Daughter of the Sword (56 page)

“I'd like to,” said Deborah, “but I've got to leave as soon as I do my trading.”

She gave him one of the greenbacks Lincoln had issued the year before. It was the first legal U.S. paper money, but Tiberius never liked accepting it for smith work and always besought that it be spent as quickly as possible “befo' the guvmint change its min'.”

Collecting her change, Deborah proceeded to Wilmarth's. She would've enjoyed the band. Its members had been among the earliest Lawrence settlers, and when the Whitlaws' group arrived, she remembered singing the “Pioneer Hymn” to the band's stirring music, and how the band had played at the Fourth of July gala. Splendid that they'd finally gotten new instruments. The Kansas Conference of Methodists had been held in Lawrence that March, and the band had performed so well that Governor Robinson had headed a subscription list to buy some really fine instruments.

In Wilmarth's, she resolutely kept from examining Elizabeth Barrett Browning's
Last Poems,
Ruskin's latest essays, and Christina Rosetti's
Goblin Market,
concentrating instead on the children's books. Dickens, Tennyson, Scott, and Kingsley were too mature for them, except for
A Christmas Carol,
which she asked to be held for her till nearer Christmas.

Longfellow? Washington Irving? Alphabet books or Mother Goose? She narrowed her choice to Lear's
Book of Nonsense,
which she and Thos had roared over, and Hawthorne's
Tanglewood Tales.

“For the twins, Miss Whitlaw?” asked the owner with a twinkle. “Well, then, buy one and I'll throw in the other.”

“Oh, but—”

“But me no buts, young lady! It's a good investment, to start customers young.”

He'd been a friend of her father's and clearly wanted to make the gift, so Deborah thanked him, paid for the higher-priced volume, and went out in a glow of happiness. Now the twins would have a book apiece instead of squabbling over one.

It was only when it came to wanting things for them that she was sorry most of the smithy's profits went to helping refugees and the destitute.

She followed the California trail east for a way and forked off south, then stopped under a lone hickory. She gave the horses corn to munch while she hungrily demolished bread and butter, half a jug of buttermilk, and two apples. She finished with two gumdrops, changed into her boy's clothes, slung the Bowie under her arm, and resumed her journey.

It was sunset when she drove gratefully into the stableyard shared by the two cabins. No one came out to meet her, which was a surprise. Several pigs grunted in their pen and a few hens pecked about, but there was no other sign of life.

Then she noticed horses were in the cornfield out beyond the shocked wheat, eating the shucked heads. Seven—nine—twelve horses. When she'd last seen them, the three Negro families living here hadn't possessed even a single horse!

She gripped the lines, controlling a wave of fear. Better get the team and wagon to a safe spot, then reconnoiter on foot. She was turning the team when a black-bearded man stepped out of the stable, cradling a rifle.

“What's the hurry, sonny?”

Deborah slapped the lines against the horses. They swung with a jerk. Holding the lines with one hand, she reached for the Spencer. Two other men ran out and grabbed the horses. As she brought up the Spencer, the man's rifle blasted.

Exploding force streaked against her, spinning her around, felling her. White-hot pain seared the top of her head, but one part of her brain told her to get her knife. She reached for it.

Rough hands caught her and yanked the knife from its scabbard. “Tough little devil!” grunted her captor. Her hat had been knocked off by the gunshot, which must have glanced across her skull. Blood trickled down the side of her face and neck.

Foul breath from rotted tooth stumps added to her nausea from the wound as the black-whiskered man set his hand in her hair, dragging it upward so that she nearly fainted from pain.

“Hey, Cap!” The brigand punctuated his shout with a tug that made a headache burst out in Deborah's head. “Want this purty hair for your collection?”

The sound of steps grinding into the earth throbbed in her ears. She seemed to be floating back and forth on a rising, then receding, pulse tide of dark blood.

Was she dying? Bright hurts dimmed in the strangely restful ebb and flow. She was sinking beneath it. Deeper, deeper …

“So, my dear!” The familiar voice lanced through the comfortable darkness. “Still masquerading?”

She opened her eyes to look into Rolf's dark green ones. His mouth quirked downward in his tanned face. The slit of his silk-faced blue guerrilla shirt ended in a large gold satin rosette, exposing his brown chest.

With his long raw-gold hair, he looked indeed like a Viking—who didn't seem so heroic or romantic once one remembered that most Viking raids had been similar to those of border guerrillas, a plundering of unprepared, unarmed people.

Rolf waved his henchman aside, parted her hair, and explored around the wound with his fingers. “Creased, the way they sometimes do wild horses,” he decided. “Whisky, on it and in you, should help.”

He swung her into his arms. Her head seemed to shatter, but she pushed blindly at him, trying to writhe out of his grasp. He crushed her against him till she couldn't move her arms. Arching forward, she set her teeth into his neck.

He swore, then cuffed her so hard that her eyes watered and her head snapped back. Through a daze she heard him say softly, “You can make it as cruel or as pleasant for yourself as you choose, Deborah. But this time you're not getting away.”

Mute, she lay in his arms like a trapped, hurt animal. “Bring me some rags and water,” he ordered as his boots sounded on hard-packed ground and he lowered her to a shuck mattress that rustled as her weight pressed it down.

“That a purty boy, or a gal in boy's britches?” ogled the scrawny redhead, who slopped a kettle of water beside the bed and ripped up what looked to be someone's best white shirt.

“Whichever, I'm keeping it. Go help the boys unload the wagon, keep anything we can use, and dump the rest.”

“What about the horses?”

“Turn 'em loose unless someone fancies horse steak for supper. Can't fool with livestock this trip, but we'll make up for it with jewelry, money, and such.”

“Pretty rich are they, them nigger-thieves in Lawrence?”

Deborah sat up with a gasp. Rolf forced her down, holding her with one arm and hand while he washed her with the other. “There'll be a nice lot of light, valuable plunder,” he promised. “Set the whisky over here, Jeff, and you all just keep busy outside a while.”

His arm had worked her shirt down, baring her breast. Returning with the jug, the redhead gaped and swallowed, pale eyes bulging. “Hey, Charlie, that
is
a gal!”

“Not for shares. Anyone got more of a load than he can handle, he can spill it in one of the nigger wenches in that other cabin.”

“Like somethin'—different,” muttered Jeff. His tongue slipped hungrily across his lips.

Rolf looked up at him. “I can fix you so the prettiest woman in the world could tease on you all night and you wouldn't care.”

Grumbling, but instinctively clutching at himself, Jeff went out.

“Lawrence?” Deborah asked. “You're going there?”

“Not just us, dear heart.” Enjoying the dread in her eyes, he mockingly enumerated, “When we rendezvoused on the Blackwater the night before last, there were two hundred ninety-four of us. Yesterday we picked up Captain Holt south of the Little Blue. He had one hundred four men. This morning, at the head of the Grand, fifty more joined.” He laughed. “Four hundred forty-eight. Tidy little army! And since I came on with a few scouts, Quantrill may have gathered more.”

Stunned by the enormity of the force, Deborah couldn't speak for a moment. “How did you get through the Union cordons?”

“After we crossed the border, we headed south, as if for Fort Scott. Anyway, you think an outpost commander with maybe a hundred men's going to chase almost four hundred fifty?”

“If you want a fight, why don't you attack Kansas City, where the army is?”

“We want revenge.”

“
You?
” she blurted out incredulously.

“I use the word collectively, my sweet.”

“But you had friends there! You—”

He shrugged. “That belongs to the time when I was so smitten with you that I tried to become an ordinary human. The border gave me back my true nature.”

She shuddered at the savage glow of his eyes in the twilight. “What will you do in Lawrence?”

“Burn it. Kill every male.”

“You can't! A patrol's bound to have seen you and sent for the troops.”

“Maybe. But Lawrence will be ashes by the time my noble brother and his cohorts gallop in from Kansas City.” The failing light revealed the white gleam of his teeth. “Oh, yes, I know about Dane's quixotism. It seems that neither of us can escape his fate.”

Tossing down the rags with which he'd cleaned her scalp and face, he tilted the whisky, washing the graze so that she flinched and gritted her teeth.

“You'll always have an extra part in your hair,” he said. “An inch lower and you wouldn't be worried about Lawrence. You're lucky! Ray usually kills what he aims at.”

Pulling her up, he forced several swallows of the strong whisky down her. Deborah choked and strangled. Her throat and stomach felt heated by fire.

“The—the people here! Did you hurt them?”

“Just the buck who came for us with an axe. He won't chop any more wood. The rest are in the other cabin. We told them they'll be fine if they behave, but we'll roast 'em alive if they try anything.”

He pulled the shirt all the way off her shoulders, holding her in a steel grip as he nipped softly at her breasts and flicked them with his tongue. “Still beautiful,” he grudged. “That hasn't changed.”

“Rolf—”

He laughed in her face. “You can't bargain. When you carved up my guts, it cured the last of my romanticism. I don't want your love. Your body will do.” He stripped off her shirt, dragged off her trousers and drawers, caressing her body with devouring roughness.

Deborah moaned, dizzy from her wound and the raw, stinging liquor. She tried to twist away. Rolf brought her under him, pinioning her hands with one of his, exploring her with the other, laughing excitedly, deep in his throat, at her struggles.

“I always meant to have you again,” he said heavily. “Figured I'd wait till I'd had all the border fun I could, then take you off to Oregon or California. But since you're here—well, I'll just call it Providence!”

She wrenched her thighs away from his probing fingers, but he clamped a leg over her, then toyed till she was weeping with rage and shame.

“You're ungrateful,” he chided. “I don't want to tear you. My God, you feel tight as a virgin!” His hateful laughter crashed in her ears. “I'll bet that fool Dane hasn't had you yet!”

Dragging her legs apart, he raised her, then thrust deep. She felt his throbbing hardness seek and delve before he began to rut.

This time there was no knife.

He took her twice more before he slept. She was so bruised and swollen that it was agony. She chewed her lips to keep from crying out, holding onto the hope that when he drowsed, she might have a chance to get away and warn the town, twelve miles away.

Right now they'd be having that concert, cheering the band's new silver instruments. Deborah thought of the friendly, busy streets she'd walked that noon, of Reverend Cordley, Mr. Ridenour at the grocer's, and the generous owner of Wilmarth's. Trusting in the Union patrols on the border, they'd all attend the concert and go happily to bed, prouder than ever of their town, which had endured so much, yet, in spite of the war, was prospering.

Rolf had told her that the main force should be along in the night, Quantrill planned to hit the town before people were awake.

Before having her the last time, Rolf had ordered one of his men to bring food and coffee. Distraught as she was, Deborah forced herself to chew the roasted chicken and cold cornbread. She had to be as strong as possible when her chance came.

He meant to see that it didn't. After his last use of her, he tied a rope around her ankle and let her relieve herself in the dark a little way from the house, but as soon as they were inside, he tossed her on the mattress and tied her feet and hands, securing the bonds to the rawhide frame beneath the mattress.

“You can't get up without moving the whole bed,” he taunted. “So you better sleep. Quantrill will have to be here by two if he aims to catch Lawrence snoring.”

She shrank from his careless pat. He only laughed and lay down beside her, making the shucks whisper. “Our first night together, Deborah, but not the last. I don't love you, but you've set a fire that only you can quench.”

Hating him, she tried to keep from touching him. He spread his arm over her in a claiming gesture and was almost immediately asleep.

Quantrill!
Kill every male!

Deborah shifted her bonds, found them unyielding, chafing her wrists and ankles if she moved. Even bound, she might have been able to do something if he hadn't tied her to the bed!

Desperately, she tried to think of some way to get loose. Smother Rolf? Even if she could lie across his face, he'd wake up. Chew through his throat? Impossible.

She was sweaty, smeared with Rolf's odor. The coarse sheet prickled her bare skin, she ached and burned from his assaults, and the top of her skull felt as if the hammering blood must burst through.

Losing consciousness more from exhaustion than from dropping off to sleep, she roused at a stifled gurgling, the straining up of Rolf's body, a meaty thud, and his convulsive collapse. His arms flung out, his legs thrashed, and he was still.