Jessie's War (Civil War Steam) (18 page)

“If you don’t like it, you
take her,” Luke returned.

Cheveyo didn’t call Luke’s
bluff. “Not sure I like you either, white man.”

“That makes two of us.”

Amusement lit Cheveyo’s
features, and every muscle in Luke’s body stiffened.

Jessie was suddenly between
them, a blanket over her shoulders. She put a hand on his bare chest, and his
body tensed for an entirely different reason. “This isn’t about you,” she
whispered. “It’s about me.”

Luke’s anger dissipated at
her touch, but he remained cautious, waiting for some trick on her part. She’d
been so angry since he’d come back into her life. Her anger he understood. The
gentleness of her touch seemed foreign, out of place, disconcerting. Fear
flashed in her dark eyes, and she dropped her hand, but he still felt the
imprint of her palm against his flesh long after she’d broken contact, as if
she had marked him with the impression of golden skin, sleek hair, and
woman
.

She rubbed her hand against
her skirt, and turned to her cousin. “You left me little choice, brother. But
let me assure you, nothing happened. Nothing
will
happen.”

Luke snorted a bitter laugh,
because he remembered all too well what had once happened between them. Then
Jessie’s eyes met his over her shoulder, and his posturing shamed him. She wasn’t
some prize to be won, some possession to be fought over. Regardless of whatever
claim he may have on her, she was, and always would be,
Jessie.

Cheveyo’s smile was wolfish.
False. “Honestly,
cousin
, I believe
you. But you don’t need to convince me.”

Jessie’s features became
pinched, her eyes pained.

Luke fought to urge to punch
Cheveyo in the face. Only stopped himself because even he recognized how
impulsive and wrong his actions were. He’d survived for as long as he had
because everything he did was calculated.

Everything, that is, until he
had found out about this assignment.

Her eyes went wide as she
peeked around Luke.

He turned, and there, on the
horizon, a group of warriors crested the hill, led by a man wearing an
elaborate headdress, allowing any and all who saw him to know precisely who and
what he was, even at a great distance.

A man who led the Paviotso
tribe whose name, when translated, meant “death singers.”

A man who had single-handedly
won a war with nothing more than the power of his voice. A man declared enemy
by Luke’s government. The most dangerous man in the West.

Ewepu So’wina’.

Jessie’s grandfather.

* * * *

Half an hour later, Jessie
would face her grandfather.

Luke emerged from behind a
small copse of cottonwood trees whose bare branches reached for the pale winter
sun like skeletal fingers. Jessie watched him as he climbed the bank of the
river, dressed in a clean white shirt, black vest and trousers, his black
slouch hat shading his eyes. His silver badge caught the sunlight, and he had a
pistol holstered on his left hip and a knife strapped to his thigh.

Why would he mark himself so
clearly as an enemy by wearing his badge and displaying his weapons so openly?

Was it a challenge?

Because if it was, he was a
dead man.

Anxiety tightened Jessie’s
shoulders. He must understand the danger he was in, yet he wore the symbols of
his position just as clearly as her grandfather wore his. Luke wore his
authority well, and the new scars lent him an aura of danger she hadn’t noticed
about him before he’d left, though it rested so easily upon his shoulders she
suspected it had always been there in some fashion.

Yet she never felt safer than
when she was in the circle of his arms, and she never had. Luke had always been
her rock, her safety. Despite his disappearances when they were children, he
had always turned up when she needed him.

When Virginia City had been
shelled that first time, he’d been there. He’d shielded her from the anger of
her classmates, who, defenseless against Confederate shells, had decided to
torment the one person who had less power than they did.

Jessie.

He and Gideon had defended
her from rioting miners, from the Confederate and the Union soldiers.
Eventually, Luke had been forced to defend both of them.

That was the night she knew
she loved him, regardless of the circumstances of his birth. Her father wanted
her to marry a gentleman, a businessman or a mine owner. Perhaps a lawyer or a
doctor or even an inventor like himself.

But she’d fallen in love with
the wild, thieving son of a drunken prostitute.

Her grandfather approached
her solemnly, the tribe following behind, as was their custom when approaching
strangers. She didn’t belong here. Nor did she belong in Virginia City among
her father’s people—they’d already made it abundantly clear that while
they appreciated what little money she had, they didn’t want her. She didn’t
belong anywhere.

She looked at Luke.

He stood beside her, tall and
proud and a born warrior dressed in black.

Not in front of her, as a man
claiming her would have done. Not behind her, as foreigners were expected to
do. Beside her, as equals. She wanted him to take her hand, so she twisted her
fingers together in front of her to keep her wayward hands from touching him,
and forced herself to remember what it had been like to survive without him.

As one, Cheveyo and his men
went down to their knees in front of her grandfather, Ewepu So’wina’. He
touched Cheveyo’s shoulder and bade him to rise. Once Cheveyo gained his feet,
his men rose as well.

Her grandfather approached
her, standing close enough that the space between them felt intimidating and
invasive—a challenge as much as a greeting.

“Granddaughter,” he said in
Paviotso, the only language she had ever heard him speak.

“Grandfather,” she replied in
kind, bowing her head. She had never been required to kneel to her own
grandfather, and she wasn’t certain she should start now.

Turning to Cheveyo, her
grandfather motioned to Luke. “This is the one I asked for?”

“He was the one with her when
I found her.”

“You’ve done well.” Cheveyo
responded by inclining his head, and her grandfather turned to Jessie. “You
have been gone a long time.”

“Yes,” she answered
carefully. No accusation, no blame, and no excuses. Her grandfather would
accept none.

“Who have you brought with
you?”

Jessie turned to Luke. Unless
he somehow miraculously spoke their particular dialect of Paviotso, which was
unlikely, he didn’t understand their conversation and it had to make him
nervous.

Despite the wariness in his
eyes, he remained tight-lipped and silent.

It would be up to Jessie to
warn him should her grandfather decide he was unwelcome.

And he seemed to trust her to
do it.

She touched Luke. “This is
Luke Bradshaw.”

Grandfather glanced at her
hand, settled on Luke’s arm, his eyes interested.

She dropped her hand. “And I
didn’t bring him.”

“Yes you did,” he replied. “Tell
me, what is he to you?”

Jessie scowled, and her face
felt pinched. She studied the snow-covered mountains for a long time. That was
the question of the hour:
What is he to
you
?

“I don’t know what you mean,”
she said.

“You don’t?” Cheveyo chortled
in English.

Jessie glared at her cousin.
Despite the cold, heat rose to her face. “No, I actually don’t.”

“You don’t what?” Luke asked.

“Nothing,” she answered too
quickly.

“Don’t lie to me,” Luke
snapped. “Translate for me.”

“No.”

Luke took her by the elbow
and turned her toward him. “Translate.”

She shook him off, her eyes
narrowing, and the goodwill she’d had toward him dissipated like mist in the
morning sun. “I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

“That’s bullshit.”

Jessie’s grandfather laughed.

Luke was right: it was
bullshit. Her pulse pounded in her temples, throbbing through her veins like
the beating of war drums. “I’ll tell you what I think is necessary and you’ll
be grateful for it. You have no right making demands of me.”

She heard muttering next to
her, and belatedly realized Cheveyo had been translating for her grandfather.

“Cheveyo!” she protested.

He finished her words with a
mocking, “Cheveyo!” and turned to her to ask mildly, “Yes?”

“Do you need to translate
that
?”

“Yes.” Cheveyo’s smile shone
with artifice. After a time, he pointed out, “You never answered Grandfather’s
question.”

She folded her arms, and
refused to speak.

“Jessica,” Grandfather
warned, his tone dark. Before she had the chance to react, the temperature
dropped several degrees and gooseflesh dotted her arms. The cold seeped into
her bones, and her chest ached from the sudden chill. Her teeth chattered.

Beside her, Luke shivered and
pulled up the collar of his duster. He crossed his arms and stamped his feet,
but said nothing.

Jessie wrapped her coat more
tightly around her body, but it did little to warm her. “My apologies,
Grandfather,” she said in his tongue. “He is nothing to me.”

He simply smiled, sad
amusement lighting his eyes. “I see.” He turned to the man standing beside
Jessie, still and strong and silent. “Luke Bradshaw.” He turned back to Jessie
and waited.

She motioned to her
grandfather. “Bradshaw, this is my grandfather, Ewepu So’wina’.”

“It is my honor to meet you,
sir,” he said, his eyes cautious.

Given her grandfather’s
history as the killer of Union soldiers, Jessie couldn’t fault him for that.
Luke bowed his head, but kept his hands at his sides, as was the custom of her
people. They didn’t touch for any reason unless they were kinsmen or known
friends.

That he remembered touched
her
in a way she didn’t want to think
about.

Jessie translated Luke’s
words.

Grandfather nodded, but his
eyes lingered on where Luke’s pistol rested on his hip, and Jessie wasn’t the
only one who noticed.

“Foreigners relinquish their
weapons and kneel to Ewepu So’wina’ when he greets them,” Cheveyo said.

Luke tensed beside her, the
air rippling with unspoken hostility, but Jessie wasn’t certain if anyone felt
it but her. “I’m not giving up my weapons,” he said. “And I kneel to no one.”

She turned to him in
surprise—he’d been so amenable before—and heard Cheveyo translating
Luke’s words.

“Don’t!” she protested in English.
“You don’t need to repeat that!”

She shouldn’t care what her
grandfather would do to Luke because of his transgression, but she did.

“No, go ahead and repeat it.
No one is taking my weapons from me,” Luke said. His eyes met hers and, softly,
he continued. “Just like they’re not taking you. Not without a fight. So don’t
get any bright ideas.”

“I’m not some heifer you can
buy and sell at a moment’s notice. You don’t own me.” Over her shoulder, she
snapped at Cheveyo, “Goddammit, will you
stop
it? He doesn’t need to know this!”

“But I do,” her grandfather
responded. He grasped Luke by the forearms, and Luke shivered again. “No need
to kneel. Tell me about your people.”

Luke bristled, as he always
had when the subject of his family arose, and Jessie fought against the desire
to touch his arm and offer him some meager form of comfort. She would have, but
she didn’t need Grandfather getting the wrong idea about her relationship with
Luke. Cheveyo had already seen too much.

“Don’t have any,” Luke said. “My
people, as far as I know, are dead.”

She translated Luke’s words
for her grandfather, and the old man nodded seriously. “Then you are welcomed
here, brother,” Grandfather said. “You will join me at my fire and share a meal
with me.”

Jessie gasped as his words
hung in the air between them.

Cheveyo translated for Luke.

“You can’t welcome him into
the tribe!” Jessie protested.

Cheveyo translated that for
Luke, too.

“Why not? Because I’m a white
man?”

“It’s not that. He just... he
just can’t.” She looked at her grandfather. “No.”

“Then this must be about my
being a bastard.” Luke’s jaw was set, and his eyes narrowed. “So I’m good
enough to save your life, but I’m not good enough for your tribe?”

Jessie gaped at him. “What?”

“You heard me.” Luke’s
expression was icy, his posture stiff.

How dare he assume she cared
about that? She never had before.
He’d
always been the only one in her household who gave a damn about the
circumstances of his birth.