The Soul Survivors Series Boxed Set

by Vella Munn

  He nearly reminded her that she believed Eagle had blessed her life, but just in time he noticed that she no longer carried an eagle's feather in her hair and instead said, "I don't want it to be like this." They'd reached the first of the trees; he could see her taking long, deep breaths. When the sun hit her full in the face, her features gentled and the lines around her mouth softened.

  She hadn't looked at him since walking out of the stockade. Now she turned toward him, shoulders no longer slumped but fiercely squared. Behind her grew countless trees that could easily swallow her. Irrationally, that was what he wanted. Even if he never saw her again, at least she would be free.

  But she was right. What kind of life would she have, alone, and in constant danger of being hunted down? Damn, he hated his job! Hated everything that had happened here since the first trapper discovered the Land of Burned Out Fires.

  Shaken by his thoughts, he began telling her what she needed to know. The Modocs had been removed from where they'd been captured because he and the other officers feared that agitated whites might grab Jack and the other Indian leaders and kill them before justice could be served.

  Now Colonel Davis was waiting for final word from the president before proceeding with that justice. About the only thing that had been decided was that since no one could positively identify those who'd killed the settlers back in November, Hooker Jim and those who'd been with him would not be put on trial.

  In fact, because he'd helped the army find Jack, Hooker was free to move around the fort. On the other hand, Curley Headed Doctor, who'd tried to escape during the journey to Fort Klamath, was being kept locked up. Scarface, who'd been identified as the leader behind the Thomas-Wright massacre, had become a kind of folk hero because of what he'd accomplished with only a handful of warriors.

  "It's not so much folks around here," Jed admitted, "but people back East, protesting that the Modocs haven't been treated fair. They want someone to root for; that person's going to be Scarface."

  "Ha-kar-Jim free? His hands are covered in blood! He betrayed my uncle! If he had not called him a squaw woman, Kientpoos would not have killed General Canby."

  "No one put the rifle in Kientpoos's hand, Luash. He acted on his own free will."

  Her look said he couldn't possibly understand what it was like to be chief of the Modocs; she was right. "Cho-Cho is healthy?" she asked, abruptly changing the subject. Jed had seen little of the scarred warrior because his duties had kept him with Colonel Davis nearly every waking hour, but told Luash that the man seemed well.

  "What does the colonel want from you?"

  "We're trying to decide what's going to happen to all of you."

  "You are deciding my life? It is no longer mine?"

  He hated having to weather her anger and try to answer questions that weren't really questions; yet wasn't that better than the apathy, the quiet despair that surrounded her uncle? "That's the way war is. The victor makes the decisions."

  "And the loser is a dog on a rope. How proud you must be."

  Proud? Sick was more like it. "This isn't getting us anywhere. Neither of us can change what happened and what's going to happen."

  "You are an army chief. You meet with the commander; he must listen to you."

  Instead of trying to explain how complicated such things were, he simply waited her out. "There is much fear among my people. Are we going to be killed? the children ask. The women want to know if they will be turned over to the army men and the braves—some say they count their lives in days. While you and your leaders meet and decide our tomorrows, we are trapped deer, waiting for bullets."

  That's what had put the age in her eyes, he realized, wondering whether Modoc children would live to become adults. His need to reassure her that one day she'd again have land to call her own became almost more than he could bear, but what could he say?

  Until her uncle's fate had been decided, she and the others would remain penned up like the deer she'd just mentioned. If it was in his power, he would give her feet wings so she could run, so she could—

  But she didn't want to be alone, and he didn't know if he could go through the rest of his life without seeing her.

  "No one's going to kill babies or women."

  "You can be sure of this? There are many whites who wish the Modocs were no more."

  "They're not in charge, Luash. The U.S. government is."

  Her look said she couldn't trust something that had done nothing except fight her and her people. "I am so tired," she said, "so tired of being afraid and angry and helpless."

  He'd come to her determined not to stare too deeply into her eyes or get close enough to hear her heartbeat, but he'd only been lying to himself. How this had happened, how he'd come to care so much about someone he thought he'd spend his life hating, he couldn't say. All he knew was that she was the most beautiful, sensitive, intelligent woman he'd ever known; he'd do everything within his power to end the pain in her eyes.

  When he held out his hands, she stared up at him for so long that he felt as if he'd been stripped naked, then, silent, she slipped into his arms. He was right; she had lost weight. Her frame had no more substance than that of a newborn fawn, and if he hadn't sensed her courage and determination, he would have been terrified for her.

  "You're going to be all right," he promised, an empty promise that burst from him nonetheless. "Wherever you're sent, at least you'll have your people with you." And me? Where will I be?

  "Not all of them."

  He pulled her tight, then, stumbling a little, led her into the woods. Surrounded by trees, drinking in the deep, rich scent of a summer-heated forest, he wondered if she'd said her good-bye to the lava beds, wondered if she truly understood that she'd never see them again. "Talk to me," he whispered. "Tell me what you're thinking."

  "You have done your job, Jed. Brought the Modocs to their knees." Before he could gather his arguments, she took a deep, shuddering breath. "I am afraid for my uncle. He is never far from my thoughts."

  "You can't help him, Luash. Think about yourself." He struggled against the man in him that wanted to make love to her until neither of them thought of anything except need and satisfying that need. "Take care of yourself. Concentrate on what you can do."

  She tried to pull away, but he continued to hold her. "You made me listen to a white man's words," she said. "Showed me that you are more than someone trained and paid to kill Indians. I do not want to care-about you. I do not want to care!"

  But she did. That was the hell and the wonder of it. "I didn't either," he admitted. "You came into my life and turned me inside out. I could hate you for that."

  "Then do. It is easier that way."

  Maybe he could still hate her, if they hadn't made love; if he hadn't seen her spirit eagle; if he hadn't told her how lost he'd felt when his parents died. "I can't."

  He watched her lips form the word "why," asked himself how the hell he was going to answer. Then she shook her head and blinked back tears. "Neither can I. I want—but I can't."

  He nearly told her he would walk away from here with her. They'd find a place deep in the mountains where none of this hell they'd been living could touch them. He'd learn how to hunt and trap and she'd pick nuts and berries and leaves and make meals for them. They'd—maybe they'd go to Crater Lake and she'd tell him the Modoc legend of the crater's beginning.

  He'd stop being a soldier.

  She'd stop being a member of a vanquished tribe.

  "I do not want to be here," she said abruptly. "To smell earth and trees, to hear birds sing and know I cannot join them—it is too hard."

  "You'd rather be locked up?"

  "My heart is in prison. My body does not care." She pulled free of him. Then, before he guessed what she was going to do, she grabbed him around the neck and kissed him, a hard and desperate kiss that tore him apart.

  He came at her with equal strength and desperation, all but ripping her dress off her in his need. For a moment he was a
fraid that she would fight him—if she did, he knew he would let her go. Instead, she continued to cling to him, hands and mouth possessing him until it felt as if he might explode.

  The soft ground was littered with generations of pine needles and the wind was hot and full of summer. He lay her down, all dark and moving beneath him, and yanked at what was left of his clothes. He didn't try to meet her eyes, didn't want to know what he might find there.

  When she reared up to clamp her hands around his neck again, he grabbed her to him, rocking, his heart full of silent agony. Hurting as he hadn't hurt since he stood over his parents' graves. Wanting her as he'd never wanted anything since the last time he'd walked on what had once been his family's land.

  Luash sensed his battle, not just because they were sealed together and he was breathing as if he'd been running for his entire life, but because the same insane desperation claimed her. They didn't belong together, were ruled by different forces. Still, her body screamed and begged until she no longer heard any other voice.

  No longer knew anything except needing him.

  * * *

  The trial of Kientpoos and five others who'd been identified as participating in General Canby's murder was set to begin right after the Fourth of July. Jed accepted that decision with a sense of resignation that was almost relief. If nothing else, at least the endless wrangling was over.

  No one other than he thought it important that the Modocs have legal representation. He'd unsuccessfully argued the point with the six men who made up the military commission that would try the case. At least the commission had agreed with him that the prisoners deserved an interpreter, since some of them spoke only a few words of English.

  "You know who should do it, don't you?" Wilfred asked as he and Jed left Colonel Davis's barracks. "Luash understands English better than most; she'll make sure Jack knows everything that's going on."

  "I don't want Luash there. Toby can do it; Jack trusts her."

  "Now you're making Luash's decisions for her? No matter how hard it is on her, she'd want to be on hand. You said—"

  "I know what I said! But you and I both know how this is going to turn out. Why put her through any more hell than she's already in?"

  "Why protect her now; it's a little late for that, isn't it?"

  Jed was careful not to look over at the stockade where Luash had been held for nearly three weeks. He'd seen her occasionally since their frantic coupling in the woods, but they hadn't spoken a word. He'd told himself it was best this way, that there was nothing for them to say to each other.

  "You know what I'm seeing here?" Wilfred continued after a too brief silence. "All right, I'll tell you. She's got a hold on you that you can't possibly break."

  "You're wrong." Even if Wilfred was right, it did not matter. "As soon as the trial's over, Custer wants me back in the Black Hills. I got the word yesterday."

  "Shit. Are you going to go?"

  They'd nearly reached the oft-moved tent where he and Wilfred lived. If he kept a firm grip on himself, he might be able to enter it without first looking at the stockade. "What concern is it of yours?"

  "I'm making it my concern. If you get your marching orders, will you leave?"

  She won't be here much longer; there won't be anything to keep me here. Despite his best efforts, he couldn't keep his legs moving. He stopped, started to turn toward Wilfred, wound up staring at the walls that held Luash prisoner and separated her from the sky, sun, and land she loved. "I don't know. Things have changed for me. I've changed."

  "Because she's gotten to you. And once her uncle's fate has been decided, she'll be forced to go somewhere she's never been before. Maybe alone. Have you told her about that part? Does she know what the president's considering?"

  Bile rose in Jed's throat. "No."

  "The Modocs are going to hear about it sooner or later. Wouldn't it be better if she got it straight from you?"

  "That information's under wraps and you know it. How could I tell her that the president's thinking of spreading the Modocs over every damn reservation in the country so they'll never constitute a threat, or even the possibility of a threat again? She's got enough to worry about with the trial coming—and what the hell do you care, anyway?"

  Wilfred nodded in the direction of the stockade. "Strange thing about a war that goes on for more than half a year. It gets a man to thinking."

  Jed waited for Wilfred to continue. His stomach felt as tight as it had when he first saw the president's cable detailing the reasons behind what he was considering—the devastating ripping apart of a once-proud people.

  "They're folks, Jed," Wilfred said, "just like us. They don't want much, just a place to be. Only it's been taken from them. That's not something I'm proud of."

  Neither am I. "You're right," he admitted. "She has a right to be there. A need. Maybe that's the only thing I can still give her."

  * * *

  Luash stepped inside the dark, thick-walled building, careful not to breathe too deeply of the stench of many bodies. One of the guards had brought her a white, nearly new blouse and skirt this morning, saying that they were from Jed Britton. For too long she'd simply clutched the clothes to her while Whe-cha silently regarded her. At that moment, Luash wanted nothing more out of life than for Eagle to leave wherever he'd hidden himself and touch her with his courage. But these garments were from Jed, not her spirit. She couldn't hide from Jed's challenge, his understanding. If she had the courage to attend the trial, he wanted her to feel proud of her appearance, but all he had to give her was this.

  Using some of the Modocs' precious water, she'd scrubbed at her hair and flesh, then discarded her too-loose, too-short deerskin dress and put on the strange garments. She had no shoes but it didn't matter. She was doing this difficult thing because she loved the man whose life was at stake, and because it was a way to be near Jed—Jed, whom she never wanted to see again. As she was leaving the stockade, Whe-cha had hurried up to her and pressed a bead necklace in her hand. "Please," she'd begged, "give this to my husband. Tell him—tell him I have not forgotten him."

  The sparsely furnished and ill-lit room was already full of soldiers in newly cleaned uniforms, settlers sitting off to one side muttering among themselves, six shackled prisoners, and a long table with six stern-faced men sitting behind it. Ignoring everyone, she hurried over to Kientpoos and dropped to her knees before him. A sob clawed at her throat; she felt a heartbeat away from screaming. In a choked whisper, she told him she loved him and had prayed to Eagle for him.

  "I do not want my wives and daughter to see me like this,"

  Kientpoos said, indicating the chains around his legs. "If they ask, tell them nothing."

  Although she didn't know how she could possibly keep her emotions locked within her, she nodded. When she clutched Kientpoos's hands, they felt dry and soft—the hands of a man without enough to do. One of the guards tapped her on the shoulder and ordered her to sit with the spectators. She stood, but before she obeyed the guard, she slipped the necklace Whe-cha had given her over Kientpoos's head. "You are loved," she whispered. "Never forget that. Whe-cha loves you."

  Ignoring a rickety, straight-backed chair, she settled herself on the floor a few feet from her uncle. Only then did she look around for Jed. After a moment, she spotted him, sitting next to Colonel Davis. The room was like a disturbed bees' nest, all restless sound and movement. Only Jed sat perfectly still, his attention on her and not the army leader, who'd just said something to him. Jed's eyes took her back to the wild, impossible moments they'd spent drinking from each other's bodies.

  She wanted to hate him; she knew it would never be that simple.

  The trial barely had begun when she realized that something was horribly wrong. Not only did the men behind the table speak so rapidly that Kaitchkana could barely translate, but the shackled men had no one to speak for them. They were asked if they had someone to act as something called defense counsel. When Kientpoos said they didn't, one of
the counsel men said it was fine with him and his companions if the Modocs acted as their own lawyers. Slolux and Barncho, men with the minds of children, looked around them uncomprehendingly, then went back to staring at their shackles.

  She shot Jed a sharp glance, but he only shook his head. Rage boiled through her with such fury that it was several minutes before she could concentrate again on what was happening. She didn't understand these things called defense counsels and lawyers; what she did know was that if her uncle had to speak for himself, he would speak like a Modoc—and none of these white men would listen. The same was true of those the army called John Schonchin, Boston Charley, and Black Jim. Slolux and Barncho were only interested in the chains around their ankles.

  Kaitchkana's miner husband, who had been there when General Canby was killed, was the first to speak. After talking at length about what had happened from the moment the disastrous peace meeting began, he admitted he'd started to run away when the shooting started and hadn't seen anything.

  Kaitchkana, speaking first in English and then Modoc, came after her husband. She had, she admitted, seen everything and could point with certainty at those who'd killed the general and the Sunday doctor and who had tried to scalp Meacham.

  Although she'd seen the fight from a distance and had heard about it endlessly since then, Luash felt both spellbound and heartsick by Kaitchkana's somber tale. If only she'd been able to convince Jed of the danger to General Canby, if only he'd been able to make his leader listen—

  When the commission men pushed back their chairs and people began moving about, she realized she'd seen sitting without moving for most of the day. She scrambled to her feet, trying to remember what had been said last. Something about the prisoners being able to give their testimony tomorrow and hoping to wind things up soon after that.

  Ignoring the guards' objections, Luash again pushed her way to her uncle's side. Showing him the bedraggled feather she'd carried next to her breast for weeks, she told him it was her last gift from Eagle. She tried to give it to him, but a soldier knocked it from her hand. She stooped quickly and picked it up, but not before someone stepped on it.