Sundancer (Cheyenne Series) (34 page)

* * * *

      
While Cain set about tracking down the elusive Isobel Darby, Colonel Riccard Dillon was doing some tracking of his own several hundred miles to the northeast. As the column of Blue Coats rode toward the Cheyenne village, Johnny Lame Pony sat on a wooded ridge, watching them from a distance.

      
“Working like a medicine man's magic,” he muttered with a feral smile, revealing several blackened teeth. His large flat face was deeply grooved by a lifetime spent on the plains. A narrow slash of a mouth turned down harshly as soon as the brief smile erased itself. The shadowy beard and heavy eyebrows, inherited from his white father, added to the look of menace. Slitted black eyes darted furtively, studying the approaching soldiers. Everything should go according to plan if Weasel Bear had done as he was told. The Iron Horse man should be pleased. With dreams of whiskey and whores filling his mind, Johnny Lame Pony observed the scene unfolding below.

      
Sees Much sat serenely, smoking his pipe when Leather Shirt entered the lodge. “The Blue Coats are coming,” the chief announced.

      
“I have said,” his brother replied. “Have you found Weasel Bear?”

      
Leather Shirt's face darkened with fury. “He has escaped, but two of the young Dog Soldiers who rode with him have been caught. I will not turn them over to white eyes' justice. It is for us to mete out their punishment.”

      
Sees Much nodded. That was the Cheyenne way. “It would be wise to hide them and their ponies. They will be banished by the council for joining the raiders. What then, when the Pony Soldier Dillon captures them?”

      
“They will no longer be Cheyenne after the council speaks. The soldiers may do as they will with them.”

      
Sees Much nodded again. “Banishing young troublemakers whose hearts are bad against the whites will not protect us when the soldiers come. To them one red man is much the same as another.”

      
“What would you have me do to protect our people?” Leather Shirt asked.

      
“That is out of our hands now, I think. The Powers do not show me all. But the Lone Bull will return to us for a while. I do not yet know why.”

      
“He is Not Cheyenne,” Leather-Shirt said sharply.

      
A strange look infused the older man's face. “His heart is in his father's world, but it is not his father's heart,” was all the old seer would say.

      
Outside in the autumn heat, Riccard Dillon rode between the rows of lodges as the Cheyenne stood quietly, watching them. Women comforted frightened little children and pulled older ones back, letting the men line the route of the enemy into the heart of their camp.

      
Damn unreadable faces
, Dillon thought in irritation, knowing they would love nothing more than to put a bullet in his back if they thought they could get away with it. “My scouts had better be right about this,” he muttered to himself as he dismounted in front of old Leather Shirt's lodge and faced the tough old buzzard.

      
“I am looking for raiders—warriors who killed peaceful workmen down on the trail of the Iron Horse to the south. The White Father is greatly displeased. They have broken the Treaty of Medicine Lodge and must be punished.”

      
“If Cheyenne break our law, we punish,” Leather Shirt said.

      
Dillon swore silently. “I followed those men here to this camp. They ride shod horses and have new Winchesters—Yellow Boys. Will you let me search for them?” It was not quite a request. Dillon's eyes scanned the warriors around the camp and figured he had them outnumbered almost two to one. Not bad odds with all the women and children in the way. Hell, he hoped this wouldn't turn into a slaughter of civilians. He'd had a belly full of that already.

      
Leather Shirt waited a beat, then nodded. “Search.” As the Iron Horse soldier ordered his men to check the lodges and the horses grazing outside the camp, the chief hoped his warriors had hidden Weasel Bear's followers in the caves without leaving a trace. Still, it was a strange thing that the renegade had returned home after his disgrace last spring, knowing he was not welcome. It was almost as if he had wished to lead the Blue Coats down on his own people.

      
Dillon waited stoically, never relaxing his vigilance. The old chief made no attempt at hospitality.
At least he's no hypocrite,
he thought wryly. The soldiers found no trace of the horses but one brought back two Yellow Boys.

      
“Found 'em in them lodges,” the trooper said, pointing to a couple of teepees near the edge of camp.

      
Dillon turned back to Leather Shirt, who scanned the weapons impassively. “We have more.” At his hand signal, several of the warriors in the crowd raised their arms, revealing the shiny brass magazines on their weapons. “Not raid Iron Horse. We hunt buffalo.”

      
“Where did you get the Winchesters?” the colonel asked, cursing over the number of new weapons.

      
“Trade for them. Ask the one you call Cain.” A half smile touched the weathered face at Dillon's look of incredulity.

      
“You know Cain?”

      
“Here he was called the Lone Bull. We were his people,” Sees Much said, materializing beside his brother.

      
Dillon scratched his head. He knew Cain was born in a Cheyenne camp even if he was raised white. Nobody seemed to know much more than that. They had worked together the past year on railroad jobs, pacifying Hell on Wheels towns, chasing raiders, all the usual dirty business the army was assigned to do for the Union Pacific. He did not think Cain would cover for Indians who attacked his workers and sabotaged their camps.

      
Still, this would bear more looking into. He had a sneaking hunch those renegades had been here, at least for a while. Maybe he and Cain should have another talk—if he could reach him now that Cain had become such a bigwig on the Union Pacific.

      
When the Blue Coats rode away from Leather Shirt's camp, Johnny Lame Pony watched in satisfaction. Soon Weasel Bear and the others would join him and they would meet up with the rest of the renegades. His job was done here. The soldiers had been led to Leather Shirt's camp and their leader believed that this band was involved with the attacks on the railroad. That was what the Iron Horse man had paid him to do.

* * * *

DENVER

      
Roxanna sat staring at her reflection in the mirror. In spite of riding frequently in the bright autumn sunshine, she looked wan and pale with dark smudges beneath her eyes. She had not been sleeping well the past weeks, her appetite had fled and she was constantly fighting the urge to burst into tears. Doc Milborne was concerned about her health. So was Jubal. Both were afraid she was not suited to carrying a baby, but she knew that was not the cause of her symptoms.

      
Her husband's cold neglect was destroying her inch by inch. After their terrible confrontation when she revealed her identity, he had not touched her. That night he had not come home at all! The second night they lay in bed side by side, acutely aware of one another, both careful to stay far to their respective sides of the mattress. After two more days of such torture, he rode off with a company of soldiers to chase renegades, leaving her to make the trip to Denver with a fretful Jubal, who insisted she remain in the city for the duration of her confinement.

      
“How can I endure seven more months like this?” she asked her reflection.

      
“What did ye say, mum?” the little Irish maid asked as she fussed with Roxanna's ball gown.

      
Jubal had insisted she have a lady's maid now that she was to be ensconced in civilization. Eileen was sweet and cheerful, the daughter of a spiker for the Union Pacific. Roxanna smiled and shook her head. “Nothing, Eileen. I was just mumbling to myself,” she replied, taking up her powder puff to apply some cover around her eyes.

      
It was a good thing she had theater training in applying makeup, she thought grimly, setting to work to eliminate the visible evidence of the stress she had endured in past weeks. When she was satisfied that she'd done all she could, she let the maid work with her hair, piling it high on top of her head in heavy gleaming coils, set with jeweled combs. Amethysts winked brilliantly through the silver gilt curls, and a matching necklace of square-cut stones set in delicate silver filigree lay around her slender throat. When she had put the long dangling earrings in her ears, she let Eileen help her with the pale smoky lavender gown of watered silk.

      
The jewelry and the silk had been waiting for her when she arrived at the hotel two days earlier. A terse note in Cain's bold scrawl accompanied them, indicating they were a wedding gift. No sweet sentiment or words of reconciliation, just the simple declaration:

We didn't have a fancy wedding. I thought the colors would suit you.

How he had managed to select such beautiful things when he'd been traveling almost constantly, she was uncertain. Perhaps he'd wired someone here in Denver to make the purchases for him. However he had accomplished it, the changeable shades of purple were perfect on her. She regretted he would not be here to see the finished product.

      
She turned in front of the mirror and admired the seamstress's handiwork. Mrs. Ebermann had toiled long hours to complete the creation in time for the gala tonight, an elegant affair to honor the bigwigs from the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific. The dignitaries had assembled to negotiate a final meeting place on the twisting fifteen-hundred-mile trail between Omaha and Sacramento.

      
Roxanna dreaded another appearance in Denver after the horrid debacle last spring, but Jubal had shored up her courage by asking her if she cared for the good opinion of a pack of vicious backbiting old harridans. When she replied no, he challenged her to prove it, saying, ‘Thumb yer nose at them, lass, and dance with yer husband in front of the whole lot. Dr. Durant, General Dodge, even old Collis Huntington will dance with you.”

      
She had laughed. “Grandfather, is that a promise or a threat?”

      
But her husband was not even in Denver. Cain had responded to Jubal's wires noncommittally, saying he had too much work at the construction site to come for what he feared would be a useless meeting. What exactly—if anything—he said about escorting his wife to the gala, Jubal did not mention, although she knew the old man was furious with his young protégé.

      
Roxanna felt terrible about coming between Cain and Jubal, who had enjoyed such a splendid relationship before she entered the picture. In many ways the old Scot had become a surrogate father for Cain, taking the place of Enoch Sterling. Now that too was unraveling because of her deception.

      
A tap at the door brought her out of the despondent train of thought. If she had not come west, she would not have fallen in love with the man who had given her this child and who was worth everything to her now. She turned and smiled as Jubal entered the room, already tugging at the tight silk tie around his throat, trying to loosen it.

      
“Here, you've pulled it crooked,” she said, walking over to adjust his uncomfortable finery.

      
“I'd like to pull it off entirely,” he. groused, then studied her with warm appreciation. “Just look at you, lassie!” he said, motioning for her to pirouette for him so he could see the effect of Mrs. Ebermann's handiwork.

      
She turned in a circle, pleased that he was proud of the way she looked, trying not to think of her absent husband. “You look quite resplendent yourself, sir,” she replied warmly as he gallantly offered her his arm and they swept from the room.

      
The orchestra was playing a lively quadrille when they entered the ballroom. Many of the social arbiters who had been present at her debut in Denver were here once more, perhaps to gossip or gloat about the scandalous MacKenzie heiress—or because they dared not boycott a gala honoring the titans of the transcontinental railroad. Either way, Roxanna felt uncomfortable as they made their way through the glittering assembly.

      
Jubal watched in satisfaction the proud way she held up her head and defiantly walked past the catty females who whispered rudely. He also noted with a pang that her eyes returned to scan the mezzanine several times, as if hoping to catch a glimpse of Cain in his old job. Instead, Williams and Cates, two of the hand-picked security men Cain had trained, walked the premises in his place.
      
MacKenzie cursed his protégé for a fool. It was painfully obvious that she loved her husband to distraction. His place was by her side. As the old man turned her over to a younger dance partner, he vowed to take a hand in matters the next day. Cain would make up with his wife if Jubal MacKenzie had to drag him to Denver tied behind a Union Pacific freight wagon!

      
After dancing with numerous high-ranking railroad officials, including General Grenville Dodge himself, Roxanna began to relax a bit. Jubal was right. She could do this.
I'm just playing another part, after all.
The general, an intense man, danced the same way he had led men during the war, carefully and methodically, with a starched military manner. All he could talk about was the way Dr. Durant and his New York faction were ruining the Union Pacific. When Roxanna spied Lawrence Powell making his way across the crowded floor toward them, she sighed inwardly in relief.