And One Rode West (25 page)

They left Camp Creek at dawn, and managed to travel nearly fifteen miles. The rain had stopped. They encamped by another beautiful creek and there were wonderful wildflowers everywhere. Christa took a walk into one of the open fields beside the array of army tents. She was picking something with delicate little
bulbs when she sensed someone behind her. She turned, and nearly screamed.

Two Indians stared at her. The man wore pants that looked like old army issue clothing, but the woman wore a loose buckskin dress with intricate embroidery. The man said something, and she shook her head, looking toward the camp. She had been warned not to wander away, but she had done so. Now she was facing these two Indians. The man spoke again, thrusting what he held in his hands toward her. Her heart started hammering.

“Two bits,” the man repeated insistently.

“He wants you to buy his berries,” she heard. She swung around. Jeremy had come up behind her. His hands were on his hips, the low slant of his hat covered his eyes. “Two bits?” he said to the Indian.

The Indian nodded, and said something in his own language. Jeremy replied, then produced the right coin from his pocket, and the Indian woman hurried forward with the basket the man had been carrying. The pair turned around and disappeared across the field.

“Did they frighten you?” Jeremy asked.

“I—no, I just—”

“They should have,” he said curtly. He looked in the basket. “Dewberries. I told you not to wander off!”

She swallowed hard. “They were—Comanche?”

He shook his head. “Choctaw. They’re a very civilized people.”

“Then I had nothing to be afraid of.”

“But you didn’t know that. You wouldn’t know a Comanche from a Seminole.”

She stiffened. “But I will know the difference,” she told him. “I learned to plant cotton, McCauley. I can learn to know one Indian from another too.” She lifted her chin and walked back toward the tents, leaving him standing in the field. He didn’t follow her.

That night she met Bertha, who was a plump, wonderfully
pleasant Irish woman. She’d lost her husband back home years before to the potato famine, then she had lost two sons to the war. Now she was traveling to Santa Fe where her grandson was just starting a family of his own. She was a cheerful soul, a great believer in the will of God, and Christa was grateful to know her.

Later, Nathaniel brought her a freshly shot quail. “The colonel took her down, Mrs. McCauley. He says he’s bone tired and hungry as a wolf. He’ll be finished for the day in about an hour, and if you don’t mind, he’ll have dinner with you.”

Christa was certain that Jeremy could care less whether she minded or not. She was being put to a test tonight.

She smiled sweetly. Did Jeremy have the audacity to think she’d never had to pluck a chicken before?

She smiled. “Thank you so much, Nathaniel.”

“If I can help in any way—”

“Just get me a good fire started, if you’ll be so kind. I’ll manage from there.”

She did manage. There were several cows among the animals trekking along with them, so she had fresh cream for the berries. She spitted the quail and seasoned it with their supply of salt and pepper. There were large bales of potatoes that the cooks had bought from the Cherokee encampments down the trail, and so she peeled and sliced and boiled them along with some salt and pepper and butter. By the time that Jeremy returned, she had finished cooking and eating, and had left his meal on his desk, covered by a silver tureen. She’d even seen to it that a glass of wine sat before his place where she’d folded the napkin elegantly. Determined to ignore him, she gave her attention to her journal, describing the prairie around them and the Choctaw who had sold her the berries.

She felt him staring at her when he came in, then he inquired, “Aren’t you eating?”

“I’ve had quite enough, thank you.”

“Who cooked for you?”

She looked up at him, her brow arching high. “I cooked myself. If things aren’t to your liking, however, you shall certainly not offend me if you choose to take your meals elsewhere.”

“I could eat horsemeat right now,” he told her, and sat, throwing off his hat to land at the foot of their bed. She pretended to continue giving her attention to her journal, but she glanced at him now and then. He was hungry and he ate quickly. But all the while that he ate he was sketching on paper. He pushed his plate aside when he was done, not giving her the least attention.

She rose at last and cleared away his dish, washing it in a bucket of fresh creek water Nathaniel had brought. “Is there anything else you’d like?” she asked at last, annoyed. He could have said something.

She continued to stand there. Finally he looked up, frowning. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

A half smile curved his lip. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that we had been gone so long you might crave even my Yankee company.”

“I don’t,” she informed him coolly.

He watched her for a moment. “Then go to bed. It’s going to be another hard day tomorrow.”

“And you’re making them harder and harder because of me, aren’t you?” she demanded.

His brow hiked up in surprise. “Actually, no, I’m not. I just want to get settled in at Fort Jacobson before we start hitting really bad weather. And before some fool out there has a chance to cause us some really serious Indian problems.” He looked back to his paper and began writing again. Christa clenched her teeth together and moved past him. Keeping her back to him, she changed into a warm flannel nightgown and
curled into bed. She hated to admit it; she was exhausted.

She was also confused and hurt. He hadn’t said a word about any of her efforts, and he’d made no effort to come near her. Not that she wanted him near her.

But she did. She wanted the comfort of being held.

She stayed awake awhile, but then her eyes closed and she slept. When she was very deeply asleep, she began to dream that she was being very gently kissed and caressed. Slow, sensual circles were being drawn over her back, lusciously brought to her buttocks, her hips, her belly, her breast. Sweet wet whispers touched her earlobe, her nape, her throat. She woke up, startled, and very aware that she wasn’t dreaming because he had thrust within her from behind, and was not so gentle anymore but making love to her with a raw, wild fervor. Her fingers curled over his, holding tight, while the storm thundered. He went taut, then slackened. His arms remained around her, but she sensed that he lay awake. She wondered why she was so determined to keep something of herself from him. Maybe it was just all that she had left.

His temper was somewhat better in the morning. He rode with her for a while, pointing out some abandoned Indian huts as they passed them, reminding her again that the tribes could be very different. Here they often lived in these huts with land about them that they cultivated, growing potatoes and beans and corn and other vegetables.

“Soon, we’ll be on the plains. You’ll see some of the tepees of the nomads.”

“Nomads?”

He glanced at her. “The Indians who follow the buffalo. In winter the buffalo go north. We’ll still see them now along the trail we’re following.” He hesitated, then continued, “And the Comanche usually only travel just so far north. Their territory tends to be
Texas down to Mexico, west into Arizona and New Mexico.”

“You all talk as if the Comanche are the only Indians you worry about.”

Jeremy smiled, glancing up at the sky as if he weighed its color. “Oh, no! There are lots of Indians to worry about. Apache can be terrifying. The Sioux can be extremely fierce. But when we get to Fort Jacobson the Comanche will be our nemesis. They are noted for being some of the most savage warriors ever to ride the plains.” He reined in his horse, pointing across the landscape. “There are more Choctaw homes over there. They’re bringing in some of their harvest, see?”

She nodded, seeing the neat little row of huts, the Indians busy in their fields.

“Choctaw,” she murmured. She felt him watching her, but when she turned to him again, he was already looking forward once more.

“I’m riding on ahead. I want to make up some mileage today.”

They rode hard that day, and she fell into bed exhausted that night. Very, very late, he woke her again. She didn’t mind because it meant that she slept held in his arms.

It was clear and beautiful, growing slightly cooler, the next day. She rode with Jeremy for a while and with James for a while, and spent time with Celia in her ambulance. She was coming to know a few other wives. In those first days she became very aware that they talked about her all the time, and she became very aware of certain attitudes. Some of them were fascinated by the very fact that Colonel McCauley had plucked her off a southern plantation. Some of them were glad that the war was over and anxious for peace. Some of them were bitter, and, Celia admitted, hated her for being a Confederate. “Just as you hate the Yankees,” Celia told her.

“I don’t hate the Yankees. I don’t hate all Yankees,” she amended. She sighed. “One of my brothers was a Yankee all through the war.”

“And then, of course, there’s the colonel!” Celia said, a touch of awe in her voice. “Any of them who have anything to say at all are just as jealous as can be. He’s such a handsome man with that thick red hair and those piercing silver eyes of his! And you are beautiful, Christa, you must know that, and you’re both so wonderfully brave and full of life!”

Christa blushed. She wondered what Celia would think if she knew the circumstances of their marriage. She bit her lip, tempted to confide the truth, then determined not to do so. She didn’t want any of the wives within the regiment to know that they were anything but the absolutely perfect couple.

That night when they camped on the Sans Bois, she walked down to the water and looked across it. The land was beautiful here, very green. It was very broad, and the area was deeply forested, which made her wonder about the name given the creek. With twilight falling, she felt a sudden, fierce twinge of nostalgia. She fought the urge to cry, the desperate yearning for home.

Jeremy came upon her. His hands fell on her shoulders. “We’re about forty miles from Fort Arbuckle,” he told her. “We’ll be into buffalo territory soon.”

She nodded.

“What are you thinking?” he asked. His voice was soft, his whisper near her ear.

“I was thinking that this particular area right here reminds me of home.”

He was silent, and for a moment she didn’t realize that her words had sounded like a reproach. His hands fell from her shoulders.

“It won’t for long. The prairie can be dry, the grass
scruffy, and when the buffalo come stampeding over a ridge, you’ll know you’re west and far from home.”

He left her there. She stared after him and felt a fierce pain suddenly stab into her heart. Despite herself, she remembered Celia’s words about him. Yes, he was a striking man with his deep russet hair and unique, silver-and-steel eyes. Besides the appealing cut and angle of his face, there was the broadness of his shoulders, the strength and heat in his arms, the taut ripples in his belly, the tightly compacted muscles of his buttocks and …

She straightened her shoulders, trembling suddenly. She had to be so very careful! But suddenly she wanted to talk to him and tell him that she didn’t mind so much being away from home. She missed Virginia, God help her, she missed Daniel and Callie and Kiernan and Jesse and her nephews and her little niece. But the West was wonderful. The flowers were beautiful. The Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek were fascinating. She couldn’t wait to see a buffalo or dozens of buffalo grazing on the plain. Things were new and exciting every day—even if they were frightening.

She hurried back toward the encampment, but when she reached their tent she found Nathaniel sorting papers on his desk. “The colonel went on to the headquarters tent, Mrs. McCauley.”

“Oh.” She hesitated. “I guess I shouldn’t disturb him.”

Nathaniel shook his head. “You’d be fine and welcome. He’s just received some army dispatches from a messenger, a Captain Clark, whom he hasn’t seen since the second year of the war. I’m sure they’d both welcome you.”

She hesitated. Would he welcome her if he was visiting with an old friend?

She thanked Nathaniel, then walked idly through the
tents to headquarters. Along the way she heard a group of young privates discussing the battle of Antietam, arguing over whether they’d won or lost. A little farther on, she could hear shrieks of female laughter, softly muffled.

A number of the laundresses were tending to needs other than that for clean clothing, she determined, hurrying on by. She wondered if Mrs. Brooks knew what went on when the men were at their leisure for the night. If she did, she’d demand that Jeremy get the whole regiment down on its knees to cleanse them of their sins.

A few minutes later she saw the grouping of the command tents, the medical tent next to the headquarters tent. With the weather fair, the large headquarters tent stood with its flaps lifted high, the night breeze moving through. Dr. Weland was there along with Jeremy and the visitor. Jeremy was deep in conversation with the man, but Weland saw Christa coming, said something softly, and the three men quickly stood.

“Christa, how nice of you to join us,” Jeremy said. She didn’t think that he was finding it nice at all, but she smiled and turned curiously to the visitor. He was tall and sandy-haired with a sweeping mustache and full beard. When he greeted her, she thought there was just the slightest hint of a southern slur to his voice.

“Captain Clark, it’s a pleasure,” she murmured.

“No, Mrs. McCauley, the pleasure is all mine,” he assured her.

“Sherry, Christa?” Dr. Weland offered.

“Thank you.” He poured her the sherry from a portable leather bar. She accepted it, taking the camp stool Captain Clark was quick to offer her.

“How are you finding the trail?” he asked her.

“Intriguing.”

“She’s quite a trooper,” Weland said. “Mrs. McCauley
is in, er, a family way, and still enduring all the rigors without a blink.”

“Another baby, how wonderful!” Captain Clark said.