The Pride of Hannah Wade (5 page)

“What’s that I smell?” she demanded, catching an odd scent mixed in with the familiar aroma of stew made from potatoes, onions, tinned tomatoes, and stringy beef.

“I put some of them Mexican peppers in it. Really livened up the taste.” He held out a spoonful for her to
test and watched her pouty lips graze the spoon’s edge as she drank the tomato broth.

“It’s hot,” Cimmy Lou ventured hesitantly, and John T, smiled at her dubious response. “It’s a change, that’s for shore.”

Later when the stew had been dished into metal bowls and they sat at the homemade table and spread butter made from suet on sour bread, Cimmy Lou reflected on the stark differences between the dainty repast at the Wades’ quarters, the buffet arranged on china and silverware, and her own dinner. She described the bite-sized sandwiches and sweet cakes and the beautiful finery to her husband.

While she talked, John T. watched her. He could see the hunger in her face, the intense wanting, the great needs that never seemed to get filled. She’d always been a hungry woman. It troubled him.

“Maybe you shouldn’t be goin’ and workin’ for the officers’ ladies,” he said at last.

“But they pay me. Look at all the extra money I make fixin’ their hair an’ doin’ for ’em,” Cimmy Lou protested.

“It ain’t good to cross over and see how they live. Yore always upset when you come home. I see the wantin’ in yore eyes.” Many things he could give her—the prestige of his top rank, the status and respectability, and a sergeant’s pay—and every ounce of his love. She was the kind of woman who drained a man dry. Even in bed, she kept coming back for more. God, how he loved her.

“Sometimes, John T. . . . sometimes I get to feelin’ so hungry for things” —the intensity of her feelings was present in her voice and expression, a mixture of fierce impatience and frustration—“that I get to hurtin’ inside.” The admission turned her petulant and she pushed the half-empty bowl of stew away from her.
“An’ sometimes I get to wishin’ Lincoln’d never freed us. If I was a slave, I’d be livin’ in the Devereaux’s fine big house, wearin’ nice dresses an’ eatin’ good food. I wouldn’t be boilin’ clothes an’ ironin’ all day, an’ sweatin’ like a field hand.”

“Don’t say that.” John T. pushed himself angrily to his feet. “Don’t ever say that. Yore momma’s filled yore head with tales about those times, but it wasn’t like that. An’ yore too young to remember how it was to be a slave.” He metal spoons clattered together in the tin bowls as he gathered up their eating utensils to clear the table. “If you was a slave in that house, one of them Devereaux men would be beddin’ you—maybe all of ’em. An’ there wouldn’t be nothin’ you could say about it.”

Cimmy Lou wasn’t unduly troubled by that thought. Her body had always gotten her what she wanted and she was not averse to using it, but she was wise enough not to say that to John T. Men tended to be jealous, possessive creatures, but that could be used too. Besides, she knew all about being sent up the back stairs at night to one of the masters’ quarters. Her momma had told her about that—and about the little presents they sometimes gave if a girl was real good at pleasing them. And Cimmy Lou knew all about pleasing a man. The fact remained that if. she was a slave now, she could have the Devereaux with their pretty gifts and John T. as well. Because John T. couldn’t have done anything about her going up those stairs.

With the dirty dishes set aside in the metal basin, John T. turned up the coal oil light. “You need to practice yore readin’.” His body cast a long shadow on the canvas wall as he crossed the tent to fetch the well-worn reading primer.

Reading and writing had always been such a mystery to her—and still were despite John T.’s sporadic attempts to teach her. Too often he was away from the
fort on patrol for days, occasionally weeks at a time, and too much time passed between lessons. Now John T. sat close beside her at the table and held the primer open, watching over her shoulder while Cimmy Lou struggled to identify each simple word. John T. was always patiently correcting her.

She resented his superior knowledge. She disliked anything that made her feel small, and her inability to grasp the rudiments of reading made her feel foolish in front of him. Usually it was men who made fools of themselves around her, and she didn’t like it the other way around.

Cimmy Lou pulled back and took her finger away from the printed words on the page. “Don’t they ever write ‘bout nothin’ besides dogs and cats?”

“Sure, but this is for learnin’. Ya gotta start out with the easy ones. Come on,” John T. urged her, pointing to the primer.

“Does anybody write books ‘bout a man and woman lovin’?” She set out to distract him and make him forget that boring and frustrating primary reader. “Now, I’d like ta read ‘bout that.”

“There’s books like that.”

“Have you ever read any of ’em?”

“Sure.” He eyed her with a downward glance, conscious of the heat of her warm flank along his thigh and the rounded point of her shoulder against his bare chest.

“Tell me about ’em.” She slid an insinuating hand, fingers splayed, across his flat stomach and up to his chest. “Do they tell you how a woman feels when a man holds her an’ touches her? What do they say ‘bout lovin’? Do they talk ‘bout different ways?”

The book was taken from his hands and laid aside. “Cimmy Lou, this ain’t no way to learn to read.” But his curiosity was stronger than the mild protest as she shifted, half-rising and hitched up her skirts to sit
astraddle his lap. The heavy globes of her breasts were before him, straining against the confinement of her blouse. John T. had trouble looking higher.

“Then let’s learn somethin’ else.” Her soft mound moved suggestively against his hardening shaft. “I nevah did know how to ride a cockhorse. Some kinda cavalry sergeant you are nevah to have teached me. Let’s giddy-up, John T.” She bit at his ear as he groaned and loosened the fly front of his uniform trousers. Their silhouettes on the canvas wall merged into a humped outline before he reached to turn the kerosene light down to a dim flicker. Then his hands were grasping her haunches, holding onto her as she rode the bucking horse.

A
DESERT MOON REIGNED OVER THE VELVET-SOFT NIGHT,
aglitter with stars arching high above the inky blackness of the parade ground. To the north the mountains stood, a high, black wall rife with a sense of danger and mystery and all that is ancient and wild.

From the guardposts around the fort’s perimeter came the echoing call, “Nine o’clock and all’s well,” traveling from sentry to sentry. Jake Cutter stepped up to the wooden post supporting the
ramada
roof outside the Wades’ quarters and angled his body against it, resting the point of his shoulder along a rough corner.

Light spilled out the window, cheerfully throwing itself into the shadows and reaching for the darkest corners. Cutter looked through the opening, seeing the officers and their ladies gathered inside, their warm voices and faint laughter drifting out to him. He’d put in his appearance, satisfied Colonel and Mrs. Betten
dorf, and now he would leave, undoubtedly not missed by anyone there.

Yet something held him. Cutter felt the catch of loneliness and tried to shake it off. He was used to being alone. He was beyond these sentimental longings.

He straightened, intending to leave, but the soft sound of a footfall checked the impulse, staying him. He turned to see Mrs. Wade slip out of the house. He saw her hesitate when she recognized him; then she came forward, her manner relaxing.

“Captain Cutter, I should have guessed you’d be out here.” She stopped beside the pillar where he stood, her head tipped back while her direct glance went over him. “No cigar?” she observed with some surprise. “I thought you’d come out to smote.”

Any explanation seemed pointless, so Cutter reached inside his uniform for a long, slim cigar that was tucked in one pocket. “Do you mind?” he asked, bringing it out.

“Not at all.” Although the night air was mild, she wore a shawl around her shoulders. She faced the parade ground and the desert stars above it, showing him the clean, white line of her throat. Her eyes observed the flare of the match and, in a sideways study, watched him drag the flame into the cigar tip, puffing long and slow until it was burning well. “It’s quiet out here,” she said when he’d shaken the match dead.

His glance went to the window and its clear view of the people inside. “And not nearly as crowded,” he added.

Her laugh was a small, soft sound. “You don’t like being confined, do you, Captain? Not by walls or people ... or what they might think.”

“What makes you say that?” His head came up, watchful, though he made no attempt to deny it.

“An impression I have.” A faint shake of her head seemed to dismiss the importance of it. Yet a second later, when he looked away, her eyes came back to study him. Hannah sensed the ease in him, the loose and relaxed feeling returning to him as his initial tension at her approach left.

It was odd how she could look into his face at this moment and see the thing that made him different. All evening she had watched Stephen, seen the intensity in his eyes when Apache strategy was discussed and observed the tightness around his mouth when he was in the presence of superior officers.

Cutter seemed to have shrugged off the ambitions and worries that whipped and exhausted other men. Some long-ago decision had settled the question of his future to his satisfaction, and tomorrow didn’t trouble him.

“Everyone expects trouble from the Apaches.” Inside, the men had talked of little else, hushing when a woman came by, Hannah had noticed.

“People usually get what they expect.”

“What do you think Colonel Hatch will do? Put a force into the field?”

The cigar tip glowed red, then faded under a dulling accumulation of ash. Pungent smoke scented the still air. “He’ll do what he’s ordered to do. He’s a soldier.”

“And what will you do?”

“The same.” After a short silence, he said, “I’m not good at small talk, Mrs. Wade.”

“On the contrary, Captain Cutter, you are very good at it.” Her voice had a sharp edge to it. “You just said precisely nothing.”

“Idle speculation serves little purpose.” But her frankness had thrown him off stride.

In the darkness he searched her moonlit face. Self-control was evident in her composure, and that flare of pride was unmistakable. A strong will was there, too,
revealing itself sometimes at the corners of her lips and in the tone of conviction in her voice. A rather reluctant glint of admiration came to his eyes. He wondered if Wade knew what a lucky man he was.

“If I may be so bold as to say it, Mrs. Wade, you are a remarkable woman.” The smile that gentled his hard mouth had warmth to it.

“More small talk, Captain?”

“No, ma’am.”

“I must write my cousin in Memphis and invite her for a visit.” Hannah spoke the thought aloud, then looked at him for a reaction. “I’ll introduce the two of you.”

“Is she southern?”

“Do you have a preference for southern ladies, Captain?”

“They do have soft white skins—smooth as a magnolia blossom.” The musing recall was followed by a slow exhalation of cigar smoke.

“Yes, they have lovely complexions,” she agreed, and his lidded glance concealed the wicked glint in his eyes. He could have told her that it wasn’t their faces he was remembering, but the innocence of her expression reminded him that, despite her married state, she was sheltered from all things that did not bring out man’s finer instincts. “What was her name?” Hannah asked unexpectedly.

“Whose?” His head came up slightly.

“The one whose skin you recall with such fondness. Were you very much in love with her?”

“That was long ago, Mrs. Wade.” He listened to the night’s sounds, hearing in his memory that softly drawling voice.

“What happened? Or would you prefer not to talk about it?” she asked.

“Not at all.” Cutter shrugged to deny the suggestion.
“She was an unreconstructed Rebel who despised the blue uniform I wore. Eventually she got over that, but she couldn’t forgive me for commanding a company of coloreds. She wanted me to resign my commission, and I refused.”

“How unfortunate,” she murmured.

“I have no regrets,” he stated. “It wasn’t her love I rejected. I simply didn’t want her hates.”

Laughter rang out loudly from inside the house, and its intrusion reminded Hannah of her duty. She caught back a sigh before it escaped. Her shawl slipped lower on her shoulders as she made a small movement in the direction of the door.

“I must see to my guests.”

The gold braid on his dress uniform glinted as he bowed slightly, his hair heavy and black against the night’s darkness. “The evening has been a pleasure, Mrs. Wade,” His hard, tanned face was engrained with a roughness, presently tempered by an expression of respect.

“There is no reason to leave so early.” Hannah was surprised into the protest.

“There is no reason to stay any later,” he countered.

“But the party—“ She looked over her shoulder to the window’s view of her guests.

“I’m not their sort. We both know it, Mrs. Wade,” he said without apology. “I enjoy a rougher kind of pleasure. This cigar needs a shot of whiskey and a good poker hand to make it taste good.”