The Savage

by Nicole Jordan

  Amelia didn’t know what she was saying. She was simply reacting to the shock, that was all. When she’d had time to adjust to the idea of their marriage, she would accept it.

  She would have to, because it was now a fact that couldn’t be changed.

  To Summer’s vast relief, Amelia relented. Or at least, she appeared to. At supper that evening, Amelia pretended she’d never heard about her sister’s marriage to a half-breed.

  Instead she chatted about mundane things, quizzing the Truesdales about their neighbors and events that had occurred during her absence. She even made an effort to include Summer in the discussion with pleasant comments such as “You would like her, Summer; she’s the sweetest child,” and “Did I tell you about the time Limmel took me to the dance in Belknap?” She spoke a lot about her late husband, Limmel, and even laughed once or twice about her memories of him.

  Even so, supper was a strained affair. Martha hadn’t allowed Summer to help with the preparations, and she sat in sullen silence throughout the meal, her hateful gaze fixed on Summer, as if she could drive her away by mere wishing. Just as Amelia had taken her pain and fury out on Lance, Martha Truesdale seemed to blame Summer for all the losses the settlers had ever suffered, especially the raid in which her daughter had been killed. Summer was glad to escape the hostile atmosphere.

  She thought she might have to sleep in the barn, but Amelia claimed to want her presence. As she’d done for the past week, she cleaned and salved Amelia’s burns and cuts, which seemed to be healing, and helped her sister into a nightgown.

  She was tucking Amelia into the small tester bed, the way Melly had always done for her during her childhood, when Amelia suddenly turned a pleading gaze on her. “I want to go home, Summer. To Sky Valley.”

  “Yes, of course.” She bent to kiss her sister’s forehead. “Whatever you want, Melly.”

  “I don’t want to stay here any longer.” Tears filled her eyes. “Too many memories…”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Will you take me home?”

  “Certainly, Melly.”

  “Tomorrow? I can’t—”

  She broke off as a rap sounded on the door. Martha Truesdale shuffled in, garbed in a black nightcap and woolen wrapper. Even her nightdress was black, and she hovered at Amelia’s bedside like some malevolent crow hungering for carrion. Summer wanted to cringe, but she maintained her position by the bed, in case Amelia needed protection.

  It was she whom Martha wished harm, however, Summer realized. Mrs. Truesdale said good night stiffly to Amelia, and then added with a venomous glance at Summer, “I hope for all our sakes you know what you’re doing, Amelia, inviting her into our house. I just hope she doesn’t take it into her head to murder us all in our beds.”

  A streak of fury raced through Summer, but she forced herself to take a calming breath. It hurt, though, when her sister lowered her eyelashes and looked away instead of coming to her defense.

  “I assure you, Mrs. Truesdale,” Summer managed to reply evenly, remembering the reply Lance had once given to a similar accusation, “I haven’t murdered anyone recently, as I recall.”

  Martha stared for a moment, and then her mouth took on a contemptuous sneer. “How can we be sure? What kind of heathen tricks have you learned, married to that savage Injun?”

  “My husband is not a savage, Mrs. Truesdale.”

  “You’re a liar!” Her eyes turned a bit wild, while her voice rose to a near shriek. “He is so—and so are you, copulating with that stinking devil! You’ll just get yourself a litter of half-breeds and turn them loose to murder and rape.”

  With a virulent scowl, she turned and stalked from the room, shutting the door forcefully behind her.

  Trembling at having such hatred directed toward her, Summer looked at her sister, hoping Melly hadn’t paid any mind to the woman’s viciousness.

  Amelia was clutching her stomach, staring down at herself. “Oh, God…no…I may be pregnant,” she breathed, her shaken voice barely audible. “What if I’m pregnant? What if I’m breeding one of those savages? God wouldn’t do that to me, would He?”

  Her own thoughts similarly stricken, Summer held a hand to her own stomach. She might be carrying Lance’s child even now.

  But she couldn’t think about herself right then, not when her sister had suddenly turned hysterical. Amelia had curled her hand in a fist and was beating her abdomen. “I won’t have it, I won’t have a Comanche baby!”

  “Melly, stop, for God’s sake, please stop! You’ll hurt yourself.”

  She grasped her sister’s hands, pinning them to her sides, which only made her more frantic. Writhing, Amelia began screaming, pleading for her to stop. It was only when Summer released her altogether that her panic lessened and her shrieks turned to gasping wails. Turning her face to the pillow, Amelia curled in a ball beneath the covers, weeping piteously. “I don’t…want a…a breed baby…I don’t!”

  “I know, dearest, I know. But maybe it won’t happen.” Her heart aching, Summer brushed Amelia’s damp hair off her forehead. It was possible Amelia had been impregnated by her Comanche captors, but perhaps unlikely. She had never conceived during her four-year marriage.

  “We’ll face that situation if we come to it, Melly. Now, please, you have to quit thinking about it. You’ll make yourself sick.”

  “Summer…I want to go home.”

  “Yes, I know, Melly. And we will. Just as soon as Lance returns, we’ll leave.”

  “No, I want to go now.”

  When Summer didn’t answer at once, Amelia suddenly ceased crying and reached up to grab her sister’s hand.

  “Please, Summer, tomorrow…Promise me you’ll take me home tomorrow. Promise me…”

  She tried to look away from her sister’s bleak eyes, her tearstained cheeks, but she couldn’t. Nor could she deny Amelia whatever she asked for, no matter how irrational or difficult. “Yes, Melly, whatever you want. We’ll discuss it in the morning. Now, go to sleep, darling. I’ll be here if you need me.”

  Her hope that Amelia would forget about her promise never had a chance to take root. Amelia woke her at daybreak, eagerly making plans for the journey. She wanted to go home to Sky Valley that very day and wouldn’t listen to reason or rational arguments.

  “You, promised!” Amelia cried when Summer tried to explain why she couldn’t leave just yet.

  “I know, Melly, but Lance expects us to be here when he gets back.”

  Amelia’s eyes brimmed and her lower lip started quivering.

  Summer bit her own lip. She had promised her sister, but she had also promised Lance to wait for his return. What would he think when he arrived to find her gone?

  “I never imagined,” Amelia said accusingly, “that you would care more about a half-breed than your own flesh and blood.”

  “Please, don’t call him that. Not after all he’s done for us.”

  Amelia started crying. “I hate him! I don’t want to wait for him.”

  Torn between her sister and her husband, Summer agreed at least to inquire about the stage schedule.

  She wished she hadn’t. Billy knew exactly when the stage was due to head south—at one o’clock that afternoon.

  “See, Summer?” Amelia pleaded. “We have to leave today. the stage won’t come through town for four more days, and I can’t stand to wait that long. I hate it here! Please? Billy will drive us into Belknap, won’t you, Billy? If we can’t afford the price of the tickets, we can borrow the money from Martha.”

  “That isn’t it. Lance gave me money.”

  “Then why can’t we go? You promised!”

  Amelia alternately cried and pleaded until Summer finally gave in. Reluctantly she helped pack Amelia’s most prized belongings—the remainder of which Martha agreed to send by stagecoach later—and watched as Amelia said a tearful good-bye to her mother-in-law.

  Her last hope that the stage would be filled came to naught when they arrived at the station. They were the o
nly passengers expected. They had no trouble buying tickets from Jeb Burkett, even though he looked at Summer oddly.

  “Strange,” Jeb said slowly, as if not wanting to be caught prying. “Lance didn’t mention you’d be wantin’ to take a trip.”

  “He doesn’t know about it. My sister doesn’t feel she can stay here any longer. I am taking her home.”

  Summer borrowed a sheet of letter paper from Jeb and left a message of explanation for Lance, telling him she was taking Amelia back to Sky Valley. She left the note in Jeb’s care, not trusting the Truesdales to deliver it or in any way help her and her half-breed husband.

  The stage arrived only an hour late, with the same two drivers as on the trip north. Shep and Petey both greeted Summer as a bosom friend, and promised to take good care of her and her sister on the long trip home.

  Amelia shrank from them both and wouldn’t accept their assistance in boarding, but as the stage pulled away from the station, she looked out the window with more interest than she’d shown in all the time since her rescue.

  Summer couldn’t help but feel glad for Melly, but her own heart sank with every mile they traveled. She sat blindly looking out her own window, wondering if she had done the right thing, hoping that Lance wouldn’t consider her leaving him behind a betrayal.

  Chapter 16

  Home. Sky Valley. From a rise in the road, Summer looked out over the cedar-studded limestone hills with their lush, grassy meadows and bands of grazing horses, and her heart swelled at the sight. They had made it. Amelia was safe.

  Her sister sat silently next to her in the buckboard borrowed from Lance’s livery, while his young hired hand drove the team and filled the awkward moments with artless prattle—a prattle Summer encouraged. Amelia felt keenly self-conscious about her return to civilization, and she needed to be treated as if nothing eventful had happened to her. There would be enough people who would condemn her for having been a Comanche captive, but she needed to know there were some who would not.

  She took Melly’s hand and pointed in the distance, describing the difficulty they’d had last spring when the creek had overflowed its banks. She hoped to interest her sister in the ranch, in the simple tasks of everyday living, and turn her thoughts from the terrors of the past.

  Her own heart lighter than it had been in weeks, Summer drew in a deep breath of fresh air. It was so wonderful to be home! The land looked the same as she’d left it, except for the changing season. It was only the second week in October, but evidence of autumn was beginning to crop up here and there. She could see fields whose hay had been cut, and closer to the ranch, acres of drying cornstalks whose crop had been harvested. There were no immediate signs of the vaqueros who guarded the herds, though, and no one rode out to meet them.

  Summer felt uncomfortable at this lack of caution after weeks of living with her nerves on edge. A war party could have raided the ranch and burned it to the ground before any of the occupants could arm themselves. It was not often that Comanches raided this far south, but it still happened. During the war, horses had been stolen and countless head of cattle driven off, for sale to Federal Army contractors in the New Mexico Territory.

  The sprawling white clapboard house looked exactly as it had when she’d left five weeks ago—had it only been that long? It seemed like an eternity since she’d first gotten word of Amelia’s capture, since she’d pleaded with Lance to help her, since she’d married him in exchange for attempting her sister’s rescue.

  The intrusive memory sobered Summer’s thoughts. She was a married woman now. She was the wife of a Comanche half-breed. Her future was likely to be even more difficult than her sister’s. A captive who survived imprisonment by Indians was considered dirty and disgraced, an object of pity and embarrassment, but a woman who would willingly ally herself with the Comanche would no doubt be subjected to outright contempt and scorn.

  When the buckboard clattered to a halt in the sweeping drive, one of the Mexican maidservants noticed them first. With a cry of delight, Estelle ran out on the porch and called excitedly for the patrón to come quickly, that the señora and the señorita had returned.

  Hobbling outside, Reed bounded down the steps as fast as his crutches would allow, and dropped them altogether when he reached the buckboard. With a sound that was half shout, half sob, he hauled Amelia down and into his arms.

  “Oh, God…Melly…you’re safe.”

  Tears of joy streamed down his face as he clutched Amelia in a grip that threatened to crush her. From the look of her shaking shoulders, Amelia was crying also. Summer felt an ache in her own throat, watching her brother’s relief as he rocked their sister in his embrace. She was grateful to Nate Jenkins, the lad who’d driven them, for his sensitivity, when he climbed down from the buckboard and moved away, leaving them in privacy.

  It was a full minute before Reed looked up to meet Summer’s eyes. “You really did it. You found her. I feared…”

  “I know.” She smiled. “I feared the same thing. But it’s over. Amelia’s safe.”

  His gaze narrowing, Reed looked around him. “Where is Calder? Didn’t he return with you?”

  At the mention of the man who’d saved her life, Amelia stiffened visibly and pushed out of her brother’s embrace. “I want to go inside now.” She turned to the Mexican women who were waiting on the porch, eager to greet her. “Estelle, Consuala, Maritza, how are you? It is so good to be home!”

  Summer’s smile faded as she watched her sister being welcomed by the laughing women.

  “What happened?” her brother demanded. “What’s wrong?”

  “She wants to pretend Lance doesn’t exist. She blames him for what the Comanches did to her.”

  “He was the one who found her, wasn’t he?”

  Summer sighed. “Of course. I could never have done it on my own. He risked his life for her twice, Reed. But she hates him because he’s part Comanche.”

  Reed turned to watch Amelia get swept into the house by the Mexican women. “I’m not sure I understand. Where is he?”

  “On his way home by now, I hope. He had to drive some horses north in payment for his brother’s help. The next stage was supposed to leave from Belknap today. If he caught it, he should be here in a few days.”

  Her brother suddenly scowled up at her. “You traveled all that way alone? Without an escort?”

  “I didn’t have any choice. Melly was determined to come home, and I couldn’t change her mind. I don’t think even you could have persuaded her. But it wasn’t too dangerous, Reed, truly. The stage drivers are Lance’s friends, and they looked out for us.” When her brother’s frown didn’t diminish, Summer gave him an imploring look. “Don’t be angry. I couldn’t refuse her, Reed. She was hurt badly by the Comanches, and her nerves were fragile enough to snap. I had to risk it.”

  “All right.” Reed closed his eyes for a moment, his agony showing on his face. “Oh, God…poor Melly.”

  “Don’t think about it. It’s over, she’s safe now. We’ll have to help her go on with her life.”

  “We’ll have to help her heal, won’t we?”

  “Yes,” Summer agreed softly.

  He reached up to help her down from the buckboard, and then apparently remembered he was standing on only one leg. Cursing under his breath, he shook his head. “You’ll have to get down on your own, blast it.”

  She flashed him a smile reminiscent of the old Summer as she climbed down. “I don’t mind fending for myself. If you’d seen all the chores I had to perform in the Comanche camp, you would have been astonished. I vow I developed muscles I never knew I had.” She gave a short laugh. “Lance doesn’t even call me princess much anymore.”

  She saw the start Reed gave, saw his features tighten in a grim expression, but she waited until he had picked up his crutches before placing a restraining hand on his arm. Looking up at him imploringly, she held his gaze. “Reed, Lance is my husband now. We owe him a huge debt. You won’t forget that, will you?”


  Her brother’s lips pressed together in a bleak line, but he nodded brusquely. “I know exactly what we owe him. And I feel obligated to honor the bargain you made with him—even if I think you made a deal with the Devil.”

  She thought she would have to be satisfied with that disappointing answer, but Reed paused before turning toward the house. “Summer, I want you to know…I appreciate the sacrifice you’ve made for Amelia. And that…whatever you want to do…I’ll stand by you.”

  “Thank you.” Her eyes shimmered. “That means a great deal to me.”

  And it did, Summer realized as she matched her steps to her brother’s slower plod-hop. She didn’t think she had the strength to fight Reed as well as Amelia.

  The coolness of the house was welcoming after the heat of the afternoon sun. Summer would have relished a refreshing glass of lemonade or a cup of water from the spring, but she could hear the murmur of voices coming from upstairs and knew Amelia must have retreated to the bedchamber they had shared as children. Excusing herself from Reed, she followed the sound.

  As she climbed the stairs, though, she let her weary gaze drink in her surroundings, cherishing the familiar sights and smells of home.

  Home. Memory closed around her and filled her with longing. How she wished things could be the same as they’d been before the war, when her brothers and father were still alive, when Reed and Amelia were still whole, when she herself had no decision more difficult to occupy her time than which party dress to wear and which beau to favor with her attention.

  Those carefree days were gone. The uncertain future spread out before her like a murky swamp, with untold dangers to be negotiated, not the least of which was resolving her relationship with the man who was now her husband.

  That man sat his horse the following afternoon, staring at the big white ranch house with uncertainty and resentment. Any pleasure Lance had felt at his own homecoming, any joy he’d found in being on Sky Valley land again, had faded at the prospect of entering that big house.