Logan's Outlaw Part 3

Sarah jumped to her feet. "I was a captive, Mr. Taggert. All of the men in Swift Elk's band used me most cruelly. I won't go back. I don't belong to the tribe."

Mr. Taggert lifted her satchel and put his arms through each strap so that he could carry it on his back. He tossed his saddlebag over the satchel. "They think you do. A white wife is of great valuea"for ransoming, if nothing else. When you left, you cheated Swift Elk of his valuable propertya"you."

He started off down the faint tracks that the stage had followed. Sarah grabbed their bedrolls and hurried after him, her mind sifting through everything that had been said. "You told him I belong to you."

"You do."

That wasn't the answer she was expecting. "You have no idea how grateful I am for all you've done for me in the last several days."

She sent a quick look at Mr. Taggert's hard profile. He seemed either to not be listening or not comprehending what she was saying. "I do need your help to get to Fort Laramie. It's true. But I'll be fine from there to Cheyenne. There's no need for you to commit more of your time on my behalf."

He shrugged. "I've claimed you. So I am responsible for you. That's how it works."

"That was only survival negotiations. No one will hold you to it."

"I will hold myself to it." His pale gaze slashed her way. "My word's all I got at the moment, Mrs. Hawkins. And in case you didn't notice, my word just saved your hide."

"Mr. Taggerta"" Sarah adopted a stern tone. "I know nothing about you. You know nothing about me. Strangers don't claim each other."

"You know I own some trading posts in the region. I am comfortably fixed for money. You're a widow. You got no family to protect you. And you're running from something. What else do we need to know?"

Sarah stopped to glare at him, but his long strides swiftly carried him away. She jogged a bit to catch up to him. "What makes you think I'm running from anything?"

"Besides the sidearm you're packing that you don't know how to use? Or the fact that you're going to Cheyennea"deeper into the same troubled country that's treated you so bad? A sane woman would be heading back East."

"I-I have friends in Cheyenne."

Mr. Taggert stopped walking. "Let's get something straight right now. I don't like liars. I won't lie to you, and you don't lie to me."

She drew herself up to her full height. "I appreciate your help. I need your help. But I am not going to exchange my life for it. You cannot claim me."

He shrugged. "It's your decision." He looked up at the sky and squinted. "I figure you got between now and when that war party comes back to decide. Me. Or them."

The wool blankets of the bedrolls she carried were making her arms itch in the afternoon heat. "I will not marry you."

"I haven't asked you."

She frowned at him. She was beginning to wonder if the sun and the stress of their situation hadn't gotten to him. "Are you quite sure all your faculties are intact, Mr. Taggert?"

He grinned and flashed a look her way. "You think I'm loco? Because I left a perfectly sound coach to escort a stunningly beautiful womana"who happens to be the runaway wife of one of the fiercest Sioux chiefs alivea"across hostile Sioux country on foot?"

"No." She scratched at her forearm. "Because you got on the stage in the first place. You had your saddle. You could have hired a horse for the price of a seat on the stage. Why would you do that?"

He pulled her satchel off his shoulders and took the bedrolls from her, kneeling to tie them to her bag. He looked up at her, a casual slice of his gray gaze. "Are you so wounded that you think every man is out to harm you?"

She stared down at him. "Yes."

He stood up and slipped his arms through the handles of her satchel and slung his saddlebag over the top again. He stared at her for an uncomfortable moment. "That, Mrs. Hawkins, is the most honest thing you've said to me yet. I have never hurt a woman, and I don't intend to start now." He took her hand and started forward again.

"I don't know what you mean when you say you *claim' me."

"Neither do I." He grinned at her. His smile crinkled the corners of his eyes, curved the hard edges of his mouth. "I've never claimed a woman before."

"Mr. Taggerta""

"Logan," he interrupted her.

"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather we weren't on such a familiar basis with each other as to use each other's given names."

"It isn't all the same to me."

She pressed her lips together, terribly confused by the man holding her hand. She looked at his hard profile as he scanned the horizon. A shadow from the brim of his hat slashed across his face. Best just say what needed to be said. She'd long since lost her modesty. "I am not prepared to share my body with you or anyone." Ever again.

His hand tightened marginally. This time when his gaze met her eyes, there was no humor in it. "I haven't asked you to. When I do, you'll know it, so there's no use worrying about when I'm going to ask. And you'll want it, too, or not a d.a.m.n thing will happen between us."

"Then why are you holding my hand?"

"Because you're scared. And I'm not. You can let go anytime you want, honey."

Sarah gritted her teeth. Why did he have to say that? And sound so nice saying it? He was carrying her satchel, their bedrolls, and his saddlebaga"everything they owned, a burden that, among the Sioux, she would have been expected to carry. And it felt good to hold his hand.

She let go of him.

"Why don't you tell me what trouble it is you're running from? Maybe there's something I can do. At the very least, I'll have a better idea about how to keep you safe."

Sarah said nothing for several moments as she tried to figure out how much she could reveal without telling him anything significant. In the end, she decided to tell him the story her husband had told her. "My husband was investigating corruption at several of the Indian agencies in the Dakota Territory. He made some powerful enemies. They didn't want him to publish what he'd discovered." How easily she'd fallen for that tale. Until Eugene had asked her to forge several land deeds.

Mr. Taggert whistled low and shook his head. "That's it? That's all you're gonna tell me? There's gotta be more to it than that."

"That's all I can tell you."

"Sooner or later, I'm gonna need the whole story."

She said nothing more, and he didn't press her. "Where do you think we are?" she asked, changing the subject.

"By foot, about a week northeast of Fort Laramie. Let's move closer to the tree line. We'll be less obvious."

It was well into the evening before they saw the smoke rising on the distant horizon. Sarah cried out and started forward at a quick pace.

"Whoaaa"hold up there," Logan grabbed her arm, keeping her at his side.

"That's the stage, isn't it?"

"Can't know for sure. But it's likely." He pulled the pack off his shoulders and set it on the ground. They would stop here for the night. Both of them were exhausted. And this spot was somewhat defensible, should they need cover.

"We've got to go help them!"

"You'll never make it before dark. That fire's at least three miles away. And you don't know what's between us and them."

Sarah shook her head, the blood rapidly leaving her face. Her eyes went big and dilated so that the warm brown of her irises looked black. Her gaze became unfocused. It was as if she'd gone somewhere inside herself, Logan thought. A place of terror.

"The warriors are coming back, aren't they?"

He didn't answer her. He didn't need to answer her.

"Oh, G.o.d. No," she mumbled, over and over as she s.n.a.t.c.hed up her satchel and the attached bedrolls. She backed a few steps away from him, then pivoted and ran for the thin line of trees that bordered the river.

"What are you doing?" Logan followed her. She stuffed the pack into a hollow at the cavernous base of an old cottonwood, then covered it with branches and leaves.

"Hurry! We have to hide." She ran frantically along the bank, searching for something. He followed her.

"We don't have to hide. I won't let them harm you."

She found the perfect hiding place inside a thick stand of cottonwoods where saplings grew from the roots of the older trees. Holding her skirts tight to her body, she pushed her way inside the screening, careful not to break any branches.

"Mrs. Hawkins, please. There is no need for this panic." He reached out and snagged her arm as the wide, green leaves slipped over her body. Even if she did nothing more than that, it would have been hard to spot her, standing as she was in her brown homespun dress amid the dense foliage of the lower brush.

"They're coming. They will do to us what they did to the pa.s.sengers," she hissed. "I don't want to die, not that way. And I won't be taken again. Hide with me. Hide now." She withdrew into the arms of the saplings, disappearing into the bank, perfectly camouflaged. In seconds flat there was no sign that anyone had been there. He'd seen native women take longer to hide themselves and their young from soldiers and bounty men hunting the tribe than it had taken Sarah to disappear.

Logan lifted his hat and shoved his hand through his hair. The woman was scared through and through. There was no convincing her that he would protect her. He made his way back up the bank and walked a few yards away, haunted by the terror in her eyes.

He wasn't sure what he became aware of firsta"the percussion of hooves against the hard ground or the noise of galloping horses. The band of warriors they had met earlier thundered to a stop in a semicircle around him. Two of the warriors rode Morgans from the coach, leading their paints and the other two horses from the coach. One of them used Logan's expensive Spanish saddle. Loot from the wagon was tied in bundles behind them. Three of the warriors had b.l.o.o.d.y scalps fixed to their shields.

Christ. There was nothing he could do about the other pa.s.sengers. Had they not put Sarah out, he would have gladly negotiated on their behalf. No matter what his feelings for them were, no one deserved deaths such as they'd likely met. None of that mattered now. Making an issue of the attack would serve no purpose in the bartering he was going to have to do to obtain Sarah's release from her Sioux husband.

Logan could feel the burn of Sarah's gaze from her hiding spot. He hoped like h.e.l.l she held her fire.

Cloud Walker ordered the man leading the two spare ponies to bring them forward. An antelope was draped over the back of one of them. "We bring you horses so that you don't have to walk."

Logan did not spare a glance for the horses. "I have nothing to trade for them. I cannot accept them."

Cloud Walker looked around them. "Where is Swift Elk's wife?"

"My wife is preparing our camp."

Cloud Walker had one of his men cut the antelope off the pony. He dropped it at Logan's feet. "We have brought an antelope for Yellow Moon to prepare for us. We will smoke and talk about the ponies while she cooks."

"I will summon her."

Logan went down the embankment, putting the trees between him and Cloud Walker's band to obscure Sarah's hiding spot. Even knowing where she was, he had to search for her. "Mrs. Hawkins, you were right. They have come back." Her head lifted up. Leaves were stuck in her hair. "They've brought us an antelope and requested that you prepare it for them. Do you know how to do the butchering?"

She nodded.

"Could you please join us?"

She violently shook her head.

"It is best that we don't anger them by rejecting their gift. They have also brought us ponies to ride." He reached over and pulled a leaf out of her hair. "I will negotiate for your freedom. Do you think you can trust me?"

"You, maybe. Not them. They will dine with us, then kill us. They turn in a flash. You don't know them like I do."

"I do know them, but I know them differently."

"What of the stage pa.s.sengers?"

Logan sighed. "They have the horses from the stage, my saddle, and three fresh scalps."

"Oh, G.o.d. Oh, G.o.d." She covered her mouth and immediately ceased all sound. She shook her head. Her eyes pleaded with him, terror drawing the blood from her face.

"Never mind. I shouldn't have asked. I'll tell them you're sick and cannot prepare their meal."

"No! It won't matter to them. They won't accept that answer. They killed our fellow travelers, Mr. Taggert. It's wrong that you would have me cook for them. It's wrong. They are evil. They will kill us, too."

Logan sighed. "Their people are at war with ours. What they did, against your settlement, against the coach, was an act of war. You and I are fortunate that they don't see us as enemies at the moment. I'm asking you to cook for them because they are hungry, and I am hungry, and because it will make our negotiations go better."

Sarah pushed up from her leaf cover. For a long moment, she studied his eyes. At last, she nodded and smoothed debris from her hair. Logan could see the tremor in her hands. "I need to gather firewood."

He lifted her chin, forcing her eyes to meet his. "Running would not be a good choice, sweetheart. I need you to trust me on this."

"I won't run."

When she approached the camp a short while later, she made a pile of thin sticks near the antelope and left some items she'd taken from her satchel, seasonings and such that she'd brought for the trip. She collected kindling and larger pieces of firewood, which she laid out in a circle near where the men sat in a circle. She propped a few tall rocks on either side of the fire to brace the skewers upon. Logan handed her his matches to light the kindling. When the fire was started, he watched as she set to work on the antelope. It had already been gutted, Logan knew. The warriors would have eaten the liver and heart immediately after the kill, and would have emptied the intestines of any foodstuffs the animal had grazed on recently. The rest of the innards they'd have left at the kill site for the carrion to take.

She skinned one side of the animal, then carved out several thin strips of meat. She pounded these between large river rocks to tenderize the tough antelope meat, then seasoned and skewered them. Logan watched her make short work of the carca.s.s, lining up dozens of skewers to cook.

Sarah Hawkins was an enigma. Sometimes frightened and fragile, sometimes brave and resourceful. She could walk all day without complaining, though he knew she had to be as tired as he was. She could hide in an instant like a native and prepare an antelope like an experienced butchera"all things few white women were able or willing to do. He wondered if she was aware of her very considerable strengths.

Cloud Walker started a pipe, drawing and releasing smoke as an offering to the four directions, the Earth, and the sky before taking a smoke of his own. When the pipe was pa.s.sed to him, Logan drew the smoke into his lungs, held it until it burned. He pa.s.sed the pipe to the man next to him and slowly released the smoke.

"Shadow Wolf, what have you to trade for the two horses we offer?" Cloud Walker asked once every man in the circle had smoked from the pipe.

"I have a very fine saddle that I would consider trading in exchange for the two horses and a knife."

"Where is that saddle? I do not see it among your things."

"I left it with the black coach. They were to deliver it to Fort Laramie, where it would be held for my arrival."

"That is my saddle," one of the braves a.s.serted. "I took it in the raid on the coach. It is not yours to trade with," he claimed.

Logan made no comment, but looked at Cloud Walker. If ownership was determined by possession, then they could not claim Swift Elk still owned Mrs. Hawkins. The crafty old Indian caught the implication.

"We did not know the saddle was yours, Shadow Wolf. We will take it in trade for the ponies."

"And a knife. That saddle is valued, in my world, at a man's work for half a year. Ponies are but a day's work for a man in your world."

"Ponies cannot be acquired as easily as in days past. And each pony is of no value until someone has spent many weeks training him. As you know, owning one could be the difference between traveling across this land and dying within it. You don't value horses as you should."

Logan nodded his head. "It is true that the ponies are of significant importance. I will be pleased to exchange my saddle for the two ponies and a knife."