Westward the Dream (29 page)

Sure that Newt had caught up with her, Jordana struggled to raise the knife.

“Get off of me!” she screamed. “I'll kill you!”

She was nearly hysterical, caught up in the horror of realizing she'd been captured once again and knowing that this fight might well be to the death of herself or her captor.

“Stop it, you little wildcat!” the man yelled as he struggled to pin her down.

Jordana wielded the knife with her eyes closed. If she hit the man, she wasn't entirely sure she could stand the sight of it. “I have a knife!” she yelled at the top of her lungs, all the while flailing it at the man.

“I can see that for myself,” her attacker countered. He finally managed to grab her right wrist, twisting it painfully backward.

Jordana's whole arm went numb as the pain of his hold on her shot all the way up to her shoulder. Her fingers instantly lost their grip on the hilt. “Aghhh!” she sputtered, angry and frustrated and afraid all at once.

“Now stop fighting me,” he commanded. “I'm here to help you.”

The words barely registered in her brain. Help me? He's here to help me? Forcing her eyes open, Jordana finally saw for herself that the man was not the ugly, smelly Newt, but instead, a rather stern-faced soldier with a dark moustache over thin, taut lips and steely blue eyes beneath a mess of windblown hair, the color of a raven's wing.

“Oh,” Jordana barely managed to utter as the unmistakable sound of bullets whizzing by them filled the air.

The soldier fell across her with such a thud that Jordana instantly felt the wind knocked out of her. It was a terrifying sensation, and between struggling to breathe and trying not to scream in pain, Jordana couldn't help but wonder if the man who had so bravely risked his life for her—was dead.

31

“We have 'em, Captain!” a voice called out from somewhere to their left.

Jordana struggled to draw a deep breath. Were the bushwhackers captured? She prayed it was so. Pushing at the body on top of her, she was both surprised and relieved when the man rose up on his own accord.

“Secure the area,” he called, then looked down at Jordana. “Are you still alive?”

She nodded. “And you, sir?”

He smiled for the first time and the steel in his eyes softened, looking more like a pond in summer. “I'm feeling fit as a fiddle.” Despite the smile, there was an edge to his voice that Jordana couldn't quite place.

Before she could figure it out, she noticed the blood on his shirt. “You're bleeding,” she gasped.

He looked down and shook his head. “Nah, that would be your blood, miss.”

“What?” Jordana stared in disbelief, then saw that her entire left side was now drenched in red. “Oh my!” She suddenly felt light-headed.

“We'd better see just how bad it is,” he told her, ripping away the torn pieces of her left sleeve. “I'm going to get some gear from the horse. You best stay put right here,” he told her, then got to his feet.

Jordana eased herself up into a sitting position. She could barely see over the tall grass. The soldier, clad in the dark blue of the Union, was leading his horse back to where she sat and seemed to be shaking his head.

“You shouldn't be too quick to get up,” he remonstrated.

“I'm fine,” Jordana replied. “I'm strong.”

“That's good, because I'm in no mood to be dealing with silly females.”

Jordana frowned. “I assure you I'm nothing of the sort.” She bit her lip to keep from crying out at the pain when she unconsciously moved her arm. Her left arm throbbed from the open wound, while her right arm still felt a bit achy from the twist he'd given it to disarm her.

The soldier took a pack and a canteen from his horse and knelt back down beside her. “This is going to hurt a bit.”

“It already hurts—a bit,” Jordana replied from between clenched teeth.

“What were you thinking walking out in the middle of a battlefield?” he questioned, laying out some bandages and a knife.

“I was escaping. What did you think?”

He shook his head and his expression remained serious. “I wasn't sure what to think. Hardly seemed that anyone with brains in his, or her, head would walk into the crossfire.”

“I planned to circle around—unless, of course, I wanted to jump twenty feet down the ravine, in which case I'd probably have a broken leg instead of a broken arm.”

“You don't have a broken arm,” he told her. Putting his hands on her shoulders, he added, “You best lie back.”

“I don't want to.” She met his commanding presence with new resolve. “Just do what you have to do.” He actually laughed at her, and this only served to make her more determined. “Do it!”

Picking up the canteen, he opened the cap. His blue eyes, steely once again, never left her face as he began to pour water over the wound. To Jordana, it felt more like a knife raking over the wound rather than liquid.

She gritted her teeth, determined not to let him see how much it hurt. Her head began to spin, however, and fighting to stay conscious, Jordana blinked hard several times.

“Why did you want to circle around?” he asked as he worked. “You could have found a way to avoid the battle completely.”

“I was . . . going to help my friend. . . .” She had begun to feel faint, but the thought of Caitlan revived her a little.

“That was a fool thing to do.”

“Is Caitlan all right?” Jordana asked.

“Sure she is.”

Jordana wondered how he could know, since he had been with her. She was deciding whether to trust him when he continued.

“So who are you and how'd you end up out here?”

She guessed he was trying to distract her and help her remain alert. Thinking it a good idea, she tried to keep up her end of the conversation, though at times her voice sounded far away in her ears. “My name is Jordana Baldwin,” she said, her voice raspy. “I'm here with my brother. He's a photographer.” She was breathing in shallow, rapid breaths. “We're taking pictures of the area.”

“In the middle of a war?” he asked in disbelief.

She moaned in spite of her attempt to mask her pain. “It's a job.”

“Stupid job, if you ask me.”

“Well, I didn't.” She gasped for breath as he swabbed her arm with a cloth.

“Try to relax. I know this isn't comfortable, but the wound's really not all that bad.”

“According to you,” she muttered.

“Captain!” a man called.

“Over here,” answered Jordana's rescuer.

Jordana looked at the man and fought to keep her vision from blurring. “You're a captain?”

“That's right.” He reached into his pack and took out a blue bottle.

“Captain!” A young man with a freckled face and red hair halted a foot away. Jordana watched as he gave a quick salute. “Two of them are dead, sir. We have the rest. The other woman is unharmed.”

“What about Newt Barnes?”

“Wounded, sir.”

“Get them secured and on their horses. We'll deposit the women with the young man we met on the other side of the bend.”

“Yes, sir!” The soldier did a quick about-face and hurried to do as ordered.

Jordana screamed out in pain as the captain poured part of the contents of the blue bottle onto her arm. “That—hurts!” she declared, trying to pull away from his grip.

“I—know,” he replied with the same kind of stilted emphasis on his words that she'd used with hers.

She thought she detected a certain amount of amusement in his tone.

“Just get me back to my brother and he'll take care of me,” Jordana said.

“I have to stop the bleeding,” he replied very calmly. “It isn't all that bad of a wound, but it's bleeding a great deal. We have to stop that or you'll bleed to death.”

The idea of dying now, after she'd managed to escape Newt and live through the battle, stilled Jordana. She tried to think about anything but the ministerings of the captain, but it wasn't working very well.

“So how'd you give Barnes the slip?” the man questioned her as he applied pressure to her arm.

Jordana felt her head grow hot. It suddenly seemed as if there were no air. She let her head fall back so that she could open her mouth and draw a breath. It didn't help and she feared she might faint at any given moment. “I cut . . . my hair,” she finally murmured and lowered her gaze to meet his amused expression.

“You cut your hair?”

“He had a knife and I took it out of his boot.”

“Ah yes. The knife you tried to kill me with,” the captain replied. “You know, you'd have a whole lot better time of knife fighting if you'd keep your eyes open during the actual fight.”

She gave him what she hoped was a look of contempt. “I thought you were going to kill me. I'm still not sure that isn't your intent.”

He chuckled dryly. “You sure have a temper and a mouth to match.” He checked the wound, seemed satisfied with the results of his work, then started to bandage her arm. “So you cut your hair off? How does that figure in for an escape?”

“He was holding me down on the ground by standing on my hair. I had it braided and it was pretty long. When I pulled his knife, I cut the braid and ran.” She shook her now shoulder-length brown hair back and forth and marveled at the lightness. The movement did nothing whatsoever for her dizziness. Reaching her right hand up to steady her head, she murmured, “I think I'm going to like it short.”

“You look silly,” he told her, then tore the end of the bandage and tied it tightly around her arm. “I know this is tight, but it needs to be. Leave it that way until tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir!” she said, saluting as the young soldier had done. “Any other orders?”

He studied her for a moment, then began putting his things away. “Yes, give me your hand and I'll help you up—unless you want me to carry you.”

“I'm not an invalid, nor a silly female, as you put it earlier.” Jordana scrambled to her feet. “I can . . . I . . .” But the instant she was in a vertical position, the field spun before her eyes. Helpless, she looked down at the captain, who still knelt beside his pack. Her knees wobbled and gave way just before her world went black. From somewhere in her mind she heard the captain growl something about “aggravating females who never listen” and then she knew no more.

Jordana awoke to feel strong arms around her and a warm chest behind her. Momentarily disoriented, she stiffened, thinking her nightmare with Newt was still going on. In a panic, she twisted around nearly shaking loose the blanket that had been secured around her shoulders. Only then did she realize that though she was atop a horse, the rider behind her was a different man. They were being followed by a half dozen or so other mounted soldiers. She did not see Caitlan with them but remembered one of the soldiers saying she was all right.

“Sit still,” he demanded.

“Where are we?”

“Making our way back to your brother. Now stop squirming around.”

“I am not squirming,” Jordana protested. “I merely woke up to find—”

“You passed out cold, making me nearly break my neck to catch you before you hit the dirt. Had you listened to me in the first place, you might never have taken a swoon.”

“I did not swoon,” Jordana retorted, her mind filled with distasteful visions of helpless young women. “I lost a lot of blood and it made me light-headed.”

He said nothing, but Jordana heard him heave a sigh of disgust. He certainly was a difficult man to get along with. It hardly seemed to matter that she could be just as stubborn.

“Why is it taking so long to get to my brother?” she asked. It seemed they had been riding forever, even if she had been unconscious part of the way. Twisting back around in order to get her bearings, she was startled when the captain jerked her against him.

“Sit still, Miss Baldwin, or I'll be inclined to discipline you—something that I daresay should have been done long ago.”

Jordana was quite taken aback. “Of all the nerve!” she exclaimed, crossing her arms against her chest. “I'm merely concerned about my brother and my friend. I'm anxious to see that they are well.”

“Your companions are fine. Part of my unit headed back just before us and your friend was with them. We'll be at your wagon in a few minutes.”

“Were all the bushwhackers captured?”

“That's right.”

“Were any of your men hurt?”

“That's kind of you to ask.” He seemed sincere. “As far as I know, they're all right.”

“I would have felt terrible if any had been harmed trying to rescue me. I don't know what we would have done if you hadn't come along. However, I think I could have done some damage if I'd been forced to. I certainly thought long and hard about it once that knife was in my hands.”