Outside, Emory went on to his assigned quarters for the night. Weland tipped his hat, smiled curiously, and headed for his bed in the medical tent.
Jeremy took hold of Christa’s arm and steered her toward their own quarters.
“It’s amazing just how much you can like Yankees when you choose, Christa!” he told her. His escorting of her through the tent flap was much more like a thrust.
A lantern had been lit for them. Nathaniel, always seeing to their welfare, Christa thought.
She spun around, facing Jeremy. “Me? You have a problem stomaching Rebels, but apparently you were very fond of one in Mississippi. Why didn’t you marry her? Did you change your mind? Do you have another child? What is it, Jeremy, a girl or a boy? Do you at least send the poor woman some sort of—”
She broke off with a gasp because he was striding toward her looking murderous. He paused just before he reached her, his eyes closed tight, his teeth nearly bared. She heard them grating. “Don’t you ever question me about my past again!” he hissed, turning away from her, unbuckling his sword belt.
A trembling shot through her. She moistened her lips as he stared at her again. He had started this, not she. She just wanted the truth, even if she was going about it the wrong way.
“Then perhaps you should refrain from commenting on me!” she whispered fiercely.
He spun around to face her. “I wouldn’t comment on your past. It’s the present I couldn’t quite help but notice! You might have been sitting on the lawn at Cameron Hall tonight, the queen-of-all-she-surveyed, the damned belle of the ball, flirting as if every swain in twelve counties was after her.”
“How dare you!” Christa began, her voice low and throaty and dangerous. “When you’ve been running all over the South procreating!”
She cried out because he held her shoulders in an awful vice. “I have no children, madam. None. The lady is dead, the child with her. And I don’t care to hear about it from you again, are we understood?”
“Yes!” she cried out. “Just let me go!”
He loosened his hold, and she wrenched herself away, turning her back to him. Angry, hurt, frightened, she found words flowing from her. Words that would hurt.
“I was trying to be pleasant to your friend!” she said. “And he was very much a gentleman. He might have been a Yankee, but he reminded me of—”
“Jesse?”
“No …”
“Who, dammit?”
“Liam!”
“Ah, yes! The wondrous Liam!” Jeremy said. He sat down on the foot of the bed and wrenched off his boots. “Well, that is one thing I can promise you. I will do my best never, never to remind you of Liam!”
He was usually so meticulous with his clothing, but tonight he nearly ripped every button from his cavalry shirt as he stripped it off. Christa moved away from him, unnerved by the depths of his temper.
She recalled the timbre in his voice when he told her that the Mississippi girl was dead. He loved her still, she thought.
“What the hell are you doing!” he snapped out suddenly. He was up, shedding his trousers, then standing naked in the lamplight, his hands on his hips.
Again, in the midst of all this anger, she thought of Celia’s words about him. She swallowed, trying not to allow her eyes to roam down the hard-muscled length of his body.
“I’m keeping my distance,” she murmured.
“Get in bed.”
“I am not getting in bed with you when you’re in this mood!”
Two long strides brought him across the tent before she could retreat further. “You’re getting in bed with me no matter what my mood!” he informed her. He swung her around, undoing the buttons on her dress. She felt a trembling begin in her and she started to move away.
“I’ll rip it into shreds,” he warned, and she stood still.
“If you think—”
“I think I’m getting some sleep!” he announced.
He spun her around again, shimmying the dress from her body, then picking her up in chemise and pantalets and setting her down on the bed. He blew out the lamp on his desk and joined her.
She waited.
Waited for the touch of his fingers, for the heat of his desire.
They did not come.
An hour later when she knew that he slept while she was still lying there awake, she wondered if he dreamed of a dead girl.
And if he compared Christa with the sweet Mississippian of his past.
And if he didn’t find Christa to be lacking in comparison.
* * *
He had been up some time before she rose the next morning. Nathaniel called her from outside the tent to warn her that they were nearly ready; the tent needed to be broken down, she needed to be ready to ride herself.
She started to rise, then stared down the bedding at her blanket.
There was a creature on it. A spider. Not just any spider. A huge, massive, hairy spider. Step by step it came crawling up her blanket.
She felt a scream rising in her throat. She fought it. The spider was moving slowly enough.
“Nat—Nathaniel!” she cried. It should have been loud. It came out like a whisper.
“Mrs. McCauley? What is it?” She could sense his confusion. He couldn’t come bursting in on her. Then she heard him calling to someone, saying that something was wrong.
She was staring at the thing when the flap flew open. Jeremy burst back into the tent.
“Just stay still,” he told her. He slipped a glove from his hand and slapped the thing from her blanket to the ground. He crushed it with his boot. She heard a strange crackling and popping sound and felt ill for the first time in ages.
She moistened her lips. “Was it—lethal?”
He shook his head. “It was a tarantula,” he told her. “The bite can make you very sick, but it’s seldom lethal. Are you all right?”
No! She wasn’t all right! She hated spiders, especially big brown ugly spiders like that! She hated polecats in her bed, and most of all she hated feeling alone, the way that she had felt last night.
“Yes, I’m all right,” she told him.
For a moment, she thought that he would come to her. Hold her. But he didn’t. “Come on, then. Get up. We’ve got to move,” he said softly.
Then he was gone.
She dressed quickly, fervently shaking out her clothes. Nathaniel brought her coffee. He tried to tell her that she might well have scared the spider more than the spider scared her. “They’re really mighty curious creatures, Mrs. McCauley. They can build little trap doors for their nests that open when they leave and close tight when they come back. They spin webs finer than any silk cocoon you can imagine!”
“That’s wonderful,” she told him.
“I’ll look things over real good tonight, I promise, Mrs. McCauley.”
She smiled, then gave his arm a quick squeeze. “You’re a godsend, Nathaniel. Thank you.”
He managed to cheer her up, being so considerate and in a very good mood himself.
“We’re out on the prairie today, Mrs. McCauley. Beautiful country with high plains and deep ridges. Wild things as far as the eye can see! We might even see a buffalo or two today.”
“You think so?”
“I think so. If the critters haven’t headed too far north by now!” he said.
Robert Black Paw came riding by. “Are you riding in the ambulance, Mrs. McCauley?”
“I think I’ll take Tilly this morning,” she told him, her hand over her eyes, shielding them from the rising sun.
He nodded. “I’ll bring her up.”
Robert was as good as his word. She had just finished packing the last of the overnight gear when he returned with Tilly, saddled and ready to ride. She didn’t see Jeremy when they started out, but two hours into the day he rode back to her at last, tipping his hat to her.
“You’ve survived?”
“Yes, so it seems.”
“If we don’t come upon a buffalo we can
take today, we’ll take out a hunting party tonight. We’ll stay close to camp, but we’ll find fresh meat.”
She nodded politely.
“If you’re frightened because of the spider—”
“I’m not frightened,” she said irritably, “and you needn’t strain yourself to be nice because of a spider!”
She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth. She bit her lower lip, but it was too late. He tipped his hat to her. “If you’ll excuse me, then …”
He galloped on ahead, moving to the front of the ranks.
It wasn’t much after that that Nathaniel rode back to her. “There’s been a buffalo spotted up ahead!”
“Really?”
She started to ride forward with him, but then she suddenly felt a curious shifting in the ground.
It came again and again.
She saw Nathaniel’s dark eyes widen. “God above us!” he whispered.
Then someone else shouted out. “It ain’t a buffalo! It’s hundreds of buffalo!”
“Jesu!” came a cry. “Jesu—stampede!”
Twelve
“Stampede!” someone yelled again in warning.
The earth didn’t tremble—it shook.
Christa knew the feel of cannon fire and the feel of shot. She even knew the feel of the earth when hundreds or thousands of men were marching over it.
She had never felt anything like this. It was as if the whole world was giving away. The noise of it began to rise. It had started off sounding so low that she had barely heard it, and then it grew and grew. It was becoming a whirl, a cacophony of rhythmic pounding, a force that knew no bounds.
She was so absorbed with it that she was startled when Tilly suddenly reared high, letting out a snort of terror. She just barely brought the horse under control, her eyes meeting her husband’s. “You!” His finger leveled at her. “I told you not to be riding in the front!”
“I—” she started to argue, but she could see them coming now, just over his shoulder.
They were horrible, they were magnificent. They came in a wave of brown and black, in a cloud of dirt and earth they kicked up in their frantic run. They looked like a swarm of locusts descended upon the plain, except that they were massive. Such strange creatures! Their heads so large, their shoulders huge, and their legs seeming so spindly to hold that bulky weight! But hold it they did. The creatures raced. Their great heads downward and butted forward, they ran with amazing speed and amazing dexterity. Beneath them and around them the earth continued to move. Great billowing clouds of dirt and dust rose and rushed before them, around them, and in their wake.
Indeed, they had changed the very landscape! It had been a simple plain, dry and dusty, with tufts of grass here and there, low, lonely foliage, and a blue sky overhead. The plain ran flat except for a ridge here and there, such as the one they stood on. Undulating only slightly, with that soft roll beneath the sun and blue sky, the place had seemed secure, serene.
Until the buffalo had begun to move.
More dangerous than any storm, more merciless in their mindless rush. The sky had turned gray; the sun was gone. The sound was becoming deafening.
Nothing could move them! Christa thought. Nothing could stop or move them. And anything caught in their path would be brutally, horribly crushed and broken beneath them. A man or woman would be left in torn and bloody pieces.
She moistened her dry lips, her eyes wide when she glanced at Jeremy again.
He wasn’t in awe of the creatures—he was angry with her. Sitting atop Gemini—the well-trained cavalry horse who had carried him through the duration of the war—he rode with his customary easy grace, barely aware of the animal beneath him. This was his command.
The massive animals charging toward them were his concern.
“Get back!” he ordered her, his eyes blazing silver. “All the way back where you were told to ride!” He turned from her, a yellow-gauntleted hand raised to the whole of the company behind them.
“They’ll be over the rise in a matter of minutes!” he called. His arm was moving in a circle, ordering the company back against its left flank. “Major Brooks! Hold the lead steady here, I’ll bring in the rear. Not a horse, mule, or beast forward!”
He nudged Gemini and the experienced war horse moved forward. Christa hadn’t had a chance to move; she had that chance now. Jeremy caught hold of Tilly’s reins. He pulled her along behind him as he rode down the length of the ranks, shouting out his orders. Christa felt like a punished child, being dragged along.
But she also felt the keen edge of fear. All around her the noise of the stampede grew. Hundreds and thousands of buffalo were coming their way, climbing over rises, dipping into valleys. The air was already filled with dust and dirt, and the earth continued to tremble and shake as if it would disintegrate at any moment.
They galloped down the line of the men. Jeremy was making no attempt to move the whole of his column of men, horses, and wagons. Instead, he lined them in a narrow band just beneath the butt of the ridge, hard to the left flank. At the tail end of it, he released her reins, jumped down from his horse, and lifted her from Tilly. He thrust her toward Robert Black Paw, who, with Nathaniel, was helping calm a pair of mules.
Robert took her instinctively. “Get her below the ridge!” Jeremy commanded.
He leapt back up atop Gemini. Christa pulled from the Indian’s hold, dismayed by the fear that surged through her. “Jeremy—”
But he had turned his horse and was riding hard down the line again at a full gallop.
“What’s he doing?” she demanded miserably.
“He’s going to see that the lead animals steer clear of our line,” he told her.
“He’s going to go out there? In front of them? That’s insane! He’ll be killed.” She started to struggle.
Robert Black Paw held her back. “No! Come, Mrs. McCauley, down below the ridge.”
She had no choice. Robert Black Paw dragged her stiff body down beneath the knoll of the rise and close against it. She was sheltered here from the swirl of dust and dirt. But the noise of the buffalo’s pounding footfalls seemed all the more increased. Horses were screaming now in panic; the men were shouting, trying to hold them, to calm them.
Jeremy continued to ride straight toward the stampeding herd.
“My God, let me go! What is he doing! He’s got to come back!” she cried, struggling against Robert.
He held her politely, but firmly. Robert Black Paw took his orders from her husband well, Christa thought bitterly. If he’d been shot dead, he’d die holding her tight!
But he was a good man, too, she knew. And if his hold was rigid, his words were gentle and reassuring. “He knows what he’s doing. He’s ridden these trails before.”
“He’s not a rock! A buffalo will crush him—”
“Watch!”
Robert pointed a finger past her nose. Over the ridge of earth at her side she could see the path that the buffalo were running. Their narrow line offered the buffalo a wide path. They were beginning to arrive, with just a few of the strays edging to the side. Then she saw Jeremy. At the least, he wasn’t alone. Two of his officers were with him. They were waving brightly colored blankets and making almost enough noise to be heard above the stampede.
Christa’s heart seemed to fly to her throat. One of the massive creatures had veered Jeremy’s way. To her astonishment, Jeremy started to ride down on it, hard, headed for a collision.
A cry escaped her.
But at the last moment the creature turned and ran toward the clear path, and those behind it followed suit.
She sank back against Robert. She hadn’t felt ill in a long time now, but she was suddenly afraid she was going to lose everything she had consumed for the last two weeks.
She heard a shot and jumped in panic, leaping away from Robert.
“What is it? What’s happened now?” she cried out.
Smiling, Robert Black Paw set his hands on his hips. “There??
?ll be fresh meat for supper tonight, Mrs. McCauley. Your husband brought down one of the last of them.” He hopped up the short distance to stand atop the ridge again. He reached down a hand to her.
As she crawled atop it, the world around her seemed to be split by a cacophony of noise once again.
The buffalo were gone. The earth was still trembling slightly, as if the aftermath of some great cataclysm. The buffalo were still running, but far past them now. In their wake gray dirt and dust followed them like a windstorm.
Closer to her immediate vicinity, the noise was caused by the pick-up measures necessary after the stampede. One of the wagons had fallen over and a group of soldiers was righting it. Some of the horses had run off and Jeremy was now giving orders to men to go after them. The columns were re-forming. Sergeant Jaffe—Jeremy’s favorite among the company cooks—was busy supervising men over the buffalo carcass.
Robert Black Paw, his duty to her ended, was leading a pair of mules and a wagon back onto the trail. Jeremy was still riding around giving orders. Christa saw that Tilly had held her head and remained nearby, and was now eating up little pieces of grass from the stampede. Christa caught hold of her reins and mounted her horse. She cantered over to the buffalo.
She felt sorry to see the great creature down. Close up, the head seemed even more ridiculously large in comparison to the body. Except that its eyes were tiny in that huge face, and part of the reason the head seemed so big was that it was covered with shaggy fur. Alone and downed it didn’t seem such a menace. A streak of pity danced through her. It was an ugly beast, but in some curious way it was beautiful, too, by simple virtue of its magnificent size and power.
“Now, don’t go feeling sorry for it, Mrs. McCauley!” Sergeant Jaffe told her. “Rations can get mighty lean out here, and the way I see it there ain’t nothing like starving through winter! God put these creatures out here to feed us all. Don’t you go turning up your pretty nose at buffalo meat!”
From her seat atop Tilly, Christa shook her head. She could have told him that she had watched a whole nation almost starve, but she kept her silence.