Savage Skies (15 page)

She leaned away from Blue Thunder and gazed into his midnight-dark eyes. “How?” she asked, a sob catching in her throat. “How can you rescue my daughter? Earl is at the fort, surrounded by the cavalry, who will never allow you to take a white child from her white father. And if you did have a plan of rescue that you feel might work, could you even get there in time?”

Suddenly Speckled Fawn spoke up, after being unusually quiet for so long. “How well does your husband hold his liquor?” she asked, stepping up to Shirleen as Shirleen slipped from Blue Thunder's arms and turned to face her.

Shirleen was stunned by the question, wondering what on earth that had to do with anything.

“Shirleen, how well does your husband hold his liquor?” Speckled Fawn repeated, more insistently.

“Hardly at all,” Shirleen replied. “You see,
while I was with Earl, there was scarcely enough money for food and supplies, much less for liquor. But when Earl did manage to get some whiskey, he drank it all at once. He got drunk fast.” She lowered her eyes. “That was when I got my worst beatings,” she said, her voice breaking.

“Speckled Fawn, why would you ask such a question?” Blue Thunder said, his voice tight with controlled anger. He did not like to see Shirleen so upset.

“I have a plan, if you will only listen,” Speckled Fawn said, realizing that once again she had not only annoyed her chief, but also angered him. “Will you listen, my chief? I believe I know of a way to get the child from her father.”

Blue Thunder sighed heavily, then nodded. “Tell us the plan,” he said, this time not so impatiently. He had realized that Speckled Fawn was a woman of much intelligence. She had lived a hard life before coming to live among his people. She had gotten herself out of enough “scrapes,” as she called them, to have a good sense of what might work now.

Yes, he was ready to listen to whatever plan the golden-haired white woman had come up with.

Shirleen listened, her eyes widening with every word Speckled Fawn said. She began to realize that this woman was very intelligent, and knew ways to outsmart men who were stronger than she but not as clever.

The more Speckled Fawn said, the more certain
Shirleen felt that soon, finally, Earl would get his comeuppance.

But best of all, Shirleen began to believe that soon she would have her daughter back in her arms!

A disturbing thought occurred to her. Earl must have taken Megan from their yard only moments before the Indians had arrived with their war cries and eagerness to kill and rape.

Surely Earl had grabbed Megan and had hidden amid the thick forest of trees near their cabin just in time to see the Indians approaching. No doubt he had clasped his hand roughly over his daughter's mouth, first to keep her from crying out for her mother, and then to keep her from letting the Indians know where they were.

Now that she thought about it, she was certain that Earl had witnessed the murders, the rapes, the burning of the cabins and barns. He had even seen Shirleen lying there unconscious, then taken away with ropes tied around her waist, and had not done a thing about it.

When he had reached the fort, he probably had not even told the colonel in charge about the massacre, for had he done this, when Shirleen and Blue Thunder and his warriors returned to where the massacre had happened, the bodies would have been buried by the cavalry.

No, Earl had not told anyone what he had witnessed. He cared nothing for those who were left dead upon the ground. He had done
nothing while women were raped right before his eyes.

She was sure this was true, because Earl most certainly had not had time to get very far away after taking Megan. The time span between the child's disappearance and the renegades' attack had been too short for him to have fled.

If he had tried, he and Megan would have been added to the casualties.

The one thing that puzzled her was why he had waited so long to steal Megan. He had been gone for many hours before actually taking the child from the yard.

Then the reason came to her. Until that moment, when Shirleen had allowed Megan to go outside alone, Megan had been safely in the house with her mother.

Allowing Megan to go outside had played right into Earl's hands. It had made Earl's plan work to perfection.

Shirleen had never hated Earl more than she did at this moment of realization.

A merry heart goes all the day,
A sad tires in a mile.

—Shakespeare

Shirleen found it hard to believe that Speckled Fawn was willing to place herself in danger to help her and her daughter Megan.

She still stared disbelievingly at the woman whom she had first mistrusted so much she would not even speak with her. Now she trusted Speckled Fawn implicitly. She had clear evidence of her kind and giving nature.

“No, I can't allow you to take such a chance,” Shirleen suddenly blurted out. “What you are suggesting might not only get you killed, but also Megan.”

Speckled Fawn put her hand gently on Shirleen's shoulder. “You want Megan back, don't you?” she asked, gazing intently into Shirleen's eyes.

“You know I do,” Shirleen said, returning the gaze. “But what you suggest doing is so . . . dangerous. You might never be able to return
to this village. It would be horrible if that happened. I would blame myself, always.”

“Forget everything but your daughter's welfare,” Speckled Fawn said. She took Shirleen by the hand and urged her to sit beside her, while Blue Thunder sat on Shirleen's other side. “We must give this plan a try. I won't have it any other way.”

“Shirleen, do you understand the plan?” Blue Thunder asked, impressed by Speckled Fawn's eagerness to help.

He was beginning to see her in a different light and felt that he had been wrong to ignore her as he always had.

“Not altogether,” Shirleen murmured.

“Then let us go over it again so that you do understand it,” Blue Thunder said. “Speckled Fawn, myself, and my warriors will go to the fort under the pretense of needing to trade at the post there. We recently had a good hunt, so the pony soldiers will not think we are there for any other purpose than to trade. While we are making an actual trade, we will make sure that the man who is waiting for the riverboat with his child goes by the name Earl Mingus, and if the child's name is Megan. If so, we will set Speckled Fawn's plan in motion. She will go to the fort alone after my warriors and I leave. She will be dressed in the clothes of a white woman and will pretend to be a woman in distress.”

He looked around Shirleen and nodded at
Speckled Fawn. “Speckled Fawn, you tell the rest, since you will be the one living it,” he said.

Speckled Fawn nodded and began speaking in a low voice as she continued telling Shirleen the plan. “As Blue Thunder said, I will arrive at the fort as a woman in distress. I will say that I am the only survivor of a Comanche attack on my cabin. I will say that my husband and child are dead and that there are no bodies to retrieve. I will say that the renegades took the bodies with them to prevent anyone from the fort giving them a decent Christian burial. I will plead for safe asylum at Fort Dennison until the next riverboat arrives so that I can leave this godforsaken place forever.”

She paused, then said, “I know the fort commander will take me in and care for me; he will pity me as a woman who has lost everything. After earning the soldiers' trust, I will ask for something that might raise a few eyebrows.”

“Whiskey?” Shirleen asked, remembering part of the plan as Speckled Fawn had outlined it to Blue Thunder.

“Yes, whiskey,” Speckled Fawn said, smiling almost wickedly.

“But, Speckled Fawn, surely most women don't go to the fort requesting whiskey,” Shirleen said, her eyes filled with uncertainty.

“No, I'm sure they don't, but I am a woman, remember, who has lost everything,” Speckled Fawn said. “They will think that having seen my family murdered might have caused me to
lose some of my senses, making me ask for something that normally I would not ask for. But I expect them to give me anything I want because of how pitiful I will appear. I will explain that my reason for wanting the whiskey is to forget my woes . . . my losses. I will explain that I am not normally a drinking woman, but after what I have been through, I need something to numb my memories of how my family died so horribly. I will say that I need to drown the pain of my loss in whiskey.”

Speckled Fawn paused, then continued, “I will find Earl then, and get on his good side by showing him the whiskey. I will tell him I'll share it with him if he wants some. Hopefully, he will agree, and will take me into his cabin with him. I'll make sure that he drinks much more than I, until he is as drunk as a skunk.”

“But, Speckled Fawn,” Shirleen said, interrupting her. “If you do manage to get in his cabin with him, might he not take advantage of you sexually?”

“Surely he wouldn't do that, not while his daughter is there,” Speckled Fawn said. “Anyway, what I plan to do is ply him with whiskey until he's so drunk he won't know what hit him. Hopefully, he'll pass out from it. That's when I will have the chance to get Megan away from him. I will wait until it is dark so that the sentries at the fort won't be able to see my movements. I will then take Megan where Blue Thunder and his warriors will be waiting for me.”

“I still see many loopholes in the plan,” Shirleen said. “First, you told me you are a wanted woman whose likeness is on posters. Won't the men at the fort recognize you and see right through your plan and arrest you?”

“Those posters were placed here and there five long years ago,” Speckled Fawn said. “My picture was only one little speck on the wall, surrounded by many of the worst criminals in the area. Surely by now the posters, which didn't even look like me, have been yanked down and thrown away, replaced by pictures of other, more hardened criminals. Also, I have gained a lot of weight since those posters were put up, and my hair was dyed red back then. I am a natural blonde now. And I am confident that I am more likely to succeed than fail.”

“But, Speckled Fawn, when Earl sobers up and comes to realize what happened, when he finds Megan gone, all hell will break loose,” Shirleen said, her voice tight. “A search party will surely be sent out to look for you and Megan. I can't see Earl just standing by and allowing a woman to get the best of him.”

“By then I will be safe back in the village. The men at the fort won't have any reason to suspect that Indians had anything to do with this,” Speckled Fawn said in a tone of confidence. “To them, I will have disappeared from the face of the earth with the child.”

“I believe Speckled Fawn's plan can work,” Blue Thunder said, drawing both women's eyes to him. “It doesn't matter how it is done,
just as long as the child is brought safely back to her mother. Her father is evil, through and through. Our main focus here must be to get the child back to her mother.”

He reached over and placed a gentle hand on Shirleen's cheek. “But it is up to you, whether or not you want to give this plan a try,” he said softly.

“Why are you doing this for me?” Shirleen wondered aloud. “I am still . . . no more than a stranger to you. You . . . truly . . . don't know me.”

He moved closer to her and reached his arms around her to draw her close. “I do know you,” he said thickly. “I know your goodness. I know your sweetness. And I know that you are a devoted mother and how much you are missing your daughter.”

He placed his hands on her shoulders and gazed directly into her eyes. “You have suffered too much already in your life, especially at the hands of the evil white man who calls himself your husband,” he said tightly. “You have never deserved such inhumanity as that man showed you. You are a good woman.”

He paused, then said as he lowered his hands from her shoulders, “My daughter no longer has a mother,” he said softly. “I cannot allow yours to suffer in the same way as my daughter, never being able to see her mother again.”

He framed her face between his hands. Their gazes met and held. “Don't you know, deep
down inside yourself, that you are now way more than a stranger to me?” he said hoarsely. “You surely know how deeply I care for you.”

The heat of a blush rushed to Shirleen's cheeks. “Yes, I know,” she murmured. “Now I do know that you care for me. I . . . I . . . guess I have known for sometime now.”

“Then trust that I will bring your child home to you, no matter what,” Blue Thunder said. He wrapped his arms around her, drawing her into his gentle embrace.

She returned the hug, hating to let him go.

But she knew that this was not the time to think of herself and her need for Blue Thunder. It was time to focus fully on Megan. Only Megan.

She eased herself from Blue Thunder's arms and turned to Speckled Fawn. “Why are you risking so much for me? Until recently, I was only a stranger to you,” she said.

“Yes, perhaps a stranger, but I now see us as soul mates,” Speckled Fawn said, smiling into Shirleen's eyes. “And know this, soul mate. I will help bring your daughter home to you. At any cost, Shirleen. At any cost.”

Shirleen reached over and embraced Speckled Fawn. “Please, oh, please, come home unharmed,” she said, her voice catching. “I have never met a woman such as you, a woman who gives of herself so unselfishly.”

“I only want to give back some of the kindness shown to me by the Wind Band,” Speckled Fawn said, tears filling her eyes. “Things
could have been so different for us both. We were so fortunate to have been found and taken in by these wonderful people. I want your daughter to be a part of this life, too.”

“And she will be,” Blue Thunder said firmly as he managed to hug both women at once. “She will.”

She was swayed in her suppleness to and fro,
By each gust of passion.

—Des Prez