Savage Courage

by Cassie Edwards

  “Don’t thank me,” Shoshana said dryly. “I had nothing to do with it. The colonel chose you.”

  She wanted to add that she had no idea why he’d been chosen. Surely an older soldier with more knowledge of the land would have been better suited for the job.

  If George Whaley knew just how vulnerable she was with this young major at her side, he would most certainly have reason to worry, just as she was now worrying.

  She decided she would turn back soon. With someone so unfamiliar with the land, she was afraid of possibly getting lost, or worse yet, riding into the face of danger.

  “I can tell that you don’t feel comfortable about my escorting you today,” Major Klein said ruefully. “I’m sorry about disappointing you. Do you want to turn back?”

  “Not quite yet,” Shoshana said, nudging her steed with her knees and riding on ahead of the major.

  She didn’t want any more small talk with him. She wanted to inhale all of this loveliness without interruption.

  This valley was the province of butterflies and lovely dragonflies.

  The crystalline body of water was full of caddis flies.

  The air was alive with hummingbirds and magpies.

  A colony of otters flourished in the river, and she saw badgers, too.

  She was only five on that terrible day long ago when her life had changed forever, but things were coming back to her again—her laughter as she ran through the tall grass and flowers where her mother had bent low to pluck a bouquet, Shoshana’s baby brother on her mother’s back in his cradle board . . .

  She was remembering a day when she had sat dangling her feet in the river while her mother stopped to nurse Shoshana’s baby brother . . . a brother who had died from an illness unfamiliar to Shoshana only days before the massacre that took her mother from her, as well.

  This could be the exact place where she had shared those precious moments with her mother and brother. It did seem so familiar.

  Then her breath was stolen away when she saw the remains of tepees a short distance from the river. The poles were like the bones of skeletons sticking up from the ground.

  Could this be . . . ?

  A groan behind Shoshana caused her to turn quickly in the saddle.

  She went pale and gasped when she saw a hatchet lodged in the young major’s chest, his eyes wide with disbelief.

  She cried out when he suddenly tumbled from the horse to the ground, dead.

  Frozen with fear, Shoshana remembered her father’s warnings about Mountain Jack, the scalp hunter! Could he have done this terrible thing to the kind young major?

  Was . . . she . . . next?

  With a pounding heart, and a fear so keen she felt cold all over even though the day was miserably hot, she grabbed her rifle from her gunboot, but dropped it in the next instant. A voice shouted at her from a nearby stand of aspens, telling her not to do anything foolish or she would be the next to die.

  “Dismount,” the killer shouted at her in a gravelly voice. “And stay away from that rifle.”

  Her knees trembling with fear of who might come out into the open, and horrified by Major Klein’s death, Shoshana slid slowly from the saddle.

  She eyed the rifle. It was only a footstep away.

  “Kick the rifle away from you,” the hidden man told her.

  She did what he said, although reluctantly.

  Then she watched as a sandy-whiskered man on a white horse rode out into the open, his rifle aimed at Shoshana. It didn’t take much thought to realize that this was the scalp hunter.

  This was Mountain Jack! There was no doubt that it was he.

  He’d been described as having sandy, bushy whiskers and a white horse. She observed that he also had steely cold gray eyes.

  From even this distance, she could smell the stench of the soiled buckskin attire he wore.

  “You murdering bastard,” Shoshana found the courage to say.

  “You just shut up,” Mountain Jack growled out. “For now, I only want the major’s scalp. But if you say anything else to rile me, I’ll also take yours and be done with you.”

  The realization that the man was going to scalp the young major made Shoshana turn her head away with the need to vomit.

  She recalled George telling her that the scalp hunter not only killed Apaches for their scalps, but also white people who had dark hair. The young major had hair the color of an Indian’s, and it was almost as long.

  “You are Mountain Jack, aren’t you?” she asked guardedly. “You’re the scalp hunter that everyone is talking about.”

  “Yep, I’m that famed man,” he said, riding closer on his white mare. “But like I said, shut up or I’ll scalp you to shut you up.”

  Shoshana fought the fear that was building within her.

  But she had to pretend to be strong, even though every bone in her body was weak with fear of what this evil man might decide to do to her.

  “You’ll never get my scalp,” she said bravely, defying him, her eyes again on her rifle.

  “Just you try to grab that rifle and you’ll see how quickly your scalp can be loosed from your head,” Mountain Jack growled out. “I don’t want to be forced into doing what I don’t want to do. I have other plans for you first.”

  “What . . . plans?” Shoshana gulped out, her courage waning. “You aren’t going to rape me, are you?”

  “I don’t reveal my plans before doin’ ’em,” Mountain Jack said sardonically as he dismounted his steed. “You’d best get back on your horse and turn your head if you don’t want to see the soldier lose his hair.”

  When he bent to a knee beside Major Klein, his knife drawn from its sheath, Shoshana felt a strange, rubbery weakness in her knees.

  “Please don’t do that,” she begged, pale from knowing that nothing she said would stop him.

  “Get on that horse and turn your eyes away,” Mountain Jack shouted. “I don’t like making a woman faint, and, sweet thing, if you watch me scalp the young man, I swear you’ll faint dead away.”

  Her heart pounding, a sob lodging deep within her throat, Shoshana quickly mounted her steed.

  She inched her horse away from the death scene.

  She was tempted to sink her heels into the flanks of her steed and try to escape, but she knew that Mountain Jack wouldn’t allow it.

  Her own rifle, which lay only a few inches from his knee, might even be used to kill her.

  “I need to ask you somethin’ before scalpin’ the lad,” Mountain Jack said. “I figure you’re Apache, but why is an Apache squaw like you dressed as a white woman? Why did you turn your back on your people to live in the white world?”

  Shoshana refused to answer him.

  She sat stiffly in the saddle, awaiting her fate; poor Major Klein’s was already sealed.

  She cringed and covered her ears with her hands in order not to hear Mountain Jack cutting the scalp from Major Klein.

  Tears splashed from her eyes when she remembered the young man’s kindness. Then Mountain Jack told her she could open her eyes and turn around, that the scalping was done.

  “It’s time now to hurry back to my hideout,” Mountain Jack said, ignoring how Shoshana still refused to look his way.

  He slid the scalp into his saddlebag, grabbed up Shoshana’s rifle and secured it with his other firearm in his gunboot, then mounted his steed and rode over to Shoshana.

  “Did you hear me say it’s time to ride to my hideout?” he snarled. “Do as I say, pretty thing, or else. Follow me and don’t try and escape. You’re nothing to me, so it would not mean anything to me to shoot you.”

  He shrugged. “Either you cooperate with me or your scalp will join the young major’s real quick like,” he said tightly.

  Swallowing hard, Shoshana gave him a quick glance, then snapped her reins and rode alongside him as he made a wide swing left and rode toward the mountain.

  Shoshana thought about how her life had changed so many years ago in her homeland; now she was h
ome again, and tragedy had struck once more.

  She lowered her eyes and prayed that someone would come soon and save her, for she feared what was going to happen to her now more than she feared actually being scalped.

  She would rather be dead than to have that filthy man touch her in any way!

  Chapter Seven

  Is there within thy heart a need

  That mine cannot fulfill?

  —Adelaide Anne Procter

  His eyes ever searching for the elusive panther, Storm had traveled halfway down his mountain, yet he had seen no trace of it or its den anywhere. He was ready to turn back, but decided to take one last look with his spyglass.

  He had found the spyglass along the trail many years ago and had discovered just how useful it was. Things he saw so distinctly through the glass could only be dimly perceived with the naked eye.

  He drew a tight rein and reached inside his parfleche bag. With one sweep of his hand he had his spyglass up to his eye and was slowly scanning the mountain from side to side.

  Still he saw no sign of the panther.

  From his horse he could see farther below him, where some time ago the land had been scarred by lightning. He would never forget seeing the huge billows of smoke from the lookout at his stronghold, and then the flames.

  Far down away from his stronghold, where the land stretched out away from his mountain, fire had spread in leaps and bounds, continuing until rain began falling in torrents, soon killing the flames.

  But the rain had not come soon enough. There had been much damage done to the vegetation.

  That had been two winters ago. The cycle of rebirth had soon started afresh.

  Through the burned stubs of broken conifers, toothlike and stubbed, came the spears of grass and the shoots of shrubs. From the charred logs came curled ferns. Under the warm earth, the hot seeds cracked open and life began anew.

  Today he admired the gleam of willow branches bending in the breeze far beyond the area cleared by fire.

  He looked even farther, where the river’s roar turned into tireless lapping, where dipping out of the sunlight it slipped into the ground, whispering quietly.

  Even now as he watched, herons lifted off, big-winged, from the water.

  Then he moved his spyglass so he could see the adobe houses at Fort Chance. When he had watched the fort being built so close to his mountain not long ago, he had feared an eventual confrontation with the white pony soldiers.

  But his scouts, who were clever at watching and learning things, discovered that the main purpose for this fort had nothing to do with the Apache who made their homes in his stronghold.

  The pony soldiers were there to protect the arriving settlers, and the white-eyes who were already there. One of the dangers they guarded against was scalp hunters who preyed on white-eye and red skins alike. Mountain Jack was the worst of these. Thus far, he had successfully eluded the soldiers, as well as Storm and his warriors, who also wanted to stop the evil man.

  Despite their familiarity with all the haunts of this mountain, Storm’s men could not find him. Mountain Jack remained free to kill.

  Just then his eyes widened and he held the spyglass steady as it picked up some movement down below, far beyond the fort. Off in the distance he spotted the tiny mounted figures of a man and a woman.

  “The scalp hunter!” Storm gasped out, his heart thudding in his chest as he recognized the white horse.

  He could not believe that the scalp hunter had come out into the open. Storm shifted his spyglass so he could see who was riding with the scalp hunter.

  It was a woman, a woman of Storm’s own skin color!

  Ho, she was Indian, but dressed as a white woman.

  Had the scalp hunter taken a bride? Was he taking her to his hideout? It caused a bitter bile to rise in Storm’s throat to think that a red-skinned woman would lower herself to marry the evil man who had taken the scalps of so many Apache.

  “She must pay in her own way for deceiving her race,” Storm whispered heatedly.

  His jaw tight, he put his spyglass back in his bag and continued downward on the mountain pass, but this time as rapidly as possible. The narrow pass was dangerous; one slip of a hoof and both the horse and Storm could fall to their deaths.

  But he could not waste time. He could not let the scalp hunter get away. Finally. Finally he had a chance to stop the man’s evil ways.

  He rode on and on, then stopped long enough to take his spyglass from his bag again to take another look.

  His heart sank when he saw no signs of Mountain Jack, or of the woman. But now at least he knew where to look for them.

  The scalp hunter had become careless, and surely because of the woman.

  And the woman had also been careless. Choosing a man such as Mountain Jack had sealed her doom.

  Then his sister’s warning came to him. Was this possibly the woman she had seen in the stars?

  If so, he understood why his sister had warned him. This woman was surely a traitor to her own people.

  He rode onward. He would not stop until he found the sandy-whiskered man’s hideout.

  He would stop the man’s evil ways. But what of the woman? What would he do with her once he had her in his possession?

  “She, who is a traitor to her people, will be my captive,” he said, his jaw tight, his eyes narrowed with angry determination.

  Chapter Eight

  I will not let thee go!

  I hold thee by too many bonds.

  —Robert Bridges

  “It’s been too long since Shoshana left,” George said as he stood before Colonel Hawkins’s massive oak desk. “I told both her and Major Klein not to be gone for long. I most definitely made it clear to them that they weren’t to go far. I shouldn’t have put my trust in that major. He’s too young.”

  “The major might be young, but when assigned any duty, even as simple as being an escort to a lovely lady, he is more reliable than most men your age,” Colonel Hawkins said reassuringly. “Go back to your quarters. Relax. If they don’t return soon, I’ll send several of my most trusted men to find them and bring them back.”

  “As simple as being an escort to a lady?” George spat out, stunned that the colonel was taking Shoshana’s safety so lightly. “You know the dangers out there.”

  “I’m sorry if you’re unhappy with my choice of escort, but they weren’t going far enough to worry about and Major Klein had finished his chores yesterday. He was to be idle today,” the colonel said.

  “What kind of chores?” George asked between clenched teeth. He immediately saw how uneasy that question made the colonel. He held his hand out, palm side toward the colonel. “No. Don’t tell me. I might be too tempted to floor you.”

  “It’s good you’re having second thoughts before doing something so asinine, George,” the colonel said tightly. “As I said, I’ll send out several soldiers to find them and bring them back to the fort.”

  “Don’t wait too long,” George said angrily.

  He swung around and walked out of the room, his wooden leg seeming to be twice as heavy today since the burden he was carrying on his shoulders was so great.

  His daughter.

  How stupid he’d been to allow her to leave the fort at all!

  But as headstrong as she was, he knew that had he not given her permission, she would have set out on her own, without an escort, and that would have been even worse.

  He went back to his house and to the window in the living room, where he stared at the open land stretching away from the fort. There was still no sign of Shoshana or the major.

  His eyebrows lifted when he saw a huge contingent of blue-coated troopers ride from the fort on their big chargers.

  “Why, he’s as worried as I am,” George whispered to himself. The colonel had gone ahead and sent the soldiers out to search for Shoshana without waiting any longer.

  George watched the dust scatter from the hooves of the horses and continued to follow the soldie
rs’ progress until they rode from sight. He felt hopeful that the soldiers would find Shoshana and the major because he had seen two Apache scouts at the head of the search party. If anyone could find two lost souls out there in the wilderness, those scouts could do it.

  All Apache were well acquainted with this country that their ancestors had inhabited since the beginning of time. These scouts surely knew every spring, water hole, canyon, and crevice.

  George was beginning to feel better about the situation now. All he had to do now was practice patience.

  “I won’t think the worst,” he mumbled. “I won’t.”

  He got out the long-stemmed pipe. He gazed at it for a long time, remembering the very moment he had gotten it. He had been torn with conflicting feelings since he had already slain a good number of redskins before attending the peace talks.

  Sighing heavily, he sprinkled tobacco into the bowl of the pipe, lit it, then sat down before a slowly burning fire in the fireplace. His eyes watched the flames rolling over the logs in a slow caress.

  Oh, how often had he sat before a fire with Shoshana, popping corn in the flames, munching it as they shared a game of chess?

  “She’s always been so smart,” he whispered, tears shining in the corners of his eyes. “Too smart to allow anything to happen to her, especially in this land of her ancestors. Shoshana, honey, come back to me. Do you hear? Come . . . back . . . to me.”

  He sat there for as long as it took to smoke the tobacco in his pipe, then turned when he saw the reflection of a bright sunset paint the wall above the fireplace.

  He paled when he realized how long he had been sitting there, reminiscing. The sun was lowering behind the mountains. Soon it would be dark and Shoshana had not yet been found and brought back to the fort.

  “Good Lord,” he mumbled as he pushed himself up from the chair.

  He laid the pipe aside, then left the house.

  Just as he got halfway between his house and the colonel’s, he heard the thunder of hoofbeats arriving.