Wild Embrace

“You have said it all quite eloquently, my father,” Strong Heart said, placing a hand on his father’s that rested on his shoulder. “There is nothing more that I can add.”

When his father leaned over and drew him into a fond embrace, Strong Heart closed his eyes, reveling in this closeness between himself and his father. Strong Heart’s place was here, at his father’s side. He tried to force Elizabeth from his mind, yet she always seemed to return, haunting his every thought.

He knew that no matter how hard he tried to convince himself that he could do it, he would not be able to forget her all that easily.

* * *

The mountains were a hazy purple against the darkening sky. A deer roasted on a spit over a campfire, sizzling in its own juices.

Four Winds sat quietly in the growing shadows away from the other desperadoes and renegades, listening to Morris Murdoch tell the men about Elizabeth’s imprisonment, and that her father wanted her set free.

Four Winds ran one hand along the cold steel barrel of a pistol lying in his lap. He had just cleaned its chambers and reloaded it with soft-tipped bullets. He wondered what he should do about this latest piece of news that could eventually involve his friend, Strong Heart. When had Strong Heart set the woman free? He had seemed determined to keep her as his captive.

No matter, though, Four Winds thought to himself, how she happened to leave Strong Heart. It was the fact that she was jailed in that miserable prison that bothered him.

Not because he was concerned about her. Strong Heart was his only concern. If the authorities managed to get information from Elizabeth concerning Strong Heart and Four Winds, they might join Elizabeth in jail and be hanged as criminals.

On the other hand, if the desperadoes went to the prison and broke her out, what then? If they let her return home, the sheriff would only arrest her again.

But if they did not return her home, where would they take her?

If she was not in the custody of Strong Heart, Strong Heart was in danger. It was

Four Winds’s duty to warn him, for Four Winds owed him a favor for having released him from prison.

Ah-hah, he had to warn Strong Heart of the danger that this woman posed for him—even though revealing this to Strong Heart, would also be revealing that he was not the innocent man that Strong Heart had thought. His best friend would know that Four Winds was a renegade, who had joined up with his old friends again. The excitement that riding with outlaws offered had become too thick in his blood to leave.

Four Winds rose quietly to his feet, making sure not to draw undue attention to himself. He continued to listen to Morris Murdoch, who was the leader of the gang.

“Men, let’s go and get Earl’s daughter out of prison,” Murdoch urged. “What can it hurt? You need some excitement in your life now, don’t you, since you’ve been forced to lie low in the hills. Staying away from raidin’ until things cooled off a mite. Set his daughter free and we’ll hide her someplace where the sheriff can’t find her. Earl will have to accept that as a condition of her being rescued. And he will. The fool. He doesn’t know that he doesn’t have much time left to enjoy her. After everything is set with the Suquamish, I plan to kill Earl and take complete control of the fishery.”

Morris laughed throatily. “But all in due time,” he said, sipping from a cup of coffee. “Everything good comes to those who wait.”

As the men put their heads together and began making plans on how to break Elizabeth out of the prison, Four Winds slipped away unnoticed.

When he got to the horses, he went to his and very easily untethered it and launched himself into the saddle.

Knowing how to be as quiet as a panther in the night, he urged his horse in a soft lope away from the campsite.

Yet again he worried about telling Strong Heart that he was at heart a renegade—an outlaw. But his loyalty to his friend was much stronger than his fear of being condemned in Strong Heart’s eyes.

When he was far enough away from the campsite. Four Winds bent low over his horse and sent it into a hard gallop across the land, hoping that he could get to Strong Heart’s village in time. Strong Heart would have to make his own decision about what should happen to the woman.

Chapter 21

A burden still of chilling fear

I find in every place.

—JOHN CLARE

Elizabeth’s cell was dark, with only thin beams of moonlight sifting through the bars above her bunk, where she lay in a fetal position. She clutched her arms around herself, shivering not so much from the chill of the night—but from the horror of everything that went on in the jail after the cloak of night had fallen. The moon had given off enough light for her to see bodies scrambling together, fulfilling their lusts once again, tonight.

And now everyone but her seemed to be asleep. Snores, groans, and women sobbing in their sleep reached Elizabeth’s ears. Maysie had been right to have pitied the women in this godforsaken place. In the larger cells women and men alike were housed. Elizabeth had seen too many of the women bent to the wills of the men.

No matter what their crime might have been, only stealing a piece of bread to keep from starving to death, most of the women in this prison were treated like animals. Elizabeth wished that she could do something to help them, yet she could not even help herself!

Tears splashed from her eyes as she thought of Strong Heart. She could not expect Strong Heart to help her, for he did not even know that she was in the prison.