Part 3 (1/2)
This is the cavalry, Sergeant!”
”Yes, sir!”
Monahan saluted sharply. He shouted orders, his voice loud in the night.
The men at the graves hurried after Monahan as he started toward the fires where the others were already setting up camp. As Jamie watched, he saw his men melt into the rocks and crevices around them. They were a crack troop.
They had campaigned through the most rugged Indian territory in the West and they had all learned 27 their lessons well. They could walk as silently as any brave, shoot with the same deadly accuracy and engage in lethal knife play with ease.
It hadn't been easy for Jamie, not at first. Some of the men had resented the Rebel who had won his promotions so easily. Some hadn't thought a Reb ought to be given a gun, and many had had their doubts about Jamie in Indian country. He had been forced to prove his way at every step, in battle or in negotiations. They'd met up with a tribe of warring Apache once near the border, and he had shown them something of his mettle with his Colts as the battle had begun. Later he found out there had been some whispering about all the Slater brothers, and how deadly he and Cole and Malachi had been during the war. Overnight, it seemed, his reputation had become legendary.
He smiled in the darkness. It had been worth it. He had gained a loyal following, and good men. Nothing would come slipping through his lines tonight. He could rest with If he could rest at all.
Despite himself he felt his eyes drawn toward the wagon that stood just outside the circle of small cavalry-issue Aframe tents.
”What a burden,” Jon said quietly from behind. Jamie swung around, arching a brow. Jori wasn't the usual subordinate, nor did Jamie expect him to be.
”Why don't you quit making the comments and start telling me something about this von Heusen fellow.”
”You really interested?” Jon asked.
”Try me. Come on. We'll get some coffee and take a walk up by the ridge.”
Monahan gave them coffee from a tin pot at the fire, then the two men wandered up the ridge. Jamie found a seat on a flat rock and rested his boots on another. Jon stood, watching the expanse of the prairie. By the soft light of the moon, it was a beautiful place, the mountains rising like shadows in the distance, the sage rolling in ghostly fas.h.i.+on and the camp fires and stars just lighting up the darkness around them.
”She's telling the truth,” Jon said.
”How can you know?” Jamie demanded.
Jon shrugged, scuffed his boots against the earth and turned to hunker down near Jamie.
”I know because I've heard of this man before. He wanted land further north during the war. He was a cattle baron up there then, and he was ordered by the government to provide members of the Oglala Sioux on reservation land with meat. He gave them maggot-fiddled beef that he wouldn't have fed to his own sows. The Indians formed a delegation to speak with the man. He called it an Indian uprising and soon every rancher in the area was at war with the Sioux. Hundreds, red and white, died. Uselessly, senselessly. And von Heusen was never punished.”
Jamie was quiet for a moment. He stared toward the remnants of the wagon train.
”So he's got property now in Wilts.h.i.+re. And he wants more. And he likes to rile up the Indians. I still can't do anything, Jon. Even if I believed Miss. Stuart, there wouldn't be anything I could do.”
”Because you can't prove anything.”
”Exactly. And no sane white man is going to believe it.”
”That's too bad,” Jori said after a moment.
”That's really too bad. I don't think Miss. Stuart can survive very long.”
”Come on, Jon, stop it! No matter how powerful this von Heusen is, he can't just out-and-out murder the woman!
The whole town would be up in arms. He can't own the whole d.a.m.ned town!”
Jon shrugged.
”He owns the sheriff. And we both know that he doesn't have to out-and-out murder the girl. There are ways.”
”d.a.m.n!” Jamie stood up, dusting the dirt off the rump of his breeches with his hat.
”So what are you going to do?”
”I told you. We're riding back to the fort” -- ”And then?”
”Let's get there, eh?”
Jon stood.
”I just wanted you to know, Jamie, that if you decide to take some of that time the government owes you, I'll go with you.”
”I'm not taking any time.”
”Yeah. Sure. Whatever you say, Slater.” Jamie paused, grinning.
”Thanks, Red Feather. I appreciate it. But believe me, I'm sure I'm not the escort Miss. Stuart has in mind.”
Jon pulled his hat low over his eyes, grinning.
”Well, Jamie, me lad, we don't always know just exactly what it is that we need, now, do we? Good night.” Without waiting for a reply he walked down the ridge.
Jamie stayed on the ridge a while longer, looking at the camp fires.
He'd stay up with the first group on watch; Monahan would stay up with the second.
But even when he saw the guard change and the sergeant take his place silently upon a high ridge, he discovered he couldn't sleep. The cot didn't bother him--he had slept on much less comfortable beds--nor did the night sounds, or even the nightmare memories of the day.
She bothered him. Knowing that she slept not far away. Or lay awake as he did. Perhaps, in private, the tears streamed down her face.
Or perhaps she was silent still, done with the past, determined to think of the future. She believed what she was saying to him. She believed that the wagon train had been attacked by white men dressed up like Indians. She wouldn't let it rest.
He groaned and pulled his pillow over his head. It wasn't exactly as if she was asking for his help. She'd made it clear she didn't even want to hear his voice. He owed her nothing, he owed the situation nothing.
Yes, he did.
He owed the people who had died here today, and he owed the Comanche, who were going to be blamed for this.
And he owed all the people who would die in the b.l.o.o.d.y wars to follow if something wasn't proven one way or the other.
Still, he didn't sleep. He lay awake and he wondered about the woman with the sun-honey hair who lay not a hundred yards away in the canvas-covered wagon.
Sometime during the night Tess slept, but long before dawn she was wide awake again, reliving every moment of what had happened. Her grief and rage were so deep that she wanted to scream aloud, but screaming again would do no good, and she had already cried until she felt that her tears were a river that had run as dry as the plain with its sagebrush and dust.
She cast her feet to the floor and stared across the darkened wagon to the bunk where her Uncle Joseph should have been sleeping, where he would sleep no more. Joe would lie out here in the plain for eternity, and his body would become bone, and in the decades to come, no one would really know that a brave and courageous man had died here fighting, even if he'd barely had a chance to raise a weapon. Joe had never given in, not once. He couldn't be intimidated. He had printed the truth in the Wilts.h.i.+re Sun, and he had held fast to everything that was his.
And he had died for it.