by Maggie James
They circled her—men with long hair streaming down their backs, garish stripes and symbols painted on their faces—all staring with black, piercing eyes, lips tightly set and grim.
Except for the one who bound her wrists. His hair was not quite as dark, or as long, and his eyes were the color of cinnamon and were not cruel or harsh as he looked at her. He was different, somehow, but she still loathed and feared him.
“You will walk behind my horse,” he said.
Kitty prayed not to stumble…not to fall.
She had no idea what the future held at the hands of the savages, but for the moment she had to concentrate on one thing only.
They could not find out she was a woman.
Chapter Five
Ryder could feel the boy’s hot, hate-filled eyes glaring at his back. They had been riding for several hours, but the boy was keeping up. Not once had he stumbled. Neither had he made a sound.
They had wound their way higher and higher into the mountains. Ryder kept the rope slack, and his horse’s pace slow. He did not want to be unnecessarily cruel, but he knew he could not show any concern for the boy’s misery.
They had paused briefly at a stream to water the horses and eat handfuls of pemmican. It was late in the day, and they were all hungry. Ryder offered a portion of his to the boy, but he shook his head.
“You need to eat,” he coaxed. “We still have a long way to go, and I cannot go any slower. You have to keep up with us or be dragged.”
Kitty was speared by a hot jolt of rage as she hissed between clenched teeth, “You would like that, wouldn’t you?”
The Indian shrugged. “No. But if you cannot stand up, then you give me no choice. Now I am offering you food—”
“I don’t want that…that garbage.” She looked at the bag and shuddered. It was made of some kind of skin, and the concoction the Indian was pulling out of it made her stomach roil.
“Dried buffalo meat and berries is not garbage.”
Stubbornly, she continued to shake her head.
“As you wish. Now relieve yourself while you have a chance.”
Feeling color creep to her cheeks, Kitty noticed how all around her the Indians were taking care of their personal needs. “Not here,” she whispered.
Her captor threw back his head and laughed. “So. You are shy. Well, you will soon get over that, but go ahead.” He had dropped the end of the rope when he dismounted. “But if you try to run away, you won’t get very far.
“And if we don’t catch you,” he added with a crooked smile, “the wild animals will—mountain lions, grizzly bears, bulls and pigs, and snakes and lizards. They are all out there waiting for fresh meat like you—fresh white meat.”
She was not about to do something so foolish as to let him think she was even considering escaping. If he, and the others, thought she was too frightened to go plunging into the wilderness by herself, then sooner or later they would turn their backs…and she would be ready.
When she returned from the bushes, the Indian who had taken charge of her was talking to the one she had shot. She could not understand what they were saying, but it was obvious they were arguing over her.
Ryder felt like yanking the boy up and throwing him on the back of his horse so they could make better time, but he knew that would make Coyotay even madder than he already was.
Damn it, why couldn’t the woman have been on the stagecoach like she was supposed to be? Then he would not be stuck with trying to keep a scrawny boy from being mistreated by Coyotay and the others. In the triumph of doing what they had set out to do, Coyotay would not have cared about making the boy suffer for having shot him.
And where was the woman, anyway? he thought, fuming as he gave the end of the rope a vicious jerk to bring the boy stumbling forward. There wouldn’t be another stagecoach for over a week, and he would have to wait till then to ride into Tombstone to find out if she was on it.
Till then, he would watch over the boy. As long as he was his slave, Coyotay would not harm him. Maybe, in time, he could make Coyotay see it was best to let the boy go. After all, when they left for Mexico, they did not need to be bothered with taking slaves. They would be busy enough dodging army patrols.
Ryder saw how the bottoms of the boy’s overalls were in tatters from all the weeds and briars. His arms were also scratched and torn. Now and then he stumbled, but never did he cry out or complain.
With a disgruntled sigh, Ryder stared ahead, wishing the day had turned out differently.
The sun was a blazing ball of fire over them, beating down relentlessly, but gradually it began to sink into the west. The day was ending…but not soon enough for Kitty. The rope chafed her wrist, and her heels inside her boots were rubbed raw with blisters. The trail they were on was a steep incline, and she was painfully heaving for breath with every step. Her legs were shaking, and her mouth was as dry as the dirt beneath her feet. She wondered how much longer she could go on before falling to be brutally dragged over the sharp rocks.
Wearily raising her chin, Kitty looked at the Indian—Whitebear, she had heard someone call him—sitting astride his horse. He was tall and broad shouldered. His back, bare now that he had taken off shirt and skin vest, was a deep bronze color.
Though a deadly and dangerous foe, he had seemed to take up for her, and she dared hope he might keep her from being tortured or killed.
But, she acknowledged with a deep, deep shiver, if they found out she was not a boy, Whitebear would not be able to save her from a woman’s most dreaded fate.
Her toe struck a rock. Losing her balance, she pitched forward and fell.
Whitebear stopped the horse and turned to look down at her. “Can you get up? We are almost there.”
Kitty stared beyond him but saw only scrub pines and bushes and big boulders. Nothing resembled a camp of any sort.
“I asked you if you could get up,” he repeated sharply. “We are almost there, but if you can’t walk, then so help me, I will drag you, boy.”
Kitty was close to tears and dangerously near the point of breaking. She was determined, however, not to let the savages wear her down. She had to appear strong and sure of herself, if for no other reason than her own self-esteem.
Amid the pain of her scrapes and bruises and how her wrists were bleeding and her feet were hurting so bad, the image of the last year of her mother’s life came to mind. For so long her mother had walked with head held high, ignoring the slights and shuns of her neighbors. But then it was as though her spirit, her mind, just slipped away. She began to cry about her lot in life, how badly she had been mistreated. And she had begun to try and win her neighbor’s grace and favors. Kitty pitied how her mother would grovel in her yearning to be accepted. She’d made up her mind that she would never do the same.
Not for anyone. And not even now, when her very own life might be at stake.
Slowly, she struggled to stand.
“Good.” Whitebear nodded approval. “Keep on your feet. The others are hoping to see you dragged the rest of the way.”
Suddenly, anger got the best of her. “Then go ahead and do it, you bastard. If you think it makes you more of a man to drag somebody behind your horse, do it.”
For a long moment, he merely stared at her, and Kitty fought the instinct to cringe, to wither, but instead stared defiantly back at him—as best she could through the tangle of hair covering her face.
Finally, expressionless, he declared, “You will make a good slave once your spirit is broken, and I think to save you from yourself when I am not around to look after you, I had best see to it right away.
“Now come.” He gave a hard tug, almost making her fall again. “And so help me, if you hit the ground again, you’ll stay there.”
He dug his heels into the sides of his horse and continued on up the grade.
Kitty staggered, stumbled, and nearly fell, but managed to keep on going. Perspiration ran into her eyes to sting and momentarily blind, and she wiped at them w
ith the back of her tied hands.
She heard the sweeping of brush and had noticed how the Indians at the rear of the line used branches to remove any trace of their having passed by. They continued to do so even though they had traveled a long way since leaving the road where she had first been taken.
And then a path appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. The ground was smoother, and as she kept her gaze downward, she could see many tracks.
Without warning, Kitty’s knees buckled. She went sprawling into the parched dirt and, with a cry of panic, realized she was sliding straight toward the edge of a boulder on her way to plunging into the canyon below.
Ryder, having let the end of the rope go slack in his hand as they topped the final hill into the Indian camp, did not realize the boy was falling in time to grab hold. The rope slipped from his hand, and he whirled about to see the boy plummeting headfirst down the incline and straight toward the edge.
Leaping from his horse, Ryder dropped to a squat and let the bottom of his slick moccasins and the seat of his pants take him in a rapid slide down the rocks to catch the rope and grab it. Digging in his heels, he held tight as the boy went toppling over.
Kitty was too terrified to scream and went sailing, paralyzed, over the brim—only to be abruptly held back by a sharp, painful jerk. Her arms were yanked above her head and felt as though they were being pulled from their sockets.
“Use your feet to climb the rocks,” Ryder yelled. “Push yourself upward.”
But Kitty was too weak. Her legs felt like wet loaves of bread—mush. She had no power over them, no will.
Coyotay came running to help Ryder, grumbling all the while. “I should have slit his throat when you stopped me. He is nothing but trouble.”
As the boy was finally pulled up, his hair parted from his face for a fraction of an instant, Ryder could see defiance and anger despite the close brush with death.
Coyotay, he feared, was right. The boy was trouble, and the sooner he found a way to get him back to his people, the better. But that would take time and careful planning, because he could not risk annoying Coyotay more than he already was.
The camp was directly ahead. Word had spread from the posted guards that they had returned, and a curious crowd was gathering.
Coyotay and the others rode ahead, while Ryder hung back, pretending to get the boy to his feet and secure once more. What he wanted, however, was a chance to make him see that his best chance for survival was to surrender his spirit. “If you want to live, you are going to have to humble yourself. I won’t always be in camp to look after you.”
Kitty’s eyes narrowed behind her unkempt hair. “If you are so concerned, why in the hell did you take me prisoner? And what are you, anyway?” Her eyes swept him from head to toe. “You aren’t like the others.”
Once more, Ryder was reminded how it was easier for him to pass for white, but he offered no explanation, instead saying, “I took you for my slave to save you from Coyotay. He would have tortured you for shooting him.”
“I wish I had killed him,” she said defiantly.
Ryder shook his head at the boy’s audacity. “It is a good thing the others understand little of your language, because they would cut your tongue out. Maybe I should just turn you over to them, anyway. You don’t appreciate my trying to help you.”
“So what do you want from me?”
“You’re going to be my slave and do my bidding, and when I am not here, you will work for my mother. Right now, though, you’re going to answer my questions. And none of your insolence.” He gave the rope a hard jerk for emphasis.
She could not hold back a grimace of pain, for her wrists were torn and bleeding.
He saw, and loosened his hold. “My mother will take care of your wounds in a little while. Now tell me about the women passengers that were on the stagecoach with you earlier. Did any of them become ill and leave before their destination? Do you remember anyone named Kitty Parrish?”
He might as well have hit her across the face with a war club, because Kitty was jolted so hard to hear him say her name that she actually took a few stumbling steps backward. Then, seeing how his eyes went wide at her reaction, she knew she had made a serious error and sought to cover by pretending she was about to collapse again.
His hand shot out to catch her. “What’s wrong? Can’t you stand?”
“I…I haven’t had anything to eat. I’m weak.” Dear God, she thought in surging panic, they were looking for me. That was why they had attacked the stage and it also explained why they had not bothered to take the strongbox or rob Rufus and Hank. But what did they want with her? And how did they know about her, anyway? Her mind began to spin, making her dizzier than she already was. Had Opal Grimes asked them to kidnap her—maybe even kill her—to keep her from getting to Tombstone? Maybe Opal had found the gold and didn’t want to share, but if that were true, why would she have written in the first place and sent half of the map? None of it made any sense.
“It’s your own fault,” Ryder snapped. “You were offered food, and if you don’t learn to eat what you’re given from now on, you will starve.” He began to untie her wrists. “I think you’ve got sense enough not to try and run away. Now walk behind my horse.”
Mounting, he turned to ask, “What are you called?” She thought of one of the stock tenders she had met along the way. “Billy Mingo.”
“Very well, Billy Mingo. Keep your mouth shut when you meet my mother, because she understands and speaks English as well as I do. And if you dare sass her, I’ll give you the beating you deserve to teach you obedience. Understand?”
“How…how long are you going to keep me here?” she stammered.
“I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
He started the horse forward, keeping his gait slow. Kitty tried to follow without stumbling, aware that curious faces were beginning to line the path on either side. She did not want to appear any weaker than she already had, lest they think her too scrawny for a boy. And now it was more important than ever to keep her secret.
Kitty seethed as she plodded along behind Whitebear. Opal Grimes was responsible for her plight. Opal was the only person who had known she was on her way and when she would arrive. Well, heaven help her when she did escape, Kitty vowed, because she was going to find out exactly what was going on…and why Opal wanted her dead.
Her head jerked up as she heard a loud, angry voice and saw a woman rushing toward Whitebear. She was wearing a dress made out of some kind of animal skin, with beads on the front and fringe along the ankle-length hem. Kitty thought she might be pretty if her face were not twisted in an angry scowl. And, oh, how she wished she knew the Apache language so she could understand what was being said. It was about her, she could tell, because the woman was looking from her to Whitebear and speaking loudly, crossly.
“Why have you taken this boy captive?” Ryder’s mother demanded. “You, who always preach that the Chiricahua must stop the savage ways of the old world, and now you dare bring a slave.”
Ryder knew that his mother’s reaction was motivated by the terrible memory of how his father had been captured and mistreated until he accepted his plight.
“If I hadn’t taken him,” he endeavored to explain, “Coyotay would have, to punish him for shooting him. As it was, I had to stop him from slitting the boy’s throat.”
“But he is too small to make a good slave. And what of the woman you were seeking? Where is she?”
“She wasn’t on the stagecoach. I don’t have any idea where she is.” He dismounted and handed his horse over to one of the youngsters who were anxiously waiting to do the bidding of the returning warriors. “All I can do is wait awhile and then ride into Tombstone, find Opal Grimes, and see if she’s arrived and living with her.”
Kitty bit back a gasp to hear Opal’s name. So, it was true, she raged to think Opal had, for whatever reason, enticed the Apache to keep her from reaching Tombstone.
Ryder went on, “All I can do
is keep trying, Mother.” He put his arm around Pale Sky. “And I promise you when Kitty Parrish does reach Tombstone, I’ll find her and make her tell me what I want to know.”
Hearing her own name again, Kitty yearned all the more to know what they were saying.
“Meanwhile, you must do something with that pitiful boy,” Pale Sky said.
Kitty could not help cringing as Whitebear and the woman turned to stare at her.
“He needs to eat,” Ryder said. “He’s being stubborn, though. He also needs those rope burns on his wrists tended to.”
“Bring him to my wickiup. He will eat,” Pale Sky said with a determined nod. “And then I will see to his wounds.”
Ryder walked over to Kitty. “You will go with my mother, and you will eat. Then she will tend your wounds. After that, come to me. I sleep in that tent over there.” He pointed.
Kitty mustered the bravado to say, “I don’t want to sleep in there. I’d rather sleep by myself.”
“I don’t give a damn what you want,” he fired back. “But don’t worry, I don’t want you sleeping in there, either. I’ll have enough company tonight as it is. Now go with my mother, and she’ll show you how to boil water for my bath.”
Kitty gulped, swallowed. “Your…your bath?”
“Yes,” he said, turning away. “That’s one of the things I learned to enjoy in my father’s world—the pleasure of a hot bath, and you are going to give it to me.”
Chapter Six
Kitty had to stoop to get through the low doorway of the dome-shaped shelter. Bear grass, brush, yucca leaves, and rushes had been placed over the framework of poles and limbs tied together for support. Canvas stretched over that, but there was an opening at the top to allow smoke to escape from the fire pit near the center.
As she followed the Indian woman inside, a thick piece of bear fur slapped shut across the opening after them.