Tender savage (37 page)

truth if you don't tell them."

Mark laid the jerky aside as he appeared to give her words more serious consideration than he had the first time she had made that astonishing offer. Finally he turned to face her, his gaze mirroring the depth of his disappointment that she seemed to care so little for his feelings. "What do you plan to do if I agree, spend your whole life pretending we are happily married when you would much rather be another man's wife?"

His question was a valid one, and knowing it deserved a truthful answer. Erica chose her words carefully. "I know I would not be unhappy with you, Mark. You are a fine man. We could make a life together, if only you would agree to set Viper free. Won't you please do it?"

"Kiss me," Mark dared her suddenly. "I want to see just how good an actress you are before I take you to bed."

While she was stunned by that taunt. Erica swallowed her pride and leaned toward him. She raised her hands to his shoulders, then slipped her fingers through the curls at his nape as she had done so many times in the past. In a futile attempt to shut out all thought of the man she adored, she kissed Mark with what she hoped would be a close enough imitation of the way she had once felt about him to make him regard her as a very fine actress indeed.

His heart overflowing with desire as her lips touched his, Mark leaned forward, forcing Erica down into the grass. He deepened the kiss she had begun and languidly made it his own. While he knew he would never have his fill of her, he would not make her his wife at the cost of his pride. It did no good to tell himself that even if Viper's image never left her heart, he would be the one to share her bed and father the beautiful children she was sure to have. He could not allow Viper to go free when he wanted the man dead, forever beyond her reach. When at last he drew away, he shook his head, but the excuse he gave her was a long way from the truth. "I can't agree to your terms. The man's a killer, and I won't have the blood of his innocent victims on my hands, not even to make you my wife."

Strangely, Erica had expected Mark's answer, but that made his coolly worded rebuff no less humiliating to bear. Knowing how stubbornly he would cling to a decision once he had made it, she decided she would have to accept the sorry fact that he would never help her, and drop the

subject of marriage. Despite Viper's angry insistence that he did not want nor need her help. Erica was still determined to provide it. If not before they reached Camp Release, then she would find a way to do it after they arrived.

Viper was seated and eating between two troopers who were barely out of their teens. Their rifles were carelessly balanced across their laps as they gave their full concentration to chewing the long strips of highly spiced jerky they had been given for lunch. Despite their inattention, the brave was not tempted to disarm either of the youn^ men, for Sergeant Maguire was standing nearby with his rifle trained at his head. The Indian was paying no attention to the threat posed by the sergeant, however. He was far too busy watching the conversation taking place between Mark and his wife. While he could not overhear their words, he could tell by the intensity of her expression that the topic was an imf>ortant one to her.

When the captain leaned across Erica, forcing her to lie down in the tall grass as he kissed her. Viper tossed his uneaten jerky aside. Seething with jealousy, which swiftly erupted into a furious rage, he forced himself to breathe deeply and wait until the man had left Erica alone in the shade and started toward the seated circle of soldiers. When Mark got within five feet of him. Viper leaped to his feet, exploding in a screaming fit of anger as he lunged for Mark's throat.

"She is my wifel" he proclaimed loudly, so no one would misunderstand why he had jumped the officer.

While he had foolishly allowed Viper to catch him off guard, Mark tossed his Colt aside and waved Maguire off, unwilling to allow the sergeant to end the fight before he had had a chance to show he could handle the brave himself. He knew the Indian had every reason to hate him, but he despised the brave as well and was eager to fight him. They were near equals in size, although he was slightly taller, but Mark realized too late that Viper was far stronger. The grip of the wily Indian's hands was like hot bands of iron around his throat, choking him so badly that his knees buckled and he pulled Viper down with him as he fell to the ground.

Scrambling astride Mark, Vij^er released his stranglehold upon Mark's throat and began to slam his fists into

the officer with a series of blows so punishing that he quickly turned his once handsome face into a blood-red mask. Mark could do little but throw up his arms to defend himself as he struggled simply to refill his lungs with air. He had not been in a fistfight since childhood, and it was now pathetically obvious to him that Viper knew how to fight every way but fair.

Erica watched in horror as the soldiers got to their feet to surround the men struggling in the dirt. They were shouting rude words of encouragement and whooping with glee. None appeared to notice that their commanding officer was getting a terrible beating, as the fight was proving to be so wonderfully entertaining. Certain the fools would allow Viper to beat Mark to death and then feel justified in shooting the brave for murder, she dodged past them. Leaping upon Viper's back, she grabbed two handfuls of his gleaming black hair and pulled with all her might. Not only did that frantic tactic fail to dislodge him, he seemed not even to notice her presence and continued to pummel Mark with vicious blows.

Not about to give up her efforts to separate the two men. Erica let go of Viper's hair, slipped her right arm around his throat, and used her left to apply pressure. That barely slowed the Indian, but at least he did notice she had climbed on his back and he made a futile effort to pull her off with his left hand while he continued to beat Mark senseless with his right. He swore at her, but in his own tongue, so she understood only the outrage of his mood, not the meaning of his words. She wrapped both arms around his face then, succeeding in blinding him momentarily, and Maguire came to his senses long enough to fire into the air.

"That's enough, chief," the sergeant shouted in the calm that followed the loud report of his rifle. "Back off. I reckon the captain will admit you won the fight if you give him the chance to speak up."

Erica moved out of the way quickly, but when ViF>er turned toward her, his features were still contorted with fury. "You should have stayed out of it!" he scolded harshly. "He did not deserve your help."

"I was trying to help you!" Erica shouted right back at the infuriated brave. "Did you think you could kill Mark in front of a dozen witnesses and live to tell about it?"

The blackness of Viper's stare did not lighten, for he had not stopped to consider the consequences of his actions before he had taken them. "No man is going to kiss you in front of me and live to tell about it, either I" he screamed right back at her.

Erica turned her back on the belligerent Indian, only to find the soldiers were enjoying their argument every bit as much as they had enjoyed the fistfight. "What are you staring at?" she snapped. When they began to chuckle amongst themselves, she finally remembered Mark, and looked down to find him staring up at her, too. There was a cut above his left eye, whicn was sending blood streaming down the side of his face. His nose was bleeding profusely, and there was blood trickling from the comer of his mouth.

"You look like hell," she informed him peevishly, and disgusted with him, too, she walked over to the river and bent down to wash her face and hands. When Mark knelt at her side she ignored him, since she was thoroughly ashamed to have offered herself to him to help an obstinate Indian who suddenly seemed to regard her as a px^ssession rather than as the one true love of his life. He was too proud for his own good, and she feared all his pride would buy him was a grave.

Mark's whole body was wracked with pain, and he felt himself a great fool for ever having been so stupid as to have gotten into a fight with Viper in the first place. At least he had not lost any teeth, although a couple lelt loose. He splashed water on his face but succeeded only in transferring a shower of blood to his hands. "The man fights like a demon," he moaned through badly swollen lips. "How does he make love?"

Erica's first impulse was to tell Mark it was none of his damn business, but she was too hurt and angry for such a show of restraint or tact. Instead, she lowered her voice to a honey-smooth whisper. "Like a god, Mark, like Eros himself. He could give you lessons in that, tool" With that insulting reply, she gave him a savage shove that sent him toppling into the river, where the blood from his battered face was completely washed away before he could find the strength to pull himself out on dry ground.

^cldie^, ^86^

When they stopped to make camp that afternoon, Erica kneh beside the river and scrubbed the dirt from her blue dress. She hoped it would last another few days, even if the fabric of the once elegant gown had worn so thin it now resembled lace. She had had such a pretty wardrobe when she had come to Minnesota, but all her clothes had been lost in the fires that had consumed so many of the homes in New Ulm.

At the memory of the unfortunate reunion with her relatives, the distraught girl's eyes filled with tears, for she knew the Ludwigs had suffered terribly, and she could not fault them for not understanding how she could have fallen in love with an Indian brave in the midst of an uprising that had cost them so dearly. Depressed by the fact that she would be unlikely ever to find anyone who would understand her love for Viper, or even be sympathetic to her feelings, she continued to sit by the river long after she had finished her laundry, hugging her knees and trying to ignore Bill Harding, the young trooper who, at Mark's insistence, had been closer than her shadow all afternoon. A talkative soul, he had kept up a steady stream of conversation as he rode alon^ beside her. Now that they had stopped for the night, he still seemed to think it his duty to keep her company.

Erica tried to be kind, telling herself the young man probably had had few opfxjrtunities to talk to young

women of late. She had had no idea the men of the Third Minnesota Regiment had so recently been prisoners of the Confederacy until he told her so, but that they had returned to their home state only to find a war raging there had naturally inspired them to fight all the harder to prove their worth. From Bill's casual comments about Mark, however. Erica correctly surmised that these men had not fully accepted him as a substitute for the fine group of officers still being held by the South as prisoners of war.

"Are you hungry, ma'am?" Bill asked politely. "The fish must be done by now."

Erica glanced over at the good-natured corporal, wondering if his enthusiastic outlook on life ever faltered. His attention was eagerly focused upxjn the fire the men had built to roast their catch, and he looked ravenously hungry even if she still had no appetite. "Please go ahead and get yourself something, but nothing for me. I'm not hungry," she replied listlessly.

"It'll just take me a minute, ma'am." Bill excused himself and hurried over to the fire to make certain he was not forgotten when the men began dividing up the fish.

Mark had spent the most miserable afternoon of his life trying to ride without weeping over the sharp pains that encircled his chest. With each step his mount took his torment had grown more acute, until he had had to call a halt to the march a good hour before he had planned to. When he saw Bill taking only one plate, he relieved him of the task of guarding Erica and carried her supper over to her with his own.

"You'll have to eat something," he directed firmly, "this is the third day we've spent together, and you've eaten so little I'm afraid you'll soon fall ill." He handed her a plate heaped with flaky bits of fish and two of the thick com cakes one of the men had baked over the coals. "At least you know this is fresh, and it's got to taste a lot better than jerky or salt jxwk."

Erica winced as she glanced up at Mark, for his left eye was swollen shut and the rest of his face was so badly cut and bruised she would not have recognized him had she not known it was he. "How are you going to ride into Camp Release looking like that?" she asked, hoping to divert his attention from the supper she doubted she

would have the energy to eat.

"I'll be badly embarrassed, but I'll make it." Mark tried sitting crosslegged, but when that proved too painful he stretched out on his left side. "Forgive me, I think that Indian of yours cracked a couple of my ribs, if he didn't shatter them outright."

That Mark was in even worse shape than he had at first appeared appalled Erica, but she still thought it was his own fault. "Vif)er is as jealous of you as you seem to be of him. What did you expect him to do when he saw you kissing me, look the other way?"

Mark attempted a smile, but his expression more closely resembled a grimace. "Frankly, I forgot all about him while we were kissing. That's a mistake I won't make again, ever."