The Savage

“Damn right. We’re gonna have us a lynch party. You’re gonna hang, Calder.”

“You’ll have to take me first.”

There was a brief silence while Prewitt stared at Lance. “Suits me.”

Without warning, he took aim with his rifle and fired.

Lance ducked low over his sorrel’s neck and raised his own six-shooter at the same instant. He got off a shot as he dug in his bootheels, heard Prewitt cry out at the explosion, felt a long, tearing pain along his own upper right arm. As his horse leaped forward, he managed to fire another round in Prewitt’s direction before the other startled men reacted and raised their weapons.

Lance felt sharp pain in his right side as a volley of gunfire exploded in his ears.

A nearby steer bellowed as riders scattered.

Then chaos followed as all hell broke loose.

Chapter 24

Too tense to sleep, too weary to work, Summer rocked herself slowly in the parlor rocking chair. The calls she and Reed had paid on some of their neighbors this afternoon had yielded little results. No doors had been slammed in her face, but neither had her visits been welcome. She’d been unable to persuade anyone of Lance’s innocence. His ties to the Comanche were too powerful to ignore, and the suspicion that he might have invited the vicious marauders to pillage the countryside was enough to put a lifetime of friendships at risk.

Gently Summer laid a caressing hand on her abdomen. This was the treatment she could expect for herself and her child. And yet she knew she would endure it gladly if only Lance would come home, if he would forgive her for her faithlessness and give her a second chance to prove to him that she wanted to be his wife.

She gave a start when a soft knock sounded on the cabin door. Lance, was her first thought.

Leaping to her feet, she fairly flew to the front door. To her dismay and bewilderment, Amelia stood there in the dark passageway.

“Is something wrong?” Summer demanded in breathless alarm.

“I…no…May…I come in?”

Her sister had never visited her at the cabin before, and Summer didn’t know what to make of it. Amelia looked pale and nervous as she stepped inside.

Feeling a sudden chill that had little to do with the November night air, Summer drew her shawl more tightly about her. “Why are you here?” she asked warily. “I don’t imagine this is a social call.”

Amelia wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I…couldn’t sleep. I just wanted…to see you.”

Gesturing to indicate the small, chintz-covered settee that served dual purpose as a spare bed for visitors, Summer kept her tone cool, polite. “Please sit down. Would you like some coffee, or tea?”

“No…no, thank you.”

Amelia didn’t take the proffered seat. Instead she let her gaze wander around the room. “The cabin…you’ve fixed it up. It looks very nice.”

“Thank you. I’ve made it into a home. It’s not large or elegant, but it’s ours. And it was shelter when you refused to allow us to live in the house.”

A fleeting look of anguish crossed Amelia’s features, but she didn’t reply. Moving carefully over to the settee, the way an old woman might, she slowly sat down. Rather than making conversation, though, she clutched her fingers in her lap, staring at her hands.

Summer resumed her seat in the rocker. She refused to ease this awkward situation by playing the congenial hostess, or to help her sister with whatever she’d come to do.

Amelia didn’t look up when she said finally, in a small voice, “Are you…really going to have a baby?”

“I believe so. Lance’s baby. But of course, you won’t want to acknowledge it. It will be a mixed breed, you know.”

Amelia shut her eyes, her face contorting for a moment. “Summer…I…I’m sorry.”

“Whatever for, Melly?” she retorted with cynical sweetness. “Why should you feel the least bit sorry? Just because you’ve made Lance’s life hell? Destroyed any chance he has of becoming part of this community? Destroyed our children’s chances of being accepted as anything but savages? Subjected them to a life of scorn and hate? Whyever should you apologize?”

Tears welled in her sister’s eyes as she mutely shook her head. “Yes…for all that. I’m s-sorry.”

“It’s a bit late for regrets now,” Summer observed bitterly.