“Get to the horses. Quick and quiet.”
She was already moving. Staying low to the ground, where the shadows were thickest, she could hear the rustle of Noble following. She went directly to the big gray stallion, easing up so as not to startle it into giving them away. It snorted in alarm but was easily calmed by the stroke of her palm upon its nose as she untied its crude hackamore. At the same time, Noble sliced through the hobbles. He made a cradle with his hands and boosted her aboard.
A shout came from the camp.
With no time to free another mount, Noble leaped up behind Juliet, using the braided halter rope to jerk the animal around, then kicked it into an anxious gallop.
There was no time to feel afraid.
Juliet bent low over the horse’s neck, grabbing handfuls of its whipping mane, as they plunged wildly through the darkness. Whoops from the pursuing raiding party split the night air, growing ever closer. Noble’s form engulfed hers, his arms and powerful thighs holding her to the animal’s bare back, his body making a barrier between her and their enemies. She hung on tight as the stallion raced over the rugged terrain under Noble’s relentless goading. Until they came to the edge of a ravine that broke away and fell straight down into total darkness.
Noble wheeled the horse about in a tight circle, assessing their chances of eluding the Indians by heading either to the right or left. He saw only one means of escape and took it without hesitation.
“Hang on.”
Her scream caught in her throat as Noble urged their mount down the crumbling side of the ravine. To keep her seat, Juliet lay back flat along Noble’s chest, and he against the animal’s scrabbling haunches. Loose dirt and rock slid all around them, careening ahead toward whatever waited at the bottom. They heard splashes; then they were in the water.
The creek wasn’t deep but it was fast-moving. It took the gray a moment to gather its footing, then they were surging upstream away from the awed and angry Apache, who lined the lip of the ravine, none willing to follow their reckless descent into what should have been certain death.
Chapter 11
Though the immediate threat had ended, Noble continued to push on throughout the night. Only when the searing peach hues of daybreak streaked the horizon did he rein in from the mile-gobbling canter to a jouncing lope, guiding them to the crumbling walls of an abandoned mission. There they could find shade and concealing shelter while the horse had a chance to blow. And only when they stopped within the roofless structure did Juliet risk speaking.
“I’ve never seen such daring on horseback,” she began breathlessly. “Noble, I—”
She twisted just in time to catch him in a headlong plunge toward the ground. Gripping the animal’s sweat-slicked sides with her knees for balance, she managed to swing him down in a more gentle descent, then quickly dismounted.
“Take care of the horse,” he mumbled as she started to bend over him. A true cavalryman.
By the time she’d finished rubbing down the animal with a ruffled flounce torn from the hem of her drawers, Noble had managed to drag himself to one of the adobe walls. He slumped against it, his eyes closed, hand kneading his cramping thigh. Juliet paused before approaching him, stunned and dismayed by how worn and ravaged he appeared—not at all the dynamic hero who’d whisked her from under the Apache’s very noses in a desperate bid for freedom.
“That was some piece of riding.” She knelt down in front of him, pitching her voice in a conversational tone.
“Dangerous times call for reckless measures.”
“And I for one am glad you were willing to take them. I have no real desire to see Mexico just now.”
His eyes opened slowly, gaze fixing upon her face with difficulty. “Do you think they’re still following us?”
“I don’t know. We probably shouldn’t stay here for very long. It’s a hard day’s ride to the fort if we want to make it by dark.”
He nodded, then grimaced at the pain that movement caused. Worriedly, Juliet touched the back of her hand to his brow. His skin was fever-scorched. He scowled at her concern.
“I’ll be fine.”
Her silence stated her opinion. Seeing it was useless to argue, Noble shut his eyes once more, determined to make the most of their brief rest.
Wondering what she could do to relieve some of the discomfort she saw in the pinch of his features, Juliet studied his head wound. A nasty gash that no longer bled. Again she noticed his preoccupation with his leg.
“Are you hurt?”
“You’ll have to be a bit more specific. I hurt all over.”
She touched his knuckles. His hand paused in its restless massage.
“It’s nothing. I took a bullet when your father captured me and my men. It grieves me some when I overtax it. The past few days have done some mighty serious overtaxing. It just aches a bit.”
Most likely an incredible understatement, but she let it pass, because there was nothing she could do for his leg. Her attention shifted to his bare feet. There she found the source of his fever. The soles were raw from the forced trek the day before. Several sores had begun to fester.
“Let me have your knife.”
He slid a suspicious look at her, alerted by her tone. “Why?”
“You’ve got thorns embedded in your feet. If I don’t get them out, you’ll get blood poisoning.”
She didn’t need to elaborate. He’d been in a war where more lives were lost to putrefaction of the flesh than the actual wounds themselves. Wordlessly, he passed her the blade. She braced his foot upon her thigh, and because talking was better than screaming, he asked, “What kind of Indians were those?”
“Apache. Mescalero.”
“I thought Kit Carson rounded them all up and stuck them on that reservation—I can’t recall the name.”
“Bosque Redondo. He did. You know your frontier facts, Major.”
“Carson’s a fellow Kentuckian. I thought it wise to find out what I could when your father offered to relocate us out here.”
“It’s always wise to learn all you can about your enemy.” She probed for the first thorn, steeling herself against the hurried sounds of his breathing.
“Are you—are you sure they were Apache?”
She didn’t look up as she answered matter-of-factly, “I know a great deal about the Apache. I learned most of it watching them murder my mother when I was a girl.” She lifted out the thorn and tossed it away.
While his breathing regulated itself once more, Noble observed her curiously. What a marvel she was when he compared her past experiences to her composure during their captivity. He’d have thought that having faced such horror at a young age, she would have been terrified beyond rational thought by the idea of being imprisoned by the Indians. But her calm, clear thinking was one of the reasons they’d been able to escape.
“She must have been some kind of woman.” Like her daughter, was what he meant.
“She was.”
“Tell me about her.”
“She was strong.” Juliet said that as if it said it all. “She grew up in Ohio. Her father believed in improving the status of women, and saw she had the finest education he could afford. She went to the Huron Academy in Milan and then a female seminary in Hudson and planned to become a teacher—until she met my father.” Her smile took a wistful turn. “Then she had only one student, me, and she taught me that knowledge and love were everything. We were on the way to join my father at what would later become Fort Davis in Texas. Our party was attacked. My mother shielded me with her own body so that they would think I’d been killed as well. I was nine.”
He wanted to express his regret, but she’d begun probing his foot, and the words got locked behind the gritting of his teeth. When he was able to breathe normally again, she quickly turned the topic.
“Tell me about Kentucky. How long has it been since you’ve been home?”
“Three years.”
“I hear it’s lovely country.”
; “God’s country. Green and growing. At least that’s how I left it.” He clenched his teeth, sucking air noisily between them. “I don’t know what I’ll find when I go back.”
“To practice law?”
Unable to speak with his jaw locked against the pain, he nodded jerkily.
“Then let’s make sure you survive this to go home.” She withdrew another wicked barb.
“I’m in your hands.”
“Ah, if only that were true.” Her grip tightened, conveying more warning than her casual tone. “This one’s deep.”
He endured in silence, then asked, “Do you still consider me soft and spoiled?”
“No.”
He wished she would look up so that he could read more meaning into that single barely whispered word. “So,” he prompted, “how do you feel about me now?” Look up, Juliet.
But she wouldn’t. Nor would she satisfy his need for an answer.
“I fear I’ve given away more than I should already. There. That one’s done.” No tender sympathies, apologies, or anguished observations, only a gentle caress along the back of his foot. That, too, gave away plenty.
“You have an angel’s touch, Juliet.”
She did glance up then, her gaze startled, flustered. Then she scowled. “And you have a devil’s tongue, Major. Keep it from making improper suggestions, if you will.”
“I could put it to better uses—ow!”
She steadied his foot and her jittery nerves. “It’s best not to agitate a woman holding a knife, sir, especially when it’s your flesh she’s carving.”
“It’s not my flesh you’ve been carving on lately.”
He could see he’d shocked her. A wonderful flush spread from her ears across her cheeks. Crouched at his feet in her underclothes, with her hair unbound in riotous golden glory, she made a tantalizing sight.
“Juliet—”
“Don’t.” She ducked her head. “Don’t say anymore.”
“Why?”
“Don’t say things you’ll wish you hadn’t said later.”
His tone lowered to a husky rumble. “And what if I don’t regret them?”
She stared up at him, her eyes wide with fright and anger and, he thought, with remorse. “Then I will.”
“I’m sorry,” he told her softly. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Her laugh was brittle. “Scare me? We’ve just escaped with our lives from Apaches. What could you possibly do that would scare me now?”
But he had scared her. Badly. Her previously steady hands shook slightly as she cut into the next infected puncture. Noble winced, considering the pain a small price for having pushed her onto the defensive. If she had no regrets for having kissed him at the stream, what then had worked her up into such a ferment of emotion?—the fact that she didn’t have regrets or the wish that she did?
“I think that’s all of them,” she said gruffly. “We should go now.”
“I’m ready.”
Juliet stood, then gazed down at him dispassionately. “You’ve impressed me mightily, Major Banning, and I’ve seen too much to be easily impressed.”
He quirked a smile up at her. “If that’s the best compliment I can wring from you, I’ll take it.”
“You are arrogant enough, sir. You don’t need my compliments.”
“No, I don’t. I much prefer your honesty.”
Somehow, that rattled her all the more—and continued to fluster her throughout the day as they rode on toward Fort Blair. She handled the reins while Noble sat silently behind her, his arms making a loose circle about her waist. Over the course of the afternoon, he began to sag more and more against her until his head finally came to rest upon her shoulder. She welcomed his heavy weight, willing to support him in this small way. In any way.
It was nearing twilight when she said, “Noble, wake up. We’re there.”
When he didn’t stir, her worries leaped up again. She goaded the last bit of strength from their played-out horse, urging it across the parade ground straight to the infirmary. She didn’t acknowledge any of the commotion their passing caused until the post’s surgeon Robert Penny was reaching up for Noble.
“What happened to the two of you? The whole fort’s on alert.”
She hadn’t given a thought to how they might look until that very moment: she in her undergarments, Noble out of uniform, both of them dirty and riding double. But looks weren’t what concerned her.
“We were captured by a raiding party. He’s lost a lot of blood and has been running a fever.” She slid off the pony to follow Penny as he carried the unconscious Noble inside. Without hesitation, she knelt at the bedside, giving Penny a brief, grateful glance when he draped a blanket about her shoulders to cover her near nakedness. Weak with weariness and worry, she remained a quiet sentinel while the doctor conducted a quick examination.
“Some rest should do the trick,” he pronounced at last. He placed an empathetic hand on her shoulder as her breath gushed out in relief. “Dehydration, blood loss, both curable ills. Did you tend his feet? Smart thinking. Probably saved them for him.” He turned her away from her anxious study of the still figure to scold, “Now, you be smart and take care of yourself. There’s nothing more you can do here.”
“He saved my life,” she murmured. Tears welled up in her eyes. She was too tired to combat them. “He has to be all right.”
“He will be. Go home.”
Running an unsteady hand through her hair, she began to think beyond her concern for Noble. “My father, do you know where he is?”
“He led a patrol out yesterday to search for you and the major.”
A reprieve. Time for her to think of what she’d tell him.
Once home, she sat in his rocker, bundled in the blanket, as minutes ticked toward dawn. Though she was exhausted in body, her mind refused to let her rest as she imagined her father’s fear driving him across the desert while she sat safely at home. Wishing for his return became a desire to forestall their meeting when she heard his unit arrive without fanfare at first light. She heard the rattle of his saber as he ran toward their house.
Gazing into her father’s features as they slowly altered from relief to suspicion, she knew her explanations would never be enough.
“Are you all right, daughter?” He was covered with two days’ dust and the evidence of a hard ride. In his hands, he held the robe she’d discarded at the stream.
“Yes, I’m—”
“The major?”
“An Apache raiding party surprised us. He’s in the infirmary.”
“I’ll want a report when he’s well enough to give it.” His unswerving glare said he’d demand more than that.
“Of course. Papa—”
“Get some sleep.” His curt words said clearly that whatever she would say, he wasn’t yet ready to hear. He wheeled around and announced, “I’m going to check on the major’s progress.”
She rose up out of the chair. “I’ll go with you.”
His stare slashed back to her. “Not like that. Make yourself presentable.”
Clutching the edges of the blanket, she blinked back the sting of pain his words provoked and nodded. He drew a fierce breath, then calmed enough to say in a tight voice, “I’ll wait here for you. It would look better for us to make this visit together.”
She washed up hastily, fighting to drag her comb through hair tangled beyond taming, then slipping on a simple calico gown. Her fatigued thoughts tumbled over what conclusions her father must have come to, but knowing him to be a fair man, she didn’t fear he’d act upon angry impulse. He’d first find out the facts. Then the two of them would feel the backlash of his distress.
He was more than an upset parent. He was the post commander with the power of supreme justice in his hands.
The fact that Noble appeared at their door before they could go to him spoke well on his behalf. Wearing a fresh uniform and white bandaging at his brow, he looked haggard but no less determined to see to his duty.<
br />
Crowley’s expression was struck from stone as he said, “Come in, Major.” No offer of a drink or a smoke. Strictly business. Or strictly personal. Either boded ill.
Noble’s gaze flickered briefly to the corner chair Juliet slipped into to sit pale and silent. In her simply cut calico dress, her wayward hair restrained in a ribbon, she looked almost like a chastened schoolgirl. Her expression was similarly restrained; she met his smile of encouragement with an impassive nod.
“Your report, Major.”
“There were eight hostiles, sir. Mescalero Apache. I believe their intention was to take us south of the border to be sold into slavery.”
Crowley paced, listening distractedly to Noble’s factual rendering that made little of his heroics and much of Juliet’s. Suddenly, he paused, his back to his junior officer.
“And what were your intentions?”
“Excuse me, sir?”
Crowley whirled toward him, using the momentum to put staggering force behind his cold demand. “What were your intentions toward my daughter that left you open to attack? Dammit, man, I entrusted you with the only thing I hold higher than my honor. I thought you understood that nothing—nothing—was more important than her safety. You have failed me and you have failed her, and I’ve a mind to have you shot for dereliction of duty.”
“I would deserve it, sir.”
Colonel Crowley glared at the younger man, trying to find a chink of self-interest in his flat claim. Finding none, he gave a snort of disgust and turned away, fearing the other would see his grudging admiration.
Juliet took advantage of the pause to say, “It was the major’s cunning and superior horsemanship that earned our freedom from the Apache.”
Crowley refused to be impressed. “And was it his poor judgment that led to your capture in the first place?”
“Papa,” she beseeched quietly, “it was not the major’s fault, it was mine. No harm was done.”
He stared at her, the anxiety and sorrow he’d suffered over the past days etched clearly in his features. “No harm? Is that how you summarize the conclusions drawn by a detail of men sent to retrieve you when they arrived at the riverbed to find only your clothing and the major’s dress shirt and boots laid out ever so neatly on the bank?”
The Men of Pride County: The Rebel Page 12