Jamie stared at the girl. Silken webs. He clenched down hard on his jaw
because Jori was right about one thing. Someone would have to discover
the truth about her accusations. He didn't believe them. He couldn't
believe them.
And yet. If they were true, to leave her alone in the town of Wiltshire
might very well be to sign her death warrant.
He swore softly and leaped from the wagon. His leg still hurt from where
she had kicked him, and his chin still ached. He could feel it bleeding.
Damn her. She was as quick as a sidewinder, as ornery as a mean bear. He
could still remember her fury. He paused, for he could remember more.
The alluring fullness of her breast beneath his fingers, the softness of
her hair, the warmth of her legs entangled with his. He clenched his
fists at his sides and unclenched them, knowing Jon was right, that he
was going to have to somehow stick beside her until he could find the
truth. She was a hostile little witch. And he already wanted her. Craved
her. Ached to touch her, feel more of her.
He swore softly, determined to behave like an officer and a Southern
gentleman and solve this dilemma with no more thought for his unwilling
companion.
Then he heard her. weeping, crying very, very softly as if she were
muffling the sound in her pillow. She had come back to consciousness,
and it seemed to be a bitter awakening. She cried and cried. He felt her
agony, felt it rip and tear into him, and it was terrible. The horror
of, it reached inside him and touched his heart as it had not been
touched in years.
He had thought his emotions were stripped away by war.
The girl's wrenching sobs brought them back. He started to turn, to go
to her. He stopped himself.
No. She would not want him.
He stiffened his shoulders and walked on.
Chapter Two.
By dusk, all the graves had been dug. By the light of lanterns and camp
fires, Reverend Thorne Dryer of Company B read services over the graves.
Tess Stuart stood near the reverend'. Her eyes were dry now, and she was
silent. Something about her very quietness touched Jamie deeply; she was
small, but so very straight, her shoulders square, her lustrous hair
hidden beneath a black hat and sweeping V 'll, her fornl encompassed in
a handsome black dress with gray pearl buttons on the sleeves and at the
throat. Dust to dust, earth to earth, ashes to ashes. The reverend
called on God to claim His own, to show mercy upon their souls, to give
solace to those who remained behind.
Tess stepped forward to drop a single flower on her cle's grave. She was
still silent, and not a tear marred the perfect and tragic beauty of her
face.
Then she swung around and headed for her wagon. Jamie didn't mean to
follow her, he just discovered that he was doing so. She sensed him just
before she reached the wagon and swung around.
"Yes, Captain?"
"Lieutenant, miss. Lieutenant Slater." "Whatever," she said coolly.
"What do you want?"
Hostile! he thought. More hostile than any full tribe of Indians he had
come across. She made him itch to set a hard hand against her behind,
but she had experienced great pain today. He was a fool to have followed
her.
He should let her be. He didn't want her as a burden, and she didn't
want him as her protector. If she needed a protector. "Miss. Stuart, I
just came by to offer my condolences. To see if you were all right, if
you might need anything for the night."
"I'm just fine, Lieutenant." She hesitated.
"Thank you." She whirled around in her black skirt, then crawled into
the wagon. Jamie clenched his hands tight at his sides and returned to
the group. The funeral was just about over. Jon and Monahen and a few of
the others were stamping down the last of the dirt and erecting wooden
crosses over the graves.
The crosses wouldn't stay long. The wind would take them, the dust would
wear them away, and in time animals then men would tramp upon them. The
West was like that. A man lived and died, and little but bones could be
left behind.
Bones and dreams.
Monahan told him.
"Thank you, Sergeant."
"Is that all, Lieutenant?"
"No. Split them even, Monahan. Half can sleep while the second half stay
on guard. Just in cas~."
"In case the Injuns come back," Monahah said. "In case of anything.
This is the cavalry, Sergeant!"
"Yes, sir!"
Monahan saluted sharply. He shouted orders, his voice loud in the night.
The men at the graves hurried after Monahan as he started toward the
fires where the others were already setting up camp. As Jamie watched,
he saw his men melt into the rocks and crevices around them. They were a
crack troop.
They had campaigned through the most rugged Indian territory in the West
and they had all learned 27 their lessons well. They could walk as
silently as any brave, shoot with the same deadly accuracy and engage in
lethal knife play with ease.
It hadn't been easy for Jamie, not at first. Some of the men had
resented the Rebel who had won his promotions so easily. Some hadn't
thought a Reb ought to be given a gun, and many had had their doubts
about Jamie in Indian country. He had been forced to prove his way at
every step, in battle or in negotiations. They'd met up with a tribe of
warring Apache once near the border, and he had shown them something of
his mettle with his Colts as the battle had begun. Later he found out
there had been some whispering about all the Slater brothers, and how
deadly he and Cole and Malachi had been during the war. Overnight, it
seemed, his reputation had become legendary.
He smiled in the darkness. It had been worth it. He had gained a loyal
following, and good men. Nothing would come slipping through his lines
tonight. He could rest with If he could rest at all.
Despite himself he felt his eyes drawn toward the wagon that stood just
outside the circle of small cavalry-issue Aframe tents.
"What a burden," Jon said quietly from behind. Jamie swung around,
arching a brow. Jori wasn't the usual subordinate, nor did Jamie expect
him to be.
"Why don't you quit making the comments and start telling me something
about this von Heusen fellow."
"You really interested?" Jon asked.
"Try me. Come on. We'll get some coffee and take a walk up by the
ridge."
Monahan gave them coffee from a tin pot at the fire, then the two men
wandered up the ridge. Jamie found a seat on a flat rock and rested his
boots on another. Jon stood, watching the expanse of the prairie. By the
soft light of the moon, it was a beautiful place, the mountains rising
like shadows in the distance, the sage rolling in ghostly fashion and
the camp fires and stars just lighting up the darkness around them.
"She's telling the truth," Jon said.
"How can you know?" Jamie demanded.
Jon shrugge
d, scuffed his boots against the earth and turned to hunker
down near Jamie.
"I know because I've heard of this man before. He wanted land further
north during the war. He was a cattle baron up there then, and he was
ordered by the government to provide members of the Oglala Sioux on
reservation land with meat. He gave them maggot-fiddled beef that he
wouldn't have fed to his own sows. The Indians formed a delegation to
speak with the man. He called it an Indian uprising and soon every
rancher in the area was at war with the Sioux. Hundreds, red and white,
died. Uselessly, senselessly. And von Heusen was never punished."
Jamie was quiet for a moment. He stared toward the remnants of the wagon
train.
"So he's got property now in Wiltshire. And he wants more. And he likes
to rile up the Indians. I still can't do anything, Jon. Even if I
believed Miss. Stuart, there wouldn't be anything I could do."
"Because you can't prove anything."
"Exactly. And no sane white man is going to believe it."
"That's too bad," Jori said after a moment.
"That's really too bad. I don't think Miss. Stuart can survive very
long."
"Come on, Jon, stop it! No matter how powerful this von Heusen is, he
can't just out-and-out murder the woman!
The whole town would be up in arms. He can't own the whole damned town!"
Jon shrugged.
"He owns the sheriff. And we both know that he doesn't have to
out-and-out murder the girl. There are ways."
"Damn!" Jamie stood up, dusting the dirt off the rump of his breeches
with his hat.
"So what are you going to do?"
"I told you. We're riding back to the fort" -- "And then?"
"Let's get there, eh?"
Jon stood.
"I just wanted you to know, Jamie, that if you decide to take some of
that time the government owes you, I'll go with you."
"I'm not taking any time."
"Yeah. Sure. Whatever you say, Slater." Jamie paused, grinning.
"Thanks, Red Feather. I appreciate it. But believe me, I'm sure I'm not
the escort Miss. Stuart has in mind."
Jon pulled his hat low over his eyes, grinning.
"Well, Jamie, me lad, we don't always know just exactly what it is that
we need, now, do we? Good night." Without waiting for a reply he walked
down the ridge.
Jamie stayed on the ridge a while longer, looking at the camp fires.
He'd stay up with the first group on watch; Monahan would stay up with
the second.
But even when he saw the guard change and the sergeant take his place
silently upon a high ridge, he discovered he couldn't sleep. The cot
didn't bother him--he had slept on much less comfortable beds--nor did
the night sounds, or even the nightmare memories of the day.
She bothered him. Knowing that she slept not far away. Or lay awake as
he did. Perhaps, in private, the tears streamed down her face.
Or perhaps she was silent still, done with the past, determined to think
of the future. She believed what she was saying to him. She believed
that the wagon train had been attacked by white men dressed up like
Indians. She wouldn't let it rest.
He groaned and pulled his pillow over his head. It wasn't exactly as if
she was asking for his help. She'd made it clear she didn't even want to
hear his voice. He owed her nothing, he owed the situation nothing.
Yes, he did.
He owed the people who had died here today, and he owed the Comanche,
who were going to be blamed for this.
And he owed all the people who would die in the bloody wars to follow if
something wasn't proven one way or the other.
Still, he didn't sleep. He lay awake and he wondered about the woman
with the sun-honey hair who lay not a hundred yards away in the
canvas-covered wagon.
Sometime during the night Tess slept, but long before dawn she was wide
awake again, reliving every moment of what had happened. Her grief and
rage were so deep that she wanted to scream aloud, but screaming again
would do no good, and she had already cried until she felt that her
tears were a river that had run as dry as the plain with its sagebrush
and dust.
She cast her feet to the floor and stared across the darkened wagon to
the bunk where her Uncle Joseph should have been sleeping, where he
would sleep no more. Joe would lie out here in the plain for eternity,
and his body would become bone, and in the decades to come, no one would
really know that a brave and courageous man had died here fighting, even
if he'd barely had a chance to raise a weapon. Joe had never given in,
not once. He couldn't be intimidated. He had printed the truth in the
Wiltshire Sun, and he had held fast to everything that was his.
And he had died for it.
Tess pulled on her shoes and laced them high up her ankles, then
silently slipped from the wagon. The cavalry camp fires were burning
very low. Dawn couldn't be far away. Soldiers were sleeping in the
A-frame tents, she knew, and more soldiers were awake, on guard, one
with the rocks and cliffs that rose around the edge of the plain.
They were on guard--against Indians!
She clenched her jaw hard, glad of the anger, for it helped to temper
the grief. What kind of a fool did they think she was? Not they--him!
That Yank lieutenant with the deep, soft drawl.
The one she'd like to see staked out for the ants. Walking silently
through the night, she came upon the graves at last. She closed her eyes
and she meant to pray, but it wasn't prayers that came to her lips.
Goodbye, Joe, I loved you! I loved you so very much! I won't be able to
come back here, I'm sure, but you're the one who taught me how special
the soul was, and how little it had to do with the body.
Uncle Joe, you were really beautiful. For all that grizzled face of
yours and your broken nose, you were the most beautiful person I ever
knew. I won't let you have died for nothing, I swear it. I won't lose.
I'll keep the paper going, and I'll hold onto the land. I don't know how
I'll do it, but I will, I swear it, I promise. I promise, with all my
heart. Her thoughts trailed off and she turned around, uncannily aware
that she wasn't alone.
She wasn't.
The tall lieutenant with the wicked force to his arms was standing not
far behind her, silent in the night. In the haze of the coming morning,
he seemed to be a towering, implacable form. He wasn't a heavy man, but
she had discovered in her wild fight with him that his shoulders were
broad, that his arms and chest were well and tautly muscled, that he was
as lean and sleek and powerful as a puma, agile and quick. His eyes were
a most interesting shade of gray, remote, enigmatic, and yet she felt
their acuteness each time they fell upon her. She realized, in the late
shadows of night, that he was an arresting man. Handsome. but not
because of perfect features or any gentleness about him. His face was
ruggedly hewn, but with clean, strong lines. His jaw was firm and
square, his cheekbones were high, his eyes done, but he hadn't promised
her a lick of help in righting things. He didn't care.
The only people who cared were the citizens of Wiltshire, and there
weren't really all that many left. Even the sheriff was one of von
Hcusen's men, put into office during one of the shadiest elections
imaginable.
It was light, Tess realized. The daylight had come as they had stood
there, staring at one another. Against the pink of the sky, Lieutenant
Slater suddenly seemed a towering menace. A pulse beat at the base of
his throat as he watched her. His jaw seemed cast into a slight twist,
then locked as if it held back his temper. There was a good ten feet
between them, and still she felt his heat, body heat. Her heart was
beating too quickly, and something warm churned deep within her abdomen
while little touches of mercury seemed to dance along her back. She
needed to break away from him.
She despised his attitude; she couldn't help but spise him for the blue
uniform that reminded her so completely of the war.
He wore it well, his dark, plumed hat pulled low over his eyes, his
shoulders broad in the navy blue cavalry shirt, his legs long, his hips
trim. She had to walk past him. She swallowed hard and forced herself to
smile.
"If you'll excuse me, Lieutenant, I'm sure that you're anxious to ride
as quickly as possible." She started to walk. The closer she came to him
the harder her heart beat. She was almost past him.
Then his arm snaked out and he caught her elbow. Her heart slammed
against her chest as she looked into his smok~-gray eyes, s'zzzling into
hers beneath the sun. His eyes were still shadowed by the brim of his
hat.
"I am sorry, Miss. Stuart. I'm very sorry."
She wanted to speak. Her throat was dry. She felt his fingers upon her
as if they burned. She was acutely aware of the warmth and strength of
his body.
She stared at his hand upon her and pulled from his grasp. "Thank you,
Lieutenant," she managed to say, then she forgot her dignity and fled.
In an hour they were ready to start out. Lieutenant Slater ordered the
downed and useless wagons burned. He almost ordered her new printing
press burned, but Tess forgot all about a low-toned and well-modulated
voice and dignified behavior and came bursting from her wagon to demand
that the press be carried into something that was still capable of
rolling.
"What in hell is it?" the lieutenant demanded impatiently.