Cheyenne Captive by Georgina Gentry

Author:Georgina Gentry [Gentry, Georgina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780821719800
Amazon: B00KTIGOLW
Barnesnoble: B00KTIGOLW
Goodreads: 1866687
Publisher: Zebra Books
Published: 1987-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

She was almost fainting when she finally reached it and a red-haired sentry came out as she slid from the paint pony to the ground and collapsed.

The sentry ran off and soon he returned with a sour-faced white woman. As she opened her eyes, Gray Dove knew she did not like the gray-haired woman with thin, unsmiling lips, but she recognized her and knew the woman’s husband was the Big Chief of the fort so she tried to smile appealingly up at her.

“Pawnee war party!” she gasped. “Family all killed!” That was not quite true, of course, but this seemed an opportune time to improve her lot and she decided to do so.

“Poor thing!” the woman said. “Bring her to my quarters and get someone to go for the post doctor!”

When she awakened, she was in a clean, white bed at the colonel’s quarters and it was very comfortable and warm. It occurred to her that it might be nice to stay with the whites permanently.

The doctor had a white mustache, yellowing around the edges, she noted as he examined her torn body. “How many of them were there?”

“Fifteen or twenty.” She sighed and the doctor looked sympathetic.

The colonel’s wife entered the room then and her lips pursed in disapproval. “Men! That’s all they ever think about!”

“Well now, Mrs. Willard.” The doctor scratched his mustache. “You really can’t expect savages on a war party to behave differently.”

“I wasn’t thinking just of Indians,” Mrs. Willard snapped. “Now, what on earth shall I do with her?”

He shook his head doubtfully. “I honestly don’t know, dear lady. She said her family is dead and no Arapaho brave would want her now for a wife. Perhaps you had better discuss this with the colonel.”

“You know how the colonel hates Indians!” she declared in a soft drawl. “Although I keep telling him it’s our duty to try to do a little missionary work among these poor savages; to teach them about God.”

Gray Dove did not like the white woman. She sensed that in her own way, the colonel’s wife was as hard and cold as she herself. But she also saw where her advantage lay.

“Let me stay with you, kind lady!” she begged pitifully. “I can cook and clean for you and you can teach me about your God.”

The woman reached over and picked up a big, black book off the washstand and seemed to be considering.

“You can teach me from your book,” Gray Dove said and managed to squeeze tears from her eyes. “And someday, I will go out and help you spread the word of your God!”

“Well,” said Mrs. Willard self-righteously, “I don’t see how I can pass up a chance like this to help spread the Gospel. Besides, I certainly could use some help around here. I never did housework before we came to this awful Nebraska Territory but we had to sell all three negras when we left Virginia. Got a nice price for them, too, but it was too bad we had to split up their family to sell them.

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