Apache Runaway
Page 11
He ducked out of the lodge before she could thank him for what he knew was a big mistake.
It was in his mind to leave the following night, but Kayitah decided to go on a quick raid across the border and insisted that Fallon accompany him.
They were gone for three weeks, and when they returned, there was a feast and dancing. The following day, Kayitah decided to take Jenny and go away for a few days.
Fallon spent the days with Nahthletla, reminiscing with her about the old days when he had lived with the People. They talked of Chandeisi and his brother. It had been in a skirmish against the soldiers that Delshay had been killed. Chandeisi had blamed Fallon for his brother’s death. He had accused Fallon of being a coward, claiming that Fallon had turned and run when he could have stayed on the field of battle and saved Delshay’s life, but Delshay had already been dead when Fallon reached him. Chandeisi was right about one thing though. There had been no time to take the body and get away alive. Right or wrong, Fallon had left Delshay’s body and run for cover.
Nahthletla spoke of her children, of her daughter who had died of the coughing sickness, of her son who had died in the same battle that had taken Delshay’s life. They spoke of the days before the white man came, of the uncertainty of the future now that the white man was here to stay.
The only thing Fallon refused to speak of was Nahdaste. Even now, the memory of her death filled him with bitter despair.
But it wasn’t the memory of Nahdaste that tormented him at night. It was the thought of Jenny lying in Kayitah’s arms, being held against her will, being kissed by another man, being touched by the Apache chief when he, Fallon, longed to touch her. He told himself he had no rights where Jenny was concerned, none at all. She was married to another man, a man she loved, a man she desperately yearned to see, but he couldn’t ignore the jealousy that burned through him like a hot branding iron, couldn’t deny the fact that he wanted her as he had never wanted another woman. It was ironic, he thought, that after all these years he’d finally found a woman he desired, and she belonged to someone else.
Each morning and evening he expected to see Jenny and Kayitah return to the rancheria, but each dawn brought only sunrise, and each night brought only darkness. Alope’s expression grew more and more sullen as the days slipped by. Fallon stayed out of her way as much as possible, for her temper was short and her tongue sharp.
It was two weeks later when Jenny and Kayitah returned. The Apache chief looked rested and happy; Jenny looked anxious and afraid.
She sought Ryder out at the first opportunity. “We’ve got to go. Now. Tonight.”
“What’s wrong? Did he hurt you?”
“Of course not. He never touched me.”
Fallon nodded curtly. He’d been torn by jealousy during Jenny’s absence, imagining Kayitah holding her, kissing her, caressing her, even though most Indian men didn’t have intercourse with their women once it was known they were pregnant.
“So,” he asked, “what’s your hurry?”
“He’s getting too possessive. He hardly lets me out of his sight, and I’m afraid it will only get worse.”
“Yeah.” Fallon’s gaze skimmed over Jenny’s belly. She’d gained only a little weight, so little he found it hard to believe she was almost eight months along. Pregnancy agreed with her, he thought ruefully. Her color was good, her eyes were bright and clear. But it seemed like sheer folly to undertake such a venture, and he said as much.
“I want to go,” she replied firmly. “As soon as possible.”
“All right, Jenny,” he promised, frightened by the determination he saw in her eyes and afraid she might try to run away on her own. “It’ll be coming on winter in another two weeks. We’ll leave the night of the first good storm and hope the rain will cover our tracks.”
“You promise?”
“I promise,” he said heavily, and felt as though he’d just signed his own death warrant, and hers as well.
Chapter Thirteen
The sound of rain pelting the sides of the wickiup roused Fallon from a deep sleep. The first storm of the year had come.
Cautiously, he sat up and looked around the lodge. The fire had gone out, but he could see Kayitah curled up beside Alope and he breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe Usen would smile on this venture, after all. Glancing to the left, he saw that Jenny was awake and watching him.
He nodded, then slid out of his blankets and after pulling on his moccasins, he shrugged into a heavy buffalo robe coat and slipped outside. Padding noiselessly toward the corral, he stopped to retrieve his saddlebags from their hiding place.
A fledgling warrior stood guard at the corral. The boy made a dark forlorn silhouette as he huddled beneath a sodden blanket.
Not liking what he was about to do, Fallon lowered his gear to the ground, then crept through the shadows until he was behind the boy. Wrapping one arm around the boy’s neck, he choked the young warrior into unconsciousness, then tied the boy’s hands behind his back and lashed his feet together.
Moving quickly now, Fallon took the boy’s bow and quiver of arrows, picked up his saddlebags and entered the corral. The horses eyed him balefully but made little fuss as he spoke to them in the Apache tongue. In minutes, his black and the chestnut were bridled, a blanket was in place on the gelding’s back, and the saddlebags were draped across the stallion’s withers.
So far, so good, Fallon thought as he made his way toward the sweat lodge. After a hasty look around, he ducked into the wickiup.
Jenny was a dark shadow against the far side of the wickiup, her golden hair hidden beneath the folds of a black Spanish shawl that had been a gift from Kayitah, her figure lost in the voluminous folds of a blanket.
“Ready?” Fallon whispered.
“Yes.”
“Then let’s go. The sooner we get out of here, the better.”
“Wait, I have something for you.”
Jenny fumbled beneath the folds of the blanket and withdrew Kayitah’s favorite rifle and a bag of ammunition. Smiling, she handed them to Fallon.
“Good girl,” he said approvingly, and his hands caressed the smooth rosewood stock of the Winchester as lovingly and tenderly as a man might stroke a woman’s flesh. “Can you handle a rifle?” he asked, checking to make sure the Winchester was loaded.
“Yes.”
Fallon grunted as he handed her the rifle. “If anything happens to me, you ride like hell. There’s a town about forty miles north of here. Don’t stop until you get there, savvy? Then let’s make tracks.”
Outside, he lifted Jenny onto the chestnut’s back, then paused, one hand on her knee. “Are you sure, Jenny?”
“I’m sure.”
“All right, let’s go.”
Single file, they rode down the valley. Dark clouds shrouded the moon, the hiss of the rain smothered the sound of their passing.
Jenny rode behind Fallon, her heart pounding in her breast. “Please, God,” she prayed urgently. Just those two words, over and over again, as she followed Ryder toward the narrow passage at the head of Rainbow Canyon. She knew as well as he did the risk they were taking, the consequences if they were caught.
Two dark shapes loomed at the mouth of the canyon. As they drew closer, one of the warriors left the shelter of a rocky overhang to meet them.
It was Niyokahe.
Fallon smiled wolfishly as he recognized the ugly warrior who had wielded the burning brand with such enthusiasm. He was still smiling as he nocked an arrow to his bowstring.
“Perico, you are early,” Niyokahe said. “Is anything wrong?” He peered into the darkness. “You are not Perico,” he exclaimed in surprise, and then frowned as he recognized Kladetahe. “What are you doing here…?”
The words died in the warrior’s throat as Fallon’s arrow pierced his heart. A second arrow followed the first, quickly disabling the second sentry.
“Let’s get out of here!” Fallon shouted above the roar of the storm, and slammed his heels into the stallion’s flanks.
As the moon broke through the clouds, Fallon urged the black on, and the stallion bellied out in a ground-eating run. Glancing over his shoulder, Fallon saw Jenny riding close behind him. She was clinging to the reins with one hand and to the gelding’s mane with the other. The rifle was snugged under her left arm. Her face was a pale oval in the dim light of the moon. The shawl had slipped from her head and her long golden hair streamed behind her like a battle flag.
Jenny smiled as the wind stung her eyes and cheeks. At last, she was free! She kept her eyes focused on Ryder’s broad back, silently thanking God for sending her a man like Ryder Fallon. He was strong and smart and resourceful. He knew the country. If anyone could get her home, he could.
As they veered northward, the landscape underwent a gradual change. Tall trees and scattered clumps of brush reared out of the darkness, their hulking shapes looming menacingly on all sides. Jenny shivered as her imagination began to play tricks on her, turning every swaying tree and dancing shadow into some frightful creature ready to devour her without mercy. Hard sand gave way to thick black mud that sucked hungrily at the horses’ hooves, forcing them to slow their pace.
And then, just when Jenny was certain they would escape without a hitch, her horse went down.
Fallon heard her frightened cry above the wail of the wind, and a quick chill skittered down his spine as he reined the stallion in a tight rearing turn.
He swore softly as he saw Jenny sprawled in the mud. A short distance beyond, the chestnut was struggling to its feet. He knew, deep in his vitals, that the horse had a broken leg.
Suppressing an oath, Fallon rode back to Jenny. Sliding from the stallion’s bare back, he knelt at her side.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “Is anything broken?”
“I don’t think so,” Jenny replied, touched by the concern in his voice.
“Good. We’ll have to ride double. Your horse has gone lame. Come on, I’ll help you up.”
Jenny nodded, offering Fallon her hand as he stood up. She had almost gained her feet when the pain sliced through her. In the dim moonlight, Fallon saw her face go pale, saw the fear rise in her eyes. Gently, he lowered her to the ground.
“What is it?” he asked, knowing, and dreading, the answer.
“The baby,” Jenny gasped. “It’s coming.”
A great weight, heavy as the hand of doom, settled over Fallon. For a fleeting instant, he thought of swinging aboard the black and riding like hell, away from Jenny, away from the slow, agonizing death Kayitah had promised him.
But he could not leave her. Jenny had saved his life. She had brought him water when he would have sold his soul for one precious drop. No matter what her motives had been, she had disobeyed Kayitah and put her own life in jeopardy to help him. He could not abandon her now.
Jenny smiled faintly as Ryder laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“Take it easy, honey,” he said reassuringly. “Everything’s gonna be all right.”
Jenny watched Fallon through pain-glazed eyes as he stripped the blanket from the back of the chestnut gelding and spread it beneath a stand of timber that offered some degree of shelter from the rain. She moaned softly as he carried her to the blanket, gasped as a sudden gush of warm liquid soaked her skirt.
She stared up at Fallon, embarrassed to be sharing such an intimate moment with a man who was not her husband.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured helplessly.
“Forget it.” He eased her down on the blanket and covered her with his heavy buffalo robe coat.
He tethered the stallion to a sapling, then put the chestnut out of its misery with a single well-placed shot.
“Ryder!” Jenny called his name as a sharp pain threatened to tear her apart.
Fallon hurried to her side, his brow furrowed with concern.
“You’ve got to go,” Jenny gasped. “Now, while there’s still time.”
“Don’t try to talk now,” Fallon admonished softly. “Just take it easy. Try to rest between the contractions.”
“No, please, you’ve got to go before it’s too late. Kayitah will kill you.”
“Save your breath, Jenny. I’m not going anywhere.”
Jenny smiled weakly as she reached for his hand.
“I knew you wouldn’t leave me,” she whispered tremulously, then squeezed his hand as another contraction caught her unaware. “It hurts,” she murmured. “I didn’t know it would hurt so much.”
Fallon nodded, wondering what he could say to comfort her. Childbirth could take hours, perhaps days. And there was a good chance she’d been injured inside by the fall. How would she survive if there were complications? And what about the child?
He looked at Jenny and for a moment he saw Nahdaste lying there, her eyes dark with pain as she struggled to bring their daughter into the world. The keening of the wind reminded him of the sound of her cries when, after hours of labor, their daughter had been born dead. A short time later, Nahdaste had died in his arms.
Jenny squeezed his hand again and Fallon swallowed the fear rising within him. He’d always been a man in charge of his own life, able to deal with whatever life dumped in his path, but now he felt totally helpless and inadequate. Jenny needed a woman to care for her, perhaps a doctor, not a half-breed drifter.
Jenny gasped as another pain knifed through her. “Talk to me,” she implored. “I’m so afraid.” So afraid, she thought bleakly. Afraid of the pain, afraid of death, of the night that seemed to be closing in around her. “Talk to me, please.”
“What about, honey?”
“Anything. Tell me about you.”
And so, to please her, Ryder Fallon reached back into his past and told Jenny about his childhood with the Cheyenne, of his first battle against the Pawnee when he was fifteen. How, less than a year later, his father had been killed in a raid by the Crow; how his mother had died six months later.
Pausing, Fallon glanced down at Jenny. Her eyes were closed, her mouth a thin white line of pain.
The rain stopped and the only sound was the rasp of Jenny’s labored breathing and the steady splash of a million raindrops as they slid down the leaves and branches of the surrounding shrubbery to collect in tiny pools on the rain-soaked earth.
Jenny groaned and clutched his hand tighter. “Please go on,” she begged, desperate for the sound of his voice, for anything that would take her mind from the awful pains that tormented her.
“Sure, honey,” Ryder said, and he told her how, after his mother’s death, he had decided to leave the Cheyenne and visit the land of the white man. He told her of his first impression of civilization, how he had found rough towns overflowing with tough men. Mule skinners, buffalo hunters, miners, trappers, bounty hunters, gamblers, con men and lawmen. He met them all and found that, regardless of race or occupation, they were all hard men, and most of them smelled incredibly bad.
He told her of cheap saloons brimming with rotgut whiskey and games of chance; some honest, some crooked as a dog’s hind leg. He told her how he had discovered poker and found that he had a natural feel for the game.
He didn’t tell her of the brothels that filled those towns, or of the scantily clad, heavily painted women who plied their trade in the tiny cribs.
He told her instead of how he found an old Colt’s Dragoon and practiced with it for hours on end until he could draw and fire a six-gun as quickly and accurately as he had once used a bow.
He discovered he was a man with an itchy f
oot, never happy to remain too long in one town, one place.
He lapsed into silence as Jenny’s contractions came harder and faster, and he thought he would rather suffer torture at Kayitah’s capable hands than have to endure the pains of childbirth.
Jenny clasped Ryder’s hands tighter, tighter, her nails diggings into his palms, as the pains grew stronger and came closer together. She rolled her head from side to side, moaning softly. She was going to die. The thought filled her with sorrow. She would never see her child, never know if it was a boy or a girl.
She kept her gaze focused on Ryder’s face, telling herself that everything would be all right so long as he was there beside her. He was so strong, so brave; surely he would not let her die.
“Scream if it will help, honey,” Fallon urged. “There’s no one to hear you but me.”
“You never screamed,” Jenny murmured, her body rigid with pain. “Not once. He cut you, but you never screamed.”
“I wanted to.”
She did scream, moments later, as the baby’s head emerged.
Quickly, Fallon threw back the buffalo robe coat and caught the tiny head in his calloused hands. “Push, honey,” he coaxed gently. “Push.” Gathering the last of her strength, Jenny managed one last thrust, and the baby slid into Fallon’s waiting arms.
It was a boy, with tawny skin and a thatch of thick black hair. A thin wail floated across the stillness of a new day as the infant drew its first breath.
“Thank God,” Fallon murmured. Cutting the cord, he tied off both ends, wiped the baby dry with a length of cloth Jenny had packed for just that purpose. Then, wrapping the infant in a blanket, he laid the child in its mother’s arms.
“It’s a boy,” Ryder said, answering the unspoken question in Jenny’s eyes. “A beautiful boy.”
“Ryder?”
“What is it, honey?”
“Is it…is it hard, being a half-breed?”
Half-breed. How he had come to hate the word, the sarcastic remarks and taunts, the snide looks that invariably accompanied it.
It was only hard in the white world, Fallon thought bitterly. The Indians didn’t place much emphasis on a man’s skin color, but most of the white people he’d met couldn’t see past the color of a man’s skin, and the only color they accepted was lily white. But he couldn’t tell Jenny that, not now, when she was cradling a new life in her arms. She would find out for herself soon enough, because people would scorn her too for being the mother of a half-breed. Decent women would shun her, and the men would call her dirty names.