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She glanced over at the chair where two more dresses lay folded neatly. Colonel Downing had brought those to her so that she could have a change of clothes.
He had even brought some nightgowns, but she had not gone near them.
It gave her a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach just to imagine wearing them since she knew who had worn them, and with whom.
Yes. She must go now and tell the colonel her decision. No matter what he said or did, she would get on her horse and ride away from the fort and those who resided in it.
She had begun to feel more ill at ease by the minute. She was longing to go back to the Crow village, where she felt safe.
She just prayed that Brave Wolf and his warriors would somehow find her son.
Tears sprang to her eyes at the thought of never seeing David again, or holding him.
No. She must keep hoping that he was alive, and unharmed. She had heard how young white boys were adopted into Indian tribes and raised as one of them.
She had heard of those who were called “white warriors.”
They were white men raised from childhood as Indians.
She shuddered at the thought of David ever becoming an unwilling “white warrior” for a renegade tribe, forced to ride against his own people.
Determined to stop thinking such things, and to get on with what she must do, she placed the doeskin dress back on the bed, then took a deep breath and left the cabin.
She always felt eyes following her when she was out in the open courtyard. She knew that the men still resented her presence, especially since they could not have their own wives there.
She lifted the hem of the dress and coughed when the dust stirred beneath her feet as she walked toward Colonel Downing’s office. When she noticed the men staring at her feet, she dropped the dress again quickly. She was still wearing Indian moccasins.
When the colonel had tried to change Mary Beth’s appearance, he had offered her his wife’s shoes. She was glad that they hadn’t fit, for she would have refused to wear them. It was enough to be wearing his wife’s clothes.
She rushed onward and hurried into the colonel’s office. Once inside, she stared through the cloud of cigar smoke and saw that the colonel wasn’t at his desk. He had surely been there only moments ago, for a cigar was still smoking away in an ashtray on his desk.
Then she became aware of voices carrying down the corridor from the direction of the colonel’s private quarters.
She walked quietly into the corridor, then went and stood just outside the door that led to the colonel’s lovely parlor. She leaned closer to the door when she heard the colonel say something, and then someone responding. It was obvious there were several men having a meeting with the colonel in his private quarters.
She was disgruntled to realize that she must postpone her own discussion with him. She started to turn and leave, then stopped abruptly when she heard the colonel speak Chief Brave Wolf’s name. He laughed almost wickedly as he continued talking.
Trembling, she eased closer to the door and pressed her ear against it, then grew more upset by the minute as she listened to the plans being made against Brave Wolf and his people. The colonel made mention of his brother and cousin, who had died at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, saying he had waited long enough to act on his anger over these deaths.
It was apparent to Mary Beth that the colonel was out for vengeance as he vowed to kill as many redskins as he could.
Then he again mentioned one warrior in particular . . . a chief . . . that he wanted to kill, the one that had brought Mary Beth to the fort. He said it made his skin crawl to know that such a lovely woman had been anywhere near Injuns. But it infuriated him to think that she had been with Brave Wolf.
He had come away from Chief Brave Wolf’s village hating the bastard. The chief seemed to have such an air of superiority about him. It had been hard not to reach over and strangle him even then, but the colonel knew he’d never leave the village alive if he did.
So he had waited for the right opportunity to go after Chief Brave Wolf, who would be the first of those he would kill as he achieved his vengeance for those who had been slain during the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Seeing Mary Beth in the Injun attire had been a reminder of what he had been putting off until he came up with just the right scheme that would finally show the redskins a thing or two about slaughtering white people.
Mary Beth’s mind was reeling from all that she heard this man say. She could hear the venomous hate in his voice, the loathing!
What am I to do? she wondered as she stepped slowly away from the door.
She had been so anxious to leave this place and return to the loving arms of Brave Wolf, yet now she didn’t think that was what she should do. She must find a way to stop the colonel and his men from harming Brave Wolf.
“There is only one way,” she whispered as she glared at the closed door.
She smiled wickedly when she recalled the lust in the colonel’s eyes when he looked at her. There was such a hunger there for her, she knew that soon he would have to act on his feelings.
She would use this weakness of the colonel’s in order to find out all the plans that were being made against Brave Wolf.
