Sweet Prairie Passion (Savage Destiny)

by Rosanne Bittner

  She nodded silently, then choked on a sob. “Will they … kill her quickly?” she whimpered.

  He reached out and touched her hair. “Stop torturing yourself, Abigail.” She cried harder, and he touched her face with his big hand. “There was a time when I, too, thought that life just wasn’t worth living. But life goes on, Abigail, and it’s going to be a good life for you. I see it in the stars.” He leaned over her, wanting more than anything to crawl under tha blankets with her and comfort her as a man would comfort the woman he loved. But he merely tucked the blankets around her. “You get back to sleep. We have some hard riding to do tomorrow.”

  She sniffled and wiped at her eyes, forcing them closed. But sleep would not come right away.

  “Zeke?” she asked.

  “Yes, girl?”

  “Would you just … hold my hand? Please? It’s not the dark I’m afraid of … just the loneliness.” She reached out from under the blanket, and she felt his big, warm hand close around her own. Soon she was asleep again.

  Thirteen

  It had been a long time since Abbie had ridden a horse at such a constant pace, and by the third day she was getting stiff and sore. But she kept her complaints to herself, realizing she’d asked to come along and not wanting to be a burden on the three men. By that afternoon, Zeke slowed his horse’s pace, suspecting they were getting closer to something or someone. They rode through an open area, where buttes and mesas rose from the ground in great cones with nothing around them except stark, isolated hills that seemed to be there for no reason. They made their way up an escarpment between two steep hills, a treacherous ride over loose rock, then rode down the other side and into some thick woods again, Zeke in the lead like a wildcat after its prey. He suddenly stopped and put his hand up for them to do the same. Then he just sat there, smelling the air.

  “What is it, Zeke?” David asked.

  He turned his horse, and Abbie could see the sorrow in his eyes.

  “There’s a dead body up ahead,” he replied quietly, looking at David. Abbie’s heart throbbed, and she prayed desperately it would not be LeeAnn. “All of you stay here. This could be a trap.” He turned the horse and rode on ahead. They waited until he finally came riding back at a moderate gallop.

  “Get Abigail out of here fast!” he told David. “They’ve picked up more men and they can’t be more than a half day to a day West of here! I smell a trap.”

  “What’s up there?” Abbie demanded to know. “Is it LeeAnn?”

  He rode up to her, pulling at her horse’s bridle and turning her horse in the other direction. “Your sister’s dead, Abigail. It’s like I told you it would be. Get her out of here, David!”

  “No!” Abbie screamed. “We have to bury her!”

  “There’s no time!” Zeke growled. “You made me a promise that once we found her you’d go back right away if she was dead. You can’t do her any good now, Abbie! Now quit your fussing and get the hell out of here!”

  Her mind spun from the shock of it. Dead! Pretty LeeAnn! Worthless as she was, she was still her sister. She couldn’t just leave her that way. Zeke yanked on her horse, pulling it away from the thick cluster of trees, and David and Olin Wales were riding on either side of him. All Abbie could think of was her sister lying dead in the woods, and in her anger and frustration she pulled her Spencer from its holder and cocked it.

  All three men whirled automatically at the sound, but Zeke’s gun was out first. His eyes widened with disbelief when Abbie sat there with her rifle pointed at them. He’d nearly fired his gun when he heard hers click. Now he eased his own gun back into his belt.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked her.

  “I’m not leaving this place until my sister is buried!” she replied in a determined voice. Tears spilled down her cheeks, but she sat firmly astride her horse and held the Spencer like a person who knew how to use one. “I don’t care that David knows, or that Olin already knows about us,” she went on angrily. “And I’m telling you right now, Cheyenne Zeke, that I can’t take any more! My pa is dead, I watched Jeremy die a horrible death, and I love you and can’t have you! Now my sister is dead too! I’ve got so many ugly things racing through my mind I’m not even sure I’m still sane, and by God I’m going to have this one little thing to help ease my mind! We’re going back there and we’re going to bury my sister! I swear to God if you yank on my horse again I’ll shoot! What do I have left to lose?”

  All three of them gaped at her, trying to determine whether she would really shoot Zeke if he made her leave. Zeke decided that if it came right down to it, that wasn’t likely, but then he realized what she was trying to tell him, and she was right. How could he say no to the pretty woman-child whose virginity he’d robbed and whose heart he’d broken? The least he could do was to let her bury her sister. It angered him to see her so strong and sure, sitting there holding the Spencer as good as any man, yet it made him love her even more. Abigail Trent would be a fine, strong woman some day, the kind of woman a man like him would need. What a tragedy it was that he was a half-breed, and she was white.

  “Put the rifle away,” he said resignedly. “We’ll go bury her. But I warn you I smell something awry, so everybody keep your eyes and ears open.” He turned to Olin. “You ride around the edge of that bunch of trees,” he told him. “Keep a lookout. David and I will bury her quick as we can.”

  He turned to David, who sat rigidly on his horse, his lips pressed tight and tears quietly sliding down his cheeks. He quickly wiped at them and turned away, and it was only then that Zeke realized how hard this had to be on David. It tore at Abbie’s heart to look at the young man, for he’d truly cared for LeeAnn. How different things could have been for her if she had let David love her and had stayed with the train and gone on to Oregon!

  Zeke rode past Abbie, and she and David followed him into the thicket. Zeke slowed his horse and turned to her. “You stay here till we get her wrapped in a blanket,” he told her. “She’s … not dressed, and it’s not a pretty sight, Abbie.”

  She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “How’d they kill her?” she asked.

  “One bullet in the forehead. I don’t expect she felt a thing, if that’s what you’re asking, but she was sore abused before that.”

  Abbie hung her head. “Why? I’d think they’d keep her alive to lure us on into a trap.”

  “Givens knows I won’t give up now. Even if I find her dead, I’ll come after him. He knows that. He’s been easy to trail—too easy. He wants me to find him.”

  He dismounted and signaled David to follow him. David removed a blanket from his saddle pack, and Abbie’s heart was torn when she heard David break down into loud sobbing after he entered the thicket with Zeke. The boy cried intermittently, amid the sounds of shoveling, and then Zeke came for Abbie. “She’s wrapped and in the hole,” he told her, reaching up for her. “You want to say some words over her?”

  She bit her lip and nodded, and he lifted her down. Their eyes held; then he hugged her tightly for a moment and led her to the grave. David sat slumped next to it.

  “I should have killed him!” he sobbed. “I should have killed Robards, even if she’d have hated me and I’d have hung for it! Jesus Christ, how can a man gamble away a woman—like nothing but a cheap piece of jewelry!”

  Abbie knelt down across from him, staring down at the once-beautiful LeeAnn Trent, her blond hair now dirty and disheveled, a small, ugly hole in the middle of her forehead.

  She took a small, golden cross from the pocket of her dress and handed it to Zeke. “This was … our mother’s,” she told him. “Can you … climb down there and put it on her? Would you mind?”

  He took the cross and scooted down into the hole, bending down and clasping it around LeeAnn’s stiffened neck. It was obvious her body had already started to bloat; her face looked puffy and out of proportion, and the odor was sickening. Again she thought of how much Zeke must care for her to have done the difficul
t and repulsive things she had requested. She thought of how horrible it must have been for him to have had to end little Jeremy’s life.

  He climbed back out and stood behind her, putting his hands at her waist and helping her to stand up.

  “I’m sorry, Abbie, but you’ll have to say your words fast. We have to get you out of here!”

  She nodded. “Thank you … for doing this,” she answered. She swallowed and stared at LeeAnn. “Dear Lord,” she spoke up louder in a shaking voice. “Please accept LeeAnn into your tender care. She wasn’t really bad, Lord—just mixed up and scared. She had big dreams is all. Most of us have dreams like that, of things we want so bad we do crazy things to get them. Please don’t blame her. Just … take her into your arms and comfort her … and bless her and mama, and pa and Jeremy. Let them all be happy again. And Lord—”

  A shot suddenly rang out, and David Craig’s body jerked sideways, then fell over. Abbie’s horse reared and she heard a scream, not realizing it was her own. Everything happened in a split second, and the next thing she knew Zeke had tackled her to the ground and placed his body protectively over hers. They lay there for a moment; then there were more shots.

  “Stay right here and lie down flat!” Zeke ordered in a low growl. The next moment, he was gone; as more shots rang out, and Abbie knew Olin was being fired at also. She heard a rustling but dared not look up to see Zeke dodge for his horse and quickly remove his rifle, and she prayed with desperate tears that he’d not get hit. Suddenly his leather hat flew off as another shot was fired. She screamed and got up to run to him, but seconds later he grabbed her en route and knocked her down.

  “I told you to stay flat!” he growled. A trickle of blood ran down the side of his face from a crease in his scalp.

  “Zeke, you’re hurt!” she whispered.

  “I’m all right,” he told her, his eyes darting around the perimeter like a bobcat’s. He raised up and crouched on one knee, then took aim and fired. Abbie could not imagine how he’d known someone was there, but a man cried out somewhere in the trees. Then Zeke whirled and fired again, and there was a grunting sound. David Craig was up now and limping to his horse, bleeding badly from his left side. He’d been badly wounded, but he was so full of hate for what had happened to LeeAnn that he was determined to get some kind of revenge before he passed out. He got to his rifle, and another shot rang out. He cried out, blood now oozing from his shoulder, but he whisked his rifle from its holder before he fell. Then he got up again, aiming at something, and fired. A man fell from a tree not far away.

  “I got you, you son of a bitch!” he yelled. Then he fell over, and Abbie feared the boy was dead. In the distance there was more shooting, and Zeke fired twice more. Then they heard a horse galloping off.

  “Goddamn it, one’s getting away!” Zeke growled. He fired once more, but the horse kept going. “Crow!” he mumbled. “Must have been renegade Crow Indians—planted here to see who’d come! No white man could have been around here without me knowing it! Damned Crows! I knew something wasn’t right! Olin!” he called out.

  “Right here!” came the reply. “You okay, Zeke?”

  “Got a crease in my scalp is all! They got David, damn it! They’re Crows—probably renegades!”

  “I know! I got three myself. Didn’t even know they was there till they started shootin’ at me!” Olin came closer now, stomping through the underbrush, while Zeke helped Abbie to her feet, then hurried over to David’s body, rolling it over. He bent over it a moment, then rose, removing a small tomahawk from his belt and slamming it violently into a tree.

  “Damn!” he swore again. “I knew we should have kept riding! Now they know we have a woman with us!” He yanked the tomahawk back out of the tree trunk vigorously, and stalked back to Olin and Abbie.

  “They left them Crow behind to spy and see if you was alone or comin’ with help,” Olin told him. “I expect they aimed to eliminate the help so’s you’d be sure to come on ahead alone.”

  “I will be going on alone, because you’re taking Abbie back,” Zeke replied irritably, pushing the tomahawk back into his belt. “Let’s bury David with LeeAnn and get Abbie the hell out of here!”

  “But they’ll be waiting for you!” Abbie whimpered. “They’ll kill you, Zeke!”

  “Not considering the mood I’m in!” he answered through gritted teeth. He rubbed the crease on his scalp where a scab was starting to form. “Somebody’s aim was off. I expect they intended to wound me and take me to Givens”—his eyes scanned her—“along with you, no doubt—once they’d killed David and Olin. Only the plan kind of backfired.” He grinned a little. “Rube would have been real pissed if the bastard who shot at me had killed me. He’d want me alive.”

  “Zeke, I’m scared for you,” Abbie choked out, wringing her hands.

  He took her arm. “It’s you that’s in the most danger, Abbie. Now I want you to help Olin fill in this grave. I have something to do. And as soon as David and LeeAnn are buried, you get out of here with Olin!”

  He walked off to his horse, and despite her tears Abbie helped with the burial, thinking how fitting it was for poor David to be buried next to LeeAnn. If he couldn’t be with her in life, at least he was with her now. Olin carried the boy’s body over to the hole and put him down into it beside LeeAnn. Then Abbie tried not to vomit as she helped fill the hole, but she cried even harder as the dirt fell over her pretty sister’s face.

  She concentrated on flowers and sweet memories, singing a hymn softly until the bodies were finally covered. When they were nearly through she glanced over at Zeke. He’d brushed out his braids, and his hair hung long and flowing as it had when he’d prayed over little Mary and when he’d fought the Sioux warrior. He reached into his parfleche and took out the little pouches of colored powders, mixing them with a little water from his canteen and then smearing them onto his face with his fingers, drawing fierce-looking lines in black and yellow from just under his eyes down over his cheeks and neck. She began patting the dirt over the top of the grave when she noticed him put the powders away, then raise his arms and throw back his head. He said nothing, but she knew he must be praying.

  “What’s he doing?” she asked Olin.

  “Gettin’ ready for battle,” Olin replied. “He’s prayin’ for speed and strength and accuracy—and to die honorably, if he’s to die at all.”

  Her heart pounded. “He can’t die!” she whispered. Olin met her eyes in sympathy.

  “Miss Abbie, he’s only human, in spite of you thinkin’ he can do anything. I admit, it will take a hell of a lot to put Cheyenne Zeke in his grave, but there’s a lot of them and only one of him. Still, he’ll go after them anyway ’cause that’s how he’s made.”

  She thought about the rift between the Cheyenne and the Crow that Olin had told her about earlier, and the scar on Zeke’s face, put there by a Crow Indian. Not only was he going after a white man who hated him and who did not fight fair, but Givens had Crows with him to help. The odds were squarely against Zeke, and it was her fault he’d have to go on alone. If she’d not insisted on coming along, Olin could have stayed with him. Now Zeke approached them, again the Indian, savage and frightening to look at.

  “Leave now,” he told Olin, not even looking at Abbie. “They’ll ride hard to tell them the girl is with us. Givens will want her if he can get her. Get her back to the train as fast as you can. Don’t stop to sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time.”

  “I understand,” Olin replied. “I’ll try to get back to you, Zeke.”

  “Just watch out for yourself. Givens wouldn’t mind having your hide either.” He turned to leave, but Abbie grasped his arm.

  “Zeke!” He looked down at her, his body tense and prepared for a fight. “I … I’m sorry. It’s my fault you have to go on alone!” she sobbed.

  His eyes softened, and he reached out to take some of her hair in his hand. “Makes no difference,” he told her. “This day has been a long time coming, Abbie girl.
But it will be easier for me if I know you’re safe. So just leave now—quickly.’ He hurried toward his horse.

  “I love you!” she called out to him. “I love you, Zeke!” Tears spilled down her face. He turned and glanced at her for just a moment, then leaped upon the Appaloosa in one quick, smooth movement without answering her. He rode off, his long, black hair flying.

  Olin took her arm, urging her to hurry and mount up.

  “We have to mark the grave!” she sobbed.

  “No time. Don’t argue with me or I’ll knock you senseless,” Olin warned. “Zeke said to get you back and you’re goin’—now!” He forced her up on her horse, and taking the reins in one hand, he mounted his own horse and they rode off at a fast gallop in the opposite direction from that which Zeke had taken.

  Abbie glanced back, but Zeke had already disappeared. She turned her eyes ahead, unable to look at the thicket that hid the rough grave where her sister and David Craig now lay quietly together beneath the earth. She wondered why God had chosen to allow so many terrible things to happen to her. Her only hope was that perhaps God had a reason for taking away her entire family. Perhaps He meant Abigail Trent to be alone, to have nothing left to her name but the land … and Cheyenne Zeke. But then it was very possible she would also lose her Zeke to death.

  They had ridden hard. Abbie wasn’t sure how much longer she could even stay on the horse. Everything ached, and she felt dizzy and weary, but finally, after the sun had been set for more than an hour, Olin agreed to stop and let her eat and rest. She all but fell out of her saddle, and Olin had to hold on to her and help her sit down. He told her to stay put while he fixed a place for her to bed down.

  “I’m sorry to ride you so hard,” he told her, working up a spot in the earth with his hands until the dirt was softened. “But I had to get you far away from that spot quick. You should be safer now, but don’t bet too much on it. Givens is a scheming man, and you can bet that after you shoved pie in that man’s face back there at Fort Laramie, he’s gonna be wantin’ to give you what for. Whoever got away back there has told Givens by now that you was with us.” He spread out a blanket. “But I’ll look out for you, Miss Abbie.”