Savage Arrow

She hadn’t had the opportunity to play a piano since her husband’s death. Even then, the only piano she had ever had access to was the one in her husband’s church.

She hurried into the room and started to run her fingers over the keys. Playing the piano had been part of her life ever since she was a child, when her mother had paid for her lessons.

Suddenly Reginald was there. He grabbed her wrist and led her away from the piano.

“Never play this piano,” he said gruffly. “Never play it. Never!”

Jessie was stunned by his behavior, and by the hard grip he had on her wrist.

She wanted to ask him why he was treating her in such a strange way, but his coldness made her yank her wrist free and recoil from him, silent.

She rubbed her raw wrist and stared at Reginald. As he closed the lid over the keys of the piano, she realized he was someone she no longer knew.

And although the townsfolk seemed so admiring of him, she believed Reginald was cold and indifferent. He was like a stranger to her.

His cold aloofness made her decide not to tell him about the child she was carrying just yet. Perhaps he wouldn’t want a child to bother him amid his expensive things!

And if not, oh, where on earth could she go next as she tried to make sense of her life?

Chapter Three

Blue threads of smoke trailed off into the early evening above the shadowy river valley.

Thunder Horse was sitting in his tepee on a pallet of blankets and plush furs before his lodge fire, watching the flames caressing the logs. His mind was deep in thought.

Upon first arriving at his village, he had checked on his ailing ahte. His father was a man whose face revealed the many trails he had walked in his long life, and whose body was now frail and thin, instead of muscled and strong as it had once been. Still, Thunder Horse had been relieved to see that his father was no worse than when he had left to fast.

After visiting his father, Thunder Horse had bathed in the nearby river, then pulled on a breechclout and returned to his lodge.

His hair glistened in the fire’s glow, sleek and thick, as it flowed down his bare, muscled back.

His sister, Sweet Willow, who supplied both Thunder Horse and his father with daily nourishment, had only moments ago brought him a meal before he retired for the evening. He would sleep well tonight, now that his fasting was behind him.

He had quickly eaten the baked grouse and mushrooms his sister had gathered this morning. He had eagerly eaten the fried bread and stewed gooseberries that accompanied the meal. His belly was now comfortably full after these past days without food.

Although his belly was full, and his eyelids lay heavy on his eyes with the need of sleep, Thunder Horse’s mind was not yet ready to rest.

His father was lingering much longer than the white chief in Washington had expected him to. Thunder Horse was afraid that one day soon the great white chief might change his mind and force Thunder Horse’s Fox band on to the reservation, after all.

If his father died on the reservation, he would have to be placed in the ground there. The reservation was far from the sacred burial cave.

Thunder Horse thought of his widowed older sister, Sweet Willow, and her son, Lone Wing. Both were among those who remained at the village. Both were now Thunder Horse’s responsibility since Sweet Willow’s husband had died two moons ago at the hands of vicious renegades.

Although they were his responsibility, they lived in a lodge separate from his, as did his father, White Horse, who still resided in the tepee that he had lived in when he was a powerful chief. White Horse lived alone, for his wife had died some time ago, and he had not taken another wife. His memory of his first wife was too strong inside his heart.

But Thunder Horse’s family and his responsibility to them were not the only things on his mind this early evening.

The flame-haired woman he had saved today often came into his mind’s eye.

He had watched her until she had safely arrived in Tombstone. But instead of wheeling his horse around and riding away, he had waited and watched as the woman named Jessie walked to the worship house.

He had wanted to see who she had came to Tombstone to meet. He had been mesmerized by not only her loveliness, but also her strength.

When he had seen her leave the worship house in a buggy, his mouth had filled with bitterness. For the man driving the buggy was Thunder Horse’s most hated enemy, a man he loathed.

This man had defiled . . . had desecrated . . . the sacred burial cave of his people’s departed chiefs.

And the wakan, or evil man, had done this before Thunder Horse and his people were aware of it. He had gone inside and taken white gold—silver—enough to make him the wealthiest man in the area.