by Shirl Henke
But I would die before I betrayed you, my love.
As tears slowly seeped from her eyes she finally fell into a restless slumber. Hours passed. Or was it only moments before she was suddenly awakened with something cold touching her throat and a horribly familiar voice whispering in her ear?
“My knife is quite sharp and I’d hate to mar that lovely little neck, so do be quiet while my friend here ties you up.”
Stuart Pardee’ s mocking British accent and repellently acrid smell raised her to full consciousness, but before she could move, another pair of hands was groping beneath the covers, throwing them off and tying her feet with buckskin thongs. As Pardee pressed the keen edge of his blade to her throat, his “friend” rolled her on her side, pulled her arms behind her, and bound her wrists with another abrasive thong. Only when his accomplice had stuffed her mouth with a large wad of cloth and had bound that tightly in place with a strip of buckskin did Pardee relax his vigilance and remove his knife from Olivia’s throat. There had been no chance to fight, no chance even to scream.
“A good thing Bad Temper here traveled with me to the post. I might never have gotten out of that makeshift prison without his help, but I never intend to answer any of your colonel’s questions, so I left nothing to chance. Now, it is time for us to be on our way.”
She wanted to ask where he was taking her—but did she really want to know? Surely it was back to Emory Wescott. But why would her guardian want her abducted now that she was Samuel’s wife? Perhaps the renegade Pardee had some even more terrible fate in store for her among the hostile Indians who were his allies.
As he slung her across his shoulder and slipped silently from the cabin, she fought down her fear. Her captors would not always be so vigilant as they had been during the abduction. She would keep her head. Her chance would come. Until then, she would survive one day at a time, just as Micajah had taught her.
* * * *
Samuel awoke in the backroom of the mercantile, lying on a pile of partially cured beaver plews. Their smell added nothing to his already pounding headache and roiling stomach. As he climbed unsteadily to his feet, he looked around the warehouse, wondering how the hell he had ended up here. His mouth tasted brackish as a sink pond in midsummer’s heat.
Around him, littering the dirt floor were several whiskey bottles. Gradually the whole ugly scene with Olivia came back to him, along with his foolish storming out in search of the oblivion to be found in a bottle. As usual it solved nothing. In fact, it only made things distinctly worse. He would have to face her. The sooner it was done, the better.
Then he could make arrangements to transport Pardee downriver to St. Louis. Forcing himself to concentrate on how he might wring an admission of Wescott’s complicity out of the Englishman, he walked out of the warehouse into the glare of the sunrise, only to hear loud shouts and Micajah’s voice bellowing across the compound from the cabin.
Damn, had Olivia gone sobbing to her protector about how he had abused her? Somehow Samuel doubted she would do it. His wife had too much stubborn pride for that. A premonition of disaster raised the hackles on his neck as he began to run across the compound to where a group of trappers and merchants clustered about the manager’s cabin. He shoved his way past them and entered to find Micajah standing in the center of the deserted room with murder in his eyes.
“Where in tarnation have yew been?”
“Where’s Olivia?” Samuel replied with dread.
“Gone. ‘N so’s thet Englishman o’ yourn. Some o’ his Injun pals cut the guard’s throat ‘n let him outta th’ jail. First thang I thought o’ when I found out wuz Sparky. He tried to kidnap her last night ‘n now she’s gone, too. Yew left her alone agin, didn’t yew?” Johnstone accused.
“Yes, I left her,” he admitted, combing his fingers through his hair distractedly. But was she abducted or did she go with Pardee willingly? Samuel was too judicious to voice that question aloud to the giant in front of him. “They have several hours start on us. We’d best begin looking for a trail at once,” he said instead, walking across the room to look for his rifle and other gear, which he had placed in the corner.
“Yew start off from here ‘n see if yew kin pick up any sign. I’m headin’ upriver fast as I kin fer Dirt Devil. If anyone kin find Sparky, thet dawg’s hit. He’ll foller her trail till hell frosts.”
Grimly the men parted, both dreading in their hearts what they might find when they caught up with the vicious Englishman.
Chapter Eighteen
Olivia lost track of time. Her captors had carried her through the dense overgrowth of woodlands for what seemed forever. Her thin night rail had been torn to shreds and her tender skin scratched and abraded as they trotted past hawthorn trees and blackberry bushes. She was cold, and the gag made it difficult for her to breathe. To compound her misery, her bound hands and feet had gone completely numb. Finally, by dusk that following evening, they reached a river. Judging by its size and muddy color it was the Missouri. A well-provisioned canoe awaited them along with several more young Osages.
To her horror, they did not race downriver toward St. Louis. Instead they began to paddle against the powerful current, headed northwest, farther into Indian country. Her heart had frozen with terror. What did Pardee plan to do with her?
As if intuiting her thoughts, he had run a filthy gnarled hand over her breasts, leering nastily as he explained that he had a rendezvous with his supplier of whiskey and guns to the north, where he would deliver the contraband to a group of Osage renegades. After his essential business was concluded, he promised her, there would be time for the two of them to become better acquainted.
She had felt bile rise up in her throat, choking her behind the gag. He would rape her, use her and then kill her in retaliation for the way she had scorned him back in St. Louis. She would be so broken and soiled by his touch that death would be welcome. Samuel would never want her after Pardee finished with her.
Samuel never wanted you anyway.
But she was his wife. Would he come for her? If not him, then Micajah? Her beloved old friend would never rest until he found her. She vowed again to survive no matter what. After spending most of the night paddling by moonlight, along the twisty, tortuous course of the river, the party finally pulled ashore.
There Pardee had surprisingly produced a pair of baggy old buckskin breeches and a filthy cotton shirt, saying, “You’re used to dressing up like a male. Cover yourself before I’m forced to fight off half the Osage nation to keep that fire-haired scalp off some buck’s lodgepole.”
He had untied her bonds, removed the gag and thrown the clothes at her, even allowed her privacy away from the Indians’ hard obsidian eyes, to change into the outfit. Turning her back on the Englishman, she had tugged the britches on beneath the tattered filthy night rail, then slipped it off and quickly donned the heavy shirt, thankful for its protection against the chill. A small piece of hemp served as a belt to hold the baggy clothes on her slender frame.
Her feet remained bare, however, as he said, “Easier to keep you from running off this way. Anyway, I always was partial to barefooted women...not to mention bare assed ones,” he’d added with a nasty chuckle.
When they returned to the camp, Bad Temper looked at her with renewed interest, never before having seen a female in men’s clothing. Unaware she understood his language, the Osage began urging Pardee to share the captive with his red brothers. Her heart froze with terror at the prospect of having not only Pardee but the three Osage all take their turns at her. They would tear her apart! But Pardee said that no one was to touch her.
He finally prevailed, threatening the renegades with the loss of their destructive contraband if they despoiled the property of the man who sent them firewater and rifles. They, in turn, out of disgruntled spite, secured his pledge not to touch her either. Olivia uttered a silent prayer of thanks and wondered if the supplier could be Wescott.
The small party slept for a few hours, risin
g at dawn to resume their upriver journey. All the while she plotted escape, formulating and rejecting plans, knowing there would be no second chance if she failed the first time. When they camped the following night to eat and take a brief rest, she was prepared.
She ate a few mouthfuls of the rancid greasy pemmican offered her, then pretending to be exhausted, she curled up a distance from the fire, her hands and feet securely tied. But this time, her wrists were bound in front of her. After all, even if she were free, she would not get far barefooted. One Osage guard was posted but he took his station away from the small fire, looking out toward the river, from where they most reasonably expected pursuit to come. Once she was certain the others, especially Pardee, were asleep, she took a small sharp piece of shale from her pocket. She had managed to secret it away that morning when she had deliberately fallen on the riverbank while they were boarding the canoes.
Gritting her teeth, Olivia began the long, laborious task of sawing through her bonds, those on her feet first, although if she was unable to free her hands, she knew running away bound would surely end in failure. It took several hours, but when the final hide binding on her wrists gave way, she sat quietly rubbing her hands and feet to restore circulation while her eyes scanned the camp for any possible weapons to take with her. There was no hope of killing four armed men single-handedly, or she would gladly have rid the world of the deadly renegades. Several muskets were stacked against the trunk of a sycamore by Pardee.
If she dared move closer to the fire where Bad Temper slept, a knife gleamed at his side. It had fallen from a loose sheath at his waist as he rolled over. Dare she risk it? Survival in the woods was going to be difficult enough even with a rifle. A knife to gut and clean her kills would be a tremendous asset. She began to crawl slowly toward the fire, scarcely daring to breathe as she inched her hand forward to slide the knife away from the sleeping Indian. Placing it in her belt, she retreated into the shadows and circled around for Pardee’s rifle, a sturdy .69 caliber flintlock, far better than the crude old Brown Bess muskets the Osage carried.
For one horrifying instant she thought the Englishman had awakened, but he merely snorted and tossed abruptly on his other side, then resumed his loud even snoring. Trembling, she took the rifle with its shot pouch and the powder horn hanging alongside it and vanished silently into the darkness.
* * * *
Three days had passed since Olivia had disappeared. Samuel did not know whether to hope she had gone willingly with Pardee and was safe or that his wife had actually been abducted by the renegade, even though that meant her life was at grave risk.
His wife. She was in fact his wife now, and he was not nearly as certain that he regretted the fact as he had been after they had consummated their vows. He had been angry at Micajah’s coercion, mistrustful of her motives and then after he took her innocence, shocked and guilty at what his own lust had wrought.
But had it been only simple lust? The question kept nagging him as he tracked her and Pardee through the wilderness. Hell, nothing about Olivia had ever been simple from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her. She was the most complex and fascinating woman he had ever met, and he was determined that he would get her back, no matter if it took him a year in the wilderness.
Where the hell was the accursed Englishman going with her? Not downriver back to Wescott, that much had been obvious after a few hours of tracking them in a northwardly direction. But what if the shady merchant had come upriver? Or, dispatched Pardee to deliver even more of his illicit cargoes among the Osage encampments stretching all along the banks of the Missouri and its tributaries to the northwest? His heart had sunk when he had reached the bank of the Missouri that second morning and seen the unmistakable signs of a heavily laden Osage canoe shoved off into the water. Their trail ended.
He cursed bitterly, realizing how difficult it was going to be to find her. No matter about Wescott or Pardee or the guns or the war. His first priority was Olivia, his wife. She had turned his life upside down since he’d been brought more dead than alive to Micajah Johnstone’s cabin. Perhaps with Dirt Devil tracking her Micajah might have had better luck than he. Maybe she was already safely back at the cabin waiting for him.
As he rode his borrowed horse upriver through the woodlands, he prayed for a miracle. By tonight he could reach a smaller Osage town that he had visited last spring. If Chief Rich Man was still in charge, he might be able to secure some help in his search. Rich Man was an old friend of Santiago Quinn’s. Right now, Shelby was banking rather heavily on that friendship. Olivia’s life might well hang in the balance.
He tried not to think of what some tribes did to captive females, or even worse, of what a man like Pardee was capable. In that lay madness. No, he must remain calm and use his head, not race off in a blind panic. When he closed his eyes he could still see the expression on her face when he had breached her maidenhead, the look of surprise, the shocked bewilderment and pain she had tried so valiantly to hide—his brave, beautiful wife.
Samuel was exhausted, his strength still not fully recovered from his earlier ordeal with Man Whipper and his companions. He had been virtually without sleep for three days now, only allowing himself to rest an hour or two when the moon set and he could not see to travel. Once he realized he must have help and a canoe to journey upriver, he had set his horse toward Rich Man’s village and dozed fitfully in the saddle, something he was inured to doing.
When he heard the sound of some creature crashing through the brush, it jarred him to instant wakefulness. He reined in his horse and listened, then saw a blur through a thicket of chokecherry, a slim figure in ragged britches—with long red hair blazing like a banner behind her as she leaped agilely through the rocks, clutching a rifle in one hand as she ran.
His own rifle was primed and ready to fire at her pursuer as he kneed his mount to intersect her at a stand of scrub oak for which she was headed. Just then an Indian broke through the brush behind her. He raised his weapon to fire but before he could sight it in, she had rolled down behind a rock, taken aim and fired at a range of fifty feet, hitting her target in the chest. Without waiting a beat she was up on her feet, reloading, and then spinning around to continue her flight.
Samuel urged his horse forward, then saw a second pursuer raising a musket and sighting in on Olivia’s back. Shelby fired, knocking the Osage against a tree trunk. Olivia turned toward the sound of the shot, incredulous joy infusing her face when she saw her husband riding toward her, smoking rifle still in his hand. He bent down to scoop her up in front of him as she ran toward him.
“There are a dozen more! Pardee must’ve run into the renegades he was delivering his guns and whiskey to,” she said breathlessly as they took off at a gallop toward the trees.
Another shot rang out, then another. The big gelding screamed in pain and stumbled as blood gushed from its neck. Samuel kicked free of the stirrups and jumped, carrying Olivia with him as the animal went down. They scrambled to their feet and started running toward a stand of scrub oak as the dirt around them was peppered by several more shots.
When they reached the cover of the trees, she turned and took aim at their pursuers. While he reloaded, she fired. They took turns until the woods grew quiet. Three dead Osage lay sprawled in the meadows behind them.
“If they wait us out, we’ll eventually run out of ammunition,” he said bleakly, his mind racing. Taking her hand he gritted out, “I outran the sons of bitches once. Damn if the two of us won’t do it now.”
Trying to ignore the screaming pain in her cut and bleeding feet, Olivia said, “My legs are too short to outrun them, but maybe we can outsmart them.”
“What do you mean?”
“Micajah told me a story once...about a friend named John Colter.”
“I’ve met the man,” Samuel replied as they began to trot deeper into the woods. “What about him?”
“He hid from his pursuers in a river up north. If we can make it back near where Pardee and
his friends came ashore—”
“They left a canoe!” Samuel exclaimed eagerly.
“No,” she replied calmly, “that’s the first place they’ll search. They’ve probably spread out and one group is halfway there by now.”
“Then what?” he asked impatiently, slapping a low branch out of his way.
“There’s a beaver dam in an embarras on one of the tributaries, just below where we landed. I saw it as we were coming upriver.”
Shelby looked at her oddly but said nothing, then scanned the woods for more hostiles. “So, if we find this embarras, you figure we can hide in it until they give up looking for us? Pretty dangerous with savages popping up all around the damn thing. I think we’d be safer to keep running. We may lose them in these woods.”
“I did manage to lose them for nearly a day but they still caught up to me.” She flinched as a jagged piece of rock bit into her instep, but kept on jogging beside him.
For the first time he looked down at her feet and cursed. “Why didn’t you say you were barefooted?”
“It didn’t exactly come up in the conversation,” she replied acerbically. “If you recall, Pardee kidnapped me from bed. I was wearing only a night rail.”
Our marriage bed, he thought guiltily. And he had left her there for Pardee. “How did you acquire these clothes then?” he asked at once.
Her eyes met his as the implications of the question struck her like a lightning bolt. “Damn you? You think I went willingly with him?”
“No, not now,” he said sighing wearily. “I’ll confess it did occur to me at first. There were no signs of a struggle.”
“He slipped in with an Osage warrior while I was asleep. They both had me before I could make a sound or even move,” she said bitterly. “Pardee gave me some of his old clothes. He left me barefooted thinking I couldn’t run that way. I took a page from your book and fooled them.” She had a look of grim pride on her face.