Merline Lovelace (17 page)

That was when she heard the tinny call of a bugle—or thought she did. Her breath rattled like sabers in her ears and her heart slammed so hard and fast against her ribs she was sure at first that she’d imagined the faint signal.

Seconds later, the trumpet sounded again, clearer this time. With a wild whoop, Suzanne twisted in her saddle and screamed at the man now almost a hundred yards behind her.

“Jack! Did you hear that? Those are cavalry bugles!”

“Keep riding!” he shouted. “I don’t hear any—”

He broke off, his startled gaze fixed on a point beyond Suzanne. She whipped around and gave another joyous shriek. Digging her heels into the chestnut’s sides, she sent him careening headlong for the troop of soldiers who’d topped the distant rise.

As she neared the small detachment, she recognized the red-and-white pennant snapping in the wind. It was the standard for B Company, Second Cavalry regiment! One of her stepfather’s companies!

Wild with excitement, Suzanne charged straight for the blue column. The canvas duster flapped open. Her skirts whipped around her ankles. Yanking off her hat, she waved it madly as she raced toward the troopers.

“Toujours pret!”
she screamed, knowing the officer in command of the column would recognize the Second Cavalry’s regimental motto of Always Ready.
“Toujours pret!”

She heard a shouted order, thought she caught a glimpse of gold glinting on the shoulder epaulets of the officer leading the troop. In a well-practiced maneuver, the front elements of the detachment split to allow her to gallop through, then closed ranks behind her.

Suzanne sawed on the reins, brought the chest
nut to a plunging, pawing stop and spun him around. Glad cries bubbled up, only to get caught in her throat. Instead of breaking to allow Jack through, the front ranks of troopers had shouldered their rifles.

Shock slammed into her. Too late she realized that they thought Jack was chasing her! That he’d been firing at her! Him, and the half-dozen outlaws now frantically wheeling their horses and scrambling to get away.

“No!”

Her scream ripped through the air at the same instant the front rank of troopers opened fire. Frozen in horror, Suzanne watched Jack jerk to one side, yanking the reins with him. The roan reared, lost its footing and went down.

“M
iss Bonneaux!”

The dust-covered lieutenant in charge of the troop made a grab for the chestnut’s reins as Suzanne tried to cut through the front ranks. She recognized him then, but had no thought to spare for the dashing young lieutenant who’d waltzed her around a dance floor the very night before she’d set out on her journey in search of Bright Water.

Her only thought, her every thought, concentrated on the man lying in a heap on the grassy plain.

“Let go of my reins!”

Busy shouting commands to his troops, Lieutenant Carruthers either didn’t hear or chose to ignore her frantic demand.

“Corporal Stanislaw, remain here with Privates Dubois and Patterson to guard Miss Bonneaux. Bugler, sound the charge.”

In a swirl of choking dust, creaking saddles and rattling sabers, the troop swept past Suzanne. Before the last man had cleared, she sent the chestnut’s muscled shoulder into the corporal’s mount, shoving both horse and rider aside, and took off as well. With a shout of alarm, the corporal scrambled to follow.

As she drew closer to the figure sprawled facedown on the prairie, terror squeezed her lungs in so tight a vise she couldn’t breathe. Blood had already spread under Jack, staining the earth. His leather vest had darkened to a wet, glistening black.

“Oh, dear God, please!” she sobbed, almost incoherent with fear. “Please!”

Terror choked her as she flung herself down beside Jack and reached for him with frantic hands. It took her several precious seconds to determine he was still alive, but the bloody bubbles that frothed the corner of his mouth left her sick with terror.

Even before she screamed at the trooper to help her turn him over, she knew Jack was lung-shot. She’d aided her mother during too many hours of volunteer work in post hospitals not to recognize the signs.

“Gently!” she cried. “Gently!”

They rolled him onto his back, then saw he’d taken a bullet in the thigh as well as his chest. The
corporal kneeling beside her gave a grunt of satisfaction.

“This one’s a goner. Good thing, too. One less of Big Nose Parrott’s murderin’ gang for us to haul back to Cheyenne for a necktie party.”

“He’s not part of Parrott’s gang!” Suzanne said fiercely, tearing at her ragged petticoat.

“Then why was he chasin’ after you?”

“He wasn’t! Now move aside and let me tend to him!”

The next hour was the most terrifying of Suzanne’s life.

She knelt beside Jack, calling to him hoarsely, applying pressure to the torn linen she’d placed over his wounds, refusing to relinquish her place at his side until the corporal produced his field kit.

Instructing him to keep pressure on the chest wound, she snatched at the kit with bloodied hands and dug through it for the meager medicinal supplies every trooper carried into the field.

“‘Two layers of lint, an inch-and-a-half square,”’ Stanislaw recited by rote, “‘saturated with cold water and placed on each orifice of the wound.”’

“I know,” Suzanne snapped, as familiar as any trooper with General Order No. 77.

Old Seven-Seven, as it was known throughout the West, provided a compendium of useful tips
for service in Indian country, detailing everything from care of animals on the march to guidance for commanders concerning the employment of Indian scouts. One section dealt specifically with the treatment of gunshot wounds.

“I need your canteen. Now!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

While Stanislaw scrambled to obey, Suzanne folded the clean lint into a rough square. After soaking it with canteen water, she substituted it for the blood-soaked strip of petticoat.

“I don’t know if the bullet went through,” she told the corporal worriedly. “We’ll have to check his back. I’ll keep this bandage in place while you tip him on his side. Gently, for pity’s sake!”

She hoped the slight movement would wrench Jack into consciousness, ached desperately for a groan or even a curse. All that came was a fresh gush of blood.

“Don’t see no hole in his vest, ma’am.”

The fact that the bullet hadn’t gone through gave her a glimmer of hope. Maybe his ribs had deflected the bullet. Maybe it hadn’t shredded his lung, just nicked it.

Praying she was right, she instructed Stanislaw to lay Jack down. “I need another square of lint, then oiled silk to cover this wound before I can attend the one in his thigh.”

They bound the bandage on Jack’s leg in place
with the corporal’s yellow cavalry neckerchief, the bandage on his chest with another long strip torn from Suzanne’s petticoat. Her ragged underskirt rode well above her knees now. She didn’t care. She’d strip down and walk naked across the prairie if it would save Jack. Sinking down on her heels, she dipped another bit of lint in water and began to wash away the blood that had crusted on his lips.

The sound of pounding hooves broke into her fierce concentration some time later, but she didn’t bother to look up until the patrol had come to a halt and a well-loved voice shouted her name.

“Suzanne!”

Wrenching around, she saw the man who’d raised her leap from his saddle. Tears stung her eyes as she pushed to her feet and threw herself into his arms.

“Colonel!”

She’d never called him Papa. That was reserved for the laughing, handsome riverboat gambler she’d so adored as a child. But over the years this tall, lean officer had won her love and become her father in every sense of the word.

He’d worn major’s leaves when Suzanne and her mother had found themselves stranded at Fort Laramie all those years ago. Short weeks after Andrew Garrett and Julia Bonneaux had sorted through
their tangled past and forged a future together, he’d received a promotion to lieutenant colonel. Someday soon, he might very well wear general’s stars.

He’d always be Colonel to her, though, the horse soldier who’d bought a pony for a fussy, fretting six-year-old. Taught her to ride. Held her close when she was deathly ill, and healed the ache in her heart over her papa’s death.

He gathered her against his chest now, as he had so many times in the past, and stroked her hair with a big hand encased in buff leather.

“Shh, poppet. Shh. You’re safe now.”

Suzanne’s short, furious storm of tears passed almost as quickly as it had come. Pulling away, she scrubbed at her eyes with her sleeves and demanded an accounting.

“Did you get them? Big Nose and his men?”

“We captured four of them. Three others escaped into The Wall. Lieutenant Carruthers is searching for them now.”

He wouldn’t find them, she guessed, but was too consumed by a volatile combination of worry and relief to care at the moment. With a shaky hand, she shoved her windblown hair from her forehead.

“I didn’t know you were here. I didn’t see you at the head of the column when I charged past.”

“I wasn’t with the column. I’ve been tailing Parrott since he robbed the stage this morning.”

Only then did she notice her stepfather’s dress.
Instead of regulation blues, he wore a fringed buckskin jacket. That in itself wasn’t unusual. Both officers and enlisted troops on the frontier often adopted the eminently practical, waterproof garment. Her stepfather displayed no sign of his rank on the jacket, however. Even his dark pants lacked the yellow cavalry stripe down the outside of each leg. The only item with any connection to the military were his buff-colored gauntlets.

“I don’t understand. Why aren’t you in uniform? And how did you pick up Parrott’s trail?”

“I was on the stage when he robbed it this morning,” the colonel said with a small, tight smile. “Me and two of my best scouts. He hasn’t been out of our sight since.”

“And Lieutenant Carruthers and his troop?”

“I positioned them away from the stage road, well out of sight. We’ve been communicating with mirror signals at regular intervals since the holdup. I didn’t want him coming in too soon, before Parrott led us to you.”

“But however did you know Big Nose would hold up that particular stage? Oh!” A smile darted into her eyes. “How clever of you! You baited a trap with rumors of a gold shipment, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I
told
Jack you wouldn’t pay ransom to a murdering thief like Big Nose Parrott!”

“Jack?” Her stepfather’s glance went to the wounded man. “I take it that’s Sloan?”

“Yes.” She swallowed a hard lump. “Lieutenant Carruthers and his men fired on him. He’s lung-shot, Colonel.”

The planes of her stepfather’s wind-honed face hardened. “Good. It’ll save me lashing the bastard to two horses and sending them off in opposite directions.”

“What?”

“I won’t tell you how worried I was when I heard you were riding with Sloan. I’m sure you’ve figured out by now he marked your coach.”

Conveniently ignoring the doubts that had crept into her own mind right after the holdup, Suzanne shook her head. “He certainly did not.”

“Did we get the story wrong? We heard Sloan disarmed one of the passengers who tried to take aim on Parrott during the robbery.”

“He did, but the man was drunk and dangerous.”

“I also received a telegraph from Fort Meade. The commander reported that someone called Butts rode in with a young woman soon after you were kidnapped.”

Relief made Suzanne light-headed. “His name’s Mathias Butts. The girl is Ying Li.”

“Yes, well, this Butts reported that George Parrott offered to cut Sloan in on your ransom.”

“But Jack didn’t take him up on the offer! Well, he might have let Big Nose think he would, but…Oh, this is all too confusing to sort out right now. Will you send the medical orderly to look at Jack, please? Corporal Stanislaw and I followed Seven-Seven and covered his wounds with lint and oiled silk, and…”

“The rest of the troop’s coming in, sir!”

The shout brought both Suzanne and the colonel around. Promising to send the orderly to see to the injured man, her stepfather went to take Lieutenant Carruther’s report.

Suzanne sank down on her knees beside Jack once more, her heart wrenching. The black stubble on his cheeks and chin stood out in stark, grainy shadows on his leathery skin. White lines bracketed his mouth. Cold sweat beaded his temples.

“Jack? Can you hear me? Jack?”

He opened his eyes and seemed to focus on her for the merest moment. Before she could speak or call his name again, his lids fluttered down.

Helpless, she stayed beside him while the sergeant who acted as the troop medic during field deployments checked the bandages, complimented her on their neatness and told her there wasn’t anything more he could do.

“Miss Bonneaux?”

Aching, Suzanne pulled her gaze from Jack’s
still form. Lieutenant Carruthers leaned over her, his handsome face caked with dust. She couldn’t believe only a little more than a week had passed since this dashing young cavalry officer had walked her home from the company ball and begged a kiss in the moonlight.

Jack hadn’t begged, she thought with a sharp, piercing hurt. On the contrary, he’d flatly refused what she’d ached to give him until she all but forced herself on him.

“The colonel would like you to identify the four men we’ve taken into custody,” Carruthers said, offering a hand to help her up. “Unfortunately, we lost the rest of them in The Wall.”

“I’m not surprised.”

His glance slid to the wounded man. “Colonel Garrett informs me that’s Black Jack Sloan.”

“Yes, it is.”

His sun-bleached brows drew together. “We were told he was working with Parrott.”

“You were misinformed.”

He looked as though he might argue the point. Suzanne flashed an unmistakable warning.

“At all times in our short acquaintance, Mr. Sloan has acted with great courage and consideration for my person.”

“At all times” stretched matters considerably, but Richard Carruthers didn’t need to know that.
It was obvious in any case that he’d already formed his own opinion of the notorious gunfighter.

His jaw squared in a way that added years to his clean, sharp West Point image. “If Sloan is such a gentleman, perhaps you’ll explain why he forced you into a poker game, with a Chinese hurdy-gurdy girl as the stakes?”

Dear heavens! Had Matt spilled that tale, too? Tilting her chin, Suzanne offered the lieutenant a frigidly polite smile.

“You’ll excuse me, I’m sure, if I fail to see how that particular incident is of the least importance at the moment. Now, shall we do as the colonel requests and take a look at the prisoners?”

It required only one glance at the four scowling men held under close guard to see that Big Nose had escaped. Suzanne gave the captured outlaws’ names as best she recalled them, then the colonel instructed his men to remount.

“We have little chance of finding his hideout in that maze, but I’m damned if I’m going to leave without one more try. Lieutenant, you’ll select a detail of eight men and escort my daughter and the prisoners on to Fort Meade. Have the men fashion a travois from tent poles and a horse blanket for Sloan.”

“While they’re doing that,” Suzanne interjected, “I’ll tell you how to find Parrott’s hideout.”

Surprise etched sharp grooves in her stepfather’s weathered face. “You remember the way?”

“No, but I marked a trail.”

His surprise gave way to a slow grin. Hooking an arm around her shoulders, he dropped a kiss on her temple.

“You’re just like your mother.”

Taking that as the high compliment it was intended to be, she returned his hug. It wasn’t until she’d finished describing the few landmarks she could recall and the marks she’d left on the rock wall that she remembered to ask her stepfather about the other passengers on the stage this morning.

“There were only three,” he told her, “in addition to me and my two scouts.”

“Was one of them named Charlie Dawes?”

“A thin, pockmarked drifter? About my age or older?”

“I don’t know what he looks like. The man who rode in to tell Big Nose about the gold shipment said Dawes had bought a ticket on that run. He was going to act as inside man if necessary.”

The fact that he had sat right across from one of Parrott’s cohorts without knowing it curled the colonel’s mouth into a tight line of disgust.