His Dakota Captive

by Jenna Kernan

  Eagle Dancer turned and walked with Dragonfly and Livingston through the gate. Lucie recalled a time when he rode a fine horse and was the epitome of power and masculinity. The grace and pride were still there, but the power was gone.

  Lucie waited until she lost sight of him before opening the trade cloth and discovering a loaf of cornbread resting upon Sky’s holster and pistol.

  She was so preoccupied that she nearly missed David striding purposefully toward the guard house. She dropped the bundle in her mending basket and dashed after him.

  “Where are you off to, brother?”

  “Lucie, you need to go home, now. There’s nothing for you here.”

  Except her world. She stepped in front of him, searching his face for some sign of his mission.

  “You promised you’d speak to the commander about allowing me to visit.”

  He exhaled heavily though his nose and gave her a look of sympathy. “No visitors. He’s guilty. He admitted it. There is nothing I can do.”

  Her stomach dropped and she understood. She grabbed the pristine lapels of David’s uniform. “When?”

  He broke the contact of their eyes. “We’ll hang him on Saturday.”

  Lucie’s knees gave way.

  David caught her. “Oh, for the love of…corporal, get over here and help me!”

  She regained her footing and he released her, waving off the help he’d called for. “You have to let me see him, to say goodbye.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “If I promise to leave?”

  “You’ll go home?”

  “I—I can’t go back there.”

  David’s features hardened. She recognized the look. In a moment he’d be intractable, so she hurried on.

  “But I’ll go. I swear. But you have to let me see him. May I bring him some little comfort?”

  David’s eyes narrowed. He knew her too well. “I’ll speak to the commander. But, Lucie, you’ll be searched.”

  She tried to look flabbergasted.

  “I’m just trying to protect you.”

  Lucie nodded. “Thank you, little brother.”

  Lucie had never been one to fly by the seat of her pants, as her mother had done. Sarah West had told her daughter about the day of her rescue many times. Her mother had said that she had not preconceived the switch, but when the opportunity arose, she had taken it. But Lucie had no confidence in luck. And her experience with fate had been all bad, until the day Sky appeared carrying a message that had changed her life.

  Now she approached the guardhouse clutching written permission from Major Reilly. David had done it, somehow, getting her inside the blockhouse. She also carried a bible and a large apple pie.

  She made sure to learn the names of the guards who covered the late afternoon detail. Pritchard and Fink. Fink was larger, more closely proportioned to Sky and he carried the key on a hook in plain sight on his leather belt.

  Pritchard stood, nervously handling his rifle as she faced Fink with her paperwork. He looked her up and down. Reilly said she would be subject to search. But what kind of a search?

  “Any weapons?”

  “Of course not.” She was glad she had not brought her skinning knife—this time.

  “What about under them skirts?”

  She lifted her chin and stared him down. “None, I said.”

  He looked tempted to check but instead he only ordered her to turn around. When she turned back he had his nose under the cloth covering the pie. He drew the knife from his holster and sliced the pie in half and then into quarters. He lifted out a quarter and placed it on the tin plate she had brought. Then, he took the rest, tin and all.

  “Gotta check for weapons,” he said and grinned.

  “Of course.” She covered the remains of the pie and then paused. “I wonder how he is to eat the pie without utensils?”

  “He can use his hand, miserable bastard. Turning on his own, I’d like to shoot him myself.”

  Pritchard’s glance shot from Lucie and then back to Fink as his face turned a bright pink. She decided she liked him better. Lucie stared at the pie, lying on the snowy center of the cloth.

  “Corporal Pritchard, could you fetch me a plate?” she asked.

  Pritchard turned to go.

  “He stays here,” said Fink.

  Lucie accepted the defeat with a smile. The man was her only adversary here.

  “Very well, then.” She turned to Fink. “I’m ready.”

  Fink unlocked the door. Lucie waited for him to open it but he just stared at her.

  “The door?” she asked.

  Pritchard glanced back to his commander.

  Fink shook his head. “He needs his hands free.”

  Lucie was forced to juggle the pie and opened the door herself. She proceeded down a short hall that had three cells on only one side.

  “Last one,” said Fink, speaking with his mouth full.

  She walked slowly down the hall. “It’s quite dank, isn’t it?”

  The men followed her with rifles, as if she were the prisoner. She stopped before the cell and turned to the men, waiting.

  “You’ll speak to him from outside the cell.”

  She gaped. “What about the pie? I can’t fit it through the bars.”

  The opening in the door was only six inches wide and perhaps eight inches high.

  “I cut it fer ya. Pass it through.”

  Lucie seethed, but she only nodded to the men. So she would have no help from Sky until she had the door open. She called to him and waited. Someone moved inside the dark cell. A moment later she saw his face, streaked with dirt, his hair in wild disarray and she thought she had never seen a more welcome sight.

  “Hello, Mr. Fox.” She wanted so badly to touch him, to kiss him through the bars. She drew on a mental image of her mother and stiffened her spine. The men had not searched her thoroughly. That meant she could bring his gun under her skirts the next time.

  “Lucie?” He sounded so shocked.

  “I have permission from the major to bring you comfort and to pray with you.”

  Sky looked confused.

  “I brought you some apple pie.”

  She fed the slice through to him.

  She glanced back to see Pritchard holding his rifle upright and Fink lounging against the wall with one hand on the revolver holstered at his hip. She smiled at them.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” said Sky.

  “I’ll be coming tomorrow as well and Friday. What would you like me to bring you? What about steak and potatoes?”

  He cocked his head, obviously confused by her false vibrato.

  “Try the pie,” she urged.

  She waited while he did. Then he came close to the bars.

  “Lucie, what are you up to?”

  “Being a good Christian, like my mother.”

  He lowered his brows over his ghostly pale eyes and he dropped his voice. “You can’t save me.”

  “Something from the gospel, then.” She opened the bible and read from Luke 15:4. “‘Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?’”

  “Lucie.” His voice was low and threatening.

  “Perhaps this one, then. ‘Father, hear us as we ask You to rescue the lost from the domain of darkness and bring them into the kingdom of Your Son.’” She read on for a few minutes, then closed the bible and glanced up at him. “I hope that brings you comfort, brother.”

  She wanted to speak to him in Lakota, but she knew that might raise suspicion. So she lifted one finger and stroked one of his. He released the bars and their fingers hooked together. His eyes begged her not to act and her eyes begged him for understanding.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow evening, then.” It was hard to release him, but she did and managed a self-righteous smile for the guards. “Sinners need to hear God’s words even more than the holy.”

  Lucie wa
lked calmly down the corridor with the guards following her. The door leading out was also locked. She made careful note of which key Fink used to release her.

  “Thank you, gentlemen. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  Twenty-four hours to figure out a way to send one of the men away and overtake the second. She worried about what Eagle Dancer had told her. Was No Moccasins really waiting across the river with Falcon? Could she really send a message with any of the Sioux that traded with the customers on the ferries?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lucie arrived the following evening carrying a tray with steak and potatoes and a fine bottle of wine that she had laced with enough laudanum to drop a horse. She wore her moccasins, inside which she had her skinning knife and beneath her skirts, where a woman might wear a garter, she had strapped Sky’s pistol.

  She knocked on the door, stepped back and waited. Behind her came the sound of hammering. She flinched at each one. The gallows rose in the yard with terrifying speed.

  The flap in the door opened and someone peered out at her.

  “What’s your business?”

  Her heart sank. She did not know this guard.

  “That the one the Indians marked? She’s cleared.” That voice she knew. It was Fink.

  The door swung open and she was confronted by a giant of a man. He scowled down at her as she took in the wide chest, arms thick with corded muscle and a uniform that included a pin with two shining silver swords. The officer was a prime side of beef. Lucie’s stomach began to ache in dread.

  “I brought Mr. Fox some supper.”

  “He’s eaten,” said the unknown mountain of a man.

  “She’s got permission to visit, Captain.”

  The man moved aside, glaring at her as if she had just slapped his mother. Lucie’s step faltered. She stopped before Fink, who also seemed cowed by the officer.

  “I’m Lucie West,” she said.

  “I know who you are. You’re the one they captured. Heard you married one of them.”

  “Yes.”

  “Country’d be better without them lying, thieving—”

  She interrupted. “Yes, I think I understand your position.”

  “You went back to him, didn’t you? That means you’re worse than them, betraying your own. Lost a brother to those savages. Like to kill every damn one.”

  He loomed and Lucie stepped back. He took the tray. “No food to the prisoner.”

  Fink eyed the wine as the officer thumped the tray on the table. Neither seemed inclined to taste the wine.

  Lucie struggled to come up with a new plan. She had intended to become suddenly unwell. That would cause one man to run for help and leave her alone with the other. She had been certain that Fink would send Pritchard, which suited her as Fink had the keys. But now…she could likely faint dead away and the monstrous man would merely kick her aside.

  Lucie chewed her lip. Tomorrow was Sky’s last sunrise. The terror nearly blinded her, so she set that aside. She needed to think. The chaplain would come and the major. Security would be more stringent than usual. It had to be now. But how could she do it?

  She eyed the two men. Fink was a coward; that was certain. He had bossed Pritchard yesterday and today he was groveling to do the captain’s bidding. Between the two, she would rather face him. That meant that she had to subdue the captain.

  Her mind stretched but she could not think of anything she might say or do to cause him to leave his post.

  That left only one option, really.

  Lucie knew she would likely fail, but it did not stop her. She was going to free Sky or she would be occupying the cell beside him.

  “Open the door, Fink.”

  “Yes, Captain.” He hurried to comply. Lucie moved toward the tray.

  “Just a minute, sir. If you think I am leaving an expensive bottle of wine here with you, you are mistaken.”

  The captain stepped closer. “He’s not getting that bottle.”

  She stood on her toes and raised a finger to point at him. “Well, neither are you.”

  His eyes narrowed on her as if he was sighting her down the barrel of his rifle. What Fink was doing, she could not say, for she was completely focused on the captain.

  “The major will hear of this.” She grasped the heavy glass bottle and pressed it to her bosom.

  The captain’s mouth twitched in an ugly smile at her feeble threat. Then he folded his arms before his brawny chest and leaned against the table, which clunked against the wall under the force of his weight, lowering his head several inches closer to Lucie’s. He stared coldly at her.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She turned away and let the bottle slip from her hands. It crashed onto the floor and rolled. Lucie crouched, as if to retrieve the bottle, but instead she reached under her skirts and drew Sky’s heavy revolver, secured to her leg with a series of ribbons, tied in pretty bows.

  Fink crouched to help Lucie collect the spinning bottle.

  She stared wide-eyed at Fink, who now gazed at the revolver pointed at his nose. He dropped the wine and stood blocking the commander’s line of sight.

  Fink lifted his hands and stepped back, giving the captain a clear view of her pistol, which she now swung to aim at his chest. She held her aim steady.

  He tensed and raised a hand to go for his own weapon, calculated he’d be too slow and paused. “Miss West. Don’t be a fool.”

  “Walk through that door.”

  He licked his lips and glanced at the door in question and then back to her. “If you shoot me, Fink will shoot you.”

  Lucie didn’t even glance at the man who was inching away from his commander in an effort to save himself. “I doubt that.”

  “The others will hear. They’ll come a running.”

  “But you won’t be here to greet them. So, Captain, are you willing to give your life to warn them?”

  He hesitated a little too long, so she cocked the trigger. The click had the desired effect.

  The captain’s voice was more growl than words. “Fink, do what she says.”

  “Through there,” she said, motioning to the open door leading to the row of cells. Lucie was surprised at how icy-cold her voice sounded.

  Fink hurried down the hall, but the captain stood to the side. Hoping she’d step in and be trapped?

  “Both of you,” she ordered. It occurred to her that she had never ordered a person around like this. All her life she had accepted orders, obeyed them. Now, with the help of this gun, she had a grown man nearly wetting himself in his hurry to do her bidding.

  She didn’t like it, not the sensation of power or the fear she caused.

  The captain gave her a murderous glance.

  “You won’t get far.”

  She motioned with the end of the pistol.

  “First cell, Captain,” she instructed.

  Fink slid the key in the slot, pulled open the heavy door and his superior inside.

  “Lock it,” she told Fink.

  He did.

  She instructed Fink to walk ahead of her to Sky’s cell and unlock it. When this door swung open Sky sprang out. On seeing Lucie, he paused.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Freeing you.” Then she turned to Fink, motioning with the gun barrel. “Inside.”

  He switched places with Sky.

  “Now, strip out of that uniform and those boots.”

  Sky stared in disbelief as Fink peeled out of his clothing, stopping only when he stood barefooted on the cold earthen floor dressed in nothing but a dirty pink union suit. Fink did not have the wide shoulders or trim waist that Sky did and Lucie waited anxiously as Sky tugged on the soldier’s discarded attire. She breathed a sigh of relief when he finally managed to complete the transformation. If one did not look too closely, you might not note the straining buttons down his chest.

  Lucie handed the pistol over to him. She locked Fink inside Sky’s cell.

  Only then did Sky turn to face he
r. Instead of a look of pride or joy, he continued to scowl.

  “You need to leave now,” he said.

  “We both do.”

  He didn’t move. A cold premonition of tragedy trickled down her spine.

  “Sky?”

  He spoke in Lakota. “I’m staying.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t have your life on my conscience, as well.”

  She answered in Lakota. “But we can make it. I have it all worked out.”

  “I have to stay.” His eyes implored her to understand. “Don’t you see? My death will save four boys. It’s payment for the life I took.”

  Lucie’s mouth dropped open. He made no sense.

  “But you’ve already saved them. Everyone thinks you killed Carr. There is no reason to hang. Isn’t it enough that you’ll be wanted for a crime you did not commit?”

  “Is it?”

  Now Lucie was scowling. It took a moment longer for her to understand what was happening.

  “This isn’t about the boys. It’s about you.”

  He did not deny it.

  “You’re running again.”

  “No. This time I will not run.”

  Her frustration boiled to the surface and she pushed him with both hands. He took only a small step backward. “You are running—have been all your life because if you stop, you might just love someone again and then you’d have to face the possibility of losing them, too.”

  This time it was Sky who gaped as he realized her words were true. He didn’t want to love her. He had been ready to face the scaffold, but this…this wild gamble that they might escape, that he might actually have Lucie. No. He couldn’t go, couldn’t gamble Lucie’s life because…he loved her.

  Oh, Great Spirit, he loved this woman and to be with her he must risk both their lives.

  “No, you have to go.” He wondered if begging her would help.

  “Why?”

  “Because…” He could barely speak past the lump now choking him. “I need to see you safe.”

  One glance told him she wasn’t going. She was as stubborn as any woman he’d ever met, and brave and foolish. And she’d stay here with him if he didn’t go. Behind her Fink started shouting. Lucie prayed the thick walls would contain the cacophony.