“South?” Christa said, confused.
“Right on down to South America. We’re going to start a new colony down there, ma’am. A rebel colony. You’re right welcome to come now, if you wish. It’ll be a place where Yanks don’t come and burn down every food source in sight! Where the old ways can live again.” He grit his teeth suddenly, clutching his arm. “My, my, but this does hurt.”
“Good thing the colonel couldn’t aim,” the young boy, Tom, said.
She heard a sniff from Darcy. “Don’t fool yourself, kid!” Darcy called. “Colonel McCauley hit the captain right where he aimed. If he’d have been aiming differently, the captain’d be pushing up daisies right now.”
“Private Darcy!” Christa admonished. She looked
up to the sky. It was barely dawn. John Weland would probably still be sleeping. She didn’t care. She was going to wake him up. “Captain, I’m going to see about someone to help with your arm.”
She started to turn, but he clutched her hand. His eyes were damp, his fingers trembling with emotion. He spoke in a whisper. “Ma’am, we’ve survived so much fighting. If there’s anything you can do to get us out of here, I’d be beholden for life! They’re going to hang us for what heathen Indians did. They’re going to hang us just because they hate us still. They didn’t kill us during the war, so they’re going to do it now. Lady, please …!”
Shaking, Christa disentangled her hand from his grasp. She couldn’t. She didn’t have the power to help them escape. And if she did she wouldn’t dare.
She closed her eyes, swallowing hard as she remembered the scalp they had found on the butte. The Comanche were savage and brutal. Jeremy couldn’t really believe anything they might tell him about someone else! Jeremy had gone to see Buffalo Run. Buffalo Run had surely given Jeremy some lie to make up for an atrocity he had committed himself.
And Jeremy was willing to believe him! Because these men were in gray uniforms!
“I’ll get the doctor,” she said. She whirled around. As she made her way through the tents, she saw that only a few of the men were beginning to rise.
Jeremy didn’t need to worry about men having heard her tirade against him.
They all seemed to have slept through it, she thought wryly. The few who were awake greeted her politely and courteously, making way for her. She reached Weland’s tent and hesitated. “John?” she called softly.
“Christa?”
“May I come in?”
He wasn’t really dressed, but he had on his long
johns and his trousers and suspenders. He lifted the tent flap and let her in.
“Jeremy brought back prisoners—” she began.
“So I heard.”
“What?” she said, amazed. “Then, John, why didn’t you tend to the wounded man?”
“It was a scratch, or so I heard. He said he just nicked the man to get him to stop.”
“He’s in pain. Major Weland, please. For me, would you come look at this man’s arm?”
A light suddenly seemed to shine in his eyes. Christa thought that he was a lot like Jesse. When it came time to heal the sick, Weland was ready to go.
“Let me get my shirt.”
He did so and picked up his surgical bag and followed her out. They walked through the encampment until they came to the stockade at the far edge.
Private Darcy was still standing guard. Christa looked at the landscape beyond them and understood why their precautions against escape could be so lenient.
There was nowhere for the prisoners to go. Not on foot, and not in Comanche territory. With horses, yes, they could escape.
“Go on in, John, please,” Christa encouraged him. “I’m going to go to see what I can find for them to eat.”
“Sergeant Jaffe will be bringing them something—” Private Darcy offered.
“I want them fed now,” Christa said firmly.
She found Jaffe, and to her relief he was already preparing food to be brought to the prisoners. She returned behind him and leaned upon a fencepost, pressing her cheeks against the cool wood as the men ate.
They had been near starving. They ate like animals. Even Doc Weland had stopped his treatment of the
captain’s arm to allow them to eat. When Jeffrey Thayer had finished, Weland set to bandaging his arm again. When he was done, the doctor stood with Christa while Thayer spoke. “I don’t mind dying. Me and my boys, we stood in battlefields so long that death is like a long-lost cousin. But it just beats all that your colonel is going to see to it that we hang for some awful business done by a pack of savage Comanche.”
Christa glanced uneasily at Weland. His face looked a little pale too.
“Did you—did you try to explain the truth to my hus—to the colonel?” Christa asked.
With a pained expression, Thayer nodded. “God’s my witness, ma’am. I tried. But it seems that savage Buffalo Run has some kind of crazy influence over the man. And we’re—”
“What?” Christa pursued.
He shook his head. “Same old story, angel. We’re Rebels. A Yankee just can’t believe a Rebel.”
Christa turned away and walked some distance from the stockade. A second later, she felt a gentle touch on her shoulder. She spun around. It was Weland.
“Are you thinking of helping them escape, Christa?” he asked her.
She started to shake her head. “I—I—”
“Well, I am,” he said bluntly.
She gasped.
“Shush!” he warned her quickly. “Come on. Let’s get to the med tent. We don’t want to be heard.”
She stared at him in amazement, at the misery in his eyes, then nodded quickly. He was like Jesse. He couldn’t stand the suffering.
And for Weland, the war was over.
She followed him hastily to his tent, nodding good morning to the men they passed, barely daring to breathe. When they reached the medical tent, she burst through the flap and spun around. Weland quickly
came in behind her, pouring her a sherry from his stock on his camp desk.
“It’s too early in the morning!” she whispered.
“You need it. And keep your voice down!” He began to pace. Christa decided that he was right and she swallowed the sherry down. He stopped pacing and stared at her. She knew that they were both thinking of the scalp on the pole on the butte. How could Jeremy have believed the Comanche over the emaciated men in his stockade?
“What are we going to do?” she whispered.
He sank into a chair. “I could be court-martialed for even thinking this way,” he said with a groan.
“Then you can’t do anything. I’ve got to do it.”
He looked up at her, studying her. “Christa, you are the only one who can do anything.”
Her fingers started to shake. Her knees went weak and she sank down to the foot of his bed. “How, what?”
Weland ran his fingers through his hair. “Well, we should have ridden into Fort Jacobson today but I think Jeremy planned to camp over, tie up some loose ends with the men, write some dispatches. He should be busy in the headquarters tent all day. Not that they could possibly escape during daylight …”
“The dawn?” Christa said.
Weland nodded. “And they’d have a day’s rest. Jeff Thayer’s arm could heal a bit. They’d have some food in their bellies. What a pathetic lot! How could Jeremy …” His voice trailed away and then he looked at Christa guiltily. “I’m sure he had his reasons, of course.”
Yes. The men were Rebs.
“I can see to it that some of the horses are tethered near the stockade for the night,” Weland continued. “If you could just slip out very early, before dawn, and do something about Darcy.”
She nodded. “Distract him?”
Weland nodded. He stood. “It wouldn’t be so difficult. Because, you see, it would be impossible for them to escape from here without help, so no one will be worried very much. And when they do escape …”
“I won’t ever let anyone know that you were involved, I swear it!” Christa promised him fervently.
He shook his head. “You have to play innocent too, Christa.”
“I doubt if Jeremy will believe I’m innocent,” she murmured.
He slammed his fist against his hand. “But is it the right thing to do?” he demanded suddenly. He answered himself. “It has to be. I can still see that scalp, stretched out, dried …”
“Stop, please!”
He swung around. “You must be careful. Very careful. Jeremy will see that you’re very upset.”
“Oh, he knows that I’m upset,” Christa murmured. “I’ll just stay away from him during the day. I don’t think it will be difficult.”
Weland stretched out a hand to her. “Oh, God, Christa! I can’t believe that we’re conspirators—against Jeremy!”
“I never meant to be!” she whispered.
“Nor I. You mustn’t let him suspect, Christa. And you have to keep him in his tent through the night, so that I can casually see that the horses are moved around.”
“Yes,” she said flatly, staring at him. Keep Jeremy in the tent? They weren’t even speaking!
“They will die if we don’t help them,” he said. “They’ll hang.”
Christa nodded, her fingers digging into her palm.
She turned and fled Weland’s tent, grateful that he was first and always a humanitarian.
* * *
It wasn’t difficult to keep her distance from Jeremy during the day because it seemed that he had no desire to see her.
She knew that he would be in the headquarters tent all day and that he was busy with correspondence. She tried to spend time with Celia so that she wouldn’t stay too near the prisoners, but she couldn’t even be near Celia without betraying her emotions.
Jeremy didn’t come to their tent for supper. Robert Black Paw informed her that Jeremy was dining with Majors Brooks and Jennings and sent his apologies.
Ah, yes, he was sorry!
The hour grew later and later. She couldn’t eat, and she certainly didn’t dare sleep.
Keep him in his tent …
She couldn’t even get him here, she thought.
But as the hour grew very late, she heard him coming back at last. He paused to speak with Robert Black Paw outside their tent, and she went into a sudden swirl of motion. She stripped to the flesh and lowered the lamp to a shadowy, soft glow. Before he entered the tent, she plowed beneath the covers and pulled them to her chin.
She felt his eyes on her when he came in and listened to the movements that had become so familiar. He removed his scabbard and sword, and she heard the clink of metal against his desk. She felt his weight on the bed and heard the soft fall of his boots beside it. Then the sounds were just whispers in the night as he shed the rest of his clothing and crawled into bed beside her. She opened her eyes just a slit, certain that she would find him lying there awake, his fingers laced behind his head, his eyes on the canvas above them.
His eyes were hard on her. He had known she wasn’t sleeping.
“Christa, stay away from the prisoners,” he warned her.
“I don’t want to talk,” she told him coldly.
“Christa—”
“I don’t want to talk!”
“Well, maybe I do.”
“You didn’t want to talk last night, I don’t want to talk tonight.”
Aggravated, he started to toss the covers back and sit up.
But with the covers drawn back he noted her state of nudity and inhaled softly, his eyes riveted to hers. Silver, glittering, they spoke a silent demand.
“I—I said that I didn’t want to talk,” she whispered. She didn’t really know how to play this game.
Yes, she did, she realized. She didn’t want to talk. She was furious with him. She was heartsick over what he had done.
But, she realized with the pounding of her heart, that didn’t change certain things. She wanted him. Perhaps she was even afraid that it might be the last time she would ever have him. Maybe after tonight, they would never be able to forgive one another.
She had to keep him in his tent.
It was not going to be so hard a task.
“Christa—!” His voice was harsh, rough-edged. She came up quickly, leaning over him, draping the length of her hair about his shoulders and chest. She pressed her lips to his shoulders, sliding the length of her body against him, her breasts brushing the dark hair and muscle of his chest, her body warm against his. She let her kisses fall where they would, her tongue teasing his flesh. She rose against him, her tongue sliding over the small hard peaks of his nipples, sweeping over the muscled structure of his chest. She moved against him again, the softness of her hair brushing where her kiss had just been. She pressed her face against the ripples of his belly, bathing him again with the warmth of her tongue.
She moved lower against him. Nipping at his hip, always allowing the soft flow of her hair to sweep around him. She felt the pulse of him. The powerful trembling of his fingers as they moved into her hair. She heard his tense whisper. She felt the hard, searing shaft of his desire beneath her, and allowed her touch to fall all around it. Then she took him into her hands, into her caress, and bathed him with the slow, luxurious slide of her tongue.
Impassioned words exploded from him. The force of his desire sent longing and excitement sweeping into her. She gasped at the violence with which he clutched her, lifting her, bringing her atop him, impaling her there.
She could not meet his eyes, could not meet the bold hunger in them. She closed her own and felt him. His fingers curled around her buttocks, guiding her. She gasped, her head falling back as he thrust more deeply into her. The night seemed to take flight, the rhythm exploded, and she became aware of nothing but sensation, the force of her own desire to touch the peak, to reach out and feel the stars cascading, to feel the ecstasy and the splendor he could create.
She rose and rose, soared so high. Yet when she would have cried out, she suddenly found herself beneath him. She was devastated, for he had withdrawn. Then she gasped, feeling the rise of a greater fever as he touched and caressed her. Teased and tormented her flesh, touched her with the searing liquid fire of his kiss, stroked her with the evocative draw and thrust of his fingers and caress. She thought that she would die if the sweet anguish went on any longer, yet just when she reached that point, he was with her again, moving in the darkness, in the night.
And then it came, that honey-sweet explosion of the stars, of the world, of the velvet of the night. Shattering,
violent, delicious, leaving her to cling to him while she trembled.