Wondering what sin the devout young man could have committed, she said gently, “It’s no sin to want to protect those who are weaker or to love them.”
He looked uncomfortable, as if there was more he needed to say, but he didn’t speak. Nor did he deny what Juliet plainly saw. He was in love with the Irish servant girl.
She smiled reassuringly. “I’ll do what I can, George.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Juliet quickly delivered the milk to Pauline, then cut her visit there short to confront Maisy Bartholomew. Her anger grew with each step. How dared the woman think she could abuse another with impunity? She could think of no greater abomination and cursed the Southern slave-owning mentality that allowed one human being to treat another like property. Then she caught and corrected herself. Not everyone was like that. Noble would never condone such a thing. Neither had George. It was a single mean-spirited female who saw her own comforts as superior to another’s.
And Juliet meant to correct that thinking at once.
Juliet paused outside the Bartholomews’ door, breathing deeply to control the urge to take a horsewhip to the woman. As she stood there, forming a diplomatic argument, she heard a different, louder argument coming from inside.
Maisy and her husband were fighting.
Or rather Donald Bartholomew was on the receiving end of his wife’s cruel rantings.
“Coward! You useless coward! How many times must I ask you, beg you, to let me go home? And you do nothing.”
“Maisy, what do you think I can do?” His voice was weary, long-suffering.
“Something, anything, to get me out of here. This heat, this filth, it’s making me go mad. I cannot stand it. I have to get away.”
“If you’d left with that troop the other day, you would have come back sporting an Apache arrow. Or not at all.”
“Maybe I’d be better off. Maybe I’d rather be dead than trapped here in this hell.”
“Maisy, my darling, no. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
His dismay was plain. He didn’t think she said the words just for shock value. And hearing them, neither did Juliet. She’d known women to lose control completely in the frontier isolation. She’d thought Maisy too full of herself to break down to that level, but perhaps she was wrong.
“Yes, I do. I know exactly what I’m saying.” That sounded more like Maisy—selfish, shrill, and blaming others for her discomforts. “I’ve been saying it all along. Damn you, Donald, for bringing me to this place. I’d rather you were still in prison. Then at least I’d still have my things and my friends around me.”
There was a shocked silence. Juliet was about to withdraw, embarrassed and alarmed by what she’d overheard. But she’d promised George and she owed it to Colleen. She knocked.
Maisy jerked open the door. Her face was flushed, her eyes red-rimmed. There was a moment’s panic as she wondered how much Juliet had heard.
“Good evening, Captain, Mrs. Bartholomew,” Juliet began cheerfully. “I’ve come to beg a favor of you.” She paused. “Have I come at a bad time?”
Maisy immediately composed herself. “Not at all. Please come in.”
Not wishing to linger any longer than she had to, Juliet got right to the point. “I’ve come to borrow Colleen’s services—just temporarily.”
“What?” Maisy all but roared. Her eyes narrowed in fierce suspicion. Juliet guessed she was wondering if ranking out applied to domestic help, too.
“My father needs special care while he recovers from his injury. I’ve been helping at the infirmary and haven’t been there for him as I should be. I was wondering if I could impose on you to allow Colleen to stay with us, just until my father is better.”
“But what am I to do in the meantime?”
“I would have an enlisted man appointed to serve as a striker for you. I realize this is a tremendous favor to ask and no soldier could perform Colleen’s duties as well as she, but my father feels uncomfortable asking personal favors from one of his men, so you see the difficulty of my position. I would be greatly in your debt.”
Maisy weighed the benefit of that debt, but it was her husband who answered.
“If Colleen has no objections, I’ll send her over with her belongings tonight.”
He knew. Juliet stared at him in surprise. Donald Bartholomew might be a conceited agitator, but he was aware of his wife’s cruelty and was willing to do something about it. Juliet smiled at him, but he looked away as if ashamed of what he’d allowed to go on within his own home.
Maisy gaped at her husband, her features flushing darkly. Juliet saw that as her cue to cut in.
“Oh, I am so relieved. How can I thank you for your unselfish generosity?” She sucked a breath, gritted her teeth, and embraced Maisy with a vigorous squeeze.
After that, what could the woman say?
Racing home to advise her father as to why he suddenly needed a nursemaid, Juliet hoped she’d covered everything. Knowing the colonel would never interfere in the domestic problems of his officers unless they affected his duty, she told him that Colleen was going to be helping her with her workload. Though surprised, since Juliet had never asked for a maid, he nodded, saying she was certainly entitled to it. She procured a tiny room for the Irish girl to call her own, and when showing her to it, found herself on the receiving end of Colleen’s tears.
“Oh, I’m ever so grateful to you, Miss Crowley,” the girl sobbed against her shoulder. “It was George—I mean Captain Allen—who told you, wasn’t it?”
“Now, Colleen, don’t be angry with him.”
“Angry? Saints be praised! I don’t know if I could have stood up to another day of that woman’s bullying without taking a stick to her meself.”
Juliet chuckled at the girl’s courage and at the same time felt guilty for not noticing her troubles earlier. “Now you won’t have to. And until we think of something, you won’t have to do anything you don’t want to. You won’t have to go back to working for Mrs. Bartholomew if I can help it.”
“But I’m to take care of your da.”
“Heavens, don’t let him hear you say that. He sees himself as completely independent of anyone’s care. We’ll help each other, how’s that?”
“That sounds fine, ma’am.”
“Juliet. That’s my name, Colleen.”
“Thank you, Juliet.” Her brow puckered worriedly. “Mrs. Bartholomew, she can’t do anything to me now, can she?”
“I’ll make sure she doesn’t. Why did she hit you?” That, she still couldn’t understand.
“Just mad, I guess.”
“At you? For what? I can’t believe you did anything to deserve it.”
“Mad at the world.”
That summed up Maisy Bartholomew in an unpleasant nutshell. And her nasty disposition had a ripple effect through Fort Blair. As officer of the day, Donald Bartholomew rained down punishment upon the head of any Union soldier who happened to cross his path the following morning while he gave his own Southern troops preferential treatment. Noble wouldn’t have allowed it if he were on the post. But he wasn’t, and the captain took full advantage, much to Miles’s irritation. Juliet and her father hadn’t finished their coffee before the irrate major was at the door demanding that something be done.
“Is he out of line with his edicts, Major?” Crowley asked. He was short-tempered himself because of his enforced inactivity while he healed and in no mood for pettiness within the ranks.
“Not exactly, sir.”
“Then what is your complaint?” His narrowed eyes should have cautioned Miles, but the junior officer was caught up in his own sense of indignation.
“He’s inciting the men to mutinous thoughts.”
“Has it gone beyond thoughts to actions?”
“Just grumbling in the ranks.”
“This is the army, Major. The men grumble about everything from the lack of variety in their diet to the itching caused by too much soap left in their laundry. Do
you expect me to bring the cook and the laundresses up on disciplinary charges, too?”
Miles flushed but went on doggedly despite Juliet’s look of warning. “Hard tack and soap scum are not the same as provocation to riot. Something has to be done. The Rebs need to be taken firmly in hand—not ignored as if they were naughty children. If I were in charge—”
“But you’re not, Major Dougherty, are you? That’s your main point of contention, isn’t it?”
Miles clamped his mouth shut a moment too late. His superior continued with a frosty disdain, “Last time I looked I was still wearing silver eagles. This is my post, those are my men, and I will deal with both any way I see fit. As for being soft on the Southerners, as you so oftentimes complain, I treat them with no less dignity than I do those under your command. It isn’t favoritism, it’s equality. And if you can’t handle that fact, Major Dougherty, then perhaps it’s time to do something about you.”
Realizing he’d gone too far, Miles swallowed down his pride. “I did not mean to question your authority, sir.”
“Didn’t you?”
Suddenly, Juliet remembered Noble’s suspicion. She’d dismissed his doubts as impossible, but now she was forced to reconsider. Was Miles resentful enough of her father’s position to wish him out of the way permanently? A week ago, she would have laughed off the suggestion. But now, with her father sitting next to her, his side stitched together like a ragged seam, she couldn’t afford to casually eliminate any possibility. Therefore, Miles Dougherty, her best friend’s brother, had to be taken seriously as her father’s possible attacker.
The thought made her ill. It would have been so much easier to transfer all the doubts, all her suspicions onto Donald Bartholomew. But she no longer had the luxury of tunnel vision. She couldn’t let her personal affections influence her better judgment.
“If there’s nothing else, Miles, I’d like to finish my coffee in peace.”
Miles regarded the older man through slitted eyes. He snapped to crisp attention. “No, sir. That about covers it all.”
“You’re dismissed. I don’t expect to have you back here carrying tales unless you can substantiate them. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.” And for the first time, Juliet picked up an insubordinate cadence in both tone and attitude.
Had she misread Miles Dougherty all this time? Could he present a danger both to her father and to her? Hating the notion but unable to ignore it, she made herself follow Miles outside.
“That’s no way to endear yourself to the colonel.”
He turned to her, now clearly angry. “I’m sick of trying to endear myself to him. My record should speak for itself.”
“And it does, Miles.”
“I’ll never advance my position stuck in second slot behind that damned—begging your pardon—Reb.”
Her tone cool instead of commiserating, Juliet said, “If it’s advancement you want, perhaps you should look to a transfer.”
He blinked at her, totally surprised by both the suggestion and her lack of support. His jaw firmed into a granite line. “It’s not easy getting a transfer out here in the West. You know that, Jules. Besides, there are ways to be promoted other than abandoning the place you worked so hard to secure.”
The words sounded ominous to Juliet. Frowning, she was about to ask if he was making a threat when a commotion distracted them. A small group of Company B, escorting an exhausted older woman, had entered the fort.
“Report, sergeant.”
The weary soldier presented Miles with a salute then burst into a telling of the previous day’s events. All the homesteaders dead but one. Juliet swayed at the news. Two children captured. She closed her eyes against the horror those facts conjured up. But duty called her from her own wish to weep.
“Mrs. Stacy, you must be ready to drop. Let me offer the hospitality of my home.”
With a grateful nod, the woman allowed Juliet to lead her into the colonel’s quarters. The sergeant and Miles came behind them on their way to make a grim report to her father.
Juliet digested the news with a sinking sense of fear. Noble and the rest of the company were in pursuit of the Apache band, chasing them into Bright’s Canyon.
Did Noble have enough experience to realize he could be riding straight into a wily Indian trap?
The three Apache braves approached the fallen man cautiously. He lay sprawled and motionless in the dirt, several yards away from his thrashing animal. Their gaze cut between his outstretched hand and the rifle resting just beyond his reach. If his hand so much as twitched toward it, they were ready to fill him full of arrows. They spoke amongst themselves, arguing over who would claim the gun and the superiority it would give the owner.
Just as the first brave bent to retrieve the Spencer while his companions grumbled, one of the others toed the dead soldier with the turned-up toe of his moccasin.
He had only enough time to take a startled step back as the man flipped over onto his back to send a single pistol shot straight through his heart.
After recovering from the wind-sapping fall, Noble had known there’d be no time to find cover, not that there was any appreciable cover for miles around. He heard the fast approach of the Indian ponies and knew he had one chance and one chance only.
He’d seen his first possum while hunting with his friend Reeve Garrett when they were boys. His rifle shot had knocked it out of the tree but failed to draw blood. The hideous creature lay still on the ground, its thin lips pulled back in a deathlike snarl. It hadn’t moved as he prodded it with his rifle barrel. Reeve had warned him to be careful, but sure of himself and his aim, Noble reached down to pick up the carcass. A carcass that came alive—suddenly, startlingly alive. The possum latched onto his sleeve with its sharp teeth, requiring Reeve to beat the critter off him with a stick. That morning Noble had learned that things aren’t always as they seem.
Playing possum while three deadly hostiles stood over him was a sweat-trickling effort at control. A twitch, a deep breath, any response at all would give him away and see him as dead as his command would soon be.
Noble rolled, taking advantage of the surprise to fell the remaining two Indians just as swiftly. Then he scrambled up, and after putting the injured animal out of its suffering, limped to one of the restless Mescalero horses. He wasted no time in vaulting astride and kicking his new mount into a full-out run.
Toward Fort Blair and a rescue he prayed wouldn’t be too late.
Chapter 20
Hearing Anne Stacy talk about the attack upon her home and the death of her husband brought back a fear in Juliet that was never far from the surface. She could still hear the terrible war cries, the thud of arrows, could taste the terror at the back of her throat. She wondered if it was the same for her father, for he was keenly focused as the attractive widow told her story.
Or was his focus because the widow was so attractive?
Jolted from her morose memories, Juliet gave her father a long, hard look. Since her mother’s death, she’d thought of him as father and soldier but not as a man—a man who might feel the same loneliness for companionship as she did. Was John Crowley being made aware of how much of life he was missing by the mere presence of the strong-willed widow?
Many times Juliet had thought about losing her father to an Apache arrow, but never to one shot by Cupid. The idea startled, but did it threaten as well?
She glanced up at the portrait of her mother, a lovely woman with Juliet’s fair hair and determined smile. More than a dozen years had passed since she’d heard that modulated voice and had felt the warm comfort of that smile.
No, she didn’t begrudge her father future happiness, and she knew her mother wouldn’t, either.
The thought of another woman sharing his life didn’t upset her. It made her vulnerable. Since the time she was forced to hold down the household at a young age, Juliet considered herself responsible for her father’s care. As she became marriageable, she’d hidden behind tha
t duty, using the colonel as an excuse not to venture out on her own.
In doing so, she realized with a sudden sense of guilt and shame, had she been holding him back from finding someone with whom to share himself? Could gaining the approval of a colonel’s daughter be as intimidating as winning her father’s approval was for the many young men who’d stepped up anxiously to try over the years?
Had she and her father settled in like old spinsters, content with the complacency found in their easy relationship?
Was that why Crowley was so eager to marry her off, so that he could concentrate on his own love life while he was young enough to enjoy it?
How selfishly she’d been hoarding her father’s love for herself all these years.
She watched him with Anne Stacy and recognized him as a man hungry for the companionship of a woman, not a daughter. And at that moment, she vowed that no matter how awkward or difficult it was, she would step back and give him the room he needed to reach out to another.
Feeling strangely isolated, Juliet slipped outside into the searing heat of afternoon. Looking off into the shimmering distance, as if hoping to find some answer there, she sighed and wondered what to do.
At first, she thought the desert was playing tricks with her vision. But gradually an approaching blur became a rider, and that rider defined itself as Noble Banning.
“Papa, Major Banning is coming in alone!”
Noble dragged the pony up in front of the Crowleys’ adobe. He dismounted, his bad leg buckling. Without a thought or hesitation, Juliet slipped under his arm to support him as he faced her father with whatever news etched his features so starkly.
“The men are under attack in Bright’s Canyon. We rode right into it, sir, and they started picking us off like flies.”
“How is it that you survived to bring the news back, Banning?” Miles sneered in contempt as he approached with a handful of enlisted men trailing. “You were in charge. They’re your men, yet here you are. Are you sure you didn’t just run scared and leave them all to die?”
“You bastard,” Noble hissed at him. “I don’t have time to explain or to deal with you now, but I will. That’s a promise. Colonel, I need a company to ride back with me. I’ve lost too many not to see the rest of them saved, if possible.”
The Men of Pride County: The Rebel Page 21
