The Bride Series (Omnibus Edition)

by Bittner, Rosanne

  Bates looked at Williams, feeling the ugly implications of the statement. Sam Gates would apparently use any means possible to get what he wanted, including torture. Both men wondered what kind of man they had become involved with, and both wished they had simply taken Jim Jackson to a plantation owner as they had first intended to do.

  Bates felt a growing resentment for Tommy Decker. This was all his idea. There he sat, swallowing his whiskey, carrying on a conversation with Sam Gates as though he actually liked him, but in the few minutes he had been in the room with Gates, Bates had seen nothing to like or to trust. An almost cold evil seemed to emanate from Sam Gates, and he had sent Jim off to be tortured, without showing an ounce of feeling.

  Bates didn’t care a bit for Jim himself, but the strangely cold and threatening air about Sam Gates bothered him. What kind of man bought and sold young girls like slaves? What happened to those girls? Surely not all of them were willing in the beginning to do the kind of work Gates expected of them.

  Stu finally returned, knocking on the door first, then darting inside and walking directly up to Gates. “He finally admitted there was a white girl on the boat,” he said to Sam.

  “I knew it!” Tommy sneered triumphantly. “Did he kill her?”

  Stu sighed, keeping his eyes on Sam Gates. “It’s a real strange story, sir. Jackson says Hank attacked the girl. Jim heard her screamin’ and all and then the Jasmine started breaking up. He went to Hank’s cabin to ask him what to do, and he saw the girl lying on the floor, moving around, plenty alive all right. And he saw Hank, too, lying on his back, all covered with blood, already stabbed, it looked like. He says he’s sure Hank went up there to rape the girl, and she must have fought him. But the strangest thing is, Jim says when he got there, there was a big man standing over Hank with a knife in his hand—called him the white Indian.”

  Tommy felt the chill of surprise and sudden awareness move through his blood. His eyes widened. “River Joe!” he exclaimed. He looked at Deek. “River Joe!” he repeated.

  “We should’ve thought of that before!” Deek answered.

  Sam Gates frowned. “I’ve heard of this River Joe—a white man raised by the Cherokee.”

  “He caused trouble up at the Gillmore settlement over a white girl,” Deek said, his eyes lighting up.

  “And more trouble at our place,” Tommy added. He looked at Sam Gates. “The white Indian and Hank Toole argued over what Hank was gonna pay him for some skins, too! He must have gone after Hank—then decided to take not only Hank’s money but the girl, too! He’s got Emma! That goddamned River Joe killed Hank, and he has Emma!”

  Sam Gates’s eyes seemed almost black with rage. “Then he has stolen my property,” the man almost growled. “And he killed one of my best suppliers.” He startled them all when he turned and threw his whiskey glass against the wall, shattering it. “No one messes with Sam Gates like that,” he snarled. “No one!”

  “Are we going to climb forever, River?” Emma stopped to catch her breath. They had dismounted from the horses to relieve them of some of their weight. It seemed to Emma they had been climbing for days through colorful rocky canyons and thick groves of shady trees. “Seems like we’re headed straight to heaven.”

  “In some ways we are,” he called back.

  She looked up to see he had reached a flat area and stood grinning down at her. “Come up here and look,” he said. “We will rest here.”

  She put a hand to her pounding heart, taking a deep breath of the thinner air, and started upward again.

  “We’re lucky. The haze that usually hangs around the Smokies is gone today. You’ve got some view now, Emma.”

  She reached the top and turned. River Joe reached out and pulled her close, encircling her shoulders with one arm while he pointed with the other hand to what appeared as just an odd dot on the vast horizon below them. “Way out there…that’s Knoxville.”

  Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open. Never in her young life had she seen anything like the sight before her now. She could not imagine how far she was seeing. The whole world was before her, and she shivered at the sight.

  “Oh, River, it’s beautiful! It’s like…like we’re close to God Himself.”

  “The Maker of Breath is very powerful here,” he said reverently. “From here He watches over all of us. Here He is close to the birds and the heavens. The tops of the mountains are his throne. Up here my people are themselves stronger. They feel the peace of being closer to Esaugetuh Emissee.”

  “Are we close to the village now?”

  “Yes. Very close. Perhaps tomorrow we will be there.”

  She squeezed closer to him. “I hope they like me, River.”

  “I have no doubt they will love you.”

  She drew a deep breath, feeling like crying at the view. “How far can we see, River?”

  “It is hard to say. Some claim that from this particular point one can see for hundreds of miles.” He pointed again. “Way, way down there—perhaps forty or fifty miles—that is where your farm was, and the other settlements along the Hiwassee.”

  “I can see a little ribbon of water. Is that the river?”

  “Yes. It is the Tennessee River.”

  “And that little spot is Knoxville?”

  “Yes. It is maybe sixty or seventy miles, but not so far from where you once lived if you go by river. Through the mountains it is more difficult. No matter how one tries to get up here, it is difficult and dangerous. That is why the Cherokee have retreated so far. It is much safer up here.”

  “I wonder what is happening down there, River, and worrying. I wonder who is left alive. And I can’t help wondering about Hank Toole—if they found him and all.”

  He gave her a squeeze. “We are not going to think about it for now. My people’s village is very hard to find. Even if someone figures out what happened, it would be a long time before we were found. And we might even be gone from this place by then. For now we will go to my people and wait to see what happens. We are going to be happy, Agiya. This I promise.”

  She turned and hugged him fully. “Let’s make camp right here, River. It’s so beautiful.”

  He grinned, rubbing her shoulders. “All right. If that is what you want.”

  “It is.” She looked up at him. “And I want to make love, right up here on top of the world, close to God and the clouds. Up here it’s like we’re the only two people in the whole world!”

  His eyes looked sad as he smiled, for he, too, was wondering what had happened below. “How I sometimes wish that we were,” he answered, coming down and meeting her mouth. How he loved her! How he prayed they would be left alone.

  Sam Gates puffed quietly on an expensive cigar, eyeing Tommy and the others, who had waited for Gates’s volatile temper to cool.

  “I don’t want this to go to the sheriff or to the public, because of the girl,” Gates said finally.

  “What are you going to do about Jim Jackson, sir?” Stu asked.

  Gates sighed deeply. “He’s going to hang for killing Hank Toole.”

  Tommy frowned. “But River Joe did it.”

  Gates nodded. “I want everything about the girl kept quiet. This is a lucrative business I have here, Mr. Decker.” His eyes shifted to the other three. “If Jim talks, he might tell everyone Hank was bringing the girl to me, against her will. Black slavery is one thing. The slavery of young white girls is something else. I want Jim brought forward—gagged.” He looked at his hired man. “Stu, I want you to stir up a crowd—tell them Jim Jackson killed Hank and confessed to it. I want him hanged by tonight. I will do my own investigating into what happened to the girl.” His eyes darkened with revenge. “No one steals what belongs to Sam Gates,” he sneered. “I paid good money for that girl, and I am going to find her, and this man called River Joe. I want him dead!”

  “Let me find them for you, Mr. Gates!” Tommy blurted. “I’ve scoured the mountains a lot of times looking for the Cherokee. Me and Deek both
have raided their settlements. If Emma Simms is with River Joe, it’s a sure bet he took her back to the Cherokee with him!”

  Gates watched him intently for a moment, then slowly nodded. “That might be a good idea. You know this Emma. You would recognize her.”

  Tommy’s blue eyes lit up with hatred. “And I’ve got a score of my own to settle with River Joe,” he added.

  Sam laid his cigar in an ashtray and leaned forward on his desk, studying all four men. “I’m paying all of you for going to the trouble of bringing Jim to me. But only on the condition none of you tells the truth. All of you must go along with the story that Jim killed Hank. Whoever changes his story—I’ll have his head on a platter. Understood?”

  They all nodded.

  “I just want to get my money and go back home,” Herman Bates said. He didn’t like this Sam Gates at all. He felt very uncomfortable in his presence, sure that if the man threatened to have his head on a platter if he talked, he meant every word—literally.

  “Same here,” Williams added.

  “Not me!” Tommy put in. “I’m stayin’ in Knoxville—except for leavin’ to find River Joe and that girl.”

  “Do what you want,” Bates replied. “I don’t want none of it.” He turned his attention to Sam Gates. “You got any idea the kind of man this boy is goin’ up against? River Joe ain’t somebody to mess with. Findin’ Hank’s dead body proves that. If he’s involved in this, I aim to get out of it right now. If Tommy here wants to try to go after that man, he’s welcome to it.”

  Sam shrugged. “Fine. Go outside and wait for me at the bar. I’ll pay you in a few minutes.”

  Both Bates and Williams nodded and turned to leave. “You go after River Joe, you’ll regret it, son,” Bates stopped to tell Tommy on the way out.

  Tommy almost shook with eagerness. “It’s River Joe who’s gonna regret somethin’!” he answered. “He’ll regret he ever set eyes on Emma Simms!”

  Bates just shook his head and went out with Williams, closing the door behind them.

  Sam Gates turned his attention to Tommy. “You really think you can find this River Joe and the girl?”

  “I know I can!” Tommy answered. He looked at Deek. “With me, Deek?”

  Deek sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I reckon. Lord knows we’ve gone after the Cherokee enough times. But I don’t know about goin’ after River Joe in particular. Makes me a mite uneasy, Tommy.”

  Tommy’s eyes smoldered. “Not me. I got too much hatred in me to worry about it.” He looked back at Sam Gates. “How much does it pay, Mr. Gates?”

  “Three hundred dollars each, plus a hundred dollars for bringing Jim to me, as well as all the supplies you need for your trip into the mountains.”

  “Whooeee!” Tommy whistled. Sam Gates smiled, realizing the money would sound like a king’s ransom to a mountain boy like Tommy. He was getting off cheap. “That pretty little girl must mean a lot to you,” Tommy observed. He leaned forward. “Truth is, Mr. Gates, you made a hell of a deal on that one. She’s got everything you could want in a woman.”

  Gates turned to pace the room. “I don’t care about that anymore, Decker. It’s the principle of the thing now. This man called River Joe took something that belongs to me. I don’t like that.”

  Tommy snickered. “I wouldn’t like it either.” He grasped the back of a chair. “When do you want us to leave, Mr. Gates?”

  “Wait a day or two. Let this all blow over. The public will think Jim killed Hank Toole, and that will be that. Then you can leave. If you find this River Joe, you can leave him dead or bring him to me alive. Finding an alibi for killing him should certainly be easy enough. No one is going to care, since he might as well be Cherokee. And he sounds dangerous. On second thought, it might be best to kill him straight away. All I really want is that damned girl, and definitely alive. She’ll learn not to run away from Sam Gates!” The whole room seemed to smolder with Gates’s anger. “Be sure to bring her in quietly. I don’t want anyone connecting her or River Joe with what has happened here today.” He puffed on his cigar, staring at a picture of a naked woman on the wall. “I’ll teach the little bitch one hell of a lesson.”

  Tommy grinned at the remark as Gates turned his eyes to the man called Stu. “Go get Jim. Gag him and tie him and take him out into the street. It won’t take long to get a crowd up against him. Even the sheriff will agree he should be hanged.”

  He brushed at his satin vest, looking back at Tommy. “As of now, you work for me, Mr. Decker. But you do things the way I say.”

  Tommy nodded, grinning. “Yes, sir. Deek, too?”

  Gates moved his eyes to Deek. “I suppose, if he can take orders and keep his mouth shut.”

  “Yes, sir, I can.”

  Gates looked at Tommy again. “How easy do you think it will be to find this River Joe and the girl? You think she’s really still alive? Would she go with him willingly?”

  Tommy remembered River Joe’s words the night he was held prisoner at the MacBain settlement. “I got a feelin’ she’s very willin’, sir. As far as findin’ them, it might be easy, and then again it might not. Them Cherokee are real tricky, and they’ve gone higher up into the mountains.”

  Gates picked up his cigar again. “I am a patient man, Mr. Decker; I have a long memory and I hold grudges. If it took you three years, I would still want that girl. She belongs to me. By then she might not even be of any use to me, but I would want her anyway. I am very jealous and selfish of what is mine. There are uses even for women who are no longer…unspoiled, shall we say?”

  Their eyes held; they were two men with equal disregard for human emotion or human rights. The only difference between them was age and wealth. Sam Gates needed someone just as unfeeling as he was, and he quickly discerned Tommy to be such a man. He put out his hand. “Good luck, Mr. Decker.”

  Tommy shook the man’s hand, his eyes glittering with eagerness, his smile wide with anticipation. Now Emma Simms would really pay!

  “Thank you, sir,” he answered. “I’ll find her. And it won’t take no three years, I can promise you that!”

  Gates nodded. “I hope you’re right. Go on out and order yourself drinks on the house,” he said. “I’ll join you soon. And remember, keep your mouths shut.”

  Tommy grinned. “Yes, sir.” He grabbed Deek’s arm and left the room, excited to be working for an important man like Sam Gates, even happier over the prospect of hunting down Emma Simms.

  Gates looked at Stu. “Those other two men who were with them. Pay them off and let them go. But once they’re out of town, I want them killed. They know too much.”

  Stu nodded. “Yes, sir. I’ll arrange it.”

  Stu left, and Sam Gates relit his cigar, staring again at the picture of the nude woman. His anger over someone else running off with Emma Simms smoldered in his gut as hot as the fiery tip of his cigar. If he ever got his hands on this Emma Simms, she would pay dearly for running off on him. And River Joe might as well consider himself a dead man.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Emma drew in her breath when a dark man wearing a turban, buckskin pants, and a striped cotton shirt approached them. He carried a musket, and he called out to River Joe in a language Emma did not understand. But she had heard enough sweet words from River Joe to recognize the Cherokee tongue, and to know that these were words of greeting.

  River Joe answered, riding forward while Emma drew her horse to a halt. The two men reached out for each other, clasping wrists in a happy greeting. Emma realized the other man was most certainly a Cherokee Indian, and also she could see now that he was hardly any older than she. River Joe finally turned to her, grinning. She reddened when the young Indian grinned broadly, and she realized they were discussing her. The younger man walked toward her, greeted her in Cherokee, then put out his hand to her.

  “I am Peter,” he said in English. “And I am very happy to know my brother has taken another wife. I do not think he could have chosen a prettier you
ng woman in all of Tennessee. I think I am jealous.”

  Emma reddened still more. “I guess I should say thank you, Peter. I’m glad to meet you. River has told me so much about you.” She took his offered hand and he squeezed hers lightly.

  “River? This is what you call him?”

  “Yes.”

  Peter laughed and released her hand. “It is nice. It makes him special to you. That is good. Names are very important. We all call him Joe. To you he is River.”

  Emma looked at River Joe, who was grinning proudly. “The village is where I left it,” he said to Emma. “We are near it now. Peter was out hunting and scouting for raiders.” He looked at Peter. “There are no raiders nearby, Peter. We have come all the way from the Hiwassee, and no one has followed. There was a very bad flood down there—wiped out a lot of villages. For a while people will be too busy to think about hunting the Cherokee. They have enough on their hands just surviving.”

  Peter nodded. “I would not wish such misfortune on anyone, but I cannot say I am not glad for the flood. Let us go to the village then. Mary and Grace will be so happy to see you! You have brought many supplies? We are very much in need of sugar.”

  “I brought what I could—plenty of sugar, I think. But I got cheated this year. The one called Hank Toole would not give me a fair price for the skins I brought him. So I could not buy as much.” He sobered. “And I am afraid I am in some trouble, Peter. I will tell you about it later. If it brings trouble to the village, Emma and I will leave.”

  Peter scowled. “What have the white settlers done, Joe?”

  River Joe looked at Emma and sighed deeply, moving his eyes back to Peter. “Let’s go into the village first and get settled. My new wife is very tired. And she is nervous about meeting all of you. She has never been around the Cherokee before. She knows only the lies and half-truths she has been told by others.”

  Peter took the reins of Emma’s horse. “Then she will soon learn the truth,” he said to his white brother. He looked back at Emma. “You will find we are not the monsters the white man says we are,” he said.