Savage Tempest

He had taken advantage of High Hawk’s goodness by not only taking the horse that High Hawk had loaned him, but also the rifle.

“How did you know that the young man told you the truth?” Joylynn asked, trying to put the bitterness she now felt for Andrew from her mind. She was almost sure he had died shortly after giving Mole the information he sought.

“It didn’t take much sense to realize where this lad had been when I saw how he was dressed,” Mole said. “He had on Indian attire, so I figured that he’d been with Indians and would know where their stronghold was. He even wore moccasins.”

“Did . . . you . . . kill him?” Joylynn asked, still caring enough for Andrew, after all, to ask. She would never forget how the children had loved him, as well as Two Stars and Rose.

“Naw, but I’m sure he wished he was dead after I got through convincing him to part with the answers I needed,” Mole said, laughing throatily.

Hearing that Andrew had not willingly handed over such information was a little good news for Joylynn. Perhaps Andrew did care for the Pawnee, especially the woman he had professed to love.

Perhaps he had merely wandered farther than he had thought on the day he was hunting wild horses. And perhaps he was still alive, and could one day tell the truth about himself.

“What are your plans for me now that you found me alone?” Joylynn blurted out. “As you can see, I . . . I . . . am heavy with child.”

“Yep, I see that well enough with my eyes,” Mole mocked. “And I also see the way you’re dressed. You’re an Injun squaw who’s going to give birth to a savage Injun brat. I’ll get my jollies killing both you and the child at the same time.”

He visibly shuddered. “This time I don’t have no intentions of raping you,” he said. “You don’t do much for my sexual appetite, so big and all.”

Suddenly Joylynn saw her life flashing before her eyes. Everything she had gone through to find a life that meant something to her was going to be taken away. And she knew that Mole would be certain she was dead this time. But surely he wouldn’t fire that rifle! It would bring the entire village of Pawnee warriors, as well as the sentries.

The sentries. How on earth had he gotten past them?

Then she knew. He had come from the back of the mountain where the Pawnee sentries thought they were safe from attack.

Just as Mole took a step closer, his rifle raised, obviously ready to bring the butt end of it down across her head, Joylynn took a shaky step away from him. She screamed when she saw an arrow fly between her and Mole, quickly becoming imbedded in his belly. His firearm went off when he dropped it.

His eyes wild and wide, he grabbed at the arrow, then looked past her and saw High Hawk running up to Joylynn and taking her protectively in his arms.

“Thank the Lord,” Joylynn cried, clinging to him. “Oh, thank you, High Hawk. Thank you, darling, for saving me from . . . from . . . a terrible death at the hands of that . . . that . . . creature.”

“This white man surely had a death wish, or why would he have come to this mountain alone?” High Hawk said just as Mole fell to his knees, his hands still gripping the part of the arrow that stuck from his belly.

“I . . . ain’t . . . alone,” Mole said. Then a strange sort of gurgling sound came from deep within him, and he fell straight onto the arrow so that the other half protruded from his back.

Mole’s final words, that he wasn’t alone, sent a warning through both High Hawk and Joylynn.

High Hawk grabbed Joylynn up into his arms, struggling with her heavy weight, then started running toward their village. He stopped abruptly when he heard a voice behind them.

They both recognized the voice.

It . . . was . . . Andrew’s!

Both Joylynn and High Hawk wondered if Andrew was aiming a firearm at them.

High Hawk was almost too afraid to turn and see. He couldn’t bear to see the confirmation of Andrew’s betrayal.

High Hawk turned slowly around and found Andrew standing there, gaunt, pale, and with a rifle lowered at his side.

“I lied to Mole,” Andrew said, his voice drawn. “I told him I’d not wanted to play the role of Indian, but that I wanted you all dead just like Mole did.”

“But still you brought him up the back of the mountain where you knew that I felt it was not necessary to establish sentries,” High Hawk said, slowly lowering Joylynn to her feet.

If Andrew fired upon him, at least Joylynn would be spared, momentarily.

High Hawk knew that it would take too much time to grab an arrow and place it on his bowstring. If only he had kept an arrow at the ready! Would he pay for his error in judgment by losing his beloved wife and unborn child, and then his own life?

“It was the only way I could survive long enough to tell you what had really happened to me when I didn’t return with a horse as I had promised,” Andrew said hoarsely. “I had only one way to survive this terrible man’s wrath, and that was by pretending I would help him, that all along I’d planned to bring the cavalry back and kill you and your people.”