OUT OF THE DARKNESS (THE PRESCOTT SERIES)

by B. J. McMinn

  Pushing further back against the bank, she felt trapped, helpless. Her life had been so short. Eyelids dropped over her eyes, she didn’t want to see the deathblow that took the last breath of life from her body. She silently released the air trapped in her lungs: a soft sound of acceptance of her fate.

  With her eyes squeezed shut, her other senses became more alert. She could almost track Three Feathers’ progress as he swam closer. Hear him breathe harder, faster, as he strained against the current. She knew the instant his long arm stretched out to take hold of what she regarded as her only dying hope. Now even that was gone.

  The water soaked branches gave way as he searched for hiding places. Her body stiffened when she heard him dive under the water. Time suspended as she waited for fate to play out her destiny.

  Something warm touched her cheek. Her heart stopped. Her eyes flew open. In her small refuge, Three Feathers tread water looking her straight in the eye. Jade never laid claim to courage, but at that moment, what little courage she had, fled in the blink of an eye. She wondered if a person could die from sheer fright. Her mouth opened, but she was too frightened to scream. He slid his finger from her check to press against her lips.

  Long black hair lay wet against his tanned shoulders. His bare chest was strong and broad. She understood how Morning Dove would be attracted to this warrior. Fierce and proud, he stood out among the other men in the village.

  She waited for his shout of victory to alert the others he’d found their prey. Minutes passed, with no cry of alarm. No shout of victory. His silence planted a seed of expectation in her heart. A crazy mixture of hope and fear quaked through her.

  Dark eyes regarded her with something akin to pity. Did something more shine in their enigmatic depths? Admiration?

  ~~~

  Three Feathers gazed into the frightened eyes of the woman he called Flame. She had cared for his wife and her mother with great devotion. His wife’s mother had passed to the land of their ancestors, content, knowing her daughter had finally brought forth a man-child and he still lived. His wife had long given up hope of having a child of her own, until she’d had this woman’s care. As his wife’s time drew closer, he could see the fear in her eyes, thinking this child would be lost like the others. But Flame had brought his son into the world, and he was happy to call her friend.

  When the sun rose two days ago, Black Hawk had noticed her gone. He wanted to begin the hunt at that moment. The deadly gleam in his eyes alerted Three Feathers as to what Black Hawk planned for her when he captured her.

  He had delayed the impatient warrior long enough to mourn the death of his wife’s mother. Morning Dove had informed him she’d seen the white woman–dressed in Bird Song’s clothing–slip out of their sleeping hut after the last fires of the camp had died down. She did not want to raise the alarm and hinder the woman’s chance of escape. Suckling her child, she had allowed the woman to leave.

  Flame had never spoken to any of the clan, yet, he and his family sensed she longed to go back to her people. Fate had brought her to them for a reason: that reason lay nestled against his wife’s breast. He had left her and their new son to search for Flame because he didn’t want her found and brought back to face an uncertain fate.

  Her eyes, wide with fear, focused on his. Her breath came in shallow pants as if she had forgotten how to take air. He reached down, never taking his finger from her lips. He took the pouch his wife had presented to him the day they married and placed it in Flame’s chilled hand, curling her fingers around the wet leather. Inside was the food he always carried.

  She had done well with her hiding place. Three Feathers silently praised her. He had no doubt she would find her way out of the forest and join her people.

  A ranch lay in the direction Flame had taken, and he knew the owner was a good man. Several times the rancher had sat astride his horse, on top of a rise, and watched Three Feathers and his warriors cut cattle from his herd. The man had thrown up his hand, fingers splayed wide. Three Feathers had looked at the cattle, then back at the rancher, his hand still in the air. Three Feathers turned back two head, the man lowered his hand and Three Feathers had never taken more than five head each fall.

  With a prayer to the Great Spirit that her journey be short, he dove beneath the tree’s branches and swiftly stroked his way back to join the other warriors. After a much-heated argument, and Black Hawk casting suspicious glances at Flame’s sanctuary, he convinced them to continue the search upstream.

  Two days after abandoning the hunt, he entered his sleeping hut and sat beside his wife and new son. Her eyes held the question he only dared to whisper the answer. “Flame is safe,” he murmured against her ear. “But, I will need another marriage pouch. She needed mine for her journey.”

  ~~~

  Jade let out the breath she hadn’t realized she held. Her gaze lowered to Three Feathers’ pouch, and marveled at his gesture. In the months she had been with his clan, she’d never seen him without it. She assumed he held it in great regard. Why had he given it to her? Slowly she opened the pouch. When she saw the food, she nearly cried out in joy.

  Jade slipped the pouch onto the belt of her stolen buckskin dress. Sinking beneath the branches, she wormed her way back into the stream. If Black Hawk and his companions went upstream, she was definitely going downstream. She rolled onto her back and let the current carry her until she felt safe enough to wade ashore.

  She was going home. But where was home? She didn’t have the slightest clue in what direction home lay. Vague memories of selling the home where she’d grown up crowded her mind. The harder she tried to remember the more her head throbbed.

  The rumbling of wagons roared, blocking out the sounds of the forest and left only screams of terror. Trembling, she put her hands over her ears to stop the horrible cries of death. She stumbled. Dazed, she glanced down at the rock she’d overturned. Leaning over, she carefully replaced the rock in its original position, dirt down. If Black Hawk returned, she wanted no signs left for him to follow.

  She rubbed her temples and concentrated on finding a way out of the woods. People, just as animals, needed water. She imagined it would be wisest to follow the stream. Keep it in sight, but not crowd its banks. The village had camped near a stream, but at a safe distance. She would follow their example.

  Bird Song had taught her how to survive on berries and nuts. For food, she’d gather hickory nuts and dried berries left on the vines. Watercress grew in the shallows of the creek she followed. Its green leaves clustered among the rocks were easily gathered. The pungent taste was bitter to swallow, but it would give nourishment to her starved body.

  Worried if she spent a great deal of time foraging for food, she might not put enough distance between herself and her enemy, she debated. Food or distance? Which was more important? Food. She’d need nourishment for strength and the coming winter had left little for her to scavenge.

  All day, the storm returned to plague her. The air was oppressive, heavy with moisture. Each roll of thunder reminded her of the fateful day that she couldn’t face. Reality would have to wait until she could cope with the fear instilled in her.

  At dusk, she found an outcropping of rocks that sheltered the ground beneath, creating a small dry area. Small shrubs grew around the opening. Spindly blades of grass, now withered by the frosty nights, lay limp against the moss covered rocks.

  Jade crawled under the protrusion of rocks and prayed she had not taken some wild animals shelter, only to have it return at any moment to reclaim its residence.

  Legs drawn up to her chest for warmth, she gazed out on the moonlight filtering through the overhead canopy of leaves to dance on the sparse underbrush. Reasonably dry and her stomach full, she drifted into an uneasy sleep.

  Startled awake she laid still and listened.

  The sound, which had awakened her, was the morning sounds of the forest: birds chirping, small animals scurrying through the brush. Natural sounds. Soothing sounds. Jade dragge
d herself from under the rock ledge, put her back to the sun, and trudged forward.

  Days? Weeks? How long since she’d left the encampment? She’d lost count.

  Would she be lost forever? She stayed close to the stream, yet hadn’t found one trail to follow in the last two days. She merely wandered about in the woods, until she thought she would lose her mind. Don’t stop, she told herself. Just put one foot in front of the other. Sooner or later it would be over; one way or the other.

  Each day she foraged for food, still hunger was never far away gnawing at her stomach. Nights were the worst. She’d crawl into whatever shelter she could find and listen to the night creatures while she shivered from the cold. Wolves howled in the distance and she prayed they wouldn’t come any closer.

  Fear was always present. Nights, she spent in darkness with an ever-present, unknown terror, but she pushed it to the back of her mind with the light of day.

  Desperation drained her strength. She walked when she could and crawled when she had to. Time was the enemy. It had no beginning, and, God help her, it had no end. Sometimes when she fell, all she wanted to do was curl up and lay there, never to move again. Then she would remember the reason she’d left the village and would make herself get up. She had to. Her child’s life depended on it.

  Miles converged one upon the other. Coaxing one foot in front of the other, she trudged on until her step faltered, and her courage became nonexistent. Time became meaningless. Hours seemed like minutes, days seemed like weeks.

  A break in the trees appeared up ahead. She started to run, fell, but couldn’t bring herself to rise. Exhausted, she crawled through the rocks. Brush scraped her hands and knees until they bled.

  Just as the last of her energy ebbed from her body, she reached the edge of the clearing. She struggled to lift her head and recognized the imprint of wagon wheels. Her strength evaporated as the rains from the earth on a hot summer day. For the first time in months tears formed in her eyes. She lay on the ground and hoped against hope someone would find her.

  Her painful knowledge of the past, held captive by fear, drifted away on a sea of forgetfulness. Jade closed her eyes to sleep.

  CHAPTER 2

  Jason Prescott clicked to the team and smacked their backsides with the lines. He’d left town early this morning and the decision he’d reached weighed heavily on his mind.

  He shook his head and reached out to touch the fuzzy head of the eight-month-old baby fast asleep on his sister Margaret’s shoulder. His child. His and Sue Ellen’s. But Sue Ellen was gone. She died exactly one week after their child’s birth.

  Margaret placed a hand on his forearm. “I know this will be hard Jason, being separated from Emma, but I don’t know of another solution. Do you?”

  “It won’t just be hard for me, but for your family, also” Jason agreed, “and you’re right. I don’t know what else to do.”

  He glanced in the back of the wagon where John and Margaret’s children rode. Blankets, piled high, gave them some comfort from the bounce and sway of the wagon as they traveled the uneven trail.

  Tyler at five, six next month, considered himself too grown up to ride in the back with his two-year-old sister. Yet he took it upon himself to entertain her with a game only the two of them knew. He leaned his dark head to whisper in his sister’s ear. Their blue eyes twinkled with mischief. Tyler put his finger to his lips “ssh.” Janey nodded. Giggling they ducked under a blanket.

  Jason chuckled at their antics.

  Margaret and the children would spend the next week on his ranch with him. He wanted time with Emma before their long separation over the winter. Up until now, he had made regular trips to town to see his daughter, which wasn’t often enough for him.

  His gaze drifted over to Margaret and Emma. “I would keep her with me, Lord knows I want to, but there is no one to care for her when I need to be out with the livestock. If she were older, it wouldn’t be so hard. She could go with me when I do my chores. But, I couldn’t handle her along with everything else.” A wife was the only feasible answer, yet he wasn’t ready to marry again.

  He smiled at his sleeping child. “She resembles Sue Ellen more each day.”

  “Yes she does,” Margaret agreed.

  “I really miss her you know. Her laugh most of all. Sue Ellen had always found laughter in everything she did. I use to say some ridiculous things just to hear her laugh. She’d toss her dark head and tell me I was being silly. Of course, I was.” Jason chuckled at the memory. “She told me the reason she laughed so much was that until she married me there had never been any joy in her life, that she never felt safe, and now that she was, she couldn’t stop laughter from bubbling up, spilling out in open enjoyment.”

  A hitch caught in the back of his throat when he thought of Sue Ellen’s short and unhappy life.

  “It’s sad she didn’t have much happiness in her short life.” Margaret rubbed Emma’s small back. “Be thankful you were part of what happiness she had. Neither of you said how you met.”

  “It’s not a pretty tale.”

  “Go on, I’m listening.”

  “After her mother died, her father dragged her from one town to the next and was constantly too drunk to watch out for her.” Jason shook his head. “She tried to avoid bad situations by hiding in isolated places. She’d managed to avert any serious problems until the night I rescued her.”

  “Rescued her!” Surprise widened Margaret’s eyes.

  “Yes. I found her behind a saloon where her father was trying to trade her for more whiskey.” Margaret sucked in her breath but didn’t interrupt. “It was dark, except for a dim light shining out a small window. I could barely see two men and a young girl. Thinking something wrong, I stopped.”

  Once he had his ranch running and Margaret had married, Jason, at twenty-three, decided to improve the quality of his herd. Redwood was not as large as White Oak, although there were large ranches nearby, ranches with good livestock. Jason had gone to buy a bull to upgrade his herd. Walking along the boardwalk, not far from the only saloon, he’d heard a commotion in the alley.

  Jason could hear her as if it were yesterday. Sue Ellen pleading with her father not to leave her alone with the man dragging her further into the alley, but her pleas fell on deaf ears. Her father shoved her, causing her to lose her balance. She fell to the ground. The man twisted her arm to get her on her feet. That’s when he’d noticed Jason coming toward them, a gun strapped to his thigh.

  “You know sis, I had never wielded my gun against a human being in anger like some men. After that, I understood why men used guns to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves.” He cast a sideways glance at Margaret and saw she watched him intently. “I discovered something about myself in that alley.” He leaned forward, elbows braced on his thigh. “That night, I became one of those men.”

  “You didn’t have a choice. You couldn’t leave her there.”

  “No, I couldn’t. When I yelled, “What’s going on here?” the old geezer pulling her arm let go and ran away. Her father whirled to see what had caused his prospective buyer to leave so fast. The old coot bristled when he saw me coming. Pulled himself up to his full height,” he gave her a crooked grin, “which wasn’t very impressive, then swayed into a drunken stance, and bellowed, “What do ya think yer a doin’, inter’ferin’ with a man’s business?” I ignored the old man and went to help Sue Ellen stand.”

  Jason’s mind drifted back into the past. His heart had gone out to the crumpled form, curled into an infant’s position. Looking up at him, her blue eyes were awash with unshed tears and full of gratitude as she took his hand. She was quite tall for a woman, her slim form dressed in a tattered gown of indiscernible color. He thought she looked rather pitiful, young, and humiliated.

  “The old man grabbed my arm and tried to pull me away from what he considered his next bottle of whiskey. Mad as a hornet, I shook him off like a pesky fly. I took her hand and started for the street. She cried out w
hen her father yanked on her other arm. I stopped and glared at the old man. He whined, “What am I gonna do without my little gal?”

  As if, he gave a damn.

  “I told him, “You were willing to give her to that drunken sot a moment ago. The old man had the decency to drop his head, then ruined it by saying, ‘Yeah, well, he was willin’ to pay for her. What are you gonna give me?’

  “I felt such disgust for the drunken sot. I reached into my pocket, took out a twenty-dollar gold piece, and threw it to the ground. We walked away while the old man scrambled on the ground for his whiskey money. That was the last time Sue Ellen ever saw her father.”

  He didn’t like to think he had paid for Sue Ellen as if she was some street doxy. But she had no one to turn to and no place to go. A wife would ease some of the loneliness of the ranch, so it seemed natural to marry her. He had teased her later about the twenty-dollar gold piece being her bride price. She always laughed, saying her father was probably still drunk on the money Jason had given him.

  “So you married her, because she didn’t have anyone else.”

  “No, Sis, I truly cared for her. We were happy.” Sue Ellen had been pretty enough, and they got along well. Yet, it wasn’t the ‘love of a life time’ he knew John and Margaret shared. He had always admired their relationship, but he was satisfied with his life and his marriage.

  Sue Ellen had not been the best housekeeper or a very good cook, but traveling with her father, and not having a home to care for, she’d never had the opportunity to learn the skills. He hadn’t cared if the house was not spotless or the meals barely edible. Ranch life was hard and the nights lonely. He and Sue Ellen were happy. Until the night Emma was born.

  “Yes, I could always see you were content.” Margaret gave him one of her things-could-be-worse smiles. “Don’t worry about Emma, time will pass faster than you realize. You can ride into town and see her when the weather is clear.”