The Pride of Hannah Wade

by Janet Dailey

  “I will, but I was hoping for some comments from your viewpoint.” A glint of appreciation for the way she was eluding his questions shone in his eyes, but he persisted. “People would like to know what it was like, living with the Apaches all that time. Were you treated harshly?”

  “Naturally it’s something I’d rather not talk about.” She continued walking, her strides lengthening. The high leather shoes were beginning to pinch her feet and the heels made walking over the rough ground slightly hazardous. Her moccasins had been much better suited to this, Hannah realized.

  “I understand you became the wife of an Apache chief.”

  “Who told you that?” She froze inside, but her pace never altered. She didn’t want to believe that Jake Cutter would tell.

  “I’ve spoken to some of the Apache prisoners who were brought in. Spanish is a useful language in this part of the country. They said you were given the name Coloradas.” The newspaperman waited for a comment, but Hannah remained silent. For several seconds, there was only the crunch of their shoes on the gravel. “Perhaps you could describe an Apache marriage ceremony.”

  “I didn’t live with the Apaches long enough to understand their rituals.” Hannah stopped and faced him. “And I don’t wish to discuss the subject any further. I bid you good day, Mr. Boler.”

  When she continued on her way again, he didn’t follow. At the end of Officers’ Row, she turned to walk past the headquarters building, the commissary, and the trader’s store, nodding to those she met. Gradually, Hannah became aware of the heads turning, the stares, the murmured comments too low for her to catch.

  She left the quadrangle and walked along the less-traveled route in back of the buildings. Behind the barracks, the tent housing for the families of the enlisted men stood—Suds Row. Hannah lingered along it, watching the colored children at play, some of them minding little brothers and sisters and carrying babes almost as big as they were.

  A horse whickered and Hannah lifted an idle glance toward the stables. She turned toward the corrals where the brown and bay cavalry mounts lazed in the warm sun. Cimmy Lou Hooker came out of the barn, her arms making a wide circle around a large laundry bundle. Her husband, the black sergeant, was only a step or two behind her, smiling and looking loose and relaxed.

  “Mornin’, Miz Wade,” Cimmy Lou drawled, a secretive gleam in her eyes as she passed Hannah.

  “Good morning, Cimmy Lou,” Hannah responded, and observed the slight sobering of Sergeant Hooker’s expression. “Hello, Sergeant.”

  “Good day, Miz Wade.” His glance followed his wife for an instant, then came back to her with sharp attention. “Were you lookin’ for the major, ma’am?”

  “Is he around?” She hadn’t anticipated that she might encounter him on her walk, but she welcomed the chance occurrence.

  “I haven’t seen him, ma’am, but I’ll see if I can find him for you.”

  “No. Thank you anyway, Sergeant.” Her long skirt swished mere inches off the ground as she walked toward the corral, where a curious sorrel horse stood with its neck arched over the fence.

  The sergeant moved toward the corral as well. “It ain’t accordin’ to regulation, I know, but it is nice to see your wife durin’ the day.”

  “Especially when she is as lovely as your wife.” The corners of her mouth deepened with a hint of a smile.

  “Yes, ma’am.” His wide, pleasant smile agreed with her. Turning, he hooked a boot heel on the lower rail of the corral. “If you’re thinkin’ of gettin’ yourself a good ridin’ horse, we’ve got a nice-travelin’ blaze-faced roan with four white stockin’s. Too nice a horse for these troopers of mine to be poundin’ through the desert on.”

  “I hadn’t thought about getting another horse yet.” She studied the blue roan he’d pointed out, but only with vague interest.

  “No riders are permitted off the post without an escort. Too many Apaches around. If you get another horse, I’m afraid you wouldn’t be able to do much ridin’ ‘cept around the parade ground,” Sergeant Hooker informed her.

  “I suppose not.” She moved away from the corral. “Thank you, Sergeant. And I’ll remember your recommendation of the roan if I do get another horse.”

  For a moment, he watched her wander away from the stables in the general direction of the parade ground, then slipped his suspenders onto his shoulders and went back to his work.

  Hannah was diverted from her path by a trace of movement, the low mutter of the loose-sounding Apache language. Impelled by an inner force, Hannah turned toward it. She traveled several yards before she saw the brush-covered jacals and the dozen or fewer Apaches around them, a temporary encampment for the prisoners erected on the fort’s perimeter. She was oddly drawn toward her former captors.

  “Halt!” A guard moved to block her path, a stout soldier with muttonchop whiskers. His fierceness quickly dissolved into uncertain apology as the black private recognized her. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but nobody’s s’posed to go near the prisoners.”

  “I understand, Private,” Hannah assured him, and moved away at right angles to the camp.

  A small Apache woman came out of one of the dome-shaped huts, a cradleboard holding an infant tied to her back. Hannah stopped when she saw Gatita. If the Apache woman noticed her, she gave no sign of recognition. Hannah wasn’t certain whether she had expected any. They hadn’t been friends. Yet she had gone through more in the company of that Indian woman—hunger, pain, thirst, danger, birthings, deaths —than she had with any other female, including so many of the officers’ wives she called friends. She and Gatita weren’t quite friends and they weren’t quite enemies. In many respects, theirs was an oddly close relationship between two strangers.

  Hannah had started to turn away when she heard the hard gallop of a horse, which quickly turned into a clattering slide to a halt. Stephen dismounted before his horse came to a full stop. Everything about him suggested a contained riptide of feeling as his long, stiff-legged strides carried him toward Hannah.

  “So this is where you are,” he said in accusation. “I’ve been turning the whole damned fort upside down looking for you.” His glance flashed to the Apache encampment. “Couldn’t you stay away from them for one day?”

  “I was out walking. I had no idea they were here.” His whole attitude stung her. She lifted her skirts, turned from the camp, and started back toward the quadrangle, a faintly stubborn set to her chin.

  Stephen caught the crook of her arm, “Don’t he to me, Hannah.” He managed to keep his voice down so that the onlooking guard couldn’t overhear, but it shook with anger. “I know they found you with a baby. Did you come to see it? Is it yours?”

  “No.” She was hurt and angry. “No, he isn’t.” She removed her elbow from his grip with a trace of disdain and set off once again toward the parade ground, walking as fast as the high-topped leather boots would permit on the rough, uneven ground. Stephen came after her, leading his horse.

  “Hannah, I’m sorry.” But the clipped edges of his words indicated that anger, not regret, was still the foremost of his emotions. “I don’t think you appreciate my concern when I returned to our quarters and discovered you weren’t there. You didn’t even tell Delancy where you were going.”

  “I wasn’t aware that I was confined to quarters.” She steadfastly refused to look at him, concentrating all her attention directly ahead, looking to neither the right nor the left.

  “You aren’t, but you could have told someone where you were going,” he snapped in return. “Mrs. Bettendorf wanted to come by, but I told her you weren’t receiving yet. Why couldn’t you have been content to stay in our rooms?”

  “I was restless. I wanted to walk and re-explore the fort. I’m not used to sitting around doing nothing.” A horse whinnied to Stephen’s mount as they approached the stables.

  “Of all the places to walk, why did you have to go to that damned Apache camp?” Stephen muttered in exasperated anger. “If they treated you as horribly
as you claim, I would have thought you’d never want to set eyes on any of them again—that you’d keep as far away from them as possible.”

  “I didn’t know they were there,” Hannah reminded him tersely. “I presumed that they were being transported to the reservation. I came upon the camp by accident.” Hannah walked close to the stable wall, her skirts up, in order to avoid the horse apples in the main path. She spared one glance over her shoulder at Stephen, the snap of anger striking deeply through, the brown, wells of her eyes. “And I dislike your insinuations to the contrary.”

  Immediately she returned her attention to the possible obstacles in her path as she rounded a comer of the stable. Too late she saw the boots in front of her and bumped into the officer coming from the opposite direction. His hands were quick to reach out and steady her, and she looked up to find Jake Cutter’s weathered countenance before her, a startled expression on it.

  Those keen and quick blue eyes darted a glance at Stephen coming up short beside her. Relief gentled the set of Cutter’s features. “I see you’ve found her.”

  Irked by the comment, Hannah corrected it, enunciating very clearly. “I wasn’t found because I wasn’t lost.” Before she swept by him, she caught the flash of amusement in his face.

  “Have someone see to my horse.” Stephen thrust the reins at Cutter and walked after Hannah.

  The mounted company returning to the stables after morning drill broke their column to let Hannah cross in front of them. Quickly, Stephen was at her elbow to escort her. The air was sharp-scented with stirred-up dust, damp horsehide, and sweated leather, all of it warmed by the high yellow sun. Hannah walked quickly toward the row of adobe buildings that lined the parade ground.

  “Tell me, Stephen,” she began on a challenging note, still angry with him for his intolerant attitude, “what would you have done if that baby was mine?”

  “Since the matter doesn’t arise, I don’t see how I can answer that question.” He was very stiff and contained. “Obviously it would be very difficult for me to accept an infant conceived . . . under such circumstances.”

  It was an extremely honest answer, Hannah felt. She herself hadn’t wanted a child fathered by Lutero. The subject triggered a memory of her earlier encounter with the newspaper publisher. “When I left our quarters, I was stopped by a man named Hy Boler.”

  “What did you tell him?” Stephen demanded.

  “Nothing. But it doesn’t matter. He knows.” She had hated the idea of secrecy. Secrecy had guilt and shame attached to it, and she felt neither. “He spoke to some of the Apache prisoners. They told him that Lutero had married me.”

  “Stop using that word. You are married to me!” Stephen reacted with taut anger, using the trivial issue as a release for his frustration.

  “I told you it wouldn’t do any good to try to keep it a secret,” she reminded him.

  “I know.” He sighed heavily, then swore. “Damn, the Goodsons are having a dinner party on Saturday for us—actually a welcome-home party for you.” As they reached the walk in front of Officers’ Row, Stephen reached out and put an arm around her cinched-in waist and rested his hand on its narrow curve. The faint pressure of his fingers urged her to a slower, more refined pace, one befitting an officer and his lady out for a morning stroll. “That’s what I came home to tell you.”

  “I see. And did you tender our acceptance?” She guessed that he had, and she was irritated that he hadn’t bothered to consult her first.

  “Naturally I did.” He was curt. “They are honoring you—celebrating your return. These are your friends. Surely you want to go to the party.”

  “Of course.” A sigh of self-impatience accompanied the response. She went through the motions of smiling and waving to Mrs. Bettendorf, who was out tending her rosebushes in front of the commanding officer’s quarters. A wide-brimmed straw sunbonnet was perched on her gray head.

  “And the next time you go for a walk, wear a bonnet or carry a parasol,” Stephen advised as they turned up the path to their quarters. “The sun has done enough damage to your skin.”

  “Oh, goodness me, that’s what I was missing—a parasol,” Hannah mocked. Everything was rubbing her the wrong way—his insinuations, his presumptions, his short temper, and his doubt of her. It was all so unsettling and she couldn’t seem to handle it gracefully, her tongue becoming sharp and quick.

  She swept into their rooms, her skirts whirling about her legs as she stopped in the parlor, feeling heated and stiff. Stephen followed her into the shadowed interior where the sunlight couldn’t reach.

  “Will you be here when I come back, or will I have to tear the fort apart looking for you again?” He stood rigidly before her.

  “Why don’t you simply put me under house arrest?” she retorted. “Then you won’t have to worry about me wandering off.”

  “Dammit, Hannah, can’t you see that I was worried about you? I was afraid something had happened to you—“ Stephen began in half-angry, half-irritated explanation.

  Her temper flared, ignited by something in his answer. “Don’t be afraid! If there’s one thing I learned from the Apaches, it’s don’t ever be afraid. No matter how badly something hurts, you’ll forget the pain in time. You can be driven half mad with hunger and thirst, but you can live longer than you think without food or water. You would be surprised how much you can stand.”

  The strident declaration rang loudly in the still room. In the ensuing silence, Hannah saw the stunned and frowning look on Stephen’s face; he gazed at her as if he was staring at a stranger. She turned away, her head tipping downward in contrition.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have shouted at you.” It troubled her that she had done it. “I had no call to raise my voice like that.”

  Abruptly, Stephen said, “I have to get back to headquarters,” and walked to the door.

  Hannah made no attempt to stop him and smooth over these harsh feelings. Instead, she wheeled from the room and walked swiftly down the narrow hallway to their bedroom. This disagreement with Stephen merely amplified all her other irritations. The hard leather boots hurt her feet, and the layers of skirts and petticoats got in, the way when she bent to remove the shoes. In a temper, she stripped off her day dress and the slips, down to her ruffled pantaloons, corset, and chemise. As she went to fetch her robe from the wardrobe, the bedroom door opened.

  Stephen paused in mid-stride, arrested by the sight of her disrobed state. Slowly he reached up and took his hat off, then stepped the rest of the way through the opening and shut the door. Hannah stood still beneath the slow rake of his dark amber gaze, a small thumping in her chest.

  “I don’t want to fight with you, Hannah.” His low-pitched voice vibrated with the force of his repressed feelings. “We have to stop pushing each other away.”

  “Yes.” She agreed completely that this wedge had to be removed before it drove them farther apart.

  He hesitated for a heartbeat, then came toward her, absently tossing his hat onto the dresser. Her pulse accelerated slightly as he stopped before her, whether in tension or excitement, Hannah didn’t know. His hands touched her bare arms, lightly rubbing them as if to discover how that golden-brown skin felt. He warmed to its satiny texture as his gaze traveled over the cotton bodice of her chemise, paying special attention to the beginning swell of her high breasts.

  She didn’t know. She wasn’t sure. She felt an uneasiness in the pit of her stomach, but she didn’t back away from him. Her hands moved to his flat, muscled torso, lightly bracing herself as Stephen bent his head and devoured her lips.

  “It’s been so long since I’ve held you.” His mouth grazed the side of her face and nuzzled into her neck with aching force. “So damned long, Hannah.”

  “I know.” Her fingers slid into the thickness of his hair as his hands slipped the chemise off her shoulders and reached for the hooks of her corset.

  The bed stood in the deep shadows of the room. Stephen carried her to it, her pantaloons an
d chemise discarded but the gartered stockings and corset intact, only the top hooks loosened to free her breasts to his intimate attentions. He was quick to shed his uniform and climb onto the bed with her, while her gaze clung to his. She ignored the whiteness of his body, intent on keeping the face of her husband before her.

  She was enveloped in a fevered heat of kisses, his hands touching and urging, their bodies thrusting and recoiling to thrust again. Maybe it was the relentless grinding of hips, the straining of their bodies that made it all too intense. When the release came, it wasn’t enough.

  Afterward, Hannah made slow work of tying the sash of her robe in a precise bow while Stephen put on his uniform. Going over it in her mind, she knew that it had not been good between them. They had tried too hard, because both had images they were trying to blot out of their memory.

  “Why, Hannah?” With his second boot pulled on, Stephen stood up and reached for his uniform blouse.

  “Why what?” She turned to look at him, golden sunlight shafting through the window to make a silhouette of her.

  “Why did you make love during the daytime? You never have before,” he stated.

  “I don’t understand.” She gave a confused shake of her head, her faint contentment still alive but fading. “What do you mean?”

  “Are you used to making love during the daytime? Is that when you did it with the Apaches?” The questions were made blunt by the grudging anger he felt.

  Her mouth opened in shock. For a moment she was unable to get any words to come out; then they rushed from her. “Why on earth would you ask a question like that now? Why ruin—“

  “Tell me which is worse, Hannah,” Stephen demanded, “to ask the question or to wonder?”

  The ache inside her was very painful. “Mostly at night, since I had work to do during the day,” Her voice was flat and emotionless. “Why are you doing this to yourself, Stephen? Why do you keep asking?”