Chieftain (Historical Romance)

by Nan Ryan

  On the outskirts of the city, Shanaco pointed to the soaring, cloud-shrouded summit of Elk Mountain in the range to the east.

  “That where we’re headed?” Maggie asked.

  “It is. A wide pass threads through those mountains,” he said. “The ranch is there in a high, lush valley. Just to the south of Glorieta Pass.”

  “Glorieta Pass. A beautiful name.”

  “A beautiful place.”

  The journey was pleasant. The day grew warmer as the alpine sun climbed steadily higher. While the groaning wagon bumped along over a winding, slippery trail, Shanaco and Maggie talked and laughed and sang and enjoyed the outing. They were still in great high spirits when, at midafternoon, the heavy wagon became too much of a burden for the tired, winded horses.

  “We need to lighten the load to get over that next ridge,” Shanaco said. “Think you can walk for a mile or two?”

  “Certainly,” Maggie said with a smile. “I need to stretch my legs anyhow.”

  She laughed merrily as Shanaco plucked her off the high seat, gave her a quick kiss and set her on her feet. Pistol had already shot down off the wagon and raced ahead, tail wagging.

  Shanaco took hold of the horses’ bridles and coaxed them up to the next plateau. They walked for an hour, taking it slow and easy, then climbed back onto the wagon. It was not the last time the couple had to get off and walk, but they didn’t mind.

  When the sun that had shone brightly all day began to sink slowly toward the western mountain peaks, they reached the ranch. Rounding a corner in a high, wide valley, Shanaco pulled up on the reins and brought the wagon to a standstill.

  And Maggie got her first glimpse of the ranch house. Set against a tumbled wall of rock that soared directly behind it, the small frame house was barely visible through the stands of cedar and juniper and pines.

  Maggie was craning to get a better look when she became aware of a muted roar. She turned and gave Shanaco a questioning look. He laughed and inclined his head, directing her attention to the rush of gleaming water spilling down the rocky hillside and into a wide clear pool not a hundred yards from the house.

  Even now in the dead of winter this remote high-meadow ranch was awesomely beautiful. Maggie looked forward to the cold, snowy nights inside before a blazing fire. And she could well imagine the lush green valley in the summertime when the two of them could swim in the crystalline pool.

  “Shanaco, this place is breathtaking,” she said. “You never told me. I had no idea.” Her face aglow, she started to jump down and hurry to the house.

  Shanaco, suddenly frowning, put a hand on her arm and stopped her.

  “Wait, Maggie,” he said sharply.

  “Why? What is it?”

  “You stay here,” he said, and swung down from the wagon seat.

  “No, I’m coming with you,” she said, grabbing his shirtsleeve.

  “Very well,” he said, lifting her to the ground, “but stay behind me.”

  She nodded. Shanaco reached beneath the seat for his loaded revolver, then pointed a finger at Pistol, signaling the wolfhound to keep silent. As they quietly approached the house, Maggie saw that the front door was open.

  “Is somebody…?”

  “Shhh,” Shanaco warned.

  They reached the porch and climbed the front steps. Gun raised, Shanaco again warned Maggie to stay outside. She obeyed. He went inside. After a long minute Maggie heard him curse. She hurried in, looked around and her hand went to her mouth.

  The house had been vandalized. All the furniture was overturned and smashed. The mattress had been dragged out of the bedroom, dumped before the fire-place and slashed. Feathers covered the floor. Pottery was broken and scattered about. Books had been pulled from bookcases, the pages torn out. The windows were shattered.

  And those responsible for the destruction had left their calling card.

  “Stay away, Injun!” was scrawled on the walls in black paint.

  Shanaco laid the revolver on the nearby mantel and exhaled heavily. “I should never have brought you here,” he said through thinned lips, his face taut with anger.

  Maggie saw the hurt in his eyes and her heart ached for him. She stepped forward and put her arms around him.

  “Darling, don’t say that.”

  “It’s the truth, Maggie. You don’t belong here. I should have had better sense than to bring you here.”

  “Shanaco, this is where I want to be. Right here with you. We’ll get this mess cleaned up in no time,” she said as if the destruction was nothing more than a trivial irritation. “We’ll start over with the things we bought in Santa Fe. After all, we have the rocking chair. What else do we really need?” She teased, attempting to lighten his mood.

  It didn’t work.

  His handsome face was a mask of controlled fury and she could feel the coiled tension in his lean body as she stood against him.

  “Please, don’t let this upset you,” she said. “It doesn’t matter, darling. I love you and I don’t need anyone else. We don’t need anyone else, just each other.”

  She paused and held her breath, waiting for him to speak. He said nothing. Nor did his arms lift and reassuringly come around her. Desperate, she pressed her cheek against his chest and felt the fierce hammering of his heart.

  She said softly, “Darling, together we’ll make our home here.”

  “It’s no good, Maggie.” Shanaco finally spoke and he sounded tired, defeated. “I’ve been selfish and irresponsible and I’m sorry. You deserve more than a lonely life of being shunned because you are a half-breed’s wife. I’m taking you back to—”

  Interrupting, Maggie said heatedly, “You’re taking me nowhere! Have you so little faith in me? Do you really suppose that this minor incident could scare me away? Don’t you know me better than that? Shame on you for doubting me! Why, I’m the woman who knocked a big armed trooper unconscious with a baseball bat and then dragged you to my place, remember?”

  “I’ve forgotten nothing, Maggie. And I’ve never questioned your courage or determination. But this—”he made a sweeping gesture of the wrecked room and the telltale message written on the wall “—is what you’re in for if you stay with me. It’s too much to ask. I can’t put you through this and—”

  Interrupting again, Maggie said, “Remember the evening back in Santa Fe when we got all dressed up and went to dinner downstairs at La Fonda?” Shanaco nodded. “That night you said to me, ‘Ask me to do anything but stop loving you.’ I feel the same way, Shanaco. So don’t ask me to live without you. I could no more stop loving you than I could stop breathing. I don’t want to stop loving you and you can’t make me. So there!” Her eyes flashed with the exclamation and she saw the corners of Shanaco’s tight lips begin to lift ever so slightly.

  So she laughed and was tremendously relieved when he laughed with her.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and finally put his arms around her.

  “Now, that’s settled and we’ll not speak of it again. So why don’t you go on out and tend the horses while I start cleaning up.”

  “On my way.” He released her and crossed to the door. He stopped there, turned back, looked at her with all his love and admiration shining in his eyes. He shook his head and said, “Baby, how did I ever get so lucky?”

  “Luck had nothing to do with it,” Maggie said with a mischievous smile.

  “No?”

  “No. I decided—that first time you kissed me—that you were going to be mine.”

  Forty-One

  Colonel Norman S. Harkins was furious.

  The portly commandant, having returned from the inspection tour with General Sherman, had been back at Fort Sill for only an hour.

  But it had been the longest hour of his life.

  He wished that he had never returned. Wished he was still out on the frontier, blissfully ignorant of what had happened here in his absence. Wished that he could go to sleep and wake up to find it had all been a bad dream.

  A
lone now in his office, the colonel gritted his teeth until his fleshy jaws ached. His weeping daughter’s shocking disclosure kept ringing in his ears no matter how much he tried to silence it. He shook his head sorrowfully. It was his fault—he was responsible. He should never have allowed his young, beautiful daughter to visit him at this frontier fort. He had to have been out of his mind to suppose that Lois would be safe with wild Indians living within a stone’s throw of their quarters.

  Colonel Harkins leaned up to the desk and put his face in his hands. Again and again he had relived those first few horrible moments when he’d arrived back at the fort. Tired and dusty from the trail, he had gone directly to his residence. There he’d been met at the door by Margaret Tullison, the trooper’s wife who had promised to look after Lois. Mrs. Tullison had, upon seeing him, burst into tears, put her hand over her mouth and frantically gestured in the direction of Lois’s bedroom.

  His heart had started to pound painfully when he found Lois, looking pale and wan, still in bed although it was midafternoon. On seeing him, she too had immediately burst into tears. When she’d calmed a little, Lois told him—the words coming out in a rush—that the half-breed Shanaco had brutally raped her.

  Then, sobbing and coughing as he put comforting arms around her, Lois related the appalling facts of the brutal assault in vivid detail. She had painted a picture he could not put from his mind. He kept envisioning the dirty, drunken Comanche half-breed forcing the terrified Lois to do unspeakable things, threatening her life if she refused.

  Now, alone here in his office, the colonel swore, “I’ll kill him. I’ll have him hunted down and shot like the mad dog he is, Indian chief or no! I’ll have his head on a platter, by God! I’ll see to it that the red bastard never harms another helpless female! I’ll…”

  A knock on the door startled him. Colonel Harkins looked up as the sergeant major said, “Sir, the company clerk requests permission to see you.”

  “What the hell does he want?” a scowling Harkins replied.

  “Says it’s confidential, sir.”

  Harkins exhaled heavily. “Send him in.”

  The company clerk marched into the office. “Colonel Harkins, I have the sad duty to report the death of Major Miles Courteen.”

  “No! Miles dead?” Harkins repeated in stunned disbelief. “Jesus God, what next? Miles can’t be dead, he…he…” His words trailed away and his flushed face turned ashen at this latest blow.

  “Sadly it is true, sir. The major died of pernicious pneumonia minutes ago,” said the company clerk. “I was at his side when the end came.” He leaned across the desk and handed Harkins a sheaf of papers stuck inside a maroon file folder. “Major Courteen’s dying orders were to ‘deliver this file to Colonel Harkins and to no one else.”’

  Harkins nodded and dismissed him. The company clerk turned and left. Colonel Harkins placed the file on his desk, wondering what sensitive information could be in the file that it was to be delivered to the commanding officer and no one else.

  He tugged at the string binding and had the folder open, but closed it without reading a word when the sergeant major announced Double Jimmy’s presence.

  “Colonel, I just returned and thought I’d stop by to…” Double Jimmy began, and was immediately waved to silence by a grim-faced Harkins.

  “Sit down!” the colonel barked, and Double Jimmy dropped down into a chair.

  As Harkins pounded his desk to punctuate every sentence, his voice cracked as he related Shanaco’s vicious attack on Lois and of the half-breed’s subsequent escape. Double Jimmy’s eyes widened with shock. He listened respectfully as the livid colonel exploded, swearing loudly. But Double Jimmy didn’t believe for a minute that Shanaco had harmed Lois Harkins.

  Harkins ranted and raved, his face growing redder by the minute. Finally concluding, he said, “By God, I hope you’re satisfied now! You and all your Indian-loving bureau employees, always taking up for the savages, always preaching that they are human beings, too, and should be treated with respect! Attempting to civilize them, for God’s sake! See what you get for your misplaced trust! I’ll tell you what you get, a beautiful young girl’s life ruined! My sweet, innocent daughter violated by that animal!”

  “Colonel, I am terribly sorry to hear that—”

  “I don’t want your sympathy, Double Jimmy! I want action! You’re the Indian agent and responsible for those red-skinned devils! Go on, ride out of here right now. Find that Comanche and bring him to me.”

  “Colonel, be reasonable. I told you, I just got back a half hour ago and—”

  “I don’t give a damn!” thundered Harkins. “You know his haunts. Go after that half-breed and don’t come back until you’ve caught him.”

  Double Jimmy stared at the fuming Harkins. There was no reasoning with him. The colonel was far too upset to listen. And the last thing Harkins would want to hear was that there was little chance of apprehending Shanaco. Even less of bringing him back to the fort to face punishment.

  “Why are you continuing to sit there?” boomed Harkins. “There’s daylight left and you’re wasting it. I want that Comanche beast delivered to me, do you hear?”

  Double Jimmy didn’t argue. He rose to his feet and left the office with the angry Harkins shouting after him.

  Colonel Harkins finally fell silent, sighed wearily and leaned back in his chair. He sat there quietly for several long minutes. Then finally the maroon file folder caught his attention. He had little interest in what it contained, but it was something Major Courteen thought important enough for his eyes only.

  Harkins began to read.

  His eyes widened and his jaw went slack. He read the entire file, then read it again. He closed the folder. Jaw now clamped down tight, the colonel sat in stunned silence for a long moment.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose, pushed his chair back and rose to his feet. He turned to the bookcase behind his desk. A number of legal reference books were shelved there. Harkins glanced through the volumes and took down one of the books. A heavy, blood-red, leather-bound book: Steven V. Benet’s Military Law and Courts-Martial.

  He placed the leather-bound book on his desk but did not open it.

  His hand lying atop the book’s smooth leather, he summoned the sergeant major into his office and with a sad face said, “Send the company clerk for Double Jimmy.”

  Forty-Two

  The first night Shanaco and Maggie spent at the ranch was a happy one. Since dusk was rapidly descending, they decided to wait until morning to start putting the wreckage right. They had all that was necessary. Fire for warmth, food for supper and bedding to sleep on.

  Shanaco gathered wood and built a fire in the grate. The vandals had helped themselves to the stacks of cord wood he had laboriously cut last summer. He collected loose limbs and kindling while Maggie covered the broken windows with strips of the ruined sheets and blankets.

  Once the windows were covered and a bright fire blazed in the stone fireplace, they went out to the loaded wagon. Shivering, Maggie pointed out the valises and packages containing items they would most need for the night. Everything else could stay on the wagon and be unpacked later.

  “That about do it, sweetheart?” Shanaco asked when he was loaded down, his arms full.

  “Mmm. Just one last thing,” Maggie said as she plucked another package from the wagon and placed it atop those he held. “It’s fragile, so be careful,” she warned.

  By nine that night all of the boxes had been opened, the needed articles unpacked and their chores finished.

  Time to relax.

  They sat cross-legged on a new, soft downy counterpane spread out on the floor in front of the fire. They laughed and talked as they dined on food that had been packed in a large picnic hamper by La Fonda’s hotel kitchen staff. Salted nuts and cheddar cheese and smoked ham and deviled eggs and French bread and fresh fruit and chocolate cake. To wash it all down, they drank chilled wine from the delicate long-stemmed glasses that Maggie
had carefully unwrapped.

  Enjoying the feast, they talked about their immediate plans for restoring the house. Shanaco assured Maggie he was a pretty fair carpenter. He could repair at least some of the broken furniture and then in a couple of weeks they could go back to Santa Fe and buy a whole houseful of new things.

  Soon Maggie was half-tipsy from the wine. She sighed contentedly as she listened to Shanaco speak of his long-term plans to stock the ranch with pure-bred cattle and blooded horses. He promised that once they got the ranch operating, they would build a fine home, big enough for a growing family.

  They talked and planned and dreamed. And finally when all the chocolate cake was gone and the wine-glasses were empty and they were warm and mellow and half-sleepy, they smiled at each other and started moving dishes out of the way. Shanaco built up the fire while Maggie began undressing.

  When both were bare, they knelt together before the blazing fire, kissing and vowing their undying love. Soon they stretched out on the feathery counterpane and continued to kiss. Lazy but oh so in love, they made sweet, languid love in the firelight.

  Shanaco awakened with the sun.

  He opened his eyes, slowly turned his head and gazed at the beautiful flame-haired woman asleep in his arms. He felt his heart constrict in his bare chest. He loved her more than life, but he had done her a terrible injustice by marrying her and bringing her here. She would have no friends. She would be shunned. She would be lonely and unhappy. She would come to hate him for what he’d done to her.

  His brow furrowed and his eyes clouded with concern. She would stop loving him. She would leave him one day and break his heart. And he couldn’t blame her if she did.

  Shanaco shuddered when Maggie snuggled closer, pressing her bare, soft body against his. And then his heart swelled with happiness when, without even opening her eyes, Maggie murmured sleepily, “Love me even half as much as I love you?”