“I’m staying, too,” Sloan said.
Rip looked at her, then nodded.
“Bay and I will make sure the chargé and his daughter are safe. Take care of yourselves,” Cricket said to all those who would remain.
She stopped before Creed. She might never have another chance to tell him what she felt. One of them, or both, might be killed. Cricket sought desperately to stop time in the middle of the Comanche attack. Forgetting the whoops and shrieks of the Comanches, Angelique’s whimpers of fear, the chargé’s words of comfort, Rip’s crisp orders, and her sisters’ efficient obedience to them, she put her hands lightly on Creed’s arms, looked up into his face, and spoke three parting words.
“I love you.”
Creed pulled his wife into his embrace, crushing her with his strength. He twined her braid around his hand and arched her head back so he could look into her eyes. He spoke for her ears alone. “I’ve been waiting to hear those words for a long time, Brava.”
“But Angelique—”
“What’s Angelique got to do with us?”
“But you love—”
“I love you. You’re my wife. I want you with me always.” He gave her a hard kiss and then released her. “Except I think maybe you’d better leave me for a little while right now,” he said wryly. “We’ll talk when this is all over. Get going.”
Cricket watched him over her shoulder, stunned by what she’d just learned. She followed the others to the root cellar. Creed loved her. Now all she could do was pray they both managed to survive long enough to live happily ever after.
Tall Bear had planned his moment of revenge carefully. His braves had set fire to the house, knowing the White-eyes would be forced to flee. The wonderful thing was Tall Bear knew where their escape route would end. During his forays to scout this attack, he’d discovered the opening in the ground near the river. He intended to be waiting when the Woman of the Wolf emerged.
As Tall Bear watched from his hiding place, his quarry appeared, followed by another woman with hair the color of the sun, and an older man—Tall Bear imagined the full head of white hair hanging from his war shield—and then a woman with hair so bright a red he smiled at the thought of her value in trade. He wanted the Woman of the Wolf alive. As for the other women, if he could take them captive, he would, but it didn’t really matter to him.
He waited for more White-eyes to appear, but when none did, he concluded they must have stayed longer in the burning house. That was good. His braves would keep them occupied as he’d instructed.
Tall Bear frowned when he saw that all four of those who’d emerged from the tunnel carried weapons. He decided he would kill the man first. Once he had the Woman of the Wolf in his arms, he would do as he’d done once before and threaten the life of his captive if the other women did not throw down their guns.
Tall Bear kicked his pony into a full gallop. As he intended, his war shriek and the arrow striking the old man in the chest distracted the three women long enough for him to sweep the Woman of the Wolf into his arms.
Cricket knew who’d captured her, knew her fate if he took her alive. She would have shot herself if she could have gotten her gun up in time, but Tall Bear had anticipated her move and the blunt edge of his battle-ax came down hard on her gun hand and stunned her so, she lost the Paterson.
“Bay,” Cricket shouted. “Shoot! Shoot!”
Bay’s face whitened. “I can’t. I’ll hit you, Cricket.”
“Shoot!”
The Comanche tapped Cricket’s temple with the heavy wooden handle of his battle-ax, knocking her unconscious. He danced his pony around the two women, taunting them, showing his disdain, all the while using Cricket as a shield and making plain his intention to kill her if the two women didn’t put down their weapons.
Both women were protected from the Comanche’s arrows behind a rotting cypress log near the exit from the tunnel. Angelique lay prostrate over her father’s form, but her gun was still in her hand. Bay grabbed her by the shoulders of her bloodied silk dress and shook her. “Angelique! Are you a good shot? Can you kill that Comanche without hurting Cricket?”
Angelique roused from her stupor and focused on the Comanche who’d killed her father. “You want me to shoot him?”
“Yes.” Bay swallowed hard. “If you can’t hit him, then you have to kill Cricket.” Bay was certain it was only a matter of time before more Comanches arrived to help this one. She prayed she wouldn’t have to shoot Cricket herself. But she’d see to it that what had to be done was done.
Angelique looked from Bay to Cricket, and as the situation became clear, she began to laugh hysterically. “If you only knew . . . how much I wanted . . . to be rid . . . but now I don’t . . . have to do . . . anything. . . .”
Tall Bear frowned at the hysterically laughing yellow-haired woman. Perhaps she’d been touched by the spirits. That was bad medicine. He would leave the Laughing Woman behind, but the other woman, the redheaded one, was valuable, and he was determined to have her if he could manage it.
Bay was a quivery mass of jelly inside, but for Cricket she had to be strong. She wasn’t a good shot, and she knew it. She still didn’t know whether the hysterical Angelique could be any help, but she had to find out. Bay slapped Angelique as hard as she could, cutting off the insane laughter as quickly as it had begun. Angelique’s eyes widened in disbelief as her hand flew to her smarting cheek.
“I’m sorry I had to do that,” Bay said. Before she lost her courage she added, “I’m a fair shot, Angelique, but if you’re better than that, I expect you to use your gun on that Comanche.” The hateful look on Angelique’s face made Bay edge back slightly, but she stubbornly persisted, “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I understand. You want me to shoot at the Comanche who’s holding Cricket. If I can’t kill him, I’m to kill her.”
Bay closed her eyes and nodded quickly.
“All right.” Angelique got up on her knees and laid the barrel of her gun on the log to steady it, squinting at her target.
Angelique had her gun aimed at Cricket’s heart when she heard a low, menacing growl that made the hairs on her neck stand on end. Angelique’s eyes sought the source of the sound, focusing in horror on a large wolf, fangs viciously bared, crouched not ten feet from her, ready to spring. Without a second’s thought she turned the gun on the beast.
“No! Angelique!”
Angelique fired as Rogue leapt at her. The wounded wolf went for the woman’s unprotected throat. Angelique threw up an arm, and Rogue sank his fangs into the tender flesh as he bowled her over.
Angelique screamed and kept on screaming.
There was no time for Bay to try to halt the wolf’s ferocious attack, and there was only one way she could think to end it quickly enough to avoid Angelique’s death. She didn’t allow herself to consider she might miss. She simply aimed and fired.
Bay shot Rogue twice before the wolf released its grisly hold on the chargé’s daughter. As soon as Rogue fell, Bay threw her gun aside and rushed to render aid to Angelique. The woman was in shock, her flesh torn open, her forearm crushed by the wolf’s powerful jaws. Her face bled where Rogue’s teeth had raked it.
At almost the same moment Rogue had attacked, Rascal and Ruffian had appeared on either side of Tall Bear, frightening his pony so it reared. The appearance of three of Wolf’s namesakes was too much for the superstitious Comanche, who dumped his burden unceremoniously in the path of the two fierce wolves who chased his nervous pony. To have Wolf find his woman torn to pieces by the beasts would be revenge enough for him. He’d done what he came to do, and it was time to leave.
Tall Bear didn’t plan to leave empty-handed. He kicked his pony away from the wolves and converged on the redheaded woman who crouched behind the cypress log. He grabbed a handful of her long hair and yanked her away from the Laughing Woman. As soon as she was in the open, he grabbed her arm and pulled her across his pony’s withers onto her stomach. He had no t
ime to waste on the redheaded woman’s struggles, so he used his battle-ax again and silenced her.
He knew the Laughing Woman’s screams and the gunfire must have alerted those in the house that all was not well. He turned and saw that the two wolves growled and slavered over the body of the Woman of the Wolf. It was done. Tall Bear turned his pony and galloped away to collect his band and make good their escape.
When Creed heard the female screams followed by distant gunfire he yelled at Rip, “They’re in trouble. Let’s get out of here.”
Rip led the way through the tunnel. When they emerged at the river they half expected to find the Comanches waiting for them, but it was ominously quiet. Around them lay the bloodied bodies of Angelique and Beaufort LeFevre, the dead wolf, and not far away, Cricket, with Rascal and Ruffian standing sentinel over her inert body. Though they searched and shouted out her name, Bay was nowhere to be found.
Rip reached Cricket’s body before Creed and gathered her into his arms. “She’s alive.”
“I’ll take her.”
Rip made note of Creed’s fighting stance, his feral glare, but refused to relinquish his burden.
“She’s my daughter.”
“She’s my wife.”
Rip still made no move to surrender his favorite daughter to her husband. The muscles bunched in Creed’s jaw as he fought to control his temper. Then Cricket spoke.
“I want to go to Creed.”
Startled, Rip looked down at Cricket. She could barely keep her eyes open, but she met Rip’s inquiring gaze with determination. Her face was pale except where bright red blood streamed from her temple. Her eyes drifted closed again, but she repeated in a whisper, “I want Creed.”
Rip had raised Cricket to be totally self-sufficient, yet to look to him for advice and succor. He’d somehow never expected her to seek solace from another man. It was painful to accept the fact that she’d transferred to Jarrett Creed the trust that had previously been given only to him. However, because he’d raised her to know her own mind, he accepted her decision.
Creed held out his arms, and Rip gently eased Cricket into them. For a moment both men held her together. Their eyes met, and a silent understanding passed between them. She belonged to both of them—and to neither of them. Cricket was what she was—a frontier woman, fierytempered and bold, demanding all that the vast new Republic had to offer her—and both of them would do everything in their power to see that she got it.
Once the exchange had been made, Creed held Cricket close. He brought her face up and pressed his cheek to hers, feeling the rightness of it. He smelled the familiar fragrance of her hair. He held the weight of her in his arms and swore she’d never be far from him again.
Rip watched the tender way Creed held Cricket, certain the Ranger would now be stepping into his shoes and taking care of her, until he heard Cricket speak.
“You can put me down now. I can stand on my own two feet.”
To Rip’s surprise, Creed smiled ruefully, then complied. “Sure, Brava . . . your own two feet.”
But Rip noticed Creed slipped an arm around Cricket’s shoulders to support her and she accepted his assistance.
“They’re both still alive!”
Sloan’s exclamation brought them all on the run to see to the two injured visitors. Rip bent down on one knee next to Sloan as she explained what she’d discovered.
“LeFevre is barely alive, but if we could stop the bleeding he might make it,” she said. “Angelique’s injuries are not as serious, but she’s also losing a lot of blood.”
The shadow of a man appeared so suddenly at Rip’s shoulder that Sloan almost shot him. “Luke! What are you doing here?”
“I was out riding and saw the smoke. I came running, but by the time I got back here the Comanches were long gone—and so were you.”
Luke fought to hide his trembling relief at finding them all alive, which would have seemed extraordinary under the circumstances. He’d been worrying for days over whether to tell Rip Stewart who he really was, and during the short ride from the house to this hidden passage he’d had time to work up a pretty good fear that he’d be too late, that Rip would be dead and he’d never have the chance to say “I’m your son.”
But the old man had survived. He should have known. Now he could sit on his secret until the time was right for his revelation . . . if it ever was.
He turned to Rip and said in a perfectly normal tone of voice, “I’m glad to see you’re all okay. I found one of your Negroes at the house, a man named August, who told me you’d be here if you were alive.”
“Is anyone else hurt?” Rip asked.
“One field hand is dead, and a few are wounded. Your house is burnt to the ground, and so’s the barn, but the bachelors’ quarters are still standing.”
“What about the gin?” Sloan asked.
“It’s still there, as far as I know.”
Sloan breathed a sigh of relief. It was mere weeks before the field slaves would begin picking cotton—not time enough to build a new gin.
“We’ll live in the bachelors’ quarters until I can get another house built,” Rip said. The big man picked up the chargé and cradled him gently in his arms as though he were a child. “We’d better get these two taken care of. I’ll carry Beaufort. You take his daughter, Luke.”
Luke looked down at Angelique’s mangled arm and the bloody grooves that would leave thin scars on her cheeks. Don’t worry, Angel, honey, he thought. I’ll make sure you know you’re still a beautiful woman, marks or no.
“What about Bay?” Sloan asked, voicing the subject everyone had been so carefully avoiding.
At the sound of Bay’s name Cricket roused and searched the faces around her to find her sister. “Bay? Isn’t she here?”
“Shh. Don’t fret, Brava. We’ll find her,” Creed soothed.
Cricket only got more frantic. “If she’s not here, then Tall Bear has her. We have to rescue her. Creed, you can’t let him do to her what he did to Amy. . . .”
Rip had keyed on one aspect of Cricket’s ranting. “You know the Indian who kidnapped Bay?” he asked Creed in a voice that was more dangerous for its calmness.
“I know him. We go back a long way. I’ll find your daughter and settle with Tall Bear as soon as I’m sure Cricket’s okay.” As Creed turned away toward the guest house, Cricket suddenly saw the body of her wolf.
“Rogue!” Cricket knelt by the wolf’s bullet-torn body. His open eyes were glazed, and his pink tongue lay in the dirt. She slowly leaned down to listen to his great heart . . . but it had stopped. She rested her cheek against his shoulder. It was so soft. She thought of all the times she’d fallen asleep with his warm body beneath her head . . . of all the times he’d played with her . . . of all the times they’d howled out their anger against a cruel world together.
Cricket choked back a sob. She should have returned him to the wild a long time ago. Rip had warned her something like this might happen. He’d told her she had no business trying to cage a wolf with love. But she’d ignored him. Now Rogue was dead. She could feel the pain swelling in her chest, and her throat had that awful constricted feeling . . . like being hanged by God’s hand.
Creed knelt beside her. “Come away, Brava. You can’t help him now.”
“It’s my fault,” she whispered. “Rip warned me I couldn’t tame a wild animal. But I wouldn’t listen. I never thought . . . I was sure I . . .”
Creed brushed the tears from Cricket’s cheeks with his thumbs.
“It looks like he attacked Angelique and Bay shot him,” Sloan said. She kept her gun out and ready, despite Luke’s assurances the Indians were long gone.
“But why? Why would he attack Angelique?” Cricket choked out.
Creed put a consoling hand on Cricket’s shoulder. “We’ll have to ask her that.”
As Creed and Cricket stood, she turned her face into his shirt, and his arms enfolded her. She leaned against him and found his strength, and the particular
smell she identified with him, comforting. She wanted to hear Angelique’s explanation of Rogue’s attack. Perhaps the wolf’s death had not been in vain. Even so, she vowed to return Rascal and Ruffian to the wilds of Comanchería when she and Creed went in search of Bay.
The sight of the charred and blackened ruins of the house sobered them all. It was hard to carve a human niche in the Texas wilderness. Now it looked as though the house had never been there. Only the three giant oaks remained, scarred in places by the fire.
But defeat was not a word in the pioneers’ vocabulary. They would rebuild, reclaiming the land. They had learned enough about the vagaries of frontier life to be grateful none of them would be planted under the rich Texas soil.
The tiny bachelors’ quarters away from the main house had only one bed, and Rip and Luke put both the chargé and his daughter on it. Cricket had revived enough to argue with Creed that she would be fine in the ladder-back chair in the corner of the room. He took the cloth and water offered to him by one of the Negroes who’d come to help and cleaned her wound himself. He felt better when he saw the cut on her temple was small.
“How does it feel?”
“I have a slight headache, but I’m not dizzy at all.”
“That’s good,” Creed said. “Sit and rest for a while.” When she started to object Creed added, “It’ll make me feel better.”
Angelique’s moan of pain brought everyone, including Cricket, to her bedside. “Take it easy. You’re okay, Angel, honey,” Luke said, taking her good hand in his. “Angel, can you tell us what happened to Bay?” Luke asked.
Angelique moaned again. “My arm. My arm.”
“Your arm’s going to be fine, Angel, honey.”
“I hate this godforsaken land. I want to go home.”
“Sure, honey, soon as you’re well I’ll take you home. Right now can you tell us about Bay?”
Angelique opened her eyes to an audience that included practically the entire Stewart family—including Cricket. “What are you doing here?” she asked, stunned. “The Comanche had you on his horse . . . you weren’t going to be any more competition for me. . . .” Angelique stopped and glanced guiltily at Creed. “Not that I’d stay in this awful land full of savages for anyone now, let—”
Frontier Woman Page 37
