Merline Lovelace (21 page)

Lone Eagle and Arizona Joe Pardee ranged ahead on point. The Arapaho had shed his army shirt, slouch hat and boots, along with all other white man’s trappings except the Sharps carbine snug in an exquisitely beaded and fringed scabbard. Red and black paint covered his bare chest. Similar markings circled his pony’s eyes and striped its flanks.

Lone Eagle’s abrupt transition from army scout to Arapaho warrior had set some of the troops to muttering, but Andrew didn’t question it. He understood, for he sought the same kind of vengeance.

The rain-drenched ground made for heavy going, but the reinforcements caught up with Kostanza’s small detachment as dusk began to darken the gray sky. Their mounts winded, the squad was forced to stop and rest them while Andrew took the sergeant’s report.

“We got a glimpse of riders against the horizon ’bout a half hour ago,” Kostanza reported, swiping his forearm across a face caked with mud and chaff from the prairie grasses. “The dark clouds made it hard to tell if they were white, red or in between.”

Biting down on the urge to order his men back in the saddle immediately, Andrew nodded. “If they’re the bastards we’re after, they’ll have to rest their mounts, too, or they’ll end up on foot. Tell your men we’re taking a fifteen-minute stop, then we’ll ride as long as there’s any light to see by.”

Luckily, the clouds dispersed enough to take advantage of the last bit of dusk. The troop ate cold beans and hardtack in the saddle, washed down by swigs from their canteens, and covered another few miles before darkness forced Andrew to call a halt. Before ordering dismount and preparations for camp for the night, he joined Arizona Joe Pardee and Lone Eagle on point.

The major, the grizzled former trapper and the Arapaho warrior reined in their mounts atop a small rise. In the wash of the pale moon, the three men surveyed the darkness ahead. No campfires flickered in the distance. No sounds carried on the night.

“We’ll make camp here,” Andrew said after a few moments. “Lone Eagle, I want you and—”

“Major!”

Pardee’s low exclamation swung him around.

“Look over there!”

Andrew’s pulse jumped. Off in the distance, faint pinpricks of light flashed.

“I see them.”

“If that ain’t gunfire, I’ll eat my hat.” Pardee gave a hoot of glee. “What do you want to bet them two
snakes we’re chasin’ done run smack into a war party?”

“Let’s go find out.”

The flashes grew sharper, but the rattle and thunder of an armed troop moving fast drowned out the crack of gunfire until they’d drawn close enough to charge. Interspersed with the rifle fire came the echo of whoops and war cries.

“I’m hearin’ twelve, maybe fifteen,” Arizona Joe shouted.

That tallied with Andrew’s estimate. Unholstering his Colt, he shouted to the trumpeter riding beside him to sound the charge.

When the clear, sharp notes of the bugle pierced the night, their effect was exactly what Andrew had anticipated. The rifle fire sputtered out. The unmistakable sounds of retreat followed.

He let the war party go with orders for a small squad to trail them for a distance, but not engage with them unless fired on. He wasn’t interested in the attackers, only those they’d attacked.

His blood pumping, he spotted several humped shapes darker than the night. The defenders must have shot their horses to use them as shields. With a quick command, Andrew split his remaining troops into two flanking columns and quickly circled the mounds.

The fact that the men crouched behind the dead animals didn’t fire on the cavalry troop told him they probably weren’t the freight drivers. Those bastards
would know they’d fare no better at the Army’s hand than they would at those of the Sioux. Still, Andrew wasn’t about to take any chances.

“I’m Major Garret, 2nd Cavalry, United States Army. Come forward with your hands up and identify yourselves.”

Two men jumped up from behind the mounds, rifles held high.

“We’re a’comin’! Don’t fire.”

They drew closer, featureless in the pale moonlight until one of them flashed a smile.

“I never thought I’d be so happy to see a troop of blue-coats.” His white teeth gleaming, the taller of the two grinned at Andrew. “My thanks for the timely rescue, Major. The name’s Bonneaux. Philip Bonneaux.”

T
he coffee was scalding hot and grub-root bitter, but Bonneaux and his companion didn’t appear to mind. They guzzled the harsh brew as if it were mountain spring water, emptying their mugs in noisy gulps.

In the light of the campfire, Bonneaux caught Andrew’s narrow-eyed stare. His quicksilver grin flashed above the rim of the battered tin mug.

“You must excuse our manners, Major. We ran out of coffee some days ago.”

“Along with the rest of our supplies,” his partner grumbled.

Andrew ignored the toothless, bowlegged miner. The man had barely registered in his conscious thoughts.

“I’ll admit I’m damned tired of stringy jackrabbit and roasted buffalo tongue washed down with muddy creek water,” Bonneaux said, throwing back his head to down another long swallow.

Jaws tight, Andrew took his measure. Most women
would call him handsome, he supposed. Beneath its coating of trail dust, his light-brown hair lay thick and wavy. A pencil-thin mustache gave him a rakish air. He was tall, close to Andrew’s own height, and trim. Unlike the miner he traveled with, he wore a patterned silk vest under a dusty green frock coat instead of a calico shirt and rough canvas trousers.

As if sensing the tension that held Andrew in its iron maw, Bonneaux downed the contents of his mug and directed a considering glance his way. His brown eyes took in the unit designation above the crossed swords on the major’s hat.

“You wear the insignia of the 2nd Cavalry. Were you at Shiloh?”

“Yes.”

“Cedar Creek?”

“Yes.”

The war years rose up like ghosts, dancing ghoulishly above the flames. In the flickering light, two former enemies regarded each other.

“Where are you posted now?”

“Fort Laramie.”

“Fort Laramie! That’s where I’m headed.”

Bonneaux tossed the dregs of his coffee into the flames. Hissing and spitting, they almost drowned out his eager words.

“My wife’s there, or she was when she wrote me a couple of months ago. Do you know her? Julia Bonneaux?”

The breath Andrew dragged in pierced his chest like an iron-tipped arrow. “Yes, I know her.”

“And my daughter? Suzanne? She’s there, too?”

“Yes.”

“My little Suzanne.” Bonneaux’s face softened with a smile. “I haven’t seen her in over two years. Is she still the dainty miss I remember?”

A dozen images crowded into Andrew’s mind. Suzanne’s shocked face when she found her mother entangled with a stranger on the stairs of the Schnell’s house. Her accusing, tear-filled eyes when she saw her mangled pet. Her nose all scrunched up in disgust after she stepped in the pinto’s droppings. Her emaciated cheeks just beginning to recover their bloom.

Even more vivid were the images of Suzanne’s mother. Andrew could hear Julia’s laughter, feel her smile. As if she stood next to him, washed in moonlight, he could see her hair tossed by the wind. Her violet eyes gleamed up at him from a bed of deep-blue flowers.

Bonneaux had no right to either of them! The savage thought slashed into Andrew like a fine-honed hunting knife. The man had deserted his child, left his wife penniless, sent no word back to them in two years. He had no right to ride back into their lives now. Not when…

Not when Andrew wanted to claim them. The mother, with a desperate need that ate at his heart. The daughter, with a fierce urge to protect and teach and watch over her while she grew to womanhood.

Only the bitter reminder that he, too, had once left Julia alone and desperate in New Orleans kept Andrew from telling Bonneaux to climb on a horse and hightail it, right now, for anywhere but Fort Laramie.

His iron-jawed tension communicated itself to Bonneaux. The gambler’s voice roughened with worry.

“Why do you look so grim? Has something happened to my daughter?”

Andrew’s chaotic thoughts narrowed to one, clear truth. He couldn’t deny Suzanne her father any more than he could deny Julia her husband. He answered slowly, each word a twist of a knife in his belly.

“A cholera epidemic swept through the post in August. Suzanne took sick, but pulled through.”

“Thank God for that!”

“She’s was recovering her strength well until this afternoon.”

“This afternoon? What happened this afternoon, major?”

“She and her friend were set on by drunken freight drivers. The girls got away. Their mothers weren’t as fortunate.”

“Holy Christ!” Bonneaux paled. “Is my wife all right?”

“She’s bruised and battered, but sustained no serious injury. The other woman, a Sioux named Walks In Moonlight, took a knife through the throat.”

A relieved breath whistled from the gambler. “Too bad about the squaw, but as long as Julia and Suzanne weren’t hurt, that’s all that matters.”

“To you, perhaps,” Andrew said coldly. “Walks In Moonlight’s husband might not agree.”

Bonneaux’s shoulders lifted under the pale-green frock coat. “I’ve got enough troubles of my own. I can’t go borrowing everyone else’s, too.”

The man had more troubles than he could begin to guess. Knowing Bonneaux would hear the rumors about the major and Julia soon enough, Andrew jerked his chin toward the strings of horses picketed beyond the tents.

“We need to talk. Come with me while I see to my horse.”

A silent, stony-eyed Philip Bonneaux rode out of camp the next morning, accompanied by the toothless miner and an escort of ten heavily armed troopers.

Andrew watched them depart, his gloved hand grasping Jupiter’s reins. For long, agonizing minutes, he’d debated whether to send a letter for Julia with one of the troopers. He finally admitted there was nothing he could say to her now. Nothing that hadn’t already been said. Nothing that could change their damnable situation.

She knew how he felt, how he’d always feel about her. He didn’t have to put that in a note, and it would make no difference if he did. Turning his back on the small detachment heading south, Andrew ordered the bugler to sound “to horse.”

At the quick trill of notes, the men mounted. Moments later, the top sergeants led them out in ranks
of twos. First the corporals, then the privates. They lined up in long columns, their mounts freshly groomed and fed, saddles and bridles cleaned of yesterday’s mud.

“Call the roll.”

While the orderly sergeant took each top sergeant’s report, Andrew cast his eye down the line of troops. They were a ragtag lot. Some wore forage caps at jaunty angles, others had gray slouch hats or broad-brimmed campaign hats pulled low on their brows. Only a few had buttoned their blue wool uniform blouse up to the neck, as required. Like their major, most had left the top buttons undone and let the front flap open to keep the scratchy material from chafing their necks. With their collection of bushy muttonchop sideburns, drooping mustachios and bandoleers slung across their shoulders, they more closely resembled a band of outlaws than a crack cavalry regiment.

Their shabby appearance didn’t fool Andrew. He’d ridden long and fought hard with the veterans among them, had personally trained the new recruits. He knew what they were capable of, understood their fears and individual weaknesses. They were the closest thing he had to a family.

The closest thing he might ever have.

His jaw working, he swung Jupiter’s head around and led them out.

They found what remained of one of the drivers three days later. The stench of burning flesh carried
on the cool breeze and stung their nostrils even before they saw the thin spiral of black smoke.

Lone Eagle arrived on the scene first. Ranging far ahead of the main column of troops, the Arapaho reined in atop a slight rise. He sat unmoving in the saddle, his gaze on the sight below, until Arizona Joe joined him.

“What in the hell—!”

The driver was hanging head down from a tripod made of lashed poles. A slow-burning buffalo chip fire had burnt away what was left of his scalp and blackened his face and naked shoulders. His roasting carcass twisted in the breeze, pierced by twenty or more arrows.

A single warrior sat atop a painted war pony a few yards from the gruesome spectacle. He waited only until Arizona Joe had reined in to spur his horse to within shouting distance.

“I have a message for the long knives from Spotted Tail. Bring your officer forward.”

Pardee shot a glance at Lone Eagle’s granite face, spit out a curse and wheeled his horse around. He returned mere moments later, the major at his side.

Closing his throat to the acrid stench, Andrew kept his wary gaze on the emissary. “You have a message for me.”

“I am Bear Claw, of the Bad Face band of Ogalalla Sioux. We find this one and another two days ago. They had with them the scalp of a Sioux woman.”

Lone Eagle spoke for the first time. “She was my wife. Walks In Moonlight.”

“This we have learned.” Bear Claw spat on the ground. “You are Arapaho. She was Sioux. You stole her from her people and did not protect her, even after she was allowed to stay with you. Nor will you now avenge her.”

“The Army will avenge her,” Andrew promised grimly. “And the white woman who was attacked with her.”

“The Army may avenge this other woman, but Sioux must avenge Sioux. The two we took swore they did not kill Walks In Moonlight, that one of their band named Kinkaid did. They said you have this Kinkaid now in your guardhouse.”

“We do.”

“Spotted Tail will give you this one, but will keep the other and make him weep many tears until the long knives turn this Kinkaid over to him.”

With that, he yanked his pony’s head around.

Charging straight at the slowly twisting corpse, he hefted a feathered lance and sent it flying. The spear drove clear through the driver’s chest.

T
he last rays of the sun gilded the surface of the Laramie, still swollen after the torrential storms of the last week. Julia settled her hips more comfortably on the split-rail bench outside her quarters and leaned her shoulders against the rough adobe wall. Idly, she let her gaze rest on the rippling gold leaves. Crisp autumn air filled her lungs.

This was her favorite time of the day. She’d finished her after-school chores, was waiting her turn at the communal kitchens. All around her, Fort Laramie bustled with life. Children rolled hoops along the dirt path in front of the row houses or gathered in little knots to play at jackstraws. Women gossiped on their front stoops while suppers stewed and simmered. The buglers had sounded watering call. Soon the cavalry would finish stabling and watering their mounts and make their way to their barracks. The married men among them would peel off and head for home.

Home.

How strange that Julia now thought of this jumble of buildings on the lonely plains as home. It was where her heart resided, she admitted with quiet joy. Where she and Suzanne had decided to remain. With Andrew.

He’d been gone for over three days now. The patrol had ridden out with two weeks’ rations and grain for the horses. One part of her prayed they’d find the men they hunted. She wanted to see the bastards hang, right alongside the two locked in the guardhouse. Another part of her just wanted the troopers back safe.

Walks In Moonlight’s brutal murder had shocked the entire Fort Laramie community…and incensed the Sioux. The prospects for peace were now stretched thin. George Beauvais fretted openly that none of the chiefs would consent to meet with General Sherman and the peace commission already gathered in St. Louis for the trip west.

Resting her head against the adobe, Julia let her lids drift down. She couldn’t think of the peace commission. Wouldn’t allow herself to think of the horror of Walks In Moonlight’s death. Andrew’s image filled her mind. So lean, so hard, so different from the man she’d tumbled into love with all those years ago. And yet so very much the same.

“Papa!”

Suzanne’s shriek jerked Julia upright on the wooden bench. Her eyes flew open. When she saw her daughter racing headlong toward the rider who’d
reined in his mount a few yards away, her heart leaped straight into her throat.

“Papa!”

The rider dismounted swiftly. Catching the joyous girl up in his arms, he swung her in huge circles. His laughter soared on the clear autumn air, almost lost amid Suzanne’s incoherent babbling. Then he clasped her close against his chest and buried his face in her hair.

Slowly, her every limb weighted with ice, Julia rose. She couldn’t breathe, could barely see through the haze that misted her eyes.

That was how Philip found her. Frozen in place, her fragile hopes and dreams lying in a million pieces at her feet. Suzanne clung to him, her still-thin arms wrapped tight around his neck. Her face blazed with joy.

“Mama! It’s papa! Papa’s found us!”

Julia’s throat worked. She couldn’t force out so much as a squeak. Philip’s brown eyes, so like his daughter’s, held hers above Suzanne’s tumbled curls.

“Hello, Julia.”

He knew. She could see it in his face. The sorrow. The regret. The hurt. Fists buried deep in the folds of her skirt, she stood silent while he stepped forward and bent to brush a kiss across her lips.

They didn’t speak of it until hours later, after Suzanne’s jubilant emotions had drained her completely and she’d dropped like a stone into bed.

Night blacked the windows, shut tight against the chill. An oil lamp flickered on the table fashioned from army crates. Julia sat with her hands clasped tight. Philip stood across from her.

Andrew had told him the bald facts. That he was Julia’s first husband, whom she’d thought dead. That he’d assumed responsibility for her and Suzanne since their arrival at Fort Laramie. That he’d come to love the woman he’d once been married to.

Slowly, painfully, she raised her eyes to Philip’s. “I’ve come to love him, as well.” She owed him the truth, as painful as it was. “I’ve given him my body as well as my heart.”

He sucked in a swift breath. His face went pale behind his mustache, then flushed a brick red. Anger flooded into his eyes, followed swiftly by regret. He opened his mouth, snapped it shut. Tried again.

“I had time to think during the long ride to Fort Laramie.” His voice was low, hoarse, hurt. “I’ve failed you many times over, Julia. You and Suzanne. I only want what’s best for both of you. I’ll divorce you, if that’s what you wish.”

Her fingers clenched. The short-trimmed nails dug into the backs of her hands.

“I—I have to think.”

Two days later, Julia knelt in a spill of sunlight and folded her heavy green work skirt. Carefully, she laid it atop the items already packed in the humpbacked trunk. Her movements were slow, sluggish, as if mas
sive weights hung from her arms and legs. Her limbs felt no heavier than her heart.

Everything inside her ached at the thought of her departure tomorrow. It was all arranged. The quartermaster was sending a detachment south to the railhead at Cheyenne to pick up supplies. Philip had secured places for her and Suzanne in the ambulance wagon that would accompany the detachment.

Sinking back on her heels, she stared blindly at the trunk’s curved lid. She felt as though she’d aged fifty years in the short time since Philip had ridden back into her life. The old burdens heaped high on her shoulders again, the old uncertainties gnawed at her insides. Where would they live?
How
would they live?

Added to the old worries was a raw, new scar, one she knew would never fully heal. Philip only wanted what was best for her. Her and Suzanne.

As did Andrew. He’d sent her no word. Not a single line. He knew, as Julia did, that her daughter’s needs must come first.

Suzanne.

If it weren’t for Suzanne…

Squeezing her eyes shut, Julia propped her forehead against the trunk lid. If it weren’t for Suzanne, she would willingly endure the shame and social ostracism that came with the disgrace of divorce. Even out here, where women lived by far different rules than the rigid Victorian code that defined their be
havior back East, a divorced woman lost all rights to her property, her name, her children.

Philip had assured her he wouldn’t take Suzanne away from her, but she couldn’t,
wouldn’t
bring such onerous disgrace down on her daughter. Nor could she tear her from the father she loved with every ounce of her girlish passion.

Wearily, she turned her head toward the child sitting cross-legged on the bed, her shoulders slumped dejectedly. When Suzanne caught her mother’s gaze, she gave a watery sniffle.

“Why can’t Daisy come with us?”

“Papa explained that to you, darling. It’s a hundred miles to the railhead in Cheyenne. Your pony couldn’t make it that far.”

“Yes, she could.” The girl’s lower lip jutted out. “The major says she’s of native stock. She’s got sound wind and lots of stamm…stammer…”

“Stamina.”

“Yes, stamina. She’d make the trip easy, Mama, and I could drive my pony cart beside the ambulance wagon you’ll be riding in.”

“Daisy couldn’t keep up. The ambulance is drawn by four mules.”

“She can go as fast as any stupid mule. The major says she’s—”

“Enough, Suzanne!”

Julia couldn’t bring herself to admit the truth. After two years in the gold fields, Philip had arrived at Fort Laramie with barely enough in his pockets to pay
their train fare back East. They couldn’t afford the additional cost of shipping a pony and cart.

Angry tears spurted from Suzanne’s eyes. Folding her arms across her chest, she glared at her mother. “I don’t see why we can’t stay right here on Suds Row. There’s room for you and me and Papa.”

“These are army quarters.” Julia held on to her lacerated emotions by a thin thread. “We can’t remain in them indefinitely.”

“The major would let us. He likes you, Mama, you know he does.”

“Sweetheart…”

“If we stay, he could teach me to ride, like he promised, and you could help Mrs. Donovan when she has her new baby and Little Hen’s grandma could bring her to play with me sometime.” She ended on a helpless little wail. “I don’t want to leave.”

Oh, God! Neither did Julia. The idea of exchanging these wild, windswept plains for the crowded, garbage-strewn streets of an eastern city almost choked her.

“Come help me finish packing,
ma petite.
Will you carry your doll with you, or shall we wrap her in my skirt, to keep her from breaking?”

Still teary-eyed and mutinous, Suzanne picked up the porcelain-faced doll that remained her prized possession. Sniffling, she soothed the flaxen hair back from the painted face.

“I’m going to give her to Little Hen, ’cause she
put her doll in beside her mama when they wrapped her in buffalo skins and took her away for burial.”

Julia hadn’t thought she could hurt any worse. Her daughter’s forlorn face piled another ache on top of all the others.

“Oh, darling. That’s very kind and thoughtful of you. Why don’t you—?”

The clear, clarion notes of a bugle cut her off. Cocking her head, Julia listened intently. She could identify most of the signals now. It was too late in the afternoon for dismounted drill, too early for stable call.

Another ripple of notes brought her surging to her feet, her heart pounding. “They’re sounding assembly. A patrol’s coming in.”

Her daughter’s face brightened. “Do you think it’s the major?”

“It could be.”

“Let’s go greet him!” She scuttled off the bed and darted around the partition to the front room. “He’ll talk to Papa and tell him Daisy can make it all the way to Cheyenne.”

“No! Suzanne, wait!”

Assuming a sudden deafness, the girl darted outside. Julia hurried after her, only to be caught up in the throng of laundresses who swarmed toward the parade ground. Any time a troop rode back in was cause for celebration.

Mary Donovan Mulvaney caught up with Julia and
hooked an arm through her friend’s. Her keen eyes swept over the younger woman’s face.

“I’m hopin’ it’s the major comin’ back. You need to be sayin’ goodbye to him before you leave, don’t y’know?”

“I know.”

“I’m also hopin’ he won’t let you leave at all.”

“We’ve talked about this, Mary. Philip’s my husband.”

“You married the major first,” the laundress pointed out with the bluntness so characteristic of her. “He has prior claim. There’s plenty as don’t hold with this business of annulments and such.”

“Please don’t make this harder for me than it already is. Philip is Suzanne’s father. She loves him.”

“Oooch, well, it’s your choice after all.”

Julia found herself echoing almost the same refrain to Andrew less than an hour later.

She stood stiff and unmoving, unable to squeeze out a single breath, when he rode onto the parade ground at the head of the dusty column. Tall and easy in the saddle, he reined Jupiter in and waited for the column to form ranks and center on him. Under the brim of his hat, his narrowed eyes swept the crowd. Julia felt the jolt of his blue, piercing gaze the moment he spotted her.

He knew she was leaving. She could sense it. Without a word passing between them, Julia felt his withdrawal, in spirit as well as body. That should have
made what followed easier. Instead, it left her racked with pain.

Tearing his gaze from hers, Andrew returned the officer of the day’s salute. Young, bewhiskered Lieutenant Stanton-Smith had the duty and relayed a message from the commander.

“Colonel Cavanaugh’s compliments, sir. He requests you report to his quarters at once.”

“Tell the colonel I’ll be with him directly.”

“Yes, sir.”

The impatient wives and children waited only until the signal for dismount rang across the parade ground before rushing forward to greet their menfolk. Their commander swung out of the saddle and handed Jupiter’s reins to one of the troopers with quiet instructions to rub the charger down well and give him an extra measure of grain.

Julia stood silent, her chest constricted with pain, as he limped toward her. His old injury had stiffened, the way it always did after long days in the saddle. Unsmiling, he slipped a hand encased in a leather gauntlet under her elbow.

“Walk with me.”

Mutely, she matched her stride to his. He guided her past the barracks, down to the river. The Laramie bubbled merrily in the bright sunshine and rippled over its stony bed. Above its buff-colored banks, the sky was so clear and blue it added fiercely to the ache in Julia’s chest.

“When do you leave?” he asked quietly.

“Tomorrow. The quartermaster’s sending a detachment down to Cheyenne to pick up supplies. Suzanne and I will ride in the ambulance wagon.”

His blue eyes held hers. “Is that what you want, Julia?”

No! She wanted to shout the truth, throw her arms around him and hang on forever. Her throat working, she answered the only way she could.

“Yes.”

“Then it’s what I want, too.”

She tried to offer him the explanation he hadn’t asked for. “Philip…Suzanne…I can’t…”

He stilled her with a finger laid across her lips. “I told you I’d never come between you and your daughter. Nor will I come between her and her father.”

“Oh, Andrew.”

There was so much she wanted to tell him. About Suzanne’s change of heart. About the way “The major says” fell from her daughter’s lips ten or twenty times a day now. About the stinging regret that swept through Julia’s blood whenever Philip had touched her these past few days.

Recognizing that those disclosures would only hurt him as much as they hurt her, she swallowed and offered instead a hollow echo of Mary’s words.

“I have to make the best of my lot. For Suzanne’s sake, as well as my own.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

He dredged up a smile. It crinkled the skin beside
his eyes and stabbed like a hunting knife into her belly.

“I never stopped loving you, Julia. Even during those weeks I dragged myself through the swamp, when I cursed your name with everything in me, I loved you. Take that with you when you leave tomorrow, and with it the knowledge that I’ll always have you in my heart.”