Authors: Elaine Levine
Logan's Outlaw (4 page)
The dust cloud thickened. The Sioux were returning. Their battle screams ripped through her nerves. She pushed harder against his back, needing the contact to keep her legs from buckling.
Mr. Taggert had his rifle ready, but not up in a firing position. The fierce warriors rode in a wide circle about them, waving their weapons. Ten of them, every one of them bent on death and violence. Sarah knew the joy they took in terrorizing their enemies. It fed their souls more completely than any physical sustenance.
The circle of riders tightened, a lariat of horses and warriors, closing in around them in a blur of dirt. Black-and-white ponies. Bodies painted with war colors, red, black, yellow. Feathers and shields. Sarah tried to focus on one, then another, but they moved too fast, swirling and tightening.
Suddenly, the riders stopped. They formed a half circle around the two of them, facing Mr. Taggert. Every breath Sarah drew was filled with the pale dirt of the arid prairie, clogging her nose and throat, making her eyes water, filling her lungs with grit.
Silence. The quiet was more alarming than the battle screams had been.
Chapter 4
Sarah twisted around to watch what was happening, standing shoulder to ribs with Mr. Taggert. No one moved. No one spoke. A horse flinched now and then when bitten by a fly. Only the dust dared swirl on the remnants of the air currents kicked up by the crazy, circling ride of the warriors.
One of the warriors moved his horse forward, stopping several yards in front of Mr. Taggert. “You trespass on our hunting grounds.”
Sarah had thought she had forgotten the Sioux language she'd learned while a captive, but the first words from the warrior's mouth brought it all slamming back to her. She started to translate for Mr. Taggert, but he cut her off, answering the warrior himself.
“You aren't hunting today. You haven't been hunting for several days,” he said in Sioux. “You've been following us.”
Mr. Taggert, she'd learned from bits of conversation over the last few days, had a series of trading posts from the Dakotas west through Wyoming and south to Texas. She wasn't surprised he could understand Sioux, but he spoke it like a native.
Sarah studied the warrior as she tensed for action. Her hands settled and resettled around the butt of her pistol. He showed no reaction to Mr. Taggert's ability to speak his language, which in itself was proof he was shocked. She wondered if Mr. Taggert knew how sneaky warriors like these could be. If his trading posts were in garrisoned forts, he might have no idea of the Sioux's natural perfidy, especially when dealing with whites.
“I am Cloud Walker.” He nodded his chin toward Sarah. “You have Yellow Moon, a woman of our people. I come to claim her. She is wife to one of our chiefs. I will return her to him.”
How did he know her? She looked at Cloud Walker more closely, but could not remember having met him.
“She belongs to me.”
The warrior regarded Mr. Taggert in a steely gaze. “How is it you speak our tongue?”
“I am Logan Taggert, known as Shadow Wolf among your people.” Mr. Taggert held his rifle across his left forearm and gestured with his right hand, conveying his message as much in words as sign language. “I have trading posts at Bad River and the Big Muddy and other rivers. I trade fairly with your people and have joined many a hunt with Gray Bear. I have smoked many a pipe with Standing Antelope. I am a friend to your people.”
“Then you will know you cannot take a man's wife without paying for her.”
“I didn't take her. She left the Sioux.”
“That was not her choice to make. Her husband, Swift Elk, will be glad we found her.”
Standing with her shoulder against Mr. Taggert's side, Sarah felt the tension that washed through him at the mention of Swift Elk.
“What is done, is done. I claim her. I am willing to meet a bride price equal to her value,” he offered in a calm voice.
“She belongs to our people.”
Mr. Taggert made a dismissive gesture. “She is a white woman. She can't be owned by your people if it isn't her choice.”
The warrior leveled a hard stare at Mr. Taggert. “Why are you alone here with the woman and not in the black coach with the others?”
“They feared you. They sent us to speak to you.”
The warrior studied Mr. Taggert a long moment, then shouted an order to the other warriors. As one, they wheeled their horses and rode after the coach. War cries filled the air.
Silence slowly settled around them. Sarah's knees gave out. She crumpled to the hard ground. Her hands shook as she uncocked her gun and holstered it. “Will they be back?”
“Depends.” Mr. Taggert shrugged.
“On what?”
“On how you left them.” He watched the fading dust cloud. “Did you escape, or were you ransomed?”
“I ran away.”
“Then they'll be back. You still belong to your husband.”
“I never consented to marry Swift Elk. That was no marriage.”
“Your beliefs have no bearing on the facts, Mrs. Hawkins. It's a terrible disgrace for a wife to run away. You will be returned to the tribe and punished for leaving.”
Sarah jumped to her feet. “I was a captive, Mr. Taggert. All of the men in Swift Elk's band used me most cruelly. I won't go back. I don't belong to the tribe.”
Mr. Taggert lifted her satchel and put his arms through each strap so that he could carry it on his back. He tossed his saddlebag over the satchel. “They think you do. A white wife is of great valueâfor ransoming, if nothing else. When you left, you cheated Swift Elk of his valuable propertyâyou.”
He started off down the faint tracks that the stage had followed. Sarah grabbed their bedrolls and hurried after him, her mind sifting through everything that had been said. “You told him I belong to you.”
“You do.”
That wasn't the answer she was expecting. “You have no idea how grateful I am for all you've done for me in the last several days.”
She sent a quick look at Mr. Taggert's hard profile. He seemed either to not be listening or not comprehending what she was saying. “I do need your help to get to Fort Laramie. It's true. But I'll be fine from there to Cheyenne. There's no need for you to commit more of your time on my behalf.”
He shrugged. “I've claimed you. So I am responsible for you. That's how it works.”
“That was only survival negotiations. No one will hold you to it.”
“
I
will hold myself to it.” His pale gaze slashed her way. “My word's all I got at the moment, Mrs. Hawkins. And in case you didn't notice, my word just saved your hide.”
I
will hold myself to it.” His pale gaze slashed her way. “My word's all I got at the moment, Mrs. Hawkins. And in case you didn't notice, my word just saved your hide.”
“Mr. Taggertâ” Sarah adopted a stern tone. “I know nothing about you. You know nothing about me. Strangers don't claim each other.”
“You know I own some trading posts in the region. I am comfortably fixed for money. You're a widow. You got no family to protect you. And you're running from something. What else do we need to know?”
Sarah stopped to glare at him, but his long strides swiftly carried him away. She jogged a bit to catch up to him. “What makes you think I'm running from anything?”
“Besides the sidearm you're packing that you don't know how to use? Or the fact that you're going to Cheyenneâdeeper into the same troubled country that's treated you so bad? A sane woman would be heading back East.”
“I-I have friends in Cheyenne.”
Mr. Taggert stopped walking. “Let's get something straight right now. I don't like liars. I won't lie to you, and you don't lie to me.”
She drew herself up to her full height. “I appreciate your help. I
need
your help. But I am not going to exchange my life for it. You cannot claim me.”
need
your help. But I am not going to exchange my life for it. You cannot claim me.”
He shrugged. “It's your decision.” He looked up at the sky and squinted. “I figure you got between now and when that war party comes back to decide. Me. Or them.”
The wool blankets of the bedrolls she carried were making her arms itch in the afternoon heat. “I will not marry you.”
“I haven't asked you.”
She frowned at him. She was beginning to wonder if the sun and the stress of their situation hadn't gotten to him. “Are you quite sure all your faculties are intact, Mr. Taggert?”
He grinned and flashed a look her way. “You think I'm loco? Because I left a perfectly sound coach to escort a stunningly beautiful womanâwho happens to be the runaway wife of one of the fiercest Sioux chiefs aliveâacross hostile Sioux country on foot?”
“No.” She scratched at her forearm. “Because you got on the stage in the first place. You had your saddle. You could have hired a horse for the price of a seat on the stage. Why would you do that?”
He pulled her satchel off his shoulders and took the bedrolls from her, kneeling to tie them to her bag. He looked up at her, a casual slice of his gray gaze. “Are you so wounded that you think every man is out to harm you?”
She stared down at him. “Yes.”
He stood up and slipped his arms through the handles of her satchel and slung his saddlebag over the top again. He stared at her for an uncomfortable moment. “That, Mrs. Hawkins, is the most honest thing you've said to me yet. I have never hurt a woman, and I don't intend to start now.” He took her hand and started forward again.
“I don't know what you mean when you say you âclaim' me.”
“Neither do I.” He grinned at her. His smile crinkled the corners of his eyes, curved the hard edges of his mouth. “I've never claimed a woman before.”
“Mr. Taggertâ”
“Logan,” he interrupted her.
“If it's all the same to you, I'd rather we weren't on such a familiar basis with each other as to use each other's given names.”
“It isn't all the same to me.”
She pressed her lips together, terribly confused by the man holding her hand. She looked at his hard profile as he scanned the horizon. A shadow from the brim of his hat slashed across his face. Best just say what needed to be said. She'd long since lost her modesty. “I am not prepared to share my body with you or anyone.”
Ever again.
Ever again.
His hand tightened marginally. This time when his gaze met her eyes, there was no humor in it. “I haven't asked you to. When I do, you'll know it, so there's no use worrying about when I'm going to ask. And you'll want it, too, or not a damn thing will happen between us.”
“Then why are you holding my hand?”
“Because you're scared. And I'm not. You can let go anytime you want, honey.”
Sarah gritted her teeth. Why did he have to say that? And sound so nice saying it? He was carrying her satchel, their bedrolls, and his saddlebagâeverything they owned, a burden that, among the Sioux, she would have been expected to carry. And it felt good to hold his hand.
She let go of him.
“Why don't you tell me what trouble it is you're running from? Maybe there's something I can do. At the very least, I'll have a better idea about how to keep you safe.”
Sarah said nothing for several moments as she tried to figure out how much she could reveal without telling him anything significant. In the end, she decided to tell him the story her husband had told her. “My husband was investigating corruption at several of the Indian agencies in the Dakota Territory. He made some powerful enemies. They didn't want him to publish what he'd discovered.” How easily she'd fallen for that tale. Until Eugene had asked her to forge several land deeds.
Mr. Taggert whistled low and shook his head. “That's it? That's all you're gonna tell me? There's gotta be more to it than that.”
“That's all I can tell you.”
“Sooner or later, I'm gonna need the whole story.”
She said nothing more, and he didn't press her. “Where do you think we are?” she asked, changing the subject.
“By foot, about a week northeast of Fort Laramie. Let's move closer to the tree line. We'll be less obvious.”
It was well into the evening before they saw the smoke rising on the distant horizon. Sarah cried out and started forward at a quick pace.
“Whoaaâhold up there,” Logan grabbed her arm, keeping her at his side.
“That's the stage, isn't it?”
“Can't know for sure. But it's likely.” He pulled the pack off his shoulders and set it on the ground. They would stop here for the night. Both of them were exhausted. And this spot was somewhat defensible, should they need cover.
“We've got to go help them!”
“You'll never make it before dark. That fire's at least three miles away. And you don't know what's between us and them.”
Sarah shook her head, the blood rapidly leaving her face. Her eyes went big and dilated so that the warm brown of her irises looked black. Her gaze became unfocused. It was as if she'd gone somewhere inside herself, Logan thought. A place of terror.
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