Savage Courage

“Are you well enough to ride?” Storm asked, reaching a hand to her cheek. “I would like to take you somewhere tomorrow.”

“Yes, I am well enough, and, yes, I would love to go with you,” she murmured.

They embraced; and then he walked her back to her mother’s tepee. “I shall see you tomorrow then?” he asked, framing her face between his hands.

“Yes, tomorrow,” she said, then flung herself into his arms. “I do love you so. And . . . and you make me feel safer than I have ever felt before in my entire life.” She gazed up at him. “You . . . you . . . make me whole,” she murmured. “You make me feel Apache again!”

He smiled at her, gave her another kiss, then walked away from her as she disappeared inside her mother’s lodge.

As she sat down beside the fire, she tried to come to terms with what she had just learned. Now that she knew so much more about George Whaley and the evil he had committed, she felt sick at having ever considered him her father.

Had she allowed herself to forget too easily through the years? Surely she never should have given that man her love and respect.

Tears filled her eyes as she gazed at her old, bent mother, who was not as old in years as she appeared in the flesh. Oh, how that terrible day had changed her.

A part of Shoshana now detested George Whaley more than she could have ever thought possible. How would she behave when they came together again after she left this stronghold?

Would he see that she could not help detesting the very ground he walked upon?

“The wooden leg,” she whispered to herself.

An even more disturbing thought came to her. He had gotten that injured leg after he had taken her into his home. Even the act of saving an innocent child had not changed his mind about killing more Apache.

Suddenly she felt a loathing for George Whaley she had never known was possible. She was now more determined than ever to return to the fort, for she had a few things to say to this man she now knew was a de

mon.

She hung her head and tears fell from her eyes as she realized how much she had allowed herself to forget. She knew that her mind had shut out the past because she was a child who needed love just as any child did. She had just accepted it from the wrong person.

Thank heavens Dorothea Whaley had also been there to love and nurture her as she was growing up.

“But you are gone now,” she whispered as she wiped tears from her eyes. Her jaw firmed. “But your husband, Colonel George Whaley, is still alive and I have a score to settle.”

Chapter Nineteen

Not as all other women are

Is she that to my soul is dear.

—James Russell Lowell

On his steed, his hands tightly wound around the reins as he traveled with the soldiers in single file up the small mountain pass, George could not stop worrying about what their Apache guide had said just before he headed back down the mountain, alone. The guide had warned everyone that they should return with him to the fort, not go farther into the mountain.

His eyes and voice frantic, he had said that all who traveled on this mountain today were in danger of being attacked by “ghost sickness.” He’d explained that ghost sickness overwhelmed a person with extreme nervousness and fright. He said he had already been struck by it. That was why he was retreating.

He claimed that this ghost sickness was often brought on by the hooting of a nearby owl at night. The whole camp had been disturbed by an owl all night after the storm had passed. It had not ceased its call until daybreak.

George had awakened just in time to see the owl flutter away, higher up the mountain. It had been huge and white, its wingspan even larger than any eagle he had ever seen.

George had further questioned the guide about this ghost sickness. The guide had said that the Apache had an excessive dread of owls, and that if an owl hooted near one’s camp, it was an omen of the most frightful import. The Apache believed the spirit of the dead entered into the owl and came back to warn or threaten them.

Not believing in such superstitious hogwash, George had ignored the guide—even when the man refused to travel onward.

“We must travel on foot until the pass widens again,” said the soldier who had taken over the duties of the guide. “Let’s head toward that growth of aspen trees over there. There seems to be a path worn in the grass that leads to those trees. We may just find something interesting.”

They followed the path, leading their horses behind them, and when they came to the aspens and made their way through them, what they found on the other side made George’s heart skip a beat. From this vantage point he could see a well-hidden, newly built cabin nestled on the floor of a canyon, with a cluster of trees on each end standing like sentinels, guarding whoever lived there.

“Surely it’s the scalp hunter’s cabin,” George said, his heart pounding.