The Endless Sky (Cheyenne Series) (56 page)

      
Burke gloated now as Chase tossed the Army Colt and the blade down. “I told your husband this would work. I knew he'd be watching, planning, but be unable to resist when he saw you. I slipped into the woods along the river at dusk last night before the moon came up, then slept until dawn. Living out of doors in tune with nature is greatly overrated...unless one is a savage such as you, dear nephew,” he said, his geniality turning to deadly venom. Then he returned his attention to Stephanie. “You see, I've known this bastard since he was a sniveling brat...and now I hear you're about to bless the Remington name with yet another mongrel.”

      
While Burke talked, Chase inched imperceptibly away from Stephanie, closer to his uncle, his mind racing for a way to distract him long enough to move into position. He had to bring down Burke before Hugh regained consciousness. “You've never gotten over the fact my mother loved another man—married him and bore him a son—my Cheyenne blood is the least of my sins in your eyes,
Uncle
Burke,” he taunted, watching the tic in Remington's cheek, the fiery blaze ignite in those freezing blue eyes.

      
“The Remington heir, a half-breed bastard,” Burke rasped. “Anthea never married that savage. She was raped.”

      
“Yes, she was,
Uncle,
but not by my father. She loved Vanishing Grass. You raped her—you, the filthy pervert who was her brother!” By now, Chase was struggling to control his own anger. He heard Stephanie's sharp intake of breath and saw Burke's complexion redden with rage.

      
“I loved her! I was the only one worthy, the one—”

      
“It killed you, didn't it, when you couldn't have children with her—or Sabrina, or any other woman? But Anthea ran away from you and had a son with an Indian. A son who, in spite of his tainted blood, would inherit everything.”

      
“I wanted heirs for the Remington name—but only with her. She was the only one...but she betrayed me and Jeremiah's God struck her down with madness.”

      
“You drove her to madness the night her fourteen-year-old son saw you invade her bed. She couldn't live with the shame.”

      
A feral grimace of triumph twisted Burke's face. “I wanted you to see who she really belonged to—me! Me!” he bellowed, raising the rifle.

      
Stephanie's scream rang out as he pulled the trigger. The bullet slammed into Chase, hitting him in his side when he dodged. He kept coming as Burke fired again. The shot slashed wickedly into Chase's leg when he struck the barrel, wrenching it from his uncle's hands. Locked in a primal embrace, they fell to the ground like two snarling wolves. Frantically Stephanie looked for a weapon. The red stains blossomed around Chase's side and down his leg. He couldn't hold out for long against Burke's maniacal strength, not shot twice! She saw Chase's discarded Colt lying on the ground and darted over to seize it but dared not fire for fear of hitting him.

      
Dear God, this was Chase's vision, her dream! Chase was the white wolf and Burke the gray. It made a bizarre sort of sense now. Chase would win. He would kill Burke.
And then he would leave her.

      
The combatants punched and gouged. Burke aimed his blows at Chase's bleeding side and kneed into his injured leg, eliciting grunts of agony from the younger man. Chase clenched his teeth against the pain and rolled with all his strength, pushing off on his good leg so that he came up on top of Burke. The older man was literally foaming at the mouth, fueled by an insane rage. “The Remington blood will out, eh, Burke?” Chase gasped as his fingers tightened on his uncles throat. “You’re the one who's mad—you always were!”

      
Stephanie stood with the gun raised and cocked, but it was unnecessary. Over Chase's labored breath she could hear the sickening crack of Burke Remington's neck snapping. She almost dropped the Colt to run to him when she caught a movement from the corner of her eye.

      
Hugh had regained consciousness. He was crouched, his pistol trained on Chase. ‘‘It's a good day to die, you red bastard.”

      
“Only for you, Hugh.” Her husband whirled to face down the barrel of the Colt. Startled and infuriated that his wife had drawn a bead on him, he aimed at her heart and pulled back the hammer, snarling, “I always planned to kill you.”

      
A single shot rang out and Hugh fell backward with a look of amazement on his face. “I know,” she replied quietly. He lay with his eyes staring sightlessly up at the willow branches overhead. Stephanie stared at the man she had married with such high hopes four years ago. She was not sad, only relieved that it was at long last over. Trembling, she dropped the weapon and rushed to Chase, who had crawled off Burke's body and knelt in a daze, his blood soaking into the ground around him.

      
Stephanie steeled herself to forget the ghastly deed she had just committed, letting the trained nurse in her take over. Seizing his knife, she began to slash the long train of her riding habit into makeshift wrappings to staunch the bleeding. “I have to get you to a doctor.”

      
“Take me to Sabrina Remington at the Brunswick Hotel.”

      
“Burke's wife?” Stephanie asked incredulously.

      
“She's the one who broke me out of jail,” he said with a feral smile. “I have to tell her I kept my word. She'll be able to get a doctor quietly.”

      
“But it's too far. You're bleeding,” she protested.

      
“I've lived through worse for longer.”

      
His speech was growing slurred. Stephanie knew the signs of shock. There was no choice. If they returned to the post, Chase would be arrested. So would she. After placing his Colt in his holster she gathered the reins of Hugh's gelding and slipped Burke's rifle in the scabbard. Then she helped Chase mount the cavalry horse. He hung onto the horse's mane as she climbed up behind him, baring her calves so she could ride astride.

* * * *

      
Twilight was falling when the doctor finally finished stitching up Chase's wounds. White faced but steady, Stephanie assisted him with the ether as he probed the muscle of Chase's thigh to extract the bullet. The one in his side had passed clean through and was less serious than the leg injury which had missed an artery by a scant half inch. While they worked with the physician in his small cluttered surgery, Sabrina Remington paced nervously outside.

      
Sabrina had been relieved when she received Chase's blood-smeared message saying Burke was dead, although she was frightened to death about helping a shot-up renegade with a five-thousand-dollar price on his head. But she knew Burke had planned to have her killed—would have, too, if she had not persuaded his aide Stokley Aimes that she would be much more accommodating alive than dead.

      
Stokley had read the note when she showed it to him, grinning boyishly at his own wisdom. He'd made the right choice. Now the rich widow would be grateful and generous.

      
A debt was a debt. Sabrina sent Stokley to help Stephanie bring Chase to Dr. Kandell's office. The old physician had a reputation for discretion, having tended numerous men considered on the periphery of the law. And he drank. That afternoon he had been mercifully sober when the senator's wife asked for his help, offering a very substantial payment in return for treating a shot-up half-breed “trader.”

      
“How is he?” Sabrina asked when Stephanie emerged from the surgery into the dingy waiting room.

      
“He'll live, although he's lost so much blood the doctor considers it a miracle. He may walk with a limp the rest of his life from the leg wound. It nicked the femur, almost punctured an artery.” She shuddered with fear, thinking of how close she'd come to losing him.

      
“You look pale. Here, you'd better sit down,” Sabrina said awkwardly, taking Stephanie's arm and guiding her to one of the half-dozen battered wooden chairs scattered around the room.

      
Stephanie sank onto it gratefully and smiled wanly at the beautiful brunette who had proven such an unlikely ally. “We owe you so much. If you hadn't helped us, Chase would have died—or been recaptured. He told me how you helped him escape from jail.”

      
Sabrina’ s blue eyes were cold and hard as sapphires in contrast to her soft Southern drawl. “I owe him for killing Burke...and other things.”

      
“You were lovers once, back in Boston, weren't you?”

      
Sabrina's full lips bowed up and a tinge of amusement softened her expression as thoughts of her dead husband faded. “It was a long time ago. No need to be jealous. He was beautiful as sin even when he was a nineteen-year-old boy. I was...a bit older, very unhappily married. I'll admit I was put out when he was the one to end our little dalliance but I'd done it as much to spite Burke as anything else.” She shrugged dismissively, then chewed her lip. “Now what are we going to do to get him away from the army?”

      
“He can't travel for some time, probably several weeks,” Stephanie replied. “I need someplace safe to hide him while he mends.”

      
Sabrina chuckled. “I have just the thing—that nasty little ranch Burke bought. It's just outside town, but I'm certain that no one else—except for possibly Phillips—even knows about the place. He had planned for me to have a riding accident on it at some point, while he was here in town. I managed to foil that little scheme,” she added with a grin of satisfaction. “Let me send for Stokley. He'll see to all the details. Then I'm off to the bright lights of San Francisco with all Burke's lovely money to spend!”

* * * *

      
Chase recuperated in the small ramshackle cabin by the edge of the North Platte River. Although not at all the sort of place a city-bred woman like its new owner would enjoy, it was nonetheless a comfortable haven for him and Stephanie.

      
‘‘What are you doing out of bed? You're not supposed to walk by yourself. Dr. Kandell strictly ordered bed rest.” Stephanie stood in the doorway of the cabin's main room with an armload of firewood, glaring at Chase as he limped across the bare creaky floorboards and eased himself gingerly onto the battered old horsehair sofa.

      
He stretched his aching leg out in front of him after setting aside his cane which doubled as an iron fire poker. “I'm sick of bed rest. I need to start moving around more. I don't like the looks of that foreman Burke hired. The longer I stay here, the more likely it is someone will discover you're holed up with a wanted man. My luck hiding out hasn't exactly been the best the last few months. Sabrina told me how I was followed back to the stronghold last fall. She overheard Hugh and Burke discussing what that Ree scout had found, planning it all. I'm so sorry I thought you could’ve betrayed the people you loved.”

      
She touched his lips with her fingertips. “It's over now, Chase. We're safe. Hugh and Burke are dead. We can begin again.” A guarded expression came over his face. She felt him tense and he looked away for an instant. Her heart stopped beating as she asked, “What do you plan to do when you can ride, Chase?” They had both skirted around the subject for the past two weeks while he mended. Sooner or later she had to face it if he planned to leave her again.
I won't let him do it!

      
Chase looked at her, seeing the vulnerability, the longing in her eyes. He had hurt her painfully, accused her unjustly, been unable to protect her from the monster she'd married...all because he'd left her in the first place. “Life comes full circle, doesn't it, Stevie?” he asked with a bittersweet smile, reaching one hand out for her to join him on the sofa.

      
She took his hand and sat down beside him. “Will you just ride off again? Go searching for the rest of our band?”

      
He covered her small delicate hand with his larger dark one and met her eyes. “You're carrying my child. I may be considered a bastard by white society's standards, but I won't let what happened to my mother happen to you. As soon as I can walk, we'll catch the cars heading east. We can be married in the territorial capital...then you can go back to Boston to have the baby—or wherever you want to live. With Phillips dead you're a wealthy woman even if you don't want to face old Jeremiah.”

      
“And you'll just leave us? Not this time, Chase.” She swallowed for courage, then played her ace. “I’m not wealthy. All my father's money went to Hugh. Now that he's dead it goes to his family. Josiah disinherited me for being born female.”

      
He sat back, stunned by her announcement for a moment. Then he took her in his arms, wincing as the ache in his side twinged.

      
“Damn the old fool.” He cursed Josiah Summerfield a thousand times more, thinking of how bitterly such a betrayal must have hurt his only child. “You never told me. At the stronghold when I made you promise to divorce Hugh, you knew you had no power to do it, yet you never said a word.”

      
“I didn't want your pity, Chase,” she said, pulling out of his embrace. “That's why I didn't tell you I was pregnant when you took me to de Boef. I wasn't going to keep you from your life with the Cheyenne because you felt sorry—or responsible—for me.”

      
“I love you! I don't pity you, dammit. But I can't go back east with you. I can't bear to look at the old man. I'll never be able to forgive what he let happen to my mother. I went to him, you know, told him the truth about his only son and heir. She was so ashamed she never dared. That's why she ran away to marry a white man she didn't love and join a wagon train bound for Oregon. But he wouldn't listen to me. Called me a spawn of the devil for inventing such monstrous lies.”