Savage Courage

I hold thee by too many bonds.

—Robert Bridges

“It’s been too long since Shoshana left,” George said as he stood before Colonel Hawkins’s massive oak desk. “I told both her and Major Klein not to be gone for long. I most definitely made it clear to them that they weren’t to go far. I shouldn’t have put my trust in that major. He’s too young.”

“The major might be young, but when assigned any duty, even as simple as being an escort to a lovely lady, he is more reliable than most men your age,” Colonel Hawkins said reassuringly. “Go back to your quarters. Relax. If they don’t return soon, I’ll send several of my most trusted men to find them and bring them back.”

“As simple as being an escort to a lady?” George spat out, stunned that the colonel was taking Shoshana’s safety so lightly. “You know the dangers out there.”

“I’m sorry if you’re unhappy with my choice of escort, but they weren’t going far enough to worry about and Major Klein had finished his chores yesterday. He was to be idle today,” the colonel said.

“What kind of chores?” George asked between clenched teeth. He immediately saw how uneasy that question made the colonel. He held his hand out, palm side toward the colonel. “No. Don’t tell me. I might be too tempted to floor you.”

“It’s good you’re having second thoughts before doing something so asinine, George,” the colonel said tightly. “As I said, I’ll send out several soldiers to find them and bring them back to the fort.”

“Don’t wait too long,” George said angrily.

He swung around and walked out of the room, his wooden leg seeming to be twice as heavy today since the burden he was carrying on his shoulders was so great.

His daughter.

How stupid he’d been to allow her to leave the fort at all!

But as headstrong as she was, he knew that had he not given her permission, she would have set out on her own, without an escort, and that would have been even worse.

He went back to his house and to the window in the living room, where he stared at the open land stretching away from the fort. There was still no sign of Shoshana or the major.

His eyebrows lifted when he saw a huge contingent of blue-coated troopers ride from the fort on their big chargers.

“Why, he’s as worried as I am,” George whispered to himself. The colonel had gone ahead and sent the soldiers out to search for Shoshana without waiting any longer.

George watched the dust scatter from the hooves of the horses and continued to follow the soldie

rs’ progress until they rode from sight. He felt hopeful that the soldiers would find Shoshana and the major because he had seen two Apache scouts at the head of the search party. If anyone could find two lost souls out there in the wilderness, those scouts could do it.

All Apache were well acquainted with this country that their ancestors had inhabited since the beginning of time. These scouts surely knew every spring, water hole, canyon, and crevice.

George was beginning to feel better about the situation now. All he had to do now was practice patience.

“I won’t think the worst,” he mumbled. “I won’t.”

He got out the long-stemmed pipe. He gazed at it for a long time, remembering the very moment he had gotten it. He had been torn with conflicting feelings since he had already slain a good number of redskins before attending the peace talks.

Sighing heavily, he sprinkled tobacco into the bowl of the pipe, lit it, then sat down before a slowly burning fire in the fireplace. His eyes watched the flames rolling over the logs in a slow caress.

Oh, how often had he sat before a fire with Shoshana, popping corn in the flames, munching it as they shared a game of chess?

“She’s always been so smart,” he whispered, tears shining in the corners of his eyes. “Too smart to allow anything to happen to her, especially in this land of her ancestors. Shoshana, honey, come back to me. Do you hear? Come . . . back . . . to me.”

He sat there for as long as it took to smoke the tobacco in his pipe, then turned when he saw the reflection of a bright sunset paint the wall above the fireplace.

He paled when he realized how long he had been sitting there, reminiscing. The sun was lowering behind the mountains. Soon it would be dark and Shoshana had not yet been found and brought back to the fort.

“Good Lord,” he mumbled as he pushed himself up from the chair.

He laid the pipe aside, then left the house.

Just as he got halfway between his house and the colonel’s, he heard the thunder of hoofbeats arriving.