Trent saw that Olin was right. Starting up a fast tune on his fiddle, he was soon joined by David, and they all seemed to come out of the spell under which Zeke had held them.
Abbie stared out into the darkness where Zeke had walked, her young heart crying out for him. She knew he felt extra lonely that night. He was a man torn by the loss of his loved ones, and torn between two worlds, belonging to neither. She started after him, but Olin grabbed her arm.
“Don’t you be goin’ out there!” he whispered. “Not tonight! You stay away from him tonight!”
Abbie jerked away. “I’m going!” she replied determinedly. “And nobody is going to stop me!” She was in tears by then, and she ran off into the darkness. Olin let her go, not wanting to make a scene that would cause harmful talk about Abbie. He shook his head dejectedly.
Five
“Zeke?” Abbie could see his outline in the distance, a tall, dark shadow in the moonlight. She boldly approached him, not caring if it was right to be there, only caring that he’d left the dancing and singing with some terrible memory weighing on his mind. He said nothing when she came closer, and she swallowed, not sure what to say or do and now needing an excuse for being there. “I’m … sorry … about your wife,” she spoke up. “I wish there was something I could—”
“What are you doing out here?” he asked in a gruff whisper.
“I… I didn’t want you to feel so … alone,” she replied.
He stepped closer, and her heart pounded with fright and desire when he suddenly reached out and grasped her hair tightly in his hands, working it through his fingers and breathing hard. She could smell whiskey on his breath, but she stood fast and refused to scream or run.
“Her name was… Ellen,” he told her softly, still grasping her hair. She could feel him trembling, and her own heart pounded so hard she was sure he could tell.
“That’s a pretty name,” she replied.
He moved his hands to the sides of her face. “So is Abigail,” he whispered. He moved his hands to her shoulders. “You shouldn’t be out here. How many times does somebody have to tell you something?” He put one hand to the back of her head and grasped her hair again, boldly moving his other hand down over her breast. “Maybe you ought to remind yourself that I’m half savage!” he hissed.
Abbie swallowed.
“You’re a liar,” she said calmly. “Maybe in a fight you can be a savage, but not with a woman, and especially not with a half-grown woman who’s never been with a man. If you think you’re scaring me, Cheyenne Zeke, it isn’t working. You can stand here and strip me and throw me down if you want, but I wouldn’t be afraid, because I don’t really think you want to do something that would make me hate you. The trouble is, I couldn’t hate you anyway.” She blinked back tears. “Even if you used all that strength against me like you’re thinking in the back of your mind, I couldn’t hate you. I came out here with good intentions, out of my concern for you. But if you want to violate me, then you go ahead! But I won’t scream, because I’m not going to be the cause of those people in camp hanging you! I care about you too much, and I think you care about me!”
He moved his other hand back to her hair, grasping it so tightly this time that it hurt.
“Damn you! Damn you!” he whispered. “I’ve got no use for you, Abigail Trent, understand? No use, except to maybe take advantage of your youthful stupidity in thinking I care about you! I ought to do just what you said—throw you down and get my piece of you and break you in like you’re asking for by coming out here alone! I expect you’d feel right good to a man, being a virgin and all! Yes, ma’am, right good!”
She stood there stiffly, afraid and angry and in love all at the same time.
“But it wouldn’t mean anything!” he added. “You’re nothing to me! When are you going to understand that? I try to keep away from you. All these weeks we’ve been on the trail we’ve hardly spoken. And do you know why? Because I’m sick and tired of you looking all moon-eyed at me every time I’m around! You hear? Sick of it! You’re just a stupid kid with big dreams about a man you don’t know anything about—a man who takes his pleasures with women, not wet-eyed little girls!” He gave her a push. “Get on back to your wagon!”
Abbie clenched her fists, forcing herself not to cry. “I don’t believe anything you say!” she told him flatly. “You’re making it up! Why is it so important for you to hurt me? You don’t mean it! I know you don’t!”
He grasped her arms and shook her. “Hurting you this way is a whole lot better than seeing you get hurt like you would if you were Cheyenne Zeke’s woman! I’ve seen that kind of hurt, Abbie! In the worst way! Terrible! Ugly and terrible! You don’t understand how some people think about Indians—and about half-breeds even worse!”
“I’m strong, Zeke! I can take a lot! You even said that yourself when you were talking about the stones. And it was you standing next to me in that vision, wasn’t it? It was you, and that’s what you’re fighting now. We’re meant to be together!”
He grasped her face tightly between his hands, squeezing it and speaking in a low hiss. “No! It was not me! You get those ideas out of your head!”
“I know I’m right!” she answered stubbornly. “You say this kind of hurt is better than the kind of hurt I’d suffer if I was your woman! But I’m telling you right now that this kind of hurt—not being able to hope you’ll even think of me as a woman, not being able to … to love you—is a hundred times worse than any harm that could come to me from being your woman!”
“You don’t know the first thing about what you’re saying!”
“Don’t I? Then why don’t you explain it to me?” She grasped his powerful wrists with her hands. “Help me understand what it is about your past that makes you shun me just because I look like your wife!” Her tears started to come then. “Help me understand!”
Some of the anger left his eyes, and his grip on her lightened. “No,” he whispered. His face was so close to hers that her whole body felt on fire. “If I told you everything, you’d just feel sorry for me, because that’s how that little heart of yours works. It would just make your silly feelings even stronger. It’s best you don’t know it all. And it’s best you hitch up with some nice young man and live a normal life. You’re too pretty and too sweet for insults and abuse—just like Ellen was. I thought once, when I was younger, that I could make it work, but I can’t. That’s why I live with the Cheyenne now.”
“But I could live with the Cheyenne … by your side!” she replied hopefully. He snickered scornfully.
“Don’t be a fool!” he groaned.
“But I could! I wouldn’t mind!”
He stared at her quietly, his eyes glittering in the moonlight. She could see the outline of his mouth, its lips tempting, not too wide or too narrow, sharply outlined against his handsome face.
“You could never live that way,” he said softly. “You weren’t born to it.”
“I can learn! I’m strong!”
“Abbie, Abbie!” he moaned. “Your youth makes you think you can do anything.”
“I can! For you, I can! I love you, Cheyenne Zeke! Surely you know that! All these weeks I’ve been watching you, loving you more all the time.” Tears streamed down her face now. “I love you.”
He closed his eyes and sighed. “Don’t say that, Abbie.”
“But it’s true! Your keeping yourself from me hurts much more than anything else could! And—”
Her words were cut off when he suddenly pressed his mouth to hers, and for the rest of her life she would not forget that first kiss, not from a boy, but from a man. He groaned and forced her lips apart, and her body burned with strange new feelings she did not totally understand. He pulled her tight against him, and she let him, loving the feeling of her breasts pressed against his broad, strong chest. She could feel his hardness through her skirts and her body melted against his. For the next few seconds she was lost in him, under his control, returning the kiss as best she
could for all her innocence, glorying in the fact that Cheyenne Zeke wanted her.
His lips left her mouth and moved across her cheek to her neck, and he held her close. It was then she felt a wetness on her neck, and she knew it was his tears.
“That was just good-bye, Abbie girl,” he told her quietly. “We both needed that kiss. But there can’t ever be anything more than that between us. And if you really love me, you’ll keep away from me after tonight and not talk anymore about it. Please, Abbie.”
“But I love you!” she gasped, keeping her arms tight around his neck. “And you love me! I know it! I know it!”
“Sometimes love isn’t enough,” he replied. “I’ve already learned that very hard lesson, Abbie girl.” He forced her away from him. “Besides, maybe it’s just the whiskey and me remembering my wife. Go on back, Abbie.”
“No.” she sobbed.
“Go on! Please!” His voice was expressing anger again. “Go back, Abbie. I’m just feeling my whiskey. I don’t love you, you hear? I don’t love you!”
“I don’t believe—”
“Believe it! And stay away from me! I’m not about to let history repeat itself. Now get yourself back to camp and send Yellow Grass out here! I’ll be needing my woman tonight!”
The remark pierced her like a sword, and she bristled, wishing she were big enough to hit him.
“Go ahead!” she spat out. “A man can relieve his frustrations whenever he chooses, can’t he? That’s just fine! But a woman—a proper woman—is expected to suffer! I can just go back and go crazy thinking about you with her!”
“I’m doing you a favor, little girl! It’s you I’m considering when I tell you to stay away, so go on with you!”
She choked on a sob, and they were interrupted by Olin’s voice. “Zeke?”
“Over here!” Zeke replied, still glaring at Abbie. Olin came closer and looked from Zeke to Abbie, and back to Zeke.
“I hope this ain’t—”
“It’s nothing!” Zeke snapped. “Miss Trent was just going back to her wagon! What is it you want, Olin?”
“Yellow Grass. I can’t find her nowhere, nor the preacher. Thought maybe we should check things out.”
Zeke tore his eyes from Abbie. “That bastard!” he hissed. “I’ll wager he’s got her someplace! Help me look!” Olin nodded and hurried off, while Zeke grasped Abbie’s arm and gave her a gentle push. “Get on back … and forget tonight ever happened, understand?”
“But—”
“Get!” he growled. He hurried off, and she stood there shaking and crying, his kiss still burning her lips and her body still hot and trembling. She walked back, every bone and muscle aching for him. Deep inside she felt an agonizing longing to have Cheyenne Zeke for herself. She reached camp just as the music stopped because of Bentley Kelsoe’s shout.
“My God, he’s killing the preacher!”
Everyone began running in the direction of the man’s voice, Abbie with them, and not far from camp they could see Yellow Grass lying on the ground, naked, her hands tied behind her. She was whimpering and crawling out of the way, as Zeke fists and feet landed into the preacher who, under the light of Kelsoe’s torch, could be seen to be wearing nothing but his underwear. Abbie saw Olin coming, and she ran to him, tugging on his clothes.
“You’ve got to stop him, Olin!” she pleaded.
“Yes, stop this!” Kelsoe added. “It’s no match! He’ll kill the preacher!”
Olin just stood there with vengeance in his own eyes. “It wasn’t no match between the preacher and that Indian girl, neither,” he snarled. “She wouldn’t lay for him without him forcin’ her! She belongs to Zeke, and she wouldn’t let nobody else touch her now!”
“Hypocrite!” Zeke roared, slamming his fist into the preacher’s already bloodied face. Women gasped and turned away, and Abbie ran over and picked up Yellow Grass’s buckskin dress, laying it over her so no one could look upon her. Then she ran back to Olin, tears of fear on her face.
“Please stop him!” she pleaded again. “You’re the one who talked to me about how whites feel about half-breeds! If Zeke kills that preacher, we don’t know how the others will take it! They might want to hang him! Please stop him! Please!”
Olin looked down at her and nodded. “If it had been a white girl that the preacher molested, everybody would let Zeke kill him and think nothin’ of it. But it was an Indian woman, who don’t count for nothin’ in their eyes. Are you beginnin’ to understand things better now?”
She hung her head, while the others watched the fight, but not a man there was brave enough to try to stop Cheyenne Zeke. Zeke pulled out a knife, and women screamed and children began to cry. Abbie thought about what Olin had said Zeke could do with a knife, but just then Olin jumped in, grabbing Zeke from behind, probably the only man who would dare to interfere with Cheyenne Zeke when he was in a fight. The unexpected grab caused Zeke to fall, and the two of them rolled and struggled on the ground, while the preacher lay unconscious nearby.
“That’s enough, Zeke!” Olin shouted. “She ain’t Ellen! She ain’t Ellen!”
Zeke raised up and shook the big, burly Olin Wales off his back as though he were just a bug; then he whirled and faced the man with his knife.
“Since when do you move in on another man’s fight?” he snarled, waving the knife. Everyone stood frozen, certain that Zeke was going to use the blade on his own friend. He was full of whiskey and not thinking straight, and Olin knew there was more than just the preacher on his mind.
“He’s learned his lesson!” Olin shot back. “There’s women and children present! You want little Mary to see you gut out a man? Is that what you want?”
Zeke circled the man menacingly.
“Go ahead and use your knife!” Olin growled. “God knows I can’t beat you in no knife fight! Use it on me and show these people that what they’re thinkin’ about half-breeds is true! Show little Mary! Show them all! You want to cut up a man who’s tryin’ to take your life, that’s one thing. But I ain’t pullin’ no knife on you, my friend, and that preacher there ain’t in much shape to do no more harm. Yellow Grass ain’t Ellen, Zeke. And she’s okay. You gonna kill me just ’cause I try to stop you from doin’ somethin’ stupid?”
Zeke’s body relaxed some. Then he glanced over at the preacher and around at the others. He straightened and slowly put back the knife. Then looking over at the frightened Yellow Grass, he said something to her in her own tongue, and she hung her head when she replied through tears. Zeke turned to the others.
“The preacher led her out here by confusing her with smiles and gestures,” he told them, “as though he had something to show her. She’s ignorant and trusting. When he got her out here he bent her arms back and forced her down through pain! That’s the kind of Christian your preacher is!” he snarled. “She stayed quiet while he stripped her and relieved his filthy, lustful needs with her! She kept quiet because she was afraid he’d tell everyone she was loose—that she induced him to come out here with her! In the Indian world, when a man’s woman is loose, he has the right to disfigure her face or cast her out—or both. She didn’t want to shame me! Until I deliver her to her people, she belongs to me!”
“And would you have … uh … disfigured her -if it had turned out that way?” Connely asked snidely.
Zeke glared at the man. “I’m not even going to answer that! All of you can believe what you want, because it’s in your grain to always suspect the worst from Indians and half-breeds! I’ve never hurt a woman in my life, but I wouldn’t expect you to believe that!”
“Zeke,” Trent spoke up. “Don’t hold it against all of us. We appreciate what you’ve done so far—especially with little Mary. You’re the reason for our celebration tonight. Without you, there’d be a small grave on this trail. We apologize for the preacher. He had no right hurting Yellow Grass. Please tell her that.”
Zeke’s breathing calmed, and he brushed dirt from his clothes. “Sure,” he replied disgust
edly.
“Zeke, we know the preacher did wrong. But we couldn’t let you just murder him,” Kelsoe spoke up. “We just don’t settle things that way. I hope you don’t let what’s happened cause you to quit on us.”
He looked around at all of them with angry eyes and replied sarcastically. “I won’t quit on you,” he growled. “An Indian keeps his word!” He walked over to Yellow Grass and picked her up in his arms. She put her head on his shoulder and cried, and he said something to her softly and walked off with her. At that moment, Abbie knew that the woman would be the victim of Cheyenne Zeke’s savage fury and his manly needs that night. And she wished she were Yellow Grass.
The next morning found everyone involved in the bustling preparation to move on, anxious now to make up for lost time. Some of the men didn’t feel too well after a night of too much whiskey and dancing, including Jason Trent. LeeAnn floated through breakfast, actually offering to help, lost in her own world of happiness over the wonderful night she had had with Quentin Robards. It dawned on Abbie only then that LeeAnn and Robards had not been around for most of the dancing and singing, nor during the fight between Zeke and the preacher. She forced from her mind the terrible hurt she’d felt when she’d pictured Zeke with Yellow Grass the night before, but jealousy burned at her insides when he finally showed up in camp astride the big Appaloosa with Yellow Grass, looking very happy and sitting straddled behind him, her arms about his waist.
Zeke rode straight up to Abbie, his face showing no emotion. “Morning, Miss Trent,” he said rather formally. Their eyes held a moment, and she blushed from the memory of the night before thinking of his lips on hers and his hand touching her breast. It was all like a dream now; yet it was true, and her jealousy burned scorchingly. She could not bring herself to smile or even reply. She just glared back at him with tearing eyes. Zeke slid down off his horse, then reached up and lifted Yellow Grass down.
“Mind if Yellow Grass continues to stay in your camp?” he asked. “I don’t trust the others to be kind to her. I know you will.”
Sweet Prairie Passion (Savage Destiny) Page 10