Stone Heart's Woman
Page 24
“I’m a lieutenant in the United States Army. I’ll act as such. As long as they don’t compare notes, I’ll get away with it. I intend to play out this charade until I’m sure these people are going to be taken care of, sent home like they want.” He gazed down at her, covered her hand with his.
“Will you be leaving...today?”
Swallowing painfully, she gazed beyond his shoulder. “I can’t. No, I must stay here.”
For a moment his features cleared, then he scowled. “I don’t understand. I thought you were going home.”
“Yes, yes, I was. But I can’t return to St. Louis and leave this...this unfinished business behind. It’s hard to explain, but my whole life I’ve been the only sister, protected by brothers on all sides. If it wasn’t one brother it was another, taking the load I should have been sharing. Even my mother allowed it. They spoiled me.”
He rubbed his knuckles along the side of her face. “You deserve to be spoiled. I too, would, if only—”
“No. You don’t understand. I...while I was inside there, I found a purpose. Learned something about myself I never knew. I’ve never felt...well, important. Like something I might do would be worthwhile. I was raised to marry some man and make him happy. That was to be my purpose. Can you imagine?”
“Ah, A’den.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “There’s nothing wrong with making a man happy.”
“I’m not so sure we can make someone else happy. Maybe we can only make ourselves happy, and when we do that those around us, those we love, will be happy too.”
“But you said it yourself. You don’t want to live like this, out here in the wilderness. Such hardships. What will you do if you don’t return to St. Louis?”
She feared what she was about to learn here, about him and herself, but plunged on, heart in her throat. “I want to help them, however I can. Help you help them. Don’t you want me to stay?”
She stared into his face with such yearning that he leaned down and brushed her lips with his, then took her in his arms, holding her as if he might never let her go.
“I want you to stay. But I don’t know what will be the outcome of all this. What I can promise you when it’s over...settled, we will be together. Are you sure this is what you want?”
“It is, oh, it is.”
He held her a moment longer, squeezed her hand. “Then I will return. Perhaps you could go get the supplies Meeker bought, bring them back here and I’ll try to arrange to have them given to the prisoners.” He paused, dug Wessell’s ring of keys from his pocket. “Here. Leave these in the officer’s mess, if we are lucky he’ll think he dropped them there.”
She took the keys and dropped them in the pocket of the buckskin jacket she wore. Gripped with a growing fear that she would never see him again, she held on tightly. “You will come back?”
“Oh, yes, I will.” He kissed her quickly and was gone, striding across the common looking every bit a military man. She shuddered and wondered what it had taken out of him to put on that hated uniform and play the part of a white man once more.
She went inside, stripped off the buckskins and crawled into bed. She slept through breakfast, but woke early enough to wash her hands and face, tidy her hair, and answer dinner call at noon. The dress Retha had taken to the laundry hung on the wall, washed and ironed at the Chinese laundry. She slipped into it, enjoying the feel of clean cotton against her skin.
She continued to take her meals at the officers’ mess, as originally invited to do by Captain Wessells. This morning he was nowhere to be seen when she entered the warm building filled with the delicious aromas of food cooking. Probably nursing the effects of too much drink from the night before.
Glancing around she spotted Lieutenant Stone, sitting at a table with a cup of coffee, looking as normal as any of the other officers in the room. She wondered briefly if she should acknowledge him, but he anticipated her, rose and beckoned her to sit beside him.
Smiling, she did so. “Is this wise?” she asked after a private poured her a steaming cup of coffee.
“You are the prettiest woman here. What could be more natural than that a young visiting lieutenant from back east would invite you to sit with him?”
Every day he sounded more and more like the white man he’d once been. How easily he’d fallen back into old habits. She took a sip of the coffee, nodded toward a young man across the way who smiled and bowed his head gallantly toward her. He had danced with her the previous night, as had several others who glanced in her direction.
“They’re jealous,” Lieutenant Stone said. “They would like to take my place.”
“Have you learned any more about plans for the Cheyenne?”
“Yes. They fed them this morning and took in a stack of new blankets.”
She squeezed his arm. “Oh, that’s wonderful. I will go by the mercantile when I leave here and pick up those supplies.”
“For now keep them in your quarters. It seems they will be well fed, for the time at least. Back east they’re calling for the court martial of those men involved in shooting down the fleeing Cheyenne. Saying it wasn’t a battle at all. Things will change drastically, I think.”
The door opened and several captains entered. Stone Heart watched them, eyes slitted. To him, they remained the enemy, men who had murdered his people. He glanced back at her.
“At least, it’s a start. I’ve heard that so many people are coming here to see firsthand what’s going on that it’s growing difficult for the army to contain them. Reporters from the Chicago Sun Tribune arrived a couple days ago. Crook is getting nervous, wants to blame Sheridan for this entire mess, but that brave general has taken off for parts unknown. He’s more than happy to let it all fall on Crook’s head.”
Thoughtfully, he took a sip of coffee, and she did too. Contentment filled her, and she felt, sitting there with him, as if everything would at last be good between them. Both could look forward to beginning their life together.
Their plates arrived, filled with steaming boiled beef and thick homemade noodles. Platters of biscuits and bowls of butter followed. He did his utmost to appear to be the polished officer of his disguise, but having gone so long without enough to eat made that nearly impossible when it came to food.
She didn’t bother him about the question of the supplies, what he planned to do with them. To interrupt him while he ate would have been cruel. When he had cleaned his plate and wolfed down four biscuits, she slid the remainder of her meal in front of him. Watched as he made short work of it as well.
When at last he was finished, he lifted his head and glanced around, as if afraid someone had taken note of his appetite. Gracefully, he took up a napkin and wiped his mouth, then leaned back. Surprisingly he didn’t feel as guilty about becoming a white man as he’d expected he would. Perhaps it was just a matter of his own survival, after all. Only a fool would want to die for a hopeless cause with a woman like A’den to love. It would take some doing to grow accustomed to a life with her, but he was willing, even anxious to give it a try. More and more, returning to Montana with the Cheyenne was looking less attractive. He could not ask her to live that way, yet he wanted to be with her. Always. If she was willing to give up going home to be with him, then he could do no less.
After they ate he walked her back to her quarters. The sky had cleared to a crystalline blue. Chinook winds off the eastern slopes of the mountains danced across the plains. Encrusted ice melted into puddles of water, and the frozen mud of the passageways grew boggy and bottomless.
The shawl floated from her hair and she turned her face into the warmth of the sun kissed breeze. “What a lovely day. Makes me feel...somehow ordinary...normal. Like everything might be all right after all.”
At the end of the boardwalk, he hooked an arm around her waist. “Careful. Don’t—”
But he was too late as she stepped blithely off the boards and into the muck, shoes sinking out of sight. If he hadn’t been holding her, she would have
pitched forward on her face. As it was, he struggled to keep her upright and himself from following her into the quagmire where she now stood, buried halfway to her knees. To add insult to an already sticky situation, several mounted cavalrymen rode by, their horses hooves throwing up great clods that splatted over her skirt. One landed in her hair.
When she turned toward him, laughing, some of the thick stuff oozed down one cheek. And still she laughed. He studied her for a moment, the sparkle in her eyes, the pealing of her voice, and felt growing within himself a great joy such as he’d never known. For those few moments, he forgot the demons that drove him, let go the torturous memories of blood and death on the battlefield and his driving desire for revenge. Through tears of laughter, he eyed the mud and the safety of the boardwalk along the front of the barracks across the way where her room was located. With a lift of his broad shoulders, he waded in and scooped her up. Mud sucking at his boots with each step, he carried her to safety and deposited her high and dry under the porch overhang.
When he put her down, she kept her arms wound around his neck, nose buried against his warm flesh.
Both of them covered in mud, what they’d waded through as well as what had been thrown on them by passing horses, he leaned down and kissed her, deeply and with a great deal of passion. Right there in front of everyone. Caught up in the mood, she prolonged the kiss.
It was not exactly the way to remain unnoticed, and Stone Heart knew it, even as he held her, lips tasting hers. No officer behaved this way in public and, with a great deal of restraint, he straightened, held her away stiffly. It would not do for an officer to see them like this and begin to ask questions. He was still in danger of being found out. The penalty for impersonating an officer of the United States Army was grave. He’d be lucky if he wasn’t shot. Being around A’den had completely addled his brain.
She saw the look of concern alter his features. “I think I should see if I can get this dress laundered and take a bath,” she told him, attempting some decorum.
The corner of his mouth twitched, but he managed to control the amusement. “And I have business to attend to. There’s a meeting at Wessells’ headquarters concerning the movement of the Cheyenne. I’m going to attend.”
“Do you think that’s wise?” She took his hand, held it concealed in the folds of her skirt.
“Probably not, but I will be careful. As soon as I learn what will happen, and when they will leave here, we can make plans to do so ourselves. I can’t wait to get out of this uniform.”
“And I can’t wait to get back in your arms,” she teased.
His fingers tightened around hers for an instant, then he let go and stepped back. Touching the brim of his hat, he tilted his head in farewell, and left her to make her way to her quarters at the far end of the barracks.
She watched him until he went out of sight around the corner, then turned just in time to see a figure in the shadows. Watching her. Though the man slipped out of sight along the end of the building, she thought she recognized Captain Wessells, the bandage on his head flashing white.
Concerned over what his presence might mean, she stopped at Retha’s door and knocked. A tall, bearded man, shirt open at the throat, opened the door, and she recognized him as one of the soldiers who had found her and Meeker and brought them in. This must be the missing Lieutenant Woods.
“Yes?” he asked, a tentative smile on his face.
“I’m sorry to bother you. I wanted to see Retha. I didn’t know you had returned. My name is Aiden Connor.”
His grin faded. “I know who you are. You’re the woman we brought in with that trapper. His wife...you said?”
“Well, not exactly. I’m afraid I wasn’t truthful at the time.”
“Oh, and why was that?”
She was beginning not to like this Lieutenant Woods, and was sorry, for she did so enjoy his wife’s company. “I would think you’d understand. A young woman, alone with a company of soldiers.”
“Honorable soldiers. What are you implying?”
“Nothing. Of course, I didn’t mean—”
“You were the one sleeping in a shelter with the man. Perhaps it was more to salvage your reputation than anything else, that you lied.” With disdain he looked her up and down. “You look as if you’ve been wallowing in a mud hole.”
Weary of the exchange, she smiled coldly. “I’m sorry to have bothered you. I’ll call on Retha another time.”
“She isn’t here or you could speak to her now. Isn’t that her dress you’re wearing?”
“Yes, she was kind enough to loan it to me when I came in with nothing to wear.”
“My wife is a kind woman, sometimes too kind. I’ll tell her you called.” Without waiting for her reply, he shut the door.
“Well, well,” Aiden murmured and backed away.
Inside her own quarters, she took off the muddy dress. She would have to wear the gown she’d worn to the dance until she could get this one cleaned.
Dropping it down over her head, she remembered a day what seemed like a lifetime ago when she had dressed in her finest to make her appearance on stage in Benson, only to be attacked and run out of town. She felt somewhat the same way after her confrontation with Lieutenant Woods. The man was insufferable and she wondered how a sweet woman like Retha could stand to live with him. Probably all that kept the marriage together was his being gone so much of the time. Retha never met a stranger, and she probably contented herself with many friends during his long absences.
She still held the muddy dress in her hands when someone rapped on the door. Thinking it was probably Retha, she ignored the buttons open down the back of the gown and hurried to open the door. It wasn’t Retha she saw standing there, but a pale Captain Wessells, hat in hand.
He’d probably figured out where his keys had gone, and she prepared to defend herself. Instead of saying anything, he pushed his way inside and shut the door. The expression on his face frightened her. This was more serious than lost keys.
“Do you know a Lieutenant Stone?”
He might have hit her. She dragged in a breath, tried to steady her nerves. Dear God, what had happened?
“Well?” He took her wrist in a harsh grip. “Answer me, woman.”
“I...well, yes, I guess I do.”
“Wise of you not to lie. I saw you with the man not an hour ago. You were carrying on in a way no reputable woman would. What is he to you?”
“Why? What’s happened?” She twisted, tried to free herself. “Let me go, you’re hurting me.”
“I’ll do more than that if you don’t tell me the truth. Who is he?”
“Lieutenant Stone. He...he came here from—”
“Enough, woman. No more lies. He’s under arrest, and if I have my way, so will you be. For now, you are to remain in your quarters. Confined, unless you’d rather be tossed in the brig, which is where you belong, to my notion. But some of the others don’t agree.”
Still holding her arm, he shoved her backward toward the bed and one shoulder of the gown slipped off her shoulder. Distraught over what had happened, she simply sat on the edge of the mattress, rubbing her arm and staring up at him.
“What...what will they do to him?” she finally asked.
“Why, they’ll put him up before a firing squad and shoot him, of course. That’s the penalty for impersonating an officer of the United States Army. And if I have my way, his whore will be right there beside him.”
Unable to speak, she watched in horror as the man stormed from the room, leaving the door standing open.
Chapter Seventeen
Aiden wasn’t sure how long she sat on the bed staring through the window. The shock of hearing that Stone Heart had been arrested and would be shot left her numb except for the sharp throbbing at her temples. Once that began to wear off, she fought an urge to throw something through the glass. It wasn’t fair that this should happen. He loved her, she loved him. They were going to build a life together. Why had this happ
ened now?
Wessells was responsible, she knew it. But how had he known? Stone Heart played the part of a white officer well; no one could possibly have guessed that he wasn’t who he said he was. The room grew colder as she sat there, leaving the fire untended, her mind leaping about for answers where there didn’t seem to be any. There must be something she could do to stop this. With a guard on the door, she couldn’t even leave. But she would not sit here while they prepared a firing squad. When would they do it? Would there be a trial or would they just take him out and shoot him? She dared not wait any longer to find out.
A hundred questions picked at her. Surely there was someone she could ask. Lieutenant Woods was right next door. Perhaps the guard would let her talk to him. Despite his attitude, he might be willing to explain what was happening. Maybe Retha could convince him.
Adjusting her dress, she went to the door and yanked it open. The guard turned, crossed his long rifle over his chest.
“Please, I wish to speak to Lieutenant Woods. He’s just right there. Could you...?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. You’re confined to quarters. You can’t leave.”
“Well, then bring him to me. This is important. I must speak to him. Please, just knock on his door and ask if he’ll see me.”
The guard’s slate-gray eyes darted from her to the nearby door, back again. She could see him wavering, and repeated her plea.
He considered a moment longer, then appeared to make a decision. “Move back into your room, ma’am.” When she did he stepped briskly to the adjoining quarters and rapped, never taking his hooded gaze off her.
When the door swung open, she couldn’t see who stood in the shadows, but heard Woods’ crisp voice. “What is it?”
The guard remained at attention and saluted. “Beg your pardon, sir, but this lady would like a word with you.”
Woods leaned out and peered in the direction of the guard’s gesture. “What lady?”
Poking her head through the door, she called. “Lieutenant Woods, please. Retha, won’t you help me?”
“My wife is not here. I told you “