Untamed

by Sharon Ihle

  The Cheyenne nodded solemnly. "I remember your troubles with Tangle Hair and understand why you do not wish to accept Owl Face as your wife. Perhaps you would be more pleased if I found a white woman for you this time, someone from your father's people?"

  Daniel burst out laughing. "That's one hell of a fine idea, brother. I'm sure that any self-respecting white woman would beg you for the chance to come live with a half-breed like me and his two motherless sons, especially in the middle of an Indian Reservation. Yessir, you'd probably have to beat them off with a war club."

  Again he laughed, sure that Long Belly would see the folly of such an idea and join in. He didn't. Instead the Cheyenne took a long, hard look at Daniel, then flashed a stoical smile and headed out the door, slop pall in hand.

  "Long Belly?" Daniel called after him. "I'm kidding, you know. You do know that, right?"

  No response save the whistle of the wind.

  "Long Belly? When I'm ready for another wife, I'll round her up myself, dammit." Daniel cocked his ear toward the silence. "You hear me, Long Belly?"

  * * *

  Seventy miles north and two days later, Josie finished folding the laundry for the night and headed for the kitchen to make a sandwich or herself before the evening crowd began to arrive. As she mad her way down the stairs, she pondered her situation and the likelihood that it would change for the worse once Lola got back from burying her mother in Denver.

  It wasn't exactly Josie's idea of freedom, this business of scrubbing the soiled sheets and bedclothes of fancy women and their customers. Then again, it wasn't as insufferable as taking endless orders from an overbearing stepfather or cleaning up the dirty diapers of his progeny. In addition, she'd managed to learn a few more things about the goings-on between men and women, up to and including a peek at a couple in the throes of the hurdy-gurdy. Enough of a glimpse, anyway, to convince Josie that staying a virgin was the correct choice.

  Best of all, no one at Lola's seemed to think she ought to step into the kitchen and fix them some grub. If she never again had to face a slab of raw beef or crack another egg over a sizzling skillet, Josie figured it'd still be too soon.

  The problems would begin when Lola returned and insisted that she move into one of the upstairs bedrooms to start earning her keep in earnest. Josie had hoped that day wouldn't come before she was good and ready to light out on her own—a day that would be long in coming if she didn't find some financial backing or a partner, and soon. She'd been at the pleasure palace just short of two weeks now, time enough to earn her keep and a few toiletries, but precious little else. So far the upstairs ladies had been good about lending her the essentials, especially Sissy, a dark-skinned girl of undetermined origins who had lent her a clean dress and a frilly, if slightly immodest, nightgown. Nice, but Josie would just as soon have had a tough pair of denims and a thick flannel shirt. What she needed even more than clothing was money.

  Fretting over ways of getting her hands on some cash without dirtying them in the bargain, she made her way down the stairs and turned on the landing to head for the kitchen. About that same time the front door to the pleasure palace suddenly banged open and in strode a wild Indian.

  The savage was wrapped in a great buffalo robe and wore a bright red scarf around his throat. His shiny black hair hung down across his chest in braids, and a pair of eagle feathers flopped about from their anchor at the back of his head. Light from Lola's gaudy red chandelier reflected bloody beams across his high cheekbones, painting his cinnamon skin with eerie stripes of glittering war paint.

  Terror-struck as memories of her family's fateful journey out West washed over her, Josie froze on the bottom step of the staircase, one white-knuckled hand clasped to the balustrade, the other fisted and shoved into her mouth. Everything seemed to stand still or move at one-tenth its normal speed. Time, the way the Indian moved, even his words, which sounded as if they were spoken through a tunnel of mud, all came to her with agonizing slowness.

  "I come to buy a woman," said the savage, slapping a few coins on the counter. "I am told you sell them."

  Marabelle Pickle, an aging whore who was Lola's first in command during her absence, looked up at her visitor in surprise, not with the terror Josie felt.

  "That's right, injun," she said saucily. "But we ain't allowed to do no business with your kind. You'd best skedaddle on out of here."

  After the Indian tossed a couple more coins on the counter, he whipped an axe out of his robe and buried it in the desk top. Marabelle shrieked as the weapon cracked into the cheap pine. When she looked up at the savage again, the proper terror shone in her eyes as she said, "C-course, if you insist..."

  ``I do." The Indian glanced around the room, which was deserted except for Josie, and settled his gaze on her. "Why does this woman have a spotted face? Is she sick?"

  Marabelle giggled a little. "She's the healthiest one here. Them's just freckles, injun. I reckon your kind don't get freckles."

  "Freckles?" After another long look at Josie, he turned back to Marabelle and said, "I will take her. Is this the right price?"

  The worn-out whore didn't even count the coins. She nodded rapidly, the turned to Josie and said, "Take him up to room number three, and don't give him or me no argument about it."

  Josie opened her mouth in protest. She wanted to scream, to gasp, to holler, to do something, but she couldn't speak or even think straight. In fact, she could hardly breathe. She felt as if she were a child of three again, a terrified mute watching the Indians approach the wagon train, hiding silently as they attacked and brutally murdered her father and brother.

  The Indian in the whorehouse glanced at her again. "Tell this spotted-face woman that I want her to come to me now. I will take her with me."

  "Take her with you?" Although Marabelle pretty much hated the sight of Josie and often complained that she wasn't doing her share around the place, especially upstairs, she came to her defense. "You can't take that girl out of here. We got plenty a nice rooms upstairs for you to do your business in."

  "My business with you is finished. I have paid for the spotted-face woman, and now I will take her with me." He pulled the axe out of the desk and brandished it at Marabelle. "Yes?"

  She nodded. "Yessir. Whatever you say."

  Josie screamed. At least in her mind she did. Her mouth was a perfect circle, but nothing came out of it, not even as the big brute started for her. The three-year-old child inside her trembled as he drew near, but she could do nothing to stop him as he picked her up and slung her over his shoulder. As he turned to walk away, he paused in mid-stride, his attention diverted by something at the top of the stairs.

  Sissy's voice floated down from above, as calm as always, a perfect monotone. "What do you figure on doing with her?"

  "I have bought this woman. She is mine."

  Footfalls sounded on the stairs, and the next thing Josie knew, her only friend in the world was standing right beside her. She twisted her neck and angled her head, straining to get a glimpse of Sissy. She held the awkward pose long enough to see the Indian reach out with his free hand and touch Sissy's great tumbleweed of dark brown hair. Then Josie collapsed face first against the back of his pungent robe.

  "How much for this one?" the Indian asked.

  Marabelle sputtered a moment before saying, "Ah... that one ain't for sale."

  The Indian turned so quickly that Josie's face whisked across the buffalo fur as if she were a human broom, kicking up' particles of dirt that smelled like old socks.

  "I will have her, too. How much?" the savage repeated as he strode over to the desk.

  "The usual, Marabelle," said Sissy, joining them. "It will be easier for her if I'm there, too."

  Upside down as she was, Josie couldn't actually see her friend, but she took some comfort in the sight of Sissy's purple satin slippers.

  Marabelle grumbled a little, but didn't argue. "Suit yourself, but Lola ain't gonna like it one bit. This one'll cost you five bucks,
injun."

  As the Indian counted out more coins, Sissy's purple slippers turned and started for the stairs.

  The savage stopped her in mid-stride. "We go now."

  "Go?" The slippers hesitated, and then turned. "What's he mean by that, Marabelle?"

  "He says he don't want no room here, that you got to go somewhere with him."

  A giddy sense of relief swept through Josie as those satin shoes strolled back within spitting distance.

  "Where are we going?" Sissy wanted to know.

  "To a lodge in the mountains. Come, we must go now."

  This time when the Indian turned around and started for the door, Josie's head swung out and connected with the edge of the desk. Her captor didn't stop or slow down, even though surely he realized what he'd done. She rubbed the lump at the back of her head and glanced at the floor again, hoping against all hope to find the purple slippers following her out the door.

  All Josie saw was the spot she'd missed while moping the floor this morning, a palm-sized area of dust that seemed to represent her chances of living through the night as the captive of a crazed Indian.

  It had been foolish to think for one minute that the dark-skinned prostitute would follow her and the savage. Just because Sissy was the only one in the entire place with the exception of Lola who'd shown Josie a moment's kindness, it didn't mean that she would also risk her life in the name of friendship. After all, lending a nightgown was hardly on the same level as following a crazed hostile to his lair. But that didn't stop Josie from hoping for the impossible.

  As the savage slipped out the door and into the night, he paused, apparently waiting for his second purchase to join him. After several moments passed and she still hadn't appeared, the Indian continued on his way.

  Sissy wasn't coming. Josie knew that now. She was alone, at the mercy of a brutal savage, the kind of man who'd killed most of her family, then terrorized her mother so badly that the poor woman was never the same again. Sick enough of mind anyway to wed the tyrannical Peter Baum and let him run her into the ground.

  As she thought about her mother and the despair that had never left her eyes until the day she died, Josie suddenly found the courage to fight for her freedom. And with it, she found her voice.

  Kicking her legs against her captor's grip and beating her fists on his back as hard as she could, she screamed, "Let me go, you no-account, murdering savage. You let me go this instant, or I swear—"

  The savage abruptly released her. He dropped her so fast, in fact, that Josie didn't have a chance to react or to break her fall.

  She hit the ground head-first, and then she screamed no more.

  Chapter 3

  When Josie finally came around, she didn't know where she was or what had happened to her. It was dark, suffocatingly so beneath an old blanket that stank of sour horse sweat. Despite the smelly covering, she was cold and clammy all over, and her head hurt. The frigid floor felt as if it were moving beneath her, floating. Something thumped against her right ear, followed immediately by the muffled trickle of water. She was on a boat of some kind. Then she remembered the vicious savage who'd dragged her out of the pleasure palace. Her future suddenly looked grim, as bleak as her stepfather's soul.

  Gripped with fear, Josie slowly inched her head up in hopes of catching a furtive glimpse of her captor. A rough hand immediately shoved her back down against the floor.

  "Don't move,'' came Sissy's voice in a harsh whisper. "It'll go better for us if he thinks we're sleeping."

  "Oh, praise God, you did follow me." It was a struggle, but Josie managed to keep from shouting with joy as she realized that her only friend in the world was lying right beside her. "I was afraid that you'd changed your mind, and that I'd be belly up and half rotted before anyone came looking for me."

  "I didn't exactly come looking for you." Sissy snuggled closer, sharing her body heat. "That Indian came back for me when I ran upstairs to get us a couple of dressing gowns for later."

  "Dressing gowns?" In her horror, Josie forgot to whisper. "What the hell do we want with them?"

  "Hush up. As long as the boat is moving, I figure it's best that we ain't. Once this fellah gets us where he aims to take us is soon enough to have to put up with him."

  Josie grumbled under her breath. "I'm not putting up with anything else from that savage. I'll kill myself first."

  "I don't see that we got much choice. We're somewheres out in the middle of the Tongue River. I can't swim. Can you?"

  An excellent point. Josie thought back to the fierce-looking Indian and the axe he'd buried in the desk. She shuddered, and not from the cold.

  "You put up with that savage if you want to," she whispered, "but if the posse hasn't caught up with us by the time this boat stops, I'm making an escape."

  "What posse?" Sissy uttered a muted snort. "We ain't got a prayer of having the law riding out after us, princess."

  "B-but we've been kidnapped, taken against our will by a wild Indian. The law has to come looking for us."

  "There isn't a man alive, much less one with a badge pinned to his shirt, that's gonna risk his neck chasing after a couple of whores who went missing in the night. You might as well get that idea right out of your head."

  Without pausing to think how her words might affect Sissy, Josie blurted out, `But I'm not a whore. They at least have to come looking for me, don't they?"

  Sissy took her time before answering. When she did, there wasn't a hint of mirth in her tone. "You work in a whorehouse, princess, remember? As far as everyone but you is concerned, you're just another bitch who can be bought, beaten, raped, or even killed. No one gives a damn what happens to you now. I'm not even sure that I do."

  The words stung, but they also echoed in Josie's mind throughout the long boat ride. Once they were on dry land again, the savage made sure she couldn't escape by binding her hands and flinging her fork-legged across the bony back of a mule. He then led the pack animal, with Sissy mounted behind him on his horse, on a miserable trek through the mountains. If there was any hope of escaping from this nightmare, it would have to be after they reached their destination. Josie also realized by then that she would have to come up with a plan on her own. The law wouldn't be coming to her rescue and Sissy couldn't be counted on either.

  Josie didn't know yet how she would regain her freedom, but she did know one thing—she hadn't escaped a life of bondage on the Baum farm, not to mention life as a prostitute, just to become the slave of a bloodthirsty Indian. She would be free again at the first opportunity—even if it meant hanging herself.

  At the cabin, Daniel woke up with a start. Either he'd been dreaming or he'd heard the sound of his horse trumpeting the return of his companions—Long Belly's mount and a pack mule. Against Daniel's express wishes, the animals and the stubborn Cheyenne had disappeared the morning after they'd returned from the buffalo hunt. Long Belly wouldn't tell him where he was going, but Daniel doubted that he was off on yet another pointless search for a phantom bison. It was far more likely that the fool had gone after an even more elusive quarry—a white woman willing to accompany him to a remote mountain cabin so she could care for the even bigger fool who shared his ancestry. Irritated as he was by the fact that he'd been left to fend for himself again, Daniel had to chuckle at the thought of his brother-in-law actually finding such a woman.

  He glanced out the window, figuring he still had a couple hours left before sundown, and then began to coax his useless body toward the edge of the bed. Chores that had once taken only a few minutes now took hours or even days. If he didn't drag himself out to the barn now and take care of the animals for the night, Daniel knew he'd be warming up his supper in the dark. A handicap he didn't need considering he could barely manage in full daylight.

  He'd just heaved his splinted leg over the side of the mattress, and was sitting there sweating from both pain and exertions when Daniel heard the rumble of footsteps on the porch. Too many footsteps to signify the return of one m
isguided Indian. Cursing the fact that the awkward position he'd gotten into made it impossible to reach his rifle, he grabbed the only weapon at hand—the Bowie knife he always wore strapped to his waist. About that same time the door swung open. Brandishing his knife, Daniel twisted around and saw that Long Belly stood on the threshold, framed by the sun.

  "I have returned," said the man he called brother. "I bring with me the gift I promised."

  With that startling announcement, he gave a tug and pulled someone into the cabin with him. It took a moment for Daniel's vision to adjust to the blinding afternoon sunlight, but when it did, he nearly fell off the bed in surprise.

  Not only did Long Belly have a white woman with him, she was dressed in a demure gown of lemon-yellow calico. Her russet-colored hair, sparkling with a coppery sheen where the sun kissed it, was twisted into a long braid that hung down over her shoulder. She was in the prime of life, not at all used up, and even more surprising, she wasn't what Daniel would call hard on the eyes. Mercy. How the hell had Long Belly convinced such a woman to accompany him onto an Indian Reservation?

  Almost the minute he asked himself that question, the Cheyenne dragged her further into the room. Daniel saw then that the lady's hands were clasped at her waist, tied together at the wrists by a thick ribbon of red satin. She was Long Belly's prisoner. What had the damn fool done—kidnapped a farmer's wife?

  "Go to my brother, Daniel-Two-Skins," said Long Belly, giving the woman a shove. She stumbled and nearly fell over the pile of discarded clothing Daniel had shed yesterday. "Let him look upon your spotted face."

  The woman squared her shoulders, as proud as any Cheyenne chief, and approached the foot of the bed. Too shocked to say anything yet, Daniel looked her over, noting that her eyes were a lustrous brown, the same shade as the agate hanging from the rawhide strip he wore around his neck. Even without the sun to highlight it, her hair was a rich shade of mahogany he'd never seen before, and her ivory skin was sprinkled with freckles. He also noticed that her expression wasn't nearly as enchanting as her features. Her jaw was set with hatred and a certain helpless terror pinched her mouth.