Commando by Lindsay McKenna Page A

distrust, she might wrongly interpret his action. The ache in his heart for her, for the tragedy that surrounded her, grew.

    Shah pushed the grayish-white sand around with the toe of her boot. So much misery was surfacing as she spoke. “My mother convinced my father to let her give birth to me on the reservation. Living with him for nine months, she’d figured out how to manipulate him without making him angry enough to beat her. I was born in my grandmother’s cabin at Rosebud, and three days later we were taken back to our prison in Denver.

    “I don’t have a lot of memories until I was about six years old. I do remember this huge, cold estate that was like a fortress. My father hated me. He told my mother to keep me out of his sight, to keep me quiet because he hated to hear a child crying. I remember being held by my mother, her hand pressed to my mouth if I started to cry. She used to press my face against her breast, hold me very tightly and pray that father didn’t hear me.”

    Biting back a curse, Jake stood helplessly. Shah’s lower lip was trembling. It tore heavily at his own grieving heart to hear how much abuse she had endured.

    “Until I was twelve years old, I remember living in a nightmare war at his house. I went to school, came home and went to my room. I had my meals served there, I did my homework there, and I played with my dog out in the big yard, which was enclosed by a black wrought-iron fence.” Shah wearily touched her brow. “As I got older, I became aware that sometimes my mother would have terrible bruises all over her. One time…one time I saw my father beating her in a drunken rage. I flew down the staircase, screaming and shouting at him to leave her alone….” Shah made a strangled sound and fell silent.

    Jake moved over to her and slid his hand along her slumped shoulder. His mouth moved into a thin line as he thought of the daily suffering Shah had lived with. The anger he felt toward Travers ballooned tenfold. No wonder Shah was combative. “What happened? What did he do to you?” he asked, his voice cracking.

    Shah felt Jake’s fingers tighten on her shoulder, and gathered the strength to go on. “I—Well, I was like a wild animal attacking him, I guess. I don’t really remember what happened, to tell you the truth. Mom told me about it later—after I woke up in the hospital with a severe concussion.”

    “My God,” Jake choked out, reeling with shock.

    She gave him a cutting look. “In those days, hospitals didn’t question a child being beaten. My mother took me to the emergency room. She was in tears when she told them that I’d fallen down the stairs. I was in the hospital for three days. On the third day, my mom came and got me. I found out later she’d stolen money from my father’s wallet and bought two bus tickets for Rosebud. We escaped. I remember being wrapped up in a nice, warm star quilt that my grandmother had made for me when I was younger. I was still dizzy, and I couldn’t walk straight, but it was sure nice to be held in her arms on that bus trip. I was so happy to be going home, I cried most of the time. My grandmother…well, she’s a wonderful woman. She loved me and my mother with a fierceness that defies description.”

    Unconsciously Jake slid his hand back and forth along Shah’s shoulder. He forced out a question that he didn’t want to ask—because he wasn’t sure if he could handle hearing the answer. “Did it end there?”

    “No.” She sighed. “Once we got on the res, we were legally safe from my father. He tried to get the tribal council to give him permission to take us back to Denver, but a reservation is like a foreign country, Jake. We have our own laws and ways of doing things. My mother filed for a divorce the day she arrived, and the tribal council supported her decision to stay at Rosebud. From the age of twelve until I was eighteen, I never left the res, for fear that one of father’s hired detectives