Merline Lovelace (18 page)

“Well, Parrott didn’t need an insider on that run. We
wanted
him to take the strongbox. The driver reined in and handed it over with hardly a curse
or a spit. We’d filled it with gold-painted lead ingots, by the way.”

“I should hope so,” Suzanne murmured, nibbling on her lower lip. The gold held less interest for her at the moment than Charlie Dawes’s whereabouts. “So this pockmarked drifter stayed on the coach after you left it?”

“As far as I know. Why does he interest you in particular?”

“Dawes is the reason Jack was headed for Deadwood.”

“Sloan’s hunting him?”

“He has a score to settle with the man.”

“From what the medical orderly tells me,” the colonel said, his blue eyes keen and piercing, “it’s even money whether Sloan will live long enough to settle much of anything.”

“He’s hung on this long,” Suzanne said desperately. “He’ll make it to Fort Meade. He’s got to make it.”

The journey that should have taken four or five hours stretched late into the night. The troop kept their mounts at a slow walk so as not to unnecessarily jar the wounded man being dragged on the makeshift travois. Suzanne slowed the pace even more by insisting on regular stops to check his condition.

She was sagging with fatigue and constant,
crawling fear by the time the small detachment spotted the pinpricks of light that constituted Fort Meade. Constructed just last year near a natural gap in the outer rim of the Black Hills, the fort was the home of the Seventh Cavalry, only recently reformed after their disastrous defeat at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

A chorus of yips and barks shattered the night as the weary patrol rode past the outlying buildings, tents and teepees toward the main post. Two off-duty and obviously drunk troopers staggered out of a tent saloon, blinking in surprise as the small detachment rode past. Several squads of sentries challenged the arrivals before they reached the grounds of the fort itself.

Like so many other frontier army posts Suzanne had lived on, Fort Meade consisted of long, double-story barracks, various administrative buildings and rows of officers’ quarters clustered around a central parade field. Although defensive redoubts of adobe or sharpened stakes were still necessary at some of the more remote outposts, no perimeter walls enclosed these moonlit grounds. The army relied on massed troop strength and firepower to defend its larger, more settled frontier forts.

Lieutenant Carruthers led the detachment across the parade ground to Officers Row and halted before a two-story house lavished with white trim and decorated with dozens of pointed eaves and
gables. Swinging out of the saddle, Suzanne went immediately to Jack’s side while Carruthers sent a man to rouse the commanding officer’s aide and ask him to inform the colonel of their arrival.

“The acting post commander is Lieutenant Colonel McCormack,” the lieutenant told Suzanne. “He telegraphed Colonel Garrett word of your disappearance and sent out several patrols to search for you. He and his wife have been most anxious for your safe return…as have so many of us.”

His cool tone drew a quick glance from Suzanne. A week ago, she would have laughed and flirted and teased him out of his stiffness. Tonight, she had no energy to spare, no thought for anything or anyone but Jack.

“I appreciate your concern, Richard. Truly I do.”

“Miss Bonneaux… Suzanne…”

He took a step toward her, but whatever he intended to say was lost when Fort Meade’s commanding officer and his wife rushed through the door. Clutching the shawl hastily thrown over her billowing nightdress, the stout matron bustled down the front steps.

“Miss Bonneaux! How happy we are to know you’re safe! Do come inside and…” Dismay filled her plump, round face as she caught sight of the
travois. “Oh, dear, was one of the troopers wounded?”

“No, this is Mr. Sloan. He was on the stage with me when it was held up.”

Her husband stepped forward. “Black Jack Sloan? Good work bringing him in, Lieutenant. We’ll keep him under close confinement in the guardhouse until the territorial authorities decide where to hang him.”

Suzanne fought down a sigh. “The story’s become somewhat garbled. I assure you, Mr. Sloan had nothing to do with either the holdup or my kidnapping.”

“What’s that you say?”

“Please, may I beg a bed for him and the attendance of the post surgeon? He’s been shot.”

Seeing the officer was still doubtful, Lieutenant Carruthers stepped forward. “Colonel Garrett’s compliments, sir. He requests you provide Miss Bonneaux and Mr. Sloan all possible assistance while he pursues the outlaws who kidnapped her.”

Her stepfather’s name worked magic.

“Yes, yes, of course. Carry him in, men. Elizabeth, show them which room you wish them to take Sloan to.”

Suzanne watched anxiously while her escort detail unhitched the travois and grasped the four ends of the tent poles. With the commander’s wife issuing crisp instructions, the troopers carried Jack
up the front steps. Suzanne followed the stretcher into the house for a few steps, then whirled and rushed back to the porch.

“Richard?”

Lieutenant Carruthers paused in the midst of making his formal report to McCormack and joined her on the front steps. She felt a twinge of guilt at his eager expression.

“May I ask a favor of you?”

“Of course.”

“Send a detail to the Arapaho camp beside the Cheyenne River. Ask them to escort a healing woman named Bright Water to Fort Meade as quickly as possible. If you’ll wait here a moment, I’ll pen a note for them to take to her.”

Richard Carruthers himself rode out the next morning. He returned to Fort Meade the same afternoon with the woman known as Bright Water. Her heart bursting with relief and joy at seeing the friend of her youth, an exhausted Suzanne clung to her.

The following day, another small detachment rode onto the post, this one escorting Colonel Andrew Garrett’s wife and son. A flustered Mrs. McCormack hastily rearranged her large family so the commander’s residence would accommodate not only the invalid and his two nurses, but Suzanne’s mother and brother as well.

Colonel Garrett’s arrival that same evening with three additional prisoners, Big Nose George Parrott among them, set the whole post to buzzing.

The stir didn’t penetrate the drawn curtains shielding the windows of the McCormacks’ upstairs second bedroom, however. The inside of the room was dim, the air heavy with the scent of poultices, sweat and gritty determination, as three women fought to keep the man known as Black Jack Sloan from standing in judgment before his Maker.

J
ack lay trapped at the bottom of a deep, dark hole. Every time he tried to crawl up toward the light rimming the top, the crushing weight on his chest proved too heavy to shift and he sank back down into the darkness.

Once he heard Suzanne murmuring to him in a soft, soothing voice. She sounded strange coming to him through the endless, echoing tunnel, but just knowing she was close made the ache in his chest a little easier to bear. He heard other voices as well, seeming as if they were raised in argument at one point. He couldn’t summon the strength to sort them out.

The hurt in his chest was strange, too. At first it felt as though someone had stabbed icy needles straight through him. He was so cold, so damned cold down there at the bottom of that black well. The next thing he knew, a raging fire consumed
him. Every hair, every inch of his skin burned with vicious, unrelenting heat.

The voices dimmed, went away completely. For endless hours, the only sound he could distinguish, the only sound that came to him through the roaring flames was a low, repetitive hum. Almost a chant. Drowning in sweat, his blood on fire, Jack narrowed his concentration and drew a tight bead on that murmur, like a sharpshooter would sight a distant target. It was all that kept him from the flames. All that he could remember when he pushed up on an elbow, grunting as a red-hot lance speared into his chest, and croaked out Suzanne’s name.

“She is near,” a voice murmured.

Blinking, he tried to clear the haze of pain and sweat filming his eyes. Swirling images slowed, unblurred. He saw the glow of an oil lamp. A water pitcher and wash bowl painted with yellow roses. A pair of luminous black eyes.

“I am Bright Water,” the owner of those fathomless eyes said quietly. “A healing woman in my tribe and friend to Suzanne.”

“How…? Where…?”

“That does not matter at this moment. You must rest, Jack Sloan.”

“Too hot…”

Nodding, she slipped a hand around his neck.
“Drink this, all of it, and the fires will not burn so fierce.”

She tipped a bitter liquid down his throat. Jack gagged at its vile taste but didn’t have the strength to turn his head away.

He woke the second time to the peculiar scent of burnt oranges and a narrow slice of gold knifing through a murky dimness. He lay still for long moments, frowning at the contrast of bright against dark, until the gilt slowly resolved into a sunbeam. Dust motes danced on its slanting bars. He followed one particular swirl all the way down to the floor.

His frown deepened. Was that a carpet? He was sure he’d never seen floorboards covered with snaking green vines and pink cabbage roses before.

“Mama, he’s awake!”

“So I see. Run downstairs and fetch your sister, Samuel.”

Gritting his teeth, Jack turned his head in the direction of scurrying footsteps. Scratchy linen rustled under his ear. The scent of starch and the lingering odor of burnt oranges almost drowned the stench of his own sweat.

A stranger leaned over him. An exquisite stranger, with a crown of braided, blue-black hair and violet eyes marked by a tracery of fine lines at the corners.

“Shall I bathe your face and make you a little more comfortable while we wait for Suzanne?”

Her voice was cool, with a curious lilt Jack couldn’t quite place. Taking his silence for assent, she drew a straight-backed chair close to the bed, dipped a cloth in the porcelain washbasin and wrung it out with slender, capable hands.

“You’ve given us quite a scare. Even Bright Water despaired of you a time or two.”

“Who…?” Swiping his tongue along dry, cracked lips, he tried again. “Who are…?”

“I’m Julia Garrett. Julia Bonneaux Garrett. Suzanne’s mother.”

“Where…?”

“Where are you?” She drew the damp cloth down his cheek. “At Fort Meade, in the home of Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs. McCormack.”

Fort Meade. Julia Garrett. Suzanne. With a fierce effort, Jack grabbed hold of those basic facts.

“You’ve been here five days. No, this morning makes the sixth.” Dipping the cloth again, she carefully moistened his lips. “You’ve been very ill. You still are. One bullet pierced your lung, another went through your thigh. Just when you began to breathe a little easier, the wound in your leg grew inflamed. We feared it would turn gangrenous, but Bright Water brewed a poultice that drew the infection out.”

A faint smile edged her lips.

“I’m afraid the post surgeon became somewhat indignant at that point. He’s just out from the States, you see, and too new to frontier service to put any trust in Indian remedies. But Suzanne declared herself in charge of matters and she can be, well, quite adamant when she wishes to.”

“Damned…stubborn, you mean.”

Her coal-black brows lifted. “You’ve discovered that about my daughter, have you?”

Before Jack could croak out an answer, footsteps thudded on the floorboards.

“Mama?” With a swish of skirts, Suzanne rushed into the room. “He’s awake?”

“Yes,
ma petite.
” Gracefully, Julia relinquished her seat beside the bed.

Still groggy and weaker than a new-whelped pup, Jack almost didn’t recognize the woman who dropped into the chair and groped for his hand. Her floppy hat and long, fat braid had disappeared, as had her borrowed boots and calico shirtwaist. She was all corseted up and bustled into an apple-green striped skirt, black stomacher and high-necked blouse. Her honey-colored hair was piled high on her head and anchored with tortoiseshell combs. Her eyes were the same, though. Clear and cinnamon brown and sparkling bright.

“It’s about time,” she said on a husky note, carrying the back of his hand to her cheek. The smooth, cool touch drew some of the heat from his
skin. “We’ve been waiting for you to regain consciousness since your fever broke two days ago, but…but…”

“But he needed to find his own way through the smoke and darkness,” another voice finished calmly.

A second arrival appeared at Suzanne’s shoulder. The healer from Jack’s dreams. Bright Water. She glided toward the bed, a tall, statuesque figure in beaded buckskins tanned to a pale, supple frost.

“The spirits summoned you, Jack Sloan. Your medicine is very strong.”

“Yours is…stronger, I think.”

He was still trying to get a hold on himself when more visitors crowded into the room.

The inquisitive, bright-eyed boy with a cowlick must be Suzanne’s brother. He possessed the same fine features, although his were cast in a more youthful mold. Dragging another youngster in by the sleeve, he pointed to Jack.

“See. I told you he doesn’t look anything like the pictures in your magazine. Pay me the penny you owe me and make it quick, so’s the others kin come upstairs.”

“Samuel!” his exasperated mother admonished. “This is neither the time nor the place to put Mr. Sloan on exhibition.”

“But, Mama…”

“Not now, Sam.”

Only moderately abashed, the boy dragged his friend toward the door and dodged around two other arrivals on the way in. Hands tucked in her sleeves, Ying Li joined a beaming Matt at the bedside.

“We all thought you was a goner for sure,” Matt exclaimed. “Glad you decided not to cock up your toes, after all.”

“From what I hear,” Jack croaked, “the decision wasn’t entirely mine to make.”

“That’s right enough. Near ’bout everyone in this room was makin’ promises in your name to your Maker. Even Ying Li hunted down some hoss sticks and lit them for you.”

“Joss,” the girl corrected. “Ying Li burn joss.”

That explained the burnt oranges. Jack knew little enough about the ways of Orientals, but the Chinese immigrants he’d come across at various mining camps and railroad towns were always burning scented incense sticks to some god or ancestor or another.

“It’s a heathenish sort of thing,” Matt said, apology in his blue eyes. “I’m hopin’ she’ll stop such things when we’re married.”

“Married?”

Jack’s croak raised a flush on the younger man’s face. He tried to look proud as he wrapped an arm around Ying Li’s thin shoulders.

“The post chaplain is going to say the words over us soon as he gets back from his furlough.”

Jack’s glance went to the girl. She stood docile in Matt’s loose hold, her face impassive. Like Suzanne, she’d cleaned up some since he’d last seen her. Prettied up, too. Someone had found her Chinese clothing, probably purchased from the throngs who camped outside every western fort. The black pajama trousers and high-necked blouse in silky turquoise made her look exotic, like a small, delicate flower.

When she caught Jack’s narrow glance, she shrugged. “Matt Butts like fuckee-fuck, but I say all same, no matter.”

“Ying Li!” Red-faced, the kid squeezed her shoulders. “It does, too, matter, and haven’t I told you that you shouldn’t be talkin’ like that?”

“Matt Butts tell Ying Li many things,” she said with another, somewhat more defiant shrug.

Abandoning the argument, Matt turned back to the patient. “I got a job loadin’ and unloadin’ freight for the quartermaster. I’ll earn enough to get Ying Li ’n me through the winter quick enough, and start payin’ you back what you gave for her.”

“I’m not…” Jack struggled for breath. “I’m not calling in your markers.”

With so many people crowded into the room, the orangey scent seemed twice as powerful. So
did the heat. A bead of sweat trickled down Jack’s temple. He didn’t realize that his grip had locked bone-tight on Suzanne’s hand until she wriggled her fingers and looked to her mother. An unspoken message passed between the two women.

“I think Mr. Sloan has had enough company for the moment,” Julia said calmly. “Let’s leave him to rest and regain his strength, shall we? Suzanne, I’ll send up fresh water and perhaps a bowl of broth.”

With Bright Water’s assistance, she cleared the room and closed the door firmly behind her. Jack’s eyes felt as though they were packed in sand when he brought his gaze back to Suzanne.

Once more the difference struck him. He’d grown so used to seeing her nose tipped pink from the sun and her hair flying in fine, loose tendrils around her face. This starched and frilled Suzanne added a layer of unease to the bone-deep weakness that seemed to grip him. Disliking both sensations intensely, he shifted and tested his strength.

Suzanne noted the movement. Her brown eyes flooded with worry. “Are you hurting?”

In every muscle and bone in his body, Jack discovered. Setting his jaw, he flexed his gun hand. The mere effort of making a fist started the room spinning. Without warning, the blackness reached out to swallow him once more.

Suzanne sat with him until the lamps were lit and Bright Water came upstairs to check her patient.

“It is good he sleeps,” the Arapaho told her worried friend. “The spirits battle fiercely within one such as he.”

She looked so calm, sounded so wise. The laughing, merry child Suzanne had shared her secrets and sorrows with had grown into a woman of silent strength. Her braids hung thick and glossy almost to her waist, and the eyes that looked out from her wide-cheeked face reflected an acceptance of the world as it was.

An acceptance Suzanne had yet to achieve. Aching at the thought she could still lose both Jack and the friend of her heart, she took Bright Water’s hand and led her to the chairs grouped beside a round, gate-legged table. Her voice low but determined, she renewed the battle she’d been waging without notable success since Bright Water’s arrival at Fort Meade.

“I’m so glad Lieutenant Carruthers caught you before your band had traveled too far.”

“I shall have to ride hard to catch up with them.”

“Why must you catch up with them? Why must you go to Wind River at all? With your father gone, his brother’s son is the only one left to watch
over you until you take a husband, and you still haven’t found one to your liking.”

“I will, when the time is right.”

“You have as much family here, with us, as you do with your own people.”

“Your parents have good hearts, my friend. I am honored they call me daughter. But they are not of the People. My way lies with them.”

Stubbornly, Suzanne refused to give up. “You can choose another way. If Jack survives, it will be because of you.”

“It will be because he’s not yet ready to go to his next life.”

“Hooah!”

Bright Water smiled, as familiar with the cavalry’s favorite expression as her friend.

“The poultice you brewed drew the gangrene from his leg,” Suzanne argued. “The post surgeon would have cut it right off. You must see how much you and other healers have to teach the white world. Please, please, think again of going to Philadelphia!”

“I thought you wished me to study with this physician to learn his medicine,” Bright Water said dryly, “not teach him mine.”

“You can learn from each other, and bring the best of both worlds back to your people.”

“I have seen what happens to those of our people who try to follow the white man’s ways. Do
you remember what the soldiers called the Sioux and Cheyenne who lived at Fort Laramie?”

“Yes.” Suzanne dragged out the answer reluctantly. “The Laramie Loafers.”

Every military post attracted a whole population of hangers-on. In the East, brothels, rum parlors and tobacco shops sprang up like weeds around citadels. In the West, the tent cities adjacent to every frontier post included teepees and lean-tos inhabited by the families of the troopers and Arapaho scouts. Members of other tribes made homes with the whites as well, supplementing the rations provided them under treaty by running errands or grooming horses, or simply loafing in the sun.

Bright Water squeezed her friend’s hand. “It is always the same when the red man tries to walk with the whites. I do not know how long we can keep to the ways we hold dear at Wind River. I know only that I cannot wear two skins simply because you wish it, Little Soldier Girl.”

“But…”

“You cannot order how the winds will blow, my friend. Sometimes you must simply listen to what they tell you.”

Julia Garrett voiced somewhat the same opinion when she insisted Suzanne leave Jack to Bright Water’s care for a while and take some air.