The Ruination of Essie Sparks (Wild Western Rogues Series, Book 2)

The Ruination of Essie Sparks

Wild Western Rogues Series

Book Two

by

Barbara Ankrum

Bestselling Author

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ISBN: 978-1-61417-841-5

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Copyright © 2016 by Barbara Ankrum. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

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Dedication

This book could not have happened without the support and love of several people. First and always, my husband, David, for his unwavering belief in me.

To Challee and Matt Garland, for everything and then some.

And to Julie Ganis for her expert editing skills and long friendship.

Thank you all so much!

Prologue

The Industrial School for Indian Children

Gallatin River Valley, Montana Territory

June, 1888

The door to The Wages of Sin creaked opened with a rusty-hinged sound that woke thirteen-year-old Little Wolf from his fevered dream. Disoriented, he cracked open a swollen eye and an arrow of sunlight blinded him. Greedily, he inhaled the fresh air that rushed in past the suffocating morning heat.

Had he spent three days or four inside Wages? He'd lost count of the moons that had cooled the oven-like wooden shed at night. All he knew was one more day baking under the sun, and his dead father—who at first had only visited him in his dreams, but now sat in the corner of the box, waiting, watching—might do as he'd promised and take him to walk beside him in the world of his ancestors.

All the things his father had once taught him were fading from his memory. The true language of the People had been ground out of him and the comforting echo of his mother's voice was nearly disappeared. But he wasn't ready yet to leave this world or to greet Maheo, the Great Spirit, or the angry God that Reverend Dooley always threatened him with.

Ah
, how he missed his parents. How he longed to feel his mother's arms around him again, even though he was too old to want or need such things. Two years in this place had forced him to be as the willow and not the oak, as his grandfather had taught him.

So, if they pushed that watery, pig-slop,
vého'e
soup through the door again, he would drink it down. If they beat him, he would not let them kill him. And if they let him go, he would let his anger heal him, and then he would do the thing he'd decided to do.

"Dead or alive?" a man's voice asked from outside the shed.

His skin crawled at the hopefulness in the guard's question. It would be less trouble for the one they called Sergeant Laddner if he was dead. Then they could put him under the ground with the other Cheyenne children buried behind the school. The ones they'd helped to kill or those who'd died of
vé'ho'e's
sickness, or the ones whose hearts had broken.

But
he
wouldn't be less trouble. He would be more. Much more.

The
Tsitsistas
had a word for the one called Laddner—who wasn't really a soldier anymore at all, but a hired guard here—but that word, like so many others, had been scrubbed from his memory. Coward, the whites might call him, if they were not so afraid of him. Perhaps the wolverine was his spirit animal, because nothing else could account for the viciousness of a man who took such pleasure in hurting the children of the People.

"Alive," another guard said, dragging him out of the box to curl on the hard dirt at the door. He tipped something over Little Wolf's head. A bucketful of cool water slapped him hard, like an open hand.

He gasped, but turned his face up to catch the water with his tongue, his thirst a wild thing. He brought his hand to his mouth and licked his muddy fingers.

Five feet away sat a tin cup full of water. Out of reach. Beside it was the book he'd taken, the one written by that man about that
vé'ho'e
boy named Huckleberry. Beyond that, small islands of children huddled together, watching to see if the guards had killed him. They didn't dare come any closer.

Little Wolf's focus was on that cup full of water. It shamed him to crawl on all fours toward the thing like a weak bobcat toward its mother's teat, but he could not stand. His shaking arms fought him.

The other guard picked up the book. "Is this what you want, boy-o? This stupid book you stole?"

He shook his head, gritting his teeth.
Books cannot not be stupid. Only men like you who cannot read them
.

Laddner picked up the cup of water, held it just out of his reach. "I'm gonna give you this water when you tell me you've learned your lesson, Daniel. Have you?"

Little Wolf's mouth was too dry to speak. A frog-like croak came out instead.
My. Name. Is. Not. Daniel.

The other guard laughed at him. Laddner just shook his head. "What was that? I didn't quite hear you."

If the hatred he felt for this man could pierce his white, soldier skin, cut through his ribs and stab his heart like an arrow, then the soldier-pretender would be dead now. One day, Little Wolf would count coup on him, like his father before him had done to his enemies, before peeling off Laddner's scalp and leaving him to soak this Cheyenne earth with his blood.

"All right," Laddner went on, "the reason you've been in there so long is because you were warned once before about the books. And you disobeyed the rules. You tell me you understand that, Daniel, and I'll give you this water."

Little Wolf heard the distant shout of a woman, shoving through the crowds of children, calling for them to stop. He didn't need to look up to know which woman it was.

"Leave him be!" Her voice came suddenly from nearby and he felt her drop down beside him. Mrs. Sparks put her hands tenderly on his shoulders. "Daniel?"

"You are not helpin' his cause, Essie," Laddner said.

"His time in there is up. You have no right."

"No
right
? When I was a boy, my daddy used to take a leather strap or a... strong piece of wood to me when I did wrong. Taught me well. This?" He pointed to Wages."This is easy time. What the boy needs is a firm hand. A hand of discipline. All of these children need discipline. And I've been tasked with giving them some by Reverend Dooley and by the Almighty himself."

"The Almighty, is it? Careful, sergeant," she said, sending him a dark look. "Your piousness is showing."