by Shirl Henke
Samuel threw back his head and felt himself swell in that last glorious stroke which brought him finally home, spilling his seed in the highest seat of her womb, pulsing life into her in long powerful throbs, until he was utterly spent, panting and breathless as she.
When her smooth legs slid down the hair roughened sides of his and she felt his chest press against her breasts, she clutched his head against her neck, running her fingers through his thick night dark hair. She felt the warm flutter of his breath as he murmured against her throat indistinctly.
“Livy.”
Or had she imagined it? Somehow the endearment no longer seemed inappropriate as she drifted off to sleep, cocooned by his warmth.
Chapter Nineteen
“Damned if we ain’t a gittin’ close, Dirt Devil.” Micajah ‘squatted, examining the body of a slain Osage warrior while the hound paced excitedly, eager to continue. “Now jest stick ta Sparky’s trail. She fer certain got shut o’ them varmints,” he instructed as they resumed their search.
Micajah had to find her before Pardee and those renegades recaptured her. He had read the signs of her escape and encounter with Shelby, a matter of some good luck. Having his horse shot out from under them certainly was not lucky, but at least with two weapons they stood a better chance. As the dog sniffed and dashed, Micajah trotted behind him in ground-devouring strides.
Suddenly the hound stopped, growling low in his throat, his fur bristling up along the ridge of his spine. At once Johnstone crouched behind the scant cover of a clump of buttonbush as a shot whistled by his shoulder. He held his rifle steady, gauging from where the attack had come, not wasting his own fire. The dog took off circling around, swift and silent. Flush ‘em out, Dev.
After several minutes he heard the sound of a feral growl followed by a human scream. He took off in the direction of the snarling sounds of battle, but just as he crested the rise he hard a loud yelp, then ominous silence. Dirt Devil lay sprawled on the grass with blood pooling at the side of his head. A badly chewed up Osage with a tomahawk in his fist was climbing to his feet.
Micajah quickly took aim and started to squeeze the trigger but before he could get off the shot, another rang out from his left side, The impact of the ball slammed the big man against the trunk of a sycamore. He slid down the rough bark as blackness hazed his eyes. The last thing he saw was that Osage who had clubbed Devil coming at him with his scalping knife in his hand.
The Indian who had shot the fallen man in the back reached the victim before his hound-chewed companion. He toed the big man’s body, and when there was no response, he set aside his rifle and started to draw his own scalping knife. He sensed rather than heard the danger behind him and whirled about, too late. His terrified scream was cut short. The other Osage turned and ran as fast as his fleet feet could carry him, all thoughts of a fine trophy scalp forgotten.
Micajah Johnstone lay still as death at the base of the tree, while blood oozed from the hole in his back in a life-ebbing trickle. The hound, covered with its own caked on gore, crawled across the clearing to his master and began licking the bearded face and whimpering low, piteous cries.
Micajah did not respond.
* * * *
Samuel awakened to the sounds of the river at dawn, the splashing of sawyers, the low hum of the current and the counterpoint of cooing mourning doves in the tall cottonwoods that overhung the bank. He started to move, then felt the softness of Olivia’s body burrowed against his side. The long tangled skein of her hair lay across his chest. A new shaft of sunlight trickling in from the air hole above burnished it like living flame.
His legs lay possessively across her slim thighs and her head was pillowed on his arm, which was numb when he flexed his fingers and tried gingerly to withdraw it. She awakened slowly, blinking her eyes in the dim light as he rolled up and reached for his pants. As he tugged them on she raised her upper body on her elbows and watched, uncertain of what to say after what had passed between them last night.
Finally, he broke the silence after shoving on his miserably wet, stiff boots. “I’ll bring us some more of the beaver’s hoard for breakfast while you get dressed.”
“Then what?” The question seemed to ask itself, pregnant with many meanings.
He grinned at her. “Then we eat.”
She struggled to slide into the still damp britches and shirt and refasten the makeshift clothes with the rope belt, then examined her feet. The yarrow had done its work. Already they looked less red and raw but she still had no shoes and they faced a long trek. As she considered the dilemma, he returned and they both found themselves famished, quickly devouring a pile of berries, mushrooms and other roots and tubers the beavers had gathered.
When they had finished, he looked at her and said, “When I was tracking you and Pardee, I prayed he hadn’t hurt you—that I found you before—”
“He never touched me,” she quickly interrupted, then shuddered in revulsion. “Not that he didn’t intend to. I overheard when he talked with the Osage. They didn’t know I could understand their language. He told them I was not to be touched, but I think it was only because he wanted to keep them from fighting over me.”
“And maybe he’d promised to deliver you safe and sound back to Wescott,” he suggested.
“I wondered about that, but he never said what he was going to do with me after the rendezvous with the rest of the Osage renegades. He never mentioned Wescott’s name. I only know that he intimated to me that he would use me when we were alone together.”
Samuel could sense the loathing in her voice. “But he didn’t and he never will. I’ll kill him before he touches you again.”
She looked at him sharply, seeing the tightly leashed fury in his burning eyes and clenched jaw. His whole body was taut with it. “You don’t have to defend my honor,” she said softly.
He looked at her with an unreadable expression on his face, all the previous open anger submerged. “Why? Because I despoiled you myself?”
“You were forced into the marriage but you are my husband. Whatever you do now, you can’t despoil me, Samuel.”
“Why did you run from me back in St. Louis?”
“Why did you lie to me about being married?” she countered. That betrayal still stung.
He sighed, realizing they were falling into the same old accusatory circular arguments as they had before. “I should have told you...but I was in the process of petitioning for a divorce from Tish.”
She had learned from his feverish ravings how his first wife had hurt him, the pain and shame Tish had inflicted on a proud and very private man, but she knew she could not speak of that. “I was listening outside the door when my guardian offered me to you as a mistress. That he would do such a thing was a terrible betrayal.”
“And that I would accept an even more terrible one,” he supplied for her and saw the confirmation in her haunted eyes. “If you had come to me that night, I would not have fallen on you like a lust crazed animal, Olivia. I already had doubts about Wescott’s reliability. I intended to ask you if you wanted to stay with me, not force you.”
She stiffened. “How noble of you, considering that you already believed me to be less than virtuous and possibly in league with Wescott. He is the one the men in Washington sent you after isn’t he?”
He shrugged in defeat, admiring her quick mind as much as her prickly pride. “Yes, I was sent to stop British agents from convincing the Osage Nation to join the crown against us in the coming war.” Then he smiled and stared into her eyes, saying gravely, “But I’m learning to trust you, Olivia. I don’t believe you’re a British agent or that you took part in Wescott’s schemes.”
“You told him that you would never marry again. All you ever intended to offer me was my keep as a mistress. But now I’m your wife. Where do we go from here, Samuel?” She could not believe she had possessed the boldness to ask such a direct question, no matter how desperately she wanted the answer.
Before Samuel c
ould reply, loud yipping erupted from the riverbank and the smell of smoke began to filter inside the lodge.
“It looks as if Pardee’s friends have found us, although I don’t think they know we’re inside. It’s just a precaution in case we might happen to be.”
“And a way to drive us out,” she replied grimly.
Samuel grabbed her hand and ran to the entrance of the lodge. “Wait until I have a hold on you once we’re underwater,” he commanded, then began to shimmy down the narrow passage.
She quickly followed as smoke began billowing in the chamber above. The Englishman’s Osage were firing the whole top of the embarras! She felt Samuel’s hand clamp on her ankle, pulling her quickly into his arms, then propelling her next to him as they moved through the cold, murky water, which glowed an eerie dull orange, reflecting the flames that leaped above them.
They swam underwater as far as their lungs would allow, until they were well clear of the fiery inferno of the beaver lodges and the embarras. Their lungs burned as intently as the licking flames behind them when they finally broke water, far downstream. Not a hundred yards away lay the Missouri’s wide muddy channel, but the river was too cold and wide, the currents too treacherous for them to hope to swim across.
Treading water, Samuel looked back to where the renegades were chopping their way into the tops of the lodges, then putting each one to the torch as they found it empty. All along the dense brushy embarras the flames licked skyward in the clear early morning light, darkening the blue with thick sooty smoke. Indians whooped and yipped, leaping from log to log across the floating debris until one man made the mistake of stepping on a sawyer, which submerged, then quickly sprung back up, catapulting him into the air. When he fell back, his leg was crushed beneath the weight of a massive dead cottonwood limb. Several of his fellows tried to reach him.
Using the diversion, the fugitives swam furiously for the opposite shore. Dense scrub pines and cattails covered the water’s edge as they scrambled, breathless and dripping, into the shallows. Olivia slipped as her foot struck a moss covered rock and Samuel reached out, catching her in his arms.
“How touchingly solicitous. The perfect officer and gentleman. My, my, Colonel, you are a difficult man to kill,” Stuart Pardee said conversationally. “But I do plan to kill you...very, very slowly.” The venom in his eyes was magnified by the swelling surrounding them and the yellow and purple bruises covering his face, souvenirs of his last, less successful, encounter with Shelby. He signaled half a dozen Osage, who emerged from the dense rushes all with muskets aimed at the couple. “I rather imagined our little bonfire would bring you across the creek if you happened to be hiding inside.”
Samuel tried to shield Olivia when two of the Indians reached for her, but as his knife slashed at them, a third came up behind him, clubbing him on the head as the first two seized the kicking, punching woman and dragged her to shore.
“Tie him securely. I have a bit of unfinished business with him before I amuse myself killing him. There are one or two questions Mr. Madison’s special agent needs must answer.”
Olivia’s blood ran cold as she listened to Pardee’s hate. Her hunch had been right. Samuel was a spy—and soon he would be a dead one if she did not do something. But what?
They were bound hand and foot in front of a campfire that night before Samuel came around. For a while Olivia had feared that the second blow to his head had caused some permanent damage and he might never awaken at all...not that their future looked that much less bleak when he did regain consciousness.
She had been studying him worriedly when she first noted that his back tensed and his eyes opened, but he only raised his head an imperceptible bit, then murmured to her, “Where have they taken us?”
“We’re only a mile or two upstream from where they captured us, on the banks of the Missouri.”
“Then Pardee is still late for his rendezvous with that shipment of contraband.”
“I rather doubt we can prevent him from reaching it,” she replied dryly, refusing to give in to her fear. “How does your head feel?”
“Like a herd of buffalo stampeded over it but at least I’m not seeing double like I did the last time.” He slowly scooted around so his hands were in the shadows away from the fire, then began to work his wrists methodically back and forth, testing the buckskin bonds.
“I’ve already tried that,” she said.
‘‘Yes, but I’ve had more practice.”
Their sotto voce discussion was interrupted by the arrival of a large delegation of Osage, several dozen men who had not been with Pardee during his pursuit of the fugitives.
“Looks like the rendezvous has come to the Englishman,” Samuel said, cursing beneath his breath. All the while he covertly studied the activity across the fire, he continued to work at his bonds.
“Do you recognize any of them?” she asked, noticing the way he studied one shorter, stocky man, obviously a chief.
“The fellow with the disfigured ears I met with my brother-in-law a few years back. I doubt Chief No Ears will remember me, but who knows?”
“Would he free us?”
“I’m sure he hasn’t the power even if he were so inclined. No, he’s come here to see what Pardee has to offer just like the rest.”
The new delegation took seats and an animated exchange ensued, although the prisoners were too far away to understand much of it. “What are they saying?” Samuel asked Olivia as she strained to make sense of the occasional phrase carried on the breeze.
“A few are from Pawhuska’s village—not yet committed to joining the English and breaking with the old chiefs and the Council of Elders. Your friend No Ears is open to offers, too. They’ve all come to see what Pardee’s message is from the English king,” she murmured. “Beyond that, I’m not certain what he is answering—his back is to me and I can’t make out his words.”
Samuel concentrated on releasing the last of the bindings on his wrists, trying to formulate a way to use the information she had just given him when she suddenly gasped. “What is it?”
“One of the men asked what was to be done with the fire-haired warrior woman who is Great Bear’s daughter.”
“And?” he prodded, dreading the reply.
“They’re arguing about it...I can’t make out—”
“No one will have her for she is my adopted daughter,” a familiar voice boomed in the stillness of the night speaking in Osage. Micajah Johnstone walked boldly into the midst of the assembly, along with another group of Osage. Samuel and Olivia recognized two of them as members of the Council of Elders from Pawhuska’s town.
“The white woman and the American Long Knife are my prisoners. You no longer have a claim on her,” Pardee said in English, then quickly repeated himself in the Osage tongue. He stood up to face the behemoth in front of him, realizing that the situation had suddenly taken a turn that might not be in his favor.
“When I came after my daughter, one of your men thought to kill me by stealth, shooting me in the back like the cowards you are. My totem, the great bear, took his life with one swipe of her mighty paw—just as I will do to you... I wish to win my daughter’s freedom by right of combat. Or is the servant of the English father king afraid to fight the Great Bear of the Osage?” Micajah gestured broadly, casting his eyes around the circle of impassive faces as he spoke in their language. As he had hoped, a murmuring rose as the warriors from both factions looked at the Englishman to see how he would respond to the challenge.
Knowing he could not back down, Pardee studied Johnstone whose ruddy seamed countenance looked gray and pale beneath the sun and wind blasted skin. His bloody clothes had been changed for fresh buckskins but the Englishman knew Micajah had to be weakened by the bullet he had taken only two days earlier. “I accept your challenge. Prepare to die and remember that I shall possess your fire-haired daughter while scavengers pick your great carcass clean.”
But Pardee was not the only one to see that Johnstone was
injured.
“I claim the right to make the challenge,” Samuel interrupted in Spanish, a language all the Osage understood. Striding forward, he shoved aside two of Pardee’s Indians who moved to seize him again.
Everyone was amazed that the Long Knife walked free, none more so than the silently enraged British agent. “I have already said I would fight the Great Bear for his daughter. You are still my prisoner.”
Shelby smiled nastily, raising his thong burned wrists dramatically in front of the Indians ringing the campfire, striding arrogantly forward when Pardee’s warriors hesitated to stop him. “Do I look a prisoner?” he scoffed.
“Who are you to make the challenge in her father’s place?” one of the elders asked in broken but serviceable Spanish.
“I am her husband—and my body is whole, not injured as is the Great Bear’s. Would the coyote be brave enough to bare his fangs at the bear if he did not see the bear was wounded?” With that he strolled over to spit at Pardee’s feet.
Now the murmuring grew louder as Shelby took his place beside Micajah. “While I keep Pardee busy, you see that Olivia is cut free. Get her out of here, Johnstone.”
Micajah was still dizzy from blood loss and exhausted by the swift journey in pursuit of the captives. “I’ll see ta Sparky,” he said quietly. “Yew jest tend ta killin’ thet rattler Pardee.”
The Englishman knew his credibility with these savages depended on swift retribution against the American who dared call him coward. “I accept your challenge for the woman,” he replied in English. His gestures made clear that he was going to fight his challenger. “When I kill you she will belong to me all the more—and so will her father,” he added with a sneer. “Then his life will be forfeit, too.”
“First you have to kill me. As you already said, not an easy thing to do,” Shelby purred.
“But could your other opponents fight like an Osage? This will not be a barroom brawl like that night in the cabin. Let us try knives.” Pardee signaled to Bad Temper, who pulled a long, wicked looking blade from his belt and tossed it to his friend, who caught it easily by the handle. He pulled out his own weapon as he offered the other to Shelby.