Savage Courage (25 page)

Shoshana could feel him tense up as he looked quickly over his shoulder, then gazed with concern into Shoshana’s eyes. “You heard it, too?” he asked, gently lifting her from his lap and placing her beside him.

“Yes, it sounded like someone . . . or . . . something moving around in the brush behind us,” Shoshana said, fear clutching her heart. “Oh, Storm, what if I killed a panther other than the one that stalks humans? What if—”

They heard the sound of breaking twigs again, and knew that they definitely were no longer alone.

“Who goes there?” Storm asked, hoping it might be one of his warriors who had come to tell him something.

When there was no reply, Shoshana and Storm questioned each other with their eyes.

“Perhaps it was no more than a beaver, or something of the sort, that has now passed by,” Shoshana murmured.

“
Ho
, perhaps . . .” Storm said, unconvinced.

He reached for his rifle. He crawled toward the entranceway, then stopped as all hell seemed to break loose. Something was breaking through the back of their makeshift lodge, the limbs cracking and breaking as they were forced apart.

“Oh, no, what if it is the panther?” Shoshana cried as Storm grabbed her by a hand and half dragged her from the small dwelling just as it collapsed.

Shoshana’s heart skipped a beat and her insides recoiled with a fear never known to her before when she beheld Mountain Jack standing amid the debris. He held a shotgun leveled at them.

“Drop the rifle,” Mountain Jack growled, standing shakily as he glared from Shoshana to Storm. “Shoshana, I gotcha again, and this time you won’t get away from Mountain Jack.”

Mountain Jack snickered as Storm carefully placed the rifle at his feet. “Kick the firearm away from you,” he said, his eyes narrowing angrily. “I’m gonna enjoy sendin’ you both to hell tonight. I’ll show you how little mercy I’ll pay you. You were wrong, Chief Storm, for not shooting me when you
had the chance. You saved my life, and in return I shall take yours.”

Storm and Shoshana stood stiffly together.

Shoshana couldn’t believe this was happening. She hadn’t thought that Mountain Jack, with all of his injuries, could have gotten this far from the fort.

She felt sick inside as she gazed at the wounds that the panther had inflicted on him. They were still bloody and gory, especially those on his legs.

Tonight he wore buckskin pants that had been cut away up past his knees, surely because it hurt too much to have the garment rub against his terrible wounds.

One arm seemed to dangle from his shoulder where it had come close to being torn from the socket by the panther.

But he had enough movement left in it to help him hold the shotgun aimed at his two captives!

“How did you get away from the fort?” Shoshana blurted out. “How could you get this far? How did you know we were here?”

“Now, ain’t you jest full of questions,” Mountain Jack said. He laughed throatily. He glanced over at Storm. “And how about you? Why are you so quiet?”

Storm just glared at him, his mind working out how he could stop this man’s madness once and for all.

He now knew how wrong it had been to hand this man over to the white people. It was obvious they
did not know how to deal with such criminals as Mountain Jack.

Storm was waiting for just the right moment to lunge at the man, for it was obvious it would not take much to down him. Mountain Jack’s wobbly, injured legs were barely holding him up.

“How did I get free?” Mountain Jack said, snickering low. “How did I get here? First let me say that I wasn’t even looking for you. You were the furthest thing from my mind. I just wanted to get as far as I could from the fort.”

He paused, licked his lips, then continued. “I ain’t never seen such lazy soldiers as I witnessed at Fort Chance,” he said. “And dumb. I guess they thought I was too injured to even think of escaping, much less succeed. They left me in the hands of the fort doctor. They didn’t even put me behind bars.”

He laughed again. “I fooled ’em all,” he said. “I pretended to be dying. You wouldn’t believe the amount of groanin’ I did. It’s funny to think about. All who came and looked at me thought I was at death’s door. Well, seems I play a mighty good game. After everyone was asleep, even the useless sentries, I just walked out as free as a fiddle. I even stole me a firearm and knife. Even now they have no idea I’m gone. Not until daybreak, and by then, I hope to be even farther away than I am now. But first things first. I have you two to take care of, since I just happened upon your camp.”

“You don’t look like you are able to ride a horse,” Shoshana said. “Did you?”

“Yep, and it’s tethered only a short distance away,” Mountain Jack said. “A while ago, it whinnied as I was tying my reins to a limb. I thought that gave me away. But no one came to investigate. I guess everyone just thought it was one of those horses you have penned up in that corral.”

Shoshana remembered hearing the whinnying now. She had, in fact, concluded it was one of the horses they’d captured.

“Now, you two just walk quiet-like away from this camp, and then you’ll finally get your comeuppance for what you did to me,” he said tightly. “Yep, you rescued me from the panther’s den, but then handed me over to those who I thought would have hanged me by now. Seems I’m as elusive as ever, especially to that hangman’s noose.”

Just as Mountain Jack started to back away from the debris that had not long ago been Shoshana and Storm’s dwelling, a noise startled him.

He turned just long enough for Storm to grab his rifle. He used the weapon to knock the firearm from Mountain Jack’s hand.

As his shotgun struck the ground, the impact caused it to fire. Mountain Jack was shot full in the chest.

“No, no . . .” Mountain Jack said, crumpling to his knees. He rested there for a moment, staring
from Shoshana to Storm, then fell over face forward, dead.

Shoshana looked quickly around as the others, awakened by the gun’s blast, came running, weapons in hand. Their eyes were wide with fear, especially Dancing Willow’s.

Storm noticed a beaver scurrying away, oblivious to what it had caused by having made so much noise as it scurried through the brush.

Storm smiled at Shoshana, then drew her into his embrace. He felt how hard she was trembling. “That evil man is finally, truly dead,” he said, stroking her back. “My wife, he will never trouble us again.”

“I can’t believe he was able to threaten us again,” Shoshana murmured, clinging to him. “I thought Colonel Hawkins would make certain of that.”

“Mountain Jack was skilled at deception. He was able to fool everyone into believing he was dying,” Storm said from across Shoshana’s shoulder. He spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear as they gathered around, their eyes on the dead man. “He escaped and found his way here, although I am certain we were the last people he wanted to come across. He was a fool not to travel onward when he saw our camp, but the need for revenge kept him here.”

He looked toward the spot where the beaver had disappeared. “It was a beaver that got the best of Mountain Jack tonight,” he said, laughing low.

Shoshana gazed up at Storm. “A beaver?” she said, eyes wide.

“It was a beaver that startled Mountain Jack into turning around,” Storm said. “I imagine he thought it was the panther coming to finish what it had started. He didn’t know that the panther was dead.”

“In a sense, the panther did finalize its kill,” Shoshana said, shivering at the thought. “It was fear of that panther that killed Mountain Jack.”

Storm turned and gazed at the scalp hunter’s body again, then looked over at Shoshana. “But enough about Mountain Jack,” he said. “Although it is night, I would like to start for home. I do not think this is the place a woman carrying my child should be.”

“Yes, take me home,” Shoshana said, sighing.

“Did we hear right?” Dancing Willow asked as she stepped up to Storm and Shoshana. She gazed with a strange expression at Shoshana. “Are . . . you . . . with . . . child?”

“
Ho
, my
ish-tia-nay
is with child!” Storm said proudly, causing his men to smile.

He tried to ignore the bitterness he saw in his sister’s eyes, for he now knew that nothing would ever make her accept Shoshana. He just hoped that she would never carry her jealousy too far again. If she did, he knew what he would have to do.

Banish her!

He placed a gentle hand on Shoshana’s belly.
“And I will do everything within my power to protect our child . . . to protect my
wife
,” he said thickly. He spoke three names. “You three ride with us tonight. The rest stay. Tend to this man’s body, and protect our horses. Start for home tomorrow with the new horses at first daylight.”

Everyone agreed, but Dancing Willow stamped away. Shoshana ignored her.

She was so glad to be on her horse alongside Storm as they made their way toward home. She was still trembling from what had happened.

But she knew that the terror of the attack had not harmed her child. She was determined not to allow anything to get in the way of her having Storm’s son, especially not Dancing Willow!

Yes, she thought to herself, smiling. This child she was carrying
was
a son.

She thought of her mother. She hoped that Fawn would live long enough to hold her grandson in her arms. In some way she felt it would make up for the years Fawn had been separated from her daughter.

“I’m so anxious to be home,” Shoshana said. “Except for our journey to Canada, I don’t plan to go on any more outings like this. I am ready to be a wife who tends to wifely things.”

“And then motherly things,” Storm said, smiling at her. “My wife, you make this husband very happy and proud.”

“That is my mission,” Shoshana said, smiling
softly. “I have never felt more feminine than I do now.”

“You could never be anything less,” Storm chuckled.

They rode onward in silence, and soon morning began to break along the horizon.

“We are soon home,” Storm said, nodding. “
Ho
, soon . . .” Shoshana murmured, yet something made her suddenly uneasy.

She could not put her finger on what it was. She just had a strange sense of dread. . . .

Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow’s share?

—William Blake

Riding up the familiar pass, Shoshana recognized that she was close to the stronghold. She was sorely tired, and after she went to her mother and hugged her, she would sleep the rest of the day.

She had her baby to protect.

She sat up straight again in her saddle when she caught a movement at her right side, where something had slithered into a loose pile of rocks. It was chunky and striped and very fast.

“That is a marbled salamander,” Storm said, noticing it. “With fall so near, most salamander females will be seeking out sheltered nooks. As summer
gives way to fall, these salamanders breed. The salamander we just saw is not seeking safety in the rocks. It will travel on down the mountain and when it finds a low-lying swale in the forest, it will lay clusters of up to one hundred eggs in dry leaf litter, or under a rotting log, then wait for the water to come.”

“What water?” Shoshana asked, always amazed at Storm’s knowledge of nature.

“Rain water,” Storm said. “As fall rains fill these low depressions, rising water inundates the eggs. They hatch and within days are on the prowl, seeking out tiny aquatic animals. Months later, when spotted salamanders, wood frogs, and other spring-bred amphibians arrive at the pools, the marbled salamanders are months old and far ahead of the competition.”

“How do you know these things?” Shoshana asked, eyes wide.

“My grandfather and my father taught me many things I am certain white fathers do not know to tell their children,” Storm said softly.

“Please be the teacher to our children that your grandfather and father were to you,” Shoshana said, then gazed quickly ahead when she heard a horse approaching down the narrow pass.

She soon saw that it was one of Storm’s warriors who had stayed behind at the village to keep watch
on the band. Storm did not completely trust Colonel Hawkins to leave his people alone.

Would Mountain Jack’s escape bring the soldiers up the mountain in search of the evil man? After Mountain Jack died, Shoshana had thought it might be best to take his body back to Fort Chance in order to prove that he was dead. Then the soldiers would have no need to search for him.

But Storm and Shoshana had chanced going there once. A second time might prove deadly.

They had decided to leave the body for the soldiers to find when they came looking for him.

“Who is that coming toward us?” Shoshana asked, drawing rein just as Storm stopped to await the warrior’s approach.

“This warrior is called Two Wings,” Storm said, nodding a welcome to the warrior.

“What takes you away from the stronghold?” Storm asked the warrior, whose eyes went to Shoshana and lingered there.

“From our lookout I saw you coming up the pass,” Two Wings said. “I chose not to wait for the signal of your arrival.”

“And why did you decide that?” Storm asked. “What do you have to say that could not have waited until we arrived?”

“I have sad news,” Two Wings said thickly, his eyes sliding over to Storm, then back to Shoshana.

Shoshana’s heart skipped a beat. The face of her mother flashed before her eyes.

“Tell us, then,” Storm said, drawing the warrior’s eyes back to him.

“It is No Name, whom we now know as Fawn,” Two Wings said, his voice drawn. “She passed on to the other side peacefully in her sleep, a smile on her face.”

“No!” Shoshana choked out, tears spilling from her eyes.

She was heartbroken over the news, yet she had been half expecting it.

But it seemed so unfair that she had only recently been reunited with her mother, only to lose her again. But this time she was truly gone. There would be no chance meetings again, not until Shoshana joined her in the sky.

Storm saw how the news had devastated Shoshana. He reached over and wrapped his arms around her, lifting her over to his horse and onto his lap.