Savage Courage Read online

  CASSIE EDWARDS,

  AUTHOR OF THE SAVAGE SERIES

  Winner of the Romantic Times Lifetime

  Achievement Award for Best Indian Series!

  “Cassie Edwards writes action-packed, sexy reads! Romance fans will be more than satisfied!”

  —Romantic Times

  AWAKENED

  As he knelt down beside her, the look in his eyes awakening a need she had never known before, she reached her hands out for him.

  Boldly, she spoke what was in her heart.

  “I need you,” she murmured, her eyes searching his. “I . . . want . . . you.”

  She had never wanted a man before.

  She had never met a man like him before.

  She had never made love before.

  Did he want her as much?

  He swept his arms around her and drew her against his muscled chest. His powerful kiss was his response to her question.

  As they kissed, they hurriedly undressed each other.

  His heart throbbing, the heat in his loins intense, Storm spread himself over Shoshana. . . .

  THE APACHE

  His hair is so black,

  Like a raven’s wing,

  Can make you forget everything,

  Standing there, so proud and tall,

  Hoping his people will never fall.

  To look into his dark, brown eyes,

  You would be almost mesmerized.

  His bronze skin, so warm and sweet,

  Would make any woman bow at his feet.

  He only wants one woman,

  For this you can see,

  And that one woman is me.

  He will be my husband, and I his wife,

  So we can be together for the rest of our life.

  —Crystal Marie Carpenter

  (To Cassie Edwards—Thanks for the inspiration.)

  Other books by Cassie Edwards:

  TOUCH THE WILD WIND

  ROSES AFTER RAIN

  WHEN PASSION CALLS

  EDEN'S PROMISE

  ISLAND RAPTURE

  SECRETS OF MY HEART

  The Savage Series:

  SAVAGE HOPE

  SAVAGE TRUST

  SAVAGE HERO

  SAVAGE DESTINY

  SAVAGE LOVE

  SAVAGE MOON

  SAVAGE HONOR

  SAVAGE THUNDER

  SAVAGE DEVOTION

  SAVAGE GRACE

  SAVAGE FIRES

  SAVAGE JOY

  SAVAGE WONDER

  SAVAGE HEAT

  SAVAGE DANCE

  SAVAGE TEARS

  SAVAGE LONGINGS

  SAVAGE DREAM

  SAVAGE BLISS

  SAVAGE WHISPERS

  SAVAGE SHADOWS

  SAVAGE SPLENDOR

  SAVAGE EDEN

  SAVAGE SURRENDER

  SAVAGE PASSIONS

  SAVAGE SECRETS

  SAVAGE PRIDE

  SAVAGE SPIRIT

  SAVAGE EMBERS

  SAVAGE ILLUSION

  SAVAGE SUNRISE

  SAVAGE MISTS

  SAVAGE PROMISE

  SAVAGE PERSUASION

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter 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

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  DORCHESTER PUBLISHING

  Published by

  Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  200 Madison Avenue

  New York, NY 10016

  Copyright © 2005 by Cassie Edwards

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Trade ISBN: 978-1-4285-1799-8

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-4285-1800-1

  First Dorchester Publishing, Co., Inc. edition: February 2005

  The “DP” logo is the property of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Visit us online at www.dorchesterpub.com.

  Chapter One

  You may stretch your hand out toward me,

  Ah! You will—I know not when.

  —Adelaide Anne Procter

  Arizona, 1873

  It was a beautiful, serene day at the Chiricahua Apache village. The mid-morning sun was flinging crimson banners across the sky. The Silent Stream band’s children were laughing and playing hide-and-seek in the bushes that stood near the cluster of buffalo-hide tepees.

  Mothers were keeping watch on those children as some carried water from the nearby stream, while others scraped hides outside their lodges.

  Dogs were frisky this day, romping in the sunshine after the children, barking, their tails wagging contentedly.

  Horses neighed in the nearby corral.

  As a golden eagle soared lazily overhead in the blue, cloudless sky, a new sound was added to the normal mid-morning noises—a sound that froze everyone in place, even the children.

  Then the village became frantic and filled with a cold panic as warriors ran from the council house, where they had gathered to make plans for a buffalo hunt.

  One of the warriors fell to his knees, then pressed an ear to the packed dirt of the ground. Soon he leapt to his feet, his dark eyes filled with worry.

  In his Apache tongue he shouted a warning to everyone that horses were approaching. His ear had picked up the sound of their pounding hooves in the vibration of the ground . . . now echoing across the land like the sound of thunder that everyone could hear.

  A scout rode hurriedly into the village, shouting, “Pindah-lickoyee, white eyes! Pindah-lickoyee! Many pony soldiers are near! Raise the American flag! Quickly! Wave it back and forth. The pony soldiers will surely retreat! They will see that they are arriving at a peaceful Apache camp!”

  A warrior hurriedly raised the flag on a pole in the center of the village, having been told by the United States Government that doing so would always keep the Silent Stream Village safe from attack by the cavalry.

  But never trusting the word of any pindah-lickoyee, mothers dropped their water jugs to the ground, ignoring the breaking sounds and the way the precious water ran across the ground, soaking into it like water into a sponge. Their concern was their children.

  Their eyes wild, their breath catch
ing in their throats, they ran to where their children had only moments ago been playing. Other mothers grabbed their smaller babes up into their arms and ran toward the safety of their lodges.

  Several warriors stood beneath the flying flag, shouting friend in the English tongue they had learned from friendly traders. The pony soldiers were now so close, the warriors could see the whites of their eyes, and . . . the shine of the barrels of the firearms they held in their hands.

  Seeing the rifles poised now, ready to fire, the warriors knew that no American flag, or shouts of friendship, would help today.

  The pindah-lickoyee had come to kill!

  “They come as enemies today!” a warrior cried as he ran toward his lodge, his breechclout flapping, his long, black hair flying out behind him. “Prepare yourselves! Get your weapons ready to defend our people and . . . our . . . Apache honor!”

  All the warriors ran in panic toward their own tepees, their eyes wildly seeking loved ones who might not yet have made it to the safety of their lodges.

  In each warrior’s heart he knew that today was not a good day after all, despite the fact that only moments ago they had all been bragging about the wonder of the many buffalo they had seen grazing on thick, green grass near their village.

  The warriors had spoken of how many they would take today.

  They had talked of who might get off the first arrow of the hunt, laughingly teasing one of the younger warriors who had not yet had a first kill.

  The council house had been a place of merriment only moments ago, with its fire still burning brightly in the center of the floor in its fire pit, the smoke spiraling lazily from the smoke hole even now and into the beautiful, cloudless sky.

  Everyone now felt how sharp was the edge of fate that could come on a village so quickly, taking away all hope. Ho, yes, too often the white man brought death and destruction to a village of the people instead of talk of peace and honor!

  This was a day no warrior could save, no matter how hard he tried, or how many pony soldiers could be killed by arrows before the enemy swept through the village with their deadly firearms.

  Shouting, “Tiras, do not fire! Tiras, do not fire!”, the Silent Stream Band of Apache ran in many directions, sometimes colliding with each other and falling clumsily to the ground, then getting up and running again in a desperate attempt to find one last moment of life.

  It was a dizzying scene; no one seemed to have any sense of direction or plan of where to go, or what to do to save their beloved families.

  The horses carrying the soldiers were already galloping into the outskirts of the village.

  The soldiers ignored the pleading. They ignored the looks of terror on the Apache people’s faces.

  Gunfire began exploding from the pindah-lickoyee’s firearms, followed by screams of terror, and then pain.

  A soldier began giving orders to those under his command. “Spare no one!” he shouted. “Kill small and big, women and children! Let no warrior come out of this alive!”

  A little boy ran from a tepee, crying. A soldier saw him and stopped and took aim. He sent a bullet flying from his rifle, but missed the child.

  Another soldier who saw this drew a tight rein and dismounted. He fell to a knee, set his rifle on his other knee, aimed, and knocked the boy over with one lethal shot.

  Five-year-old Shoshana was with her mother, Fawn, fleeing the soldiers, as gunfire spattered all around them. She screamed as she saw her people’s tepees being set afire with flaming torches.

  She clung desperately to her mother’s hand as they ran onward toward the nearby ravine where they might be able to hide in the bushes that stood at the edge of the water.

  Shoshana’s heart raced as she heard a horse approaching from behind her and her mother. She looked wild-eyed over her shoulder as a soldier on a black steed took aim and fired.

  She screamed when her mother’s body lurched, then released Shoshana’s hand and fell to the ground, quiet.

  “Todah, no! Ina, mother! Ina!” Shoshana cried in her Apache tongue when she saw blood on the back of her mother’s doeskin dress, turning what was only moments ago a beautiful white color to red.

  Shoshana fell to her knees beside her mother.

  “Ina! Please awaken!” Shoshana sobbed as she began shaking her mother’s lifeless body. “Mother, I am so afraid. Do . . . not . . . leave me!”

  But no matter what she said or did, her mother continued to lie there, her body quiet, her eyes closed.

  Terror ate away at Shoshana’s heart, for what she saw today on her mother’s face was the same look she had seen on the day of her father’s death, when an enemy renegade burst out of bushes and killed her father, only to be killed himself moments later by her father’s best friend.

  Now Shoshana had no one! Both her parents were dead.

  Filled with despair, and a deep, gnawing need to survive this terrible day, Shoshana scurried to her feet.

  Her eyes filled with the pain of loss, yet with sudden determination, she defied the whites who had brought death to her beloved Silent Stream Band of Apache as she ran onward toward the ravine. She still hoped to find shelter there.

  But when she heard a horse quickly approaching from behind her and then felt an arm grabbing her up from the ground, she knew just how wrong it had been to hope for what would never be.

  She gazed frantically over her shoulder and saw that the one who had grabbed her was a soldier with long hair the color of fire, and eyes the color of the sky.

  She strugged to fight him off, kicking and biting him, but no matter how hard she tried, the pony soldier held her on his lap, an arm like steel around her tiny waist holding her in place against him. There was a sudden strange sort of kindness in his sky-blue eyes.

  She realized that no matter how hard she tried, the soldier was taking her as his hostage as he rode away with her, leaving the fighting behind them, as well as the screams of terror and the leaping fires that were consuming the lodges.

  And then Shoshana became aware of something else: the total silence behind her at the village. She feared the pindah-lickoyee pony soldiers had done as they had been ordered to do. Except for herself, the pony soldiers had spared none of her people!

  “To-dah, no,” she sobbed. “To-dah!”

  She then hung her head in abject sorrow as she whispered to herself, “I . . . alone . . . am . . . alive.”

  Yet inside her heart, she felt dead.

  Chapter Two

  I will not let thee go.

  Have we not chid the changeful moon?

  —Robert Bridges

  A few days later . . .

  “It was a good day for a mock hunt, was it not, Little Bear?” Storm said proudly from his brown pony. He was ten winters of age and of the Chiricahua tribe of Apache, of the Piñaleno River Band.

  He looked over at Little Bear, who rode at his side on his own pony, as others followed behind them. He noticed quickly that Little Bear did not even seem to have heard what Storm had said to him.

  Wondering what had caught his friend’s attention, Storm followed the path of Little Bear’s eyes.

  He grew cold at heart when he saw smoke in the distance. There was no doubt where it came from. It rose from their village which sat alongside the Piñaleno River.

  And it was far too much smoke to be accounted for by the cooking fires of the village.

  It was billowing and black, turning the sky dark where it had only moments ago been such a peaceful blue.

  “My father . . . my mother . . . my sister . . . our people!” Storm gasped as he sank his heels deep into the flanks of his pony. “Nuest-chee-shee, come! We must go and see what we can do to stop the fires and help our people!”

  “We are only small braves,” Little Bear whined as he came up closer to Storm on his spotted pony. “We will be riding into danger!”

  “Do not cry and whine like a scared puppy,” Storm said scornfully. “Huka, I am not afraid! We must help! We must fight if any enem
ies are left at our village!”

  “With our tiny bows and arrows?” Little Bear whined again. “We only have what is needed for a mock hunt, not for true killing. And . . . look at us, Storm. We are but a few!”

  “Little Bear, we are but a few, but we are the future of our Piñaleno River Band!” Storm shouted. “Behave like a warrior instead of a mere brave! Be ready for whatever we find at our village! It takes courage, Little Bear. It takes savage courage to be what only moments ago we were not. If our people were ambushed and are no longer of this earth, it will be up to us to carry on the traditions we have been taught.”

  Then a thought came to Storm that made his heart skip several beats. His sister Dancing Willow had left at the same time that Storm and his friends had left. She, who was thirty winters of age, a spinster, and a Seer, had gone out into the hills to dig roots.

  Dancing Willow had promised to teach the younger girls which roots to dig today. If they had returned to the village before the attack, then she, too, would be dead.

  And what of his Ina, his mother? And . . . his . . . chieftain ahte, his father?