Wild Embrace

Frannie seemed taken off guard. She raised her eyebrows. “A basket of fruit? What evah for?”

“I’ve decided to take fruit and some of my books to the women prisoners at Copper Hill Prison,” Elizabeth said nonchalantly as she walked past Frannie into the corridor. She winced and tightened her jaw as Frannie fell into step beside her.

“You ain’t goin’,” Frannie said angrily. “You ain’t goin’ nowheres. You’re going to stay put beneath this roof until your father returns. Then you tells him this crazy plan of yours. He won’t allow you to go near that prison and you knows it! Lordy, lordy, Elizabeth, why would you even want to?”

Elizabeth went into the library, where stacks of boxes awaited her. Lowering some boxes that were marked hers to the floor, she opened one and began sorting through it. “There are many less fortunate than I,” she said calmly, laying books aside in two separate piles—those she would take, and those she would keep. “I intend to share my fortune with others.” She rested a book on her lap and gave Frannie a stern look. “And, Frannie, I’m not about to wait on Father for anything. He is doing his work. I shall do mine.”

“Elizabeth, the dangers,” Frannie said in a whine, bending to place a gentle hand to Elizabeth’s cheek. “Honey, don’t do it. The hangin’. What if they hang the man while you’re there? Does you want to see a man take his last breath? Does you?”

Elizabeth swallowed hard and blinked her eyes nervously, knowing that, no, that would not be something that she would ever want to witness. Yet, she had a mission, and she would not allow anything to stand in the way.

And, she thought with a rush of passion—she might at least catch a glimpse of the handsome Indian. She seemed to have a better chance of that in Seattle than here in the house.

“I’m going, Frannie,” she said firmly. “No matter what you say—I’m going.”

Frannie shook her head helplessly. She knew from Elizabeth’s eyes, there was no use arguing. With a sigh, she left Elizabeth alone.

Maysie came in and knelt beside Elizabeth. “Perhaps she’s right,” she ventured. “Elizabeth, what you’re doing is generous to a point—then it becomes dangerous.”

Elizabeth smiled weakly at Maysie. “I know,” she admitted. “I know.”

They gazed at length at one another. Then Elizabeth returned to sorting through her books. Her heart beat quickly at the prospect of perhaps seeing the Indian again, and the danger that she might be facing to chance it.

* * *

Strong Heart had eaten pemmican for breakfast, a food that required no fire for cooking. It was dried meat pounded fine and mixed with melted fat. To this he added fresh apples that he had picked from an orchard not far from where he had made camp. He changed slowly and methodically into clothes that would help him to blend in with the white men on the streets of Seattle. He would look more like a white man on horseback than an Indian. Along with the white-man clothes, he would wear a bandanna to hide his face and a sombrero to hide his long, brown hair during the escape.

His effects gathered up and secured in his saddlebags, he slapped a gunbelt around his waist and fastened it, and pulled the brim of his hat low over his gray eyes. Then he swung himself into his saddle.

Pausing for a moment, he stared down at Copper Hill Prison. Then he began making his way down the side of the hill which would lead him to the city.

While inching his horse down the steep grade of land, memories of the green-eyed seductress plagued Strong Heart. He recalled her ravishing curves as her wet dress had clung so sensually to her body when she had stepped out of the water yesterday. She had disturbed him in many ways that were dangerous to him.

Yet he knew that he would search her out again, one day. He must have her. He would have her!

Chapter 7

Wait not till tomorrow—

Gather the roses of life today.

—RONSARD

The sky was gray and the air damp as Elizabeth rode into Seattle in her buggy. With one hand she held on to the horse’s reins, with the other she secured her fringed shawl more comfortably around her shoulders and adjusted her lace-trimmed bonnet. All the while her gaze swept around her, this being her first time in Seattle.

She was frankly shocked by the tawdriness of the city. It was even more of a frontier town than San Francisco, a place famed for its bawdy houses, saloons and rough population. With the recent gold strike on the Skagit River, prospectors had flooded Seattle, crowding the sailors and loggers who already frequented the city.

Holding the reins with both of her gloved hands, she directed her horse down First Avenue. The street was thick with sawdust from nearby Yesler’s Mill, where logs from the surrounding forests were turned into lumber for building all the city’s homes and businesses.

Her inspection was broken as several men loitering on a street corner began jeering and tossing leering remarks her way.

Insulted by such behavior, Elizabeth impudently thrust her chin up and snapped her horse’s reins, setting her sights on the prison. She was anxious to get there, do her good deed, and return to the quiet and safety of her house. She could now see why her father had forbade her to go to the city alone. If he ever heard that she had, and that she had even gone to the prison, she guessed that he might even lock her in her room and throw away the key.

When a man dressed in buckskin rode past her on a black mustang, she was struck by memories of another man in buckskin, whose eyes, whose handsomeness, had mesmerized her.

How could she have forgotten for even a moment that he was also her reason for coming so boldly alone into Seattle?

She had hoped to see him again, perhaps to find out his name at last.