long-bladed and lethally sharp bowie knife.
Damn! She was going from fists to steel.
"Lady, I'm warning you, stop?"
She didn't pay the least bit of attention to him. Rather, she fought on
with desperation, drawing up her arm again, preparing to slash the blade
across his throat. Jamie swung out, catching her by the middle, his
hands resting beneath the swell of her breasts. He cast her far away
from him and struggled to his feet.
"I'm the cavalry!" he snapped out.
"Damn it, I'm the good guy."
She didn't seem to hear him, or really even see him. Her huge,
violet-blue eyes were glazed, he saw, and she barely blinked at his
words. She certainly didn't seem to understand them.
She screamed again and flew at him. The blade slashed the air
uncomfortably close to his windpipe. He clamped down grimly on his jaw
and caught her arm with a stunning blow, sending the blade flying out of
the wagon. She gasped, but when he lunged for her, she was ready to
fight again, her nails gouging for his eyes. He swore again, capturing
her wrists and falling down hard with her upon the floor of the wagon.
Struggling to hold her still, he looked up to see that Jon Red Feather
was looking in from the driver's seat of the wagon.
"I could have used some help here, you know!" he thundered.
Red Feather grinned.
"You--against one little honey- haired girl?
Honestly, Lieutenant."
She was no little girl. Lying atop her, Jamie was very aware of that.
She was small and slight, but the sweet, provocative fullness of her
breasts was now crushed lushly against his cavalry jacket, reminding him
that it had been some time since he'd last been to Maybelle's House of
Gentlemanly Leisure Pursuits. She fought him still, writhing like a
wildcat, and with every twist and turn of her body, he realized more
fully just how grown up the woman was, how evocatively mature. She
stared at him with death- defying hatred, and as he gazed at her, she
lunged against him again, trying to bite his shoulder.
"For the love of God!" he snapped, rolling with her to retain his hold
without bringing bodily injury to her or losing a hunk of flesh himself.
She freed one wrist from his grasp and began tearing at him again. Their
momentum was taking them closer and closer to the rear of the wagon, and
then suddenly they were outside it, plunging down to the dirt together.
She shrieked, and he realized then that she was fighting to free herself
from his hold rather than fighting to harm him. But he wasn't about to
let her go. She was too unpredictable.
Their limbs entangled, and her petticoats rode around them. He could
feel the slender length of her legs, warm and alive, scantily clad in
pantalets, against his own.
She reached up to strike him again, and he caught her hand with a
serious fury as his patience snapped.
"Enough!"
He drew her hands high over her head and straddled her hips, pinning her
down at last. Her hair lay spread out over the dirt in a majestic fan
while the Texas sand smudged her beautiful features. She gasped
desperately for breath, her breasts rising and falling with her effort.
She was down, subdued at last. He released her wrists, remaining
straddled upon her, careful to maintain his own weight. "It's all right"
-- he tried to tell her, but to no avail. She tried to twist, lashing
out, clawing for his face.
She caught his chin and drew blood.
"Woman, no morel" he shouted. His hand raised high and with
determination, and he caught himself fight before he could slap her in
return. He saw her eyes close tightly in expectation of the blow, but it
did not fall. He held her tight, trying to check his temper, staring at
her hard. Then he caught her arms and dragged them high above her head,
leaning close and hard against her. His anger faded at. last as he saw
her eyes go damp with tears she fought to control.
She was hysterical, he realized, and yet she had really come at him with
an attempt to kill.
She shuddered and gasped, and a trembling rippled through the entire
length of her body. Still, he could not trust her to release her.
"We're the damned cavalry!" he repeated.
"Listen to me! No one is going to hurt you. The Indians are gone. We're
the cavalry. We want to help you. You do speak English, don't you?"
"Yes!" she snapped furiously, and the trembling ceased. "Yes, yes, I
understand you!" Her eyes beheld him, then glazed over again.
"Bastard!" she hissed to him, "Murdering, despicable bastard."
"Murdering bastard? I'm trying to help you."
"I don't believe you!"
Startled by her words, Jamie fell silent. Her eyes remained locked with
his, the tears she would not shed highlighting the deep blue color. Her
hair fell in tangled streams around them both, like a pool of sunlight
just before twilight fell. Watching her, he nearly forgot why he
straddled her.
She didn't believe him. He had come to rescue her from the Comanche, and
she didn't believe him.
"Listen, now, lady, I am with the cavalry--these men, all of us, we're
with the United States Cavalry" -- "Your uniform doesn't mean anything!"
"Lady, you are crazy!" That was it, she had lost her mind. She had
watched the savage attack and she had retreated into some fantasy world
of fear.
"You're all right now, or you will be if you quit trying to hurt me."
"Hurt you! Oh!"
"The Indians are gone" -- "There never were any Indians!"
"No Indians?"
"They dressed like Indians, but they weren't Indians. And you were
probably in on it! The law is corrupt, why not the cavalry?"
"Lady, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm Lieutenant Slater out
of Fort Vickers, and we've just stumbled upon your present difficulty."
She blinked, and her gaze went guarded. He still held her locked beneath
him. His men were coming near, alerted by the commotion.
She gazed around her, past his head, and it seemed that she slowly
realized that they really were a cavalry company.
Everyone was staring at her with silence, with sympathy. She looked at
Jamie, and a slow flush spread into her features. They were now both
painfully aware of the way their bodies came together. Her legs and hips
burned against his, bare beneath the thin cotton shield of her
pantalets.
She wore no corset, he knew that very well, and her breasts seemed to
swell, as if with realization of their intimate contact against his
chest. She touched her dry lips with the tip of her tongue, and even
that seemed an intimate gesture. She squirmed beneath him, but he wasn't
about to give her any quarter. He had tried to be as gentle as possible
and he was bleeding as if he had been gouged by a mountain cat because
of it. A drop of blood from his chin fell upon her bodice even as he
thought that he should show her some mercy.
"Lieutenant, let me" -- "What's your name?"
"If you would just" -- "What's your name?"
Her eyes flashed with a
silver-blue annoyance as she realized that he
was going to hold her until he chose to let her go.
"Tess," she snapped.
"It's Tess."
"Tess what?"
Her eyes narrowed.
"Tess Stuart."
"Where were you going and where were you headed f~om?"
"Wiltshire. We were bringing some cattle and a printing press. We were
heading home from a small town called Dunedin, nearly a ghost town now.
That's why we bought the printing press. They didn't need it anymore."
"You said we. Who were you riding with?"
"My" -- She hesitated just a moment, her lashes rising and falling
swiftly.
Tears burned behind her eyelids. She must know that everyone was dead.
She wasn't going to shed those tears. Not in front of him. "My uncle and
I. We were heading home to Wiltshire."
He eased himself up a little. He saw her swallow as his thighs tightened
against her hip, then she lifted her chin, determined to ignore him,
determined to be as cool as if they were discussing the matter over tea
in a handsome parlor.
She had inestimable courage. No matter how she was beaten, she would
never surrender but would fight it out until the very end. It was there
in her eyes. All the silver-blue fire a man could imagine. She was
either a complete fool or one of the most extraordinary women he had
ever met.
Despite her warm honey spill of hair, her large, luminous eyes and her
perfect fragile features, she had a spine of steel.
Courage could kill out here in the West. That, he told himself, was why
he held to her so tightly. She needed to learn that she could be beaten.
"You're lucky as hell that the Indians didn't see you, you know," he
told her hoarsely.
She lifted her chin.
"I told you--they weren't Indians."
"Who were they?"
"Von Heusen's men."
"And who the hell is yon Heusen?" He was startled when he heard a
curious rumble in someone's throat behind him.
Still holding her, he whirled around. He looked at the faces of the
young men in his company.
"Well? Does someone want to answer me?"
It was Jon Red Feather who drawled out a reply. "Richard von Heusen.
Calls himself a rancher sometimes, an entrepreneur at others. You never
heard of him, Lieutenant?"
"No, I never heard of him."
"You spend all your time on Indian affairs, Lieutenant," Jon said.
"You've been missing out on the shape of things down here."
It was true, Jamie thought. He hadn't wanted to know a lot about the
ranchers. He didn't want to se~ the carpetbaggers, or talk to them.
"You're telling me a guy named von Heusen did this?" he said to Jon.
Jon shrugged.
"I can't tell you that."
"I can tell you that he owns a hell of a lot of Texas," Monaban said
softly.
"It's a good thing it's a big state, else he might own a good half of
it."
Jamie looked curiously at the girl. Tess. Her eyes were upon him as she
watched him in silence, scathingly. Then she hissed with all the venom
of a snake.
"He's a carpet- bag get Yank. You ever heard tell about the
carpetbaggers down here? They're vultures. They came down upon a
defeated and struggling South, and they just kicked the hell out of us.
Bought up land the Southern boys couldn't pay their taxes on 'cause the
Union didn't want any Confederate currency. Well, Lieutenant, von Heusen
bought up Wiltshire."
"You're trying to tell me that a Yankee named von Heusen came out here
and shot your wagon train full of arrows?
In broad daylight, just like that?"
" No, not just like that," she retorted.
"And I doubt that he came out here himself. He had his men all greased
down and painted up like Comanche, just in case someone didn't die."
"So you did see Comanche attack the wagon."
"No. That's not what I'm telling you at all. I'm no fool, Lieutenant.
I was born and bred out here and I know a Comanche when I see one. And I
know a fraud when I see it, too."
"You're saying a group of white men came out here and did this to theft
own kind?"
"Yes, Lieutenant, how wonderfully perceptive of you. Why, you must have
studied at West Point! That's exactly what I'm telling you." Her lashes
flicked again.
"Von Heusen masterminded this whole thing. You need to arrest him,
Lieutenant. Arrest him for murder." "You said yourself, yon Heusen
himself probably wasn't even here."
Her eyes widened, her fury seemed to deepen, but she kept her voice low
and controlled.
"You're not going to arrest him?"
"I'm not a sheriff to begin with, Miss. Stuart. And if I were, I'd have
to have some kind of proof."
"I'm your proof!"
"It would be your word against his!"
"He wanted our land!"
"Lots of men try to buy land. It doesn't make them murderers I ' She
looked as if she wanted to scream, or at least gouge out another pound
of his flesh.
"You're a fool!"
"Thank you kindly, ma'am," he retorted.
She gritted her teeth. Tears stung her eyes again.
"Get the hell off me."
He realized he was still lying against her, still holding her down.
She wasn't trying to kill him anymore. She just looked as if she wanted
to escape him, the touch of him, the sight of him.
"I can't go bringing in a man for something without some kind of proof!"
he told her furiously.
"And not at the word of a half-crazed girl."
"Oh!" She raked out at him again. He caught her hand, then he rose to
his feet, dragging her up with him. His jaw twisted hard against the
loathing he saw in her eyes. "Lady" -- "Lieutenant!" Charlie called to
him, walking around from the field of corpses.
"Shall I start a burial detail?"
She was staring past Charlie, staring at the white-haired man who had
been hit by the arrow then shot through the heart.
"Oh, God!" she gasped. She stumbled forward, trying to reach the corpse.
The blood fled from her face, and her beautiful features became as ashen
as the smoke-charred sky. She paused suddenly, unable to go any farther.
"Oh, no, oh, God. Uncle Joe," she whispered, reaching out a hand.
She did not take another step. Even as she reached out, she was falling.
Her lashes fluttered over her beautiful eyes, and she began to sink
toward the ground. Instinctively, Jamie rushed forward. He caught her as
she fell, sweeping her into his arms. She was as cold as death itself,
and remained every bit as pale as he stared down at her.
There was silence all around him. His men looked on. "Charlie, yes!
For God's sake, yes! Get a damned burial detail going, and get it going
quickly!" The men turned around, hustling into action.
And Jamie stared at the girl, wondering just what in hell he was going
to do with her. He needed to set her down, to let her lie somewhere. She
was a slight burden, weighing practically nothing, or so it seemed.
Yet she was a burden. A definite burden.
He hurried tow
ard her wagon, maneuvered up to the floor of it and laid
her on the bed. He meant to turn around and leave her and call for the
company surgeon, but for some reason he paused and found himself
smoothing out her sun and-honey hair and brushing her cheek with his
knuckles. He felt a sensation down his back and looked up quickly.
Jon Red Feather was just below him, looking into the wagon.
"She's still out cold."
I'll call Captain Peters. He doesn't have much hope, but he's still
checking to see if there is any breath remaining in any of the bodies."
"Maybe she's better off being out for a while anyway," Jamie said
softly.
"Yeah, maybe." Jon hesitated.
"What are we going to do with her?"
"Take her back to the fort. Then someone can escort her on home."
Jon nodded. He smiled suddenly.
"Someone, fight?"
"Yeah, that's fight. Someone."
"She's your responsibility," Jon said.
"Your burden-- she fell into your arms."
"What? She's a burden I've just set down, Jon." Jon shook his head.
"I don't think so. I don't think so at all. I think that you've taken
something upon yourself, Jamie, and I don't think that you can ever
really let it go."
Jamie arched a brow.
"Yeah? Well, I don't believe you, Jon, and I don't believe her. This yon
Heusen may be a carpetbagging monster, but I don't believe he can be
guilty of this."
"You're just going to have to find out, aren't you?"
"That's not my job, Jon."
"That's not going to matter, is it?
"Cause you see, if the girl is right, then she's in danger. You're going
to have out the truth--or you'll be signing her death warrant."
"That's ridiculous, Jon."
"No, it's not. You really can't let her go."
"The hell I can't."
"Oh?" Jon arched a raven-dark brow.
"Is that so?" He inclined his head toward Jamie.
"Your fingers are still all tied up in her hair, Lieutenant. All tied
up.
Silken webs maybe, but seems to me that you're all tied up."
Jamie gazed at his hand. His fingers were still hovering over her hair.
It was truly the color of honey just kissed by the sun. Much deeper than
blond.
Too touched by light to be brunette.
Golden red.
He pulled his hand away and turned toward Jori with a denial. But Jon,
smiling serenely, had already turned away.
"Doe Peters should be free by now," he said quietly, then he was gone.
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