Woman of Three Worlds (10 page)

“You seem to have thought about it.” Brittany was surprised that a frontiersman who'd had his share of fighting Apaches would think about the problems they were going to have in changing their whole manner of existence.

His teeth flashed in the darkness. “I know about being dragged out of one life and plunged into another. When I was a tad older than that boy, Comanches killed my folks over in Texas. It was six years before soldiers killed my adoptive father in a skirmish and captured me. I'd forgotten English. Turned pure Comanche. Ran away twice after an uncle claimed me. But he and my aunt had a lot of patience. They finally convinced me that my Comanche band was scattered or dead and I had to make the best of being a white man.”

“You certainly didn't become overcivilized,” she thrust.

“Not much danger of that on the Texas frontier,” he agreed amicably. “But you come from that soft plantation country that might as well be in Louisiana. Ever get homesick?”

I
cry most nights. I wonder if there'll ever be a time when I can think about Tante and Tristesse and be gladder that I had them than I am sad
.

“There's no use being homesick when you can't go home,” she said tightly. “We must get back before someone notices we're gone.”

“He's already noticed.”

Her abductor chuckled softly, putting a hand under her arm to lead her across the dark space to where Michael O'Shea was gazing about the shadows fringing the headquarters.

“Brittany!” The relief in O'Shea's face was swiftly followed by suspicion as he stared at Tyrell. “This lady is under my protection, Zach. If you've—”

Zach spread his hands but his eyes mocked her. “You must ask the lady.”

Hoping the shadows hid her blush, Brittany swallowed. Damn Zach! He knew she didn't want them fighting and getting hurt over her. She smiled at O'Shea and slipped her hand through his arm. “The crush inside turned me a bit faint, Lieutenant. We came out for a breath of air.”

“You're recovered?” he asked with quick concern that made her feel deceitful.

“I'm fine.”

Zach made her a sweeping bow. “Thanks for the—dance, Miss Brittany. See you later, Mike.”

O'Shea raised a golden brow in surprise. “You're not quitting this early?”

“Guess I'm more in the mood for a game of cards or billiards if I can find some other misanthrope over at the club room.” He strode off to the trader's, where a few lamps were burning.

O'Shea looked after him. “It's not like Zach to miss a dance,” he said with a mystified shrug.

“Have you known him long?”

“Ever since I came to the post, two years ago. He served as a scout after he got out of the army and was at Camp Bowie most of the time till he started his ranch last year. Funny to see Zach Tyrell bring in a load of hay or grain or firewood, but I guess he likes it.”

Back in the stifling, crowded hall, Brittany danced every number, but though Hugh Erskine did his reserved best to be affable and Michael O'Shea whispered absurd things in her ear, Brittany felt strangely desolate.

For her, when Zach Tyrell moved off into the shadows, the dance was really over.

VII

Regina gave Brittany a venomous rebuke the first time they were alone together on the day following the dance. “Are you determined to become the scandal of the post?” she demanded. “Vanishing outside with Zach Tyrell! Mrs. Shaw glossed over that shocking episode of your arrival, but there was no Indian attack to excuse you last night!”

“I was dizzy from the heat,” Brittany insisted. “Anyway, other couples stepped out from time to time. I saw you and Major Erskine—”

Eyes glittering, Regina checked her pacing and swung to confront Brittany. “I am a married woman and enjoy certain liberties not to be allowed a green girl straight from the swamps.”

Too angry to trust her control, Brittany clamped her lips tight and started to leave the room. Her cousin barred the way. “Did Tyrell make advances?”

“Regina, that is none of your business.”

Green eyes narrowed. “He did, then! And whose business will it be if you turn up pregnant with his brat?”

“That's not going to happen.”

“Well, if it does—or there's any evidence that you're acting the slut, don't expect us to harbor you!”

“I certainly won't,” said Brittany, cheeks flaming. Her hand itched to slap that beautiful witch face. “In fact, Regina, if you've so low an opinion of me, it might be best if I inquired about the post for work. The Shaws might use an extra maid, and I heard Mrs. Taunton complaining that their striker doesn't thoroughly clean and can't cook.”

“You—you wouldn't!”

“I wouldn't do anything I don't do here.”

“But—you, my cousin! A hired servant!”

“Better hired than unhired,” Brittany returned coolly. This time Regina let her pass.

That evening, news flew over the post that made any mildly scandalous behavior at the dance swiftly forgotten. The infant daughter of Corporal Stroud, the bugler, and his wife, Mollie, youngest and prettiest of the laundresses, had taken sick with a sudden virulent fever and died in convulsions. Because of the heat she would be buried next day.

Everyone at the post attended the funeral. One of the blacksmiths had made a coffin of scrap wood and colored it with shoe blacking. The fair-haired little baby rested inside, cushioned by ivory silk and lace—Mrs. Shaw's wedding gown.

Chaplain Taunton read the service while all the women wept. Battle-hardened soldiers stood with bowed heads and misty eyes. Brittany's voice wasn't the only trembling one as the congregation followed Michael O'Shea's clear rich baritone in singing “Nearer, My God, to Thee.”

Jealously tended flowers were dropped gently inside the coffin before the lid was closed, and it was lowered into the grave dug laboriously in the hard, rocky earth. As the hole was filled in, the mother, a frail, pretty, dark-haired girl who looked younger than Brittany, stopped weeping in her husband's arms and ran forward, battling off the men with their shovels. She flung herself on her knees, digging toward the coffin, screaming her baby's name.

“Melissa! 'Lissa!”

Her husband caught her up and forced her, wildly struggling, away from the grave. The surgeon and Mrs. Shaw accompanied the bereaved couple back to their quarters while the pathetic grave was mounded neatly, covered with rocks to keep out predators, and marked, with a white cross some artistic soldier had carved with doves, the baby's name and the dates:
March 10–July 5, 1876
.

“What an exhibition!” Regina said when the Graves were back in their quarters. “That woman was dancing the other night, flirting with everyone, and probably the child was already starting to sicken!”

“I heard Dr. Fenwick say the fever developed without warning,” Brittany demurred. Her heart ached for the mother, the more so if she might have some reason to blame herself. Why were children born if they had to die so soon?

“It was still a shocking display,” Regina asserted. “Of course, it'll get her petted and pampered by Mrs. Shaw.”

“I should think you'd be afraid to talk like that,” Brittany said angrily. “How would you feel if one of your children died?”

Regina paled. “It's horrid of you to even suggest it!”

“Not as horrid as what you've been saying.”

“Ladies!” pleaded Edward. “Regina, my love—”

She jerked free of his restraining arm, glaring at Brittany. “Whatever happened, you may be sure I'd conduct myself with dignity while in public! Anyway, I've no doubt she and the bugler will quickly make another!”

They did not. Pretty Mollie Stroud came down with the fever her baby had died of, and before week's end the garrison sang beside another, larger grave. Stroud tried to play “Taps” but broke down and couldn't finish.

After that funeral Regina had nothing to say.

A few days later, still depressed by the deaths, Brittany escaped from the house and decided to go to the trader's. She had no money to spend but she could look around. Michael O'Shea had been detailed to guard a wagon train bound for Tucson, so there was no prospect of a ride or his teasing gallantry, which added spice and pleasure to days that Regina seemed bent on poisoning.

“Will you miss me?” O'Shea had asked when he came to say he'd be gone for a time.

“Of course,” she said truthfully. “There's no one else to make me laugh.”

He groaned at that and shook a warning finger. “Just you wait, Brittany! Someday I'll make you do more than laugh.”

As he strode off with a jingle of spurs, she wondered if she ought to tell him that she couldn't feel more for him than friendship and the physical attraction that was probably bound to occur between young, healthy people who were often together.

If she hadn't met Zach, perhaps even if he hadn't kissed her, she might have been beguiled into thinking herself in love with Michael. Not now, though she wasn't sure that what she felt for Zach was love.

He filled her thoughts; when she went to bed at night or lay dreamily half awake mornings, she'd feel the embrace of his eyes, relive being held in his arms, and tremble, blood turning slow and sweetly drunken, as she'd remember kisses that plundered till she ached to give.

It might not be love, but it certainly kept her from loving anyone else. Still, she was worrying too much about the state of Michael's heart. She was learning enough of army life to understand that a young officer was almost duty-bound to court any available woman with a dashing romanticism that shouldn't be taken too seriously.

A chorus of jeers and cruel laughter broke through her reverie as she neared the school. “Bug eater!” a childish voice called. “Dirty, stinking Injun! Dirty, stinking Injun!”

The chant was taken up. Brittany hurried around the building to see a ring of post children encircling a small lone figure. The Apache boy, called Jody as an approximation of his real name, had picked up a rock and turned his head warily to watch his tormentors. Several bigger boys were scratched or bleeding. Evidently, Jody had beaten them back. One of the marred youngsters, Captain Fenwick's thirteen-year-old Theodore, held a wriggling lizard.

“Come on!” he shouted to his friends. “Let's give the little red devil a bite of his favorite food!”

A dozen boys ran in to fall upon the small captive. Ned was among them. Angela was one of the girls who jumped up and down and squealed in mock horror and real delight. Jody won a yelp from Theodore before disappearing beneath a pile of scuffling, shouting boys.

“Stop it!” cried Brittany.

The girls quieted, abashed, but the boys didn't hear. She had to wade in and bodily drag them up, hurling them aside with little worry over whether she hurt them or not. “Get away! Leave him alone!”

Several of the youngsters were as big as she was. Before they sobered at the fact that an adult had interfered, she had a cut lip, grazes, and a jaw that felt paralyzed by a sharp elbow.

“Here, lads, that's enough!” Sergeant Meadows, a lanky tallow-haired man with a handlebar moustache, lunged forward and hauled the tangle off till Jody could be seen. To Brittany, the sergeant drawled, “You must like cat-and-dog fights, ma'am.”

“I don't like them a bit!” she blazed, outraged at his amused scrutiny and lack of concern for Jody, who had scrambled up and come to stand by her, close as a shadow, rock still clutched in his fingers as if to defend them both. “You don't seem to be deaf, Sergeant! Why did you let this happen?”

He gave a careless hitch of his shoulders, spat tobacco in the dust close to her skirt. “Ma'am, I've seen too many people roasted upside down till their brains fried to care what happens to that little varmint. You ask me, Tyrell was a fool to bring him in.”

“I suppose you'd have left him out in the desert.”

Meadows showed big yellowed teeth. “No, ma'am.” He made a slicing gesture across his throat. Brittany recoiled.

“How can you teach him if you feel like that?”

“I can't. And he can't learn. Dumb heathen.” He gave her an insolent looking over and a slow grin. “Now, if he was a tad older, I'd reckon you could teach him, ma'am. Or he'd teach you. I'd think you'd have learned your lesson. Three men dead on that stage you came in on!”

“All right,” said Brittany abruptly. “I
will
teach him.”

The soldier looked dismayed. “But the colonel said—”

“I'll talk to the colonel.”

Meadows scowled. “Can't wait to get me in trouble, can you?”

“I can't get you in as much as you deserve!” Brittany turned her back on him and took the small scratched hand. “Come with me, Jody.”

He held to her, trotting so close that he was nearly hidden in her skirts as they cut across the parade ground. She had almost immediately discarded the impulse to dash furiously into headquarters. Far better to go to Mrs. Shaw.

Miranda Shaw's hazel eyes lost their calm as Brittany told what had happened. “I should have known. Children can be cruel enough to newcomers of their kind.” She sighed, looking regretfully at the boy. “My husband will speak to Meadows, of course, and order the men to instruct their children that such nastiness won't be allowed. Still, that'll only make them treat Jody worse in sly little ways they can't be caught at. Maybe he'd be better off at the reservation, though Zach Tyrell's sure that his close family's hiding out in Mexico.”

“If he could learn how to read, write, and do sums, he could help his people hold their own with whites,” said Brittany. “Let me teach him, Mrs. Shaw.”

“You think Regina would let him study with Ned and Angela?”

Not even to please the commander's wife would Regina allow that. Brittany shook her head. “I could spend a few hours with him in the afternoon, though.”