The Bride Wore Feathers (25 page)

He'd gotten halfway to Fort Lincoln from the spot where his friend had dropped him when he noticed a lone rider and a packhorse heading his way. When the soldier was close enough for identification, Jacob saw that it was one of the younger men, lured into the cavalry, no doubt, by promises of great adventures. The lad looked more frightened than thrilled as he pulled to a stop in front of Jacob.

"You Stoltz?" the kid asked.

"Yes. I am very happy to see you."

"Tell me about it later. Get on this packhorse and let's ride. There's some renegade Injuns running amok out here."

Jacob knitted his brows, wondering if the soldier was blind to his raw flesh and bleeding wound, or just too scared to care. "I have already made the acquaintance of a couple of the renegades. They were in a big hurry after they cut me down and stole my horse. I am sure they've left the area."

"Yeah, I can see they took a real liking to you. But I'm not taking any chances. You can stay out here all day if you want. I'm heading back to the barn."

With that, the kid slapped his horse's rump and took off at a dead gallop. "Thank you," Jacob called after his fleeing figure, "for helping me onto this fine animal."

Jacob regarded the packhorse, a palomino no longer fit for service, used only for very short outings when a lady felt the urge to ride around the fort. Apparently, he decided as he jerked his aching body into the saddle, the horse was deemed expendable should the kid be overtaken before he had a chance to complete his mission.

Exercising as much caution for the animal's advanced years as he did for his own physical discomfort, Jacob took his time returning to the fort. When he arrived at the stables just before dusk, Custer, Libbie, Barney, and Hazel stood at the door anxiously awaiting his return.

"My God, Jacob." Barney dashed over to the horse and gingerly helped his friend dismount. "You look like you're barely alive. What happened to Dominique?"

"I'll take over, Lieutenant," Custer said, brushing Barney aside. "Where is my niece, Private? How did you manage to lose her?"

Resisting the urge to smash his fist, bad arm and all, into the thick part of Long Hair's mustache, Jacob slowly told the tale of the runaway horse, then finished with a fabrication: "Peaches must have run into the trees and stumbled upon the Indians. I never saw Dominique or her horse after that. I do not know if she is dead or alive. I looked for her and any signs of a trail, but they did a very good job of hiding their tracks. I am sorry."

"Oh, no," Libbie wailed. "Autie, whatever are we going to do? What shall we tell her father?"

Beside her, Hazel joined in, her voice cracking with emotion. "The poor dear. If she's still alive and those savages have her, I mean—Lord almighty. How will she survive, how can she ever be the same again?"

Custer turned his head, snapping out an order over his shoulder. "Ladies, go on back to the house."

"But, Autie," Libbie cried, "I'm so very upset and worried about Nikki. Can't we stay?"

"Back," he said, the word shooting out of his mouth like a bullet from a pistol, "to the house now. Understand?"

Swallowing a sob, Libbie nodded and took Hazel by the hand.

Assuming they'd left, but not watching to see the women trudge back up the hill, Custer directed his wrath at Jacob. "Just what kind of horseman are you, Private? How could you have let that silly little mare get away?"

"She was startled by something, sir. I did not see what. When Peaches bolted, the sorrel was no match for her speed." Jacob paused, waiting for the general to make some critical comment, but he merely gestured for him to go on. "I followed the mare into the trees. That's when I was hit by a lance. The blow knocked me off my horse, and I rolled down the hill and into the river. That is the last thing I remember."

"The Indians must have left you for dead," Custer deduced, fondling the end of his mustache. "You never heard Nikki scream or anything?"

Jacob paused, pretending to try to call up a memory, then shook his head. "Nothing, sir. Just me and the river after that. I must have tumbled downstream quite a ways because I have been walking back to the fort for a very long time."

"Hell and damnation." Custer aimed a wad of spittle at the toe of Jacob's boot. "I guess that's that." He checked the position of the setting sun. "We haven't got the time or the manpower to go out looking for my niece now. The troops are all in town or dead drunk. We'll just have to keep a lookout when we take off in the morning. About all we can do is hope to hell she's already dead." He leveled an icy blue eye on Jacob and added, "If you were any kind of soldier, you'd have seen to that when you realized you couldn't save her from them."

Sure he must have heard him wrong, Jacob said, "Sir?"

Custer swiveled to Barney. "Hasn't this man had a proper introduction to soldiering in this neck of the woods, Lieutenant?" Not bothering to wait for a reply, he informed Jacob of his sworn duty. "If ever a soldier's lady is in jeopardy of being captured by savages, orders are to shoot her before the Indians get the chance to grab her. If the soldier is unable to perform the deed, he is to turn his weapon over to the lady so she can carry out the act herself."

Jacob's mouth was hanging open. He
knew
it was hanging open, but he couldn't seem to close it. This order, this crazy story, couldn't be true. But he could find nothing close to mirth in the general's eyes. He was dead serious. He actually would have preferred that Jacob had shot his own flesh and blood. Unable, unwilling, to curb his instinctive reaction to the horrible policy, Jacob shuddered.

"I see you have no stomach for the work, soldier," Custer commented, his opinion of that deficiency concealed behind his steel-eyed gaze.

"Do
you?"
Jacob blurted out. "Could you shoot your own wife, sir?"

"You're impertinent, Private." Custer looked to Barney, practically shouting the order. "See that this man's wounds are tended to. Then have the physician inform me if he will be fit for duty tomorrow."

"I will be fit," Jacob insisted. "I not only plan to ride out with the Seventh in the morning, I feel it my duty to ride on ahead, to scout for those devils who were foolish enough to kidnap your niece."

"Oh, you'll ride, Private. If there's any way at all, you'll ride. I'll have to think about whether or not I trust you enough to put you back on scouting duty, however." He faced Barney, clicking his heels together, "Lieutenant, see to your orders." Then he stomped back up the hill, never bothering to return Barney's salute or notice if Jacob had followed suit.

"This man, this leader of his people," Jacob grumbled, "is a nincompup."

"Damn, Stoltz," Barney said in a strangled whisper. "You musta beat your head against a few of them rocks in the river. You can't call the general names."

"I don't care. He is not a good leader. He is no better than any one of us. He is a nincompup."

"Stoltz." Barney winced, checking to make sure they weren't overheard. "You got to stop that unless you want to get bounced from the cavalry. And what the hell is a nincompup, anyway? A baby nincompoop?"

Jacob stopped. "Poop? The word is nincompoop?"

Barney nodded his head and prodded Jacob along. "Yes, Private. Remind me while we're with the doc to make sure he examines your head. I think you mighta got your load of powder wet when you fell in that river."

"Poop," Jacob said, savoring the word. "Poop. Nincompoop." Still forming the syllables over and over, he burst into laughter as he walked into the dispensary.

* * *

Several miles to the west, the Hunkpapa roamed, searching for a new and better-hidden place in which to erect their temporary village. A line of heavily armed warriors led the march. Behind them, the women, children, and old people clustered like a flock of birds playing follow-the-leader. On both sides of the flock and to the rear, more warriors protected the nucleus of their Lakota family. All rode on horseback but one.

Dominique Custer DuBois was a beast of burden. The minute Jacob left camp, the Indians had begun to dismantle the village. Much faster than she'd had believed possible, the tipis had been taken down, rolled into tubes, and strapped to several travoises fashioned from rawhide and long poles, which were harnessed to the strongest horses and dragged along behind. The rest of the Indians' belongings were stuffed into buffalo-hide parfleches and added to the travois loads. The plains, when the Lakota broke camp, were returned to nature, looking as if they'd never been disturbed.

Dominique shifted the load on her back, a parfleche filled with cooking supplies, and grimaced. They'd been traveling for hours over the worst trails imaginable. Once so proud of her new black riding boots, Dominique now roundly cursed them with each step. Blistered and swollen, her toes begged for release from their tight leather bindings, and she dreamed of finding relief for her feet in an icy pond.

She shrugged, hoping to encourage the wool serge riding habit to release her skin, but it clung to her sweltering body as if glued. Dizzying little flecks of light danced behind her eyelids as she grew weak with exhaustion. What would these heathens do to her if she fainted? Dominique shook her head to clear it, then stopped to rub the ache in her back. A long, tapered pole cracked her alongside the head. Dominique whirled around, the sound of the blow reverberating in her ears, and ducked as a berry-skinned woman took another swing at her.

After nearly falling off her pony in her failed effort, Spotted Feather righted herself, shouting at her enemy, "Move your legs, white she-devil. You have not been told to stop. Walk faster."

Again, she raised the pole, but Dominique dodged out of her range and bumped into the mount of a warrior on her right. She staggered, surprised at the collision, winded by the force. A strong hand gripped her shoulder, steadying her wobbly legs.

"Cling to my pony, Golden Hair. Rest."

Unable to do anything else at the moment, Dominique leaned against the dapple gray stallion. As she caught her breath, she listened to the exchange between the man and the woman.

"Why do you protect her, Father?" Spotted Feather complained. "She is not worthy of your help. Her evil flesh must not touch yours."

"Join the other women," he answered. "Do not trouble yourself with things that do not concern you."

Dominique waited for the woman's reply, but those few words were apparently all she needed to obey. Intrigued to see the man who commanded so effortlessly, Dominique looked up into the kind onyx eyes of Gall, chief of the Hunkpapa Lakota.

He sucked in his breath, startled by her lovely features, her large, expressive brown eyesv and the hint of the magnificent explosion of color to come when her hair was freed from its restraints. After forty-four winters and many years, Gall was considered an elder, not expected to fight or even appear on the field of battle. But even as a mature man, he realized, gazing down at the comely woman, his fires still burned bright enough to feel a twinge of envy toward Redfoot, and the others who might enjoy the treasures this one would have to offer.

"So," he said, his deep voice surprisingly soft and low, "you are the woman Redfoot calls the crazy one."

Remembering Jacob's words, for after the breaking of camp and the sneers and taunts of the other women, his warnings were burned into her mind, Dominique kept her silence. She nodded, then averted her gaze.

"Do not be afraid. Redfoot has asked me to protect you from harm. I will do what I can."

Dominique glanced back up at him, daring to hope she'd found a safe harbor in her suddenly turbulent world, but the Indian motioned to someone behind her, then shouted an order.

"Bring a pony. This helpless white woman slows us." Then, never acknowledging her thank you or even the fact that she stood beside him, Gall rubbed his heel against the stallion's belly and loped to the head of the column.

* * *

Later that night, Dominique lay huddled in a crudely erected tipi barely big enough to contain her. Her shelter stood near the center of the temporary village where the large warrior's lodge commanded center stage. Curiosity and hunger had driven her to poke her head outside the flap only once. The act drew hoots and filthy comments she couldn't interpret, but understood very well. How would she ever return home? Who would save her? She certainly couldn't manage to get away from the Sioux alone. To even
think
of escape was an exercise in futility. And exercise of any kind, at the moment, was out of the question.

Dominique was exhausted, parched, and starving. She drew her knees up to her chest, hoping to ease the pain of back muscles pulled to the limit. Instead, her thighs and tender bottom protested the movement. Just the couple of hours she'd ridden astride a horse, rather than sidesaddle, had left her legs and behind so bruised and swollen that she didn't think she could have sat in a chair even if she'd been offered one. How long would she have to endure these indignities?

The flap to her tipi suddenly flew open. A brown hand jutted through the hole and deposited a bowl of steaming liquid. Then the flap dropped back in place, leaving her in darkness. Dominique pulled the container closer and inhaled. Although she couldn't identify the scent, she found nothing offensive in the aroma. Too hungry to care what she was fed, she lifted the bowl to her mouth and slowly consumed the contents. It tasted flat and greasy, devoid of the seasonings her educated palate had come to know and relish. But it eased the ache in her stomach.