Merline Lovelace (20 page)

“Dammit, Suzanne, I don’t need you. I don’t want you.”

“Yes, you do.”

She edged around, smiled up into his eyes. He looked so fierce, so determined to push her away.

“That’s the problem, Jack. You want me, but you don’t know what to do with me now that you’ve had me.”

“Jesus!”

“Don’t jerk about like that. You’ll only open your wounds.”

“To hell with my wounds.”

He gripped her arms, as much to steady himself as to get her attention, she suspected. It was the first time he’d touched her since those hours in the canyon.

Her stomach clenched. As clear as any painting, she could see the moon-washed rock walls. The narrow slice of stars. The heat glittering in Jack’s eyes.

“We need to talk about that,” he said roughly.

“About what?”

“About my ‘having’ you, as you put it.”

“Ah, yes. The colonel told me you’ve done some thinking about the possible consequences.”

“I thought about them every time I touched
you,” he growled, “but that didn’t stop the touching.”

“You don’t need to worry,” she lied. “Bright Water gave me a herb. It turns color when ground up and mixed with a breeding woman’s urine. I tried it, yesterday morning. You don’t have to worry about your responsibilities.”

“The hell you say. You can’t know this soon.”

She looked him straight in the eye. “You’ll have to find another reason to come back to me after you hunt down Charlie Dawes.”

His fingers dug into her arms. Relief and doubt seemed to war in his eyes.

“You’re bluffing,” he said at last.

“Am I? Well, time will tell, won’t it? Now, do sit down and eat your breakfast before you topple over.”

Leaving Jack to chew over her declaration as well as his breakfast, Suzanne sailed out of the sickroom and down the hall. Her steps slowed when she spotted Bright Water in the room the two women had shared for the past few nights. Biting her lower lip, Suzanne watched the Arapaho tuck a folded garment into a calfskin traveling pouch.

“Are you really leaving?”

“I must.”

Sighing, Suzanne dropped onto the bed and fingered a butter-soft buckskin shirt. The tiny glass
beads shimmered in the morning light, as blue as summer, as red as the sun when it sank behind the Laramie Mountains.

“Do you remember the time your mother set us to stringing beads on threads of buffalo sinew and I dropped the bowl? The chickens pecked at them and ate half before we could gather them back up.”

“I remember.”

“I thought your mama would scold me for sure, but she only laughed and said she would have to watch when she cooked their eggs. I miss her.”

“I, too,” Bright Water said simply. “Her spirit walks with me always, as does that of my father.”

Folding the shirt Suzanne handed her, she stuffed it into the pouch. The quills dangling from her sleeves tinkled with the movement.

“I see you’ve packed your medicines.”

“All but those Jack Sloan will need. I’ll leave a supply with him when I say my farewell.”

“By the way,” Suzanne said casually. Too casually. “If he asks you about a herb that can show whether a woman’s breeding, tell him about one that turns color when mixed with her urine.”

“But I have not heard of such a herb.”

“Yes, you have. Just now.”

She expected a smile, or even the merry laughter that had spilled from her friend during their youth. Instead, Bright Water brushed aside her traveling
pouch and sat down. Her hand curled in Suzanne’s, its touch strong, its warmth sure and steady.

“I think you must let Jack find his own path, my friend, even as you must let me find mine.”

“How can I just stand back and let go of the people I love?”

“Perhaps you love too much,” Bright Water said gently. “However much you wish it otherwise, the hawk will fly and the wolf will hunt.”

W
hen Suzanne watched the colonel and Bright Water ride away later that morning, a piece of her seemed to shatter into tiny pieces.

She stood with her mother on the porch of the McCormacks’ quarters, her shawl gripped tight against the sharp October wind that bit into her fingers and face. She could smell snow in the air, see the first hint of it in the haze that hung over the pine-shrouded hills to the north.

As the mounted troop approached, the familiar melody of jingling bridle bits and creaking leather scraped her raw. Bright Water rode alongside Andrew at the head of the column, her buffalo robe wrapped warm around her. Suzanne managed to return her smile and wave, but wept inside as the dreams she’d brought back from Philadelphia crumpled at her feet.

“I’ll never see her again,” she murmured to her mother. “I’ll lose her to the wind and the snow.”

“Perhaps.” Julia hooked an elbow through her daughter’s and drew her close. “Perhaps not. So much has changed in the Territories since you and I first came out here in search of your father. There was no railroad then, remember? The Sioux and Cheyenne still warred with the whites, and the telegraph lines would be down for weeks at a time. When a troop like this one rode out then, we never knew if it would ride back. Now…”

With her free hand, she blew a kiss to her husband. Tall, square-shouldered, cavalry-proud, Andrew lifted one buff leather gauntlet in salute.

“Now we only have to count the days,” Julia finished softly.

Her mother wasn’t the only one who would count the days. The colonel estimated it would take two weeks to deliver Bright Water to her people, turn Parrott and his gang over to the authorities in Cheyenne and catch up with his duties at Fort Russell. Then, he and Julia had agreed, he’d return to Fort Meade to escort his family home.

The Good Lord created the world in seven days. Surely—
surely!
—Suzanne wouldn’t need more than fourteen to forge something more than want between her and Jack.

She’d lost Bright Water, but she was damned if she’d lose Sloan. Hugging her arms, she puffed
short, steamy clouds into the air while the soldiers trooped past. Richard Carruthers gave Julia a polite salute and Suzanne a rather stiff nod. Big Nose Parrott rode behind the lieutenant, so nonchalant in his shackles that he flashed her a grin under his great hooked beak.

“Take a message to Black Jack for me, missy,” he called out. “Tell him we’ve got some squarin’ up to do if I don’t go gettin’ my neck stretched. Which,” he added with an audacious wink, “I don’t plan on doin’ just yet. There ain’t a jailhouse built yet kin hold me.”

When Suzanne carried both the message and a lunch of hot biscuits and beef stew to her patient an hour later, she found him sitting on the side of the bed.

“The man’s as slippery as a greased snake,” he commented after she relayed Parrott’s remarks. “He’s already broken out of jail twice that I know of. If the folks down in Cheyenne are smart, they’ll throw a rope over the nearest lamppost.”

At the moment, the sweat sheening Jack’s face as he pushed off the bed concerned Suzanne more than the possibility that George Parrott might escape justice.

“You’re pushing too hard,” she protested. “Too fast.”

“A man with two bullet holes in him can’t push hard enough.”

He’d kept his pants and shirt on, she noted, and had bribed someone—Sam, probably—to retrieve his boots from the kitchen. They sat beside the bed, ready, waiting. Already raw and hurting from Bright Water’s departure, Suzanne wasn’t prepared for the sight of those boots.

“I’m sure you think you’re acting manly,” she snapped. “Personally, I think you’re acting like an ass.”

One of his black brows lifted. “I’m done with being washed and fed like a baby.”

“Indeed? Then I’ll put your lunch here on the table, where you can reach it.” The tray hit the table with a clatter of pottery. “Next I suppose you’ll be telling me you want to dance at Matt and Ying Li’s wedding.”

“Are they really going through with that foolishness?”

“Yes. They’re only waiting for the post chaplain to return from leave.”

“I’m thinking this is more Matt’s idea than the girl’s.” He leveled her a look. “Or is it yours? You’re the one who got him started spouting poetry and such.”

“Well, I didn’t think he was going to spout it to Ying Li. But he has, and they’ve made a match of it.”

“Made a mess of it, more like.”

“That remains to be seen.”

Losing interest in the argument, he lifted the napkin covering the crockery bowl and surveyed the thick beef stew and crusty biscuits with satisfaction.

“Keep feeding me like this,” he predicted, “and I might just dance at the kid’s wedding, after all.”

As the days slipped by, it began to look more and more as though Jack would make good on his boast. Setting his own schedule for recovery, he increased the time he spent out of bed, until he sat up more than he stretched out. Four days after the colonel’s departure, he tackled the stairs. When he finally reached the bottom step, he was drenched in sweat but grimly triumphant. Two days later, Chaplain Sergeant Renquist returned from visiting his family in Pennsylvania.

Matt arrived on the poor man’s doorstep before he’d unpacked his bags. With a backlog of christenings, weddings and burials facing him, Renquist couldn’t promise to conduct another ceremony until the following Saturday.

With the date fixed, Matt sought out Jack and Suzanne and found them in the front parlor of the McCormacks’ quarters, along with young Samuel and his friends. The boys sat cross-legged on the floor, observing Sloan’s progress with a walking
stick. With each thump of the stick on the carpet, the youngsters revised their estimates as to how many more turns Sloan could take about the room before he toppled over.

Admonishing the boys to hush, Suzanne welcomed Matt and invited him to come in and visit for a bit.

“I’d better not. I left Ying Li alone with Mrs. Overton and, well, you know how they get on.”

Not well, from all reports. The widow who’d taken them in at Colonel McCormack’s request was a small, birdlike woman with a heart five times her size and a clutch of eager suitors already lined up to become her fourth husband. But even she was hard-pressed not to cluck in disapproval when Ying Li declared her preference for boiled fish eyes over peas, and burned incense to heathenish gods.

Even those oddities might have been overlooked if Ying Li hadn’t innocently let drop that she was willing to supplement Matt’s wages by performing the same services she had at Mother Featherlegs Shephard’s Saloon and Hurdy-Gurdy Parlor. Word had spread through the camp with the speed of a grass fire. The indignant Mrs. Overton had taken her broom to one hopeful customer. Matt had ploughed his fist into another.

“I just stopped by to tell you the preacher’s back,” he announced. “He’s going to say the
words over me and Ying Li on Saturday. Will you come and sign the book as witnesses?”

“Of course! My mother will want to attend, too, if that’s all right?”

“Me, too,” Sam piped up.

Well versed in the niceties of military protocol, Suzanne knew better than to offer her hostess’s home for a small reception. She’d already stretched the McCormacks’ generosity by bringing a notorious gunfighter into the house.

“Shall I see if we can use one of the troops’ messes for a small celebration afterward?” she offered instead. “Or perhaps Mrs. Overton wouldn’t mind if we gathered in her tent.”

“Well…”

“We could raid the sutler’s store for dried plums or pears for a cake. I’ll mix punch for toasts, and perhaps string some paper lanterns.”

Clearly overwhelmed, Matt turned to Jack.

“Don’t look at me, kid. I’ve tipped my glass at a sight more wakes than weddings. Best to leave this to the womenfolk.”

The dry comment brought Suzanne’s head around. A shiver rippled down her spine, spoiling the moment.

“It’s bad luck to talk of weddings and wakes in the same breath,” she said, pushing to her feet. “I’ll go speak to my mother. Tell Ying Li I’ll walk down to discuss arrangements with her in a bit.”

Jack insisted on walking with her.

Of necessity, their pace was slow. Suzanne kept her arm tucked in his, as much for the warmth as to provide the support he didn’t seem to need. Their breath pearled on the cold air. Rays of brittle sunshine speared through dust that swirled on the breeze.

Jack looked about with interest as they crossed the parade ground surrounded by pine plank and brick buildings. Constructed only last year, Fort Meade still wore fresh paint.

“That’s the headquarters,” she told him, nodding to an imposing structure with the flagpole in front. “And those long, one-story buildings are the cavalry barracks.”

Suzanne couldn’t help noticing that the soldiers they passed showed as much interest in Jack as he did in the surroundings. And no wonder. He’d donned his flat-brimmed black hat, along with the hip-length gray wool jacket she’d purchased at the sutler’s store with funds from his rapidly dwindling roll. The Colt was once again strapped against his thigh. Even the walking stick couldn’t detract from the image the stories had embellished.

A red-and-white standard whipping in the breeze drew his attention. “The Seventh Cav,” he read. “Custer’s regiment.”

“What’s left of it. The regiment was consider
ably augmented and re-formed after the Little Big Horn.”

As they neared the stables, Jack slowed. “Is that the horse? Major Keogh’s mount?”

She followed his gaze to the buckskin standing quietly in the paddock adjacent to the stables. Scars marred the golden hide; so many, Suzanne’s breath caught in her throat.

“Yes,” she murmured, “that’s Comanche.”

They moved to the split-rail fence, drawn to the sole survivor of Custer’s last stand. The relief column had found him on the battlefield, head hanging, his hide pierced by twenty-seven arrows.

“Colonel McCormack told me the poor thing spent a whole year after the battle in a special belly-band sling. He’s only now begun to get his strength back.”

“That makes two of us,” Jack muttered.

The breeze played with Suzanne’s hair under the warm shawl she’d tucked around it. Brushing back the wind-tossed strands, she studied his profile.

“The army retired Comanche with full military honors,” she said slowly. “He now participates only in ceremonial functions. You…you could do the same thing.”

He swung her a puzzled frown. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about after you settle matters with Charlie Dawes. You could retire from the field,
with or without honors. Take up another occupation. Or go East, where your reputation would win you all kinds of flattering attention instead of a bullet in the back.”

“Good Lord! You’re not suggesting I join Bill Cody’s circus and shoot apples off someone’s head?”

“No, of course not, but there are other options you might consider.”

“Such as?”

“Selling your story to the press, for one thing. Your real story.”

“I’m not letting them make more of a monkey of me than they already have.”

“All right. What about giving lectures about the West as you know it? Such speakers are much in demand.”

Amusement lit his eyes. “No, thanks. I don’t see myself in a starched-up collar, making the parlor circuit.”

“Then you tell me what you want,” she challenged, brushing impatiently at her wind-blown hair. “You said you’ve tried your hand at cow-punching and riding guard for the railroad. And I seem to recall something about hiring on with Wells Fargo. What do you plan to do after you find Dawes?”

Propping the walking stick against the fence, he reached up and caught a wayward strand.

“I haven’t thought beyond finding him, Suzanne. I wouldn’t let myself think past him.”

“Try! Just this once, try to see beyond him. What comes after Dawes?”

“I suppose I want what most men want,” he said slowly. “A piece of land. A few head of cattle. Blue skies in summer. A warm cabin in winter.”

“No one to share the skies and the cabin with?”

His thumb played with the honey-brown strand. “I won’t let myself think about that, either.”

“You could have it.”

She was cutting him in half. Slicing him right down the middle.

“Suzanne…”

Despite his every promise to himself, his every resolve, he gave her hair a little tug and drew her forward. With a tremulous sigh, she came into his arms, lifting her mouth to his.

The kiss was soft, gentle, so sweet it ripped the rest of the way through him. All the dreams he’d ever dreamed, every traitorous longing a man with his reputation couldn’t acknowledge, seeped through the barriers he’d erected to keep them out.

Keeping her folded against him, he rested his chin atop her head. From across the paddock, Comanche regarded them steadily. He’d taken twenty-seven arrows and survived. Jack had taken
his share of hits, too, but he wasn’t sure he’d survive this one.

Sliding his hands up Suzanne’s arms, he drew her way. “You remember I told you I sold my folks’ homestead?” he heard himself say. “The money’s been sitting in a bank down to Denver all these years, collecting interest. I want you to have it.”

Her breath caught. “Why?”

“So you can buy yourself another hat,” he said with a crooked smile. “With a whole covey of quail feathers.”

“Why, Jack?”

“I’m thinking you might need it, if that business about the herbs turning color was just another bluff.”

A long-suffering sigh puffed on the cold air. Suzanne studied him, tapping a toe, for several moments.

“All right. If that’s the way you want to play this hand, I’ll take your money and hold on to it for you. If and when you decide you want it—or me!—you can deck yourself out in your best suit, come down to Cheyenne and come beg!”

Rising up on her toes, she planted a hard kiss on his lips, then handed him his walking stick.

“Now, let’s go help Matt and Ying Li plan
their
wedding.”

The emphasis was slight, but pointed.

A few moments later they made their way through the maze of tents and teepees that housed the overflow of army dependents, Indian families and the inevitable entrepreneurs and hangers-on who congregated at every military post. Most of the square-shaped Shelby tents served as residences, some as shops, saloons or gambling dens. One enterprising soul had even set up an assay-and-loan office for those drifting in after trying their luck in the Black Hills. Heated by cast-iron stoves in some cases and carefully banked fires in others, the buffalo-hide and canvas residences provided adequate, if decidedly rudimentary quarters.