Woman of Three Worlds (3 page)

Without responding, he strode to the haphazard door, peered in, sniffed, and made a face of fastidious disgust. “Impossible, Miss Laird.”

“But—” Her lip trembled. She bit down on it, hard.

He wheeled to face her, searching her with those cold, clear eyes. “You'd really live in that hovel and work as a servant in order to stay at the plantation?”

She nodded mutely.

A strangely gratified look puffed his lips for a moment before he said, “Let's go back to the house and talk about it.”

At his request she escorted him from the empty front parlor, where her mother's piano and harp had been, to the wine cellar, empty of everything but a few jars of juice squeezed from last autumn's tangy little mustang grapes. He praised the views, the quality of the construction, oak floors polished to gold, tile or marble fireplaces in each room. There was nothing left in the unused part of the house, not even rugs or draperies, and Eustis's voice echoed somewhat eerily.

“All it needs is furnishing to be a showplace.”

Brittany strangled at the bitterness of hearing this rich Yankee who owned her beloved home speak of its poverty so coolly. It was only with great effort that she quelled an outburst. She was starting down the hall when the man, behind her, set his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him.

“Brittany.” He spoke her name slowly, seeming to taste it. “How would you like to pick out furniture for Tristesse? Carpets, draperies, pictures? How would you like to see it beautiful again?”

A wild rush of hope made her forget his familiarity in using her first name and touching her. “You—you mean you'd like me to help you choose new things? Be the housekeeper?”

“Not a housekeeper.” As her face fell, he smiled. Deliberately, he cupped her chin with one hand. “Mistress of Tristesse—and me.”

Before she could grasp his meaning and wrench free, he tilted her face and swept her against him, pressing her softness to the hard length of his body as he bruised her mouth. Mistaking shock for consent, he fumbled at her breast.

She kicked him in the shin and gave him a violent shove. He stumbled backward, swearing. “You little backwoods slut!” He lunged for her.

Brittany dodged, ran into the kitchen, and caught up the poker. Eustis halted, flushed with thwarted lust and anger. He seemed to weigh his chance of catching her without encountering the poker before he gave a disdainful hitch of his shoulders.

“Put down your weapon, Miss Laird. I associate only with sane people. You must be mad to prefer that cabin and drudgery to living in a house restored to luxuriousness.”

When she continued to grip the poker, he laughed. “If you're that prudish, you'd probably be useless in love. However, I'll let you reconsider while I ride around the property.” Pausing in the door, He added brutally, “If you're here tonight, I expect to be welcomed to your bed.”

Trembling, Brittany held the poker till he'd unhobbled and saddled his horse, given a mocking wave, and ridden down the lane that led to where the fields used to be planted.

No choice. None at all. She would have to accept her cousin's offer.

Stunned too numb for weeping, Brittany leaned the poker against the wall. She must pack a few things and trudge to Jefferson. Lawyer Hackett would help her. But her father's books! Her mother's china, the few mementos!

Glancing helplessly around the library, she fought back tears before a wave of fury braced her. Bradley Eustis might own her home, but he'd never own her! She'd ask Lawyer Hackett to store the books, china, and small things till she could send for them and sell the furniture to cover those expenses. Right now the important thing was to be gone long before Eustis returned.

She had filled a sack with clothing, her mother's jewelry, the Bible in which her parents' wedding and her own birth were recorded, and Lear's book of verse. On top was Regina's letter. It was fifteen miles to town, so she had a packet of corn bread and a flask of water, the last she would drink from that clear, sweet well. She cast a last look at the garden, hoping someone would tend it and enjoy the yield, before she set her bag against the rails protecting Tante's grave.

She hurried to a swampy place where she'd seen orchids growing a few days ago, and choosing her footing carefully, she plucked a handful of delicate small blooms that resembled tiny dragons with yawning mouths: shadow witch, lace-lip, crested coral, ladies' tresses.

Tante had loved them. Brittany placed the fragile bouquet on the unhealed mound. Overcome, she sank to her knees, wept for her beloved old nurse, her parents, and because she must leave her home.

Everyone who had loved her was dead, except for Jem. That was a lonely feeling. Somehow she doubted that Regina loved anyone, even her Ned and Angela.

“Good-bye, Tante,” Brittany murmured, touching the edge of the grave. “I always will remember you.”

Heaving the bag over her shoulder, she walked to the bend of the lane, looked back quickly, fixed the lovely old house in her mind forever, and hurried on, unable for a long time to see where she was going.

She was hot, footsore, and weary when, early that afternoon, she dropped her pack at Lawyer Hackett's door and rang the bell. She knew where it was because she and Tante had always stopped to see the lawyer on their rare trips to town.

Bruce Hackett, whose bald crown was as rosy as his cheeks, ushered her into his parlor, for he was a widower who kept an office in his dwelling. Mrs. Lansford, his white-haired, sweet-faced housekeeper, brought tea and muffins, clucking sympathetically at Brittany's much-abbreviated story, which omitted Eustis's insulting proposition.

“Still and all,” the motherly woman said, “now that dear old Tante's gone, you could scarcely stay there alone. Cheer up, love. Why, I daresay every bachelor officer at Camp Bowie is eagerly awaiting your arrival!”

She rustled off to prepare the spare bedroom for Brittany, since the lawyer had insisted that she stay with them that night and catch tomorrow's stage. He peered at her now through round steel-framed spectacles.

“I'm astonished that even a Yankee let you set off on foot with that heavy sack.”

“He didn't know. I—I left while he was riding around the plantation.” Brittany's cheeks burned. She was sure the old family adviser guessed the general reason she'd left so precipitately. “The furniture will have to be sold, sir, but I'd take it as a great kindness if you could use the money from the sale to store the books and china till I can send for them.”

“I'll take care of it,” Hackett assured her. “Plenty of room in the attic. Where, by the way, I'm sure we can find a proper valise for you!”

So it was in a proper, if worn, valise that Brittany's things were stowed on top of the stage next morning. Mrs. Lansford embraced her, whispering encouraging remarks about dashing young officers. Lawyer Hackett handed her into a seat by the window.

“Have a safe journey, my dear. Write from Camp Bowie.”

She waved as the stage moved forward, then took her first real notice of the other passengers. Three middle-aged men were in the seat behind, an apparently married older couple shared the middle seat with her, and a very fat, red-haired man sat facing them on the seat turned to the back. His legs had been sprawled in the space Brittany's feet now occupied. It was with a disgruntled expression that he fitted his knees on either side of the man beside Brittany. Broad legs crushed hers against the door, but she was grateful that at least she wasn't locked in the position of her neighbor.

They bumped over roads rutted by spring rains. The red-haired man dozed, mouth falling open till he woke himself with particularly thunderous snores. Brittany's neighbors argued over the conduct of the married daughter they were going to visit. The men in the rear, it appeared from their conversation, were speculators in railroad stock.

Brittany sighed and tried to find a more comfortable position. It was going to be a long, long journey.

By the time she changed stage lines, at San Antonio, Brittany felt she'd been riding forever, squeezed by the fat man's knee, finding blessed relief when the stage stopped every twenty miles or so for a new team. They had averaged between four and five miles an hour, stopping at night in stage stations where food was greasy and the beds grass ticks spread over laced rope supports.

Those three days were nothing, though, compared to the stretch to El Paso, especially when the last trees were left behind and they rumbled across a high, seemingly endless plateau broken to the south by barren mountains. Since the stage line carried mail, they traveled nights too, and though Brittany could have stayed to sleep at one of the relay stations, they were so dirty and full of rough men that she kept riding, falling into exhausted stupors between stations.

It was wonderful to see trees at Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos, where the Comanches used to stop on their autumn looting trips to Mexico till they were forced onto a reservation up in Indian Territory, in 1874, two years ago. After that, it seemed to Brittany that she never saw another real tree till they neared the Rio Grande at El Paso.

Fort Bliss was located outside the town, and the sleepy adobe settlement seemed to drowse. “Would you believe El Paso had a thousand citizens before the war and was the busiest city between San Antonio and California?” asked one passenger disgustedly. “Most people here were Southern sympathizers. Their houses and businesses were confiscated and sold at public auction. It'll take a railroad to bring life to this place!”

At Mesilla, less than a day from El Paso, Brittany got on the Southern Pacific Mail Stage that ran three times a week from that village to San Diego.

A leathery-faced young man, shotgun in hand and a holstered gun at either hip, grinned at Brittany as he helped her in before climbing up beside the bewhiskered driver.

“Don't you worry about Apaches, ma'am. They like easy pickings, not a fight.”

She found this remark less than comforting, and her uneasiness was increased on another account. Throughout her journey, she had been the only woman traveling alone.

Now she was the only one, wedged in between a chunky, flashily dressed man with a curly moustache and a gaunt officer, severely handsome in spite of hollow cheeks and dark smudges beneath his gray eyes. He looked too young for the silver hair sweeping back from an aristocratic forehead. Facing them were a sleek, black-haired man who was Brittany's idea of a gambler and an odiferous, bald hulk with a gun at his hip whose gingery beard and leather shirt were further stained by tobacco dribbles.

He was the last one in. Grinning at Brittany, he fitted his knees around hers. “No need to squinch your legs so tight, ma'am,” he chuckled. “Just relax.” He glanced from the curly-moustached man to the officer. “One of you gentlemen lucky enough to be this lady's husband?”

Flushing, Brittany said quickly, “I'm not married.”

Eyes the color of weak coffee peered at her with fresh interest. “Traveling all alone out in these parts? Well, ma'am, Jed Farrow will make it his business to look after you. How far are you going?”

“Camp Bowie.”

“Oh,” said the stranger with a roguish wink. “Coming out to marry your soldier? I'm surprised he'd send for you with the Apaches on a big tear. Just led a raid through the San Pedro Valley, killing ranchers and running off livestock.”

The officer said coolly, “According to my information, sir, the Indian Bureau cut the Chiricahua agency's beef allotment so drastically that the agent had to let some warriors go hunting off the reservation. Some drifted down to Mexico on a raid, came back with gold, and bought whiskey off a trader. Pionsenay killed two of his sisters while he was drunk. When he sobered up he killed the trader and his cook. It was after that when he led the San Pedro raid.”

“You seem to know all the ins and outs of it,” Farrow allowed. “Is it true the Chiricahuas are going to be dumped at the San Carlos Reservation with the other Apaches?”

“They may already be there. The last I heard, Agent Clum had been ordered to bring the Chiricahuas to his agency and relieve Agent Jeffords of his duties.” He added grimly, “Clum has made friends with the Apaches and formed a group of Indian police who do a fine job of keeping order at San Carlos. I don't think he could bring the Chiricahua in, though, without the support of ten troops of cavalry the department commander just sent to Camp Bowie.”

“You're reporting there, Major?” At the officer's nod, Farrow leaned forward. “Won't you be disappointed if you miss out on the excitement?”

“The folly, you mean? Forcing groups that have often been hostile to share a reservation in a sun-baked desolate desert when they're all mountain people used to roving at will?”

Farrow shrugged. “Because of Grant's crazy peace policy and because Cochise and Tom Jeffords were friends, the Chiricahuas were left in their mountains. So what happened? Maybe they didn't cause trouble in Arizona, but they went pillaging into Mexico. Renegades from other bands hid out with them. Anyway, it made the Apaches herded into San Carlos mad to know the Chiricahuas were still on the loose.”

The soldier ran a hand through his silver hair. “There's no good answer. Since Cochise died two years ago, his sons haven't been able to control their people. Indian Bureau's just been waiting for an excuse to march them off to San Carlos and let contractors get fatter still by supplying troops and Indians.”

The chunky man next to Brittany turned to glare. “I'm a contractor, Major, and I don't appreciate your slurs! As long as the Apaches have guns and are allowed to roam off hunting, there'll be outbreaks.”

“And as long as they're clamped down on too tightly, they'll run off and turn renegade.”

The contractor sneered. “You soldiers hate that because you can't catch them.”

“They know the mountains and canyons like the backs of their hands and can cover sixty miles in a day on foot in country where horses can't follow. The ones at San Carlos were only caught with the help of other Apache scouts.”