Merline Lovelace (19 page)

Thankfully, the rain lessened to drizzle as the two women passed the quartermaster’s warehouses and the sinks, malodorous even after this downpour. From
the corner of one eye, Julia spotted a stand of freight wagons on the bluffs above the river. Shaggy-looking mules were picketed behind the wagons, their ears flattened against the rain.

George Beauvais’s freight wagons! Remembering what Andrew had told her about the drivers’ characters, Julia’s heart began to thump with painful intensity. Surely,
surely,
even the most hardened dregs of humanity wouldn’t harm two little girls.

She almost sobbed with relief when a few more turns of the riverbank brought an exclamation from Walks In Moonlight.

“Look! There they are.”

Peering out from under the calfskin, Julia saw at once the girls’ predicament. The rain had indeed softened the bank, so much so that one wheel of the pony cart had sunk almost to its yellow-painted hub. Two disconsolate girls sat cross-legged on the ground beside the cart, partially sheltered from the storm by its tipped side. Daisy, bless her, stood docilely between the tilted shafts.

“Mama!” With a glad cry, Suzanne scrambled out from under her makeshift shelter. “We got stuck.”

“So I see.” Now that her worst imaginings had come to nothing, exasperation put a bite in Julia’s voice. “Why didn’t you unhitch Daisy and all of you come in, out of the storm?”

“Her harness got tangled. We couldn’t get her loose.”

“You could have left her and gone for help.”

Suzanne stared at her mother in shocked reproof. “The major says a trooper’s first duty is to care for his mount.”

“Oh. Well. If that’s what the major says.”

“We knew he would come looking for us when we didn’t return to the stables,” she explained. “He always looks out for us.”

“Does he?”

“Yes. Us and Daisy.” She hesitated a moment, then lifted her gaze to Julia’s. “I don’t think he really meant to mash my other Daisy, do you, Mama?”

“No, darling, I don’t.”

Secretly delighted by this sign of lessened hostilities between her daughter and Andrew, Julia swallowed any further scold.

“Perhaps if Walks In Moonlight and I put our shoulders to the cart, we can push it free of the mud. Take Daisy’s lead,
ma petite.
”

The folded calfskin provided a useful pad when Julia leaned into the cart. A few minutes of strenuous rocking succeeded in freeing the vehicle from the softened earth. It also succeeded in splattering both women with mud.

Suzanne walked beside her pony’s head to lead her away from the soggy bank. A thoroughly bedraggled Julia knelt to untangle the harness straps, then ordered both girls into the cart.

“You’ve got mud on your face, Mama. In your hair, too.”

Their giggles had Julia rolling her eyes and Walks In Moonlight smiling.

“We take them home and warm them with willow bark tea. They will come to no hurt.”

Plodding along beside Daisy, Julia was looking forward to the hot tea when a turn of the river brought them face-to-face with a new, and far more chilling danger than the rain.

“Well, lookee here.”

The thin, scarecrow of a man with a pockmarked face and blackened stumps for teeth had obviously taken advantage of the storm’s cessation to relieve himself. He buttoned the flap of his filthy canvas trousers and shouted over his shoulder toward the freight wagons circled some distance away.

“Hey, boys! It’s them squaw wimen I told you I’d seed go by.”

T
hey were drunk. Every one of them.

Julia needed only a glance at the bloodshot eyes and staggering gait of the men who straggled out from the circle of wagons for her blood to ice in her veins. Evidently last night’s brawl and the arrest of one of their companions hadn’t broken up their revels.

Realizing she had mere moments to escape a dangerous situation, she infused her voice with steel and addressed the driver who’d planted himself squarely in front of the pony cart.

“Please step aside and let us pass.”

“You talk pretty fancy for a half-breed squaw.” His lips cracked into a grin. “Under all that mud and buffalo skin, you look pretty fancy, too.”

“Let us pass.”

“Well, now, maybe I will.”

He ambled to the side. Julia drew in one swift breath of relief before he snaked out a hand and twitched away the painted calfskin.

“’N maybe I won’t,” he smirked, his avid gaze devouring her whole.

She stiffened, all too aware that the rain had soaked her clothing down to her skin. Her wet blouse clung to her breasts. Her skirt dragged tight around the outline of her hips. From the leer on this
canaille
’s face, she might as well have been standing before him in her corset and drawers.

One of the men staggering toward them gave a long whistle. “You done flushed us a whole covey o’quail, Brewster. Bet they’s gonna taste as juicy as they look.”

Julia darted a look at the woman beside her. Walks In Moonlight’s face was tight and closed, but her dark eyes telegraphed a grim message.

“I want the half-breed,” one yelled.

“Fine with me,” another snorted. “I got a hankerin’ for a bit of red meat, myself.”

“I flushed ’em,” the one called Brewster snarled. “I gets first choice.”

To Julia’s horror, the driver’s gaze drifted to the two girls.

“The little ones are always the juiciest.”

With a sickening jolt, she knew she had to act. Whipping her hand up, she slapped it down hard on Daisy’s flank. Startled, the little pony lurched forward. The two girls almost tumbled off the seat and into the cart.

“Take up the reins, Suzanne! Head for the stables!”

Brewster made a grab for the pony’s harness as it went past. Julie threw herself at him, hitting him square in the chest with a hard shoulder. Cursing viciously, he went down.

The momentum carried Julia forward as well. She managed to avoid tripping over the sprawled driver, but her muddied skirts tangled around her legs and brought her to her knees.

From the corner of one eye, she saw the other men break into a run. Frantic, she fought to get her feet under her.

“Drive, Suzanne! Drive fast!”

“Mama!”

The girl squirmed around on the seat. Fear and indecision twisted her face.

“Find the major!”

Walks In Moonlight added her urgings to Julia’s.

“Go, daughter! Go now!”

With a poke in the ribs from Little Hen as incentive, Suzanne slapped the reins down on Daisy’s flanks. The pony cart rattled off with its two frightened occupants.

Walks In Moonlight half dragged, half pushed Julia to her feet, only to release her the next moment. Whirling, she clawed at the man who’d grabbed one of her braids from behind. Her nails scored his unshaven cheeks. Blood welled instantly.

With a foul oath, he yanked his hand down, jerking her head along with it. Walks In Moonlight gave one, small grunt of pain before his knee came up with
brutal force and smashed her full in the face. She crumpled to the mud, blood spurting from her nose and split lip.

“Stupid bitch,” her attacker snarled, fingering the welts on his cheek. “You’ll pay dearly for marking me. Come on, boys, bring the other one and let’s have us some fun.”

He started for the wagons, dragging Walks In Moonlight by the one braid. She writhed at the end of the painful tether, feet thrashing, hands reaching up behind her head to yank at the rope of hair.

Horrified, Julia lunged forward to aid her. Before she’d taken more than a step or two, a vicious backhanded swipe caught her beside the head and knocked her sideways. The gray afternoon dimmed to black. Pinpoints of bright light whirled in front of her eyes. Then a hard hand grabbed her wrist and twisted it up behind her back.

“Move yer feet, woman, ’lessn you want us to drag you, too.”

There were seven of them. Julia’s terror-filled mind managed to make the count as she was shoved toward the freight wagons. She and Walks In Moonlight couldn’t hope to fight off seven, nor did the drivers look the kind who would listen to reason. Still, she tried.

“Let us go,” she gasped. “Now, before you make even more of a mistake than—”

“Your friend’s the one what made the mistake, half-breed.”

“She was just protecting herself.”

“Looks like we need to learn her that she can’t go around markin’ up white men.”

“Listen to me! You can’t do this!”

“Sure we kin.”

To prove his point, he gave Julia’s arm another savage twist. Fire shot into her shoulder socket. Gasping, she blinked back burning tears of pain. When the haze cleared, one of the drivers danced beside her. He was hardly more than a boy, she saw with a shock, but the feral gleam in his eyes terrified her.

“I want this one, Brewster.”

“I found her, I’m having her.”

“Yer gonna share, ain’t ya? Hell, I shared that skinny little bit of crow bait I dragged away from her mama and papa in St. Louis. You rode her ass while I was jammin’ it in her mouth, remember?”

“I remember she bled like a stuck pig when you sliced her throat to stop her screechin’,” the man behind Julia snarled. “I’m having this one. You kin take what’s left after I’m done…if there’s enough left to take.”

“Yeah, well, we’s all gonna have fun with the squaw first,” the boy said with a fiendish glee. “We’ll make her squeal some for diggin’ them welts in Kinkaid’s face.”

Walks In Moonlight died an agonizing and soundless death.

Her refusal to make so much as a whimper of pain
drove the men who brutalized her to a frenzy of cruelty. They stripped her naked, pinned her to the ground and lashed her arms and legs to picket stakes with rawhide thongs. Obscenely spread, she was at their mercy.

No amount of begging or pleading or shouted threats from Julia could stop what came next. Her frantic attempts to aid her friend earned her a roundhouse punch in the stomach. Dazed and gagging, she thrashed ineffectively at the younger driver—the boy—when he dragged her to her feet. He threw her back against a wagon bed and tied her wrists above her head to the seat support, pulling the rawhide up so tight it cut into her flesh and left her dangling with only the tips of her toes skimming the earth.

Sobbing, shouting, cursing, she was forced to watch every indignity, every degradation forced on her friend. The drizzle continued, washing the blood that soon welled from the knife cuts on Walks In Moonlight’s body to a pale pink.

Julia grew hoarse from pleading, from shrieking threats and promises, from begging Walks In Moonlight to give her attackers what they so obviously wanted…acknowledgment of their power over her.

“Do like she says,” the one called Kinkaid sneered, digging the tip of his hunting knife into his victim’s throat. His flanks quivered as he leaned over her. “Let’s hear you sing out sweet and loud, red-bird.”

The Sioux raised her head an agonizing inch or
two. The blade cut into her jugular. Crimson spilled down her neck and stained her buckskin blouse. Her black eyes glittering with hate, she spat in her attacker’s face.

With a howl, Kinkaid drove the knife through her throat and pinned her to the earth.

“Nooo!”

Caught up in the spectacle of Walks In Moonlight’s death throes, none of the men paid any attention to Julia’s anguished scream.

“L
ook, major! It’s them!”

Twisting in his saddle, Andrew followed Dennis O’Shea’s outstretched arm. Their vantage point on the low bluffs above the post gave them a panoramic view of the flats below…and of the pony cart that came careening around a bend in the river. Andrew’s heart plunged to his boots when he spotted the two girls jouncing precariously on its leather seat.

Digging his spurs into Jupiter’s sides, he sent the chestnut plunging down the low bluff. Private O’Shea’s bay was a half stride behind. Their mounts’ iron-shod hooves threw up clods of mud as they raced across the flats to intercept the cart.

Andrew reached the galloping pony first. Bending low in the saddle, he grabbed Daisy’s harness. He was shaking with relief and fury when he dragged the laboring little pinto to a halt. Swinging out of the saddle, he stalked back to the cart.

A single glance at the girls’ frightened faces took
some of the edge from his anger, but he intended to administer a dressing down Suzanne wouldn’t soon forget for setting her pony to such a headlong gallop.

Before he got out a single word, the girl flung herself off the seat and into his arms. Her small body shook with sobs as she poured a stream of stammering incoherence into his ear.

“Shhh,” Andrew soothed, awkwardly patting her back. “Don’t cry.”

The feel of her small body pressed against his chest gave him a funny jolt. He’d carried the girl back to her quarters from the sick tents, lifted her on and off her pony often enough. But this was the first time she’d clung to him with desperate, clutching hands, as if he were a safe port in a storm.

With a wrench, Andrew realized that’s exactly what he wanted to provide for her. A safe haven. A home port. Another being she could come to with her problems, her secrets, her woes. Her sobs tore at his heart and eliminated all thought of taking her to task for her recklessness.

“We won’t tell your mama about this,” he promised, “as long as you swear you’ll never…”

She wrenched back in his arms. Her brown eyes bright brimming, she spilled a torrent of sobs and half phrases.

“Mama! Sh-she’s th-there!”

“Slow down, Suzanne. Take a deep breath. I can’t understand you.”

“Mama’s back there!” She beat at his chest with
a fist to make him understand. “By the river! With Walks In Moonlight and the bad men.”

His gut twisted. Swinging the girl to her feet, he hunkered down onto a knee before her. His hands gripped her arms and held her steady.

“What bad men?”

“They were dirty and wouldn’t let us go by.”

Over her head, Andrew met his striker’s hard blue eyes. It was the freight drivers. It had to be. Dammit, he should have ordered the whole cursed lot of them thrown in the guardhouse last night.

“One of them tried to grab Daisy,” Suzanne sobbed, tears streaming down her dirty cheeks, “but Mama slapped her flank and made her bolt. She shouted at us to come find you.”

Clutching at his uniform sleeves with frantic hands, she pleaded with him. “Please, Major, please. Go get my mama and Little Hen’s mama and—”

Andrew didn’t wait to hear more. Flinging an order at O’Shea to take the girls back to the stables and assemble a squad, he raced back to the patiently standing charger.

He heard the scream above the rushing roar of the Laramie and the hammering of his own heart.

With a vicious curse, Andrew dug his heels into Jupiter’s sides. The charger’s ears went back. His stride lengthened. Mud flew in huge clumps from his hooves.

When the circle of wagons came into view, all it
took was the press of a knee to aim Jupiter away from the bank and straight up the slope. Shifting the reins to his left hand, Andrew reached across his middle and unsnapped the flap on his Colt .45 with his right. He wore it butt forward, army style, and whipped it out with the deadly precision that only came with long years of practice.

After the incident at the sutler’s last night, he had expected the worst. Even so, he wasn’t prepared for his first glimpse of Walks In Moonlight’s naked body sprawled in the mud. Blood trailed from the gaping wound in her throat. Her scalp had been half torn from her head.

Nor was he any more prepared for the sight of Julia writhing frantically on the ground. One man knelt behind her head, holding her lashed wrists, two others at her widespread ankles. A fourth crouched between her thighs and ripped at her clothes, while three more huddled close, shouting raucous suggestions and encouragement.

The rain-softened earth combined with the men’s shouts to swallow the drum of Jupiter’s hooves. None of the drivers noticed Andrew’s approach until he burst inside the ring of wagons, the Colt roaring.

His first shot hit the man pawing at Julia and spun him around. His second, a gangly youth who lurched toward a rifle propped against one of the wagons.

With savage deliberation, Andrew emptied the Colt at the men scattering in all directions. One howled and grabbed his thigh, but kept going until the next
shot brought him to his knees. Another went facedown in the mud. A third slammed into a wagon bed, then dropped like a stone. The rest leaped over wagon tongues to head for the river.

Whipping his Spencer from its scabbard, Andrew raced after them. He pumped out two shots, hit one fleeing target, missed another, then let them go. He didn’t know how badly the others were injured, and wasn’t about to leave Julia alone with them. Wounded and enraged, they might kill her…or try to barter her life for theirs.

Which was clearly the intent of the rawboned youth Andrew’s second shot had hit. Blood seeped from the wound in his side and drenched his dirty white shirt, but the blade he held to Julia’s throat gleamed sharp and lethal.

“Drop the rifle,” the youth shouted hoarsely.

“No, Andrew!”

She was on her knees, chest heaving, a rawhide thong dangling from her lashed wrists.

“Hold easy!”

The terse shout was for her as much as the wild-eyed boy pressing the blade to her throat. He’d buried a bloody hand in her hair. The other gripped the knife handle with white-knuckled determination.

“Drop the rifle!”

“Don’t do it!” Julia cried. “He’s a killer. He murdered a girl in St. Louis. Neither one of us will leave here alive if you—”

“Shut yer mouth!”

The vicious yank on her hair was exactly what Julia had been hoping for. She thrust back and butted her head into her captor’s injured side with all the force she could muster.

Howling, he staggered backward. The hand fisted in her hair took her with him, but she managed to throw herself sideways just long enough for Andrew’s Spencer to spit fire.

Hot blood gushed over Julia. A dead weight fell onto her shoulders. Wild, animal sounds burst from her throat as she fought to free herself from the smothering weight.

Suddenly, it was gone. Just as suddenly, she was in Andrew’s arms. Sobbing, she grabbed his uniform jacket with both lashed hands and buried her face in the wool.