The Endless Sky (Cheyenne Series) (53 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

      
“Yes, Hugh. Quite clear.”

      
A sharp rap sounded on the door, the lieutenant with her trunk. Phillips motioned for Stephanie to gather her strewn articles of clothing and step behind the dressing screen at the side of the room. She obeyed woodenly. There was no use appealing to Grimes. He would probably believe her deranged from her captivity, but even if he did think she was being mistreated, he would never disobey his commanding officer.

      
Dusk was falling as they walked the short distance from the hotel to the jail. Hugh had selected one of her best outfits, a deep green traveling suit of raw silk with a matching ostrich-plumed hat. They looked like an elegant young couple out for a pleasant evening's stroll, but people on the street recognized them at once. No one addressed them, however. Stephanie could sense their eyes following her and hear hushed whispers after they'd passed. Poor woman. Brave man. How terrible for him to have her return after what had happened. Two well-dressed women stared with open contempt and crossed the street to avoid contamination, as if surviving captivity were somehow her crime. Thelma Harris's words echoed in Stephanie's brain:
I, for one, would take my own life before I'd allow a filthy savage to touch me!

      
What would the wife of Hugh's fellow officer think if she knew Stephanie had willingly given herself to one of those “sadistic miscreants” and would do anything to keep his child in her womb? What would any of the good people of Rawlins think? Her bitter reverie was interrupted when they reached the jail. Just as Hugh had said, the local officials had vacated the premises and left Sergeant Bedekker in charge, together with two enlisted men he had already dismissed. The fewer witnesses the better. Her stomach twisted as she felt Mikko Bedekker’s hot yellow eyes on her. He licked his thick reddish lips in anticipation of the sport ahead. She had heard the sergeant had beaten a mule to death with a singletree because the poor dumb creature balked at being harnessed. His nasty leering face made her shiver and look away.

      
“Yer Injun's all tied up 'n' ready to go, Major, like a hog to slaughter,” Bedekker said with obvious relish. He clutched a braided rawhide whip in one meaty paw, stroking it with the other as if it were a pet snake.

      
“Good. Shall we, my dear? And remember what I promised,” he added in a whisper, ushering her through the door into the small cramped corridor of cells beyond. “I could turn you over to Mikko's tender mercies—I'm confident he could get rid of the ‘cargo’ you carry in your belly.”

      
The area was dimly lit by flickering kerosene lanterns, one at each end of the hallway. Stephanie blinked trying to accustom her eyes to the poor light, searching for Chase in the shadows. There was only one other prisoner, apparently the town drunk, sleeping off a binge in the last cell. Then she found Chase, almost hidden in darkness. He was suspended against an outside wall, his shackled hands tied to a beam in the ceiling. Barely touching the ground, his feet were secured with leg irons. Blood and dirt matted his hair and covered his body, which was bruised and abraded from being dragged behind Phillips's horse. His leggings were torn and his moccasins in shreds. Although he was facing the wall, he turned his head slightly when Bedekker opened the cell door.

      
She could tell the instant Chase caught sight of her. His back stiffened and from beneath heavy lids his eyes bored into hers, glittering onyx in the darkness. Keeping his face an inscrutable mask, he said nothing, only waited to see what would happen next. Stephanie was relieved that he had not called out to her. She was uncertain that she could have kept from running to him and throwing her arms about him, sealing their doom and that of their child.

      
“You may proceed, Sergeant. My wife and I will observe.” Hugh's voice was low, vibrating with excitement. Making a great show of courtesy, he took Stephanie's arm and escorted her closer.

      
Although they remained outside the bars, Stephanie could see the small tremors racking Chase's body in the cool evening air. His face and upper body were covered with a fine sheen of moisture. He was feverish and chilled and they were going to beat him! Merciful God, he could die by morning from the abuse they'd already inflicted upon him, even if they did not perform this barbaric torture. She willed herself to remain composed when Bedekker raised the short heavy whip and struck.

      
The sergeant plied the lash with savage ferocity. Each punishing blow left a heavy red welt across Chase's bare back. He made no sound as the rawhide ripped his flesh, but his body flinched in involuntary spasms. The only sound in the room was a steady, rhythmic whump, whump, whump...

      
Stephanie wanted nothing so much as to seize the cruel weapon and turn it on their tormentors, but fear for Chase's baby held her motionless. Hugh's long aristocratic fingers dug into her elbow like steel pins and his eyes moved from Chase to her, watching for the slightest betrayal of her agony. When Chase's body finally went slack and his head slumped forward in unconsciousness, Bedekker threw a bucket of ice-cold water in his face to revive him.

      
“If you kill him, the local authorities will be forced to ask questions,” she dared to comment when Chase passed out the second time and the sergeant doused him again. She was careful to keep her voice coolly neutral. Hugh was so keenly excited by his grisly vengeance that she knew he might lose control completely and flog her lover to death.

      
“I doubt he'll be so obliging as to die. I've fought these red bastards for eight years now. They're tougher than mustangs. No, what's left of him will survive long enough to dance at the end of a rope before dawn.”

      
As he came to, Chase heard their exchange through a haze of pain and fever. His head throbbed incessantly, his arms felt as if they were being wrenched from their sockets and his back was on fire, yet he focused on Stephanie standing beside his hated enemy, the man in league with that abomination Burke Remington. Why would she betray the People? She had loved Red Bead and Stands Tall, Kit Fox and Granite Arm. Most of all she loved Smooth Stone and Tiny Dancer. She had loved him. Or had she? As the whip came down again and again, consciousness finally gave way to bottomless black oblivion and he welcomed it.

      
The next thing he remembered was the faint essence of a woman's perfume, not apple blossoms yet vaguely familiar. Soft coaxing hands wielding a cloth dripping with cool water and a frantic whispering voice brought him to full consciousness. He raised his head, blinking to clear his vision, then let out a hiss of pain when the cold rag was pressed against the raw flesh of his back.

      
“Chase, you have to wake up! Oh, damn, what will I do if he's killed you! There's a lynch mob forming down the street and you don't have much time.”

      
Apparently they'd unshackled him after the beating and put him on a narrow cot. Forcing his eyes to focus, he peered into the darkness at the woman sitting on the edge of his bed. Long dark curls framed a small heart-shaped face and fell across the lush expanse of her bosom. “Sabrina? What the hell are you doing in Wyoming?” His voice sounded rusty and he coughed, sending renewed waves of agony rippling up and down his back.

      
“I'm here to save your life—if you'll get a move on!” she replied, her petulance overlaid with real fear.

      
He eased up into a sitting position. When the room finally ceased spinning, he said, “How do you figure to do that?”

      
“I've brought you some civilized clothing and there's a fresh horse out back.” She shoved a bundle into his hands and he slipped the shirt on, wincing as it touched the raw oozing wounds on his back. She kept talking as he pulled off his shredded buckskins, slipped a pair of dark wool trousers over his bare legs and stood to button the fly. “After they finished beating you, the deputy came back. I bribed him to let you escape. He figures the sheriff's set him up to take the blame when the lynch mob gets hold of you. He left the keys on the desk and took the night train bound for San Francisco.”

      
When he finished dressing, he reached for the Army Colt and ammunition belt she had brought and strapped it around his hips. He could hear the distant rumble of angry voices. “Burke's boys must be doing a good job getting the citizens worked up:” He looked down at the woman's pale face, illuminated by the moonlight filtering in from the window. “Why, Sabrina? What's in this for you to make you risk your neck?”

      
She stroked his whisker-roughened jaw. “I'd like to say fond memories of old times but neither of us would believe it. I figure you're my best chance to stay alive, Chase. You see, I know you'll kill Burke for me.”

      
“That I will, Sabrina. That I will,” he said softly as she arched up on tiptoe and pulled his head forward for a deep swift kiss. Then he walked unsteadily out of the cell and through the back door, vanishing into the darkness of the night.

      
As she emerged from the front door, Sabrina could hear the soft clop of his horse's hooves heading up Fifth Street. The torches of the mob were waving and bobbing in the darkness several blocks down Front and the angry cacophony of voices filled the night air. She pulled her cloak more tightly around her shoulders and turned the corner. By the time the word spread that the renegade was missing, she would be back in her room, safely nestled in her bed before Burke even thought to check on her.

* * * *

      
Chase rode until sunrise, pushing the sturdy brown gelding Sabrina had given him almost as hard as he pushed his own feverish, exhausted body. Only the thought of vengeance kept him from slipping out of the saddle onto the hard dusty earth amid the rocks and sagebrush. When he stopped to rest his lathered mount, he found cheese and biscuits in the saddlebags, along with a vial of ointment for his injuries.

      
He washed and applied the medicine as best he could, then rested for a few hours in the shade of a large fir tree.

      
By midmorning he was back in the saddle. He figured the ride to Gaston de Boef's cabin on the Sweetwater would take him another day, if he pushed hard and his luck didn't run out. Of course, if Stephanie had betrayed the location of the stronghold, she would also be able to send the blue-bellies after the Frenchman, but he had nowhere else to go. Some instinct persuaded him to take the chance.

      
I'm a fool to believe in the possibility she's innocen
t.

* * * *

      
Stephanie stared at the bed as if it were alive and ready to devour her. She stepped away from it and walked through the room like a somnambulist, touching her old things, a wicker basket of dried wildflowers, her sewing kit, a small velvet case with the jewelry Hugh had bought her over the years. Everything in her bedroom here at Fort Steele was in perfect order.

      
“Are you certain you don't want me to help you get ready for bed, dear?” Thelma McPherson asked in a kindly voice. The elderly woman was married to the post's master sergeant, Angus McPherson. Hugh had brought his wife back to Fort Steele after they left the jail, unwilling to chance her escaping on the train or creating an embarrassing scene in Rawlins. After all, he had accomplished what he set out to do in town. The rest was up to the ingenious Senator Burke Remington.

      
When they arrived, it was nearly midnight. Still playing the solicitous husband, Hugh had summoned the sergeant's wife from bed to care for his “distraught” lady. Word of their unexpected return had spread and everyone on the post was whispering about her. Back in town the mob incited by Burke's men had most probably hanged Chase. But she could not let herself dwell on that.

      
Pressing her hand to her stomach she attempted a smile for Mrs. McPherson. “No, I'll be fine, thank you. It will seem a bit strange sleeping in a bed again after so many months on fur pallets.” She saw the look of guarded sympathy in the older woman's eyes and forbore telling her she had no intention of lying down on the bed she had once shared with Hugh Phillips. She would rather sleep on jagged rocks in a snake pit!

      
“All right, dear. I'll be just down the hall if you need anything...anything at all. The corporal should be here with your bathwater in a few minutes. You're sure—”

      
“Yes. I'll manage just fine,” Stephanie assured her, eager to have some privacy to gather her scattered thoughts. There had to be some way to escape before Hugh returned to kill her. She was certain he would not wait for the additional scandal of her pregnancy to get out. Both in town and here upon their arrival he had insinuated that her mind was afflicted. After all, how else could she have endured the unthinkable but for a descent into utter madness? She knew he planned to make her death seem some sort of macabre accident—or perhaps a suicide.

      
Since Chase was dead the thought of going on held no appeal, even without the specter of Hugh menacing her. But the baby she carried had become her reason to live. She would protect Chase's child at any cost. Their love may have been doomed, but their son or daughter would have a chance. She was positive Jeremiah Remington would move heaven and earth to reclaim the child of his heir. If only she could find a way to reach the old man.

      
A wire to Boston was the most immediate solution but it still presented several problems. Given the way Hugh had set people to watch her, getting to the telegraph room would be difficult enough. Convincing the operator to send it would be virtually impossible. And then there was always the danger that the old man would wire back to Burke, expecting his son to escort her home. A small bubble of hysteria welled up in her as Corporal Briggs knocked on the door with her bathwater.