Fire on the Plains (Western Fire) (22 page)

Colonel Beaumont’s gaze momentarily darted to the battle standard proudly billowing in the breeze. “I didn’t mean to imply such a thing,” he quickly assured her. “In fact, my people and I are on our way to Mexico to start new lives for ourselves.”

“Mexico? Goodness, why so far?”

“
Not only was my plantation house in Louisiana burned to the ground, but the land was so severely scorched as to render it infertile. It is my understanding that the soil in Mexico is most conducive to the raising of cotton.” The colonel paused a moment, his lips curving in a rueful smile. “It would seem, Mrs. Strong, that we share a common aspiration.”

“How so?”
she inquired, thinking his last comment an odd one, indeed.

“We are both looking to start
new lives in a place far from the home we love.” Placing a gloved hand over his heart, Colonel Beaumont then said, “If you will permit me the honor, madam, I would like to offer you and your family safe passage for as long as our paths cross. Given the size of our wagon party, we’re invulnerable to attack by Indian raiding parties; and our women and children are under heavy guard during the day while we ride patrol.”

“
There is most assuredly safety in numbers.” Lydia paused a moment as she surveyed the gathered troop of men. After the near-fatal tragedy that had befallen her family, an armed escort could mean the difference between life and death. Smiling gratefully, she said, “On behalf of my husband, I gladly accept your kind offer, sir.”

For several moments Colonel Percy Beaumont hel
d her gaze. Then, extracting a linen handkerchief from his breast pocket, he gently swiped it across Lydia’s upper cheek.

“You ha
d a trace of blood on your face.” After returning the handkerchief to his pocket, the colonel politely extended an elbow in her direction. “Let us hasten to repack your Conestoga so that I may have the pleasure of escorting you to our camp.”

As
Lydia observed Ben’s agitated sleep, she wondered how long it would take for the chloroform to wear off. More than six hours had passed since Doctor Wylie administered the sedative, and she was beginning to worry that perhaps he’d given Ben too potent a dosage.

Through the open canvas flaps at the back of their wagon, she could see that twilight had descended, its arrival trumpeted by a host of noisy crickets. An owl entrenched in a nearby oak tree joined the raucous chorus
; as did a barking coyote on a distant hillock.

After nearly six weeks of living on the open trail, such sounds were wholly familiar to Lydia. What wasn’t so familiar was the boisterous laughter, chattering voices, and
strains of guitar music. Having joined Colonel Beaumont’s entourage, their Conestoga was now unhitched alongside innumerable other wagons. Although Lydia was disconcerted by the lack of privacy, she was nonetheless willing to make whatever sacrifices were necessary to ensure her family’s safety.

While
the Comanche attack had happened long hours ago, Lydia still found it difficult to believe that a day which dawned no different than any other, could have unraveled in such violent tumult. She could not bear to contemplate what would have transpired if Ben hadn’t pressed his ear to the ground and heard the rumbling vibration of charging horses. Or if he hadn’t had the ingenious foresight to stow Dixie out of harm’s way.
Or if he hadn’t been so brave and courageous.

Recalling her husband’s valor, Lydia
’s heart swelled with love.

When he did finally awake
n, she wondered if Ben would remember her impetuous declaration of love, whispered only moments before Colonel Beaumont and his men had stormed their encampment. Although the sentiment had been earnestly spoken, Lydia wasn’t altogether certain that she wanted her husband to recall the impassioned declaration. The love that she bore him was too new, lacking the stabilizing foundation of shared experiences and long-term acquaintanceship.

Not to mention that she was uncertain
how Ben felt about her.

While her husband made no secret of the fact that he lusted after her, that in no way implied that he loved her.
And though she’d witnessed his willingness to fight to the death to safeguard her and Dixie, it didn’t mean that he held her in tender regard. Ben Strong was a warrior of a man. He would have acted no differently had he faced those Indians on his own.

That thought alone made her grateful for Percy Beaumont’s timely intervention.
Without question, she and Ben would forever be in Colonel Beaumont’s debt.

Gently pulling the quilt a bit higher on Ben’s bare chest, Lydia wished that she had a nightshirt
with which to clothe her naked husband. Because of the Comanche rampage, Ben no longer had so much as an old work shirt to his name. Since most of her and Dixie’s clothing had been packed in the bottom of a trunk, the two of them had fared much better than Ben whose wardrobe had been literally ripped to shreds by marauding Indians.

Smoothing
a fingertip across his jaw, Lydia could feel that Ben was also in dire need of a shave. Already, nearly a dozen well-wishers had stopped by the wagon to introduce themselves and to offer their assistance should she have need of it. It would not do for word to get around the camp that her husband was unkempt or slovenly.

Her mind made up, Lydia rose from the bed and searched the reorganized, repacked wagon in search of Ben’s saddlebag, knowing
that’s where he stored his shaving kit. Espying it on the floor near the tailgate, she stepped over to it. Quickly unbuckling the leather straps, she rummaged through the saddlebag, annoyed to discover a pack of well-worn playing cards and a box of Marsh-Wheeling cigars. Such vices were unbecoming in a gentleman. Stuffing both items back into the bag, she continued her search, wondering if perhaps the Comanches hadn’t made off with Ben’s shaving gear.

About to abandon the search, her hands slid over some sort of medal disk attached to a band of ribbon. Curious, she held the gleaming bit of engraved medal up to the lantern
that hung from the middle of the wagon.

“
Ah! A Congressional Medal of Honor! It would appear that your husband is a bona fide war hero.”

Startled to hear the deep timbre of a man’s voice, Lydia
turned her head. At catching sight of Percy Beaumont standing just outside the wagon, she smiled warmly.

“Please, Colonel, do come in,” she cordially invited, pushing the saddlebag aside as she rose to her feet. “I confess that you gave me a moment’s start.”

“I apologize, Mrs. Strong.” The colonel’s lips curved in the makings of a teasing smile. “But it is somewhat difficult to knock on a piece of canvas.”

Lydia returned the smile, pleased that Colonel Beaumont had come to pay his respects. As he stepped into the wagon, she could see that he held a neatly folded pile o
f men’s garments in his hands.

“Given that the Comanche
s plundered your husband’s clothing, I thought that he might have need of these when he awakens. We look to be about the same size.”

“Sir, your thoughtfulness is
praiseworthy, indeed,” Lydia gushed, astonished by the colonel’s kind generosity.

So far this day, not only had Percy Beaumont and his men charged to their rescue, but they’d also rounded up the four horses, as well as the milk cow
, that Ben had stampeded just prior to the attack. They’d also scavenged what little money the fleeing Comanches had left behind.

“Alas, all
that I have to offer is an old, but serviceable uniform.”

“I am
certain that will not matter in the least to my husband,” Lydia quickly assured him. Taking the proffered stack of clothing, she realized that she still held the Congressional Medal in her hand.

“May I?” her guest inquired
as he gestured toward the shiny piece of gold medal.

Proud of her husband’s distinguished achievement, Lydia gladly handed it to him. Hefting the medal in the palm of his hand, Colonel Beaumont took a moment to savor the feel of it, clearly impressed. Then, a wistful smile on hi
s lips, he returned it to her.

Fearful of what Ben would say if he
was to discover her displaying his personal effects like wares in a shop window, Lydia made haste to return the medal to his saddlebag.

As she returned her attention to Co
lonel Beaumont, Lydia was momentarily arrested by his striking appearance. Bare-headed, his shoulder-length curls gleaming in the golden light cast by the lantern, he gave every appearance of being a knight-errant, one of those cavalier heroes of old. Certainly on this day he’d proved that he was every inch the gallant southern gentleman.

“I realize, sir, that I’ve said this already, but I am
truly grateful for—”

“Lydia!”

At hearing the hoarse exclamation emanate from the direction of Ben’s sickbed, Lydia rushed toward the back of the wagon. Seating herself on the edge of the quilt-covered mattress, she clasped Ben’s hand in hers, relieved to see that he was fully awake.

Although to her
acute embarrassment, Ben’s eyes furiously gleamed when he caught sight of Colonel Beaumont standing at the foot of the bed.

“The doctor said that you mustn’t exert yourself,” she cautioned as Ben struggled to sit upright.
Afraid that he might open his sutured wound, she placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. “In fact, he ordered you to stay abed for at least a week.”

Ben forcefully shoved her hand aside. “What’s that goddamn Confederate doing in
our wagon?”

Lydia gasped, appalled by her husband’s profane incivility.

Unperturbed, Colonel Beaumont smiled politely. “Alas, sir, I am an
ex
-Confederate. And to prove that I harbor no ill will, I would like to extend a supper invitation so that we may properly welcome you into our midst. As soon as you have recovered your health, of course.” That said, the colonel turned toward Lydia and gave her a polite bow.

As
ex
-Confederate Colonel Percy Beaumont took his leave,
ex
-Union Captain Benjamin Strong silently glared at the departing Southerner. An expression worth a thousand uncivil words.

“
And I’m telling you, I wouldn’t sup with that damn Reb if he was serving up the last meal between here and kingdom come.”

Standing
with arms akimbo, Lydia’s patience with her husband finally snapped.

For four days she’d banked her annoyance, forced to endure Ben’s sullen mood
s and his ill-humored asides. Trying to make the best of a bad situation, she’d turned a deaf ear on his cantankerous grumbling, pasting a congenial smile onto her lips as she repeatedly enumerated all of the reasons why she’d felt compelled to accept Percy Beaumont’s kind offer to join the southern wagon train. Because the colonel had given them safe sanctuary, she’d also felt obliged to accept his supper invitation for that evening.

“The invitation has already been extended
and
accepted,” Lydia tersely informed her husband, not about to send their regrets at the eleventh hour. “Please clothe yourself so that we may be on our way to Colonel Beaumont’s tent.”

Ben, his shoulders stooped to avoid hitting his head on the wooden wagon bows, threw her a challenging smirk. “What I’m wearing will do just fine.”

Lydia’s eyes widened in stunned disbelief. “But you’re not wearing anything!” she exclaimed. Indeed, the only thing standing between Ben and a complete state of undress was a pair of snug-fitting cotton drawers.

Mimicking her pose, Ben placed his hands on his hips, the bandages on his left arm and lower chest a
vivid reminder of his near-deadly encounter with the Comanche Indians. “And what if I told you that I’d rather parade around buck naked than wear a suit of gray?”

“Then I’d say
that you were an extremely ungrateful man.”

“Ungrateful!”
The word was bellowed with stentorian gusto.

“Yes, ungrateful,” she
reiterated in a lowered voice, worried that their dispute might be overheard.

It was the argument that had been brewing for days, Lydia deftly managing to sidestep it at every turn. However when Doctor Wylie earlier informed Ben that his arm hadn’t healed enough for him to resume helm of the wagon, it only added fuel to the fire.
During his convalescence, the amiable Lieutenant Starkweather had been driving their Conestoga, much to Ben’s annoyed chagrin.

Refusing
to bend to her husband’s will, Lydia stood her ground. “If it were not for these good, decent people, we would not be standing here having this argument. And the reason we wouldn’t be having this argument is because we’d both be
dead
,” she said bluntly, refusing to mince words.

“Well, if Beaumont and his crew are so good and decent, how come they’re still garbed in Confederate gray?”

“How should I know?” Lydia retorted with a disinterested shrug. “Until the Comanche Indians came along and ripped your clothes to shreds, you also wore your old uniform trousers.”

“Yeah, but mine were blue not gray.”

“A fact that you are immensely proud of.”

Ben’s eyes turned a wintry, unrepentant shade of pewter. “You’re damn right I was proud to wear ‘em.”

Fixing Lydia with a furious stare, Ben battled the urge to reach over and shake some sense into his wife.

Why did
Lydia stubbornly refuse to see Beaumont and his gang of recalcitrant rebels for what they truly were?
Christ!
She actually believed Beaumont’s cock-n-bull story about going to Mexico to grow cotton. Someone only had to look at the impressive store of weapons that these Rebs had at their disposal to know that some mischief was afoot. Particularly since all of the soldiers who’d fought for the Confederacy had been forced under the terms of surrender to relinquish their guns and rifles at war’s end.

So why
are Beaumont and his men still armed to the teeth?

Tightly clasping her hands i
n front of her waist, Lydia returned Ben’s stare. “I know full well what this is all about. It’s about you and your ridiculous manly pride.”

Ben’s jaw tightened
. He’d already endured more insult than any man should have to take from a woman.
Gentler sex, be damned.

“Mrs. Strong, you
had better stop while you’re ahead.”

Lydia shook her head, refusing to concede. “We stand here today because of Colonel Beaumont and his brave,
yes
, brave band of men,” she asserted, her voice quavering with emotion. “Or perhaps you would have preferred that Dixie and I had been slaughtered by those merciless Indians so that you wouldn’t have to suffer the indignity of wearing a pair of gray trousers.”

Furious, Ben snaked a hand around each of Lydia’s upper arms, yanking her toward him. With a strangled cry, she pushed against his chest
.

Ignoring the pain that shot through his bandaged arm,
Ben refused to release her. “Do you have any idea what it was like to have those Comanches truss me up like a Christmas turkey, knowing there wasn’t a damned thing that I could do to protect you and Dixie?”

Lydia’s eyes instantly glistened with unshed tear.
Penitent, she said, “It was wrong of me to make so thoughtless an accusation. However that doesn’t excuse your insufferable behavior these last four days.”

Just then, s
omewhere on the far side of the camp, a fiddler broke into a lively rendition of
Dixie
.

“
Sweet Jesus! Do you hear
that
?” Ben asked scornfully.

“For goodness’ sake! It
’s just a song.”

“And I suppose that secesh flag they’ve got hoisted in the middle of camp is nothing more than a piece of fabric,” he
snarled.

Lydia responded with a queenly lift of the chin.

Sensing that he was getting nowhere fast, Ben released his hold on her. Frustrated, he ran a hand over the back of his neck. It had been a long while since the two of them had last been at loggerheads with one another. And it didn’t sit well with him.

“Don’t get me wrong, Lydia. I’m
damned grateful that Beaumont showed up in time to save you and Dixie,” he freely admitted. “But that doesn’t mean that I’m willing to walk around,
la-di-da
, acting as though
they
won the war. If you think for one minute that I like keeping company with the enemy, think again.”

“But they’re no longer th
e enemy,” Lydia insisted.

“The hell they’re not!”

“The war is over, Ben. Except you can’t come to terms with that fact, can you? You’re still fighting the war, here –” raising a finger, Lydia tapped her right temple – “inside your head.”

“Damn you, Lydia.”

“There’s no use denying it. I sleep by your side. I know that you suffer from nightmares. And lest you forget, both Walks Tall and I were there when you succumbed to—”

“Enough
already!”

Not trusting himself to speak, Ben turned his back on
his wife. To his shame, Lydia had dared to broach the one subject that he out-and-out refused to discuss with her. Those two days that he’d lain in an unconscious stupor had disturbed him far more than he cared to admit. With no warning, with no outward symptoms, the dark fever had come upon him. One moment he’d been fine; and in the next, he was out like a dead man.

He now
lived each day knowing that it could happen again. Any time. Any place.

Behind him,
Ben heard a rustling sound as Lydia stepped toward him. Gently, she placed a hand on his shoulder. “I am your wife, Ben. And as such, I will follow wherever you lead. But I will not be deliberately rude or unkind to these good people who came to our rescue when we needed them most.”

Lydia’s
soft, lilting voice unerringly bespoke her southern roots. Small wonder that she felt so at ease with these renegade Confederates. They shared a common heritage, a common language, as it were.

And it put Ben at a distinct disadvantage, one
that he couldn’t overcome. Hell, if he was alone, he’d simply ride out of this damned rebel camp and never look back. But he wasn’t alone. He now had a responsibility for both Lydia and Dixie. Which meant that he had to bite the bullet. In two days time they will have traversed beyond the borders of
Comancheria
; at which point, he planned to cut loose from the wagon train and head to Uvalde.

Because he’d spent f
our years as a soldier, Ben knew when to retreat – and this was one of those times.

Snatching the woolen trousers off
of the bed, he brusquely commenced to dressing.

“Seeing as how I don’t have any other clothes, I’ve got no choice but to wear these gray britches,” he muttered, wincing as he buttoned the fly, his
arm hurting like hell.

“
And what about Colonel Beaumont’s supper party?”

Not in the mood for anot
her quarrel, Ben tersely nodded his consent. Besides, he had more than a few questions that he wanted to put to the evasive Colonel Beaumont. This little shindig might just be the ticket to getting some overdue answers.

“But we’re not staying long.
Understand?”

And no way in hell would he pretend that he was enjoying himself.

“Don’t you agree, Captain Strong?”

From where he presided at the head of the table, Percy Beaumont shot Ben a questioning glance, dabbing at his mouth with a linen napkin as he did so.

Sick and tired of being addressed by his old rank, Ben paused, a knife held in his right hand, a fork in his left.

Taking the measure of the four gray-suited officers seated at the supper table,
Ben finally settled his sights on Beaumont. Immaculately attired in a double-breasted frock coat that sported enough gold braid to blind a man, his shoulder-length hair pomaded and curled, he looked like a dandified popinjay playing at being a soldier.

“In case you haven’t noticed, these days I’m just plain
Mister
Strong. After
we
won the war, I received a discharge from military service,” Ben said matter-of-factly before spearing a boiled potato onto his fork. “And, no, I don’t agree with you.”

With a dramatic flourish, Beaumont
swished his wrist from side-to-side, an imperial affectation that Ben was fast growing to despise. “As I am wont to say, once a soldier, always a soldier.”

“Which begs an inter
esting question –” not giving a damn about good manners, Ben leaned an elbow on the table, using his knife blade to point at the bevy of gray-clad officers. “In light of the fact that the war ended three months ago, why are you southern boys still gadding about in your uniforms?”

Not to mention, fl
ying your goddamn battle flag?

“After four years, old habits die hard,” Beaumont equivocated, reaching across the table for a crystal wine decanter.

Given the sheer abundance of food, and the fact that the table boasted silver candelabra and china plates, Ben could easily have imagined himself in a palatial home rather than a large canvas field tent. To further muddy the waters, Lydia, seated beside him, unabashedly behaved as though she’d been born and bred to such highfaluting luxury.

“And is force of habit the reason why all
of the men in your
former
command are following you to Mexico?” Ben next inquired, making no attempt to hide the fact that he wasn’t buying what Beaumont was selling.

His well-bred host shrugged dismissively as he refilled his goblet. “Most of us are planters who lost our homes, as well as our livelihoods
, during the war. Since land is cheap and fertile in Mexico, we decided to resettle. More wine, Mrs. Strong?”

Lydia smiled prettily
as she covered her goblet with her hand. “No thank you, Colonel Beaumont. I am unaccustomed to drinking spirits.”

“Spoken like a true lady,” Beaumont complimented.
Then, without warning, the Confederate colonel rose from the table, his wine goblet held aloft as he turned and faced Lydia. “Gentlemen, a toast!”