Reckless Heart

by Madeline Baker

  Muffled footsteps sounded behind him. Seconds later two figures bundled in heavy coats materialized out of the darkness, and Two Hawks Flying grimaced as he recognized Hopkins, the horse killer, and the trooper known as Shorty.

  “Looks like he finally came out of it,” Hopkins drawled. “I was beginning to think you’d cashed him in.”

  “Naw, I didn’t give him enough to kill him. Now he’s awake, get on with it and let’s go. This wind’s colder than a whore’s heart.”

  “Go on back if you want. I won’t be long.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “Suit yourself,” Hopkins muttered, and hunkered down on his heels alongside the prisoner. “Just thought I’d let you know what’s goin’ on, case you’re wonderin’,” he drawled. “Ya see, it’s like this. The lieutenant, he promised Miz Hannah he’d help you escape. But then he got to thinkin’ you might not high-tail it outta the territory like you should. He figured you might just take it into your head to stick around and try to get your woman back. So, he told me and Shorty to dust you off. We was gonna shoot ya, but the lieutenant promised Miz Hannah you wouldn’t get hung, nor shot neither, so…” Hopkins shrugged elaborately. “Me and Shorty decided to carve you up a little and let the cold and the critters finish you off.” Hopkins’ face split in a malicious grin, much like that of a lobo wolf about to bring down a buffalo calf as he added, “Personally, I’d as soon be shot, but a promise is a promise.”

  Chuckling, the horse killer drew a long bladed knife from the sheath of his belt. His eyes were as cold and flat as the weapon in his hand as he rubbed his nose, permanently misshapen since Two Hawks Flying had broken it.

  “Time to get down to business,” Hopkins murmured ominously, and smashed his left fist into the prisoner’s face, bloodying his nose and mouth.

  “Get on with it,” Shorty whined. “I got a bottle stashed in my bunk, and I could use a couple snorts to ease the chill in my bones.”

  Grinning his shit-eating grin, Hopkins raised his knife. Two Hawks Flying tensed from head to heel as fear’s clammy hand took hold on his insides, but his face remained smooth and impassive as Hopkins made the first cut. The blade was razor sharp, and tiny rivers of red appeared each time the corporal dragged the blade across the prisoner’s broad chest and muscular thighs. A dozen times the knife met flesh, cutting just deep enough to draw blood.

  With a grunt of satisfaction, Hopkins rose to his feet and sheathed his knife. “That ought to do it,” he allowed. “Iffen the cold don’t get him, the blood scent will draw the wolves down on him like ducks on a June bug.”

  “Yeah, he’s finished,” Shorty agreed, “so let’s make tracks back to the fort.”

  Minutes later Two Hawks Flying was alone.

  Shivering convulsively, body aching, wounds stinging from the cold wind, he stared into the darkness. The minutes crept by on broken feet. A pair of wolves howled in the distance, and he tried not to think of pink tongues dripping saliva and yellow teeth lending living flesh. A third lobo answered the call of the others—and then they were there, not three feet away, their hungry umber eyes glinting fiendishly in the frosty moonlight, their hot breath rank and tantalizingly warm on his naked flesh. Warily, they stepped closer, growling as the scent of fresh blood grew stronger, only to flee as the Cheyenne war cry split the wintry night.

  Two Hawks Flying grinned wryly. What was the use in prolonging the inevitable? Why not let the wolves finish him off now? Why fight for one more hour, one more minute? The cold was painful, and his body was racked with violent tremors as it sought to warm itself. His face ached from Hopkins’ vicious blow, and there was a cut across his left thigh, deeper than the others, that throbbed with steady precision. He felt himself sinking into darkness; he fought against it, knowing if he slept now he would sleep forever. And he was not ready to die, not yet. Not until he had dipped his hands in Lieutenant Joshua Berdeen’s blood. Not until he’d seen Hannah one last time…

  Sleep snared him in its net, and he dozed fitfully until a low-throated growl roused him. Startled, he loosed the tribal war-whoop again, though what emerged from his throat was not a bloodcurdling cry but a harsh, raspy wail. Still, it spooked the wolves, and they scuttled for cover.

  Sluggishly, Two Hawks Flying moved his head from side to side. Unblinking yellow eyes stared back at him. They had not gone far this time. Next time they would not run. Summoning the last reserves of his strength, Two Hawks Flying raised his voice in prayer.

  “Hear me, Man Above,” he called hoarsely. “Give me strength to survive this night.”

  Again and again he whispered his plea, until his voice was gone and he only mouthed the words.

  Stillness filled the night. Then a rush of mighty wings filled the air as a dark shadow crossed the moon and a pair of red-tailed hawks appeared out of the murky darkness.

  Mighty wings outstretched, they floated lightly to the ground. Alighting on either side of the stricken warrior, they spread their wings over his body, warming him with their feathers and shielding him from the wind’s icy breath.

  “Be strong,” the male admonished. “Be strong and you will yet conquer your enemies.”

  “Be brave,” the female admonished. “Be brave and all you desire will yet be yours.”

  All you desire… Whispering Hannah’s name, he slept.

  He awoke to the sound of heavy wings beating the air. He opened his eyes to thank his special helpers, the hawks, and came face to face with an enormous black vulture. Wings extended, the ugly creature stared at him through unblinking black eyes, occasionally taking a clumsy hopping step toward him, its funereal clothed body awkward and ungainly on the ground. As it drew nearer, its hooked beak opened to tear at his bloodied face.

  Frantically, Two Hawks Flying rolled his head from side to side, hoping to ward off the advancing bird, but to no avail. Like the shadow of death, the hulking creature loomed over him, poised to strike. The curved beak was darting forward when a gunshot flatted across the early morning stillness. The vulture toppled over backwards as if struck down by an invisible hand. Moments later two riders emerged from the trees.

  They were white men. The one on the left was in his mid-thirties, with a handsome boyish face, blue eyes as cold and clear as a mountain stream, a fine straight nose, and hair the color of new wheat.

  The second man was older—perhaps forty, perhaps fifty—it was hard to tell. He had thinning brown hair, washed-out green eyes, and narrow sloping shoulders.

  Both of the wasicuns smiled, as if they found it terribly amusing to come across a naked Indian spread-eagled in the middle of nowhere. The older man spoke first.

  “Well, Clyde, what do you make of that?” he queried in a deep, resonant voice.

  The man called Clyde shrugged. “Why, right off hand, Barney, I’d say he must have made an enemy of two somewhere along the line.”

  “Yeah, and they caught up with him!” Barney chortled.

  Clyde’s blue eyes glinted, and his mouth twisted into a mirthless grin. “Well, my ma always taught me that animals should be put out of their misery,” he remarked, raising his rifle to his shoulder, “and this here beat-up buck looks as miserable as any I’ve seen.”

  “Hold on a minute,” Barney said. “Let’s see who he is and where he’s from. Might be he’s an Apache. Might be he could tell us where that there Apache gold mine is we heard tell of in Tucson.”

  Clyde grunted and lowered his rifle. “You, Injun, you an Apache?”

  Almost imperceptibly, Two Hawks Flying shook his head.

  Clyde’s rifle thudded against his shoulder a second time. And again his companion stayed his hand.

  “Don’t be so all fired hasty to kill him,” Barney admonished. To Shadow he said, “What’s your name, Injun? What tribe you from?”

  With as much pride as he could muster, the prisoner rasped, “I am Two Hawks Flying of the Cheyenne.”

  “Two Hawks Flying? There’s something familiar about that name,” the older ma
n murmured thoughtfully, then slapped his thigh. “I’ve got it! Two Hawks Flying—one of the war chiefs at the Little Big Horn. The last fighting chief on the plains. Hot damn! Clyde, put that gun away. We’re going to be rich!”

  Clyde Stewart frowned. “Rich?” he asked irritably. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  A faraway look spread over Barney McCall’s weathered face. “I can see it now,” he purred in a silky tone. “You—all duded up in a fancy suit, billed as Clyde Stewart, Indian scout and plainsman, the man who captured Two Hawks Flying, the last fighting chief on the plains! Clyde, don’t you see? It’s a natural. If we take this redskin east, the dudes will come from miles around to get a look at him. Imagine, a live Indian! One of the chiefs responsible for Custer’s death. Why, those city slickers will pay a fortune to get a look at him.”

  At the mention of money, Stewart’s eyes glittered like sapphires. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

  Grinning now, he slid his rifle into the boot that hung forward of his saddle and hooked a coil of rope from the horn as he dismounted.

  “Cover me while I cut him loose,” he said tersely, stepping lightly to the ground.

  Shadow had listened to McCall’s plan with mounting horror. Appalled by their idea, it was in his mind to make a break for it as soon as Stewart freed him, but he was too stiff, too sore in every muscle and joint to offer more than a token show of resistance, and Stewart quickly overpowered him. In minutes, Shadow’s hands were securely bound behind his back, a noose, fashioned from Stewart’s rope, hung around his neck.

  Swinging into the saddle, Stewart touched his spurs to his mount’s flanks.

  “Let’s go, Injun,” he growled over his shoulder and tugged, none too gently, on the rope.

  As the noose closed around his throat, Two Hawks Flying lurched forward, gritting his teeth as his punished body protested every step by sending sharp pains through his arms, legs and torso. Feet dragging, body aching, chilled to the bone from spending the night on the damp ground, Two Hawks Flying stumbled along the path of Clyde Stewart’s big black gelding. The country they traversed was laced with prickly cactus and spiny shrubs that scratched his face and tore at his naked flesh, while rocks, stones and sharp gravel made walking treacherous. Still, the first few miles were not too bad. The forced march stirred his blood and worked the stiffness from his limbs, even as the warm sun caressed his weary body with a delicious heat.

  But then his feet began to bleed and his belly rumbled for food, reminding him he’d not eaten since the day before. By noon, it was an effort to put one foot in front of the other. A short time later, he fell.

  With an oath, Stewart gave a savage jerk on the rope, and Shadow struggled to his feet to save himself from being dragged, choking, over the rocky ground.

  Ahead of him, he could hear Stewart and McCall deciding how they’d spend all the money they intended to make by showing him off to the whites across the Big Muddy. The idea of being exhibited like a tiger in a cage stirred Shadow’s anger, infusing him with strength, and he worked his hands back and forth in an effort to loosen his bonds, but the ropes held fast and struggling only caused the harsh fiber to cut into his flesh, wearing away his skin until his hands were sticky with blood.

  In the next two hours he stumbled and fell a half dozen times as he trudged along in the dusty wake of Stewart’s mount. And each time he reached down inside himself and found the strength to rise and stagger on.

  It was nearing dusk when he fell again, and this time not all Stewart’s impatient cursing as he tugged on the rope, or even McCall’s cold-blooded threat to geld him on the spot could bring him to his feet. Even the strongest man could not walk twenty miles on an empty belly, not if his feet were bleeding and his body was throbbing with the pain of a dozen knife wounds. Not when he’d spent the previous three weeks in solitary confinement subsisting on stale bread and water.

  “Looks like he’s through for the day,” Barney opined. “In fact, if we don’t put some clothes on his back and shovel some food into him, I think he’s through for good.”

  After a quick glance at the countryside Stewart swung out of the saddle, saying, “Yeah, I reckon you’re right. See if you can round up some duds for the chief while I rustle up some grub.”

  Thirty minutes later Two Hawks Flying was clothed in McCall’s extra shirt and a pair of stained Levis. Warm now, with his hungry belly wrapped around a hot meal and his hands securely tied behind his back, he curled up on a patch of brown buffalo grass and slept.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The cell was empty, the prisoner gone. Apache scouts went out at dawn, only to return empty-handed, reporting that Shadow’s tracks had been thoroughly and expertly erased.

  That afternoon Josh and I were married by the post chaplain. It was a short, simple ceremony attended by Colonel and Mrs. Crawford, Doctor Mitchell, and a dozen or so of Joshua’s friends. The whole thing was unreal, a nightmare from which I could not awaken. Didn’t these people realize I was already married? Why didn’t they understand? Why didn’t Josh understand that I was Shadow’s wife in every way that mattered? What difference that we had never stood before a judge or a priest and exchanged vows? Our hearts and lives were bound as surely as if we had written our names on a license before a hundred solemn witnesses. I had slept at Shadow’s side, tended his wounds, borne his child. How could I marry Joshua while Shadow still lived?

  And yet, in a matter of minutes, the deed was done and I was Mrs. Joshua Berdeen—for better or worse.

  I closed my eyes as my husband kissed me, praying that our union would be a happy one. I told myself we had a good chance. After all, once I had been genuinely fond of him. Perhaps, in time, I would grow to love him.

  There was cake and champagne at the Crawfords’ after the ceremony, along with handshakes and presents and good wishes from Joshua’s friends, and a warm kiss from Doctor Mitchell. And then, all too soon, Josh and I were alone in his quarters.

  Head spinning from too much champagne, I stood in the middle of the room, watching dumbly while Josh shrugged out of his uniform. Only then did the full impact of what I had done hit me. In bargaining for Shadow’s freedom, I had completely surrendered my own. I belonged to Joshua now. And as he crossed the floor toward me, I knew he intended to claim what was his without further delay.

  A rising tide of panic engulfed me as his arms closed around me and his mouth covered mine. Unable to help myself, I recoiled from his touch.

  It was the wrong thing to do. Joshua’s eyes burned with all the fierce intensity of a raging inferno as he grabbed a handful of my hair and gave a sharp tug, forcing my head up and back so that I was staring into his face.

  “Forget him, Hannah,” he said curtly. “You’re mine now, all mine, and don’t you ever forget it.”

  “Josh, you’re hurting me…”

  “Mine,” he said huskily, and grasping the bodice of my wedding gown, he ripped it down the front.

  I shrank from the unadulterated lust blazing in my husband’s eyes and clenched my teeth to keep from crying out as his hands fondled my breasts.

  “Mine, Hannah,” he said again, and lifting me in his arms, he carried me to his bed.

  And boldly made love to me—if indeed it could be called love. There was no tenderness or gentleness in his touch, only an angry urgency, as if I were another enemy to be conquered.

  His hands were cruel as they explored my cringing flesh, his mouth hard and relentless as it ravaged mine. And as his knee forced my thighs apart, I made myself remember that, but for Joshua, Shadow would be dead now, hanging from the gallows behind the post guardhouse.

  Shadow… In my mind’s eye I saw him astride Red Wind, a warrior as proud and free as the hawks whose name he bore. I saw him dressed for battle, warbonnet fluttering in the breeze, handsome face streaked with broad slashes of vermilion.

  I saw him crawling across the floor of my father’s house, determined to die rather than be cr
ippled for life.

  I saw him kneeling at my side, his dark eyes filled with love and compassion the day our baby died.

  Shadow, my beloved. No matter that Josh’s touch filled me with revulsion. No matter that I was repelled by his kisses.

  Shadow was free!

  Hansen’s Traveling Tent Show proclaimed the gaudy red, yellow, and blue banner, and then went on to promise chills, thrills, and surprises. Adults and children alike oohed and aahed as they rushed from one gaily-colored tent to another. Eyes wide as saucers, they stared open-mouthed at a man wrestling a six-foot alligator and gaped at a two-headed snake and a six-legged goat. The women swooned over a handsome sword swallower and sighed over a daring highwire walker. The men whistled and cheered and stamped their feet as a raven-haired belly dancer displayed her voluptuous charms. The children fell down laughing at a dozen funny clowns dressed as firemen. There was a thin man and a fat lady, a mysterious gypsy fortune teller, a boxing kangaroo, and a dancing bear. And in the last tent there was a real live Indian.

  “Hurry! Hurry! See Chief Two Hawks Flying. The last fighting chief on the plains. Hurry! Hurry! Come one, come all!”

  Clyde Stewart’s dazzling smile stretched from ear to ear as he watched a horde of city slickers rush down the midway, drawn by Barney’s ballyhoo. Old Barney was grinning broadly as he sold the last ticket, closed the cash box, and hurried inside. It was a sell-out crowd.

  Stewart chuckled. The Eastern dudes shelled out a dollar a head to see the chief. On a good day, with three shows a day, they cleared over a hundred bucks, often more. It sure beat huntin’ outlaws!

  Still chuckling, Clyde hurried to the rear of the big, blue-striped tent and ducked inside.

  Over in a corner, shackled to the wheel of their wagon, sat their gold mine.

  “Get those feathers on, chief,” Stewart ordered brusquely. He was changing clothes as he spoke, putting aside his natty pinstripe suit and vest to don a flashy, all white cowboy outfit laden with yards of fringe and glittering spangles. It was a rig to curdle the stomach of any real Westerner, but the city slickers ate it up. White boots and a huge white Stetson came next. Lastly, he buckled on a fancy, hand-tooled gunbelt, complete with a matched set of pearl-handled Peacemakers in cutaway holsters. The guns, worn for the show only, were loaded with blanks.