And One Rode West (44 page)

He fell beside her, his arm flung back, his breathing still harsh, his body hot and wet despite the coolness of the night. She closed her eyes tightly, thinking of the depths of her betrayal.

“Christa—” he began anew. The sound of his voice still seemed harsh. She didn’t want to hear it! He would chastise her again about the prisoners. She reminded herself that she had to hate him for what he had done, taking sides with Comanche just because the men had been in the Rebel army!

“I don’t want to talk!” she said fiercely.

“Damn you—”

“I don’t want to talk!”

She heard his teeth grating in the darkness. “Fine. Have it your way, my love. Don’t talk!”

And so he said nothing more, but minutes later she felt his hands in the darkness again.

It seemed hours later before he slept. The dawn was finally coming.

Christa bit her lip, threw back the covers, and rose. He stirred, but she turned her back to him, dressing. He knew that she was up.

But he never suspected her of this treachery, she was certain. She washed and dressed and headed out of the tent, looking back.

Her heart seemed to plummet. He lay at rest, his hair a rich dark red against the snow white of the covers, his face so handsomely defined. She stared at the hard, sinewed length of him, and a trembling seized her. How could she lie with him as passionately as she had, and do this?

How could she love him as she did, and do this?

Because he didn’t understand. Even Dr. Weland realized Jeremy didn’t understand. He had fought men in gray uniforms for so long that he couldn’t let it go. He
was being deceived by a Comanche. She wasn’t doing this to hurt him. She was doing it to save her countrymen.

Christa slipped from the tent.

The rest of the camp lay sleeping. Mist was all around them. She hurried through it to the makeshift stockade where Ethan Darcy was once again on duty in the early-morning hours.

“Good morning, Private Darcy!” she called to him softly, walking over to him. “Don’t tell me that they keep you here all day and all night!”

“No ma’am, Mrs. McCauley,” he said, watching her warily. “Lennox and Fairfield were on duty before me. We stand guard in shifts.”

He turned around, following her. Christa nearly allowed her eyes to widen and betray her as she saw Weland coming up silently behind Darcy. He brought the butt of a gun down hard on Darcy’s temple.

Darcy never knew what hit him. He crumpled to the ground.

Christa stared from the fallen soldier to Weland. “Will he be all right?”

“Of course,” Weland said softly. “Hurry now. I’ve the horses around here. Let’s free the men.”

He hurried around and slipped the slide bolt from the stockade. Jeffrey Thayer stepped out immediately. The others didn’t follow.

“Come on!” Thayer commanded.

“I—I ain’t going back out into Comanche territory,” Tom Ross said.

“It’s an order!” Thayer told him.

But Tom Ross was stepping back.

“Leave him!” Weland commanded.

“I—I ain’t going either,” Sergeant Tim Kidder said.

“Harry!” Thayer barked to the last of his men. “Are you coming or have you turned on me too, boy?”

“I ain’t going to turn you in, but I ain’t going with you,” Harry said.

“I don’t understand—” Christa began.

“It doesn’t matter, let’s just get this going!” Weland said. He caught hold of Christa’s arm and led her along with Thayer to the horses. “Ride out with him a ways—if the sentries see you, they won’t stop him!” Weland commanded her.

She shook her head. “John, I can’t do that—”

She broke off in sheer amazement. He was aiming his gun at her. The same gun he had used to knock Darcy senseless.

“Get up on that horse, Christa,” he commanded her.

“John—”

Someone suddenly interrupted them. She heard a low, dangerous voice. “What are you doing?”

She spun around. It was Robert Black Paw. She was never far from his sight, she remembered.

But that wasn’t going to help her now. She cried out as Major Dr. John Weland took careful aim and shot the Cherokee scout.

No sound escaped her because Jeffrey Thayer had a bony but powerful hand wrapped tightly over her mouth. “Get her out of here—fast!” Weland ordered. “And see that she doesn’t come back. Trade her to the Indians. Strangle her! Just see that she doesn’t come back. It’s your price for freedom.”

Christa bit the hand covering her mouth. Thayer swore savagely, jerking her back against him. “When I get you alone, angel, are you going to pay!” he drawled.

She inhaled for a long, high-pitched scream. It never left her mouth because Weland had aimed his gun at Darcy. “One word, Christa, and I shoot Darcy too!”

Furious, she demanded, “Why? What did I do to you? What did Jeremy do to you?”

Dr. John Weland, her friend through so much,
smiled. He tried to stroke her cheek, and she wrenched her head away. “It isn’t you, Christa. I really like you.”

“Then Jeremy—”

“And it isn’t that proud husband of yours, Christa. Pity you wouldn’t listen to him. You played right into my hands. I had myself assigned to this division purposely. I’ve spent months—no, years—planning this revenge. I had a better method of torment devised, but you ruined that.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she whispered. If she could just stall for time, help might come. She was always being watched.

By Robert. And Robert was bleeding on the ground.

God! What had caused this?

“You married McCauley,” Weland said quietly. “I could have had the house. I made a lot of money, putting in with those fool southern blockade runners! Not the noble boys. Fellows like Thayer here who knew how to make a dollar out of a war.”

She gasped. “But—why?”

“Jesse Cameron,” he said simply.

She was feeling faint. She couldn’t begin to comprehend what was happening. The house! That seemed so long ago now. Yet, even when she had been about to lose it, she had been convinced that the enemy must have been Daniel’s enemy.

“Jesse?” she repeated, stunned.

“Jesse Cameron,” Weland repeated. “The one, the only, the majestic, the wonderful. The great healer, second only to Christ!” He spat on the ground suddenly. “The man given every promotion I should have had.”

“You’d kill—because of that?”

His eyes had been distant. Now they were riveted on her. “He was the great healer. Until it came time for him to operate on my little brother. Then your goddamned sainted brother couldn’t do a thing. Gerald
died screaming on the operating table. They said that he’d been a coward. That he’d been running away from the battle when he was hit. It was a lie. But your brother killed him anyway. He opened him up and he killed him.”

“You’re wrong!” Christa said. “Jesse would never let anyone die if he could stop it, never, for any reason.” She spoke very quickly. “I thought that you were like him! I thought you were a doctor just like Jesse, so concerned with healing! You believed in men’s right to live, whether they were red or white or black. You—”

“I thought that seeing Cameron Hall burned to the ground would wound him forever. But this is better,” Weland said. “He’ll never know what happened to his precious sister. Whether the Comanche have you and rape and mutilate you daily, or whether some renegade, murdering Reb kidnapped you down to South America to serve his comrades. He’ll never know and it will hurt him all his life. It will cut like a knife. I hope he lives a long, long time.”

“You’re sick—”

“And I’m going to hang with those other fools if I don’t get the hell out of here!” Jeffrey Thayer said.

“This is a sick man!” Christa tried to tell him.

“I don’t care if he’s a raving lunatic! He’s set me free. And you’re my way out. Let’s go!”

“Go with him. Or I’ll shoot Darcy right in the head. As a matter of fact, let me get Darcy up on a horse. Then Thayer can shoot him the minute you give him a word of trouble!”

Thayer jerked her around while Weland threw Darcy’s prone body over one of the four horses brought for the Rebels’ escape.

“Get up!” he commanded her.

She stared at him. “You are a murderer, aren’t you?” she asked. “My husband believed the Comanche because the Comanche was telling the truth.”

“Get on the horse. I’ve killed before. But there’s a lot I’d rather do to you than kill you, angel. So keep quiet and—”

“I’ll see you hang!” Christa promised.

Thayer smiled, the kind of smile that showed her, too late, what kind of man he was.

No matter what the color of his uniform.

“You want that private dead on your account?” Thayer asked, indicating Darcy.

She swallowed hard, then walked to one of the horses and mounted it. She stared at Weland. “They’ll hang you too!” she promised.

He lifted a brow complacently. “I won’t give a damn.”

“Ride, angel,” Thayer commanded her.

Just then they heard music. Someone was singing a hymn. “Onward Christian soldiers …”

“Christ Almighty!” Weland groaned. “It’s that holier-than-thou Brooks woman!”

Mrs. Brooks had come upon them with her Bible, ready to read a sermon to the erring Rebel prisoners, Christa was certain.

Now the plump and proper old harridan stared at them all, openmouthed.

Weland turned, aiming his gun at her. “Mount up, Mrs. Brooks. You’re going for a ride.”

“Her!” Thayer protested. “Shoot her! Just shoot her!”

“Jesus, no!” Christa cried.

“What in the Lord’s name—” Mrs. Brooks began.

“Just mount up! Mount up!” Christa urged her.

“I will not!” Mrs. Brooks said indignantly. “I will not be a part of this treachery—”

“He’ll shoot you, Mrs. Brooks!” Christa cried. She leapt down from her own animal, prodding Mrs. Brooks toward one of the mounts. “He’ll shoot you!” she hissed, trying to show the woman how serious the
look was in Weland’s eyes—and Robert Black Paw on the ground, blood oozing from his chest.

“Oh! Oh, Lord Almighty! I’m going to faint—” Mrs. Brooks began.

“Get on a horse!” Christa ordered her. Mrs. Brooks was heavy. With a strength she didn’t know she had, Christa boosted her onto one of the horses.

If they could just ride, they could escape Thayer. He’d be on his own without Weland behind them.

When Mrs. Brooks was mounted at last, white-faced and wavering, Christa leapt up on one of the horses again.

“Good-bye, angel,” Weland said. He stared at Jeffrey Thayer. “If she survives and comes back, you’re a dead man.”

Thayer started to laugh. “She’ll be with me—until death!” he swore.

He slammed his heels against his horse.

And all four mounts—his, Christa’s, and the beasts carrying the unconscious Darcy and the blubbering Mrs. Brooks—began to race across the plain.

The first pink streaks of dawn were just beginning to show on the eastern horizon.

Twenty

It was still dark when he opened his eyes. He didn’t stretch his arms out over the covers—he knew that she was gone.

How strange, he thought, to have had a night so sweet and spectacular, and to awaken now, feeling so pained and miserable! She still wouldn’t let him speak. She didn’t want to hear the truth. She wouldn’t believe anything ill of a man dressed in a Confederate uniform.

He punched his pillow bitterly, wishing he could gain just a few more minutes’ sleep. But thoughts of her plagued him, and he couldn’t close his eyes. He jerked up suddenly. He had heard something. Not Christa. He didn’t smell coffee brewing. In fact, he hadn’t heard her since she had so silently risen and left the tent.

“Jesus!” he gasped out leaping off the bed, for a bloodied hand was reaching up, dragging the covers off him.

Robert Black Paw, huddled, broken, bleeding, had come to him. Crawled upon his belly to reach him.

Jeremy cried out again, shouting for help. He lifted the Indian scout who had been his friend and companion for so long, trying to find the wound. It was in his chest. Blood was pouring from it. He ripped up the sheets, packing the wound to stop the flow.

“Jeremy—” Robert was trying to speak.

“What the hell happened? My God! Someone get in here—”

Nathaniel rushed in. His eyes opened wide at the sight of Robert, and he exhaled quickly. “I’ll get Doc Weland—”