by Robin Gideon
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The Wild Rose Press
www.thewildrosepress.com
Copyright ©2009 by Robin Gideon
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NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.
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CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
About the author...
Also available
Chapter One
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Comanche Heat
by
Robin Gideon
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Comanche Heat
COPYRIGHT ©
2009 by Robin Gideon
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected]
Cover Art by Angela Anderson
The Wild Rose Press
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewilderroses.com
Publishing History
First Scarlet Rose Edition, February 2009
Published in the United States of America
Chapter One
1863—The Colorado Territories
He was Broken Blade, and his most immediate goal was to stay alive long enough to kill Blue Elk. The odds of success weren't in Blade's favor, but then, on this particularly savage quest, they never had been. Not even at the very beginning, when the identity of the murderers was not yet known to the leader of the Northern Comanche.
Her name had been Summer Without Rain, and her body had been found eight days earlier on the southern banks of the Arkansas River. Her corpse was naked, and the suffering she had experienced prior to death was as evident as if the defilement had been written in words. She had been kidnapped—not an unusual fate for young women among the tribes of the plains. What was unusual was the viciousness of the gang-rape and murder.
That ruled out the usual enemies of the Northern Comanche, namely the Cheyenne to the north, the Kiowa and Sioux to the southeast, and the Sauk and Fox farther to the east and north. While something significantly less than consensual romantic encounters were not uncommon among the Plains Indians, gang rape followed by murder was considered by all the tribes as an abomination.
It had taken less than a day and a half to determine that Summer Without Rain had been abducted by Blue Elk's ragtag band of renegades, killers, and outcasts. They weren't a tribe, or even a clan, per se, in as much as their numbers were less than twenty, and all were braves who had been banished from their tribes. Blue Elk, along with his younger brother, Dog, had banded together with outcasts from the neighboring Cheyenne and Kiowa tribes to form a formidable fighting force of thieves and outlaws.
On the Great Plains, being banished from one's tribe meant a death sentence, as often as not. Living without the protection of the tribe made a man vulnerable to all manner of hostility from any number of tribes. And the white man had never been one to miss an opportunity to kill a defenseless Indian.
Blue Elk understood this and used it to his advantage, assembling braves who possessed a great regard for their own life but no regard for anyone else's. Even before the hostilities between the Northern and Southern states had turned into open warfare, Blue Elk had been terrorizing whites and Indians alike along the Arkansas River, robbing and pillaging, killing indiscriminately, raping whenever possible.
Summer Without Rain had been young and innocent when she was abducted. A virgin, she had been wistfully looking forward to the coming winter, when she would at last be old enough to accept a Northern Comanche brave as a husband—and she had her eye on several young braves who met her idea of bravery and masculine beauty.
Her death—violent, sexual, and completely unnecessary—was an affront to the nearly one thousand Northern Comanche, and it was up to Broken Blade, the Chief of War, to uphold the honor of the tribe and see that justice was served. In this case, nothing less than death would do.
He had chosen to go after Blue Elk alone. To catch Blue Elk, Blade had to ride deep into Cheyenne country. The more riders there were, the greater the chances of being seen.
At least riding alone, should a wandering Cheyenne clan see the tracks of his horse, they would be less inclined to assume a raiding war party was in their territory. Braves often got lost traveling from one encampment to another, or white men from one city to another. But a single rider wasn't a threat; many riders constituted a threat that the Cheyenne would have to address to maintain their dignity. The Cheyenne were nothing if not proud and dignified—and more than willing to defend their territory against all trespassers.
If the Cheyenne captured Blade, he would either be killed, or sold back to the Northern Comanche for a hefty ransom, using the universal currency among the tribes—horses. If the Kiowa caught him, he would be killed immediately. The Kiowa had lost many horses and more than one skirmish to warriors under Blade's command. They wanted revenge, and the longer they had to wait, the more they hungered for it. And if Blue Elk and his vicious band of cutthroats captured Blade, he would surely be tortured before he was killed.
Which meant Blade had to sneak into Blue Elk's camp, kill him, then sneak back out—all without drawing any attention to himself or his activities whatsoever.
A bitter smile pulled at his mouth. This time, doing the honorable thing was probably going to cost him his life.
* * * *
They're going to kill me.
Samantha Murchison tested the strips of rawhide surrounding her wrists and ankles. Like all the other times she'd struggled against them, she found the leather unyielding, her bindings attached as they were to four wooden stakes hammered into the ground.
But before they kill me, they are going to make me suffer. How many are there? A dozen? Maybe more? They'll all take their turn with me ... then they'll kill me.
Hours earlier, Samantha had been aboard the northbound train, headed for Colorado City where she hoped to find a new job teaching children. When the train stopped midway between stations, she hadn't understood at first that things had gone desperately wrong. But then Blue Elk and his band of renegade outlaws raced through the four passenger coaches, pistols blasting and knives slashing, killing everyone in sight without hesitation or mercy.
Only Samantha's life had been spared—and she knew why. Blue Elk had decided she was too beautiful to be killed outright. He had said as much when he introduced himself with mock formality, bowing low as a courting gentleman would ... except there had been blood on the enormous blade of the knife he held.
That had been only a few hours earlier. To Samantha, it seemed like a lifetime.
Laughter came from outside the tepee. Blue Elk and his men were drinking whiskey and having a good time. It had been a profitable day for them. Several of the passengers were carrying their life's savings on their way to Colorado City, intent on setting up a new life. Samantha knew she was scheduled to be their entertainment for
the evening ... but first they were going to get good and liquored up.
Sounds of movement outside caught her attention. A moment later, Blue Elk stepped into the tepee. He was short and dark-skinned. The small fire in the center of the tepee cast flickering light on his naked chest.
"Are you ready to honor me?” Blue Elk asked, slurring his words slightly.
Samantha gasped softly when Blue Elk dropped to his knees beside her. For several seconds, his eyes caressed her, fondled the naked fullness of her heavy breasts. When he put his big palm upon her stomach, she flinched.
"P-please don't hurt me,” she said, her eyes squeezed tightly shut.
His hand, heavily callused, slid up her stomach, pausing briefly at the under-curve of her breast before he cupped the firm mound.
"Nice,” Blue Elk said quietly. “Your body pleases me.” He squeezed her breast with one hand as he took a drink of whiskey from the bottle with the other. “If you are good to me and make me happy, perhaps I will let you live.” He paused, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I have never seen a body as beautiful as yours.” He caught her nipple and pinched hard enough to make her wince in pain. “Do you have a rich father, yellow eyes? Maybe I can sell you back. Are you rich?"
Samantha opened her eyes and looked up at her captor. “No,” she said softly. “I'm not rich. And I don't have much family, and even if I did, none of them are rich."
Blue Elk released her breast, sat on his heels, and looked down at Samantha, trussed up securely for his pleasure. His gaze trailed slowly down her nakedness until it reached the small, triangular patch of hair at the apex of her thighs.
"What is this?” He caught several of the curly strands between his forefinger and thumb, tugging on the pubic hair hard enough to pluck several strands.
Samantha made a whimpering sound in her throat, both in pain and humiliation.
He scowled disdainfully and shook his head in condescension. “You yellow eyes are all cursed. You know nothing worth knowing."
Blue Elk tried to take another swallow of whiskey, but discovered that the bottle was empty. “I need more whiskey, yellow eyes, then I will be back for you."
He stood and looked down at Samantha. She shivered at the way his eyes roamed over her nudity. There wasn't a trace of human warmth in his dark gaze. “Blue Elk is first with you.” He tossed the empty bottle to the opposite side of the tepee. “When the sun comes up, you will not be so pretty.” He grinned, showing several missing teeth. “My braves are true warriors. To have someone like you will make their blood run hot. That is good for them ... but bad for you, yellow eyes!"
Blue Elk was laughing softly as he left his tepee.
* * * *
Blade saw the first sentry long before he even got close to the renegade camp. It was impossible to tell whether the young man was Kiowa or Cheyenne, judging by his coarse buckskin shirt and the leggings that had seen much use.
The answer was of little interest to Blade. What he did care about was the man's attention, and at present, as he leaned back against a solitary elm tree, most of that attention was focused on a bottle of amber liquid in his right hand. Transiently, Blade wondered what the young warrior had done to get kicked out of his tribe. Aware that it had to have been something heinous helped ease Blade conscience.
Blade had stripped down for the attack to nothing but his buckskin breechclout, moccasins, and weapons. On his left hip, in a crossdraw holster, was a .36 caliber Colt revolver. Attached to the same wide leather belt, on his right hip, was an antler-handled knife with a heavy twelve-inch blade. The knife had been Blade's father's. Upon proving himself to be a man of honor, a hunter and provider, and a warrior, Blade had earned the right to carry it.
Extracting the knife slowly from its sheath, he made his way cautiously through the tall grass, moving ever closer to the sentry's post and to the four tepees beyond that, his progress as silent as a stalking cougar's.
The sentry's head was tilted back, and he was pouring whiskey down his throat when he died. He did not make more than a brief gurgling sound as death claimed him. Blade was already moving forward through the shadows when the sentry's strong heart beat its last.
Blade continued on. He could hear the raucous laughter of the braves around the campfire, their words clear enough he could make out the language. As was so often the case when tribes had overlapping territory, the languages tended to blend one into another. He recognized Kiowan words, as well as words from the Algonquian family language, which encompassed the Cheyenne. A grim smile touched Blade's mouth. He was in the right place.
Movement to his right, from the one tepee set aside from the other three, caught his attention. A warrior of medium height stepped out of a tepee, pulling the cork on a bottle as he walked. Blade watched, appalled as the warrior tilted the bottle back, drinking and walking at the same time.
Once, a dozen years earlier while attending college, Blade had foolishly filled his champagne glass and was walking and drinking at the same time. His geology professor, the host of the gathering, pulled him aside and, in quiet but granite-hard tones, informed Blade that no gentleman ever walked and drank liquor simultaneously. It simply wasn't done.
Blade never made that offense against propriety again.
As the warrior let the bottle dangle from his hand at his side, moonlight settled on his swarthy features. Blue Elk. There could be no doubt about it.
The urge to rush forward, pistol in hand, and settle the score was almost overpowering for Blade. For a moment—he dared not do it longer—he squeezed his eyes tightly shut and searched within for the discipline he knew was necessary. Any fool could commit suicide and perhaps, just maybe, do something good in the process. But a wise warrior fought only when he had to, and then he fought with stealth and cunning and an eye toward surviving the battle, not with foolhardy bravado that only created dead warriors and grieving widows.
It was then, as Blade was harnessing the personal discipline that was the hallmark of his personality, that Blue Elk spoke.
"I come back to give you what's left of this bottle,” Blue Elk said, much more loudly than was necessary to carry on the still night air. “I am going to my tepee now. Tomorrow, we will talk."
There was a general uproar of bawdy laughter from the more than dozen men surrounding the campfire, all of them in various stages of inebriation. Blade didn't wait to consider what the laughter meant.
Though he was a tall man by any standard, when he moved, it was soundless, his moccasins seemingly gliding over prairie grass, the muscles in his chest and back moving beneath his sun-darkened skin like the muscles of a mountain lion rippling beneath velvet-soft tawny fur.
Blade slipped through the open entrance flap to Blue Elk's tepee without breaking stride, the razor-sharp knife in his steady right hand, his heart pounding but his confidence soaring. Soon, Blue Elk would be dead, and he would have avenged the small tribe known as the Northern Comanche, and the weight pressing on his soul would be lifted.
And that's when he saw the pale-skinned woman, spread-eagled in the tepee, her arms and legs outstretched, tied to wooden stakes that had been pounded through the buffalo robes beneath her.
The breath caught in Blade's throat, and his teeth clenched. The warrior in him whispered that she wasn't his responsibility, and as such, wasn't his problem. Besides, any involvement she might have in his life would create an infinite number of complications in regards to his escape once the pesky problem of Blue Elk's continued good health was dealt with.
But there was another part of Blade's body and soul, that part of him instilled by an innate sense of decency and the knowledge of universal rights and wrongs, a part that had been inculcated in him by his Northern Comanche elders as well as the Jesuit priests, who said with quiet conviction that to let this poor, unfortunate woman suffer at the hands of Blue Elk's band of savage misfits would be a crime against humanity. And if Father McMurphy had lectured endlessly on any subject, it was the need for g
ood men to uphold the dictates of humanity.
The woman turned her head, and when she saw him, her eyes became enormous. It appeared as though she was about to say something, and Blade reacted with catlike speed. He was on his knees, a broad palm clamped over the woman's mouth to silence anything she might say.
Though he continued to hold the knife in his hand, he put his index finger to his lips in the universally recognized hand-symbol for silence. He looked straight into the woman's eyes when he nodded. Seconds ticked by—seconds he didn't have to spare—before the woman nodded.
Blade removed his hand from her mouth and leaped to his feet. He was back near the entrance, opposite the woman, an instant later. He knew if she made a sound, if she did anything at all that would indicate things were different than a few minutes earlier when Blue Elk left the tepee, then Blade's bold, impromptu plan for revenge would be for naught ... and his death would have accomplished nothing.
No longer directly above her, Blade experienced the full magnitude of her nudity, of the awesome splendor of her body. She was pale-skinned, not particularly tall, with tapering thighs, curved hips, a waist neither slender nor ample ... leading to breasts that caused a man's heart to leap in his chest. The sheer, extravagant size and shape of her breasts caused Blade's heart to leap. Heavy, full, deliciously rounded mounds of feminine splendor guaranteed to entice the eyes and....
Blade closed his eyes for a second and shook his head, as he often did to clear his thoughts and calm his mind. This was not the time to be rendered catatonic from a woman's beauty—especially not for a man whose experience with women, Caucasian or Indian, had caused countless tongues to wag from Sioux Falls to Denver City to St. Louis. When he opened his eyes an instant later, the knife in his hand held maximum importance; the woman, bound naked with leather cords to the floor of the tepee, was of fleeting, insignificant interest.
He heard Blue Elk's footsteps. The sound of them pleased Blade. It told him the warrior he hunted, the man who had caused such blind fear in the territory, had lost the sharp edge of his perceptions. Blue Elk had, like so many before him, come to believe savagery and murderous indifference to others’ sufferings was the same as having power. Earning the fear of others was infinitely easier than earning their respect ... but Blue Elk didn't understand that distinction.