"I've sent my men out looking," the lieutenant reported. "He must have slipped past the pickets, or we'd have him by now."
"Or he's hiding somewhere here in the fort."
A shudder of apprehension rippled through the crowd. Men drew their families closer.
McGarrity looked around. "Jalbert!" the major bellowed.
"Sir?" Hunter appeared from somewhere off to Cassie's left.
"I know you can only do so much in the dark, but go see if you can figure out what direction that redskin took."
"Do we know how he got out of the guardhouse?"
Cassie could see the apprehension in Lieutenant Arnold's face. If something he'd done had enabled the prisoner to escape, McGarrity would break him back to private.
"When the firebell rang," Arnold began, "I myself checked on the prisoner. He was shut up in his cell and locked in the back of the guardhouse. I detailed Corporal Minter and Private Wallace to stay with him while the rest of us came to fight the fire."
"Goddamnit, Arnold!" McGarrity loomed up as if he meant to tear Arnold into little pieces. "How did Many Buffalo get past two armed men?"
"They came out onto the guardhouse steps to watch the fire, sir. Since the guardhouse is up on a rise, the view is—"
"I don't give a damn about the view, Lieutenant," McGarrity thundered.
"Yes—yes, sir. As near as I can f-figure, while they were out on the steps Many Buffalo got out."
"How, goddamnit?"
"I don't know how he got through two locked doors, sir. Once he reached the office, he climbed out one of the side windows and went around back."
"I'll see if I can track him," Hunter told McGarrity and trotted off.
"And you're sure those doors were locked?"
Lieutenant Arnold stiffened. "Yes, sir! I locked the cell door myself when we emptied the slops. I checked the lock on the one from the cells to the office before we left the guardhouse to fight the fire."
"Has it occurred to anyone that the fire might have been set?" Captain Parker put in.
A cold tingle ran the length of Cassie's back. The people around her muttered and glanced to where the wagons were still smoldering.
"Set as a diversion, you mean?" Drew asked.
"The fire was certainly spectacular," Parker observed. "It got everyone's attention."
"But who—who would have done that?" Sally McGarrity asked, nestling against her husband's shoulder.
The major turned to Lieutenant Arnold again. "Did Many Buffalo have any visitors, anyone who could have helped him escape?"
Cassie felt the impact of that question in the center of her chest and waited for Arnold's answer.
He found her with his gaze before he spoke. "Well, Mrs. Reynolds came to see Many Buffalo late this afternoon."
Though his face remained impassive, Drew's fingers tightened at her waist, biting deep. Cass shuddered, knowing she was caught, knowing she'd betrayed both the promises she'd made to Drew and to herself. She would rather have faced a loaded gun than the accusation in his eyes.
Everyone within earshot turned and stared at her. Ben and Sally, several of the companies' laundresses, Lila's son Josh, scores of enlisted men. From a dozen feet away Jessup leered.
"What did Mrs. Reynolds do while she was with the prisoner?" McGarrity asked the lieutenant instead of addressing Cassie directly.
"They made hand signs—first her, then him."
"And did she bring him anything?"
"A blanket, some sundries, and a bucket of stew." Arnold spared her another glance. "But we checked everything she brought before she went into that cell."
"Are you sure you checked everything, Lieutenant?" McGarrity asked.
The people around her speculated at what Arnold might have missed.
The lieutenant colored up, his blush visible even in the dark. "I checked everything a gentleman could, sir."
"And was Mrs. Reynolds Many Buffalo's only visitor?"
"No one came to visit Many Buffalo," the young lieutenant clarified, "except Mrs. Reynolds."
Cass could feel the hostility gathering and breaking over her like a wave. She knew she had invited everyone's censure by visiting Many Buffalo, but she just hadn't been able to ignore his plight.
Before Cassie could speak in her own defense, her husband straightened beside her. His face was devoid of expression, his eyes like mirrors reflecting back the darkness. Or perhaps that darkness was in Drew himself.
He wouldn't look at her as he spoke. He refused to look at anyone. "My wife may have gone to see Many Buffalo this afternoon, but she had nothing to do with his escape. She had nothing to do with setting this fire. She was home in bed when that fire bell rang, and she'd been there all night."
Cassie knew that honor made him speak in her behalf, honor as brittle as prairie grass in November, as fragile as the bond that was breaking between them even now.
He'd been somehow defeated by what she'd done. By her promises, by his own dreams, by his own failures. By having his horse thief escape. He seemed so fragile standing there, like the spent shell of a locust disintegrating in her hands.
Yet that defense was what people expected of him, an honorable man defending his not-so-honorable wife. By those words, as futile as they were, he'd won their sympathy.
When Drew turned her and Meggie toward home, the crowd parted before them like winnowed wheat. Cassie and Meggie and Drew crossed the parade ground together, as if they were still a family. But once the stout cabin door was closed behind them, Drew took his hands away as if he might be tainted by touching her.
"I didn't do it," she whispered, her voice urgent in the silence. "I didn't have anything to do with Many Buffalo's escape."
Drew looked down at her for one long moment, then turned away. "It doesn't matter," was all he said.
Chapter 16
Many Buffalo escaped without leaving a trace. No one had seen him go. No one could explain how he'd gotten through the two locked doors in the guardhouse. No one had been able to track him. Not even Hunter Jalbert.
Especially not Hunter Jalbert.
Not normally a duplicitous man, Hunter had taken delight in his own guile. By clever misdirection he'd released an Arikara warrior from his cage and let him fly free. He'd been inordinately pleased by what he'd accomplished until he returned to the fort and discovered the consequences—Cassandra Reynolds's ruination.
By the time he got back from his fruitless search, Cass Reynolds was paying for his deception. Short of turning himself in, there was nothing he could do to help her. He never thought a white woman would understand what it meant for a man of the Arikara to be shut away from the sun. He never thought that Cass would risk so much by visiting Many Buffalo. And even if he had imagined that, what else could he have done but set the Arikara free?
During the next two weeks, Hunter watched most of the people in the fort shun Cass. He saw how they looked through her, how they turned away when she approached. He heard her degraded in whispers and denounced as a spy. He spoke in her defense in a meeting with the officers, but it was too late.
She was providing a focus for men already frustrated by weeks of tension and inactivity, for women frazzled by unruly children and the onslaught of the summer heat. And Drew Reynolds was behaving as if she were invisible.
Even the little girl was suffering for Cassie's disgrace. Twice Hunter had pulled Meggie out of fights defending her.
"You should tell Cassie that the other children are bothering you," he counseled as he held Meggie between his knees and blotted her bloodied lip with his bandana.
Meggie shook her head, valiant in a way even he could admire. "That would only make it worse."
His anger was instinctive, yet he knew the code white children lived by had its own complex and brutal hierarchy.
Nothing had changed since he was a boy in St. Louis, and he had been the one fighting the other children's taunts. Hunter hadn't forgotten what names they'd called him or that his father
had brought him into the family parlor to lecture him on behaving like a gentleman. While Hunter stood with scuffed knuckles and a black eye, his father's city wife and his father's city children had laughed at him behind their hands.
Hunter had realized then that he had to answer the jeers all by himself. Meggie understood that, too. Sighing, he'd folded away the handkerchief and watched her limp toward the Reynolds's cabin.
As far as Hunter could see, Cass rarely left the house. He passed it whenever he could and wandered down to the riverbank at night, hoping for a chance to talk to her. He wanted to tell her what he'd done and apologize for the trouble it was causing. But he never caught so much as a glimpse of her.
Instead, it was Drew Reynolds who approached him in the cavalry barn one steamy afternoon. "I want to speak to you about Cassie," Reynolds said, standing there crisp and immaculate in spite of the setting and the heat.
Hunter's heart thumped hard against his ribs, and he nearly dropped the bridle he'd been mending. "Cassie? What about Cassie?"
"She's been after me about letting her leave the fort to gather herbs. She needs yarrow and milkweed and"—Reynolds frowned—"and some other things I can't remember. She says her supplies are getting low, and after what she did for Private Foster the night of the fire, we've had enlisted men knocking on our back door for one remedy or another." Reynolds shifted a little on his feet. "I thought you might have some idea where this damned stuff grows. I thought you might be willing to take her."
"You want me to take Cassie out to gather herbs?"
Images spun through Hunter's head—of riding out of the fort with Cass at his side, of taking her to the wide-water marshes downstream or to the thick piney woods on the slopes of Caspar Mountain. They could have a whole day to themselves. She could gather her plants, and he would have his chance—away from prying eyes and listening ears—to explain about Many Buffalo.
"I would like you to take her, Jalbert, if it wouldn't be too much trouble," Reynolds continued, "and you think it's safe."
"I'd be happy to take Mrs. Reynolds out to gather herbs."
"And Meggie, too, of course."
Hunter hadn't imagined taking Meggie. The visions he'd had of Cass and him hadn't included a child. Still, considering how the other children were treating her, a day away from the fort would do her good. It would do both the Reynolds women good.
"Of course I'll take Meggie."
Reynolds smiled, one of his rare, genuine smiles. "Meggie will like that. She loves horses, loves to ride. In a year or so, I suppose I'll have to be getting her a pony of her own."
"Then I'll ask Mrs. Reynolds what herbs she needs," Hunter offered, turning back to the bridle. "We'll plan an expedition."
"Thank you," the captain said, and turned to go. "And you will have Cassie back before nightfall."
Hunter's mouth hooked up at one corner. He shook his head. While people at the fort were busy vilifying his wife as a spy, Reynolds was worried about her being out after dark with him.
"I'll make sure we're back by suppertime," Hunter promised. Reynolds stopped just short of the door. Hunter noticed his hesitation and looked up.
"Jalbert?" There was something in Reynolds's voice that made Hunter's stomach clench. "You don't think Cassie had anything to do with Many Buffalo's escape, do you?"
The unexpected question caught Hunter hard. Jesus, had he made this man doubt his own wife?
"No," he answered instinctively. "Why—why are you asking me?"
The captain turned and came nearer. He seemed suddenly almost haggard in the half-light. "I'm asking because I thought you'd know if Cassie was involved. Because I think you're man enough to tell me the truth."
Hunter let out his breath, strangely shaken by the captain's confidence. "I can see why people think she might have been involved in the escape," he began slowly. "She spent so long with the Indians, and she gave that woman milk. But I think she went to see Many Buffalo because she knows what it is to be held against her will. She understood what it meant for Many Buffalo to be shut up in that cell. She's a compassionate woman—your Cassie. I think she was just trying to help."
Drew shifted a little, like a man in pain. "I know exactly what Cassie is. I believed she wanted to do better, but she keeps making these mistakes."
The air went thick and hot in Hunter's lungs, but he couldn't seem to manage to let out his breath. Whatever Cassie hoped, however hard she tried, whoever she thought she could be for him, her life with Drew was over. Reynolds wasn't living with a phantom anymore. He was living with Cass, the real Cass, and he didn't want the woman his Cassie had become.
Hunter took care to meet and hold Drew Reynolds's gaze. He refused to give Reynolds cause to hurt her. "Mrs. Reynolds didn't have anything to do with Many Buffalo's escape," he told him. "Don't you doubt her for a moment."
Drew let out his breath and straightened. "I won't," he murmured, and Hunter wished he could believe him.
Reynolds shifted and tugged his uniform jacket into place. "Very well, then," he said brusquely, almost as if they'd been discussing the weather. "I'll let Cassie know you've agreed to take her out to gather herbs. Perhaps you can go at the beginning of next week."
Hunter watched the captain leave, a dark regret creeping through him.
* * *
Once they'd ridden beyond the sights and sounds and smells of Fort Carr, Cass tipped her head back and devoured the bright new world around her. She drank in the hot, fierce blue of the cloudless sky. She turned her face into the wind. She breathed deeply, letting the scent and taste and feel of freedom soak into her.
She'd been preparing for this moment since well before dawn. She'd hauled and heated water, made the beds and breakfast, dressed both Meggie and herself, and packed up what they would need for the day. She'd kissed Drew goodbye by way of thanks, smiled at Hunter, and climbed onto the horse he'd brought for her.
For just today, she needed to be where the breeze ruffled the luxuriant carpet of buffalo grass, and orange whips of curly dock overran the gullies. She needed to be where flax flowers poked their heads through the coarse gray-green clumps of sage that studded the rolling prairie.
This is how it's supposed to be, Cass found herself thinking. And Hunter had made this world his gift to her.
He had given her the prairie and the sky, and a chance to savor the solitude by inviting Meggie to ride with him. Cass glanced across at the two of them, the tall man patiently guiding his horse while the child in his lap chattered and pointed and wiggled. The contrasts between him and Meggie touched some sweet, soft spot inside Cass.
Her gaze strayed as a pronghorn antelope bounded off ahead of them. Meggie crowed with delight, sending a dozen more antelope scattering. The mule deer proved far less skittish. They stood belly-deep in scrub, watching and chewing thoughtfully.
As the three of them moved toward the ridge of green-black mountains to the south, the land tipped subtly upward. Rounded, velvety green hills rose from the rolling scrub country. Boulders seemed to be scattered across the lush baize hummocks like tumbled dice. The rocks became larger and more rough-hewn as they climbed. The wind blew more strongly here. Wispy cedars huddled among the rocks as if seeking protection from the howling gusts.
The slope became steeper as they entered the woods. Pine and hardwoods towered over them as they picked their way up a gravel trail. They had been climbing for the best part of an hour when Hunter turned in to a steep glade at the edge of a rushing stream. It was cool and green and peaceful, as beautiful and perfect as anything Cass could have imagined.
Hunter came around to hold her horse's bridle while Cassie dismounted. "Is this place all right?" he asked her.
"It couldn't be more beautiful."
Calling Meggie back from the edge of the creek to help, Cass spread a length of gauzy cloth across the grass. She tied a pair of heavy scissors to her belt and settled the familiar weight of her gathering basket against her hip.
Hunter ambled back a
s she was preparing.
"Things up here look so green," she told him. "There should be wonderful clumps of mint and sheaves of goldenrod." She paused to look up at him. "Is there anything you want me to collect?"
Hunter glanced at her in surprise and shook his head. "I'm no healer."
"You still practice Arikara ways and use Arikara herbs, don't you?"
"Sometimes."
"Would you like to come with me and gather them yourself?"
"I thought I'd keep Meggie here. I like to fish, and I thought I'd teach her."
Cass knew he was giving her time alone, to wander and gather and think. Time to lie with her back to the earth and dissolve her soul on the wind.
"Stay on this side of the creek," he went on. "Don't go too far. And take this." He held out an army revolver. "You know how to use it, don't you?"
Cassie nodded.
"I'm not expecting trouble, but bears and rattlers can be downright unpredictable. Captain Reynolds will have my hide if I bring you back any way but healthy and whole."
Cassie reached for the gun and tucked it into the pocket of her skirt. "I want to thank you for bringing me here."
Hunter gave a slow, self-conscious shrug. "It was the captain's idea," he answered, and flushed just a little. "Besides, it's going to give me a chance to catch some trout. Maybe if we're lucky, Meggie and I will get enough for lunch."
"I packed a meal in any case," Cass teased him.
Hunter gave her a we'll-just-see-about-that smile and sauntered away.
She resettled the basket on her hip and headed off.
"Be careful!" he called after her.
Cass shivered a little as she climbed through the coolness of the woods. The sharp, sweet scent of pine and the warm earthy damp mingled in her nostrils. Though it was late in the season to be gathering plants, she found a luxuriant growth of lacy sarsaparilla, a bank of wood sorrel, and another of bergamot. She stopped to scrape the bark from both aspen and chokecherry trees. Though they were best harvested in the fall, Cass dug for roots, dusting the cool, crumbly earth from her hands when she was done.
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