As her gaze met Storm’s, he stepped back in dismay. He saw that he had been duped. The look in her eyes told him as much.
“Sister, you have shamed yourself in the eyes of not only your chieftain brother, but also our shaman,” Storm said tightly as he glared into her eyes. “I know you well. I can see in your eyes what you have done, so do not even try to deny it.”
He leaned down into her face. “Did you ever think that by allowing Shoshana to return to the fort, you have endangered our people? She might be angry enough at what I had planned for her to bring white-eyes to our stronghold,” he hissed. “She is the only outsider who has been allowed to know where we make our home! I allowed it, sister, but only because it was my intent for her never to leave except with us when we departed for Canada land.”
He didn’t give his sister a chance to defend what she had done, or tell him she was sorry for her mistake. He ran from the tepee, leapt onto his horse, and rode away, down the mountain pass.
If he did not find Shoshana before she reached the fort, then he would have to ride into the fort and ask for her. He would risk everything now to have Shoshana.
He was wrong to have told her she was his captive. Those words might have turned her into his enemy.
Only time would tell. If she hated him now, he might be the one taken captive.
Chapter Twenty-one
Beauty is but vain doubtful gain,
A shining glass that fadeth suddenly.
—William Shakespeare
Worn out and weary, and afraid he would never see Shoshana again, George sat slumped over in the saddle as he and the soldiers rode back in the direction of Fort Chance.
His eyes rose quickly when a soldier shouted in alarm. When George saw why, he felt sick inside.
A horse with an empty saddle and a bloody left flank was limping from the shadows of the aspen forest.
As the animal approached, it became obvious how the wound had been inflicted. There was a huge claw scratch, raw, red, and bloody on its flank.
“God almighty, I wonder whose horse it was,” Colonel Hawkins said as he grabbed the reins. His gaze went to the blankets covering something behind the saddle.
“Mountain Jack’s horse?” George gulped out. “God, it might be Mountain Jack’s. If so, where . . . where . . . is Shoshana?”
Everyone circled around the horse as Colonel Hawkins began unwrapping the blankets. The colonel’s face drained of color at what he saw. “Pelts—but, Lord, there are also many scalps here,” he said. “This had to have been Mountain Jack’s horse.”
“Lord,” George groaned, hanging his head.
“The wound on the horse seems to be the work of either a panther or a bear,” Colonel Hawkins said as he examined the wound. “It must have happened when the animal attacked the rider. It surely killed its victim, then took the body to its den.”
George swallowed hard as he tried to compose himself. “Is . . . there . . . a sign of another horse anywhere?” he asked, his eyes searching around him. He stared into the aspens. “If Mountain Jack had Shoshana with him, who is to say what might’ve happened to her?”
The colonel, along with the others, followed the trail of blood on the ground. It seemed the ambushed man had been dragged away by the animal, disappearing into the trees for a moment, then out again into open space.
Colonel Hawkins’s eyes locked with George’s. “I see no signs of anyone else having been here, George,” he said tightly. “I have no idea what to think, except I imagine the scalp hunter has got his due. As for Shoshana? George, I . . . just . . . don’t know.”
“Send several soldiers to search further,” George said, tears filling his eyes. “Maybe there is a chance. . . . There is one thing that gives me some hope.”
“What’s that?” Colonel Hawkins asked as four soldiers rode back into the aspens.
“Since there is no sign whatsoever of Shoshana being with the scalp hunter at the moment of the attack, just maybe she managed to escape his clutches earlier,” George mumbled. “Perhaps she was found by someone else. Perhaps even now she is being held by the Apache chief.”
He gave the colonel a hard stare. “I say turn around,” he said thickly. “Our destination should be the stronghold, not the fort.”
?
??George, you’re not being rational about this,” Colonel Hawkins said. He sidled his steed closer to George’s. “Your grief is keeping you from thinking clearly about things.”
“I’m as rational as you, and I say let’s go and search for Chief Storm’s stronghold and not stop until we find it,” George growled out. “I say you’ve been too lenient on him. Why? Do you two have a secret pact, or what?”