To Tame A Rebel

by Georgina Gentry

  Twilight waited a few minutes until his breathing became heavy and rhythmic. Then very slowly she slipped out from under the blanket and crept across the clearing to the horse. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” His voice thundered behind her, and he sat bolt upright.

  “I—I was going to relieve myself,” she stammered.

  “Then do so.” He glowered at her. “I should remind you, Mrs. Dumont, that sometimes a warrior’s life depends on hearing the slightest sound. You’re wasting your time trying to escape me. I trusted you to behave last time, but I won’t make that mistake again. You try to escape again, and I’ll truss you up like a hog and you’ll spend a miserable night.”

  She knew he was watching as she slipped out into the shadows and hiked up her skirts. Should she try taking off through the woods? The wind howled, and she shivered as she stood up. He was right; she had no chance of escape. With a sigh, she returned to the fire and crawled under the blanket.

  “Go to sleep,” he ordered. “We leave at first light.”

  She was so tired. She pulled the buffalo robe about her, grateful for the warmth. Her only chance was in staying with this warrior who knew how to survive in life-and-death situations.

  His breathing told her he was already asleep. She was still cold. Without meaning to, she huddled closer to his big body. After all, he’d never know she was up against him. Finally warm, she, too, dropped off to sleep.

  When she woke near dawn, she was asleep on the curve of his muscular arm, his other arm thrown across her protectively. Her first instinct was to jerk away, but she feared to wake him. Instead, she closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep. He pulled her even closer to him which set her heart hammering in fear. Finally, he awakened, pulled away from her, and got up. She lay there with her eyes shut, listening to him making coffee. Then he nudged her with one moccasin. “Hey, white girl, let’s move on.”

  Was there any way to delay him, hoping the rebels might already be on their way?

  She sat up and tried to comb her tangled hair with her fingers. “Uh, maybe you could shoot a rabbit or something,” she suggested, “so we’d have food.”

  He scowled at her. “So the sound could bring a rebel patrol down on us? I think not. Here”—he thrust some jerky at her and a tin cup of coffee—“have a few bites while I saddle the horse.”

  She grabbed the jerky and ate it greedily as the warmth of the coffee warmed her insides. “Aren’t you having any?”

  “I’m not hungry.” He picked up the saddle blanket and bridle and went to saddle the horse.

  She looked at the small bit of jerky in her hand. There wasn’t enough for two, she realized, and he had given it to her. For a split second, she felt touched at his unselfish generosity, then remembered. Unselfish? If she died, she wouldn’t be much use as a hostage. “Are you going to let my brother ransom me?”

  “Shut up and come on.” His tone was brusque. “I doubt Harvey has much except what he’s stolen from the Indians, and he might not be willing to spend it to get you back.”

  “I think Captain Wellsley would—”

  “He probably would,” Yellow Jacket snapped. “Isn’t that why you came? Your brother’s hoping to get his hands on the rich captain’s money if you marry him?”

  She felt her face burn. “That’s hardly any of your business.” She was ashamed to admit the same thought had crossed her own mind.

  The big Creek kicked dirt over the fire and packed up the camp. Then he swung up easily onto the fine horse. “Here, give me your hand.”

  She hesitated.

  “Would you rather walk?”

  At this, she hurried over to the pinto stallion and held up her hand. Yellow Jacket took it and lifted her easily to the saddle before him, then wrapped the buffalo robe around them both. She tried to stay stiff, but the warmth of his big body was so inviting on this cold morning. He put his arm around her, pulling her closer. She could feel the heat and the muscle of him, and his breath was warm against the top of her head. For a moment, she felt the electricity pass between them, and he cursed softly under his breath.

  “Damn you for causing me so much turmoil.” He nudged the horse, and they started off at a walk.

  “I’ll not run away again,” she began.

  He pulled her closer still, and she could feel the hard manhood of him through her clothing. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

  Twilight was too disturbed to answer. The way his strong arm held her against him possessively told her what he had in mind.

  Harvey was in a foul mood as he pulled the wagon up in front of the store and got down. Now why was the Closed sign up? Didn’t Twilight know he wanted every penny he could wring out of the Indians and soldiers? He took out his keys and unlocked the door, went inside. The place smelled of dust and mixed spices, but it was neat and orderly since Twilight had taken over. “Twilight? I’m back with fresh supplies. Twilight?”

  Quickly he strode through the building, calling her name. She wasn’t there. He went out the back door to the stable and began to curse. The horse and buggy were missing. “Where in the hell would she go driving in lousy weather like this?”

  Out front he heard hoofbeats and he smiled. So she was back. He’d give her a piece of his mind for closing the store. After all, she was beholden to him for taking her in. “Twilight?”

  But when he rounded the corner, what greeted him was the captain leading a patrol down the muddy street. The men looked weary, and the horses were blowing. The patrol reined in before the store. “Ah, Captain Wellsley, been on patrol, I see.”

  The officer nodded and turned to give orders to his weary men. “Patrol dismissed. Head for the stables, men. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  The other men rode away, and the captain dismounted. “Looks like, from your wagon, you just got in, too.” He smiled. “I thought I might clean up and maybe come to call on Mrs. Dumont—”

  “So you haven’t seen her, either?”

  Wellsley pushed his hat back on his light hair. “What do you mean, ‘either’? Are you telling me Mrs. Dumont is missing?”

  “Maybe she’s just gone for a drive,” Harvey said, trying to think of a reasonable explanation.

  “In this weather?” the captain asked. “How long’s she been gone?”

  Harvey scratched his bald spot. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know. Let’s ask around the settlement.”

  The captain chewed his lip. “A lady doesn’t go off unescorted. Maybe she’s visiting someone around here.”

  “She doesn’t know anyone,” Harvey said. He was growing more and more annoyed with his stepsister.

  The officer looked really worried. “I’ll get people searching.” With that, he rode away. He had been so attracted to the fragile, timid beauty, and felt very protective of her. Or maybe it was guilt, he thought with a twinge. He knew a secret that he was certain neither she nor her questionable brother knew: Twilight Dumont’s husband had been a coward and a traitor. To spare her feelings, Franklin was sure she’d been told Pierre Dumont had died a hero. In fact, he had been shot for desertion. Captain Franklin Wellsley had been in charge of the firing squad.

  Harvey began his own search. In less than an hour, he had talked to people around the settlement and found out no one had seen her in several days. In fact, the major’s wife thought she had gone with Harvey to the railyard to pick up supplies. In the meantime, Harvey had discovered supplies missing. He cursed under his breath. “What the hell could she be up to?”

  The captain rode up just then. “No one’s seen her. You don’t suppose the Indians might have taken her?” His youthful face looked horrified at the thought.

  Harvey tried to appear more sympathetic and worried than angry. “A lot of supplies are missing, and Twilight is very softhearted. I’ll wager she took some of that stuff out to those damned Injun brats she was so worried about.”

  “A soft heart is a good thing in a lady,” the captain suggested, “but she
’s too naive to realize how dangerous that can be.”

  The captain was obviously very worried. Harvey smiled to himself. Maybe he still had a chance of marrying his stepsister into this rich family. “Yes, even now she might be waiting for you to come riding to her rescue.”

  The younger man hesitated, but only for a moment. “Maybe I need to take some soldiers and go out to the Creek camp to look around.”

  “I’ll ride along. You think I need to bring a gun?”

  “By all means. You never know just what tricks those sneaky savages are liable to pull.”

  They got a patrol of soldiers and rode out to the Creek camp. Harvey was stunned by the sight that greeted them: a few abandoned tents and saddles, tools, and other heavy things. “Damn, they’ve pulled out.” He could imagine all the business he would lose now with the Creek tribe gone.

  “Well,” the captain said, “there’s no sign Mrs. Dumont was here, but the major will be upset that the Indians have left. We can’t let them reach the Yankees, where the able-bodied warriors can join up with them.”

  Harvey didn’t give much of a damn what happened to the Indians or even to the war. He dismounted and studied the ground. “Here’s buggy tracks. I reckon she’s been here.”

  The captain dismounted, too, and began to look about. Caught in a bush, a scrap of black fabric fluttered like a tiny flag. “Oh, my God, could this be . . . ?”

  Harvey grabbed the scrap and stared at it. “Mother of God,” he gasped, “it’s part of her dress. They’ve got her! The savages have got Twilight!”

  Chapter 8

  Yellow Jacket picked his way along the trail, his big body blocking the cold wind for Twilight. With his buffalo robe wrapped around her and her face against his muscular back, she was warm enough. Once he reached down and patted her hand almost gently, and she jerked away as if touched by a hot coal. When they rejoined the hundreds of weary Indians walking north and Yellow Jacket put her back up on the seat of her buggy and filled it with exhausted children, she gave them her buffalo robe to share among them.

  Yellow Jacket frowned at her. “You need that yourself.”

  “You think I’m going to let children freeze to death, never mind what color they are?”

  He almost seemed to smile. “Here, take my blanket.” He tossed it into the buggy. “Now stay with the group, Mrs. Dumont. I’ve got too much to do to chase you down again.”

  “When Captain Wellsley catches up with us, I’ll see that you pay for kidnapping me.”

  His bronze face turned stony cold. “You’d better hope he doesn’t come. The captain knows nothing about fighting Indians; he’ll get himself killed trying to play the gallant Southern gentleman.” With that, he turned and galloped up the line.

  Twilight concentrated on driving her buggy across the frozen ground as the Creeks moved north. As the hours passed, the children said nothing, only looking at her with big, sad eyes. They looked hungry and afraid, but no one cried. In spite of her own fears, her heart bled for the children. She began to sing a soothing lullaby as she drove, and when she looked back, most of them were asleep.

  Yellow Jacket rode up just then. “Well, you seem to have a way with children.”

  She shrugged. “All children are alike, no matter what color they are. This is criminal, to be dragging all these helpless people for hundreds of miles. If you’d just surrender, the Confederates would feed you.”

  “Would they, or would they wipe us out?” The big Indian frowned. “Better we should die trying to make it to Kansas and freedom than to be captives of the rebels.”

  A very pregnant woman leading two young children stumbled past the buggy. Twilight recognized the little girls as the ones from the store, Smoke’s children. She waved her hand. “Come ride with me; I can make room in my buggy.”

  The woman stopped, staring at Twilight with evident distrust, then looked to Yellow Jacket. He spoke to the woman in Muskogee and she smiled hesitantly, came over, boosted the children up into the buggy, and got in herself. Twilight smiled at her, but to Yellow Jacket she said, “This woman may be giving birth at any time. She deserves better than this.”

  “Tell that to your rebels who are trying to stop us from making it to freedom,” Yellow Jacket snapped. “The woman understands what she’s facing. If her time comes, you’ll deliver the baby.”

  Twilight was aghast. “Out here in the cold with no doctor to help me? I can’t—”

  “You’ll have to,” Yellow Jacket said. “I haven’t time to worry about one unfortunate woman. We’re nearing the river the whites call the Arkansas, and scouts have just brought word that Colonel Cooper’s troops are behind us. If we get caught up against the river before we can cross, our people will be slaughtered.” He nudged his pinto horse and galloped away.

  She was about to be caught in a bloody battle. Cannon fire wouldn’t know friend from foe, and she’d be in as much danger from the Confederates as from the Union side. Smiling at the tired Indian woman, Twilight clucked to her horse, and they started north again.

  All day they traveled, the walking Indians moving slowly, driving goats and cattle ahead of them. With the hundreds of people and all the wagons and confusion, they seemed to be making little headway, but the people stubbornly kept their faces turned into the north wind and kept trudging. Twilight shivered in spite of herself and cursed Yellow Jacket silently as she drove the buggy.

  Late in the afternoon, Twilight noticed that the pregnant woman was in evident distress. She reined in as Yellow Jacket rode past.

  “Why are you stopping?” he thundered. “If we can’t get across the river before dark, the rebels may catch up to us. We’ll be slaughtered if they trap us against the river.”

  “I think she’s going into labor,” Twilight snapped. “Where’s Smoke?”

  Yellow Jacket cursed under his breath. “What a time to have this happen. We may just have to leave her to do the best she can.”

  “No!” Twilight said. “That’s inhumane; I won’t do it.”

  “You’ve got more spirit than I gave you credit for.” Yellow Jacket smiled, almost in admiration. “But there’s a platoon of Texas troops with those other rebels, and they’d kill anyone they see, whether it’s a woman or not.”

  “I’ll just have to take that chance.” She climbed down off the buggy. “Where’s their father?”

  He gestured with his head. “Smoke? Behind us, making ready to give his life to keep those rebels from overrunning us. I’m going to join him.”

  “Can you get someone to take care of the children so I can help her?”

  Yellow Jacket sighed and yelled, gesturing to an old woman who came, took the children out of the buggy, and hustled them away. The pregnant woman called out something after them.

  “What does she say?” Twilight asked.

  Yellow Jacket shook his head. “She’s telling the old one to get the children across the river and don’t look back.”

  Her bravery overwhelmed Twilight. “Tell her we’ll stop here and I’ll help deliver her baby. Then you can go on.”

  Yellow Jacket spoke to the woman, who nodded and then looked at Twilight and said something.

  “What did she say?” Twilight took her hand and helped her from the buggy.

  “She says even though you are white, you are very brave and have a good heart.”

  Twilight didn’t feel very brave. She and this woman in labor were about to be left behind and might soon be overrun by Confederate troops who would shoot first and ask questions later. Already, Twilight heard distant gunfire echoing through the cold, barren hills. She led the woman over to a hollow out of the wind, then went back to the buggy for her medical bag. She looked up at Yellow Jacket sitting his horse. “I said you could go on. I’ll manage somehow.”

  “Mrs. Dumont,” Yellow Jacket said, “I don’t think you understand. Between those undisciplined Texas troops and the rebel Indians, you’re in danger yourself, especially after it turns dark.”

  Twil
ight looked up at the sky. It was late afternoon now. “I’m not going to abandon her. I’ll manage somehow.”

  Yellow Jacket cursed, then dismounted. “I’ll stay, too, then.”

  She frowned at him. “Are you afraid of losing your hostage?”

  He hesitated. “Yes,” he said, “that’s it. Now, stop talking and tell me how I can help.”

  She hoped the relief she felt didn’t show on her face. She wouldn’t want the big savage to know how pleased she was not to be left alone out here on this cold, hostile prairie. “Help me set up a shelter of some kind out of blankets and start us a small fire.”

  “The smell of smoke will be picked up by those rebel scouts.”

  “Are you afraid?” she challenged.

  His face was as hard as his voice. “If you were a man, I’d kill you for that insult.”

  “Then help me.”

  The woman, sitting against the trunk of a small scrub oak tree, groaned softly, and Twilight took her medical bag and strode over to her. Behind her, she heard Yellow Jacket dismount and lead the horses over to the hollow. “Maybe here in this brush, the rebels won’t spot us.”

  She looked up at him. “If they capture us, won’t they execute you?”

  He smiled without mirth. “Only if I’m lucky. Some of those rebel Creeks led by the half-breed McIntosh clan would rather torture me.”

  Twilight blinked. “And you’re still staying?”

  He nodded. “I don’t want you to fall into their hands,” he said. “They’ll do worse than kill enemy women.”

  Twilight had a sudden startling vision of mass rape and saw the fear in the other woman’s eyes. Evidently she spoke enough English to understand what danger they all faced.