Sweet Prairie Passion (Savage Destiny)

by Rosanne Bittner

  “I haven’t thought about it much,” Abbie replied quietly. “I expect I’ll stay with the Haneses. They’re nice folks. They’d keep me till I know what I’m going to do.”

  “It’s a man you’ll be needing,” LeeAnn replied, tying a bow in the lovely blond hair. “God knows that wild half-breed you have eyes for isn’t about to settle down again. Perhaps you’ll find some nice man in Oregon. And what about Bobby Jones? He’s got eyes for you, that’s a fact. Of course he isn’t rich and educated like Quentin, but he’s an honest boy and sweet. And you keep saying being rich and educated doesn’t matter to you.”

  Abbie’s heart ached so badly that she could almost cry out from the pain. Zeke! He was all she could think about! Zeke! She’d lain beneath him just hours earlier, taken him inside herself, let him make a woman of her while giving him pleasure at the same time! For one short, beautiful moment she’d been Cheyenne Zeke’s woman, and it had been everything she’d expected and more! How gentle and sweet he’d been! Yet how full of sorrow and remorse he’d been afterward. To have to treat him casually now, as though nothing had changed, would be an overwhelming task. But she had promised. She entertained the thought of ending her life the way her father had, but she discarded that idea because of the one thin thread of hope she held. As long as she was alive, and as long as Cheyenne Zeke was alive, there was a chance, especially now that he’d put his brand on her.

  She watched LeeAnn primp, finding it hard to believe that the girl had recovered so quickly and seemed so little disturbed by their father’s death. Perhaps LeeAnn was relieved. The one major obstacle to her romance with Quentin Robards was her father’s interference and disapproval. Now LeeAnn’s responsibility to her family was gone. Abbie could fend for herself. How LeeAnn had changed since meeting that smooth-talking gambler from the East!

  When they climbed out of the wagon, Quentin was waiting to take LeeAnn’s arm, and he patted her hand consolingly. Mrs. Hanes waited for Abbie.

  “I want you to put your mind completely at ease,” Mrs. Hanes told Abbie right away as they walked to the grave site. “Zeke has spoken with us and asked us to look after you. We will gladly do so, for we had already considered speaking to you about it before Zeke said a word. I just want you to know it’s with open hearts we will take you into our home once we settle in Oregon—that it was really our own idea and not because someone else asked us.”

  “Thank you very much, Mrs. Hanes,” Abbie replied. “I’ll help all I can. I can sew and cook. I know how to can food and tend a garden, make butter, milk a cow—everything.”

  Mrs. Hanes smiled and put an arm about her waist. “That’s fine, Abbie, but we aren’t taking you because we want a servant! We’ll treat you like our own.” She gave Abbie a light squeeze. “Come now. Remember you have friends in us. And try to keep in mind that your mother and brother and father are all happy now, at peace, and together with God. I prayed so hard for you last night after you ran off, child. I felt so sorry for you. I’m glad Olin found you and that you’re all right.”

  Abbie wished she could tell the woman about her love for Zeke. Surely a nice woman like Mrs. Hanes would understand. But what if she didn’t? She might change her mind about giving Abbie a home, and at the moment, the thought frightened her. Besides, she had promised Zeke to keep the secret. It might spoil everything and create a host of trouble if she opened her mouth to Mrs. Hanes, but it was so hard to keep so much love inside.

  They walked the rest of the way to the grave site, and Abbie’s chest hurt at the sight of Zeke standing there in his beautiful, white, beaded shirt. Such a handsome specimen of a man he was, standing there in the bright sunlight! Could God mold a more beautifully carved face and body? Surely not. And he’d been her first man—just hours earlier. That was all like a dream now. For she must face the reality that she could never have him for good. She must pretend what had happened earlier had not really happened at all. She tried to catch his eyes, but he would not look at her, and then Preacher Graydon began the services. His words were a blur in her mind. But she dared to glance at Zeke several more times, being careful not to stare for too long. Bradley Hanes brought her some mountain flowers to throw on top of the box before it was buried beneath the earth. When he did, it hit her full force that Jason Trent was dead, and his fiddle was forever silenced. Gone! She could see him playing the fiddle, while her mother laughed and danced and little Jeremy clapped his hands to the music. Now all three were gone! And she could not even have Zeke. She knelt down and threw the flowers onto the box. Was it her voice screaming, “Papa”? Of course it was, and yet it sounded like someone else’s—far away. The wrenching sobs came now, with the awful reality. Zeke’s vision had indeed come true! Now someone was dragging her away from the grave. Zeke stared after her, longing to comfort her himself; but the vision of his raped and bloodied wife flashed into his mind and he turned away to help the others fill in the hole that held Jason Trent.

  * * *

  Zeke waited two hours after the burial before beginning the crossing of the north fork of the Platte. He wanted to give Abbie time to feel “near” her father before leaving the spot she would probably never see again. Abbie sat alone in the wagon, preferring it that way, holding her father’s fiddle in her hands and caressing it lovingly. LeeAnn, in the meantime, was consoled by Quentin Robards in some secluded spot; and when she returned to the wagon, her face was tear-stained, but her eyes were hard and determined. By then Zeke had started the crossing, and he was busy helping the Haneses’ ford the river when LeeAnn climbed into the Trent wagon. The girl immediately began throwing clothes into a carpetbag. Abbie watched her a moment, her heart heavy, for she knew what LeeAnn intended to do.

  “You’d really leave me, LeeAnn?” she spoke up quietly, realizing she’d miss her sister more than ever, now that LeeAnn was all the family she really had. “Now? With pa gone, and Jeremy, too?”

  LeeAnn stopped packing a moment to face her sister, looking a little bit apologetic, but very sure of herself. “We’re going no farther!” she said decidedly. “Quentin and I are going back. I’m not passing up this chance, Abbie. I can’t! If I don’t go with him, he’ll go without me, for he doesn’t intend to go on to Oregon. He wants me to go with him, to be his wife. Somehow I …I’ll get word to you as to where I am. I … we’d … take you with us, but right now it would be too much of a burden for Quentin to be looking after two women and—”

  “Don’t lie to me, LeeAnn,” Abbie said disgustedly. “Quentin doesn’t give a damn about me! And you’ll find out soon enough he doesn’t give a damn about you either! He’ll use you till he gets back East, then dump you!”

  The girl’s eyes blazed, and she returned to her packing.

  “Don’t go, LeeAnn! Please!” Abbie urged. “Come to Oregon with me!”

  The girl snickered. “And do what? We’d be dirt poor. Pa didn’t leave us anything but the few belongings in this wagon. I do not intend to be a maid for somebody else when I have a man who can make me rich enough so I’m the one with a maid! I’ll not go on to a strange land and clean up other people’s messes! I never wanted to make this trip in the first place, but I had no choice. Now I have a choice. Quentin said he was going to Oregon just for the adventure, but now that he’s fallen in love with me, he wants nice things for me—and civilization. He loves me enough that he doesn’t want me subjected to any more of this barbaric life! Maybe you can live like the wolves and the bears, but I can’t. I have to have people around me, things to do, nice clothes and all. Quentin can give me those, and he loves me besides. I’m only happy when I’m with him.”

  “LeeAnn, it’s dangerous to go back all alone! Rube Givens might be out there, for one thing!”

  LeeAnn thought for a moment about telling her Rube Givens was the very man who was to meet up with them and guide them back. But if Abbie told Zeke that, Zeke would come after them for certain. That was one thing they wanted to avoid at all costs.

  “Quentin has guns and know
s how to use them,” she answered coolly, packing more items. “I’m not afraid. It isn’t that far back to Fort Laramie.”

  “Please don’t go, LeeAnn!” Abbie pleaded, now starting to cry. “Don’t you even care that I’ll be alone? How can you do this?”

  The girl smiled almost wickedly, and Abbie wondered if Quentin was giving her some kind of potion that was changing her personality. “I highly doubt you’ll be alone, Abigail,” she replied. “You have your precious half-breed, and some day you’ll have that tepee and your sixteen kids, remember?”

  The words hurt even more because of what had happened between Abbie and Zeke the night before. It was something she could have shared with her sister at one time, and she longed to share it now. A girl’s first intercourse can be a traumatic and painful experience, both physically and emotionally, but Abigail had to keep it all buried inside. LeeAnn was no longer someone with whom she could share secrets.

  “You know that can’t ever be,” she replied despondently. “I’ll have nobody, and you don’t even care!”

  LeeAnn closed the bag. “Why should I? You’ve insulted Quentin time and time again. You don’t care anything about my feelings for him, nor do you appreciate what a wonderful man he is. I love him, and I’m going back with him. That’s that! And I’m taking one of the horses. I have the right.”

  Abbie wiped at her tears. “Zeke won’t let you go!” she reminded her. “He’ll come after you!”

  The girl turned, her eyes boring into Abbie’s. “I don’t think so,” she replied with a sneer. “You’d best warn him not to make a fuss. Because if he tries to stop us, or if he comes after us and drags us back, I’ll put on the biggest show you ever saw! I’ll carry on about how he raped me farther back there on the trail—that I never said anything because I feared for my life. I’ll tell them I left with Quentin because I was afraid he’d rape me again and hold that big knife against my throat like he did the first time!”

  Abbie sat there dumbstruck, her eyes widening in disbelief.

  “I’ll do it, Abigail, believe me. I can get Zeke in all kinds of trouble. I’ll tell them the only reason he wouldn’t let us go is because he wants me for himself, that he told me he loved white girls with blond hair the best. Rube Givens already planted the idea in their heads back there at Fort Laramie that he likes white girls. He about got in trouble then, Abbie, so don’t stand in my way, because it wouldn’t take much to get him into even more trouble. He’s already a wanted man. If he stops us, I’ll make a scene like you never saw in your life, and you know I can make them all believe me. If you want to keep your half-breed out of trouble, you keep him away from us!”

  Abbie’s tears spilled down her cheeks, mostly from disappointment that her sister could be so cruel. It was obvious she meant every word.

  “Go on then,” she said in a choked voice. “I don’t know you anymore. Somewhere back on the trail the real LeeAnn got left behind. I prefer to remember you the way you used to be.”

  “That’s when I was stupid and going nowhere. Now I’ve got something—a way to live like I’ve always dreamed of living! And if it isn’t enough to tell them all that Zeke raped me, I might add that I can make something up about Zeke and you! Zeke would hate that more than anything. He’d not want you slandered. I expect he’d be almighty devastated if I made up a story about catching him and you going at it one night.”

  Abbie angrily wiped at her tears. “Well, maybe that wouldn’t be a lie!” she spit back at her sister. “And maybe I wouldn’t care if you told such a story!”

  LeeAnn’s eyebrows went up. “You mean … you’ve actually lain down for that half-breed?”

  “Not the way you make it sound! I … needed him … and he needed me. And it was special… beautiful.”

  LeeAnn chuckled. “With a man who wears buckskins and probably never washes?” She made a face. “Well, if you can pull up your skirts for a worthless, wandering Indian, then don’t be putting me down for wanting to go off with a proper gentleman like Quentin!” she said haughtily. “And it doesn’t matter that you wouldn’t care if I told. Zeke would care. So don’t make me have to make him look bad and maybe get kicked off the train or even hung!”

  Abbie turned away, picking up their father’s fiddle. “I’m glad pa isn’t here to see this or hear the way you’re talking,” she said quietly. “Good-bye, LeeAnn.”

  LeeAnn surprised her by putting a hand on her shoulder. “I’m not all that bad, Abbie. I… I do love you. But my love for Quentin is so deep, so wonderful, I just can’t let him go without me, Abbie! And I have to get away from this horrible West: the bugs, the heat, and the awful ugliness of it all—and the danger and the dust. I hate it, Abbie! I hate it out here! The only thing that kept me this long was the fear of what Zeke would do, and pa. But now pa is gone. And once Zeke sees how much trouble I could get him in, he’ll leave us alone. And I promise that somehow I’ll get in touch with you again. Perhaps you’ll even want to go back yourself some day, and you can look me up. I’ll have a fine big home by then, maybe in Chicago or St. Louis and you can live with—”

  “Just go, LeeAnn. I’ll never live under the same roof with Quentin Robards!” She felt like a stone as LeeAnn sighed disgustedly and climbed out of the wagon. Abbie could hear Robards’ voice as he helped her saddle up, calling her “darling” and “lovely one” and other silly names. In the distance she could hear whistles and curses, as Zeke helped get the Haneses’ wagon across the river. Everyone was so busy, they paid no heed to LeeAnn and Quentin riding back in the wrong direction, figuring the two were off to some private place again and would return.

  The crossing took as long or longer than the first one at Fort Laramie. It was an all-day affair that left them wet and exhausted, and early in the evening Abbie pulled from the wagon a few of things things that had gotten wet in order to hang them out to dry. For the first time that day Cheyenne Zeke spoke to her, approaching her on the big Appaloosa.

  “You doing okay?” he asked, looking off in the distance and trying to appear casual in his conversation.

  “I’ll make it,” she replied, keeping her back to him.

  “Where’s your sister? I haven’t seen her and that Robards all day. They should be showing up by now.”

  Abbie swallowed. “They … left … back in the other direction. They’re going back East… headed for Fort Laramie where I expect they’ll find a guide. With pa gone, LeeAnn just… didn’t want to go on.”

  He made no reply at first. As she turned to face him, his dark eyes flashed with disgust and his jaw twitched with obvious anger. He moved his horse closer and looked down at her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he hissed. “I’d have stopped them! It’s dangerous! Much too dangerous! Besides that, I’d never have let her go off and leave you alone like this! What the hell kind of sister is she? I expected her to at least go on to Oregon!”

  “Zeke, it’s best this way!” she replied, her eyes tearing. “Please, please don’t try to stop them! I beg you, Zeke. She … she said she’d say all kinds of awful things about you if you did! She’ll say you raped her back there somewhere, and she’ll say you’ve been carrying on with me. She’s changed, Zeke. I can’t let myself worry about her anymore. And I won’t let two people like that make more trouble for you! I tried to warn her; but she’s made her bed, Zeke, and now she’s got to lie in it. Let it go, Zeke! It will be bad for you if you go after them! Real bad!”

  He yanked his horse’s reins, causing the animal to whirl in a circle as he tried to gather his angry thoughts. The girl probably would do exactly what she’d told Abbie she’d do if he went after them. The worst part was she’d slander Abbie’s name, and that was the last thing he wanted. He rode closer to Abbie again. “Abbie, I’ll go after them if you want. It’s too damned dangerous for her out there. I’ll do whatever you ask me to do, Abbie.”

  “I don’t want you to do anything but keep this train going,” she replied in a determined voice. “Just keep u
s going. I don’t know my sister anymore. She chose to do this, Zeke. We can’t do anything more for her. All I can do is pray she makes it safely.”

  “But what about you … what about—”

  “I’m okay. I have the wagon and the rest of the animals, pa’s fiddle and my mama’s clock—all our belongings. And I’ll have Mr. and Mrs. Hanes when I get to Oregon. I don’t want you to worry about me, Zeke. It would be bad for both of us if you brought her back here. She’s so different now, it just isn’t worth it. Just go and tell the others that she wanted to go … and that I let her because she was so terribly unhappy out here and wanted to go back with Mr. Robards and marry him.”

  He swung the horse around again, then stopped and looked out over the horizon. “Are you sure, Abbie girl?”

  “I’m sure.”

  He sighed. “All right, Abbie. I’m against it. But I’ll not let that bastard Robards drag you down in the dirt along with your sister. And I’ll not let her hurt you, either.”

  “Zeke, I wouldn’t consider being linked with you as being dragged down in the dirt,” she answered. “I consider it beautiful and wonderful … an honor.”

  He backed up the horse. “It isn’t how you consider it that counts. It’s how others consider it. And nobody knows better than I do what most whites think about one of their own kind who lies with a half-breed.” The thought brought pain to his loins. She could see the desire in his eyes, but he instantly replaced it with a look of stern warning. “Nothing has changed from what I said before,” he told her. “Get inside now and get some rest. I’ll tell the others.”

  He turned his horse and she watched him lovingly as he rode away. Perhaps it would be better if he did leave the train at Fort Bridger. To go all the way to Oregon with him under these conditions would be unbearable.