The Lieutenant's Bargain

by Regina Jennings

  “Even if your painting doesn’t succeed?”

  It was a fair question. Had Hattie sacrificed her dreams of achievement for a more traditional role? While she intended to continue her quest, she would be naïve to think that putting Jack’s career first wouldn’t interfere with her own. On the other hand, there were always forks in the road. You could never guarantee what lay at the end of a journey. At this point, all she was sure of was who she wanted to be her companion along the way.

  “The exhibit curator might not like the turn I’ve taken in my work, but I’m pleased. Those mountains will be there for generations of artists to paint, many of them more talented than I. But who is going to make a record of these people? Who is going to capture this part of their history?”

  Everyone around them was getting up and filing out, but neither Jack nor Hattie felt any hurry to join them. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for easing my guilt. I would always wonder if I could’ve avoided this mess. I’d always be afraid that someday you’ll regret your decision.”

  “But it was my decision, and I decided to stay.”

  “Just because you could never find your own bedroom.”

  “Shush,” she whispered. “People will hear you. And don’t you start correcting me again.”

  “It’s my favorite mistake of yours. Now, let’s go see about this fancy supper they’ve worked up.”

  The line for food stretched out the dining room door. Hattie felt out of place, since all the agency women and schoolteachers were serving. Caroline was entertaining a dapper-looking frontiersman, much to Daisy’s amusement. Spotting Hattie, Daisy waved and left her place in line. Her father joined them, as well.

  “Splendid performance tonight,” Major Adams said. “I only wish we had as much success at the Cheyenne school in Cantonment.”

  “Give me time,” Jack replied. “With the similarities in their languages . . .”

  “Mrs. Hennessey,” Daisy said, “don’t you think we should get our presents now? Once they finish eating, everyone will go home, and we won’t see the kids again until after break is over.”

  Jack and Major Adams weren’t likely to resolve their discussion before their plates were filled with food. Hattie took Daisy’s hand. “Let’s go,” she said.

  Forgoing their coats, they dodged through the crowd and into the chilly air outside. The stars blistered through the cold dark sky, but Daisy was in too much of a hurry to appreciate their strength.

  “I can carry my own,” she said. “How heavy is yours?”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Hattie replied. “It’s just one basket.”

  The two buggies were parked next to each other on the hitching post. The horses nickered in greeting, blowing warm steam from their nostrils. “We won’t be much longer,” Hattie said to them, but they didn’t seem to care one way or the other.

  She’d climbed up on the side of the buggy to reach her basket when she heard Daisy behind her. “Got mine, Mrs. Hennessey.”

  Seeing that Hattie had her own basket in hand and was on her way down, Daisy skipped ahead and ran back into the building. With both feet on the ground, Hattie adjusted her skirt, but before she could take after the impulsive child, a man stepped in her way.

  “Mrs. Hennessey? That’s an interesting development.”

  The blood in Hattie’s veins chilled. Sloane stood in front of her. Her throat tightened. Everything inside her urged her to run, but she couldn’t move her feet.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve gone and married one of these soldiers.” His debonair appearance was ruined by the stains on his wrinkled clothing. She gripped the spoke of the wheel behind her, wishing it would break off into a club. “How very conventional of you. I thought you were seeking a grander future.”

  “I thought you were dead,” she said. What if he didn’t know they’d figured it out? What if he thought he wasn’t a suspect? She cleared her throat. “Good news,” she managed to say. “They caught the man who attacked us. Lieutenant Hennessey says we should be safe now.”

  “Lieutenant Hennessey, your husband?” His eyes darted to the school building. “How quaint. Did they find him in the commissary? I heard something about the third floor.”

  This man had planned to kill her. He’d lain in wait, patient with his jibes and faux pleasantries until he had his chance. And he was doing it again.

  Hattie looked at the mission house. Daisy had already made it back inside. Knowing Daisy, she’d slipped past the adults and was handing out presents to the students. Would Jack realize that Hattie was missing, or was he still talking to Major Adams?

  “I don’t remember exactly,” she said. “Let’s go inside where it’s warm and ask someone.” Her fingers ached as she released the spoke. Hooking her arm through her basket, she slid her shaking hands into her pockets and turned toward the mission house.

  One step. Two steps. Was he following her? Hattie was about to look over her shoulder when the fire bell sounded. She drew in a long breath. No smoke. Could it be a Cheyenne attack? But the troopers had their own procedures. Major Adams would be alerted personally, not through the fire bell.

  Mr. Sloane grabbed her by the arm. “We’re going to the commissary,” he said.

  “No. I’m not going with you.” She dug her heels into the dirt road, but it was little help. He pulled her away from the mission and toward the alley across the street.

  Two troopers ran from the hospital toward the mission, but they weren’t looking her direction. The doors of the mission burst open, and people spilled out. Hattie could make out Jack and Major Adams’s blue cavalry uniforms amid the dark suits of the agency men and the Indians’ buckskins. They were all talking, fast and urgently.

  “Jack,” she yelled, but her air was cut off as she was thrown against the wall. Her head bounced against the brick, causing white flashes of light beneath her eyelids. She dropped the basket as she put her hands against the wall and tried to push away, but Sloane was stronger. The bells covered any weak noise she could produce.

  “They can’t hear you,” he growled against the back of her head. A thick point pressed against her corset into her ribs, and Hattie knew it was a gun. “You’re going to show me where they found Bixby, do you understand?”

  Her nightmare had returned. She managed to nod, but the cold bricks against her face felt much like the hard wall of sandstone she’d hidden against that night. All the warmth, the lights, the music of the mission house had faded, and she was alone again in the cold. And she was scared.

  Sloane took a handful of her hair while keeping the gun shoved against her, forcing her deeper into the shadows between the massive commissary and the livery stables. With its splintered doorframe and dented brass doorknob, it was evident that Sloane had been to the commissary before. He swung open the door and pulled Hattie inside.

  The cavernous room only had a few windows, but through their light, Hattie could make out a door on the opposite side. Voices outside were raised. The commissary’s thick walls drowned out all but a sharp occasional word.

  “What do you need me for?” she asked. She tried to curve her rib cage away from the gun digging into it, but he jerked her hair and pulled her closer.

  “We’re running out of time. I have to find the bag and get out of here before they catch Bixby.”

  “Bixby? Bixby is in the hospital.” More noises outside. Hattie looked up at a high window. Bixby had escaped. That was why the alarm had been raised. They were searching for him. With the chaotic search, would anyone realize she was gone?

  Sloane dragged her across the warehouse toward the staircase. She stiffened her legs. Her shoes slid across the floor. The vastness of the commissary felt as cold and deadly as her night on the plains, but this time the enemy already had her. Despite her feet dragging, he was drawing her closer and closer to the stairwell and farther from the searching people outside. Wherever he was taking her, she didn’t want to go.

  “No use in being stubborn.” Sloane yanke
d her arm. She struggled to keep her feet. “If you help me find what I’m looking for, I’ll let you go.”

  But he wouldn’t. He knew she was a witness against Bixby and him, and he couldn’t let her survive.

  They’d reached the staircase. Hattie tried to drop to the floor, but pain shot down her neck as he wrenched her to her feet by the hair. She hoped she was buying time. Hoped that Jack would realize she was missing. Maybe he’d even connect her disappearance with Bixby’s. But he didn’t know where to find her. With a gun against her side, she had little choice but to stumble up the stairs.

  The vacant third floor looked nothing like it had when they’d skated here. Boxes, crates, and barrels made ominous black voids in the room. Instead of laughing children, she was alone with a killer. Instead of Jack rescuing her, she was going to have to save herself.

  Sloane’s fingers bruised the inside of her arm as he holstered his pistol. “This is the room Bixby was in. Where are the hiding places?”

  The hiding places? How was she supposed to know? No one was coming to her rescue. She had to act on her own. How could she outsmart this man? “What? What are you looking for?” she asked as she scanned the room, looking for anything to give her an advantage.

  He forced air out through his nose. “You’re even dumber than I thought.”

  Then she saw the thin sliver of light coming through the double doors at the end of the room—the ones that had worried Jack when the children were skating.

  They were dangerous, Jack had said. Well, today, so was she.

  “They found his cot over there, by the door to that closet.” She pointed ahead, but the way was obstructed by stacks of the weekly rations handed out on distribution day.

  Sloane’s face hardened with determination. He hesitated as if deciding whether to take her along or not. She had to convince him that he needed her, because once she was useless to him, she’d suffer the same fate as Agent Gibson.

  “If it’s locked, there’s a key somewhere along the wall,” she said.

  “Let’s go.”

  Now she could count the steps to her fate. Would her gamble pay off? She’d know soon enough. Could this be her salvation, or would Jack find her body discarded and cold?

  The same God who had stayed with her when she was frightened on the prairie was with her now. She might be seeing Him face to face in a moment, but a peace passed over her. She’d faced terror before and suffered from the repercussions for weeks, but during that, she’d learned that God had provided for her. And now, even if He didn’t provide her a way out of her fate, He was going to see her through it.

  But she still had a chance.

  By stepping ahead of Sloane, she steered him to the door she wanted him to find.

  “The handle is here somewhere,” she said.

  Keeping a constricting hand wrapped around her neck, he swept his other hand over the wood until he clutched the handle. Being as careful as she could, Hattie hooked her foot beneath the bolt in the floor that held the second door securely closed. Did he notice the breeze coming through the crack? Did he suspect that this door didn’t lead to a closet? Rocking her weight back on her heel, she forced the bolt upward. Now, with just a touch, both of the doors would swing wide over nothingness.

  In his anxiousness to find where his partner had hidden the loot, Sloane forced the door open, momentum carrying him forward. He teetered on the threshold with nothing but air before him and tried to pull against Hattie, but she yanked out of his grasp. The cold wind rushed at them—standing at the highest point for miles around. Sloane clawed the air, looking for something solid to brace against, but his death grip only landed on the twin door—the one that had been unbolted and now also swung free. He rocked on his heels, and Hattie couldn’t hesitate. She planted her boot on his backside and shoved with all her might.

  A shout from outside. Someone saw him. But then he disappeared from Hattie’s view. She ducked to the floor and covered her ears. Sloane had been given more time to prepare for his death than he’d given Agent Gibson. That was what she had to remember.

  She crawled away from the drop without looking down. Her breath came in painful jerks. She’d beat him. For weeks, she’d been terrified of the wicked men in the robbery finding her, but she had faced them, and she’d defeated them both. Good didn’t prevail over wicked men every time, but she thanked God that twice He’d spared her.

  Tired to the bone and sore from the fight, Hattie got to her feet and shuffled across the room, but instead of heading to the stairs, she made her way to the barrel she’d stood behind while she watched Jack skate.

  The room was filled with bags of flour, sugar, and coffee, each marked with their contents in black stenciled letters. There were also crates and barrels, but she’d seen a sack the day they’d gone skating, and as far as she could tell, it was unique. With her artist’s memory, she could picture it perfectly, and there were no others like this one. Her knees nearly gave way when she knelt behind the barrel and pulled the sack away from the wall where it had been stuffed. Someday she would wonder why she didn’t rush downstairs to freedom, but in her numbness, she felt like knowing whether she was right or not was more important. Her fingers felt clumsy with the drawstring, but the knot finally pulled free.

  There were people coming up the staircase. Several people. She started laughing before Jack even reached her. From the confused look on his face, she realized that she wasn’t acting naturally, but he should be used to that by now. After all, no sane woman insisted on sleeping with an overcoat every night.

  He knelt and held up a lantern, nearly blinding eyes that had become accustomed to the darkness. He motioned for the townsmen with him to search the rest of the building, but they were drawn to the open doors at the end of the room.

  “That man who fell,” Jack said, “what happened? What are you doing in here?”

  Hattie’s head spun with all she had to tell him, but she chose to start with the obvious. She turned the sack upside down and let the heavy gold coins drop into her lap. “I found the Cheyenne and Arapaho’s money,” she said and then collapsed into his arms.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  He’d told Hattie that she had to stay with the doctor until she recovered, but really it was Jack who needed the recovery time. He’d been filling his plate with wild turkey and hot rolls when the alarm sounded. Jack still didn’t remember what happened to his plate of food. Surely someone caught it as he ran out the door with Major Adams.

  “We were all looking for you.” He offered Hattie a mug of stout coffee. “Once we realized that someone had sprung Bixby from his guards, we knew you were in danger. Everyone—troopers, agents, missionaries, and the Indians—was looking for you.”

  Hattie waved away the coffee. Her foot tapped against the floor as she sat on a low cot. “If the dinner has resumed, that’s where I want to be. I don’t want this to be the only memory of our first Christmas together. Even if I could just watch the children and their excitement, it would help me not think about what could’ve happened today.”

  “Is that healthy?” Jack asked the doctor, who was taking her pulse. “Won’t she be susceptible to overexcitement right now? Shouldn’t she go home and rest?”

  “Why are you asking him?” Hattie said. “I’ve been through enough trauma in the last month to know what to expect. I think I’ll carry on just fine through the dinner. I won’t have any infuriating attacks of feminine weakness until bedtime.”

  She sat up straight. Jack recognized the look. She was trying to convince him that she was strong and able. And she was, but her drawn face evidenced the toll the night had taken on her.

  “I don’t want to overtax you,” he said.

  “This party is only once a year. And I have the shells I painted for the children. Daisy will be so disappointed if I don’t get them to the party.”

  Those painted shells were the least of Jack’s concerns, but since they were here already . . .

  “It’s my
pleasure to escort you to the Christmas Eve supper,” he said. “I only hope there’s still some food left for us. No running away from me this time.”

  The doctor stepped out of the way as Jack helped Hattie into his coat. She must have forgotten to grab hers when she’d gone for the gifts with Daisy, but it was fitting that she had his on now. Jack pulled a trooper aside and, with Hattie’s help, instructed him on where to find her basket.

  “Jack?” Hattie shivered once they’d stepped into the brisk night air. “What happened to Sloane? Did he die?”

  “Either that fall or the gallows was going to break his neck. It doesn’t matter much which one got him first.”

  “To think, I was riding with him all along, and he was just waiting for his time.”

  “And if the Cheyenne hadn’t slowed Bixby down, the partners would’ve met up and gotten away with the money. With Bixby injured, Sloane had to come back for him.”

  “Does everyone at supper know?” she asked. “I hate for this to ruin their celebration.”

  “They won’t shed any tears for him. Especially on a night like tonight.”

  She hoped Major and Mrs. Adams wouldn’t act overly concerned. Hattie didn’t like being a victim. She wanted respect, not pity. With Bixby back in custody and his partner no longer a threat, she was free to move on.

  The party was in full swing. A quartet was harmonizing Christmas carols while two Indian men slapped a beat on an upturned bucket and added their rhythmic voices to the song. The children, awed by the tinsel and greenery, remained in their places even though their plates had been cleaned long ago. But being well-behaved didn’t stop them from laughing and calling to each other across the room. Although separated by language, culture, and seating arrangements, all the adults seemed to be having a good time, even if they were having it separately.

  Jack motioned to the table by the window where the Adamses sat. Daisy waved excitedly. The tension in Hattie’s chest loosened. She’d get back to her seashells, and all would go on as planned. She lost sight of Daisy when a couple of Arapaho came to their feet. She tried to slip through the gap between the tables, but then more stood. Hattie stopped and looked at Jack. Was everyone leaving now? Was she too late?