The Ranger and the Redhead
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Lynna Banning
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Chapter One
Nebraska, 1861
The column of black smoke spiraled into a noon sky so blue it looked painted. Will reined in his mare and watched the smoke dissipate in the hot wind. Seven, maybe eight miles ahead, he calculated.
He didn’t have time to ride out of his way, but he had to know. McCray’s orders would have to wait. Might even save him a few hundred miles of tracking a man through sage scrub and dried-up water holes. He nudged the mare forward across the scorching plain.
By the time he reached the smoldering remains of the wagon, he’d pulled his neckerchief up over his mouth and nose to block the acrid smell.
No horses. No oxen. Just the sheared-off leather lines where the reins had been cut. Sioux, most likely. Must be a wagon train up ahead; stragglers didn’t last long out here.
He dismounted and prodded the piles of blackened cinders with the toe of his boot. Nothing. No bones, anyway. The wagon occupants must have fled on foot.
Will remounted, pulled his hat low to shade his eyes from the sun and scanned the flat plain in a slow circle. A person on foot would head west, toward water. Will turned his horse in that direction.
The old man lay facedown about four miles from the trail, an arrow in his back and a strip of his scalp missing. Poor bastard. Will slid off the horse and dragged the corpse into the shade of a cottonwood, untied his camp shovel and sweated for an hour digging a shallow grave.
He had just shoveled the last spadeful of dirt over the body when something caught his eye. A bit of white fabric fluttering on a branch of sage. He strode toward it with a sinking feeling in his gut.
Lace. A scrap of white lace, maybe torn off a petticoat.
A cold chill crawled up his back. A woman.
He thought over the possibilities. If they’d wanted her dead, she’d be lying alongside the man, an arrow in her back. If they’d taken her alive, they’d use her for ransom or trade or…worse.
He mounted and rode in widening circles until he found another piece of lace trapped against a tumble-weed and the tracks of an unshod horse. They were moving north. Sioux country.
By the time he’d traveled another hour he’d recovered three more bits of white petticoat and the horses were easy to track. He figured it had to be White Eagle’s band, and now he knew exactly where they were taking her.
Hell and damnation. That’s the last thing he needed now, a dustup with White Eagle. But he spurred the horse forward anyway.
The air inside the stifling tepee smelled of dust and something dark and smoky. With each choking breath Charlotte thanked God she was alive and tried not to think about the fate of Mr. Thomas. Tried desperately not to think about her own fate, after the Indian had unceremoniously dumped her off his pony and shoved her inside the deer-hide structure.
Would they kill her? Charlotte swallowed. How did Indians kill their captives, starve them to death? Torture them?
Or would they force her to…She shut her eyes. Surely this was not the sacrifice Papa had meant when she’d told him of her plans. Why, why had Mr. Thomas not stayed with the wagon train? A weakened axle, he had said. When the Indians had swept toward them, the old man shouted for her to run.
She managed to get only a few hundred yards before she was snatched off her feet and tossed onto a hot, almost bare lap. By the time the Indian slowed the horse to a walk, her stomach felt as if it had been pounded with a sledgehammer. Unable to help herself, she had vomited onto the horse’s withers, and the brave had backhanded her. Her jaw still ached.
It felt unreal, like a terrible nightmare. As if she were sleepwalking, not thinking or feeling, just sitting here like a trapped animal, trying to force her lungs to draw air in and out. Her mind felt as sluggish as cold molasses. And she was tired, so tired.
How long had she been here? From the heat inside the tepee, and the amount of light filtering in through the stretched skin wall, she guessed it was late afternoon. No one on the wagon train knew what had happened. No one would even know where to look for her.
Her throat was parched. Her belly was knotted, whether from hunger or terror she didn’t know. It just hurt. Oh, God, what was going to happen to her?
She crept to the door flap, pushed it aside and peeked out through the crack. An old woman, her spine bent like a twisted hairpin, labored slowly across an open area surrounded by other tepees. She disappeared into the largest tent and did not reemerge. Charlotte’s heart sank. Weren’t they going to feed her? She would give anything for a sip of water.
Dropping the flap, she slumped down on the pile of buffalo robes stacked opposite the door flap and tried to pray. Dear God, I feel so alone. Please, please help me to be brave.
The buzz of insects in the stifling interior made her head pound. She rubbed her forehead to ease the dull ache.
An hour went by, she guessed. Maybe two. Lord help her, was she going to die here in an Indian camp? Would her life end before she had a chance to put her dreams to the test?
A faint scratching sound behind her turned her blood to ice water. A pause, then another scritch-scritch on the tepee wall, as if a fingernail were scraping over the tight deerskin. Then came a voice, speaking so quietly Charlotte wasn’t sure she really heard it.
“Ma’am? Are you in there?”
She moved toward the voice, pulling her arms tight over her belly. “Who are you?” she whispered.
“Name’s Bondurant. Followed your trail.”
Charlotte felt a sudden urge to cry. The strips of petticoat she had torn off and dropped along the way had worked. Someone had seen them, followed them to the camp. She clamped her teeth shut over a sob.
“Ma’am? Are you—” he hesitated “—all right?”
No! She wanted to scream out the word, but caution held her tongue in check. “I am unharmed,” she murmured. “But awfully thirsty. Have you come to take me away from here?”
“I’ve got a plan. Can you hold on a little longer?”
A plan! Oh, thank the Lord, the man had come to rescue her. “Y-yes, I can,” she replied.
“Okay, listen up. I’m gonna circle around and ride straight into the camp.”
Charlotte sucked her breath in. “You can’t be serious. They’ll kill you!”
She thought she heard a tired sigh. “Don’t talk, ma’am. Just listen.”
She nodded, then realized he couldn’t see her.
“Whatever you see or hear, don’t do anything. Don’t react in any way, no matter what.”
Again she nodded. “I understand, Mr. Bondurant.”
She huddled in the airless enclosure, reminding herself to stay calm for what seemed like another hour, until an outcry of voices rang through the camp. Creeping forward, she again pushed aside a corner of the door flap.
A tall, hard-looking man in a black hat banded in silver conchas stepped a dark horse into the center of the camp. Children grabbed at his boots, his stirrups, screaming with excitement.
The man waited for some minutes, his hands folded loosely on the pommel, his face unsmiling. Gradually the commotion died away, and then an imposing Indian with a regal air about him approached. He waved the children away with a sweep of his arm and stalked toward the sinewy man on horseback.
Charlotte squeezed her lids shut. She couldn’t watch one man murder another. Killing went against everything she believed in.
When she heard no scuffling sounds, no cry of aggression or pain, she opened her eyes and peered out. Five fierce-looking Indians were now gathered behind the chief—at least she thought he must be the chief since his beaded neckpiece was the most ornate. They studied the tall man with sullen faces.
The man—Mr. Bondurant, she remembered—raised one hand and spoke an Indian word. The chief did the same. Mr. Bondurant dismounted, but he kept his hands on the reins. She heard more Indian words, and then a guttural snarl as the brave who had captured her gestured toward her tepee, then touched his fist to his bare chest.
Bondurant shook his head. The chief barked something and the tall man unbuckled his gun belt, dropped it over his saddle and began to unbutton his shirt.
The chief pulled a wicked-looking knife from his belt and offered it to the tall man. The brave who had spoken strode forward, touched the point of his own knife to the tall man’s blade, and then the two men crouched and began circling each other.
In an instant Charlotte understood. They were going to fight for her! Her stomach roiled. Men—Indian or white—were brutal. She opened her mouth to cry out, but Mr. Bondurant’s words came back to her. Whatever you see or hear, do nothing.
Through a haze of terror, she watched the Indian brave and the white man leap and plunge at each other. She wished for no man’s death, but dear God, Mr. Bondurant had to win. He had to!
Dust from the men’s scrabbling feet puffed into the hot air. Both fighters gleamed with sweat, breathing heavily through open mouths.
She turned her face away. She couldn’t bear to watch.
A scream tore through the still air, and she jerked her head back to the tent opening. She couldn’t not watch.
The white man, Bondurant, had sliced the Indian’s chest. The brave lurched forward crazily, his knife arm flailing. She saw Bondurant’s arm come up from below at the same instant the Indian’s blade slashed into the white man’s neck where it joined the shoulder.
Charlotte gripped the deer-hide flap and stared in horror as the brave’s blade flashed again and met skin. Mr. Bondurant staggered as the Indian fell on him, his weapon lifted. But the brave’s body slumped suddenly, slipped down the length of the white man’s torso and crumpled at his feet.
A great shout went up. The chief stepped forward and made a sign with his hand, and the white man nodded. Tears stung her eyes.
Footsteps came toward the tepee and stopped. “Ma’am?” a raspy voice said.
“I’m here,” she called. Her jaw ached when she spoke and she realized she’d been clenching her teeth.
“Let’s go.” He moved the flap aside and waited.
She tried to rise, but her legs trembled uncontrollably. “Now? I am not sure I can.”
“You can,” he snapped.
She moved forward, her legs shaking under her weight.
Will opened his mouth to hurry her up just as she stepped through the opening. Jupiter and Jesus, would you look at that!
She had red, red hair, tangled wildly about her shoulders, and she wore a blue dress with a ruffle at the hem. The sight of her took whatever breath he had left clean out of him. Any second now he’d remember how to inhale, and she’d disappear in a puff of conjure-man smoke.
What the hell was a woman like her doing on a wagon train? Hell, an Indian would kill her just for her hair!
“Come on, ma’am.” He shrugged into his shirt and pivoted toward his horse. “Stay close,” he ordered.
He reached his hand behind him, felt her cold fingers wrap tight around his knuckles. When he reached the mare, he dropped her hand and strapped on his gun belt. He mounted, favoring his right arm, then reached his left down to swing her up behind him.
She stood looking at him, her upturned face white as his grandma’s drawers. And her eyes. So wide and frightened, he wondered if she was going to faint. Another damn Eastern female. Weak in body and frail in spirit.
She didn’t faint, just stood there clasping his elbow. Then he noticed her eyes again, and the spit went right out of him. They were a soft, dark gray, almost black, and the expression in their depths made him hungry for something he couldn’t even begin to name.
Joseph, Mary and Jupiter, too! For a moment he forgot the stinging pain in his shoulder, the dust caked in his nostrils, and simply stared at her. In the next instant he bent to haul her up behind him.
“Wait! My skirt will tear.”
“Ruck it up between your knees.”
Without another word Will hoisted her behind him, signed to White Eagle and walked the mare slowly out of the camp. He held the steady, slow pace until they were out of sight. “Hang on,” he said over his shoulder, then kicked the animal into a gallop. The woman made a little sound and grabbed him tight around the waist. For some reason he didn’t want to think about, he didn’t mind.
He rode until he was sure they weren’t followed and the sun dipped below the horizon. His throat cried out for water and her head drooped against his back in exhaustion. In half an hour it would be full dark; better find a place for the two of them to bed down for the night.
