Maybe Jeremy sensed that she was at the doorway listening. Maybe he even realized that she might be enjoying a moment of feeling just a little bit smug. “If I know Christa, she’ll do well enough,” he said. “It’s the Comanche we’ll have to worry about, I think.”
“What—” Jesse began, but by then Christa was swirling into the room, her skirts rustling around her as she entered, her chin high. She smiled, although it felt like her smile was chiseled of plaster. Jeremy had seen her skirt, she realized, from his vantage point behind the map. He had known that she was there.
No matter.
She headed straight to the whiskey decanter, determined to ignore Jeremy if he should give her a look that insinuated she was being in the least improper.
So much for manners and mores. She poured out two fingers of whiskey, then stared at Jeremy. He didn’t appear shocked. He seemed amused.
So that was to be her fate in life. To amuse him at every turn! She pushed the whiskey aside. Her stomach was churning. She didn’t want it anymore.
“Well, what do you think, Christa?” Daniel asked her.
“You should think about this, seriously,” Jesse said.
It was her opportunity. Her golden opportunity to tell Jeremy to play cowboys and Indians all on his own. She’d stay home. Her brothers would protect her.
But her brothers were, at long last, getting a chance to lead normal lives with their families. And, yes, she could stay. They loved her. She would have a place …
A place on the fringe of life.
Jeremy moved around the table, away from the map, fingering his whiskey glass. He strode over to Christa and added a new shot to his glass, his eyes probing hers, silver and steel.
“They’re really fascinating, you know. We whites, especially here on the eastern seaboard, have a habit of grouping Indians together. Their societies are so unique. Take the Choctaw and the Cherokee. Christa, you’ll meet several. They have excellent systems of justice, and their tribal laws are impressive. The Arikara, along the Missouri, tolerate such curious practices that their neighbors on the Missouri have moved away. They choose to live in earth lodges, keeping all their garbage between them. They practice incest, and spend the winter chasing one another’s wives. The Cheyenne are famous for their chastity. The wives often belong to guilds, and brag about their domestic abilities with greater pride than the bucks brag about their hunting prowess.”
“Then there are the Sioux, the Apache, and the Comanche,” Jesse reminded him.
Jeremy was intending to shock her, she realized. Did he suspect what she had already heard? She wouldn’t show him that she was afraid. Ever.
She smiled, determined that she would not crack.
“Tell me about the Comanche,” she said pleasantly.
“Christa, maybe you shouldn’t—” Daniel began.
“Oh, no! I’m just dying to hear anything that Jeremy can tell me!”
“They tend to be small and bandy-legged. They are the horsemen of the plains—no man rides better than a Comanche. They are inordinately proud of their stealth.” He walked around her, his voice coming husky. “They say that a fellow named Walking Bear stole a Texan’s wife away while he was sleeping right beside her. They are fond of taking captives, and sometimes they are fond of torturing them. At night, if their cries are too loud, they are fond of cutting their tongues out.”
“Good Lord, Jeremy—” Jesse started to protest.
“Jesse, it’s quite all right,” Christa said quickly. “This is going to be my life. I should know about these things.”
“You’ll start a new life frightened and miserable!” Daniel warned her. “Perhaps you should stay home. Until the baby is born, until Jeremy is established, at the very least.”
Here it was again—her golden opportunity.
“But Christa is never frightened, are you, my love?” Jeremy queried.
She spun around. His eyes were sizzling out a challenge. Or maybe he was goading her into doing his will. One or the other, it didn’t matter. He was going to win.
She spun around to smile broadly at her brothers again. “My, my! I’ve married a Yank. How on earth could I ever be frightened of a short, little Comanche?”
“They tend to be short,” Jeremy said suddenly. She spun around. His fingers were now tense around his glass, and his eyes seemed to blaze into hers. “Some are tall. And smart. And great forces to be reckoned with. They can be passionate, and very fierce. Perhaps you should stay home.”
Even Jeremy was saying it now. All she had to do was speak.
But she didn’t speak, and the moment was swiftly gone. He lifted his glass to her. “But Christa Cameron, the great Rebel, is coming west. I say that the Comanche, Apache, Kiowa—all—had best take care. Right, my love?”
“Certainly,” she replied, and lifted her glass in kind. “After all, I shall have the great Colonel McCauley at my side. No brave would dare to steal his wife, I’m sure.”
“Let’s hope not,” Jesse murmured. His eyes were darkening with concern. She could sense that Daniel was about to jump in and there was only so much that Jeremy could do to keep peace in the family.
“I know that I will be just fine!” she said enthusiastically, her eyes rising to Jeremy’s. Damn him! He seemed to want her to back out now, to cause some problem. What was the matter with him? He had, at the least, helped her with her brothers before.
He sighed suddenly, reaching out for her. She remembered the last time that he had touched her, and a sizzle of burning heat came sweeping through her. But he merely slipped an arm through hers and led her back to the map. “Let me show you the way you’ll be coming to join me. The train will take you from Richmond to Washington, and from Washington you’ll pass through to Illinois, and then come south again down the Mississippi by steamer—”
“Washington?” she said, dismayed.
“It’s the best way,” Jesse explained to her.
“I’m going to travel north to arrive southwest?”
“Christa, half the railways in the South still need repairing,” Daniel told her. She sensed just the slightest note of bitterness in his tone. “And even if they didn’t, that’s your best route. Honestly.”
She nodded, staring at the map. It was going to be a long, long journey.
She looked up. Jeremy was staring at her again. She looked quickly back to the table. It was one of Jesse’s old maps, one he’d acquired in Kansas before the war. There were no marks on it that drew lines between the North and the South.
There was no North, and no South. It was all one big country once again.
And here was a map with broad stretches in the West with names like “No-man’s-land.”
It would be wild and untamed. And it might even be free from the heavy hand of Reconstruction.
“It should be a fascinating journey,” she said. Her head was pounding. There were more words on the map. Words that broke the big territory down into smaller, more frightening areas.
The words were Indian names: Shoshone, Cheyenne, Choctaw, Sioux, Blackfeet, Crow, Apache, Comanche, and more.
They were all looking at her now. She could feel their eyes on her. Jesse was worried. Daniel was growing hostile.
What was Jeremy thinking? Had he decided that he had been roped into this misery, but that she really wasn’t worth the effort anymore? He might have decided that she simply wasn’t enjoyable enough material, as far as a wife went.
To her astonishment, she felt a prickling of moisture at the back of her eyes. It was the baby, she thought. It was the exhaustion she so often felt.
There were so many things she felt for her husband. She could not forgive him—not so much for winning the war, but for being so damned certain that he had always been right. She hated him sometimes. Most men went out of their way to be charming to her, while Jeremy wouldn’t give her the courtesy of believing in the smallest feminine lie. She hated him, yes, and she wanted to best him. She wanted to prove to him that southe
rn “belles” had always been made of sterner stuff. She wanted to prove to him that she wasn’t afraid, that she could do anything a northern girl could do, and better.
And she was intrigued. By his eyes, gun-metal gray one minute, silver the next. And she was fascinated by the hard-muscled grace of his body. She was determined to deny him, and equally determined that he would never lose his desire to have her.
She had married him, and she was going to have his baby. Her fingers trembled.
Twelve men had been found with fifty arrows apiece protruding from them. Their ears and their genitals had been cut off. Stuffed into their mouths. Comanches liked to cut out the tongues of their victims.
“My love?” Jeremy murmured, watching her.
She was going to travel west.
She ran her finger over the map. “I’ve never really traveled very much,” she murmured. “Well, let’s see, I came to West Point to visit you and Daniel that winter, Jesse. And I’ve been to Washington and down south as far as Savannah, but this …” She looked up, her chin high. “This will be quite different. How long will it be before I meet up with you in Little Rock, Jeremy?”
He smiled. Another of his taunting, amused smiles. Yet she thought that there was a glitter of admiration in his silver eyes. “Not that long, my love. Assuming you’re ready to leave in another two weeks, the journey will take you about two weeks. We won’t be parted more than a month. That shouldn’t be too distressing, should it?”
“Oh, I shall just pine every day!” she murmured. She spun around suddenly, feeling as if she were choking. She wasn’t about to let him know that she was feeling ill again—he might mistake it for cowardice.
“Gentlemen, do return to your whiskey and conversation. If you’ll excuse me …”
She didn’t give a damn if they excused her or not. She needed to escape.
In her wake, she was certain that she sensed Jeremy’s silent laughter.
As they rode into Richmond late the following afternoon, Jeremy watched Christa’s face and became heartily sorry that he had ever suggested that she ride in with Jesse and say good-bye to him.
Maybe they had all become hardened—he, Jesse, Daniel, and others. Maybe they’d just all seen so much battle that the aftermath couldn’t seem too terrible.
But it was.
The streets of Richmond were filled with maimed and broken men. Amputations had saved thousands upon thousands of lives, but watching the results now was painful.
On every street they passed, there were men. Some were walking, some were just sitting. Half of them were missing some part of their bodies. Many were still clad in their uniforms, or pieces of uniforms. Tattered gray shirts covered scrawny chests. Many were unshaven, dirty.
But the worst of it was the look in their eyes. They looked as if they had lost everything.
They had. And the hopelessness was more difficult to see than death in battle. Death was sometimes merciful.
This endless anguish was merciless.
And there were more than just the tragically maimed, wounded, and lost to fill the streets of the city. Whores strode freely and boldly where the most chaste and modest of women had once strolled. Brazen, red-lipped and red-gowned, they shouted to any able-bodied man they saw. Soldiers in Union blue walked here and there, some on business and in a hurry, some off duty and strolling about, some saddened by the loss of humanity, and some pleased that the blasted Rebels had been broken.
Then there were the moneylenders and the businessmen. Garish folk, dressed in bright shirts and striped trousers, standing up on soap boxes. Mostly they promised the lost and wandering slaves wonderful riches for working for them. Paid labor from the first streaks of sunup to the last whisper of light in the sky. But they would work as free men for a pittance—not enough to feed the families now looking to them for food and sustenance.
He hadn’t lied to Daniel or Jesse yesterday. He was heartily sick of Reconstruction.
Christa, attired in a maroon riding habit and actually riding sidesaddle and looking very composed today, reined in suddenly. He realized that they had come upon the large dwelling that had once been the White House of the Confederacy.
Through the long years of the war, the Jefferson Davises had resided here. Varina, gracious and beautiful, had entertained, always seeking to keep up morale, her husband’s staunchest supporter no matter what his difficulties with the North—or with his own generals. In northern camps, the men may have poked fun at Jeff Davis before their campfires but Varina had earned a reputation that had made her the envy of many. Poor Mary Todd Lincoln was said to be part crazy, and now, with Lincoln murdered, the poor lady was in sad shape, indeed. She had never been popular with the northern troops.
Now, men in blue uniforms hurried in and out of the White House of the Confederacy. Christa stared.
“Christa!” Jesse said her name softly. She didn’t seem to hear him.
“Christa!” Jeremy said more harshly. “Ride on by! It will be easier!”
She rode. She spurred her horse and rode on ahead of them. Jeremy glanced at Jesse. She didn’t have any idea of where she was riding.
They both spurred their horses, hurrying to catch up with her. Christa was well dressed; her mare, Tilly, was an exceptional Arabian. Alone, she could be inviting trouble.
They rounded a corner where merchants were in the street selling goods for exorbitant prices. Yankee prices. Southern pride might remain, but no one wanted southern money. There was a stand where tomatoes were going for two bits a piece. Milk was sky high, meat almost untouchable.
As they rode by the booths, a high, venomous female voice called out.
“Yankee-loving whore!”
A missile came hurtling toward them. Realizing that it was aimed toward Christa, Jeremy instinctively moved his horse forward. He stretched out a hand to catch the flying object. It seemed to explode in his hand, spewing red, like blood, around them. Someone had thrown a tomato at Christa.
He pulled off his glove, shaking the tomato from it. Christa stared at him in horror.
“By God!” she breathed. “So very dear, so expensive, and she was willing to throw it at me!”
“Stop!” cried another woman, apparently calling out to Christa’s tormentor. “You’d have a Yankee, too, you old crone, if a Yankee would have you.”
“Let’s go on,” Jesse suggested wearily.
But Jeremy started to dismount, determined to find the guilty party.
“No!” Christa cried. Jeremy looked at her. “Please!” she whispered. “Let’s just go!” She flapped the reins over her mare’s neck.
Once again, he was hard put just to follow her alongside Jesse. “I think maybe you’d best take her to the hotel, Jesse, right away, if you don’t mind,” he said to his brother-in-law. “She’s not going to like seeing the people around the government buildings.”
“I’ll catch her,” Jesse promised, riding ahead hard. Jeremy reined in. He watched them ride on, wishing with all his heart that he’d said good-bye to her at Cameron Hall. It was a bitter world. Maybe it was best she learned that now.
He reported in to a General Babcock, and was delighted to learn that he had a company of men waiting to travel with him, including a number of friends from his old regiment. He had barely left the general’s office behind when he felt a tap on the shoulder. He turned around to see a very old friend standing there, a tall, lean black man. His name was Nathaniel Hayes, and he had never been a slave. He’d been born a free man in New York City, and from Jeremy’s Indian days long before the war, Nathaniel had been with him. He’d carried firearms in the West, and he’d been dismayed to discover how many northern white men were against his carrying a gun against the Rebel forces; captured black men—free or not—did not fare well as southern captives. Especially if they’d carried firearms. So Nathaniel had just served Jeremy. He’d never carried a firearm, but he’d written many messages for Jeremy and he’d managed to attend to his every need.
?
??Nathaniel! You came all the way down here just to travel with me?”
Nathaniel grinned broadly. “Colonel, sir, I was delighted to come down. There’s a number of the old regiment from the days we spent in Mississippi before you were sent east with Grant!”
“Tenting just outside the city?”
“That’s right, Colonel. Waiting to travel with you. Are you joining us tonight?”
He shook his head. “My wife is with me.”
“Traveling with us now, sir?”
He shook his head. “She needs to pack household belongings if we’re to make a go of it out in the wilderness. She’ll join me in Little Rock. You’ll like her, Nathaniel,” he heard himself saying.
He nodded. “Certainly, sir, that I will. She’s a southern girl, I hear.”
He nodded. Yes, she was that. A southern girl, very bitter at this moment that someone would hate her enough to throw a tomato at her—when tomatoes were so costly.
“Will you bring her tonight, sir? There’s to be something of a barn dance. We’ve some young ones, new recruits, and they’ve managed to attract some of the young ladies hereabouts. With your permission, sir!”
“Permission granted,” Jeremy assured him. “And yes, I’ll come to see to my personal equipment, and to introduce my wife to the men.”
As it turned out, Christa was not particularly interested in meeting his men. When he reached the hotel at last, he found her alone in their room. He unbuckled his scabbard, watching her as she sat staring silently out the window.
“Where’s Jesse?”
“Bathing,” she murmured absently, still staring out. She was so still and straight and miserable he wanted to offer her some comfort. She wouldn’t want his comfort, though. It was because of him that someone had thrown a tomato at her and called her a Yankee-loving whore.
“There’s to be a party, a barn dance of sorts, out where the men are tenting tonight. We’re going to attend.”
She shook her head. “You attend. I haven’t the heart for it.”
“We’ll attend, because you’re my wife.”
“I don’t feel well—”