Sweet Prairie Passion (Savage Destiny) (31 page)

He walked off to his horse, and despite her tears Abbie helped with the burial, thinking how fitting it was for poor David to be buried next to LeeAnn. If he couldn’t be with her in life, at least he was with her now. Olin carried the boy’s body over to the hole and put him down into it beside LeeAnn. Then Abbie tried not to vomit as she helped fill the hole, but she cried even harder as the dirt fell over her pretty sister’s face.

She concentrated on flowers and sweet memories, singing a hymn softly until the bodies were finally covered. When they were nearly through she glanced over at Zeke. He’d brushed out his braids, and his hair hung long and flowing as it had when he’d prayed over little Mary and when he’d fought the Sioux warrior. He reached into his parfleche and took out the little pouches of colored powders, mixing them with a little water from his canteen and then smearing them onto his face with his fingers, drawing fierce-looking lines in black and yellow from just under his eyes down over his cheeks and neck. She began patting the dirt over the top of the grave when she noticed him put the powders away, then raise his arms and throw back his head. He said nothing, but she knew he must be praying.

“What’s he doing?” she asked Olin.

“Gettin’ ready for battle,” Olin replied. “He’s prayin’ for speed and strength and accuracy—and to die honorably, if he’s to die at all.”

Her heart pounded. “He can’t die!” she whispered. Olin met her eyes in sympathy.

“Miss Abbie, he’s only human, in spite of you thinkin’ he can do anything. I admit, it will take a hell of a lot to put Cheyenne Zeke in his grave, but there’s a lot of them and only one of him. Still, he’ll go after them anyway ’cause that’s how he’s made.”

She thought about the rift between the Cheyenne and the Crow that Olin had told her about earlier, and the scar on Zeke’s face, put there by a Crow Indian. Not only was he going after a white man who hated him and who did not fight fair, but Givens had Crows with him to help. The odds were squarely against Zeke, and it was her fault he’d have to go on alone. If she’d not insisted on coming along, Olin could have stayed with him. Now Zeke approached them, again the Indian, savage and frightening to look at.

“Leave now,” he told Olin, not even looking at Abbie. “They’ll ride hard to tell them the girl is with us. Givens will want her if he can get her. Get her back to the train as fast as you can. Don’t stop to sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time.”

“I understand,” Olin replied. “I’ll try to get back to you, Zeke.”

“Just watch out for yourself. Givens wouldn’t mind having your hide either.” He turned to leave, but Abbie grasped his arm.

“Zeke!” He looked down at her, his body tense and prepared for a fight. “I … I’m sorry. It’s my fault you have to go on alone!” she sobbed.

His eyes softened, and he reached out to take some of her hair in his hand. “Makes no difference,” he told her. “This day has been a long time coming, Abbie
girl. But it will be easier for me if I know you’re safe. So just leave now—quickly.’ He hurried toward his horse.

“I love you!” she called out to him. “I love you, Zeke!” Tears spilled down her face. He turned and glanced at her for just a moment, then leaped upon the Appaloosa in one quick, smooth movement without answering her. He rode off, his long, black hair flying.

Olin took her arm, urging her to hurry and mount up.

“We have to mark the grave!” she sobbed.

“No time. Don’t argue with me or I’ll knock you senseless,” Olin warned. “Zeke said to get you back and you’re goin’—now!” He forced her up on her horse, and taking the reins in one hand, he mounted his own horse and they rode off at a fast gallop in the opposite direction from that which Zeke had taken.

Abbie glanced back, but Zeke had already disappeared. She turned her eyes ahead, unable to look at the thicket that hid the rough grave where her sister and David Craig now lay quietly together beneath the earth. She wondered why God had chosen to allow so many terrible things to happen to her. Her only hope was that perhaps God had a reason for taking away her entire family. Perhaps He meant Abigail Trent to be alone, to have nothing left to her name but the land … and Cheyenne Zeke. But then it was very possible she would also lose her Zeke to death.

They had ridden hard. Abbie wasn’t sure how much longer she could even stay on the horse. Everything ached, and she felt dizzy and weary, but finally, after the sun had been set for more than an hour, Olin
agreed to stop and let her eat and rest. She all but fell out of her saddle, and Olin had to hold on to her and help her sit down. He told her to stay put while he fixed a place for her to bed down.

“I’m sorry to ride you so hard,” he told her, working up a spot in the earth with his hands until the dirt was softened. “But I had to get you far away from that spot quick. You should be safer now, but don’t bet too much on it. Givens is a scheming man, and you can bet that after you shoved pie in that man’s face back there at Fort Laramie, he’s gonna be wantin’ to give you what for. Whoever got away back there has told Givens by now that you was with us.” He spread out a blanket. “But I’ll look out for you, Miss Abbie.”

She shook dust from her hair, thinking to herself what a nice man Olin Wales had been, and what a good friend he was to Zeke. “I’m sorry I got you and Zeke into this mess,” she answered. “You should be with him. How can he possibly go up against those men all alone?”

“You’d be surprised what Zeke can do,” he answered, now picking up some sticks to start a small fire. “That man is smart—and wily as a fox. He can climb like a mountain goat and run like a bobcat, and when he’s cornered, he’s like a bear just comin’ out of hibernation, all snarly and mean.”

Abbie could not help but smile at the thought. “I’ll bet he’s just like that,” she answered, moving over to the blanket and stretching out her legs.

“Well, he’s a real disciplined man, Miss Abbie. He can take a lot before he goes down, and mentally, he can make himself do the impossible sometimes, just ’cause he knows he has to do it. With you the one in
danger, you can bet he’ll go himself one better if it means keepin’ you from harm.”

She sighed and stared at the little fire he had started, her eyes now tearing again. If Cheyenne Zeke died, it would be partly for her. This realization brought back the ache to her heart, and made her love him even more. She swallowed and watched Olin add some pieces of dry pine to the fire.

“Olin … does Zeke love me? I mean … does he
really
love me? He wouldn’t have … used me, would he?” She blushed and looked down, toying with a piece of thread that stuck out from the seam of her dress.

“You’re pretty ignorant about men if you don’t know a man like Zeke would never use a pretty little thing like you. ’Course he loves you.” He moved over closer to her with another blanket, opening it and putting it over her legs. “Why do you think I’m breakin’ my neck to get you back safe? Zeke’s set on not lettin’ anything come of the love he’s got for you, but that’s beside the point. He’d die before he let any harm come to you, and he’s dependin’ on me now to get you back. Zeke’s my friend, but I won’t want to be lookin’ him in the eyes if somethin’ happens to you.”

“But he never really said it out … that he loves me.”

“Why should he? It would just make things harder on you. Besides, he’s never told a woman that since his wife died, so it ain’t an easy thing for him to say again. Now lay down there. I’ll fix some coffee and beans; then you can sleep a while.”

She lay back and pulled the blanket over her shoulders, still watching the burly mountain man with the
scraggly, shoulder-length hair and rough beard. If a woman came upon Olin Wales in a place like this alone and didn’t know him, she’d likely be frightened for her person and her life. But there was nothing about the man that frightened Abbie. She knew that if she was stark naked before him he’d not touch her, for he had a proper respect for women—and besides that, in a sense Abigail Trent belonged to Cheyenne Zeke, at least for a while. Olin Wales was not a man to take what belonged to another.

“Have you ever been married, Olin?” she asked.

He gave her a frown. “You ask a lot of questions.”

“I’m sorry.”

He grinned a little. “Once—long time ago. I was married to a Shoshoni woman. She died from smallpox.”

“I’m sorry about that, too. Real sorry.”

He shrugged. “A man can take more sufferin’ than he thinks, I guess. Look at Zeke. At least my woman didn’t die like that.”

“You should marry again. Every man needs a good woman.”

He chuckled. “When did you get to know so much about men? What are you—fifteen?”

“I’ll be sixteen in a few months,”

He laughed harder. “I see.” He shook his head. “Well, I’m a wanderin’ man, Miss Abbie. Not many women want an agin’, wanderin’ man.”

“That’s not the same.”

He sobered. “You’re right there.” He sighed and handed her a plate of beans. “You eat, and quit askin’ so many questions. We ain’t got time for small talk.
You eat and rest, and then we’ll be out again ’fore the sun rises.”

Abbie was sleeping hard due to her state of exhaustion, and she did not hear the enemy approach. She awoke to the click of a gun and the feel of cold steel against her temple. They startled her, and before she realized what had happened, she had jumped and wiggled back; but a second gun greeted her, this time at her neck. When her eyes focused, she stared up at two men, both obviously Indians, but not clean and beautiful like Zeke. They wore white man’s pants, topped with leather vests over bare chests and were loaded down with weapons of various sorts. Their hair was long and dark, but dirty and tangled. One of them grinned, displaying an absence of front teeth, and the other reached down and grasped her hair so tightly that she screamed out with the pain. He laughed and let go, yanking as he did so, so that her head slammed to the ground.

The other man shoved his gun in his belt and grabbed her wrists, jerking them over her head as she began to struggle, still not certain what had gone wrong. She kicked out at the other man as he lifted her dress, and he promptly landed a fist across the side of her face. The blow drew blood inside her mouth and stunned her momentarily. She wanted to struggle and scream, but her body would not respond. She was nauseated by the smell of the men who held her, and she was sure the one holding her wrists was breaking them.

She heard the men grunt something back and forth to each other, then laugh. They put her dress back
down and yanked her to her feet. Through blurred vision she finally spotted Olin, slumped over nearby.

“Olin!” she screamed out, now beginning to cry at the thought that he might be dead. “Olin! Olin!”

Another stunning blow was directed at her face. “Woman be quiet!” someone ordered.

The sun was just beginning to rise, so she tried to see the men better. But at the moment they were just ugly images to her; dark, menacing, smelly, and loaded with numerous weapons, any one of which could end her life quite promptly if they so chose. A strong arm grasped her about the waist, and she felt herself being lifted by one of the men as he mounted a horse and perched her in front of him. She vaguely wondered why they had not raped her. Surely these were some of the hated Crow who rode with Givens. Perhaps they were saving her for him.

She shuddered at the thought and convulsed into vomiting because her stomach had become filled with blood from her mouth. The man holding her let out a grunt of disgust and threw her to the ground. She landed face down in the dirt. He waited for her vomiting to end, then turned her over and threw a canteen of water in her face to rinse it. He grimaced and bent down, planting a knee in her abdomen to hold her still while he used some more water to rinse her hair. She coughed and choked and cried and struggled, but to no avail.

“Do that again and Wolf Man will forget he is to save you for
Givens
!” he snarled. He jerked her close to his ugly face. “You are young and tight! It will not be easy saving you until later! But I
will
get my turn, bitch—after Givens has had
his!
”

She grunted with terrible pain as he again jerked her to her feet and lifted her back onto the horse, mounting up behind her. He ripped open the front of her dress and reached inside, pinching her painfully; then he got his horse into motion. Her mind reeled with pain, fright, and horror. Was her life to end as LeeAnn’s had ended? Vomit came to her throat again at the thought of what LeeAnn must have suffered before her death, but she forced it down, afraid he’d beat her.

Leaving Olin’s body behind them, they rode northwest, in the very direction from which they’d come; and to keep her sanity, she closed her eyes and concentrated on Zeke. But her blood chilled. Had they already killed him? Was that how they’d gotten through to her? She had to know, for if Zeke was dead, too, she’d grab her abductor’s gun somehow and shoot herself before she’d suffer what her sister had suffered. Without Zeke, there was no reason to go on living.

“You’ll die by Cheyenne Zeke’s hands for this!” she choked out. Her abductor looked over at the other man, and they both laughed.

“It is Cheyenne Zeke who will die, bitch!” the man holding her answered. “And
you
will be the bait!”

Relieved, she closed her eyes, feeling a strange peace and a new strength flow through her veins. With Zeke alive—out there somewhere—there was hope after all.

“Zeke!” she whispered to herself.

Fourteen

It was probably the longest day and the most difficult ride Abigail Trent would ever experience. They fed her nothing, and gave her only trickles of water to drink. Nausea, partly caused by the hard blow she had sustained and partly by her fright, continued to move over her in ugly waves. She knew that if Zeke did not happen to get to her in time, she was headed for rape and things worse than rape, most certainly to be followed by death. Her abductors rode hard, giving her no time to rest. Whenever they stopped, it was just to grab a biscuit for themselves, to give her a splash of water, and to let her urinate; but she only urinated once out of sheer need, for every time she tried, they watched with smiles on their faces, so she could not go. The sun beat down on her as the horse jostled her tired, sore body, and her head ached fiercely.