“She’d better not have dared,” he growled, boarding his buggy again and slapping the reins on the back of his horse. “I’ll hunt her down. I’ll scalp her and leave her for the vultures. The Indians will be blamed. No one’ll ever think I’d do such a thing.”
He rode hard until he pulled up in the alley between the cribs.
He hurried to the door that led into Lee-Lee’s assigned crib and yanked it open.
He stopped dead when he found another woman in bed with a man.
“Where is she?” he shouted, going to the bed to stand over the two naked people. “Where is Lee-Lee?”
The man grabbed his pants and jerked them on, then fled through the door, while the woman named Marla recoiled on the bed, her eyes filled with fear.
“She’s gone,” Marla muttered. “So I took her crib. It’s better’n
mine, so clean and all. I didn’t think you’d mind.” She gave a sly smile. “Didn’t you give her permission to leave?”
“You know the answer to that,” Reginald shouted, flailing his hands in the air. “She was mine. Mine!”
“I’m sorry,” Marla gulped out, visibly shivering. She yanked a blanket around her shoulders. “You’re not going to hurt me over somethin’ she did, are you? Or over . . . me . . . taking her crib?”
“No, you aren’t at fault,” Reginald said, kneading his chin as he tried to figure out what to do next. He nodded toward Marla. “Sorry for intruding. I’ll give you what the gentleman would’ve paid you.”
He reached inside his front right pocket and jerked out several coins, then dropped them on the bed. “Again, sorry,” he said. “You’re one of my best. You deserve the best crib.”
“Thank you,” Marla said, quickly gathering the coins into a pile on the bed. “I’ll never disappoint you.”
Reginald nodded and left the crib.
He stood outside and looked up one side of the alley and down the other, then hung his head. He couldn’t go and ask for help from the sheriff. None of the decent townsfolk knew of his connection to the cribs. He couldn’t let them know now.
He had to accept his losses.
Then he went pale at the thought of the man who had just run from the crib. Should he start spreading the word about who had interrupted his time with Marla, and why, all hell would break loose. Reginald would be washed up in this town.
He boarded his buggy and headed back toward his home. He knew he would have to wait and see if there were any consequences of his actions today at the crib. If there were, he’d handle them at that time.
For now he wanted the comforts of his home. Its peace and serenity.
“Where could Jade and Lee-Lee have gone?” he wondered as he approached his ranch.
He frowned as he thought more about what he had done today at Bulldog Jones’s hideout. He had made a bargain with the devil, but he would do anything to get back at the Sioux. He knew he could count on the outlaw to do what he had promised.
Reginald just hoped that Bulldog Jones didn’t wait too long to act, for Reginald didn’t think he could take many more sleepless nights.
He turned down the lane that led to his ranch, his thoughts on Jade and Lee-Lee again. How would they stay alive without him and his help?
The thought of them not making it made him laugh wickedly, for they deserved such a fate for having duped him.
Chapter Twenty-six
Filled with deep sadness, and already missing his beloved ahte, who had sunk into a deep sleep, Thunder Horse sat at his father’s side.
The shaman had already left, having performed all the rituals that he could for his dying chief. Thunder Horse sat alone, filled with memories that would now have to sustain him the rest of his life.
His father had been so good to him. He had taught Thunder Horse to be brave and courageous in the eye of danger.
He had given him the strength and insight to be a great chief. His ahte had been one of the greatest and most beloved of the Sioux tribe.
And now his father, that once powerful chief of the Fox band, was living his last moments of life.