Savage Hero (4 page)

But before she could fire the rifle, her breath was stolen away as she caught sight of an Indian coming up alongside her wagon. He swept an arm out and grabbed her, causing her to drop her rifle.

“Help me!” she cried as the Indian slammed her across the horse in front of him, his strong hand holding her there on her belly as he rode away from the wagon train. “Oh, please, someone, help . . . Help!”

She could hear bullets whizzing past and knew that someone
was
trying to save her, but to no avail. The Indian rode at a furious pace and soon had her far from the wagons and riding along that same ridge where she had watched the warriors appear and disappear for most of the day.

She was so terrified, she could scarcely breathe. She was so afraid, she could not even find the strength to fight back.

She just lay there at the mercy of the scarcely clothed man. His face was streaked with red and black paint, his eyes filled with an anger she could feel deep within her soul.

She thought of David.

Some hope came into her heart that she might be reunited with him when she arrived wherever she was being taken, for surely the two who'd abducted them were from the same tribe.

Unless they were renegades, she thought quickly to herself.

She had heard that renegades came from all different tribes.

If David was taken to one renegade's hideout and she to another, then she might never see her son again.

“Please take me back!” she screamed. “My son! I must find my son!”

When the Indian spoke back to her, it was in his language, but she did not have to understand the words to know that he was a man who would not listen to reason.

His words were forceful and angry.

Tears filled her eyes and her body flinched when in the distance she still heard gunfire, and then a strange, even morbid . . . silence.

She could only assume who was the victor again.

The Indians, for they had far outnumbered the soldiers.

Mary Beth began repeating scripture from her Bible, murmuring a prayer she had been taught as a child . . . one that she had taught her little son.

“Yea, though I shall walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”

Terminate torment of love unsatisfied,
The greater torment of love satisfied.

—Eliot

Sharp stars burned in the heavens. Coyotes howled in the distance and an owl called from a smooth-skinned aspen tree. Frogs serenaded the night along the creek beds, and the lonesome song of a loon came to Brave Wolf as he continued onward on his mother's behalf.

The moon was full, and the night was filled with its milky light, making a path of white along the ground as Brave Wolf and his warriors rode forward on their muscled steeds. Most carried sinew-backed bows of mountain ash, their arrows carried in quivers of otter skin, embroidered in a quill pattern.

In order to conclude this chore as quickly as possible, he and his men stopped only long enough to take brief rests. They slept for only short periods of time, making no exception whether it was day or night.

Brave Wolf hated to waste even another minute searching for the brother who had fought alongside Yellow Hair. As a scout for the white cavalrymen, Night Horse must have led the pony soldiers to where his people had their villages, where the women and children awakened every morning with fear in their hearts, knowing that the pony soldiers might come any day and slaughter them.

Brave Wolf looked from side to side at the expressions on the faces of his men. He saw hate and resentment in their eyes.

And he understood why they carried these emotions in their hearts. Even though Night Horse was his brother, Brave Wolf now felt nothing but loathing for him.

He gazed straight ahead past stunted pines and oaks. He wondered, even if Night Horse
was
found, could he truly go to him as a brother with news of their mother?

Or would he be more apt to kill Night Horse for betraying their people?

Each mile they traveled, bringing him closer and closer to Night Horse, the dread of actually finding him grew within Brave Wolf's heart.

For he did expect to find his brother up high in the mountains, where a cave was hidden behind
a waterfall, a place they had found while exploring one day, oh, so long ago.

They had claimed it as their own private place, a place they called their own. They had vowed to one another never to tell anyone else about it.

But now things were different.

Brave Wolf felt no allegiance now to a brother who had gone against everything Brave Wolf had always stood for.

He had thought that Night Horse held the same convictions . . . the same honor.

But he had been proven wrong.

Now it was time for Brave Wolf to decide how his brother would pay for his crimes against his people.

“Brave Wolf, how much farther must we go before we give up and return to our people?” Two Tails asked as he brought his horse close. “You do intend to travel only a while longer, do you not? You do not truly plan to find him, do you?”

Brave Wolf gave his warrior a slow gaze. “Do you truly believe that I am planning to go back on my word to my mother?” he said thickly. “Do you believe that I am playing a game by pretending to search, when all along I do not really intend to find Night Horse?”

“No, I have never known you to play games, especially with a mother's emotions, yet this quest is wrong, my chief, oh, so wrong,” Two Tails said dryly. “I had hoped you would have reconsidered by now. You do know that none of us want to see that traitor's face again, do you not?”

“Nor do I,” Brave Wolf said. “But I do plan to find him and take him back to our village.”

“And then what?” Two Tails asked, his gaze intent as he stared into his chief's midnight-dark eyes.

“And then fate will have its way,” Brave Wolf said. “That is all I can say now. Let us continue onward. I have a good idea where he is. We shall see if he is there; if he is not, we shall return home. Mother will believe me when I tell her that I went where I thought Night Horse would be.”

“We will go only there, nowhere else?” Two Tails asked softly.

“Nowhere else but home,” Brave Wolf said. He reached out a hand to his warrior's shoulder. “My friend, I understand your feelings. They match my own.”

“Where does the trail take us?” Two Tails asked as Brave Wolf lowered his hand away from him. “How much farther?”

“It is not far,” Brave Wolf said, swallowing hard. “It is not far.”

He gazed ahead, where out there in the darkness his brother was hiding from life itself.

Each mile that took Brave Wolf closer to that beautiful place where he and his brother had played as children, his heart ached more.

The ache was for the camaraderie that would never be again with a brother he had adored.

The ache was for a mother whose shame for her
son had to be tearing at her very being!

The latter made Brave Wolf feel a contempt for Night Horse that was like a sour bitterness in his mouth.

The life of a man is a circle,
From childhood to childhood
And so it is in everything
Where power moves.

—Black Elk,
Oglala Sioux Holy Man

A fire burned low as juices from a rabbit dripped into the flames. Night Horse sat inside a cave beside the fire and smiled when an owl hooted from a tree outside. He remembered a time when he was a small child and sat on his mother's lap in their lodge, listening to his first owl somewhere outside his family tepee. His mother had told him that owls see all . . . that they are the feathered cat of the night. She had said that the mother owl
lived with her brood in a nest full of moon-splashed shadows.

He had felt safe in his mother's arms, and he felt safe now in the cave behind the waterfall, hidden by groves of yellow aspen and frosted leafed cottonwood.

But he knew that down in the dry runs and ravines, he would be easy quarry for those who sought him out.

He had learned long ago to suffer fear and conquer it, but now there was a strange coldness in the pit of his belly when he thought of what the future might hold for him . . . death at the hands of those who hated him!

He listened to the peaceful sound of water falling over rocks. He was carried away to another time when his life was uncomplicated, to a time when he loved his older brother more than life itself.

He had idolized Brave Wolf, for his brother seemed to know everything about everything, especially the goodness of life.

Night Horse gazed into the flames of the fire as he thought about the times when he and his brother had played in this very place.

It was their very own.

They shared it with no one.

As it was Night Horse's hideout now.

He hunted at night, scaring up rabbits and deer from their sleeping places. He killed them silently with arrows.

So far no one had found him.

But he knew that if his brother decided to search for him, to make him pay for betraying his people, Brave Wolf could find him.

“But you will not do this, will you, big brother?” Night Horse whispered.

He gathered a blanket more securely around his shoulders, thankful that when he had found a horse to steal, it still had its owner's travel bag on it, in which were supplies that had made Night Horse's hiding more comfortable.

Yes, his brother would know where to look for him, but surely he would see no reason to. Brave Wolf had disowned Night Horse when his younger brother joined Custer.

Although Night Horse knew that Brave Wolf despised him now, because of the love they had shared as children he would surely not send anyone up into these mountains to take him captive, or to kill him.

“I feel safe enough,” Night Horse said, shivering as the cold air crept beneath his blanket.

Night Horse had had a lot of time to think about things since he had come to this place of his childhood.

He ached to see his mother.

He ached to see Dancing Butterfly, the only woman he had ever, or ever would, love. He knew that she must hate him now and surely would even turn her back to him if he could ever go home again. He would not blame her. It had been he who had left her behind, choosing instead to be a
scout for whites. Oh, how foolish he had been. He loved her. He would always love her!

He had also thought often of his
ahte
, Chief Sharp Arrow, about what a valiant, courageous leader he had been. His father had died at the hands of Ute renegades four moons ago, leaving the road clear for Brave Wolf to be chief.

Night Horse was proud of his chieftain brother and missed him with every beat of his heart.

He now knew that he had been wrong to align himself with whites.

By having done so he had lost everything that was truly valuable and precious to him . . . his family's love . . . his people!

Only now did he realize the greatness of those losses.

He was so ashamed of what he had done, he felt the bitterness of vomit even now in the depths of his throat.

He coughed, but not from the bitterness of vomit. It was his lungs. They pained him so.

He realized that he was not as well as he should be in order to survive the cold nights high in these mountains.

He heard the screech of a mountain lion and shivered. He knew that he was vulnerable, all alone and without a firearm.

And he had only a few arrows left of those he had stolen when he had found the horse hobbled as several renegades crouched beside a night fire, laughing and boasting about what they had achieved that day.

Yes, he had been lucky to have gotten away with stealing a renegade's horse and supplies. Had they caught him, they would have enjoyed killing him slowly, then scalping him and leaving him for the wolves to feast upon.

He had been so relieved when he reached his childhood hideout in the mountain.

But now?

He was afraid that he might die where he had at one time been so happy.

He hated the thought of dying alone.

There was never any yet that
wholly could escape love,
and never shall there be any,
never so long as beauty shall be,
never so long as eyes can see.

—Longus

The smell of food cooking on an open fire came to Brave Wolf in the soft breeze. He looked cautiously around him, and then up ahead, for he knew that where there was food cooking, there were those who were waiting to eat it.

When he saw the flames of a campfire through a break in the trees, he drew a tight rein, his warriors following his lead as they stopped, as well.

Two Tails brought his horse closer to Brave Wolf's. “Perhaps we have found him,” he said, his
voice only loud enough for Brave Wolf to hear.

Brave Wolf gazed intently at the fire, and then shook his head. “No, the man I know as my brother would not be so careless,” he said stiffly. “If he is still alive, he knows that there are those who wish that he was not. He is where no one can see or smell food cooking over his fire.”

Two Tails gazed at the fire again, now making out shadowed figures crouched around it. In the night breeze came laughter and voices . . . voices that did not speak the language of the Crow.

“Renegades?” he said, his voice suddenly filled with hate. “Would they be this reckless? Or do they place themselves out in the open because they wish for a confrontation?”

“They believe they are invincible,” Brave Wolf growled. “So, yes, I do believe we have found a renegade camp, but no, I do not think they wish for a confrontation. It is late in the night. They would not expect anyone to be riding past, especially this far from all villages and forts.”

“Could these be the Ute?” Two Tails asked, frowning at Brave Wolf. “The same renegades who spilled the blood of our people on our land? Who took our chief, your
ahte
, from us?”

“
Ka
, no, I do not believe it is they, or that they are anywhere near, for they know that if they show their faces again where we can see them, they will have no more time on this earth,” Brave Wolf said tightly. “When they took my
ahte
from his people and family, they knew they had crossed the line. They scattered far and wide, knowing that was the
only way they could keep from dying a slow, painful death for the crimes they committed.”