Sweet Prairie Passion (Savage Destiny)

by Rosanne Bittner

  She shook dust from her hair, thinking to herself what a nice man Olin Wales had been, and what a good friend he was to Zeke. “I’m sorry I got you and Zeke into this mess,” she answered. “You should be with him. How can he possibly go up against those men all alone?”

  “You’d be surprised what Zeke can do,” he answered, now picking up some sticks to start a small fire. “That man is smart—and wily as a fox. He can climb like a mountain goat and run like a bobcat, and when he’s cornered, he’s like a bear just comin’ out of hibernation, all snarly and mean.”

  Abbie could not help but smile at the thought. “I’ll bet he’s just like that,” she answered, moving over to the blanket and stretching out her legs.

  “Well, he’s a real disciplined man, Miss Abbie. He can take a lot before he goes down, and mentally, he can make himself do the impossible sometimes, just ’cause he knows he has to do it. With you the one in danger, you can bet he’ll go himself one better if it means keepin’ you from harm.”

  She sighed and stared at the little fire he had started, her eyes now tearing again. If Cheyenne Zeke died, it would be partly for her. This realization brought back the ache to her heart, and made her love him even more. She swallowed and watched Olin add some pieces of dry pine to the fire.

  “Olin … does Zeke love me? I mean … does he really love me? He wouldn’t have … used me, would he?” She blushed and looked down, toying with a piece of thread that stuck out from the seam of her dress.

  “You’re pretty ignorant about men if you don’t know a man like Zeke would never use a pretty little thing like you. ’Course he loves you.” He moved over closer to her with another blanket, opening it and putting it over her legs. “Why do you think I’m breakin’ my neck to get you back safe? Zeke’s set on not lettin’ anything come of the love he’s got for you, but that’s beside the point. He’d die before he let any harm come to you, and he’s dependin’ on me now to get you back. Zeke’s my friend, but I won’t want to be lookin’ him in the eyes if somethin’ happens to you.”

  “But he never really said it out … that he loves me.”

  “Why should he? It would just make things harder on you. Besides, he’s never told a woman that since his wife died, so it ain’t an easy thing for him to say again. Now lay down there. I’ll fix some coffee and beans; then you can sleep a while.”

  She lay back and pulled the blanket over her shoulders, still watching the burly mountain man with the scraggly, shoulder-length hair and rough beard. If a woman came upon Olin Wales in a place like this alone and didn’t know him, she’d likely be frightened for her person and her life. But there was nothing about the man that frightened Abbie. She knew that if she was stark naked before him he’d not touch her, for he had a proper respect for women—and besides that, in a sense Abigail Trent belonged to Cheyenne Zeke, at least for a while. Olin Wales was not a man to take what belonged to another.

  “Have you ever been married, Olin?” she asked.

  He gave her a frown. “You ask a lot of questions.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He grinned a little. “Once—long time ago. I was married to a Shoshoni woman. She died from smallpox.”

  “I’m sorry about that, too. Real sorry.”

  He shrugged. “A man can take more sufferin’ than he thinks, I guess. Look at Zeke. At least my woman didn’t die like that.”

  “You should marry again. Every man needs a good woman.”

  He chuckled. “When did you get to know so much about men? What are you—fifteen?”

  “I’ll be sixteen in a few months,”

  He laughed harder. “I see.” He shook his head. “Well, I’m a wanderin’ man, Miss Abbie. Not many women want an agin’, wanderin’ man.”

  “That’s not the same.”

  He sobered. “You’re right there.” He sighed and handed her a plate of beans. “You eat, and quit askin’ so many questions. We ain’t got time for small talk. You eat and rest, and then we’ll be out again ’fore the sun rises.”

  Abbie was sleeping hard due to her state of exhaustion, and she did not hear the enemy approach. She awoke to the click of a gun and the feel of cold steel against her temple. They startled her, and before she realized what had happened, she had jumped and wiggled back; but a second gun greeted her, this time at her neck. When her eyes focused, she stared up at two men, both obviously Indians, but not clean and beautiful like Zeke. They wore white man’s pants, topped with leather vests over bare chests and were loaded down with weapons of various sorts. Their hair was long and dark, but dirty and tangled. One of them grinned, displaying an absence of front teeth, and the other reached down and grasped her hair so tightly that she screamed out with the pain. He laughed and let go, yanking as he did so, so that her head slammed to the ground.

  The other man shoved his gun in his belt and grabbed her wrists, jerking them over her head as she began to struggle, still not certain what had gone wrong. She kicked out at the other man as he lifted her dress, and he promptly landed a fist across the side of her face. The blow drew blood inside her mouth and stunned her momentarily. She wanted to struggle and scream, but her body would not respond. She was nauseated by the smell of the men who held her, and she was sure the one holding her wrists was breaking them.

  She heard the men grunt something back and forth to each other, then laugh. They put her dress back down and yanked her to her feet. Through blurred vision she finally spotted Olin, slumped over nearby.

  “Olin!” she screamed out, now beginning to cry at the thought that he might be dead. “Olin! Olin!”

  Another stunning blow was directed at her face. “Woman be quiet!” someone ordered.

  The sun was just beginning to rise, so she tried to see the men better. But at the moment they were just ugly images to her; dark, menacing, smelly, and loaded with numerous weapons, any one of which could end her life quite promptly if they so chose. A strong arm grasped her about the waist, and she felt herself being lifted by one of the men as he mounted a horse and perched her in front of him. She vaguely wondered why they had not raped her. Surely these were some of the hated Crow who rode with Givens. Perhaps they were saving her for him.

  She shuddered at the thought and convulsed into vomiting because her stomach had become filled with blood from her mouth. The man holding her let out a grunt of disgust and threw her to the ground. She landed face down in the dirt. He waited for her vomiting to end, then turned her over and threw a canteen of water in her face to rinse it. He grimaced and bent down, planting a knee in her abdomen to hold her still while he used some more water to rinse her hair. She coughed and choked and cried and struggled, but to no avail.

  “Do that again and Wolf Man will forget he is to save you for Givens!” he snarled. He jerked her close to his ugly face. “You are young and tight! It will not be easy saving you until later! But I will get my turn, bitch—after Givens has had his!”

  She grunted with terrible pain as he again jerked her to her feet and lifted her back onto the horse, mounting up behind her. He ripped open the front of her dress and reached inside, pinching her painfully; then he got his horse into motion. Her mind reeled with pain, fright, and horror. Was her life to end as LeeAnn’s had ended? Vomit came to her throat again at the thought of what LeeAnn must have suffered before her death, but she forced it down, afraid he’d beat her.

  Leaving Olin’s body behind them, they rode northwest, in the very direction from which they’d come; and to keep her sanity, she closed her eyes and concentrated on Zeke. But her blood chilled. Had they already killed him? Was that how they’d gotten through to her? She had to know, for if Zeke was dead, too, she’d grab her abductor’s gun somehow and shoot herself before she’d suffer what her sister had suffered. Without Zeke, there was no reason to go on living.

  “You’ll die by Cheyenne Zeke’s hands for this!” she choked out. Her abductor looked over at the other man, and they both laughed.

  “It is Cheyenne Zek
e who will die, bitch!” the man holding her answered. “And you will be the bait!”

  Relieved, she closed her eyes, feeling a strange peace and a new strength flow through her veins. With Zeke alive—out there somewhere—there was hope after all.

  “Zeke!” she whispered to herself.

  Fourteen

  It was probably the longest day and the most difficult ride Abigail Trent would ever experience. They fed her nothing, and gave her only trickles of water to drink. Nausea, partly caused by the hard blow she had sustained and partly by her fright, continued to move over her in ugly waves. She knew that if Zeke did not happen to get to her in time, she was headed for rape and things worse than rape, most certainly to be followed by death. Her abductors rode hard, giving her no time to rest. Whenever they stopped, it was just to grab a biscuit for themselves, to give her a splash of water, and to let her urinate; but she only urinated once out of sheer need, for every time she tried, they watched with smiles on their faces, so she could not go. The sun beat down on her as the horse jostled her tired, sore body, and her head ached fiercely.

  The landscape had changed from a lush green to harsh brown and was now mostly rock with some thin forests on the hillsides. It seemed a hotter than usual day. Even the late afternoon brought no relief, because as the sun dropped lower, it glared into her face. The man she rode with suddenly stopped, jerking her around so that her left leg swung over to the right side of the horse. Then he forced her face-down across his lap.

  “We will be there soon,” he told her, his yellowish eyes glowing with excitement. He looked over at his companion. “If I did not fear Givens would shoot me, I would sink myself into this one right now,” he told the man. The other man laughed and nodded.

  “She is a young one, and she is wild when she is mad!” he answered. “But we will tame her!” They both laughed then and rode a little faster.

  Abbie hung limp over her abductor’s lap, as they entered what appeared to be a rocky canyon. She had no strength left to fight and knew they would only hurt her more if she did. Her only hope was that Zeke would show up before they all began having their way with her. Her head pounded harder now, for the blood rushed into it because of her position; and she could not help vomiting again from the jostling horse against her stomach. She could hear other voices now, along with hoots and whistles and growls, and soon she was dumped onto the ground and surrounded by men, a few more Crow renegades and a few white men, including none other than Rube Givens.

  “Well, well,” the man said with a grin. “If it ain’t the little bitch that shoved pie in my face.” He bent down and jerked her up by the hair of the head, making a face.

  “She puked again!” her abductor exclaimed. “She puked on me once before, boss. I told her she’d better not do it again!” Givens threw her back down, at the same time staring at Wolf Man.

  “Did you have at her?” he growled.

  “Hell no! You said to save her.” He rubbed himself between the legs. “But don’t take too long.”

  Givens sneered down at Abbie. “You’re a mess,” he told her through curled lips. She tried to struggle as he pulled her to her feet again and ripped off her clothes, but every time she staggered away from him, some strange man caught her and threw her back, until finally she was naked and bruised. Givens dragged her to a nearby stream that was nearly dried up. He threw her into it, pushing her face down in the water to wash it off. She choked and gagged on the water, which was mixed with sand, trying to drink some in her desperate thirst, but getting more sand than water in her mouth. She could hear their ugly laughter, as over and over again Givens dunked her, holding her face down just long enough to make her think he was going to drown her.

  Finally he pulled her away from the stream, dragging her over to where stakes were pounded into the ground. He and three other men each took a limb and tied her spread-eagled to the stakes. The ropes scraped her wrists and ankles, and the earth was hot and rough beneath her back. Givens stood straddled over her and Abbie looked away, closing her eyes.

  “Closin’ your eyes ain’t gonna stop it, bitch!” Givens sneered. “But I’m gonna let you lay there and think about it a few minutes, while you dry off some. Then I’m gonna have a real good time with you—and so are my men.” He laughed, and to her it sounded like Satan laughing. “We’ll see if you’re as good as your sister!”

  She forced back her tears, refusing to cry in front of him, sure he’d enjoy it immensely. Instead she opened her eyes to look straight up at him, and she attempted to spit at him, except that her mouth was too dry. But the gesture was obvious enough, and the smile left his face.

  “Tell you what, bitch. I’m gonna let you think about a couple of things. First is, with you here, Cheyenne Zeke is sure to come by tomorrow, and we’ll be ready for him. That man is gonna die ’cause of you! But by then you’ll be dead. And I’ll let you think about that, too—about how you’ll die. It won’t be as quick as your sister. When me and the boys are through with you, I’m gonna play a little Russian Roulette—with my gun. And just guess where it will be.” He chuckled. “You think about that, bitch!”

  The men all laughed.

  “This has been a mighty fine few days, hasn’t it, men?” Givens told them with a broad smile. “I got rid of that swindler, Robards. We all got a damned good piece of his blond bitch. Olin Wales is dead. We’ll all get our share of this little girl here. And by tomorrow this time, Cheyenne Zeke will be dead, too—only he’ll die real slow!”

  They all laughed heartily—all big, dark, ugly men whose vicious mentalities made their behavior far beneath that of animals.

  “Cheyenne Zeke won’t be coming!” she choked out as Givens turned. “He’s already here!”

  They all sobered, a few of them looking up into the hills.

  “We sent him on a wild-goose chase,” Givens said calmly. “We have a little time with you before he figures out he’s been led astray. We had to get him off the track so’s we could get you here. Do you think if he was around he’d have let my men get you to my camp?”

  She gritted her teeth, anger helping ease her horror. “Why not?” she sneered back. “What better way to find you all together in one spot?”

  She enjoyed the hesitant look on Givens’ face. Then he grinned again. “It won’t work, bitch! You think you can keep us busy searchin’ the hills to keep us from rapin’ you. But it won’t work.” He looked at the one called Wolf Man who had brought her to the camp and nodded. Wolf Man smiled and walked over to her, then bent down and ran rough hands over her body.

  “It will not be long, bitch,” the toothless Indian told her, as he touched her private places. She grimaced and turned her face away. He pinched her breast again, and they all laughed heartily before they walked away to leave her there in the setting sun that was still hot. She felt it burning her, in spite of its angle, and after lying there nearly an hour, her skin was becoming red and raw.

  She tried to watch the hills, but her dizziness and thirst combined with the blinding sun to prohibit her from seeing much. She silently begged God to send Zeke, telling herself over and over that he must be out there somewhere.

  “Zeke! Zeke!” she whispered, agonizing over the thought of what they would all do to her. She prayed that if Zeke was not there to help her that at least she would die quickly at their hands, just from brutality and exposure, before Givens put a gun inside of her and pulled the trigger. Then she heard crunching footsteps near her and looked up at the hated Givens again.

  “Time for fun and games, bitch,” he told her through his yellow teeth. “We done searched those hills, and there’s no Cheyenne Zeke up there to help you. You’re all alone, little girl.”

  He reached down, quickly cut the ropes that held her, and jerked her up. Wolf Man threw a bucket of water into her face, startling her to a more alert stance. She grabbed her hair and sucked on some of it, desperately needing to get some moisture into her mouth; then she folded her arms around herself as Givens b
egan circling her.

  “You can run if you want, bitch. Makes it more exciting that way. A good struggle pleases me greatly.”

  Her anger returned again. If she was to die this day, she’d be brave about it and not give this man any more satisfaction than he was already getting.

  “Far be it from me to please you,” she said weakly. “Go ahead and have me.” She turned to face him. “But if you think you’ll be the first, you won’t!” she spit out at him. His face darkened, and he stepped closer, grabbing her chin in his hand.

  “Did Wolf Man have at you?” he growled. “Truth!”

  She actually smiled. “Not Wolf Man,” she sneered back. “My first man and my only man was Cheyenne Zeke himself!”

  His eyes widened in slight shock, then narrowed in anger. “Zeke! You lay with that half-breed?”

  She glared back at him. “He’s every bit as good with a woman as he is with that knife!” she shot back at him. “And there’s not a man in this camp can match him—especially not you, you fat, ugly piece of filth!”

  He jerked her close, forcing her arms behind her back painfully. “We’ll see about that!” he snarled. “And it’s pleasin’ to know it’s Cheyenne Zeke’s woman I’ll be taken!” He shoved her to the ground, and she grunted from the fall, his grimy body now on top of her. He bent down to slobber at her lips when one of the Crow renegades suddenly cried out and fell forward, an arrow in his back.

  The others suddenly quieted, and Givens jumped up off of Abbie. She rolled to her side, then sat up, staring at the man with the arrow in his back.

  “What the hell?” someone said. Then there was a singing, whirring sound, and another man fell, again with an arrow in his back. Givens’ men looked around, studying the hills, stunned and momentarily confused. They could see no one. One of the Crow renegades knelt down and yanked the arrow from his friend’s back.