Time on the trail seemed to pass by slowly and incredibly fast as Serena realized it had already been another whole week since they had been at the water holes. And tension was beginning to build among the camp. One of the members of the militia had disappeared into the night and when Trevor had heard about it she thought he was going to fly into a rage. He ordered a small group of men to go in search of the man, much to Serena’s surprise. Losing one member of their militia wasn’t that abnormal. But sending a search party after him was.
And, then, suddenly, they were all shaken by the sound of one of the scouts. “Rider coming, rider coming!”
Chapter Fifteen
The words jolted Serena out of the quiet reflection she had been in and her heart began to pound. One of the scouts raced up to Trevor and saluted him. Trevor returned the salute and ordered the scout to speak.
“One Indian. He’s carrying a white flag. We searched around the area and there are no signs that there are other Indians with him. But he very well could be bait for a trap.”
Trevor ordered a halt to all of the men. They were in a partial opening in the woods, which would be the perfect place for his men to strike if it was an ambush. Serena watched him with admiration as he quickly dispersed his militia into areas that seemed to be a good vantage point.
With each man that he sent out, he gave explicit orders. “Don’t shoot until you hear me order you to!”
It was only fifteen minutes before the Indian began to ride into sight. Trevor had tried to send Serena off into the woods were it would be safe and she reassured him, should he do that, she would ride back down as soon as the Indian arrived. She could tell for a while he was considering tying her up when Cade had come to her rescue.
“Isn’t that the entire reason we allowed her to stay with us in the first place? She knows more about the Comanche, and their language, than any of us put together.”
Trevor had turned a dark frown on Cade, but said nothing more as they watched the Indian riding forward. He indeed carried a white flag, but there was something else that caught Serena’s attention about him as he drew closer.
He was taller than most Indians, yet held the lean, muscular body of a man that worked hard to gain everything he had. There was something unique about the way he rode his horse with confidence, and the relaxed expression on his face. And that was how she knew who he was. Without even thinking about her actions, she dismounted quickly and ran towards him as fast as she could.
“Hold your fire!” Trevor yelled. “By God, hold your fire!”
Serena ran so hard her legs ached, but it was worth it. The tall Indian saw her and a sudden smile split his face and he dismounted from his horse, just in enough time to catch Serena as she threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around him in a fierce hug.
“Stalking Wolf! Is it really you? I’ve been so worried for you...”
He set her down gently, still smiling. “Little Serri, you still cause trouble.” He chuckled.
“I’m not causing any trouble!”
“Then why does the chief of your tribe look like he is ready to scalp you right now?”
Serena glanced backwards and saw Trevor riding forward with Cade, Lorenzo, and his rangers. And he most certainly did not look happy.
She turned back to Stalking Wolf. “He tends to be grumpy sometimes. Don’t worry about it. Are you safe now? They didn’t harm you, did they?”
He shook his head at her then turned to face Trevor as he approached. He lifted his hand in a gesture of peace. “I come to you in peace,” he said slowly, choosing his words carefully. “I want to aide you in stopping the war my brothers and sisters are creating.”
“I’m Captain Trevor Daniels with the Texas Rangers. Do you mean to tell me you are here alone?”
“Yes, captain. I left in the middle of the night. They probably haven’t even noticed I’m gone, yet.”
“Trevor, Stalking Wolf is—”
“Your English is very good for a native. What is your name, warrior?”
“I am Stalking Wolf. Talking Wolf was my father. He and I were very close friends with Serena. It saddens me that he was killed in San Antonio. But those that took his life will soon lose theirs.”
“I thought you wanted to stop the war,” Cade spoke up.
“I do. But these men have committed a great crime, the type of thing that puts them out of balance with the world. They will see death sooner than they expect.”
“We are glad to have you with us, Stalking Wolf. And I am truly sorry for the loss of your father.” Trevor held up his hand with two fingers pointed to the sky and the militia began to move from their hiding places in the woods until they were back in formation. “You do not seem surprised by the men that held their guns on you as you approached.”
Stalking Wolf smiled. “White men smell different. They don’t blend with nature. Especially not this one,” he said, playfully tugging on Serena’s hair.
She shook her head at him, but she couldn’t shake her smile.
“Do you still know how to make some of father’s medications?” he asked softly.
“Of course,” Serena replied. “Why? What is it? What has happened to you?”
“When the men learned that Talking Wolf was my father, they thought I would betray them. So they struck me.” He turned so they could see his back and Serena gasped at the crisscross pattern across his back from where a whip had struck him many times. “Yes. Yes, I can take care of you.”
“We’ll make camp in the next couple of hours. She can tend to you then. Now, let’s move out. Daylight is fading fast.”
The daylight did fade quickly but, fortunately, they covered a lot of ground. Stalking Wolf also knew of an area that would be a safe place for them to camp, and they took advantage of his expertise. In just a handful of minutes, horses were tethered and grazing on the grass they could find, and small campfires were popping up.
Serena sat at one of the small fires with a pot sitting on top of the coals, boiling together a variety of leaves and dried herbs. She had been so grateful when Angie had brought her all of Talking Wolf’s belongings and she had found so many wonderfully preserved items. And she was even more grateful that she had the foresight to bring them with her on the journey just in case there was an emergency.
Finally, she was satisfied with the degree the items had boiled down to in the pan and strained them into a thick paste that she placed in a molcajete, which was similar to a mortar and pestle. She began to grind on the paste, adding a thick oil occasionally until she had just the right amount of cream ready.
“Are you certain your chief is supportive of you being with me?” Stalking Wolf asked, his eyes watching something off in the distance.
“Why wouldn’t he be? Trevor may not come across as the nicest person when you first meet him, but he’ll warm up to you. Just give him a chance.”
“You are his woman.” The comment was a statement of fact, not a question.
But Serena chose to hear it as a question. “Not at all. He allowed me to come along for the sake that I know the Comanche ways and language. I suppose if he had known you were going to show up he may have left me at home.”
Stalking Wolf turned his dark eyes on her. “You do not see it, do you? He has staked a claim on you. You belong to him now. And he does not like you spending time with me.”
Serena glanced across the camp to Trevor’s tent and he stood outside it, talking to a couple of his rangers. She recognized them as rangers he had sent out to help find the man that had deserted them. But as he talked to his rangers, she realized he was gazing directly at her and Stalking Wolf.
“You see? You belong to him. He wants you to return to his side.”
The way Stalking Wolf said it made her heart beat faster. “He desires me,” she admitted. “But I don’t know that he sees me as anything other than that. Now turn so I can put this paste on your wounds.”
“Is it going to hurt?”
“I’ll make
it hurt if you don’t stop acting like a child.”
He chuckled under his breath and turned, presenting her with a back that had been badly damaged by the whip. She smoothed the paste gently on his back horrified that he had gone through such torture just because of who his father was.
“There. It should begin feeling better soon.”
“It already is. Thank you, Little Serri.”
Serena smiled at him. “I’m so happy to see you. I feel safer with you here with us.”
He laughed, a deep, rich sound. “Your faith in me is very nice. But I fear there may be little I can do. The tribe is out for revenge and is taking it to extremes. They are making all the whites pay for everything that has been done to them over the last hundred years. Not just for the massacre at the council house.”
“What happened wasn’t right, but there were wrongs done on both sides. I was there. I witnessed the entire thing.”
“You were there? How did you—wait, never mind. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know what you did to get in there.”
Serena laughed. “You don’t want to hear how I snuck in under disguise and—”
“No. No desire. You are one wild woman. I have no doubt that even the squaws would marvel at some of your bravery.”
Serena smiled as she stood, and he stood with her. “I’m very happy to see you. I just wish it was under different circumstances.”
“As do I. But we will come through this. The white man must learn to live with us, and we must learn to live with them. This all should be over very soon. Now, go to your warrior. He grows impatient for his squaw.”
Serena felt the heat of a blush flushing her face, but as she turned and headed to the tent, she could see that Trevor was indeed watching her, even though he was talking to others. It would be completely illogical for him to be jealous. And he didn’t strike her as the type of person who held resentment towards the Indians in any way. But he didn’t look happy, either.
As she got closer to Trevor’s tent, the rangers he had been talking to scattered and Trevor held the tent flap open for her to enter. She smiled at him as she went inside, but there wasn’t a smile in return.
It was already far past dark outside, and she needed to sleep. The day had been full of too much action, more so than she had expected. Serena stirred the coals of their small fire and she began to lay out their bedding before Trevor caught her arm and forced her to turn to him and focus her attention on him.
“Do you know the risk you took today? What were you thinking?”
She could see the barely concealed rage beneath his semi-calm demeanor. “I didn’t take a risk. I know Stalking Wolf. We’ve spent many years together growing up. There was nothing to think about. I was too happy to see a friend to react otherwise.”
“He may be a friend, but to everyone else out there, he is the enemy. Do you know they were prepared to shoot him even though he carried the white flag? Do you understand what that means?” He shook her slightly. “Do you?”
Tears began to form in her eyes as it began to dawn on her what she had done. She had risked lives again. She had thought it was safe. But she could have gotten Stalking Wolf killed.
“They could have killed you, too! Now do you understand? Some of these men are so ready to claim they’ve killed a Comanche that they wouldn’t care if you were a sacrifice to the effort.”
Serena could feel the blood draining from her face, and she was mortified when a tear slid down her face. “I didn’t—I wasn’t trying to put anyone in danger.” She felt a thousand times a fool.
She had done it again. She had put his men at risk by her own behavior. And none of the soldiers were happy about her having a Comanche friend either.
Serena’s tears slid down her face, but she kept her head down. He ran a hand through his hair. “For the love of God—Serena, I was yelling for them to hold their fire as soon as you broke ranks. I don’t know how many times I yelled it, and yet I was still certain they were going to shoot. But thank the good Lord some of them actually listen to orders.”
Serena drew in a deep, shaky breath. “You’re right. I made a mistake.”
“Everyone here knows that you’re a supporter for the Comanche. They don’t trust you at all.”
Serena blinked rapidly, stung by his words. And unable to believe they could possibly be factual.
Still keeping her head down so he wouldn’t see her tears, she responded, “Trevor—I have been supportive this entire way. I have tried to prove my loyalty—”
“By running into the arms of a Comanche warrior and hugging him as if he was your long-lost lover!”
His anger and the harshness of his words made her begin to shake. “I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.”
“You didn’t know that the men were ready to gun you down. You didn’t know with absolute certainty that he wasn’t leading you into a trap—”
“I did know that, Trevor! He wouldn’t do anything like that—”
“And I could have lost you!”
Both stopped talking at the same time and Serena’s head jerked up, and she forgot the tears that streamed down her face. She was breathing as if she had been running hard and fast, and her hands were clenched together so tightly that her fingernails were cutting into her palms.
Finally, she whispered, “You don’t trust me at all, do you?”
Trevor took a step forward, pulling her to face him directly. “I trust you, Serena. But I don’t trust some of the people around us. And I know for a fact that there is someone out there right now who would take great joy in seeing me suffer, and killing you would make me suffer.”
“What? Who?” Serena’s heart slammed against her ribs.
“It’s not important. What’s important is that you are always safe. If anything happens to you, I will blame myself. I let you stay on this mission. I can’t let anything happen to you.”
Serena took one of his hands and pulled it off her arm, holding it lightly. “Is that the only reason? Because I’ve become your responsibility, or your liability as you seem to believe?”
“Yes. No. Serena... It’s complicated. I don’t see you as a liability. I might have at first, but you have shown to me and more people that you are dedicated to what we need to do.”
“That’s not what I’m asking, and you know it.” Serena had started to tremble with emotions warring inside her.
She had come to realize how important this man was in her life, and he was dismissing any feelings he may have towards her.
“Serena, I care for you. More than I’d like to admit. I’ve tried not to. I don’t want to—”
His words were cut off as her lips crashed into his, and she wove her fingers into his hair, tugging on him to pull him closer.
But he pushed her back, slowly pulling his lips from hers. “My sweet, sweet, pixie... You don’t realize the temptation that you are.”
“Then show me,” she whispered, feeling bold and brazen as she tried to move closer to him.
He held her back, his face stern. “I can’t. I will ruin your life. I will ruin everything pure and innocent and good about you. I can’t, pixie. I just can’t.”
He turned and took off out of the tent, leaving Serena to stand on her own in the empty space, with her mind racing to understand what had just happened, her tears still moist on her face.
Chapter Sixteen
The sound was unlike anything she had ever heard. It was a combination of screaming and yelling that made her hair stand on end and a chill slid down her spine. Trevor had ridden further away from her to the front of the line, and she had drifted behind him, enjoying the time she had to visit with Stalking Wolf. It had been so long since they had been together, and they took great joy in each other’s company.
But she saw the look on Stalking Wolf’s face as soon as the noise began, and a terror built within her that she had never felt before. “Stalking Wolf, what is it?”
“Get her out of here!” Trevor yelled from ahead
of them. “Get her away from this!”
“Like hell!” Serena yelled, and yanked her horse away from Stalking Wolf when he reached for her. And then she saw the Indians.
As they had gotten closer to the coast, the trees had thinned out, but there was still enough trees and shrubbery that the Indians had the perfect place to hide. And Serena realized, without the scouts reporting to them, they had most likely already been discovered and killed.
Serena pulled out her rifle and balanced her weight in the saddle, wrapping her legs around the horse as she drew a bead on a warrior headed straight for one of their men. Her rifle kicked against her shoulder and the warrior went down. She pulled another bullet from her jacket and quickly reloaded the rifle and was able to take down another warrior.
An arrow whizzed right near her and lodged in the back of her saddle. She was beginning to get irritated. She pulled out her revolver and began shooting, taking down man after man that were aiming their arrows at their men. When she had emptied her revolver she whipped her horse back around, moving into the protective circle of the men that rode around her and reloaded her revolver as fast as she could.
Suddenly, a couple of the riders near her peeled away and she was left vulnerable. She bent down low over her horse and took aim at the warriors that were now headed directly for her. She couldn’t help but wonder if the militia men that had pulled away, leaving her vulnerable, had taken the action on purpose. She knew they weren’t pleased with her, but she didn’t think they would want her dead. Would they?
All of a sudden the warriors disappeared. The silence that fell upon all of them was eerie. Serena pulled her horse up short and spun it around rapidly, looking for any other Indians, wondering what had just happened. And then her eyes searched everywhere for Trevor.
Gun smoke clung to the air, making it difficult to see anything, and making her even more anxious that the Indians would come at them again with their guard down. Her horse was nervously prancing, but she still reloaded her revolver, her eyes darting around the semi-open land.
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