by Bobbi Smith
"Lance!" Rosalie had hurried to his side as Randolph had gone to see if George had survived the attack. With the utmost care, Rosalie knelt beside Lance and lifted his head onto her lap. From the amount of blood that covered him, she feared he, too, was dead, but when he groaned, she cried out her happiness. "Michael! Lance is alive. . . ."
"So is George," Randolph added. "Where can we take them? Is there a doctor nearby?"
Michael hurried to Randolph's side and examined the wound in his father's shoulder. Two inches more to the center and Michael knew his father would have been killed, just like his mother. Snatching up some napkins off the table, he wadded them up and pressed them firmly to the wound.
"We have to get them upstairs. Then I'll send someone to town to get the doctor. . . ." Michael managed. "How bad is Lance?"
"It looks terrible. . . ." Rosalie dabbed nervously at Lance's head wound, thinking him near death.
Michael instructed Trista's father to keep pressure on George's injury as he raced to Rosalie's side to see to Lance. Just as he knelt beside her to take a close look at the bullet wound, Lance opened his eyes. Lance had trouble focusing for a moment, but eventually the double vision cleared, and he saw Michael and Rosalie hovering over him.
"Trista . . . " he croaked painfully. "Where's Trista?"
"Don't worry now. Just lie still. . . ." Michael tried to calm him, but Lance would have none of it.
Angrily, Lance grabbed hold of his forearm as he jockeyed himself to a sitting position. "Where is she? Did Striking Snake kill her?"
"No . . . she's not dead. . . ." Michael did not think he was in any condition to handle the truth.
"Tell me, Michael! I want to know the truth! Where is she? Trista!" he called out her name, his desperation obvious in his strangled tone.
"Easy, Lance . . . easy . . . " Again he tried to restrain him. "He took her."
"Striking Snake took her . . . ." he repeated dumbly as he lifted a shaking hand to his forehead. "And Father?"
"He's been shot, and it looks bad. My mother—" His voice broke as he was about to relate what had happened to her.
Lance struggled to his feet, fighting dizziness and nausea, and saw that Eleanor was dead and beyond any help they could give her. Staggering, he made his way to George's side. "We've got to do something for him. . . ." He looked to Michael.
"Randolph and I are going to get him upstairs into bed and—"
As he was speaking, Whitey and Tommy came charging through the front door, guns in hand.
"Are you all right?" The sight of Lance standing there covered with blood, and George unconscious on the floor stopped them. Then they saw Eleanor where she lay, unmoving. "I'll send a man for the doctor. . . ."
"Tell them it's an emergency. It's too late for my mother, but Pa's still alive. It looks pretty bad, though. . . ." Michael told them as he helped Randolph lift George and carry him from the room.
Lance started to follow, but Rosalie took his arm. "You can be of no help to them now. Come with me. . . ."
He offered no protest as she led him out into the kitchen and told him to sit at the table there. With practiced care, she cleansed the wound. When the bleeding finally stopped, she bound it tightly.
"Thank God he didn't shoot any straighter. . . ." Rosalie breathed as she put the finishing touches on the bandage.
"It's not like Striking Snake to miss. . . ." Lance replied distractedly, trying to ignore the pounding in his head.
"You knew those savages?" Rosalie was taken aback.
"Yes," he replied grimly, guilt sweeping through him. "I know the leader."
"Why did he attack us?"
"Vengeance, Rosalie," Lance explained as simply as he could. "He hated me, and he wanted Trista for himself."
She nodded as she remarked slowly, "He probably believes you are dead. . . ."
A determined look crossed his strained features. "That's good. Now the element of surprise will be on my side. . . ." He got to his feet.
"You can't mean you're going after them alone?"
He shot her a fierce look. "I'm going after them, all right, and when I find Striking Snake, I'm going to kill him. . . ." Without another word, he walked steadily from the room.
Upstairs, Michael and Randolph fought to bring his father's bleeding under control. When Lance entered, followed slowly by Rosalie, Michael looked up.
"You're all right?" he asked.
"I'm fine." Lance dismissed his worry. "How is he?"
"I think he'll make it if I can get this bleeding stopped. Whitey's already sent for the doctor. He should be here early tomorrow if he's in town when they get there."
Lance stared down at his father's pale features for a long moment before declaring, "I'm going after them."
"Now?"
"Now," he answered firmly.
"But I want to go with you. . . ." Michael was torn. He wanted desperately to help rescue Trista, but the knowledge that his father might die if he left him held him bound to the house.
"No. You stay here and take care of him," Lance told him solemnly. "I know how Striking Snake thinks, and I'll be better able to track him alone."
"Alone? You can't possibly go alone. Take all the men you need, and all the guns, too. . . ."
"No." He was firm. "I'll travel faster alone. This is something I have to do by myself."
"Let me go with you," Randolph offered, fearing for his daughter's safety.
"No, sir." Lance turned to address him. "I can't afford to let anyone slow me down. Stay here, where it's safe. They won't be back. Striking Snake was only after two things, and right now he believes he's gotten them both."
"He's right, Randolph." Michael defended Lance's position when Trista's father would have argued the point further.
"But my daughter—"
"Your daughter couldn't have a better man go after her," Michael said earnestly, his eyes on Lance. "He is, after all, her husband."
"What? I thought you and Trista . . . " Randolph was shocked by this revelation as he looked from brother to brother.
"I'll explain it all to you later once Lance has gone," he told him. "Lance, she loves you. Go get her."
Lance was just about as shocked as Randolph had been by his brother's earlier statement. "What are you talking about?"
"Trista and I had a long talk before dinner, and she admitted that she loves you. I've sensed it ever since you returned. . . ."
"She does?" He still found that hard to believe after what she'd done the night before.
Michael nodded his confirmation. "She was going to tell you that the wedding was off later tonight after I'd spoken with my mother. . . ." The realization of Eleanor's death hit him full-force then, and he couldn't go on.
Lance went to him, and for the first time, they embraced as brothers. "I'm sorry about your mother, Michael. . . ."
Emotion choked him, and he couldn't respond just then.
"But what about you and Trista, Michael?" Lance asked.
"I care deeply about her, Lance," he told him when he'd pulled himself together, "but Sukie Harris is the woman I love. You and Trista were meant to be together. Go find her, Lance."
Their gazes met in silent understanding, and their hands clasped in a bond of friendship and mutual respect. Then Lance turned to Trista's father, who was still totally bewildered by all that had been said.
"I'll find her, and I'll bring her back," he pledged. To his brother he said, "Take care of Father, Michael. . . ."
"I will."
With that Lance was gone, heading back to his own room to get ready to leave.
Trista fought against Striking Snake's overpowering strength until she became totally exhausted. Riding before him on his horse, crushed against his chest, seemed a nightmare revisited. She could do nothing but hang there in his hated grasp.
Lance was dead! The thought pounded through her mind and, with each passing mile, drove her deeper and deeper into a black vortex of mindless depression. Her will t
o survive faded with her strength. Trista knew what her fate would be in Striking Snake's hands, and she wished that death would claim her first.
They rode for hours through the black gloom of the night. One by one the other warriors drifted off in different directions so that anyone trying to follow would have multiple trails to confuse them. It was an old Comanche trick, but an effective one.
Striking Snake was immensely satisfied with the way things had turned out. He headed back toward Comanche land knowing that few white men would dare follow him onto Lone Elk's land. On through the darkness he raced, putting as much distance between himself and the Diamond as he could. He didn't feel threatened by the thought of a posse from the ranch, for everyone knew what poor trackers most of the whites were. Had Lance been alive, he might have been more cautious, but Striking Snake felt certain that he'd killed him with a single, clean shot to the head.
The sky was beginning to brighten in the east when he finally slowed his pace to give his horse a rest. Heading to the northwest, he made his way toward a secluded box canyon that was seldom frequented by his people. He knew he could set up camp there and be alone with Trista for as long as he liked.
Thinking of Trista, he wondered why all the fight had gone out of her so easily. He had found her feistiness perversely appealing and resented that she was now lifeless in his arms. Determined to get a response out of her, he deliberately covered one round breast with his hand and brutally squeezed its plumpness.
Trista had only been halfway conscious of what was happening, having long ago lost interest in her situation. She did not want to react to anything that Striking Snake did, for she knew that he reveled in getting a response out of her. Gritting her teeth, she fought against the pain of his tormenting hand.
When she merely stiffened against him, Striking Snake grew irritated. Resolved to force her to fight him, he slipped his marauding hand lower to cover the softness of her stomach, his fingers resting tantalizingly near the juncture of her thighs.
Trista longed to pull herself free of him, to kill him as he'd killed Lance, but she had no weapon to use and little force to deal with him otherwise. All she could do to stop him was to throw in his face the fact that she was having her monthly flux. She remembered in the village that the women were considered untouchable during that time and that men were forbidden contact with them. Though she didn't care about living without Lance, she certainly didn't want to suffer at Striking Snake's hands any more than necessary.
"You would be wise to keep your hands off of me," she told him in a low voice.
Striking Snake laughed haughtily at what he thought was her attempt to dissuade him from taking what he had long desired from her. "Do not tell me what to do, woman. You will be mine soon . . . very soon."
"I think not, Striking Snake," she returned, and she gasped as he clutched at her viciously.
"We will see," he said pompously.
"It is my time," she said evenly. "Is it not true that even the bravest of Comanche warriors is in danger of losing his power if he touches a woman during her monthly flow?"
At her statement, he quickly withdrew his hands from her, cursing her soundly in his native tongue. If what she said was true, it might be days before he could take his full pleasure of her. Still, knowing that Lance was dead and that there was no one who posed much of a threat coming after her, he was not greatly disturbed by the news.
"If this is so, then I will just have to wait to make you mine, Trista. All that really matters is that I have killed Lance and taken you. The rest will come with time."
Trista realized that she had gained a reprieve, but only a minor one. Her fate was sealed. She was doomed to Striking Snake's domination. All she could hope was that somehow, someway she might be able to escape, not that she believed she might make it back to safety, but any kind of death would be preferable to suffering the evil warrior's endless torture.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
"What?!" Sukie cried, aghast.
"There was a Comanche raid at the Barretts' last night, Miss Sukie," Rusty Taggert, the foreman of her ranch, informed her. The news had traveled quickly, and most of the neighbors had already been alerted to the possible danger.
"Was anyone hurt?" Mary Lou demanded as she came to stand beside her daughter on the porch of the Harris homestead.
"I only know for a fact that Mrs. Barrett was killed—"
"Oh, dear God! No, not Eleanor . . . " Mary Lou looked stricken and faint, and Sukie quickly put a supporting arm about her waist.
"But Michael . . . what about Michael?" Sukie demanded fiercely, needing desperately to know how he was. Her heart constricted at the thought that he, too, might have been killed.
"I don't know any more than what I've already told you, Miss Sukie," he apologized.
Sukie gave her mother a determined look. "We have to go there, Mother. We have to help them. I have to know. . . ."
Mary Lou recovered enough from the shocking news to agree with her daughter. "We'll leave as soon as we've gathered up some supplies. If things are as bad as I think they are, they'll be needing them," she told her daughter before turning back to the foreman. "Have the buggy brought around. We're going to the Diamond."
"Yes, ma'am," he agreed. "I'll also get a couple of men to ride along with you. It might not be safe for you to ride unescorted."
"Thank you, Rusty. We'll be ready when your men are."
Within the hour they were on their way to the Barrett spread ladened with supplies they thought might be needed. With every passing mile, Sukie grew more and more nervous. All she could think about was Eleanor's death and the possibility that Michael had been killed, too.
Sukie cursed herself soundly for having turned Michael away the other night at the party. She had wanted him so badly, and yet she had denied both him and herself in a fit of pride. Silently Sukie swore that if Michael was alive, she would never refuse him again.
Michael paced the upstairs hall as he anxiously awaited the doctor's findings. Dr. Spalding had arrived shortly after daybreak and had immediately rushed to George's side. Once he'd seen the extent of the gunshot wound and witnessed Michael's upset, he had banished him from the room so he and Rosalie could tend the unconscious George without interruption. That had been almost an hour ago, and Michael was still in emotional limbo as he waited to learn his father's fate.
Though Michael heard someone pull up in front of the house, he thought it was just some of the hired hands and paid little real attention. All his energy was focused on his father's survival.
Mary Lou and Sukie exchanged worried looks as they noted the carriage tied up in front of the house.
"That's Doc Spalding's buggy, isn't it, Mother?" Sukie asked, growing more tense by the minute.
"It looks like it. . . ."
Sukie couldn't wait any longer. As soon as her mother reined in, she jumped down in a most unladylike manner and rushed up the steps to the door. She knocked loudly—frightened, yet needing to know the truth of all that had happened.
Whitey had come up to the house to wait for news of his boss's condition, and he quickly answered the door. "Why, Miss Sukie . . . Mrs. Harris . . . "
"How is he, Whitey?" Sukie demanded, moving on inside without waiting for an invitation.
"It's serious, Miss Sukie," he answered, thinking she was asking about George. "We don't know yet if he's gonna make it or not."
"Oh, no . . . " She swayed on her feet, and Mary Lou led her into the parlor to sit down.
"Then it's worse than what we had heard. . . ." Mary Lou glanced at the foreman as she helped Sukie to a chair. "How soon will you know anything?"
"I wish I knew, ma'am," he replied, shaking his head defeatedly. "The doc's with him now, and he's been up there over an hour."
"And Eleanor?"
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Harris." He hung his head in sorrow. "I know you were close friends. . . ."
Mary Lou was so stricken with grief that she could only nod in acknowledgmen
t of his expression of regret.
"And the others . . . Where's Trista?" Sukie managed.
Whitey looked puzzled for a moment and then realized that they probably didn't know what had happened. "The Comanche took her with them. Lance went after them to try to bring her back. He left last night."
This news stunned them even more deeply. It seemed almost impossible to believe that any of this had taken place. The raid was hideous enough, but to think that Trista had been taken again . . .
Michael had been so worried about his father that he didn't notice those who'd entered the house below. Only when he heard Sukie's voice did he hurry to the top of the stairs.
"How's George taking it?" Mary Lou ventured, wondering at his absence.
Whitey frowned at their obvious misunderstanding of what was going on, and he was about to explain when Michael came down the steps and stopped at the parlor door.
"Sukie?" He could hardly believe that she was here, in his home.
"Michael?!" Sukie was on her feet in an instant and ran to him without hesitation. Throwing her arms about his wide shoulders, she held him tight as she pressed slightly hysterical kisses all over his throat. "Michael . . . you're all right . . . you weren't shot . . . you're here. . . ." She was crying in happiness.
Michael was confused by her actions, but he tightened his arms about her, not wanting to waste the opportunity to hold her close. "Of course I'm all right. Why did you think otherwise?" He glanced over to Whitey, who looked as befuddled as he was.
"Whitey said that you were in serious condition. . . ." Sukie explained, drawing slightly away to look up at him. Her eyes were wide and luminous, and were brimming with tears of joy.
"No, Miss Sukie. George is the one the doc is with," Whitey corrected.
"And it seems as if he's been in there forever. . . ." Michael added as he looked back up the steps toward the ominously closed bedroom door.
"Michael, we just thank heaven you're fine." Mary Lou came to him, too. "What really happened last night? Everything we've heard is so confusing. . . ."