Woman of Three Worlds (4 page)

“If you admit that,” pounced Farrow, “you'll have to agree they belong where you soldiers can control them with very little trouble.”

“There'll be trouble out of San Carlos,” the officer returned somberly. “Most of it caused by greedy white men who don't want the Indians settled where they can grow good crops, who don't want them to cut hay and sell it to the army or to become self-sufficient. It's not the Apaches I blame most for the bloody uproars in the territory, sir, but white men who profit from keeping things stirred up so they can reap windfalls from supplying starving Indians and troops detailed to guard them.

The contractor's face reddened, but his tone was silky when he said, “What's your name, Major? It might intrigue the department commander, General Kautz, to know your views.”

“I'm Hugh Erskine, sir, and the general must be well aware of my views, because they were shared by his predecessor, General George Crook, who did more to bring peace to the territory than any other man. Incidentally, he thought Apaches should be citizens with the right to vote.”

“Damn foolishness!” sputtered the contractor. “I'm glad he's up campaigning against the Sioux, and I wouldn't grieve if they took his scalp.”

The bald man slyly increased the pressure of his knees on Brittany's and shifted his cud. “Glad to see an experienced officer like you come to the territory, Major. I'm doing some prospecting and I want to find gold or silver without Apaches finding me!”

“Then I'd advise you keep off their reservation,” Erskine said.

Farrow looked aggrieved. “Ain't right for murdering heathens to get in the way of enterprise.”

“Mining on Indian land is thievery and forbidden,” warned the officer.

Farrow rolled his eyes heavenward, exchanged knowing glances with the contractor, and the passengers lapsed into silence. At the first stop, Brittany was boundlessly grateful to Hugh Erskine for quietly switching places with her so that he could dovetail his legs with Farrow's. Feeling that she could trust the gaunt officer, she fell into a deeper slumber than she had known since she left Tristesse.

III

After leaving San Antonio, Brittany had no opportunity to change her clothes. Hasty wash-ups at the stations could do little to check the effects of dust and perspiration accumulating on her clothes and body. Her odor wasn't perceptible in the coach, because Farrow stank as if he never bathed when he had the chance, but she hated to arrive at Camp Bowie in such a state.

Even though Regina, as an Army wife, must have made some onerous journeys of her own, Brittany doubted that she'd be very charitable about the arrival of a dirty, bedraggled cousin-governess. She was almost glad, then, when a loosened wheel had to be repaired, necessitating a longer stop.

Asking one of the station attendants to get down her valise, she got out clean, if wrinkled, clothes, wet one of her chemises with water from a bucket, and sought the shelter of a clump of thorny bushes.

Dusk was falling, so she felt safe from observation and stood naked in the cooling breeze, enjoying a moment of freedom from clothing of any sort, stretching her travel-cramped body before she began to make good use of the wet cloth.

In a few minutes she was much cleaner and the chemise was grimy to the last inch. She had been ten days on the road, the last seven almost continuously in the stage, and felt so light-headed and strange that she wondered if she were losing her reason as stage travelers sometimes did. She must be, because she would rather stay at this desolate mud station than get back into the coach.

You're almost there!
she chided herself.

She was reaching for her clean undergarments when a beefy hand closed on her wrist. “Now, ain't you a pretty thing!” chortled Farrow. “This ain't the time or place for it, but if you'd let me stop off a night or two with you at Camp Bowie, I'd sure make it worth your while.” He thrust a leather bag into her hand. “That's more than a soldier earns in six months!”

Too astounded at his effrontery to be frightened, Brittany swung the bag into his leering face as hard as she could, snatched up her clothes and started to run.

Smothering a yelp, he snatched at her arm. Brittany screamed as he swung her around. Too maddened or lustful to care, he dragged her against him and stopped her second cry with his foul-smelling mouth. Only for an instant, though.

Brittany reeled as her attacker was jerked away. He bellowed, brought up massive fists to club at Hugh Erskine, but the officer, thin and almost ill-looking as he was, struck the heavy man on the windpipe with the side of his palm. Farrow doubled up, gasping.

“Get your clothes on, madam.”

Erskine kept between her and the prospector, back turned as she scrambled hastily into her things. She was unspeakably humiliated that two men had seen her naked.

“Major,” she whispered, fumbling the last buttons closed. “I—I—don't know how to thank you—”

“Try not to undress in the vicinity of women-hungry men.” His tone was crisp with contempt. “Unless you promise to behave sensibly in the future, I shall consider it my duty to inform whoever's responsible for you at Camp Bowie that you appear to have little judgment and less modesty.”

“You—you wouldn't!”

“Madam, I've seen carelessness like yours lead to the deaths of good soldiers. Unless you want your folly revealed, I insist on your solemn word to be prudent as long as you're at the post.”

“You—you hateful—” Brittany couldn't think of a name bad enough for him till she remembered what Tante had shouted at a wild boar that had rooted his way into their garden. “You bastard blue-belly!”

Erskine stiffened. After a rush of anger to his thin, handsome face, she thought she glimpsed a hint of amusement in his tired eyes. “I didn't know Southern ladies swore,” he said. “But you'd better swear right now to honor my advice or I daresay your father or fiancé may discipline you as I would in his place.”

She took a deep, furious breath as Farrow lurched past them. “All right! I promise never to undress outside again—as if anyone would want to if they hadn't been on a stage ten days!” Clenching her hands, she added between clenched teeth, “I'm sure it'll disappoint you to learn that there's no man at Camp Bowie with authority to carry out the ‘discipline' you wish I'd get! My cousin's husband could only be embarrassed at your tale-bearing!”

She whirled to stalk off to the coach. Farrow had ensconced himself in the far corner, so Erskine and the contractor eyed each other with mutual dislike across their interlocked legs as the stage rolled off into the night.

Brittany woke to unearthly shrieks and the wild swaying of the coach as the driver cursed the team and cracked his whip, sending them down the bumpy road in a crazy dash. In the gray dawn she saw the body of the guard toppling to the ground, arrows jutting from chest and throat.

“Keep down!” Erskine commanded, shoving Brittany to the floor.

He thrust his service revolver out the window and fired rapidly. Farrow, shooting from the other window, cried, “They've killed our guard! Must be twenty of 'em. If you're not a damned good shot, Major, we'll wind up roasting over the wagon wheels!” He glared sideways at the contractor. “Ain't you got a gun, man?”

Pallid, the chunky man crouched low, blinked dazedly. “I don't use firearms. I—I'm a civilized man.”

“You're liable to be a dead one!”

The quiet, black-haired man drew a small pearl-handled gun from his vest. “This won't be any good till we come to close quarters.” His teeth flashed. “But then I'm a very good shot.”

“Hope that's a comfort when your brains are frying,” growled the miner. He yelled with triumph, “Got one of 'em! Hey, Major, save a few shots to hold them back while I reload. Damn it to hell! They're getting the guard's shotgun and revolvers. And they're—” He gagged. “God, I hope he was dead!”

The shouts of the driver trailed off in a cry of agony. The stage careened on till the unguided horses slammed it against a rock ledge.

Tilting, the coach splintered, wedging among the rocks so that it brought down the horses nearest it. They struggled and neighed frantically till lances stilled them.

Brittany, the contractor, and the gambler shrank against the crushed side of the coach to leave room for Major Erskine and Farrow at the opposite windows. Brittany couldn't believe what was happening. She only stared numbly at the gambler when he gripped his small weapon and spoke in a shaky voice.

“Shall I kill you now or wait till the last minute? There may not be time then. This derringer only holds one shot.”

“Don't kill me at all!”

“But if they get hold of you—”

“I'd rather be a slave till I had a chance to get away than end everything right now.”

He shook his head in disgust. “You may change your mind when some buck takes you for a squaw and his other wives torment you.”

“I can always die,” Brittany whispered. “But I'm going to live as long as there's a chance of something better.”

The gambler shrugged and fired while the major reloaded. Shuddering, Brittany glimpsed coppery skins, gleeful faces framed by long black hair and white or colored cloths tied around the foreheads.

Arrows thumped into the coach side. There was the sound of cartridges burying themselves in wood or striking off steel framing. Farrow fell back, twitching and thrashing, the side of his head blown away. The gambler made a sound of contempt at the weeping contractor and gave his weapon to Brittany, showing her how to fire it, before snatching Farrow's revolver from the miner's convulsing fingers and squatting at the window.

Farrow died before Brittany could try to help him. Retching at his blasted head, she ripped off part of her petticoat and put it over his face, as much to hide the horrid sight as to show respect for death.

As the major hunched down to reload, Brittany leaned over him and fired the little gun at a warrior dashing in on a fleet mule. She missed, but the Apache yelled and rode straight at her, lance aimed at her throat.

Brittany was too terrified to move. The gambler had emptied his cylinders. The major yanked her down, but before he could finish reloading and cover the window, there was a gurgling ululation and the sound and shock of something heavy crashing against the stage.

Dismayed howls came from the Apaches. They were firing, but not at the coach, before there came a flurry, a thunder of firing, shouts, and the sound of fleeing hooves punctuated by more shots.

As she had been unable to believe the attack, now Brittany couldn't believe it had ended. Wheels rumbled over the rocks, stopped close by.

“You folks all right?” called a resonant voice.

Major Erskine forced open the bent door, climbing out and turning to help Brittany while the two living men scrambled to earth. A wagon drawn by four mules had halted alongside.

The two men on the board seat and a white-bearded one hunkered in back were still holding their rifles. Each wore two guns holstered at his waist. The driver's blue eyes fixed for a moment on Brittany. A rush of powerful force flowed between them before, flushing hotly, Brittany dropped her gaze.

The Apaches had caught up their dead and dying, but trails of blood showed they'd been hard-hit by the wagoners. Already the band was out of sight, vanished into the rocks.

“We're alive, thanks to you,” said the major. “But there's a dead passenger and the guard must be around that bend.” He glimpsed a huddled form fifty yards back and ran to kneel by the driver. “Dead.” he said, rising.

The two younger wagoners, warily holding their rifles, went with Erskine and the gambler to bring back the guard's body. They were all grim and white-lipped when they returned with a form covered by coats.

These pitiful remains, with those of Farrow and the driver, were put in the back of the wagon, covered as decently as possible by their coats. Some mail and baggage was heaped between them and the surviving passengers, who sat on the rest, while the white-bearded old man perched where he could keep an eye on the rear.

Brittany, hampered by her skirts, was trying to climb into the wagon bed when two long brown hands closed around her waist. Startled, she turned to look into deep blue eyes that again sent trembling shock through her before this tallest of their rescuers lifted her into the wagon.

“Sit where you won't jounce out,” he advised. “I'll be driving fast in case those Apaches change their minds.”

He leaped up on the driver's seat and clucked to the mules, giving the lines a shake. The wagon lurched forward. Brittany held on to the side as she sat on her valise, beginning to shake as images of those nightmarish moments crowded into her mind. Farrow had been gross and repulsive, but to die like that—And the poor guard! At least, along with the driver, they'd died quickly.

The stage had been attacked in a shallow defile leading out of the mountains they were now approaching. Brittany looked back at the broad open valley they'd traversed during the night. The barren mountains they'd passed through glowed radiant purple and dreamy blue in the distance. She had somehow expected Camp Bowie to be built out in the open, but the old man cackled that it was only a few miles farther.

They rattled along a draw shaded by oaks and black walnuts, thickly fringed by willows and bushes. A long-eared rabbit dodged out of their way. Deer bounded like wraiths through the high grass. A cardinal flashed in an oak, and she felt a homesick pang at the familiar song of a mockingbird.

Why had she come to this terrible, dangerous place? She could surely have found work in Jefferson working in somebody's house. Over the piled baggage, she saw the three dead men and hoped desperately they hadn't left widows or orphans.

“Brace up.” Major Erskine's voice was almost kind. “At least, you're not likely to see anything worse.” They rumbled past an adobe-walled cemetery with board markers. How many lives had been as brutally, swiftly severed as those of the three in the wagon?