Savage Courage (6 page)

George gave the colonel an uneasy glance, for in a matter of moments Hawkins would not be feeling as chipper as he did now. After George told him that he was returning to Missouri as soon as possible,
that confident smirk would be wiped off the colonel’s face.

“Shoshana, I’ve got something to give you,” George said, going behind his desk and opening a drawer. He took a red bandanna from it, then handed it over the desk to her. “Honey, it’s a hot day. Use the bandanna to tie your long hair back from your face.”

“Thank you,” Shoshana said, taking the bandanna and doing as he suggested. She knew that the bandanna was meant to serve a dual purpose. It
would
keep her hair from her face, and it might also distract attention from her long black hair just in case Mountain Jack was in the area.

She turned to Major Klein. “I’m ready,” she said, and together they left the room.

George watched from a window as Shoshana mounted her assigned steed, while the young major mounted his own. George followed them with his gaze until they rode out of sight.

Then he turned to the colonel. “I have something to tell you that is sure to rankle,” he said, his voice tight.

“And that is?” Colonel Hawkins asked, lifting a thick brown eyebrow.

“I have no choice but to step away from this opportunity to track down the scalp hunter,” George blurted out. “My Shoshana comes first, and by damn, I plan to take her back home to Missouri where she will be absolutely safe.”

“You are going to do what?” Colonel Hawkins demanded. “You can’t do this, George. I personally chose you for this assignment. If you fail, it won’t look good for me in Washington.”

“I’m sorry about that,” George said. He sighed heavily. “Truly, I’m damn sorry about that.”

“I’ve gone to a lot of trouble and expense to bring you to Arizona!” Colonel Hawkins shouted. “And now you’re telling me that you’re walking out on me? George, I won’t have it. Do you hear? I won’t have it!”

“You won’t have it?” George said, his eyes narrowing angrily. “Must I remind you that I retired long ago from the military and am under nobody’s thumb anymore? You can’t dictate to me. No one can. I came to help. But now I see the mistake in doing so. No ranting and raving you do will make me change my mind. Do you hear? Nothing will change my mind. I’m Missouri-bound with my daughter tomorrow.” He lifted his wooden leg from the floor and banged it down hard. “Do you hear? Tomorrow!”

Colonel Hawkins’s face was red with anger. His eyes flared.

Without a word he turned and left the room in a hurry.

George wiped his brow free of sweat with the back of a hand. “Now that’s that,” he whispered to himself. “I guess I told him a thing or two, didn’t I?”

Frowning, he went to the window and gazed into the distance.

He knew that he had just won a victory over the famous colonel.

But he didn’t feel all victorious. He was too aware that many things could happen between now and tomorrow!

He knew that no one was safe in this area. Especially a woman as beautiful and alluring as his Shoshana.

Oh, could the Fair, who this does see,
Be by this great example won.

—Richard Leigh

Many feelings overwhelmed Shoshana as she and Major Klein rode along a river that flowed into a broad, marshy valley. She was having occasional flashes of recognition that made her think she was near the spot where her village had stood, where she had run and played with friends . . . where she helped her mother fill her large jug with water. . . .

“Come autumn, this valley will be full of elk and deer that will have moved down from the higher elevations,” Major Klein said, interrupting Shoshana’s train of thought. “The first time I saw them, I was stunned at how many there were.”

Shoshana looked quickly over at him. “How long have you been stationed at Fort Chance?” she asked, wondering if he had been there long enough to know the places where the Apache villages had once been.

“A year,” Colonel Klein said, smiling over at her.

“A year?” Shoshana said, her heart filling with hope. “Then you surely know much about the land and—”

Major Klein’s smile waned. “No, not much at all,” he said, interrupting her. “My duties until only recently were menial and kept me at the fort.”

“Oh, I see,” Shoshana said, feeling foolish at having thought she would get answers so soon after arriving at her homeland.

“I’ve been in charge of feeding the horses and grooming them,” Major Klein said, fondly patting his horse’s sleek neck. “Yeah, Colonel Hawkins ordered me to care for the horses but very rarely allowed me to enjoy riding them. Today is the first time I’ve been away from the fort on a horse in weeks.”

“So you haven’t had much opportunity to learn anything about the area, or where the Apache villages might have been?” Shoshana asked, surprised that the colonel would have chosen him to see to her safety today.

Suddenly she didn’t feel all that safe.

“No, not much,” Major Klein said tightly. He
gazed over at Shoshana. “I have you to thank for my being away from the fort today. If you hadn’t needed an escort, I’d still be in the stalls seeing to the horses.”

“Don’t thank me,” Shoshana said dryly. “I had nothing to do with it. The colonel chose you.”

She wanted to add that she had no idea why he’d been chosen. Surely an older soldier with more knowledge of the land would have been better suited for the job.

If George Whaley knew just how vulnerable she was with this young major at her side, he would most certainly have reason to worry, just as she was now worrying.

She decided she would turn back soon. With someone so unfamiliar with the land, she was afraid of possibly getting lost, or worse yet, riding into the face of danger.

“I can tell that you don’t feel comfortable about my escorting you today,” Major Klein said ruefully. “I’m sorry about disappointing you. Do you want to turn back?”

“Not quite yet,” Shoshana said, nudging her steed with her knees and riding on ahead of the major.

She didn’t want any more small talk with him. She wanted to inhale all of this loveliness without interruption.

This valley was the province of butterflies and lovely dragonflies.

The crystalline body of water was full of caddis flies.

The air was alive with hummingbirds and magpies.

A colony of otters flourished in the river, and she saw badgers, too.

She was only five on that terrible day long ago when her life had changed forever, but things were coming back to her again—her laughter as she ran through the tall grass and flowers where her mother had bent low to pluck a bouquet, Shoshana’s baby brother on her mother’s back in his cradle board . . .

She was remembering a day when she had sat dangling her feet in the river while her mother stopped to nurse Shoshana’s baby brother . . . a brother who had died from an illness unfamiliar to Shoshana only days before the massacre that took her mother from her, as well.

This could be the exact place where she had shared those precious moments with her mother and brother. It did seem so familiar.

Then her breath was stolen away when she saw the remains of tepees a short distance from the river. The poles were like the bones of skeletons sticking up from the ground.

Could this be . . . ?

A groan behind Shoshana caused her to turn quickly in the saddle.

She went pale and gasped when she saw a hatchet lodged in the young major’s chest, his eyes wide with disbelief.

She cried out when he suddenly tumbled from the horse to the ground, dead.

Frozen with fear, Shoshana remembered her father’s warnings about Mountain Jack, the scalp hunter! Could he have done this terrible thing to the kind young major?

Was . . . she . . . next?

With a pounding heart, and a fear so keen she felt cold all over even though the day was miserably hot, she grabbed her rifle from her gunboot, but dropped it in the next instant. A voice shouted at her from a nearby stand of aspens, telling her not to do anything foolish or she would be the next to die.

“Dismount,” the killer shouted at her in a gravelly voice. “And stay away from that rifle.”

Her knees trembling with fear of who might come out into the open, and horrified by Major Klein’s death, Shoshana slid slowly from the saddle.

She eyed the rifle. It was only a footstep away.

“Kick the rifle away from you,” the hidden man told her.

She did what he said, although reluctantly.

Then she watched as a sandy-whiskered man on a white horse rode out into the open, his rifle aimed at Shoshana. It didn’t take much thought to realize that this was the scalp hunter.

This was Mountain Jack! There was no doubt that it was he.

He’d been described as having sandy, bushy whiskers
and a white horse. She observed that he also had steely cold gray eyes.

From even this distance, she could smell the stench of the soiled buckskin attire he wore.

“You murdering bastard,” Shoshana found the courage to say.

“You just shut up,” Mountain Jack growled out. “For now, I only want the major’s scalp. But if you say anything else to rile me, I’ll also take yours and be done with you.”

The realization that the man was going to scalp the young major made Shoshana turn her head away with the need to vomit.

She recalled George telling her that the scalp hunter not only killed Apaches for their scalps, but also white people who had dark hair. The young major had hair the color of an Indian’s, and it was almost as long.

“You are Mountain Jack, aren’t you?” she asked guardedly. “You’re the scalp hunter that everyone is talking about.”

“Yep, I’m that famed man,” he said, riding closer on his white mare. “But like I said, shut up or I’ll scalp you to shut you up.”

Shoshana fought the fear that was building within her.

But she had to pretend to be strong, even though every bone in her body was weak with fear of what this evil man might decide to do to her.

“You’ll never get my scalp,” she said bravely, defying him, her eyes again on her rifle.

“Just you try to grab that rifle and you’ll see how quickly your scalp can be loosed from your head,” Mountain Jack growled out. “I don’t want to be forced into doing what I don’t want to do. I have other plans for you first.”

“What . . . plans?” Shoshana gulped out, her courage waning. “You aren’t going to rape me, are you?”

“I don’t reveal my plans before doin’ ’em,” Mountain Jack said sardonically as he dismounted his steed. “You’d best get back on your horse and turn your head if you don’t want to see the soldier lose his hair.”

When he bent to a knee beside Major Klein, his knife drawn from its sheath, Shoshana felt a strange, rubbery weakness in her knees.

“Please don’t do that,” she begged, pale from knowing that nothing she said would stop him.

“Get on that horse and turn your eyes away,” Mountain Jack shouted. “I don’t like making a woman faint, and, sweet thing, if you watch me scalp the young man, I swear you’ll faint dead away.”

Her heart pounding, a sob lodging deep within her throat, Shoshana quickly mounted her steed.

She inched her horse away from the death scene.

She was tempted to sink her heels into the flanks
of her steed and try to escape, but she knew that Mountain Jack wouldn’t allow it.

Her own rifle, which lay only a few inches from his knee, might even be used to kill her.

“I need to ask you somethin’ before scalpin’ the lad,” Mountain Jack said. “I figure you’re Apache, but why is an Apache squaw like you dressed as a white woman? Why did you turn your back on your people to live in the white world?”

Shoshana refused to answer him.

She sat stiffly in the saddle, awaiting her fate; poor Major Klein’s was already sealed.

She cringed and covered her ears with her hands in order not to hear Mountain Jack cutting the scalp from Major Klein.

Tears splashed from her eyes when she remembered the young man’s kindness. Then Mountain Jack told her she could open her eyes and turn around, that the scalping was done.

“It’s time now to hurry back to my hideout,” Mountain Jack said, ignoring how Shoshana still refused to look his way.

He slid the scalp into his saddlebag, grabbed up Shoshana’s rifle and secured it with his other firearm in his gunboot, then mounted his steed and rode over to Shoshana.

“Did you hear me say it’s time to ride to my hideout?” he snarled. “Do as I say, pretty thing, or else.
Follow me and don’t try and escape. You’re nothing to me, so it would not mean anything to me to shoot you.”

He shrugged. “Either you cooperate with me or your scalp will join the young major’s real quick like,” he said tightly.

Swallowing hard, Shoshana gave him a quick glance, then snapped her reins and rode alongside him as he made a wide swing left and rode toward the mountain.

Shoshana thought about how her life had changed so many years ago in her homeland; now she was home again, and tragedy had struck once more.

She lowered her eyes and prayed that someone would come soon and save her, for she feared what was going to happen to her now more than she feared actually being scalped.

She would rather be dead than to have that filthy man touch her in any way!

Is there within thy heart a need
That mine cannot fulfill?

—Adelaide Anne Procter

His eyes ever searching for the elusive panther, Storm had traveled halfway down his mountain, yet he had seen no trace of it or its den anywhere. He was ready to turn back, but decided to take one last look with his spyglass.

He had found the spyglass along the trail many years ago and had discovered just how useful it was. Things he saw so distinctly through the glass could only be dimly perceived with the naked eye.

He drew a tight rein and reached inside his parfleche bag. With one sweep of his hand he had
his spyglass up to his eye and was slowly scanning the mountain from side to side.

Still he saw no sign of the panther.

From his horse he could see farther below him, where some time ago the land had been scarred by lightning. He would never forget seeing the huge billows of smoke from the lookout at his stronghold, and then the flames.