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Seeing movement ahead, Shane sprang behind another tree and stiffened himself against it. Stealing a glance, he was now able to fully see the man. He was large and sported a thick, gray-streaked rusty beard, and was dressed in sweat-stained buckskins. Carrying several steel traps, he passed close to Shane, unaware of being watched. A break in the trees overhead allowed the morning light to spiral downward onto the man's face, fully revealing his features to Shane.
Shane's insides tightened and a strange sort of pressure, like a band being squeezed about his head, momentarily dizzied him. He knew this man! It was the eyes that made Shane recognize him. They were the same eyes that had haunted Shane since the day of his mother's death!
His heart pounding hard, Shane turned his eyes away and pressed his back up against the trunk of the tree, splaying the palms of his hands against the rough bark until it began cutting into his flesh. It took all of the restraint that he had learned from the Indians in his youth not to cry out! He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, trying to block out the day the man with the peculiar eyes had crouched over his mother and stripped her delicate finger of her wedding band! But it was impossible! He would never forget!
Then another thought struck him, like a bolt of lightning reaching from the sky to impale him at the pit of his stomach. Not only his mother had suffered at the hands of this evil man, but also Cedar Maid! Because of Trapper Dan, Cedar Maid too was dead!
Shane's hand crept slowly to his sheathed knife. Slipping it free, he turned to wait for Trapper Dan to ge
t close enough to attack. The trapper would die slowly from his wounds. He would lie in the forest, bleeding to death, prey to any animal that would come sniffing, searching for food. Instead of the trapper ensnaring an innocent animal in his trap's steel teeth, the trapper would experience teeth just as sharpthe animal's!
Shane's eyes wavered and his heart skipped a beat when, after turning to watch the trapper again, he discovered someone else walking close to the tree he lurked behind. He hadn't seen her before. Leading a horse that had more traps secured on it, she must have been lagging behind, only now catching up with her companion, the trapper.
Blinking his eyes, unable to believe what he was seeing, Shane lowered his knife to his side and looked more intently at the Indian woman. He did not recognize her, yet he knew that he wouldn't. This trapper who was responsible for one Indian woman's death would not return to the same village for another. He had surely gone to a village far from Gray Falcon's!
As Trapper Dan and his woman came closer, Shane moved stealthily from the tree for a greater cover behind some flowering bushes. Spreading the leaves and flowers aside, he looked up at the woman as she passed only a few feet away from him. She was beautiful. She was young. And she did not seem all that unhappy to be with the trapper! She did not walk with her eyes downcast, as one who was sad. She looked straight ahead, a softness in her dark eyes. If Shane killed the trapper, what would she do? She would be a witness to his crime.
Shaking his head, Shane settled down onto the ground and buried his face in his hands. What should he do? The man he hated with every fiber of his being was only footsteps away, setting traps in the forest not a day's ride away from his farm. He should be able to take his revenge. But he could not. Because of the Indian woman, he could not.
Trapper Dan and the Indian woman had gone past him, and Shane began quietly following along behind them. He had to see where the trapper lived. He could plan his revenge later!
One by one the traps were set, until there were no more on the horse. Shane held his breath as the trapper swung himself up into his saddle, then reached and pulled the Indian woman up behind him. They rode away slowly, giving Shane the opportunity to continue following them on foot. When he spied a cabin up ahead in the forest, he jumped back behind a tree and waited for the trapper and his woman to go inside.
Breathless moments passed while Trapper Dan watered down his horse and gave it a bunch of hay to munch on. But finally both he and the woman were inside the cabin.
Shane crept to a window and looked in furtively. Everything seemed so normal. Trapper Dan lit a fire on the hearth. The woman set a pot of water into the flames. Then she turned to Trapper Dan. Shane watched guardedly as the woman slipped the trapper's buckskin shirt over his head, then kneeled to remove his boots. Shane's eyes narrowed as he saw the woman pull the trapper's breeches down, to reveal a large erection.
Hating the trapper even more fiercely, Shane witnessed the lust in his eyes as the woman stepped out of her buckskin dress, revealing a shapely bronze body with lovely breasts, a tapering waist, and a triangular bush of raven hair at the juncture of her thighs.
A bitterness rose into Shane's throat when he saw the Indian woman climb onto a bed, obedient to the white man. He momentarily turned his eyes away when Trapper Dan plunged himself inside her and began thrusting wildly, his grunts and groans reaching Shane's ears through the crude walls of the cabin.
He listened for any sign of the woman being uncomfortable, hoping that would give him a reason to believe that she would welcome rescue.
But he heard none. Perhaps she was even enjoying being with the trapper.
Perhaps she loved him . . . .
"How could she?" Shane asked himself. He jerked away from the window. It took all the willpower that he could muster not to go inside the cabin anyway, to get his revenge now! He had waited twenty-five years! How could he pass up the opportunity?
But he did not want to take the chance of hurting the woman.
It would come later, he told himself. He moved stealthily away from the cabin, entering the shadows of the forest again. For now, he must get away from there.
Seeing the Indian woman had brought back too many memories. Shane wasn't ready to return to the stiff, white house in which he now resided. He longed for his wigwam, the life that he had once known when, at the rising sun, he knew what the day would have in store for him. Indians did everything with a pattern, a plan. The white man's life had nothing in order. And he still did not know who was trying to make life even more difficult for him at the farm. Should he allow them to succeed at running him off?
For now, he wanted to be at peace with himself and nature. He needed time to contemplate this latest discovery. He had much in his life to sort out.
Avoiding all the traps that had been set in the forest, Shane went back to the lake where he had originally planned to pray and meditate. He jerked his horse's reins free and swung himself up into his saddle. He couldn't stay there. He had to move on.
He had to put many miles between himself and the trapper.
Shane rode with abandon for some time, until the pines began to cast long shadows all around him. He rode away from the forest and across a meadow where dew was already capturing reflections of the evening sky. The air was cooling. It was time to stop and build a fire.
Choosing an isolated spot beside a river that snaked its way down from a mist-mantled foothill, Shane dismounted. After building a campfire and a makeshift lean-to, he took his saddlebag from his horse and settled down on a blanket beside the fire.
Smiling, he reached inside the saddlebag and withdrew a cigar, his deck of playing cards, and a silver flask of whiskey.
He lit the cigar and dealt out two hands of poker, then opened the flask of whiskey. He removed his cigar from his mouth long enough to take a quick drink of whiskey, then held the silver flask up before him.
