The Arrow Keeper’s Song (18 page)

“I need help,” Joanna continued, deciding to trust the soldier. She eased the hammer down on the Colt and returned the weapon to the flapped holster at her side. “And there isn't much time.” The woman didn't bother to add the obvious. Tom Sandcrane would learn soon enough. These days, everything was a matter of life and death.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

T
OM
S
ANDCRANE FOUND A PLACE ON THE PORCH OF THE HACIENDA
, near the dining room's open window, through which he could overhear all that transpired between Joanna Cooper and the collection of officers commanding the American expeditionary forces. Much of what he heard, Doctor Cooper had already recounted to the Cheyenne and his two companions on their way down to shore.

Two and a half day's ride from Daiquirí, Antonio Celestial, one of the leaders of the Cuban resistance, lay injured and unable to travel, his hiding place an abandoned village in the Sierra Maestra range. The Spanish, intending to cripple the Cuban insurrection, were making a concerted effort to locate the former teacher and capture or kill him. It was common knowledge Captain Diego Zuloaga had sworn to apprehend Celestial at any cost. Such a triumph would certainly take the sting out of any American victory. Joanna Cooper was equally resolved to save the life of the Cuban. Unable to move him, Joanna and Mateo had come seeking the Americans in hopes of securing a detachment of troopers to follow her into the mountains and rescue Celestial. Separated from Mateo by a twist of fate, Joanna hoped the young rebel had escaped the clutches of Captain Zuloaga.

Tom Sandcrane had no opinion on the matter. He certainly did not know this Antonio Celestial, but he envied the man. The woman doctor had been willing to risk her life for him. It spoke well for the Cuban. So Tom Sandcrane lingered on the porch and eavesdropped while the doctor made her plea. The woman intrigued him as much as the rebel she sought to protect. Her strength and resolve reminded him of the stories his father used to tell of the old days, during the Indian Wars, and the warrior women who rode and fought alongside the men. But no. He walked a different path now.

He shifted his thoughts and allowed his gaze to sweep across the crescent of shoreline ablaze with campfires and a mass of writhing shadow shapes. Soldiers milling across the white sand made him think of maggots on a rotting carcass. The brightly lit transports riding at anchor cast streamers of amber light upon the black waters of the bay. Now and then a signal rocket exploded in a red-orange starburst that disintegrated in an incandescent mist above the tides and momentarily outlined the cruiser or destroyer from which it came.

Tom leaned against the cool stone outer wall of the house and, hooking his thumbs in his cartridge belt, continued to listen as the woman's protests fell on deaf ears. His stomach growled. Tom appeased his empty belly with a banana, peeling the reddish skin back from the sweet, creamy meat. He hurriedly devoured the fruit, then dug another from his pocket. He had tasted his first banana shortly after wading ashore. So far the Cheyenne had sampled four different varieties and found three to be delightful. The fourth, he later learned, was a plantain and meant to be cooked like a potato. His back to the wall, he tossed the peels over the wooden railing and settled near the window.

Inside, Joanna Cooper shoved away the cup of coffee one of the officers had poured for her. Across the table sat Colonel Leonard Woods, a silver-haired officer with deep-set eyes and a careworn demeanor. Next to Wood another colonel, forty-year-old Theodore Roosevelt, formerly the undersecretary of the navy and at present the commander of five detachments of volunteer cavalry, listened intently to the woman's story. Joanna thought he resembled a bristling bulldog, anxious for a scrap. Captain Huston, well-bred and rugged, sat alongside the two colonels, sipping rum, his head nodding as he fought to keep awake. A trio of lieutenants whose names had already slipped from her memory were busily transforming the dining room into command headquarters, complete with campaign maps and dispatch books, and tables for the orderlies.

“My dear young woman,” Wood began. He did not mean to be condescending—it simply came naturally to him, especially with this woman who reminded him of his own daughter back in Maryland. “I think I can speak for Colonel Roosevelt and the other officers when I say we applaud your remarkable exploits.”

“Hear! Hear!” Roosevelt seconded. “Imagine. Hiding out with the guerrillas. You are a brave woman and your country is grateful. But war is better left to the men, don't you think?” The former undersecretary removed his wire-rimmed spectacles and cleaned them on a kerchief from the pocket of his khaki coat.

“In Cuba this war has been fought not only by men, but by old women, even children,” Joanna snapped. “As for my country's gratitude, save it for later. Right now I need a troop of cavalry to help me save the life of Antonio Celestial!”

Tom, on the porch, had to smile. The woman certainly wasn't cowed by the military authorities who confronted her. He was so intent on listening to Joanna and the officers, he almost missed seeing another visitor materialize out of the night and hurry along a direct course toward the hacienda. Tom immediately left the window and began to pace the perimeter of the porch, pretending to stand guard. The new arrival, a tall, broad-shouldered officer with thinning hair, hurried across the trampled yard and climbed the steps two at a time. The newcomer wore a white medical officer's coat that boasted captain's bars on his right shoulder.

“You there, Sergeant … are you by any chance the one who brought the woman doctor into camp?” the man asked, pausing to catch his breath. He appeared to have run all the way from the hospital tents on the opposite side of the village.

Tom nodded. “I am.”

“Well-done!” the medical officer exclaimed. “There'll be a handsome reward in it for you. Miss Cooper's father is a wealthy man and has been worried sick about her for many months now.” The officer nodded in the direction of the front door. “She inside?”

“With Colonels Woods and Roosevelt,” Tom replied.

“Ahh. Perhaps I had better wait on the porch,” the officer muttered aloud.

Tom scowled. He wouldn't be able to listen at the dining-room window. Officers, like diarrhea, had a habit of showing up at the worst possible time and were impossible to ignore. He was no longer able to catch the particulars, but when the front door opened at last, and Joanna stepped out into the lantern light, Tom could tell at a glance that her requests had fallen on deaf ears.

“Thank you, my dear,” she said, mocking Woods and Roosevelt. “We will let you know our decision, my dear. Bully for you.” She glanced up, surprised to find the Cheyenne on the porch. Her expression softened. “Pardon me, Sergeant. You were most helpful.” Then her eyes widened as the medical officer rushed out of the shadows and swept her into his embrace.

“Joanna! Thank God you're alive!”

“Bernard!” Joanna retreated and quickly appraised his uniform. She turned her cheek as he kissed her. Marmillon's affections were not returned in kind, though she was delighted to be reunited with her old schoolmate. “How?”

“The Dutchman dropped me off in New Orleans. I enlisted in the medical corps and here I am.”

“And I thought you'd had your fill of Cuba and the revolution,” Joanna nervously laughed. “But you came back.”

“Not for some damn war. I came for you.” He glanced across the porch at Tom, who couldn't think of anything better to do than remain at his post. The Cheyenne leaned on his rifle while he studied the troop-laden transports that had yet to disgorge their human cargo. Of course, some damn boat was the last thing on his mind.

“Come along. I've whiskey in the hospital tent, and you look all done in. A drink and several hours of sleep is what you need. Doctor's orders.” He took her by the arm and steered her toward the front steps. Joanna was too weary to protest, and besides, she had nowhere else to go.

Tom watched them leave in silence. The porch seemed infinitely emptier. The space, however, was soon filled by another remarkable presence. Tom sensed the smaller man standing at his side, turned, and managed a semblance of a salute, which Colonel Roosevelt returned.

“So you are the Cheyenne?”

“Yes, sir,” Tom replied wondering just how much trouble he could possibly be in.

“The Plains Indians I have known were some of the finest trackers in the world. Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho … What about you?”

“I can hold my own.”

“We'll see.” Roosevelt stroked his stubbled chin. Behind his wire-rimmed glasses the colonel's eyes, though bloodshot and pouchy from lack of sleep, revealed his shrewd intellect. Indeed, he was a bit of a schemer. “The woman who just left … I want you to
track
her. Don't let her out of your sight. That is an order. Am I clear? And dash it all, see that no harm comes to her.” He placed his hands behind his back and, with a wink in Tom's direction, quietly added, “I may need her father's votes someday.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

J
OANNA
C
OOPER CURLED HER TOES IN THE MOIST SAND AND
watched the footprints she had left behind fill with seawa-ter. She walked along a moonlit stretch of beach a good fifty yards beyond the glare of the lantern-lit medical tents, where orderlies and nurses under Bernard Marmillon's command tended to the needs of their patients, cleared the remains of the evening meal, and prepared to catch what little sleep they could manage before the beginning of another traumatic day. By first light the rolling tides would be dotted with longboats ferrying still more of the blue-clad troops to shore. Seven white canvas wall tents, each of them twelve by fifteen feet, were already crowded with men who had injured themselves during transport or succumbed to heat exhaustion and fatigue. To make matters worse, a disturbing number of soldiers had presented themselves showing fever and chills and were immediately quarantined to a tent by themselves until Marmillon or one of the doctors under his command could diagnose their illnesses.

Joanna's first instinct was to try to help where she could, but then common sense took hold. Without rest she was no good to anyone. Bernard, of course, offered his quarters, and Joanna accepted with the stipulation that her friend would have to sleep elsewhere. Marmillon scowled and assumed, to no avail, his most wounded expression. Joanna Cooper wasn't in the mood for a tryst. She found a cot, crawled beneath a blanket, closed her eyes, and tried to sleep.

For an hour she lay awake, her mind racing, unable to sleep. Finally, she sat upright, swung her legs over the edge of the cot, and, thankful to be alone, slipped out of the tent while Bernard was berating an orderly for some mishap. Joanna passed unnoticed from the circle of medical tents and made her way out of camp. She had to devise a plan. Antonio Celestial was alone and helpless, his men scattered or rotting in Spanish prison camps after conducting two disastrous raids on their own. And what of Mateo? She feared the Spanish had captured him. No matter how resolute the youth was, no matter how much he hated the Spaniards who had killed his family, Mateo was only flesh and bones. Zuloaga had ways of making men talk.

Joanna faced the bay, its black waves capped with silvery foam rolling out of a starry horizon. Memories borne on the tides washed over her. She was standing on another distant shore overlooking Lake Pontchartrain; it was Christmas, and her life was about to change forever. As if conjured by her thoughts, drumbeats drifted to her, gently throbbing, creeping out of the dark, real as the past is real. But these drums borne on the evening breeze and these keening voices were not the product of some reverie. Drums like the heartbeat of earth it-self and chants as old as time had spoken to her once as she dreamwalked, and did again, only now she could see that the campfires belonged to the Indians. The stuff of fantasy had become real. Goose bumps rippled along Joanna's arms. The back of her neck tingled as she realized for the first time that perhaps something more than her own wide-eyed idealism had led her to Cuba.

She was not alone! For a brief second Joanna thought one of Zuloaga's soldiers had crept out of the palm groves to attack her. She spun on her heels and instinctively dropped a hand to her waistband before remembering she'd left her revolver underneath the cot in Bernard's tent. When Tom Sandcrane materialized out of the night, Joanna managed to hide her relief and save face.

“I didn't mean to startle you,” Tom said.

“Then you ought to announce yourself,” Joanna retorted. This was the second time he had surprised her. At least he hadn't vaulted out of the stygian shadows and knocked her to the ground.

“I stepped in the water twice,” Tom said.

“What are you doing here?”

“Watching you. Colonel Roosevelt's orders.” A wry grin touched his lips. “I was tempted to do it on my own.”

“Oh?” Joanna cocked an eyebrow, suspecting his intentions.

“Like I said. I never saw a woman doctor before. It is something of a spectacle.”

A cloud released the moon from its shrouds. Suddenly the beach was bathed in its glow, revealing the flashing crescent of Sandcrane's smile.
Well
, Joanna thought,
I have been called plenty of things in my life but never a spectacle
.

“Too bad you are so hard of hearing,” Tom added.

“I was listening to the drums,” Joanna said in her own defense.

The sergeant glanced over his shoulder. He recognized the chant, having heard it many times as a child, for it was an old song, a warrior's song. The woman physician and the dark-skinned soldier from Oklahoma Territory listened together, two strangers oddly at peace in one another's company. Finally Joanna bridged the gulf between them with a question.

“Who are they?”

“Southern Cheyenne. Like me,” he explained. “Only they came ashore today.” Tom's hopes of passing unnoticed among his kinsmen were already doomed. An hour earlier he had managed to blunder into the very campsite he had hoped to avoid. Several of the blue-clad Cheyennes hailed from Cross Timbers. He recognized many of the warriors, firelight glimmering on their stern, unforgiving features that stared at him with open distrust and hostility but made no move to impede his progress.