And One Rode West by Heather Graham
“I would like to find them.”
Buffalo Run nodded. “There is more. The men carried off Comanche arrows when they took Morning Star. They have made their acts look like the work of Comanche. They have left these arrows with their victims, and they have scalped the men and cut their tongues from their mouths.”
Jeremy nodded again. Buffalo Run had asked him to come to his camp as a gesture of true friendship. He was being given the honor of bringing these men in.
Back in his own tent, he punched his pillow and laid his head back down on it. He could smell the coffee Christa was making. In a matter of minutes she would bring him a cup and he would take it gladly. Maybe they would share it. Then he would have to find a way to convince her to take off her clothing even though it was early morning.
She was coming in. Carrying a tin cup of coffee, just as he had known she would.
She walked to the foot of the bed. He anticipated the light tones of her voice, the rich taste of the coffee, the softness of her flesh.
“You—bastard!” she hissed.
He jumped up just in time to avoid the heat of the coffee spraying over tender parts of his anatomy. The cup nearly hit him on the head.
Her hands were on her hips, her hair was wild, her eyes were a blue glistening fire. She didn’t seem to care in the least that she had nearly endangered the prospect of a sister or brother for their unborn child.
“You, you—bastard!” she spat again, furious.
The end of magic, he thought.
Christa had seen the Confederate prisoners.
“Madam, may I suggest you cease,” he warned her harshly, “unless you would share their fate?”
“Gladly! Imprison me with them, tie me up, do your worst! How dare you! They are lost, they are beaten, and you would cage them like animals! How dare you! How—”
He jumped to his feet. His hand clamped over her mouth. “Shut up! You test me too far, Christa! All of the camp can hear you when you rage like that, and I won’t—not even for you—become the laughingstock of an entire regiment! I have my reasons for what I’ve done, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to endure this outburst before you know what my reasons are. Now, shut up!”
Slowly, warily, he eased his hand from her mouth.
“Yankee bastard!” she hissed out.
He suddenly felt exhausted, worn down by forces he couldn’t fight.
“That’s right, Christa, Yankee bastard. Then, now, and always. Christa, I am sorry!”
Her eyes were glittering. Were there tears within them? He wanted to put an arm around her, he wanted to hold her close, to explain.
She would never let him touch her now.
She tried to jerk free from him. He held her firmly, clenching his teeth.
Then he freed her.
She turned from him and ran.
Nineteen
Christa hadn’t been sure at all how a morning that had begun so gloriously could have darkened so quickly.
She had awakened so relieved to have him back! To have him at her side, his sun-bronzed hand so dark where it lay over the ivory flesh of her hip, his hair-roughened leg casually tossed upon hers. It had felt so good, so sweet, so secure, just to lie with him.
But when she had risen and dressed to start the coffee, she had seen the Confederates.
Someone had rigged together a ramshackle stockade in which to hold the men. There were four of them, worn, thin, tired, and weary looking, still wearing their uniforms. Stunned at the sight of them, she had found herself hurrying toward them.
Private Ethan Darcy had been guarding the group. She knew he was an excellent sharpshooter and could bring down a man or a beast at a tremendous distance. Her heart quickened, and despite herself she felt her temper rising.
Why were they being so cruelly held? There was little over their heads to shield them from the elements. They’d been provided with nothing to sleep on, and they were huddled before a waning fire.
“Mrs. McCauley, you need to be leaving these prisoner fellows alone now,” Darcy warned her.
She shook her head at Darcy, studying the men. One wore a captain’s insignia, one a sergeant’s, and the other two appeared to be privates. She had never seen a sadder-looking group of men, so lean, so hungry-looking. They were the losers of the war, she thought, and they looked it. Emaciated, tattered, pathetic.
“My God!” she whispered. “Why are they being kept here like this? Who ordered this?”
“Mrs. McCauley, maybe you’d better speak with your husband,” Darcy told her.
“He’s taken the word of an Indian over a southern white boy,” the man with the captain’s insignia on his shoulders told her. “We’re suffering for it, ma’am. Your colonel doesn’t seem to know that the war is over.”
She moved closer to the man. His beard was unkempt, his hazel eyes were watery. She didn’t think that she’d ever felt quite so sorry for a human being, and she suddenly felt ill.
She gasped suddenly. There was the caked blood on the arm of the man’s uniform.
“You’re injured!” she cried.
He shrugged. “It’s just a scratch, ma’am. But I admit, I would take kindly to any small mercy.”
Last night, Jeremy had come back. She had been so glad to see him. He hadn’t wanted to talk. She had been so glad to hold him. She had lain with him in warmth and ecstasy while he had been doing this to these men. She had been so deceived.
“I’ll get the doctor out here,” she said. She stared hard at Darcy. “They need better shelter! A warmer fire. What are you doing treating men like this?”
“Mrs. McCauley, we’re just keeping a watch on them. We’ll be moving into Fort Jacobson sometime very soon, and they’ll be taken care of from there.”
“I’m going to see to it that these men are treated better now,” Christa said firmly.
She turned around to start back to her tent. Darcy called to her softly. “Ma’am, your husband is the one who brought these fellows in. And he was right firm when he did so. I don’t think you understand—”
“I don’t think that you understand! Jeremy has to treat these men better! The war is over.”
“That’s not it, ma’am. Mrs. McCauley, he’s not going to bend on this matter—”
“Then I’ll see to it that certain things are done!” she said firmly.
This time, she left Darcy behind, shaking his head. She clenched her eyes tightly together as agony ripped through her. She had fallen in love with him. She had greeted him with such heat and fever, and all the while these men had stood out here starving and wounded. He had told her that he didn’t want to talk.
“Oh, God!”
She stopped in front of her tent, then looked down at the coffeepot and at the fire before it. With shaking hands, she poured coffee into Jeremy’s tin mug and stepped back into the tent.
He was so damned comfortable, sprawled out with his long limbs, his skin so bronzed and healthy, his muscles corded and powerful. He was the picture of health.
“You bastard!” she swore and threw the tin. She didn’t really intend to scald him; she hadn’t really thought about what she was doing at all. Once she had seen the prisoners, she had felt only that somehow he had used her and betrayed her. He had said that the war was over. It was not.
He was up, of course, being too alert and agile a man to lie still while she hurled missiles of coffee at him. Then, of course, he started railing at her like the supreme commander, cold, distant, harsh. Warning her that she had best stop before she share the prisoners’ fates.
She wasn’t sure exactly what she said. She only knew that she was furious and very hurt. Yes, she would share their fate! She was a Rebel, just like those men. But she had spent the night comfortably, lying with a Yankee.
He shook her and held her in his merciless grip. She felt her teeth chattering in her head. He wouldn’t take this rage from her. She could feel the searing anger and strength that radiated so freely from his naked body to hers,
How could she care so much? How could she have fallen so completely? How had she ever let him make such a fool of her? How had she loved him?
She couldn’t break his hold. He released her at last, and she ran. Ran from his touch, from the strength of his hold. From the heat of him. From wanting him.
When she was free of that touch, she could think again.
She snatched up the coffeepot and a tin mug from her own fire and marched back to the makeshift stockade with it. “Darcy, let me in!” she commanded.
“Ma’am, I don’t know—”
“Darcy, I have just come from my husband. Let me in. I’ve brought coffee. These men need to be warmed. Has it become our policy to sit judge and jury on those who have lost a country? Let me in to tend to these men!”
Darcy, very displeased, did so.
The captain took the coffee cup from her with shaking fingers. He paused to smell the brew before sipping from it, then offered it to the other men. “Thank you, ma’am. Thank you, right kindly. Do I take it you were a southern sympathizer, ma’am, or merely an angel straight from heaven?”
“I’m a Virginian,” she murmured, looking to the rest of his band. One of the privates was a boy, no more than eighteen or nineteen.
That hadn’t been so young in the last stages of the war, she reminded herself. Drummer boys and buglers far younger had perished. “Where are my manners, ma’am?” the captain said. “I’m Jeffrey Thayer. Sergeant Tim Kidder there, and my privates, Tom Ross, Harry Silvers.”
Christa nodded to each of them in turn.
“Why—why are you here?” she asked.
“Some fool Indian told the Union colonel we were guilty of his own outrages!” Thayer said indignantly.
“Don’t that beat all?” Sergeant Kidder asked. He’d drained the coffee.
“There’s more,” Christa said hastily. “I’ll get you some food too. And Darcy can stoke up the fire. My God, and your arm, Captain! I’ll get the doctor here.”
“You are an angel!” Jeffrey Thayer said.
She shook her head. “I don’t understand—”
“There’s lots of ex-Confederate boys heading south from Texas,” Jeffrey told her. “We were on our way to be among them.”
“South?” Christa said, confused.
“Right on down to South America. We’re going to start a new colony down there, ma’am. A rebel colony. You’re right welcome to come now, if you wish. It’ll be a place where Yanks don’t come and burn down every food source in sight! Where the old ways can live again.” He grit his teeth suddenly, clutching his arm. “My, my, but this does hurt.”
“Good thing the colonel couldn’t aim,” the young boy, Tom, said.
She heard a sniff from Darcy. “Don’t fool yourself, kid!” Darcy called. “Colonel McCauley hit the captain right where he aimed. If he’d have been aiming differently, the captain’d be pushing up daisies right now.”
“Private Darcy!” Christa admonished. She looked up to the sky. It was barely dawn. John Weland would probably still be sleeping. She didn’t care. She was going to wake him up. “Captain, I’m going to see about someone to help with your arm.”
She started to turn, but he clutched her hand. His eyes were damp, his fingers trembling with emotion. He spoke in a whisper. “Ma’am, we’ve survived so much fighting. If there’s anything you can do to get us out of here, I’d be beholden for life! They’re going to hang us for what heathen Indians did. They’re going to hang us just because they hate us still. They didn’t kill us during the war, so they’re going to do it now. Lady, please …!”
Shaking, Christa disentangled her hand from his grasp. She couldn’t. She didn’t have the power to help them escape. And if she did she wouldn’t dare.
She closed her eyes, swallowing hard as she remembered the scalp they had found on the butte. The Comanche were savage and brutal. Jeremy couldn’t really believe anything they might tell him about someone else! Jeremy had gone to see Buffalo Run. Buffalo Run had surely given Jeremy some lie to make up for an atrocity he had committed himself.
And Jeremy was willing to believe him! Because these men were in gray uniforms!
“I’ll get the doctor,” she said. She whirled around. As she made her way through the tents, she saw that only a few of the men were beginning to rise.
Jeremy didn’t need to worry about men having heard her tirade against him.
They all seemed to have slept through it, she thought wryly. The few who were awake greeted her politely and courteously, making way for her. She reached Weland’s tent and hesitated. “John?” she called softly.
“Christa?”
“May I come in?”
He wasn’t really dressed, but he had on his long johns and his trousers and suspenders. He lifted the tent flap and let her in.
“Jeremy brought back prisoners—” she began.
“So I heard.”
“What?” she said, amazed. “Then, John, why didn’t you tend to the wounded man?”
“It was a scratch, or so I heard. He said he just nicked the man to get him to stop.”
“He’s in pain. Major Weland, please. For me, would you come look at this man’s arm?”
A light suddenly seemed to shine in his eyes. Christa thought that he was a lot like Jesse. When it came time to heal the sick, Weland was ready to go.
“Let me get my shirt.”
He did so and picked up his surgical bag and followed her out. They walked through the encampment until they came to the stockade at the far edge.
Private Darcy was still standing guard. Christa looked at the landscape beyond them and understood why their precautions against escape could be so lenient.
There was nowhere for the prisoners to go. Not on foot, and not in Comanche territory. With horses, yes, they could escape.
“Go on in, John, please,” Christa encouraged him. “I’m going to go to see what I can find for them to eat.”
“Sergeant Jaffe will be bringing them something—” Private Darcy offered.
“I want them fed now,” Christa said firmly.
She found Jaffe, and to her relief he was already preparing food to be brought to the prisoners. She returned behind him and leaned upon a fencepost, pressing her cheeks against the cool wood as the men ate.
They had been near starving. They ate like animals. Even Doc Weland had stopped his treatment of the captain’s arm to allow them to eat. When Jeffrey Thayer had finished, Weland set to bandaging his arm again. When he was done, the doctor stood with Christa while Thayer spoke. “I don’t mind dying. Me and my boys, we stood in battlefields so long that death is like a long-lost cousin. But it just beats all that your colonel is going to see to it that we hang for some awful business done by a pack of savage Comanche.”
Christa glanced uneasily at Weland. His face looked a little pale too.
“Did you—did you try to explain the truth to my hus—to the colonel?” Christa asked.
With a pained expression, Thayer nodded. “God’s my witness, ma’am. I tried. But it seems that savage Buffalo Run has some kind of crazy influence over the man. And we’re—”
“What?” Christa pursued.
He shook his head. “Same old story, angel. We’re Rebels. A Yankee just can’t believe a Rebel.”
Christa turned away and walked some distance from the stockade. A second later, she felt a gentle touch on her shoulder. She spun around. It was Weland.
“Are you thinking of helping them escape, Christa?” he asked her.
She started to shake her head. “I—I—”
“Well, I am,” he said bluntly.
She gasped.
“Shush!” he warned her quickly. “Come on. Let’s get to the med tent. We don’t want to be heard.”
She stared at him in amazement, at the misery in his eyes, then nodded quickly. He was like Jesse. He couldn’t stand the suffering.
And for Weland, the war was over.
“It’s too early in the morning!” she whispered.
“You need it. And keep your voice down!” He began to pace. Christa decided that he was right and she swallowed the sherry down. He stopped pacing and stared at her. She knew that they were both thinking of the scalp on the pole on the butte. How could Jeremy have believed the Comanche over the emaciated men in his stockade?
“What are we going to do?” she whispered.
He sank into a chair. “I could be court-martialed for even thinking this way,” he said with a groan.
“Then you can’t do anything. I’ve got to do it.”
He looked up at her, studying her. “Christa, you are the only one who can do anything.”
Her fingers started to shake. Her knees went weak and she sank down to the foot of his bed. “How, what?”
Weland ran his fingers through his hair. “Well, we should have ridden into Fort Jacobson today but I think Jeremy planned to camp over, tie up some loose ends with the men, write some dispatches. He should be busy in the headquarters tent all day. Not that they could possibly escape during daylight …”
“The dawn?” Christa said.
Weland nodded. “And they’d have a day’s rest. Jeff Thayer’s arm could heal a bit. They’d have some food in their bellies. What a pathetic lot! How could Jeremy …” His voice trailed away and then he looked at Christa guiltily. “I’m sure he had his reasons, of course.”
Yes. The men were Rebs.
“I can see to it that some of the horses are tethered near the stockade for the night,” Weland continued. “If you could just slip out very early, before dawn, and do something about Darcy.”
She nodded. “Distract him?”