“Because it will be my fault if you do kill her,” she said honestly.
“They are not killing her,” he said.
He did not tell her what they were doing to her—that was left to Christa to wonder, and she did so wretchedly.
He rose and watched her again beneath the moonlight. He was very tall, far taller than the other Comanche warriors. His eyes were dark, his hair long and smooth and almost ink black. His face seemed a little bit narrower than some of the other braves’ and Christa remembered that Buffalo Run was a half-breed.
Not in his heart, she realized. In his heart, this man was all Comanche.
“Are you going to kill me?” she asked him.
“Not tonight,” he told her, and turned and walked away.
Mrs. Brooks’s screams slowly faded. The Indians talked around their fire for a long while. Christa wondered what Jeremy was thinking, what he was feeling. She leaned her head back with misery. He had to hate her for what she had done. She had been so self-righteous about the poor wounded cavaliers of the Confederacy that she hadn’t had the sense to realize that there were rotten apples in the ranks of Rebels.
And she hadn’t given Jeremy the least opportunity to explain anything about his captives. Now she knew, and knew too late. Jeremy had taken the men instead of allowing the Comanche to take them. Jeff Thayer had played upon her sympathies and made a fool of her.
She couldn’t hate Jeff Thayer for what he had done. She couldn’t hate anyone who had died the way that he had. She could only despise herself for her stupidity.
Jeff Thayer had paid the ultimate price.
Oh, God! There had been Robert Black Paw! Ever there for her and for Jeremy. Teaching her and caring for her.
Dying for her.
“Oh, please God!” she whispered. She could well die herself.
She couldn’t die. Not with the baby. But she didn’t feel any movement, and she thought of all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. She prayed that she hadn’t killed her child.
Jeremy’s child.
If only she had managed to tell him that she loved him! If only she hadn’t been so proud, so stubborn.
She might have listened to him. She might have seen the truth.
She lowered her head, fighting the great wash of tears that threatened to cascade from her eyes. She had fallen in love with him, but she had been too proud to forget her past, and too proud to give either of them a real chance. Now she might never see him again.
And she had, perhaps, cost him another child.
He will come for you, Buffalo Run had told her. Was that the truth? Did the hostile savage know her husband better than she did herself?
Perhaps Buffalo Run couldn’t begin to understand that her husband had never courted her, that she had forced him to marry her for a house, for bricks and stone and wood, for something that meant nothing out here. She hadn’t even been willing to meet him halfway, not until something had turned somewhere within her heart, not until she had discovered that she could do nothing other than admire him, respect him, and love him.
Perhaps he would come. Perhaps his honor would dictate that he must. Perhaps he would come for their unborn child.
And perhaps, her heart seemed to whisper, perhaps he would even come for her!
But if he came, would he be risking his own life? What was he thinking at this moment? Was he hating her for what she had done? Thinking that she had brought this upon herself and that she deserved whatever happened to her? Was he missing her?
“Dear God, Jeremy! I’m sorry, so sorry!” she whispered out loud. “I love you, loved you. I—”
It didn’t matter. It was too late.
Twenty-one
Jeremy dismounted from his horse and knelt down by the bloodied and battered body on the ground. It didn’t take more than a few seconds, despite the condition of the corpse, to recognize the Confederate Jeffrey Thayer. His gray coat was blood spattered and stuck with a half-dozen arrows. The man’s face had been slashed, his scalp expertly taken.
Jeremy felt his muscles tensing, the whole of his body quickening with anguish.
He no longer had to fear what the ex-Reb planned to do with Christa. Jeffrey Thayer wouldn’t be doing anything with anyone ever again.
“Comanche?”
Jeremy turned. Jimmy Preston was watching him unhappily.
Jeremy nodded. “Search—” he began. He had to pause. In his heart he had to believe that the Indians wouldn’t harm Christa. “Search the area for other bodies,” he said. James stared at him, swallowed hard, then turned around and called out the order.
Company D dismounted from their horses. Jeremy walked across the dry plain and stared across it. Buffalo Run, he thought. He’d come to see if the whites were going to handle the matter of the murdering Reb.
Buffalo Run had taken down Thayer himself.
“You fool!” he hissed to the body of the dead man. He wanted to feel compassion for any man so brutally killed. But Thayer had murdered unsuspecting, innocent men. Red men, white men. He had, perhaps, come to his just reward.
“And you used my wife, you goddamned son of a bitch!” he swore savagely, fighting the temptation to kick the corpse.
“There’s no sign of anyone else,” James reported to him.
“Not Darcy, or Mrs. Brooks?”
“Or Christa,” James said quietly.
Jeremy stared off across the plain. “It was Buffalo Run, then,” he said.
“There are many bands of Comanche,” James warned him.
“But only Buffalo Run would kill Thayer this way and take the others.” He was quiet a moment, then said, “I’m going to have to go to him alone.”
“My God, you can’t go alone! You could run into other hostiles and get killed before you reach him.”
“You’ll accompany me with Company D until we reach the outskirts of his camp,” Jeremy said.
“Even then—”
“James, if I were to take the whole regiment against him, it would be an even match. The death toll would be terrible. And the Comanche might kill the captives immediately on principle. If I go alone, I’ve got a chance. I won’t be entirely alone,” he said. “I’ll have Morning Star.”
“Colonel, sir!” one of the men called.
Jeremy looked back at the twenty-three enlisted men of Company D.
Private Jenkins was staring at him awkwardly. “Do we bury him, sir?”
Jeremy’s throat seemed to constrict. He’d tricked Christa, and Jeremy had been too damned angry and proud to try to explain things. God knew just how far Thayer intended to go with her.
Let the buzzards eat the man! Jesu, he was in anguish! He knew the Comanche well. And he knew Christa well. Don’t fight Buffalo Run, Christa, don’t fight him.
And please God, don’t let him hurt her.
“Sir, do we bury him?”
“Dammit, yes, go ahead. Hurry, we’ve got to ride!”
There was so much at stake. They had to make haste. He was responsible for Darcy and Mrs. Brooks. He had to reach the Comanche before they could kill any of their captives.
He could die going for Christa. But if he couldn’t bring her back, he didn’t know if life would be worth living. He had been in love before, but he had never known the passion of emotions he felt for Christa. Perhaps they were like the pieces of the country, torn and bruised, suffering bitterly for all that they had done to one another. Yet nothing but broken fragments without one another. He had married her under duress, but nothing in the world could have forced him to do so if he hadn’t been willing somewhere in his heart. He had been determined to bring her with him, to demand that their marriage be whole. He had forced her to live it. In his way, he had tried to give her life. And she had given it to him in return.
Night was coming in all around them.
He looked to the darkening sky. Against the night were curious, winged shapes. Buzzards were circling over him. They’d been seeking a meal of Thayer. He p
rayed that he would not see them circling in the sky again.
He leapt up on his horse and shouted to James. “Let’s ride!”
They would have to stop soon enough. The Comanche before them would have to stop in the ebony darkness too.
In the morning, Buffalo Run untied her and directed her down through a scruff of trees and foliage to a narrow creek below them. For a moment she felt the incredible wonder of her freedom, then realized that her hands were still tied together before her and that he had given her freedom only to perform the most necessary of human tasks. Yet as she came along the trail, she caught her breath, trying not to make a sound. She had come upon Private Darcy.
Like her, he had been bound to a tree. She wondered why they hadn’t killed him yet, then she feared that he was dead, and she wondered why they hadn’t taken his scalp. His eyes opened, slowly, miserably. He saw her. It looked as if he was going to cry out, but Christa shook her head, turning around to look at the camp.
The Indian braves were gathered around the fire. It seemed that they were exchanging stories about their exploits.
For the moment, she and Darcy were not noticed.
Christa quickly moved into the shadow of the tree and knelt down by Darcy. Trickles of blood had hardened along his neck. She bit her lip. “Are you injured so that you can’t rise, walk, or ride?”
His eyes, filled with pain and weariness, found hers. He shook his head. “They nicked at my ears and scratched my throat. They know how to keep a captive alive and in pain and terror a very long time,” he told her.
Christa, with her hands bound together, struggled with the knots that held him to the tree.
The Comanche also knew how to tie very good knots, she realized. Her fingers began shredding before the rope did. Darcy started talking swiftly. “Pull up my pant leg. There’s a small sheath at my ankle and I think my knife is still in it.”
It was awkward, the way that she was tied, but Christa found the knife and managed to pull it out. A fine sheen of perspiration broke out on her forehead despite the coolness of the morning. She managed to balance the knife between her hands, and in a matter of minutes she had Darcy freed.
He leapt to his feet, quickly cutting her bonds. “We might have just signed your death warrant,” he said.
“And yours.”
“I was already a dead man,” he assured her. “We’ve got to get horses.”
“And Mrs. Brooks!” Christa said.
He stared at her as if she had lost her mind. “And Mrs. Brooks,” he said.
She looked back up the trail. The horses were to the left of the fire and small encampment. Mrs. Brooks was somewhere to the far rear.
“You go for the horses,” Christa told Darcy. “I’ll go for Mrs. Brooks.”
“If she opens her mouth just once,” Darcy warned her. “Leave the old witch!”
Christa nodded. She slipped around the trail. Apparently, the Comanche seemed assured that their captives weren’t going anywhere. The six braves remained around the fire, and though Christa couldn’t understand a word that they were saying, she found them surprisingly similar to their white counterparts, probably telling tall tales around a campfire.
Mrs. Brooks had been very quiet during the morning, and Christa felt a surge of fear rise to her throat. The Comanche had cut out her tongue.
But when she found the woman, her eyes were closed. And she had been silenced with a gag made out of her petticoat. Christa, with Darcy’s little knife, began sawing at the ropes that bound her to her tree. The woman awakened, her eyes flying open in terror. Christa pressed a finger to her lips.
For once in her life, Mrs. Brooks had the very good sense to keep silent.
Christa reached down for the woman. It seemed for several minutes that Mrs. Brooks wasn’t going to find the strength to stand, she wavered so. “Please!” Christa whispered to her. Mrs. Brooks seemed to realize that they were dealing with life or death. She had no remonstrations for Christa; she looked at her with eyes as appealing as a child’s.
“Come on. Quietly. Carefully.”
She led the woman the long way around the braves once again, feeling as if she died a little with every step. They reached Darcy, who had untethered three of the horses. Between them, she and Darcy lifted Mrs. Brooks onto one of the horses before leaping atop mounts themselves. Darcy loosed the others from their tethers so that the horses would be gone when the Indians came after them.
Darcy swallowed hard and nodded to her. They broke away from the group slowly and carefully.
Then Darcy cried, “Ride!”
As if the flames of hell themselves were in pursuit, the three slammed their heels against their Indian mounts. Darcy knew his way, and Mrs. Brooks and Christa followed. She didn’t know just how long they had ridden before she heard a cry behind them.
The Comanche were alerted at last.
Darcy leaned low over his horse and looked at Christa. The expression on his face warned her that they were all dead.
She looked back. Only three of the Indians were following them. Only three had managed to recapture their horses after Darcy had loosed them.
“Split!” she cried to Darcy.
“Jesu, Christa, no!” he warned her frantically.
But there was no choice. They could all die. Or she could lead the Comanche away. They might follow her.
They would kill Darcy now. Maybe they wouldn’t kill her.
She reined in slightly and quickly before she could lose her courage. Darcy and Mrs. Brooks went racing by her. She turned toward a more northerly course and slammed her heels against her horse.
She raced the beast cruelly. Her heart beat with the same awful rhythm as that of the horse. Dirt and dust spewed up around her, yet despite the terrible pounding of her horse’s hooves, she felt the tremor of the ground when another mount came in pursuit.
She turned slightly.
The Indians were in pursuit of her. One of them was nearly upon her. She could ride, and ride well, but the man coming after her was surely one of the most talented horsemen on the plains.
Buffalo Run.
She cried out as he bore down upon her. When he reached for her, she was certain that she was dead, for he would send her spilling down to the earth at their frantic pace.
But he did not. He pulled her from the horse and across his own, slowing his gait. In moments they walked. He made a curious sound with his tongue against his palate, and in a few minutes the other racing horse returned to him.
Miserable, beaten, Christa lay across his horse tasting dirt, animal hair, and sweat.
Buffalo Run’s horse began a jolting trot. In another few minutes they were back with the other Indians. Buffalo Run shoved her from his horse and she fell into the dirt. She scrambled quickly to her feet, looking around. She was surrounded by Indians.
There was no sign of Darcy or Mrs. Brooks. The two had escaped.
Because Buffalo Run had come for her. She had gambled, and she had been right. She was the greater prize.
She backed away uneasily because the Indian was coming for her. He struck her hard on the cheek and she fell to the dust once again, reeling from the blow. He reached down a hand for her. She tried to shimmy away from him in the dirt, but he caught hold of her firmly, jerking her to her feet. He called out an order to the other men, then lifted her over his horse. They still had plenty of mounts, their own six Indian horses, hers, and Jeffrey Thayer’s mount. But they weren’t trusting her to ride alone anymore.
They started out slowly, allowing the horses a chance to breathe.
Buffalo Run rode behind her, a creature composed of flesh and steel, she thought dully.
“Are you going to kill me now?” she asked him.
“Not yet.”
“Jesu!” she breathed out. “Then let me go!”
“It’s never that simple. Not with the Comanche. Has no one warned you?”
Yes, she had been warned!
“Why don’t—”
> “You not only cost me two horses and two captives, you nearly killed the animal you rode so hard and those we rode to catch you!”
“Then—”
“I may still kill you!” he warned her. “And I may cut you up in bits and pieces to feed to the buzzards first.”
“Yes, I cost you two captives!” she informed him, thinking herself a fool. “And two horses. And nearly four more! So do what you will—”
“The horses truly grieve me,” he said roughly. “And if you wish to keep your tongue in your head, keep it still!”
“My husband will come for you. He will cut you into little bits and pieces!”
“Shut up.”
“The cavalry will—”
“I will slice your tongue out myself if you do not take care!”
He meant it, she knew. A trembling seized hold of her.
Jeremy! She would never be able to tell him that she loved him.
“Please!” she began.
“One more word and it will be your last!” he said.
So warned, Christa fell silent.
The whole of Company D was still riding with Jeremy when he looked across the rolling plain to see the two riders.
He saw them from quite a distance at first, and he had to blink to assure himself that they were appearing before him. Because his vision was very sharp or perhaps because of instinct, he knew right away that the riders were connected with him, and he called out a warning to James. He then spurred his horse and went racing over the plain. There were only two. Mrs. Brooks and Darcy.
His disappointment when he neared the two—who had broken into a gallop at the sight of him—was difficult to conceal, and he swallowed it down with bitterness. He didn’t have much chance to speak as he dismounted from his horse, for Mrs. Brooks threw herself into his arms, screaming and talking gibberish all at once and sounding something like a Comanche herself.
Darcy was far clearer.
“It’s Buffalo Run, sir, I’m certain—”
“Christa!” he said hoarsely. “Darcy, where’s my wife?”
“I know she felt responsible, sir. And I don’t think that the Indian knew quite what he had on his hands. He loosed her to go to the stream. She managed to free me and go back around for Mrs. Brooks. Then we all started to race out of there but the savages were on our heels. Mrs. McCauley suddenly cried out that she was going to split up and I couldn’t stop her, sir. She knew that they’d let us go and follow her. Sir, you don’t know the half of it! Colonel, Doc Weland went mad on us! If he’s still back there, he’s dangerous, sir. He—”