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“Flame!” she screamed. “My name is Flame! And, I’ll have you know, I didn’t return home because I—”
When White Fire cleared his throat noisily, drawing Flame’s eyes to him, she remembered now what he had told her earlier. Under no circumstances should she let her father know that the Chippewa chief had taken her captive. Her father would grab that chance to start his war with them before Colonel Edwards could stop him.
She was torn by what to do or say, for if she didn’t tell the truth, White Fire would take the blame.
Yet she knew the true hopelessness of it all, for even if she did tell her father the truth, he would still take White Fire and imprison him, because she had stayed the night with him. That alone seemed all that her father needed to place him in a dungeon before . . . before . . . he was hanged.
“Eh, what were you about to say?” Colonel Russell said, forking an eyebrow as he glanced slowly from Flame to White Fire, aware that something was going on between them by the way they were looking guardedly at one another.
Flame turned quick eyes to her father. “I was about to say that you cannot arrest White Fire for any reason, trumped up, or otherwise, for it is I who will stand up before everyone and call you a liar!” she cried. “I was with him willingly! I will proudly announce to the world that I made love with him, not only once, but twice last night!”
She placed her hands on her hips and defied her father with a stubborn, set stare. “You can’t stop me, Father,” she said, glaring into his eyes. “Even if you tie me to a bedpost, I shall find a way to get loose. I will never allow you to run my life again. Never!”
The colonel was enraged by her impertinence, and by what she had said in the presence of the soldiers about sleeping with the ’breed. He was more enraged at the thought of her being with any man sexually besides himself. Colonel Russell raised a hand and slapped her across the face, not once, but three times.
White Fire growled from the depths of his throat and yanked and strained his muscles in an attempt to get free from those who held him immobile. But no matter how hard he tried to defend his beloved, he was still held fast.
Stunned by her father having slapped her, tears flowed across Flame’s cheeks as she stared into his evil, cold, gray eyes. “You’ll be sorry,” she then managed to say, breathless in her anger toward him.
“You are the one who will be sorry,” Colonel Russell said, his teeth clenched, his j
aw tight. “Damn it all to hell, Reshelle, you give me no choice but to send you to St. Louis to a convent.”
He leaned down and spoke into her face. “And while you are on your way down the river under heavy guard, this ’breed will die not by hanging, but by a firing squad,” he said, a crooked smile lifting his lips.
It was as though someone had slammed a fist in her stomach. Flame’s breath was suddenly taken away by her father’s threats. She turned and gazed at White Fire. Their eyes momentarily locked and held.
When she started to run to him, to fling herself into his arms, Colonel Russell reached out, grabbed her by a wrist and stopped her.
“Take him away!” Colonel Russell shouted, nodding toward White Fire. “Take him to the fort and lock him in chains!”
“No!” Flame cried, yanking at her arm.
But her father’s grip was like steel around her wrist. She had no choice but to watch as White Fire was forced onto a horse, his wrists now tied behind him.
Flame’s insides turned cold and empty as he was taken away.
She stumbled clumsily when her father finally released her. He shoved her toward her horse.
Lieutenant Green brought the colonel his horse.
Flame glanced down at the rifle that she had left on the ground near the blackberry bushes.
Colonel Russell also looked at the rifle, then gave Flame a slow, taunting stare. “Get on the horse, damn it,” he said. “Your feisty days are over.”
Flame knew that she had no choice but to do as he told her. She swung herself into her saddle, then turned her eyes heavenward.
Silently she prayed for Colonel Edwards not to wait too long to make things right again at Fort Snelling. Now there was much more at stake here than a war between the soldiers and the Indians. An innocent man was going to be sentenced to die.
As Flame rode off with her father, she could not help but feel guilty for what had happened. Had she not been so foolhardy last evening by leaving the fort in her frenzy of anger against her father, White Fire would be free.
Dispirited, and feeling defeated, Flame knew that no matter how much she blamed herself, it was for naught, for she knew that her father would have found another way, another reason, to eventually imprison White Fire.
“Or just out and out kill him like he surely killed the Indian agent,” she thought to herself, shuddering at the thought.
More and more she found it so hard to believe that a man like this could be any kin to her whatsoever, for he seemed evil, through and through.
He seemed soulless!
