Sweet Prairie Passion (Savage Destiny) Read online

  Sweet Prairie Passion

  Book One of the Savage Destiny Series

  Rosanne Bittner

  Copyright © 1983 by Rosanne Bittner. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from Don Congdon Associates, Inc.; the agency can be reached at [email protected].

  Cover Design by Patricia Phelps Lazarus.

  What more can a woman ask than to find her love when all else is lost?

  Contents

  Copyright

  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

  One

  The year was 1845, and for fifteen-year-old Abigail Trent, it was just the beginning of her life. Until that first day she rode into Independence, Missouri, in the back of her father’s covered wagon, she had never known anything but the simple and rather quiet life of a Tennessee farm girl. She was hardy and strong from the life she’d led, and she could even use a rifle. However, true danger and daring adventure were unknown to her, and she did not yet know just how brave and stubborn she could be when necessary. She would soon learn.

  Abbie and her older sister, LeeAnn, stared out the back of the wagon as it bumped and jostled over the rutted streets of Independence. Their eyes were wide at the sights, their lips speechless, as they gazed at a mixture of Indians and mountain men, trappers headed for St. Louis with fresh furs from their winter hunts. Half-clothed, painted women strolled the boardwalks in front of saloons that were full even in the daytime. Wagons rattled back and forth in the streets, and the general noise and confusion, mingled with the strong odor of horse dung, made Abbie long for the peace and beauty of the Tennessee hills.

  Abbie glanced over at LeeAnn and gave the girl a shove when she noticed LeeAnn actually smiling at some of the strange men.

  “You looking to get us attacked?” she asked LeeAnn in a hoarse whisper. “You’ve heard the tales about the wild men in these parts!”

  “Pooh! I’m gonna find me a man before this trip is out, little sister!” the girl tossed back. “And he’ll be rich! I’m not going all the way out to that awful, uncivilized western land—not if I can help it! I’m going to be married and be a proper lady!”

  “You’ll get into trouble, that’s what!” Abbie spouted back. “You can’t make eyes at men like these!”

  “It so happens I know a lot more about men than you do!” LeeAnn snapped. “In a couple of years, you’ll be panting after one yourself.”

  Abbie turned up her nose and crawled to the front of the wagon, yelling out to her recently widowed father, Jason Trent, who walked beside the oxen.

  “How much farther, Pa?” she asked.

  “Just a little ways,” he replied with a grin. “We’ll make camp outside of Independence. Tomorrow morning we’ll head for Sapling Grove and hold up there till we get organized—maybe find us a scout.”

  Abbie smiled and watched him with a heavy heart. He had taken her mother’s death very hard, and part of the reason for their move was his intention to get away from painfully familiar surroundings. Neither of the girls had really wanted to go, yet neither had had the heart to refuse. Jason Trent had a yearning to go to Oregon and start life over, if that was possible, and he was too lonely already to bear the thought of leaving his daughters behind. Their little brother, Jeremy, was excited and happy about the trip, as would be expected of an active seven-year-old boy. He sat squirming in the wagon seat, and Abbie reached up and tousled the boy’s hair, then darted away when Jeremy reached around to tickle her.

  Since their mother’s death, the responsibilities of motherhood and of taking care of her father had seemed to fall automatically into Abbie’s lap, even though LeeAnn was older. LeeAnn had a lot of looks, but little sense, and seemed the frail sort, weak and scatterbrained. Abbie, on the other hand, had an ability to accept responsibility far beyond her years, and an inner strength and level-headedness that made her a natural for filling the void left by their dead mother. She did most of the cooking and sewing and washing, and she looked after her father and brother, whereas LeeAnn had to be prodded and scolded to lend a hand.

  LeeAnn was more interested in her looks and in finding a man. In Abbie’s mind, LeeAnn was the pretty one, blond and blue-eyed and nicely shaped, as their mother had always been. Abbie, on the other hand, was dark, like her father. She was pretty in her own way, a lovely child in whom one could already see the promise of a beautiful woman. But in her mind she couldn’t hold a candle to LeeAnn in looks. She hadn’t yet developed a roundness to her form, and she sometimes wondered if her breasts would ever fill out. Young boys back in Tennessee gathered around LeeAnn like bees to honey, and LeeAnn in turn fluttered and giggled and flirted with ease, loving the attention. Abbie cared little for the opposite sex, especially the younger boys. And she vowed that when she did fall in love, it would be with a strong, dependable man, who would be brave and honest, a man who could not be controlled by silly giggles and batting eyelashes. He would not be pretty and smooth and fancy, like the kind of man LeeAnn wanted. He would simply be all man.

  She reached over and picked up a brush, running it through her long, thick tresses. The fact remained that no man was going to look at Abigail Trent as a woman yet, let alone the kind of man she sometimes daydreamed about. But she already knew the kind of man she wanted—not some fancy, undependable dude; or some callow young boy who fainted at a smile.

  In the surrounding thickets, crickets sang and frogs croaked, while near the campfire Abbie sat beside her father, clapping her hands and tapping her toes to his fiddle music—Tennessee mountain music that warmed her heart. Jason Trent was good with a fiddle, and her eyes teared a little as she remembered the times her mother had laughed and whirled her skirts to the music while he played. That was before the strange disease had come to claim her—the horrible disease that ate at her until she was a skeleton. Abbie was actually glad when her mother finally died, for at last she was out of her awful misery and pain. It had been a long and cruel death, and Abbie could not help but agree that it was best they leave the old farm and the house that held so many memories of their mother.

  Mr. Trent’s fiddle was soon joined by a banjo, played by a handsome, sandy-haired young man who was part of a four-wagon supply train heading West. The boy’s name was David Craig, and they had already met him and the three men traveling with him. It was obvious David had an eye for LeeAnn already, and he was glad to be able to use his banjo playing as an excuse to be close to the Trent campfire. But as he eyed her up and down and played, LeeAnn hardly looked twice at him. He wasn’t dressed fancily enough for her, and he was most certainly not rich.

  David’s wagon was one of the four owned by Bentley Kelsoe, a pleasant-looking, strong and solid man about forty years old. Kelsoe’s wagons were loaded down with supplies to trade and sell to settlers who’d already gone West, and he hoped to purchase some rare Chinese silks and stones. His other two drivers were Bobby Jones, a quiet and slender seventeen-year-old who often glanced bashfully at Abbie; and Casey Miles, a short, red-headed man who was always full of jokes. Abbie had learned that none of them were married, a
nd that all of them looked forward to the trip as a kind of adventure, while for some it was also a chance to set up a line of trade. David and Bobby had been eager to see new places; they had no intentions of settling out West as Jason Trent planned to do.

  Abbie wondered to herself why so many people now seemed intent on going West. Was it all just for the adventure? Surely many were fleeing something in the East, perhaps the law, perhaps a memory. Her own father was running from things too familiar. Perhaps others were going to realize some kind of a dream, to start life anew, or to own a lot of land—some of it free for the taking.

  Whatever their reasons, to do it took bravery and strength. Of that she was already certain, for she’d heard many stories about the untamed lands west of the Missouri River. There were terrible thunderstorms and plagues of locusts. The mountains were much higher and colder than those in Tennessee—so high that trees couldn’t even grow on top of them. There was no law, and men took what they wanted. And, of course, there were the Indians.

  Her feelings about Indians were mixed. She knew that many Cherokees and Chickasaws had been run out of Tennessee and the surrounding states, and she often wondered how fair that was. Abbie’s heart was soft and her reasoning logical. Yes, the Indians had done some bad things, but weren’t they just fighting back, trying to hang on to what they thought belonged to them? And wouldn’t the white man do the same if he were the one being attacked and driven off his land? It was all terribly confusing to her young heart.

  She continued to clap her hands to the music, as a few townspeople gathered around to visit, to enjoy the music, and to tell them that more wagons were already waiting at Sapling Grove to see if others would show up. For a trip like the one they were preparing to make, it seemed only logical that there would be more safety in numbers, especially when most of them really didn’t know what they were doing in this country or even exactly what route to take. A bigger train had left two weeks earlier, and Abbie wished they had made it in time to travel with it. There was an odd heaviness in her chest that night, an ominous, intangible “something” that made her uneasy. But she did not betray her feelings to her father. He needed her, so she would go with him; and whenever he looked at her, she smiled.

  That night, another man with a wagon joined them—a graying man of about fifty who called himself Morris Connely. He, Jason Trent, and Kelsoe and his men entered into a conversation and soon Connely also agreed to travel with them; their little group was growing. LeeAnn and Abbie stood up and, holding hands, whirled around and danced to the music, as David Craig made his banjo come alive again while he sang a song about “Tennessee Annie,” the lonesome mountain girl. Friendships were established quickly in such times, and soon they were all laughing and talking and dancing, anxious to establish close relationships they knew would be sorely needed out on the prairies and in the mountains.

  But the laughing and talking and dancing quickly diminished when a tall, dark man with long, braided hair stepped into the firelight. He was somber of face, his physique broad and commanding. His dark eyes darted around the little group and quickly surveyed each person. Abbie saw him first, quickly letting go of LeeAnn’s hands to stare transfixed, and it was into her own eyes that the quiet stranger looked first. When their gaze held, she felt a chill run down her spine, while at the same time the rest of her body felt hot. He stared at her as though he knew her, then quickly looked away, silently waiting for the group to quiet, looking as though he had something to say but was not about to shout it.

  Jason Trent rose, and even though he was a big man, he seemed dwarfed by the dark stranger. There was no doubt that the intruder was Indian, if not all, then most certainly half, but Indian or not, Abigail Trent was sure of one thing. He was the most handsome man she had ever beheld, and no man could have better fit her idea of a real man. She felt, stirring deep inside herself, a feeling she had never before experienced, and for the first time, she cared how she looked to someone of the opposite sex.

  “Somethin’ you want, mister?” her father asked the man.

  “Word is you’re looking for a good scout,” the man replied in a low, soft voice.

  Abbie’s eyes widened, for she had expected the man to grunt something in some strange, Indian tongue. But the words, few as they were, were spoken in a Tennessee drawl, and did not fit the dark-skinned man dressed entirely in fringed buckskins that were beautifully decorated with beads. Beneath his worn leather hat he wore a red kerchief as a headband.

  “We’re looking,” Jason Trent replied with a nod. “You volunteering?”

  The man scanned the group again; this time his eyes avoided Abbie’s. While he wasn’t looking at her, she stared at him and found herself in awe of his quiet gracefulness and the many weapons he wore. She knew without a demonstration that this man knew how to use the fancy-handled knives that hung in sheaths at his waist.

  A belt of ammunition was draped crosswise over his shoulder and midsection, and a pistol hung at his hip. He was both fascinating and frightening. His eyes displayed subtle humor mixed with a trace of scorn for the whites with whom he spoke. His face was finely chiseled, the cheekbones high and the nose straight and prominent. His lips were nicely shaped, and she wished he would smile, suspecting he was even more beautiful when he was not so silent and sober.

  “I’ve scouted a couple other trains,” the man replied. “Did okay. I know my way around from here to Oregon—north or south, prairies and mountains. Went to California with Joe Walker back in ’thirty-three.”

  “Joe Walker!” David Craig spoke up. “Why … he’s famous!”

  The stranger’s eyes shifted to David, but showed no particular emotion.

  “You couldn’t have been very old,” Trent replied.

  “Old enough to go, young enough to learn a lot,” the man replied. “Thirteen. Been around a lot since then. Been out West several times.”

  Abbie calculated as quickly as she could. Twenty-five. He was twenty-five years old and had been traveling the West for twelve years! A full-grown man who knew his way.

  Jason Trent rubbed his jaw and looked over at Connely, who scowled and turned away, muttering something about Indians. The stranger eyed him darkly, and the look in his eyes put fear into Abbie.

  “Like I say,” he continued. “I know my way, and I can get you there. I raise horses—Appaloosas—on the Arkansas River. Just finished a deal on a few, and I’m wanting to do a little moving around before I go back. My people will tend the horses, and I need the extra money.”

  “And by your ‘people,’ you mean Indians, right?” Connely spoke up, his back turned. He said the word as though it were something detestable. The stranger shifted his feet, and Abbie could sense the anger he was fighting to keep hidden.

  “I wasn’t talking to you, mister,” he replied quietly. The words had a finality to them that kept Connely’s mouth shut. The man’s attention returned to Jason Trent. “Name’s Zeke. Cheyenne Zeke,” he told Jason. He scanned the group again, this time catching Abbie’s eyes and holding them like a magnet. A softness that surprised her appeared in his own eyes, and he smiled just slightly. She could not help smiling back, even though she felt her father looking at her and knew he objected. Then Zeke moved on to the others again. “To answer your question, I’m part Cheyenne—on my ma’s side. My father was a Tennessee man, like I expect some of you are. Best scout you can have is a half-breed. I know both worlds. I can talk to the Indians. And like I say, I know the land. I’ll just step aside, and you can discuss it with the others.”

  Like a sleek panther, Zeke moved back into the shadows, and Abbie’s father stepped aside to talk with Kelsoe and the others. Abbie could vaguely see the side of Cheyenne Zeke’s face that was lit faintly by the firelight; yet in spite of the dark, she knew his eyes were on her again. She felt badly because he might think she looked at him disdainfully simply because she was white and he was a half-breed. Abigail Trent had no prejudice in her young heart, and no malice. And for some reason
it was important to her that he know that. LeeAnn, afraid of the half-breed, scurried off to the wagon, but Abbie looked in his direction and swallowed.

  “Would you … like some coffee, Mr. Zeke?” she asked, disgusted by the girlish sound of her voice.

  “I’d be obliged,” the man replied. From an old iron pot that hung over the fire, she poured some coffee into a tin cup, then walked closer to Zeke and handed it to him.

  “Abbie!” her father suddenly barked. She jumped, and some of the coffee spilled. “Why are you still out here?”

  She reddened deeply, ignoring the pain of the hot coffee that had splashed onto her hand. She glared at her father, angry with him for the first time in her life. He had interrupted a beautiful, secret moment between herself and this fascinating stranger called Cheyenne Zeke.

  “I never knew us Tennessee folks to shun offering a man a cup of coffee!” she replied defiantly. Her father looked angry enough to hit her. But she knew he’d never lay a hand on her, and she felt as though she’d just won a little victory of her own. She looked up at Zeke. “Here’s your coffee,” she told him, as the others returned to their discussion.

  “Perhaps I’d best not take it,” the man replied, his eyes making her knees feel weak.

  “I have a feeling you are not the type to back down from something you know is right,” she replied boldly. “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t drink this, if you choose.”

  Now he grinned a little, stirred by this child struggling to act like a woman in front of him. He took the cup from her, his hand touching hers briefly and sending lightning through her bones. “Thank you, ma’am,” he told her with a nod.

  “Abbie, get to the wagon!” her father ordered, this time with less harshness. She glanced over at him, then back at Zeke.

  “You’d best do what your pa says, ma’am,” Zeke told her. It seemed to make all the difference in the world that it was Zeke telling her and not her father. She nodded and slipped quietly away to the wagon, but rather than climb inside, she stood at the corner to watch and listen.