The Ruination of Essie Sparks (Wild Western Rogues Series, Book 2) (3 page)

"What will you do now?" she asked, her eyes welling. "Where will you go?"

Essie took her hand. "Don't worry about me. I'll find my way."

"I do, though. Worry. You must promise to write me. Promise."

"Of course I will. How could I forget you?"

Abby studied her. "It won't be the same without you here. If I had half a nerve, I'd go with you. Get out of this place for good." She touched a knuckle beneath her nose and pressed it there. "But I... I can't go. Not until they kick me out. Like you, I'm... entangled with these children now. I don't know how you'll manage to leave."

Nor did she. But in two days' time, leave she would.

Rubbing the precious gold locket between her fingers, she cast a look at the stack of bibles on the pew beside her. If she were still a believer, she might just blame their vengeful God for ripping away every child—or more accurately, every
person
—she'd ever allowed herself to love. But it was some comfort that the failings of her life were hers alone.

Somehow, she would survive this and rebuild her life. Pull her inner strength around her to protect her from any more pain. From now on, it would be just her and her alone. No more love. No more risking her heart. She consoled herself that she still had her dignity, and that at least this place was too remote for them to smear her good name wherever she was going.

She hoped. After all, what more could they take from her?

* * *

Two nights later, as the Rutting Moon started its slow descent in the sky toward dawn, the man the Cheyenne called Black Thorn inhaled a quick breath of night air, sensing that something was wrong. He tugged the Winchester rifle slung across his back by its leather strap over his head and settled his grip along the wooden stock. Exactly what triggered the hair on the back of his neck to rise as he lingered at the edge of the nearby pines, he could not say. He could not detect any scent of smoke or carbine. No loud voices or any outward signs of trouble. Instead, what he heard was dead silence. And that was unusual.

He had come here two nights running to make sure his plan would work. He had watched the boy go into his dormitory at night and knew, by the position of the moon, when he left that place just before dawn to tend to the horses. He should have been out by now.

As the thick clouds pulled away from the moon, he pushed his long hair aside, his gaze narrowing.

Horses
. That's what was missing.

There were no horses in the outside pen as there had been every other night. Not a single one. In the dead of the Montana winter, they would put the horses up, he supposed, but not in the heat of summer.

He waited until the clouds swept back into place before urging his horse, Náhkohe, and the smaller pony he'd brought for the boy out of the shelter of the pines and headed toward the empty paddock. He dismounted silently and ground-tied the two horses. Listening to the silence within the barn, he guessed there were no horses inside either. The stable had been emptied, the gate at the back side of the corral left open. And the stockman he'd seen every night was nowhere in sight. If the two guards in the nearby towers knew the animals were gone, they'd sounded no alarm. In fact, he guessed they were asleep at their posts as they had been the previous night he'd come to survey the best way to grab Little Wolf.

A bad feeling crawled through him, making the urgency to get the boy stronger. He had sworn an oath to his mother's dying younger sister, White Owl, to bring the boy to her and he meant to keep it.

But where is he?

He found the stockman a minute later, lying on the stable floor, out cold. There was a gag around his mouth, his hands and feet were bound and blood caked around a still-leaking wound to his head.

Black Thorn hovered in the shadows, trying to puzzle out what had happened here. For all he knew, Little Wolf might be locked in that box they kept at the center of the compound. He could be sick or even dead. But someone had let the stock loose and disabled the only man blocking the path of escape. Logic told him one of the children had done this.

Was it Little Wolf? No. Impossible that the boy would run just as he was coming for him. Unless...

Had the boy heard of his mother's illness? But how? News of family was systematically kept from the children. Just as families were denied visits with their children.

For the hundredth time tonight, he wished he had taken the boy yesterday when he had him in his sights. But he'd wanted a peaceful exit. None of them could afford violence.

But if wishes were horses
, his father used to say,
the Cheyenne would win
.

From the shadows outside the stable, he looked up at the two-story dormitory. Only one light glimmered through a window at the corner of the second floor. A shadow—a woman—paced back and forth in front of the lace curtain, illuminated from behind. She was undressing, he saw now, removing one garment after another, then braiding her long, curly hair. Odd, that she'd decided to undress when dawn was nearly breaking. Now and then she stopped and stared through the curtain as if she were searching the darkness for something. Or someone. Why, he wondered, when the rest of the world slept, was she awake? Was she part of what was happening here tonight?

Then the light extinguished and the schoolyard fell into utter darkness.

But for a long moment, she stood at the window in her underthings, like a ghostly watcher. Would she see him if he moved? Had she seen him somehow already?

A moment later, she disappeared from the window and did not come back.

For the next few minutes, he waited for her to rise again. He listened to the blood rush in his ears and felt it pulse against his throat. Sweat slicked his skin, despite the still cool night air. From the sheath at his side, he pulled his hunting knife, counting the windows from the left side of the building. He needed help finding the boy and had no time to waste hunting for him.

* * *

Despite her vow to face morning on her own terms, she must have fallen asleep, because she'd been dreaming of Aaron. About his tiny fingers curled around hers. His rosebud mouth curved up into a smile. Toothless gums, bright blue eyes. She imagined they would have stayed blue, had he lived. Not the ice-blue of his father's eyes, but a warm, deep, ocean blue.

In her dream, she was holding him against her, walking on a verdant field, the chime of a milk cow's bell clinking in the distance. All around them birds were fluttering, mingling, cooing. So many that she had to step around them as they scattered in her path, their wings brushing against her, their feathers floating in the air. Aaron reached out his small hand to catch one and as he did, he spoke to her, some whisper of warning as the entire flock rose at once and lifted into the sky, their wings battering her face until—

She woke with a start at the pressure of something over her mouth.

With a muffled scream, she opened her eyes to find the dark shadow of a man above her, his hand over her mouth! She thrashed against him, clawing him with her fingernails, but he forced her still with both his weight and the blade of a knife she felt nick the tender skin of her throat.

Panic took hold of her.

She could see nothing in the thick blackness, but against her ear, he hissed a word.

"
He'kotoo'estse
!" His long, dark hair curtained against her cheek.

Her mind froze along with the rest of her.
Renegade. Cheyenne? Are there others? Am I being taken?
She made a squeak of terror against his palm and shook her head, indicating she didn't understand him.

I'm dreaming. This is just a dream. Wake up!

"Scream and I will kill you." This time, shockingly, he spoke in perfect English. "Understand?"

Chapter 2

With a desperate nod of her head, Essie prayed he would know she meant to cooperate. She would
not
scream. She would
not
die here tonight. She would
not
let him kill her.

He was built like an anvil, and tall, she realized as she became aware of his long body pressing against her. His arms and chest were bare and strongly muscled. The eyes that stared down at her, once hers adjusted to the dim light, were a silvery gray. Not black. Nor was his long hair as black as the children's, but closer to the dark color of roasted chestnuts.

Half-breed? That would explain the English.

And how had he gotten in? Past the guards?

He pressed the blade harder against her throat. "I am going to take my hand away," he said in a voice so low she had to strain to hear him.

She swallowed against the blade. Her whole body shook and she gasped for air as he lifted his hand away.

"Little Wolf," he demanded between gritted teeth. "Where is he?"

She shook her head. "Little... Wolf?"

"
Daniel
." The word was a whispered snarl. "The name you gave him when you stole his. Where is his bed?"

Cheyenne, then
. A Cheyenne renegade who spoke perfect English. "Down the hall. Let me up and I... I'll show you."

"And why would I trust you to do that?"

"You have the knife. I—I won't scream."

He had no apparent answer for that. He glanced around the room, then, searching for what, she couldn't imagine. Perhaps deciding whether to kill her, gag her or knock her senseless. But he must have believed her, because he lifted his weight from her and stood, keeping the knife at her throat. "Get up.
Slow
."

Shaking, she did. Her legs felt like quicksilver and a rush of fear charged through her. The floor was cold on her bare feet. Dressed in only her unmentionables—her white, cotton one-piece chemise and drawers, her loosened corset and several tucked and gathered petticoats and the soft bustle she'd chosen for traveling—she felt near naked standing before him. His gaze raked down her there in the dark, but she sensed he could see all of her.

She'd stood on this precipice once before, looking down over the edge between life and death. After Aaron. But the decision she'd made then still pulsed through her now and warned her to fight. To think. To clear her mind of fear. Slowly, she reached for a dark blue paisley shawl she'd left lying at the end of her bed and showed him she only meant to wrap it around herself.

He lifted his chin, giving her permission, before moving behind her to curl an arm around her shoulders and poise the knife back at her throat. "One sound..." he warned.

She nodded and he opened the door to the hallway. Nearly dark as her room, the corridor was illuminated only by a small oil lamp at the end, near the stairwell. At the doorway, she gestured with a nod to their left and he tugged her toward the room where Daniel and three other boys slept.

Their door was open slightly, since Micah, the seven-year-old who slept in the bunk above Daniel's, had night terrors and could not abide the dark. Essie pushed the portal and stared into the room. Micah, Joseph and Samuel were all asleep in their beds in various states of sprawl, their dark, cherubic faces upturned, carefree in sleep.

Daniel lay burrowed under his thin wool blanket.

She pointed to that bed and her captor pulled her with him to lower the blanket from the boy's face. But when he did, nothing but a pillow lay where Daniel's head should be. He yanked the rest of the blanket downward to find clothing, wrapped in bundles under his covers.

Her stomach sank and her mind went momentarily blank.
Impossible.

But then she remembered the look in his eyes that day she'd taken him from Wages. And ever since then, he hadn't been the same boy. Now, with her dismissal, she might have underestimated his anger with her, too. His sense of abandonment. He had looked to her for protection. And she was leaving.
Oh, Daniel... what have you done
?

If one could feel fury, it practically rolled off the man beside her. He started to jerk her back out of the room, but she stopped him.

"Wait!" she whispered, reaching for the boy's bed.

She lifted up the thin straw-filled mattress and searched the hidden slit in the middle.

Empty
. Her heart sank.

The knife tightened at her throat again and the man jerked her back out of the room and down the hall. She nearly fell as he pulled her along and she felt the sharp prick of the blade draw blood again. But except for a hiss of pain, she made no sound until he'd stopped with her in the stairwell at the end of the hall.