Savage Hero (17 page)

“There were circumstances that made that difficult,” she said, her voice catching.

“What sort of . . . eh . . . circumstances?” Colonel Downing demanded.

She was beginning to feel trapped. She couldn't tell the colonel about the time that had been taken to search for Night Horse, or about the time since his rescue, when Brave Wolf needed to stay close at hand in case he worsened.

No one could know about Night Horse. Especially not this prejudiced colonel and his soldiers. They might try to reclaim Custer's Indian scout.

“His mother was ill,” was all she could say, and it wasn't a lie. When she had first arrived at the
village, Brave Wolf was concerned about Pure Heart's health. It had turned out that her illness was mainly worry about her younger son.

“What did that have to do with anything?” Colonel Downing said, then shrugged. “Never mind. The fact is you are here. You are asking for our help. And, young lady, I think you've been through enough. I'll give you my support the best I can. I will send several men out soon to search for your son. Tomorrow. Describe him to me.”

“He is only five. He has blond hair and blue eyes, and he is the sweetest young man you'd ever want to meet,” she blurted out. She leaned forward. “Sir, please find him for me. Please?”

“We here at the fort will give it our best shot,” he said. He rose from the chair. “I'd best get you to a cabin. You can relax there. And I'd stay out of view of the men. What you're wearing makes for not only conversation, but accusations you might not want to know about.”

Mary Beth could feel the heat of a blush rush to her cheeks.

Did he know more than he was saying? Could he tell that she had been intimate with an Indian?

“Come with me,” he said, rising from his chair. He rested his cigar on the ashtray and reached a hand out for Mary Beth. “I wish I could offer you a dress, but there are no women here. We've learned that it is not good to have women on the fort premises. I don't like having them to worry about should Indians decide to attack.”

“I understand,” Mary Beth said softly. “And I
appreciate your kindness in offering me a place to stay. I am so grateful you will send out a search party for David.”

Mary Beth was again aware of eyes following her as she stepped out into the open courtyard. She couldn't get to the privacy of the cabin soon enough.

“This is used for any overnight visitors who happen along,” the colonel said when they reached the cabin. He opened the door and stepped aside, gesturing with a hand for her to go on in ahead of him.

She stepped past him and looked slowly around her. The room was nice. It was clean. It was sparsely furnished with a chair, bed, and table, but it was adequate. She didn't plan to be there for very long.

“I'll leave you now,” he said. “I hope you find the room comfortable enough.”

He gave her a half salute, then left her alone.

She closed the door and leaned against it. The colonel's attitude made her feel as though she had just been put through a torture chamber.

But at least the colonel had agreed to search for David. She could withstand anything for any amount of time if in the end she had her son again in her arms.

Yet she couldn't forget the men's eyes as they'd stared almost accusingly at her. She now felt afraid, for she remembered tales of how white women who were rescued by the cavalry after they had been with Indians were treated like dirt.

She stared at the bed. She was almost afraid to fall asleep.

She wanted to leave, to go where she felt safe . . . with Brave Wolf.

But she couldn't. She had no choice but to stay, for at least long enough to see if the cavalry could find her son.

Now that she knew the fate of the wagon train, she knew how lucky she was to be alive. She prayed that David was also still alive.

Keeping her clothes on, even the moccasins, she climbed onto the bed. She curled up and cried again over her son, and for those who had needlessly died.

She cried until her eyelids became heavy and she welcomed the peace that came with sleep.

She was awakened by hands around her throat.

She had slept until it had grown dark outside, yet there was enough light from the full moon shining through the window beside her bed to make out the features of her assailant and discover that he was one of the older soldiers at the fort.

She kicked him in the groin. Groaning and holding himself, he fell beside her on the bed.

Mary Beth grabbed a knife from a sheath at his right side, then leapt from the bed and held the knife between herself and the man.

“Get out of here!” she screamed, her heart thumping wildly within her chest.

He held on to his groin as he climbed slowly from the bed and backed away from her, stopping when he came to the opened door.

“You're a no-good Injun lover,” he growled. “Just look at you and the way you're dressed. You're no better than a savage. You won't live long, I can promise you that.”

He groaned as he staggered from the cabin, leaving Mary Beth, stunned and afraid.

From their eyelids as they
glanced dripped love.

—Hesiod

Still holding the knife for protection, and hoping that her assailant wouldn't pounce on her in the dark, Mary Beth ran from the cabin.

She searched the spots where sentries were usually posted and saw none.

She saw no one!

She had wanted to cry out for help, hoping some soldier would come to her defense. But none were anywhere to be seen.

In the light of the moon, she looked desperately around as she walked guardedly onward. But still she saw no one to assist her. Even the barracks where the soldiers slept were all dark.

The night was as still as death, except for the sudden frightening yelp of a coyote from somewhere outside the fort's walls.

She recalled what Brave Wolf had said about coyotes . . . that they would still be on earth when man was gone.

It seemed that was true tonight. She imagined a coyote lurking near by, perhaps sniffing out her fear, wanting to be a part of the terror that had her in its grip.

“Brave Wolf,” she whispered as sudden tears fell from her eyes. “If only he were here. I . . . am . . . so alone. I'm so scared.”

When she heard a movement close by in the darkness, she stopped and turned, the knife poised to strike. She imagined that horrible man, whose hands were like a vise squeezing her neck, standing in the shadows, ready to finish what he had started. The skin of her neck burned and ached even now from the man trying to choke the breath from her. Surely his hands had left an imprint that would never go away.

She breathed more easily when a pretty calico cat suddenly ran up to her, purring, then rubbed against her leg as her cat had done at home in Kentucky.

She missed her cat.

She missed Kentucky.

She missed the innocence of the life she had left behind.

“Pretty kitty,” Mary Beth whispered as she bent
and lifted it into her arms. “You'll keep me company, won't you?”

The cat meowed and rubbed up against Mary Beth's cheek as she gave it a gentle hug.

Then still holding the knife, Mary Beth stood up again and looked slowly around her as she walked slowly onward.

She was going to tell the colonel about tonight's incident. Surely he would find the man responsible and throw him in the guardhouse.

Only a coward would assault a woman!

She hurried now with determined steps toward the colonel's cabin. She saw no lamplight at the windows, which meant that he was surely sound asleep. But that mattered not to Mary Beth. She had to get his help.

She was so relieved that he had treated her decently even though she had seen the doubt in his eyes about what she wore.

Still her explanation seemed to have satisfied him. He had offered her kindness and a place to stay . . . even offered to search for her son.

Breathlessly, she knocked hard on the colonel's front door, the cat still purring contentedly in her arms. The purring gave Mary Beth a sense of comfort.

It was the quiet contentedness of her cat's purring that had always made Mary Beth feel warm inside when something troubled her back home, especially during those first weeks when her husband was gone to a distant land to be placed in harm's way.

Then her cat had helped get her through the tearful moments while she tried to find the courage to join her husband and tell him news that she knew would greatly disturb him.

“And, Lord, it did, oh, how it did,” she whispered, tears hot again on her cheeks.

As she waited for the colonel Mary Beth looked around the fort's grounds.

It seemed strange that no wives or children were at this fort, yet perhaps it was a wise decision on the colonel's part. If Indians did successfully attack the fort, the children and wives would be at their mercy.

The door swung open so quickly, the cat jumped from Mary Beth's arms with alarm.

She saw it scurrying into the cabin between the colonel's legs; more than likely it was the colonel's pet.

“Ma'am?” Colonel Downing asked as he absently ran one hand through his thick, sandy hair; the other held a lighted kerosene lamp. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?” The moon reflected on the blade of the knife, catching the colonel's eyes. He stared at it, then looked quickly at Mary Beth again. “Why do you have that knife? Has something happened?”

Mary Beth looked anxiously over her shoulder, then again into the colonel's questioning blue eyes. “Can I come in?” she asked, fear obvious in her voice.

Colonel Downing stepped aside. “Why, yes,” he said, motioning her inside with his free hand. “Do
come in and tell me what has brought you to me at this ungodly hour.”

She brushed past him, glad when he had the door closed, putting a barrier between her and the horrible assailant.

“You are trembling,” Colonel Downing said, holding the lamp farther out so that he could see her better. “Something terrible must have happened to you.”

“Yes, it did,” Mary Beth said. She wiped tears from her eyes with her free hand as she held the knife at her side with the other. She had never had the need to defend herself before coming to this wilderness. She was beginning to feel foreign to herself in many ways, because her life had taken such a different turn.

From now on, it would be different, for she would be living among a different people, learning their ways, being a chief's wife. It all seemed like a dream.

The best part of that dream was Brave Wolf.

She rushed into telling the colonel what had happened and described her assailant as best she could. She thanked the good Lord that the moon had lit the cabin, or she would never have seen her assailant.

“His voice was filled with such loathing,” she said, her own voice breaking.

“Let me see your throat,” Colonel Downing said, stepping closer and holding the lamp so that he could see her better.

His eyes narrowed angrily when he saw the red
imprint of the man's hand there. The skin was already bruising.

“The damn idiot,” he cursed. “The cowardly sonofabitch. What was he thinking?”

“He was not thinking, he was doing,” Mary Beth said as the colonel took her gently by the arm and led her into the living quarters of the cabin. “He wanted to kill me. If I hadn't thought fast enough and hurt him where no man wants to be hurt, then grabbed his knife from its sheath, I would even now be dead.”

“Thank God you were able to react so effectively during such an assault,” Colonel Downing said, setting the lamp on a table.

Mary Beth looked slowly around herself at the grandeur of the room. The walls provided a stunning backdrop for a Regency mirror over the mantel and a gilt-and-bronze chandelier.

Most striking of all was the elaborate French wallpaper and the carved side chairs upholstered in gilded leather.

Large neoclassical friezes and chunky molding added height to the windows, making Mary Beth momentarily forget that this was a cabin. The interior could have graced a mansion in France or England.

She was suddenly certain that a woman had lived here, even though the rules forbade it. There were lacy doilies on the arms and backs of the plushly upholstered chairs. Pretty, delicately painted ceramic figurines sat on tables and shelves.

Colonel Downing nodded toward one of the
most beautiful of the overstuffed chairs. “Sit,” he said. “I'll make some tea after I build up the fire. Let's get you warmed through and through, and then I'll tell you what I'm going to do about what happened to you tonight.”

Relieved that he was at this moment showing his honorable side, Mary Beth sighed as she eased down into the chair.

“Let me have the knife,” Colonel Downing said, gently taking it from her hand. He placed it on the table beside the lamp, then after throwing a log on the flames, left Mary Beth alone as he went to the kitchen.

While she waited, the terrible attack came back to her, making her wince as she reached up and touched her neck. It was painful to the touch. How lucky she was to have gotten the better of the man. Surely only seconds had remained of her life!

She gazed into the flames and thought then of Brave Wolf. Oh, how she wished she was there with him now.

How she wished all of this terrible ordeal was behind her and David was with her again!

She knew that her son and the man she loved would become fast friends. David would look to Brave Wolf as a father figure, and Brave Wolf would take David under his wing, proud to call the young man his son.

“He will one day be called a warrior, too,” Mary Beth found herself whispering as she envisioned David grown and muscled, riding a horse alongside the Crow warriors his same age.

There would be such camaraderie between her son and the others. She knew that he would be proud to say he was one with them!