Spirit Warrior (18 page)

Allie chuckled as she dressed. The fire was just about out, and the inside of the cabin was cold. Shivering as she slid her feet into her boots, she tugged on her jacket as well. Picking up the last piece of firewood inside, she placed it on the hot coals. It wouldn’t take long for it to ignite.

She crept over to the door and opened it slowly, not wanting to wake Jacob. He looked so peaceful, lying there on his side. A giggle escaped her when he released a soft snore. She had worn him out last night.

Shutting the door, she glanced at where the horses were moving restlessly in their stalls. She decided that they were feeling the nip in the air as well. Turning, she bent to pick up some logs from the pile outside the door.

A sixth sense told her something was wrong a moment before a hand closed over her nose and mouth. A band of strong arms circled her, pulling her off her feet. Allie tried to scream and kick out, but whoever had grabbed her was tall enough to lift her off her feet.

Wiggling her head back and forth enough to open her mouth, she bit down as hard as she could on one of the fingers cover it. A loud, piercing scream escaped her the moment she could breathe again.

“Jacob!” Allie screamed again.

A second man fired at the door as it started to open. Several more shots rang out, leaving a line of holes in the door. Allie fought to break free of the man holding her as he started to back away from the cabin.

“Allie!” Jacob called out.

“There’re two of them,” Allie shouted before she hissed in pain as the arms tightened to the point she thought her ribs were about to break.

“Burn him,” the man holding her ordered.

“No,” Allie forced out. “You sorry-ass-son-of-a-bitch, let me go!”

Allie caught her first good look at the man who had fired the gun at Jacob. It was the man from the General Store. Swinging her head back into the nose of the man holding her, Allie grunted as she connected and his arms loosened around her.

She dropped to her knees and rolled before rising to her feet again. The man from the General Store had picked up the lantern that Jacob had left outside hanging from a nail near the horses’ stalls. Allie focused on stopping him from igniting the wooden structure of the cabin.

She had only taken a couple of steps when she felt a hand tangle in her shoulder-length strands and jerk her to a stop. A cry of pain and rage escaped her as he pulled her back toward him.

“Allie!” Jacob called out again.

“They are going to set the cabin on fire!” She screamed as the other man who had grabbed her turned her around and struck her across the jaw.

Allie crumbled under the blow. She vaguely felt her knees hit the ground before she was dragged up by her arm. Her head turned in time to see the man from the store splash kerosene from the lantern against the front of the door before tossing it on the wood pile.

The acidic smell of a match being lit touched her before bright flames engulfed the front of the cabin. She tried to open her mouth to scream, but a piece of cloth was shoved into it before she could. Her head fell to the ground as she watched the front of the cabin go up in flames.

Pain exploded through her arms as they were yanked behind her. Her eyes drooped as she felt herself being lifted and thrown over a shoulder. She fought to lift her head one more time, but the pain rolling through her was too much. Closing her eyes, Allie reached for the blackness to sweep her away.

*.*.*

Jacob scrambled back along the floor. He grabbed his clothes, boots, and gun belt. Allie’s scream had woken him from a dream of them making love again. He had grabbed the pistol that he always kept ready and rolled out of the bed.

He brushed the blood running along his temple impatiently away. The first shot had grazed his temple. If it had been a fraction of an inch to the left, he would have been dead. As it was, the following volley of bullets had also cut a burning streak along his thigh.

He leaned back against the wall under the window outside the wood pile. A curse escaped him when he heard Allie yell there were two men. He couldn’t return fire for fear of hitting Allie. He scrambled for the piece of mirror that she had propped up in the corner. Grabbing it, he quickly returned back to the window.

Rage poured through him when he lifted it in time to see one of the men strike Allie across the face. He jerked back when additional gunfire rang through the cabin right before he smelled the kerosene. He knew the wood in the cabin would go up like a tinderbox.

Jacob strained against the large wooden shelf mounted along the back wall as the heat from the fire intensified. The shelf tilted before it fell forward to reveal the door to the caves behind him. Jacob pulled the lever and opened the door. He rose to his feet and stepped into the icy blackness, closing the door behind him.

Dressing quickly, he felt along the wall until he touched the lantern he had hanging on a peg. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the flint he carried. Within seconds, he had light. He set the lantern on the rocky floor and opened the long wooden box set against the wall. Pushing back extra blankets and furs for winter, he reached under and pulled out the Winchester Rifle that had just come out the year before. He still had his Springfield from the war, but this one was lighter and fired more shots.

Pulling out another knife, he wrapped the strap around his thigh as a cold rage built inside him. Grabbing several boxes of shells, he pocketed them in the long jacket before he slid it on. Making a quick bedroll of items he might need, he slung it over his shoulder as the hot glow of flames began to heat the door next to him.

Jacob grabbed the lantern off the floor and took off at a run. A map of the cave rose in his mind as he ran. Turning to the left, he paused to blow out the lantern and set it down before he turned sideways and squeezed through the narrow slit in the rock. The bright sunlight caused him to pause for a moment to let his eyes readjusted to it.

His eyes swept the area to make sure it was safe. Gripping the rifle tightly in the palm of his hand, he slid down the smooth rock to the ledge. From there, he ran along the narrow path that wound back down to the remains of the cabin.

An hour later, Jacob knelt in the dirt outside the cabin. Both horses were gone. His eyes followed the footprints of the men and horses. They went down the trail to the river. Following the tracks, he listened carefully to the sounds of the forest.

He paused as another set of tracks joined the ones from the cabin. Five horses, three with weight on them. He stood up and scanned the area. Turning to the left, he raised his rifle as he followed the path where the other three horses had been.

Jacob pressed his back against a tree and glanced into the small area. The remains of a fire still smoldered. Next to it was the slumped figure of a man.

Jacob braced the rifle against his shoulder and circled around the campsite. No other tracks lead into or out of it. His eyes moved back to the form of the man. From this angle, he could see the dark stain running down along his left side and into the dirt.

Jacob silently moved into the camp and nudged the man with his foot. He knew when the body fell over that the man was dead. Using his foot, he turned the body over so he could see if he recognized the man.

The sightless eyes staring up at him pulled a curse from his lips. This was one of the men from the General Store. He remembered that there had been two of them. There had obviously been one more that he hadn’t seen.

He didn’t waste time on searching the man. The evidence was clear. Three men rode in. This one had been wounded and died during the night. That left two, plus Allie. Lowering his gun, Jacob turned and jogged back down to where the trail of hoof prints had lead toward the river.

Breathing deeply, Jacob paced himself as he ran. He knew the area better than the men, more than likely. From the direction of the tracks, they were heading toward Cougar Canyon. He could cut through some areas that they would have to go around. If he was lucky, he would reach the other side before them.

Allie strained against the rope tied around her wrists. Her skin burned from the raw cuts on it from her twisting. She gritted her teeth against the burning in her shoulders from having her hands tied behind her.

She had woken as the man who struck her lowered her to the ground. She had kicked out at him, catching him a glancing blow to the groin. Unfortunately, he had kicked back, catching her in the ribs. The blow hadn’t broken anything, but it had knocked the breath out of her.

Her mouth was dry from the cloth they had tied around her mouth. She didn’t want to think of where it had been. The last thing she needed was to throw up and not be able to spit it out.

“Where the fuck are we going, Clancy?” The man who had struck her asked.

“You wanted to kill the other brother, didn’t you?” Clancy snapped. “This will lead us to them. Shit, Wyatt, we should be heading in the opposite direction. We killed three fucking soldiers, including an officer. The whole damn Army is going to be hunting for us.”

“I owe the other brother a bullet,” Wyatt grinned.

“Hell, it was that kid that shot you, not Jonathan Tucker,” Clancy retorted.

“Not from this time,” Wyatt replied as he held up his right hand. Three fingers were missing from it. “From when the bastard shot me during the war. The Tuckers stopped a very profitable delivery of gold that we were expecting. You might have forgotten that, but I haven’t. Jonathan Tucker took three of my fingers as I was about to put a bullet in his brother’s head.”

Allie’s eyes narrowed and she strained even more. “Yeah, I remember,” Clancy replied, looking at Allie with a grin. “You still got to kill the bastard and now we have a sweet treat to make you feel better about your missing fingers.”

Wyatt pulled the mare’s lead rope up so that Allie was even with him. He reached over and grabbed the nape of her neck when she tried to pull back. He chuckled at the fire in her eyes.

“It was sweet watching him fuck her yesterday,” Wyatt commented, staring into her eyes with amusement. “You didn’t know you had an audience, did you? Poor Ellis was too out of it to appreciate how noisy you are when you are being fucked. I especially liked how he had you bent over.”

Allie’s eyes narrowed with anger. She threw her head forward and head-butted the messed up son-of-a-bitch in the nose. Pain exploded in her forehead, but she ignored it as the sickening sound of Wyatt’s nose breaking overrode it.

She ignored his howl of pain as she kicked her heels into the mare’s side. Bending forward, she used her thighs and feet to keep her balance as the startled mare jumped forward. Allie used her weight to help guide the mare as she flashed by a surprised Clancy.

Fear that the mare might trip on the lead rope swept through her, but the fear of what would happen if the men caught her was even worse. The mare burst out of the narrow thatch of woods into open air. Allie’s muffled scream echoed as she and the mare tumbled down the corroded bank of a river.

Allie hit the water below and rolled as the frantic hooves of the mare kicked out as she tumbled over trying to get her head above the water. Allie kicked up, gasping as the gag fell out of her mouth. Her eyes flew to the top of the bank where Clancy sat on his horse, searching for her.

His eyes locked with hers for a brief moment before his widened in shock. He looked down at his chest in surprise. The long shaft of an arrow protruded from it. He glanced up for a brief moment before he tilted.

Allie watched in horror as he fell off his horse and rolled down the bank into the water. She kicked her legs, frantically turning in a circle as she tried to find out where the arrow had come from. Shaking her head, she started kicking in the opposite direction when she saw three braves. Two of them were wading into the water toward her.

“No!” She yelled, trying to swim to the other side away from them. “Hiya!”

Allie snapped out all the nasty curse words she had learned from her brother when she felt both of her arms being gripped. She struggled, calling the two braves everything from horse manure to two dogs humping in her native language. She even used a few that she and Indy had made up one year. Low laughter escaped one of the men as they pulled her out of the water.

“Let me go!” Allie demanded in Lakota.

“Hiya!”
No
, the male who had stayed on the shore said, turning away.

“I have to see if they killed my husband,” Allie said stubbornly as she dug her feet in.

The warrior ignored her, motioning for one of the men to lift her. Allie, tired, frustrated, and worried out of her mind, fell backwards as he reached for her. Her feet caught the surprised brave in the stomach and she pushed him, knocking him to the ground.

She rolled and used her legs to trip the second warrior as he came for her. Scrambling to her knees, she pushed him over onto his back when he tried to get up. She was rising to her feet when the other warrior came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. Allie let her weight pull him off balance and fell forward into a roll. The move threw him over her shoulder. She swung around and found herself face to face with the first brave she had knocked down.

Growling at him, she shot him a furious look before she kicked out at him. She fell when he caught her foot. Water, still trapped from her dunk in the river, poured out of it. She struggled to get loose as the other two braves rose to stand over her.

“I’m going to feed your balls to the wolves,” she snarled.

“Now I know why the white men tied her,” one of the men responded to the laughter of the other two.

*.*.*

Jacob shifted as he glanced down at the lone man on horseback. He recognized his gelding. He raised his rifle and aimed. He didn’t want to kill the bastard. There was no sign of Allie, the other man, or the other horses. Fear almost choked him at the thought that they had already killed Allie overwhelmed him, before he remembered the report from the online site in Allie’s time.

No, she was alive,
he thought.
She has to be.

Aiming, he pulled the trigger. The sound of the gunfire echoed loudly in the canyon. Jacob watched as the figure stiffened before falling to the ground. The gelding, spooked, skidded several feet before stopping. A shiver ran through the large body as it waited. When nothing else happened, it wandered over to a small lump of grass and began eating.

Jacob waited almost ten minutes, sweeping the area for movement before he scooted backwards. Picking his way down, he kept his handgun ready as he moved toward the body of the man. He caught the handgun lying beside the man with the toe of his boot and flipped it into the shadows.

The man was holding his side, dark red, almost black blood, seeped between his fingers. The man’s head rose slowly as Jacob’s body cast a shadow over him. Hatred darkened his eyes when he recognized the man.

“You!” Jacob exclaimed.

A chuckle escaped the man before he moaned. “You’re supposed to be dead. I guess even in hell, I’ll have to deal with you,” Wyatt Butte muttered.

“Where is she?” Jacob demanded, coldly.

“Dead,” Wyatt chuckled again. This time when he moaned, dark blood trickled down his chin. “She was good, too. I tried that position you had her in yesterday. She liked that. You should have heard her screaming.”

“You bastard,” Jacob said, raising his gun and pointing it at Wyatt’s head. “Say hello to Satan for me.”

Jacob pulled the trigger. The shot caught Wyatt between the eyes and his head snapped back. The gelding jerked and looked at him as he slid the pistol back into his holster. Grief washed through him and he had to keep telling himself that it wasn’t true, that the records stated that Allie lived a long life.

Jacob whistled to the gelding. He reached out and grabbed the reins. Pulling himself up, he turned back the way Wyatt had come. There had been another man. He needed to find him and the other horses. If he found him, he would find Allie. Nudging the Gelding’s side, he started retracing the tracks.

*.*.*

Allie rolled her eyes and rubbed at her wrists as she stood in the middle of the large group of Indians. She had been deposited back on the mare that had swum to the same side as the braves. Both she and the mare where shivering from cold and shock. It had taken them almost an hour before they had come over a rise and she had seen the large number of hide-covered dwellings.

Her escort had picked up speed as they neared the village. Younger boys raced alongside them yelling out questions. It had taken all her concentration not to end up back on the ground. As it was, her body felt like she had been run over by her truck, several times.

She grunted her thanks when one of the braves helped her down from the mare. Turning, she held out her bound wrists and raised her eyebrow at him. He grinned at her for a moment before he pulled the knife at his hip out and sliced through the rope. She murmured her thanks before turning to look around with curious eyes at those gathering around her.

“Who is she?” An elderly man asked as he stepped up to the small group.

“I am Allie Whitewater… Tucker,” she replied in Lakota, unfamiliar with saying her new name.

The man stopped and looked deeply into Allie’s blue eyes. A frown crossed his features before he asked the braves several short questions. He turned back to her and studied her again.

“Where do you come from?” He demanded, eyeing her clothing. “You do not dress as a Lakota or as a white woman.”

“I may not dress as they do now, but I do in the future,” she replied. “My father is Sam Whitewater. He is a Tribal Leader and Medicine Man for our people.”

“I have not heard of this Sam Whitewater,” the man replied. “Where is his tribe?”

“On the other side of Spirit Pass,” Allie replied in a soft voice.

“She has crossed over the great milky river in the sky,” a voice said, pushing through the crowd.

“Paytah?” Allie exclaimed.

Allie watched as Paytah and the other four warriors stepped closer. A smile of relief curved her lips before she stepped toward him. The smile disappeared as concern and fear replaced it.

“Jacob,” she whispered. “Paytah, I need your help. The men who took me… I… I think they killed Jacob,” she forced past the lump in her throat. “I need to return to the cabin. I have to know.”

“It will be dark soon,” Paytah replied, glancing at the older man who watched their exchange. “Come, my mother will find you dry clothing while I tell our elders of your travels.”

Allie nodded as an older woman stepped forward. She looked back at Paytah as he stood speaking to the older man. They both glanced at her before turning away and disappearing inside one of the tipis. Allie nodded as the woman told her to come. Her eyes swept over the curious gazes watching her. She tried to smile, but all she could think about was how their lives would change so much in the coming years.

“Pi
lá
mayaye,”
Thank you
. Allie whispered as she ducked her head and followed the woman inside the tipi.

*.*.*

Jacob dropped the dead body of the man. He had followed the tracks back to where there had been a scuffle. He had noticed that Wyatt Butte had a broken nose. He suspected Allie was to blame for that, especially after he found where the mare had suddenly taken off. His heart had stopped when he found evidence of the horse going off the bank into the river.

Following the river downstream, he had discovered the body of the other man. He remembered him as being one of Wyatt’s brothers. He hadn’t put the clues together as he hadn’t met the younger man during the war.

He fingered the arrow still protruding from the man’s chest. Rising, he suspected that they had seen Allie and the mare as they tumbled into the river. They had killed Clancy Butte when he pursued her. He’d found no evidence of them being on this side of the river.

Rising up, he remounted the gelding. It was getting dark. He’d have to find a place to bed down for the night. Deciding to cross the river and see if he could find some tracks before it got too dark, he nudged the Gelding forward into the icy water. A few minutes later, they emerged on the other side. Despair washed through him as he looked up at the darkening sky.

“I’ll find you, Allie,” he whispered as the first stars began to appear. “I swear, I’ll find you.”

*.*.*

Allie sat picking at the food on her plate. She shivered, even with the thick fur over her lap. Picking up the piece of meat, she chewed on it absently as several children gazed at her. She crossed her eyes and stuck her tongue out at them, drawing giggles and more whispers from them.

“You are going to scare them if your face sticks that way,” Paytah commented as he came up to sit next to her.

Allie chuckled as she held out her plate to him. She wasn’t very hungry. He picked up a piece of meat and bit into it. She made another face at the kids drawing more laughter.

“So, what did your dad say?” She asked as he picked up another piece of food that looked like a root of some kind.

“How do you know he is my father?” Paytah asked in surprise.

“I don’t know, it might have been the respectful ‘father’ or the fact that you were allowed into the council’s tipi,” she responded with a sigh.