Reese was capable of killing, too, she thought, remembering the story Hantaywee had told her. He had killed the men who had raped Chumani, but Kelsey couldn’t fault him for that. Surely those men had deserved to die for what they had done. She blew out a sigh. Perhaps all men were capable of killing, given the right provocation.
“Well, cheer up,” he said, “we’ll be leaving tomorrow.”
“That’s what you said yesterday,” she reminded him, and oh, how she wished they had left as planned, before she saw a side of the Lakota that she hadn’t wanted to see.
“Yea, well,” he muttered dryly, “things happen.”
* * * * *
Reese was ready to leave at first light the next morning.
Kelsey dressed quickly, then put on her socks and shoes. Even though she had only worn the garb of an Indian woman for a short time, it seemed odd to be wearing her own dress and petticoat again but then, she could hardly return to civilization wearing a doeskin tunic and beaded moccasins. Her dress, made of one hundred percent cotton, was badly wrinkled after being washed in the river. One thing about buckskin, she thought as she folded her tunic, it didn’t have to be ironed.
Going outside, she saw that their horses were saddled and waiting. Reese had already tied their bedrolls and saddlebags in place behind their saddles. He had told her that Hantaywee had packed them enough food to last them a couple of days.
Kelsey glanced over at Reese, who was fiddling with one of the saddle cinches. His long black hair gleamed in the early morning sun. She rather missed seeing him in his clout and vest. Not that he didn’t look good enough to eat in his shirt and trousers, but there was no denying the effect he’d had on her senses when he had worn only enough for modesty’s sake.
Chiding herself for her wayward thoughts, Kelsey went to bid farewell to Hantaywee. In the short time they had been in the village, she had grown quite fond of the old woman.
“I will see you again,” Hantaywee said, giving Kelsey’s hand an affectionate squeeze.
“I hope so,” Kelsey replied, though it seemed doubtful that she would be returning to the Lakota village any time soon.
Hantaywee embraced Reese. “Listen to your heart,” she murmured for his ears alone. “Look inside and you will find the forgiveness you seek.”
He hugged her in return. “Thanks for taking care of me.”
“I will see you again.”
“I don’t think so.”
Hantaywee smiled. “I know so, chaska.”
With a wry grin, Reese lifted Kelsey onto the back of a chestnut gelding, then swung onto the back of his own horse. He waved at Hantaywee, then rode out of the village.
Kelsey looked back when they reached the outside of the camp circle. Hantaywee was standing where they had left her. Lifting a gnarled hand, she waved at Kelsey, then turned and went inside her tipi.
“I’m going to miss her,” Kelsey remarked, urging her horse up alongside Reese’s.
“Yea, me, too.”
“Are you sure you want to leave?”
He grunted softly. “No reason to stay.”
“No reason to go.”
He glanced over at her, one brow arched. “I thought you were in a hurry to find your way back to wherever it is you came from.”
“I am, but…” She shrugged. “It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.”
He grunted softly, but didn’t turn back.
Knowing there was no point in arguing with him, Kelsey relaxed in the saddle and enjoyed the scenery. An eagle soared effortlessly overhead. In the distance, she thought she saw a deer but it was gone before she could be certain. The prairie seemed to go on forever, an endless sea of gently waving tall green grass beneath a bold, blue sky. The air was warm but not hot, the motion of the horse beneath her almost like a rocking chair. She found that the more she rode, the more she liked it.
At dusk, Reese reined his horse to a halt. “Why don’t you make camp? I don’t know about you, but I’d like some fresh meat for dinner.”
Kelsey glanced around. Fresh meat? There was nothing to see for miles but prairie grass, an occasional stand of timber and the endless vault of the sky.
“I’m gonna see if I can hunt up a couple of rabbits.” Removing the saddlebags from behind his cantle, he dropped them on the ground. “I won’t be gone long. Think you could gather some wood?”
“Sure.” Dismounting, she watched him ride away until he was out of sight. “He’ll be right back,” she told her horse, and then laughed self-consciously.
She tied her horse’s reins to a low-hanging branch, then walked under the trees, picking up sticks and branches. When she had an armful, she carried them back to their camp site and dropped them on the ground. She looked at her horse for a minute; then, squaring her shoulders, she reached for the cinch. Unsaddling the horse wasn’t as difficult as she had expected, certainly not as difficult as saddling one had been. She staggered backward under the weight of the saddle before regaining her balance. She dropped the saddle and blanket on the ground, spread her bedroll on a relatively flat spot and then glanced in the direction Reese had taken. There was no sign of him. Of course, he had only been gone a few minutes. Still, night was fast approaching and while she wasn’t afraid of the dark, she was afraid of being alone in the wilderness. Heaven only knew what wild creatures lurked out there in the shadows.
She wrapped her arms around her body and told herself there was nothing to be afraid of and all the while bits and pieces of stories her grandfather had told her flitted through her mind—stories of women and children carried off by Comancheros and sold into slavery, tales of men set upon by wild animals. She recalled a story about a man who had been attacked by a bear. Badly wounded, the man had managed to crawl some unbelievable distance to the nearest town where he had gotten medical help and then, after he recovered, he had gone back and killed the bear.
She glanced around. Surely there were no bears around here!
Fire, she thought. That’s what she needed. She piled a bunch of sticks and small branches together, dug the matches out of one of the saddlebags and after five tries, had a small fire going. It brightened the night, as well as her spirits.
Sitting cross-legged in front of the cheery little blaze, she chewed on a piece of jerky. There was something almost mesmerizing about watching a fire, the way the flames changed color as they writhed in the hot coals, the innate knowledge that the same fire that looked so inviting could, in an instant, turn deadly.
She guessed an hour had passed before Reese returned with two fat rabbits slung over his horse’s withers.
Dismounting, he carried the carcasses toward the fire. “You ever skin a rabbit?”
She shook her head, her gaze fixed on the limp furry creatures in his hand.
“I didn’t think so.”
“I can unsaddle your horse,” she offered.
“All right.”
She took her own sweet time doing it so she wouldn’t have to watch him cut into the rabbits. She’d had a fluffy white bunny for a pet when she was a little girl. She wasn’t sure she could eat one of Mr. Cottontail’s wild cousins.
Before long, the scent of roasting meat tickled her nostrils. All sentimental thoughts of Mr. Cottontail fled when Reese offered her a portion of the meat. She washed it down with water from one of the canteens.
He put the fire out as soon as the rabbit was cooked.
Kelsey looked at him askance.
“Fires can be seen a long ways off out here,” he explained. “We don’t want any unexpected company.”
Thoughts of what had happened to Chumani flashed through Kelsey’s mind.
“You’d best turn in,” Reese said. “We’ll be leaving first thing in the morning.”
She didn’t argue, was, in fact, almost asleep before he finished talking.
* * * * *
Kelsey groaned softly. They had been on the trail since early morning and her back and shoulders were beginning to ache. She did
n’t want to complain; after all, he had been injured not long ago and riding didn’t seem to bother him. Still, he was used to spending long hours in the saddle and she wasn’t.
She was about to ask Reese if they could stop and rest for a little while when she saw a thin plume of blue-gray smoke rising in the distance.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing.
“Dunno. You stay here. I’ll go have a look.”
Without waiting for an answer, Reese urged his horse to the top of the next ridge and disappeared down the other side.
Kelsey sat there a moment, then followed Reese up the hill. When she reached the summit, she drew back on the reins. A stagecoach lay on its side at the foot of the hill, one of its wheels slowly spinning. A man lay sprawled face down the dirt. Half a dozen arrows protruded from his back. A second man was tied head down to one of the wheels on the stagecoach. The wheel had been set on fire. It was still smoldering and so was the man. An errant breeze wafted her way, carrying the scent of burning hair and charred flesh.
Another body lay a few feet away. Several arrows protruded from its back. There was a raw red patch where his hair should have been.
Kelsey looked away, afraid she was going to be sick to her stomach. Indians had done this. Indians like Reese and Hantaywee.
Turning her horse around, she rode back the way she had come. Swinging one leg over her horse’s back, she slid to the ground and dropped to her knees.
She was still vomiting when Reese rode up beside her.
He didn’t ask what was wrong. Dismounting, he removed his kerchief and handed it to her, along with his canteen.
She rinsed her mouth, then wet a corner of his kerchief with water from the canteen and wiped her face.
“I thought I told you to stay here,” he said.
Keeping her back toward him, she nodded.
He blew out a sigh. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
She nodded again. She was sorry, too. Oh, she had known that in the old days Indians had scalped and tortured whites and that whites had tortured and killed Indians. Hadn’t her grandfather told her one grisly tale after another? She had seen massacres in movies and on TV and read about them in history books, but to actually see such torture firsthand was just too horrible. On top of what she had seen the Lakota do to the would-be horse thieves, it was just too much.
Rising, she handed Reese his kerchief and canteen.
His eyes were cold when he looked at her. “Would you be looking at me like that if you’d seen me shoot those three men who kidnapped you?”
She stared at him, her conscience pricking her. She hadn’t given those men another thought, nor experienced a moment’s sorrow for their deaths, only relief that Reese had come along when he did, that those men would never be a threat to anyone else. How quickly one’s perspective changed, she thought, when it was one’s own life that was in danger.
Ashamed, she turned away.
He came up behind her, his breath warm against the side of her neck.
She leaned back against him, reveling in his touch, in the warmth of his hands on her shoulders. His breath stirred the tendrils of hair along her cheek.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I was wrong to judge your people so harshly.”
“I guess I can’t blame you. You’ve had a rough couple of days.”
Rough was putting it mildly, she thought. But surely the worst was behind them now.
His next words shattered that illusion. “There was a woman on the stage,” he said. “I’m going after her.”
“A woman! How do you know?”
“I saw her belongings scattered on the other side of the coach. There’s no sign of her body, so I reckon the warriors took her with them.”
“How many Indians are there?”
“Not more than three or four. The trail’s fresh. We can’t be more than half an hour behind them. One of the dead men was a whiskey salesman.”
“How do you know that?”
“The warriors emptied a couple of bottles before they took off. I figure by nightfall they’ll all be passed out dead drunk.”
“And the woman?”
“I reckon they’ll be too liquored up to bother her much.”
Kelsey nodded. Though the idea of chasing after a bunch of drunken Indians was not her idea of a good time, it was something that had to be done. Squaring her shoulders, she put her foot in the stirrup and pulled herself into the saddle.
“Let’s go,” she said with forced bravado. “We’re burning daylight.”
Grinning at her, Reese swung onto the back of his horse. Taking up the reins, he followed the tracks of the Indians.
* * * * *
It was two hours after sundown when they caught up with the Indians. As Reese had predicted, the warriors were all drunk as skunks. Hiding behind a tree a safe distance away, Kelsey watched as the four liquored-up warriors whooped and hollered around a blazing campfire. Several empty whiskey bottles littered the ground.
The woman sat with her back against a large boulder. She wore a long black traveling cloak. The hood hid her face. Her hands were tied behind her back. A rope secured her ankles.
Kelsey looked over at Reese, who was standing beside her. “Now what?”
“We wait until they pass out, then I’ll go get the woman.”
“Just like that?”
“If I’m lucky,” he said with a wink. “You might as well sit down and make yourself comfortable. This might take a while.”
Nodding, Kelsey sank down on the ground, her back braced against the trunk of the tree, her arms folded over her bent knees. If she ever made it back home, she was going to have one heck of a story to tell, she thought, and then wondered who would ever believe it. Sometimes she didn’t believe it herself.
“What’s he saying?” she asked when one of the warriors started singing.
“He’s bragging about what a brave warrior he is,” Reese answered, and she heard the grin in his voice. “He’s telling his compadres that he killed a Crow warrior with his bare hands when he went on his first raid and that he’s counted coup against a dozen bluecoats.”
“Do you think it’s true?”
Reese shrugged. “Probably, since the others aren’t denying it.”
“What’s he saying now?”
“He’s saying that the woman will be singing praises to his manhood come morning.”
Kelsey bolted upright. “I thought you said…”
“Don’t worry, I won’t let them touch her.”
“Are these warriors…are they Lakota?”
“No. Hunkpapas.”
The thought that the Indians weren’t from Reese’s village made her feel a little better about the whole thing.
She was half-asleep, her head resting against the trunk of the tree, when Reese shook her shoulder.
“Mount up and be ready to ride,” he whispered, thrusting his horse’s reins into her hand. “I’m going after the woman.”
Reese dropped down on his belly and snaked his way toward the now quiet camp. It had been years since he had been on any kind of raid against an enemy but the things he had been taught in his youth quickly came to the fore. As he drew closer, he gained his feet and padded quietly toward the camp, his feet carefully testing each bit of ground before he took his next step.
The fire had burned down to a bed of smoldering coals. The warriors were sprawled on their blankets in that odd, boneless way of drunken men everywhere. The woman looked to be sleeping.
Reese hesitated at the outskirts of the camp, his gaze sweeping back and forth. One of the horses snuffled softly. Reese waited, eyes and ears alert, but none of the warriors stirred. Moving slowly, he picked his way around the sleeping men.
When he reached the woman, he bent down and placed one hand over her mouth.
She came awake with a start, her eyes wide and scared.
Reese shook his head, then placed one finger over his lips, cautioning her to be quiet.
&nb
sp; When she nodded, he untied her hands and feet, then helped her to stand.
He froze when one of the warriors stirred, mumbled something unintelligible in his sleep and then rolled onto his stomach.
When all was quiet again, Reese swung the woman into his arms and carried her out of the camp.
When he reached the place where Kelsey waited, he lifted the woman onto the back of his horse. He glanced from the woman to Kelsey. “Stay here and stay quiet,” he said curtly.
Without waiting for a reply, he made his way back toward the sleeping Indians.
Huddling deeper into her cloak, the woman looked at Kelsey and whispered, “What’s he doing?”
“I don’t know,” Kelsey replied. She watched, her heart in her throat, as Reese padded quietly to where the Indians had tethered their horses. Stopping along the way, he picked up a couple of blankets before continuing on toward the horses. Untying the lead ropes, he swung onto the back of a gray gelding, dropped the blankets over the gelding’s withers and then led the rest of the horses to where Kelsey and the woman waited.
“Mount up,” he told Kelsey, “and let’s get out of here.”
Wordlessly, Kelsey and the woman followed Reese away from the camp. Once they were well away, he put his horse into a gallop.
Kelsey found herself grinning as she rode after him. Even though she hadn’t done anything, she felt an unexpected sense of exhilaration. We came, we saw, we conquered, she thought, and felt like shouting it to the night.
They rode for what seemed like forever. The sky behind them was growing light when Reese reined his horse to a halt near a shallow stream. Dismounting, he turned the extra horses loose, then led his mount to the stream.
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