Clint raised his hand and backhanded Soft Wind across the face. “Shut up, squaw,” he grumbled as he untied the ropes around Lauralee’s ankles. “Mind your business. This has nothing to do with you.”
Soft Wind rubbed her aching jaw as she backed away from Clint. She eyed the woman again, then Clint, then without further thought, ran from the cabin.
Clint ran to the door. “Come back here, you bitch!” he shouted, then fell facedown halfway in and out of the door when Lauralee came up from behind him and butted him in the back with her throbbing, aching head.
Clint scrambled to his feet. He looked desperately through the trees and saw that he had lost sight of Soft Wind, then looked quickly at Lauralee as she tried to run past him.
“You ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Clint said, grabbing her by the arms, backing her up toward the bed. “You’re mine. All mine.” He laughed throatily. “I bet that Injun is goin’ wild about now, wonderin’ where you are, and who with. He won’t find me. My cabin is well hid. No one knows about it except for me and Soft Wind . . . and . . .”
He looked over his shoulder, having almost forgotten about Brian Brave Walker.
But when Lauralee kicked at him with her moccasined feet, he knew that he had enough on his hands here in the cabin. Let Soft Wind go. He’d be glad to be rid of her. And she knew enough not to tattle on him. He had warned her often enough about never telling anyone about how he treated her and the kid.
“Seems not only my kid, but now my wife, has run out on me,” Clint said, laughing boisterously. “Well, I was glad to be rid of Brian Brave Walker. I’m just as glad that my squaw is gone.” He leaned into Lauralee’s face. “Since you were so willin’ to be Dancin’ Cloud’s squaw, surely you won’t mind bein’ mine.”
Lauralee’s head was spinning. Not so much from pain, but from discovering that this man was Brian Brave Walker’s father!
Now she understood all too well why Brian hated and mistrusted white people so much. Surely he had been terribly mistreated by his father who was a white man!
She wished that her mouth wasn’t gagged. She had so much that she wanted to say to Clint McCloud!
Instead, she closed her eyes and prayed that Dancing Cloud would find this cabin and rescue her from this vile man. As she lay there she could not help but relive over and over again the rape and the murder of her mother all those years ago. She could hardly bear to think that she might follow in her mother’s footsteps and be victimized by the very . . . same . . . man. He surely would not want her to live to point an accusing finger at him.
* * *
Sobbing and frightened, Soft Wind ran blindly through the forest. She looked continuously over her shoulder, fearful of the moment that her husband would catch up with her. He would kill her. She knew that he would kill her. Had he not told her often enough that he would if she left him?
Even when he had left her for weeks and months at a time she had been too afraid to leave. She had known that he would search until every stone in the forest was upturned to find her.
“My people!” she sobbed, gazing up at the smoky haze that circled the mountain. “So near, yet so far. I must not go to them. I will bring danger to their very doorsteps!”
She stumbled over the roots of a tree that grew gnarled across the ground, then regained her balance and ran onward. “Brian Brave Walker!” she cried. “My son! My son! Where are you, my son? My baby. Where did my husband take our baby?”
She ran up a steep path. When she heard the sound of horse’s hooves behind her, she made a sharp turn and ran at breakneck speed through the trees.
Then her breath was stolen away and she screamed as she came to the brink of a cliff that plunged into a chasm cut by an ancient stream. She tried to stop, to steady herself, but toppled over and found herself hurtling through space.
She grunted with pain as she fell hard against the rocks below, her head making a cracking sound as it fell back against a boulder.
The black void of unconsciousness followed.
Dancing Cloud drew a tight rein and listened. His eyes narrowed. He had just heard the bloodcurdling scream of a woman.
“Lauralee?” he whispered, his blood turning cold at the thought of what may have happened to her.
He wheeled his white stallion around and edged his horse through the denseness of the forest and followed the route of the scream. He stopped again when he saw a cliff a short distance away.
Securing his horse’s reins beneath a rock, he ran to the ledge and looked downward. He was too high up to tell who lay on the rocks far below him.
Breathless, his pulse racing, he began making his way down the side of the cliff. . . .
Chapter 29
While we live, in love let us so persevere,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
—ANNE BRADSTREET
Finally at the bottom of the cliff Dancing Cloud ran to the woman and knelt beside her. Now knowing for certain that this woman was not Lauralee, he breathed in a heavy, quavering breath of air. Her skin was copper and through the threads of red blood running through her hair he could see that it was coal black.
With trembling hands he smoothed her hair back from her face just as her eyelashes fluttered slightly open.
“Clint . . . and . . . woman,” Soft Wind said raspily. She looked wildly up at Dancing Cloud and lifted a shaky, weak hand, pointing in the direction of her cabin. “Cabin. Go. Help woman.”
Dancing Cloud’s eyebrows raised. This woman knew a man named Clint? Could it be Clint McCloud?
And she had spoken of a woman.
Was that woman Lauralee?
He turned his eyes where she was still pointing, then looked down at her again.
“You said the name Clint,” he said guardedly. “Is his last name McCloud?”
She slowly nodded, then slipped back into unconsciousness.
“Clint McCloud,” he ground out between gritted teeth. “He is here. He abducted Lauralee!”
He was torn with what to do. This woman was in no shape to be put on his horse and carried as he searched for the cabin where he might find Lauralee.
Yet he feared leaving her there, unprotected.
His mind was scrambled.
He wanted to do what was right for this woman.
Yet Lauralee’s life lay in the balance if he waited much longer!
Lifting Soft Wind into his arms be found a narrow path that led up the side of the cliff that he hadn’t known was there when he had come to her rescue. He held her close and climbed the steep path.
When he reached the top of the butte, he knew that he had no choice but to leave the woman and come back for her later. Hopefully he would have Lauralee with him. A travois could be made and the woman would be transported to his village. There she would be among people of her own skin coloring. She would be cared for.
Hopefully she would survive.
He gently laid Soft Wind beneath a tree, then went to his horse and took the blanket from his saddle. He spread this on the ground on a soft bed of leaves, then placed Soft Wind there and turned the corners of the blankets up over her.
Knowing that she had arrived there by foot meant that she had surely not traveled that far. He would go by foot in search of the cabin. His arrival would be less noticed that way. He would surprise Clint McCloud. He would rescue Lauralee.
Wonder of how Clint McCloud could be there, so close to Dancing Cloud’s mountain, and why this woman had apparently been with him, filled Dancing Cloud’s thoughts as he grabbed his rifle.
He glanced at the woman once again, worried about her welfare.
But knowing that Lauralee’s own welfare was in question, he ran through the tangled vines and thick brush, his eyes constantly searching for signs of a cabin.
* * *
Clint shoved Lauralee onto his bed and straddled her. He smiled smugly down at her as he untied her wrists, his wicked eyes telling her everything that she needed to know about what he had pl
anned for her next.
She had to get away.
She could not allow herself to die the same hideous death as her mother!
She had too much to live for now.
Her Cherokee chief.
Oh, what a life they could have together.
And Brian Brave Walker.
She wanted to mother him into loving her!
“I can’t get over how much you look like a woman I came across during the war,” Clint said, jerking the rope away from her wrists. He held her down by the force of his body as he continued straddling her. “I raped more than one Rebel woman. But there was this one woman in particular I will never forget.”
He grabbed Lauralee by her hair, causing her to wince. “The hair was the color of yours. Her eyes were the same,” he snarled. He jerked her face close to his, so close she could feel the heat of his foul breath.
He released his hold on her hair and traced her facial contours with a finger. “And by damn,” he said huskily. “She looked just like you in the face.”
Breathing hard, waiting for the right moment to make her move, and seeing him as quite foolish for releasing her bonds, Lauralee glared up at him. She tried not to hear him paint the same description of her mother in the same breath that he had spoken of raping her. Her anger was fueled enough already to kill him. If he didn’t stop his bragging she knew that she could not stop at just killing him. She would humiliate him first in the worst way a man could be humiliated.
If... only . . . she got the chance.
If only she could grab his pistol and disarm him. She knew where she would like to shoot him, right where his thoughts seemed always centered, as well as his ego!
For her mother, for all of those other women he had raped and murdered, for herself and the life she had been forced to lead because of him, she would make him pay.
And for his son, Brian Brave Walker, whose life had probably been filled with abuse and pain, she would make him pay.
Even for this Indian woman who had surely been forced to be his love slave, Lauralee would take care of this man and make sure he never fulfilled his lusts with another woman’s body.
Once his body was mutilated worse than having been maimed in the leg, he could lust, but would never again be able to act upon those loathsome feelings.
Clint jerked his shirt open, causing buttons to pop off. His eyes narrowed into Lauralee’s. “See these scars on my chest?” he said between clenched teeth. “This woman, the one you resemble, gave them to me. She was a hellcat, that one.” He laughed boisterously. “These scars? I wear them proudly. They are a reminder of my victories in the South. And I ain’t speakin’ about the sort gained by shootin’ off firearms. My favored victories were those I found while with the beautiful southern ladies.”
Not able to take any more of his bragging, and seeing that he was somewhat off guard as he glanced down long enough to admire the long, lean scratches that ran like paths through his thick, dark, and kinky chest hairs, Lauralee reached for his face and went for his eyes with her sharp fingernails.
Before he could stop her she had drawn blood around his eyes.
Grabbing for his face, he let out a loud cry of pain.
Seizing the opportunity, Lauralee gave him a shove, causing him to lose his balance.
She then raised a knee and planted it squarely in his groin.
This sent him from the bed yowling and clutching himself.
Lauralee rolled from the bed. Her eyes were on a holstered pistol that hung from a peg on the wall.
Her heart pounding so much that she felt as though her body was one large throbbing, she made a lunge for the pistol.
Just as she had it in her hand she screamed with pain when Clint grabbed her by the hair again and gave it a hard yank. The pain was so severe it felt as if her entire scalp had been pulled from her head.
He dragged her to the floor.
He released her hair and placed a foot on her stomach as he bent over to reach for his pistol.
“Ain’t you a hellcat?” He chuckled. “Just like that lady I was tellin’ you about.”
In Lauralee’s mind’s eye she recalled her mother fighting off the Yankee, only to be knocked to the floor over and over again.
Lauralee had been too afraid to move as she had gazed at the man’s holstered pistol. She had wanted to run from beneath the staircase to the man and grab the pistol. But her father had always taught her the dangers of firearms. He had told her never to touch his pistol. He had warned her that curious children accidentally shot themselves every day.
He had put the fear of God in her about firearms; so much that she had not been able to take the man’s firearm away from him when she had the opportunity while . . . he . . . was raping her mother.
The guilt tore at her heart even now for having not saved her mother. She remembered closing her eyes and saying the prayer that she had said with her mother every night before she went to sleep....
“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
She had said that prayer over and over again until suddenly it was quiet in her house.
From her hiding place beneath the staircase she had peeked out and found the man gone and her mother lying lifelessly still, her clothes torn, her arms and legs spread out strangely, her eyes staring, forever staring.
These thoughts crashing through her mind, like wildfires raging through prairie grass, gave Lauralee the courage and strength to knock Clint away from her.
When he fell, she grabbed his pistol, then scrambled to her feet.
Breathing hard, huffing and puffing, she stood over him.
“Now do you want to tell me again about raping my mother?” Lauralee said venomously, not even recognizing her own voice. With her free hand she wove her fingers through her hair. “See this hair? My mother’s hair was the same color.” She glared at him, her eyes narrowing. “See my eyes? My father’s eyes were the same color as mine. But so were my mother’s.”
She waved the pistol toward him. “See those scars you are so proud of on your chest?” she cried. “My mother’s fingernails inflicted those wounds. I look at them proudly. At least she was able to inflict some measure of pain on you before you . . . before you . . .”
She stopped. There were more urgent things on her mind besides reliving that dreadful day over and over again. She steadied her pistol with her other hand, keeping a steady aim on Clint.
“Get undressed,” she flatly ordered.
“What?”
“You heard me,” Lauralee said, her voice breaking. “Get undressed. I have something to do to repay you for what you did to my mother and countless other women and people of your past.”
“What are you going to do?” Clint whined, slipping his shirt off. “Please don’t hurt me.”
“Listen to you beg,” Lauralee said, laughing. “Did those women beg? Did you enjoy hearing them beg as I am enjoying hearing you plead with me?”
Clint cowered beneath the threat of the gun, and the sound of her voice, so cold, so ruthless.
Lauralee cocked the pistol. “Damn you, Yankee,” she hissed. “Get undressed. I’m not going to shoot you dead. I only intend to make it impossible for you ever to rape women again.”
“You don’t plan to shoot my . . .” Clint stammered, paling.
“Exactly,” Lauralee said, a slow, smug smile lifting her lips. “My father taught me long ago not to touch firearms and I never disobeyed my father.” Her eyes glimmered into Clint’s. “But I’m a big girl now. I need no one telling me what or what not to do. I have my own mind. I have my own need . . . for revenge.”
“Lord,” Clint gasped, his breeches dropping to his ankles.
Lauralee’s gaze moved slowly over him, disgusted at the sight of him. When her eyes reached that part of him that she planned to remove with a bullet, maybe two, she found his hairy hands covering his manhood.
“If I have to, I
’ll shoot right through your hands to get to that disgusting part of your anatomy that you’ve misused all of your ugly life,” Lauralee said, shrugging nonchalantly.
The sound of rushing feet approaching the cabin outside, took Lauralee off guard. Instinctively, she looked over her shoulder.
That gave Clint enough time to jump her, his wooden leg dragging clumsily behind him as he grabbed Lauralee by a wrist.
When she dropped the gun, it went off.
Lauralee wrenched her wrist free and turned to Clint. Her eyes widened as he sank to his knees, blood seeping through his fingers as he clutched at his chest.
“You . . . damn . . . bitch,” Clint managed to say in a sour whisper. “You . . . damn . . . Rebel.”
Lauralee jumped back as Clint’s body spasmed, then fell forward.
Her pulse racing, her eyes wide, Lauralee stared down at the Yankee. His body was still. She was almost certain that he wasn’t breathing.
She inched back from him, afraid to feel for a pulse in his throat. If he was still clinging to life, he could grab her wrist. He might even reach for the pistol. It lay only a few inches from one of his hands.
Lauralee turned quickly around when she heard someone enter the cabin behind her. When she found Dancing Cloud there, her feelings rushed out in a torrent of tears.
Sobbing, she ran to him and flung herself into his arms.
Dancing Cloud held her tightly, his eyes locked on Clint McCloud. Totally nude and lying in a pool of blood, the man was slumped over, his knees drawn beneath him.
“Dancing Cloud, is he dead?” Lauralee asked, clinging tightly to him, her cheek pressed hard against the soft fabric of his buckskin shirt. “I dropped the pistol. It went off. Is he dead? Truly dead?”
Dancing Cloud leaned a bit sideways, enabling him to see Clint’s eyes. “His eyes are locked in a death stare,” he said thickly. “Ii, yes, I would say that he is dead.”
Lauralee crept from his arms. She moved behind him and leaned out only enough to see Clint. “Please make sure for me,” she murmured. “I’ve got to know that we have nothing else to fear from that man.”
She shivered and clasped and unclasped her hands nervously as Dancing Cloud went to Clint and kicked him over onto his back. She bit her lower lip nervously as Dancing Cloud stooped down onto his haunches and placed his fingertips to Clint’s neck.
Wild Abandon Page 29
