“Lord,” Lauralee said, paling when she realized how she had alienated the very man who might have the power to seize Dancing Cloud again and be certain that he hanged. And not because he was a guilty man. Because Paul would be rid of the one obstacle standing in the way of having Lauralee.
But how was she to know? she despaired to herself. When she had been making plans to help Dancing Cloud, Paul Brown had been the last person on her mind.
Recalling the goodness of Paul’s father, how kind and generous he had been to Dancing Cloud, Lauralee saw the only recourse here was to get on that better side of Paul. She had often heard the phrase “like father, like son.”
Now she would give that saying a true test.
“Paul?” Lauralee said, stepping up to him. She rested a hand on his arm. “You’re a good man. An honest man. Do you wish to see someone as honest as you done wrong? Paul, I beg of you, let us pass. Dancing Cloud is innocent. He didn’t steal Kevin’s white stallion. “
She gestured with her free hand toward Dancing Cloud’s horse. “Don’t you see?” she said. “Dancing Cloud owns only one horse. If he was guilty of having stolen the white stallion and I went along with that theft, don’t you think the stallion would be tied to the wagon so that Dancing Cloud could take it with him now to his home in the mountains?”
“That’s where you’re headed tonight?” Paul asked, his voice guarded. “After helpin’ the Indian escape, you are going with him?”
“Yes, that’s my plan,” Lauralee said, worrying now about how long it was taking to convince Paul that Dancing Cloud should not be taken back into the jail. She also realized that someone besides herself and Dancing Cloud now knew the direction of their travel should Paul allow them to leave.
“Paul, I give my word that Dancing Cloud is innocent,” Lauralee blurted. “Please believe me. And stop and think about what might happen if he stays here after everyone finds out that he’s in jail. The word about town that he’s a Rebel and an Indian horse thief could stir up a lynch mob. He might not even live long enough to have a trial.”
The sound of people shouting and seeing the great reflection of the fire against the dark heavens made Lauralee grow even more tense. “We’re leaving, Paul,” she said, firming her jaw. “If you shoot Dancing Cloud you might as well turn the same firearm on me. I would rather die than live without Dancing Cloud.”
“Lauralee, I’m the law,” Paul said, shuffling his feet nervously. “I can’t just let you ride away. I must abide by my duties as a lawman.”
“Like I said, Paul, the only way you can stop me and Dancing Cloud is to shoot us,” she said. She took Dancing Cloud’s hand and walked with him toward the horse and buggy, his horse standing obediently beside it.
She held her breath and prayed over and over again that Paul Brown was not the sort to want glory over capturing an escaped criminal as well as capture the one who was guilty of helping with the escape.
She hoped that he cared enough for her to let her go.
If not, there was not much more she could do about it. Stopping short of getting on her knees and begging Paul she had said all that she could.
Her knees weak, her breathing shallow, and her fingers trembling, she eased her hand from Dancing Cloud’s. She watched him swing into his saddle.
Then she stepped up into her buggy, plopped down on the seat, and grabbed her reins.
Her eyes locked with Paul’s.
They stared at each other for a moment longer.
When he nodded to her and clasped his hands behind himself, away from his firearms, tears streamed from her eyes.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Oh, Paul, thank you.”
“God be with you on your long journey,” Paul said thickly.
Lauralee flicked tears from her eyes, smiled at him, then looked over her shoulder at Dancing Cloud. “Follow me,” she whispered. She had already mapped out the plans for her escape out of the city, where she and Dancing Cloud would be less apt to meet up with anyone else.
As she swung her wagon around and headed it south through a narrow alley, she turned and gave Paul a last lingering look.
When he gave her a mock salute, then walked on around the building so that she could no longer see him, she inhaled a shaky breath and snapped her reins and rode away.
When she got to the far edge of Mattoon she took another look over her shoulder. The orange spray of the fire’s reflection in the sky drew her eyes upward.
“Uncle Abner, you’ll never know who saved you the cost of demolishing your new-bought structure, will you?” she whispered, then laughed softly and rode onward, Dancing Cloud riding ahead of her. He had taken his rifle from its gun boot at the side of the horse. The faint rays of the moon reflected in its barrel.
Chapter 23
Each star is to me a sealed book,
Some tale of that loved one keeping.
—MRS. CRAWFORD
“Do you think it is truly safe enough now to make camp?” Lauralee asked as Dancing Cloud made her a bed of green boughs, upon which he spread a blanket. She hugged herself, chilled and cramped by the coolness of the night air.
“As long as we do not make a campfire I feel that should a posse be after us, we will be safe enough for you to get some rest,” Dancing Cloud said, drawing her into his embrace. He held her against him, touched to the very core of himself at the lengths she had gone to save him. “We have far to go, o-ge-ye. To survive the journey, you must get adequate rest.”
Lauralee leaned limply against him. The warmth of his body melding into hers through her clothes made her feel better already. She closed her eyes and found herself drifting off. Then Dancing Cloud carried her to the bed of boughs and lay her gently upon it.
Smiling down at her peaceful sweetness, he drew another blanket over her and tucked it lovingly beneath her chin, and then snuggled it closer to her body on all sides.
He ran a hand over one of her cheeks, leaned down and kissed her, then rose slowly to his full height. He stretched his arms and yawned, but fought off sleep. That would be a luxury he must wait for later. He could not be all that certain that Paul Brown could be trusted not to tell about Lauralee helping him escape. And how was Paul going to explain Dancing Cloud’s absence unless he knew well the art of lying?
Because of his mistrust of all Yankees Dancing Cloud grabbed his rifle. He walked determinedly toward a rise in the land a few yards from where Lauralee trustingly slept. From that vantage point he could see for miles where a meadow stretched out before him, a thick forest at his back.
He sat down beside a cedar tree that was warped by the wind of centuries. It was bent and hunched into the shape of a crone, an eerie chanting old woman of the rain, wind, snow, and sun.
Laying his rifle across his lap, Dancing Cloud leaned his back against the bent cedar tree. Reaching inside his fringed jacket pocket he gathered up several juniper berries into the palm of his hand. He had accumulated a good supply of these berries from evergreen shrubs in the forest and had placed them in his pocket.
One by one he chewed on the berries, six to ten each day recommended. The berry was good for digestion. It also warded off sickness and weakness, and kept the mind awake and clear, which was essential now that they were running from the law. He could not see Sheriff Decker allowing him to escape that easily from his jail.
And it was up to Dancing Cloud to make sure that Sheriff Decker never caught up with him and Lauralee. Lauralee would be incarcerated like a common criminal, herself.
Dancing Cloud would never allow that to happen.
Even if he was forced to shoot and kill her Uncle Abner should he be among those who were a part of a posse.
Fighting off sleep as his eyelids grew heavy and his eyes burned, Dancing Cloud gave himself a shake, then looked slowly around him. They had just passed into Indiana a short while ago. It was daylight enough now to enjoy the beauty of the land.
Green. The wide stretch of the green meadow reaching out to the ho
rizon was beautiful and serene.
Green. The symbol of everlasting life.
Dancing Cloud closed his eyes and thought of his home, missing his people and his home in his mountains with every fiber of his being. The sprigs of green, the whir of a rattle, the shush-shush of ankle bells, the lift and stamp of feet....
A sound in the distance drew him from his reverie. His eyes quickly opened and he jumped to his feet. He listened again for the sound that had come to him like muffled, distant thunder.
Clutching the rifle in one hand, he cupped his other hand over his eyes and surveyed the horizon before him. His heartbeat quickened and he went numbly cold inside when he saw several horsemen approaching. They were far enough away so that they looked just like dots on the horizon.
But still they were there and Dancing Cloud did not have to think about who it might be.
He knew.
Sheriff Decker and a posse had managed to find the route of Dancing Cloud and Lauralee’s travel!
Thoughts of Paul Brown came quickly to his mind again. He had surely allowed Dancing Cloud and Lauralee to leave Mattoon so that he could lead the posse to them and take on the appearance of a white man’s “hero.”
But for now he cast all blame aside. He and Lauralee had no time to waste.
He broke into a run down the slight incline. He hoped that neither Sheriff Decker, nor those men who made up the posse, had the ability to sniff out an actual trail made by Dancing Cloud and Laura1ee’s horses.
He hoped that it had only been a good guess that had led them this close.
If it was the latter, Dancing Cloud still felt hopeful that he and Lauralee could elude Sheriff Decker and his men long enough so that they would tire of the search and return to Mattoon empty-handed.
“Lauralee,” Dancing Cloud whispered harshly, bending over to give her a slight shake. “O-ge-ye, wake up. We must leave. I have spied Sheriff Decker in the distance. He brings with him many men.”
The name Sheriff Decker drew Lauralee instantly awake. She rubbed her eyes and jumped to her feet.
Disoriented by having been awakened so suddenly, she moved in one direction, stopped, then moved in another.
Wild-eyed, she gazed up at Dancing Cloud as he came and steadied her by placing a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m frightened,” she cried. “They will surely catch up with us now, Dancing Cloud. What will they do to us?”
Angry over Lauralee having been put in the position to be this afraid, Dancing Cloud’s fingers gripped more tightly to the rifle, so tight that his knuckles were rendered white.
“Always before you have shown such strength and bravery in the face of danger,” he said thickly. “Reach inside yourself and find the same strength now. To escape these men we must keep a level head.”
Lauralee straightened her shoulders. She wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said as she looked into Dancing Cloud’s dark, troubled eyes. “I’m all right now. I’ll gather my things. I’ll place them in my buggy. I shall be ready to go in a minute.”
“Now is the time that your buggy must be left behind,” Dancing Cloud said, seeing the shock register in her eyes. “To travel more quickly and to be able to ride to a higher plateau to give us better cover, we both must travel on horseback.”
Lauralee glanced over her shoulder at her buggy. Should she leave it behind she must also leave most of her precious clothes that she had only recently purchased. She could carry only one valise on her horse. And there was only so much room in one embroidered valise. She might not even have time to search through her things for those belongings that meant more to her.
Seeing her disappointment and how troubled she was over what was required of her, Dancing Cloud placed a finger to her chin and turned her face around so that she was looking sadly up at him.
“O-ge-ye, we would have been forced to leave your buggy behind soon, anyhow,” he said softly. “When we neared my mountains, you would have soon seen how impossible it would be to travel up the steep mountainside.”
Her eyes searching his face, Lauralee said nothing for a moment, then nodded. “I understand,” she murmured. Then she sucked in a wild breath. “But there is no extra saddle. I . . . I . . . would be forced to ride bareback. I’m not sure that I can. I will be slipping and sliding all the time. That would make it impossible for a quick flight from the sheriff.”
“You shall ride in my saddle on my horse,” Dancing Cloud said. “I shall ride yours bareback.” He walked away from her in a rush and set his rifle aside only long enough to detach her horse from the buggy.
Lauralee looked into the distance and went limp with fright when she saw that the men were no longer just a dot along the horizon. She could make out their shape. She knew for certain to expect Sheriff Decker and Deputy Dobbs among those making up the posse. More than likely Paul Brown was riding with him. He had probably been the first one to even suggest forming the posse so that he could look big in the eyes of the community if she and Dancing Cloud were brought back to stand trial.
She gasped. She was almost certain that she could make out her Uncle Abner riding tall in a saddle! It made a keen melancholia sweep through her to think that he would go along with such a thing as a posse, when in the end it might mean that she would hang beside Dancing Cloud on a hangman’s noose.
Exhaling a quavering, frightened breath, she ran to her buggy and dumped all of her belongings from her valises. Her fingers trembling, she sorted through it all and finally had one of her valises filled with those things that she felt she would need the most. Especially her toilet articles and dresses and skirts and blouses that would travel easier.
Grabbing up the valise, she ran to Dancing Cloud’s horse. After tying it in with the other things that were secured to the saddlebags, she gazed with a longing at her buggy again, then at the bed that Dancing Cloud had made for her on the ground.
She then swung herself into the saddle just as Dancing Cloud mounted her horse. He edged the horse next to his own, his eyes steady with Lauralee’s. “Keep up with me,” he said flatly. “Never lag behind. We will be riding through the dense forest. You could be lost to me quickly.”
Lauralee looked at the buggy and bed again. “They will for certain know that we were here,” she said worriedly.
“As long as we have a good head start on them, it does not matter that they realize they have come close to catching us.”
“But won’t that make them more determined than ever to keep on coming after us?”
“Yes, that is so. But there is not much we can do about that except put many more miles between us today and keep far enough ahead so that they will soon tire of looking for us.”
“Dancing Cloud, did you get any sleep at all?” Lauralee asked as they nudged their horses and rode away.
“Sleep will come later. During tests of endurance at my village I learned as a child the art of going days and nights without sleep.”
Knowing that she was not as trained in the art of staying awake, or of riding for hours on horseback, or of surviving in the wilderness, Lauralee wasn’t sure if she could withstand all that now faced her before reaching Dancing Cloud’s village.
At least for now, though, she felt that she no longer had to be afraid of Clint McCloud causing her harm. He would not be among those who were after her and Dancing Cloud. He would most definitely steer clear of them. He was, himself, a fugitive from justice!
She leaned low over Dancing Cloud’s horse, wondering where Clint McCloud might be at this moment, where he might have gone to elude the law. . . .
* * *
His shoulders slumped, exhausted from the long ride from Mattoon, Clint McCloud drew a tight rein beside a log cabin. He had built this cabin with his very own hands amid a thick forest in North Carolina to bide his choice of wives, and especially the son who had come from his union with the Cherokee squaw.
Fog laying like a heavy-laden band of steel over the treetops reminded Clint of the Gr
eat Smoky Mountains. The mountains were only a half-day’s ride from his cabin, a place that jarred his memory of the war every time he gazed upon the mysterious haze that could lay like puffs of smoke over the mountains for days.
The massacre.
The massacre had been his show of power over the damn redskins.
His wooden leg seeming to be even more heavy than usual, Clint moaned as he lifted it over the saddle.
Finally standing, he swayed and groaned again and held onto the saddle horn to steady himself.
Reeking with perspiration, his dark suit dust-laden, Clint stood there for a moment longer, then secured his horse’s reins to a hitching rail.
He limped slowly around to the front of the cabin. The slow spiral of smoke rising from the chimney indicated that his wife, Soft Wind, was out of bed, preparing herself for her daily chores.
“She always rises with the sun,” he grumbled to himself, recalling the many times that he had grabbed her back down onto the bed with him.
A wicked smile fluttered across his lips at the thought of her silken, copper body next to his. When she had been sixteen he had found her at an orphanage in Kentucky and had taken her away, with promises that if she married him, she would never want for another thing.
Soft Wind had been so grateful to him for having rescued her from a life where she had lacked identity that she had done everything to make him a perfect wife. And she had succeeded. He had been content with her.
Until she was with child. He had silently hoped throughout her pregnancy that the child would reflect his heritage. Not hers.
When their son had been born and every inch of him was Indian, Clint had not been able to openly love the child. Each time he looked at Brian Brave Walker he would be haunted by the Cherokee children whom he and his regiment had so viciously slaughtered that day in the Great Smoky Mountains during the Civil War. Killing had come so easy to him, no matter were they children or adults. He had joined the Union to kill anyone whose beliefs differed from his.
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