Juliet's Moon (11 page)

I screamed some more. They were ragged, frightened prayers to heaven, and they did not go unanswered. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a cloud of dust and heard horse's hooves, and of a sudden there she was in the middle of it all, Colt revolver drawn and aimed at Bill.

"Back off, you damned bully. Away from that girl."

I recognized the voice, oh I did. I stopped, breathing heavily. My head was drumming, my feet hurt, and I was sobbing. Bill Anderson couldn't have looked more surprised if it had been the Blessed Mother sitting that horse with pistols drawn.

"You earned the name Bloody Bill honestly," the woman said, "and everybody respects you for it. Well, when I tell them about this they'll no longer respect you. Tormenting a little girl who's been through six kinds of hell already."

"Sue Mundy, what in purple hell are you doing here?" Bill Anderson asked.

"Chasing you. And it's a good thing I caught you first, before her big brother did, or you'd be lying dead, a fossil before your time. But not before he beat the daylights out of you."

"Is my brother here?" I asked in disbelief.

"No, child. He discovered you were missing, and he
and I decided to take different routes to try to find you. He had to make arrangements to send Martha back to his ranch in the holler first, though. She couldn't make the trip. I came west. He went north. Only reason I found you was because I came across some refugees who told me about running across you and whereabouts you were." While she was talking, she was tying Bill's hands behind his back. With his own belt.

"I saw you from a distance, watching us. At first I didn't know who you were."

"I thought you were on our side," Bill Anderson said.

"What side is that? The side that tortures little girls? And tries to get them to take off their clothes? Enough talk now. You go on around that rock and take your bath, child. We'll stay here. Nobody will bother you. I promise."

"There're catfish in the pond," I told her. "They make good eating."

"Good idea. We'll eat, then I'll bring Bloody Bill back to Seth Bradshaw. See what he wants to do with him."

"I'm supposed to be on my way to Texas for Quantrill," Bill said in a pleading voice.

"Oh, you'll go to Texas all right," Sue Mundy said. "After Seth Bradshaw gets done with you."

***

S
UE
M
UNDY
and my brother had a plan. They were to meet the next day at a place called Sulphur Springs, one mile from Seth's ranch, whether or not either of them found me. They were to regroup and, if I was not yet found, they would recruit some other Quantrill Raiders and organize a real search party, rather than just wander aimlessly around the desert.

I had so many questions my head was spinning, as if it wasn't spinning enough from the pain of my fall.

Did Seth know yet that Sue Mundy was a man? The last I recollected, he wouldn't discuss it at Fort Leavenworth hospital and I was determined to let the whole matter die there.

I supposed Seth didn't. Marcellus Jerome Clark still had a lot of work to do as Sue Mundy and wasn't about to bandy any secrets around to give away his identity.

Before we left on the trip to Sulphur Springs, Sue Mundy bandaged my head good again and even combed out my hair. "A woman doesn't feel human unless her hair is decent looking," she said.

How did Marcellus Jerome Clark know such things?

I
HADN'T SEEN
Seth since the night he and Bill had crept into our camp when we were with the wagon train to nowhere and they rushed us out of there.

Now here he was at Sulphur Springs, a mile from his home, waiting alone with his horse before a small fire and smoking a cheroot.

He got up when we approached, his hand going instinctively to his revolver at his hip. His face broke into a grin, and he came over to help me off the horse.

"God, you look like hell. Where you been? To the briar patch?"

I just put my arms around him, hugging him tight
and sobbing against his middle. I didn't want to let go, and he held me close, kissing the top of my head.

"Hey, c'mon, what happened?" Then he spoke in low tones, saying hello to Bill Anderson, then seeing his hands tied.

"Why is he tied up?" he asked Sue Mundy.

"He was taking her to Texas."

"Why?"

"Ask him, why don't you."

So Seth did. "You kidnapped my sister? You gone 'round the bend, Bill? Why?"

"She looks so much like Jenny," came the soft reply.

"Then," asked Seth, "why didn't you treat her better? What
did yon
do to her, anyway?" Then Seth cursed and picked me up, and I went all limp in his arms. I heard him tell Sue Mundy to tie Bill to a tree; he wanted to talk to me first and find out the truth of the matter.

We sat a small distance from the fire. Crazily, I concentrated on the sparks it sent up into the night. Crazily, I wondered if Sue Mundy had told Seth yet that she was really a man.

"Did he hurt you in any way?" Seth questioned softly.

His eyes bore into me. I said no. He'd just swung his belt at me because I wouldn't do as he wanted.

"What did he want?" Seth asked carefully.

There was no lying to Seth. He could smell lies five miles away. "For me to take my clothes off and go into the pond of water and wash," I said.

I saw something come into his face, something hard and fierce. "And? I have to know, Juliet. If he dishonored you at all, I have to call him out."

"You mean duel?"

"Yes. It's still the order of the day, amongst men who care about their women. So tell me."

"Course not, Seth. He had it fixed in his head that I should, that there's a war on and that means there're no more rules of civilization."

"Said that, did he?"

"Yes."

He reached out and touched the side of my face, gently. "And that's when Sue Mundy came to your rescue?"

"Yes, but I knew she was there. We both saw her for a whole day before, though he didn't know who she was. I knew I couldn't fight off Bill myself. I kind of knew that at the right time Sue would come and save me. But just the same, I picked up a big shell and threw it at him. Hit him in the head, too. Made him bleed."

"You're a good girl, Juliet. I'm proud of you. Did he hurt you in any other way?"

I fell silent and looked at the fire.

"You can tell me," he pushed. "You can tell me anything. I have to know, child."

I faced him square, then. There were tears in the corners of my eyes. "All right, you want to know, I'll tell you. He hit me once because I said I would scream. He made me drink whiskey. Taught me how. And you know what, Seth? I was throwing up because of the wild rabbit he made me eat, and the whiskey settled my innards."

"What else?"

"Made me skin the rabbit."

"The dirty low-down son of a skunk. I'll kill him."

"You can't kill him. Not on my account. Or you'll be as bad as he is then."

"I can't kill him because I'm married to his sister. Don't you think I know that? But I can beat him up enough to make him wish he were dead." He got up and helped me to my feet. We walked back to where Sue Mundy was frying some bacon. It was all she had in the way of food, but it smelled so good my stomach hurt. Seth's house was but a mile away but none of us wanted to drag Martha into this now.

"Sue will see to you," he told me. "Do as she says. I do believe she's got some nice warm clothes in that saddlebag of hers."

Sue Mundy and I exchanged looks. Hers said, don't worry, it'll be all right. Mine said, you saved my life twice, I trust you.

Seth took out his revolver and untied Bloody Bill, then Seth took him off to the woods, which were all charred and blackened because of the fires the Yankees had lighted. They went down a hill, and I said a prayer that Seth wouldn't kill him. Sue found me some warm clothes because it was more chilly here than in the desert, and then I had supper of bacon and bread and coffee.

I
T CAME
to me from other sources, I don't recollect how—on the night wind, I suppose—that Seth Bradshaw beat the purple demons out of Bill Anderson, although Bill Anderson did his share of destruction to Seth, too.

What made it all worse was that Seth and Bill had been friends since childhood. They had sown their wild oats together. They had drunk themselves into oblivion together. They had taken part in horse races, in playing cards, even courted the same girls.

Neither had a brother. What more could be said? When they came back to camp that night, I was supposed
to be sleeping in the tent Sue Mundy put me in. Half groggy from the laudanum she'd given me, I listened behind its canvas wall.

It took me no time at all to perceive that Seth was, at that very minute, sending Bill off to Texas. "And if you come back to these parts too soon, consider me the enemy. Just as much as if I wore blue."

He supplied him with beef jerky, water, his horse, and one blanket. Also his Sharpe's rifle.

I knew my brother well enough to understand that you never wanted to be considered his enemy. It was worse than being shot with a Sharpe's rifle. I felt bad. And I didn't know how to act with Seth now. Did he blame any of this on me? And when word got to Martha, as I knew it would, how would she regard me? Would she say I'd teased Bill? That was the ultimate sin a young girl could commit hereabouts. To be a tease to a nice, decent boy like Bill Anderson.

I had to let both of them know I wasn't. And, I decided, I had to let Seth know tonight.

That was one problem I had facing me. The other was simple enough: I had to keep Sue Mundy from sleeping in the tent with me.

I didn't want Marcellus Jerome Clark cuddling me. So how would I manage this?

I decided that the lies we all had between us were going to kill us before the Yankees did, and so I got up, wrapped a blanket around myself, and went out into the starlit night as if to my own execution. I might, I decided, have to tell Seth the truth about Sue Mundy, again, to save my decency.

My moon was growing darker.

"What are you doing up? You're supposed to be sleeping."

"Seth, I have to talk to you."

He gave me a look. He was seated by the fire, holding a wet cloth just below his left eye. When he took the cloth away I could see the bruise, already turning purple. There was also a cut on his bottom lip and on his forehead. "Something you forgot to tell me before?"

"No." I knew him well enough not to mention his wounds. "But something I should tell you now."

Go on.

"I just want you to know that I didn't tease Bill Anderson. I never sashayed around him like a cheap saloon girl."

"What do you know about cheap saloon girls?"

"Seth, you know what I mean. I just didn't want you thinking that."

"I don't. I know you better. You couldn't sashay if your life depended on it."

"I'll have to tell Martha that, too."

"Go easy with Martha. I don't know how I'm going to tell her about her brother and what happened yet. Is there anything else?" He threw a log on the fire.

"Yes. I don't want Sue Mundy in the tent with me tonight." I looked around for her. "Where is she?"

"Washing out some clothes at the end of the springs. God, that water has got a sulphur smell to it. So why don't you want her?"

"Seth, don't scold now. Or get mad. Promise?"

"Honey, I'm so glad to have you back in one piece, I couldn't get mad at you tonight for anything."

The words warmed me. I sat down next to him, gathered my blanket around me, and leaned on his arm. "I can't have her in the tent with me because she's a man, Seth. She told me she was."

"I know."

"You
know
"

"Yes. I've been around her enough to figure that out.
Your old brother isn't that dense when it comes to women."

"Did you tell her you know?"

"Course not. Her work all depends on her keeping it a secret. How you got it out of her, I'll never know."

"She wanted me to tell you. Because you were smitten with her. And she didn't want that. And that's why she, or he, kissed me. To prove she was telling the truth."

He gave a deep sigh. "I'm not so certain that was the whole reason. You sure there isn't anybody I can marry you off to, at twelve?"

"I'll be thirteen soon."

"God help me."

"Seth, she told me on the way here that nobody must know she's a man. She said she has no currency with the Yankees as a man. That they'd kill her. But that they like her as a woman. If we give her away, Seth, she's dead."

"But she fights with us as Lieutenant Flowers. I suppose that's all part of the act, and as long as the Yankees know it's an act, they are intrigued by her. Just think, Juliet, someday we'll be able to say we knew her."

I hugged him wordlessly.

He kissed my forehead. "You're a dear little thing for keeping her—his—secret. There's something about you,
Juliet, everybody confides in you. I think it's your eyes. They're so sad."

"It's 'cause I got you for a brother," I teased. "Always bossing me around."

He smiled. "Go to bed," he said.

A
T FIRST
there was some discussion about Seth coming back to his place with us at all. Since the destruction of Lawrence, Kansas, the 450 men in Quantrill's band had been on the run, setting up camps in different places. They were pursued by home-guard units, civilian posses, cavalry troops, and militia who were out to kill them.

These Yankee searchers combed woods, fields, houses, and barns. They came upon men at their supper tables and shot them dead. They, who criticized the method of killing employed by Quantrill's men in Lawrence, hanged men working in their barnyards,
whether they had taken part in the Lawrence killings or not.

By the end of August they had killed at least eighty men. They took no prisoners. Now, in September, the military had run out of ammunition, their horses were worn down, and the officers were discouraged and disorganized.

But still, a meeting between a Yankee and any member of Quantrill's band meant certain death for one or the other.