hands. He walked roughly toward Tess. Seeing his face, she almost
panicked.
She almost ran.
"Try it. I'd love it if you did!" he told her, his eyes narrowing. He
meant it. He liked the chase, he liked the fight and he even liked the
smell of blood.
She held out her hands mutely. David looped the rope around them
tightly, tugging hard on the knot. Then he caught her arm and dragged
her past the horses to the center of the little clearing where they had
paused. He shoved her down to her knees and warned her, "Sit! Just sit?
He looked over to Jeremiah.
"There's a creek down past the scrub bush over there. Nothing much. But
you can go get rid of that paint. Then I'll decide if I trust you to
keep an eye on her so I can do the same!"
Jeremiah hesitated.
"Don't you go getting' no ideas, now, David Birch."
"I ain't going to get any ideas! I want to get this blasted paint off,
and that's all!"
Jeremiah walked to the bundles and picked up a satchel of clothing.
He stared at David, then walked toward the brush.
Tess kept her eyes on David. He smiled as he watched her in turn.
"You think you're going to get around Jeremiah, don't you? Well, you're
not going to. I'm going to see to that.
You're going to reach old Chief Nalte, and then you won't have to worry
about writing those rabble-rousing pieces in that newspaper of yours
anymore, ever again.
You'll have lots of other things to think about." He cackled with
laughter.
"Lots and lots of other things. Like raising a whole little troop of
papooses, yeah." ,. Tess edge~l-around in the dirt, turning her back on
him.
He laughed all the harder, then he came forward and jerked her head back
so her eyes watered as they met his.
"I'm going to enjoy knowing where you are. Just like I enjoyed hearing
Slater's skull crush this morning. I really got a kick out of that."
She forced herself to smile.
"Maybe his skull didn't crush," she said very softly.
David gritted his teeth and yanked harder on her hair. "He's gone, lady.
Dead and gone. And you don't need to worry about that no more, either."
He walked away, leaving her in peace at last. In time, Jeremiah
returned, and he became her silent guard.
She hadn't the energy to say anything to him. They sat in silence while
the darkness fell upon them. When David re.
turned, the two men made a fire. There was cold chicken to eat and water
from canteens, but they wouldn't untie Tess's hands, and the effort to
eat suddenly seemed too great. She left the food, sipped some water and
lay down in the dirt.
She tried to tell herself that Jamie was alive. Any minute now he would
come rushing out from the bushes and kill the two men and take her away.
But he did not come. She closed her eyes in misery and tried to forget
the nightmare visions of the day.
Jeremiah came over and tossed a blanket around her shoulders and shoved
a pack beneath her head for a pillow.
"Don't think about going nowhere," he warned her. David obviously didn't
think the warning was enough. He stood and walked to the piles by the
packhorse and came back with a good length of rope. She tried to inch
away from him, but he tied one end of the rope around her ankle.
Pinching her cheek, he spoke directly into her face.
"If you move, I'll feel it. If you run, I'll make you pay for it." He
walked away with the other end of the rope in his hand.
It didn't really matter. If she had been threatened by evexy demon in
hell, she couldn't have run that night. She was too weary. Tears stung
her eyes.
When she closed them, she saw Jamie again, fighting, then falling. And
she heard his whisper.
I think I'm falling in love with you. It hurt to close her eyes; it hurt
to open them. She prayed for sleep against the nightmare images. She
tried to tell herself that he was still alive. But he would have come
for her if he was alive. He would have come.
And if he was not alive, well, then, she didn't want to live, either.
Jamie was alive, if only just barely.
Jori found him around midnight, when the moon was full and high. The
wagon had come home without Jamie or Tess, but very late. Jon had to try
and track them from town in the darkness, and even when he had found
signs that the wagon had stopped and the two of them had walked toward
the river, it still took him time to find Jamie's still, crumpled body.
He drew off his buckskin jacket and wrapped it around his friend. He
touched the wound at Jamie's temple where the blood had dried. Carefully
moving his fingers over the skull, he decided that it was not cracked or
crushed. He took his kerchief to the river and soaked it and brought it
back to Jamie, cleansing the bloo~way. Jamie's body was icy cold.
He needed warmth, and quickly.
Jon rose carefully and lifted his friend's body into his arms. He called
to his pinto and the animal obediently trotted over to him. Bracing
Jamie's weight with his hand upon the pommel, he managed to somehow
swing up with Jamie in his arms. Then he made a clucking sound and the
animal took off at a smooth lope.
At the ranch, Dolly, Hank and Jane were waiting with anxious concern.
When Jori burst in with Jamie's half naked body, Jane gasped and turned
white.
"Don't you dare faint on me, young lady!" Dolly ordered her.
"Bring him right to the sofa, Jori. Jane, you run upstairs and get
blankets, lots of them. And you, Hank, I'm going to need a sewing kit
for that wound.
Some water and ~ome alcohol to clean him up, and maybe a little for the
lieutenant to sip. My, that's a mean and nasty bash!" Hank was on his
way out. Jane was still staring in horror. "Move!" Dolly commanded her.
In a moment the young woman was back with blankets. Jon draped them
around Jamie and rubbed his feet. Hank ~turned with water and a sewing
kit, and Dolly began to clean the wound. A long gash ran into the left
side of Jamie's temple.
"It's amazing he's still breathing!" Dolly murmured. "He's Missouri
tough," Jon told her.
"He'll make it, you'll see."
"I intend to do my best to see that he does," Dolly assured Jon. She
looked at him anxiously.
"What about Tess.9" Jon shook his head.
"I don't know. I had' to get him back here before he died. I'm going
back out to see what I can find." He liftext his hat to Dolly and left.
At the door he paused and looked back.
"Now, don't you let him die."
"I'm just going to sew him up. And I'm going to pray." Jon hurried out.
But when he returned to the river, he discovered that whoever had
attacked Jamie and Tess had made an escape through the water. He would
need daylight to track them. There was nothing he could do that night.
But maybe there was. It was late, but saloons had a tendency to cater to
the late crowd. Maybe he could find out more from casual conversation
over a poker game than he could from a broken branch.
He turned the pinto toward town.
Jamie's d~s were occasionally dark and occasionally erotic, but always
fevered.
He fought giants with buffalo headdresses. Then the battle would fade
away, the powder would dissipate, the roar of the guns would cease. He
wasn't fighting Yankees anymore, he tried to tell himself in his dream
world. He was a Yankee, dressed in blue. He was a specialist in Indian
affairs, a linguist. And he knew Indians. He hadn't needed Jon Red
Feather to tell him that the Apache didn't like scalping. It was a
contaminating thing to them, and it had to be done with 191 careful