“No!”
Robert found the strength to rise. Shaking his head vehemently, he fell back.
“Clamp down on the wound!” Jeremy ordered Nathaniel, reaching for his clothing. He slipped into his trousers, speaking to Robert at the same time. “Robert, don’t die. Damn you now, don’t die! I’m going for the doctor—”
“No!” The Cherokee thundered out the word again despite his wound. He beckoned to Jeremy to come close to his lips and he whispered quickly, knowing that his strength was failing him. “Weland—in on it. Something to do with your wife’s—brother. Thayer loose. With Christa.”
There was blood everywhere. Jeremy felt as if it drained from his body.
“Christa?” he whispered.
Robert’s bloodied hand reached for him. “She thought—him innocent. Didn’t know. Weland—hurt her.” He tried to speak again. He fell silent.
“Robert! Robert, damn you, don’t you die!” Jeremy cried.
Nathaniel looked at him. “He’s still breathing. If I can just stop the blood—it seems the bullet made a clean hole through him.”
“Nathaniel, if you can, save his life!” Jeremy commanded swiftly, reaching for his sword and scabbard and guns. He tore from the tent. Christa!
Damn him, what a fool he had been! Why hadn’t he seen it? Yes, she had been furious. She hadn’t forgiven
him a thing, she hadn’t missed him. She’d seduced him to go and set the Confederates free.
But Weland had something to do with it. Why would Weland want to hurt Christa, or Robert? It didn’t make any sense.
He passed by one of the young buglers just staggering from his tent. “Call the men to arms!” he commanded quickly. “Get help down to the stockade!”
He rushed on and burst onto a scene he hadn’t begun to imagine.
The gate they had so hastily rigged when they’d brought in the prisoners was down. But three of the men remained.
Dead.
Three of the soldiers were strewn about the ground, bright red bloodstains oozing out over the tattered gray of their uniforms.
John Weland stood in front of the stockade, staring at them, shaking his head.
“Jeremy, thank God!” Weland said. “It was the damnedest thing! Christa—I’m sorry, Jeremy, really sorry, but you, well, you know your own wife. She was determined to free these fellows. She got Thayer a gun somehow. Robert came after Christa, and Thayer killed Robert. Then he turned his gun on his own men!”
Jeremy stared at Weland. Everything was going mad here.
And Christa was gone. All that mattered was that Christa was gone. She was heading across the plains with a merciless cutthroat who had killed heedlessly already.
He watched the doctor cautiously. The man he thought he had known.
He strode into the fenced yard where the dead Confederates lay. The first was definitely gone. There was a bullet through his head. He moved onward. The second
was dead too. Jeremy didn’t think he’d ever seen so much blood. The bullet must have pierced him right through the heart. He moved on. He thought he saw the slightest movement. He knelt down.
It was the sergeant, the man named Kidder. His lips were moving. His eyes opened.
Jeremy could just see Weland through the fence. Weland didn’t seem worried.
Because he was innocent?
Because he was certain that the dead could tell no tales?
He leaned closer to the sergeant. The man was whispering. “Your Yank’s a traitor, Colonel. The bastard killed me.”
A cold shiver ripped through Jeremy. More horrible than anything he had known through all the years of warfare. Weland. He had coldly shot Robert Black Paw and these men.
Why?
He stood, looking at Weland. “I’m sorry, Jeremy, there’s nothing I can do for any of them. Or Robert.”
“Robert isn’t dead,” Jeremy told him.
John Weland’s eyes flickered. “Not dead? He’s right over there on the ground! I found him first. I—” He turned. He saw that the Indian wasn’t there. He stared back at Jeremy.
He was caught. They both knew it.
“Well, it really doesn’t matter. There’s nothing you can do. Thayer will see that she lives and dies miserably.”
“Why?” Jeremy cried out incredulously. Weland just stared at him. Jeremy swore suddenly, fists clenched, teeth grating. It didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter now. What mattered was Christa. He had to find her.
He knelt quickly down to the Reb still breathing. “I’ll get help, son.”
The boy’s eyes opened. He was trying to talk again.
“I didn’t never want to kill no one, sir, honest. I didn’t take the Indian girl and I didn’t shoot any cavalrymen at that pay wagon.” He moistened his lips. “Thayer is going to head for Texas, so he can get to South America. I couldn’t go. Hell, I’d rather be hanged than have the Comanche get me any day.” He started to cough. A fleck of blood appeared on his lips. “I’ll get help,” Jeremy said.
The boy clutched his hand. “Be careful. Thayer has the man who was guarding us, Darcy.” Something almost like a smile touched his bloody lips. “And some battle-ax of a lady who sings psalms.”
“Mrs. Brooks?” Jeremy said incredulously.
“That’s how Thayer’s going to keep your wife in line. She—she didn’t know, sir. She just thought that we were ex-Rebs, unfairly treated.”
Jeremy nodded. “Don’t talk anymore. The men will see to you.” He started to rise.
“Watch it, Colonel!” the young sergeant cried.
He swung around. Weland was at his back, his gun aimed. Jeremy instinctively reached for the Colt at his side. Even as he fired, he felt the flesh tear at his arm.
John Weland had missed his target.
Jeremy didn’t.
He walked across the stockade yard. Weland was on the ground, dead, his eyes wide open and staring. Jeremy still didn’t understand.
He looked up. Men were filing out. He saw Lieutenant Preston. “Saddle up, Company D! Five minutes, men,” Jeremy commanded. “James—get Morning Star to ride with us. And somebody, dear God, get some help for this poor Reb!”
He strode past them, anxious to reach his horse.
Dear God, Christa was out there somewhere, in Thayer’s hands.
* * *
They rode desperately hard until Thayer realized he would kill the horses if he pushed them any further. By then, Darcy was just beginning to come around, and Mrs. Brooks was finding her voice once again.
Jeffrey Thayer gave them all fair warning. “I need the whole set of you right now. If the cavalry starts closing in again, I can drop you back one by one and buy myself a little time. Except for you, angel,” he told Christa, smiling. “You come with me. All the way.”
“You’re out of your mind,” she told him.
He aimed his Colt, another gift from Weland, straight at her heart. “What? Have you lost your devotion to your cause? Angel, you were willing enough before!”
“I was willing to see you freed instead of hanged when I thought you were an innocent man,” she told him.
“Honey, we had some fun with one little Indian maid. And I killed a few Yanks. Hell, I killed them by the dozens during the war. What difference does a few months make?”
“A world of difference,” Christa told him. “You are nothing but a murdering bastard.”
He grinned. “You’ll get to like me. I like you. And I’m going to like you a whole lot more.”
“Take her! Just take her!” Mrs. Brooks cried out. “We’re far from camp now. Just leave me here alone, and I’ll tell her husband that she wanted to go with you, she’s always been a Rebel, she’ll always be a Rebel, so take her, and the devil can have the two of you—”
“Mrs. Brooks!” Darcy cried feebly. Christa ignored both Mrs. Brooks and Jeff Thayer and turned her attention to Darcy. They had stopped by a creek to get water for themselves and for their horses. She ripped up her petticoat and soaked it and came over to bathe Darcy’s face. “Jesu, Ethan, I’m sorry!” she whispered.
He caught her hand. “Weland hit me?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Come on, you’re taking too long!” Thayer warned them. “I want to get started again. You, Miss Christabelle, one false move and I put a hole the size of Richmond through the Bible bitch or your Billy Yank, understand? And you—” he warned Darcy. “No heroics. Or the noble little Reb gets to ride and bleed at the same time.”
They all mounted up. Darcy looked woefully at Christa. “He has to sleep sometime!” he whispered hopefully to her.
She nodded. Would they get to that?
They started out, riding hard once again. They reached an outcrop of rock. To Christa’s surprise, Jeff Thayer suddenly seemed uneasy.
She began to feel it herself. The sensation of being watched.
She turned around. Her heart flew to her throat.
They
were
being watched.
Atop the ridge behind them, silent as statues, Indians had appeared. Six of them. Painted in red, some bare-chested, with designs upon their flesh. All armed with rifles or bows and arrows and incredibly long lances, decorated with feathers and … scalps.
“That son of a bitch! Buffalo Run! He had McCauley followed, wanting to make certain the Yank executed me!”
“What are you talking about?” Christa demanded, staring at him.
“If you’ve got an extra gun,” Darcy said, “for the love of God, give us all a chance—”
“You’re on your own!” Thayer shouted. He spurred his horse cruelly. The animal leapt into the air, then
started to race. The other horses, without cue from their riders, did the same.
Terrified, Christa leaned low against her horse’s neck, praying as the dirt of the plain flew up at her.
To no avail. She sensed the colors of the horse and men at her side long before she heard the first wild war whoop. Her horse was forced to the side, slowly made to come to a halt as the Comanche rode a circle around her.
Darcy and Mrs. Brooks were being held in the same circle, she realized.
Jeffrey Thayer was not within it.
She stared in front of her, awed and horrified.
The ex-Reb had been forced from his mount. He tried to shoot the Indian bearing down on him.
Thayer screamed. The Indian’s lance went thrusting through his middle, followed by a rain of arrows.
Each Comanche had shot at the man. The arrows pierced him. His legs, his arms. His eyes. Yet sounds were still coming from him.
An Indian knelt down beside him. Thayer was still barely alive. The Indian began to cut away the man’s scalp.
Mrs. Brooks began choking and gagging. Behind Christa, she was sick. Even Darcy let loose with a little sound of terror.
Christa was too horrified herself to make a sound or to move.
The last of the Indians mounted up again. She instinctively slapped her reins over her horse’s shoulder. The horse bucked and bolted and started to race once again.
But before many minutes had passed, a Comanche was riding at her side, their horses brushing sides.
He leaned over and was almost off the horse he was riding. He reached out for her, grabbing her while his
animal eased into a canter. Christa cried out, grasping for something to hang on to.
Comanche could bring about a terrible death, she knew. She had just witnessed one, and death could be worse out here. But instinct assured her that she would not be trampled to death beneath the horse’s hooves.
She needn’t have feared. Her Comanche captor did not intend to release her. He was a strong man and rode his horse effortlessly, keeping her atop it as he did so. The animal raced across the plains easily, and it seemed to Christa, forever. She was not alone, though. Other Comanche had seized Mrs. Brooks and Darcy.
She thought about the way Jeffrey Thayer had died. Then she thought about Weland. She still couldn’t grasp how the man, after failing in his effort to take Cameron Hall and burn it, had managed to get himself assigned to Jeremy’s regiment.
Jeremy! She had betrayed him. She might lead Jeremy to death, and she definitely might kill their child.
She had already been hungry and weakened from her sleepless night of lovemaking. The constant slap of her body against the animal and the roughness of the endless ride quickly sapped what little strength she had left. During the long harsh ride, she must have blacked out.
Such a merciful condition! It ended too soon. She came to as she was dragged from the haunches of the horse, warm brown hands powerful and insistent upon her. She struggled to free herself from the hated touch of the warrior, staggering as she tried to swirl away. A choked cry escaped her as he reached for her, dragging her back, tying her hands together with rope. Another of the braves came up to the warrior she faced, saying something to him in his own language.
Furious and terrified, Christa lashed out. “You wait! You just wait until the cavalry comes. They’ll slice you
into little pieces! They’ll fill you with bullet holes. They won’t leave enough for the buzzards to eat!”
To her amazement, the Indian smiled. He spoke to her in perfect, unaccented English. “Will the cavalry come for you, do you think? Why would they think to rescue you—when you were so determined to free a murderer?”
She gasped, blinking. He knew that she had freed Jeff Thayer.
“My—my husband will come,” she responded quickly. Maybe she was wrong, but she was determined to defy this Comanche. “You have taken another man’s wife as well—”
She broke off. The other Comanche was saying something in his own language again. The one she faced started to laugh.
“What?” she cried out, wanting it to be a demand but feeling her knees shake.
“My friend has suggested that this other woman’s husband might pay us a ransom not to return her.”
Mrs. Brooks was still carrying on, screaming, crying, screaming again. Christa couldn’t blame her. She felt much like doing the same herself.
When their captives made too much noise, Comanche sometimes cut out their tongues.
“Let her go, then!” Christa suggested suddenly. “Let her go back to camp. Maybe they won’t come after you then. Maybe—”
“Your husband will come,” the Indian said flatly. “I know him, and he will come. And then we shall see.”
“You know my husband,” she murmured. Of course. It all made sense, the fact that this Comanche spoke English so well. “You’re Buffalo Run.”