The Smoky Mountain Cherokee were among those who had not seen eye to eye with Clint’s.
He had made them pay for those differences.
Now he was paying for what he had done to those people by not being free to love and embrace his very own son.
His thoughts returned to Mattoon and how ironic it had been that he had come face to face again with another Cherokee of his past.
Dancing Cloud.
Seeing the Cherokee, stalking him just outside Mattoon before Dancing Cloud arrived there with Lauralee, had convinced Clint that he was the Cherokee who filled his very soul with hate; the Cherokee who made his heart cry out for vengeance.
Grumbling to himself, half dragging his wooden leg behind him, Clint shoved the front door open. Upon first glance into the small cabin be found his wife and ten-year-old son cowering against the far wall, their eyes filled with fear at the mere sight of him.
“Is this the kind of reception I can always expect from my wife?” Clint said, glowering at Soft Wind. His eyes softened as he raked his eyes over her. Her sleek, black hair hung long and beautiful across her shoulders and down her back. Her tiny waist and her large bosom were revealed to him and made his heart skip a hungry beat as the buckskin fabric of her dress clung sensually to her curves.
He had missed her.
He never stopped hungering for her.
His gaze shifted to his son. It took him aback somewhat to see the look of defiance in Brian Brave Walker’s eyes. At first glance it had looked as though he was cowering.
In truth, it was his mother who held Brian Brave Walker in place so that he would not be able to display his disobedience to his father openly.
Clint went across the room, past the fancy, overstuffed chairs that he had brought to Soft Wind in an effort to please her after realizing that she not only feared him, but bated him as well. Clint stopped in front of her and gathered a handful of her hair in his fingers and gave it a yank, causing her to cry out with pain and stumble toward him.
“The baby,” he said thinly. “Where’s the baby?”
Soft Wind nodded toward a small cradle in the shadows.
Clint released Soft Wind’s hair and lumbered over to the cradle. Leaning over, he unfolded a blanket from around the small baby, then slung his hands into the air in a fit of fury.
“It’s a girl and her skin is not white!” he shouted. “She is Indian! Just like her brother, she is Indian through and through.”
“Please do not be angry,” Soft Wind sobbed. “She is a beautiful child no matter what color her skin is. Please do not harm her!”
Clint went to Soft Wind and grabbed her by the shoulders. He shook her as he leered down at her. “I told you what I’d do if that brat was Indian!” he shouted. “I’m going to take her away!”
“No!” Soft Wind cried. “Do not take my baby away!”
“Shut up, squaw,” Clint said, giving her another rough shake. He then shoved her down onto the bed and stood with his fists on his hips over her. “She won’t stay another night beneath my roof. Do you hear? I’ll never lay claim to her. Never!”
“Leave my mother alone,” Brian Brave Walker said, taking a bold step toward his father. “I told her she should leave with my baby sister when she had the chance. She should not have to give in to your abuse only because you rescued her so long ago from an orphanage.” Brian Brave Walker thrust his bare chest out proudly above his fringed buckskin breeches. “I told Mother that I could care for her and my baby sister.”
Clint backhanded Brian Brave Walker in the mouth, causing a trickle of blood to spill down his chin. “You shut your mouth, savage brat,” he snarled. “You’d best keep your suggestions to yourself as far as your mother and sister are concerned. You know that I told her if she ever left I’d hunt her down and kill her. I don’t want no other man pawin’ her. She’s mine. All mine. So you see, brat, she ain’t goin’ nowhere. As far as you are concerned, I’d welcome your absence in my home. I ain’t never had no use for you, nor have you for me. There’d be no love lost if you’d just walk away and not set foot on my property again.”
Clint went and stood over Brian Brave Walker, his eyes narrowed. “Go,” he said darkly. “But don’t bring anyone back here thinkin’ you’re going to rescue your mother and sister. I’ll shoot anyone who gets near my property. Even you.”
Soft Wind rose shakily from the bed. Clint saw her and went and held her back as she tried to reach for Brian Brave Walker.
“No!” she cried. “Son, do not listen to him. Do not leave your mother!”
Brian Brave Walker wiped the blood from his mouth on the back of a hand, his eyes wavering into his mother’s. Then he spun around on a moccasined heel and went and stood over the cradle and took a lingering, last look at his sister. He stifled a sob as she gazed up at him with her trusting dark eyes. Never would he see her again!
Turning his eyes away from her he left the cabin in a mad run. He trembled inside as he heard his mother yelling his name over and over again—and then she became quiet.
He closed his eyes and doubled his hands into tight fists at his sides as he envisioned what was now happening to his mother. His father had surely thrown her on the bed and was using her as though she were no better than an animal.
Then his father would take the child away!
“Aieee!” he cried in Cherokee as he broke into a hard run away from the cabin.
Brian Brave Walker had thought of leaving many times. But his concern for his mother had kept him there, with her.
Now it was just too much for him.
He was ten winters of age.
If he was among his true people he would be classified as a brave!
“I must search until I find my mother’s true people,” he whispered. “She has told me often that they are not far away.”
Fearing that Brian Brave Walker would leave her, she had never told him exactly which village she had fled from during the war, having found a refuge in the orphanage when she had been near to starving to death. But he knew that it could not be too far away. He would find it. He would go there.
But how could he tell the elders about his mother?
How could he tell them about his baby sister?
His father’s warnings consumed him. He knew that Clint McCloud would follow through with his threats. He was capable of doing anything. No. Brian Brave Walker could not endanger his mother by telling the truth of her captivity.
Not now, anyhow. But somehow he would find a way to end his father’s tyranny! His mother had to be rescued from a life of cruel treatment wrought upon her by an evil husband.
He ran even harder at the thought of searching the mountains and finally becoming as one with his mother’s people. He would never think again about having blood of that vile, insane white man flowing through his veins. This man had never been a true father.
To Brian Brave Walker, this man was nothing.
Chapter 24
For all my world is in your arms,
My sun and stars are you.
—SARA TEASDALE
The hot August sun was slowly burning away the blue haze of morning. Fearing the posse, and saddened over her uncle being among those men who were after Dancing Cloud, and even herself, Lauralee fought hard to keep up with Dancing Cloud.
But oh, how she missed the comforts of her buggy. She had never stayed on a horse for so long. Her thighs ached. Her bottom was numb and seemed glued to the saddle.
Yet she still forced her steed into a hard gallop now that the forest and the slight mountain ridge had been left behind. They had come out on a smooth meadow. The grass was green and high. A stream of cold, clear water ran along one edge, watering the valley.
Lauralee’s eyes feasted on the water as she rode alongside the stream. Her throat was parched. Her lips burned. Dirt seemed plastered to her face.
“Dancing Cloud,” she cried. “Please, darling. I need a drink. I need to stretch my weary, aching bones. Can’t we ple
ase stop for at least a few moments? The water. I can hardly pass it up. I’m so thirsty. I have never been as thirsty.”
Dancing Cloud wheeled his horse to a quick stop.
Sighing with relief, Lauralee followed his lead.
He rode up to Lauralee and reached a gentle hand to her cheek. “Yes, o-ge-ye, we will stop for water,” he said thickly. “We have left the posse far behind us.”
He yawned and stretched his arms high above his head. “I do not like confessing to how my body needs rest,” he said.
“Dancing Cloud, you have just cause to be tired,” Lauralee said softly. “You were recently wounded. You have not fully regained your strength.”
Her gaze lowered and she gaped openly with alarm when she saw blood spreading on his buckskin shirt, over his shoulder wound. “Lord, Dancing Cloud,” she gasped. “The stitches may have broken loose. We must stop now. You have pushed yourself much more than your body can tolerate. I will bathe your wound. I will get a petticoat from my valise and rip it into strips for a bandage.”
Dancing Cloud looked down at the seepage of blood through his shirt. He reached a hand there and slightly pressed his fingers against it, wincing when pain shot through his wound.
Lauralee saw Dancing Cloud’s discomfort. “See?” she said, her jaw tight with determination. She tried to hide her own discomfort when sliding from the saddle made her aches worsen. She could hardly stand placing her full weight on her feet. There was not one inch of her body that did not ache worse than any toothache that she had ever experienced.
Forcing herself not to react to her discomfort, Lauralee secured her horse’s reins to a low limb of a tree, then took Dancing Cloud’s reins and secured them with her own.
She turned to Dancing Cloud. She frowned with worry as she slowly pushed his fringed buckskin shirt over his head.
She dropped the shirt with alarm when she realized the seriousness of what the hard travel had caused. Several threads were hanging bloody and twisted from his wound, his skin open and raw as blood trickled in a tiny stream from it.
“Damn them,” she said, hating the posse, even her uncle. “Damn them all. Why couldn’t they leave us alone?”
She gazed sadly into Dancing Cloud’s eyes. “Why couldn’t they have believed us?” she murmured. “Especially my Uncle Abner. He saw the sort of man you were. It seems impossible that he could truly believe you are guilty of having stolen that stallion.”
“White men believe what they wish about men with red skin,” Dancing Cloud said, his voice drawn. “Your uncle’s skin is white. Why should he be different from the others?”
He clasped gentle hands to her shoulders. “And remember this, my o-ge-ye,” he said softly. “I am not only Indian. I am also labeled a Rebel. So you see? There are too many things about me that brought anger into the heart and eyes of those who call me a horse thief. Do you not see that this Cherokee need not do anything to be accused? In the white man’s hearts, this Cherokee is already guilty.”
“It’s so unfair,” Lauralee said, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes.
“Many things in life are not fair,” Dancing Cloud said thickly. “You live. You die. That is the way it has been from the beginning of time. What you do between those two certainties is up to each individual. Whether they leave a life they can be proud of? Or whether they choose to be heathen-like. I chose to walk with a proud chin and heart. Those who chase me down now as though I’m no better than a dog? They are of the breed of man whose life is filled with hate and vengeance.”
“I hate to think that of my uncle,” Lauralee said, her voice breaking. “During the short time I was with my aunt and uncle I grew fond of them. I wish that I were wrong about how I am feeling about my uncle now. I see him as . . . as . . . a cad.”
She looked at his wound again, then grabbed his hand and led him to the stream. “Sit, please,” she murmured. “Let me bathe your wound.”
“First I will find a tassel flower plant,” he said softly. “From its dry-powdered leaf I will make a poultice that will draw the blood from my wound.”
After gathering up several of the dry-powdered leaves, Dancing Cloud eased down on the ground, welcoming this moment of reprieve off his horse. He folded his legs beneath him and watched and smiled at Lauralee’s attentiveness to him, in how she cupped the water into her hands, and how she leaned her hands over his wound and allowed the water to trickle freely and slowly across it.
“Are you certain it is all right to place the poultice on the wound?”
“Do you not know that the Indian ofttimes knows more about the property of plants and the cure of diseases than does the trained white botanist or physician?” he said matter-of-factly. “Living as we do in the open air in close communion with nature, we know well the knowledge of properties of plants.”
“I would do anything to see that you are well,” Lauralee said, applying the herbal poultice to his flesh.
“The plant world is friendly to the human species and constantly at the wil1ing service of those in need of their services,” Dancing Cloud said softly.
Lauralee smiled at him, then went to her valise and removed a cotton petticoat from it. She rushed back to Dancing Cloud, surprised when she found him stretched out on his back, asleep. So quickly he had gone to sleep. So easily.
But then why wouldn’t he, she thought to herself. While she had gotten a moment’s sleep back at their campsite, he had kept a lookout. Had he not, the posse would have swept down upon them like a swarm of hornets.
The trees whispered peacefully overhead as the breeze sighed through them. Lauralee found that she was suddenly drowsy, yet she shook off the need of sleep and continued with the task at hand. She ripped long strips of cloth from her petticoat. She bent low over Dancing Cloud. She had a hard time lifting his right shoulder to wrap the bandage around it and beneath his arm. His muscled body seemed the weight of lead as he slept.
But after a while she had the wound comfortably covered. When he awakened she would take a few turns with the bandage across his massive, muscled chest and secure it at his back with a knot.
Lauralee moved to her knees and gazed down at Dancing Cloud with an intense love. She drew a ragged breath. How could anyone accuse him of anything vile?
There was such a gentleness in his expression as he slept. She dared to touch his lips, their sensual fullness. She ran her fingers then across the lean line of his jaw, a jaw that showed strength.
Her pulse racing, she then ran her fingers over his fine-boned frame, across his sleek, copper chest, and then along his broad shoulders.
Again she ran her fingers across his cheeks, along features that were sharply chiseled and masculine.
“Oh, how I love you,” she whispered. She leaned over him and gave him a soft kiss on his lips. “How I adore you.”
Realizing that she needed rest now, she sighed languorously. She crawled to the water. Bending low over it she cupped her hands into it and brought the fresh, cold liquid to her mouth and drank it. She smiled over at the horses. They had wandered to the water and were lapping up long drinks.
Her eyes burned with the need of sleep. She crawled back to Dancing Cloud. She gazed down at him again, then turned her eyes to peer into the distance. Slowly she raked the horizon with them, looking for riders. Dare she give in to her need to sleep?
But dare she not? If she did not get adequate rest how could she go on? Her body was not conditioned to such punishments as riding a horse for long hours, or lack of sleep and rest.
And although her stomach growled with her need of food, sleep and rest seemed more important at this moment. When Dancing Cloud awakened they would take time to eat some more of the provisions that she had taken from her aunt’s pantry.
“Now the sheriff can add ‘thief’ to my itinerary while posting wanted posters on me for helping a prisoner escape,” she said.
Too weary to think further on the present mishaps of her life, Lauralee sank to the ground and folded h
erself against Dancing Cloud’s side. She snuggled close, her one arm thrown over his chest. The drifting off to sleep felt so soft and delicious.
* * *
Lauralee and Dancing Cloud awakened with a start at the same moment when the sound of approaching horses drew closer. They had no chance to rise to their feet. Too soon the posse was there, circled around them on three sides.
Feeling trapped and breathless, Lauralee grabbed for Dancing Cloud’s hand. Her eyes locked with her uncle’s as he dismounted his horse. She gulped hard when he came to her and Dancing Cloud and stood over them, his hands on his hips just above his low-slung Colts.
Her gaze then shifted to Sheriff Decker as he slid out of his saddle and came and stood beside Abner. And then to Deputy Dobbs who sauntered to Sheriff Decker’s other side.
Dancing Cloud eyed his rifle. He had been careless to have left it in its gun boot at the side of his horse. But being so tired and sleepy, his logic had not been as sharp as it should have been.
He slipped an arm around Lauralee. Easily and guardedly he eased her up from the ground with him. His gaze searched slowly from man to man as they stood cold-silent and stiff before him and Lauralee.
Then his attention shifted back to Abner Peterson when he took Lauralee’s hand and urged her forward, away from Dancing Cloud. His insides tightened as he waited to see what Peterson’s next moves might be, and what he decided to do about Lauralee. Could he forgive her for having helped Dancing Cloud escape? Or was she a criminal now in the white man’s eyes?
“Uncle Abner, please don’t take us back to Mattoon,” Lauralee pleaded.
“Lauralee, you assisted in an escape,” Abner said. “Don’t you know the extent of that crime? How you might be sentenced to life imprisonment? Or worse yet—to a hanging?”
Lauralee paled. Her throat constricted, making it impossible for her to speak to her uncle. She wanted to scream at her uncle—ask him how he could treat her this way? If her father were alive, he would come and make Abner Peterson pay for what he was doing, not only to his daughter, but to his close, loyal friend.
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