Bandit's Hope Read Online Free Page B

and see."
    Tilting her face, she peeked at him. "I’d ask what’s hung in your craw, but I fear you’ll tell me."
    He stared into the sunrise and pursed his lips. "You’ll find out soon enough—when I ride off after breakfast tomorrow."
    She shot him a wobbly grin. "So you’re leaving me here to pull corn by myself? How long will I be shed of you this time?"
    If a stranger happened along to hear the teasing in Myrtle’s voice, see the carefree set of her mouth, he’d swear Joe’s wife didn’t mind his going away.
    Joe knew better.
    He wound her arm through his and patted her hand. "I’ll be gone for a good while, I’m afraid." Urging her forward until her shuffling feet caught up, he started her down the road toward what was left of the fort and their humble cabin beyond. "Don’t worry about bringing in the corn. Our neighbors will help."
    She trudged alongside him in silence before slipping her hand free and fisting it at her side. If he bothered to look, he’d find the other hand clenched, too, the knuckles of all ten fingers a matching shade of white.
    Joe steeled his spine and prepared for battle. "I don’t want you to fret, Myrtle. I’ll be home before the days grow short. You can count on it.”
    "Where you thinking to go?" The angry glint in her downcast eyes said she knew the answer before she asked.
    Squirming under the scorn in her voice, he glanced to the side of the road. "Thought I’d ride east for a spell."
    "Joe." His name hung in the air between them, splitting their hearts like an ax on kindling. "There’s nothing left for you in Mississippi."
    His brows bunched. "I’m duty-bound to my sister’s memory."
    Myrtle pinched her lips and blew a long breath through her nose. "You’ll do as much good as you did before. John Coffee won’t change his mind."
    Joe winced at the sound of his enemy’s name. Why had his sister married an ignorant
nahullo
then up and died? And not just any white man. The most stubborn paleface in Mississippi.
    To drive the thorn deeper in Joe’s side, his sister’s husband was named for Colonel John Coffee, a United States representative at the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, the day that marked the end of the Mississippi Choctaw Nation.
    Because of John Coffee Bell, Joe had taken the name Nukowa, or "fiercely angry," in the white man’s tongue.
    Myrtle prattled on, as if he hadn’t growled and set his jaw. "John doesn’t hold with the ways of our people. He will never accept that Mariah became your charge the day she was born."
    She lifted one shoulder. "Besides, if your niece cared to live with us, she’d be walking this trail with us now. The girl has made her wishes known."
    "I can’t help what she wishes."
    "Mariah’s not a child, Joe. She’s well past marrying age."
    "All the more reason to bring her among her people. John will see her wed to a nahullo, one as stubborn as he is. Then Mariah and her children will abandon our traditions forever." Joe gripped the stock of his gun until his fingers ached. "Every day she becomes more of John and less of her mother. My sister’s spirit wails to me in my sleep."
    Blinking away stinging tears, he gazed over his shoulder at Fort Towson, abandoned by the military at the close of the Civil War. Once a thriving garrison, the broken-down row of buildings was little more than a burned-out shell.
    Joe took Myrtle’s arm and led her down the path that branched away from the stark reminder of the past. There’d been enough wars fought in the nation to suit him, yet he found himself crossing swords with his dead sister’s man.
    With a mind shut tighter than a gulf clam, John ignored Joe’s pleas where it came to Mariah’s welfare. Joe had swallowed his bitter anger and allowed John to force the white man’s way over Onnat, but his heart had stirred at her death.
    The time had come to bring Mariah Bell to live where she belonged, under the watchful eyes of Joe and the other men of the tribe. John Coffee’s pride