. She stopped, her heart almost coming to a standstill in her chest, when she saw movement out of the corner of her eyes.

Nicole turned quickly.

She was breathless with hope when she saw a man stirring on the ground not far from where her parents lay. He was alive!

Out of all this murder and mayhem…a man had survived.

At that realization, Nicole felt a surge of resentment toward this man for having lived while her parents had not. But being a Christian, she felt sudden shame at her uncharitable feeling and hurried to the man to see if there was anything she could do for him.

She knelt at his side. But as she did, she realized just how badly the man had been wounded.

Through the blood on his shirt, she saw that he had been shot in the belly. She knew that was one of the worst places to be shot, and that most times the victim did not survive.

Suddenly he reached out for Nicole’s hand and grabbed it. She could feel his trembling, yet there was a strange sort of determination in his grip. She saw that same determination in his eyes as he looked anxiously up at her through tears that were now streaming from his eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” Nicole struggled to say between her own sobs. “I am so truly sorry. I wish I could do something. Your name. What’s your name?”

She felt inadequate, knowing this was the only thing she could think to say to this man who was surely in so much pain, and whose breath could stop at any moment.

Surely he had more important things to say than his name! But what could be important if you knew you were dying?

Would he be thinking of his family? Was he
wondering how they were? Would he ask her to search for them?

Her thoughts were interrupted when the man finally managed to speak.

“Harold Jones. My…name…is Harold…Jones,” he gasped, as he struggled to talk through the pain that was obviously gripping him. “Listen. Before I die, you must listen to what I have to say. You…need…to know that…it was white men who did this…not Injuns.”

Nicole noticed that he winced with each word spoken, as though a knife was stabbing into his wound. She felt the same pain, even though she had no wound except the one in her heart created by her losses!

Harold stopped and drew in a quivering breath, closed his eyes for a moment, but still held Nicole’s hand tightly.

Then he looked up at her again.

“Those men…they…looked innocent enough when they rode into town,” he continued, yet with a voice that grew fainter by the minute. “I must get this told. You need to know. Tell those who can do something about it.”

“I will,” Nicole gulped out as she looked quickly over her shoulder at her parents, and then back into Harold’s eyes. “I promise I will.”

“I was in the saloon when they came in,” Harold continued. “I was at the bar, drinking. The men, five of them, went over to the poker table and sat down. They started up a card game with
Mr. Tyler. I…I…knew there would be trouble from the beginning. I could tell that one of those men had a grudge against Mr. Tyler.”

Nicole gasped again and felt the color drain from her face at hearing her father’s name. Harold stopped and studied her expression, but seeming to sense he had little time left on this earth, he continued.

“Suddenly everything went crazy. One of the men accused Mr. Tyler of cheating, saying Mr. Tyler had cheated before, too,” Harold said, his voice now barely a whisper.

Nicole listened with an aching heart, for she now knew without a doubt that her father had not kept his word about never gambling again.

“The man who accused Mr. Tyler of cheating said he’d not get the chance to cheat him again, or anyone else,” Harold said. “Mr. Tyler knew the man meant business and managed to flee the saloon before the other gambler got his first shot at him. I…I…followed the gambler and his men out of the building ‘cause I knew that all hell was ready to break loose. Suddenly Mr. Tyler’s wife was there. They…were both shot.”

Harold gasped in pain and paused. Nicole could tell that he was struggling now with every breath and expected him to die at any moment.

His hand weakened in hers. “I must…get…it said,” he said, his eyes now closed. “The strangers killed everyone in town. It was a massacre.
They spared no one. The leader of this murderous gang? I caught one of the men calling him by name just before that same man turned and fired a bullet into my gut. The leader’s name…was…Sam Partain.”

After speaking the name of the man who had ordered the killings, Harold Jones gasped again, drew in a shuddering breath, and then died.

As his hand dropped away from hers, Nicole watched his body grow limp, his eyes now looking back at her with a death stare.

Her hands trembling, she reached out and slowly closed his eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “May the good Lord be with you.”

Sobbing, she slowly stood up and went back to where her parents lay.

Fortunately their eyes were closed so that she wouldn’t have to look into them and see death.

Weak now from shock and despair, she knelt beside them. Smoke still billowed into the sky and ash now blew in the wind, swirling like small tornadoes along the death-ridden ground.

Nicole gazed at her father. “How could you have lied?” she whispered, remembering the very moment he had promised he would never gamble again, and how sincerely he had said it to Nicole and her mother.

“Papa, if you only knew the worst of it,” she said sadly. “You are responsible for the deaths of these people who trusted you enough to move into your town. It is all because of you and your love of
gambling. Even my precious mother, your beloved wife, paid for your…your…stupidity, your sins!”

She closed her eyes to try to compose herself, and while they were closed, the name that Harold had spoken to her flashed into her mind.

“Sam Partain,” she said aloud, her eyes opening quickly as she looked into the distance, where the murderers had no doubt disappeared.

She looked down at her father again. “Papa, I remember that name,” she murmured. “He is that gambler you bragged about having beaten in poker more than once. Papa, apparently Sam Partain tracked you down and gambled this one last time with you. But this time, Papa, you were the loser. You lost your life.”

Again Nicole looked around her, truly afraid when a sudden thought came to her like a slap in the face.

Sam Partain held a grudge against her, too. She had met him once or twice and had been repelled by his rough ways. When he’d tired to cozy up to her, she’d turned a cold shoulder.

She remembered now his angry reaction to her rejection.

She gazed down at her father again. “Oh, Papa, I pray that while you were gambling with Sam Partain you didn’t say anything about me being on my way to town,” she said, her voice drawn. “I…I…know how you loved bragging about your only daughter.”

Sam Partain had killed everyone who had anything to do with her father. Nicole truly feared that he might feel the need to take her life, too.

If so, he might even at this moment be looking for her. He might be nearby.

She was afraid that he might not rest until he saw that Nicole joined her parents in death.

Yes, she must leave. And soon. But first she must say a little prayer over her parents’ bodies.

She knew that she couldn’t chance taking the time to bury them. She was too afraid that Sam might even now be watching her from a distance.

Sobbing, Nicole buried her face in her hands. Through her sobs she whispered a soft prayer. Then, as her eyes slowly opened, she saw something in her father’s vest pocket that made her aching sadness turn to sudden anger. There, in full view, was a pack of playing cards.

Her father had promised never to gamble again!

He had lied!

Her fingers trembling, Nicole yanked the cards from his pocket and threw them into the wind.

She gazed at her father’s clean-shaven face, which was now covered with his own life’s blood. The hole in his forehead was a hideous reminder of the violent way he and her mother had died.

She could not help wondering which of them had been the first to be shot, while the other helplessly watched!

Not wanting to think any more about the details of this horrible massacre, she stood up quickly.

She looked through the smoke at the mountain that was visible not far from what remained of Tyler City.

She would find protection there, and when she felt it was safe enough, she would ride to the closest fort, or town, where she could report the massacre.

But for now, she must hide. She ran to her horse and mounted it.

All she knew about this mountain was that it was inhabited by Navaho Indians. She was aware that she should be afraid of Indians, but at this moment, she was more afraid of Sam Partain.

She had read in a St. Louis newspaper about all sorts of atrocities that Indians were guilty of. But so far, on her way to Tyler City, she had seen no Indians. She had spotted some smoke signals high in the mountains, but that was all.

Was she being foolish to ride right into Navaho territory? A cold shiver rode her spine at the thought of coming face-to-face with an Indian.

Yet still she turned her steed in the direction of the mountain and without a last look at what she must leave behind her on the cold ground, she rode away, to a new life. She was deeply afraid that her future would be lonely and filled with danger.