She realized the logic of his words, and when he commanded her to let her legs fall apart and offer herself up to his lips, there was nothing she could do but submit to the hot blade of his tongue stabbing there until she gasped and pulled him hard against her while both his hands came up to cover her breasts and stroke them into pointed peaks of desire. Again, she could not control her own body as the surging began and she stifled her cries against the dark flesh of his shoulder.
She lay there, breasts heaving, breathing loudly through her mouth as he knelt between her thighs. Now, Silver?”
Oh, now! Yes, now!”
He penetrated her very slowly so that she seemed to feel him pulsating as he came into her. It was too slow for her eager body, and she found herself rising up off the bed to meet him, aching for him to fill the void.
That’s it Silver. Wrap your legs around me.”
She was his to command and they coupled together like one living being, her thighs locking him into her, his hard maleness throbbing hot and deep within her until she felt him moan and begin to surge. It was almost as if she could feel the hot, rich life fluid of him erupting within her womb. They were both wet with perspiration, writhing and bucking on the bed, his tongue deep in her throat, her nails clawing his back bloody. If he wanted to escape the sucking pull of her body, he could not because she locked him to her with her legs and she was instinctively refusing to release him until his body gave her what she wanted.
When he came deep within her, her own body met the challenge, riding a crescendo of feeling as it tried to squeeze him in her depths, not letting him escape until he’d given up the seed her womb craved.
Then she collapsed in his arms in sobbing surrender while he held her and kissed the tears from her eyes. Now that she had been awakened to love, her body was greedy for it, and he made love to her all night long until they were both exhausted.
Oh, Cherokee ... Cherokee ...
She blinked awake and realized that she still hugged her pillow in her lonely room at the Duchess’ Palace and he was only a ghost of her memory.
Weeks passed one into another. Winter came with all its snow and holidays. Silver was the one who made sure there was a Christmas tree and gifts for Waanibe. The Christmas tree was a new holiday decoration that was just coming into vogue the last few years in America, thanks to Queen Victoria of England. Her beloved husband, Albert, was German. He had brought Germany’s favorite Christmas custom with him when he married her. Americans had a habit of imitating anything English royalty did, so gradually, Silver heard, the decorated tree was spreading across the country, along with the reading of A Visit from St. Nicholas, which had been written more than forty years ago.
The Duchess was too busy with the booming business of the Palace and the gold in her safe. Many times when Silver came to her office, the dark beauty sat with the safe open as if simply staring at the piled-up treasure gave her satisfaction.
She also had Silver’s cherished gold bracelet. Silver saved her salary to redeem it, but the day before she intended to do so, the Duchess showed up wearing it.
Isn’t it pretty?” She smiled, holding up her arm so the light glinted off it. Someone never returned for it.”
At that point, Silver almost told the Duchess it was hers, then decided against it. She couldn’t prove ownership, and the Duchess would ask questions. Besides, why should Silver want to be reminded of a man who had talked his way into her bed one time and then discarded her while he went off to war? Not that the Duchess would give it up anyway; the woman liked it too much.
It was spring now, early April ’62. In a few more days, it would have been a year since Cherokee made love to her and then went off to war. Silver was happy enough, she thought as she went about her duties mechanically. Little Waanibe loved and needed her and she loved and needed the child. Certainly Waanibe was too young to be sent off to school, and besides, with the war still raging, that was impossible.
But that night, she dreamed about Cherokee. He was in some kind of trouble and calling her name.
Cherokee?” She sat bolt upright in bed and then she sighed with relief as she realized what had awakened her was only a dream. It was late at night—so late that even the saloon downstairs was quiet at this hour.
Cherokee. She sighed and lay back down. Of course there was always a chance he’d been killed in the war, but somehow they had seemed so attuned that Silver thought she would know the exact moment he died, even if it were a thousand miles from here.
No, he had simply enjoyed her body and, after the sample, had deserted her the way men were so wont to do women. He hadn’t even written her. She would like to think that maybe the mail wasn’t coming through, but after almost a year, she had to face the fact that he probably hadn’t bothered to write, would never bother to write.
Maybe he didn’t care about her but she still loved him. For a long moment, she thought about the Duchess. In some ways, they were alike—each awaiting a beloved man who didn’t care about her. Except the Duchess had a child by hers. Did that make her luckier or uhluckier than Silver?
And what had awakened her? Silver lay back down, but she couldn’t sleep. Somehow, she thought, wherever Cherokee is, he’s in terrible trouble and there’s nothing I can do about it!
Chapter Thirteen
Early April 1862,
near Shiloh, Tennessee.
Cherokee flattened himself against the ground and listened to the shells exploding around him in the darkness. He was going to die here, he thought. He and Shawn and Dowdy and the others of this patrol.
They had been out scouting the terrain and stumbled into a Yankee offensive that was just beginning. All around them, shells exploded and men screamed as they were torn in half. Cherokee hugged the dirt and thought about Silver. He hadn’t wanted to die without seeing her again. Loving her had made all this misery and death worth getting through, even if she didn’t care about him. He could daydream about what might have been.
He realized then that he had his fist tightly clenched and he opened it slowly, staring at it in the moonlight. Here’s a treasure ... put it in your pocket and take it out when you need it.
Oh, sweet darlin’, with your quicksilver laughter, I need it now just as I need you so. He held the palm of his hand against his unshaven cheek, almost seeming to feel her lips on his face, the warm passion of her beneath him the one night he had made love to her. He hoped he had given her a baby. Selfish of him maybe, but no man wants to die without leaving some trace of himself in this world.
Shawn shouted from his other side. I’ve got to get back and tell the colonel that the Yankees are massing here for a big push!”
Cherokee looked around the shadowy orchard where they lay. Peaches and apples and cherry trees were in bloom; the scent of those blossoms seemed to mock them. Spring. New life budding, but for the men around him, it would undoubtedly be the season of death.
Shawn shouted again. Did you hear me, Cherokee?”
Cherokee nodded. Maybe me and a couple of the others can hold out until the rest of the patrol gets away!”
I can’t ask you to do that, lad. The ones who stay behind are sure to get killed or captured!”
Go on,” Cherokee urged. I’ll keep Pettigrew and Wilson.”
Shawn paused. Wilson’s a good man, but Petty may turn tail and run if it gets bad enough!”
I’ll manage,” Cherokee said. You’ll need the others later. You’ll take Dowdy?”
Shawn nodded. Aye, if anyone can get through, it’s the blacksmith.” He paused, shells screaming around them like deadly fireworks. The acrid scent of burning powder made him cough. Cherokee, lad, I’ve never told you how much your friendship means to me. You’re not much older than the son I might have had if my first love . . .”
Cherokee waited for him to continue, then realized he wouldn’t. Aw, don’t get maudlin on me now,” Cherokee said, and made a dismissing gesture, there’s no time. Besides, Shawn, I owe you. That’s the reason I c
ame back. We’re friends—tso-ga-li-i.” He said it in his Indian language without thinking.
Shawn looked at him a long moment and Cherokee wondered suddenly if the older man could possibly know what a tramp his young wife was, that she and Cherokee had betrayed him. It didn’t matter. He owed Shawn. He might have to pay the debt of honor with his life.
They shook hands solemnly and then Shawn crept away through the mud toward where the horses were tied on the other side of the hedge.
Cherokee crawled to Wilson, and told the raw-boned farmer what was at stake.
The other nodded. For Captain O’Bannion, anything! We’ll hold them off, Cherokee, at least until the patrol gets away.”
He wished he could count on Pettigrew the same way. Cherokee had chosen to keep Petty because he was the one Shawn needed the least, but he was afraid the chunky redneck was liable to be an undependable coward. He found the man in the darkness.
The bursting shells reflected off the big drops of sweat on Pettigrew’s face. Nagnab it! Not me!” he drawled. I don’t care nothin’ about bein’ no dead hero!”
Petty, that’s an order! I’m the sergeant! Now grab your rifle and come with me! There’s a path through the trees that the Yankees will have to take. Right at that point, I think we can hold them off awhile.
And then what?” Petty demanded.
Cherokee shrugged. When we run out of ammunition, we do the best we can to get away under cover of darkness. At least the patrol will manage to get back to headquarters with the information we gathered!”
Petty swore. That may be important to you, but not to me. Nagnab it! I came to kill Yankees, but not at the cost of my own life so some fancy plantation owner like O’Bannion can escape back behind the front!”
By damn! I got no time to argue with you, come on!” Cherokee crawled away through the brush. Curse Petty anyway! The man was a good shot, but like most backwoods rednecks, he liked moonshine too much, and he was a coward—not the kind of backup any man wanted to depend on.
With the shells bursting and men shouting and screaming, it seemed a million miles back to where he’d left Wilson holding that high spot overlooking the path through the orchard. Funny, he was probably going to die in the next few minutes and all he could think about was a cup of hot coffee, some clean clothes, and Silver.
Wilson? How’s it going?”
No answer. Cherokee crawled through the darkness to the man’s side. Wilson? I brought Petty back with me. I think the three of us can hold this spot long enough . . .”
It dawned on him slowly that the shoulder he touched didn’t move. Wilson?”
No answer. A shell hit the ground a few hundred feet away, exploded with an acrid scent of powder, and set the brush on fire. In the new light, Cherokee suddenly realized that the top half of Wilson’s head was gone.
Oh my God. He swallowed hard to keep from getting sick. There was no time to be queasy, he and Petty had to hold off the Yankees until the patrol got away in the darkness. Cherokee pushed the body to one side and took Wilson’s rifle and cartridges. At least with two weapons, he and Petty could still hold this spot a long time. He was glad Shawn had taken Dowdy with him. The big, redheaded blacksmith was dependable and fiercely loyal. He’d get Shawn to headquarters if he had to carry him on his broad back.
Where the hell was Pettigrew? The Yankees were out there, Cherokee could hear them moving up. Petty, you watch that curve of the path over there and I’ll pick them off here.” No answer. Petty?”
If he’d been killed, too ... Cherokee crawled back along the trail, looking for a body. At least Cherokee could use Petty’s rifle if he had to hold the Yankees off all alone. He’d crawled almost all the way back before it dawned on him and he began to curse. That yellow coward had fled, leaving Cherokee to hold the position.
Well, by damn, he wasn’t going to die without taking a few Yankees with him! He’d told Shawn he would delay the Yanks and he’d do it if it cost him his life.
He crept back to the bend of the path, checking the ammunition in his pack. A shadowy figure appeared on the trail and Cherokee took careful aim and dropped him.
Immediately, there were shouts and cursing. Watch out, men, there must be a Johnny Reb ahead somewhere! Let’s get the bastard!”
But instead, when the Yankee officer showed himself just a little, light reflecting off his brass buttons, Cherokee got him.
He reloaded as he heard the man fall. Maybe he wouldn’t get out of this alive, but at least he was buying time for Shawn and he owed him that for betraying him. White women. Maybe they were all whores like his grandmother said, but at this moment when he was about to die, he wouldn’t have traded that one night with Silver for the most faithful Indian girl who ever lived.
Cherokee squeezed the trigger and took out another man. He reloaded as fast as he could, but he knew he was outnumbered. There wasn’t any way he was going to escape these Yankees. He was going to die here in the mud of some farmer’s orchard in the darkness. In his mind, he heard her quicksilver laughter.
Silver,” he whispered. Oh, Silver, if I had gotten out of this alive, I wanted to come back and marry you. Wherever you are tonight, I hope you’re thinking of me.”
He fired one more time before he suddenly felt the muzzle of a gun in his back. Okay, you Rebel bastard, throw the gun down and put your hands in the air!”
Cherokee obeyed slowly, then stood up, and turned around to look at the brawny trooper in the blue uniform. Okay, Yank, you got me, but my captain got away. That’s all that matters.”
The other slugged him with the rifle butt, then spat tobacco juice to one side. They call me Big ‘Un, you Southern bastard. You can say good-bye to the war, Reb. The rest of it, you’ll be sittin’ out in a prison camp!”
August 1864. Silver slipped Wannie’s nightgown over her head, getting ready to put her to bed in the nursery, and thought about Cherokee. She had never heard from him. What had she expected? It occurred to her now that she hoped maybe he had been captured and had no way of sending her a letter. It was easier to believe that than the other two possibilities—that he was dead or just didn’t want her anymore. But hadn’t she known from the first how men felt about saloon girls?
Denver was even bigger and more prosperous than before the war, with the government needing her gold and silver to buy military supplies. There had been a lot of trouble with the Plains tribes ever since spring and rumor was that the Confederates had stirred them up, hoping to use them against the Union soldiers. At any rate, the Cheyenne and their allies were on the war path and Denver had been blockaded for weeks with food shortages sending the cost of food skyrocketing, and mail and stagecoach service brought to a halt.
Ben Holladay had bought the stage line two years ago and moved its terminal to Fifteenth and McGaa Streets.
There had been other changes, too. Big Ed Chase had built an even grander saloon called Progressive Hall now that the Arcadia had been lost in last year’s big fire.
Silvery, you aren’t paying attention to me.”
What? Oh, of course, Wannie.” She hugged the little five-year-old girl to her and finished getting her ready for bed. Silver had grown to love the child like her own. She didn’t even want to think about the Duchess sending Wannie away to boarding school when the war finally ended.
She put Wannie to bed in the nursery and went out into the hall. The noise from the saloon drifted up to her, and for a moment, old memories of the Nugget and especially of Cherokee, came back to her. Silver shook her head and went to her own room. She was happy enough, she supposed, and she’d be better off not to think about what might have been. Still, he was much on her mind tonight and she lay awake with her lamp on and her door double-bolted, wondering where he was and if he ever gave any thought to her . . . if he were still alive.
In the moonlight, Cherokee looked at the marks carved in the stone of his cell and sighed. More than two years he’d been in this hellhole of a Yankee prison camp on this bleak sandbar
at Point Lookout, North Carolina. Almost two and a half, actually. For all the good he had done Shawn O’Bannion or the South, he might as well have stayed in Colorado Territory. He didn’t even know if Shawn and the others of that command were still alive.
God, it was hot in here tonight! He lay on the bare bunk and stared out the barred window at the pale moon, silver as his love’s long hair. Down the corridor, other prisoners snored and moaned in their sleep. He’d been locked up in solitary a month this time, along with others labeled troublemakers,” just because he’d started a riot when the food was short again.
Cherokee was so lean, he could count his own ribs when he ran his hand over them. He wondered for a long moment if he would survive until the war ended. Men were dying in military prisons from neglect and disease and no one seemed to care.
What was going on in the outside world, he knew very little, except when a new prisoner came in who could report the progress of the war. Almost always it was bad news for the South. He got no mail nor could send any, so he only hoped things were going well for his partners and Silver back in the Rockies.
Otherwise, they got rumors, and half-truths from their Yankee guards.
Shiloh had been the bloodiest battle of the war up to that point for both sides. Almost twenty-five-thousand casualties.
The telegraph had finally been strung completely across the country in the fall of ’61, and the Pony Express had ended its runs. It had lasted only eighteen months and lost money the whole time, bankrupting its owners.
Last year, Southern troops, barefooted and desperate had detoured toward the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in an attempt to capture a big shoe store there. Instead, they were spotted by Union troops, attacked, and beaten back with heavy loss of life on both sides. Lincoln made a short speech to dedicate the Union graveyard. His Gettysburg Address impressed most newspapers only with its brevity.
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