“Doubt she’s been with a man at all.”
She could feel his entire body tense at that. “How you so sure?”
“Cheyenne women like that. Go ’head. Put your hand down there between her legs. Yeah, down ’round her waist. Feel that rope. That’s a belt she’ll cut off for the man she’ll marry.”
Pipe Woman could feel the man’s breathing go shallow, hard and shallow. He was growing more than excited.
“She’s a goddamned virgin!” he said greedily. “Let’s go, sweetheart.”
Hook put out his empty hand. “I guess I didn’t get it across to you. She ain’t for you to use.”
The stranger stopped shoving her toward the door, his attention on Hook. “Where you from, Reb? You one of them poor white trash we whipped in the war?”
“You didn’t whip me, mister. I’m still standing here—waiting for your yellow-bellied kind to show me how you fight a man. You’re pretty tough with a woman. But your kind gets all yellow and runs when you gotta fight a man.”
“I figure I’ll take care of you—then have my fun with the squaw here.”
“Your kind never learned any manners around a woman, did you, Yankee trash?”
“This red slut ain’t no woman. She’s a goddamned Injun whore—and I’m just lucky enough to be her first man. Now—if you know what’s better for you, why don’t you just wait in line when I’m done, you ugly Gentile.”
“Gentile,” Hook repeated. “Seems I remember some folks calling me that before.”
“Chances are—you rubbed up against Mormons. And come out losing against the power of God. Like I said, Reb—I’ll whip you good tonight and leave you for the dogs to chew on come morning.”
“You’re a lot of talk with a Injun girl between us, Mormon,” Hook said.
Pipe Woman watched Hook pull open his coat, the big handle of his pistol sticking out now, looking huge like a deer hoof.
Her attacker was silent for a few moments, breathing hard, probably considering. Then he shoved her forward a step, closer to Hook.
“Something about you bothers me, mister.”
“Maybe because I come to hate Mormons.”
The man shook his head. “Naw—it’s them eyes of yours. Swear I seen eyes like that before. Yeah—almost like you could be kin to some other poor Secesh trash we burned out down in Missouri.”
She watched Hook swallow hard, his eyes narrowing as he asked, “Missouri?”
“You know the place, do you? Well, let me tell you about this hardscrabble farm we come on,” he hissed. “Folks there without no man to take care of ’em. Years back. Kids all got the same yellow eyes like yours, mister. Especially the girl. What’s she now? Maybe ten—eleven years old. Just about prime for rutting, don’t you think?”
“Maybe you ought’n hold your tongue, before you get it cut out of your throat.”
“Oh, you is it? It’s you gonna do the cutting? I don’t think so. So let me tell you we took that girl and her mama and two young boys and—”
“Let the Injun girl go now.” Hook breathed out slowly.
“You want her for yourself, mister?”
“I want to know where you got my daughter and wife. Then … I’m going to kill you.”
He laughed, like the quick, high bleet of a sheep. “You better be real good with that hog-leg you got stuck in your belt—because I’m quick.”
“Let the girl go now.”
“Yeah,” he breathed heavily, almost in a curse of a whisper. “I’ll let her go.”
His hand came away from her breast, with a sudden rush of blood to her flesh after so long beneath his clawing grip. Then he released her wrist and her arm fell, limp, tingling with the rush of circulation returned to its entire length.
“G’won now, Pipe Woman.”
“Nice name,” the Mormon said, pulling apart the flaps of his coat.
“Take it outside!” yelled someone from behind Hook.
“Go now, Pipe Woman!” Hook repeated, urgently, motioning toward the open door where the snow swirled.
She saw that Hook never took his eyes off the one who had grabbed her, so she was not sure he would know she had left. Only when she stepped through the doorway into the darkness filled with cold, icy, dancing snow … and slammed the door behind her.
She was running, running through the deep snow, sprinting through the patches of darkness and lamplit brightness—heading back to her mother’s lodge, breathless, hurting, scared—
—when she heard the gunshots throb profanely into that winter night, behind her.
43
ONLY THE WIND keening outside the lodge. Nothing more than that.
Shad Sweete closed his eyes again and rolled over, his bare back warming as he snuggled against Toote. He sighed in contentment, the air in the lodge cold, yet still fragrant with that night’s supper.
His eyes shot open again.
Sweete was certain now—sure that what he had heard was something more than the winter wind. Almost like the whimper of a man …
His ears strained, picking up the first sounds of footsteps across the icy snow. Two sets. Two men. No, not really … the second man was being dragged along by the first. And whoever was doing the dragging had that second man begging for his life.
More noise to it now on the old, icy snow.
As he bolted up, yanking his wool shirt over his longhandles, Shad’s ears picked up the sound of camp dogs snuffling around outside, their own paws padding across the icy crust atop the four-day-old snow outside.
Quickly he yanked on the two buffalo winter moccasins, sewn hair in, and snatched up his long winter capote. He was out through the lodge door, pulling the coat over his arms as Jonah Hook appeared from the backside of the lodge.
He was dragging a man across the snow.
In the pale moonlight that gave a dim, morning luster to the snow, Shad could see the thin, greasy trail of blood beneath the man as he was hauled along behind Hook. The dogs were busy over that track of warm gore, muzzle deep.
“What in glory is going on?” Shad demanded in a harsh whisper, his shoulder-length gray hair and beard brilliant beneath the winter starlight.
“Wanted you to meet somebody, Shad,” Jonah rasped, short of breath.
Sweete recognized a cold light in the young Confederate’s eyes. Something so cold it caused the old mountain man to shiver there in the snow spilling over his ankles that he found himself having to glance away, down to the stranger.
“Who’s this? What the bloody hell is going on?”
Hook knelt, jabbing his fingers into the man’s hair and yanking the head back. The eyes rolled up, attempting to focus on Hook a moment, then flickered toward Shad Sweete. A wild sheen came over them of a sudden.
“Help—help me, mister!” he called out weakly. “I’m bleeding to death, dammit.”
“I can see that,” Sweete replied. None of this made a tinker’s bit of sense. He knelt beside Jonah, the stranger too. “How—”
“This bastard shot me!” the stranger explained, reaching out his hand to Sweete.
Hook brought his pistol barrel down on the back of the man’s wrist with a brutal snap.
“He’s gonna kill me—for sure,” he whimpered. “You gotta help me!”
“You shoot him?”
