Sioux Slave (23 page)

Hinzi nodded as he helped Kimi up on her horse and swung up on his own buckskin. “Perhaps we can clear out without them seeing us.”

Kimi saw the concern in his eyes. The two adults might outrun a pursuing patrol, but the children might not be able to keep up the fast pace.

“Children,” Hinzi said, “we will go a roundabout trail back to the camp so we won't lead the patrol there.”

Saved by the Wolf nodded. “I know the way, Hinzi. I will help.”

“Whatever happens,” Hinzi said, to him and Kimi, “keep going and don't look back. The children must escape.”

“Oh, Hinzi, come with us!” Kimi cried, “What will they do with you if they capture you?”

He laughed without mirth. “Hang me as a deserter, I reckon.”

Kimi's heart began to beat hard. “Then you should get out of here first, Hinzi.”

“And desert the children? No real man would do that!”

The soldiers were still a long way off. Perhaps they had not seen the Lakota. Even as that hope crossed her mind, in the distance, she heard the echo of commands–and then a shot echoed past her head.

Hinzi cursed under his breath. “They've seen us! Head back to camp!” They all whipped up their ponies and took off at a gallop. Kimi glanced back over her shoulder. The soldiers were running their mounts, and they rode fine, grain-fed, horses.

Kimi urged on her paint. The children were strung out ahead of her, riding hard. Hinzi rode to one side of her. Behind them, the soldiers fired again. The Indians' only advantage, she realized, was that they knew the terrain and the white soldiers didn't.

Kimi's horse began to lag slightly behind. Hinzi didn't seem to notice; his attention was on the children riding ahead of them. She knew his thinking; he would reach a little rise in the trail about a mile ahead in the hills, turn, and try a delaying action, firing arrows from the rocks.

She could only hope the noise might carry all the way to camp and some of the other warriors would come riding out to even up the numbers.

Her heart pounded in her throat and the dust stung her face. She was too scared to think of anything but saving the children. Who knew what white soldiers would do with children if they captured them? And right now, they were shooting wildly, not caring how old their targets were.

If they could just get near enough camp for One Eye and Gopher to hear the firing! Desperately, she concentrated on that goal, but when she looked back, she saw the patrol was gaining on them. About that time, she felt her paint step in a prairie dog hole, stumble and go down.

She cried out once, felt herself going over the mare's head, and managed to twist her lithe body to avoid being caught under the falling horse as she went down.

At least Hinzi would see to it that the children were safe, Kimi thought as she scrambled to her feet; that was all that mattered.

The soldiers stirred up big clouds of dust in their mad pursuit. She looked around frantically, knowing there was no place to hide. Her mare had broken her neck in the fall. Would all the soldiers rape her?

“Kimi!” She heard Hinzi's frantic yell as he turned in his saddle, seemed to realize what had happened, and wheeled the buckskin to come galloping back.

“No! Go on!” She tried to wave him away. It didn't matter what the soldiers did to her, it only mattered that Hinzi and his small charges escape. In the distance, she saw the ponies growing smaller on the horizon as the children fled.

Hinzi whirled Scout on his hind legs and galloped back to her. She looked toward the soldiers and realized Hinzi wasn't going to be able to reach her before the men in blue did. Once again she tried to wave him off. It meant more to her that her lover escape the white man's justice than that she be rescued from possible rape and death.

The first soldiers surrounded her, churning up dust as their horses danced nervously around her. Hinzi had no chance, but still he came on.

“No, Hinzi! Save yourself!”

His face was a grim mask of determination, his eyes like blue fire as he galloped forward, holding his lance high. Just as he reached her, one of the bluecoats aimed and fired. She saw the sudden red crease across Hinzi's light hair and screamed out in protest.

Scout's momentum carried him forward even as the unconscious man slid from his broad back.

With a scream, Kimi fought her way clear of the soldiers and ran to her love lying in a heap on the ground. “Hinzi, dear one; are you alive?”

His pulse still beat, but there was blood in the blond hair as he lay sprawled in her lap. She held him to her, hugging him, sobbing. She didn't care what the soldiers did to her. She was only frantic about her lover.

A group of soldiers surrounded her. Crisp, autumn sunlight reflected off their brass buttons. She could understand some of the language they spoke.

“Well, I'll be damned!” The fat-faced sergeant took off his hat and scratched his head. “A white Sioux! A white man riding with the savages! Jones, ride ahead to the fort, tell him the dispatches were true. We've captured a pretty half-breed girl and a yellow-haired warrior!”

 

 

Rand began to come back to consciousness, his head splitting with pain. Where was he? Kimi. What had happened to Kimi? He struggled to stand up.

“Christ! Hold him! He's coming around.” A man's voice, with a strong Yankee accent. New York, maybe.

In Lakota, a woman's voice: “Don't hurt him! Hinzi, are you all right?”

Slowly, Rand opened his eyes. He was in a chair in a room. A lieutenant sat across a desk from him. He had a bad complexion and he picked at his face absently. It was Baker, the rotten officer from the
Effie Deans
and Fort Rice. The two privates grabbed Rand's arms as he struggled to stand up, and they pulled him back down.

Kimi sat in another chair, her pretty face a mask of worry.

Oh, now he remembered. The army patrol. The chase. What had happened then? He relaxed in the chair and the two men released his arms. Gingerly, he reached up, touched his head, and found the dried blood. Someone had creased him with a bullet. He was probably lucky to be alive.

He turned–ever so slightly, so the nervous guards wouldn't pounce on him again. “Kimi,” he asked in Lakota, “are you all right?”

She nodded, and the lieutenant behind the desk scowled. “Speak English, man. You do know how to speak English, don't you?” Yes, it was Baker. The man from New York.

“Probably better than you do,” Rand said coolly.

“Christ!” The officer made a threatening gesture. “I don't have to take that from you, you savage. If I had my way–”

A plump colonel entered the office just then and Baker jumped up and saluted, all smiles and oily charm now. “Afternoon, sir. I was just about to interrogate the prisoner.”

The older officer frowned and gestured. “You're sitting in my chair, Baker.”

The lieutenant scrambled away from the desk, evidently annoyed at the reprimand.

“So what have we found out so far?” The colonel addressed Rand as he sank his bulk into the desk chair.

Rand decided not to answer.

The officer leaned on his elbows, staring at Rand. “So this white savage thing is true. I never would have believed it. Do you speak English?”

“Yes.” Rand had to think through his words. He had been speaking Lakota so long, his native language didn't come naturally to him anymore.

“There's a story making the rounds of an abandoned wagon train found out on the plains.”

“Sir?” Rand looked at him, baffled. He glanced over at Kimi, who appeared to be trying to follow the conversation but was having difficulty.

“A wagon train,” the officer repeated. “Said it looked like it had been out there ten or fifteen years or even more.” He described the area where a Lieutenant Ware had found it. “Is there any chance you were a child on that ill-fated train and have been raised by the Sioux?”

Rand hesitated, staring at Kimi. Was there the slightest chance that that was where she had come from? “Can you tell me a little more?”

The colonel shook his head, leaned back in his chair, and it creaked under his weight. “That's about all we know. No signs of violence, no bodies, not even any animals. Ware figured they were trying to go up the Oregon Trail and got lost. All sorts of men hiring out as guides these days who couldn't find their way from here to the outhouse and back.”

He might as well confess. Maybe it would make it easier for Kimi, even if it did get him the firing squad. “Sir, my real name is Randolph Erikson. I've probably been reported missing in action from the First Volunteer Regiment at Fort Rice.”

The officer relaxed visibly. “A deserter? You're telling me you're just a common deserter?”

“Not exactly,” Rand began. He didn't want to get Kimi and the Sioux in any more trouble. So they thought Kimi was a half-breed. She certainly looked enough of one with that ebony hair, buckskin dress, and tanned skin.

She stood up suddenly. “Please, officer.” Her English was rusty and she seemed to be feeling for words. “It wasn't his fault. Hinzi was wounded and left for dead and my people found him and saved his life.”

“Hinzi?” The colonel stared at her with interest, looked back to Rand. “Tell me about it? How long have you been gone?”

He tried to think. “I don't even know for sure because I don't even know what month it is now.”

“October,” the colonel volunteered.

“How is the war going? What did Lincoln finally do–?”

“Good Lord, man,” the colonel's eyes widened, “you have been gone awhile. The war ended last April and Lincoln's been assassinated.”

“We lost?” He didn't know whether to believe the man or not, shrugged as he decided there was no reason for him to lie.

“Depends on who ‘we' is,” the colonel said. “Judging from your accent, you're a Southerner. What are you doing up here in the Dakotas?”

“I was a ‘Galvanized Yankee,' ” Rand admitted, “one of Colonel Dimon's men.”

The older man frowned. Obviously he didn't care much for the brash young Colonel. “Baker,” he said, “you were with that bunch before you were transferred to me. Do you remember this man?”

Baker stopped picking at his bad complexion, leaned closer to Rand. “What did you say your name was?”

“Rand Erikson. I was aboard the Effie Deans.”

“Christ! Of course I remember. How could anybody forget what happened on that trip?”

The colonel chewed the end of his gray mustache. “Is that the one where that young idiot Dimon had a quick trial and executed a man?”

Rand nodded.

The colonel said, “Your old outfit left just a few days ago. They're being mustered out in Kansas.”

Baker frowned. “This arrogant Reb's still a deserter, sir.”

“I didn't desert!” Rand lost his temper. “I was trying to help cover a withdrawal from an ambush Dimon had led us into. I was hit and abandoned in the confusion. When I woke up, the Sioux had taken me captive.”

“A captive?” The plump officer looked at him a long moment. There was no sound save the creak of his chair. “If you were a captive, why didn't you ride toward our patrol and be rescued rather than try to escape?”

He wasn't sure himself. “Even with my blond hair, I'm dressed like an Indian,” Rand said, “I was afraid those green troops on that patrol would shoot first and ask questions later.”

“Hmm,” the older man mused and he turned and stared at Kimi without saying anything. Rand could almost see the wheels of his mind turning. What Rand had said might have seemed reasonable ... except that for a girl like Kimi, maybe any man would desert. He turned his attention back to Rand. “Where'd you say you were from?”

Rand gave him all the details and the officer said, “I want to check out your story, look into this whole mess. In the meantime, Lieutenant Baker, put him in the guard house.”

“What about the girl?” Baker's eyes left no doubt what he had in mind for her.

Kimi jumped up, ran to Rand. Automatically, he put a protective arm over her small shoulders. “She stays with me,” he said.

The colonel stood up. “She doesn't look like much more than a child; a schoolgirl. If you go back to Kentucky, do you intend to take this little savage with you?”

She turned on the man like the fiery wildcat she was. “I am not a child! I am Hinzi's woman.”

“Well?” The colonel looked at him, “what do you say to that?”

Rand looked down into Kimi's eyes. What would be best for Kimi? What would he do about Lenore? “I don't know,” he admitted.

Everything had happened with such dizzying speed. Kimi could hardly follow events, although her English was improving enough to follow the conversations between white people. Neither she nor Hinzi let anyone know she was white. She had asked him not to tell because she had some horrifying picture in her mind of strangers turning up to claim her as a daughter or sister who would want to take her away to some unknown place. From the snide remarks and sly grins, she soon realized that with her green eyes, the soldiers thought she was a half-breed product of some long ago coupling of a soldier or trapper with a squaw. It must be common enough not to raise any eyebrows among the whites on the frontier.

After a couple of days everyone's attitude seemed to change. They freed Hinzi. Outside the colonel's office at dusk, she asked, “What did he say?”

“I think the army either feels I'm not completely sane or that it's liable to embarrass them if it comes out a patrol retreated in panic, leaving a wounded man to die.” He paused. “Possibly he's investigated and found out my father is rich and influential.”

“Your father is a chief?”

“You might say that.”

She sighed with relief. “You think they will not kill you or throw you in jail?”

“Hardly. It seems Colonel Dimon reported that I was lost in action covering the retreat. They thought I was dead. The army calls me a ‘hero.' They're shipping me home. I–I don't know what to do about you. You're so very young, Kimi–”

“I am eighteen winters old.” She tried to keep the tremor from her voice.
Shipping him home
. Hadn't she always known that some day it would come? It was the way of soldiers, she supposed–making casual liaisons with enemy women and leaving them behind when they left.

The skeptical expression on his handsome face gave her to know he didn't believe her. “Eighteen? Uh huh. I reckon you would bite the knife and say that?”

“Well, I think I'm eighteen. When I was naked in your arms and you were making love to me, you weren't concerned with my age.”

“Don't remind me. Fifteen's a better guess. I feel enough of a rotter already, forcing my passion on a girl who ought to be in boarding school. I don't know what to do about you.”

Her temper flared. She would at least salvage her pride. “Do? You don't have to do anything about me. If you are going back to your home, I will go back to my people.”

He caught her arm. “What will happen to you there?”

“I suppose some warrior will marry me eventually. Gopher once told me he might take me as a second wife.”

“The thought of another man touching you drives me crazy!” He pulled her small body to him, holding her close, kissing the top of her head.

The thought upset her, too, but she managed to blink back the tears. “Perhaps I could stay here at the fort. Lieutenant Baker said he could find me work here.”

“I'll just bet he could!”

Kimi bristled. How dare Hinzi act so possessive when he was about to abandon her? “I made it clear that it had to be something like sewing or cleaning.”

He rubbed his jaw. “Don't trust him, Kimi.”

“Trust him? I'm through trusting white soldiers.” She tried to keep the emotion out of her voice and failed. She started to leave.

He reached out, caught her, pulled her up against him. “This is tearing me apart.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “When I met you, I didn't think about anything else, any other commitments or responsibilities. Now if I'm to be honorable, I have to face those.”

She couldn't fault him for that. All the tribes admired a man who was honorable and kept his word. “I suppose that other girl has waited a long time for you to return to her.”

“Yes. How can a Southern gentleman go back and tell a fiancee who's been waiting faithfully that there's someone else? Lord knows what my family would say. I'd probably be disinherited.” He sounded uncertain and unhappy.

“It's all right. I understand.” Without thinking, she reached up and patted his hand to comfort him as she remembered all he had told her of his family. Hinzi had always had wealth, a life of ease until he became her slave. It would be expecting too much that he turn his back on all that. Kimi faced reality at that moment. Even if Hinzi weren't an honorable man, Kimi could never fit into his white life. She couldn't read. She didn't even know how to use a fork. A white savage, that's all she was. Civilized people would gawk at her like some strange animal imported for their amusement in a zoo.

“Perhaps I can figure out some way, perhaps enroll you in some nice girls' finishing school. . . .” He sounded uncertain, tortured.

She would give him one final gift of love; a clear conscience. Stepping away from him, she whirled and shrugged her shoulders. “I can't go with you, if that's what you're about to ask. I'm not sure I would even want to. It sounds crowded and dull. I'll be all right, don't worry about me.”

He looked both sad and relieved. “I reckon I thought I meant more to you than that.”

He meant
everything
to her. “When are you going?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

She tried to keep her voice light. “Well then, I'll either find myself a position around the fort or return to my people.” When he left in the morning, he would take her heart with him.

“You meant a lot to me, Kimi, if I weren't obligated to Lenore Carstairs, and you weren't so young, I–”

“But you are and I wouldn't be accepted by your people anyway.”

He didn't deny that. She saw the truth of her words in his blue eyes. “Will you–will you see me off in the morning?”

“I really don't see any point in it.” She managed to sound bored, as if seeing him leave would be the least interesting event she could imagine. In reality, Kimi knew that if she had to stand there and wave good-bye, she might forget her pride, run after him, and beg him to take her with him. She would be his slave, his servant, his mistress, anything to stay by his side.

“Well I certainly wouldn't want to waste your time.” He sounded hurt and angry as he turned and strode away into the darkness.

She stood looking after him, thinking it was good that it was dark. If he saw the tears beginning to run down her face, he might realize how she really felt and take her with him. Later he would regret it and that would hurt her even worse.

Kimi returned to the cramped little quarters Lieutenant Baker had found her, and she tried to sleep. As she tossed restlessly, all she could think of was that each passing moment brought her closer to dawn when her love would ride away forever.

Finally in the late hours of the night when the whole post seemed asleep, she went outside and walked around awhile. Without meaning to, she found herself near Hinzi's quarters. Just being close to him seemed almost comforting, yet it was torture for her. She must not do this.

Kimi turned and started back to her quarters.

“Who goes there?” She stopped, startled at the outline of a man crossing her path. “Oh, Christ! It's you.”

“You startled me,” Kimi breathed a sigh of relief as she recognized Lieutenant Baker. “I didn't think anyone was around but me.”

“I was just checking the sentries. It isn't safe for you to be out unescorted on this post.”

His concern touched her. “I'm not worried.”

“Christ! With your looks, you should be.” He moved closer.

Now Kimi felt a little uneasy. He was attracted to her, he had made that clear from the start. She could use a friend in this fort after Hinzi was gone. She would be all alone in the world.

Her silence must have encouraged him. He put his hand on her shoulder. “I could be very helpful to you. All you have to do is be friendly.”

She looked up into his pitted face, tried not to shudder. “I don't know what you mean.”

At that, he laughed. “Don't give me that! Haven't you been playing the squaw for Rand Erikson?”

She brought up her hand to slap him hard, but he caught her wrist and dragged her to him. His mouth covered hers, forcing his tongue between her lips, bruising her soft breasts as he held her so tightly that she had to struggle to breathe.

Kimi fought to break free. If she could escape from him and return to her quarters, she could lock the door. It wouldn't do her any good to scream, she knew that. The other white soldiers would think she had offered herself to Baker and then changed her mind. What was the rape of one half-breed girl more or less to a bunch of soldiers?

Hinzi. If she could reach Hinzi, he would help her. Already, the officer was dragging her back toward the shadows of some buildings. He had one hand over her mouth, the other around her breasts as he dragged her, kicking and fighting. “Christ! Don't you bite me or I'll break your jaw. I'm gonna have you, squaw, so you might as well submit and make it easy on both of us.”

“Let go of her, Baker, or I swear to God I'll kill you!” A big, tall man stepped out of the darkness, swearing under his breath. The moonlight glinted on his yellow hair. “You heard me!”

“I hear you, all right, you crazy white savage!” Baker threw Kimi to one side and stood feet wide apart.

She saw the sudden reflection of steel. “Hinzi, watch out! He's got a knife!”

“Get out of here, Kimi!” Hinzi ordered and then he dived for the officer's middle.

She didn't answer or obey as she watched the men mesh and roll over and over in the dirt. What should she do? If she called a guard or screamed, things might go badly for her love. There was no telling what Baker would tell everyone. One thing was certain, Hinzi might be in big trouble and no one would believe her word against the officer's if he said she offered herself to him and then demanded more money.

She felt powerless as she watched them fight like two stags clashing over a doe. Hinzi grabbed the other's arm and by sheer power managed to take the knife from him and toss it away into the shadows. They fought silently, probably both mindful of bringing the sentries on the run and having to explain to the colonel.

Baker tripped the bigger man, but Hinzi was as light on his feet as a cougar. As he went down, he twisted out from under Baker, hit him a blow with his fist that sent the other staggering back against a building. Hinzi charged him, hitting him again and again with uncontrolled rage.

Kimi saw the blood on the officer's pale face. She grabbed Hinzi's arm. “Stop it! You'll kill him and get yourself in trouble!”

Her words seemed to get through to the white warrior, although his eyes still looked like cold blue ice in the moonlight. He stepped back, breathing hard, swearing softly under his breath. “She's right, you slimy bastard! Get the hell out of here before I kill you!”

Baker needed no second offer. With blood smearing his pitted complexion, he turned and ran for his quarters.

She and Hinzi faced each other a long moment. “I suppose I was wrong about him.”

Hinzi rubbed his bruised knuckles. “Fortunate for you I couldn't sleep, was out for a smoke.”

She wanted desperately to run into his powerful, protective arms, but she managed to control herself.
“Pilamaya.”
Thank you. She cleared her throat to keep from sobbing. “It's almost dawn. Tomorrow, I'll go back to my people.”

“You don't have much waiting for you there without me except maybe as some warrior's second wife.”

“I know, but it's better than staying at the fort.”

“I feel responsible for you, Kimi.” He moved his hands awkwardly as if he wanted to reach out, pull her into his embrace, was forcing himself not to touch her. “Kimi, you're a white girl, I feel I should give you a chance at living among your own kind. You might like it.”

He did not say he wanted her, she thought. Perhaps he only felt obligated and guilty toward her. Perhaps he did not want to be one of those “squaw men” who used a pretty girl for his convenience and then deserted her without a backward glance.

“Look,” he gestured, “You could stay as my family's houseguest until you decide what to do, or maybe find out if you have any relatives anywhere.”

She wanted to throw her arms around him and kiss his dear face. But if she did that, they might end up making frenzied love and it could never work out for them.

“Hinzi, that's a kind offer, but I can't make it in white civilization; I don't know anything about their customs.”

“You're smart; you could learn. I could enroll you in some nice school.”

“Far away from you?”

“It would make it easier for both of us, Kimi. I have plenty of money to send you to the best female academy.”

“What would Lenore think?”

He sighed. “She'd probably think I was doing my Christian duty toward the heathen. She need never know what happened between us. I'm engaged to her. That means I've given my word I'll marry her. That's as sacred to a white man of good heart as it is to an Indian.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Lenore has waited faithfully all these years for my return. I would be scorned if I go home and don't marry her.”

She could respect his sense of honor. Honor was important to a man, no matter what color. “How could you possibly explain me to her; to your family?”

“I will take you back as a white girl I found living among the Indians. Once you try living as a white, you might like it.”

She was determined not to show her anguish. He was going to marry that other girl and was feeling guilty about Kimi, trying to do the “right thing” by her for having taken her virginity. Her pride screamed for her to refuse, but she had no pride where he was concerned. Just to be close to him for a while longer, that's all she could think of now. “Fine,” she said, drawing herself up proudly, “I don't want to upset your life. Perhaps I can be a houseguest for a few weeks until I learn the culture. No one need ever know about what happened between us.”