But her father! Why hadn’t he gotten her out of this hellhole? He had money, plenty of money. Surely he could have found a way to pay for her release!
The sound of the sheriff’s office door opening startled Elizabeth. With trembling fingers she reached beneath the mattress and found the fork that she had hidden there after her evening meal. She didn’t trust the sheriff, or his deputy. She had never forgotten how the sheriff had tried to rape her on her first visit to the prison on the day of Four Winds’s escape.
To protect herself, she had managed to steal a fork from her dinner tray. She wasn’t sure how much damage a mere fork could do, but at least it would give her a slim chance of protecting herself.
Her eyes wide, she watched a form moving in the dark toward her cell. She slid the fork beneath a fold of her dress, clutching desperately to the handle.
Her heart pounded as she saw the man take a ring of keys from his back pocket and sort through them, until he found the one that fit the lock of Elizabeth’s cell.
The door creaked slowly open and she was finally able to see who it was now standing over her, slipping the ring of keys back into his pocket, his free hand at the fly of his breeches, eagerly undoing its buttons.
“Deputy Bradley,” Elizabeth gasped, inching her way from the edge of the bunk, then hugging the wall with her back when she could go no further.
She still held the fork in her hand. Her throat was dry and fear gripped her hard in the pit of her stomach.
“Don’t say a word, slut,” Deputy Bradley said through yellow teeth, his coppery mustache twitching as he spoke. “Just keep still or I’ll do worse than rape you. I’ll save the judge a day in court. If you’re dead, he won’t have to bother with rulin’ you innocent or guilty.”
His words made Elizabeth feel as though ice water had been poured into her veins. She was shocked that this man could be this devious—this heartless. Until now, of the two men who controlled the jail, Elizabeth had thought that she could trust Deputy Bradley more. He appeared young and not yet as hardened as Sheriff Nolan.
When Deputy Bradley dropped his pants Elizabeth thought this might be her best opportunity to make her attack. But as she took the fork out from beneath her dress, the moonlight flashed on it, revealing it to Deputy Bradley. He jerked it from her hand before she could even plunge it into his face.
Deputy Bradley tossed the fork aside and quickly straddled Elizabeth. “Bitch,” he said, holding her wrists to the bunk, one of his knees shoving her dress upward. “You think you can stop me? It’s been too long since I’ve had me a woman like you to let anything stop me from gettin’ what I’m after.”
His lips crushed Elizabeth’s with a wet, slobbering kiss as he started lowering his manhood toward her. Panic rushed in her like wild fires spreading through dry brush. Elizabeth raised one knee and hit him hard in the groin with it. He leaped away from her with a yowl and clutched himself where she had caused the damage.
Elizabeth jumped from the bunk and grabbed the fork from the floor and held it threateningly before her, her eyes flashing. “Get out of here and leave me be,” she said breathlessly. She was stunned to see that he seemed unable to move as he still held himself, moaning and groaning.
Suddenly she was aware of something else. The commotion had awakened all of the prisoners. They were shouting and jeering and mimicking the deputy. The place was in an uproar.
Deputy Bradley glared at Elizabeth as he slowly leaned over to pick up his pants. Not bothering to put them on, he inched around her and left the cell. He stopped long enough to fish his keys out of his pocket, then locked the cell behind him.
Elizabeth breathed hard as she watched him limp away, tossing curses over his shoulder as the prisoners continued to jeer and mock him.
Then Elizabeth sank back down onto the bunk, fearing the rest of the days and nights of her incarceration, for surely the deputy would find a way to make her pay.
* * *
A movement in his longhouse awakened Strong Heart. He groped around until he found the knife that he always kept close beside his bed, and then bolted from his sleeping platform, the knife poised for its death plunge.
When Four Winds came out of the shadows and stood over the dying embers of the firepit, Strong Heart sighed and lowered the knife to his side.
“It is unwise, me-sah-chie, bad, to enter a dwelling unannounced, whether it is night or day,” Strong Heart said, bending to place the knife back on the floor.
He then gestured with a hand toward Four Winds. “Mit-lite, sit down, my friend,” he said softly. “Tell me why you have come in the middle of the night to awaken Strong Heart. What news do you bring me?”
Strong Heart watched Four Winds carefully as he sat down, his dark brown hair held into place by a colorfully beaded headband. Strong Heart remembered his father suspecting Four Winds of being among their village’s attackers. Strong Heart still could not believe his friend capable of such a fiendish act.
“There is not much time for talk,” Four Winds said, his expression troubled.
“There is not time for you to tell me if you have rejoined your people?” Strong Heart asked, raising an eyebrow. “There is not enough time for me to ask of your people’s welfare?”
“No,” Four Winds said, placing his hands on his knees, leaning on them as he locked his eyes with Strong Heart’s. “There is no time for idle talk of family. I have come with news of something other than my people, or yours.”
Strong Heart’s spine stiffened and his jaw tightened. “What news then is it that you bring me, that you find it important enough to awake me from my sleep?” he asked. “Tell me now, Four Winds. What is it?”
“It is because of the woman with the hair of flame that I come to you tonight,” Four Winds said, seeing alarm enter his friend’s eyes. “Strong Heart, she has been arrested. She is in Copper Hill Prison. She is accused of being a partner with the one who set me free which, of course, is you, my friend.”
Strong Heart’s mouth gaped and his heart seemed to stop beating, the shock was so quick and overwhelming.