Cheyenne Caress

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  Enemy Embrace

  Luci tried to get out of the barn but the big Pawnee scout blocked her way. “Stop treating me as if I were your woman!” she spat. “I’m not yours! I’ll never be!”

  “And that’s what’s driving me loco,” Johnny Ace admitted grudgingly. He reached out, grabbed her as she tried to run past, and dragged her to him. Luci struggled to break free as his big arms enveloped her, pulling her hard against his wide chest. His mouth covered hers and she gasped at the sensation.

  He was an enemy. The Cheyenne and the Pawnee had forever warred on one another. But Luci couldn’t stop her body from molding itself against the Pawnee all the way down their legs.

  “Star Eyes, oh, Star Eyes . . .” Johnny’s mouth was hot as a comet’s trail across her mouth.

  At that moment, Luci was lost. She slipped her arms around his sinewy neck, clung to him, shaking with sobs, and begged him to please her . . .

  Cheyenne Caress

  GEORGINA GENTRY

  ZEBRA BOOKS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prorogue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter 3

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chatter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  To My Readers

  Copyright Page

  To my darling “Murph,”

  to commemorate a very special anniversary,

  and

  To the “Dirty Half-Dozen + Two,” with fond

  memories of a brief, golden time in Phoenix-

  never to be forgotten, but never to be

  recaptured. . . .

  Prorogue

  Human sacrifice. Only one tribe above the Rio Grande, the Pawnee, practiced this cruel ritual with any regularity. In the spring of the year, the Skidi clan sometimes offered a captive enemy maiden to the Morning Star in a gruesome, bloody ceremony.

  Because the Pawnees were a small tribe with few allies, they chose to align themselves with the whites, often using their skills as trackers to work as scouts for the U.S. Cavalry against their old enemies, the Cheyenne and the Dakota (Sioux). So well known was their skill as “wolves,” as the other tribes called scouts, that the universal sign language for “Pawnee” and “wolf” was the same, two fingers of the hand held up behind the head like ears.

  The Plains tribes were at war with encroaching civilization. In 1868 alone, eight hundred white settlers were killed by Indians. During the late spring of 1869, the transcontinental railroad was finally completed, linking the East to the West. The savage Plains Indians, especially the Outlaw Dog Soldier warrior band of the Cheyenne, realized this train would be the final destruction of their way of life. They stepped up their attacks on rail work crews, passing wagon trains, stagecoaches, and settlers, rampaging across Nebraska, Kansas, and eastern Colorado.

  General Carr’s Fifth Cavalry with its three troops of crack Pawnee scouts, was sent to Fort McPherson, Nebraska, to deal with these warring renegades. The Fifth’s chief scout was “Buffalo Bill” Cody, who, nine years before, had been a Pony Express rider.

  But according to legend, their most skilled tracker “wolf” was a big, virile Pawnee nicknamed Johnny Ace by the whites, who couldn’t remember his Pawnee name, Asataka. Johnny had good reason to hate the Cheyenne. As a youth, he had been orphaned when a Dog Soldier killed Johnny’s warrior father in hand-to-hand combat.

  The day he rode into Fort McPherson, he spotted a half-breed Cheyenne girl with bright blue eyes. Lucero. An unusual name that meant Morning Star-the star revered by the Pawnee. At their first encounter, she spat on him with scorn and hatred. The tough tracker reminded himself that she was the enemy and he was paid to hunt down her people. But from the moment Johnny Ace saw her, nothing else mattered but possessing her, body and soul. . . .

  Chapter One

  Fort McPherson, Nebraska

  Late Spring, 1869

  Sunrise Woman lay dying and there was nothing Luci could do but sit by the cot in the back room of the trading post and hold her mother’s hand. What would happen to her when her mother died?

  Luci sighed and leaned over to pull the ragged blanket up around Mama’s thin shoulders.

  What a place to die, Luci thought forlornly, looking around at the heaped-up burlap bags, piles of potatoes, and cartridge boxes. If she craned her neck a little, she could see the group of men playing cards by the pot-bellied stove in the main room.

  Oblivious to her trouble, the men slapped cards down, drank, and laughed.

  “Damn, Johnny Ace! For an Injun, you sure know how to play!”

  “Whose deal is it, anyway?” A third man snapped.

  “Mine,” said a fourth.

  The first man slammed his glass on the table. “Is there any more whiskey?”

  “That we always got!” Old Mr. Bane cackled, pushing his chair back.

  The noise seemed to disturb the feverish woman on the cot. Sunrise twisted restlessly and cried out.

  “Please, Mama, be quiet!” Luci implored. “Else Mr. Bane is liable to throw us out and we have no place to go.”

  Miserable as the storage room was, being out in the raw spring weather here in Nebraska would be worse.

  The big Indian at the card table twisted around curiously, looking her way. “What’s going on in there anyway, Bane?”

  Bane shrugged, scratched his chin stubble. “Aw, just that squaw who showed up a couple of weeks ago, Johnny. Does laundry for the soldiers. I been givin’ her and her half-breed daughter a cot in exchange for cleanin’ up the place.”

  “Oh, that pair.” Johnny Ace looked her way again and she thought she saw disdain mixed with sympathy on his bronzed face. “Cheyenne?”

  Of course she was Cheyenne. And he was Pawnee: blood enemy of her people. Luci’s lips curled in scorn. She’d heard he was the best of the cavalry’s Pawnee scouts.

  Sunrise moaned again and thrashed. “I–I sorry about the money. . . . When I get well, we earn more. I promise this time, we buy clothes and books for you. When your father returns . . .” Her voice trailed off as she lapsed back into unconsciousness.

  Automatically Luci brushed back her mother’s gray-streaked hair. Sunrise looked so old, but she was not yet forty. When your father returns. Her mother was such a pathetic fool. Once Sunrise had been a pretty, young girl and a cavalry captain had promised her everything. But all he had given her before he left was his child.

  “There, there, Mama, it doesn’t matter about the money.” Tears
overflowed Luci’s bright blue eyes. How many times had Sunrise made that promise and how many times had she broken it as she drowned shattered dreams in whiskey?

  For her seventeen years, all Luci could remember was the miserable existence of drifting from fort to fort while Sunrise looked for the love who had deserted her. If it hadn’t been for a kindly chaplain’s wife at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Luci would have gotten no schooling at all.

  If she only had money for the doctor. Luci sponged off her mother’s face with a wet rag. Anyone could see Sunrise had caught pneumonia hanging laundry out in the raw spring wind. At least she might die more comfortably. But without money, the post doctor had refused to come.

  Sunrise moaned loudly and some of the men in the next room grumbled. “Damn, how can we enjoy ourselves with that squaw moanin’ and carryin’ on? Bane, can’t you shut her up?”

  “I could throw them out, I reckon.”

  “No.” She heard the Pawnee scout’s deep voice. “Let me see about it.”

  Luci heard his chair scrape back and felt the vibration of his large frame crossing the floor boards. Then Johnny Ace towered over her in his moccasins. “Can I do anything to help, Star Eyes?”

  “A Pawnee help a Cheyenne? And don’t call me that!” She sneered and glared up at him.

  “Why not? It fits you.” His chest was broad in the butter-soft buckskin shirt over a pair of blue cavalry pants. “Stop bristling like a porcupine. I’m trying to keep them from throwing you out in the weather.” Johnny Ace ran one big hand through his ebony hair, which was cut short like a white man’s.

  She jumped to her feet. “Go away! I don’t need help from a tracker and killer of my people!” If she snarled at him, maybe he wouldn’t see how alone and helpless she felt. The soldiers knew Sunrise Woman carried a knife and could use it expertly. But with her mother dying, Luci felt like a baby rabbit in a pen of coyotes.

  “Small One, you dare insult me? I ought to . . .” His voice trailed off and his big hand reached out, grabbed her shoulder.

  His fingers burned through the worn, faded calico of her dress. Was his mouth as hot as his hand? If he pulled her close and ripped the calico away, would his body be warm and hard on her soft breasts?

  Immediately she was furious with herself for the feelings that rose in her. But she had affected him, too. Innocent as she was, she understood the way he looked at her, and saw the hard bulge in the tight blue pants. If the scout decided to drag her over in a corner on a pile of burlap bags and ravish her, no one in the next room would come to her aid. In fact, they’d all want their turn.

  Would he share her with the others? He gazed down at her intently as his strong fingers dug into her flesh. Luci had a sudden feeling he was going to pull her to him and kiss her; molding her pliant body all the way down his virile hardness whether she wanted it or not. What made her so confused and angry was that she wasn’t sure she didn’t.

  He was a enemy, a killer of her people. If she didn’t pull away, he was going to jerk her into his embrace and she didn’t know if she could stop him . . . or wanted to.

  With effort, she twisted out of his grasp. “You big, stupid Pawnee. How dare you touch me?”

  Before her withering words, he seemed to falter–unsure of himself for the first time. He rubbed his hand across his left ear absently. “That’s what I get, I guess, for pitying a Cheyenne.”

  If nothing else, Luci was proud. That was all she had; her pride. “Get out of here, you soldier scout; you wolf for the army!” She spat at him and backed away, bristling like a small, scared kitten.

  For a moment she thought he might strike her and she realized the big man could be pushed only so far before he was dangerous. Everyone on the frontier had heard of the scout called Johnny Ace who was known for his remoteness, his ability in a fight.

  From the next room, a voice called, “Hey, Johnny, shall we deal you in or not? Need any help with that little gal?”

  He just stood there, shaking with anger, rubbing his head as if it hurt. “I ought to take that pride outa you,” he almost hissed, “but damn, the pride is what I like best!”

  Then he turned on his heel and strode back into the other room.

  “Deal you in, Johnny?”

  “No, I’ve got to see Major North. Weather looks like we’ll be getting a late snow.”

  Luci craned her neck, and saw the tall scout pause with his hand on the doorknob. “If any of you have ideas about that girl; don’t.” The unspoken threat of his tone was evident.

  “Sure, Johnny, sure,” a chorus of voices mumbled.

  The big scout went out, leaving Luci glaring after him. A Pawnee. A damned Pawnee. A scout for the soldiers who hunted down her people. Luci reached over, took the small knife from Sunrise Woman’s belt, and tucked it in her own clothing. Before she let a hated enemy take her virginity, Luci would kill him!

  Her mother’s eyes flickered open. “I–I heard,” she whispered weakly. “Luci, you must find your father. He have same name. . . . Look after you.”

  “Like he did you?” Luci retorted with sudden anger and was immediately contrite. “Oh, Mama, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean–”

  “I know.” Her trembling hand stroked Luci’s hair gently. “You not be safe with me gone. If nothing else, go back to our people. I have a brother with the outlaw Dog Soldiers, Ta Ton Ha Haska. He disowned me because of my love for the white soldier.”

  “Yes, Mama, yes.” Luci only half listened. She had been raised around the white forts, had seldom been among her tribe. She barely spoke her own language. Could she fit in, find happiness among the Cheyenne, who were now on the war trail, fighting a losing battle against the Iron Horse that whistled and smoked across the vast buffalo plains? Well, maybe. . . .

  The other alternative was to risk the same fate as her mother-become a pretty plaything to warm some soldier’s bed until his frontier duty was over. Then he would go back East, deserting her without a backward glance. But there were worse things. That big Pawnee might force himself on her, make her submit as warriors had always conquered enemy women.

  She’d kill him if he tried. Holding the small knife in her red, work-worn hand, Luci buried her face in the tattered blanket, and wept softly so as to not disturb her dying mother.

  Johnny Ace hesitated outside, looking toward the major’s office. The wind picked up out of the north. He felt it blow cold on his dark, high-cheekboned face. There was a good chance of a late storm moving across the barren plains.

  He leaned against a post out of the wind and slowly rolled a cigarette. Without thinking, he rubbed his ear again. Big, stupid Pawnee. Once again he was in the white man’s boarding school, an orphaned boy with no one to protect him. When he made mistakes in his lessons because he knew so little English, the stern Miss Platt had struck him again and again along side his head with her ruler.

  The teacher’s pale eyes had almost seemed to relish her action. Big, stupid Pawnee boy, she would say in front of the others. Big, stupid Pawnee. He didn’t know which hurt worse-the ruler slammed with all the white woman’s strength across his ear, or the humiliation of her words before the other students.

  So why was he putting himself in a position to be humiliated again? Johnny finished rolling the cigarette and lit it, relishing the taste. The other Pawnees would be gathering to eat now, but Johnny always felt like an outsider. The years in the boarding school had made him a white man in a brown man’s skin.

  His mind went back to the fiery half-breed girl, wondered about her. She had pride, like he himself. Even when Miss Platt had made his head bleed, he had never cried. His pride would have kept him silent if she had tortured him to death.

  Damn little Cheyenne. He was Pawnee in his heart after all because he thought of her as his enemy just as the two tribes had been enemies for many generations. The Pawnee were a small tribe, struggling constantly to withstand their old enemies, the Cheyenne and the Sioux. Almost the only ally the Pawnee had found was the white cavalry so t
he braves tracked and scouted for the soldiers. Without the army, the Pawnee would have long ago been wiped out. The Cheyenne and the Sioux were as many as the snow flakes that were beginning to swirl from the sky onto his eyelashes.

  He took a deep puff, watch the occasional snowflake fall in the growing twilight. Lights flickered on gradually in the buildings of the fort. Across the square at the trading post, the card game had broken up. He watched handsome Chief Scout “Buffalo Bill” Cody come out of the door with some of the others and stride toward the barracks where dinner and maybe a snort of whiskey awaited them.

  Johnny studied the glowing tip of the cigarette. Cody was a good sort, but not a close friend. The Pawnee, Asataka, whom everyone knew as Johnny Ace, didn’t have any close friends. He was a loner.

  Star Eyes. He couldn’t get her off his mind. What he ought to do was go back over there, throw her down on some burlap bags, and rape her until his body was sated. Then he could forget her. He’d break that pride of hers, make her submit and beg mercy. He wouldn’t ask, he’d take.

  That was what he ought to do. But he didn’t move. He thought about the girl’s mother with a twinge of pity. Same old story. Everyone had heard about the drunken Cheyenne woman who wondered from fort to fort like a crazy woman, looking for some soldier who had used, then deserted her. She had a little white blood in her background herself; he thought, remembering Sunrise Woman’s light skin. Somewhere a long time ago, some trapper had enjoyed Sunrise Woman’s grandmother or great-grandmother. And now the result of all this was a small, slight girl with eyes the color of stars. A damned Cheyenne.

  With annoyance, he flipped the cigarette away, strode toward Major North’s office. For a long moment he hesitated before rapping sharply on the door.

  “Come in.”

  Johnny entered and stood with feet wide apart, one hand resting on the knife in his belt. The slightly built young officer looked up from behind his cluttered desk. Frank North wore a small mustache to make him appear older than his late twenties, which was also Johnny’s age.