Comanche Eagle

by Sara Orwig

“We brought the wagon to get your things. If you’ll watch my son, we’ll load up,” Travis announced, moving past without waiting for a comment from her. She followed him into the house. “I’ve been to the bank and settled your debts,” he said. “I have a list of the furniture that belongs to the bank. They own your bed, but they sold me your mattress. The piano and bookcases are yours.”

  She nodded, her thoughts churning over the bed. “The bedding is mine and I have it folded and packed in my trunk.”

  He nodded and strode through the hall, disappearing into the bedroom.

  For the next hour she directed the men, following them, carrying the baby until he fell asleep. She placed him on the bed and continued to trail after the men, holding her breath when they hoisted her beloved piano and went out the door.

  “Careful! Watch the steps,” she cautioned and received a quelling look from Travis Black Eagle. She raised her chin. “Watch out where you place it so it won’t get scraped badly,” she said, not caring if she annoyed him with her instructions. She would rather caution him and have her piano cared for correctly than sit back with her mouth closed while he wrecked it. She trailed after them as they set the piano down beside the wagon. Travis Black Eagle had shed his hat and rolled up his sleeves.

  “We’re going to have to pick it up and lift it over the side. We can set it on top of the trunk and then move it.”

  Turtle River nodded.

  “Now,” Travis said and bent down to grasp one end. Muscles bulged in his arms as he lifted the piano. Her gaze ran across his back where his shirt pulled tautly and along his arms. She felt a shiver run through her at the display of his strength. What if he turned that brawn on her? Had he turned it on Ellery?

  Raising their arms, both men hoisted the piano up over the side of the wagon. She forgot her beloved piano as she watched the flex of Black Eagle’s powerful muscles. They released the piano and climbed into the wagon to move the piano next to the trunk.

  “You’ll have to set it where it can’t fall over,” she said, shading her eyes.

  Securing the piano with a rope, Black Eagle turned around to look down at her. He was a dark silhouette against the afternoon sky. In the bed of the wagon, he towered over her. Locks of his dark hair tumbled across his face. She saw that his shirt was open at the neck and his muscled chest was partially exposed. His legs were spread, his hands braced on his hips as he glared down at her. He looked more the wild savage than Turtle River. “We’ll get your piano packed,” he said tersely.

  “Thank you. It was part of our agreement,” she answered, hoping she sounded collected. Feeling ruffled, unable to rid herself of the image of his rippling muscles and fit male body, she returned to the house to gather more of her possessions together and to sort through Ellery’s belongings.

  It took less than an hour for the two men to load her things and what she had kept of her brother’s. Black Eagle swiftly dug up her plants and placed them in the wagon, and she felt better, being able to take her flowers with her.

  Turtle River helped her into the wagon and placed the baby in her arms. The infant had been fed and changed during the time the men were loading the wagon and now he slept peacefully.

  In minutes Travis Black Eagle closed the door of the house and mounted up to move ahead of them. Turtle River drove and Crystal rode in the wagon with the baby. The cow and Ellery’s roan were tied to the back.

  Her gaze went to the small house she was leaving. A vision of home flashed through her mind—of Baltimore streets, the bustle of people, of their two-story home with tall sycamore trees and the oval bevelled glass in the front door, the delicious dinners of golden chicken or thick roasts that their servant Addie used to cook.

  Crystal felt a pang for what she had lost. How had she gone from that to this wild town on the frontier? And now she wouldn’t even live in town, the last tiny vestige of civilization.

  She touched the wedding ring. For so long she had expected to live in Baltimore with her mother and work for her grandfather in the family law office. Then life had changed drastically and nothing was left for her in Baltimore, and she dreamed of California, a new life in a better place.

  Instead, here she was in a wild land, married to a tough, hard man who did not love her. A man who, in spite of his protests, was most likely Ellery’s murderer. She would live with strangers and a tiny baby. At the thought of the baby, she looked down at him beside her and lightly touched his soft cheek. She didn’t know anything about caring for him, but she would give him love. Mr. Black Eagle would have to think of a name for his child. Son wasn’t sufficient. The boy needed a name.

  As the wagon swayed, they rode through Cheyenne. The small town had been built in the bend of Crow Creek. They passed buildings, the false-fronted shops built after the 1870 fire, the building that held her courtroom, the wooden Territorial Assembly building on Seventeenth Street and Carey Avenue where the men of the territory had passed the laws that enabled her to become a justice of the peace.

  The wagon rolled through town toward Fort D. A. Russell and soon drew in sight of the Cheyenne Livery Stable that belonged to Black Eagle. They stopped while he dismounted and strode toward the stable.

  Andrew came out to meet him and the two men stood talking. In minutes Black Eagle mounted and they continued, passing houses and then heading west toward the mountains. A woman hanging out wash paused to wave, and Black Eagle waved in return. Minutes later they passed another house where a man straightened from pumping water. He waved and the greeting was returned by Black Eagle. What kind of man was her strong new husband? So fierce in his beliefs, yet friendly to townspeople—how would he be with her?

  Soon they were following a rutted trail through short grass across the high plains that ran for miles to the slopes of the Laramie Mountains. Puffy white thunderheads drifted across a deep-blue sky and the smell of wild summer grass filled the air, stirred by the sigh of a breeze. A hawk circled on wind currents high above.

  Born and raised in Baltimore, accustomed to the bustle and refinement of the city, Crystal gazed around her with awe and fright. She felt diminished, as if she might dwindle to nothing and blow away on the wind that swept constantly over the rolling land.

  They were alone in this expanse of nothing but sky and land and grass. The path they followed was little more than wagon ruts through a vastness of green. The wagon bounced and she clutched the seat with one hand, tightening her hold on the sleeping baby with the other. She wanted to go back to town, back to people and even the small grip on civilization that Cheyenne held.

  Her gaze shifted, and she studied Black Eagle again. Straight-backed, he rode ahead. She noticed the butt of the big revolver that fit snug against his hip. This was a strong man who would not hesitate to defend himself and his child. But would that be enough in this harsh land?

  And somewhere along these tracks, someone had murdered Ellery. She scanned the grassy plains. No man could slip up on another sight unseen. Ellery had to have known someone was coming. He was shot twice in the chest, she remembered grimly. He had faced his killer. Had it been someone he trusted? Her gaze rested again on Travis in speculation. Was she going to live in isolation with a man whose fiery rage might cause him to kill? While the summer sun beat hotly on her shoulders, she shivered.

  A quarter of an hour later, they turned a bend to follow the road down a slight incline and ford a narrow creek. Travis held up his hand to halt and he swung his leg across the horse and dropped to the ground. Turtle River stopped, and then she saw why.

  Cold stark horror filled her as memories of her brother surged in her brain. She looked at a body sprawled ahead near the wagon ruts.

  Five

  Crystal’s horror grew. She had never seen anyone who had been beaten, and the boy’s battered, torn body made her stomach churn with queasiness. He was a pitifully thin creature; yet judging from his long legs, she guessed him to be thirteen or fourteen years old. The welts across his back were clotted with dried blood and
his shirt was matted against his body. Flies swarmed over him and Black Eagle swung his hat, shooing them away. She pulled her handkerchief out to place it over the baby’s face, afraid the body was long dead and a stench would soon reach them.

  Black Eagle felt for a pulse and then strode back to his horse to get a canteen. He knelt beside the boy, lifting and turning him slowly, taking great care to avoid his torn back.

  She saw the boy’s blue eyes flutter open. Black Eagle yanked off his bandanna and wiped the boy’s face, shoving long straight locks of brown hair from his forehead, and then held the canteen to his mouth. The boy drank deeply until his head lolled to one side.

  Black Eagle picked him up gently and headed toward the wagon. She realized he was going to place the boy in the wagon and she moved quickly to make a place for him.

  He stirred again as Black Eagle and Turtle River lifted him. Groaning, he looked up at Black Eagle.

  “What’s your name?” Black Eagle asked.

  “Zachary.” A mere croak. His eyes were blackened and he had cuts on his face, but it was the welts across his body that made Crystal feel sick. How could anyone have beaten him so badly? He was too young to be traveling alone, yet where was his family? Had they been killed? Thank heavens Ellery hadn’t been beaten before his death.

  “Where’s your family?”

  Crystal stood close enough to see the blue eyes focus on Black Eagle with a look that was so filled with hatred she was startled. “I ran away from home.” The words were little more than a whisper. Black Eagle’s jaw knotted while anger darkened his eyes.

  “I’ll take you home with me until you get well.”

  As the boy’s eyes closed, Crystal didn’t know whether he had lapsed into unconsciousness again or was merely accepting what Black Eagle had told him. Black Eagle lowered him to the bed of the wagon and turned him on his chest. Taking off his hat, Black Eagle handed it to her. “Keep the sun and flies off him,” he said as she took the hat from his hands.

  She nodded and watched him jump down while Turtle River moved up front to drive again. She hoped the boy lost consciousness because the constant jiggling of the wagon would only add to his misery.

  It was another half hour before a dark speck in the distance gathered shape and form and she saw a house and a barn. When they drew near, she looked at a sturdy house built of pine logs. A porch ran across the front beneath a sloping roof, and two steps led down to the ground. The mountains were not as distant now, and she could see their tall peaks and had to admit they were majestic.

  Her gaze returned to her new house. To her relief, it looked larger than the one she had shared with Ellery in Cheyenne. Aspen and spruce had been planted near the house, and the young trees gave meager shade. To the west beyond the house was a makeshift shed that probably held equipment; another shed that was merely a roof; and beyond the shed, a pen where half-a-dozen horses milled. Lumber was stacked near the shed and she wondered if Black Eagle intended to build a barn.

  Outbuildings flanked the house, and several yards beyond the buildings was a slash in the earth where a creek cut across his land. South of the pen was a small cabin, and near the cabin was a tipi.

  Her heart jumped when she saw the pump in front of the house and a well to the side. They would have their own water! What a luxury! Water was a precious commodity in town. There were artesian wells, but anyone unfortunate enough not to have a well, had to buy water and conserve it carefully.

  The house looked promising, but her growing sense of approval vanished beneath concerns about her new status.

  Crystal twisted in the seat to look back the way they had come, wishing she could see Cheyenne. How alone they would be! For a moment she considered telling Travis Black Eagle that she wanted to go back, to get this false marriage annulled, but she reminded herself that she had nothing to return to except a mountain of debts she didn’t know how to pay.

  When they halted, she swung her foot over the side to climb out of the wagon. Clinging to the rough wood, she stepped down on a spoke of a wagon wheel.

  Strong hands closed around her waist and swung her to the ground. Startled, because she was so rarely touched by any man, she looked up at Travis Black Eagle, who climbed past her into the wagon and placed his hat on his head again. “Here, I’ll hand you some things to take inside. I’ll carry Zachary.” Black Eagle gave her a bundle of clothing. “Judge Spencer—” He clamped his jaw closed for an instant. “Crystal,” he pronounced with deliberation, and her name said in his husky voice stirred an unaccustomed heat in her. “I’m not an orderly man and the past two weeks have been particularly bad.”

  “I understand, Mr. Black Eagle,” she said perfunctorily, still hearing her name said in his deep voice.

  “You might as well call me Travis.”

  She nodded, but it was difficult to imagine addressing him as anything other than Travis Black Eagle or Black Eagle, as Ellery had always called him. As she took the bundles and set them on the ground, she couldn’t imagine any kind of familiarity with the man, even to saying his first name. “Give me your son and I’ll carry him.”

  “I’ve got him,” Black Eagle answered easily. She watched him pick up the small baby, and the fierce look on the man’s face softened as he held the infant.

  “How many men work for you?” she asked, noticing how thick Black Eagle’s dark lashes were.

  “Just Turtle River. Sometimes he’ll eat with me and sometimes he comes up to the house and gets food to take back to his tipi. Turtle River stays to himself.”

  She suspected Travis Black Eagle stayed to himself as well.

  Holding his baby, Black Eagle strode into the cabin. She picked up a bundle of clothing and followed him along a dirt path. Crossing the porch, she stepped inside the open door and blinked while her eyes adjusted to the darkened interior. As she looked around, shock immobilized her.

  Shirts, pants, boots, blankets, and dishes were strewn over the cabin along with tools and utensils. Pans and buckets were stacked on the furniture. Two-by-fours leaned against the wall. It looked as if wild animals had been making the place their habitat. There were few places where the plank floor peeked through. Crystal stared in dismay. Order had always been a part of her life. Even in the last months of Grandfather’s life when they had begun to sell their household things, they had kept order. And finally when she had had to dispose of everything and the house to pay family debts, she had done so in an efficient manner.

  Now she looked at her new home in stunned disbelief. The cabin was one large, undivided room. Directly across from her was a stone fireplace with a rifle above it and a shirt draped over a corner of the mantel. To her left she spotted an iron stove stacked with unwashed pans. Shock transformed to anger as she looked up at her new husband.

  “Sir, I cannot live in this!” she exclaimed, waving her hand in the direction of the cabin.

  He placed his fists on his hips and he stood too close to her. She wanted to back up, but she was determined the man would not intimidate her. She took a deep breath and glared at him.

  “You’re my wife. This is home, whether you like it or not. I know it’s bad, but you’ll just have to deal with it.”

  “You should have warned me,” she said in a low voice. She could not recall losing her temper in years, but she felt on the verge of it now.

  “What would you have done if I had told you this morning that my place needed cleaning?”

  “Cleaning is an understatement,” she protested. “It is a rat’s nest.” She stared at him, knowing there wasn’t anything she could have done but go right ahead and marry the man. “I’ll clean it, Mr. Black Eagle, but then you’re to cooperate with me in keeping it clean.”

  “Well, ma’am, I’ll do my damnedest to cooperate, but I might not be quite as neat and tidy as Brother Ellery.” Black Eagle turned on his heel and strode across the room, stepping on whatever lay in his path. With a sweep of his arm, he sent clothes and tools scattering. He yanked a blanket from a
chair and folded it to make a pallet on the floor.

  “We’ll put the boy here.”

  She heard the baby cry and looked around, unable to spot the infant. She could hear the cries that were loud enough to carry across the prairie, yet she could not find the baby.

  “He’s crying,” Black Eagle snapped, striding past her.

  “I can’t find him!”

  Black Eagle snatched up the child from behind a pile of clothing and she stepped over a wheel to take the baby from him.

  “Here’s his cradle. There’s a springhouse out back, and I keep the milk for him there. I’ll fill the bottle.”

  “Thank you. Is there a chair in this place?”

  Black Eagle looked around, scratched his head, and then pushed lumber and clothing aside and pulled a rocking chair toward her. He used his foot to shove bedding and clothing out of the way and waved his hand, motioning for her to sit.

  “Thank you,” she said frostily, wondering why she had worried about getting into a bed with the man. They would never find the bed by nightfall.

  She hunted until she found something suitable to use to diaper the baby and then Black Eagle reappeared with a bottle of milk. She sat in the rocker and fed the baby and watched Black Eagle return, carrying Zachary in his arms as if he were no more burden than his son.

  Black Eagle knelt, lowering Zachary to the pallet, and she heard the boy groan. Black Eagle strode to the mantel, picked up a jug, and carried it back to Zachary, popping a cork. “Drink this,” he urged. “It’ll ease the pain and help you sleep.”

  Black Eagle lifted the boy’s head and held the jug to his lips. Zachary drank, then coughed and moaned, but turned to drink more.

  “Turtle River is getting medicine to put on your back. I’m going to have to cut your shirt away for him to put the salve on you.”

  Crystal drew a deep breath and wished she could take the baby and run from the room. What Black Eagle had to do would be painful for Zachary, and she wished she didn’t have to be within hearing distance, much less view the procedure.