Savage Abandon (8 page)

“And you think I should believe that?” Wolf Hawk said stiffly. He nodded toward her father. “I will give you time with your father, but then you and the tiny man must come with me and my warriors to my village. That will draw the other two men there to rescue you. It will be their second mistake, for I will not allow myself to be fooled by a mere woman.”

He looked her slowly up and down, then gazed
into her eyes. “What man could leave not only the pelts behind, but also you?” he said thickly. “You are beautiful, and though you are so small, you have the spirit of a wolf.

“We will take not only you to the village, but also the pelts. That will be enough to eventually lure them there. When they do come, they will get far more than they expect.”

Mia saw the uselessness in begging him any more. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to block out the terrible picture of her father lying there, dead, then looked at him again.

“Papa, oh, Papa, what am I to do?” she whispered.

Mia was so distraught over her father’s death, she found it hard to go on. She was thankful that at least the young chief was allowing her to bury her father before she was taken to his village as a captive.

Mia had no idea what lay ahead of her. She knew nothing of any Indian tribe’s habits, except for what she had read of terrible atrocities they had committed against white people out West.

She had also read accounts of the cavalry slaughtering huge numbers of Indians at a time, men, women, and children, alike. Part of her did not blame them for fighting back in any way that they could.

As she knelt beside her father for a moment longer, she cast a smoldering glance over her shoulder at Wolf Hawk. He was standing several feet away from her, watching her along with his warriors.

“Please?” she suddenly blurted out. “Can’t you go and stand somewhere else as I say a prayer over my father? Can you not be decent enough to let me be, as I…I…bury my father? You are responsible for his death by frightening him into a heart attack. At least give him the respect that is due him, for he did not have a mean bone in his body. He never would have done anything to harm you or your people. He was a gentle, loving man.”

She wiped tears from her eyes as she gazed directly into the young chief’s eyes. “You have lost someone dear to you,” she said, her voice softer. “The two young braves. Did you not have a time of mourning for them? Please allow me the privacy to mourn the one I love…and have lost.”

Wolf Hawk listened with his heart. There was so much about this fragile woman that made him believe that she spoke the truth when she said she had had nothing to do with the traps that had killed the two braves.

Yet the evidence of the pelts was against her. He could not give up the chance that the trappers would come to claim her once she was taken captive to his village.

No, he would not allow the sweetness of her voice, nor the pleading look in her lovely green eyes, to sway him from what he must do. Nonetheless, he did understand that she needed moments alone with her father. It was the only decent thing to do; to give her those moments.

He said nothing, but nodded to his warriors
and stepped away her. He led them to the entrance of the fort, where the gate stood open, and waited there. From this position, he could still see her kneeling over the body of her father just outside the cabin.

He could also keep an eye on the tiny man who stood somewhat away from the woman and her father. He saw no respect whatsoever in the man’s eyes, nor sadness. All that Wolf Hawk could identify was annoyance when the tiny, whiskered man gazed down at the woman whose name was Mia.

Wolf Hawk’s instincts told him that this tiny person was not a man of good heart. He was the one that Wolf Hawk would question at length once they returned to their village.

He would leave Mia alone to mourn her father while he took this man, called rightfully enough by the name Tiny, and question him until he finally told the truth.

“Thank you,” Mia murmured to Wolf Hawk. “I…won’t…be long.”

Wolf Hawk nodded, then turned to his warriors. “Blue Sky, go and direct the others to return to the entrance of the fort. We must prepare several travois to transport the pelts we found here back to our village. Tell them to hurry, for we shall all be leaving soon for our village.”

Blue Sky nodded and hurried to do his chief’s bidding.

Wolf Hawk turned again and watched the woman as she stood up and went to the small man. He bent his ear in their direction, to hear what they
were saying, for he did not want anything to get past him. He had given this woman his permission to bury her father. Nothing more.

He saw the tiny man go into the cabin and return with a rusty shovel in his hands. He could hear the woman pleading with the little man to please dig the grave for her.

“Mia, I’ll dig this damn grave for you, but hear me well when I tell you that I am sneaking away from this place at my first opportunity,” Tiny said just loudly enough for Mia to hear.

She watched as he began to dig the dirt out of the ground, seemingly only an inch at a time. Again she was reminded of what a useless man he was and regretted the moment her father had hired him. She had wondered sometimes if he was running from the law, for he seemed the shiftless sort who might have done something that warranted jail time.

“Did you hear me, Mia?” Tiny demanded, pausing to rest for a moment on the shovel. “I’m sneaking away when I see the chance. You can stay and face the music, yourself. I’m not paying for the wrongful acts of others and I don’t give a damn what happens to you. I was paid to steer the scow to St. Louis, nothin’ more. It’s not my fault that all your plans have gone awry.”

Mia stiffened as he talked. Tiny was now leaning lazily against the shovel instead of digging.

She was afraid the young chief might come at any moment and order them away before the grave was dug and her father laid to rest in it.

“You lazy coward,” she hissed out. “I don’t care what you do after you get that grave dug. You are a useless, horrible human being.”

“Oh?” Tiny said, lifting his eyebrows. He threw the shovel at her. “If you’re going to call me useless, why should I waste my time digging a grave? You do it yourself. Your father was nothing to me. Do you hear? Nothing.”

Mia gasped at his words. She knew the ground was hard and doubted that she could finish digging a grave large enough for her father.

But seeing that Tiny meant what he was saying, and that he had gone back inside the cabin, leaving her alone to complete the chore, she began crying. She tried to dig the grave, but found it impossible.

She knew that she must, though, so she continued to chop at the earth, only dislodging tiny bits of dirt.

Wolf Hawk saw what had happened.

He watched the young woman trying so hard to dig through the hardened ground, but saw how little she succeeded. He knew that she must bury her father in order to mourn him properly. Wolf Hawk was a man of religion and understood how one must care for the dead. He could not allow her to suffer any longer.

He left his warriors and hurried inside the cabin to confront Tiny. “You are not a man, but instead a woman,” he said, his jaw tight. “A man would not make a woman do his work. Get out there. Dig. Prove that you are a man.”

Tiny could not help being afraid of the young chief, but there was nothing on this earth that would make him do the work he had said Mia must do.

It was true that her father was nothing to him. Why must he behave as though he cared by helping dig the grave? Tiny squared his shoulders and glared right back into Wolf Hawk’s midnight-dark eyes.

“You do not do as you are told?” Wolf Hawk said, leaning his face down into Tiny’s. “Must I force you? Do you wish to be humiliated more than you are already are? Shall I march you bodily out there to dig that grave?”

Tiny’s will bent a little under the wrath of the chief’s words, but he just would not let this red man coerce him.

And he needed time alone. He needed this time to make his escape through a back window. He was absolutely not going to be taken to the Indian village and possibly tortured for answers he did not have about those trappers.

He preferred to be stubborn now in the hope of finding a way to escape. He had heard the chief order his warriors to the front of the fort. This might be the opportunity he needed.

“I heard the woman call you a coward,” Wolf Hawk spat out. “You are worse than that. You are a nobody.”

Wolf Hawk walked away while Tiny glared at his back. As soon as he was alone, Tiny hurried to the back of the cabin, crawled through the
window, then made a mad dash toward the fort’s rear walls. He was relieved to see that there was enough space between some of the boards to escape through.

He would find some place to hide until the Indians departed; then he would watch the river for someone to rescue him.

Breathing hard, he ran and ran, all the while glancing time and again over his shoulder, relieved when no one gave chase. He made his way into the thickest part of the trees, searching for a place to hide.

While Tiny was making his escape, Wolf Hawk was speaking to Mia.

“Come with me where the earth is softer,” Wolf Hawk said, gently taking the shovel from her.

Mia was stunned by his kindness, yet as she walked with him from the fort, she could not help feeling uncomfortable at his nearness.

He was a savage.

Her mother had been killed by a savage’s arrow.

Who was to say that this very Indian had not shot the arrow? Or perhaps one of his warriors had taken it upon himself to kill a white person as vengeance for the lives of the many red people whose lives had been taken by soldiers.

The more she thought of this possibility, the more she did not want this Indian to dig her father’s grave. It seemed sacrilegious, somehow.

Although she knew it would be almost impossible for her to dig a grave out of the hard, bonedry
ground, she just could not let this man do it. She told herself he was nothing but a savage, even though she had been taken by his handsomeness and his recent kindness.

“You don’t need to dig my father’s grave,” Mia said, stepping up to Wolf Hawk. She reached a hand out toward him. “Give me the shovel. I need no man’s help, especially not the very Indian who is responsible for my father’s deadly heart attack.”

Wolf Hawk was stung by her words, yet struck by her courage. It could not be easy for her to come up to him and face him with such bitter words. She knew that he was a powerful chief in command of many warriors, yet she, tiny thing that she was, did not hesitate to stand up to him.

He understood that it was necessary for her to dig the grave herself, to honor her father. He was a man who admired courage in a woman, and especially a woman who had such respect and love for her father.

He handed the shovel to Mia. “I urge you to make the grave here, beneath these trees,” Wolf Hawk said.” It is a better place for your father’s eternal rest.”

Again stunned by his kindness, Mia stared at him for a moment. She realized that this was, indeed, the perfect place for her father’s eternal rest. Wolf Hawk had led her to a shady grove of maples and elms.

Although the earth there was not as hard as inside the fort’s walls, it was still difficult to dig
into. But she would not break down and hand the shovel to Wolf Hawk. She was stubborn in that way…a trait her mother had deplored in Mia!

She did not look at him again as she struggled to dig the grave. Sweat dripped from her brow and wetted her dress. Her long auburn hair clung to her cheeks and brow.

She sighed heavily with relief when she felt the grave was deep enough to hold her father’s body. Her arms and back ached from the hard work.

She laid the shovel aside and went back inside the fort to kneel beside her father.

She reached out a hand to his pale cheek, held her fingers there for a moment as she bent low and kissed his cold lips. Then slowly she reached for his arms to begin the dreaded task of dragging him to the grave.

Flashes of her mother being laid in the dirt some miles back came to her, causing a sob to rise from deep inside her, and tears to rush again from her eyes.

“Mama, Papa,” she whispered. “How can this be? I no longer have either of you.”

Before attempting to take her father’s body to the grave, she looked heavenward. Although she felt Wolf Hawk’s dark eyes on her, watching her every move, she murmured a soft prayer, then spoke a memorized verse from the Bible that she recalled her father speaking over her mother’s grave.

Then, knowing that she had taken more time
than the Indian wanted to allow her, she stood up, bent low and grabbed her father’s arms.

She grunted and groaned as she tried to pull his dead weight to the grave, but didn’t succeed in budging him even one inch from the spot where he had fallen and died.

“No,” she moaned in despair. She had never felt so helpless in her entire life, for she knew now that she could not do this alone, and she most certainly would not go inside the cabin and ask Tiny for any more help.

If she had to drag her father one inch at a time and stand in a pool of her own sweat from the effort, she would get her father buried. And she would do it by herself.

No matter what she must face as a young woman now alone in the world, she would, and with a lifted chin. She would not show an ounce of cowardice to these Indians, especially not this chief whom she blamed for causing her father’s heart attack.

Wolf Hawk winced when he saw the trouble Mia was having transporting her father to his grave. But he could not help being proud of her for not asking anyone’s assistance.

When Mia tried once more to move her father’s body and could not even budge him, she dropped the shovel and sank to her knees. She put her face in her hands and cried.

She hated showing such weakness to these Indians, but she could not help it.

She felt totally helpless, for she knew that she could not complete this task alone.

Suddenly out of the corner of her eye she saw someone bend over on the opposite side of her father. She saw two powerful arms and hands reach beneath her father and pick him up from the ground as though his body weighed no more than a feather.

She slowly looked up and found herself staring into the eyes of Wolf Hawk as he met her gaze, then carried her father to the grave.

Oh, so much was exchanged between them in those brief moments. Mia was puzzled, for she felt strangely drawn to this man whose deeds did not match the harshness of his words. Instead, he was giving her a look that melted her heart because it was so full of caring and understanding.

It was at this moment that she realized this man would not harm her in any way; nor could he have been the one who had shot the arrow into her mother’s body.