At Love's Command

by Karen Witemeyer

  Books by Karen Witemeyer

  A Tailor-Made Bride

  Head in the Clouds

  To Win Her Heart

  Short-Straw Bride

  Stealing the Preacher

  Full Steam Ahead

  A Worthy Pursuit

  No Other Will Do

  Heart on the Line

  More Than Meets the Eye

  More Than Words Can Say

  HANGER’S HORSEMEN

  At Love’s Command

  NOVELLAS

  A Cowboy Unmatched from A Match Made in Texas: A Novella Collection

  Love on the Mend: A Full Steam Ahead Novella from With All My Heart Romance Collection

  The Husband Maneuver: A Worthy Pursuit Novella from With This Ring?: A Novella Collection of Proposals Gone Awry

  Worth the Wait: A LADIES OF HARPER’S STATION Novella

  The Love Knot: A LADIES OF HARPER’S STATION Novella from Hearts Entwined: A Historical Romance Novella Collection

  Gift of the Heart from Christmas Heirloom Novella Collection

  More Than a Pretty Face from Serving Up Love: A Four-in-One Harvey House Brides Collection

  © 2020 by Karen Witemeyer

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  www.bethanyhouse.com

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

  www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

  Ebook edition created 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  ISBN 978-1-4934-2509-9

  Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Dan Thornberg, Design Source Creative Services

  Author is represented by the Books & Such Literary Agency.

  Contents

  Cover

  Half Title Page

  Books by Karen Witemeyer

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Epigraph

  Dedication

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Back Ads

  Back Cover

  The LORD also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble.

  And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, LORD, hast not forsaken them that seek thee.

  —Psalm 9:9–10

  For my favorite hero.

  Horsemen aren’t the only champions who can save the day.

  Whether you are rescuing me from creepy-crawly invaders, malfunctioning computers, or villainous piles of laundry, you are always there when I need you.

  Thanks, love.

  Prologue

  WOUNDED KNEE CREEK, SOUTH DAKOTA

  PINE RIDGE INDIAN RESERVATION

  DECEMBER 29, 1890

  According to the Good Book, there was a time for war and a time for peace. Captain Matthew Hanger of the 7th Cavalry prayed this was a time for peace even as he fit his finger to the trigger of his Remington Army revolver and took aim at a Lakota Sioux warrior on the other side of the ravine. Matt was sick of war. Sick of training men only to watch them fall on the battlefield. Sick of politicians proclaiming policy without concern for the men sent to enforce it. Sick of right and wrong blurring into a muddy, indecipherable mess until he no longer knew on which side he stood.

  He supposed he should be thankful to still be alive after thirteen years of Indian fighting, but he hadn’t felt alive since the day he found his parents and baby sister murdered by a Comanche war party. He’d been five, too young to fight back yet old enough to have his soul hollowed out like the family farmhouse, scorched from within until only a husk remained.

  “You think they’ll surrender their weapons, Cap?” The low voice of Corporal Luke Davenport cut through the cold winter air.

  “I pray they do.” Matt’s gaze never wandered from the warrior in his sights. Three companies of dismounted soldiers had entered the Lakota camp and were in the process of surrounding Chief Big Foot’s warriors—a contingent that looked to be about a hundred and twenty men, many wrapped in blankets due to the snowy conditions. Matt’s company, still mounted, had been ordered to the ridge south of the camp to guard against any attempt by the Lakota to escape. “These new Ghost Dancing rituals have the men on edge.”

  The words had barely left his tongue when a medicine man started chanting. As the troopers searched the camp for weapons, the Sioux holy man wove among the younger warriors. Chanting. Dancing. Subtle moves at first, almost imperceptible, but he grew bolder, his motions more defined.

  Matt clenched his jaw. Exactly what they didn’t need. The Lakota had been docile enough yesterday when Matt’s company had rounded them up near Porcupine Butte. Big Foot had been compliant. But this holy man . . . he was stirring up defiance. Matt could feel it as sure as he could feel the winter wind against his neck.

  “Steady, boys,” Matt murmured to the men closest to him, trusting them to pass the message down the line. They were good men, but many were young. Inexperienced.

  And nervous.

  “Got a verse for me, Preach?” Matt asked.

  Corporal Davenport had been with him for nearly a decade. They’d come up through the ranks together. Luke was deadly in hand-to-hand combat—the best swordsman Matt had ever seen—yet Matt had come to rely on him for more than having his back. Luke was a walking repository of Scripture. Always had a verse at the ready. And those verses kept Matt grounded.

  If ever there was a time for grounding, it was now.

  “‘For thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle,’” the corporal murmured, “‘thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me.’ Psalm 18:39.”

  Matt let the words sink in. He’d heard Luke quote that one before. It was good for putting a military man in a confident frame of mind before charging an enemy, but less than reassuring when one hoped for peaceful compliance. It lent an ominous tension to the knot already twisting in Matt’s gut.

  Colonel Forsyth ordered the Lakota to turn over their rifles, his men moving among the warriors and effectively separating them out from the camp where the women and children remained. The older men complied, but the younger braves clung to their blankets as if they had nothing to turn over, their faces stoic masks that brought the hair up on the back of Matt’s neck.

  The medicine man k
ept chanting. Kept weaving among the young warriors. Taunting. Inciting.

  Matt sat higher in the saddle. His knees tightened around Phineas. His blood bay gelding’s ears pricked, and his head lowered in readiness. Matt scanned the entire party of Lakota. No visible weapons among them. Yet the troopers searching the camp had only turned up a handful of rifles.

  Something was off.

  Movement below sharpened Matt’s focus. A Lakota dropped his blanket. Sun glinted off metal. A shot cracked.

  Purgatory erupted.

  “Charge!”

  Matt voiced the shout, then signaled Mark Wallace, his trumpeter, to sound the advance. The bugle called. Horses surged forward. Guns blazed.

  More than a dozen troopers in the camp already lay fallen. Twice as many Lakota sprawled unmoving in the snow beside them.

  The cavalry’s sentinels and scouts sprinted for the protection of the mounted line. Matt urged Phineas forward, his only thought to protect their men. He laid down cover fire, taking down an armed brave running for the ravine and another who had stopped to take aim at a retreating trooper.

  Behind him, the Hotchkiss artillery boomed. The force of the blasts from the four light mountain guns reverberated through Matt’s torso. He leaned low in the saddle, decreasing his target size so as not to fall victim to the crossfire.

  Catching a glimpse of a familiar face, Matt steered Phineas to intercept a retreating trooper. Jonah Brooks, a buffalo soldier with the 10th Cavalry, had served with Matt on numerous reconnaissance missions when stealth had been required. He had a talent for making himself invisible and could hit a dime dead-center from five hundred yards. Too valuable an asset to lose in this mess. Plus, he was a friend.

  Matt holstered his Remington and yanked his left boot from the stirrup. Slowing Phineas just enough to make a clean snatch, he leaned sideways and offered his arm. “Jonah! Grab hold!”

  The black man didn’t hesitate. He locked onto Matt’s wrist and swung his body upward as Matt leaned away to counterbalance his weight. Jonah got a toe in the stirrup and fought his way onto Phineas’s back behind the saddle.

  A hand thumped Matt’s shoulder. “I’m good, Cap!”

  Matt turned Phineas and headed for the edge of the ravine. The Hotchkiss guns had started a panic among the Lakota. Women and children bolted out of the camp, seeking escape through the ravine alongside their men. But mixing with the warriors only made them targets.

  “Protect our retreat!” Matt yelled to his men. Preach turned in his saddle at his call and met his gaze. “But watch your fire! We have innocents in the field.” Matt pointed to a woman with a toddler in her arms racing toward the ravine.

  Preach nodded and started shouting to the troops under his command. Making war on a trained enemy was one thing, but cutting down women and children . . . neither of them wanted any part of that.

  “Preach!” Matt called. “Once the men are clear, block the Lakota’s escape.”

  His corporal tapped his cap brim with the barrel of his revolver, showing he’d heard. Matt trusted him to see to the duty while he got Jonah to safety. Phineas couldn’t carry two for long, so Matt headed for a rise to the west of the ravine and called out to the other dismounted troops to rally behind the hill. The Hotchkiss guns were firing too close to the line. The troops were in as much danger from their own artillery as they were from the Lakota. In fact, most of the Lakota were fleeing now, no longer an active threat.

  Yet bullets continued to fly. Mortar shells continued to explode. Indians continued to die.

  Protect your men. Complete your objective. Ignore the rest.

  Matt clenched his jaw and hardened his heart. Focus on what’s within your control. He couldn’t control the artillery. Couldn’t stop the panicked flight of innocents into the line of fire. But he could get his men to a protected position and reorganize the troops to halt the enemy’s flight.

  Once atop the rise, Matt reined Phineas in, and Jonah slid to the ground. “Take my rifle,” Matt ordered as he slid his Springfield from its scabbard and shoved it toward Jonah, who’d been left with only his side arm. “You can do more good watching our backs from a distance with this than following us to the ravine with only your Peacemaker.”

  Jonah said nothing, just gave a sharp nod and grabbed the rifle.

  Matt felt better for his men already. Jonah with a single-load Springfield could take down more enemy combatants than half the troopers bouncing around on horseback combined. And his bullets would find the right targets, not fly haphazardly toward anything that moved.

  Spotting the gray horse of his trumpeter, Matt signaled to Wallace and instructed him to organize the dismounted men and have them cover the ravine while Matt joined Preach on the west end to contain those trying to flee.

  “It’s a mess, Cap.” Preach strode forward to give his report as Matt slid from the saddle. “There’s a group huddled in a cut bank a few yards in. Women and children, mostly. But it’d be suicide to try to get to them with all the crossfire.”

  Matt nodded, taking in the chaos of the Lakota camp. His gaze hesitated on the blue coats of fallen soldiers. He scanned the scene as he scoured his brain for a plan that would enable him to accomplish his objective while minimizing casualties.

  Indians poured into the ravine, seeking refuge from the barrage of guns and artillery. Some were armed warriors. Others were innocents. Yet with the dirt and blood and constant stirring of bodies, it was nearly impossible to tell them apart.

  A handful of warriors had started scaling the ravine. “There!” Matt pointed at the men he’d spotted. “Focus your efforts on keeping those warriors contained. If they crest the ridge, they’ll have a clean shot on our boys. I’ll see what I can do about the band at the cut bank.”

  “Got it.” Luke gave a sharp nod as Matt turned to address his self-assigned mission. “Hey, Cap?”

  Matt turned back. “Yeah?”

  “Some of them females have guns. Saw one covered in blood holding a cavalry revolver. Must’ve stolen it from a fallen trooper. Keep your guard up.”

  “Always, Corporal.” If a woman took up arms and stood beside her man in a fight, she opened herself up to the consequences. But a man of honor protected the weaker sex to the best of his ability in all circumstances. Even in war.

  Especially in war.

  Ducking behind Phineas, Matt reloaded his Remington, then hunched low and jogged along the edge of the ravine, away from the most concentrated gunfire. He couldn’t allow the women and children to escape, but he could take them into custody and move them to a more sheltered position.

  Signaling a handful of his men to fall in behind him, Matt circled around to the shallow end of the ravine and began the march into Hades. The constant barrage of cavalry fire into the ravine had turned the Lakota’s escape route into a mass grave. The sides of the ravine had hidden the full extent of the destruction when he’d been above, but now nothing spared Matt from the horror of the scores of dead and dying littering the ravine floor.

  Blood and gunpowder filled his nostrils, but he marched on. It was what a commander did. Showed no fear. No revulsion. Only confidence and strength. So his men would follow.

  Catching sight of the cut bank, he veered to the left. He ordered his men to guard the mouth of the ravine and only to fire if fired upon. Then he strode forward, gun in hand.

  A bullet’s high-pitched whine tickled his ear as it raced past to slam into the earth two feet to his right. Another pinged off a rock ledge in front of him.

  He could see them now. Five of them. Kids, mostly.

  An old woman met his gaze and straightened. Not in fear, but in resignation. Pride straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin, even as she moved to shield the children. Matt pointed the barrel of his Remington toward the sky and held his left hand palm-out in an effort to reassure her that he meant no harm. Then he gestured for her to come to him.

  She refused to move, just stared at him, her eyes casting blame on him and his kind
.

  A sudden motion from behind the woman, however, flared Matt’s instincts. A half-grown boy lurched around his protector, a revolver in his hand.

  Matt didn’t hesitate. He lowered his barrel and fired. The kid fired too, his shot going wide as Matt’s bullet lodged in the youth’s shoulder. Matt rushed forward, needing to secure the weapon. A second child cried out as the boy crumpled to the ground. Matt lunged for him and wrapped his fingers around the gun still in the kid’s hand. With a quick twist, the gun fell free. Matt tucked it into his belt, then yanked a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it against the boy’s wound. The kid would need a doctor to remove the bullet and sew him up, but he’d survive.

  If they got out of this ravine.

  “Captain! Artillery is on the move,” one of his men called. “We gotta retreat.”

  Matt jerked his attention to the canyon wall behind him. Sure enough, one of the Hotchkiss guns was being wheeled into place near the ravine’s edge. No one would survive the cannon fire at this range.

  He turned back to the old woman. “Come.” He gestured urgently and pointed at the mountain gun. “We must leave. Now.”

  She ignored him. Well, that wasn’t precisely true. She ignored his order, not him. Him, she impaled with a look of hatred as she herded the other children back toward the camp. Into the line of fire. As if she’d rather die with her people than follow a white man to safety.

  The boy Matt was tending flailed. He kicked out at Matt and rolled away, leaving Matt’s bloodied handkerchief in the snow behind him.

  “Wait!” Matt grabbed for the boy, desperate to save at least one, but the kid scrambled rashly after his kin, only to be hit full in the chest by a bullet. He flew backward from the force of the hit.

  “No!” Matt charged after him, but a hand locked on his arm from behind.

  “You can’t save him, Matt.” Preach’s voice.

  When had his corporal come into the ravine? Wasn’t he supposed to be guarding the line? No, the line had been overtaken by the Hotchkiss gun.

  Matt struggled. He had to get those kids out. Before it was too late.

  But Luke only tightened his hold. Dragged him backward.

  The boy didn’t move. Blood soaked through his coat as the truth soaked into Matt’s mind. He was dead. Beyond saving. But what about the others?