Redbird

by E. E. Burke

  She cast her eyes downward, making it clear what she thought. Thus far, he had lived up to her low expectations.

  He heaved a weary sigh. What she thought of him should not matter, yet, it did. He wanted her trust and respect. Or maybe he needed it to soothe his conscience. Regardless, he would not change her perceptions if he continued to degrade and mislead her.

  “Yes, Charley will come after us. Does knowing this make you feel better?”

  “No.”

  Jake drew the reins over the horse’s head. “We have to go, Redbird.”

  Her eyes flashed blue fire. “Don’t call me that. Don’t ever call me that again.”

  A valid point. He had no right to name her.

  “What should I call you?”

  “As you haven’t seen fit to give me your name, I shan’t give you mine.”

  Again, she had a point. If he wanted to learn a secret, he would have to offer one in exchange. He laced his fingers and lifted her booted foot to hoist her into the saddle before mounting behind her, taking care to give her as much space as he could. “Call me Jake.”

  “Jake,” she repeated in a sultry voice that sent a sizzling current down his spine. “I’m Kate.”

  Not Mrs. Something or Miss Whatever. Just Kate. This told him nothing. There were hundreds of women with that name. Of course, there were quite a few men named Jake, too. He hadn’t told her his full name and would not. Why make it easier for her to send him to the gallows?

  She gripped the saddle horn and held herself slightly forward in what had to be a painful position. He would no longer invite her to snuggle into his lap. It was impossible for him to hide his body’s reaction, even if he somehow managed to mask how deeply she had touched his heart.

  The shadows lengthened as the sun slid behind the trees. As soon as they reached the valley cradling his aunt’s farm, he would leave Kate under Na’s protection. He could intercept Charley and suggest another way to get the money they needed. When they were done, and Kate had been safely returned, they could flee into the wilderness. It was a plan. Whether it was a good one remained to be seen. Either way, Kate would be out of his life for good, and these uncomfortable feelings would go away.

  Her head bobbed. After another moment, she sagged sideways.

  Giving in to an inconvenient protective streak, he cradled her with one arm.

  Jake gazed down at his sleeping captive. Her soft compliance and evocative scent stirred up images of pale limbs and rose-tipped breasts. With a muttered curse, he jerked his nose out of her hair then shifted his hold on her. Close enough to prevent her from falling off the horse. Not so close he would confuse her for a lover. Kate wasn’t Redbird. She belonged to the railroad chief, and thus was his adversary.

  Only, she did not feel like an enemy when she was in his arms.

  Chapter 8

  The morning after Kate vanished from the party, Henry returned to his boss’s railcar to report what he’d learned thus far. It amounted to nothing, except for a gut-wrenching suspicion that Kate had once again stumbled into great danger.

  Judge Parsons sat at his desk pawing through the legal briefs he had insisted on reviewing, for all the good it would do. At present, they were at the mercy of the courts. If a settlement with the Indians couldn’t be reached, they might as well send everyone home.

  At the worst possible time, the railroad heiress had vanished.

  Henry approached the railroad president, folded his hands behind his back and waited to be acknowledged. The judge insisted on having the first and last word. Whether it was due to his age or rank didn’t matter. A wise man avoided unnecessary conflict.

  “Well, Mr. Stevens? Speak up. What’ve you learned?” The old man kept his scowl directed at the papers in front of him.

  Henry assumed his boss’s demand for an update had nothing to do with the lawsuit. Kate’s disappearance should take priority over everything else. “We searched all night, haven’t found her yet. She isn’t anywhere on the premises. I’ve had all the railcars checked, the buildings, the workers’ tents. I stopped in at the hotel in Ladore—”

  The Judge waved his hand in the air with impatience. “I don’t need a list of every step you’ve taken. What have you found?

  “She didn’t return to her room last night.”

  Parsons straightened. He gave Henry a speculative once-over. “You don’t know where your bride-to-be spent the night?”

  Henry held his anger in check. He was sorely tempted to tell the curmudgeon to go to hell. Technically, Kate wasn’t betrothed to him. Yet. She was, however, Parsons’ daughter, and as her father, he might show a little more concern. “No one knows where she spent the night.”

  The judge leaned back in his chair with a pencil between his fingers and an expression that didn’t signify worry. “You think she’s run off?”

  His implication being that Kate had hightailed it with a secret lover.

  Henry would’ve laughed were the situation not dire. Kate was the least romantic woman he knew, and certainly not given to fits of fancy that involved illicit love affairs. She’d only given him the time of day because he was her father’s hand-picked successor and she desired to please the impossible old fart. As an ambitious man, Henry understood the need to be practical about some things, and marriage should be nothing, if not practical.

  “No sir, I don’t believe she’s run off.”

  “Then where is she?”

  Henry wished he knew. The longer the search went on, the more concerned he became about what misfortune might’ve had befallen her. Both he and her father had made plenty of enemies over the years, especially while building the railroad. God forbid one of them had targeted Kate in an act of revenge.

  She had cried off the night before, headed toward her father’s railcar, and that had been the last anyone had seen of her. This much, the old man knew. No items of value had been taken—except for Kate.

  “I’m concerned she might’ve been abducted. We found several sets of footprints along the eastern side of the tracks. They led here, to your railcar, then back out to the woods. It appears they had horses tied up. We tried to track them. The trail became confusing, then it vanished.”

  Parsons leaned his arms on the table and stared out the window. He tapped his pencil in a staccato beat, which indicated a heightened level of anxiety. The bags beneath his eyes had become darker and heavier. He’d lost more sleep than he’d admit. “You’ve no doubt put together a list of suspects.”

  That was the easy part.

  “At the top of the list, Mr. Joy’s thugs. Or those ruffians hired by the Land League. They’ve caused us no end of trouble”

  Criminals hired by their erstwhile competitor had vandalized tracks, burned ties, bribed workers, even stolen the payroll.

  “I wouldn’t put it past them to pull a stunt like this.”

  The Judge grunted in agreement. “What about the Indians?”

  Henry carefully considered his answer. An accusation like that would bring troops from over the border, and—as Kate herself had pointed out—worsen a bad situation. It wasn’t an action to be taken lightly or without proof. In fact, heightened emotions could easily spark a war. “I had men monitoring the premises last night. None of the Indians left the party until after we discovered she was gone. Then they offered to help us search for her.”

  “To mislead us, no doubt.”

  “Possibly.” Henry paced to the window, frustrated by the disturbing turn of events. He’d read first-hand reports of white women being carried off. Not by this particular tribe. Still, it didn’t surprise him that Parsons would jump on that train.

  Thus far, the locals had limited their show of displeasure to camping on the tracks and acts of petty vandalism. Obstacles rather than violence. They had been careful not to trigger a military backlash. In fact, the Cherokee leaders had proved to be far cleverer than he’d given them credit for, and stealing Parsons’ daughter was not the act of clever men.

  �
�It would be easy to blame them, but...it doesn’t make sense. Such a foolish move would bring the army down on their heads, give the government an excuse to confiscate more land. I don’t believe they’re that stupid.”

  A loud thwack came from behind. Henry twisted to see his boss standing with his hands splayed across the papers on his desk. “Stupid or not, somebody took her!” he bellowed. “You should’ve watched out for her, Mr. Stevens. That is your job, is it not?”

  Henry’s face heated, from anger more than embarrassment. His job—managing the completion of this railroad—did not include acting as Kate’s personal bodyguard. He had repeatedly warned her to be careful. “I take Miss Parson’s safety very seriously. I advised her to stay close to people who can protect her. Whoever did this must’ve waited for their chance, and took it as soon as they were able to catch her alone.”

  The judge sat heavily with an aggrieved grunt. “So, what you’re saying is, you can’t get her to listen to you. How will you run a railroad if you can’t even manage one little woman?”

  Henry clenched his hands behind his back. He refrained from a pointless argument about who had done a worse job managing Kate. Unlike Parsons, he didn’t expect that she would suddenly become docile upon marriage. He would make it work because he had ambition and she desired to please her father. She tended to be too idealistic. Experience would take care of that. Wishful thinking had no place in this new world.

  “I’ll find her, sir. And we’ll see to it that whoever took her is hanged for his misdeeds.”

  Chapter 9

  The raft washed ashore on a gravel beach. Kate slid off and splashed through the water toward a rope ladder dangling from the top of a high bluff. Up there, she could see far enough to find her way home. Her foot struck something. A man’s body, sprawled face down in the shallow water. His black hair riffled with the movement of the waves, which foamed red with his blood.

  Kate came awake with a start. Her heart pounded as she stared in confusion at a chinked wall with an open window where daylight shone through. A light breeze fluttered curtains made with material from a flour sack. Outside, birds squawked.

  Where...?

  Last night, they’d arrived at a log cabin. No one else had been home. Jake had sent her up into the loft, with a suggestion she get some rest, before he’d planted himself at the base of the narrow stairs. Where was he now? Still down there, keeping watch?

  She threw back the quilt and swung her legs over the bed. The stuffing in the mattress crunched and the ropes beneath it creaked. She hadn’t thought she could sleep, but at some time during the night she’d lost the battle to remain awake. Her mind, however, had stayed busy with troubling dreams.

  On a small table with a pitcher and bowl lay a brush that hadn’t been there before, along with a clean cloth. Jake’s thoughtful gesture eased some of the trepidation clinging to her consciousness like spiderwebs.

  With water from the pitcher, she washed her face and dampened the cloth to wipe her neck. A braid would be the best she could do with her hair. She’d slept in her dress, which hadn’t magically become clean during the night. The one advantage to looking like a fright would be scaring Charley away if he showed up.

  The squawks outside stopped. In the quiet, she heard muted voices drift up from below. Her skin went from warm to ice-cold in less than a second.

  Kate tiptoed to the opening in the floor where a narrow stairway led down to a single room. She cocked her head to listen to their gibberish.

  It wasn’t Charley’s voice. The second one belonged to a woman.

  Was Jake married?

  Kate pressed her hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp. He’d brought her to his house to sleep under the same roof as his wife. How could she face him? Face his wife?

  She wouldn’t have to if she went out the window.

  Kate pushed aside the curtain and leaned out. Near the front door, speckled chickens congregated. They would raise a ruckus if she landed on top of them. With the way her luck had been going, she’d probably fall and break her neck.

  Her previous attempts at stealth and seduction hadn’t worked, and she couldn’t afford to alienate Jake to the point that he abandoned her or turned her over to Charley.

  She had to go down there. Act like nothing had happened. Discover as much as she could about him and his family, and use whatever she learned to barter for her freedom.

  The disturbing dream remained at the edge of her consciousness. If Charley did come after her and Jake kept his promise to protect her, a confrontation between them would be inevitable.

  She had to convince Jake to return her before it was too late.

  Jake scooped up a wooden bowl of dried corn and crossed the cabin to the open door. With the toe of his boot, he discouraged a hen from entering, then threw a handful of feed out into the yard, sending the chickens scurrying.

  How different his aunt’s home looked compared to the fancy rail car where he had captured Kate. Unfinished log walls rather than oak paneling. Handmade stools and caned chairs in place of an upholstered sofa and plush armchairs. The differences did not stop at what he could see. Even if he and Kate had met under better circumstances, they had nothing in common.

  Except for an inconvenient, and maddening, attraction.

  “The white woman cannot stay. You bring shame on our family by taking her from her people,” his aunt scolded. “Do not make it worse by keeping her.”

  “I do not intend to keep the white woman, Na,” he replied.

  She propped her hands on her hips and gave him the kind of look that had made him squirm when he was little. It still unnerved him. The top of her head didn’t reach his shoulder, yet she conveyed more authority than a war chief. “You cannot expect me to keep her.”

  Jake threw a wary glance at the stairs. They often spoke in English. He’d launched into their language to prevent Kate from understanding, if she happened to be eavesdropping. “She needs a safe place to stay while I figure out how to return her without causing more trouble. We cannot have the soldiers come after us.”

  “You should have thought about the soldiers before you took her. Why would you do such a thing?” Na waved her hands and made a sound of disgust before returning to the fireplace to tend a pot simmering with fragrant herbs in melted lard. The local healer and midwife had been out all night to deliver a baby. Lack of sleep made her grouchy, and finding a white woman in her bed had not improved her mood.

  He would need to provide an explanation or she would never agree to let Kate stay. “The woman surprised us in a private railcar.”

  Na leaned over and stirred the concoction. “She caught you where you should not have been. This is why you took her?”

  “Tsa-li panicked and threatened her.”

  “Threatened her?” Na whirled around with wide eyes. “Why would he do that?”

  Jake speared his fingers through his hair. He’d never been able to fool his aunt for long. Still, she would be horrified to learn the truth.

  He sat down, kept his gaze on the plate he had darn near licked clean after she’d put breakfast in front of him. He could not bring himself to tell her Charley intended to slit a woman’s throat. “He worried she might accuse us of stealing.”

  Na left her medicine untended and came to the table. She touched her fingers to Jake’s hair with a motherly gesture that put a knot in his chest. “Wa-ya, what have you done?”

  He could not bear to look her in the eye. After his mother’s death, her eldest sister had taken him in and had raised him as one of her own, and this shameful act was how he’d repaid her. “I do only what I have to do to protect our family and our people.”

  “Taking a white woman is not protecting us. That will bring us trouble. Has Tsa-li drawn you into this?”

  How easy it would be to blame his hotheaded cousin, whose hatred of whites was legendary. Charley’s mind hadn’t been right ever since he had returned home five years ago. It wasn’t just the war that had caused his des
cent into madness. Jake conceded he carried a heavy portion of the blame. Because of that, he had vowed to protect his cousin at all costs, even if that meant protecting Charley from himself.

  “No, it was my idea.” Jake spoke softly in English. He had nothing else to say. Anything more would only incriminate him.

  All the lies had entangled him worse than a fly in a spider’s web.

  He propped his elbows on the table, held his head in his hands. If Na would not shelter Kate, he was out of options. He could not return her until he made sure Charley wouldn’t track her down and kill her. At the same time, he couldn’t keep her with him, it was too dangerous. Also, he was susceptible. He couldn’t think clearly when she was around.

  His aunt’s work-roughened hand came to rest on his shoulder. “Go to the council. Talk to them. Seek their guidance.”

  He shook his head. “That would make things worse.”

  The council would banish him and Charley or turn them over to the authorities, or worse, try to cover for them. He didn’t care about his reputation or his life. He did care about his family, and did not want to see them suffer because of his actions.

  The stairs creaked. Kate’s booted foot appeared an instant before her guilty expression. Had she crouched at the top to eavesdrop? Even if she had, he could not work up anger for something he would have done, had their roles been reversed.

  As he came to his feet to acknowledge her politely, their eyes met. His traitorous mind dug up memories better left buried. This temptation would lead him astray if he weren’t careful. He had come too far to stumble over something he should avoid.

  “Good morning.” She ventured a few steps into the room. Her bright hair had been plaited into a thick braid, which hung over one shoulder. Damp curls clung to her forehead and cheeks. Knowing how soft and springy the strands felt only made his longing worse. She had the soiled jacket buttoned to her chin. Unfortunately, he could recall with vivid clarity how her smooth and creamy the skin beneath it looked and felt.