by Hebby Roman
Mallory: The Mail Order Bride
By
Hebby Roman
Historical Western Romance
☆Estrella Publishing☆
August 2018
Table of Contents
Author’s Notes
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
Copyright
About the Author
Author’s Notes
Following the Mexican American War, México formally ceded the Trans-Pecos area to the United States. Seeking trails to gold-rich California, Americans pushed west of the Pecos River. The first settlers began to drive their cattle into this rich land in the late nineteenth century at the end of the American Civil War. By the 1870’s the violent skirmishes between settlers and the Native Americans (mainly Mescalero Apache and Comanche tribes) warranted intervention by the United States government.
Fort Davis played a major role in the history of the Southwest. Named for Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, who would later become President of the Confederacy, the fort was first garrisoned by Lieutenant Colonel Washington Seawall and six companies of the Eighth U.S. Infantry in 1854. The post was located in a box canyon near Limpia Creek (“limpia” means clean in Spanish), on the eastern side of the Davis Mountains, where wood, water, and grass were plentiful.
With the outbreak of the Civil War, the federal government evacuated Fort Davis, and the post was occupied by Confederate troops from the spring of 1861 until the summer of 1862, when Union forces took possession. In June 1867, Lieutenant Colonel Wesley Merritt and four companies of the recently-organized Ninth U.S. Cavalry (nicknamed the “Buffalo Soldiers” by Native Americans), reoccupied the fort. They erected new officers’ quarters, two enlisted men’s barracks, a guardhouse, temporary hospital, and storehouses. Fort Davis became a major installation with more than 100 structures and quarters for 400 soldiers.
Fort Davis’ primary role of guarding the West Texas frontier against the Comanches and Apaches continued until 1881, though, the Comanches were defeated in the mid-1870’s. In a series of engagements, units from Fort Davis and other posts, under the command of Colonel Benjamin Grierson, forced the Apaches and their leader, Victorio, into México, where the Apache were killed by Mexican soldiers.
With the end of the Indian Wars in West Texas, Fort Davis was ordered abandoned in June 1891, and in 1961 the fort became a national historic site.
This book follows the general outline of the history of Fort Davis, but all the characters herein are fictional, except for the occasional mention of well-known historical persons.
Chapter One
East of Fort Davis, Texas—1877
The stagecoach hit a bump, sprang into the air, and came down with a hard jolt. Mallory Metcalf Reynolds bit her tongue and almost cried out. She grabbed for the strap beside the window and hung on, frowning.
The man across from her drawled, “Riding in a stagecoach ain’t civilized-like. Feels like we’re what’s for dinner, being stirred in a big pot.” He combed his fingers through his long, grimy beard, threaded with beads and shiny bits of metal. “I prefer me mules. They mosey along, slow and calm-like.”
She nodded and forced her mouth into the semblance of a smile. She’d never seen anything like the man’s beard before. She wrinkled her nose, reaching in her skirt pocket for her handkerchief. And she’d never smelled anything like him, either. Rancid possum meat crossed with a liberal dressing of horse dung came to mind.
Since she’d left the relatively civilized environs of Galveston, Texas, her experiences had been almost other-worldly. The land, crossed by the lurching stagecoach, lay spread before her—a huge expanse, thinly dotted with settlements. Except for San Antonio, where they’d stopped for one night, there weren’t any large towns. And the stagecoach stops were nothing more than crude log cabins or dirt and timber dugouts, outfitted with a rudimentary kitchen and dirty bunks.
Her fellow passengers, like Mr. Spofford, sitting across from her, were another breed of people than back home. Some men were downright sinister with huge Stetsons pulled low and loaded pistols riding their hips. Others, like her present company, sported greasy, fringed buckskins begrimed with enough dust to start a sizable vegetable garden.
Women were few and far between. One woman in faded calico and a huge poke bonnet hiding her face hadn’t spoken a single word for two days. The other woman was of another variety, sporting henna-dyed red hair, too many feathers, and a dress with a neckline that defied gravity.
Mr. Spofford, a muleskinner, was headed to Fort Davis, too. He wasn’t so bad, or at least, he didn’t seem sinister. He’d freely told her he’d taken a new job, freighting supplies from San Antonio to the fort and taking cow hides and wool back to San Antonio. If the fort was as important as he claimed, she hoped it was larger than the tiny settlements they’d passed. She’d wanted to ask him about the place but felt constrained, not wishing to enter into a protracted conversation.
She sniffed her scented handkerchief and wished he believed in bathing more than twice a year... if that often.
She glanced at the prairie they’d been crossing for the past few days, surprised to find the flat, endless land had begun to fold into low creases, featuring rolling hills. Leaning out the window, she could see the hazy outline of mountain peaks in the distance.
Her heart leapt to her throat—they must be getting close. Mr. E. P. Murphy, her intended, had claimed his ranch was set in the prettiest of country with majestic mountains and verdant valleys. He’d asserted the climate was healthy and restful, warm in the day and cool at night. She hoped he hadn’t exaggerated, as her destination was beyond the outer reaches of a land so immense, her poor faculties couldn’t encompass it.
But her excitement didn’t last long. The harder she stared, the more the mountains seemed to shimmer in the distance, not getting any closer, no matter how she strained to judge how far away they were.
She pulled in her head and folded her hands. Weeks of travel had exhausted her. She wanted nothing more than to sleep in a decent bed. Lulled by the swaying coach, and the heavy contents of the noonday meal, drowsiness threatened to claim her.
The stagecoach stops offered the same food: huge hunks of half-cooked beef, potatoes roasted in the hearth, and stale bread. She’d eaten as little as possible of the mid-day meal, but the food had settled in her stomach like a brick. One stop, between Galveston and San Antonio, had served grits for breakfast. But they’d not tasted like Georgia Lowcountry grits, more like sawdust mixed with dishwater.
She missed the Lowcountry fare she’d been raised on. Just thinking about crab cakes, oyster soup, gumbo, or red rice and beans, made her mouth water.
Returning the handkerchief to her pocket, she absently searched for the silver-framed photograph of her beloved Macon. Then she remembered she’d stowed the picture in a secret compartment of her luggage, not wanting to risk anyone asking questions.
Instead of the photograph she cherished, her fingertips brushed the crackly pages of Mr. Murphy’s last letter. Feeling low, she pulled it out and skimmed the contents, picking out key phrases.
“Wealthy gentleman rancher… wanting to start a family… good Christian… medium height and build… forty-six years old… salubrious climate… well-appointed home…”
Like a talisman for luck, she traced her fingers over the writing, praying his words were gospel, and she was going to a better place to start her life over.
And if it wasn’t a better place? It didn’t matter�
�she had no options left.
Her eyelids drooped, and her head was heavy. She closed her eyes and let her head sink forward, drifting to sleep.
A loud thump hit the stagecoach. Her eyes opened, but she was groggy. She shook her head and stared at Mr. Spofford, who had his carbine pointed out the coach’s window.
Several more thumps hit the stagecoach, and a staccato of gunshots splintered the silence. The stagecoach driver yelled at the horses, and the conveyance lurched forward at a faster pace. Hoofbeats thundered and a howling cascade of yips and barks, sounding like a cage of wounded foxes, made the hair on her neck stand on end.
“What is wrong? What is that horrible noise?” She craned her neck to look out and saw arrows buried into the side of the coach.
She gasped, and the blood ran cold in her veins.
Spofford grabbed her arm. “Don’t! Git away from that there window. Git down!” He pushed her to the coach’s filthy floor and covered her with his body. “Injuns, Miss. Most likely ‘Pache. Stay down if’n you want to keep that purty yellow hair of your’n.”
Her stomach somersaulted, threatening to climb into her throat. Her heart pummeled her chest, feeling as if it wanted to escape the confines of her ribcage. Over the blood pounding in her ears, she heard more gunfire and strangled grunts. Something big and hard hit the ground, and the coach veered sharply left, almost turning over.
Horses neighed and the stagecoach bumped and lurched, shuddering as if it was a living thing about to die. She scrabbled on the floor, wanting to get out, to run for her life. Suddenly, the stage stopped, throwing them against the front bench.
Spofford half-rose and slid back the bolt on his carbine, checking the gun and aiming it at the door. He glanced back and said, “Shssh. Keep quiet and make yerself small. I’ll hold ‘em off as long as I can.”
“You mean—?”
“Hah!” The stagecoach door flew open. A dark, squat man stood in the doorway, his face covered in streaks of paint. He spouted guttural words she couldn’t even begin to understand and gestured with a long, deadly-looking rifle.
Spofford pulled the trigger. Too late. The man knocked the barrel of the carbine aside. The bullet went whining, shattering a hole in the stagecoach’s roof.
The dark man put the barrel of his rifle to Spofford’s head and pulled him out of the coach. The attacker wrenched Spofford’s carbine from his hands and tossed it to another paint-streaked native. He pushed Spofford to the ground, and the second native trained his gun on the muleskinner.
Despite cringing and rolling into a ball, the first man must have spied her, huddled on the coach floor. He grunted and loosed another spate of unintelligible gibberish. His hands, like the claws of an animal, clutched her, biting into her skin.
She opened her mouth to scream. The man holding her put a knife to her throat. She clamped her mouth shut.
A taller native, his arms crossed over his chest, approached them. He was bare chested and, like the others, his face was painted. Unlike the other hostiles, he had a wealth of feathers braided in his long, straight black hair.
The man holding her started talking. More gibberish with one word spoken over and over, sounding like “Is-dan, is-dan.”
The taller man nodded. He reached out and touched her hair. More babbling with the repeated words of, “Lit-su sha, lit-su sha.” Then he jerked his head, indicating a band of natives, bunched in a semi-circle, sitting on barebacked paint ponies.
The tall man half-lifted and half-dragged her toward the mounted men. He drew a knife and held it at her throat, too.
A deep, dark fear, like walking in a cemetery at midnight, suffocated her. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Her knees gave way, and she went limp like a ragdoll.
He grunted and applied pressure, cutting into the skin of her throat.
She gasped and felt the sickening, sticky slide of blood. The world spun and tilted. Black dots swarmed from the corners of her vision, blanketing her sight.
And then… nothing.
***
Colonel William Gregor rode beside his best scout, Hosea Lincoln. Gregor gazed at the shifting patterns of afternoon sunlight on the mountains. “How much further to Seven Springs?”
Hosea turned to him. “About a mile, sir, in that canyon.”
He half-remembered the approach to Seven Springs was through a canyon with high, steep walls. Not an ideal place for a parley.
They were headed toward one of the three outlying camps from Fort Davis. The camps, strategically located on known Apache trails, were stocked with hidden caches of supplies, and served as launching points for scouting parties against raiding hostiles.
Seven Springs was the outpost closest to the San Antonio-El Paso Road; the other two sites, Eagle Springs and Wild Rose Pass, were buried deep in the Davis Mountains and lay athwart ancient native hunting trails.
Glad for the twenty men of Company B who rode behind him, he belatedly wondered if he should have brought fifty. Deer Stalker had claimed the raiding party was no larger than fifteen braves. But fighting in mountainous terrain could be especially challenging, depending upon the situation.
As commander of Fort Davis, he seldom rode on patrol. Though he’d familiarized himself with the three rough outposts when he’d first been assigned to the fort, he hadn’t journeyed to the camps since then.
The day before yesterday, one of the regular patrols on the San Antonio-El Paso Road, had stopped an attack on the eastbound stage. The Apache braves had been driven off and were last seen riding toward Seven Springs. His patrol had captured three Apache women and a baby.
Gregor had kept native hostages before, mostly Comanche, when he’d been stationed at Fort Concho. He remembered one squaw, who’d lost her child to a fever, had tried to kill herself.
In just the space of twenty-four hours, he’d found the Apache women were hell-bent on killing themselves. They refused to eat or drink water. The one mother nursed her child but soon her milk would give out. At every turn and the slightest chance, they tried to harm themselves, pulling nails from the walls of the guardhouse and gashing their wrists. They banged their heads against the walls until they passed out and used everyday items to inflict harm on themselves.
Clearly, they would rather die than be hostages. He had to literally keep them tied up for their own good. Deer Stalker, an Apache scout, who acted as a translator and go-between, had ridden into the fort two hours ago. He’d brought news that Caballero, the leader of the raiding band, was waiting at Seven Springs to parley and make an exchange for the hostages.
Gregor wanted to send the women to the New Mexico Apache reservation, but he doubted they would last long enough to reach there. Given the grim realities of their resistance, he’d come to negotiate with the Apache war chief.
He wondered what Caballero had to exchange. Not that it mattered. He’d not have the Apache women’s unnecessary deaths on his head. He knew many of his fellow officers and commanders didn’t feel that way. Because hostiles killed women and children, most Army officers believed in “an eye for an eye,” and they felt justified in murdering women and children.
He lived by a different set of rules, ones that ran bone-deep from his upbringing and early training. If at all possible, he tried to spare native women and children from the ravages of war.
The pathway narrowed into a deep canyon, and Gregor glimpsed the reflection of sun off steel. Most likely, hostiles were on the cliff, sighting down on them with rifles.
The Apache still used their bows and arrows for rapid shooting. But they were also equipped with guns, stolen from raids or purchased from the Comancheros, outlaws who sold firewater and arms to the hostiles. Usually, though, their rifles were older, and single-shot, unlike the Army carbines.
He put up his right hand, halting the column. Deer Stalker, who’d been following the troop, rode up.
“Must stop. Go no more. Wait,” the Apache cautioned.
Greg
or glanced at Deer Stalker, wondering if he could trust the man. Or was this whole setup an excuse for a well-planned ambush?
When serving at Fort Concho, he’d been at war with the Comanche. They’d murdered settlers and raided stock to survive. Their way of life had disappeared with the slaughter of the buffalo herds. And he’d been duty-bound to retaliate and subdue them to protect the settlers.
Even though the Comanche had been the enemy, they’d earned his begrudging respect. They had their own set of values and sense of honor. They lived their lives as they always had, superb horseman of the plains, surrendering to reservations only when they couldn’t fight any longer.
But the Apache were cut from a different cloth. Victorio, the head chief of the Mescalero Apache, had surrendered and retreated to a reservation in New Mexico. But it didn’t stop him from sending his war chiefs to raid and murder when he felt aggrieved.
Gregor understood Victorio’s motives, especially when some of the Indian agents cheated and stole from the reservations. Victorio had his braves raid in retaliation as a protest against the flawed reservation system, wanting to protect his people from ill treatment.
Unfortunately, killing innocent settlers, including women and children, did nothing to address the chief’s grievances with the Indian Agency. If anything, Victorio’s raids added kerosene to an already blazing fire, enflaming hostilities and sustaining a cycle of escalating retaliation on both sides.
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
His mother, God rest her soul, had been a devout Christian, who’d lived by two principles: “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” and “two wrongs don’t make a right.” As a boy, she’d taught him her faith and principles. They were inscribed on the bedrock of his soul, and he tried his best to live by them.
He smoothed the reins in his gloved hands. “All right, we wait. But for what?”
