Savage Hero (16 page)

She couldn't say it.

She just couldn't think it.

She
must
find her son, or a piece of her heart would be gone forever.

“Do not think about the bad when reality may eventually be all good,” he encouraged. He drew her into his arms. “My woman, as the pony soldiers are searching, so will my warriors be out looking again. Everything within my power will be done.”

“Yes, I must think all things positive,” Mary Beth said, smiling weakly up at him.

Then she cuddled close to him again. “Just hold me,” she murmured. “Please . . . just . . . hold me.”

“Then you must sleep, for tomorrow is almost upon us,” he said softly. “You must get what rest you can.”

“I shall hate leaving you,” she said, her voice breaking. “After having found you, and loving you so much, being parted from you for even one day will be hard.”

“Days pass quickly,” Brave Wolf said. “Sometimes it seems that I only blink my eyes and it is another tomorrow.”

“Yes, I have felt that way, myself,” she said, laughing softly.

Then she eased from him and stretched out on the pelts. She reached her arms out for him. “But this is now, and we are together,” she murmured. “It will be wonderful snuggling against you as I sleep.”

He smiled, then moved down next to her.

He reached out for her and drew her close, their bodies melding together as though they were one.

“
Istima
, sleep, my pretty one, my woman,” he said, then brushed soft kisses across her brow.

She smiled as her eyes slowly closed.

Let those love now
Who never loved before;
Let those who always loved
Now love the more.

—Thomas Parnell

It had taken a good part of the day to arrive at Fort Henry. The sun was lowering behind the distant mountains, but it was still light enough to see the huge fort that loomed ahead of her on the flat land surrounding it.

Mary Beth's insides quavered as she stared at the fort. It was only a short distance away from where she sat on the lovely dark sorrel that Brave Wolf had given her.

She looked at Brave Wolf. “I don't know why, but I am suddenly afraid to go on to the fort,” she
murmured. “When the sentries first see me alone, they will wonder why. It is unusual for a woman to be alone in this wilderness.”

“I would accompany you there, but that would raise more suspicion than curiosity,” Brave Wolf explained. “It is best not to let them see you and me together. Go, my woman. I shall stay hidden here among the trees, watching you, until you are taken safely inside the fort's walls. Only then will I feel that you can fend for yourself.”

Mary Beth laughed nervously. “My teeth are actually chattering,” she said. “I don't know what I am expecting from them to make me so . . . so . . . afraid.”

“I should never have told you my opinion of Colonel Downing,” Brave Wolf said ruefully. “I am sure that is why you are apprehensive about going to his fort. It is not too late to change your mind. I can take you to Fort Hope.”

“No, I truly believe I have come to the right fort even though I do not look forward to meeting Colonel Downing,” Mary Beth murmured.

“Just remember that those at the fort are your people, so expect understanding and kindness,” Brave Wolf said, reaching a hand to her cheek. “You are a brave, courageous woman. Now is the time to use that courage.”

“I believe I know what is truly causing my hesitation,” she said, searching his eyes. “It is because I have to leave you. I'm so afraid that something might happen and I may never see you again.”

“When you are ready to return to me, I will be
there, waiting,” he promised. “I have not survived these twenty-five winters of my life to allow something to happen to me now that I have found you. True love only comes once in a lifetime. Never shall I let anything jeopardize it.”

“Then I shall go on my way with a much lighter heart,” Mary Beth said. She took his hand, kissed its palm, then slowly released it. “I shall go on now. Perhaps I shall find my son already safe in the hands of the soldiers.”

“Had you thought that possible, nothing would have kept you from coming to this fort before now,” Brave Wolf said, his voice drawn. “No, my woman, do not expect to find your son at the fort. But do expect to find people who are willing to search for him.”

“Yes, I know they will, for who would not want to assure the safety and well-being of a child . . . except for people like those who stole him from me,” Mary Beth said.

She inhaled a deep, shaky breath, gazed at the fort again, then smiled at Brave Wolf. “Goodbye, my love,” she said. “I shall return to your arms as soon as I find something out about David.”

“Faith . . . hope . . . love . . .” Brave Wolf said. “They will get you through these next hours.”

He reached over and placed a hand at the nape of her neck. He drew her close and gave her a long, deep kiss, then dropped his hand away and watched her ride from him.

He dismounted, tied his reins to a low limb, then went and knelt behind a stand of bushes. He
parted their branches to get a better look at the fort, and those who would open the gate to his woman.

Then he suddenly noticed something that Mary Beth surely had forgotten. The clothes she wore were not clothes ordinarily worn by a white woman. She was still wearing the doeskin dress his mother had given her.

He wanted to cry out to warn her, but he knew that the wind would carry his voice to the soldiers. They would have double cause to be alarmed if they saw a woman dressed in doeskin and heard the cry of a red man calling her name!

“Tread softly and warily, my woman,” he whispered, his spine stiffening as she drew closer and closer to the fort on the steed that had been his for so long but was now hers. His jaw tightened when he saw the tall, wide gate slowly opening.

He watched with bated breath as a soldier came from the gate, brandishing a rifle. Brave Wolf's hand went to his bow as Mary Beth stopped beside the soldier, then dismounted while he took her reins in one hand, still holding his rifle in the other.

When Brave Wolf saw that she was not going to be harmed, he slid his hand away from the bow and watched until she and her horse disappeared inside the fort with the soldier.

He was unnerved about the whole situation. He felt so bad about forgetting how she was dressed, but even if he had remembered, nothing could have been different. There were none of the
clothes worn by white women at his village. She would still have arrived in Indian attire.

He could not leave just yet. His eyes remained locked on the gate. His ears remained alert to any noise coming from inside the walls.

If he heard a woman scream, his heart would be turned inside out, for surely it would be Mary Beth!

Mary Beth scarcely breathed as she walked into the fort. The soldier had taken her horse and tied it to a hitching rail, while another soldier had stepped up and was now escorting her to the large cabin in the center of the courtyard.

She knew forts well enough to know that it was the colonel's dwelling and main office.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw that all activity at the fort had stopped. She could feel eyes on her, watching her every move.

When she looked at one soldier at length, she saw a strange expression of disgust in his eyes.

And she had not even been questioned by the soldier who had met her at the gate. She had just been told that he would take her immediately to Colonel Downing. The cold look in his eyes as he had looked her slowly up and down still made her uneasy.

Then it came to her like a bolt of lightning. The dress. The moccasins. Her hair, which she had worn in braids these past two days. Everything about her, except her skin and hair color, looked Indian.

A sudden flush heated her face as she looked
guardedly from man to man. She could not help wondering if they could tell she had made love with an Indian.

To all white men, a woman was no longer worth anything if a red man had “soiled” her. They couldn't know that she had made love to Brave Wolf, but it was obvious that she
had
been among Indians.

Would the colonel even be willing to help her find David? Would he condemn her for how she was dressed and dismiss her as an Indian lover?

Except for what Brave Wolf had said about this colonel, she didn't know anything about him. But from what Brave Wolf had told her, she knew that he was not a compassionate man and that he despised Indians.

Did he hate them enough to make her pay for wearing the clothes of an Indian maiden?

She felt her knees go weak at the thought of facing the colonel. Yet she could not allow herself to think that she should not have came to the fort. It was for David that she was there.

She had to hope the colonel would understand about her having been taken captive, that she'd had no choice about what to wear.

“In here, ma'am,” the soldier said as he opened the door to the cabin. “Our commander is Colonel William Downing.”

Mary Beth nodded a quiet thank you and walked past him and into the cabin. He followed her in.

As she entered, she became aware of a thick
smell of cigar smoke that hung in the air like fog all around the room.

Through the smoke she saw a husky, clean-shaven man sitting in full uniform, with resplendent gold epaulets, at a huge oak desk at the far side of the room. He had a thick crop of sandy-colored hair, and he appeared to be around forty years of age.

A lone kerosene lamp sat at one side of the colonel's desk, which was littered with papers, journals, and folders. Scarce light filtered through the haze of dust on the two windows in the room.

“What have we here?” Colonel Downing asked, slowly rising from his chair.

He took a thick cigar from his mouth and rested it on the edge of an ashtray. His gaze swept quickly over Mary Beth as she stood rigidly just inside the door.

“Sir, she came on horseback, alone,” the soldier said after saluting the colonel. He now stood with his arms stiffly at his sides.

“Alright,” the colonel growled out. “Dismissed.”

The soldier saluted, then swung around and hurried from the cabin.

“Who in the hell are you and what in the hell are you doin' in those clothes?” Colonel Downing asked as he came from behind the desk.

His hands clasped behind him, he made a slow turn around Mary Beth, his eyes raking slowly over her. “Injun attire, eh?” he grumbled. “That surely means you've been with Injuns.”

He stepped in front of her and looked her
directly in the eye. “So, ma'am, the next question is . . . why are you dressed like that? And where are those you were with
now
?”

“My name is Mary Beth Wilson,” she gulped out. “My husband was Major Lloyd Wilson. He was killed in the Battle of the Little Big Horn along with so many who were stationed at Fort Kitt. I was among those who were on their way to your fort when . . . the wagon train . . . was . . . attacked. Surely you know about that already, especially the results of the Indian ambush. I have no idea how many were killed that day, for . . . for . . . I was taken captive by a renegade, and so was my son David.”

“Yes, I know about those who died,” Colonel Downing said, his voice drawn. “All of them died. All of them.”

His eyebrows rose. “Yet you say you survived, as did your son,” he said, kneading his chin. “Mighty lucky, wouldn't you say?”

Mary Beth was first horrified by the news that everyone she had known on the wagon train was dead, then offended, for the colonel seemed to be implying something quite nasty.

“Lucky?” she squeezed out. “Do you call being abducted by renegades lucky? Do you call seeing my son stolen by a renegade lucky? Sir, I have died a thousand deaths inside my heart since I saw my son abducted.”

“Renegades, eh?” he said. “So it was renegades who did the killing and who lent you Injun attire, huh?”

“Yes, it was renegades who did the ghastly deed, but no, it was not a renegade who brought me safely to the fort,” Mary Beth said, lifting her chin defiantly. “I was rescued by a friendly Crow chief and his warriors. You know of him. Chief Brave Wolf. He took me in. His women gave me clothes to wear. They were generous in all ways to me. It was Chief Brave Wolf who escorted me close enough to the fort today so that I'd be safe. He has left to return to his village.”

She hoped that the colonel wouldn't see the blush she felt on her cheeks, for she could not help thinking about those wondrous, precious moments alone with Brave Wolf.

She had to make certain this colonel and his soldiers never discovered her true feelings for Brave Wolf, not until she had achieved her goal here. Then she would return to Brave Wolf and become his wife.

Then the whole world could know. She would be proud to say that he was her husband, although she knew how the white community would feel about it.

To her own people she would be worse than whores that sold their bodies to men.

Yes, she must make certain no one guessed her secret while she was trying to get help in finding David.

“And so it was Chief Brave Wolf who escorted you here, eh?” the colonel said, going back to his chair and sitting down. He gestured with a hand toward a chair beside his desk. “Sit.”

She moved almost defiantly into the chair, her back stiff as she sat facing the colonel.

“Sir, my son is the reason I am here,” she said, her voice as tight as before. “As I told you, he was abducted, but by a different renegade than I was.”

She felt the same ache in her heart as she had since that moment her son had been ripped from her side. “I have not seen David since,” she said, her voice breaking. “Chief Brave Wolf sent out a search party, but he couldn't find any signs of my son. It is as though he has disappeared from the face of the earth.”

“So you asked Injuns to search for your son before coming here to ask our assistance?” Colonel Downing said, again lighting his cigar and taking slow, deep drags from it. He then took it from his mouth again. “Why is that, young lady? Why didn't you ask to be brought immediately to the fort?”