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He struggled up into the saddle again and rode with the others until they reached the cabin and surrounded it.
“Come out with your hands in the air!” Colonel Hawkins shouted. “Don’t try anything funny. You’re surrounded.”
“I don’t think anyone is there,” a soldier said as he sidled his steed close to George’s. “I see no horse, and there isn’t any smoke coming from the chimney.”
George gazed at the chimney and saw that the soldier was right. There was no smoke.
He looked cautiously around the cabin and saw no horse. What he did see was a pen that had been built near the cabin; it was empty.
He was close enough to it to get the scent of animals and guessed that whoever lived in the cabin usually had some sort of animals locked in there. The gate, however, was open now.
“Let’s go inside the cabin,” George said, dismounting. “I think it’s safe enough.”
Well armed, George and the others crept to the door. George took it upon himself to open it, anxious to see if there might be any sign of Shoshana inside.
Squinting his eyes as he stepped into the dark room from the bright sunshine out doors, George could not make out anything at first. But as his eyes adjusted, what he saw made his stomach turn. There was blood in more than one place, and hanging from the rafters were several fresh scalps.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Colonel Hawkins asked as he stepped to George’s side. “That we’ve found Mountain Jack’s cabin?”
“Yes, I believe so, but we haven’t found him, or my daughter,” George said, sighing heavily. He began walking slowly around the room, limping as he leaned on his cane, his eyes not missing anything.
His heart seemed to stop dead inside his chest when he stepped on something that was very familiar to him.
“Lord . . .” he gasped, paling.
He knelt and grabbed up the red bandanna, the very one that he had given to Shoshana right before she left with Major Klein.
“What is it, George?” Colonel Hawkins asked as he came to his side. “What have you got there?”
George held it out for the colonel to see. “This is mine,” he said thickly. “I gave it to Shoshana right before she left the fort.”
He gulped hard as he brought the bandanna up to his nose; his daughter’s scent was on it. He would recognize the smell of her soap anywhere. She and her mother had used it to wash their hair for years.
“There is no doubt whatsoever that Shoshana was here,” he said, his eyes flashing angrily. “But . . . where . . . is she now?”
“Come and look at this,” a soldier said, lifting a chain as George turned toward him. “This was used to imprison someone. I wonder if—”
“If it might have been Shoshana?” George said, completing the soldier’s words.
He thrust the bandanna in his rear pants pocket and gazed at the chain as the soldier held it up for his inspection.
A cold stab of fear mixed with repulsion filled George’s being. He looked quickly away from the chain. Seeing it and the bandanna gave him thoughts he did not want to think.
His Shoshana had been chained by this madman scalp hunter?
If so, where was she now?
He lowered his head so that the others wouldn’t see the tears that came to his eyes at the thought of possibly losing her forever.
He suddenly remembered the very first day he had seen her, how sweet and tiny she was, how alone and frightened, after so many around her had died.
He thought of how she had clung to her mother, crying over her. He had felt an instant love for the child that day, and even a strange sort of pity for those she had lost.
He had raised her with all the love he would have given his own daughter.
He had always regretted that he had been forced to leave on another attack against the Apache the very next day.
He had already decided to head back for Missouri, where no Indians could take Shoshana away from him. But he had had second thoughts about leaving for Missouri right away when he was told that he risked losing his status as colonel and being court-martialed if he did not ride that one last time with the military. Afterward, he was promised, he could be transferred to a quieter, more peaceful place.
