Reckless Heart (23 page)

At the mention of money, Stewart’s eyes glittered like sapphires. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

Grinning now, he slid his rifle into the boot that hung forward of his saddle and hooked a coil of rope from the horn as he dismounted.

“Cover me while I cut him loose,” he said tersely, stepping lightly to the ground.

Shadow had listened to McCall’s plan with mounting horror. Appalled by their idea, it was in his mind to make a break for it as soon as Stewart freed him, but he was too stiff, too sore in every muscle and joint to offer more than a token show of resistance, and Stewart quickly overpowered him. In minutes, Shadow’s hands were securely bound behind his back, a noose, fashioned from Stewart’s rope, hung around his neck.

Swinging into the saddle, Stewart touched his spurs to his mount’s flanks.

“Let’s go, Injun,” he growled over his shoulder and tugged, none too gently, on the rope.

As the noose closed around his throat, Two Hawks Flying lurched forward, gritting his teeth as his punished body protested every step by sending sharp pains through his arms, legs and torso. Feet dragging, body aching, chilled to the bone from spending the night on the damp ground, Two Hawks Flying stumbled along the path of Clyde Stewart’s big black gelding. The country they traversed was laced with prickly cactus and spiny shrubs that scratched his face and tore at his naked flesh, while rocks, stones and sharp gravel made walking treacherous. Still, the first few miles were not too bad. The forced march stirred his blood and worked the stiffness from his limbs, even as the warm sun caressed his weary body with a delicious heat.

But then his feet began to bleed and his belly rumbled for food, reminding him he’d not eaten since the day before. By noon, it was an effort to put one foot in front of the other. A short time later, he fell.

With an oath, Stewart gave a savage jerk on the rope, and Shadow struggled to his feet to save himself from being dragged, choking, over the rocky ground.

Ahead of him, he could hear Stewart and McCall deciding how they’d spend all the money they intended to make by showing him off to the whites across the Big Muddy. The idea of being exhibited like a tiger in a cage stirred Shadow’s anger, infusing him with strength, and he worked his hands back and forth in an effort to loosen his bonds, but the ropes held fast and struggling only caused the harsh fiber to cut into his flesh, wearing away his skin until his hands were sticky with blood.

In the next two hours he stumbled and fell a half dozen times as he trudged along in the dusty wake of Stewart’s mount. And each time he reached down inside himself and found the strength to rise and stagger on.

It was nearing dusk when he fell again, and this time not all Stewart’s impatient cursing as he tugged on the rope, or even McCall’s cold-blooded threat to geld him on the spot could bring him to his feet. Even the strongest man could not walk twenty miles on an empty belly, not if his feet were bleeding and his body was throbbing with the pain of a dozen knife wounds. Not when he’d spent the previous three weeks in solitary confinement subsisting on stale bread and water.

“Looks like he’s through for the day,” Barney opined. “In fact, if we don’t put some clothes on his back and shovel some food into him, I think he’s through for good.”

After a quick glance at the countryside Stewart swung out of the saddle, saying, “Yeah, I reckon you’re right. See if you can round up some duds for the chief while I rustle up some grub.”

Thirty minutes later Two Hawks Flying was clothed in McCall’s extra shirt and a pair of stained Levis. Warm now, with his hungry belly wrapped around a hot meal and his hands securely tied behind his back, he curled up on a patch of brown buffalo grass and slept.

Chapter Eighteen

The cell was empty, the prisoner gone. Apache scouts went out at dawn, only to return empty-handed, reporting that Shadow’s tracks had been thoroughly and expertly erased.

That afternoon Josh and I were married by the post chaplain. It was a short, simple ceremony attended by Colonel and Mrs. Crawford, Doctor Mitchell, and a dozen or so of Joshua’s friends. The whole thing was unreal, a nightmare from which I could not awaken. Didn’t these people realize I was already married? Why didn’t they understand? Why didn’t Josh understand that I was Shadow’s wife in every way that mattered? What difference that we had never stood before a judge or a priest and exchanged vows? Our hearts and lives were bound as surely as if we had written our names on a license before a hundred solemn witnesses. I had slept at Shadow’s side, tended his wounds, borne his child. How could I marry Joshua while Shadow still lived?

And yet, in a matter of minutes, the deed was done and I was Mrs. Joshua Berdeen—for better or worse.

I closed my eyes as my husband kissed me, praying that our union would be a happy one. I told myself we had a good chance. After all, once I had been genuinely fond of him. Perhaps, in time, I would grow to love him.

There was cake and champagne at the Crawfords’ after the ceremony, along with handshakes and presents and good wishes from Joshua’s friends, and a warm kiss from Doctor Mitchell. And then, all too soon, Josh and I were alone in his quarters.

Head spinning from too much champagne, I stood in the middle of the room, watching dumbly while Josh shrugged out of his uniform. Only then did the full impact of what I had done hit me. In bargaining for Shadow’s freedom, I had completely surrendered my own. I belonged to Joshua now. And as he crossed the floor toward me, I knew he intended to claim what was his without further delay.

A rising tide of panic engulfed me as his arms closed around me and his mouth covered mine. Unable to help myself, I recoiled from his touch.

It was the wrong thing to do. Joshua’s eyes burned with all the fierce intensity of a raging inferno as he grabbed a handful of my hair and gave a sharp tug, forcing my head up and back so that I was staring into his face.

“Forget him, Hannah,” he said curtly. “You’re mine now, all mine, and don’t you ever forget it.”

“Josh, you’re hurting me…”

“Mine,” he said huskily, and grasping the bodice of my wedding gown, he ripped it down the front.

I shrank from the unadulterated lust blazing in my husband’s eyes and clenched my teeth to keep from crying out as his hands fondled my breasts.

“Mine, Hannah,” he said again, and lifting me in his arms, he carried me to his bed.

And boldly made love to me—if indeed it could be called love. There was no tenderness or gentleness in his touch, only an angry urgency, as if I were another enemy to be conquered.

His hands were cruel as they explored my cringing flesh, his mouth hard and relentless as it ravaged mine. And as his knee forced my thighs apart, I made myself remember that, but for Joshua, Shadow would be dead now, hanging from the gallows behind the post guardhouse.

Shadow… In my mind’s eye I saw him astride Red Wind, a warrior as proud and free as the hawks whose name he bore. I saw him dressed for battle, warbonnet fluttering in the breeze, handsome face streaked with broad slashes of vermilion.

I saw him crawling across the floor of my father’s house, determined to die rather than be crippled for life.

I saw him kneeling at my side, his dark eyes filled with love and compassion the day our baby died.

Shadow, my beloved. No matter that Josh’s touch filled me with revulsion. No matter that I was repelled by his kisses.

Shadow was free!

Hansen’s Traveling Tent Show proclaimed the gaudy red, yellow, and blue banner, and then went on to promise chills, thrills, and surprises. Adults and children alike
oohed
and
aahed
as they rushed from one gaily-colored tent to another. Eyes wide as saucers, they stared open-mouthed at a man wrestling a six-foot alligator and gaped at a two-headed snake and a six-legged goat. The women swooned over a handsome sword swallower and sighed over a daring highwire walker. The men whistled and cheered and stamped their feet as a raven-haired belly dancer displayed her voluptuous charms. The children fell down laughing at a dozen funny clowns dressed as firemen. There was a thin man and a fat lady, a mysterious gypsy fortune teller, a boxing kangaroo, and a dancing bear. And in the last tent there was a real live Indian.

“Hurry! Hurry! See Chief Two Hawks Flying. The last fighting chief on the plains. Hurry! Hurry! Come one, come all!”

Clyde Stewart’s dazzling smile stretched from ear to ear as he watched a horde of city slickers rush down the midway, drawn by Barney’s ballyhoo. Old Barney was grinning broadly as he sold the last ticket, closed the cash box, and hurried inside. It was a sell-out crowd.

Stewart chuckled. The Eastern dudes shelled out a dollar a head to see the chief. On a good day, with three shows a day, they cleared over a hundred bucks, often more. It sure beat huntin’ outlaws!

Still chuckling, Clyde hurried to the rear of the big, blue-striped tent and ducked inside.

Over in a corner, shackled to the wheel of their wagon, sat their gold mine.

“Get those feathers on, chief,” Stewart ordered brusquely. He was changing clothes as he spoke, putting aside his natty pinstripe suit and vest to don a flashy, all white cowboy outfit laden with yards of fringe and glittering spangles. It was a rig to curdle the stomach of any real Westerner, but the city slickers ate it up. White boots and a huge white Stetson came next. Lastly, he buckled on a fancy, hand-tooled gunbelt, complete with a matched set of pearl-handled Peacemakers in cutaway holsters. The guns, worn for the show only, were loaded with blanks.

Clyde glanced into a mirror hanging from a tent post and smiled at his reflection. “Handsome devil,” he purred, then hollered, “Hey, Rudy, it’s time!”

Smothering a mammoth yawn, Rudy Swenson rose, stretching, from behind a bale of hay where he’d been napping since the last show. A giant of a man, with tiny brown eyes and a shock of unruly wheat-colored hair, he stood six-foot-six in his stocking feet. Moving like a grizzly just rousted from his winter sleep, the Swede took up his rifle and lumbered toward Two Hawks Flying.

“Hit the dirt,” Rudy growled, and Shadow bellied out on the ground, the Swede’s cocked Winchester snug against his spine, while Stewart cuffed his hands and removed the heavy chain from his ankle.

Stepping back, Rudy muttered, “Let’s go,” and Shadow rose obediently to his feet and walked toward the stage located in the front half of the tent, keenly aware of the Swede’s ready-cocked rifle tracking his every move.

There was a round of applause as Barney McCall stepped on stage. Tall, thin as a porch rail, with thinning brown hair and pale green eyes, McCall was a plain, homely man, unlikely to draw attention in a crowd of two—until he opened his mouth. As if to atone for his lack of physical beauty, Nature had endowed McCall with a rich, commanding voice, one that could hold an audience spellbound or bring them to tears. In earlier days, he had preached on street corners while his accomplice, an engaging young Negro boy, nimbly lifted the wallets of unsuspecting passers-by who stopped to hear the Gospel according to McCall.

Now, as the applause faded, Barney went into his spiel, recounting in vivid detail how Clyde Stewart, world famous buffalo hunter, trapper, Indian fighter, and Army scout, had singlehandedly and at great personal risk captured Two Hawks Flying, the last fighting chief on the Great Plains. Barney McCall was nothing if not silver-tongued, and the audience sat on the edge of their seats, totally mesmerized, as he wove his tale, relating in dramatic tones the atrocities Chief Two Hawks Flying had perpetrated against untold numbers of innocent whites, mostly women and children. His voice dropped to a reverent hush as he told of Clyde Stewart’s unmatched bravery in tracking the heathen savage over miles of barren wilderness and sun-bleached desert, how he had risked his life in deadly hand-to-hand combat and defeated the chief in a knife fight unparalleled in the annals of history for bloodletting and daring.

Barney paused, staring into the rapt, unturned faces of the crowd. “Suckers,” he thought disdainfully, amused by their ready acceptance of what any cowhand worth his salt would recognize as nothing more than a long line of bullshit.

“And now!” he boomed, “here’s Chief Two Hawks Flying, scourge of the West, and the heroic man that out-thought him and out-fought him, Clyde Stewart!”

Prodded by the Swede’s rifle, Two Hawks Flying climbed the stairs and advanced toward center stage. Several elderly women gasped aloud, shocked by his appearance, for he was clad in breechclout of black wolfskin and high, Apache-style boot moccasins. An elaborate warbonnet (of Crow origin and purchased for the exorbitant price of ten silver dollars from a shrewd brave of that tribe) trailed down his back, the ends nearly brushing the floor. Two scalps, which everyone assumed were fake but were, in fact, quite authentic and had been purchased from the same enterprising Crow warrior, hung at his side. In the flickering lamplight, his skin glistened like burnished copper.

There was a thunderous roar of applause as Clyde Stewart appeared on stage, his boyish smile as dazzlingly white as his outfit.

Rudy remained out of sight in the wings, covering Two Hawks Flying with his rifle.

Clyde bowed and waved, then bowed again, thoroughly enjoying the rousing cheers and unabashed admiration he saw shining in the eyes of the crowd. He made an impressive sight, and he knew it. Tall and blond, with a sweeping Cavalry-style moustache, vivid blue eyes and boyish smile, he set many a feminine heart aflutter and filled many a lesser man with envy.

When he could be heard above the adulation of the crowd, Clyde asked the audience if they had any questions. Thirty hands shot into the air. It was going to be a good night.

While Stewart answered their queries, Two Hawks Flying stared straight ahead, his dark eyes focused on a narrow slice of deep cobalt blue sky visible through a ragged tear in the side of the tent. His face, dark and handsome, was inscrutable, musing several of the women in the audience to wonder what thoughts lay behind his impassive facade.

Standing there, he looked every bit as formidable as McCall had claimed, and quite capable of committing the atrocities of which he had been accused. Powerfully built, with broad shoulders and long muscular horseman’s legs, he stood a good three inches over six feet. His hair, thick and black and parted in the middle, hung to his waist. To the Easterners, he appeared to be the personification of evil and terror, just as Clyde Stewart appeared to be the personification of all that was good and wholesome.

“What’d you say, boy?” McCall asked, waving the crowd to silence.

“I said, where’s his war paint? How come he ain’t wearin’ any?”

“That’s a mighty observant boy,” Barney informed the audience. “Come on up here, son,” he invited, and smiled, encouraging the youth to come forward. Someone usually noticed the Indian’s lack of paint. If they didn’t, Clyde asked for a volunteer from the audience to come up and paint the chief. It was always a show-stopper.

The boy reached the stage in nothing flat, turning to wave at his family. He was a small kid, painfully thin, with no more substance than a shadow on the wall. Sparse blond hair and a sallow complexion added to the boy’s washed-out appearance. Even the freckles liberally sprinkled over his cheeks and across the bridge of his nose seemed pale. But there was nothing pale about the boy’s eyes. They were a bold, vibrant blue, and they sparkled with awe and excitement as he stared wide-eyed at Two Hawks Flying.

“What’s your name, son?” Stewart asked, friendly-like.

“Jeremy Brown, sir,” the boy answered politely, heeding his mother’s advice to “mind your manners, or else!”

“Well, Jeremy, how’d you like to remedy the situation?”

“Huh? I mean, I beg your pardon, sir?”

Clyde Stewart indicated the tray Barney had produced from the wings. It contained two pots of stage makeup.

“How’d you like to paint the chief—show us how they decorate themselves for war?”

Jeremy’s eyes grew even wider. “Wow! Would I!”

“Well, go to it, son,” Stewart prompted, grinning at the boy’s exuberance.

Jeremy hesitated. “Could…could my cousin help me?”

“Sure,” Clyde allowed. “Come on up, cousin.”

There was a sudden flurry in the crowd as a young girl with flying pigtails ran up the steps to the stage. The two youngsters put their heads together for a moment, then picked up the brushes and began daubing paint on the Indian’s broad chest. Several people in the audience guessed their intent and began to giggle. Then, as Jeremy and his cousin stepped aside, the crowd erupted into full-fledged hilarity, for there, clearly marked on the Indian’s torso, was a red and yellow game of tic-tac-toe with X the winner.

Clyde and Barney exchanged amused glances, then joined in the hearty laughter as the two youngsters took elaborate bows before resuming their seats.

Through it all, Shadow’s face remained impassive, betraying none of the rage and humiliation that burned within him. How many times, he wondered bitterly, had he endured the mocking laughter of a crowd?