by Ann Rinaldi
I did so. But I started to cry, too. "I want my brother, Seth." I did my crying quietly.
"You shut up about Seth. I'm your brother from here on. Get used to it."
For some reason, while he was scolding me in harsh whispers, our pursuers had gone out of sight. "Now see what you've done?" he mumbled, as if I were personally responsible for picking them up and putting them down someplace else. "How the hell do I know where they are now?"
"We're right here, mister," a voice behind us said. "So don't you take no notion of shooting. Matter of fact, why don't you put those guns of yourn on the ground?"
And he poked a stick into Bill's back. Likely feeling that he was cornered by a fox, Bill set down his rifle, then his four Navy Colt revolvers, and we turned around to face three of the most disreputable characters on the face of the earth.
One picked up Bill's rifle. "What do they call you?" he asked.
Bill didn't answer, and even I didn't want him shot at that juncture, because Seth always said, "Don't trade off the devil you've got for one you don't know."
"Anderson," I told them. "His name is Bill Anderson. Bloody Bill Anderson."
"And you?" the man asked. "You his child bride? Or what?"
"She's my sister," Bill said.
"Then why she look so scared?"
"'Cause she don't wanna go to Texas with me. But she's goin'."
"Bloody Bill," the man repeated. "You wouldn't be with Quantrill's Raiders, would you?"
"Yes, he would," I answered. "And if you harm us, Quantrill will kill you."
"And now that the pleasantries are over," Bill said, "who the hell are you all?"
The man relaxed a bit. In spite of his torn clothing, unshaven face, and the shoeless feet of his two younger companions, and their accumulated dirt and lack of firearms, he bore himself like an officer in the Confederate army. "We're part of the many affected by Order Number 11. We've no place to go. We missed the wagon train and are just wandering the earth like the Lord's people in the Bible. And there are hundreds of others like us out here." He gestured with his head to the woods.
For a moment there was silence, and a wolf howled in the distance. Then our visitor came over and took all of Bill's weapons. After which he made us remove our shoes and hand them over.
"Sister, is it?" he said to me. "Well, I for one don't believe it. And as we proceed on, we'll tell everybody we met you. What's your name, little sweetie?"
"Juliet Bradshaw."
He handed the revolvers over to his companions and tossed the rifle aside, out into the darkness. "You find that tomorrow. By then we'll be long since gone," he told Bill.
I was surprised that they didn't take Bill's horse and all our supplies. But they didn't. They just took our shoes and walked off, polite as you please, to the east, where the sky was already getting lighter and the sun promised us a kiss if we'd wait up for her another hour or two.
Bill was cussing. "Damned nice of them to leave me a rifle," he said. "Lie down, Juliet, and go to sleep. And don't give me no sass."
Chapter Twenty
"WISH THOSE damn fools had left me my Colt revolver instead of this rifle," Bill was grumbling. "I'd rather teach you to shoot with a revolver any day. First off, you can't ride and shoot a rifle at the same time. You can't load the rifle while you're riding. And with a Navy Colt, why, you can carry four of them at a time and keep shooting. Well, anyway, you know this is a Sharpe's carbine and the Union rifles are only muzzleloading, single shot."
I didn't know, but I said yes.
"Well, come on over here, and I'll show you how to hold it. Get you used to it."
Reluctantly, I went over to him. "Seth isn't going to like my doing this," I said.
"You don't shoot, you get no breakfast."
I was about starved. The smell of the bacon in the fry pan over the morning fire made my stomach growl. Same for the bubbling coffee. We were going to have a shooting lesson first, however, he'd told me. And if I didn't shoot, I didn't eat all day.
I had to get away from this man, I determined, as I walked over to him. He was crazier than a hooty owl. I stood next to him, and he positioned the Sharpe's rifle in my arms and aimed it at a rock in the distance, toward the east.
It was then that we saw the rider. On the horizon. Like a silhouette cut out of black paper against the red sky.
"Who in purple hell is that?" he asked.
I blinked to adjust my eyes to the sunrise and said I didn't know.
"It's a woman," he said disgustedly. "I can see her billowing skirts. You leave any women friends back there in the wagon train?"
"No. Bill, the gun is hurting my shoulder."
He adjusted it and went on with the shooting lesson. He showed me how to take aim, to hold the gun steady, to hold myself steady, to plant my feet in the ground so the recoil from the shot wouldn't knock me back and down. I reminded him that I had no shoes, that they'd been stolen, and that the ground was full of stones. I couldn't very well plant my feet, could I? At least he had an extra pair of boots for himself.
"No sass," he said. "Just do as I say."
Somehow I dug my feet in and managed to pull the trigger. The recoil almost did knock me down, would have, too, if Bill wasn't standing behind me. "Good," he said, "that was good. Next time you'll be less afraid. We'll do more later this afternoon."
The woman on the horse still sat there, not moving, though the shot had echoed through the quiet morning with a sound that was almost blasphemous.
We went to have our breakfast. Bill cracked open some eggs into the fry pan with the bacon. "This afternoon, we come to a creek," he said, "you're gonna get out of those clothes of yours and bathe and put on something clean. You got another dress?"
"Just one more. But I can't wear it."
"Why?"
"It was"—I breathed softly—"Jenny's."
He did not look at me. "You're still gonna get cleaned up."
Something was wrong here. "Just in case you're getting notions, I'm not going to get out of my clothes in front of you," I told him firmly.
He shoved bacon and eggs into his mouth. "Hell's bells, girl. I've seen all my sisters in all states of undress. Never thought a thing of it. Neither did they."
"Well, in my house there was only me and Seth. And we respected each other's privacy. And I don't believe that Martha never thought a thing of it."
He laughed. "All that's over with now. It was part of civilization, families living together in houses and respecting each other's privacy and such. The world got shed of that the minute the fool war started."
"I recollect my pa saying something about that before the Yankees came 'round," I told him.
"Oh? What did he say?"
"He said we had to hold fast to the things that made us civilized now that war was here. He said that no matter what happened, we must remember the small everyday things that made up civilization or we were whipped before we started."
He gazed at the horizon where the woman still sat her horse. "Well, he's dead, your pa. Most of his stripe are by now. We killed lots of 'em in Lawrence."
"I'm still not taking my clothes off in front of you," I said.
"We'll see," he returned.
I began to tremble and wonder how he had come to be, the Bill Anderson who now sat in front of me shoveling his food into his mouth. He was certainly not the Bill Anderson I had grown up knowing, the Bill Anderson his sisters had worshipped so. All the times our paths had crossed he'd been polite and gentlemanly, a good friend to Seth, caring of his own sisters. He's changed, Seth had warned me. Since that building collapsed. They call him Bloody Bill now.
Could one person change that much?
I looked at the horizon and the woman on the horse. And in my bones I knew one true thing.
She was there for me. To watch me. And when we moved she would follow at a discreet distance. And if the time came when we happened upon a creek and Bill made me take off my clothes, all I had to do was put up a fig
ht and she'd come galloping over to help me. Ail she was waiting for was to catch Bill treating me badly. Then she'd pounce. Who she was I did not know.
Maybe she was dead Jenny come to save me from her brother.
The Andersons were good Catholics. Jenny would say she was the Blessed Mother come to save me. I didn't care if it was the wife of the devil himself as long as she was on my side.
I got up and scraped off my dish and poured Bill a second cup of coffee, which I knew by now he liked. I reached for my pillowcase to get another pair of stockings to put on my feet, and Charity McCorkle Kerr's doll fell out on the ground. I reached for it, but Bill had it in his grasp first.
"What's this? You still play with dolls?"
"No. It belonged to Charity McCorkle Kerr. She's dead now."
"I know damned well she's dead. You ought to give it to her husband. Or her brother. Either one."
He took it and put it in his saddlebag. "I'll give it to her brother," he promised. "It'll mean more to him. What's wrong? You don't like the idea? You'd rather I throw it up in the air and show you how this Sharpe's rifle can blow it to bits before it starts to come down?"
"No, give it to her brother," I said. "Do." No sense in provoking him now. I put on my stockings and to my surprise he told me to mount his horse or we'd never make any time that day. He'd walk beside me. I thanked him.
"No need for thanks. I just want to get out of sight of that siren on the horizon," he said. "And find the nearest creek, fast as we can."
I was given orders not to look back at the "siren" as we left our camp. So I didn't dare.
And then, before we'd gone a mile I knew who it was. And quiet tears came down my face.
Chapter Twenty-one
WE RODE mostly through desert that day and soon realized what a trap we were in. As the hours passed and the sun beat down, we could find no shelter at all, much less a creek. I didn't have a hat, and the burden of the sun got worse on my head, making it impossible for me to breathe, provoking my wound, and burning my face and shoulders.
Bill Anderson felt it, too, I could tell. But he said nothing, just kept walking, like a man who had found the dark side of his moon and was comfortable with it.
Insects droned, tumbleweeds blew in the hot wind, snakes slithered, and Bill said we were in a valley. It was very stony in some places; in others, a very coarse, gritty sand covered the ground.
"We should be coming on to some falls soon," he said.
Falls meant water.
"Get down off the horse," he directed.
I did so. When my feet hit the ground, I was surprised at the heat of it. And my head was beginning to spin again. But I stood very still.
Bill pulled me aside and slapped the rump of his horse and it took off like it was running a race.
"What are you doing?" I demanded.
"He'll find the water faster than we can. He likely smells it already. We've only to follow his footsteps in the sand."
While I had the opportunity, I looked behind us to where the lady rider should be.
She was still there, a good distance behind us to be sure, but close enough to keep an eye on us. And, I noticed, she wore a hat.
I felt my own discomfort mounting. Now not only my head throbbed but my face was burned, as were my shoulders and arms, and my stomach was churning.
"I can't go any farther," I told Bill. "I hurt all over."
"Nonsense," he said. "This isn't Seth Bradshaw's sister talking, is it? I thought you had more spirit than that. Anyway, what are you fixing on doing? Sitting here in this desert under the noonday sun?"
"You shouldn't have taken us here under the noonday sun."
"Well, I thought there would be more cover. Rocks. And caves. All right, Miss Perfect? God, I'm glad you're not my sister."
"So am I."
While this debate was going on, we were following in the horse's footsteps. And sure enough, I heard the roaring sound of a waterfall up ahead. There, filling himself to his heart's content, was the horse, drinking from a small pond into which the falls emptied. It was like a scene from heaven.
I forgot all about the danger the water could bring to me and ran to it, reached it before Bill Anderson did, took off my stockings, sat on a rock, and put my sore and burning feet into the coolness of the water.
Bill stripped off his shirt and threw it aside. Then he started removing his boots and trousers. I turned away and got myself out of that vicinity quick and found myself another place that was blessedly shielded by a rock. If any bathing was to be done on my part, I would do it right here.
I was just going to fetch my pillowcase where my lavender soap was when Bill Anderson came upon me, dripping wet. Thank heaven he was in his smallclothes from the waist down.
"Remember, you promised to bathe, proper-like. What are you waiting for?"
"I promised nothing." Oh how I longed to dive into the pond, to float around in there, to take off my bandage and put my whole head under and let the blessed water do its own healing.
He reached out his hand. "Come on. No time better than the present to cast off all those childish scruples."
I moved from him. Fast. I ran to the far side of the pond where there were three ledges of black marble over which the water tumbled. He near had me once and I screamed and stopped to pick up a freshwater shell on the ground and threw it at him.
It hit him on the forehead and there was blood.
"You little witch," he said. "Now I'll show you who's boss." He ran over to where his trousers were, grabbed his belt, and started swinging it at me.
I screamed some more. They were ragged, frightened prayers to heaven, and they did not go unanswered. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a cloud of dust and heard horse's hooves, and of a sudden there she was in the middle of it all, Colt revolver drawn and aimed at Bill.
"Back off, you damned bully. Away from that girl."
I recognized the voice, oh I did. I stopped, breathing heavily. My head was drumming, my feet hurt, and I was sobbing. Bill Anderson couldn't have looked more surprised if it had been the Blessed Mother sitting that horse with pistols drawn.
"You earned the name Bloody Bill honestly," the woman said, "and everybody respects you for it. Well, when I tell them about this they'll no longer respect you. Tormenting a little girl who's been through six kinds of hell already."
"Sue Mundy, what in purple hell are you doing here?" Bill Anderson asked.
"Chasing you. And it's a good thing I caught you first, before her big brother did, or you'd be lying dead, a fossil before your time. But not before he beat the daylights out of you."
"Is my brother here?" I asked in disbelief.
"No, child. He discovered you were missing, and he and I decided to take different routes to try to find you. He had to make arrangements to send Martha back to his ranch in the holler first, though. She couldn't make the trip. I came west. He went north. Only reason I found you was because I came across some refugees who told me about running across you and whereabouts you were." While she was talking, she was tying Bill's hands behind his back. With his own belt.
"I saw you from a distance, watching us. At first I didn't know who you were."
"I thought you were on our side," Bill Anderson said.
"What side is that? The side that tortures little girls? And tries to get them to take off their clothes? Enough talk now. You go on around that rock and take your bath, child. We'll stay here. Nobody will bother you. I promise."
"There're catfish in the pond," I told her. "They make good eating."
"Good idea. We'll eat, then I'll bring Bloody Bill back to Seth Bradshaw. See what he wants to do with him."
"I'm supposed to be on my way to Texas for Quantrill," Bill said in a pleading voice.
"Oh, you'll go to Texas all right," Sue Mundy said. "After Seth Bradshaw gets done with you."
***
SUE MUNDY and my brother had a plan. They were to meet the next day at a place called Sulphur Springs
, one mile from Seth's ranch, whether or not either of them found me. They were to regroup and, if I was not yet found, they would recruit some other Quantrill Raiders and organize a real search party, rather than just wander aimlessly around the desert.
I had so many questions my head was spinning, as if it wasn't spinning enough from the pain of my fall.
Did Seth know yet that Sue Mundy was a man? The last I recollected, he wouldn't discuss it at Fort Leavenworth hospital and I was determined to let the whole matter die there.
I supposed Seth didn't. Marcellus Jerome Clark still had a lot of work to do as Sue Mundy and wasn't about to bandy any secrets around to give away his identity.
Before we left on the trip to Sulphur Springs, Sue Mundy bandaged my head good again and even combed out my hair. "A woman doesn't feel human unless her hair is decent looking," she said.
How did Marcellus Jerome Clark know such things?
Chapter Twenty-two
I HADN'T SEEN Seth since the night he and Bill had crept into our camp when we were with the wagon train to nowhere and they rushed us out of there.
Now here he was at Sulphur Springs, a mile from his home, waiting alone with his horse before a small fire and smoking a cheroot.
He got up when we approached, his hand going instinctively to his revolver at his hip. His face broke into a grin, and he came over to help me off the horse.
"God, you look like hell. Where you been? To the briar patch?"
I just put my arms around him, hugging him tight and sobbing against his middle. I didn't want to let go, and he held me close, kissing the top of my head.
"Hey, c'mon, what happened?" Then he spoke in low tones, saying hello to Bill Anderson, then seeing his hands tied.
"Why is he tied up?" he asked Sue Mundy.
"He was taking her to Texas."
"Why?"
"Ask him, why don't you."
So Seth did. "You kidnapped my sister? You gone 'round the bend, Bill? Why?"
"She looks so much like Jenny," came the soft reply.
"Then," asked Seth, "why didn't you treat her better? What did yon do to her, anyway?" Then Seth cursed and picked me up, and I went all limp in his arms. I heard him tell Sue Mundy to tie Bill to a tree; he wanted to talk to me first and find out the truth of the matter.
