And One Wore Gray (41 page)

He jerked her back against him, his whisper stinging her ear. “Give me any trouble now, Callie, and I’ll take the baby and the horse and ride. I’m damned good at riding. Alone—alone with Jared, that is—I can move like lightning.”

She went dead still in his arms. Holding her, he dragged her backward with him from the creek until they were out of view of the Yanks. He brought her back until they were beneath the oak where Jared lay.

He slept. While the world rocked around him, the baby slept, his face as peaceful as that of an angel beneath the sunlight that flickered through the leaves of the trees.

Daniel set her beside him and rose, and she knew that he intended to leave her there.

She was suddenly very frightened.

She tried to make some sound to stop him. Fighting her fury and her fear, she stared at him with imploring eyes.

To her amazement, he paused. His fingers moved gently over her cheek. “Scream now and I really might throttle you,” he warned.

He slipped the bandanna from her mouth.

“Daniel, you have to let me go!” she whispered. “What if Jared awakes? He’ll cry out—”

“If his mother hasn’t done so first.”

“I won’t. I swear it.” She hesitated. “On his life, Daniel, I swear it.”

He hesitated only a moment longer, then roughly turned her about. A second later she was free.

She had no chance to say anything else to him. By the time she twirled around, he was gone.

Nervously, she knelt beside the baby and looked past the brush and tall grasses to the opposite side of the creek.

Her hand flew to her mouth as she saw Daniel behind the Yankee troops. One by one, and with a silent agility and speed, he moved from Yankee horse to Yankee horse, freeing them all. The company of Yanks, involved with their thirst
and
their desire to douse themselves in the cool water, were making a fair amount of noise.

None of them noticed Daniel.

Callie’s heart seemed to hammer against, her chest. As he neared the end of the line of horses, Daniel held on to the reins of the last pair. Both were tall bays, and both looked healthy, and well fed. Far more so than the pathetic roan they had been riding.

He was coming back around for her with the fresh horses, she realized. She started to rise, but maintained a low position on the balls of her feet. She watched Daniel as he moved far to the rear of the Yankee soldiers, circling them widely. He was well down the creek before he crossed it once again, and then she lost sight of him.

She was still searching for him when she felt his hands on her shoulders. She nearly jumped, but his whisper quickly touched her ear. “Get the baby. I’ll get our things.”

She did as he told her, quickly scooping Jared into her arms and against her shoulder. She hurried after Daniel in time to see him throwing the saddlebags over
the haunches of one of the Yankee mounts, a
tall
bay that glistened in the early morning sunlight.

“Here!” he called to her softly. She hurried over to him. His hands were on her waist and he lifted her quickly, setting her upon the first horse. She balanced the baby tightly against her chest as she reached for the reins. For a fleeting second his eyes touched hers. “I’ll be right behind you,” he warned.

She didn’t answer him. He didn’t deserve an answer.

A moment later, he was mounted himself on the second horse. The Yanks still hadn’t noticed that their entire line of horses had been released. Some of their mounts wandered to the high grasses near them; some had ambled clean away.

“Go!” Daniel urged Callie.

It was just then that Jared chose to awake, letting out a lusty and hungry wail.

Callie’s gaze met Daniel’s once again. “Go!” he roared. Riding up behind her, he slapped her horse hard on the rump. The animal leapt forward, then began to race in a long, clean gallop. It was all that Callie could do to hold the baby and the reins. Foliage slapped her and tugged hard at her flesh and clothing and hair. She was blinded by the branches that tore at
her,
desperate to shield Jared from danger.

Even as she left the embankment behind, she realized that Daniel raced after her. Her horse, spurred on by the sounds of his behind it, raced on at a frantic pace. They reached the road, and a small bridge that crossed the creek farther down from the bend where they had spent the night.

Her horse tore over the bridge. Daniel followed. She heard him shouting “Woah!” and he reined in his horse.

She brought her own mount under control and turned it around. Daniel had paused on the bridge, she saw, because two of the Yankee soldiers had managed
to capture their horses and come in pursuit of her and Daniel.

Daniel drew his sword from its scabbard. A Rebel cry, a sound so frightening it even brought chills to her spine, tore from his lips, and carried hauntingly on the air as he charged his enemies, his sword swinging.

He didn’t need to slay either of them. The men were so unnerved by his charge that they backed their horses too close to the edge of the bridge. Callie watched as men and horses went plunging over it amidst the sounds of their own screams. The horses quickly staggered up; the men, drenched and demoralized, barely made it to their knees.

Daniel spun his mount about and started to race toward Callie. There was one more horseman coming up behind him.

“Daniel!”

She shouted his name in warning.

He twirled his mount around once again. The grace of his horsemanship was so fine and deadly that it held a rare and chilling beauty.

The Yankee coming his way reined in.

It was just a boy, Callie thought. He couldn’t even really be eighteen, she was convinced.

He faced Daniel and Daniel’s very lethal cavalry sword.

No! Callie cried out in her heart. No, please.

But if the boy came after Daniel, Daniel would have to slay him. To defend himself, and her, and Jared. She closed her eyes. She couldn’t bear to see it. She didn’t want to see Daniel slain, but neither did she want to see this boy fall beneath his steel.

“Stop, son!”

She was startled to hear Daniel’s voice, and her eyes flew open. He was sitting still atop his new mount, staring at the boy.

“Come no further.”

“Sir, you are my prisoner!” the young Yank said in a wavering voice.

“Sir, like hell I am!” Daniel replied. “Go back, boy, save your fool life!”

But the lad, quivering as he might be, drew his own sword and faced Daniel.

“Daniel, no!”

She didn’t know she had intended to cry out until she did so. And then she was terribly afraid. Daniel didn’t turn, but apparently he had heard her.

“Oh, the hell with this!” he muttered.

She watched in horror as he pulled out his Colt pistol with his left hand. The boy’s eyes widened in fear; his face blanched.

Daniel shot at the bridge, his bullet lodging into the wood barely an inch from the Yank horse’s hoof.

The horse screamed and reared, and the boy went catapulting from it.

“Ride!” Daniel commanded Callie.

She turned to do so, giving her horse free rein to gallop down the road. Daniel was behind her once again. Despite the pounding of her own horse’s hooves, she could hear that he followed her.

And again, she knew when he paused.

She knew, once again, that they were being followed.

She reined in even as Daniel did. Closing in on them was Eric Dabney himself.

Eric’s horse’s reins lay idle over the saddle.

Eric held a rifle aimed their way. Callie wasn’t at all certain which of them he intended to hit. Her heart thundered hard. He would kill one of them.

She heard the explosion of a shot and a scream ripped from her lips. But Daniel didn’t fall, and neither did she. Jared shrieked, but she quickly ascertained that he had not been hit.

A shout of pain and fury reached her ears, and she
saw Eric Dabney fall from his horse to the ground. He rolled, and came to his knees gripping his arm.

Callie realized that Daniel had drawn his Colt once again, and that miraculously, he had beat Eric to the trigger.

“Bastard Rebel varmint!” Eric shouted in a rage. “You’ll pay, Cameron! I swear, you’ll pay for this!”

“Go!” Daniel commanded Callie, and once again, he gave her mount a firm slap upon its hindquarters. Her horse leapt into flight.

And this time, as Callie raced with the wind, no one followed.

No one except Daniel.

She was running with her enemy.

After the incident by the creek Daniel drove them harder than ever. He was too smart a horseman to race the horses forever, but he didn’t let up on a continuous movement. They paused only to water the horses once they had cooled down, and then they rode, relentlessly.

It was night before he allowed them to rest, and by then, Callie’s stomach was truly grumbling. The day had been hot, and then it had rained, and then it had become hot again. She was exhausted from the hours in the saddle, worn ragged from the heat and the dampness.

When Daniel dismounted at last and came to set her on her feet, she nearly fell over. The look in his eyes, however, kept her standing.

“You—varmint!” she exploded. “You really think that I had Rudy Weiss send someone after us!”

He didn’t answer her. He turned away and reached to take the saddlebags from his horse’s haunches.

It was the wrong side of enough for Callie. Her limbs found new life. With Jared cradled strongly in one arm, she marched on Daniel and sent a fierce punch into his back with her free hand. It must have packed a certain wallop, for he spun on her with his eyes wide and his teeth clenched. “Bastard!” she hissed. “And you must
think that I sat there and pinched my own baby to make him cry out when it appeared that the Yanks might not stop us! I enjoy a reckless gallop across the countryside with my infant in my arms! Arrgh!” The sound escaped her, a cry, a growl, an emission of her deep-seated rage and resentment. She smashed her fist against his chest with the same fury.

“Stop it, Callie!” he cried in turn, catching her wrist, twisting it, pulling her against him. Her gaze met his, still in a rage. “Stop!”

“You stop!”

“Give me one good reason to trust you!”

She wrenched free of his hold, amazed that she could be so angry and feel the flash of tears burning in her eyes.

“One good reason? All right, Daniel, I’ll give you the best. You should have trusted me, no matter what, because I loved you.”

“Love is a word, Callie. One you know how to use well.”

She inhaled sharply. “I was trying to save your life, you fool Reb!”

“By sending me to a Yankee prison camp?”

“You’re not invincible, Daniel. They would have killed you.”

He took a step toward her. There was a deep tension etched into his features. “Would that I could really believe that, Callie. Would that I could trust you.”

The tears that had burned her eyes threatened to spill over. Maybe she had planted the seeds of doubt within his mind, but he still didn’t believe her. Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe the war had made him too mistrustful, too bitter.

But she had told him the truth, as simple as it was. And she wasn’t risking placing her heart beneath his feet any longer.

She backed away from him, rubbing her chaffed
wrist. “Don’t bother to put yourself out on my account, Colonel. You must be a bitter man, dragging me through enemy territory. Don’t ever forget, Daniel, that I am a Yankee. I believe in our cause. If you must mistrust me, go ahead and do so. I’ve never lied to you about my loyalties.”

He stared at her. In the night, she couldn’t fathom the emotion in his eyes.

Perhaps there was none.

She spun on her heel, and walked away from him. Exhausted, heartsick, and bone weary, she sank down by a tree. Jared was fussy. She tried to feed him and crooned to him softly. She was so hungry herself perhaps she wasn’t making decent milk for him anymore. She closed her eyes. Even the extent of her anger was fading. Everything was fading except for the pit of hunger at the bottom of her stomach.

She didn’t realize that Daniel had left her until she began to smell something with an aroma so sweet and tantalizing that she thought she had to be dreaming. What a dream. She smelled something fresh-baked, like a pie crust. There was meat in it. Maybe even beef. It had that rich, wonderful scent of beef and gravy.

There was no beef to be had. Daniel hadn’t caught and cooked anything because he didn’t want to light a fire by night.

But oh, what a dream!

Her eyes flew open.

She wasn’t dreaming. Daniel was hunched down before her with a fresh meat pie in his hands. Steam wafted above it, and it was the steam that brought the incredibly sweet and wonderful scent to her nose.

She stared at him, amazed.

He produced the fork from his mess kit, and handed it to her. She kept staring at him. “Eat slowly, or you’ll get sick,” he warned her. “But how—where—?”

“A farmhouse window, a good mile down the road. There were three of them. I only took one.”

“You stole this?”

“I confiscated it.”

“Stole it.”

“Do you want to eat it or not?”

She did. She started to raise Jared to her shoulder, but Daniel reached for his son. The baby began to cry, but for once her hunger was stronger than her maternal instinct. It had been Daniel’s idea to drag him through the countryside like this. And Daniel had claimed to be good with babies. He was welcome to be good now.

And he was. He walked away from her, gently rocking the baby on his shoulder, talking to him. Callie couldn’t hear his words. She worried for just a second, and then she worried no more. She dived into the meat pie.

The first bite was heaven. The second bite was even sweeter still. She tried to warn herself to slow down, but the food was so good that she began to eat faster and faster. The food hit her empty stomach. Had she been standing, she would have swayed. She bit down hard, fighting a wave of nausea. Slowly, it passed. She looked down at the pie again. She had eaten more than half of it.