Jessie's War (Civil War Steam)

by Connors, Meggan

  Why would he mark himself so clearly as an enemy by wearing his badge and displaying his weapons so openly?

  Was it a challenge?

  Because if it was, he was a dead man.

  Anxiety tightened Jessie’s shoulders. He must understand the danger he was in, yet he wore the symbols of his position just as clearly as her grandfather wore his. Luke wore his authority well, and the new scars lent him an aura of danger she hadn’t noticed about him before he’d left, though it rested so easily upon his shoulders she suspected it had always been there in some fashion.

  Yet she never felt safer than when she was in the circle of his arms, and she never had. Luke had always been her rock, her safety. Despite his disappearances when they were children, he had always turned up when she needed him.

  When Virginia City had been shelled that first time, he’d been there. He’d shielded her from the anger of her classmates, who, defenseless against Confederate shells, had decided to torment the one person who had less power than they did.

  Jessie.

  He and Gideon had defended her from rioting miners, from the Confederate and the Union soldiers. Eventually, Luke had been forced to defend both of them.

  That was the night she knew she loved him, regardless of the circumstances of his birth. Her father wanted her to marry a gentleman, a businessman or a mine owner. Perhaps a lawyer or a doctor or even an inventor like himself.

  But she’d fallen in love with the wild, thieving son of a drunken prostitute.

  Her grandfather approached her solemnly, the tribe following behind, as was their custom when approaching strangers. She didn’t belong here. Nor did she belong in Virginia City among her father’s people—they’d already made it abundantly clear that while they appreciated what little money she had, they didn’t want her. She didn’t belong anywhere.

  She looked at Luke.

  He stood beside her, tall and proud and a born warrior dressed in black.

  Not in front of her, as a man claiming her would have done. Not behind her, as foreigners were expected to do. Beside her, as equals. She wanted him to take her hand, so she twisted her fingers together in front of her to keep her wayward hands from touching him, and forced herself to remember what it had been like to survive without him.

  As one, Cheveyo and his men went down to their knees in front of her grandfather, Ewepu So’wina’. He touched Cheveyo’s shoulder and bade him to rise. Once Cheveyo gained his feet, his men rose as well.

  Her grandfather approached her, standing close enough that the space between them felt intimidating and invasive—a challenge as much as a greeting.

  “Granddaughter,” he said in Paviotso, the only language she had ever heard him speak.

  “Grandfather,” she replied in kind, bowing her head. She had never been required to kneel to her own grandfather, and she wasn’t certain she should start now.

  Turning to Cheveyo, her grandfather motioned to Luke. “This is the one I asked for?”

  “He was the one with her when I found her.”

  “You’ve done well.” Cheveyo responded by inclining his head, and her grandfather turned to Jessie. “You have been gone a long time.”

  “Yes,” she answered carefully. No accusation, no blame, and no excuses. Her grandfather would accept none.

  “Who have you brought with you?”

  Jessie turned to Luke. Unless he somehow miraculously spoke their particular dialect of Paviotso, which was unlikely, he didn’t understand their conversation and it had to make him nervous.

  Despite the wariness in his eyes, he remained tight-lipped and silent.

  It would be up to Jessie to warn him should her grandfather decide he was unwelcome.

  And he seemed to trust her to do it.

  She touched Luke. “This is Luke Bradshaw.”

  Grandfather glanced at her hand, settled on Luke’s arm, his eyes interested.

  She dropped her hand. “And I didn’t bring him.”

  “Yes you did,” he replied. “Tell me, what is he to you?”

  Jessie scowled, and her face felt pinched. She studied the snow-covered mountains for a long time. That was the question of the hour: What is he to you?

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

  “You don’t?” Cheveyo chortled in English.

  Jessie glared at her cousin. Despite the cold, heat rose to her face. “No, I actually don’t.”

  “You don’t what?” Luke asked.

  “Nothing,” she answered too quickly.

  “Don’t lie to me,” Luke snapped. “Translate for me.”

  “No.”

  Luke took her by the elbow and turned her toward him. “Translate.”

  She shook him off, her eyes narrowing, and the goodwill she’d had toward him dissipated like mist in the morning sun. “I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  Jessie’s grandfather laughed.

  Luke was right: it was bullshit. Her pulse pounded in her temples, throbbing through her veins like the beating of war drums. “I’ll tell you what I think is necessary and you’ll be grateful for it. You have no right making demands of me.”

  She heard muttering next to her, and belatedly realized Cheveyo had been translating for her grandfather.

  “Cheveyo!” she protested.

  He finished her words with a mocking, “Cheveyo!” and turned to her to ask mildly, “Yes?”

  “Do you need to translate that?”

  “Yes.” Cheveyo’s smile shone with artifice. After a time, he pointed out, “You never answered Grandfather’s question.”

  She folded her arms, and refused to speak.

  “Jessica,” Grandfather warned, his tone dark. Before she had the chance to react, the temperature dropped several degrees and gooseflesh dotted her arms. The cold seeped into her bones, and her chest ached from the sudden chill. Her teeth chattered.

  Beside her, Luke shivered and pulled up the collar of his duster. He crossed his arms and stamped his feet, but said nothing.

  Jessie wrapped her coat more tightly around her body, but it did little to warm her. “My apologies, Grandfather,” she said in his tongue. “He is nothing to me.”

  He simply smiled, sad amusement lighting his eyes. “I see.” He turned to the man standing beside Jessie, still and strong and silent. “Luke Bradshaw.” He turned back to Jessie and waited.

  She motioned to her grandfather. “Bradshaw, this is my grandfather, Ewepu So’wina’.”

  “It is my honor to meet you, sir,” he said, his eyes cautious.

  Given her grandfather’s history as the killer of Union soldiers, Jessie couldn’t fault him for that. Luke bowed his head, but kept his hands at his sides, as was the custom of her people. They didn’t touch for any reason unless they were kinsmen or known friends.

  That he remembered touched her in a way she didn’t want to think about.

  Jessie translated Luke’s words.

  Grandfather nodded, but his eyes lingered on where Luke’s pistol rested on his hip, and Jessie wasn’t the only one who noticed.

  “Foreigners relinquish their weapons and kneel to Ewepu So’wina’ when he greets them,” Cheveyo said.

  Luke tensed beside her, the air rippling with unspoken hostility, but Jessie wasn’t certain if anyone felt it but her. “I’m not giving up my weapons,” he said. “And I kneel to no one.”

  She turned to him in surprise—he’d been so amenable before—and heard Cheveyo translating Luke’s words.

  “Don’t!” she protested in English. “You don’t need to repeat that!”

  She shouldn’t care what her grandfather would do to Luke because of his transgression, but she did.

  “No, go ahead and repeat it. No one is taking my weapons from me,” Luke said. His eyes met hers and, softly, he continued. “Just like they’re not taking you. Not without a fight. So don’t get any bright ideas.”

  “I’m not some heifer you can buy and s
ell at a moment’s notice. You don’t own me.” Over her shoulder, she snapped at Cheveyo, “Goddammit, will you stop it? He doesn’t need to know this!”

  “But I do,” her grandfather responded. He grasped Luke by the forearms, and Luke shivered again. “No need to kneel. Tell me about your people.”

  Luke bristled, as he always had when the subject of his family arose, and Jessie fought against the desire to touch his arm and offer him some meager form of comfort. She would have, but she didn’t need Grandfather getting the wrong idea about her relationship with Luke. Cheveyo had already seen too much.

  “Don’t have any,” Luke said. “My people, as far as I know, are dead.”

  She translated Luke’s words for her grandfather, and the old man nodded seriously. “Then you are welcomed here, brother,” Grandfather said. “You will join me at my fire and share a meal with me.”

  Jessie gasped as his words hung in the air between them.

  Cheveyo translated for Luke.

  “You can’t welcome him into the tribe!” Jessie protested.

  Cheveyo translated that for Luke, too.

  “Why not? Because I’m a white man?”

  “It’s not that. He just... he just can’t.” She looked at her grandfather. “No.”

  “Then this must be about my being a bastard.” Luke’s jaw was set, and his eyes narrowed. “So I’m good enough to save your life, but I’m not good enough for your tribe?”

  Jessie gaped at him. “What?”

  “You heard me.” Luke’s expression was icy, his posture stiff.

  How dare he assume she cared about that? She never had before. He’d always been the only one in her household who gave a damn about the circumstances of his birth.

  Despite the cold, her palms began to sweat. “Your being a bastard has nothing to do with your parentage, Bradshaw. Nobody here cares about that. If you’re a bastard, it’s because of your personality.”

  “You didn’t seem to mind it so much when I saved your life. Or when I kissed you last night. Seemed like you enjoyed that.”

  “If you had any sense at all, Bradshaw, you’d shut your mouth and keep it that way. If you don’t knock it off, I’ll have to get someone else to help me. You’ll be dead before we get to Fort Clark,” she said.

  “Don’t bet on it, sweetheart. As much as I hate to disappoint you, I’m not dying any time soon.” He folded his arms across his chest, somehow accentuating his broad proportions and making him seem larger than he actually was. “You’ve apparently got something stuck in your craw. So spit it out.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and she considered keeping her silence, but then thought better of it. He wanted to know what she thought? Fine.

  “I think once you get what you came for, you’ll leave again.” The words tasted bitter in her mouth. “I don’t think you care about anyone.”

  “Untrue.”

  “You’re a spy and a saboteur. A professional liar. Anyone who believes anything you say is a fool.”

  “And you would know?”

  “I’ve been that fool.”

  The muscle in the side of Luke’s face twitched, and he glared at her.

  “What are your intentions?” Grandfather asked, breaking the silence. Jessie flinched: she’d forgotten he was there. Cheveyo translated the old man’s words for Luke, because it was clear to everyone Jessie had no plans to.

  Luke’s eyes locked on Jessie. “My intentions are honorable. I’ll find Jessie’s father and get him out of wherever he is. Return him to where he belongs.”

  “But you don’t plan to stick around this time either, do you?” she asked. “Once you get what you want, you’ll walk away. We’re just something you need, right? Like a good horse or a nice weapon? Because it’s not like you actually care about us. Or about me.”

  Strangely, it felt good to voice the hurt. That is, until she realized Cheveyo had translated that, as well. Without another word, Jessie held up her hand and stalked away.

  “Stop being so goddamn melodramatic,” Luke snapped. “I’ve apologized for what I did. I can’t change what was done in the past. Judge me for what I do now.”

  Her grandfather’s touch was little more than a whisper on her shoulder.

  She turned toward him as surely as if he’d grabbed her. No one walked away from him unless he allowed it.

  “You let him touch you?” His voice was quiet, a warning for her not to lie to him.

  “It was just a kiss.”

  “I wouldn’t call what we did ‘just a kiss,’ but suit yourself,” Luke interjected.

  Her heart sank as she realized she had answered her grandfather in English. Luke had always been able to turn her inside out, making her forget all logic and common sense.

  “Are you trying to get yourself killed? Have you forgotten where you are, and with whom?” Checking to see if Cheveyo had translated, she was relieved to find he had not.

  Luke rubbed the scar running through his eyebrow. “No.”

  Grandfather’s eyes shifted between Luke and Jessie and back again. “Did you share a wikiup with him?” he asked quietly.

  Careful to use her mother’s tongue rather than her father’s, she said, “No.” It was not precisely a lie.

  “Not a wikiup, but he stayed the night with her in the Whites’ house. And they shared a tent on the journey here,” Cheveyo offered. “She’s splitting hairs.”

  “How do you know that?” She saw the answer in his eyes. “Oh. You were watching.”

  The expression Cheveyo’s face served as a warning—if she pushed him too far, he’d tell her grandfather everything. Jessie held her tongue and hoped her kinsman would hold his.

  She swallowed the betrayal rising in the back of her throat. “I followed the customs of hospitality by offering refuge to a traveler who asked for it. I only did it out of politeness. Even our ancestors would not hold me accountable for that.”

  “And the other?” the old man asked, his eyes sharp and dangerous.

  “It was cold, and my cousin here wasn’t sharing his,” she retorted. Cheveyo visibly suppressed a smirk, and her temper sparked. “Was I supposed to sleep outside?”

  “Outside, no. Clothed, probably,” Cheveyo responded jovially in English.

  Beside her, Luke folded his arms across his chest, his legs braced apart, the challenge evident.

  Thank the ancestors Cheveyo had the sense not to translate their conversation. She’d have to kill him if he did.

  Grandfather made no remark. “I have missed you, Granddaughter. You have been gone from the tribe for too long.

  “And now our lost daughter has returned, bringing a man who can be our bridge to peace. I have seen his eyes in my visions. He can help us find peace, and he is one of us.” He pointed to Luke. “He will be our bridge.”

  Luke turned to her. “What is he saying?” he asked, and danger lurked behind words softly spoken.

  Unable to wrap her mind around her grandfather’s words, Jessie simply shook her head, so Cheveyo translated. “He says you are one of us. You will be our bridge.”

  “What does that mean?” Luke never took his eyes off Jessie.

  She couldn’t answer his question. The words died on her lips, and her brain was unable to make sense of her grandfather’s unusual pronouncement.

  He should hate Luke and the government he represented, but with a few simple words, he’d turned Luke into a Paviotso brave and welcomed him as a son.

  Her grandfather took Luke’s hand in his, reached for Jessie’s, and placed it on top of Luke’s.

  He turned to her. “You have taken refuge in his wikiup.”

  Her heart stuttered and stopped. Her vision became as wobbly as her knees as understanding dawned on her. “Oh, no. No, no. No.”

  “And you bicker like an old married couple.”

  “No.” She started to shake, her hands trembling as she tried to extract them from her grandfather’s iron grasp.

  “You have always been stubborn. Just like yo
ur mother. You have brought me my bridge, and now I task you with building it.”

  Cheveyo suddenly produced a beaded belt, and with a quickness that belied belief, her cousin bound their hands together. As if this had, in some way, been planned long before Luke and Jessie had been discovered in the mine.

  “No, no, no,” she whispered over and over like a broken litany. She tried to pull away, but her cousin’s grip was stronger than she could have imagined. Heat rose to her face, and her stomach churned.

  Beside her, Luke stiffened, preparing for a fight he knew nothing about.

  She felt Grandfather’s hands on theirs, though he didn’t actually touch either of them. “Now you shall share his wikiup.”

  “Oh, God, please don’t do this.”

  “Your father’s pale god won’t save you now, Princess,” Cheveyo jeered.

  “What have I done to you, Cheveyo, that you hate me so much?” Her voice was soft and bereft.

  Grandfather held up a hand as a warning to her cousin—she’d been on the receiving end of it often enough as a child to recognize it. He squeezed her hand gently, and a chill traveled up her arms and settled in her spine.

  “It is the will of the ancestors.” He nodded to the belt binding Luke and Jessie’s hands. “Their will is done.” He turned away.

  “Don’t you walk away from me!” she shrieked. Even she was surprised she spoke to her grandfather in such a fashion. No one did that and lived to tell about it. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Share his wikiup,” he called, never breaking stride. “He will join me as we ride to the winter camp.”

  She shook off the belt binding their hands together and sat down heavily in the melting snow. She doubled over. Rested her head in her hands.

  “This is your fault,” she gasped.

  “What just happened?”

  “Nothing. I’m having a nightmare. It didn’t happen.” Her vision swam and she saw stars.

  Luke knelt beside her and took her hands in his big ones. They warmed her where she hadn’t even known she was chilled. “You’re doing fine, Jess,” he said softly. “Just breathe. You’re doing fine.” He inhaled deeply and then released it. Did it several times more times.

  She sank into his bright eyes, captivated, held in thrall as if hypnotized, and suddenly, her heart somehow stumbled into a more regular rhythm.