"I want to know where my husband has gone, Lieutenant, and I want to know now," she demanded.
The lieutenant looked at her as if she were touched in the head. "Madam, I don't know who your husband is, but-"
"Clay Holt."
The name erased Fleming's smug expression.
"He just rode off after your troops—"
"He what?" Fleming sputtered.
"And you're going to tell me why."
* * *
Wisps of fog, like ghostly fingers, slunk along the shoreline of the Platte, and obscuring the fort's view of the river's glassy surface. The rising three-quarter moon—alternately cloaked behind fast-moving clouds then gilding their leaden edges silver—gave testament to the lateness of the hour.
Heartsick, Kierin sat watching the blue flame dance above a nest of coals at the center of the fire. Waiting. The warmth of the fire taunted her, but it was unable to quell the chill that had settled like a fist of ice around her heart.
Her talk with Lieutenant Fleming had proved to be both pointless and frustrating. Refusing to spare any more men from the post, Fleming told her it had been Clay's choice to follow the detachment and that he had no intention of stopping him.
For one desperate moment, she'd thought of stealing Jacob's horse and riding to find him herself, but stopped short of doing it. He was a grown man who had made a choice of conscience. His sense of honor, the very thing that had impelled him to follow the soldiers, was also the thing she loved most about him. She could only wait. And pray.
She had not told anyone what she'd learned about her father and brother. She couldn't bear to give voice to something her heart still could not accept. All these months... wouldn't she have known if her brother were dead? Could God be so cruel as to take away both the people she loved in the same day?
Beside her, Jim Kelly refilled Jacob's tin mug of coffee and gestured the pot toward her, breaking the long silence that had stretched between them. "Coffee, Kierin?"
She shook her head.
"You oughta put something in your stomach. You haven't eaten all day."
The thought of coffee made her nauseous. "I'm not hungry, Jim. Thanks, anyway."
The orange-red light of the fire cast flickering shadows on the faces of her companions. Little Ben whimpered in his mother's arms. Cooing to the babe, Dove shifted her garments and tucked him inside to give him suckle. Only a tiny coppery fist showed beneath the blanket and he made small gurgling noises of satisfaction as Dove's milk let down. Jacob looked on with something in his eyes akin to awe.
The fort was quiet, despite the numbers within its gates. Trappers, soldiers, and travelers mingled inside the stockade, waiting for the return of the overdue soldiers. Word had spread quickly. Reverend Beaker had held a small prayer service for the men and now sat around another fire with the Thorps, the Watkinses, and several other families. Parents spread sleeping rolls on the ground for their sleepy children. It had been too long and everyone knew it.
"Someone's coming, Lieutenant," shouted the man on watch in the south turret.
Lieutenant Fleming, who was keeping watch with the men on the north side of the fort, made for the rough wooden ladder which led down to the courtyard. "Is he mounted or on foot?" he called.
"On foot, sir. He looks to be wounded."
Kierin closed her eyes and inhaled sharply.
"Jenkins! OHalloran!" Fleming called. "See to that man and help him in. Watch yourselves."
The two men disappeared into the darkness. Minutes dragged by and finally they reappeared with the wounded man slung between them. His head drooped down between his shoulders, his dark hair obscuring his face. When they eased him down near the fire, Kierin finally got a good look at him. Her heart sank.
It wasn't Clay.
She wasn't sure whether to be grateful or disappointed. The man had been shot with arrows. One broken-off shaft protruded from his shoulder and another from his thigh. The gold stripe down the leg of his trousers was stained a deep crimson. That the man had made it this far on foot was a miracle.
"Get the surgeon over here, on the double," Fleming called as he knelt down beside the man. The lieutenant's horrified gaze scanned the ruined body of the soldier. "Cuddy, what in the hell happened?"
Cuddy opened his eyes with an effort. "They're dead, sir... all of 'em."
Fleming dropped his face into his hand. "Good God..."
"The place wuz crawlin' with Sioux," Cuddy continued, pain slurring his words, "hundreds of'em, all over us like ants... couldn't... get away."
"Grattan?"
"Dead."
"But... what happened?"
"That Frenchman, the interpreter, Auguste... was drunk. Kept shoutin' insults at 'em in Sioux. The traders up the river warned Grattan to get him out of there... didn't listen... got them redskins all worked up. Grattan wouldn't stop, even when they come out with war paint on." Cuddy moaned and fingered the arrow in his shoulder. "Said he'd... take High Forehead or... die tryin'. The Sioux wouldn't give him up..."
Kierin dropped to her knees beside him. Her eyes felt raw with held-back tears. "My husband—did you see him, Private?"
Cuddy blinked, trying to refocus on her.
"Clay Holt," she insisted. "He rode out to meet you."
"Yeah," Cuddy told her, letting his eyes slide shut with exhaustion. "He tried to talk sense to the Lieutenant... didn't help." He was slipping into unconsciousness.
Desperate, Kierin shook the man. "Private! What happened to him? You have to tell me!"
Muddled by the pain, Cuddy shook his head. "Didn't see him after the fightin' started. But all of 'em wuz dead... ever' one... but... me."
The army surgeon arrived and knelt down beside Private Cuddy, nudging Kierin aside. She staggered to her feet. Shock settled like a heavy snow on her limbs, making her movements dull and spasmodic. Clay dead? It's not possible. It can't be. She shouldered past the crowd near Cuddy and took two faltering steps toward the gate. I'll go find him myself, she thought in a daze. He's not dead. He's out there somewhere...
But the night seemed to close in on her. Past the crowds, a spot of blackness grew in an ever-widening circle, engulfing first the gates, then the people, and finally, Kierin herself. As the ground tilted up crazily to meet her, she gave herself over to the tumbling black void of oblivion and forgetfulness.
Chapter 17
"I'm coming with you," Kierin said unequivocally, matching Jacob's angry stride, step for step.
Jacob shook his head, his lips compressed in a stubborn line. "No you ain't." He didn't even look at her when he said it. Just kept walking. Dawn had cut a swath of pink across the dark morning sky, lighting their way.
"You can't make me stay behind," she called after him. "I'll take a horse. I'll follow you."
Jacob stopped in his tracks and grabbed her by the shoulders. "I think that faintin' spell addled your brains, woman. You gots any idea what be out there? You ever see'd what a Indian do to a white man after he kills him?"
She faltered back a step, but he kept talking.
"You ever smell a body ripenin' in the sun, or see the buzzard's helpin' themselves to a man's eyes? Is that what you wants to see? Death? 'Cause that's what's out there."
"No," she answered in a small voice. "I... just want to find Clay."
"And what if he's out there wid the others? That how you wants to remember him?" Jacob's eyes softened after he'd said it and he bowed his head. "Stay here, Kierin. If Clay's out there alive, I'll be findin' him. I promise you that." Jacob turned on his heel and strode off to meet the others.
Tears of frustration leaked from the corners of her eyes, but she capitulated. Watching Jacob ride off with the others, Kierin felt a helplessness well deep inside her. And even though he was going to search for Clay, she knew Jacob felt it, too. She looked on until the patrol of men became specks on the horizon. When she turned, she found Dove, with little Ben, standing silently at her shoulder.
"Oh, Dove..." Kieri
n dropped her forehead to the other woman's shoulder.
"Hatdka mitawa," she whispered, wrapping her free arm around her. "My sister, it is in the hands of the All Father. We know only this."
Kierin glanced over her shoulder at the disappearing men, remembering only that she had once entrusted her brother to the same merciful God.
* * *
A hot, dry wind blew across the flat sweep of prairie, sucking the moisture from everything in its path. A small cloud of dust, drawing steadily nearer to the fort, announced the return of the burial detail which had left hours earlier.
Kierin waited, hugging her arms across her chest, cold in spite of the fierce heat. The five soldiers, Jacob, and Jim Kelly had been gone since dawn, and now the sun hung overhead like a fiery ball.
All morning, the fear had festered and grown inside her. What if they found him dead?—the litany repeated itself in her head—his body riddled with arrows like the soldier who'd returned last night. And if, by some miracle, he was alive, why hadn't he returned? Even more agonizing was the thought that he could be lying wounded somewhere, dying by inches, without her beside him.
Dry-eyed, her mouth set in a determined line, Kierin took a deep breath of the parched, sage-scented air, shaking loose such thoughts. There would be time enough to grieve if they found him dead. But they wouldn't, she told herself over and over. She couldn't allow herself to believe it was so.
The distant wagon rattled over the rutted ground as the detail approached. Shimmering waves of heat played tricks on her eyes, making it harder to see them clearly. She shaded her eyes with her hand, straining to focus. There were two on the benched seat driving the team. Five, no, six others rode alongside. Another rider-less horse appeared to be tethered behind. Eight men altogether.
Eight. Her heart leapt into her throat. Not seven. She started to run, leaving the towering log gates of the adobe fort behind her. Oh, God, please, let it be him. Ahead, a rider spurred his horse forward, putting distance between himself and the wagon. Kierin let out a cry as she recognized his silhouette. There was no mistaking the fluid grace of the man in the saddle.
Clay was off his horse before it completely stopped, and scooping her into his outstretched arms, he twirled her around and around. Kierin released all the tears she'd been holding back in a torrent of happiness.
"Clay. Oh, Clay."
Still suspending her in the cradle of his embrace, he covered her mouth with a kiss as fraught with relief as her own. His arms cinched around her, pulling her closer, ever closer. She felt his fingers in her hair, stroking and rediscovering it at once. When the kiss ended, his breathing was as ragged as her own.
"God, it feel's good to hold you again," he whispered.
She pulled away slightly so she could see his face. A day's growth of beard shadowed his jaw and fatigue lined his eyes. "They s-said you were killed."
He pressed a kiss in her palm before he replied, "You shouldn't believe everything you hear."
She caught sight of the bloodstained rag tied around his arm. "Clay—you're hurt!"
"It's nothing," he said, pulling her into his arms again. "Just a graze, that's all. I'm all right."
Kierin bowed her head against his chest. "I wanted to believe you were, but that soldier came in last night and said-"
"Jacob told me." Tracing a thumb across her cheek, he wiped at her tears. "I managed to make it to a trader's cabin when the killing started. I was lucky. I had a horse." He closed his eyes at the memory. "Christ. It was awful. The men were all on foot. A soldier grabbed onto Taeva and I yanked him up. But he'd already taken two arrows and was bleeding badly. We made it back to Bordeau's, a trader who lives near the encampment, but the Sioux were threatening to burn his cabin down all night."
He shook his head. "Bordeau felt it would be best if the soldier parted company with his cabin as soon as humanly possible."
Clay motioned his head back to the approaching wagon. "He's still alive, but thank God I ran into the patrol with the wagon on the way back to the fort. I don't think he could have made it much farther on horseback."
Clay stooped and picked up his forgotten hat from the ground where it had fallen. Together, they walked to retrieve Taeva, who stood cropping at the brownish grass nearby.
Jim Kelly and Jacob rode up beside them. Jacob's relieved expression was tempered by what he'd been through himself that morning. "I tol' you I'd find him."
Kierin touched his hand. "Thank you, Jacob."
Flanked by the two, she and Clay walked back. Inside the gates, several men were helping the wounded man from the wagon. Lieutenant Fleming looked at the body beneath the canvas tarp. Fleming's face turned a sickly white and he rocked back a step.
"A-are you sure this is Grattan?" he asked one of the soldiers as he dropped the tarp. "How... how can you tell?"
"Yes, sir. It's Grattan, all right," the soldier answered with downcast eyes. "We, ah, identified him by the pocket watch he was wearing. It was—inscribed."
Fleming cleared his throat. "Very good, Corporal. See that he gets a proper box. We'll, ah... be sending his body back to Fort Leavenworth."
As the detail pulled the body from the wagon, Fleming turned to Clay. "I'd like a word with you, Mr. Holt."
Clay turned a disparaging look on the sandy-haired lieutenant. "Later." He took Kierin's arm and started to go—
"Holt—"
Clay turned sharply on the lieutenant. "I said later. Right now, I'm gonna clean up, talk to... my wife." He glanced at Kierin, who was watching him with a proud smile, then at the blazing sun overhead. "I'll be back in two hours. That soon enough?"
Fleming, aware that he was drawing an audience, pursed his lips and nodded curtly. Then, he turned on his polished boot heel and strode away.
The sergeant Kierin had met in the records office yesterday approached them. "Mr. Holt?"
Clay glanced inquiringly at him.
"Sergeant Damon," the man said, extending his hand. "I wanted to thank you for what you tried to do out there." Emotion cracked his voice. "Most of those men were friends of mine."
Clay's weary glance followed the soldiers carrying Grattan's shrouded body away. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to do more."
"Yes, sir." Damon pushed his spectacles back into place with his finger. "I just thought... well, with the Sioux still a threat, you might like to use my quarters to clean up instead of going back to the wagons. I'm on duty this afternoon." He sensed Clay's hesitation. "It's not much, but it's private."
Clay looked at Kierin and her smile convinced him.
"Thank you, Sergeant. I think we'll take you up on that."
Damon instructed a private to see to Clay's horse, then walked them over to the two-story, wood-framed "Old Bedlam." Green shutters at the windows and bi-level verandas gave the building a strangely homey appeal in contrast to its desolate surroundings.
The sound of their heels on the wooden floor echoed down the cool, vacant hallways. The heat of the day hadn't yet penetrated the first floor of the building.
Damon's room was small, Kierin noted, but as clean and orderly as his office had been. A small bed occupied one corner and a washstand and chair backed up against the far wall. A worn pair of regulation-issue trousers hung neatly from a peg on the wall near the door.
Damon turned to Kierin before leaving. "My condolences again about your family, ma'am." He glanced at Clay. "I'm glad it turned out better for you this time."
Kierin gulped back the tears that gathered at the back of her throat. Avoiding Clay's questioning stare, she gave the other man a wan smile. "Thank you, Sergeant."
When he had left and they'd closed the door behind them, Clay took her by the shoulders. "What was that all about?"
Haltingly, she told him what she'd learned about her brother and father—about another massacre, another time. "I still can't believe it's true," she said, shaking her head. "I'm not sure I ever will."
Clay held her tightly, allowing her anguished tears to dampen
his shirt. "I'm so sorry, love."
"All I want to think about right now is having you back in my arms," she replied. "I was so afraid they'd killed you."
"I'm right here," he soothed, stroking her hair and pressing a kiss against her forehead.
She leaned into his comforting touch, glad for its solid strength. She couldn't think about her brother now. She had Clay, alive, in her arms. Her moments with him were too precious to waste on tears.
Tilting her head up, she reached for him on tiptoe until their mouths met in a fire storm of passion. His body fused with hers like heated metal, throbbing with need and wanting. Clay's hands massaged her back in long sensuous strokes, sending currents of desire through her. Through her clothes, he cupped her buttocks in his hands and dipped his knees, so his hips fit tightly against hers. She felt him there against her, pressing his swollen need into her abdomen. She wanted him inside her. She longed to be a part of him, in body as well as spirit.
Their clothes quickly became an obstacle to the burning need to touch each other, skin to skin. Wordlessly, they stripped off the hindering articles until they stood naked before one another. Clay's gaze roamed over the ivory perfection of her body, stunned, as always, by the power she had over him. He scooped her into his arms, savoring the soft silk of her skin against his.
The bed springs sang out as he dropped a knee to the mattress and gently lowered her down. He lay atop her, his mouth raining moist kisses across her face.
"All I could think of when the shooting started was that I might never see you again." His lips brushed against hers as he spoke. "This face..." He trailed small kisses across her cheek. "These eyes..." Her lids fluttered closed as he kissed them, one at a time. "I couldn't bear the thought of that."
"Don't ever leave me again, Clay," she begged, combing her fingers through the dark curls at the back of his head. "Promise me..."
His soul-reaching kiss answered her and her questions fell away into the abyss of his lovemaking. His lips burned a path down the hollow of her throat and onto the curve of her breasts. She shivered as he teased her sensitive, swollen nipple with his tongue, first caressing it, then taking it fully into his mouth. She arched up to meet him and let out a soft moan of pleasure.
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