And One Rode West

by Heather Graham

  Weland nodded. He stood. “It wouldn’t be so difficult. Because, you see, it would be impossible for them to escape from here without help, so no one will be worried very much. And when they do escape …”

  “I won’t ever let anyone know that you were involved, I swear it!” Christa promised him fervently.

  He shook his head. “You have to play innocent too, Christa.”

  “I doubt if Jeremy will believe I’m innocent,” she murmured.

  He slammed his fist against his hand. “But is it the right thing to do?” he demanded suddenly. He answered himself. “It has to be. I can still see that scalp, stretched out, dried …”

  “Stop, please!”

  He swung around. “You must be careful. Very careful. Jeremy will see that you’re very upset.”

  “Oh, he knows that I’m upset,” Christa murmured. “I’ll just stay away from him during the day. I don’t think it will be difficult.”

  Weland stretched out a hand to her. “Oh, God, Christa! I can’t believe that we’re conspirators—against Jeremy!”

  “I never meant to be!” she whispered.

  “Nor I. You mustn’t let him suspect, Christa. And you have to keep him in his tent through the night, so that I can casually see that the horses are moved around.”

  “Yes,” she said flatly, staring at him. Keep Jeremy in the tent? They weren’t even speaking!

  “They will die if we don’t help them,” he said. “They’ll hang.”

  Christa nodded, her fingers digging into her palm.

  She turned and fled Weland’s tent, grateful that he was first and always a humanitarian.

  * * *

  It wasn’t difficult to keep her distance from Jeremy during the day because it seemed that he had no desire to see her.

  She knew that he would be in the headquarters tent all day and that he was busy with correspondence. She tried to spend time with Celia so that she wouldn’t stay too near the prisoners, but she couldn’t even be near Celia without betraying her emotions.

  Jeremy didn’t come to their tent for supper. Robert Black Paw informed her that Jeremy was dining with Majors Brooks and Jennings and sent his apologies.

  Ah, yes, he was sorry!

  The hour grew later and later. She couldn’t eat, and she certainly didn’t dare sleep.

  Keep him in his tent …

  She couldn’t even get him here, she thought.

  But as the hour grew very late, she heard him coming back at last. He paused to speak with Robert Black Paw outside their tent, and she went into a sudden swirl of motion. She stripped to the flesh and lowered the lamp to a shadowy, soft glow. Before he entered the tent, she plowed beneath the covers and pulled them to her chin.

  She felt his eyes on her when he came in and listened to the movements that had become so familiar. He removed his scabbard and sword, and she heard the clink of metal against his desk. She felt his weight on the bed and heard the soft fall of his boots beside it. Then the sounds were just whispers in the night as he shed the rest of his clothing and crawled into bed beside her. She opened her eyes just a slit, certain that she would find him lying there awake, his fingers laced behind his head, his eyes on the canvas above them.

  His eyes were hard on her. He had known she wasn’t sleeping.

  “Christa, stay away from the prisoners,” he warned her.

  “I don’t want to talk,” she told him coldly.

  “Christa—”

  “I don’t want to talk!”

  “Well, maybe I do.”

  “You didn’t want to talk last night, I don’t want to talk tonight.”

  Aggravated, he started to toss the covers back and sit up.

  But with the covers drawn back he noted her state of nudity and inhaled softly, his eyes riveted to hers. Silver, glittering, they spoke a silent demand.

  “I—I said that I didn’t want to talk,” she whispered. She didn’t really know how to play this game.

  Yes, she did, she realized. She didn’t want to talk. She was furious with him. She was heartsick over what he had done.

  But, she realized with the pounding of her heart, that didn’t change certain things. She wanted him. Perhaps she was even afraid that it might be the last time she would ever have him. Maybe after tonight, they would never be able to forgive one another.

  She had to keep him in his tent.

  It was not going to be so hard a task.

  “Christa—!” His voice was harsh, rough-edged. She came up quickly, leaning over him, draping the length of her hair about his shoulders and chest. She pressed her lips to his shoulders, sliding the length of her body against him, her breasts brushing the dark hair and muscle of his chest, her body warm against his. She let her kisses fall where they would, her tongue teasing his flesh. She rose against him, her tongue sliding over the small hard peaks of his nipples, sweeping over the muscled structure of his chest. She moved against him again, the softness of her hair brushing where her kiss had just been. She pressed her face against the ripples of his belly, bathing him again with the warmth of her tongue.

  She moved lower against him. Nipping at his hip, always allowing the soft flow of her hair to sweep around him. She felt the pulse of him. The powerful trembling of his fingers as they moved into her hair. She heard his tense whisper. She felt the hard, searing shaft of his desire beneath her, and allowed her touch to fall all around it. Then she took him into her hands, into her caress, and bathed him with the slow, luxurious slide of her tongue.

  Impassioned words exploded from him. The force of his desire sent longing and excitement sweeping into her. She gasped at the violence with which he clutched her, lifting her, bringing her atop him, impaling her there.

  She could not meet his eyes, could not meet the bold hunger in them. She closed her own and felt him. His fingers curled around her buttocks, guiding her. She gasped, her head falling back as he thrust more deeply into her. The night seemed to take flight, the rhythm exploded, and she became aware of nothing but sensation, the force of her own desire to touch the peak, to reach out and feel the stars cascading, to feel the ecstasy and the splendor he could create.

  She rose and rose, soared so high. Yet when she would have cried out, she suddenly found herself beneath him. She was devastated, for he had withdrawn. Then she gasped, feeling the rise of a greater fever as he touched and caressed her. Teased and tormented her flesh, touched her with the searing liquid fire of his kiss, stroked her with the evocative draw and thrust of his fingers and caress. She thought that she would die if the sweet anguish went on any longer, yet just when she reached that point, he was with her again, moving in the darkness, in the night.

  And then it came, that honey-sweet explosion of the stars, of the world, of the velvet of the night. Shattering, violent, delicious, leaving her to cling to him while she trembled.

  He fell beside her, his arm flung back, his breathing still harsh, his body hot and wet despite the coolness of the night. She closed her eyes tightly, thinking of the depths of her betrayal.

  “Christa—” he began anew. The sound of his voice still seemed harsh. She didn’t want to hear it! He would chastise her again about the prisoners. She reminded herself that she had to hate him for what he had done, taking sides with Comanche just because the men had been in the Rebel army!

  “I don’t want to talk!” she said fiercely.

  “Damn you—”

  “I don’t want to talk!”

  She heard his teeth grating in the darkness. “Fine. Have it your way, my love. Don’t talk!”

  And so he said nothing more, but minutes later she felt his hands in the darkness again.

  It seemed hours later before he slept. The dawn was finally coming.

  Christa bit her lip, threw back the covers, and rose. He stirred, but she turned her back to him, dressing. He knew that she was up.

  But he never suspected her of this treachery, she was certain. She washed and dressed and headed out of the tent, look
ing back.

  Her heart seemed to plummet. He lay at rest, his hair a rich dark red against the snow white of the covers, his face so handsomely defined. She stared at the hard, sinewed length of him, and a trembling seized her. How could she lie with him as passionately as she had, and do this?

  How could she love him as she did, and do this?

  Because he didn’t understand. Even Dr. Weland realized Jeremy didn’t understand. He had fought men in gray uniforms for so long that he couldn’t let it go. He was being deceived by a Comanche. She wasn’t doing this to hurt him. She was doing it to save her countrymen.

  Christa slipped from the tent.

  The rest of the camp lay sleeping. Mist was all around them. She hurried through it to the makeshift stockade where Ethan Darcy was once again on duty in the early-morning hours.

  “Good morning, Private Darcy!” she called to him softly, walking over to him. “Don’t tell me that they keep you here all day and all night!”

  “No ma’am, Mrs. McCauley,” he said, watching her warily. “Lennox and Fairfield were on duty before me. We stand guard in shifts.”

  He turned around, following her. Christa nearly allowed her eyes to widen and betray her as she saw Weland coming up silently behind Darcy. He brought the butt of a gun down hard on Darcy’s temple.

  Darcy never knew what hit him. He crumpled to the ground.

  Christa stared from the fallen soldier to Weland. “Will he be all right?”

  “Of course,” Weland said softly. “Hurry now. I’ve the horses around here. Let’s free the men.”

  He hurried around and slipped the slide bolt from the stockade. Jeffrey Thayer stepped out immediately. The others didn’t follow.

  “Come on!” Thayer commanded.

  “I—I ain’t going back out into Comanche territory,” Tom Ross said.

  “It’s an order!” Thayer told him.

  But Tom Ross was stepping back.

  “Leave him!” Weland commanded.

  “I—I ain’t going either,” Sergeant Tim Kidder said.

  “Harry!” Thayer barked to the last of his men. “Are you coming or have you turned on me too, boy?”

  “I ain’t going to turn you in, but I ain’t going with you,” Harry said.

  “I don’t understand—” Christa began.

  “It doesn’t matter, let’s just get this going!” Weland said. He caught hold of Christa’s arm and led her along with Thayer to the horses. “Ride out with him a ways—if the sentries see you, they won’t stop him!” Weland commanded her.

  She shook her head. “John, I can’t do that—”

  She broke off in sheer amazement. He was aiming his gun at her. The same gun he had used to knock Darcy senseless.

  “Get up on that horse, Christa,” he commanded her.

  “John—”

  Someone suddenly interrupted them. She heard a low, dangerous voice. “What are you doing?”

  She spun around. It was Robert Black Paw. She was never far from his sight, she remembered.

  But that wasn’t going to help her now. She cried out as Major Dr. John Weland took careful aim and shot the Cherokee scout.

  No sound escaped her because Jeffrey Thayer had a bony but powerful hand wrapped tightly over her mouth. “Get her out of here—fast!” Weland ordered. “And see that she doesn’t come back. Trade her to the Indians. Strangle her! Just see that she doesn’t come back. It’s your price for freedom.”

  Christa bit the hand covering her mouth. Thayer swore savagely, jerking her back against him. “When I get you alone, angel, are you going to pay!” he drawled.

  She inhaled for a long, high-pitched scream. It never left her mouth because Weland had aimed his gun at Darcy. “One word, Christa, and I shoot Darcy too!”

  Furious, she demanded, “Why? What did I do to you? What did Jeremy do to you?”

  Dr. John Weland, her friend through so much, smiled. He tried to stroke her cheek, and she wrenched her head away. “It isn’t you, Christa. I really like you.”

  “Then Jeremy—”

  “And it isn’t that proud husband of yours, Christa. Pity you wouldn’t listen to him. You played right into my hands. I had myself assigned to this division purposely. I’ve spent months—no, years—planning this revenge. I had a better method of torment devised, but you ruined that.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she whispered. If she could just stall for time, help might come. She was always being watched.

  By Robert. And Robert was bleeding on the ground.

  God! What had caused this?

  “You married McCauley,” Weland said quietly. “I could have had the house. I made a lot of money, putting in with those fool southern blockade runners! Not the noble boys. Fellows like Thayer here who knew how to make a dollar out of a war.”

  She gasped. “But—why?”

  “Jesse Cameron,” he said simply.

  She was feeling faint. She couldn’t begin to comprehend what was happening. The house! That seemed so long ago now. Yet, even when she had been about to lose it, she had been convinced that the enemy must have been Daniel’s enemy.

  “Jesse?” she repeated, stunned.

  “Jesse Cameron,” Weland repeated. “The one, the only, the majestic, the wonderful. The great healer, second only to Christ!” He spat on the ground suddenly. “The man given every promotion I should have had.”

  “You’d kill—because of that?”

  His eyes had been distant. Now they were riveted on her. “He was the great healer. Until it came time for him to operate on my little brother. Then your goddamned sainted brother couldn’t do a thing. Gerald died screaming on the operating table. They said that he’d been a coward. That he’d been running away from the battle when he was hit. It was a lie. But your brother killed him anyway. He opened him up and he killed him.”

  “You’re wrong!” Christa said. “Jesse would never let anyone die if he could stop it, never, for any reason.” She spoke very quickly. “I thought that you were like him! I thought you were a doctor just like Jesse, so concerned with healing! You believed in men’s right to live, whether they were red or white or black. You—”

  “I thought that seeing Cameron Hall burned to the ground would wound him forever. But this is better,” Weland said. “He’ll never know what happened to his precious sister. Whether the Comanche have you and rape and mutilate you daily, or whether some renegade, murdering Reb kidnapped you down to South America to serve his comrades. He’ll never know and it will hurt him all his life. It will cut like a knife. I hope he lives a long, long time.”

  “You’re sick—”

  “And I’m going to hang with those other fools if I don’t get the hell out of here!” Jeffrey Thayer said.

  “This is a sick man!” Christa tried to tell him.

  “I don’t care if he’s a raving lunatic! He’s set me free. And you’re my way out. Let’s go!”

  “Go with him. Or I’ll shoot Darcy right in the head. As a matter of fact, let me get Darcy up on a horse. Then Thayer can shoot him the minute you give him a word of trouble!”

  Thayer jerked her around while Weland threw Darcy’s prone body over one of the four horses brought for the Rebels’ escape.

  “Get up!” he commanded her.

  She stared at him. “You are a murderer, aren’t you?” she asked. “My husband believed the Comanche because the Comanche was telling the truth.”

  “Get on the horse. I’ve killed before. But there’s a lot I’d rather do to you than kill you, angel. So keep quiet and—”

  “I’ll see you hang!” Christa promised.

  Thayer smiled, the kind of smile that showed her, too late, what kind of man he was.

  No matter what the color of his uniform.

  “You want that private dead on your account?” Thayer asked, indicating Darcy.

  She swallowed hard, then walked to one of the horses and mounted it. She stared at Weland. “They’ll hang you too!” s
he promised.

  He lifted a brow complacently. “I won’t give a damn.”

  “Ride, angel,” Thayer commanded her.

  Just then they heard music. Someone was singing a hymn. “Onward Christian soldiers …”

  “Christ Almighty!” Weland groaned. “It’s that holier-than-thou Brooks woman!”

  Mrs. Brooks had come upon them with her Bible, ready to read a sermon to the erring Rebel prisoners, Christa was certain.

  Now the plump and proper old harridan stared at them all, openmouthed.

  Weland turned, aiming his gun at her. “Mount up, Mrs. Brooks. You’re going for a ride.”

  “Her!” Thayer protested. “Shoot her! Just shoot her!”

  “Jesus, no!” Christa cried.

  “What in the Lord’s name—” Mrs. Brooks began.

  “Just mount up! Mount up!” Christa urged her.

  “I will not!” Mrs. Brooks said indignantly. “I will not be a part of this treachery—”

  “He’ll shoot you, Mrs. Brooks!” Christa cried. She leapt down from her own animal, prodding Mrs. Brooks toward one of the mounts. “He’ll shoot you!” she hissed, trying to show the woman how serious the look was in Weland’s eyes—and Robert Black Paw on the ground, blood oozing from his chest.

  “Oh! Oh, Lord Almighty! I’m going to faint—” Mrs. Brooks began.

  “Get on a horse!” Christa ordered her. Mrs. Brooks was heavy. With a strength she didn’t know she had, Christa boosted her onto one of the horses.

  If they could just ride, they could escape Thayer. He’d be on his own without Weland behind them.

  When Mrs. Brooks was mounted at last, white-faced and wavering, Christa leapt up on one of the horses again.

  “Good-bye, angel,” Weland said. He stared at Jeffrey Thayer. “If she survives and comes back, you’re a dead man.”

  Thayer started to laugh. “She’ll be with me—until death!” he swore.

  He slammed his heels against his horse.

  And all four mounts—his, Christa’s, and the beasts carrying the unconscious Darcy and the blubbering Mrs. Brooks—began to race across the plain.

  The first pink streaks of dawn were just beginning to show on the eastern horizon.

  Twenty