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  RIDE THE WILD RANGE

  Cheryl Pierson

  Ride the Wild Range by Cheryl Pierson

  Copyright© 2013 Cheryl Pierson

  Cover Design Livia Reasoner

  Prairie Rose Publications

  www.prairierosepublications.com

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews

  [This is the complete story of Will Green and Jacobi Kane from

  Red Eagle’s War, Red Eagle’s Revenge, and Texas Forever]

  RIDE THE WILD RANGE

  Young Will Green's entire family is murdered by Red Eagle's Apache renegades. During the long days and nights of captivity, Will plans his vengeance as only a ten-year-old boy can. But those plans are thwarted, along with his own imminent death, by a lone stranger who boldly walks into the Apache camp and forcefully takes Will from the band of warriors. Angry and humiliated, the Indians swear to follow Will and his savior as soon as they can round up their horses—and they won't stop until blood runs red.

  Jacobi Kane is a man of few words and a questionable past, but it doesn't take long for trust to build between him and Will. As Will struggles to recover from his own horrific ordeal and losses, Kane is forced to face some demons of his own.

  Peace is elusive, as Red Eagle's band strikes again, and a cadre of lawmen come calling for Kane to track the bloodthirsty renegade down and put an end to the Apaches’ reign of terror across Texas and Indian Territory. But by this time, Kane has other responsibilities—Will, a new wife, and a baby on the way. Can he leave them behind to do what no other man has been able to, or will his own past keep him from his duty?

  Yet another menace looms, as frightening to Will as the Apaches ever were. His wealthy Yankee grandfather is determined to wrest Will away from his newfound family and beloved western ways to bring him back to Boston and a life he can never embrace.

  Chapter 1

  Late July, 1875

  Indian Territory

  Tonight would be my night to die. Red Eagle and his men had kept me alive to their own end, for the last several days. Now, they argued, and though I didn't speak Apache, it wasn't hard to tell what they meant. We had ridden across endless miles of desert, populated only by saguaro cactus and rattlesnakes, for days. The men talked amongst themselves, their faces smeared with war paint. Garish and frightening, they had seemed to me from the moment they took me. Now, they seemed hideous, almost laughable.

  The sun was setting on another day among endless time – six days; seven? I wasn't sure how long we'd ridden. On and on, it seemed as if we'd ride until we came to the end of the earth. But I knew the sea surrounded the continent on three sides, and we were far from the cooling spray of ocean water my father had often spoken of.

  I was in Hell, and I knew it. But not the why. Why was I even still alive? By then, I didn't think too long on that, either.

  The sly looks Red Eagle's men exchanged when they glanced my way had me thinking again. I was ten years old, nearly eleven, if I lived another couple of weeks. Old enough to understand those telling glances, even if I didn't know the language they spoke.

  But after those endless worn-to-the-bone days of riding into the heat, it had got to where I didn't care if tonight was my night to be killed or not.

  Red Eagle drew up, and the others stopped below a rock outcropping. That red devil knew where to find water, no matter how dry the day's riding had been. Sure enough, he dismounted and led his horse into a cavern that was nearly hidden, especially as the streaks in the sky turned purple, and twilight descended.

  By then, I already considered myself dead. I wasn't hungry, though I couldn't remember the last time I had eaten. I was more thirsty than anything, and I guess I didn't have any pride left in my bones. Once the horses smelled the water inside the cave, they hurried forward to drink, and I pitched from the saddle myself, crawling to the watering hole.

  I managed to get my hands into the water, tied as they were, but getting the water to my mouth in that position was impossible. I pulled myself forward a few more inches and lowered my head, drinking like an animal.

  Then, I began to come back to life. That water revived my nerve endings where the ropes they'd tied me with bit into my wrists. My face cooled quickly, bringing relief from the blistering sunburn. My stomach growled loud enough to set a couple of the murdering devils to grinning and laughing.

  Red Eagle squatted beside me. "So, you are thirsty, young warrior." He gave me a half smile, but his eyes were black as night, and hard as glass. "And you are still not talking." He watched me, like he was trying to figure out some kind of secret. I stretched out on the ground and said a prayer when I closed my eyes. I didn't pray much 'cause I hadn't seen it had ever done a whole lot of good. It wasn't helping any right now, either, but I was out of ideas and I needed help in a bad way.

  "Please, just take me to be with Mama and Papa and Lisbeth. And You." I thought I better add that last part, in case God really was interested in having my soul. I didn't think He was, or He wouldn't've let things get so out of hand.

  I knew He hadn't heard me – again. The Apaches laughed and carried on, moving all around me. I never opened my eyes. I had prayed my hardest, and nothing happened – as usual. I figured, the least God could do if He was gonna 'low my family to be murdered by Red Eagle and his men, was to take me, too. It made me plenty mad that He left me behind, alone. That was the end of me prayin'. But I was too tired to work up any enthusiasm just now to hate Him for what He'd failed to do, for any of us. Sleep was my only hope for escape, and I took it.

  Chapter 2

  I didn't die that night, or the next, as it turned out. I couldn't understand Apache, but it seemed like a couple of the Indians wanted to kill me and Red Eagle wouldn't let them.

  Red Eagle was the one who had murdered Mama. I saw him do it, strangling her with his bare hands. I saw everything, from where I was hiding out in the pigsty.

  See, Papa and I had been out doing the chores. He turned and gave me an odd look, like there was a lot to say but he didn't know where to begin. Then he just said, "Stay inside here, boy." He shook me a little, so I'd know he meant business. "You hear me? Don't come out, no matter what."

  I nodded. "Yes, sir."

  He walked out of the shelter we'd just finished up two days earlier. I saw, then, what he'd seen: a line of Indians up on the ridge beyond the clearing where our cabin sat.

  I think Papa knew what was going to happen, because when he left, he looked back one more time with a kind of sadness in his face. I almost followed him out of that shed right then, but I didn't want to disappoint him.

  Then the Indians came riding down off the ridge, whooping and yelling, and Papa stopped trying to act like there wasn't nothin' wrong. He took off runnin' toward the house, yellin' for Mama. I heard the door scrape as Mama opened it.

  "Robert! Robert!" she screamed.

  But by then, those bastards had killed Papa. They rode down into the front yard of our cabin and tomahawked him, his blood shooting up in a fountain of red. Mama came running on out the front door, down off the porch.

  That was when Red Eagle jumped down from his horse and grabbed 'holt of her. He was laughing, and his arms were covered with Papa's blood. He wiped it off on Mama's dress, and she spit on him. My mama spit! I hadn't ever imagined she'd do any such thing, 'cause she was usually so proper about everything.

  "Warrior Boy," Red Eagle said, watching m
e from the cooking fire. "You are not afraid, are you?"

  He spoke to me in pretty good English, for a devil.

  "Why do you not speak?"

  'Cause I don't want to. But I didn't answer him, even then. He got up and walked over to where I hunkered down, sitting with my legs drawn up as I leaned against a big rock. My hands were still tied, and it was a good thing for him they were. Because there in the darkness, with the cooking fire lighting those evil faces around me, I still figured I might be able to lunge up and choke the life out of this one varmint that had killed Mama like he done. If my hands was untied, which they weren't.

  He leaned up real close to me then, breathing into my face. He smelled like pure meanness, covered with sweat and old blood. I thought about takin' up where Mama'd left off and spitting at him. I could have spit right in his face, he was so close, and I wouldn't even had to've moved an inch.

  I didn't, though. I just looked at him, and I didn't turn my eyes away, even though I felt like I was looking into Satan's face and it scared me, down in my gut.

  Papa always said, "Look a man in the eye, friend or enemy, so they'll know you mean what you say." Even though I hadn't said nothin', I wanted to let him know I wasn't gonna back down from him. That made me feel like I had a belly full of snakes twistin' around. But I thought about all he'd done to Papa, and Mama and Lisbeth, and I wished all over again that he'd untie my hands for just a minute.

  Red Eagle took out a knife then, real slow, like he was tryin' to scare me. I tried not to act like it did, but I kept thinkin' about what he did to Lisbeth. He'd used this same knife, I remembered. I never would forget the handle on it, carved from bone, and the unwieldy length of the blade. Something told me that bone wasn't from any animal.

  He brought it up slowly to the rope that tied my hands, almost I thought, as if he'd read my mind...

  He slipped the blade between the loops of rope and I looked down at it. In the dim light, I could see a ridge of rusty stain along the edge. My sister's blood. He had not even bothered to clean it after he'd cut her. I felt a wail of mingled sadness, and anger and loss start in the pit of my stomach where the snakes had twisted earlier. It grew and did some looping and twisting of its own deep inside me where the hollowness had been for the past week, ever since it happened. I didn't want to cry. I didn't want to make a sound. And not because I was afraid of this red-skinned son of a bitch, either.

  I just didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing how he'd opened up a place in my soul that wouldn't never heal or stop hurting, even if I lived to be a hundred. Which, since I was his prisoner, I probably wouldn't live to be.

  So I held that cry down and I didn't let it out. It took everything in me to keep from it. I was shaking so bad I felt like a leaf in a tornado. I felt like I was going to fly apart.

  He cut the ropes and they fell to the ground beside me.

  Next thing I knew, Laughing Wind was telling Red Eagle to kill me. Course, I couldn't understand what he was saying – not all of it – but I didn't have to know Injun to know that Laughing Wind wanted to see my blood on Red Eagle's blade.

  Right then was when I got my prayer answered. I'd about given up on God by then. I prayed when them bastards was killin' Mama and Papa and Lisbeth. When I lost my head and come running out of the pigsty, I didn't have another thought of prayer. I was too mad. And too crazy. When you see somethin' like that happen, you can't just hide. I knew Papa woulda tanned me good if he'd been alive to take care of that kind of business. But there was no more life left in him than in a dried up husk of a locust in August.

  So, I'd forgot about the prayin' I done back a few days ago, that God would save me. I figured He'd forgot about it too. But, I guess I was too quick on the draw 'bout losin' my faith, 'cause He sent me deliverance in His own time, and in His own way.

  Red Eagle was about to do just what Laughing Wind had been pushin' him toward doing. I could see that Red Eagle wanted to make Laughing Wind be quiet, and if it meant killing me, that was probably what was going to happen before the night ended. He brought up the knife, close to my face.

  "Do you see this, Warrior Boy? The blood of your sister lays on my blade. I have killed your mother, and your father. Your sister was killed by one of our bullets. Your family is dead. You are all that remains. And tomorrow, when the sun rises, you will not see it."

  He made a quick move, lunging toward me like a mountain lion, his eyes angry, but with a flat look to them. Papa said when a man or beast gets that kind of a look to them, they ain't got nothin' to lose. That's when you better be wary.

  Well, I was more than wary, but I couldn't do a dern thing about it – not any of it. I was still shaking from just holding in so much of everything. Which I couldn't do a dern thing about, neither.

  Chapter 3

  Red Eagle moved back just as fast as before and I felt my cheek burning. Blood dripped off his blade and that was it. I went after that red devil like I had lost my wits. I guess, truthfully, I had – 'cause I don't remember anything about it, except how good the first smash of my fist in his face felt.

  Blood ran from Red Eagle's nose. He cried out in a snarl of anger and pain – and surprise.

  I felt a pulse of energy rush through me, and I wrapped my fingers around his throat like he'd done to Mama. I tightened them and his blood streamed warm and slick over my grip. His eyes began to bulge, and I thought, in another minute maybe I could have the vengeance I had wanted so badly for the past week.

  Papa always said a man's quick wits are sometimes his only defense. I was exultant. I may have been foolish for what I did, and I felt sure Papa and I would disagree sharply on the use of my wits. But I did what I had to do.

  Suddenly, rough hands were upon me, pulling at me. But I was like a mad dog, snarling, and foaming at the mouth in my pent up anger and hatred that was finally spilling out. What a glorious opportunity! Even if I died for it, I knew I couldn't have passed it up – whether Papa might have approved, or not.

  The Indians were all speaking at once, yelling, calling out, laughing. The moon was full, providing even more light than what the fire gave, making the night seem even hotter, as if the sun still shone on us. From somewhere in the distance of the woods beyond, I heard the call of the owls, and I knew enough Injun to know what that meant to them.

  Someone was going to die. It might be me, but I was doing my damnedest to take Red Eagle with me.

  A gunshot split the night air. "Dammit, stop it!" Hands like steel bands wrapped around my shoulders and jerked me off of Red Eagle. "Stop it!"

  I couldn't answer. I was breathing too hard, panting like the mad dog I had become. My hands balled into fists and flexed open, again and again, my fingers sticky with Red Eagle's blood. My own pulse sang through my veins in a triumph I had never experienced before.

  "Boy, straighten up or you're gonna get us both killed." The voice was calm. I stopped struggling and looked up into the face of a white man. A white man had walked right into Red Eagle's camp. I figured, now those owls would have plenty more to tell – at least one more death.

  But he didn't seem worried. He held his rifle at the ready, pointed in the general direction of the group of eight Indians that rode in Red Eagle's band.

  I glanced around the half-circle of painted faces, and I couldn't help gloating. They all looked as if they'd met up with some kind of spirit or demon more wicked than they were. And that was going some.

  "Can you ride bareback?"

  I nodded. I guessed I could, I wanted to tell him. Been doin' it for a damn week.

  "Need help getting on?"

  I shook my head, and he let me go real slow. "Pick the one you can manage best and get settled on him. Take Red Eagle's rifle and bullets."

  "Wait!" Red Eagle challenged. He rolled onto his side, wiping the blood from his nose. It pleased me greatly to hear that he wheezed when he spoke.

  "You take our horses, our weapons—"

  "I ain't takin' your lives, you bastard
. And I ain't takin' all your weapons," the big man answered in a slow drawl. "Only yours. Pitch that knife over this way, and do it easy. My trigger finger is mighty nervous tonight."

  Red Eagle did as the man told him, his eyes hot with anger and humiliation.

  I hurried to get his gun and his bag of supplies. He had the best of the provisions, being the leader. I ran to his horse and put the rifle scabbard over the animal's neck, slinging the beaded bag of provisions around my shoulder. I threw his blanket across the black horse's back, and the animal flinched. My heart jumped, then a dull ache settled in it. I hadn't chosen Red Eagle's horse to anger him, but for the simple fact that the horse was so mistreated by him, I wanted to save it. Now, I doubted my judgment. The horse seemed skittish, and it was no wonder. I patted the big animal's velvet nose and laid my head against his, just for a quick moment. Arrow, I would call him. Then I took the reins in my hand and hoped for the best as I pulled myself up the long distance onto his back.

  The big man, my savior, walked over to where I sat astride Arrow. He untied the other horses and slapped their rumps, running them off into the darkness of the night.

  Red Eagle made a quick move, as if he intended to jump him just then, but the man turned back to him with the ease of a mountain lion and brought the gun to bear on Red Eagle's chest.

  "Go ahead, you," he said in a quiet voice, so heavy and still that no one dared move. His finger ticked just a little, and I thought for certain he would shoot Red Eagle. I hoped for it. But, in the end, he didn't. He backed up close to me and whistled. In a few seconds, his horse appeared at the edge of the clearing.

  Something melted inside me, when I saw that. His horse was loyal to the man, and there was a bond between them. He mounted up, putting himself between me and them bastards that had taken away my entire life. My family was dead. I had never cried. Not while seeing them killed right in front of me, and not since then, the whole week we'd been riding. I surely didn't want to cry now, but I felt the tears welling up in my eyes, to see this man I didn't know put himself between me and the savages.