An Uncommon Protector

by Shelley Shepard Gray

  Thinking back to the more than eight months spent in the Confederate Officers Camp on Johnson’s Island, Thomas weighed his words. “I’ve had my fair share of cruel guards. Howell is bad, but he ain’t one of the worst.”

  “I forgot you were up on Johnson’s Island.” After a moment, Bert continued. “You don’t talk about it much.”

  “No reason to. It’s over.” Besides, the memories hurt too much.

  “Makes sense.”

  Thomas hoped Bert did understand. But what he probably didn’t understand was that it wasn’t the pain or the boredom or the hunger that was so hard to remember. It was the realization that the friendships he’d made there were likely to be the best of his life. He’d had the dubious honor of being imprisoned with some of the finest men he’d ever met. Because of that, he’d found himself both hating and loving every minute of his imprisonment there.

  No man should ever be so desperate.

  “Lots of you die up there while you were shut away?” Bert asked, his voice sharp in the silence.

  Thinking of Phillip Markham, his lieutenant who had suffered so much before his death, Thomas nodded. “Yep. But not all.” Far more had died on the battlefield.

  Leaning closer, Bert said, “I heard you served under Captain Monroe. Is that true?”

  “It is.”

  “Really? What was he like? Were you with him on Johnson’s Island?”

  He respected Captain Monroe far too much to discuss him. “I was on the island with him, but I don’t talk about the captain.”

  “Why not? War’s over.”

  “The war’s over, but my admiration for the captain hasn’t dimmed.”

  Bert’s mouth went slack before he collected himself. “So the rumors are true? He really was that good?”

  “Yeah. He was.” In fact, he was so good that if Thomas had contacted him about needing funds—or told him he had been imprisoned for his lack of funds—Captain Monroe would have paid his debts immediately. But Thomas wasn’t going to take advantage of him like that. It was better to simply deal with his situation. Somehow, some way, his life was going to get better. He was going to make sure of it.

  Bert sighed. He shifted, then flopped around on his thin, uncomfortable mattress like a fish flopping on dry land. In contrast, Thomas concentrated on attempting to stay perfectly still. If he didn’t move, there was a halfway decent chance he wasn’t going to start crying out in pain.

  Minutes passed. Little by little his body relaxed. His back still burned, but at least he was now able to breathe in and out without agonizing pain.

  “Hey, Thomas?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You remember that woman today? The one who gave us water?” As if Thomas had been in contact with any other woman in days.

  “What about her?”

  “She was something, wasn’t she?”

  “She was.” She was more than that. She’d been the prettiest thing he’d had the pleasure of seeing in years. About his age, golden hair, light-brown eyes, full cheeks that made a man ache to see her smile. She had a figure that was as rich as it was alluring.

  Perfect.

  Though Thomas had cautioned himself to erase Miss Tracey from his mind, he couldn’t help but dwell on her again. He just knew holding her in his arms would feel like heaven. He’d seen too many starving men and women during the war. The women who now tried to have minuscule waists and an air of angelic reed-thinness only made him feel ill.

  “I keep thinking about her, and her name too. Laurel Tracey,” Bert said around a sigh. “Pretty, ain’t it?”

  “Yeah.” Pretty and feminine. Just like her.

  “I think Howell aims to have her. It seems she owns some prime land out there.”

  “I can think of a lot of other reasons to pursue her.”

  Bert coughed. “It’s that kind of talk that can get you into trouble, Thomas. You shouldn’t be thinking about her like that. You really shouldn’t have talked to her.”

  “I was only being polite. She spoke to me first.”

  Bert chuckled. “You did more than that. I saw how you looked at her.”

  “All of us watched her. She’s a fetching thing. I couldn’t help it. Besides, Howell was looking for an excuse to handle that whip.”

  “Maybe so, but I meant Howell wants her something awful,” Bert continued in a low voice. “Two men were talking about it in the yard after supper. They said Howell intends to take more prisoners back to her place next week.”

  “Though that seems like an odd way to gain a female’s favor, that doesn’t surprise me. I can’t imagine him spending much effort actually going courting.”

  “That’s why he beat you good today. Howell doesn’t want you anywhere near her.” Bert snickered. “I guess he considers you a rival.”

  “I’m not much of anything at the moment.” He certainly wasn’t a rival. Howell was an idiot and liked to inflict pain on people who couldn’t defend themselves. “But I can pretty much assure you Howell won’t be choosing me to be within two miles of her ranch ever again.”

  “I don’t think he’ll be allowing you to get real close again either. No offense, but I sure hope the good Lord intends for me to be in Miss Tracey’s vicinity again real soon.”

  Jealousy hit him hard, though it made no sense. But he did know that she was too pretty and too vulnerable to be the focus of a bunch of prisoners’ minds.

  With effort, he pushed those thoughts away. “You’re from here. What do you know about her? Was she married? Is she a widow?”

  “I am from here, but my kin never mixed with hers much. I know she never married, though.”

  “Surprising.”

  “Some say she had a sweetheart who went off to fight, but I don’t know who.”

  “Most men married their sweethearts.” He’d never done such a thing, of course, but he’d heard a hundred stories of men who married in haste before going off to battle.

  “Well, no one married her. Don’t know why.”

  She’s young, beautiful, owns land, and seems to be in need of a man to help her manage that ranch. All of those things tugged on his heart. Thomas had never been one for compassion, but even he couldn’t deny the appeal of a beautiful woman who was in need of a protector.

  “I wonder what’s wrong with all the men in this town,” he murmured. If he’d been a different type of man—one who was actually worth something—he would have been pursuing her with everything he had. She was not only everything Bert had said, but she’d offered convicts water. Women like that were hard to find and even harder to claim.

  “If they’re all like Howell, it ain’t no surprise she’s still a miss,” Bert said.

  “I can’t fault that reasoning. He would have fit in real well with the guards at Johnson’s Island.”

  “If they had been working for the Yankees, us Rebs might have had a fighting chance.”

  A bark of laughter jolted through him, pulling on his skin, stretching the wounds on his back. Against his will, he cried out in pain.

  Bert jumped to his feet. “You’re sure in a bad way. You ain’t still thinking about getting put up to bid in the morning, are you?”

  The town had a tradition of giving prisoners who weren’t violent the option of becoming a good citizen’s indentured servant for a year. Sheriff Jackson had approached him about it that morning before the guards marched them out to Miss Tracey’s ranch. He’d quietly told Thomas it might be the best thing for him.

  Thomas had agreed.

  Howell had overheard.

  That, Thomas knew, was the main reason Howell had beaten him to within an inch of his life. There had been a chance that he was going to be out of this small-town jail in less than twenty-four hours. And if Thomas left, Howell would no longer have his whipping boy.

  “I don’t have a choice. I’ve got to get out of here.”

  “But you’re in sorry shape. Real bad.”

  “No one’s going to hire me for my looks.” All he ha
d to do was stand there on two feet until someone saw something of worth in him. Though he feared there might not be anything to find, not with injuries that could affect his ability to work, Thomas intended to pretend there was. “I’ll be fine.”

  “They stick you in a cage, you know. You’ll be standing in the hot sun like a caged bird. Your back’s going to burn and blister something fierce.”

  He hadn’t heard about the cage. Glad for the dim light of the cell, Thomas grimaced. “Probably so. But I still have to try.”

  After surviving too many battles and skirmishes to count, he’d survived his time on Johnson’s Island too. There he’d learned to control his temper and tried to become the man his father had no doubt intended him to be.

  But in the year or so after his release, he’d made mistake after mistake. He quit a good-paying ranch job in Oklahoma because they abused their horseflesh. In Abilene he’d been hired on as a guard for a group of men who were unscrupulous and no better than lying carpetbaggers.

  Then he’d gone and gambled what little money he had in a card game with two well-known citizens of Fort Worth. Well, everyone knew who they were but him. When Thomas lost, he lost big . . . and ended up owing those men more money than he could ever repay.

  And since one of them was Judge Orbison’s kin, Thomas had ended up in Sweetwater’s jail. Serving time for poker debts.

  Thomas had had enough. Enough of making mistakes. Enough of trusting the wrong people and misjudging the right ones. Enough of simply trying to survive. Now he was willing to do whatever he could to never wake up to metal bars again.

  All he had to do was hope that morning would come sooner than later and that he wouldn’t be too much worse for wear when dawn did break.

  It was faint, but Laurel could see it. The squatters in the north pasture had a campfire going again. Glancing at her timepiece, she saw it was close to midnight. At this hour, all she could do was hope and pray the wind didn’t pick up and burn her fields and cattle.

  Squatters were the bane of her and any good rancher’s existence. They wreaked havoc on land that didn’t belong to them. Over the years, she’d seen their destruction. Sometimes it was merely in the waste they left behind. Other times it was the damage they did to barbed-wire fencing. Or the thieving they did.

  Now, here in the middle of summer, she lived in fear that one of their campfires was going to burn out of control and scorch her land. If that happened? No doubt they’d skulk off and she’d face the consequences alone.

  During the war, she’d put up with some of the vagrants, mainly because she’d been too afraid to confront them. Deserters from both sides had run rampant. Having nothing to lose, they’d preyed on women trying to survive while living essentially alone. Sometimes literally alone.

  But now something had to change. She needed to grow her herd, get some to market, and build on from there. Since Bess and Jerome weren’t going to help her, she had to find someone who was strong enough to take on these squatters. She couldn’t do it alone. She needed a man who was tough and hard and didn’t frighten easily.

  She was pretty sure Thomas Baker fit the bill.

  Glad that she’d made her decision, she turned away from the window and climbed into bed. She needed to rest. Come morning, she was going to hitch up Velvet, drive herself into town, and bid on the prisoner.

  Closing her eyes, she prayed Thomas Baker really was everything she hoped he was.

  If he wasn’t, she could be making her terrible situation even worse.

  3

  I FIRED FOSTER HOWELL AN HOUR AGO,” SHERIFF JACKSON said to Thomas the next morning after he’d escorted Thomas into his office himself.

  Thomas wasn’t sure how he was supposed to reply. His back felt as if it were now home to dozens of sharp nails, each determined to make mincemeat out of the raw marks the whip had made on his skin. When he’d first opened his eyes, he’d yearned to cry out in pain.

  He’d made do with allowing his cellmate to dip part of his shirt in some water and dab at his burning skin.

  Soon after Bert helped him put on his shirt, Jackson had appeared at their cell’s door. “Come on out, Baker,” he’d said gruffly.

  Then he’d led the way to his office, not even bothering to handcuff Thomas. Thomas had been surprised by that but hadn’t complained. Once they were in the office, Jackson gestured for Thomas to sit as he took a fortifying sip of coffee.

  But even though Jackson seemed like an upstanding man, Thomas was afraid to let down his guard. “Is Howell’s firing supposed to mean something to me?”

  “Maybe.” As the sheriff continued to stare at Thomas over his mug, he looked increasingly disgruntled. “He whipped you like you were a blasted slave. Idiot.”

  Thomas agreed with him, of course, but he knew better than to disparage one of the guards. The sheriff might not think highly of Howell, but the man hadn’t been a prisoner. Thomas certainly was.

  “How bad are you, Baker? And don’t tell me no tales. I want the truth.”

  “Not bad.” It wasn’t the truth, but it was going to take more than a few lash marks to stop him from doing everything he could to get out of jail as soon as possible.

  Still looking at him skeptically, the sheriff said, “Do I need to send for Doc? I only found out what happened about two hours ago.”

  “You don’t need to send for anyone.” Especially not some doctor. He’d seen the worst of what those sawbones could do on the battlefield and wanted no part of them.

  Sheriff Jackson didn’t look so sure. “The back of your shirt don’t look fine, but I won’t push. Now, what do you want to do about today’s proceedings? I gotta warn you that today might not be the best opportunity for you, son. Anyone who comes to bid wants an able worker—”

  “I want to participate, sir.” As long as there was the slightest chance to get hired on and out of jail, Thomas was willing to take it.

  Jackson drained the last of his coffee, then set down the mug with a regretful look. “Yesterday morning I thought you might stand a chance of getting hired on, you’re so able-bodied. But now?” He shook his head. “I just don’t know. I should warn you there’s not a lot of hope for freedom. So far, the only man who ever paid for prisoners was Kevin Oberlee, and he’s gone now.”

  Thomas knew he wasn’t much of a prize, but he had nothing to lose. “I’ll take my chances.”

  “You sure? ’Cause the only thing you might get out of this is some food and a whole lotta cruel treatment tossed your way.”

  He was a man, not a child. He’d fought for the Confederacy and had been held prisoner on a forsaken island in the middle of Lake Erie. “I understand, sir.”

  “All right, let’s do this, then.” Pulling out a pair of metal handcuffs from his jacket pocket, he reached for Thomas’s hands and securely cuffed them in front of his body. Then he gripped his elbow and led him out the front of the jail and into the town square.

  Squinting in the sun, Thomas was surprised to see the area was fairly crowded with men, women, and children. Some looked at the cage in the middle of the square with doleful expressions. Others looked positively gleeful.

  Thomas had thought nothing could ever surprise him, but it turned out he was wrong. It seemed for some people criminals garnered the same sort of lurid fascination that battlefields and human suffering did for others.

  An almost carnival atmosphere prevailed. Folks were dressed in their Sunday best, chatting with each other. Laughing. One enterprising man was selling pickles from a makeshift cart. Above all of it was an air of expectation. The crowd was anticipating something out of the ordinary. Did they sense something the sheriff didn’t?

  Thomas stared at them, even going so far as to look several in the eye. Women tittered behind handkerchiefs and men blanched and gripped their children’s hands. Through it all, Jackson kept his hand firmly on Thomas’s elbow as they weaved their way through the crowd.

  “It always this way, Sheriff?” Thomas asked.

 
“No. Maybe they heard about the whipping. Maybe they think you’re something special to see. I have no idea.” Jackson’s voice was flat as he walked him up four steps to a pedestal of some sort. Sitting in the middle of it was a rectangular iron cage. It was tall enough for Thomas to stand upright, but barely.

  It looked hot and uncomfortable and made him suddenly feel sorry for the animals carted around in the carnivals that toured the country from time to time.

  Jackson sighed. “Here’s what’s gonna happen, Baker. I’m gonna lock you in this cage. You’ll remain here for two hours or until someone makes an offer for your services.”

  “And until that time?”

  “Until then, folks will mill around and get a good look at you. Judge Orbison will offer you up to the highest bidder.”

  “Until then, I wait.”

  “Yep. You wait. I’ll be nearby, so no one should get too close. Burnside will be too. But prepare yourself, son. It ain’t pleasant.”

  Thomas said nothing, but he was pretty sure the sheriff had just uttered a heck of an understatement. However, all he had to do was concentrate on the way his back burned and pained him—all he needed to remind himself was that some circumstances were definitely worse than others.

  Since it didn’t look as though anyone was about to whip him today for simply being alive, Thomas figured he could handle whatever was to come.

  Jackson unlocked the cage, sent Thomas inside, then locked the barred door again.

  The minute Sheriff Jackson stepped off the platform and moved to the side, the crowd inched closer from all sides. Thomas felt their disdain for him like a tangible thing. More than one person gasped at the blood that had seeped through his shirt.

  Judge Orbison walked forward. Looking displeased to be out in the blazing sun in his three-piece black suit, he pulled out a spoon and clanged it against Thomas’s bars.

  The jarring sound, together with the vibrations the motion set off, made Thomas flinch.

  At least the crowd immediately quieted.

  “Citizens of Sweetwater, by now you probably know the drill. I’ve got a prisoner here, a Mr. . . . uh . . .” The judge turned to him. “Name, son?”