Savage Heat by Nan Ryan Page A

interest. His lips seemed to soften and stretch into a near smile. Triumphant, she hurried on, explaining excitedly, “Yes, you could buy lots of colorful fabric and jewelry and beads. Take presents back to all your brothers on the reservation.” She smiled at him. “Why, with enough gifts, you could probably buy any squaw you chose.”
    The smile left his lips and Martay’s heart stopped when his mouth thinned into a tight line and his black eyes turned icy. He said, his anger barely controlled, “In the language of the Sioux there is no such word as squaw. That’s a white man’s word.” He put the cigar back between his even white teeth. Looking again at the stationary spot, he added, “Nor do Sioux maidens spread their legs for a few trinkets.” He ground down viciously on the cigar. “That custom, it seems to me, also belongs to the white race.”
    Incensed, Martay quickly replied, “How dare you suggest that a white girl would … they most certainly do not … I would never …” Her voice trailed away. Her face had gone deathly white and her slender body jerked with anger and anxiety.
    He sensed she was near hysterics again. Hoping to avoid any further physical outbursts, he rose to his feet and tossed the smoked-down cigar out the door. Standing before her, he said, “Lie down and rest. You look pale and tired.”
    Knowing suddenly that if this strange, cold savage didn’t let her go right now, this very minute, she would never again be free, Martay impulsively reached out and grabbed his shirtfront. Wadding it in her hand, she drew him down to her until their faces were mere inches apart. “Please,” she pleaded, her eyes filling again with tears, “please.”
    She felt a small measure of hope flood through her as those fierce black eyes softened for one fleeting instant, but that instant passed and she was looking once again into fathomless depths of harsh, cold obsidian.
    “Rest now,” he said, pulling her clutching fingers free of his soft elkskin shirt and gently easing her down on the cot. He took the satin slippers from her feet and set them on the floor beneath the cot. Pulling a blanket up over her, he tucked it in around her shoulders and said, “You’ll be free in twenty-four hours.”
    Telegrams flew.
    Within eight hours of her abduction from the Darlington party, Martay Kidd was the focus of a massive manhunt that covered the whole state of Colorado.
    When General William Kidd’s eastbound train pulled into the Bethune station shortly after eight o’clock in the morning, he was given the shocking news. He immediately detrained, climbed into the saddle, and headed back to Denver, stopping only for fresh mounts along the route.
    By mid-morning, the hills and canyons around Denver were swarming with blue-coated cavalrymen. The commanding officer at Fort Collins had sent half the garrison in search of the missing woman. When General Kidd arrived in the city and was apprised of the situation, he angrily fired off a message ordering all the remaining cavalry, save a skeleton crew of twenty, out of the fort and into the mountains to look for his daughter.
    Told that Major Berton had led a detail into the high country within hours of Martay’s abduction, the worried general slammed a fist down on the table and swore, “I’ll have Berton’s hide for this! Goddamnit all, he’ll be court-martialed and hanged for his negligence if my daughter is harmed!” He turned and grabbed at the nearest blue blouse he saw. “Find her, soldier! We’ve got to find my sweet child!” His green eyes swam with tears.
    “We will, sir.”
    “We’ve got to find her. We’ve got to,” murmured a weary, heartsick Major Lawrence Berton as he rode up a steep evergreen forested shoulder of the towering Rockies at mid-afternoon.
    “We will, Major,” comforted a middle-aged leathery-faced captain riding knee to knee with the younger man. “We’ll find her.”
    Major Lawrence Berton wanted desperately to