Quicksilver Passion (95 page)

Yes sir! Right over yonder.” The young man pointed toward a tent and Cherokee grinned in spite of himself at the twangy Tennessee accent.

Cherokee went in, and stood for a long moment looking down at the tall, handsome man in a gray uniform who bent over the maps spread before him on an improvised table. The years had been kind to the Irish immigrant, Cherokee thought. Except for a little gray in the black hair, Shawn O’Bannion didn’t look like a man who must be close to forty years old.

Yes?” He looked up, fixing Cherokee with eyes as green as shamrocks.
Cherokee!” He came around the table, and clapped him on both shoulders.
Aye, and it’s glad I am to see you, lad! I’d been wondering if I was going to have to fight the Yanks without you by me side!”

They shook hands warmly.
Shawn, you’re the best friend I ever had. I had to come. No matter what it cost me, I couldn’t live with myself if I let you down.”

But he had let him down, Cherokee thought, that one night when Shawn was away from the plantation. He could only pray to God that Shawn never found out that the young beauty he’d married and the boy he had raised to a man had betrayed him. For this reason, his debt to the Irishman must come before anything else; he’d sworn to make it up to the man who had taken him in when his grandmother died.

Drink?” Shawn reached for a bottle.

No, I quit. I was afraid I would end up like my father.”

Oh?” Shawn looked at him a long moment, shrugged his broad shoulders, and poured himself one.
Good Irish whiskey! Seems to me we used to have us some lovely evenings over a bottle in the old days. I never did understand why you left so suddenly. Savannah has asked about you.”

Cherokee didn’t meet the other man’s eyes as he flopped down in a chair, and rolled a cigarette.
Didn’t you get my note?”

Aye. Still, lad, it was sudden like.”

How’s everyone?” Cherokee asked to change the subject.
Is Shadow with you?” Shadow was Shawn’s big mulatto body servant who had been with the Irishman for many years.