Caress of Fire (16 page)

He was saying, “She'd cajoled the general into letting her take over Charlwood Plantation–the owners, an old lady and her daughter, had been arrested for atrocities I won't go into–and Betty insisted I stay with her ‘for a couple of nights.' To ‘tend me.' I wasn't strong enough to stay out of her clutches. General Sherman had put me in charge of a captured area, so she stayed around. It wasn't long before she announced we were going to be parents.”

“You said the child wasn't yours,” Lisette pointed out.

“He wasn't.” Gil searched in his vest pocket for a cigar. Blowing out the match, he took a puff, then bent low to crush the glowing end into the earth. “She delivered seven months after our reconciliation. It was a ten-pound male child. There was no question of paternity.” His eyes closed. Agony encased his features. “The boy couldn't have been mine.”

“My poor darling,” Lisette whispered. “How you must hurt.”

“I'm over it.”

She sensed he wasn't over anything, not after the way he'd reacted to her state of impurity and her so-called deceit. Growing wary, she asked, “What happened to the boy?”

“He died a couple of days after his birth.”

Lisette tried to make sense of the horrible situation, yet in her sentimental state, she murmured, “How awful for Betty.”

Gil's face hardened to granite, and his stance took on that same immobility. “Why do you defend that harlot? She couldn't even
guess
the father's name.”

“I'm sorry, my beloved,” Lisette whispered, but the damage was done. Her utterance in defense of his first wife caused Gil to grab his hat and return to the chuck wagon, where he took Big Red's reins and said, “I can hear the longhorns. And it's getting on eventide. My men will be hungry. I'd better ride ahead of the wagon, and find a decent night-camp.”

“All right. But, Gil, I didn't mean to offend you.”

“Damn it, let's go.”

Despite her misspent sentiment toward the first Mrs. McLoughlin, it pleased Lisette, her husband being so candid. Married folk needed to be open with each other. And she warned her insecure self away from making too much of Gil's feelings for his former
Frau.
If he'd loved Betty enough, he wouldn't have left her.

As she approached the wagon step, Lisette saw her husband untying Big Red. “Gil, I didn't mean to offend you.”

“I know you didn't. You're just overly sentimental right now.” He smiled. “And I think I know why.”

She did too. Yet the child wasn't at the forefront of her thoughts. “I wonder,” she said, “how our lives would have been different . . . if the war had never happened.”

“Honey, some things happen for the best. For some folks, anyhow. In our case . . .” He led the stallion forward, and reached to hug his wife. “I think we got lucky. Circumstance brought me to Texas . . . to you.”

“I brought myself to you.”

“Don't argue, woman.” After swatting her backside, he swung into the saddle and motioned to the north. “Keep to the path, honey. I'll double back when I find a good spot.”

She nodded, appreciative that he hadn't remained angry and that circumstance had brought them together.

Gil rode away, and Lisette put the chuck wagon in motion. A cold, wet nose nudged her sleeve, and turning her head, she saw limpid brown eyes staring at her. The collie settled her paw on the seat back and whimpered.

“What's the matter,
Liebling?”

Again, Sadie Lou whimpered, then jumped to the seat. Wagging her bushy white tail, she eyed the human.

“You're wanting to get off this wagon, aren't you?” Lisette asked in German. “You aren't happy unless you're with your master.” The dog barked as if she understood. “You're really loyal to him,
Liebling
, and I think that's tremendous of you. I think you're a grand
hund.”
Lisette halted the team. “All right, you can go to him. And I myself could use a stop. Nature calls, you see.”

But Sadie Lou didn't run after Gil. She followed at heel as Lisette searched out the privacy of a tall bush, and by the time the two females had relieved themselves, Gil found them.

Concern marked his expression. “Lisette, you've got to be more careful. Call me when you need to take care of things, and I'll guard you.”

“Don't be a fussbudget,” she chided gently. “I'm fine. And I had Sadie Lou on the lookout.”

The collie loped deeper into the woods, darn her.

“See, you can't depend on our canine friend.” He whistled, then did again. “Where the hell has she gone?”

“Here, puppy, puppy.”

Cactus Blossom, daughter of Comanches, woman to a Georgian, fluent in the white man's language, hungry beyond a growling stomach, scrunched her shoulders and closed in on dinner. The dog stood beneath a cottonwood tree, its body curled in defense, one paw poised for flight.

“Come here, Dinner,” Cactus Blossom chanted in her native language and clicked her tongue three times. “Come and make me a nice roast.”

She drew a knife from the sash of her buckskin sheath. For the past hour, her ears had detected the faint sounds of moving cattle to her east, south of here. The noise had scared game away. And even if it hadn't, she especially liked the taste of dog.

Her moccasin-shod feet moved forward–slowly, lightly.

“Sadie Lou!”

Cactus Blossom cursed the male voice. When she got a look at him, stomping through the woods with Dinner rushing to him and a woman at his side, she frowned. Long Legs–there was no better name for the man, she decided–looked straight at her.

He said something which rang like a curse, then put a protective arm around his woman, who reminded Cactus Blossom of Fish Belly, a Comanche of no color. Fish Belly was paler than the white woman; Hatch had called him an albino. Long Legs' woman was a blonde, she knew. During the past two of her twenty summers–ever since taking up with Hatch–she had seen blondes, but she had never gotten used to their lack of coloring. They reminded her of Fish Belly.

“We come in peace,” Long Legs called in halting Comanche.

The white man always spoke with a forked tongue before drawing his long knife to slay her people and steal their land. She'd gotten accustomed to killing and stealing, though–so used to it, in fact, she had taken one of the enemy as her own. Of course, Hatch didn't seek blood. All he wanted was to steal gold, and make trouble for his enemies from the white man's war against his own kind.

“I am Cactus Blossom of the Comanche, and I am hungry,” she announced in English before raising her knife. “I will have that dog for a nice roast.”

“No,” cried Albino.

White people and their strange abhorrence to dog meat! They had no sense of survival.

Long Legs pulled his Iron of Exploding Furies. “Be on your way.”

“You would kill a woman over her empty belly?” Cactus Blossom asked, standing bravely.

“There's no need for that.” The albino pulled away from her man's protection. “We have food. Plenty of it. And we'll be more than happy to share.”

“Lisette, don't.” Long Legs grabbed her arm and scolded, as if reprimanding a defiant papoose, “Watch what you say.”

Dinner cut in front of the man and woman, giving Cactus Blossom clear aim.

The albino proved defiant of her man. “Please put away your knife. There's no need for you to go hungry. Our wagon is over there.” She pointed toward the east. “Come with us.”

“Damn it, Lisette, have you lost your mind? She's a redskin. The same sort killed your sister, not to mention Ernst and José and Willie.”

“Gil, I won't have anyone going hungry.”

For the stretch of a minute, Long Legs scowled at Albino. He shook his head, then said to Cactus Blossom, “If you'll toss your knife over here, you're welcome to eat.”

I probably shouldn't trust these people,
she thought. But an Iron of Exploding Furies stood between her and Dinner. And Long Leg's woman seemed pliable enough toward her. Cactus Blossom trusted her instincts.

Handle forward, she tossed the knife between herself and Long Legs.

 

 

Lisette McLoughlin had no reason to like Indians, yet as she had said, she wouldn't allow anyone to go hungry. And Cactus Blossom had put her fate in their hands; Lisette wouldn't betray that trust.

After the black-haired, petite woman had devoured two strings of jerked beef and a plate of cold beans, she asked for a ride to town. “My horse died seven sunsets ago, and I must reach Fort Worth to do trading... and to make powwow,” Cactus Blossom explained.

Lisette–over Gil's strong objection–promised a ride.

She drove the chuck wagon up the cowpath, the Indian woman sitting beside her. With Sadie Lou flanking Big Red, Gil rode alongside the chuck wagon. He wouldn't stray from Lisette, since he “wanted to keep an eye on that redskin.” He kept one hand on Thelma's butt.

“Your man is possessive of you,” Cactus Blossom observed.

“He's worried you'll do something to me. It worries me as well.”

“You've befriended me, Albino, and a woman of honor doesn't put a knife in a person who is kind to her.”

Lisette glanced at the beautiful Indian woman. Her cheekbones were high, her complexion with a patina like bronze, her features all Indian–proud and noble. Sunlight danced through her black braids, giving them a bluish cast as they lay along her firm bosom. She wore a buckskin dress embellished with beadwork, lovely beadwork to Lisette, who admired the handicraft. Even though Cactus Blossom had wanted Sadie Lou for meal purposes, Lisette had a hard time equating the woman with warring Comanches.

“Why do you stare at me?”

“I'm thinking how pretty you are.”

Cactus Blossom laughed. “I was thinking the same of you. From a distance, you're much too colorless. Up close, though, you are fine. You have nice blue eyes, Albino.” She paused. “Why are you so colorless?”

“The people in my homeland tend to be fair.”

“Hmm. All those yellow scalps, they would look nice decorating a tepee. Where is this land of yours?”

“It's a German duchy, Nassau-Hesse.” Lisette snapped the reins. “I hope you're not planning to take a few scalps along our way . . .”

“That is men's work, mostly.”

“You don't have a man in the vicinity, do you?” Lisette asked and tightened her fingers around the leather strips until pain shot up her arm.

“I do.”

This answer drew a frisson of fear, and Lisette was glad her husband rode close by, Thelma at his ready.

“Cactus Blossom, you aren't leading us into some sort of trap, are you?”

“I am not. I'm looking for my man. I searched in Lampasas, but he had left. Then my horse's medicine went bad, and I had to leave her by the wide waters the white man calls Leon. I've spent the last week running after my man.” Cactus Blossom lifted her moccasined feet to the seat and rubbed each foot in turn. “It makes for sore feet, running after a man.”

“I can imagine,” Lisette murmured, remembering the hard walk between Fredericksburg and the man who had become her husband.

“I hope to find him in Fort Worth, if not sooner,” Cactus Blossom said. “Maybe you have seen my man? He is known to the white man as Hatch.”

“I know a Frank Hatch.”

The Indian woman settled an elbow on the top of her thigh and rested her chin in her hand. “Some call him that.”

Lisette's mouth dropped; she spat road dust and fastened her lips. Though Cactus Blossom was comely and young, she was Frank Hatch's woman? Somehow Lisette couldn't imagine the two together. She told herself not to be prejudiced. The pretty Comanche was clean and neat, despite her trek, and that sort of thing seemed to appeal to Mister Hatch.

Gil rode closer. “We'll camp here tonight.”

The women debarked from the wagon. Lisette began to unharness the draught horses, and Cactus Blossom offered, “I am good at making cookfires. I will make one.”

Gil stomped over to the woman. “We don't need your help, Injun. I want you gone–and
now.”

The back of Lisette's knuckles went to her waist. “You promised she could accompany us as far as Fort Worth, and as it turns out, she's Mister–”

“You promised her, I didn't.”

“Well, husband, I don't make empty promises.”

He glared, yet a trace of a smile edged a corner of his mouth. “Looks like your integrity has worked against me.”

Lisette delighted in his subdued stance. “Gil, do you think you could water the horses? I need to get supper started.”

He went for the animals, yet his eyes didn't drop their guard.

Cactus Blossom took the shovel and began to dig the fire trench. “Albino, since you know my man's name, do you know where I can find him?”

“I do. He's one of our drovers.”

Cactus Blossom, propping up the shovel and resting her wrist on it, shook her head. “No. It couldn't be my Dung Eyes. He never works; it would dirty his hands.”

“Dung Eyes?”

“His eyes are the color of dung. It angers him when I call him thus. But his name fits. That is the Comanche way of naming.”

“Mister Hatch's eyes are brown. And he's rather a dandy. We may be referring to the same man.”

Cactus Blossom arranged wood in the pit, then leaned back on her heels. “I wonder why my man is driving cattle.”

“He needed money.”

“He had much wampum when he was with me.” She extracted flint from her pouch, then struck the wood. “I am a good hunter, a good cook, and an excellent trader.”

“What do you trade?”

“Myself. For the white man's wampum.”

Lisette had never met a prostitute, and her face turned scarlet. All she could answer to the announcement was, “Oh.”

A finger going to her upper lip, Cactus Blossom squinted at the dying sun. “His medicine must have gone bad, if Hatch is desperate enough to work for his living.”

By now, the longhorns were approaching, Tecumseh Billy at the lead. Lisette pointed to a flank rider. “There's your man.”

The squaw stood up and emitted a cry sounding much like the Comanche war cries that Lisette had heard the night Willie Gaines and the others had perished.

“Dung Eyes!”

Cactus Blossom ran, lithe and sure-footed, to Frank Hatch. “I have searched long and hard for you.”

Gil stomped toward the duo. “What is going on here?”

Grim-faced, Hatch glanced down at Cactus Blossom before turning his regard to the trail boss. “It looks as if my squaw has found me.”

“No more couples on this drive,” Gil said, slicing his hand through the air.

“You needn't worry, McLoughlin.” Hatch tried to kick the woman away from her hold. “She'll be going back the way she came.”

“Good.” Gil doffed his straw hat to rub his brow with a forearm. “I'm glad to know you're on my side in this.”

Yet Cactus Blossom didn't leave. She shared dinner with the Four Aces outfit, Cencero Leal serenading the group, and hand-fed her husband during it. Hatch didn't act as if he enjoyed the treatment. When the supper dishes were washed and put away, she was still in camp.

Lisette noticed Matthias watching the woman with open curiosity. As for the other men, a couple were straightforward in their dislike for the “Injun,” but most didn't seem to mind her presence. Deep Eddy Roland, as usual, didn't express an opinion, which was his way.

Preacher Wilson, whom Lisette had grown to like as well as respect, said a prayer.

“Do you know how to make son-of-a-bitch stew?” Fritz Fischer asked slowly, and received a pop on the back of his head from Oscar Yates.

“Mind yer manners, boy. Don't be talkin' ugly in front o' women.”

“But, Oscar, Frau McLoughlin is familiar with it, and I was just wondering about–”

“Now, my Susie could sure fix up a pot o' the stew in question, lickety-split.” Yates continued with a long-winded tale about his much-revered departed wife and favorite cook. At the yarn's climax, several cowhands were yawning. “... 'Course, our girl Lisetty, she be the only woman what could hold a candle to my Susie. Did I ever tell you 'bout the time Susie . . .” He was once more on the oratory.

Dinky Peele, Wink Tannington, and Johns Clark emitted a collective groan and unfurled their bedrolls. Cactus Blossom stood up, extending her hand to Hatch. “We will sleep now.” Brooking no argument, she grabbed Hatch's bedding.

“Going with her, squaw man?” asked Attitude Powell.

Hatch ignored the bearded man from Tennessee and swept his attention to the trail boss. “McLoughlin, I'd best talk some sense into the woman.”

“You'd better, Hatch. You'd damned sure better.”

The Georgian followed after his wife, and Gil turned to the men surrounding the campfire. “She will be gone on the morrow,” he said, his nostrils flaring. “The only female on this drive is my wife, and it's going to stay that way.”

It was all Lisette could do to cajole him to a hideaway place of their own.

He took the strongbox that had been hidden in the chuck wagon against “thieving redskins.”

Lisette spread their pallet. At this point she didn't know how to feel about Cactus Blossom's presence in camp, since it seemed strange to have a prostitute among the men. Surely Mr. Hatch wouldn't allow her to ply her trade.

If Gil were to discover her occupation, he wouldn't allow it, of this Lisette was certain, she thought as she watched him unbuckle Thelma's belt.

Tugging the shirttail from his Levis, he turned to Lisette; he rubbed the scar under his eye. “I get antsy when you get quiet. You're not thinking about keeping that squaw around, I hope.”

Lisette elevated her chin. “I like Cactus Blossom.”

“Get it out of your head. This drive isn't gonna turn into a paradise for women. And that's that.”

Maybe it would be for the best if Cactus Blossom did say her good-byes. Yet Lisette had enjoyed having another woman to talk with. Cactus Blossom was as different from Anna Uhr as dawn was to midnight–Anna would never sell her body, for goodness' sake–but Lisette and the Comanche woman shared the camaraderie of women.