Savage Courage

She hoped he wouldn’t come looking for her. She doubted that he would. She was nothing to him. He might even be glad that she was gone.

Returning to her original task, Shoshana carried the lamp into the room where the trunks and bags were stored. After placing the lamp on the floor, she sat down before a distinctive-looking trunk. She knew it was the one that held Dorothea’s things, but now she recognized it as similar to ones she’d seen in Apache lodges. It was made of rawhide. In the Apache trunks, ceremonial garments and other articles were stored when they were not in use. She suspected that George had stolen this from an Apache home before . . . before . . . burning it.

Slowly she lifted the lid. Everything inside was neatly organized. She saw some of her mother’s pretty dresses and jewelry, a pile of her lovely lace hankies, a Bible, and other personal items.

The first thing she took from the trunk was a dress of her mother’s which she decided to take. She would never forget how beautiful and petite her mother had been. The dress was made of a beautiful soft, silky gauze. It was an almost translucent material.

She also took a lovely embroidered hankie that had been her mother’s, and a few other small, personal items.

When she saw a piece of maroon velvet folded neatly at the bottom, she raised her eyebrows curiously. The velvet was wrapped around something.

“What could it be?” Shoshana whispered, lifting the velvet piece onto her lap.

Slowly she unfolded a corner, then felt the blood rush from her face when she got her first glimpse of . . . of . . .

No!

Oh, surely it wasn’t what she thought it was!

But after unfolding the velvet wrapping, she felt sick to her stomach to discover a scalp.

The hair was not an Indian’s.

It was golden!

George Whaley had surely killed a white woman and taken her scalp. But why would he, unless . . . unless he found that woman living with Indians?

Then her heart seemed to drop to her toes. She recalled how Storm had described his mother as a golden-haired princess, so beautiful.

Could this be her scalp?

Shoshana was sickened by the thought that this man she had once loved had been vicious and heart-less enough to take a white woman’s scalp, and had even kept it as a sort of spoils of war . . . as a trophy!

Was that how he had seen Shoshana?

As a trophy of sorts?

Was that why he had taken her? Had his first intention been to take her back to the fort to show her off, and then . . . then . . . kill her?

Sobbing, she folded the hair back inside the velvet wrap. She took it with her and stood over George’s dead body, which had yet to be removed. “Why?” she sobbed. “Why? How? How could you have killed and scalped a white woman? Why did you keep the scalp? Was it something you were proud of?”

The fact was that he had done this terrible deed. It was something she would never understand or be able to forget.

“Shoshana?”

Colonel Hawkins’s voice drew her quickly around.

She glanced down at the velvet wrapping, panicking that the colonel might find her with it. What if he had seen it and knew that the wrapping held a scalp within its folds?

Colonel Hawkins came into the room with four other soldiers.

Her heart pounded as she awaited his reaction to what she was holding, but when he didn’t seem a bit interested in it, she assumed that he had never been shown George Whaley’s “prize.”

She watched as George’s body was removed; then when the colonel came to her and gave her a tender gaze, she smiled up at him, still holding the velvet wrapping in her arms.

“Thank you,” she murmured. “Thank you for everything.”

“I’ll see you in the morning,” the colonel said, turning to leave. He stopped as he noticed what she held. “I see that you’ve found something of your mother’s to keep. That’s good, Shoshana. That’s good.”