Savage Courage (17 page)

“I understand how you feel and how this need for
vengeance must have lain heavily on your heart through the years, but things are different now,” Shoshana tried to reason. “You and I have met. We are in love. That is all that should matter.”

“It does matter, but I still cannot allow you to go back to that fort,” Storm said flatly.

“Because you are afraid they will not let me return to you?” Shoshana asked, trying to understand his reasoning.

“No, that is not my only reason,” Storm said flatly. “I have already told you the whole reason. How can you not understand it?”

“How can you not understand how I feel when you tell me what I can and cannot do?” Shoshana said, her eyes searching his. “It isn’t right, Storm. I never want to feel imprisoned by you. Never! I will not be anyone else’s captive.”

“You should not look at it that way,” Storm said, sighing heavily.

“If you refuse to let me come and go as I please, I am no less a captive than when I was chained in Mountain Jack’s cabin,” Shoshana said. “If you love me, you will not do this to me. How can I love a man who would? I cannot.” She swallowed hard. “Do you choose vengeance . . . over . . . me?”

He didn’t respond quickly enough.

Shoshana turned and ran to her horse. Quickly mounting, she rode away at a hard gallop, tears blinding her as her heart broke.

Storm leapt on his own horse and rode after her, soon catching up with her.

“Yes, come and make sure you keep an eye on your captive!” she shouted, her heart aching over how things had suddenly changed between them.

He grabbed her horse’s reins, stopped the animal, then forced it to turn alongside his own, back in the direction of the stronghold.

Shoshana felt drained of emotion. How could this be happening! She had thought she’d found a man she could love, but he had turned into someone she did not know at all!

How could he treat her like this?

They rode silently up the steep mountain pass, each tormented by the strain that had developed between them. They both feared it might never go away.

Shoshana drew rein abruptly as Storm, with an exclamation of dismay, stopped suddenly ahead of her. Lying on the ground a little distance away was his sister, Dancing Willow. She appeared to be unconscious.

Storm dismounted and ran to her. He lifted his sister’s head onto his lap and tried to awaken her, but her eyes remained closed, and her breathing was strangely shallow.

Wanting to revive her, Storm lifted her into his arms and carried her to a stream. He bathed her face with water, yet still she did not awaken.

Dancing Willow smiled to herself. She was feigning
unconsciousness in the hope that Shoshana would flee. Dancing Willow had sneaked up on Storm and Shoshana and had overheard what they were talking about. She knew how angry Shoshana was and that she would flee at her first opportunity.

Well, Dancing Willow had made a plan that would give Shoshana all the opportunity she needed. While Storm was seeing to his sister’s welfare, her rival could ride away. Surely Dancing Willow’s brother would see to his sister first and Shoshana second, giving Shoshana the chance to return to the fort. Dancing Willow wanted Shoshana to disappear from their lives forever.

Suddenly realizing that he had left Shoshana alone, Storm looked quickly over his shoulder. She had disappeared. While he was seeing to his sister, she had sneaked away. She was probably well on her way down the mountainside by now.

Then he gazed down at his sister. He was torn. His sister was apparently ill. Perhaps she had been thrown by her horse, which was nowhere to be seen.

But if he didn’t go for Shoshana, she might become injured or lost before she arrived at the fort. Two evils might befall Shoshana before she reached the fort.

Mountain Jack!

The elusive panther!

“The panther,” Storm whispered, looking quickly down at his sister. He couldn’t leave his sister alone
and unconscious, not with the panther on the prowl.

Storm had no choice but to let Shoshana go while he took Dancing Willow back to safety at their stronghold. He carried her to his horse, his heart bleeding at having surely lost Shoshana forever.

With his sister on his lap, he rode up the mountain. When he reached their stronghold, he carried Dancing Willow to the shaman’s lodge.

Storm stood aside as White Moon performed a ritual over Dancing Willow. Finally her eyes slowly opened.

As her gaze met Storm’s, he stepped back in dismay. He saw that he had been duped. The look in her eyes told him as much.

“Sister, you have shamed yourself in the eyes of not only your chieftain brother, but also our shaman,” Storm said tightly as he glared into her eyes. “I know you well. I can see in your eyes what you have done, so do not even try to deny it.”

He leaned down into her face. “Did you ever think that by allowing Shoshana to return to the fort, you have endangered our people? She might be angry enough at what I had planned for her to bring white-eyes to our stronghold,” he hissed. “She is the only outsider who has been allowed to know where we make our home! I allowed it, sister, but only because it was my intent for her never to leave except with us when we departed for Canada land.”

He didn’t give his sister a chance to defend what she had done, or tell him she was sorry for her mistake. He ran from the tepee, leapt onto his horse, and rode away, down the mountain pass.

If he did not find Shoshana before she reached the fort, then he would have to ride into the fort and ask for her. He would risk everything now to have Shoshana.

He was wrong to have told her she was his captive. Those words might have turned her into his enemy.

Only time would tell. If she hated him now,
he
might be the one taken captive.

Beauty is but vain doubtful gain,
A shining glass that fadeth suddenly.

—William Shakespeare

Worn out and weary, and afraid he would never see Shoshana again, George sat slumped over in the saddle as he and the soldiers rode back in the direction of Fort Chance.

His eyes rose quickly when a soldier shouted in alarm. When George saw why, he felt sick inside.

A horse with an empty saddle and a bloody left flank was limping from the shadows of the aspen forest.

As the animal approached, it became obvious how the wound had been inflicted. There was a huge claw scratch, raw, red, and bloody on its flank.

“God almighty, I wonder whose horse it was,” Colonel Hawkins said as he grabbed the reins. His gaze went to the blankets covering something behind the saddle.

“Mountain Jack’s horse?” George gulped out. “God, it might be Mountain Jack’s. If so, where . . . where . . . is Shoshana?”

Everyone circled around the horse as Colonel Hawkins began unwrapping the blankets. The colonel’s face drained of color at what he saw. “Pelts—but, Lord, there are also many scalps here,” he said. “This had to have been Mountain Jack’s horse.”

“Lord,” George groaned, hanging his head.

“The wound on the horse seems to be the work of either a panther or a bear,” Colonel Hawkins said as he examined the wound. “It must have happened when the animal attacked the rider. It surely killed its victim, then took the body to its den.”

George swallowed hard as he tried to compose himself. “Is . . . there . . . a sign of another horse anywhere?” he asked, his eyes searching around him. He stared into the aspens. “If Mountain Jack had Shoshana with him, who is to say what might’ve happened to her?”

The colonel, along with the others, followed the trail of blood on the ground. It seemed the ambushed man had been dragged away by the animal, disappearing into the trees for a moment, then out again into open space.

Colonel Hawkins’s eyes locked with George’s. “I see no signs of anyone else having been here, George,” he said tightly. “I have no idea what to think, except I imagine the scalp hunter has got his due. As for Shoshana? George, I . . . just . . . don’t know.”

“Send several soldiers to search further,” George said, tears filling his eyes. “Maybe there is a chance. . . . There is one thing that gives me some hope.”

“What’s that?” Colonel Hawkins asked as four soldiers rode back into the aspens.

“Since there is no sign whatsoever of Shoshana being with the scalp hunter at the moment of the attack, just maybe she managed to escape his clutches earlier,” George mumbled. “Perhaps she was found by someone else. Perhaps even now she is being held by the Apache chief.”

He gave the colonel a hard stare. “I say turn around,” he said thickly. “Our destination should be the stronghold, not the fort.”

“George, you’re not being rational about this,” Colonel Hawkins said. He sidled his steed closer to George’s. “Your grief is keeping you from thinking clearly about things.”

“I’m as rational as you, and I say let’s go and search for Chief Storm’s stronghold and not stop until we find it,” George growled out. “I say you’ve
been too lenient on him. Why? Do you two have a secret pact, or what?”

“Listen to yourself,” the colonel said, his face an angry red. “Pact? Do you truly think I’d do that? George, you’re tired. I see it in your eyes. I hear it in your voice. You’re drained. We must return to the fort for now. You can get some badly needed rest, and then we’ll meet again and make plans. But as for now? We’re headed for home. Those I’ve sent to investigate will be enough for now.”

George felt a sudden tightening in his chest. He raised a hand and grabbed at his heart, his breathing coming suddenly in short, sharp rasps.

“George, are you all right?” the colonel asked, his eyes widening. “Is it your heart?”

“Seems so,” George gasped out, pale, his eyes showing his fear. “I guess I have no choice but to return to the fort. But, by God, as soon as I’m rested up, I’ll go myself to find the stronghold. To hell with you.”

He inhaled a deep breath, the pain cutting like a knife in his chest as he snapped the reins against the horse’s muscled body and rode away from the others.

Colonel Hawkins took off after him. As he pulled up on his right side, he saw a strange gray pallor on George’s face, and noticed perspiration on his brow.

“George, stop! Slow down,” he shouted. “You’ll
not be worth anything to Shoshana dead. Think of Shoshana.”

“You go to hell,” George shouted back at him and rode away as fast as his wooden leg would allow.

The colonel refused to give up. He reached George’s side again. “Okay, George,” he shouted. “I give you my word that after we all rest for one night, we’ll set out again and we will search for the stronghold. But I must warn you, if you think the travel we’ve done so far is backbreaking, what lies ahead is twice as bad.” He gazed down at George’s wooden leg, then up at his face. “I’m not sure you can make it up the steeper passes of the mountain.”

George glared back at him. “For Shoshana, I’ll do anything,” he shouted. “Anything! I’ll prove to you that even though I have only one good leg, I can still keep up with the best of your able-bodied men!”

Somewhere behind them the screech of a panther split the still air, causing all of the horses to shudder and whinny.

George looked over his shoulder in the direction of the panther’s scream.

He went cold with fear as he wondered anew where Shoshana might be.

He gazed back at the horse that was being led behind one of the soldiers. George shuddered at the thought of what had happened to the man who rode that horse. “You bastard, you deserved this sort
of death, but not my Shoshana,” he whispered to himself.

He looked ahead again, away from the horse. “Not . . . my . . . Shoshana . . .”

Come, on wings of joy we’ll fly
To where my Bower hangs on high.

—William Blake

Shoshana’s heart was pounding, but not so much from fear of being alone as from the realization of what leaving Storm meant. It meant losing not only the only man she would ever love, but also her mother!

It tore at her heart to think that she had just found her mother and now had been forced to leave her.

Perhaps she had been wrong to flee from Storm. With him she had finally found what she wanted out of life, yet she just couldn’t accept the fact that Storm had forced something upon her that was wrong.

She should be able to come and go as she pleased. No man should be able to hand out orders to a woman in such a way, especially to a woman he had confessed to loving.

“Captive!” she whispered, tears filling her eyes. It was just not right for any man to deny a woman her freedom, no matter where that freedom might take her.

Her thoughts went to George Whaley. She could understand why Storm was so adamant about achieving vengeance against Whaley.

She understood this need, for deep down she had always had the same need but had not, until now, admitted it to herself. She had grown up loving this man as a father. She had never been able to really accept the enormity of what he had done.

But now she felt the need to punish him herself. She was just not sure what form her revenge should take.

A sudden noise at her left caused Shoshana’s horse to shy. She heard a rustling in the brush, and then the threatening scream of a panther.

“No! Not again!” Shoshana cried as she hung on to the reins while the horse reared and bolted.

The horse settled down somewhat, but seemed frozen now instead of running away to safety.

Shoshana got a glimpse of a panther through the thick brush, and then she saw something else.

There were three kittens with the panther. It
seemed the mother was standing protectively between Shoshana and the kittens, and she could just make out their den behind them.

Shoshana started to flick her reins in an attempt to get her horse to move, but it remained frozen on the rocky path, its head low.

“Come on, boy,” Shoshana urged desperately.

And then Shoshana’s heart skipped a beat when she heard something else. It was a horse approaching.

Just as she turned to see if it was Storm, he came up a few feet behind her, and the panther gave another loud scream.