The wire from his mother tucked inside his front breeches pocket and both children on the saddle before him Dancing Star more on his lap than in the saddle, White Fire rode in a gallop toward the Chippewa village. He was glad to see it was now only a short distance away. He knew that as each moment passed, Colonel Russell could be taking Flame farther and farther away from him. There was even a chance that White Fire might not even ever find them.
That thought, that possibility, tore at his heart.
And then what he had discovered in his mother’s wire was clinging to his mind with every heartbeat. The man he had always thought was his father wasn’t? A man he would have never guessed to be his father was? Irony of all ironies, that it was someone he had grown to love as a father.
Chief Gray Feather.
Chills rode up his spine as he recalled the many times Chief Gray Feather had said that he was drawn to him as a man is drawn to a son. And the chief had dreamed that he was his son.
And White Fire was. All along he had been the son of this proud, peace-loving chief.
Michael looked over his shoulder at White Fire. “I see Indian houses. Is that the Indian village where I am going to get me a pony?” he asked, drawing White Fire out of his reverie.
He smiled down at his son. “Yes, that is the Chippewa village where we will get both you and Dancing Star ponies,” he said. His smile faded. “But first I have things to do that will take me away from you for a while,” he said. “Will you mind being left with the Chippewa as I go with many warriors to search for Flame?”
Michael beamed. “It will be fun being with Indians,” he said, his eyes dancing. His gaze swept slowly over his father’s face. “Will their skin color be like yours? Are you part Chippewa, Father?”
White Fire’s lips parted, then they quivered into a proud smile. “Yes, in part, I am Chippewa,” he said. “I am part Miami and Chippewa.”
Dancing Star turned and gave White Fire a questioning stare. “I did not know that you were Chippewa,” she said, cocking an eyebrow. “Mother did not tell me that you were of our same tribe,”
“That is because I did not know until today that I was,” White Fire answered, his voice breaking with emotion.
“Does Grandfather know?” Dancing Star asked.
“No, and do not tell him, Dancing Star,” he said. “I wish to tell him, myself. But I won’t have time until I return from my search for Flame.”
“Flame is pretty,” Dancing Star said softly. “I like her red hair.” She reached up and ran a hand through her long, thick, black hair. “I wish mine was red.”
“Do not ever wish to be what you are not,” White Fire said, reaching around to place a gentle hand on Dancing Star’s shoulder. “Be proud of your heritage. Your hair is beautiful, Dancing Star. It shines and it is smooth as a bird’s wing.”
“I like birds,” Dancing Star said, smiling widely.
As White Fire led his stallion into the outskirts of the village, he became quiet. His jaw tightened as he gazed past everyone who stood aside and watched their arrival. He looked at the chief’s lodge, his heart pounding at the thought of his very own father being inside the large wigwam. He so badly wished to go to him and embrace him and call him “Father,” but time did not allow it.
Flame. He must concentrate on finding Flame.
Then he would sit in council with his father and tell him what White Fire knew would please the old chief.
By the time he arrived at Gray Feather’s lodge, the chief was standing outside, watching with a curious eye, his eyebrows raised.
White Fire wheeled his horse to a quick halt. He set first Dancing Star on the ground, and then Michael. Then he slid from the saddle and placed a hand behind each of the children’s heads and led them over to the chief.
“Why have you come?” Chief Gray Feather asked, looking slowly from child to child, his eyes lingering the longest on Michael.
Then he gazed into White Fire’s eyes, awaiting an answer.
White Fire found it difficult to speak, for this was the first time he had ever stood face-to-face with Gray Feather, knowing that he was his true father.
Tears threatened to reveal the secret he must hold within him until Flame was found and was safe. If the tears did spill from his eyes, it would be impossible not to explain why. He fought them back.
He squared his shoulders and tightened his jaw as he gently shoved the children toward the chief. “I must ask two favors of you, Gray Feather,” he said, his voice drawn. “That you please keep the children safe with you, and that you please allow many of your warriors to go with me to search for my woman.”
“Your woman is missing?” Gray Feather asked, finding this all too familiar since his daughter had not so long ago been stolen away. “The Sioux? They are the cause? They abducted your woman?”
“Gah-ween, no, not the Sioux,” White Fire said bitterly. “Her father took her away.”
“Colonel Russell?” Gray Feather said, his eyes widening. “I saw him taken into custody by the white pony soldiers at Fort Snelling. Did he escape them?”
“Ay-uh, yes, he escaped and he abducted Flame right before the eyes of Dancing Star,” White Fire said in a rush of words. “Thank God, at least he didn’t harm the child.”
“I will care for the children and ay-uh, take as many warriors as you need to search for the flame-haired woman,” Gray Feather said. “I like that woman. She has spirit and she also has a kind heart.”
“Ay-uh, yes, she is one of a kind, that is for certain,” White Fire said thickly, his heart paining him anew to think he might never see her again.
Gray Feather knelt before the children. “Dancing Star, take Michael into my lodge while I see to it that many warriors are sent out to search for Flame,” he said, embracing one, and then the other. “I shall return to my lodge in a matter of moments. We will sit by the fire and tell stories until White Fire’s return.”
“That will be fun, gee-bah-bah-nahn, Grandfather,” Dancing Star said, clapping her hands excitedly. Then she grabbed Michael’s hand and, in a skipping run, led him into the wigwam.
Soon many warriors were on horseback, and armed—some with rifles and some with bows and arrows. Gray Feather stood back and watched White Fire and his warriors leave. Then he went inside his lodge and looked at the children who were sitting by the fire, giggling and chattering like magpies.
His gaze fell on Michael, feeling a strange sort of bond with him, the same that he had always felt for Michael’s father.
He inhaled a shaky breath, then went and sat down with the children.
They instantly crawled over and sat down before him.
“Grandfather, tell us about how the skunk got its white stripe, please?” Dancing Star begged. “I love that story.”
Gray Feather patted first one head and then the other, then began the story that he had so often told his granddaughter. It was good to have her with him again. He now knew that he had been wrong to give her away so easily. Yet he could tell that she would be content in her new home, for there she would have a brother to grow up with, and a father who would be the best of fathers!
Chapter 40
Come, come, my love!
—John Clare
Flame glared at her father as he cooked fish over a campfire. The moon reflected into the Mississippi River on one side of them; the shadows of the forest were on the other.
“How could you do this?” Flame asked, her eyes flaming angrily as she glared at her father. “How can you think you can get away with it?”
“I swore that I would never allow you to live with a ’breed,” Colonel Russell said flatly, slowly turning the stick on which the fish had been skewered, the fire browning it.
He gave Flame a cold, menacing stare. “And did you think I would allow myself to be penned up in prison like some mad, raging lunatic? A dog?” he grumbled. “I deserve better after all I have done for my country.”
“Yes, you’ve been a dedicated soldier,
but you got too power hungry,” Flame said, scratching a mosquito bite on her left arm. “If you had been allowed to start an Indian war in the Minnesota Territory, the government would have done more than court-martial you. You would have been shot by a firing squad.”
She swallowed hard and her eyes wavered. “Just like you planned for White Fire,” she said, tears swimming in her eyes at the thought of how White Fire must feel now that he knew that she had been abducted.
“He deserved to die,” Colonel Russell said in a hiss. “He is a worthless son of a bitch. I don’t know how I was ever stupid enough to hire him as my interpreter. I should’ve known that would backfire on me.”
He glowered at her. “And it did,” he said dryly. “It brought you two together.”
“No matter what you would have done, whether you hired him or not at the fort, we would have found ways to be together,” Flame shot back heatedly. “I have loved him since I was ten. I would have searched for him forever until I found him. The Minnesota wilderness was the first place I would look. If I hadn’t found him there, I would have sought him everywhere.”
“I raised you better than that,” Colonel Russell said. He pinched off a piece of the fish and took a bite, to see if it was cooked thoroughly enough.
He licked his fingers. Then he glared at Flame again. “I raised you with class, baby,” he said, his teeth clenched. “Class. Not to be manhandled by a ’breed. Especially not to live in a damn rickety cabin. You were used to so much more than that.”
“And now what do I have?” she taunted. “A father who is wearing rags, no shoes, and who is hunted by the cavalry?” She laughed. “Yes, you’ve done quite well for yourself, Father,” she mocked. “It’s laughable.”
“How can you show me such disrespect when it was I who gave you so much through the years after I married your mother?” he said. “You weren’t born yet. She tricked me. I’m not your father.”
Flame was so stunned by what he had just said, about him not being her real father, she found it hard to comprehend it. Even her mother had betrayed her by never having told her that he wasn’t her father.
Then so many things began to make sense to her: How she had so often felt a strange sort of detachment from this man. How she had often wondered how she could be related to someone who was so evil, so cold-hearted and depraved.
She, on the other hand, had always had good feelings, so much compassion for everyone.
So had her beloved mother. Yes, it was all falling into place now, yet knowing it didn’t make it any easier to understand. To accept, yes. But not to understand.
“You aren’t my father?” she finally said.
“Everyone thought your father died of natural causes, but, in truth, I hastened his death after I saw your mother and wanted her,” Colonel Russell said, laughing throatily. “When your father got pneumonia and was placed in the hospital at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis, I just so easily slipped a pillow over his head and—”
“Don’t say any more!” Flame cried, feeling as though she might throw up from the vision evoked by his words. She scrambled to her feet and slowly backed away from him. “You are even more sick than I thought,” she said warily. “How could I have ever had any feelings for you, and I did, when I was a child?”
“But of course you would,” Colonel Russell said, laughing. “I was your ‘daddy’, wasn’t I? Daughters worship their daddies.”
“I never worshipped you,” Flame said, her voice catching. “I thought I loved you, yet I doubt that I ever did. How could I love someone like you? How could my mother?”
“It was so easy to sway her into loving me,” he said, laying the cooked fish on a rock.
He rose slowly, then inched his way toward Flame. “I was so gentle and kind to her while she was getting over the death of her husband,” he said, cackling. “Why, darling, I swept her clean off her feet. She married me two months after your father was buried.”
“Lord,” Flame gasped, her hands at her throat.
“Just the same as I’m going to sweep you off your feet once you’ve gotten over the shock of hearing all of this,” he said.
He quickly grabbed her by an arm and yanked her to him. “Darling daughter,” he said, “when we reach Canada, you will become my wife.”
“How disgusting!” Flame said, shuddering. “Never will you be allowed to lay one hand on me. I’ll kill you first.”
“When you grew up into a woman, I knew I’d have you,” he said, ignoring what she had said. “One way or another.”
His eyes narrowed. He took on a dark and sinister look as he glared at Flame. “Then White Fire interfered,” he said tightly.
Then he chuckled. “Well, he won’t get the chance to interfere again,” he said.
He gazed up one direction of the river, and then the other. “Voyagers are known to stop here and camp on their travels along the Mississippi,” he said. “That is why I chose this spot for our camp. Before midnight I am certain voyagers will stop here. We’ll steal their large canoe. We’ll get quickly out of this area, then head for Canada.”
“Over my dead body!” Flame screamed, yanking her arm free. She turned and began to run into the dark shadows of the forest.
She gasped and sobbed when she heard the twigs breaking behind her, realizing that her father—no, not her father—the fiend was gaining on her.
“Please, God, don’t let this be happening!” she cried. “White Fire, where are you? Please save me!”
She almost fainted with fright when two men jumped out from behind bushes and stood in her path, stopping her. She immediately knew that they were trappers. One was holding the reins to a mule heavily laden with pelts. The other one had a pistol aimed at Flame.
The aim quickly changed. Flame turned with a start and watched the one trapper shoot the man she had always thought was her father. She screamed as Colonel Russell grabbed at a wound on his chest, blood curling from between his fingers. She paled and gasped when he crumpled to the ground, dead.
“Got him!” the one trapper said, chuckling.
As the trapper kneeled down over the fallen victim, Flame turned and jumped the man who was preoccupied watching his friend rifling through the dead man’s pockets.
Her heart pounding, knowing that her life depended on her own clear head and swiftness, Flame grabbed a knife from the man’s sheath and sank the blade into his chest before he could stop her.
She stepped quickly away from him as he fell to the ground, his eyes locked in a death stare.
Trembling, aghast at having just killed a man, Flame stood over him. Then she screamed when she felt arms of steel grab her around her waist. The man yanked her so roughly against his hard body, that it not only took Flame’s breath away, but also jarred the knife from her hand.
“You bitch!” the man hollered, staring wild-eyed down at his dead friend. “You killed my partner!”
He grabbed Flame by the hair and yanked on it as he forced her to turn around and face him. “You are going to pay,” he snarled. “First I’m going to rape you. Then I’ll enjoy watching you die as I strangle the breath from inside you.”
Frightened speechless, Flame stared into the man’s dark eyes. Then she found her voice again, at least enough to scream as he half dragged her away behind thick forsythia bushes.
As he shoved her to the ground and ripped at her clothing, Flame’s past life flashed before her eyes....
Chapter 41
Is there within thy heart a need
That mine cannot fulfill?
One chord that any other hand
Could better wake or still?
—Adelaide Anne Procter
White Fire’s insides splashed cold when he heard a frightened scream through the trees.
“Flame?” he gasped.
His jaw tight, his pulse racing, he wheeled his horse to a stop and turned and stared in the direction of the scream. Knowing that was surely Flame, he dismounted and grabbed his rifle from the gunboot.
The Chippewa warriors followed White Fire’s lead and also dismounted. Then with weapons in hand, they followed him through the thick brush.
As White Fire stepped into a clearing, he saw that it was Flame. His heart froze. She was with a man on the riverbank behind some forsythia. The whiskered man was easing over her, ready to mount her, his breeches resting around his ankles.
An instant rage filled White Fire. Heated anger flooded his senses. He raised his rifle and took steady aim; then decided against shooting the man. He felt that the trauma of the man falling on Flame, dying atop her, might be too much for her to bear.
Instead, White Fire raised his rifle and fired into the air to frighten the man away.
White Fire’s eyes danced and he smiled devilishly when the man tried to scamper to his feet, not succeeding very well as he desperately yanked on his breeches to get them back on. His eyes were wide with fear as he turned and saw the Indians standing there, their weapons drawn on him.
When the trapper tripped and fell and rolled away from Flame, his breeches twisted about his knees, Flame shoved her skirt down to cover her nudity. Then she scurried to her feet and ran toward White Fire.
She screamed and stopped dead in her tracks when an arrow whizzed through the air, just missing her by inches, and settled into the chest of the trapper.
Eyes wild, the trapper grabbed for the arrow and tried to dislodge it. Then unable to, fell over backward into the river.
A hand covering another scream behind it, Flame watched the current grab the man. The lifeless body of the trapper bobbed up and down in the water as he was carried downriver by the swiftness of the current.
White Fire dropped his rifle to the ground. He ran to Flame and took her into his arms. He felt the desperation in her hug as she held him tightly to her.
“Thank God,” she sobbed. “It’s been so horrible, White Fire! So horrible!”
“You are safe now,” he murmured, stroking her back. “You are safe.”
Flame clung to him for a moment longer. Then she eased from his arms and gazed up at him. His copper face was bathed in moonlight. His eyes were filled with love and emotion as he looked down at her.
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