Sweet Prairie Passion (Savage Destiny) (38 page)

“Cheyenne Zeke!” Iron Hand barked. Zeke turned back to face the man. “It is no longer tobacco we want!” the Crow hissed. “My Cherokee friend here will trade anything—women, precious stones, horses,
anything
of
value—in return for the man who just ran!”

The other men looked back and forth at one another in total confusion, and Zeke lit another cheroot.

“I heard him,” he answered. “I understand Crow. What’s this Cherokee doing living with you?”

“He was chased out of the East by white men!” the Crow spat back, while the Cherokee sat next to him with a bitter sneer on his lips. “You have heard of the Trail of Tears?”

Abbie put a hand to her mouth.

“I’ve heard,” Zeke replied. “I know of it firsthand. I walked it myself with some of the Cherokee. I know how they suffered. I was only thirteen at the time—joined the Cherokee so I wouldn’t be found too easy. I was running away from home—headed for the West to find my Indian mother. It was on the Trail of Tears I learned firsthand about suffering and starvation and disease—and real sorrow.”

The Crow nodded. “My Cherokee friend says it is that fat white man’s fault that he walked the Trail of Tears. It is that white man’s fault that he now lives in exile from his
true
homeland!”

“Can he name the man?” Zeke asked.

Now the Cherokee spoke up, obviously understanding English but at first not caring to oblige the others with it. “He is called Morris Connely, is he not?” the man spat out.

Abbie’s eyes widened, as did those of the others on the train, with complete surprise that the Cherokee, so many hundreds of miles from home, knew Connely. The Cherokee gritted his teeth and spat at Zeke.

“If you are friend of such white men, then you are not a true Cheyenne!” he growled. Then he turned,
said something angrily to Iron Hand in the Crow tongue, and rode off, screaming like a wounded hawk and planting fear in the hearts of the emigrants.

“It is done!” Iron Hand sneered at Zeke. “You have nothing else we want—only that fat white man called Connely!”

“We don’t trade for human lives,” Zeke replied.

“You have no choice!” Iron Hand snarled. “It is either his life—just one life—or the lives of
all
of you! For if we must go through all of you to get him, we shall do so!
Bring
him to us by sunrise tomorrow, or we will make war on you! There are many of us—and few of you! It would be best if you acted wisely—especially if you have white women with you!”

Iron Hand turned his horse and thundered off, and the other Crow warriors followed him. Zeke watched them ride away, then he turned and stormed toward the wagons, his own face black with anger.

“What is it, Zeke?” Kelsoe asked. “What the hell is going on?”

“I’d suggest we ask Connely!” Zeke growled. “That man has us in big trouble, and I aim to find out why!”

Now Abbie and the other two women scrambled out of their wagons and stood back to watch as the men approached the cowering Connely, whose eyes darted about with fright.

“But we
can’t
give them Connely!” the schoolteacher spoke up. “Can’t you talk to them, Zeke?”

Zeke whirled on him. “Those are
Crow,
Harrell!” he snapped. “Crow and Cheyenne don’t exactly get along. Now if those Indians are all heated up over something about Connely, it isn’t likely they’re about
to listen to anything
I
might have to say! If I go out there, they’ll use me for bait to get what they
really
want. I know what the Crow can do to make a man holler, not that I
would
accommodate them by hollering; but I’ll be damned if I’ll do it for a squirrel like Connely. For you—yes! For the women—yes! But not for
him
—not if he’s done what I think he’s done! And if he
has,
then my advice is to give him over to them and be on your way! I highly doubt it would be a great loss.”

“That’s—that’s unchristian!” Willis Brown protested, his eyes wide with horror at the suggestion. Connely just clung tighter to his wagon wheel. Zeke stepped closer to Brown.

“Mister, out here you do what’s
practical
and
hope
that God will
forgive
you for it! I can tell you right now, them Crow are
mad,
and it’s not likely you’ll leave this pass alive unless you hand them what they
want!”

“All right now, wait a minute!” Hanes spoke up. “Let’s hear Connely’s side of the story! We gave you that option once, Zeke, if you’ll remember.”

Zeke sighed and nodded. He turned toward Connely, who grabbed up his rifle and pointed it at the men.

“You aren’t turning me over to
anybody!”
he warned, getting to his knees. “Especially not that Cherokee!”

“Put that gun down!” Zeke ordered.

“You!” the man snarled back. “You goddamned half-breed! I might have known somebody with filthy Indian blood in him would vote to turn me over to his own kind to be tortured! You stinking, dark-skinned, ignorant savage! You’re just like the
rest
of them!”

Everyone stared in surprise at Connely, who had never shown any great liking for Zeke, or anyone for that matter, but whose sudden outburst amazed them. Whatever Connely’s feelings or background or reasons for coming West had been, he’d been a quiet man and had never shown quite so much emotion.

“Why don’t you tell us why it is the Cherokee wants you in the first place,” Casey Miles spoke up. Connely’s eyes continued to dart back and forth, and he held the gun nervously.

“What have you been hiding?” Zeke asked, undaunted by the man’s insults. “Why are you out here?”

“It’s none of your business!” the man sneered. “It’s
no
one’s business!”

“It is, if it means the lives of all these people and something worse than death for the women!” Zeke growled. “Now speak up, Connely, or I’ll drag you out there with my own two hands right now and kill any man who tries to stop me! A lot of Cherokees got swindled back East on crooked land deals! Is
that
what happened? You out here looking to set up a business on money you swindled from the government and Cherokee Indians? Is
that
it, Connely?”

Connely raised the rifle slightly, and Zeke took advantage of the man’s nervous hesitancy. Before anyone realized what was happening, Zeke’s knife was out and he’d brought it down, grazing Connely’s forearm. The man had not even thought to cock his rifle when he’d raised it, and by the time he’d remembered, Zeke’s knife had sliced through his coat, shirt, and skin, taking a small hunk out of his arm. Connely screamed and cried out, dropping the rifle, and Zeke lunged at him, jerking the panting and moaning Connely
to his feet. Zeke held him by his lapels.

“You owe these good people here the
truth,
Connely!” Zeke ordered. He shoved Connely against his wagon. “Now spill it, or you and I will take a little walk outside this circle of wagons!”

Connely shook badly, as he grasped his injured arm and went limp in Zeke’s hands. When Zeke let go of him, he slumped to the ground, the sleeve of his gray suitcoat saturated with blood. Zeke bent down and picked up his blade, wiping it and shoving it into its sheath while Connely hung his head.

“Damned, stinking Indians!” Connely mumbled. “And I hate half-breeds even worse! You represent white mixing with Indian—as low as a white man can get!” He raised his head. “
Or
a white
woman!
” When his eyes darted toward Abbie, Zeke’s foot came up, slamming into the man’s chin and sending him flying backward. The man landed with a grunt, and Zeke jerked him back up again.

“I was
married
to a white woman—one of the finest!” Zeke growled. “You’re damned lucky you’re
alive,
Connely! But that might not last much longer if you don’t give us a straight story! For a remark like that, I’d like to carve you up myself and present you to the Crow in little pieces! Now
talk,
Connely!”

He threw the man back down, and Connely just sat there a moment, swallowing blood and rubbing at his jaw. He coughed, got to his knees, brushed at his hair and clothes, and then grasped his still-bleeding arm. His hair hung in thin, white strands over his forehead now, and he quickly pushed it back with his good hand. Then he grasped his injured arm again, and glowered at the rest of the men, none of whom seemed
to feel too sorry for him at the moment.

“All right,” he grumbled, looking down at his arm and grimacing at the blood on his coatsleeve. He looked back up at them. “I knew the Cherokee … back in Tennessee.” He swallowed. “I was a government representative … and it was my duty to inform all Cherokees in my territory that if they renounced their tribe and heritage, they would be allowed to remain in Tennessee and would be given several acres of their own. Otherwise, under an act passed in Congress in 1834, they would be rounded up with the other Eastern Indians and put into prison camps—to be sent out here past the ninety-fifth Meridian to the newly established Indian Territory.”

Abbie inched closer, watching Zeke, who walked around behind Connely, glaring at the man, while the others listened.

“My father broke my mother’s heart by taking up with a whoring Cherokee woman when I was a boy!” Connely went on. “So I always hated Indians anyway! I deliberately worked myself into a position where I could do them harm. When I got that job, it infuriated me that Indians should be allowed any land at all, no matter what they promised in return for it!” He stood and glanced at Zeke out of the corner of his eye as Zeke came around to his side now, pacing nervously and listening. “Indians are nothing but ignorant vermin!” Connely growled as he continued. “But the government, for some reason, decided they could be made civilized. A few of the Indians actually thought they
could
make it the white man’s way. They agreed to stay and work the land, in return for promising allegiance to the United States Government, renouncing
their own people, and promising not to cause trouble for their white neighbors.”

“The only reason they agreed was because they loved the land where they lived and knew it was the only way to
keep
it!” Zeke barked. “They had little choice. They didn’t
want
to go to a strange land!”

“As far as I’m concerned, they shouldn’t have been allowed any choice at all!” Connely shot back. Zeke’s fists clenched.

“Hold it!” Kelsoe spoke up quickly. “Let’s hear the rest of Connely’s story.” Zeke shifted his eyes to Kelsoe, but he wanted very much to put his hands around Connely’s neck and squeeze. Then he turned away, his breathing hard and quick. “Go on, Connely,” Kelsoe told the man.

“It was my job to draw up papers for those that wanted to stay,” Connely continued. “I only took the job because I wanted to do my part to make damned sure those that stayed got the least amount of land they could be allowed—at least in the territory I covered—and to swindle them out of as much of it as I could. Indians don’t have any
right
owning land! I knew how ignorant they were of white men’s dealings. It was
easy
to fool them!” He grinned a little. “One of those who stayed was Tall Tree, the Cherokee you saw today. He and the others—they signed the papers I gave them, most just putting strange little marks on them that stood for their names. But I saw to it that in some cases, where the land was extra good, the papers didn’t deed the land to the Indians. They deeded the land to
me!
And rightly so! I’m not ashamed of it and I never will be! Why should an ignorant, dirty Indian be allowed that land!
Good
land, it was! Worth a lot
of money to a white man! So they ignorantly signed it away to
me!
”

The others looked at him with disgust, and Zeke still stood with his back turned to Connely. His rage radiated from his body.

“So what brought you out here?” the schoolteacher asked.

“The government began to catch on,” Connely replied. “Just enough for me to know it was time to finish selling off what I’d got from the Indians and get the hell out with my money! By then I had a lot of land to sell! Each time, after an Indian family would sign the papers that unknowingly deeded the land to me, I sent soldiers to their farms the next day to arrest them for trespassing!” He laughed lightly, haughtily. “The soldiers would have the papers to prove the Indians no longer owned the land, and the Indians were helpless to argue about it! They hadn’t the knowledge or the power to reason with the soldiers or prove anything to the contrary! The soldiers would round them up and put them into camps with the rest of their kind! Family by family I got them off the land. Now I’ve sold it, and I’m going West to found a bank and make some land deals there. I’ll be rich!
Rich!
And none of you backwoods farmers is going to
stop
me!” He smiled more broadly. “Nor will you turn me over to those Indians out there! Like Brown said, it’s unchristian! I’m still your own kind. You
can’t
hand me over to that Cherokee! It would be
blood
on your hands!”

“And there’s no blood on
yours?
” Mrs. Hanes spoke up, now moving closer herself. “How could you
do
such a thing, Mr. Connely? And why hasn’t the
government come searching for you?”

Connely breathed deeply, feeling more confident all the time. “The government doesn’t
care
enough about the Indians to really do anything about it. As long as I’ve left the area and left their service, they’ll let it go at that. And all of you ought to be
glad
the government has ways of getting rid of the Indians! It will make this land a better and safer place to live in! This land
ought
to belong to people like us—
civilized
people, with education and a desire to work the land, to farm it and build cities and railroads—bring progress! That’s the word!
Progress!
Men like Cheyenne Zeke and those redskins out there don’t understand that! Just listen! Listen to the drums those Crow are already beating! Savages! Ruthless savages is all they are!”