by Janet Dailey
Driven by some kinetic energy, Wade appeared, as always, on edge, his nerves rasped thin. The chief of the scouts, One-Eye Amos Hill, rode with him, bringing up the rear.
“What is this about?” Wade demanded.
“The Apaches have brought you the woman with fire in her hair,” Cutter answered dryly.
“The bastards dyed it.” He cursed the ruse they’d used to collect the ransom. ‘Tell them that is a Mexican with red hair. I want the white woman.”
“What do you want to do about the senorita?” Cutter watched the officer sitting his horse so stiffly. Beside him, a buckskin-jacketed Amos Hill sat slouch-shouldered on his dun horse, whiskered and weary.
Irritation ruled Wade’s expression, then gave way to a hard impetuosity. “I’ll buy her, of course. She can’t be worth much. Offer them ten dollars.” He looked at the white scout. “Afterward I want them interrogated. Find out everything they know.”
Amos Hill gave a slow nod and dismounted with poky deliberation. After he walked forward to stand beside Cutter, the haggling began. Eventually the Apaches settled for the ten-dollar price, but Wade didn’t pay them until the questioning was through. They seemed anxious to leave, disappearing into the brush the moment Amos Hill told them they could go.
The huddled figure of the Mexican captive continued to cower underneath the blanket. She had again pulled it up around her head and held it tightly closed near her mouth. When Cutter approached her, speaking quietly in Spanish, she made odd protesting sounds in her throat and shrank away from him.
“What do ya want us t’do with her, Major?” Amos shifted his plug of tobacco to the other cheek.
“Find out where she’s from, and we’ll try to get her back to her family.” Stephen’s horse kicked at a biting fly, the saddle leather creaking at the action.
“That’ll be a problem.” With difficulty, Cutter pushed the bitter rage from his voice at the discovery he’d just made. “They cut out her tongue.”
Everything went still, a heavy silence suddenly weighting the air. It lasted for three long heartbeats; then Wade wheeled his horse toward the fort and kicked it into a lope. Cutter eyed the pitiful creature for a moment more, then bowed his head in an attitude of near-defeat and frustration. He doubted the Mexican girl’s sanity.
“Poor dumb thing,” Amos shook his head.
“I’ll have one of the women at the fort clean her up and fix her something to eat.”
“She won’t thank you for takin’ her in there for everyone to gawk at,” Amos interposed. “Best if she goes to my wickiup where Mary Rose can look after her.” He didn’t wait for Cutter’s agreement. Instead he turned and called to the plump squaw dressed in bright calico sitting under the ramada of the next jacal. She came hurrying over, her white-powdered face creating an odd contrast to her naturally bronze skin. Amos said something more to her in the mushy-sounding language of the Apache and indicated the Mexican. As the squaw led the mute girl away, Amos spat a yellow stream of tobacco Juice onto the ground. “Wish she wouldn’t wear that damned powder. She’s got it in her head I want a white woman. Women. Don’t matter what color they are; they’re all alike.” He started after them. “See ya, Cutter. Ridin’ out tomorrow?”
“First light,” he cormfirmed.
“Have a good scout.”
The arrival of the patrol roused the fort from its hot afternoon somnolence. The inhabitants came to the edges of the shade to watch the column ride in. Cimmy Lou Hooker was among them, carrying a bundle of freshly laundered clothes to be delivered to Major Wade’s quarters. She scanned the troopers slumped in their saddles, even though she knew John T. was with the second detail that was still out on patrol and not due back for another week.
Four of the cavalry horses were carrying double. Most of the mounts in the regiment were poor excuses for horses. Invariably a patrol came back minus a couple who had broken down in the long, hot rides through rough terrain. But no blanket-wrapped bodies were tied over any saddles this time. From the shade of the dispensary across the way, the post’s surgeon, Doc Griswald, scanned the ranks to see if he had any new patients among them, but there seemed to be nothing beyond the usual cuts, bruises, and occasional snakebites of a normal patrol.
Cimmy Lou looked into the sun-sore eyes of the fatigued troopers as they rode past her. She spied Leroy Bitterman, the near rider in the columns of two his long, narrow shape was loose in the saddle. When he saw her, a smile parted his lips, showing the uneven row of his white teeth, his mustache a long and thin, black line against his dark chocolate skin. He nodded to her as he went by. Cimmy Lou watched him for a minute or two, her body absently moving with a rocking sway.
The detail” halted at the front of the parade ground. The hot and weary troopers in their wool uniforms and thirty-pound packs sat motionless on their horses, waiting for Major Wade to give the order dismissing them. Seconds after it was given, the major left the parade ground at a canter, heading off the post.
The trumpeter blew mess call as Cimmy Lou sauntered in the direction of Officers’ Row, in no hurry. Dismissed by their sergeant, the black troopers headed for the stables in loose files. Cimmy Lou saw Bitterman swing out of line and dismount. He lifted his horse’s left foreleg to check its shoe. He was still tinkering with it when she came by, the corners of her full lips pulled up in a knowing smile. He straightened, letting the horse’s foot drop to the ground and absently patting its side.
“Saw yore sergeant.” In a faint swagger, he lazily pushed back his shoulders and arched his spine in a catlike stretch. “I asked him if he wanted me t’give you any message from him, but he didn’t seem to think much of the idea.”
“You like to make trouble, don’t you?” She stopped with the laundry bundle held in front of her, idly rocking it from side to side while she eyed the long, lean shape of him.
“Not half as much as you do with them hips of yores always in motion.” He watched their faint movement with obvious interest, letting her see the turn of his thoughts. The swaying motion stopped, and he laughed.
His humor and bluntness offended her pride. She held her head unnaturally high, a bandanna bound around her black curly hair. On the verge of getting angry with him, Cimmy Lou suddenly changed her mind, her curiosity getting the better of her—curiosity and the heavy appetite a man’s attention always stirred in her. “What makes you think it’s fo’ you?”
He didn’t like her answer and it showed in the sudden hardening of his expression. “Whatcha doin’ over here?” He looked behind her at the row of adobe housing reserved for the white officers.
“I’m bringin’ Major Wade his laundry.”
“That who you got yore eye set on now?” Bitterman challenged. “Yore done playin’ yore games with Cap’n Cutter, now yore figurin’ on messin’ about with the major. You don’t want yoreself no white man, Cimmy girl.”
“What makes you think that thought’s in my head?” she retorted.
“That thought’s always in yore head.” The slant of his mouth held amusement and irony.
“You don’t know. You don’t know me,” Cimmy Lou asserted.
“I know you better than you think I do. You want purty things—an’ a man who’s got what it takes to satisfy them churnin’ hips of yores.”
“An’ that’s you, I s’pose.” His boldness revived her interest.
“You an’ me don’t belong here, Cimmy Lou. “This kind a life ain’t fo’ people like you an’ me.” From the other side of the quadrangle came the tramp of weary soldiers answering the call to mess and the low chatter of tired voices.
“What would you do instead?”
“I been a faro dealer befo’. Might get me a job dealin’ in one of them gamblin’ halls in a minin’ town.” Then he asked, “Do you know how much them miners pay to have a shirt washed in Silver City? Five dollahs.”
“For one shirt?”
Bitterman held up his hand, spreading his fingers and thumb to show all five digits. “Five dol
lahs for one shirt. An’ two dollahs is all you get fo’ a soldier’s laundry the whole month.”
She shifted the bundle of clothes to a more comfortable position and looked across the parade ground toward the company mess. “If you want anythin’ feat, Private Bitterman, you best be gettin’ on yore way, an’ I’ll be gettin’ on mine.”
“I ain’t keepin’ ya.”
Cimmy laughed, throwing her head back and letting her eyes dance, once more in control the way she liked it. “Then it’s me what’s keepin’ you here.” She walked away from him, letting her hips swing leisurely with her steps, and the length of time that passed before she heard the clop of his horse’s hooves going toward the stables made her smile. She knew it meant that Bitterman had been watching her all that time in between.
The door to the Wades’ quarters stood open to allow the entrance of any vagrant wind in the lingering heat of late afternoon. Cimmy Lou knocked on the door frame and peered into the shadowed rooms. “Hello? Delancy? You here?” she called.
A movement in the rear of the hallway where the kitchen was located drew her glance to the glimmer of something white. Good smells, new smells of something cooking, came from the same direction. She could barely make out the tall, keg-round shape of the striker, Delancy.
“Is that you, Miz Hooter?” He waved her inside. “Come on in.”
He disappeared into the kitchen without waiting to see if she did as he said. Cimmy Lou went down the narrow hallway and paused in the kitchen doorway, appreciatively sniffing the air. “Somethin’ sure smells good.” All that waited for her back at the tent was chili with a slab of raw onion between two pieces of bread.
“The boys shot me some doves, an’ I stuffed ’em with rice an’ sage. The major is fond of it.” Always proud of his culinary skills, Delancy artfully arranged the golden birds on a small platter mounded with brown rice.
“I brung the laundry,” she said sulkily when he ignored her, not even offering her a taste as he sometimes did.
“Go ahead and put it away.” Without turning around, he motioned her toward the bedroom, then straightened when she started to leave to add a word of caution. “An’ be quick about it. The major won’t like it if’n he finds you pokin’ ‘round Miz Wade’s things.”
“I’ll be quick.” But she laughed at him as she danced out of the kitchen to the bedroom off the narrow hall.
When the major was away, Delancy sometimes let her try on the missus’ hats and gowns. Cimmy Lou had her favorites, like that silver shawl crocheted in a rose design she’d found in the bottom of a trunk. Since discovering it, she kept it on a shelf in the wardrobe. Now she set the laundry bundle on the bed and went straight to it, taking it out and sweeping the shawl around her shoulders to admire herself in the vanity mirror. In its reflection of the room, she spied the copper bathtub with its curved backrest, but Cimmy Lou was more interested in her own image than that of a half-full tub of water.
Not five minutes later, she heard a horse come galloping up and grunt to a stop close to the adobe. The sound was followed by the hard crunch of boots approaching the front door. Moving swiftly, Cimmy Lou returned the shawl to the wardrobe shelf and began putting away the laundry, slowing down to take her time.
“Delancy?!” A hard impatience underlaid the bellowed summons that rang through the quarters, and she recognized Major Wade’s voice.
The anger in it was all the more reason to linger until the fury had been spent elsewhere. Cimmy heard the striker hurry from the kitchen at the same time that the bell-like sound of glass against glass came from the parlor.
“Where’s all the damned whiskey?”
“I’ll get it fo’ you, suh.” There was more rattling from the parlor. “Dinner’s ready to suhve whenevah you say, suh. We’re havin’ dove tonight—succulent with golden-crisp skins an’ stuffed with rice jest the way you like ’em, suh.”
“I don’t want any damned dinner. Throw it out and just give me the whiskey bottle. I don’t need it decanted.” A short pause held the sound of liquid being poured. “My horse is outside. See that he’s groomed and fed.”
“But, suh—“
“That’s all, private. You’re dismissed.”
“Yes, suh.”
After Delancy left, Cimmy Lou waited in the bedroom, listening to the restless movements in the parlor. She kept thinking about those roasted doves in the kitchen. No one would know if she took two of them and slipped out the back door. On the parade ground, the bugler blew first call before retreat while the sun sat on the western horizon. At last the sounds from the parlor died into silence, and Cimmy Lou slipped into the hallway.
“Delancy!” She stopped short at the impatient call and looked toward the front rooms. Major Wade stood in the doorway facing the parade ground, only now swinging around when his summons was answered by silence. “Delancy?! Where the damned hell are you?”
Cimmy Lou caught the faint slur in his voice and wavered indecisively. An instant later, impulse pushed her away from the kitchen and toward the front rooms.
“Delancy ain’t here, Major.” She spoke as she emerged from the deepening shadows of the narrow hall. “You dismissed him.”
“I did?” He frowned, then trod heavily to a parlor chair and collapsed loosely in it, holding a whiskey bottle and a glass in his hands. “I did,” he remembered, and sighed heavily. “Dammit, I wanted a bath.” Then, “What are you doing here?”
“I brung yore laundry,” Cimmy Lou answered as she eyed him with a considering look. “Want me t’heat some water fo’ you, Major? The tub’s already in yore bedroom waitin’ fo’ you.”
“Yes.” He lifted the whiskey glass to his mouth and tossed the liquor down.
In the lingering early summer heat, it wasn’t desirable for the bathwater to be hot, just somewhat warmer than tepid to relax weary muscles. Cimmy Lou carried the last kettle of water into the bedroom, where the major sat in the copper tub, his knees bent and his hand holding the whiskey glass. The half-empty bottle stood on the floor beside the tub. He took no more than passing notice of her as she poured the heated water into the tub. For all his brooding stillness, she could sense the restiveness that stirred beneath it. He downed another swallow of whiskey and wiped at the wet ends of his mustache, his hand scraping the light brown stubble on his cheeks.
“I need a shave,” he mumbled irritatedly to himself.
“Want me to do it?” Cimmy Lou set the kettle down, seeing a lot of possibilities in the situation, which seemed not so different from the stories she’d heard about the Devereaux plantation. “I shave my John T. all the tune.” Her dark eyes watched him, so knowing as she calculated each step.
Water sloshed around his bare white skin as he settled deeper into the tub and tilted his head back to rest it on the long curving end. “Go ahead.” He closed his eyes, but he didn’t relax. Whatever the thoughts that railed through his head, they continued to work on him while she lathered his face and stropped the razor.
When she began shaving him, the long, sure scrape of the blade was the only sound in the room. Beyond the adobe walls, the muffled tramp of a guard detail could be heard, posting sentries around the fort’s perimeter. When she finished, Cimmy Lou laid the razor aside and picked up a towel to wipe away the residue of lather.
His tormented thoughts finally twisted his features as he hoarsely wondered aloud, “What do you think they’ll do to her?”
Cimmy Lou knew who he was talking about—and she also knew that he didn’t really want an answer. The major was conjuring up his own horrors in his mind, but he wanted to block them out. That’s why he was drinking, and Cimmy guessed it was what he was seeking from her. One thing was sure: she knew all about making a man forget, and she didn’t figure black or white mattered much.
“Po’ Major.” She picked up the cake of soap and began lathering his shoulders and neck with it, rubbing the taut tendons. “You’ve shore had a bad time of it lately, haven’t you? So lonely, an’ not a soul to comfo
rt an’ ease the hurtin’ in you.”
“No, no one,” he murmured.
“Well, Cimmy Lou will take care of you,” she crooned softly, fascinated by the whiteness of his skin and the mat of golden-brown hairs on his chest that curled so tightly when they were wet. Her soapy hands traveled down his fiat stomach and under the surface of the murky water, exploring with an age-old curiosity, while she knelt beside the tub, on eye level with him.
He looked at her with flat eyes that gradually began to show an absent interest. Water had splashed on her, dampening the front of her green blouse, He noticed it, his attention lingering on her full bosom. “You’re getting wet.”
“The water feels cool.” She continued to scrub him gently, working on his legs and the insides of his thighs.
“My family once owned slaves. Did you know that?” His speech was lazy, the words being drawn slowly out. He wasn’t drunk, but he was feeling the liquor. That, the warm water, and her stroking hands all combined to loosen him.
“You from the South?” Cimmy Lou looked at him in idle surprise, but he shook his head.
“St. Louis. But we had house slaves when I was a boy. My wet nurse was a colored woman,” he recalled, his gaze never leaving the front of her blouse and the faint jiggle of her breasts as she washed him. “I was nearly two years old before she stopped suckling me. But even after that, if I was upset or hurt and needed comforting, she’d let me crawl up on her lap and unbutton her blouse.” As if he was reliving the past, his fingers moved to the front closure of her top and unfastened it. Cimmy Lou felt that first run of excitement, the stimulation of success and its accompanying sense of power. It was a powerful aphrodisiac.
“I can still remember gazing at them, putting my hands around those chocolate-colored mounds.” Stephen held the weight of Cimmy Lou’s breasts in the cups of his hands and methodically rubbed his thumbs across the sensitive nipples, keeping it up until the ache he created nearly drove her wild.
