“Alone,” he teased her.
She dimpled at him and stroked his cheek. “I cannot think of a better payment.”
A silly grin spread across his face, and Esme saw his whole body stiffen. If she could arouse him with a touch to his cheek and a practice giggle, what would he be like in bed? Would he go the distance? She doubted he’d last long enough to get her out of her corset.
He accepted the pad of paper and the pencil and sat down at his desk. “Do you want me to write anything.”
“Anything that my students can read.”
“How about a love poem. I know one that almost makes me cry every time a read it.”
“And that would be?” Esme coaxed.
“Let me compare you to a summer’s day.”
Esme sighed. “The English Bard. I so adore Shakspere?”
“His poetry is exquisite.” His bent over the paper, and cast longing looks at Esme as he wrote.
Esme leaned over his shoulder and sighed with delight as each word was formed on the page. A pity, he did have beautiful handwriting. She wished she could admire him as much as her brother did.
Chapter Nineteen
Rafe pulled his horse to a stop and raised his hand. Something felt wrong. An odd feeling seeped over him as he glanced around the prairie. A peculiar smoky smell filled the air.
“I smell death,” Night Feather said, pulling his horse to a stop. The warriors behind him followed suit.
Rafe pushed his horse forward, the other warriors following him. Rafe and Night Feather had left two days ago to hunt and visit several neighboring bands of Comanche. They had spread the story of Red Claw’s betrayal of his people.
Rafe hadn’t figured out how to return the gold, but he’d visited the log near the fort and left a note asking how he could do this. He didn’t want the wrath of Mexico to fall on the heads of his adopted people. They had enough to worry about without making an enemy of Mexico.
Rafe heard the wailing long before he topped the rise and saw their small camp in chaos. The tee pees had been pulled down across cooking fires and lay smoldering. Children cried and old women stood in the center of the camp cradling them. Bodies lay sprawled across the ground and Rafe’s heart seemed to stop.
Willow, Rafe thought. He kicked his horse hard and raced toward the camp, Night Feather and the others racing after him.
“What happened?” He asked one of the old women as he slid to a stop and dismounted from his horse.
The old woman stared at him, not seeming to recognize him for a moment. “Everyone is dead,” the old woman wailed, cradling a baby in her arms. “Your woman made me take the children and hide in the underbrush.”
“Where’s Willow?” Rafe demanded.
The old woman wept huge tears. “Red Claw and that Mexican bandit returned last night with others. They wanted the gold. We fought them, but they took it anyway, and killed everyone. Including your woman.”
Rafe stared at the devastation, his mind numb. “My son,” he asked, his throat dry. He tried to think, but no thoughts formed.
“Safe with the other children.” The old woman pointed at the edge of the camp where another old woman parted the bushes and led several children toward him.
Rafe shook his head. He glanced around trying to spot his wife, but saw only blood and dead bodies. He didn’t believe his Willow was dead. “Where is she?”
The old woman pointed at the center of the camp. A body sprawled on the ground surrounded by other bodies. The long black hair and the familiar curving of breast and hip told him it was Willow.
He stood over her staring down at her lifeless face. Strands of black hair covered her eyes. He knelt, pulling Willow into his arms and holding her, wiping her hair out of her face. She still held her knife clenched in one hand. Dried blood stained the blade and her fingers. Her leather tunic was drenched with blood, a gaping hole in the side of her head showing the gunshot wound that had killed her.
Two men lay near her. Both dead. One of them was Red Claw, a look of total surprise on his face as he stared unseeing at the blue sky. Willow had killed him. She had told Rafe she would not allow Red Claw’s blood to insult his knife, and she had kept her promise.
Grief replaced the numbness in his heart. Not his Willow, he thought.
She couldn’t die. She was the fiercest of warriors–invincible and strong.
He held her tight against his chest. Tears blurred his vision and he knew his life would never be the same again. He would never again have her to warm his bed, to mother their son, to be his friend. Her laughter, her passion was gone.
He held her for a long time, then gently placed her back on the ground, arranging her arms and legs in a more modest position.
One of the old women thrust his son at him. Rafe took the boy and held him tight. His son clung to him. Rafe studied his son’s face seeing the shape of Willow’s stubborn chin and the sloping of her cheeks in his features. He remembered when Willow had presented him with his son, the pride in her eyes, the love she had for them both. That moment had filled his heart with love. Her death was now draining his heart of everything he had once held close.
He hugged his son tightly. “Your mother was a warrior among warriors. She died bravely.” Rafe handed his little son back to the old woman. “What about the Mexican?”
She grimaced and spat at the ground. “Once he was done with his killing of women and old men, he took the gold and left.”
Rafe scanned the horizon. “Which direction did the Mexican go?” Hardness formed at the core of Rafe’s soul. He could not bare to look at Willow, laying on the ground. He knew he would grief deeply later, but the time for action was now.
The old woman pointed east. Rafe caught the reins of his horse and after a long good-bye to his wife, he led the horse toward the edge of the camp.
“Where do you go, brother?” Night Feather asked, his voice breaking with his own grief. Though his wife had been gone many years ago, lost in childbirth, the daughter born of the wife’s sacrifice was one of the dead.
Rafe swung up onto his horse. “To avenge our families.”
“Then you do not go alone.”
Rafe shook his head. “What I do I must do alone. It is because of me that our wives are lost. I brought the Mexican into our fight because he promised us guns. I let him use us for his own purposes, and this is what happened.” He gazed at the camp, at the children with no mothers, the warriors with no wives, into the dark eyes of his dear son.
He had thought their cause noble and just. But the end was lost.
They had nothing left to fight for.
Rafe reached toward Night Feather and clasped his hand. “Thank you, brother, for your offer, but I cannot accept it. When you have cared for the dead seek out Quanah Parker. He will welcome you. His fight is now our fight. Send the old women and the children to my village in Mexico. I know my people are not your friends, but my mother has a kind heart and will help them to settle some place safe. My mother will care for my son.” He reached to the back of his neck and undid the leather thong threaded with the alligator tooth his mother had given him as a child. “Give this to her. She will know it’s from me.”
Night Feather accepted the tooth. “What about you?”
“I’m going after Valenzuela. Soon he will be dead and so will I.” His soul was dead already.
* * *
Reggie. Luc couldn’t believe Reggie was the spy, but Esme had offered him incontrovertible proof. She had shown Luc Reggie’s writing and compared that sample with the signature. No matter how hard a person tried, some basic elements of his handwriting he could not hide. In the end, his perfect, Boston-bred penmanship had tied the noose around his neck.
Luc hid in the brush watching the log. Across the clearing he could see the spot where Callie was hiding, but he couldn’t see her. Several soldiers, hand-picked by him, hid in different areas, all of them prepared to uncover the traitor.
Luc waited. All the while he kept asking w
hy. Why had Reggie chosen this path? Reggie could have done other things to make money, but he’d chosen betrayal. The army was a big, hulking beast easily scammed and Reggie had found a way to work the system for himself. Luc wondered how long Reggie had been using the army as his bank.
A rustle sounded in the underbrush. Luc made himself small and as invisible as he could.
Juan Valenzuela stepped into the clearing and Luc tensed. Then Reggie rode up and dismounted from his horse.
Reggie approached the log and glared at Valenzuela. “I got your note, but I want you to know I’m not your lackey. And contacting me was dangerous.”
Valenzuela laughed. “You’re a fool, gringo. I own you. Your own greed has made you my lackey.”
Reggie’s face went red. “What do you want?”
“My pet Indian has betrayed us.”
“Is he dead?” Reggie asked.
Luc leaned forward to hear them better.
“Not yet, but he will be here soon enough. We will wait for him.” Valenzuela sat on the log. “If nothing else, you can capture him since he is a deserter from your fort.”
“You mean he’s a darky?”
Valenzuela shrugged. “Los Negros and the Indians have formed many alliances in the past. It’s a good thing you don’t think my gold is beneath you.”
Reggie turned a stiff face toward the bandit while his hand crept toward his pistol.
Valenzuela laughed. “You can hate me, if you wish. I don’t pay you to love me. One day we’ll no longer need each other and perhaps I’ll kill you. But now we wait.”
“I can’t be away from the post for too long. My absence would be noted. Besides, I have information you need.” Reggie reached into his shirt pocket.
“What information?” Valenzuela eyed Reggie greedily.
Reggie held up a piece of paper. “A dispatch for the General. A new shipment of guns. Guns you have an interest in. But then again, maybe you don’t.” Valenzuela reached for the paper, but Reggie backed away,
refolded the paper and put it in his pocket. “I want my payment first.”
He held out an empty hand.
Valenzuela grinned at him. “I have gold. Lots of gold. More gold than you can ever imagine.”
“I can imagine a lot.” Reggie grinned. “Get it. Then you can have the information you seek.”
Luc’s heart sank. He had his proof. Reggie was indeed the traitor. He had disgraced his family and betrayed his country. If Luc had known his family was in such dire need, he would have attempted to do something for them. But Reggie had always shaken off any offer of help from Luc. Luc had thought Reggie’s pride kept him so independent, but now he knew that Reggie had simply developed an independent source of income for himself.
Luc stood up and Reggie whirled to face him. The hidden soldiers, except for Callie, all stepped forward, crashing through the underbrush. Luc wondered where Callie had gotten. He’d wanted to leave her behind, to keep her safe, but couldn’t. She was soldier, no longer a woman. He was having a hard time keeping the woman he loved separate from the soldier he needed.
“Reginald Cooper,” Luc announced as he stepped toward Reggie, “you’re under arrest for treason.” The word ‘treason’ seemed to reverberate through the clearing.
Reggie whirled, a look of astonishment on his face. Valenzuela stepped back and grabbed Reggie’s arms, pushing him toward Luc. Reggie staggered to his knees and Luc stepped around him, his pistol aimed at Valenzuela. “Halt.”
Valenzuela grabbed at his weapon and aimed his pistol at Luc. Suddenly, Callie popped up seemingly out of nowhere and shoved Valenzuela as hard has she could. The man stumbled backward, his pistol flying out of his hand. He turned toward Callie, raising an arm to strike her, but she jumped up and clung to him with such force, they went down in a tangle, half rolling into the stream.
Valenzuela struggled to get an arm loose and Luc saw a knife in his hand. Luc leaped toward them. Reggie struggled to his feet and started to race toward his horse, but two soldiers tackled him, struggling with him.
Luc reached Valenzuela. Callie hung on the man, her arms and legs wrapped around him so tight he couldn’t move, much less escape. They continued struggling until Luc grabbed the bandit by the shoulder and hauled him to his feet. Valenzuela punched Luc and pain radiated from the impact. Luc staggered, but landed his own punch on Valenzuela. Valenzuela slipped and fell backward, sprawling in the mud.
Two more soldiers stepped forward to restrain Valenzuela. Luc knelt down next to Callie and gathered her into his arms. She felt so frail, so fragile.
Blood seeped from her chest. She gazed up at him, her eyes unfocused. “I’m bleeding. Am I going to die?” She closed her eyes and went limp.
* * *
“Cal Payne is a woman!” General Hammond exclaimed. He stood in the doorway of Luc’s office. Major Adams sat at Luc’s desk while Luc prowled the room unable to stand still. Esme sat in a chair waving her flushed face with a fan. She was deeply proud of her role in uncovering
Reggie. Too proud, Luc thought. He was caught between annoyance at his sister’s interference, and pride in her abilities.
So much had happened in the last two days, but his worry was mostly for Callie. He had worried that she would die. The doctor had declared her stab wound to be serious, but for the most part, it had missed any vital organs and the possibility was she would recover if she didn’t develop an infection. Luc knew how fatal an infection could be. He’d seen men die in the war because the doctors had nothing to treat them with. He didn’t want Callie to die. He loved her in a way he’d never loved another woman. If she died, a part of him would die with her.
Outside on the parade ground, the troops stood at ease after the morning’s inspection. Since the revelation of Reggie’s betrayal, the post was on edge, filled with tension and worry over what the Comanches would do once their source of information was at an end.
“According to the doctor,” Major Adams said, “she’s about twenty years old, or so. Too bad, she was a damn good scout. I’m going to be sorry to see her go, but the army is no place for a young, single woman, no matter how efficient she is.” He scratched his chin. “Now that I know she’s a woman, I can’t understand why I didn’t see it. Not even my wife saw through her disguise. I always thought women instinctively knew things like that.”
Luc wanted to say that Esme had seen through Callie’s disguise, but a glance at Esme told him to just keep quiet. Esme was unusual, why point out how unusual she was.
Hammond turned on Luc. “Do you have anything you care to speak to me about? You were with Miss Payne for almost six weeks ... alone.”
Luc opened his mouth to speak, to confess his culpability in her masquerade, but the words wouldn’t come out. He feared if he told the General what he had done to enable her disguise, he would confess how he felt about her, how deeply he cared for her.
Hammond raised his hand and shook his head. “I don’t think I really want to know.”
“Sir,” Luc said, “I wanted to send her home, but she was so determined to get land for her family, I couldn’t. She’s a very stubborn woman. I realize I’ve risked my own career in keeping her secrets, but I thought she’d pull it off.” He couldn’t reveal her secrets, because she knew his.
The General frowned. “What land are you talking about?”
Luc tried to remember how the promise was worded, but couldn’t remember. “I was told that if the Black-Seminoles served as our scouts, they would be paid in land. Forty acres per scout. Callie feels that if her family owns their own land, the government won’t be able to force them to move, or take it away from them.”
“I haven’t heard of that promise.” Hammond stroked his chin, a thoughtful look in his eyes.
Luc stared at him. A part of his brain told him he shouldn’t be shocked. The government had a long history of breaking promises with the Indians. The Seminole in particular. “They were promised this land. Why do you think the Negro-Seminoles
are here? They have no love for the United States.” The government had treated them as shabbily as they had all the other tribes over the last hundred years. Luc never once thought he was being lied to. He has accepted the promise on faith because he thought it had been honorably offered.
“I can look into it,” Hammond said. “Your scouts have served you well, but I can almost guarantee that nothing about this land was put in writing.”
No, Luc thought, the government was too careful of its own needs to really consider what was happening to those people being hurt by the policies.
Esme struck the closed spines of her fan against the arm of her chair. “Does that mean that the United States Army is going to cheat these people after they have put their lives on the line for this country? Mon Dieu, France would never do such a thing. The United States doesn’t deserve such loyalty. The Black-Seminoles don’t deserve to be treated so poorly for their service.”
Luc wasn’t certain he agreed with his sister’s assessment of France. Their adopted home was as guilty of similar abuses as the United States. But then again, despite all her worldliness, Esme had an idealistic streak that always popped up at unusual moments.
“I’m sorry, Esme,” the general said with regret in his tone, and a bit of guilt in his eyes. “The Army may not be the most ideal place, but I do know promises of that caliber cannot be made without Congressional approval, and I have not heard of any proposal offering land to the scouts for their services even being discussed. I don’t know where Luc received his information, but I suspect it was an error ....”
Luc interrupted, “From the Recruitment Department.” A small worm of anger ate its way through him. The United States Government couldn’t be allowed to get away with such underhanded manipulations. But Luc had no idea what he could do.
Hammond took a deep breath, “I’m sorry, Luc, but I have a feeling someone may have over-stepped their authority. But I will do whatever I can in my power to see that some provision is made for your scouts. Except for Callie. She enlisted under false pretenses and this negates all promises made to her”
After The Lies Page 25
