Embrace the Wild Land

by Rosanne Bittner

  Zeke stepped closer, while Wolf’s Blood moved to hold his knife on Buel, anxious now to spill the man’s blood.

  “I have already seen Anna,” Zeke told Garvey with a grin. “She is the one who helped me find your place and told me what to expect. She looks forward to your death.” He laid the tip of his rifle barrel under Garvey’s nose. “You are the one who misjudged, Senator,” he sneered. “You are the one who underestimated things. I have a power of my own, and it does not involve money or my station in life. It is my own power—the power from within, the power that can master all odds, even men like Winston Garvey. Now start walking! We will leave the house nice and tidy—no blood, nothing broken. Your men left some horses mounted outside. We will ride to a place where my son and I have our own mounts waiting. Then we are going to take a little ride through Cash Creek so that our trail disappears. And then you will tell me, my fat senator, what you have done with my woman. And once you are dead, I will make sure your body is never found, and people will always wonder whatever happened to the fine Senator Winston Garvey, the prominent, respectable citizen of this new Colorado. And there will be no one to connect you with me, because even the men who helped capture my wife do not know she was brought to you. And the only two men who do know will be dead. You have caught yourself in your own trap, Senator!”

  “Have I?” the senator replied, reminding himself of who he was and telling himself he should not be afraid. Surely it was a bluff that all his men were dead. Surely someone would come and save him. “And why should I tell you where your wife is? It will only mean my certain death. You need me alive to find her, you stinking half-breed! Threatening to kill me does you no good!”

  Zeke punched his rifle barrel into Garvey’s belly, knocking the man back into his leather chair. He moved the rifle to his left hand and whipped out his knife, laying the big blade against Garvey’s cheek just under his eye.

  “I did not say you could live or die, my friend,” he sneered. “If you choose not to tell me, you have that right. But it will not mean that you will live. I will tell you your choice, Senator. Your choice is whether or not you want to die quickly by telling me right away—” he lightly nicked a tiny cut under the man’s eye so that it stung, and Garvey swallowed—“or slowly.” Zeke lowered the knife and shoved it back into its sheath, then took up his rifle and put it under Garvey’s chin, pushing upward so that the man was forced to rise. “Now move, fat man! My thirst for your blood burns hot in my mouth.” He motioned for the man to move toward the door, and Wolf’s Blood, who stood grinning at Buel, waved his knife in the same direction, signaling the man to follow Garvey.

  They exited the study of the prominent ex-senator, moving through the hallway to the front door. With every step the senator felt his legs getting weaker and heavier, his breathing becoming labored. Could it possibly be true that there were no men to help him? Was this really happening? It could not be. He was Winston Garvey. Half of Colorado knew who he was. Men in Washington knew who he was. And Charles! What about Charles! What would the boy do without his father? He was not ready yet to be on his own. He stopped at the steps of the veranda, gasping at the sight of Joe lying with his throat slit. The reality of the moment was beginning to sink in. He grasped a post for support, feeling faint.

  “Look, Monroe,” the man spoke up. “Listen to me. I—I’ll tell you where she is, if you just let me go. I know that isn’t enough … but I can make it up to you. I can make you a rich man. You name the price and it’s yours. I—I admit I shouldn’t have done it. But … why can’t we just make an exchange? You tell me about the boy, and I’ll tell you where your wife is, and we’ll call it quits. And I will hand you whatever sum of money you name. You’ll never be a rich man, Monroe. You have a big family. I can give you enough money to support them the rest of your life.”

  Zeke smiled. “How touching,” he said coldly. “But there is no amount of money that could make up for what you’ve done, Garvey! I am the one who paid the price—and my Abbie! Now you shall pay, but not in dollars, my friend. No. The price will be higher than all the money you can get your hands on. Now mount up!”

  Garvey swallowed back tears of fear then, making his way down the steps in shear agony, enveloped with fear. Buel followed toward the horses tied at a hitching post near the bunkhouse. They reached the horses, and Buel kept holding his side, turning to look at Zeke when he reached his horse.

  “Wait,” the man spoke up. “I don’t want to die! I can tell you where the woman is.”

  “Shut up, Buel!” Garvey ordered. “Don’t tell the half-breed scum anything! He means to kill us either way, you fool!”

  “Then I don’t aim to die slow!” Buel shot back, his voice beginning to squeak from fear. “Don’t you know the Indian ways? Do you really want to die that way?” His breathing was coming in short gasps then. “Dead Canyon—north of the ranch,” the man said quickly. “There’s an old mine shaft up there. She’s inside it.”

  Zeke grinned. “How easily cowards talk!” he sneered.

  “He’s lying!” Garvey growled. “He’s just trying to get out of this.”

  Zeke suddenly kicked Garvey between the legs and the man crumpled. “We shall soon learn what is the truth!” he hissed. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and bent down, jerking the man up, surprising Buel with his strength, for Garvey was a hefty man. The senator groaned and held himself between the legs, feeling faint from the pain. He heard someone ordering him to mount up, but he couldn’t make his legs work. “Mount up or I’ll drag you out of here!” Zeke ordered.

  Garvey grasped the saddle horn and got one foot in a stirrup, then cried out from pain again. Zeke pushed him up but Garvey could not get his right leg over the saddle. He lay flat over the horse, clinging to the saddle horn. Zeke quickly removed the rope from the saddle gear and began looping it around Garvey’s ankles.

  “What are … you doing?” Garvey moaned.

  “I’m tired of dallying with you, Garvey,” Zeke replied. He ducked under the horse and came up on the other side, jerking Garvey around so that he was completely sideways bent over the horse. He began tying the other end of the rope to Garvey’s wrists and shoulders, pulling tight.

  “No!” Garvey begged. “I can’t ride this way. My God, all the blood is going to my head! My stomach! It’s smashing my stomach! I can’t breathe this way!”

  “You touch my heart, Garvey,” Zeke sneered.

  “Mount up!” Wolf’s Blood was ordering Buel. “For the next few hours you will regret you ever touched my mother.”

  Buel wished he had killed the boy the day of the raid, but his orders were to harm none of the children. That had been a foolish order. Now it was too late. He had to think and think fast.

  “It’s too dark!” he protested. “We can’t ride through Cash Creek at night time.”

  “Don’t you know that Indians can see in the dark?” Wolf’s Blood sneered. “Now get on your horse!”

  Buel obliged, his only hope now that Handy might somehow see them. But Handy was at the cave, and it wasn’t likely he would leave it. Their orders were to stay at the cave when it was their turn and not leave it. But surely something would happen to help them. To fight now would mean certain death. He would ride. At least that meant a few more minutes or hours of life, and as long as he was alive, there was hope. He mounted up, and Wolf’s Blood quickly began tying the man’s wrists to the saddle pommel.

  “Let’s go!” Zeke told his son. “Some of those men might start coming back.”

  Wolf’s Blood nodded, taking Buel’s horse by the reins, as Zeke did with Garvey’s horse. They led the animals away from the ranch, and the great stone house sat empty, all its comforts and fine furnishings of no help to Winston Garvey. For he had dared to challenge Zeke Monroe.

  Twenty-Six

  They made their way along Cash Creek, four men alone in the early dawn, with nothing but the wolves and the eagles to know that they were there. When they had followed the creek long enoug
h that Zeke was sure their trail would be hidden, he brought the horses to a halt and dismounted. He walked back to Garvey’s mount and began slicing the big blade through the ropes that held the man on the horse. He shoved Garvey’s body off the horse and it fell with a splash into the creek. The man groaned and drank some of the water, rolling to his back so that he could finally breathe better. Zeke nodded toward Wolf’s Blood to untie Buel’s wrists and let the man down, while he himself began looping his rope around Garvey under the man’s shoulders.

  “What … what are you doing?” Garvey asked weakly. Zeke tightened the rope and deftly ripped open the man’s shirt, slicing off the material quickly with his knife, then continuing down, removing all clothing so that the man was completely naked. Wolf’s Blood followed suit, his young heart on fire for revenge after hearing how these men had talked about his mother in the study when he was outside the window.

  “What are you going to do?” Garvey screamed this time, as Zeke tied his end of the rope to his horse. Still Zeke did not reply. He looked at his son.

  “Keep the clothes. We will burn them later. Leave nothing, Wolf’s Blood. We want no signs left. We must make certain nothing is found.”

  “Ai, Father.”

  Buel panicked. He would rather be shot than dragged! He shoved at Wolf’s Blood and began running before the boy could tie the rope around his mount. Moments later a powerful man crashed into him, slamming him to the ground. Zeke quickly rolled the man over and kicked him hard between the legs, his thirst for vengeance beginning to consume him now in maniacal proportions. He grabbed the rope and dragged the screaming man back to Wolf’s Blood’s horse, tying the other end. He walked back to Garvey, who had started to cry. Zeke just stared down at him.

  “How many times did she cry?” he hissed. “How many times did she beg you to leave her alone and take her home? You made a foolish choice, Garvey. You should never have touched my woman, or any member of my family. Now we are going for a little scenic ride. And when we are through, you will tell me if Buel is telling the truth that my wife is at Dead Canyon in a mine shaft. You will know great pain, Garvey. And you will tell me—beg me—to let you die quickly. My wife needs me. I do not have time to waste.”

  He mounted up, taking Garvey’s horse beside him by the reins. “I hope my horse is strong enough to drag all your blubber!” Zeke shouted, a gleam in his eyes. He kicked the mount into a gentle run, and Wolf’s Blood followed, dragging Buel behind him. The men screamed and struggled, trying to get to their feet. But Zeke and Wolf’s Blood rode just fast enough that it was impossible to get up and run. Dawn was just beginning to show its light then, and Zeke chose the rockiest part of the land over which to ride, deliberately searching out small cacti that grew close to the ground.

  The screams of Garvey and Buel were music to his ears, and he rode faster, caught up then in the glory of revenge. He kept an eye on the bodies, not wanting to go so far that the men might die before they could talk. After a mile or so he stopped, dismounting and looking down at Garvey’s shredded skin and badly bleeding body. He kicked the fat man over onto his back.

  “Where is my wife?” he growled.

  “You stinking … bloodthirsty half-breed,” Garvey groaned. Zeke just grinned and bent close, removing his knife.

  “You may choose to tell or not to tell. I am good at prolonging death, Senator. How long you choose to lie here and suffer is your decision.” He laid the knife against the man’s face. “Which shall I take first, Senator, your eyes or your privates?”

  The senator’s eyes widened more. In his sedate, pampered life, he had not considered that a man could do such bloody, vile things. But then this man was Indian. Blood and violence were as natural to him as breathing. “You’ll never … get away with it!” he tried to argue. “You’ll be hung! My … son … will find you and have you hung!”

  Zeke just grinned. “No one will ever know what happened to you, Garvey,” he sneered. “And I doubt your bastard son will even care. With you dead, he owns the empire. But I will at least have my woman back.” He traced the knife lightly down over Garvey’s cheek and chest, just enough to make a sting. Garvey began shaking violently as the knife wandered toward his privates. “You raped my wife, Garvey!” Zeke hissed. “So we both know what I will take first from you!”

  “No! No, wait!” the man screamed, starting to kick. But Zeke straddled the man, sitting on his legs just long enough to grab the man and whack off everything that made him a man. He laid the organs on the man’s chest. Garvey’s groans and weeping only made him smile.

  “How long shall we continue, Garvey?” he asked. “Your eyes are next, my friend. Then your fingers—one at a time.”

  “Dead … Canyon!” the man wept. “Buel … told you … the truth. Oh, God, finish me! Finish me if that’s what you … intend to do!”

  Zeke just smiled. “You can lie there and look at your own privates, Senator, and think about how good life might have been for you if you had never touched my woman.” He walked back to Wolf’s Blood and Buel. Buel tried to scramble to his feet, his eyes wide and frightened over what had just happened to Garvey. His body was badly torn and bloody. The man crawled away from Zeke and Wolf’s Blood, but he could only go so far before the rope stopped him. “It’s your turn, Buel,” Zeke told the man. “Who else is at the canyon? Is there a guard?”

  The man crouched on his knees, his breathing quick and frightened, his eyes wide. “Yes!” he replied in a squeaking voice. “Just one man—Handy! That’s all, I swear! The mine shaft … is about a mile into the canyon … on the north side! Please … let me go! Please!”

  “You raped her, too, didn’t you?” Zeke growled.

  “N-no!” the man replied. “Please! I swear … I didn’t touch her!”

  Zeke just walked over and kicked the man in the jaw, sending him sprawling. He grabbed the man’s ankles, and in his broken, torn condition, Buel was too weak to fight back. He lay there dizzy and filled with horrible pain. Zeke looked at Wolf’s Blood. “He raped your mother,” was all he said.

  The boy’s eyes glittered as he pulled his own bowie knife and walked over to Buel.

  “No! He’s … just a kid!” Buel protested. “He … wouldn’t.…”

  Wolf’s Blood reached down and sliced at the man, then stood up and held the organs in the air while Buel lay screaming and crying. At that moment, the boy never felt more savage or more victorious. This was proper punishment for what they had done to his mother. The whites would not have punished these men at all. White man’s justice made no sense to an Indian. An Indian had to deal out his own justice. He turned to his father with gleaming eyes.

  “Do what you want with him, son,” was all Zeke told him. “Let him suffer first. There are many ways with the knife that can bring pain but not death. I will take care of Garvey.” He looked around the maze of boulders and rocky crevices into which they had ridden, at the base of the towering Rockies. “We’ll bury the bodies deep and roll boulders over them. We’ll burn the clothing so that if the bodies are found there will be no clothing on them to help identify who they might be. Then we’ll find your mother.” He turned and Wolf’s Blood called out to him.

  “I heard them say she was sick, Father,” the boy told him. “We have to find her quickly now. She might be dying.”

  Zeke nodded and turned to walk back to Garvey, knife in hand. Screams of agony could be heard out of both men, who lay at the mercy of men who dealt their own form of justice. But there was no one to hear—nothing but the eagle and the coyote and the jack rabbit. But the animals were kin in spirit to the Indian. They would not tell.

  It turned out to be a warm day. Birds sang and wild-flowers bloomed everywhere. It was difficult to imagine that in a mine shaft someplace amid this beautiful canyon there lay a woman beaten and raped and dying. Zeke and Wolf’s Blood had led Garvey’s and Buel’s horses with them until they were a great distance from the site of the two men’s deaths. They had turned the horses loose t
hen, not far from Garvey’s own ranch. By the time the animals wandered home or to someone else’s ranch or were found by Indians, there would be nothing left but for people to wonder what had happened to the men who rode them. The third man at the mine shaft would be buried deep in the shaft once they finished with him, and the three men would never be found or heard from again.

  Zeke’s heart pounded now with anticipation. It mattered little to him that other men had touched his wife. She was still his Abbie. He would hold her and hold her forever, until she learned to forget the horror the three men had inflicted on her. He would make her forget. He must make her forget and reclaim her for himself. His body raged with a need to be one with his woman again, to take back that which belonged to Zeke Monroe, to lie beside her and know that she was alive and they were together again!

  But he knew Abbie. It would be a long time before she could be a wife to him again in that way. But he would be patient and move slowly. First there would have to be a physical healing. Yet no matter how badly she might be injured or how sick she might be, he knew the physical healing would be easier than the emotional and mental healing. That was the healing he worried about. Abbie! Poor, sweet, beautiful Abbie! His mind reeled with the reality of it. The very thing he had feared might happen to her just because she was his wife had happened. Memories of Ellen spun around in his mind. Would he find Abbie dead also? How would he live after that?

  He stopped Wolf’s Blood not far from the place where he thought the shaft should be. “Tie your mount and we’ll go in on foot,” he told the boy. “We’ll climb up the ridge of the canyon here and search from above.”

  The two of them dismounted and began making their way quietly through rocks and coarse bushes, climbing and moving like mountain goats, their dark skin and buckskin clothing matching their surroundings so that they were difficult to spot. They ran along the top of the ridge for several hundred yards until finally they spotted a horse tied below. From their vantage point, they could not see the shaft entrance several hundred feet below them, but the horse told them they were at the right place. Zeke motioned for Wolf’s Blood to follow him down until they finally spotted the entrance. Wolf’s Blood started forward, but Zeke grabbed his arm and shook his head.